Auto-da-Fe - Elias Canetti

'You see, gentlemen,' he would say to them when they were alone together, 'what miserable single-track creatures, what pitiful and inarticulate bourgeois we are, compared with the genius of this paranoiac. We possess, but he is possessed; we take our experiences at second hand, he makes his own. He moves in total solitude, like the earth itself, through his own space. He has a right to be afraid. He applies more acumen to the explanation and defence of his way of life, than all of us together do to ours. He believes in the images his senses conjure up for him. We mistrust our own healthy senses. Those few among us who have faith still cling to experiences which were lived for them by others thousands of years ago. We need visions, revelations, voices--lightning proximities to things and men--and when we cannot find them in ourselves we fetch them out of tradition. We have to have faith because of our own poverty. Others, still poorer, renounce even that. But look at him! He is Allah, prophet, and Moslem in one. Is a miracle any the less a miracle because we have labelled it Paranoia chronica? We sit on our thick-headed sanity like a vulture on a pile of gold. Understanding, as we understand it, is misunderstanding. If there is a life purely of the mind, it is this madman who is leading it!'

-pg 406

Auto-da-Fé is the story of Peter Kien, a philologist and sinologist and owner of the most important personal library in the whole of the great city in which lives, if not the world. He is the perfect scholar; at the beginning of the book his only concessions to the demands of living are unenjoyed meals, a small divan on which he sleeps for a scant six hours out of animal need, and a one-hour walk each morning for exercise. For the rest of the time he sits at the writing desk in his apartment, which he's had renovated in such a way so as to be a temple of texts; each of his four rooms are lined from wall to wall with books, all of them lit from above by skylights, with the doors between each room flung open to provide an unobstructed view of all his friends, as he calls his books. One day, in a fit of guilt, Kien marries his semi-literate maid Theresa, at which point the madness begins.

Or intensifies. Because the book, in the end, is all about madness. The insanity of all that follows--there's a scheming dwarf who's obsessed with chess, a fraud of a blind man plagued by dreams of buxom women and buttons, a former policeman enamored by violence, and Theresa the maid, whose greed manifests itself in pure delusion--is presaged by the strange insanity of Peter Kien. Although he's introduced as the greatest scholar in the world and his habits are pointed out as eccentric, the way in which he copes with the world is unhinged from reality (and, naturally, provide some of the best entertainment the novel has to offer).

It is, at times, an infuriating book, with the paths of madness branching off and trickling away from the main narrative stream. And sometimes the story veers off in a way that makes the reader feel as if they've gone crazy, that they've lost the point of the story, the path through this odd, bookish world. But in the end, it is a startlingly original and satisfying book, if only because it seems to confirm that madness isn't so odd in this world.

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

The faces of the soldiers and officers cheered up at this sound; everybody stood up and began watching the movements of our troops below, visible as on the palm of the hand, and further away the movements of the advancing enemy. Just then the sun came all the way out from behind the clouds, and the beautiful sound of the solitary shot and the shining of the bright sun merged into one cheerful and merry impression.

-pg 139

I feared this book, like this blog post, for its length; the book, because it seemed so long at the outset; the blog post, because it seemed inevitable it would be too short. Happily, for the former my fear was unwarranted, and with respect to the latter, easily overcome--the shorter the better.

I was surprised by how quick a read the book turned out to be. I only grew impatient with the pacing when the scene shifted, and only then because I wanted to keep reading what I had just been reading. Other than that, the only hangup I had was with the philosophizing about history, which, while interesting, seemed to become endlessly repetitive.

Aside from that, it really is as good as people say it is. It's one of the best books I've ever read and I look forward to reading it again.

A few random thoughts/additions:

The translation, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (this duo who seem to be translating every Russian work out there), is at times totally bizarre. Some of the sentences seem like they've been run through an Internet translation program. I picked this up because of the raves from people who study Russian literature, so I'm not sure what to think. It could use a loving editor's eye.

There is just one aspect of it that I thought was odd and interesting: None of the characters really have psychologies dependent on events outside of the book. That is, no character recalls a moment in childhood that is defining, or a time in their previous lives outside of the confines of the book's events (perhaps General Bagration recalls a previous battle, at one point).

Prince Andrei is awesome.

A Little History of the World - E.H. Gombrich

If any one of you reading this took Humanities with me in high school the name E.H. Gombrich should be familiar to you since the Story of Art, his better known book, was a very relevant resource throughout the course. In the preface, his granddaughter explains that without A Little History of the World there would have been no Story of Art. Gombrich wrote this book for young readers, so even though History is often written in such a dry and heavy matter, Gombrich provides a clear overview with a light, and sometimes humorous delivery. Furthermore, I like that Gombrich claims he could not write a book of Art History for young readers because it is an inappropriate subject matter for such ages!
Basically this book is a comprehensive summary of European History, some Asian History and the Americas join in after Columbus discovers them. While this may not be the ideal reading material for the literary lovers it is worth a glance. Gombrich effectively describes how one era leads to another, how certain historical figures or leading powers repeat the same mistakes or achieve the same successes as previous ones in history. This constant reference to earlier eras forces the reader to remember what they read some chapters earlier.
He points out the ethical dilemmas many leaders had to face, recognizes both the good and bad in some policies, the greatness and the ruthlessness of conquerors. And he also emphasizes the perspective of time. For example he states how his father lived during a time where Germany was not even a state in Europe perhaps making the young reader aware of how much the world is constantly changing.
He describes how societies structured themselves and generally describes anything that makes up a culture in a certain place and time as well as the changes that contribute to its development. There is nothing specific to say about this book, other than that it is a great reference tool for general information and a pleasant read. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to brush up on their history without having to read some heavy-duty sophisticated shit.
2 things I would have preferred: 1) I would have liked to have read about the ancient civilizations in the Americas; 2) and index would be extremely useful.
08/11/2010

The Bostonians - Henry James

The train for Marmion left Boston at four o'clock in the afternoon, and rambled fitfully toward the southern cape, while the shadows grew long in the stony pastures and the slanting light gilded the straggling, shabby woods, and painted the ponds and marshes with yellow gleams. The ripeness of summer lay upon the land, and yet there was nothing in the country Basil Ransom traversed that seemed susceptible of maturity; nothing but the apples in the little tough, dense orchards, which gave a suggestion of sour fruition here and there, and the tall, bright golden-rod at the bottom of the bare stone dykes. There were no fields of yellow grain; only here and there a crop of brown hay. But there was a kind of soft scrubbiness in the landscape, and a sweetness begotten of low horizons, of mild air, with a possibility of summer haze, of unregarded inlets where on August mornings the water must be brightly blue.

This snippet is cut from a section describing the arrival of Basil Ransom, a Mississippian Civil War veteran, at a small Cape Cod town where he's gone to woo Verena Tarrant, a young woman who, besides being beautiful, has a gift for oratory. Ransom's distant cousin, Olive Chancellor, a stern and affluent suffragette, has taken Verena under her wing to refine and ultimately use Verena's gift to further her cause. Both cousins see in Verena a means to accomplish their own goals in life, and in that they are completely similar, even if their purposes are diametrically opposed; Olive wants Verena to never marry; Ransom wants Verena to be his wife; and each views the success of the other as the ultimate destruction of the most beautiful thing in the world.

There are a whole host of other characters, each described to the fullest detail, though James spends most of his energy on the Bostonians (Verena and Olive) and Ransom, especially with respect to the psychological portraits of each. He doesn't ever seem to take sides, preferring rather to give the fullest picture possible of each of them in turn, although he will, at times, make light fun of some of the convictions that Olive and Ransom hold. But what is most compelling about the book is the prose, and the ease with which James can swing from past to present, swoop into a character's mind and then skip to another's, and, as in the instance above, provide portraits of landscapes, or, in others, people, towns, cities, movements... portraiture is the idea that seems to come to mind, and whatever he is describing at any given time is front and center, observed with a mind of a man on whom nothing is ever lost.

There is also the rhythmic quality of the prose; it lulls in a way that makes all the detail he's providing seem unimportant, and that it's just the sound, the runs and pauses, that are the point of it all. But it's an artful illusion, and I thought the brief passage above would serve to illustrate that in a small way, but given that it's just a snippet of a much longer paragraph, in a much longer section, it's hard to give an idea of what I'm saying (unless, of course, you've read some James). But even up above, while James is describing the scene from a train, the sentences 'ramble fitfully' forward, giving an image here, another there, stopping to remark on a quality of the scene, and although what is being described is being described quite beautifully, it is clear that the scene is not especially beautiful. The language itself sets the mood, and that, even without any contextualizing detail, such as Basil Ransom's purpose in taking the journey or his dim hope of success, the images, the pace, and words used paint a picture of restlessness, of repressed anticipation. There is the ripeness of summer belied by sour fruition, the bright golden-rod standing tall at the bottom of the stone dykes; images of stymied striving. And despite these morose images, his hope rises up, finds some confirmation in the simplest of pleasures, ending on a note of gross, happy speculation.

The play of consonants is interesting in how they affect the rhythm; the first part of the first sentence is dominated by soft n's, giving way to progression of, in order, s's, t's, d's, and then a mix of all four crescendoing with an ee. The next few sentences are remarkable for their punctuation, the doubled double adjectives for the orchards and the golden-rod; the clipped assonance of grain and hay accomplished with that perfectly placed semi-colon. And the way that last sentence seems to turn on the hinges of "of"--kind of scrubbiness, sweetness of low horizons and mild air, possibility of summer haze and unregarded inlets--and then smooths out for the final stretch. James's sentences demand that you read at their pace, simply because of the way they're constructed, and as you travel with them, even if you don't pay attention to what they're doing, the way they describe seeds underlying impressions that emphasize the action, almost as if you're being infected, slowly, but surely, with a mood.

Man's Fate by Andre Malraux

This is probably one of the more heavy-duty books I’ve read in a while. Originally I was suppose to read it for Justus Rosenberg’s class at Bard, but because he rambled on about his life we never got around to reading it!

The novel traces the fate of different characters, all interconnected in one way or another, during the start of the Chinese Revolution. Malraux’s characters are all very different, for one they all come from different ethnicities, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Belgian. Each character has a different meaning (or lack of) for his life and this meaning is what brings him to his fate. It would be a lengthy process, as well as a spoiler, for me to describe each man’s fate. The basic gist is this: if you have things you are willing to kill and die for, whether it be a cause, your family or friendship, your life has purpose. But if the only thing you care about is your own survival your life is quite meaningless. Of course its not so clear-cut as that, some good ones survive.

The story is filled with many thought provoking moments. However there are two that I’d like to share that stuck with me the most (these may be plot spoilers). The first is when Clappique, a Belgian, gets caught up gambling when he should be warning his friend not to go to a meeting that will surely be interrupted by General Chiang Kai-shek’s men and result in his friend’s death. Malraux describes the hypnotic power of the game, “The ball was describing wide circles, not yet alive. The watch, however, distracted Clappique’s eyes from it. He did not wear it on the top of his wrist, but underneath, where the pulse is taken. He placed his hand flat on the table and managed to concentrate on the ball. He was discovering that gambling is suicide without death: all he had to do was place his money there, to look at the ball and wait, as he could have waited after swallowing poison,” (Man’s Fate, Malraux, Vintage, p255, 1990). The watch is a reminder to Clappique of his obligation to his friend. That was the worst part, that he was very aware of his negligence. As a result, gambling was suicide with death, just not Clappique’s suicide or death; his friend eventually had to take his cyanide pill.

Another moment that had an impact on me is when Katov is in the death camp and realizes that he is to meet his end. A moment of relief and joy washes over him when he realizes that he has no wife or children who must go on without him. I guess it was the extreme opposites, a moment of joy in a death camp that made such an impact on me. Furthermore, it demonstrates that a number of things can give cause for your life or death, not just one thing is correct in defining these.

As for the writing, there are moments when it almost reads like a play. There is even a character list in the beginning (which helped). There is a lot of dialogue and some of the settings of rooms in houses or little shops seemed theatrical. However, there is a lot of philosophy going on in the thoughts of the characters that Malraux would not have been able to make accessible to an audience as he does to his readers particularly towards the 2nd half of the novel where the action is more intense and the characters have to contemplate whether they are willing to die or not.

In no way am I saying that Malraux’s writing is on the same level as Dostoyevsky’s (that’s a very high level to reach after all) but he deals with similar themes and with a much different perspective (i.e. not all that Christian bullshit which always annoyed me about Dostoyevsky). I recommend this novel to those who are interested in such heavy themes and want to read it in a completely different setting. In a sense it is refreshing.

Eliz
07/10/10

The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuscinksi

First, can anyone recommend which book to read by Henry James?

The Soccer War is repeatedly described by its author as "less than a plan of a book." He won't even call it the "beginning of a book" and this sheds light on its strange form: it is more like cliff notes to a life (a life that is similar to Robert Capa's). Mr. Kapuscinksi was a journalist from Poland who focused on colonialism in Africa and Latin America. The chapters have nothing to do with one another other than that they snippets from one man's life. This man faces execution by rebels, scorpion stings to the face, and even being burned alive for the lack of 10 dollars, so the book is pretty hardcore. Unfortunately, a narrative never evolves from the book as a whole.

What it does: It takes you inside the life of a foreign correspondent during the 1940s-1970s. This correspondent seems to have a death wish, which is exciting. It also gives an insider perspective into Africa and Mexico, with a lot of semi-informative stuff on the development of the Congo and Ghana.

However, unless you adore living vicariously through a foreign correspondent or learning very narrow aspects of the history of these places, I wouldn't read this book.

---------Mattie

Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky

'Let me out, good people, let me out into the light to live a little! I've lived without ever seeing any life, my life was nothing but a dirty rag, it was drunk away in a tavern on Sennaya. Let me out, kind people, to have another try at living in the world!...'

It's impossible to overpraise this book. It may be best described as a psychological portrait of a misanthrope, but because it's so craftily devised, that seems a bloodless phrase. Dostoevsky plays with form so nimbly, it's as if he marshals the confession and the diary, sets them against one another, and then marches them off the page. Every epistolary novel has its bar set uncommonly high by this book. But how was that bar raised so high? Of what material is it made?

In answer, I'd say character, for there is no story here after all. An old embittered man, hiding away in plain sight, buried by his own spite, telling a story of his misliving to no one at all... where's the story in that? There is no hero here for us to admire, no fair damsel in distress, no villain who deserves the reader's scorn heaped upon his sly back. Above all, there's no urgency to the tale; it's never-ending, or never-beginning... maybe, maybe always in-the-middling. Which is not to say that it's middling in any way. In fact, the balance it achieves--between confession and diary, between moralizing tale and ambiguous philosophy--makes it seem self-sustaining, a living, breathing, thinking thing, something that exists between pure fiction and pure fact. For there is something convincing about it, after all, something that seems to dispel the knowledge (slipped into the beginning as a footnote by the author) that the book is all illustrative of a real but imagined type. And if it's not the story, it must be the character who regales us, the unnamed narrator, the encoffined man.

And what do we know of this character? Nothing, really. He's unreliable; yes, he tells us as much. He's spiteful; it's one of the first things out of his mouth. He's weak, needlessly defensive, excessively verbose. None of these traits seem to recommend him all that much to the reader. But is that true? Perhaps not. There is in the last, I think, the key to it all.

Because despite all his many flaws and his vileness of character, he speaks so wonderfully well. He is because he has his voice. It reaches up, out from underground, up and off the page, and it describes, despite his best efforts to have it muddle and obfuscate, the man in his entirety. What need do we have for the shape of his mouth, the part in his hair, or a decent image of how straight his nose? His voice describes his soul. I'm not saying that the unnamed narrator describes himself; he does give you descriptions, page-long metaphors, snippets of events in his life, catalogs of insults, lilting paeans to the life of the educated mind, the wilted flowers of life spent above ground. But through the cracks seeps the sorrow that we can all relate to, the human being belied by the carapace of spite, so that, as above, when he's mocking some poor harlot, telling her that one day she'll be carried out of the whorehouse in a cheap coffin destined for a boggy grave, and he cries out, in her voice, Let me out!, it's not her that he's mocking, and it's not her he so misguidedly is trying to save.

And isn't this what Dostoevsky, with a Russian wink, gives to us as readers? He says, Here, here is a type that is fictional, but could very easily exist in this world; listen to him describe himself, watch him interact with other people, hear him tell of his descent into some hellish solipsism. And we can say that Dostoevsky has created an idea of a man of contradiction, quite wonderfully, quite well. Or we can say, here, look, he has made a man.

Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

In his memoir Hitch-22, appropriately referring, of course, to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Hitchens describes his life of contradictions in a world of contradictions.
The first two chapters focus on his parents, Yvonne and the Commander, respectively and the following chapters continue with descriptions of his education, political activity and friendships. For the most part it’s a very informative read. His family life is interesting coming from two opposite parents, his mother a complicated woman who never quite made it in high society while his father is boring, pessimistic but courageous and modest (one can see where these contradictions began).

His descriptions of school, I found to be somewhat boring; involving mostly praise of himself and his superior abilities in reading (I didn’t need 2 chapters of that but it was interesting to see where his first intellectual influences were drawn from). However the section where he describes the Leys was rather engaging as it describes how boys dealt with their raising awareness of hormones in an all boys school.

He describes his activity as an activist for the left labor party union and his constant hunt for conflict-ridden areas to help liberate whichever group of people had only limited rights (if that). These chapters are very informative in terms of modern history but I did not feel like I was getting an in-depth personal account. In the chapter concerning Iraq, quite the opposite is the case. His descriptions are so vivid, particularly when describing Saddam confirming his power and another time where he went to a mass grave. For me this was the most grasping part of the book. It also marks the change he made from his alliance with the left towards believing in intervention. Perhaps this was why he was able to describe with such impact.

He also describes his friendships with other intellectuals, some friendships still active others destroyed over political differences and hurtful remarks discovered in printed publications. In these cases, particularly the latter, I felt he was explaining his side of the story with disputes. His relationship with Martin Amis is unique. There is strong bond between the two and it was interesting watching Amis hanging around with Hitchens during an interview for the Atlantic concerning his cancer and therapy after having read the chapter on their friendship. It was visual footage of the support described in the book. The other chapter I enjoyed was “Something of Myself” which I felt was also very personal (and which also proves that Hitchens intentionally constructed his memoirs as a collective documentation of some defining periods in his life rather than a personal depiction).

Other than some Vanity Fair articles this is the first time I have read Hitchens. Even if not every chapter is grasping this is true only because of the subject matter. The writing itself, I find masterful and as soothing as listening to his debates. I do find a very important lesson in his memoir and that is to avoid any self-labeling precisely because the world and our own lives are filled with such contradictions. I think this understanding is easier for those with more exposure to different cultures and influences, by whatever means, i.e. open-minded people. While Hitchens is no longer associated with the left, he most certainly does not belong with the right. He is his own person and bases his opinions on his own experiences, observations and knowledge. While some may not agree with all his views, including myself, I find him a completely trustworthy and honest source for views on world conflicts and on life. I recommend this book to those who like to write or are interested in a brief overview of some political conflicts in the past 3 decades. Otherwise, just stick to the chapters I found particularly grasping, unless you want to see for yourself!
Eliz.

Purgatorio - Dante Alighieri

Thus, if the present world has gone astray, in you is the cause, in you it's to be sought; and now I'll serve as your true exegete.

16.084

Issuing from His hands, the soul-on which He thought with love before creating it- is like a child who weeps and laughs in sport;

16.087

that soul is simple, unaware; but since a joyful Maker gave it motion, it turns willingly to things that bring delight.

16.090

At first it savors trivial goods; these would beguile the soul, and it runs after them, unless there's guide or rein to rule its love.

16.093

Therefore, one needed law to serve as curb; a ruler, too, was needed, one who could discern at least the tower of the true city.

16.096

I have an unfortunate habit of letting my approach to reading grow stale and rote, where finishing one book and starting another is more often than not merely accompanied by a sigh of resignation. That's not to say I don't enjoy the books I read; it is simply to say that I do not enjoy them immensely. Partly, this has to do with a reluctance to give each book the time it probably deserves. My list of books to be read is usually (save for vacations--see below) made up of books that have passed the test of time, justified by the fact that there is, after all, only so much time, and I will only read so many books in my life, so the books I choose to read might as well for the most part be books against which I can test my reader's mettle. Thus, each book could (and probably should) deserve more than a passing glance of my critical eye. And yet... sometimes I am simply not up to it, and so I pass on to the next book on the list, somewhat ashamed, but determined nonetheless to keep moving forward, and only every once in a while do I feel a certain sinking make-work feeling. And then there are times when I pick up a book, by accident or design, and it revives that thrill of reading that seems to come so rarely these days.

This book, perhaps predictably, gave me one of those thrills. I'd avoided reading it for a long time (and the only reason I picked it up was because I was avoiding Henry James), primarily because I thought it had to--had to!--suffer from that Miltonian flaw: how could anything compare with the description of hell? Sinners just have a lot more going on. But there really is no comparison, either between Milton and Dante, or between Hell and Purgatory, and perhaps the urge to compare and say which one is better is indicative of a childish view of literature, reading, history, etc. Suffice it to say, Hell and Purgatory are inseparable, complementary, as I imagine, now, that Paradiso is to the work as a whole.

As to why it thrills, I guess it isn't enough to say, Just read it! There is, on the one hand, how it enhances my appreciation of Inferno. Sure. Fine. But it is at root the sheer conceptual scope that amazes. And, as in all things literary, no matter that the ideas are wrong or that you find yourself in disagreement with them, it is the presentation that is the point of it all, and here it's as if philosophy and theology were built a cathedral on the wings of poetry. And its success--in description, in meaning, in thrilling--is primarily that while the ideas and, ultimately, the point of the books is the ascension to heaven, while that is where Dante the wandering soul's mind is fixed, the Dante that is the author of the fiction has the reader as his object, and his poetry, despite singing the glory of god, defines the glory of the human mind, and takes the reader along for the ride.

Summer vacay haaaaayyy

Just got back from vacation, so I'll do a quick roundup of all the crap books I read:

Ilium/Olympos, by Dan Simmons

For long plane rides, I try to find sf/f books to read because usually they're incredibly long, don't require much attention, and you can while away hours pursuing plot and plot alone. Unfortunately, I picked up Ilium and its sequel at the same time and brought them both on the plane. I'd read a Dan Simmons book in high school and it had been entertaining enough, but maybe that because I was in high school... who knows. These books were just straight up bad. I did end up finishing both, but primarily because I was so pissed that I'd wasted my money on them.

Basically, they're set in the distant future and super-evolved humans have, for reasons that go unexplained, adopted the personas of ancient Greek gods and have decided to reenact the Trojan war with Greeks and Trojans they've somehow created. (Actually, it is explained, but it's a supremely dumb explanation that comes in 1800 pages in, and does nothing to mask the fact that the author just said, Hey, this is a cool idea to base a book on.)

I don't think books can get any worse than this. There are a lot of heavy-handed allusions (made by robots!) to Proust, Joyce and Shakespeare, not to mention the near constant barrage of information about the Iliad and its characters, plus a sort of sci-fi section of the story that has to do with Earth in the far far distant future, which basically only serves to let the author show off his right-wing self-righteous world view.

Though, there is the unintentionally humorous habit the author has of describing things completely anachronistically. For example, at one point, one of the Greeks is described as feeling something like this: If theater had been invented at the time, he would have thought what he was witnessing was a farce.

I.shit.you.not.




A couple of Nero Wolfe mysteries, by Rex Stout

If you like detective novels, I'd give Rex Stout a try. His prose isn't the greatest, but the detective is good and the mysteries are amusing. My family has a long fascination with these books, from my grandmother on down, so I'm totally biased. Anyway, I re-read these whenever I'm home. If you were to pick one of them up, avoid the books that have three (or four) short mysteries in one volume, as they are generally unimpressive, unless you're a devoted fan.


The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Little Drummer Girl
by John Le Carre

I reread Spy simply because I'd run out of books and it was lying around at my grandmother's, but I'd forgotten how great it is. I'd be tempted to say it's the best cold war spy novel, but I haven't read all that many (and those I've read have been predominantly Le Carre books). Definitely a must-read, a page-turner, etc. If you haven't read any Le Carre, read this one first...

... and avoid Little Drummer Girl, which seems to distill all the bad things about Le Carre (he does women and love horribly) and avoids all that's really great about him (spy shit). A better place to continue Le Carre fandom is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the two books that follow in the so-called Smiley Trilogy.



Tinkers, by Paul Harding

A surprising Pulitzer-prize win not only because it was published by a small press, but because the writing actually isn't bad. A sad, at times maudlin tale about a dying man in his last days and his memories of his father.

Despite some of the prose being pretty stellar, I didn't really take to this book, as it seemed to be a jumble of disparate parts smushed together to form a "novel." Reminded me of all the criticisms of MFA prose: too handled, too bland, and, with respect to the University of Iowa MFA (where Harding graduated from), too Marilynne Robinson. It definitely felt like Gilead-lite.

That being said, the man has an ear for prose, and I was surprised to find that I liked the book enough to (strangely, for me) look forward to his next book. Here, as an example, a passage I liked, and one I didn't:

He tinkered. Tin pots, wrought iron. Solder melted and cupped in a clay dam. Quicksilver patchwork. Occasionally, a pot hammered back flat, the tinkle of tin sibilant, tiny beneath the lid of the boreal forest. Tinkerbird, coppersmith, but mostly a brush and mop drummer.

Human consideration was no longer to be his, for that consideration could be expressed now only by providing physical comfort, and physical comfort was as meaningless to him (to it, for that was what lay before his family now--the it formerly he--at least to the extent that the he, although still figured by the struggling fading, dying it, was plumbing depths far, far from that living room filled with a weeping sister and daughters and wife and grandchildren and the it merely maintaining a pantomime of human life), was as meaningless to him now as it would have been to one of his clocks, laid out in his place to be dusted and soothed with linseed oil, fussed over and mourned even before it was was (because that is how the living prepare, or attempt to prepare, for the unknowable was--by imagining was as it is still approaching; perhaps that is more true, that they mourn because of the inevitability of was and apply their own, human, terrors about their own wases to the it, which is so nearly was that it will not or simply cannot any longer accept their human grief) as its broken springs wound down or its lead weights lowered for the last, irreparable time.

Of course, shorn of context, neither can mean all that much, but the second passage was rather inscrutable, and given its odd syntax, completely out of place in the novel, a riff with seemingly no purpose other than breathlessness.

Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Slaughterhouse 5 by, Kurt Vonnegut


Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 is the life story of Billy Pilgrim, a character which by himself is not so unusual but the events of his life and how he experiences them are rather extraordinary. As readers, we witness his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden during World War II, his time on the planet of Tralfamadore after being held captive by its alien inhabitants and his life as an average American citizen. Billy experiences the events of his life in a sequence that is “unstuck in time” meaning they don’t happen chronologically. Just like Billy, the readers are consistently tossed back and forth from the wretched conditions of the abandoned Slaughterhouse 5 where he was held prisoner, to the idealistic conditions that exist on Trafalmadore, to the mundane, everyday life of small town America. Billy’s unassuming and fatalistic character makes it easy for the reader to be accepting of the odd way in which Billy experiences life, as a pilgrim through time. Constantly he is put in situations that he never sought out, yet he confronts these challenges with a dignity that is natural due to the simplicity of his character. Vonnegut has crafted a powerful novel reflecting three states of living: miserable, tolerable and idyllic through the three settings of Slaughterhouse 5, Illium New York and Trafalmadore (respectively). All three states of living complement each other and blend well together in the novel resulting in a beautifully tragic yet optimistic work. The book leads many of us to the same conclusion about our own non-fictional lives.

Eliz

Wittgenstein's Mistress - David Markson

Certain questions would appear unanswerable.

The narrator of this book is a woman who seems to be the last living thing on the planet. (There is some ambiguity as to whether she's nuts, though not as much as the jacket flap seems to proclaim.) After years roaming the globe, she's settled into a house on a beach and started tapping out her thoughts on a typewriter, which is what you end up reading. As such, the thoughts are meant to seem spontaneous, as if she is simply putting ideas down on paper as they come to her. It's a cute conceit, and she manages to be pretty charming, at times, and a little obsessive compulsive at others.

I had several problems with the book. First and foremost was that I had trouble reconciling the fact that, while the narrator's thoughts are meant to be spontaneous, supposed to seem to bleed together in imitation of how a person might think were they simply writing down each fleeting idea that occurred to them at any given time, it's clear that there is a guiding intelligence ordering the ideas, creating resonances and echoes, and generally composing the whole thing. It seems absurd to say this of this book, but it seems unbelievable. Or, rather, it would be better to say I didn't buy it.

That being said, the book is enjoyable. As I said above, Markson made an interesting narrator. It's easy to sympathize with her; she's all alone in the world and she seems to have had suffered some sort of tragedy when the world was still normal. And her descriptions of her experiences in the world after all the living things have disappeared show a wry and creative mind at work. For example, she lives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a while, taking down the paintings and separating the frames from their canvases, to burn, and nails the canvases back in their original places on the wall; she drives from city to city, getting in random cars, driving them until the gas runs out, and then finding another to continue on her pointless journey; she rolls tennis balls down the Spanish Steps; basically, quirky ideas of what one would do were the world an empty playground and you had absolutely nothing to do--you'd fuck around.

The narrator also alludes to many famous people, both ancient and contemporary, as well as works of literature, classical music, and a lot of paintings. This is what I liked about Reader's Block, and it was why I was interested in reading this book (Markson first wrote WM, and then ended up writing four more novels in a similar style--heavy on the allusions, packed with short, precise sentences), and while I got the same feeling of edification from this book as Reader's Block (due in great part to the constant allusions), I felt that Reader's Block was a better book.

Of course, there is the matter of the title, and the dreaded Wittgenstein. For that, I refer you to David Foster Wallace's review of the book, from an issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction (which you should subscribe to if you don't already!). To be honest, I really can't stand DFW's prose, so I only read enough of it to get an idea of what he's saying, and it basically confirms two things that I had already thought: a) Wittgenstein's Mistress is a very ambitious, intelligent book and b) it's not a successful work of fiction.

I guess what I struggle with generally, and with this novel in particular, is the idea that an idea perfectly executed can result in an imperfect book. When I first finished the book, I felt rather irritated, partly because of a severely limited understanding of Wittgenstein, and partly because the book had left me feeling quite empty. (Perhaps that was the point.) But I don't doubt that Markson has, with this book, fleshed out a convincing novelistic take on the idea of utter loneliness as an emotion that has nothing to do with other people, or that the state of feeling alone in the world would not be greatly exacerbated by literally being alone in the world. There is an aching poignancy to the narrator's predicament, and to her probing, with short, seemingly effortless yet incredibly precise statements, to achieve an accurate description of her emotional state, be it madness or pure sanity.

Maybe--and in this, I have no idea, given that I have only a vague, third-hand understanding of Wittgenstein's life and philosophy--Markson has shown how a person living Wittgenstein's philosophy would behave and go insane (which is what I gather DFW was saying in that essay). Certainly, in Correction, that was the impression I got. But I think in this respect Bernhard's book is the better one, because it doesn't seem as contrived. At its worst, Wittgenstein's Mistress is a thought experiment heroically attempted. At its best it's a novel which fails because of the rigid confines of the experiment. Or something like that.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, though I would, in closing, say that you should definitely give Markson a try. Also, apologies for the length of the post.

Carlos Fuentes - Christopher Unborn

I'm not totally finished with this book yet, but I've got to rip on it. I love Fuentes, who, as part of the magical realist crew, usually keeps his absurdity fresh. I've read most of his books, and this one is the first that's disappointed me. It is way self indulgent and borders of babble.

1) He makes constant allusions to the deeds of Mexican politicians who no one else has ever heard of
2) He can harp on words that sound like other words until Mexico City becomes Mess I Go Shitty
3) The Plot, though there is one, is rarely mentioned and is in no way an important part of the work
4) The importance of the work comes from Fuentes's archetypal characters and dream-like sense of reality as it is seen by Christopher, the unborn narrator

Christopher is conceived by his parents in order to win a contest. The Christopher Columbus contest. Mexico's politicians have decided that a child born on the day that Christopher Columbus set foot in Mexico, who is semi-related by blood to Columbus, will be given an award and become the symbol of hope for doomed Mexico. Christopher narrates the entire story from inside the womb. He talks about his parents, their families, Mexico's Prime Minister, revolutionary, albino truck drivers, S&M whores, etc. While all this is great, the form of the novel is so ridiculous that it seems superfluous, and Fuentes seems to just be jacking off on the page.

I say clean it up and read The Old Gringo or Terra Nostra, or even better, the intoxicatingly short and sweet Aura.


----------Mattie

Correction - Thomas Bernhard

... and then other people come along and proceed to edit such fragments, shreds of ideas that have been abandoned and left lying around, thinking they must edit and publish them, no matter where, publicize them, all these publications are criminal acts every single time, perhaps the greatest crime there is...

A challenging and at times maddening read. Benhard writes books that are utterly serious, but because of the insistent tone of the narrators, they make for some funny conversation. From what I've read, his novels all share pessimistic narrators obsessed with death, genius, and the profound stupidity of society.

As far as plot goes, Correction is told by an unnamed narrator who has been given stewardship of his friend Roithamer's "legacy," namely an unfinished manuscript, after Roithamer commits suicide. The manuscript describes several things: descriptions of Roithamer's plans for a perfect cone, which he builds in the exact center of a forest, as a home for his sister; descriptions of Roithamer's privileged yet torturous youth (his mother is a piece of work); and finally descriptions of revising and correcting everything he has written about both the cone and his youth.


In the beginning of the story, the narrator arrives at the place where most of Roithammer's work has taken place, which is a garret in a house of one of their mutual friends, Hoeller. All of the story essentially takes place in this garret, or, as it is referred to, the "thought chamber." From there, it basically consists of two parts; the first, in which the narrator considers and reconsiders the seemingly monumental task of dealing with Roithamer's manuscript; the second, the narrator reading from the manuscript. The only break in the book is the separation between the two halves. Otherwise it consists of an uninterrupted stream of sentences.

The cone is of paramount importance, since it informs the structure of the book. The epigraph is as follows:

A body needs at least three points of support, not in a straight line, to fix its position, so Roithamer.

This applies to the cone, but also to the structure of Roithamer's mental processes (for example, he has a manuscript, a correction of the manuscript, and a correction of the correction of the manuscript), the relationships between characters (Roithamer, his sister, his mother; narrator, Hoeller, Roithamer, etc), locations, etc.

I'm not sure if I'd suggest Correction as an intro to Bernhard. I started off with Frost, then moved on to Yes and The Loser. Naturally, this is what I think anyone who reads Bernhard should do, too! But, more seriously, Yes was less impressive than Frost (which, amazingly, was Bernhard's first novel), and The Loser is fantastic. I'd definitely recommend The Loser first.


As an addendum, let me note that the character of Roithamer is in part modeled on Wittgenstein, and some of the ideas (or all?) are meant to be explorations of Wittgenstein's writings/philosophy. Or so I've heard. Not knowing anything about Wittgenstein, I really couldn't tell you. But maybe that would be of interest to some.