tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60668106941135285052024-02-20T02:39:59.399-08:001001 Booksabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.comBlogger544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-24259621182479470172013-07-03T05:59:00.000-07:002013-07-03T05:59:17.763-07:00544. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>History:</b> This book is a 1955 psychological thriller novel which first introduced the character of Tom Ripley who returns in the five novels collectively known as the Ripliad.</div>
<b>Plot:</b> Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living in New York City by whatever means necessary, including a series of small-time confidence scams. One day, he is approached by shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf to travel to Mongibello, Italy, to persuade Greenleaf's errant son, Dickie, to return to the United States and join the family business. Ripley agrees, exaggerating his friendship with Dickie, a half-remembered acquaintance, in order to gain the elder Greenleaf's trust.<br />Shortly after his arrival in Italy, Ripley meets Dickie and his friend Marge Sherwood; although Ripley ingratiates himself with Dickie, Marge does not seem to like him very much. As Ripley and Dickie spend more time together, Marge feels left out and begins insinuating to Dickie that Ripley is gay. Dickie then unexpectedly finds Ripley in his bedroom dressed up in his clothes and imitating his mannerisms. Dickie is upset, and from this moment on Ripley senses that his wealthy friend has begun to tire of him, resenting his constant presence and growing personal dependence. Ripley has indeed become obsessed with Dickie, which is further reinforced by his desire to imitate and maintain the wealthy lifestyle Dickie has afforded him.<br />As a gesture to Ripley, Dickie agrees to travel with him on a short holiday to Sanremo. Sensing that Dickie is about to cut him loose, Ripley finally decides to murder him and assume his identity. When the two set sail in a small rented boat, Ripley beats him to death with an oar, dumps his anchor-weighted body into the water and scuttles the boat.<br />Ripley assumes Dickie's identity, living off the latter's trust fund and carefully providing communications to Marge to assure her that Dickie has dumped her. Freddie Miles, an old friend of Dickie's from the same social set, encounters Ripley at what he supposes to be Dickie's apartment in Rome. He soon suspects something is wrong. When Miles finally confronts him, Ripley kills him with an ashtray. He later disposes of the body on the outskirts of Rome, attempting to make police believe that Miles has been murdered by robbers.<br />Ripley enters a cat-and-mouse game with the Italian police, but manages to keep himself safe by restoring his own identity and moving to Venice. In succession Marge, Dickie's father, and an American private detective confront Ripley, who suggests to them that Dickie was depressed and may have committed suicide. Marge stays for a while at Ripley's rented house in Venice. When she discovers Dickie's rings in Ripley's possession, she seems to be on the verge of realising the truth. Panicked, Ripley contemplates murdering Marge, but she is saved when she says that if Dickie gave his rings to Ripley, then he probably meant to kill himself.<br />The story concludes with Ripley's traveling to Greece and resigning himself to eventually getting caught. On arrival in Greece, however, he discovers that the Greenleaf family has accepted that Dickie is dead and that Ripley shall inherit his fortune according to a will forged by Ripley on Dickie's Hermes typewriter. While the book ends with Ripley happily rich, it also suggests that he may forever be dogged by paranoia. In one of the final paragraphs, he nervously envisions a group of police officers waiting to arrest him, and Highsmith leaves her protagonist wondering, ".....was he going to see policemen waiting for him on every pier that he ever approached?"<br /><b>Review:</b> Tom Ripley is not above any means of gaining a foothold to his vision of betterment. He extorts random people by impersonating an agent of the IRS and although his endeavor does not bring in any great sum of money, it is more of a glimpse into what Ripley is capable of doing. By targeting unassuming, run-of-the-mill, hard working people most likely to quickly pay a small fee to the IRS, Highsmith brilliantly portrays Ripley as clever, calculating and completely amoral. He knows the difference between right and wrong but he is utterly indifferent to either. This makes for a fascinating protagonist.<br />Highsmith takes the reader on a dark roller-coaster ride of deception, jealousy, deceit and murder, followed by evasion, more deceit, and more murder. Rather than chilling, senseless violence, Highsmith carefully crafts a mesmerizing tale of pursuit and near-miss as Ripley manages to stay just ahead of capture. He is crafty and calm even when in a panic. For the reader, the result is riveting.<br />In getting into the eerily empty room that is Tom Ripley’s conscience, I never thought I could sympathize with such a cold and calculating character, yet I was captivated. The story spirals horrifically and the building tension was incredible. There is not one fiber of my being that sympathizes with someone who harms others yet I could not bear the thought of Ripley’s failure. Wow!<br />Written in the 1950′s, Highsmith exquisitely captures the sense of time and place in New York City and of the enviable life of a wealthy American abroad. She describes in lovely detail the nuances that made life so wonderful for those Ripley admired that it made me want to go back and live there too. Her writing is elegant and clear, simple yet with the depth of distinction to deprive the reader from a restful night’s sleep.<br />It is not stated in the story whether Dickie or Tom is gay, yet Dickie’s relationship with Marge appears to be platonic due to Dickie’s lack of romantic interest. At one point in the story, Dickie becomes overly sensitive to a comment from Marge that Tom is in love with him. He angrily confronts Tom about this, reminding <br />us of the Shakespearian adage about protesting too much.<br />Whether or not the characters are meant to be gay, the attitudes portrayed in the book reflect the 1950s historical setting.<br />Because the story is set in the ’50s there are elements that will seem dated to the modern reader. For example, Tom takes a boat from New York to Naples, and Mr. Greenleaf sends Tom a telegram. It might be argued that advances in forensic technology and police detection methods mean that Tom would unlikely be able to get away with his crimes today. Nevertheless, the novel remains an exciting suspense thriller with fast-paced action, well-drawn characters and a gripping psychological dimension.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of The Green Cage, heading his way.”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “Amelio. Amelio”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Engaging.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-47131200893756781992013-07-03T04:57:00.000-07:002013-07-03T04:57:24.365-07:00543. Moon Palace – Paul Auster<b>History: </b> This book was first published in 1989.<br />
<b>Plot:</b> Marco Stanley Fogg, aka M.S., is the son of Emily Fogg. He doesn't know his father. His mother dies because of a car accident when he is eleven years old. He moves to his Uncle Victor, who raises him until Marco goes to a boarding school in Chicago. When he reaches college age, he goes to Columbia University in New York City. After spending his freshman year in a college dormitory, he rents an apartment in New York.<br />
Uncle Victor dies, which makes Marco lose track. After paying the funeral costs, Marco realizes that very little of the money that Uncle Victor gave him is left. He decides to let himself decay, to get out of touch with the world. He makes no effort to earn money. His electricity is cut off, he loses weight, and finally he is told that he must leave his apartment. The day before he is thrown out, Marco decides to ask Zimmer, an old college friend with whom he has lost contact, for help. Zimmer has moved to another apartment, so when Marco arrives at Zimmer's old apartment, he is invited by some strangers to join their breakfast. At that breakfast he meets Kitty Wu for the first time. She seems to fall in love with him. The next day, Marco has to leave his flat, and finds himself on the streets of Manhattan.<br />
Central Park becomes Marco's new home. Here he seeks shelter from the pressure of the Manhattan streets. He finds food in the garbage cans. Marco even manages to stay in touch with what is going on in the world by reading newspapers left by visitors. Although life in Central Park is not very comfortable, he feels at ease because he's enjoying his solitude and he restores the balance between his inner and outer self.<br />
At first, the weather is very good, so where to stay is not a big problem. But after a few weeks the weather changes. In a strong rain shower, Marco becomes ill and retires to a cave in Central Park. After some days of delirium, he crawls out of the cave and has wild hallucinations while lying outside. There, he is finally found by Zimmer and Kitty Wu, who have been looking for him for the whole time. Due to the fever he mistakes Kitty for an Indian and calls her Pocahontas.<br />
Zimmer (the German word for room) is a good friend, hosts Marco in his apartment, bears all his expenses, and helps him to recover. But when Marco has to go to the army physical, he is still rated unfit because of his poor physical and mental state. Marco feels very bad about living at Zimmer's costs, so he finally persuades him to let him do a French translation for him to earn some money. Then he meets Kitty again, and decides to leave Zimmer. They lose touch, and when, after thirteen years, they happen to run into each other in a busy street, Marco learns that Zimmer has married and become a typical middle-class citizen.<br />
After he has finished his work on the translation, Marco searches for another job offer. He finds a job at Effing's, where he is hired for reading books to Effing and driving the old, blind and disabled man through the city of New York in his wheelchair. Effing is a strange man who tries to teach Marco in his own way, taking nothing for granted. Marco has to describe to Effing all the things he can see while driving around. This way, Marco learns to look at the things around him very precisely. After, Effing tells Marco to do the main work he was hired for: Write his obituary. Effing tells him the main facts of his life as the famous painter Julian Barber and his conversion to Thomas Effing. He went to Utah with Byrne, a topographer, and Scoresby, a guide, to paint the vast country. Byrne fell from a high place and the guide flees from the place, leaving Barber alone in the middle of the desert. Barber finds a cave where a hermit used to live and begins to live there. He kills the Gresham brothers, 3 bandits, and takes the money to San Francisco, where he officially takes the name "Thomas Effing". He becomes rich, but one day someone tells him he's very similar to Julian Barber, a famous painter who disappeared. He sinks in depression and fear and begins frequenting China Town, taking drugs, etc. But one day someone attacks him, rushes and hits a street lamp, becoming paraplegic. He stops having such an unhealthy life, and decides to go to France. He comes back to the USA in 1939 fleeing from the Nazis.<br />
Solomon Barber is Marco's father and Effing's son. He is extremely fat (which contrasts to Marco's period of starvation) and didn't know his father nor that he has a son. He inherits most of the fortune of Effing. He meets Marco after the death of Effing to learn about his father and finds a son. Marco, in the family cyclic pattern, doesn't know that Barber is his father. Barber had a relationship with one of his students, Emily, and never knew she was pregnant. Marco learns the truth when he sees Barber crying in front of Emily's grave.<br />
<b>Review: </b> Both Marco and Solomon are raised without having a father. This has a major impact on them:<br />
Marco completely loses orientation when Uncle Victor dies. He is very upset about not knowing his father. Throughout the novel, Marco tries to find his roots. Shortly after finding his father, he loses him again.<br />
Solomon writes a book that deals with the topic of a fatherless life, showing his own internal quest for identity.<br />
Paul Auster looks at the meanings of the moon in Moon Palace: “The moon is many things all at once, a touchstone. It’s the moon as myth, as ‘radiant Diana, image of all that is dark within us’; the imagination, love, madness. At the same time, it’s the moon as object, as celestial body, as lifeless stone hovering in the sky. But it’s also the longing for what is not, the unattainable, the human desire for transcendence. And yet it’s history as well, particularly American history. First, there’s Columbus, then there was the discovery of the west, then finally there is outer space: the moon as the last frontier. But Columbus had no idea that he’d discovered America. He thought he had sailed to India, to China. In some sense Moon Palace is the embodiment of that misconception, an attempt to think of America as China. But the moon is also repetition, the cyclical nature of human experience. There are three stories in the book, and each one is finally the same. Each generation repeats the mistakes of the previous generation. So it’s also a critique of the notion of progress.”<br />
A more prosaic explanation of the title is that the Moon Palace was a Chinese restaurant (now defunct) in the Morningside Heights neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which was a popular student hangout when Auster was studying at Columbia University.<br />
Some aspects of the main character's life in Moon Palace mirror the life of the author. He was a descendant of an Austrian Jewish family, born on the Third of February 1947 in Newark, New Jersey, which is about 15 miles west of New York City. He also attended high school there. In his childhood, Auster's father Samuel Auster was often absent. Samuel Auster was a businessman who left the house in the morning before his son was awake and returned home when he was already in bed. Auster always searched for someone to replace his father. Unlike his father his mother gave Auster very much attention. In fact this may also put a different light on the title as the moon is symbolic of the female or the mother. Paul Auster and Marco Fogg were both born in 1947. Marco's, Solomon's and Paul's father were all absent during their sons' childhoods. When Paul's uncle travelled to Europe he stored several boxes of books at the Austers' home. Paul Auster read one book after the other. The same goes for Marco, who read his Uncle Victor's books.<br />
<b>Opening Line:</b> “It was the summer that men first walked on the moon.”<br />
<b>Closing Line:</b> “I kept my eyes on it as it rose in the night sky, not turning away until it had found it’s place in the darkness.”<br />
<b>Quotes: </b> “It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.”<br />
<b>Rating: </b> Very very good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-34748834541490670432013-04-23T06:05:00.003-07:002013-04-23T06:05:55.163-07:00542. The Crow Road – Iain Banks <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1992.<br /><b>Plot: </b> This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach (by its description, reminiscent of Oban but on the north east shore of Loch Crinan), the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow where Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice's uncle Rory has disappeared eight years previous while writing a book called The Crow Road. Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies.<br />The estrangement from his father concerns belief in God or an afterlife. Prentice cannot accept a universe without some higher power, some purpose; he can't believe that people can just cease to exist when they die. His father dogmatically denies the existence of God, universal purpose, and the afterlife.<br />A parallel plot is Prentice's gradual transition from an adolescent fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another.<br />Prentice's efforts to piece together Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to make sense of the world, love, and life in general. The narrative is also fragmentary, leaping days, months, years, or decades back and forth with little or no warning, so the reader must also piece things together.<br /><b>Review:</b> Lots of people take the crow road in this book as we follow the narrator, Prentice McHoan, a student from the fictional town of Gallanach in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. He’s the classic young man on a journey, and he’s got a quest - to find a missing person - but along the way he has lots of sex, drink and drugs, and has his heart broken and mended. Everything a growing boy needs, in fact.<br />Prentice is drawn into a family mystery involving the disappearance of his favourite uncle, Rory McHoan - a peaceable, bohemian, motorbiking travel writer. When we begin, Rory's been gone for years, but the mystery takes a new twist after the death of Prentice's grandmother brings him back to Gallanach from Glasgow, where he's been studying. <br />At the funeral, Prentice meets up with his auntie Janice, uncle Rory's partner at the time of his disappearance. After bedding her - and it wouldn't be an Iain Banks book without some form of taboo-busting smut - Prentice comes into possession of some of Rory's papers and a few ancient computer disks. This unfinished writing project is called "The Crow Road". <br />In deciphering it, Prentice lifts the lid on secrets that plague the lives of his family - including his father, Kenneth, a children's writer and committed atheist, his uncle Fergus, who owns the local glassware factory, and also his childhood friend Ashley, whose uncle Lachlan, you might say, has one eye on events. <br />There's a mystery story - two, in fact, if we separate the quest to find out what happened to Rory and the struggle to reactivate and decipher his wonky old computer disks - but it's not a mystery novel. And despite the bildungsroman framing, Prentice's journey isn't the sole driver of the plot, either. This book has otherworldly concerns on its mind; in examining very big things in microcosm through Prentice's family, we gain an understanding of sorts about the universe - or at least, we form a truce with our own curiosity as to what it's all about. We miss a lot of things, Banks says. Often the greatest truths are right there under our nose. <br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “It was the day my grandmother exploded.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “I thought of Ashley, on the other side of that ocean, and wondered what she was doing right now, and hoped that she was well, and happy, and maybe thinking of me, and then I just stood there, grinning like a fool, and took a deep, deep breath of that sharp, smoke-scented air and raised my arms to the open sky, and said, ‘Ha!’<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Uninterestingabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-61558733493800136222013-04-23T05:52:00.000-07:002013-04-23T05:52:07.599-07:00541: Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1977. The novel has faced several challenges and bans in schools throughout the U.S. since 1993. As recently as 2010, the novel was challenged and later reinstated at Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis, IN. Shortlist.com listed Song of Solomon as Barack Obama's favorite book in its list: "40 favorite books of famous people".<br /><b>Plot:</b> Macon "Milkman" Dead III, derives his nickname from the fact that he was breastfed during childhood (Macon's age can be inferred as he was wearing pants with elastic instead of a diaper, and that he later forgets the event, suggesting he was still rather young). Milkman's father's employee, Freddie, happens to see him through the window being breastfed by his mother. He quickly gains a reputation for being a "Momma's boy" in direct contrast to his (future) best friend, Guitar, who is motherless and fatherless.<br />Milkman has two sisters, "First Corinthians" and "Magdelene called Lena." The daughters of the family are named by putting a pin in the Bible, while the eldest son is named after his father. The first Macon Dead's name was the result of an administrative error when Milkman's grandfather had to register subsequent to the end of slavery.<br />Milkman's mother (Ruth Foster Dead) is the daughter of the town's only black doctor; she makes her husband feel inadequate, and it is clear she idolized her father, Doctor Foster, to the point of obsession. After her father dies, her husband claims to have found her in bed with the dead body, sucking his fingers. Ruth later tells Milkman that she was kneeling at her father's bedside kissing the only part of him that remained unaffected by the illness from which he died. These conflicting stories expose the problems between his parents and show Milkman that "truth" is difficult or impossible to obtain. Macon (Jr.) is often violently aggressive towards Ruth because he believes that she was involved sexually with her father and loved her father more than her own husband. On one occasion, Milkman punches his father after he strikes Ruth, exposing the growing rift between father and son.<br />In contrast, Macon Dead Jr.'s sister, Pilate, is seen as nurturing—an Earth Mother character. Born without a navel, she is a somewhat mystical character. It is strongly implied that she is Divine—a female Christ-in spite of her name. Macon (Jr.) has not spoken to his sister for years and does not think highly of her. She, like Macon, has had to fend for herself from an early age after their father's murder, but she has dealt with her past in a different way than Macon, who has embraced money as the way to show his love for his father. Pilate has a daughter, Reba, and a granddaughter named Hagar. Hagar falls desperately and obsessively in love with Milkman, and is unable to cope with his rejection, attempting to kill him at least six times.<br />Hagar is not the only character who attempts to kill Milkman. Guitar, Milkman's erstwhile best friend, tries to kill Milkman more than once after incorrectly suspecting that Milkman has cheated him out of hidden gold, a fortune he planned to use to help his Seven Days group fund their revenge killings in response to killings of blacks.<br />Searching for the gold near the old family farm in Pennsylvania, Milkman stops at the rotting Butler Mansion, former home of the people who killed his ancestor to claim the farm. Here he meets Circe, an almost supernaturally old ex-slave of the Butlers. She tells Milkman of his family history and this leads him to the town of Shalimar. There he learns his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have escaped slavery by flying back to Africa, leaving behind twenty-one children and his wife Ryna, who goes crazy with loss. Returning home, he learns that Hagar has died of a broken heart. He accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where she is accidentally shot and killed by Guitar, who had intended to kill Milkman.<br />At the end of the novel, Milkman leaps towards Guitar. This leap is ambiguous, it is not explicitly stated that either or both is killed. However it brings the novel full circle from the suicidal "flight" of Robert Smith, the insurance agent, to Milkman's "flight" in which he learns to fly like Pilate<br /><b>Review: </b> Toni Morrison’s first two books -- ''The Bluest Eye'' with the purity of its terrors and ''Sula'' with its dense poetry and the depth of its probing into a small circle of lives -- were strong novels. Yet, firm as they both were in achievement and promise, they didn't fully forecast her new book, ''Song of Solomon.'' Here the depths of the younger work are still evident, but now they thrust outward, into wider fields, for longer intervals, encompassing many more lives. The result is a long prose tale that surveys nearly a century of American history as it impinges upon a single family. In short, this is a full novel -- rich, slow enough to impress itself upon us like a love affair or a sickness -- not the two-hour penny dreadful which is again in vogue nor one of the airless cat's cradles custom-woven for the delight and job-assistance of graduate students of all ages.<br />''Song of Solomon'' isn't, however, cast in the basically realistic mode of most family novels. In fact, its negotiations with fantasy, fable, song and allegory are so organic, continuous and unpredictable as to make any summary of its plot sound absurd; but absurdity is neither Morrison's strategy nor purpose. The purpose seems to be communication of painfully discovered and powerfully held convictions about the possibility of transcendence within human life, on the time-scale of a single life. The strategies are multiple and depend upon the actions of a large cast of black Americans, most of them related by blood. But after the loving, comical and demanding polyphony of the early chapters (set in Michigan in the early 1930's), the theme begins to settle on one character and to develop around and out of him.<br />His name is Macon Dead, called ''Milkman'' because his mother nursed him well past infancy. He is the son of an upper middle-class Northern black mother and a father with obscure working-class Southern origins. These origins, which Milkman's father is intent on concealing, fuel him in a merciless drive toward money and safety -- over and past the happiness of wife and daughters and son. So the son grows up into chaos and genuine danger -- the homicidal intentions of a woman he spurned after years of love, and an accidental involvement with a secret ring of lifelong acquaintances who are sworn to avenge white violence, eye for eye.<br />Near midpoint in the book -- when we may begin to wonder if the spectacle of Milkman's apparently thwarted life is sufficient to hold our attention much longer -- there is an abrupt shift. Through his involvement with his father's sister, the bizarre and anarchic Pilate (whose dedication to life and feeling is directly opposed to her brother's methodical acquisition of things), and with Guitar, one of the black avengers, Milkman is flung out of his private maelstrom. He is forced to discover, explore, comprehend and accept a world more dangerous than the Blood Bank (the ghetto neighborhood of idle eccentrics, whores, bullies and lunatics, which he visited as a boy). But this world is also rewarding, as it opens into the larger, freer sphere of time and human contingency and reveals the possibility of knowing one's origins and of realizing the potential found in the lives, failures and victories of one's ancestors.<br />Although it begins as a hungry hunt for a cache of gold that his father and Pilate left in a cave in Virginia, Milkman's search is finally a search for family history. As he travels through Pennsylvania and Virginia, acquiring the jagged pieces of a story that he slowly assembles into a long pattern of courage and literal transcendence of tragedy, he is strengthened to face the mortal threat that rises from his own careless past to meet him at the end.<br />The end is unresolved. Does Milkman survive to use his new knowledge, or does he die at the hands of a hateful friend? The hint is that he lives -- in which case Toni Morrison has her next novel ready and waiting: Milkman's real manhood, the means he invents for transmitting or squandering the legacy he has discovered.<br />But that very uncertainty is one more sign of the book's larger truthfulness (no big, good novel has ever really ended; and none can, until it authoritatively describes the extinction from the universe of all human life); and while there are problems (occasional abortive pursuits of a character who vanishes, occasional luxuriant pauses on detail and the understandable but weakening omission of active white characters), ''Song of Solomon'' easily lifts above them on the wide slow wings of human sympathy, well-informed wit and the rare plain power to speak wisdom to other human beings. A long story, then, and better than good. Toni Morrison has earned attention and praise. Few Americans know, and can say, more than she has in this wise and spacious novel.<br /><b>Opening Line: </b> “The North Carolina Mutual Life insurance agent, promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three oclock.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Good<br /><br /> abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-80364757593429742352013-04-23T05:40:00.000-07:002013-04-23T05:40:05.368-07:00540. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1989.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Set in 17th century London, Sexing the Cherry is about the journeys of a mother, known as The Dog Woman, and her protégé, Jordan. They journey in a space-time flux: across the seas to find exotic fruits such as bananas and pineapples; and across time, with glimpses of "the present" and references to Charles I of England and Oliver Cromwell. The mother’s physical appearance is somewhat "grotesque". She is a giant, wrapped in a skirt big enough to serve as a ship’s sail and strong enough to fling an elephant. She is also hideous, with smallpox scars in which fleas live, a flat nose and foul teeth. Her son, however, is proud of her, as no other mother can hold a good dozen oranges in her mouth all at once. Ultimately, their journey is a journey in search of The Self.<br /><b>Review:</b> The central relationship is between Jordan and the Dog Woman. It is a savage love, an unorthodox love, it is family life carried to the grotesque, but it is not a parody or a negative. The boisterous surrealism of their bond is in the writing itself. By writing the familiar into the strange, by wording the unlovely into words-as-jewels, what is outcast can be brought home. I have also thought of myself as an outcast, but I have made myself a territory by writing it. Sexing the Cherry is a cross-time novel in the same way that The Passion is cross-gender. The narrative moves through time, but also operates outside it. At the centre of the book are the stories of the Twelve Dancing Princess, each only a page long, written as a kind of fugue. The stories aren't just parachuted in there, they are integral to the whole, in just the same way that the Percival stories are integral to Oranges. That is, they tell us something we need to know to interpret the book.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “My name is Jordan.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “Empty space and points of light.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Okay.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-80288706785872074802013-03-25T16:33:00.003-07:002013-03-25T16:33:40.377-07:00539. Ignorance – Milan Kundera <b>History: </b> This book was written in 1999 in French and published in 2000. It was translated into English in 2002.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Czech expatriate Irena, who has been living in France, decides to return to her home after twenty years. During the trip she meets, by chance, Josef, a fellow émigré who was briefly her lover in Prague.<br />The novel examines the feelings instigated by the return to a homeland, which has ceased to be a home. In doing so, it reworks the Odyssean themes of homecoming. It paints a poignant picture of love and its manifestations, a recurring theme in Kundera's novels. The novel explores and centres around the way that people have selective memories as a precursor to ignorance. The concept of ignorance is presented as a two-fold phenomenon; in which ignorance can be a willing action that people participate in, such as avoiding unpleasant conversation topics or acting out. Yet also exploring the involuntary aspects of being ignorant, such as feigning ignorance of the past or avoiding the truth.<br /><b>Review: </b>Since Milan Kundera stopped writing fiction in Czech, he has produced two slim novels in French, Slowness (1996) and Identity (1998). Both are set in France, where he has lived since 1975. Ignorance, too, is a compact exploration of variations on a theme: that of "home", nostalgia for homeland, and the irony of the Odyssean homecoming. Yet like much of Kundera's fiction, its deeper concern is with memory and forgetting.<br />
Irene is a Czech émigré who has spent 20 years in Paris since the crushing of the Prague spring in 1968, alternating between waking nostalgia and the fearful "emigration-dream" of finding herself back in her native land. With the collapse of communism in 1989, she bows to pressure from French friends to embark on the "great return", the romantic voyage "home", only to rediscover that she had left partly to escape her over bearing mother. "The implacable forces of history that had attacked her freedom had set her free."<br />At Paris airport she meets Josef, a vet with whom she had a brief encounter in Prague, now a widower living in Denmark and making his first journey back. He too finds his emigration was driven by a need to escape - in his case his noxious, masochistic memory. With excruciating insight, Kundera homes in on the alienation of the returning émigré. Trying on a dress, Irene is momentarily imprisoned in the life she might have led had she stayed. For Josef, seeing his old watch on his brother's wrist "threw him into a strange unease. He had the sense he was coming back into the world as might a dead man emerging from his tomb after 20 years". His mother-tongue is an "unknown language whose every word he understood". Their memories are out of sync with those they have left behind. Encountering resentment and "suffering-contests" over who had the hardest time under the regime, Irene is shocked by friends' indifference to the 20-year "odyssey" that separates her from them but which has become her identity; she is like Odysseus after his 20-year wandering, "amazed to realise that his life, the very essence of his life, its centre, its treasure, lay outside Ithaca". Irene senses that, as a condition of reacceptance and pardon, they "want to amputate 20 years of my life from me".<br />Kundera also skewers facile assumptions about the émigré. Irene is dropped by a Parisian friend who feels duped by her refusal to confirm her suffering with a joyous homecoming. According to Irene, the French, for whom "judgments precede experience", were "already thoroughly informed that Stalinism is an evil and emigration is a tragedy. They weren't interested in what we thought, they were interested in us as living proof of what they thought".<br />Their alienation inexorably brings Irene and Josef together. Yet the novel also reveals how the selectiveness of memory, regardless of geographical displacement, can create rifts both with our earlier selves and between people who ostensibly share a past. Finding in his teenage diaries evidence of "sentimentality mixed with sadism", Josef wonders: "How can two such alien, such opposite beings have the same handwriting? What common essence is it that made a single person of him and this little snot?" He remembers next to nothing of his break-up with a girlfriend in his adolescence, but the novel reveals her trauma, which led to a botched suicide attempt that left her frostbitten, her beauty marred by an amputated ear.<br />Irene too remembers perfectly her first encounter with Josef, while he recalls nothing, not even her name. Their attraction is based on an "unjust and revolting inequality", and is exposed as a delusion in an inevitable sex scene. As Kundera once told Philip Roth, the erotic scenes in which all his novels culminate are the "focus where all the themes of the story converge and where its deepest secrets are located". This is a pity, since the eroticism is banal and tawdry; the couple are aroused by "dirty" words in their mother tongue, while in a parallel scene, Irene's mother seduces her daughter's cuckolded Swedish lover, Gustaf. The denouement, an unravelling of illusion, proves bathetic rather than profound.<br />There are also inane, inchoate parallels between Irene and Josef's early girlfriend, whose suicide attempt was born of overpowering "nostalgia" for a dawning past, and also resulted in "amputation". Yet the novel is propelled by Kundera's ironic probing of the mythology of home, the delusions of roots. Nostalgia, from the Greek nostos (return) and algos (suffering), is the "suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return". Provocatively, the novel suggests an inverse relationship between memory and nostalgia: lone exiles are amnesiac, for nostalgia "suffices unto itself... so fully absorbed is it by its suffering and nothing else". Memory, however, relies on collective reinforcement. Émigrés in "compatriot colonies" retell tales to the "point of nausea", rendering them unforgettable. Josef opts to return to Denmark, realizing that if he stays in Prague he will lose the memory of his dead wife, whom no one asks after.<br />Challenging the "moral hierarchy of emotions" laid down when Homer "glorified nostalgia with a laurel wreath", Ignorance tilts at the romantic assumption that separation from the land of one's birth must be a kind of death - just as, for the artist, it is casually and erroneously assumed to be the death of creativity.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “What are you still doing here?”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “Through the port hole, he saw far off in the sky a low wooden fence, and a brick house with a slender fir tree like a lifted arm before it.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears.”<br /><b>Rating: </b> Difficult<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-17635951710994266512013-03-25T16:31:00.003-07:002013-03-25T16:31:36.917-07:00538. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson <b>History: </b> This novel was published in 1748.<br />
<b>Plot:</b> Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Their original plan was to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowes into the possession of Clarissa's brother James Harlowe, whose wealth and political power will lead to his being granted a title. Clarissa's grandfather leaves her a substantial piece of property upon his death, and a new route to the nobility opens through Clarissa marrying Robert Lovelace, heir to an earldom. James's response is to provoke a duel with Lovelace, who is seen thereafter as the family's enemy. James also proposes that Clarissa marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James to concentrate James's holdings and speed his becoming Lord Harlowe. The family agrees and attempts to force Clarissa to marry Solmes, whom she finds physically disgusting as well as boorish.<br />
Desperate to remain free, she begins a correspondence with Lovelace. When her family's campaign to force her marriage reaches its height, Lovelace tricks her into eloping with him. Joseph Leman, the Harlowes' servant, shouts and makes noise so it may seem like the family has awoken and discovered that Clarissa and Lovelace are about to run away. Frightened of the possible aftermath, Clarissa leaves with Lovelace but becomes his prisoner for many months. She is kept at many lodgings and even a brothel, where the women are disguised as high-class ladies by Lovelace himself. She refuses to marry him on many occasions, longing to live by herself in peace. She eventually runs away but Lovelace finds her and tricks her into returning to the brothel.<br />
Lovelace intends to marry Clarissa to avenge her family's treatment of him and wants to possess both her body as well as her mind. He believes if she loses her virtue, she will be forced to marry him on any terms. As he is more and more impressed by Clarissa, he finds it difficult to believe that virtuous women do not exist.<br />
The pressure he finds himself under, combined with his growing passion for Clarissa, drives him to extremes and eventually he rapes her by drugging her. Through this action, Clarissa must accept and marry Lovelace. It is suspected that Mrs. Sinclair (the brothel manager) and the other prostitutes assist Lovelace during the rape.<br />
Lovelace's action backfires and Clarissa is ever more adamantly opposed to marrying a vile and corrupt individual like Lovelace. Eventually, Clarissa manages to escape from the brothel but becomes dangerously ill due to the mental duress of many months caused by "the vile Lovelace."<br />
Clarissa is sheltered by the kind but poor Smiths and during her sickness she gains another worshipper — John Belford, another libertine who happens to be Lovelace's best friend. Belford is amazed at the way Clarissa handles her approaching death and laments what Lovelace has done. In one of the many letters sent to Lovelace he writes "if the divine Clarissa asks me to slit thy throat, Lovelace, I shall do it in an instance." Eventually, surrounded by strangers and her cousin Col. Morden, Clarissa dies in the full consciousness of her virtue and trusting in a better life after death. Belford manages Clarissa's will and ensures that all her articles and money go into the hands of the individuals she desires should receive them.<br />
Lovelace seems to have moved on but Belford sends him Clarissa's will. He is shattered when he reads it and can live no longer. Col. Morden has gone back to Italy and he knows that there is only one way to atone for his sins. Lovelace asks Morden for a duel (although not directly) and they meet somewhere in Italy. Lovelace fights Morden and keeps on getting injured. He pretends to be not injured and goes after Morden many times — each time receiving another deadly blow. Eventually Morden realizes that he has been injured very badly and might die. The duel ends, Morden leaves and Lovelace is taken to his lodgings. The doctor is unable to do anything and Lovelace dies a day afterwards. Before dying he says "let this expiate!"<br />
Clarissa's relatives finally realise the misery they have caused but discover that they are too late and Clarissa has already died. The story ends with an account of the fate of the other characters.<br />
<b>Review:</b> Samuel Richardson's massive 1747-8 novel, "Clarissa," is much like Richardson's first novel, "Pamela," "Clarissa" deals with the torments of a virtuous young lady abducted by a rake/libertine (in modern parlance, a rapist) who submits the heroine to a series of trials. Unlike Pamela, a lower class maiden, Clarissa is a member of an established and wealthy family. This change in social situation allows Richardson to explore a host of new issues, with the primary goal of moral didacticism remaining intact between the two.<br />
Clarissa Harlowe, the most beautiful and exemplary of her sex, is being imposed upon by her implacable family to marry one Mr. Solmes, a man of no mean fortune, but whose ethics, especially with regard to his own family, are suspect. Simultaneously, Clarissa's sister, Arabella, has just rejected a proposal from one Robert Lovelace, the heir of a nobleman, educated and refined, but known for his libertinism - his tendency and enjoyment of seducing young women and then abandoning them. Lovelace falls in love, or in lust, with Clarissa, and after he and Clarissa's brother James, heir to the Harlowe fortune, engage in a near fatal duel, Clarissa's continued correspondence with Lovelace becomes a major thorn in the side of the Harlowes' plans for Clarissa. The Harlowes continue to urge the addresses of Mr. Solmes while vilifying Lovelace - Clarissa not approving of either - and when her family's insitence becomes insupportable to Clarissa, the utterly demonic Lovelace takes advantage, whisking her away from a seemingly inevitable union with Solmes. Thus begins an absolutely terrifying journey for Clarissa through the darkness of humanity, as Lovelace plots and executes his seduction of the 'divine' Clarissa.<br />An epistolary novel, "Clarissa" is written in the form of a series of letters spanning nine months, principally between Clarissa and her best friend and iconoclast, Anna Howe, and between Lovelace and a fellow libertine, John Belford. Richardson's 'to the moment' style of writing gives a minute account of everything that happens to the main characters almost as it happens, giving the novel a highly dramatic sense of urgency. The four major correspondents, as well as others, also give the novel a well-developed sense of perspective, as we get not only the events, but biased opinions and readings of all the other characters, making the events at times difficult to follow, but at the same time, marvelously rich and complex.<br />Some of the most interesting facets of this novel are its interactions with the law, primarily inheritance law, the contrast between history and story, and at the forefront, the debate over gender roles in marriage. Almost of a piece with the novel's legal issues, Richardson examines the vagueries of semantics - what do words mean? How are words regarded and used differently by men and women? Richardson also confronts the way we read and interpret 'truth' - in a book composed of letters, subjectively written and read, where can we look to for 'truth'?<br />Among the characters in the novel, by far the most captivating and challenging in "Clarissa" is the aforementioned Anna Howe. The ways she clashes with tradition and propriety throughout the novel are entertaining, and very much reminiscent of the eponymous heroine of Defoe's "Moll Flanders."<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbance that have happened in your family.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “But where the contrary of all these qualities shock the understanding, the extravagant performance will be judged tedious, though no longer than a fairy-tale.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “For love must be a very foolish thing to look back upon, when it has brought persons born to affluence into indigence, and laid a generous mind under obligation and dependence.”<br /><b>Rating: </b>I confess I only skimmed.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-29328997282027309962013-03-25T16:14:00.000-07:002013-03-25T16:14:33.100-07:00537. Dangling Man – Saul Bellow <b>History:</b> This novel was written in 1944. It is Saul Bellow’s first published work and established him in the literary world.<br /><b>Plot:</b> At 27, a Chicagoan named Joseph, a university graduate, an intellectual, five years married, leaves his job with a travel bureau, and under the pressure of waiting to be taken to war as a draftee feels himself alienated from society. In his diary between Dec.15,1942, and April9,1943, he objectively describes his quarrels with friends, in-laws, his wife Iva, by whom he is supported in their mean rooming house, and his brother Amos, a go-getting success, as he undergoes intense self-analysis dedicated only to the belief “I must know what I myself am.” Talks with his alter ego, “Tu As Raison Aussi,” finally convince him that man creates his own destiny and send him to volunteer in the army rather than continue to wait indefinitely to be inducted.<br /><b>Review: </b> Dangling Man is Bellow’s debut from 1944, bringing us into his twin worlds of thought and fascination, and of colourful characters. The book takes the form of a journal kept by Joseph, surname undeclared, as he waits for his call-up by the Army after enlisting, when “there is nothing to do but wait, or dangle, and grow more and more dispirited.” To keep his spirits up he records his thoughts, contrary to the spirit of the day (“Do you have feelings? There are correct and incorrect ways of indicating them.<br />Pretty quickly Joseph learns that to have all this free time, this freedom, leads him not only into dolour but into mischief, and he manages to start fights during the course of the novel with his wife (“Iva, it’s this situation we’re in. It’s changed us both”), his neighbours, his friends and his precocious niece Etta, who pushes him too far in a superbly ambiguous set piece. He toys with infidelity and it is this “avidity” which is Joseph’s other problem, his desire to experience and record everything.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “December 15, 1942: There was a time when people were in the habit of addressing themselves frequently, and felt no shame in making a record of their inner transactions.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “Long live regimentation!”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “At the root of it all was my unwillingness to miss anything. A compact with one woman puts beyond reach what others might give us to enjoy; the soft blondes and the dark, aphrodisiacal women of our imaginations are set aside. Shall we leave life not knowing them? Must we?”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Okayabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-33087170786016503512013-03-21T13:23:00.000-07:002013-03-21T13:23:07.559-07:00536. The Book of “O” – James Thurber <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>History: </b> The Wonderful O is the last of James Thurber’s 5 short-book fairy tales for children. It was published in 1957<br /><b>Plot:</b> Pirates Black and Littlejack have sailed their ship, the Aieu1, to the island of Ooroo in search of treasure. The catch? (and the source of the book’s title?): Littlejack has declared a vendetta against the letter O, as his mother became stuck in a porthole years before. They could not pull her in, so they had to push her out.While they search, Black, Littlejack and their nefarious crew insist that the island residents no longer use the letter O, either spoken aloud or on paper, a move which affects the population across the board. Group names are partially exempt, but the quest is on for O-less synonyms for all the flowers and orchestral pieces, professions, jobs, and personal names rendered laughable, unpronounceable and flat-out offensive by Littlejack’s vowel phobia. Violin, oboe, viola and bassoon are gone from the orchestra; forget-me-not, rose, violet and hollyhock removed from the countryside; Otto Ott and Ophelia Oliver stutter and flee society. Pigs and sheep are acceptable, but not pork or mutton, bacon or chop; hens and geese are allowed but not poultry or goose, rooster or flock. And so on.<br />The villagers, led by the lovers Andrea and Andreus, conspire in the forest in the dark of night on how to restore all the necessary things which require O to exist, not least four concepts which make life worth living: hope, love, valor and the fourth one, unnamed until the end of the book. The Wonderful O does have a happy ending, with the pirates driven away by all the things with O, and the islanders free to use all the vowels as needed.<br /><b>Review:</b> Black and Littlejack are bad men. Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island. He needs a ship to get there. Black has a ship. So they team up and sail off on Black’s vessel, the Aeiu. “A weird uncanny name,” remarks Littlejack, “like a nightbird screaming.” Black explains that it’s all the vowels except for O. O he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole. They couldn’t pull her in so they had to push her out.<br />Black and Littlejack arrive at the port of the far and lonely island and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: he will take over the island and he will purge it of O.<br />The vicissitudes visited on the islanders by Black and Littlejack, the harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we), and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders shake off their tyrannical interlopers and discover the true treasure for themselves (Oh yes—and get back their O’s)—these are only some of the surprises that await readers of James Thurber’s timelessly zany fairy tale about two louts who try to lock up the language—and lose. <br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “The man with the map, and the man with the ship sailed for the island rich with sapphires, emeralds and rubys.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “The sun went down, and it’s golden glow, lighted with fire, the Wonderful O.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “Taking a single letter from the alphaber," he said, "should make life simpler."<br /><b>Rating:</b> Not very good even for a fairy tale. <span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-8549388341709774202013-03-21T13:11:00.001-07:002013-03-21T13:11:28.030-07:00535. The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen <b>History:</b> First published in 1935, it was well received by critics past and present.<br /><b>Plot: </b>The novel opens in Paris, early in the morning, as eleven-year-old Henrietta Mountjoy, accompanied by Miss Naomi Fisher, travel via taxi to the house of Mme Fisher, an elderly and sickly lady who for years has taken in well-off girls for a season. Henrietta is traveling to Menton, in the south of France, to spend time with her grandmother, Mrs. Arbuthnot. Henrietta that she will be spending her day with Leopold, a nine-year old boy who is supposed to meet his mother there for the first time; Miss Fisher asks Henrietta to "be a little considerate with Leopold", and "to ask Leopold nothing". After breakfast and a nap in the salon, Henrietta awakens to find Leopold standing before her. The two young children talk about their life: Leopold explains Mme Fisher's illness and his own anticipation regarding the arrival of his mother later that day; Henrietta reveals to Leopold that her mother is dead. Even though Leopold angers Henrietta by spilling the contents of her handbag, the two children develop a rapport. <br />Miss Fisher leads Henrietta to Mme Fisher's room. While they are upstairs, Leopold rummages through Miss Fisher's handbag, discovering three envelopes. He disregards the first, a letter pertaining to Henrietta. The second envelope, with a Berlin postmark, is from his mother, but the envelope is empty, and he feels like Miss Fisher has "done him down."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-5"></a> The third envelope contains a letter from Marian Grant Moody, his adoptive mother, to Miss Fisher. Besides discussing the boy's itinerary, she writes exhaustively of Leopold's delicate and rather unstable constitution, and says more than once that the boy has not had a sex education yet, so any explanation of his birth will have to be handled delicately. <br />Leopold returns to the first envelope concerning Henrietta, written to Miss Fisher by Henrietta's grandmother, Mrs. Arbuthnot. Referring repeatedly to her old acquaintance and present addressee as "Miss Kingfisher", she informs Miss Fisher that Henrietta is to spend the remainder of the winter with Mrs. Arbuthnot in the south of France, and should only be staying a day in Paris. The tone of the letter is manipulative: Mrs. Arbuthnot subtly chastises Miss Fisher for not visiting her, all the while asking that Henrietta be allowed to spend the day in Paris. <br />During this time, Henrietta is introduced to Mme Fisher in her upstairs bedroom. As Miss Fisher sits knitting, her mother and the young girl converse, Mme Fisher frequently critiquing her daughter, commenting on her own bad health, and, ultimately, discussing Leopold: Henrietta learns that Leopold's now-dead father at one time broke her daughter's heart. <br />Henrietta then returns to the salon and discovers Leopold going through the handbag. The section concludes with the arrival of a telegram, summarized by Miss Fisher: "Your mother is not coming; she cannot come." <br />"Meetings that do not come off keep a character of their own."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-7"></a> The novel's second section shift back a decade to the story of Leopold's parents. The introductory pages of the section make clear that this the entire section is imaginary, perhaps a long and dramatic imaginative vision on Leopold's part. The section contains the information that may have been exchanged between Karen and Leopold should she have actually kept her promise to her son and arrived as scheduled that day in Paris. <br />Karen Michaelis, ten years or so before the day of the previous section, is sailing from her native England to visit her Aunt Violet and Uncle Bill Bent at Rushbrook, County Cork, Ireland. Karen is escaping the pressures of her recent engagement to Ray Forrestier, ambivalent about the wedding; Ray himself is on a business trip. Her time with Uncle Bill and Aunt Violet is rather uneventful and uninspiring until Uncle Bill, a nervous and socially inadequate man, tells Karen that Violet is to have surgery in the coming weeks, a procedure that could prove fatal. Back in England, Karen finds Naomi Fisher waiting for her; she has traveled to London to see to the affairs of her recently deceased aunt, and tells Karen of her engagement to Max Ebhart, whom Karen met years before during while she was one of the girls staying at Mme Fisher's house. Despite Karen's objections—she had always been afraid of Max—Naomi insists the three spend time together before Max and Naomi return home. <br />During a picnic, Max and Karen come close, sharing a secret touch and holding hands. Afterward, Karen resigns herself to her upcoming marriage, but before too long, the Michaelis family receives news of Aunt Violet's death, and once again things are in a state of disorder. During this chaotic time Max calls and asks to see Karen. They meet clandestinely in Boulogne and spend the day together. Max reveals that Mme Fisher believes her daughter is not good enough for him, but according to Max, Naomi is an acceptable match, simply because she is "like the furniture or the dark", comfortable and reassuring. Ultimately, however, she evokes no passion in him. Likewise, Karen confides that she does not wish to marry Ray. They part, but meet again on Folkestone pier the following Saturday, spending the remainder of the day and evening in a hotel room. Karen awakens in the middle of the night and while examining her and Max's shared circumstances, she develops a type of unconscious awareness of Leopold, despite having no clear evidence he will eventually exist, suggested by the author in second person: "All the same, the idea of you, Leopold, began to be present with her." <br />The following day, Max writes a letter to Naomi, explaining his relationship with and feelings for Karen. Karen implores him to rethink the revelation, specifically the unreality of the arrangement ("You and I are the dream. Go back to her".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-10"></a>) She tears up the letter, and they agree that while Naomi must be made aware of the affair, it is best both to write her and tell her in person. Karen's rendezvous with Max is eventually discovered by Mrs. Michaelis, and while Karen tries to explain the relationship, Mrs. Michaelis cannot understand. <br />Next, Karen learns through the French newspapers that Max has committed suicide, and Naomi arrives in London, where she explains the circumstances surrounding his death: after receiving his letter and informing Mme Fisher of his intentions, Naomi is quarantined by her mother, who intends to keep Naomi from seeing Max and removing any possibility of spoiling Max's chance for happiness with Karen. Max does visit Naomi, however, speaking to her of the failure inherent in his relationship with Karen: "'What she and I are' he said, 'is outside life; we shall fail.'" He is visibly distressed as Mme Fisher returns to the salon. Naomi returns to her upstairs bedroom. There is a commotion in the salon, and Naomi returns to find her mother strewn across the sofa and blood on the floor. Max has cut his own wrist, making his way out the door into the street, and dying in an alley. In the following days, Mme Fisher will observe that "it was the commendation he could not bear. I was commending him when he took his knife out." At the end of the section, Karen reveals to Naomi that she is pregnant with Max's child, and will leave for Germany to try to avoid any scandal. <br />The first sentence of the last section repeats the last sentence of the first: "Your mother is not coming; she cannot come." Leopold again imagines how the meeting would have gone if it had occurred. Henrietta senses Leopold's disappointment; she holds him and cries. Miss Fisher reenters the salon, informing Leopold that Mme Fisher would like to see him. <br />Not unlike the earlier exchange with Henrietta, the conversation between Leopold and Mme Fisher is uncomfortable and at times Mme Fisher is blunt, even cruel. She attempts to explain Karen's unique nature to the disconsolate boy, abandoning any of those delicacies requested in Marian Grant Moody's earlier letter. She explains Leopold his history, including the details of his birth, the death of his half-sibling, his adoption, and his general displacement in the world. Leopold begs to remain in the house, exclaiming, "At Spezia when I am angry I go full of smoke inside, but when you make me angry I see everything."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-13"></a> At this point Miss Fisher returns to the room and whisks Leopold away again. <br />Ray Forrestier is waiting in the salon for Leopold. When the child arrives, their interaction is strained, distant, and uncomfortable. A good portion of the narrative focuses on Ray's conflicting feelings about Leopold, his marriage to Karen, the child's inescapable presence in their shared life, and Ray's own situational obligations. Ultimately, Ray and Leopold leave the house together, dropping off Henrietta at the train station on the way; the two children say their goodbyes and head off in different directions. <br /><b>Review:</b> ''The House in Paris'' is Bowen's best novel, ''one of those books that grow in the mind, in time.'' It is also a book about the growth of the mind in time. Two children cross paths in this house. One of them, Leopold, is waiting for his mother, who does not arrive. That, in a sense, is all that happens, except that the reason she doesn't arrive encompasses Leopold's paternity, and the nature of passion, and deaths both literal and of the soul, and everything that divides the knowledge of children from the knowledge of adults. It is tragic, exquisite and told in strange and exact sentences that only Bowen could write. Of one bitter character: ''Caring for nothing, she seemed to keep every happening, like rows of sea-blunted pebbles with no character, in her lit-up mind.''<br />The novel is concerned throughout with betrayal and secrecy. Karen betrayed her mother by not revealing Aunt Violet's terminal illness during her remaining weeks of life; in fact, the narrator reports that "Karen did not even ask herself why she had said nothing." Mme Fisher betrayed Naomi by encouraging Max to choose Karen, enabling Max and Karen to begin their affair and betray their respective fiancés, while Karen betrayed Naomi as well: when Karen admonishes Max, "you cannot do that to Naomi," Max responds, "Did you always think so much of her?"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-19"></a> Maud Ellmann even asserts that Karen only loves Max "precisely because he is another woman's".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-20"></a> Later, after Karen has conceived her illegitimate child, Mrs. Michaelis betrays her husband by sending Karen on a year of supposed European travel and study, just as Karen further betrays Ray by secretly giving birth to and then giving away an illegitimate son. In the present, Karen still betrays her father, who is desperate for grandchildren, by hiding his grandson's existence. Ultimately, Karen betrays Leopold at the eleventh hour when she refuses to meet him in Paris, a betrayal underscored by the repeated message to Leopold, "Your mother is not coming; she cannot come."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_in_Paris#cite_note-21"></a> Because of Karen's betrayal of Leopold, Bennett and Royle qualified The House in Paris as "Bowen's most rigorous and unremittingly clairvoyant elaboration of the structure and effects of psychic trauma. The House in Paris is what we propose to call a traumaturgy, both a work and theory of wounds." Finally, Ray betrays the Grant Moody foster family by stealing Leopold at the novel's close. There is so much secrecy throughout the text that, according to Marian Kelly, "Bowen forces readers into the position of detective by making constant deduction at the level of both conversational references and character psychology a central element of reading her novel". <br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “In a taxi skidding away from the Gare de Leon, one dark greasy February morning before the shutters were down, Henrietta sat beside Miss Fisher.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “The copper night sky went glossy over the city crowned with signs and started alight with windows, the wet square like a lake at the foot of the station ramp.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “...there must be something she wanted; and that therefore she was no lady.”<br /><b>Rating: </b> Really good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-14675471756217710862013-03-18T16:42:00.000-07:002013-03-18T16:42:24.472-07:00534. Burger’s Daughter – Nadine Gordimer <b>History:</b> This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1979. The book was not published in South Africa because it was expected to be banned in that country. A month after publication in London, the import and sale of the book in South Africa was prohibited, although the restriction was lifted six months later.<br />Gordimer herself was involved in South African struggle politics, and she knew many of the activists. She described Burger's Daughter as "a coded homage" to Fischer. While still banned in South Africa, a copy of the book was smuggled into Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, and he reported that he "thought well of it".<br /><b>Plot:</b> The novel is set mostly in Johannesburg in the early- to mid-1970s during Apartheid. Rosa is the daughter of Lionel Burger, a white Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist, who is standing trial for treason. The court finds him guilty and sentences him to life in prison. Rosa visits him regularly, just as she visited her mother, Cathy Burger when she was imprisoned some ten years previously. Cathy died when Rosa was still at school. Rosa grew up in a family that actively supported the overthrow of the apartheid government, and the house they lived in opened its doors to anyone supporting the struggle, regardless of colour. Living with them was "Baasie", a black boy Rosa's age the Burgers had "adopted" when his father had died in prison. Bassie and Rosa grew up as brother and sister. Both Rosa's parents were members of the outlawed South African Communist Party (SACP), and she was told from an early age that they could be detained by the authorities at any time. When Rosa was nine, both her parents were arrested and she was sent to stay with her father's family in a rural farming community. Baasie was sent elsewhere because, she was told, he would not be accepted there. It was here that Rosa experienced apartheid for the first time and the way black people were mistreated.<br />In 1974, after three years in prison, Lionel succumbs to ill-health and dies. At 26, Rosa sells the Burger's house and moves in with Conrad, a post-graduate student who had befriended her during her father's trial. Rosa is not in love with Conrad, but their relationship is convenient during this difficult time. Conrad questions her role in the Burger family and the fact that she always did what she was told. He questions whether she has her own identity, because everyone sees her as Burger's daughter, not Rosa. Later Rosa leaves Conrad and moves into a flat on her own and works as a physiotherapist at a hospital.<br />While some of Lionel's former associates are banned or under house arrest, Rosa is "named", meaning that she is labelled a Communist and is under surveillance. In 1975, despite her restrictions, she attends a party of a friend in Soweto, and it is there that she hears a black university student dismissing all whites' help as irrelevant, saying that whites cannot know what blacks want, and that blacks will liberate themselves. Realising she needs to be somewhere else, Rosa manages to get a passport, and flies to Nice in France to stay with Katya, her father's first wife. Rosa spends several months there and is able to be herself for the first time in her life. She meets Bernard Chabalier, a visiting academic from Paris, and they become lovers. He persuades her to return with him to Paris, where he says the French Anti-Apartheid Movement will be only too happy to organize a flat for Lionel Burger's daughter.<br />Before joining Bernard in Paris, Rosa stays in a flat in London for several weeks. Now that she has no intention of honouring the agreement of her passport, which was to return to South Africa within a year, she openly introduces herself to others as Burger's daughter. This attracts the attention of the media and she attends several political events. At one such event, Rosa sees Baasie, but he is reluctant to talk to her. She gives him her phone number, and he later contacts her and starts criticizing her for not knowing his real name (Zwelinzima Vulindlela). He says that there is nothing special about her father having died in prison as many black fathers have also died there, and says he does not need her help. Rosa is devastated by her childhood friend's hurtful remarks, and overcome with guilt, she abandons her plans of going into exile in France and returns to South Africa.<br />Back home she resumes her job as a physiotherapist in Soweto. Then in June 1976 Soweto school children start protesting about their inferior education and being taught in Afrikaans. They go on the rampage, which includes killing white welfare workers in Soweto. The police brutally put down the uprising, resulting in hundreds of deaths. In October 1977, many organizations and people critical of the white government are banned, and in November 1977 Rosa Burger is detained. Her lawyer, who also represented her father, expects charges to be brought against her of furthering the aims of the banned SACP and ANC, and of aiding and abetting the students' revolt.<br /><b>Review:</b> It's strange to live in a country where there are still heroes.'' The words seem to echo through this book, which is concerned above all with the nature of commitment and heroism in South Africa. But it is not about romantic hero-worship; it is about the problems, the humanity, the ruthlessness and the cost of political involvement, all against a background of love, squalor or boredom.<br />It is Miss Gordimer's most political and most moving novel, going to the heart of the racial conflict in South Africa. But it does not deal publicly with riots, tortures or crusades: Its politics come out of its characters, as part of the wholeness of lives that cannot evade them.<br />The hero of the book, whom we never meet, is Lionel Burger, a respected Afrikaner doctor who joined the Communist Party, worked for the revolution, was jailed and died in prison; and the story is that of his daughter Rosa, brought up under her father's spell, waiting outside prisons and living among dedicated Communists, yet trying to escape, alone, after her father's death, from a commitment that was all-enveloping.<br />For Burger was the kind of South African Communist who was drawn to the party by his humanity and determination to share the cause of the blacks; and in his house blacks and whites came together with a sense of common hope and faith in the future, defying the apartheid surrounding them. With his Afrikaner ancestry and his political understanding, Burger was a man who, as a compatriot describes him, ''could have been a prime minister if he hadn't been a traitor.'' (His story bears some resemblance to the actual story of Bram Fischer, the distinguished Afrikaner lawyer who likewise became a Communist revolutionary and died in jail.)<br />What is it like to grow up in the shadow of someone so dedicated and so charismatic and then to seek to become a separate, fulfilled individual? Rosa's answer, as it unfolds, tells us not only about South Africa but about the whole nature of commitment. It was Burger's gift to be able to break through ''the closed circuit of self,'' to give purpose to other people's lives; in his house the real definition of loneliness was to live without social responsibility.<br />The opening chapters describe vividly the splendors and miseries of that commitment; the passionate concern with the future, the moral certainties, the sense of identification with blackness as a way of perceiving sensual redemption, revealed in the magnetic attraction of the beautiful Marisa Kgosana. But on the other hand, there is the bossy narrowness of other white Communists, the jargon of dogma, the lack of escape and the sheer brutalizing effect of the race conflict. When Rosa sees an old black man senselessly flogging a donkey in Soweto, yet cannot intervene, she realizes suddenly ''I must know somewhere else.'' She makes her bid to escape, flying off to the South of France to stay with her father's first wife, in a world of gigolos, lesbians and sun-seekers.<br />It is a spectacular transition, showing the brittle sophistication and lushness of this cosmopolitan life through the eyes of a South African girl, ''dissolving in the wine and pleasure of scents, sights and sounds existing only in themselves, associated with nothing and nobody. . . .'' The style itself becomes sensuous and multicolored, against the stark background of the Johannesburg past, as Rosa loses herself in the laziness and the waveless peacock-shaded sea.<br />She falls in love with a French teacher, stays in London and Paris, and finds a new dimension in her love affair that seems to put politics in a neat theoretical pigeonhole. The tolerance, the detachment and cultivation of Europe surround her: To the lesbians in the South of France, the police are no closer than the crime thrillers on television.<br />Yet the responsibility, the need for identity, remains. The denouement of the novel is too subtle and important to be summarized, for it is about much more than the need for a political cause; it is a whole view of individualism. In her father's house the people had discovered their own kind of individualism, with the liberation that comes from belonging. Her black childhood friend, in spite of her guilt and his bitterness, was still a blood-brother. The political attitudes came from the inside outward: ''It was a human conspiracy, above all other kinds.'' Rosa sees clearly enough the limitations of that conspiracy--the exploitation, the psychological blackmail and the ultimate cost to herself. But she is still Burger's daughter.<br />It is the combination of political authenticity with sensuous awareness that makes this novel so powerful. Its account of black movements, against the historical background of real people, is harshly realistic; the intense argument in a house in Soweto has the sharp detail of a documentary.<br />No one has better described the vigor and humor, as well as the misery, of Soweto. Yet the political moments are always illuminated by the intense observation of people and places--tiny details precisely and lovingly described--that brings every incident to life and that give Miss Gordimer's writing such universality. People, landscapes and politics are blended together in this evocative style, and through the eyes of the young, bewildered daughter the wide arc of South African politics comes into sudden focus. It is an integration reminiscent of the great Russian prerevolutionary novels.<br />It remains extraordinary that such a novel should come out of a country so uncompromising and so increasingly brutalized, where the image of the flogged donkey has such fearful relevance; and it might seem equally surprising that an author of such sensitivity could live there. But this, too, was a Russian phenomenon. The very bleakness of the political predicament and the closeness to suffering seem able not only to provide insights into the political crisis, but to give a heightened awareness of the richness and values of lie.<br />In one passage the author describes how Rosa and her father's first wife find themselves subtly transformed for each other by their relationship with Lionel Burger, ''like a change of light transforming the aspect of a landscape.'' Coming out of the harshness of South Africa, this dazzling book also brings a new light to the landscape, not only of Johannesburg and its black townships, but of the European cities that have forgotten about darkness.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “Among the group of people waiting at the fortress was a school girl in a brown and yellow uniform holding a green eiderdown quilt, and by the loop at it’s neck, a red hot water bottle.<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “But the line had been deleted by the prison sensor, Madame Bagnelli was never able to make it out.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> The will is my own. The emotion's my own. The right to be inconsolable. When I feel, there's no 'we', only 'I'.<br /><b>Rating:</b> Okay.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-3815126764995801532013-03-18T16:39:00.003-07:002013-03-18T16:39:44.884-07:00533. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace<b>History:</b> Published in 1996, the novel includes 388 numbered endnotes (some of which have footnotes of their own) that explain or expound on points in the story. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace characterized their use as a method of disrupting the linearity of the text while maintaining some sense of narrative cohesion.<br />The novel's title is from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1. Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester, Yorick, and says, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!"<br />Wallace's working title for Infinite Jest was A Failed Entertainment.<br /><b>Plot:</b> In the novel's future world, the United States, Canada, and Mexico together compose a unified North American superstate known as the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). Corporations are allowed the opportunity to bid for and purchase naming rights for each calendar year, replacing traditional numerical designations with ostensibly honorary monikers bearing corporation names. Although the narrative is fragmented among several years, most of the story takes place during "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" (Y.D.A.U.) Directly related to the formation of the O.N.A.N is the fact that much of what used to be the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada became a hazardous waste dump due to federal negligence, an area known as the "Great Concavity" among Americans, and the "Great Convexity" among Canadians.<br />The novel's primary locations are Enfield Tennis Academy ("ETA") and Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, which are separated by a hillside in suburban Boston, Massachusetts, and a mountainside outside of Tucson, Arizona. Many characters are students or faculty at the school or patients or staff at the halfway house; a conversation between a quadruple agent and his government contact occurs at the Arizona location.<br />The plot partially revolves around the missing master copy of a film cartridge, titled Infinite Jest and referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so entertaining to its viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than viewing the film. The video cartridge was the final work of film by James O. Incandenza before his microwave suicide, completed during a stint of sobriety that was requested by the lead actress, Joelle. Quebec separatists are interested in acquiring a master, redistributable copy of the work to aid in acts of terrorism against the United States. The United States Office of Unspecified Services (USOUS) is seeking to intercept the master copy of the film to prevent mass dissemination and the destabilization of the Organization of North American Nations. Joelle and later Hal seek treatment for substance abuse problems at The Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, and Marathe visits the rehabilitation center to pursue a lead on the master copy of the Entertainment, tying the characters and plots together.<br /><b>Review: </b>Reading David Foster Wallace's latest novel, ''Infinite Jest,'' I couldn't help thinking at times about 7-year-old Seymour Glass's book-length ''letter'' home from camp, published in The New Yorker in 1965 as ''Hapworth 16, 1924.'' I felt a similar feeling of admiration alloyed with impatience veering toward strained credulity. (Do you suppose Seymour's parents actually read the whole thing?) I had previously been a great admirer of Mr. Wallace's collection of stories, ''Girl With Curious Hair,'' and, to a lesser extent, of the loose, baggy monster that was his debut novel, ''The Broom of the System,'' which I confess to not finishing. If Mr. Wallace were less talented, you would be inclined to shoot him -- or possibly yourself -- somewhere right around page 480 of ''Infinite Jest.'' In fact, you might anyway.<br />Alternately tedious and effulgent, ''Infinite Jest'' is set in the near future, specifically in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, which would seem to be about 18 years from now. The United States has become part of the Organization of North American Nations (ONAN), federated with Canada and Mexico; most of northern New England has been transformed into a huge toxic waste dump and palmed off on the Canadians. Qubcois separatists, many of them in wheelchairs (les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents), prowl the lower, nontoxic states, performing terrorist acts, understandably more bilious than ever now that giant fans along the border blow Northeastern American waste products in their direction. President Limbaugh has been fairly recently assassinated, and the calendar has been sold to the highest corporate bidder, giving us the Year of the Whopper, the Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad and so on.<br />All of this might -- and sometimes does -- feel cartoonish in the extreme. But this skeleton of satire is fleshed out with several domestically scaled narratives and masses of hyperrealistic quotidian detail. The overall effect is something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola. Mr. Wallace's earlier fiction revealed him as a student of literary post-modernists like John Barth and Robert Coover, flirting with metafictional tropes and self-referential narratives. Here, despite the ''Gravity's Rainbow''-plus length and haute science flourishes, Mr. Wallace plays it straight -- that is, almost realistically -- and seems to want to convince us of the authenticity of his vision by sheer weight of accumulated detail. The weight almost crushes the narrative at times -- as when, for example, we are treated to 10 dense pages about the disassembly of a bed, complete with diagrams.<br />The two overlapping microcosms of this nonlinear narrative are the Enfield Tennis Academy, a Boston-area institution founded by the mad genius James O. Incandenza, whose clan of athletic and academic prodigies still resides there, and Ennet House, a residence for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics just down the hill. James O., a former tennis prodigy, physicist specializing in optics and avant-garde film maker, has by the time the story opens killed himself by sticking his head in a microwave oven. Surviving him are his sons: Orin, a pro football kicker; Hal, a 17-year-old student at the academy who is as gifted mentally as he is physically; and Mario, who is severely deformed and mildly retarded.<br />The details of day-to-day life at the academy are rendered in something very close to real time, as are several matches between the junior athletes; Mr. Wallace knows his serve and volley from his baseline game: readers may feel qualified toward the end to march down to the court and challenge the club pro to a match.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “I am seated in an office surrounded by heads and bodies.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of the low sky, and the tide was way out.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”<br /> “You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”<div>
<b>Rating: </b>Amazing</div>
abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-12268412451168806672013-03-18T14:51:00.001-07:002013-03-18T14:51:52.682-07:00532. The Girl with Green Eyes – Edna O'Brien <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1962 with the title of “The Lonely Girl” It is the second in the “Country Girls” trilogy .<br /><b>Plot:</b> The Lonely Girl continues the story of childhood friends Kate and Baba, now both twenty-one, as they navigate the rocky, sometimes treacherous pathways of urban life. With hearts as big as Dublin, and hopes as bright as new pennies, they move bravely and eagerly toward the future. Yet the two couldn't be more different. Kate toils in a grocery shop and lives out her romantic fantasies in books. Baba entertains more earthbound dreams. Kate becomes involved with a much older and married man, a writer named Eugene Gaillard, who eyes her and ignores her more worldly roommate.<br />The relationship is much opposed by her father and the village she had run away from. Her father comes to get her and imposes her to the house to get her away from Eugene. But Kate is determined to go back to Dublin, and she eventually escapes from her father and the rural village.<br />Eugene and Kate consummate their relationship and Kate moves in with him in the country. Unfamiliar with him, his friends, and his life with his wife, trouble is inevitable. They argue and make up numerous times. Until Eugene pushes her away finally, she moves out and goes back to Baba. He eventually goes back to his wife, and Kate is heartbroken.<br /><b>Review:</b> Published in one volume, the three books known as “The Country Girls Trilogy” – were what put Edna O’Brien on the map. Her first novel was “The Country Girls”, published in 1960. True to Irish tradition, her book was banned. Not just that book – but all the subsequent Country Girls books, as well as many of her other books. O’Brien just wasn’t “playing nice” with Irish sensibilities, and wrote openly about sex and the life of Dublin girls, and marriage, and religion – and so stepped right into hot water. As a young girl, Edna O’Brien read James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<img border="0" src="file:///C:/Users/Owner/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" />, and it changed her life. She didn’t know what she wanted to do – but it had to be something to do with literature. She recently wrote a biography of Joyce<img border="0" src="file:///C:/Users/Owner/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" /> (one of my favorite quotes from it: “He would carry his work ‘like a chalice’ and all his life he would insist that what he did ‘was a kind of sacrament.’ Father, Son and Holy Ghost along with Jakes McCarthy informed every graven word. On a more secular note he liked blackberry jam because Christ’s crown of thorns came from that wood and he wore purple cravats during Lent.”), and I believe at one point she also wrote a book about the marriage of James and Nora Joyce. Her artistic mentor, the star she followed. There’s a funny line in The Country Girls – Kate and Baba, the two best friends, hang out in Dublin in pubs (and this is 1950s Dublin) – and at one point Baba pulls Kate aside and says, “Stop asking the boys if they’re read James Joyce’sDubliners.” Like – that is NOT a good courtship technique!<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “It was a wet afternoon in October, as I copied out the September accounts from the big grey ledger.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “What Baba doesn’t know is that I’m finding my feet, and when I’m able to talk I imagine that I won’t be so alone, or so very far away from the world he tried to draw me into, too soon.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable...”<br /><b>Rating: </b> Good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-87304279543096312122013-02-28T09:27:00.005-08:002013-02-28T09:27:43.903-08:00531. The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>History:</b> Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. Tomasi was the last in a line of minor princes in Sicily, and he had long contemplated writing a historical novel based on his great-grandfather, Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, another Prince of Lampedusa. After the Lampedusa palace was bombed and pillaged by Allied forces in World War II, Tomasi sank into a lengthy depression, and began to write Il Gattopardo as a way to combat it. <br /><b>Plot:</b> The Leopard is the story of Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, at the time of the main action a man in his forties, with several children. He is a sort of benevolent tyrant in his household, a man of a very old family, accustomed to knowing his place and to having those about him know their places. The Prince is also a man of great sensual appetites, careless with his money (though not wasteful or dissolute), politically knowledgeable but completely apolitical in action, and also an amateur astronomer of some note.<br />When the story opens, the Risorgimento is ongoing, but it is clear that it will be ultimately successful, and that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies will be absorbed into the newly unified, somewhat more democratic, Italy. Don Fabrizio, out of loyalty, is nominally supportive of the old regime, but he realistically stays out of the conflict. His favorite nephew, Tancredi, the penniless but charismatic son of his sister, is an ardent supporter of Garibaldi (leader of the revolution).<br />Several long chapters, separated by months, follow the progress of the Risorgimento at a distance, and more closely follow events which impinge directly on Don Fabrizio's life, yet which reflect the coming societal changes. These include the plebiscite to confirm popular support for the unification of Italy, his nephew Tancredi's love affair and eventual marriage to the daughter of a wealthy but decidedly lower class neighbor, his daughter's reaction to the attentions of a friend of Tancredi's, and Father Pirrone's visit to his home village. Finally, the action jumps forward some decades to the Prince's death, in a very moving and beautiful chapter, then still further forward to the household of his unmarried daughters in their old age.<br /><b>Review:</b> The Leopard was published 50 years ago, following a war that had devastated Europe. The aristocrat di Lampedusa wrote it as an elegy to past times amid the ruins of the capital city Palermo, smashed by Allied bombing raids. It tells the story of the noble Salina family in the late 19th century, as the shoots of democracy sprout in the parched feudal island. It richly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of Sicilian high life, the parties, the rabbit hunting, the vendettas, the courting, the politics.<br />The 'Leopard' of the title is Don Fabrizio, patriarch of the family, a measured, middle-aged Hamlet. He ponders the fleeting nature of life, the nobility's loss of power to Garibaldi's revolution, and muses melancholically on the way the nobility have squandered that power.<br />But the book is not only about political change, far from it, but tells many human stories, not least the marriage of his nephew Tancredi who makes what at first seems to be an unsuitable match which causes considerable upset among his relatives. We read of the family’s chaplain, and the impact of change on his own life, and also of the effects on the peasants and townsfolk too, as their fortunes go up and down.<br />Perhaps the main character after Fabrizio is Sicily itself. Lampedusa describes the arid summers and the almost desert-like landscapes of this baking country. The city of Palermo features in all its squalor, and also the smaller towns on which most of the narrative occurs.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “Then all found peace in a little heap of livid dust.”<br /><b>Quotes: '</b>They had passed through crazed-looking villages washed in palest blue; crossed dry beds of torrents over fantastic bridges; skirted sheer precipices which no sage or broom could temper. Never a tree, never a drop of water; just sun and dust.'<br /><b>Rating: </b> Not that good, sorry.<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-89183455764468071432013-02-28T08:54:00.002-08:002013-02-28T08:54:04.207-08:00530. Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller<b>History:</b> The novel was subsequently banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn_(novel)#cite_note-1"></a> It was also banned in Turkey.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn_(novel)#cite_note-2"></a> It is a sequel to Miller's 1934 work, theTropic of Cancer.<br /><b>Plot:</b> The novel is set in 1920s New York, where the narrator 'Henry V. Miller' works in the personnel division of the 'Cosmodemonic' telegraph company. Although the narrator's experiences closely parallel Miller's own time in New York working for the Western Union Telegraph Company, and though he shares the author's name, the novel is considered a work of fiction.<br />The book is a story of spiritual awakening. Much of the story surrounds his New York years of struggle with wife June Miller, and the process of finding his voice as a writer.<br /><b>Review:</b> Miller's two tropics – Cancer and Capricorn- are essentially manuals for the creative life. They present Miller's transformation from lay-schmuck working in the belly of the beast that is the American economy - jobs such as his position with the Western Union Telegraph company, which he refers to as the "Cosmococcic / Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company" - to his evolution as en expatriate writer living in Paris. The books are really designed to be read together to magnify the metamorphosis, the rite of passage. While Cancer chronicles the latter portion of Miller's experience abroad, the prequel, Capricorn, written five years later in 1939, is the more developed and more seminal of the two and elucidates with much greater detail the affects of his epiphany.<br />Most artists will immediately recognize the struggle Miller endures. Married to the "wrong" woman and with a young child in tow - a relationship which he finds stifling to his creative development - Miller faces tenable employment situations to support this life. Those jobs he does find do little to allow him to prosper; rather he finds himself as a cog on a wheel of Hell. His transformation from the morass of what society deems sound and true is painful. Anyone who has ever made such sacrifices to pursue the unspoken dreams to create from what grows inside of them will sympathize with Miller's dilemma. To pursue a life of an artist is frightening enough: to do it behind the rancorous veil of the American dream is horrifying. Miller recognizes the banal existence of modern America with its machines, its backward corporate policies, its worship of the unthinking and mechanical and he also knows he must break from its fetters.<br />Part of Miller's disenchantment with America is organic to his being just as much as it is experiential. As a child, Miller feels a unique disassociation with his peers and even his family. This self-possessed knowledge of his unique intelligence leaves Miller with a feeling of disorientation. As an adolescent, he sees his drunken father convert to piety when wooed by the charisma of a local minister. Miller, Sr. then falls from grace when the minister is called to another location and as a result of this perceived abandonment, cycles back to his earlier state of crapulousness. The event seems to have intimated to Miller the importance of being self-reliant upon a constant wellspring of inspiration so that disappointment in other people does not interrupt the flow of creativity.<br />Miller describes the evolution of the artist as riding "on the ovarian trolley." In fact, those very words are what preface Capricorn. For Miller there are really two births the artist experiences before his final descent into a world riddled with isolation, hunger and anticipation. Of course, there is the physical birth but this is more a symbolic representation than Miller's actual recognition of his square-peg, round-hole emotional relationship with the world at large: this is the first stage of birth. The second stage comes years later out of the "Land of F@ck" as Miller coins it, the place where the "spermatozoon reigns supreme". These phrases, as they would first seem (and were seen for many years that the book was banned from U.S. publication), are not some sordid and gratuitous account of Miller's perceptions of the world or his conquests. Rather, he uses the extended metaphors and kennings to give the reader an understanding to the visceral almost primordial conditions from whence the artist arises. For Miller, spiritual ascension is a process biologic as well as intellectual.<br />"Once this fact is grasped there can be no more despair. At the very bottom of the ladder, chez the spermatozoa, there is the same condition of bliss at the top, chez God. God is the summation of all the spermatozoa come to full consciousness. Between the bottom and the top there is no stop, no halfway station" .<br />There is an almost funereal quality about Miller's cognizance here: this idea of exploring one's complete "Annihilation" before metaphysical resurrection. Miller understands the need for an eradication of the former self before the rebirth of the artist as he moves from the "terra firma" to the "terra vague." Along with this laying waste of the individual comes the erasure of connections to the self: friends, family, lovers - all abandoned to pursue the freedom to express unhindered utterance*. To this point, Miller's use of "Tropic of" in the titles of Cancer and Capricorn now begins to make more sense as he asserts himself to be on the boundary between this land of the physical and the spiritual; the place where men aspire to be God for a period of time just before the flash-point of creative impulse.<br />Tropic of Capricorn should be standard reading for anyone in the arts, for any artist who has ever felt the pang of isolation, who truly believes in the necessity of sacrifice, a higher calling and commitment to one's creative endeavors. Miller's importance to world literature is vastly underrated and in many cases. Writers are simply too intimidated to face the truth in what he espouses. Miller operates as an Overman and as such, it is right that he should pose a certain condition of tremulousness in his readership: he has forged his own society, he has forged his own being into something closer to what history had intended for him since his first phone call into the horn of the fallopian. This is discomfiting for most and is intended to show how the application of introspection for an artist can lead to becoming an acolyte of unconventional philosophy: how a writer emerges as "e pluribus unum." Henry Miller's doctrine is reserved for the initiate, the mad few who choose separation from the masses as a means for creative growth. Miller's epitaph should simply be, "My name? Why just call me God - God the embryo." <br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “Tomorrow. Tomorrow.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> "History may deny it, since I have played no part in the history of my people, but even if everything I say is wrong, is prejudiced, spiteful, malevolent, even if I am a liar and a poisoner, it is nevertheless the truth and it will have to be swallowed."<br /><b>Rating:</b> Difficultabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-42686097040449985712013-02-19T15:20:00.001-08:002013-02-19T15:20:27.532-08:00529. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1990.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Jim Nashe is a fireman with a two-year-old daughter and wife who has just left him. Knowing he cannot work and raise a child at the same time, he sends her to live with his sister. Six months of sporadic visits pass and Nashe realizes that his daughter, Juliet, has begun to forget him. Suddenly, the father that abandoned Nashe as a child dies, leaving his son and daughter a large amount of money. Nashe, knowing that Juliet will be happier with her aunt, pays off all of his debts, buys a Saab and pursues "a life of freedom" by spending a year driving back and forth across the country.<br />His fortune now squandered, Nashe picks up a hot-headed young gambler named Jack Pozzi. The two hatch a plan to fleece a couple of wealthy bachelors in a poker game. Coincidently, the two marks, Flower and Stone, obtained their fortune by gambling (winning the lottery). In addition to purchasing a mansion, the two eccentrics also bought ten thousand stones, each weighing more than sixty pounds. The stones were from the ruins of a fifteenth-century Irish castle destroyed by Oliver Cromwell; Flower and Stone intend to use them to build a "Wailing Wall" in the meadow behind their mansion.<br />Unfortunately, Flower and Stone are not the suckers Pozzi takes them for and the plan backfires. Having run out of money Nashe decides to risk everything on "a single blind turn of a card" and puts up his car as collateral against the pot. He loses and the two indenture themselves to Flower and Stone as a way to pay back their debt. They will build the wall for Flower and Stone, a meaningless wall that nobody will ever see. For the rest of the novel, Flower and Stone are conspicuously absent. Nashe shrugs this off as fifty days of exercise, but Pozzi views it as nothing less than a violation of human decency.<br />The two men are watched over by Calvin Murks, the millionaires' tough but amiable hired man. When Pozzi takes a swing at Murks for cracking a joke about being too smart to play cards, Murks begins wearing a gun. Pozzi sees this as proof that he is nothing but a slave.<br />Even after the two men have completed working off their debt, the millionaires add on the charges the men have accrued as a result of living at the estate. Pozzi, convinced there is no way out of the contract, escapes the meadow. Nashe finds his young friend sprawled on the grass a day later, beaten into a coma. Murks claims innocence and takes Pozzi to a hospital while Nashe continues to work. Two weeks later, Murks tells Nashe that Pozzi checked himself out of the hospital and vanished, but Nashe is convinced that his friend died from his injuries.<br />Time passes, the wall grows and Nashe gets more and more obsessed with taking revenge on Murks, since Flower and Stone have become too distant to bear the immediacy of his hatred. When Nashe has completed enough work on the wall to pay off his debt, Murks and his son-in-law Floyd take Nashe out to celebrate. Nashe beats Floyd in a game of pool, but refuses the fifty dollars he has won; Floyd accepts this, saying that he owes Nashe a favor. Soon after, the three men pile into Murks's new car (Nashe's old Saab) with the slightly more sober Nashe behind the wheel. Nashe promptly takes the car up to eighty-five miles an hour and collides with another vehicle.<br /><b>Review:</b> There may be some doubt as to whether Paul Auster really means to be a novelist at all. Like Julian Barnes, though with infinitely greater success, he has used the form of the novel as a shell for intellectual speculation of one kind or another. His most brilliant effects have been achieved by his reworkings of the mystery in "The New York Trilogy," where the formalism of the genre also does much to specify the plot. Mr. Auster's latest novel, "The Music of Chance," seems however to have taken a picaresque model, whose form is less distinctly defined.<br />Jim Nashe, a Boston fireman, is catapulted into existential uncertainty by a couple of inadvertencies: his desertion by his wife, Therese, and the death of his estranged father, who leaves him a surprisingly sizable legacy. He sells all his possessions, parks his daughter, Juliette, with his sister's family in Minnesota, stocks his Saab with classical cassettes and takes to the road:<br />"Speed was of the essence, the joy of sitting in the car and hurtling himself forward through space. That became a good beyond all others, a hunger to be fed at any price. . . . As long as he was driving, he carried no burdens, was unencumbered by even the slightest particle of his former life. That is not to say that memories did not rise up in him, but they no longer seemed to bring any of the old anguish. Perhaps the music had something to do with that, the endless tapes of Bach and Mozart and Verdi that he listened to while sitting behind the wheel, as if the sounds were somehow emanating from him and drenching the landscape, turning the visible world into a reflection of his own thoughts. After three or four months, he had only to enter the car to feel that he was coming loose from his body, that once he put his foot down on the gas and started driving, the music would carry him into a realm of weightlessness."<br />All Nashe wants is to preserve this state of orbital nullity, which is inherently unstable and begins to decay as his money decreases. With $14,000 left in the stash in the Saab's glove compartment, he meets Jack Pozzi, a young and feckless down-on-his-luck gambler, who presents himself as "an opportunity in the shape of a human being, a card-playing specter whose one purpose in the world was to help Nashe win back his freedom." Nashe agrees to back Pozzi in a poker game against Bill Flower and Willie Stone, a couple of fabulously wealthy lottery winners, supposed to be easy marks.<br />This pair occasions the sort of tour de force of eccentricity and obsessionalism at which Mr. Auster most excels. During a tour of their baroque mansion in rural Pennsylvania, the fat and garrulous Flower, a former accountant, expatiates at length on the proposition that "numbers have souls" (so that what seems to be chance may not be at all), while the compact and monosyllabic Stone merely indicates the miniaturized City of the World that he is building, including replicas of his own house and minuscule figures of himself and his friend, and describes his plan to build a second model within the model, so creating an infinite recession.<br />There's something obscurely offensive to Nashe about "such extravagant smallness," and while the game is in progress he sneaks back and steals the miniatures of Flower and Stone. By chance or in consequence, Pozzi's luck fails; Nashe stakes the Saab on him and loses, then crashes $10,000 into debt on a single cut of the cards. Flower and Stone, whose model city includes images of both comical roguery and dire punishment, are not amiable about the situation. Nashe and Pozzi find themselves compelled to remain on the estate, hand-building a stone wall of Egyptian magnitude, working for an hourly rate until the debt is repaid.<br />The rest of the story revolves around Nashe's gradual recognition that by following the appealing rhythms of chance he has landed in a rigidly determined system: "Sometimes, powerless to stop himself, he even went so far as to imagine that he was already living inside the model. Flower and Stone would look down on him then, and he would suddenly be able to see himself through their eyes -- as if he were no larger than a thumb, a little gray mouse darting back and forth in his cage." Within this sinister predicament, Nashe is eventually able to regain the zero state he most desires, "for even the smallest zero was a great hole of nothingness, a circle large enough to contain the world."<br />Mr. Auster has succeeded admirably in dressing up this very abstract situation. But, diverging from the tactics of his earlier work, he has also tried to mix the unreality of Nashe, Flower and Stone with a more realistic portrayal of other characters, and here the results are less fortunate. Nashe's sometime girlfriend Fiona, a hooker called Tiffany and especially Pozzi are not rendered well enough to convince. Pozzi's monologues are shakily, inconsistently written and, unfortunately, too much hangs on his role as a credible and engaging picaro, for Nashe comes to see him as a sort of alter ego: "Once a man begins to recognize himself in another, he can no longer look on him as a stranger." So the failure of this characterization is a serious flaw.<br />The haphazard wandering of the plot, random as the path of Nashe's Saab, may be less problematic, since it can be justified by the title and subject, though the reader may miss the elegant formal recursions of "The New York Trilogy." Still, its rambling path does lead the book to a convincing statement of Mr. Auster's insistent theme that Nashe's identity, or anyone's, is not an innate quality or even a fixed one, but is instead a product of surrounding circumstance.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “For one whole year he did nothing but drive, traveling back and for the as he waited for the money to run out.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “And the light was upon him, and Nashe shut his eyes, unable to look at it anymore.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “You had to invent something. It's not possible to leave it blank. The mind<br /> won't let you.” <br /><b>Rating:</b> Awesomeabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-56533960857356954842013-02-19T15:17:00.001-08:002013-02-19T15:17:16.003-08:00528. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>History:</b> This novel was written in 2002. </div>
<b>Plot:</b> It begins with Lucy, on a night in 1921. She is the only child of an Anglo-Irish land owner on the coast of Cork County. It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned. The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village. When he fires a warning shot with his old rifle, he injures a boy in the shoulder. Out of fear, the family plans to move to England. Lucy is not told why her family wishes to move and longs for the house she was kept from and the sea close by. On the eve of their departure, she hides in the woods. Due to a series of events, her parents are led to believe that she drowned in the sea. <br />By the time she is discovered, her parents are gone. She thus gets what she wished for, to live in the house, being taken care of by the house servants turned caretaker-farmers. Lucy lives a very lonely life, reading books and keeping bees. She feels very guilty about running away and thus feels that she deserves her loneliness. When another character, Ralph, tries to relieve her of her sad life, she feels that she cannot let him love her without, one of the characters opines, getting forgiveness from her parents. Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken.<br />Having lost the love of her life, she forms a bond with the person who was wounded by her father. Lucy spends many years visiting the asylum where the person is incarcerated in his confusion and his silence. Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the Internet, and wonders what it is.<br /><b>Review:</b> "The story of" is a telling phrase for the title of this gravely beautiful, subtle and haunting Irish novel. It means not only what happens to Lucy Gault, but that what happened to her has become a story, first a local tale, told and retold, and then a legend, "waiting to pass into myth". And it's an ironic phrase, too, because no one in this quiet book is outspoken. Silence, secrets, muteness tell the loudest stories here.<br />To tell "the story of" the novel is to give it away, and readers who prefer to be startled when they read it should look away now: for this is the story (in its own rather formal, antiquated words) "of a great, and unexpected calamity". But it is also, over its 70-year spread, the story of how "calamity shaped a life".<br />It begins in the summer of 1921, in County Cork, during the Troubles, when the big houses of the Protestant landowners were being set on fire, caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army. This is the Ireland of Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September, where the isolated Anglo-Irish families saw their own and their neighbours' houses burn, and many of them left.<br />At Lahardane, Captain Everard Gault, a veteran of the great war, shoots at a group of intruders, and wounds one of them. A gentle character - "a simple man to whom a complicated thing has happened" - he is remorseful, not belligerent. He knows the family of the child he shot, an unstable boy called Horahan, whose life will shadow the Gaults for ever. He knows the bitter history of families like the Gaults in Ireland, of "the sins of the past", "the aspirations of the dispossessed ignored".<br />He and his wife Heloise (stoical daughter of an army widow) decide to abandon Lahardane to the care of Henry and Bridget, house-servants turned caretaker-farmers. But eight-year-old Lucy Gault, in love with her home, can't understand that the Gaults have to leave because "they don't want us here". She runs away, and, by a series of awful chances, is thought to have died. The parents leave for a nomadic life in Europe. Lucy returns, and is looked after by Henry and Bridget, while the local solicitor (very well done, like all Trevor's anxious, small-town professionals) tries, for years, to track down the Gaults.<br />Lucy Gault's strange, isolated life, a sleeping beauty in the Big House, reading all the old novels, wearing her mother's white dresses, cut off from the ordinary life of the nearby seaside town (a fictional Youghal), is intercut with the futile wanderings of her parents, "playing at being dead". Unable to talk about the past, they take what consolation they can in Italian art and life, and are tremendously, tenderly careful with each other.<br />Like them, Lucy suffers from terrible remorse. In the novel's heartbreaking middle section, she falls in love, but refuses happiness: she feels her life has to be on hold unless and until she is forgiven. Her love-scenes with Ralph, a poignant figure, are made up of negatives: "They would not have met if he had not lost his way: Lucy tried to think of that, of their never meeting, of not knowing that Ralph existed. It seemed to her that he had come out of nowhere, and she wondered if when he left Lahardane he would return to nowhere and not come back. She would never forget him."<br />Every sentence they speak has a "not" or a "never" in it: "I never want to go." "I could never not love you." Ralph's desperate letters are the only utterances that try to break through the silences in the book. After her accident, the child Lucy - like the traumatised child in Trevor's novella "My House in Umbria" - is unable to speak. Her parents live their exiled lives imprisoned by "what must not be spoken of".<br />When Ralph marries, he never tells his wife about Lucy, and when her father returns, they don't talk of her loss: "None of that was ever said." Henry, the cow-farmer, has the most undemonstrative face in the county: "More goes on in a ham," someone remarks of him. As a child, Lucy learns deaf-and-dumb language from a fisherman, and that's what these characters speak in.<br />Lucy's farewell to Ralph has the same heart-tearing quality as the loss of the beloved in Trevor's great novella, "Reading Turgenev", or in The Silence in the Garden, set in the same kind of past-haunted house. In all these stories, as it says in "Reading Turgenev", "only love matters in the bits and pieces of a person's life".<br />However, Lucy's renunciation isn't the end, or even the point, of the story. After the war, Everard Gault returns, just too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken. But in middle age, Lucy finds an unexpected resource. The Gaults' story has kept pace with the dark delusions of the boy who was shot, Horahan, who believes that he did set fire to the house and kill the child.<br />It looks as if this may turn out to be one of Trevor's ghoulish scenarios, of a maniac stalking his prey, as in Felicia's Journey. But The Story of Lucy Gault is, in the end, about consolation, not destruction. Lucy becomes a sort of Protestant saint, and spends many years visiting the asylum where Horahan is incarcerated in his confusion and his silence: like so many others in this story, he is "the man who didn't want to speak".<br />Both of them are victims of Ireland's politics. The inextricable link between the Catholic boy brought up to be a revolutionary and the isolated Protestant girl, both "petrified" in their past, could be read - if Trevor was that sort of explicit commentator - as metaphors for a colonial history. Certainly their fates are set against the changing, ordinary, vigorous life of the little town (scene of so many Trevor short stories), which is briskly moving into the 21st century.<br />Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the internet, and wonders what it is. Hers is an Ireland of keening fishermen, ruined graveyards, and John McCormack singing "Down by the Salley Gardens", not of tourism, dotcom businesses, real estate, and the euro. She is living in the past - and perhaps her author, long absent from Ireland, could be reproached for that, too.<br />This has a different tone from that other wonderful recent novel of provincial rural Ireland, John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun. McGahern is bleaker and darker, less romantic, than William Trevor. There are fewer consolations for his characters, and they have to live in the present. Like so much of Trevor's work, this is a story of the past, of memory, and of how time works.<br />Time is the destroyer: "Time has settled our hash for us," Captain Everard says to Horahan. "The past was the enemy." But time is also the appeaser: "What happened simply did", Lucy comes to accept. A woman who "should have died as a child" outlives and survives what happened to her. "Instead of nothing there is what there is." Story turns into legend, as in the Gault family graveyard, now long overgrown: "Only the myths would linger, the stories that were told."<br /><b>Opening Line: </b> Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “Her companions, while she watches the fading of the day.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “Memories can be everything if we choose to make them so. But you are right: you mustn't do that. That is for me, and I shall do it.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Okayabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-84393492326504072422013-02-19T14:50:00.000-08:002013-02-19T14:50:38.706-08:00527. Absalom, Absalom – William Faulkner <b>History:</b> This book was published in 1936. The title refers to the Biblical story of Absalom, a son of David who rebelled against his father (then King of Kingdom of Israel) and who was killed by David's general Joab in violation of David's order to deal gently with his son, causing heartbreak to David. The title derives specifically from David's anguished outcry: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Another parallel to the Biblical story is that Absalom had his half-brother executed for raping Tamar, his sister. Faulkner's novel substitutes a seduction for the rape.<br />The 1983 Guinness Book of World Records claims the "Longest Sentence in Literature" is a sentence from Absalom, Absalom! containing 1,288 words. The sentence can be found in Chapter 6; it begins with the words 'Just exactly like father', and ends with 'the eye could not see from any point'. The passage is entirely italicised and incomplete.<br />Faulkner's short story "Wash" tells the story of the birth of Sutpen's illegitimate daughter to Wash Jones' granddaughter, and of Jones' murder of Sutpen, and then his own granddaughter, and his great-granddaughter (whereupon he sets fire to the house the mother and child are in).<br /><b>Plot:</b> Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who comes to Mississippi with the complementary aims of becoming rich and a powerful family patriarch. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard University, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in non-chronological order and often with differing details, resulting in a peeling-back-the-onion way of revealing the true story of the Sutpens to the reader. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen’s. Quentin's father then fills in some of the details to Quentin, as well. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen's story.<br />Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. Sutpen obtains one hundred square miles of land from a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen’s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man’s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined for tragedy.<br />Henry goes to the University of Mississippi and meets a fellow student named Charles Bon, who is ten years his senior. Henry brings Charles home for Christmas, where Charles and Judith begin a quiet romance that leads to a presumed engagement. However, Thomas Sutpen realizes that Charles Bon is his son from an earlier marriage and moves to stop the proposed union.<br />Sutpen had worked on a plantation in the French West Indies as the overseer and, after subduing a slave uprising, was offered the hand of the plantation owner's daughter, Eulalia Bon, who bore him a son, Charles. Sutpen had not known that Eulalia was of mixed race until after the marriage and birth of Charles, but when he found out he had been deceived, he renounced the marriage as void and left his wife and child (though leaving them his fortune as part of his own moral recompense). The reader also later learns of Sutpen's childhood, where young Thomas learned that society could base human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas' plan to start a dynasty.<br />Henry, possibly because of his own potentially (and mutually) incestuous feelings for his sister, as well as quasi-romantic feelings for Charles himself, is keen to see the two wed (allowing him to imagine himself as surrogate for both). When Sutpen tells Henry that Charles is his half-brother and that Judith must not be allowed to marry him, Henry refuses to believe, repudiates his birthright, and accompanies Charles to his home in New Orleans. They then return to Mississippi to enlist in their University company where they join the Confederate Army and fight in the Civil War. During the war, Henry wrestles with his conscience until he presumably resolves to allow the marriage of half-brother and sister; this resolution changes, however, when Sutpen reveals to Henry that Charles is part black. At the conclusion of the war, Henry enacts his father's interdiction of marriage between Charles and Judith, killing Charles at the gates to the mansion and then fleeing into self-exile.<br />Thomas Sutpen returns from the war and begins to repair his home, whose hundred square miles have been reduced by carpetbaggers and punitive northern action to one, and dynasty. He proposes to Rosa Coldfield, his dead wife's younger sister, and she accepts. However, Sutpen insults Rosa by demanding that she bear him a son before the wedding takes place prompting her to leave Sutpen's Hundred. Sutpen then begins an affair with Milly, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of Wash Jones, a squatter who lives on the Sutpen property. The affair continues until Milly becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter. Sutpen is terribly disappointed, because the last hope of repairing his Sutpen dynasty rested on whether Milly gave birth to a son. Sutpen casts Milly and the child aside, telling them that they are not worthy of sleeping in the stables with his horse, who had just sired a male. An enraged Wash Jones kills Sutpen, his own granddaughter and Sutpen's newborn daughter, and is in turn killed by the posse that arrives to arrest him.<br />The story of Thomas Sutpen's legacy ends with Quentin taking Rosa back to the seemingly abandoned Sutpen’s Hundred plantation, where they find Henry Sutpen and Clytie, herself the daughter of Thomas Sutpen by a slave woman. Henry has returned to the estate to die. Three months later, when Rosa returns with medical help for Henry, Clytie starts a fire that consumes the plantation and kills Henry and herself. The only remaining Sutpen is Jim Bond, Charles Bon's black grandson, a young man with severe mental handicaps, who remains on Sutpen's Hundred.<br /><b>Review: </b> Like other Faulkner novels, Absalom, Absalom! allegorizes Southern history; the title itself is an allusion to a wayward son fighting the empire his father built. The history of Thomas Sutpen mirrors the rise and fall of Southern plantation culture. Sutpen's failures necessarily reflect the weaknesses of an idealistic South. Rigidly committed to his "design," Sutpen proves unwilling to honor his marriage to a part-black woman, setting in motion his own destruction. Discussing Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner stated that the curse under which the South labors is slavery, and Thomas Sutpen's personal curse, or flaw, was his belief that he was too strong to need to be a part of the human family. These two curses combined to ruin Sutpen.<br />Absalom, Absalom! juxtaposes ostensible fact, informed guesswork, and outright speculation, with the implication that reconstructions of the past remain irretrievable and therefore imaginative. Faulkner, however, stated that although none of the narrators got the facts right, since "no one individual can look at truth," there is a truth and the reader can ultimately know it. While many critics have tried to reconstruct the truth behind the shifting narratives, or to show that such a reconstruction cannot be done with certainty or even that there are factual and logical inconsistencies that cannot be overcome, some critics have stated that, fictional truth being an oxymoron, it is best to take the story as a given, and regard it on the level of myth and archetype, a fable that allows us to glimpse the deepest levels of the unconscious and thus better understand the people who accept (and are ruled by) that myth—Southerners in general and Quentin Compson in particular.<br />By using various narrators expressing their interpretations, the novel alludes to the historical cultural zeitgeist of Faulkner's South, where the past is always present and constantly in states of revision by the people who tell and retell the story over time; it thus also explores the process of myth-making and the questioning of truth.<br />The use of Quentin Compson as the primary perspective (if not exactly the focus) of the novel makes it something of a companion piece to Faulkner's earlier work The Sound and the Fury, which tells the story of the Compson Family, with Quentin as one of the main characters. Although the action of that novel is never explicitly referenced, the Sutpen family's struggle with dynasty, downfall, and potential incest parallel the familial events and obsessions that drive Quentin (??) and Miss Rosa Coldfield to witness the burning of Sutpen's Hundred.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “From a little after two o’clock until almost sundown on the long, still, hot, weary, dead afternoon, they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father called it that.”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “I don’t hate it.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Awesomeabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-37860948491305957512013-02-19T14:38:00.000-08:002013-02-19T14:38:00.525-08:00526. The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall <b>History:</b> Published in 1928, he novel became the target of a campaign by James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express newspaper, who wrote "I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel." Although its only sexual reference consists of the words "and that night, they were not divided", a British court judged it obscene because it defended "unnatural practices between women". In the United States the book survived legal challenges in New York State and in Customs Court.<br />Publicity over The Well's legal battles increased the visibility of lesbians in British and American culture.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-4"></a> For decades it was the best-known lesbian novel in English, and often the first source of information about lesbianism that young people could find. Some readers have valued it, while others have criticized it for Stephen's expressions of self-hatred and seen it as inspiring shame.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-6"></a> Its role in promoting images of lesbians as "mannish" or cross-dressed women has also been controversial. Some critics now argue that Stephen should be seen as transsexual.<br />In 1926, Radclyffe Hall was at the height of her career. Her novel Adam's Breed, about the spiritual awakening of an Italian headwaiter, had become a bestseller; it would soon win the Prix Femina and theJames Tait Black Prize. She had long thought of writing a novel about sexual inversion; now, she believed, her literary reputation would allow such a work to be given a hearing. Since she knew she was risking scandal and "the shipwreck of her whole career", she sought and received the blessing of her partner, Una Troubridge, before she began work.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-9"></a> Her goals were social and political; she wanted to end public silence about homosexuality and bring about "a more tolerant understanding" – as well as to "spur all classes of inverts to make good through hard work ... and sober and useful living".<br />In April 1928 she told her editor that her new book would require complete commitment from its publisher and that she would not allow even one word to be altered. "I have put my pen at the service of some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people in the world .... So far as I know nothing of the kind has ever been attempted before in fiction.<br /><b>Plot: </b>The book's protagonist, Stephen Gordon, is born in the late Victorian era<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-13"></a> to upper-class parents in Worcestershire who are expecting a boy and who christen her with the boy's name they had already chosen. Even at birth she is physically unusual, a "narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered little tadpole of a baby". As a girl she hates dresses, wants to cut her hair short, and longs to be a boy. At seven, she develops a crush on a housemaid named Collins, and is devastated when she sees Collins kissing a footman. <br />Stephen's father, Sir Phillip, dotes on her; he seeks to understand her through the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first modern writer to propose a theory of homosexuality, but does not share his findings with Stephen. Her mother, Lady Anna, is distant, seeing Stephen as a "blemished, unworthy, maimed reproduction" of Sir Phillip.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-16"></a> At eighteen, Stephen forms a close friendship with a Canadian man, Martin Hallam, but is horrified when he declares his love for her. The following winter, Sir Phillip is crushed by a falling tree; at the last moment he tries to explain to Lady Anna that Stephen is an invert, but dies without managing to do so.<br />Stephen begins to dress in masculine clothes made by a tailor rather than a dressmaker. At twenty-one she falls in love with Angela Crossby, the American wife of a new neighbor. Angela uses Stephen as an "anodyne against boredom", allowing her "a few rather schoolgirlish kisses". Then Stephen discovers that Angela is having an affair with a man. Fearing exposure, Angela shows a letter from Stephen to her husband, who sends a copy to Stephen's mother. Lady Anna denounces Stephen for "presum[ing] to use the word love in connection with ... these unnatural cravings of your unbalanced mind and undisciplined body." Stephen replies, "As my father loved you, I loved ... It was good, good, good – I'd have laid down my life a thousand times over for Angela Crossby." After the argument, Stephen goes to her father's study and for the first time opens his locked bookcase. She finds a book by Krafft-Ebing – assumed by critics to be Psychopathia Sexualis, a text about homosexuality and paraphilias <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness#cite_note-19"></a> – and, reading it, learns that she is an invert.<br />Stephen moves to London and writes a well-received first novel. Her second novel is less successful, and her friend the playwright Jonathan Brockett, himself an invert, urges her to travel to Paris to improve her writing through a fuller experience of life. There she makes her first, brief contact with urban invert culture, meeting the lesbian salon hostess Valérie Seymour. During World War I she joins an ambulance unit, eventually serving at the front and earning the Croix de Guerre. She falls in love with a younger fellow driver, Mary Llewellyn, who comes to live with her after the war ends. They are happy at first, but Mary becomes lonely when Stephen returns to writing. Rejected by polite society, Mary throws herself into Parisian gay nightlife. Stephen believes Mary is becoming hardened and embittered and feels powerless to provide her with "a more complete and normal existence".<br />Martin Hallam, now living in Paris, rekindles his old friendship with Stephen. In time, he falls in love with Mary. Persuaded that she cannot give Mary happiness, Stephen pretends to have an affair with Valérie Seymour to drive her into Martin's arms. The novel ends with Stephen's plea to God: "Give us also the right to our existence!"<br /><b>Review:</b> A lesbian novel was banned after official medical advice that it would encourage female homosexuality and lead to 'a social and national disaster'.<br />In 1928 Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, which got no more racy than 'she kissed her full on the lips like a lover', led to an obscenity trial which considered the implications of the national shortage of men and 'two women in bed making beasts of themselves'.<br />Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, his Chancellor, Winston Churchill, and Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks went to great lengths to suppress the book.<br />Hall, a flamboyant lesbian, wrote The Well of Loneliness to 'put my pen at the service of some of the most misunderstood people in the world'. She attended the trial in November 1928 dressed in a leather driving coat and Spanish riding hat. Sir Chartres Biron, the chief magistrate at Bow Street, ruled that the novel was an 'obscene libel' and all copies should be destroyed. Its publisher, Jonathan Cape, launched an appeal which proved abortive.<br />Documents show how Sir Archibald Bodkin, Director of Public Prosecutions, feared that the publisher would mobilise eminent writers to defend the book. He wrote to several doctors asking for a clinical analysis of what he called 'homo-sexualists'. In a letter to one of them, Sir Farquhar Buzzard, he explained: 'I want to be able to call some gentleman of undoubted knowledge, experience and position who could inform the court of the results to those unfortunate women (as I deem them) who have proclivities towards lesbianism, or those wicked women (as I deem them) who voluntarily indulge in these practices - results destructive morally, physically and even perhaps mentally.'<br />To Dr J.A. Hadfield of Harley Street, he wrote that a large amount of curiosity had been excited among women, 'and I am afraid in many cases curiosity may lead to imitation and indulgence in practices which are believed to be somewhat extensive having regard to the very large excess in numbers of women over men.'<br />Bodkin got the testimony he wanted from Sir William Henry Willcox, consulting medical adviser to the Home Office and physician at St Mary's Hospital in London. '[Lesbianism] is well known to have a debasing effect on those practising it, which is mental, moral and physical in character,' he said. 'It leads to gross mental illness, nervous instability, and in some cases to suicide in addicts to this vice. It is a vice which, if widespread, becomes a danger to the well-being of a nation ...'<br />Publication of the book, he said, would risk its being read 'by a large number of innocent persons, who might out of pure curiosity be led to discuss openly and possibly practise the form of vice described'. The book was finally released in Britain in 1949, after Hall's death.<br /><b>Opening Line: </b> “Not very far from Upton-on-Severn - between it, in fact, and the Malvern Hills- stands the country seat of the Gordons of Bramley, well timbered, well cottaged well fenced and well watered, having, in this latter respect, a stream that forks in the exactly the right position to feed two large lakes on the grounds.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “ God give us also the right to our existance.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that by seeing nothing it might avoid Truth. ”<br /><b>Rating: </b>Very Goodabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-80903710506026807042013-01-29T09:06:00.003-08:002013-01-29T09:06:45.376-08:00525. England Made Me – Graham Greene <b>History:</b> This book was first published in 1935, and was republished as "The Shipwrecked" in 1953.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_Made_Me_(novel)#cite_note-2"></a><br /><b>Plot:</b> Anthony is a ne’er-do-well and a rake who has been a failure at one job after another all over the world. Anthony has a very close relationship, which borders on incest, with his twin sister, Kate. Kate is the personal secretary and mistress to Erik Krogh, a wealthy Swedish businessman. Through Kate’s influence, Anthony obtains a job as Krogh’s bodyguard.<br />Krogh is ruthless and amoral in his pursuit of more wealth and power. A central theme of this book is internationalism. Krogh has no allegiance to any country. His only loyalty is to himself and his fortune. There is a good bit of talk in this novel about how nations and borders will be a thing of the past in the modern world with quick travel by airplane and instant communication by telephone and radio.<br />Krogh is engaged in all kinds of shady business deals to sell worthless stock and defraud shareholders. Krogh also lies to a labor union leader to avoid a strike and then frames the man for wrongdoing and ruins his reputation before firing him. Krogh’s closest thing to a friend is Hall, who has known Krogh since they were both poor young men. Although Krogh has treated Hall badly through the years, Hall is fanatically loyal to Krogh and would do anything for him. Just as Anthony and Kate’s relationship borders on the incestuous, Hall’s infatuation with Krogh borders on the homoerotic.<br />Ferdinand Minty, an expatriot Englishman who is employed as a reporter by a Swedish newspaper. Minty is eccentric. He lives in a seedy tenement and wears a wrinkled old coat and suit. He is a sadist who tortures a spider by watching it under a glass until it dies. He constantly refers to himself in the third person and is a diehard Anglo-Catholic who is constantly praying to obscure saints. Minty is an alumnus of Harrow, the English public school. When he sees Anthony wearing a Harrow school tie and begins to ask him questions, Minty almost immediately recognizes Anthony as a fraud. Minty’s assignment from his editor is to report on Erik Krogh, so Minty offers to bribe Anthony to leak information to him.<br />Anthony is appalled by Krogh’s amoral business practices and decides to leak the information to Minty and then return to England where he plans to have a true relationship with his current mistress whom, up to now, he has used merely as a sex object. When Anthony leaks that Krogh is planning to marry Kate, Krogh realizes that Anthony is about to ruin his reputation and wants to prevent Anthony returning to England. Hall engineers a late night poker game to attempt to have Anthony run up large gambling debts and be unable to leave Sweden. After being foiled in this plan because Anthony already has tickets to sail to England, Hall murders Anthony whose death is made to look like an accident.<br /><b>Review: </b> In retrospect, the premise that nationalism is on the way out is kind of laughable for a novel published in 1935, two years after Hitler took power in Germany in 1933 and four years before the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939. However, it's no more laughable than reading things published in the 1990s after the Soviet Union fell that opined that we had entered a new era of world peace and prosperity.<br />If England made Anthony Farrant she couldn't have been very proud of her job, and unless Graham Greene has a grudge against England we fail to see much point to his title. For the Anthony Farrants are ubiquitous, they are indigenous to every land, and go their small, pestiferous way at one period of history as well as another. Not sufficiently honest with themselves to be real criminals, they are none the less predatory. Every business house knows the type, and when it is unfortunate enough to have hired such a one it gets rid of him as quickly as possible. It may, of course, seem that a rat would not make much of a hero for a novel; but then, novels aren't what they used to be. Or is it that readers aren't? Futility appears nowadays to be as fruitful a subject for the novelist's pen as success was formerly. And perhaps it is better so, for if one becomes sufficiently bored with the presentation of futility one may be moved to try to amount to something, though merely for the sake of being different. Hence, in "England Made Me" Mr. Greene may be covertly preaching a sermon.<br />Anthony Farrant was probably not born bad, he may even have had less of the Old Adam in him than most. But he never grew up. At the age of 30 or thereabouts, after he had been sacked in half the mercantile centres of the world -- Singapore, Hongkong, Calcutta, to say nothing of London, Paris and Amsterdam -- he was just as ingratiating and just as unable to distinguish between right and wrong as when a child. His sister Kate preceded him into life by half an hour, and she has all the traits he lacks: stamina, stability, loyalty. And this, the author would have us believe, explains the obsession she labors under that she can transfer these qualities from herself to him -- to use a trite expression, make a man of him. In the end Tony, going down to another, and this time final, defeat, brings about Kate's disillusionment.<br />In an earlier period of history Kate Farrant would have been the mistress of a king, for it is neither love nor wealth which motivates her but lust for power. But kings being out of date, and industry and finance in the saddle, she accedes to the wishes of Krogh of Krogh's, whose branches circle the globe and whose stock manipulations have made, and can break, millions of holders. But -- a bit of psychology to be noted -- Kate does not desire power for herself. Anthony, sacked again ("resigned" he had written her), is on is way back to England, and she wants this hold on Krogh that her brother may be provided for. Not, however, as a mere parasite; she insists that Tony be given a job. She herself is not a mere parasite but Krogh's confidential secretary, for although the headquarters of the firm is in Stockholm, the business is conducted in English. Just before Anthony arrives -- Kate's meeting him in a small English port is one of the most effective short scenes in the book -- Krogh had been frightened by a Socialist demonstration, so he takes on Anthony as his bodyguard.<br />Mr. Greene in "England Made Me," as should be evident by this time, might have contented himself with writing only a melodrama. Had he done so the story would have been less good than it is. On the other hand, as seen in Kate's obsession about her worthless brother, and especially in her acceptance of a loveless relationship solely for the purpose of establishing and advancing him, the author's aspirations to be a novelist of psychological discernment are manifest. Had he been able to carry his psychology deeper and further the book would be more impressive. Graham Greene sees implications which he realizes will immensely strengthen the story but seems on the whole not to be able to work them out convincingly. The central spring of all which subsequently takes place is the mental relation between Krogh and Anthony immediately the two have come together. This is imagined with considerable subtlety, and is, we believe, something few novelists have used, although one has but to look about to perceive instances of it.<br />If one wished to go back to the ancients, one would say that Tony discovers the Achilles' heel of the great man. Up from peasant beginnings, Krogh can be powerful only so long as he is impersonal, cold, ruthless. Once he can be made in any part of his life to acknowledge silently within himself an inferiority to others, once he drops his role of Jove to become human, he will start to disintegrate. And Tony, who is as genial as such lesser scoundrels always are, suddenly finds the great man putty in his hands. Krogh permits Anthony to drag him from the opera to a music hall, he lets him buy his suits and ties, he permits him to plead for a discharged workman. To be sure, the disintegrating process might have been long drawn out, and it makes for action in the story to have Tony discover on his sister's desk confidential information which he can make use of to blackmail Krogh.<br />The firm, for all its glittering exterior, is crumbling within. Krogh has been forced to short-term loans, and to sell the stock of one subsidiary to another in order to put through an American deal. There are also pre-dated checks. A cynical touch, for "England Made Me" is often both cynical and sinister, is Krogh's offer of marriage to Kate. "Because a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband?" she queries. And without compunction he acknowledges the correctness of her diagnosis.<br />There is one other character to be mentioned -- Hall, of the Amsterdam office. Associated with Krogh from the latter's humble start, he is the faithful retainer to whom all the dirty work is entrusted. It is Hall who engineers the sale of the subsidiary company in such a manner that it shall appear a genuine transaction. It is Hall who flies to Stockholm when Krogh, suspicious of Tony, and also afraid of his growing power over him, sends for the faithful henchman. And the riddance is complete, and Kate, her work for Tony finished, her dream for him broken, goes marching on, out of Krogh's, out of the book, a tarnished figure, though one is not without some respect for her.<br />Too often the author of "England Made Me" seems to be shadow-boxing, not delivering the full punch. But the story is skillfully fabricated, and the suspense so well maintained that any one who starts it is certain to go to the end.<br />In typical Greene fashion, the seedy antihero wrestles with his conscience as murky moral dilemmas begin to trouble even his disreputable soul.<br />A strong theme is the questionably close bond between the main protagonist, the always ineffectual Anthony, and his twin sister Kate. Her life as secretary and live-in mistress to the crooked tycoon, Krogh, who is no great lover, absorbs her time and energy but leaves her emotionally unfulfilled. By getting Anthony to Stockholm and on Krogh’s payroll, she is looking for a much closer relationship with her charming, unreliable and totally broke brother. His failure to respond, and the unhappy ending, leaves her in an even worse position as Krogh’s artificial empire threatens to unravel.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “She might have been waiting for her lover.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “the missal in the cupboard, the Madonna, the spider withering under the glass, a home from home.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “Tuesday is always a tiring day for me.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Not as good as other Graham Greene novels.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-39028185536344875492013-01-16T18:54:00.000-08:002013-01-16T18:54:43.557-08:00524. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor<b>History:</b> This book was published in 1994.<br /><b>Plot:</b> After taking a ferry to England and beginning a hopeless search to find the lawnmower factory in Birmingham where she believes Johnny now works, Felicia encounters an older man, Joseph Hilditch, a catering manager at a factory, who is also the son of Gala, an eccentric TV chef who enjoyed fame in past decades. Hilditch regularly watches the old programmes of his presumably-deceased mother while he cooks her recipes, and collects material about his mother. Hilditch offers to help Felicia, however, his motives for doing so are initially unclear, and it is subsequently suggested through flashback sequences that he has in the past befriended but then turned on vulnerable young women. He refers Felicia to a Bed and Breakfast and offers to drive her to a factory that he suggests could be the one she is looking for, which is on the way to the hospital where the unmarried Hilditch claims he is going to visit his wife. Felicia fails to find Johnny at the factory, but while she is out of the car, Hilditch goes through her bags and steals her money. Subsequently Felicia comes across a Jamaican Christian witnessee who offers Felicia a free overnight stay at a church home. While staying at the hostel, Felicia discovers that her money has gone, and after appearing to accuse others at the home of stealing the money, flees the hostel for Hilditch's house.<br />Hilditch has meanwhile discovered Johnny's whereabouts, in the barracks where he is still serving with the army, but does not disclose this to Felicia. He does however tell her that his wife has died, and that she suggested that Felicia abort her unborn child. After the abortion, which Hilditch pays for, he takes her back to his house and gives her an overdose of sleeping pills. While digging out in his garden, the Jamaican Christian parishioner and a new convert enter his yard and begin to preach about Jesus. Hilditch feels flashes of guilt and confesses that he did, in fact, steal and cheat Felicia. Upstairs in the house, Felicia awakens from her sleep and struggles down the stairs. Hilditch finds her trying to escape the house, but allows her to leave. He later walks to his kitchen, where he hangs himself with a pair of tights.<br /><b>Review: </b> The most disturbing novels about murderers are the ones where the reader inhabits the killer's mind and comes to know and, in a sense, understand him. Such is the case with `Felicia's Journey', a novel that treads a very fine line between sympathy and disgust for both main characters, Felicia, a young girl looking for the father of her unborn child and Mr. Hilditch, a refined and courteous catering manager, who sets about to befriend her. Her initial innocence and snivelling about her condition, though understandable, is grating, while the friendly and gentle Mr. Hilditch, although we (and Felicia) should know better, is the more interesting and thoughtful character. What's at once troubling and fascinating about the novel is this general lack of sympathy for Felicia and the feeling that Hilditch just `can't be that bad.' I'm sure Trevor has constructed the narrative this way in order to unsettle the reader, and it works. I can't divulge one of the most intriguing aspects of the novel, other than to say, growing self-awareness is not always a good thing. I'm reminded of Hannibal Lecter, another likable bad boy. However, Lecter is great fantasy while Mr. Hilditch is the much more realistic and believable character. You know he's living just around the corner. This novel is beautifully written and unusual in every sense.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “She keeps being sick.”<br /><b>Closing Line: </b> “She turns her hands so that the sun may catch them differently, and slightly lifts her head to warm the other side of her face.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> "Hidden away, the people of the streets drift into sleep induced by alcohol or agitated by despair, into dreams that carry them back to the lives that once were theirs. They lie with their begging notices still beside them, with enough left of a bottle to ease the waking moment, with pavement cigarette butts to hand."<br /><b>Rating:</b> Good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-66629504724123554422013-01-16T18:06:00.000-08:002013-01-16T18:06:36.927-08:00523. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho <b>History:</b> This book was written in 1998.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Veronica is a beautiful young woman from Ljubljana, Slovenia who appears to have the perfect life, but nevertheless decides to commit suicide by ingesting too many sleeping pills. While she waits to die, she decides to read a magazine.<br />After seeing an article in the magazine which wittily asks "Where is Slovenia?," she decides to write a letter to the press justifying her suicide, the idea being to make the press believe that she has killed herself because people don't even know where Slovenia is. Her plan fails and she wakes up in Villete, a mental hospital in Slovenia, where she is told she has a week to live.<br />Her presence there affects all of the mental hospital's patients, especially Zedka, who has clinical depression; Mari, who suffers from panic attacks; and Eduard, who has schizophrenia, and with whom Veronika falls in love. During her internment in Villete she realises that she has nothing to lose and can therefore do what she wants, say what she wants and be who she wants without having to worry about what others think of her; as a mental patient, she is unlikely to be criticized. Because of this newfound freedom Veronika experiences all the things she never allowed herself to experience, including hatred and love.<br />In the meantime, Villete's head psychiatrist, Dr. Igor, attempts a fascinating but provocative experiment: can you "shock" someone into wanting to live by convincing her that death is imminent? Like a doctor applying defibrillator paddles to a heart attack victim, Dr. Igor's "prognosis" jump-starts Veronika's new appreciation of the world around her.<br /><b>Review:</b> Veronika does decide to die, but it doesn’t mean she succeeds. Somehow she wakes up to find herself inside a mental institution and the knowledge that she has damaged her heart so badly that she only has a few days left to live. Veronika is now faced with the prospect of ‘waiting’ for death; a much different approach to the whole thing, but nevertheless she still gets her initial wish. However, as the days shorten and her resolve wans, Veronika starts seeing life in a different light. Existence begins to bother her, the beauty of nature shines through the grey Ljubljana mornings, when suddenly one day Veronika wakes up and realises with horror that things are changing inside her… that in the face of death, her survival instincts have begun to take hold.<br />This was the first Coelho book I ever read, and like all his books it is simple to read. Coelho doesn’t overcloud or embellish his words unnecessarily. Instead, the focus of the book is firmly upon Veronika and her feelings, which in this case, are actually quite complex. To begin a story with a suicide attempt is a sure-fire way of gaining your readers attention, as Coelho well knows. But it is Veronika’s progress as a lost young woman trying to find her niche in the world that drew my attention. Coelho’s efforts to document these psychological transitions are admirable. I often found myself thinking that if I were in her place, that’s exactly how I would feel/ think/ act.<br />‘Veronika Decides To Die‘ is not such a long book. It weighs in at about 200 pages, but it does make one feel grateful to be alive. This is a book I would recommend to anyone who has ever thought of suicide. I believe it has the power to draw many people away from that dark thought. Existence is a gift. Whether one thinks it is holy or not is entirely up to them, but life really is a blessing, a miracle, a cosmic phenomenon. Coelho points out in his novel that a change in perspective, no matter how slight or dramatic, can often tie a falling person tighter to the thread of life.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “On November 11, 1997 Veronika decided the moment to kill herself had at last arrived.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “He would leave the reports on the building’s the lack of security until later.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”<br />“Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Philosophically Good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-45363615407577206292013-01-16T17:45:00.001-08:002013-01-16T17:45:23.176-08:00522. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe <b>History:</b> This book was published in the UK by Viking Press in April 1994.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Godfrey, son of the wealthy Matthew and Frances Winshaw of Yorkshire, is shot down by German anti-aircraft fire during a secret wartime mission over Berlin, on 30 November 1942. His sister Tabitha alleges that he was betrayed by their brother Lawrence, but no-one believes her, and she is committed to a mental institution. Nineteen years later, after a party to mark the 50th birthday of their other brother Mortimer, Lawrence is attacked in the night by an intruder, but survives, killing the intruder in the process. The intruder, a middle aged man, remains unidentified.<br />Later, in the 1980s, a young novelist, Michael Owen, is commissioned to write a history of the Winshaw family, receiving a generous stipend from Tabitha Winshaw to do so. He works on this on and off, but with no deadline or pressure to complete, the project stagnates and Michael becomes reclusive, staying in his London flat watching videotapes of old films – in particular the 1961 British comedy What a Carve Up! starring Kenneth Connor, Shirley Eaton and Sid James. He emerges back into society, and resumes his interest in the project, following a visit from a neighbour, Fiona, seeking sponsorship for a 40-mile bicycle ride.<br />The novel focuses by turns on the various figures in the Winshaw family: the lazy, hypocritical, populist tabloid newspaper columnist Hilary, the ambitious and ruthless career politician Henry, the brutal chicken and pork farmer Dorothy, the predatory art-gallery owner and art dealer Roderick (Roddy), the investment bankerThomas, and the arms dealer Mark. In each of these sections the novel depicts the way in which actions by individuals from the same family, serving their own greedy interests, have distressing and far-reaching consequences.<br />Michael's renewed interest in the Winshaws coincides with the appearance in his life of Findlay Onyx, a private detective hired by Tabitha to pursue the mystery of whether or not Lawrence was complicit in Godfrey's death. Michael develops a warm, but platonic, relationship with Fiona. She suffers from the symptoms of some mysterious illness, but her consultations are constantly delayed, or her records are misplaced, by underresourced health service professionals. She is eventually admitted to hospital, but because treatment was not administered soon enough, she dies shortly after New Year, 1991.<br />Very soon afterwards Michael is surprised to be invited by Mortimer Winshaw's solicitor, Everett Sloane, to attend the reading of Mortimer's will at the remotely located Winshaw Towers in Yorkshire. Until this point he believes he was invited to write the history by chance, but as events transpire he is more deeply related to the family than he realizes. He attends the reading of the will along with the artist Phoebe, one of Roddy's conquests and lately Mortimer's personal nurse. The family members learn that they will inherit nothing from Mortimer but his debts. As the night progresses events begin to shadow those of the film of What a Carve Up! more and more, with the various members of the family meeting violent deaths that accord with their professional sins. It is the night that allied warplanes embark on the bombing of Iraq following Saddam Hussain's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It is revealed that Michael is the son of Godfrey's surviving co-pilot, who was also Lawrence's mystery attacker. The following morning Tabitha ensures that she is piloting Hilary Winshaw's seaplane to take Michael home, but deliberately destroys the plane, killing them both.<br /><b>Review:</b> Michael Owen, the narrator of alternate sections of What a Carve Up!and the apparent author of those parts written in the third person, has been a fan of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes stories in his youth. When he visits Findlay Onyx, the elderly, camp private detective who has befriended him, he notices that his Islington bedsit is furnished exactly like the apartment of Thaddeus Sholto in Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four. The recognition is a symptom of his narrative self-consciousness.<br />"Mystery" is a word that Michael himself often uses. It signifies that he knows that he is a character in a plot. Indeed, he voices exactly this understanding near the end of the novel when he tells his new inamorata, Phoebe, "I thought I was supposed to be writing this story . . . but I'm not. At least not any more. I'm part of it."<br />This éclaircissement is more a confirmation than a surprise, for Findlay has already told Michael "the real mystery is you". Michael has been commissioned by the apparently mad but wealthy Tabitha Winshaw to write a history of her family, a collection of the nastiest and greediest and most successful individuals spawned by postwar British society. At the heart of his account, and the beginning of this novel, is the "mystery" of the disappearance of Godfrey Winshaw – the one decent member of the family – in a secret mission over Germany in 1942, and of Tabitha's deranged insistence that their brother Lawrence is to blame. While playing Cluedo with Joan, his friend from childhood and one of several women with whom he will fail to have an affair, Michael has had a premonition of his own involvement. He has been playing as Professor Plum, who, he realises, is the culprit: "I wondered what it would actually feel like, to be present at the unravelling of some terrible mystery . . . to find, all at once, that you were thoroughly and messily bound up in the web of motives and suspicions which you had presumed to untangle."<br />Michael was once a novelist, though as he begins his narrative he is a depressive recluse who has abandoned his career. In the middle of the novel he rediscovers a narrative fragment he wrote as a child called "The Castle of Mystery"; an awareness of mysteries is his narrative addiction. He keeps hearing the word. Joan uses it about his commission to write about the Winshaws. "So . . . are you going to tell me about this mysterious new project of yours?" He keeps using it himself of the odd events surrounding his attempts to catalogue the misdeeds of the Winshaws. When his own publisher has his house burgled and documents and photographs stolen, he is questioned by the publisher's formidable deputy: "The only effects of our conversation were to leave the mystery more clouded than ever." Riding a London bus to his next appointment with the hapless Findlay, he thinks of himself travelling "ever closer towards the next stage in a mystery . . ."<br />Made aware of "mysteries", the reader is alerted to the narrative significance of any otherwise unexplained detail. When characters smell jasmine, though there is none growing in any garden, we know it is a clue. When we hear that Lawrence wrote a note on the night of Godfrey's death containing the words "BISCUIT, CHEESE and CELERY" we realise that it cannot have been only an instruction for his supper. When Michael mentions twice that he and his parents never used to see his father's parents, we know that we will eventually discover the reason for this.<br />Mysteries are, in one sense, reassuring. For narrative mysteries, unlike mysteries in life, have solutions. Puzzles are set whose solutions a playful author has already envisaged. When Dickens died, he left The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his uncompleted novel, a mystery. What is the explanation of Drood's disappearance? We can at least be certain that there would have been an explanation. In life, mysteries tend not to have solutions, for there is no plot-maker (unless, like 18th-century novelists, you believe that God makes plots of all our lives). In the prologue toWhat a Carve Up! Michael ruminates on the mysterious death of his childhood hero Yuri Gagarin in an air "accident", and calls this "another of adulthood's ubiquitous, insoluble mysteries". Yet in the ending to this novel, Gagarin's fate is recalled and made part of Michael's story.<br />It is a mystery made into a final explanation, for explanation is always the other side of mystery.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “Tragedy had struck the Winshaws twice before, but never on such a terrible scale.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “Tragedy had struck the Winshaws twice before, but never on such a terrible scale.”<br /><b>Quotes: </b> “The upshot was that she lost her religion - with a vengeance - and walked out on him, taking these three daughters with her. Faith, Hope and Brenda.”<br /><b>Rating: </b>Very Goodabbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-34947427687935900752013-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:002013-01-16T17:31:14.817-08:00521. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel <b>History: </b> This book of short stories was published in 1985.<br /><b>Plot:</b> Hempel's now-classic collection of short fiction is peopled by complex characters who have discovered that their safety nets are not dependable and who must now learn to balance on the threads of wit, irony, and spirit. Two themes run through the 15 stories collected here: an intense regret at life's missed connections and a sharp, wittily observed sense of what it takes to survive. PW praised Hempel's "many gifts, including her deliciously absurd sense of the trivia we all carry around with us and her comic obsession with animals."<br /><b>Review:</b> The pieces in this collection are often so short that they veer towards gestural sketches. Rarely do we know things about Hempel's characters such as name, age, and sometimes even gender beyond a reasonable guess. However, the writing is so taut that these stories hum with energy and often build to a blow-like ending, painful and revelatory. While a few lines of dialogue come across as preciously precocious, these stories dazzle with their humor as well.<br /><b>Opening Line:</b> “My heart- I thought it has stopped.”<br /><b>Closing Line:</b> “I lied,” he said, “There is no bad news.”<br /><b>Quotes:</b> “I think it was that love that I loved. That kind of involvement was reassuring; I felt it would extend to me, as well. That it did not or that it did, but only as much and no more, was confusing at first.”<br /><b>Rating:</b> Good.abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6066810694113528505.post-75849565713875259092013-01-16T17:05:00.001-08:002013-01-16T17:07:34.530-08:00520. Solaris – Stanislaw Lem <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>History:</b> This book was published in 1961. Solaris is one of Lem’s philosophic explorations of man’s anthropomorphic limitations. First published in Warsaw in 1961, the 1970 Polish-to-French-to-English translation of Solaris is the best-known of Lem's English-translated works.<br />
<b>Plot:</b> Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life on a far-distant planet. Solaris, with whom Terran scientists are attempting communication, is almost completely covered with an ocean that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing organism. What appear to be waves on its surface are later revealed to be the equivalents of muscle contractions.<br />
Kris Kelvin arrives aboard the scientific research station hovering (via anti-gravity generators) near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, a scientific discipline known as Solaristics, which over the years has degenerated to simply observe, record and categorize the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, they have only achieved the formal classification of the phenomena with an elaborate nomenclature — yet do not understand what such activities really mean in a strictly scientific sense. Shortly before psychologist Kelvin's arrival, the crew has exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans.<br />
The ocean's response to their aggression exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists — whilst revealing nothing of the ocean’s nature itself. To the extent that the ocean’s actions can be understood, the ocean then seems to test the minds of the scientists by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories. It does this via the materialization of physical human simulacra; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers are only alluded to but seem even worse than Kelvin’s personal purgatory.<br />
The ocean’s intelligence expresses physical phenomena in ways difficult for their limited earth science to explain, deeply upsetting the scientists. The alien (extraterrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from the human mind of (objective) consciousness that attempts at inter-species communications are a dismal failure.<br />
<b>Review:</b> Solaris is the best-known work of Polish SF writer Stanislaw Lem. Published in 1961, this work continues to intrigue readers from casual SF fans to academic critics like Frederic Jameson and Slavov Zizek. It has been the basis for two cinematic adaptations, the first by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky (critically acclaimed) in 1972, and the second directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney (critically “meh”) in 2002. Lem, who died in 2006, was not happy with either film, both of which focused more on the human relationships and the love story than on Lem’s philosophizing or scientific speculation.<br />
He was also dissatisfied with the translations of his work. Most print editions you will find in the US today (bearing an image of Clooney smooching co-star Natasha McElhorne) are reprints of a rushed 1970 translation of the French translation of the original Polish. Literally, it’s a translation of a translation. Lem didn’t even think the French translation was faithful, and, as a fluent English speaker, liked the Polish-to-French-to-English translation even less. Anyone who has done translation of any kind realizes it’s never an exact process, so lots of time and care is necessary to preserve the writer’s vision and intent as much as possible. The process is eased a bit when translation between languages with similar bases (like Spanish to French), but Solaris went from a Slavic language (Polish) to a Romance language (French) before being translated into a Germanic Language (English, and if this surprises you, listen for that Germanic lilt in this reading of Beowulf in the Old English). Needless to say, some things were lost in translation.<br />
Given the book’s notoriety, it’s hard to believe that there has not been a direct translation from Polish-to-English in the fifty years since its publication; until now, that is. Bill Johnston, an Associate Professor of Second Language Studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, has made the first direct Polish-to-English translation of the novel with the permission of the Lem estate. On the previous translations,<br />
So far, the Johnston translation has only been released as an audiobook available on Audible.com , although it will be coming out as an ebook and–if the Lem family has their way–a paper copy as well. When I received an email from Audible advertising this, I was initially excited but then a bit peeved because I knew it meant that my next listening credit was spoken for! <br />
<b>Opening Line:</b> “At nineteen hundred hours ships time I climbed down the metal ladder past the bays on either side, into the metal capsule.”<br />
<b>Closing Line: </b> “I had no idea, as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over.”<br />
<b>Quotes:</b> “We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”<br />
<b>Rating: </b> Good. <span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679934732013045639noreply@blogger.com0