From the Totally Random Files...For those of you who don't know (really?) I have a tendency to jot down things I like/want to remember/want to revisit later. These days, most of this "jotting" happens electronically, on my Google Desktop or in my cell phone. But, there are still many scraps of paper and notepads from back in the day. I might add that I have been doing a good job of decluttering and getting the appropriate To Do things and reminders onto Goodreads, Netflix, my Google calendar, what have you.
Today, as we pack up the Brooklyn crib, I am stymied by something I clearly wrote down years ago. Here's what is says:
"'I could still travel, change jobs, read Turgenev. Any kind of love was possible.' - p. 314"
Now, I KNOW: why didn't I write the title? I suspect I was using the card on which this was written AS a bookmark and meant to transfer the whole thing to a notebook, duly citing the sources, within days if not minutes, though I clearly did not do that. The thing is, now I really want to know whence this quote comes. Particularly because I have now read Turgenev (as the 'T' author in my A-to-Z literary blog project), so that's fun, but also because it's bugging me.
Clues: it has to be from years ago because the card on the back of which this is written is from Euro Pane Bakery in Pasadena. Assuming I read the mystery book (not that kind of mystery book) before leaving L.A. it had to be out before end of 2002, latest. It sounds non-fictiony if not memoir/self-helpy. And there are two other things written (smaller, much less prominently) on the other side of the card: "We don't talk anymore. There is too much to say." - p. 412 And "There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we ever expect it to be." - [page number indecipherable]. It is probable that all three quotes from the same book but I can't guarantee it.
It could be Elizabeth Berg, but if so I'm definitely not placing which one.
Anyone?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Vast old empires and republics
NOW FINISHED: At the Foot of the Blue Mountains: Stories by Tajik Authors
NOW READING: Julian by Gore Vidal
Because I am currently totally interested in all things Tajikistan, that's why! And the book was pretty good, especially for a collection of short stories. I was looking for Tajik literature -- which by the way is hard to find, for reasons I shall discuss -- because I am very much seeking permission from the universe to travel to Tajikistan this August on a volunteer trip. It is hovering on the line between impossible and likely right now. I need to just make it so. But I need that permission.
So one of the problems is that the old Tajik Persian-derived literary heritage was sort of eradicated (I know, how can something be "sort of" eradicated? but you'll see that's my point) during the Soviet era. But it was mostly a language thing. And it wasn't even Farsi and Tajik (which is similar to Farsi) language books but Arabic books that were destroyed/confiscated, because the Tajiks had been invaded by Arabs long before Soviets. The Soviets were trying to get rid of Arabic language to standardize the Cyrillic alphabet. Quite a mess, of course, but then here in the U.S. people also tend to get bitten by the one-official-government-language bug pretty often, now don't they?
However, since there was a lot of oral poetry in said Tajik Persian-derived literary heritage, it is not actually gone and is mentioned a lot in At the Foot of the Blue Mountains. I really like this book. It is quite the good little introduction to many things Tajikistan. It contains a sampling of twentieth century stories and from authors born in various decades, but it was published in the 1980s so it still does not slam anything Russian or Soviet at all. However, a Tajik identity and the lifestyle there totally come through. There were several very interesting stories and only one or two duds.
Anyway, so I read that. And now I am on to 'V' - for Vidal! He is definitely one it is good to finally read after always hearing about him. The book, Julian, is about the 4th-century Roman emperor and his attempts to get rid of that wacky, newfangled religion that was rearing its head everywhere (Christianity). Normally I'm not one for historical fiction -- ugh -- but I had little choice with ol' Gore V. as that seems to be his specialty. Plus this one is a pretty obscure person and definitely snarky about the religious stuff -- fun!
In other literary news, for those of you who were jealous back when I was reading Infinite Jest and swore to yourselves that you, too, would tackle DFW's tome, this summer is your chance!
NOW READING: Julian by Gore Vidal
Because I am currently totally interested in all things Tajikistan, that's why! And the book was pretty good, especially for a collection of short stories. I was looking for Tajik literature -- which by the way is hard to find, for reasons I shall discuss -- because I am very much seeking permission from the universe to travel to Tajikistan this August on a volunteer trip. It is hovering on the line between impossible and likely right now. I need to just make it so. But I need that permission.
So one of the problems is that the old Tajik Persian-derived literary heritage was sort of eradicated (I know, how can something be "sort of" eradicated? but you'll see that's my point) during the Soviet era. But it was mostly a language thing. And it wasn't even Farsi and Tajik (which is similar to Farsi) language books but Arabic books that were destroyed/confiscated, because the Tajiks had been invaded by Arabs long before Soviets. The Soviets were trying to get rid of Arabic language to standardize the Cyrillic alphabet. Quite a mess, of course, but then here in the U.S. people also tend to get bitten by the one-official-government-language bug pretty often, now don't they?
However, since there was a lot of oral poetry in said Tajik Persian-derived literary heritage, it is not actually gone and is mentioned a lot in At the Foot of the Blue Mountains. I really like this book. It is quite the good little introduction to many things Tajikistan. It contains a sampling of twentieth century stories and from authors born in various decades, but it was published in the 1980s so it still does not slam anything Russian or Soviet at all. However, a Tajik identity and the lifestyle there totally come through. There were several very interesting stories and only one or two duds.
Anyway, so I read that. And now I am on to 'V' - for Vidal! He is definitely one it is good to finally read after always hearing about him. The book, Julian, is about the 4th-century Roman emperor and his attempts to get rid of that wacky, newfangled religion that was rearing its head everywhere (Christianity). Normally I'm not one for historical fiction -- ugh -- but I had little choice with ol' Gore V. as that seems to be his specialty. Plus this one is a pretty obscure person and definitely snarky about the religious stuff -- fun!
In other literary news, for those of you who were jealous back when I was reading Infinite Jest and swore to yourselves that you, too, would tackle DFW's tome, this summer is your chance!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
With apologies to Mr. Chatfield
NOW FINISHED: The Centaur by John Updike
So, it's called The Centaur because the entire book is an allusion to the Greek mythological race of half-horse half-people, which myth I have apparently entirely forgotten. In fact, as I went along reading the book, there were a couple of times when Updike blatantly told a magically real encounter between two characters and I knew this, say, girls' coach/p.e. teacher was supposed to represent a mythological character. It was totally spelled out. Not until the end of the book did I come across an index of mythological characters to whom Updike had merely alluded throughout the book, and the pages on which they appeared -- there were lots. The index contained a list of names about fifty times longer than the list I would have written of mythological characters appearing in the novel.
OK, so now that we know I had absolutely zero idea of what was going on in the subtext, how was the actual text of the book? Not bad. A little weird at first but after getting more comfortable with the characters it's a much better experience. It's essentially three days in the life of this father and son, with lots of small-town drama, hints of Updike's long-simmering love for New York City above all other locales, a keen understanding of what goes through the minds of high-school students and faculty, and plenty of social commentary. But it's also a totally novelly novel, in that early twentieth century way (i.e. when the mindless churned-out crap fiction was still pulp).
Updike, like Forster before him in this A-to-Z blog project of mine, has an uncanny way of writing along, you know, telling the story, lah-di-dah, and then BAM! He hits you with an amazingly well written line and you think, Ahhh, this is why he's a famous and well-renowned writer whose praises are regularly sung.
Next up, V, another author who seems in my head to be of the same ilk as Updike, for whatever reason. I'm currently pausing from the project as I read At the Foot of the Blue Mountains: Stories by Tajik Authors. This is inspired by a trip to Tajikistan in August that I really, really, really want to do with Habitat for Humanity and which I am still pursuing but about which I am losing more hope by the minute. I think Mr. Centaur Biology Teacher would have a thing or two to say to me about that loss of hope, actually.
In summary, The Centaur is sort of like Ulysses meets Breaking Bad.
And I want to become smarter and then read it again. But I totally respect that Updike a)just writes the hell out of it anyway, without stopping to explain every last thing and b)writes such a great simple story, too, that you have to be smarter than a lot of people to even realize that you need to get depressed about everything you're missing.
So, it's called The Centaur because the entire book is an allusion to the Greek mythological race of half-horse half-people, which myth I have apparently entirely forgotten. In fact, as I went along reading the book, there were a couple of times when Updike blatantly told a magically real encounter between two characters and I knew this, say, girls' coach/p.e. teacher was supposed to represent a mythological character. It was totally spelled out. Not until the end of the book did I come across an index of mythological characters to whom Updike had merely alluded throughout the book, and the pages on which they appeared -- there were lots. The index contained a list of names about fifty times longer than the list I would have written of mythological characters appearing in the novel.
OK, so now that we know I had absolutely zero idea of what was going on in the subtext, how was the actual text of the book? Not bad. A little weird at first but after getting more comfortable with the characters it's a much better experience. It's essentially three days in the life of this father and son, with lots of small-town drama, hints of Updike's long-simmering love for New York City above all other locales, a keen understanding of what goes through the minds of high-school students and faculty, and plenty of social commentary. But it's also a totally novelly novel, in that early twentieth century way (i.e. when the mindless churned-out crap fiction was still pulp).
Updike, like Forster before him in this A-to-Z blog project of mine, has an uncanny way of writing along, you know, telling the story, lah-di-dah, and then BAM! He hits you with an amazingly well written line and you think, Ahhh, this is why he's a famous and well-renowned writer whose praises are regularly sung.
Next up, V, another author who seems in my head to be of the same ilk as Updike, for whatever reason. I'm currently pausing from the project as I read At the Foot of the Blue Mountains: Stories by Tajik Authors. This is inspired by a trip to Tajikistan in August that I really, really, really want to do with Habitat for Humanity and which I am still pursuing but about which I am losing more hope by the minute. I think Mr. Centaur Biology Teacher would have a thing or two to say to me about that loss of hope, actually.
In summary, The Centaur is sort of like Ulysses meets Breaking Bad.
And I want to become smarter and then read it again. But I totally respect that Updike a)just writes the hell out of it anyway, without stopping to explain every last thing and b)writes such a great simple story, too, that you have to be smarter than a lot of people to even realize that you need to get depressed about everything you're missing.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Significance
now finished: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
This was a quick read (unlike many a Russian). While it may seem simple, it definitely has a lot of statements about humanity, families, politics, generations, interpersonal relationships, and the like. Those are never as simple as they seem, of course.
It's funny (now, to me) that this novel caused such controversy at the time. Older conservatives thought Turgenev was mocking the older generation whose time had come and gone, and putting the young radical on a pedestal. Younger radicals thought he made a caricature of the young whippersnapper who thought he knew better than everyone and hated everything around him. Turgenev himself said he wasn't quite doing either and had mixed feelings about the times that were a-changin'. For these reasons, we could all obviously get introspective and analytical while reading the novel.
Bazarov and Arkadii (mostly Bazarov) get bored visiting the parents' countryside peasant-laden farms. It sounds like a nice idea, Bazarov muses, to live that idyllic life with solitude and all, "but no--you're consumed by boredom. One wants to come into contact with people, if only to criticize them, but at least to come into contact with them."
See, how can I fully dislike Bazarov, when I am so much like him? Not that I wouldn't rather be more like Arkadii, whose reply is:
"One ought to organize one's life so that every moment in it is significant." -- p. 134
The only thing I didn't like about reading this was that occasionally the language got that forced feel it gets when you just know the original is not quite translatable. One of my goals is to learn Russian so that I can read all the fantastic Russian literature in the original language. I kind of want that to be my first post-law school project. Wouldn't mind taking a job in Moscow, either, come to think of it.
Young Bazarov realizes himself toward the end that the jig is up. Basically, he may have some right ideas, and some of his skills may even save people, but being a jerk who's incapable of some soul-searching never helped anyone. He learns that lesson a bit too late.
Thank you for the invitation,Hofstra Anna Sergeevna, and for your flattering estimation of my conversational talents. But I think I've already been moving in a sphere that isn't my own for too long. Flying fish can stay aloft for a while, but sonner or later they have to splash back into the water. Allow me to swim in my own element, too. -- p. 191
This was a quick read (unlike many a Russian). While it may seem simple, it definitely has a lot of statements about humanity, families, politics, generations, interpersonal relationships, and the like. Those are never as simple as they seem, of course.
It's funny (now, to me) that this novel caused such controversy at the time. Older conservatives thought Turgenev was mocking the older generation whose time had come and gone, and putting the young radical on a pedestal. Younger radicals thought he made a caricature of the young whippersnapper who thought he knew better than everyone and hated everything around him. Turgenev himself said he wasn't quite doing either and had mixed feelings about the times that were a-changin'. For these reasons, we could all obviously get introspective and analytical while reading the novel.
Bazarov and Arkadii (mostly Bazarov) get bored visiting the parents' countryside peasant-laden farms. It sounds like a nice idea, Bazarov muses, to live that idyllic life with solitude and all, "but no--you're consumed by boredom. One wants to come into contact with people, if only to criticize them, but at least to come into contact with them."
See, how can I fully dislike Bazarov, when I am so much like him? Not that I wouldn't rather be more like Arkadii, whose reply is:
"One ought to organize one's life so that every moment in it is significant." -- p. 134
The only thing I didn't like about reading this was that occasionally the language got that forced feel it gets when you just know the original is not quite translatable. One of my goals is to learn Russian so that I can read all the fantastic Russian literature in the original language. I kind of want that to be my first post-law school project. Wouldn't mind taking a job in Moscow, either, come to think of it.
Young Bazarov realizes himself toward the end that the jig is up. Basically, he may have some right ideas, and some of his skills may even save people, but being a jerk who's incapable of some soul-searching never helped anyone. He learns that lesson a bit too late.
Thank you for the invitation,
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Century Clubs and Beetle Gazing
now reading: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
When I used to have time to read a lot of books, especially when I worked at Borders and would start books for a million different reasons including being asked to read them by other people for quasi-professional reasons (e.g. getting more free books from the publishers' marketing reps), I needed to come up with a way to give a book a fair shake before throwing it across the room. Yes, it is wonderful and fabulous when a book hooks you on from the first page, but then again, heroin hooks you from the first "page," too, doesn't it? And we see how well that turns out. Perhaps an acquired taste (coffee, beer, marijuana) can be better or at least less destructive.
There is also the sheer length of some books to consider. Do you really know on page ten of Moby Dick what you are going to ultimately think about it? Let alone War and Peace or Infinite Jest. You might already like them or dislike them at that point, but you cannot yet fully understand/appreciate them. At such a fraction of the whole I would be uncomfortable rejecting a book. And we cannot forget either books such as The Corrections. That book starts out weird, and I've had quite a few people tell me they started it and "couldn't get into it" or some such thing. But the first -- I forget how many, twenty? thirty? more? -- pages are in fact "weird" but there is a REASON and it is so genius and I might add part of the point of that magnificent book. Like, part of the point so much that I can't explain why it has to start that way without ruining something for you when you read it. I sometimes wonder if some asshats on the Pulitzer committee that year "couldn't get into it" and that's why they mistakenly awarded the Pulitzer to Empire Falls instead?
But how much is enough of a chance to give a book I hate? I eventually settled on the 100 pages rule. If, after a hundred pages, I really do not like the book and can see no redeeming qualities in it and truly do not want to waste my life finishing it, then I am allowed to throw it across the room. Most recently I did this with Alice Sebold's second novel, The Almost Moon, or, as I prefer to think of it, The Almost Book Worth Reading. I actually got further than 100 pages with that one, but it just kept getting worse, actually. Note that the completion of 100 pages is a necessary but not sufficient requirement. There may be other overriding reasons that compel me to finish a book or for which I will consider going on after 100 pages. Most recently this happened with The Puttermesser Papers, because I had unfortunately and terribly misguidedly chosen Cynthia Ozick for my 'O' author in my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project and so it was Too Late. UGH.
The point is that because of my 100 pages rule, I have decided that 100 pages is also a good time point at which to reflect on what I think of the book I'm reading here on the blog. And it just so happens that yesterday I got to page 100 in Fathers and Sons.
I am reading it quickly -- but it goes quickly. It also REALLY makes me want to learn Russian, because as is generally the case when I read Russian authors, I am so aware I am reading a translation. That was the less the case with War and Peace than others, because I guess in order to publish a translation of War and Peace you do have to be damn good, but even then there were moments. It's just bound to happen because of the patronymics and the way the language is used differently to talk to different people and such. I totally think learning Russian is going to be one of my first post-law school projects.
So in Fathers and Sons we've got Arkadii and his good friend Bazarov -- or is he such a good friend? -- hanging out at Arkadii's father's country estate. Bazarov is basically telling all the old guys, like the father and uncle, that they are outdated and have no idea what's up with the philosophical and political realities of the day. Bazarov is a nihilist, and Arkadii is trying to be a nihilist to be as cool as his friend, and the father and uncle are a mix of baffled and annoyed by this young whippersnapper who does not appreciate anything (including art and nature), and the whole scenario really shows us that generations have always fought with the generation before and the more things change -- well, you know the rest.
"In earlier times, young people had to study -- they didn't want to be taken for ignoramuses, so they had to work hard whether they liked it or not. But now one just has to say, 'Everything on earth is absurd!' and the deed is done -- young people are overjoyed. In fact, they were simply dolts before, whereas now they've suddenly become nihilists." --p. 56
I've been considering going to spend some time in Phoenix soon, what with the end of law school and not having a job or money to pay the rent in New York or any idea what to do next. Basically, I might totally be like Arkadii Kirsanov a mere few weeks from now: returning home to the parents' pad with all my worldly, educated, big city ideas but clearly not able to do anything with them.
The friend, Bazarov, is kind of a jackass. And if Brian and I go to Phoenix, I won't be bringing a jackass. In fact, for us the roles might be reversed: I might be more of a nihilist (and/or more of a pessimistic dolt) than Brian is. But Bazarov is funny, despite his pretense of not caring about anything and being above it all. He is a scientist becoming a doctor and he likes to wander around the forest examining trees and cutting open frogs. That is more important to him than learning about people and what they feel -- and certainly more important than love or any silly notions of a soul. Things might change after page 100; they are spending quite a bit of time with the beautiful Mrs. Odintsov... but for the moment, he still feels this way.
"And what's all this about mysterious relationships between men and women? We physiologists know what these relationships are. You study the anatomy of the eye: where does that enigmatic gaze, as you put it, come from? The rest is all romanticism, nonsense, aesthetic garbage. We'd be much better off going and looking at the beetle." -- p.34
So what about y'all? Do you stop books you have started? Do you have any guidelines for doing so? Have you experienced the ultimate satisfaction of throwing a book across the room? (Which can also be done at the end of a book, of course.) Do tell!
When I used to have time to read a lot of books, especially when I worked at Borders and would start books for a million different reasons including being asked to read them by other people for quasi-professional reasons (e.g. getting more free books from the publishers' marketing reps), I needed to come up with a way to give a book a fair shake before throwing it across the room. Yes, it is wonderful and fabulous when a book hooks you on from the first page, but then again, heroin hooks you from the first "page," too, doesn't it? And we see how well that turns out. Perhaps an acquired taste (coffee, beer, marijuana) can be better or at least less destructive.
There is also the sheer length of some books to consider. Do you really know on page ten of Moby Dick what you are going to ultimately think about it? Let alone War and Peace or Infinite Jest. You might already like them or dislike them at that point, but you cannot yet fully understand/appreciate them. At such a fraction of the whole I would be uncomfortable rejecting a book. And we cannot forget either books such as The Corrections. That book starts out weird, and I've had quite a few people tell me they started it and "couldn't get into it" or some such thing. But the first -- I forget how many, twenty? thirty? more? -- pages are in fact "weird" but there is a REASON and it is so genius and I might add part of the point of that magnificent book. Like, part of the point so much that I can't explain why it has to start that way without ruining something for you when you read it. I sometimes wonder if some asshats on the Pulitzer committee that year "couldn't get into it" and that's why they mistakenly awarded the Pulitzer to Empire Falls instead?
But how much is enough of a chance to give a book I hate? I eventually settled on the 100 pages rule. If, after a hundred pages, I really do not like the book and can see no redeeming qualities in it and truly do not want to waste my life finishing it, then I am allowed to throw it across the room. Most recently I did this with Alice Sebold's second novel, The Almost Moon, or, as I prefer to think of it, The Almost Book Worth Reading. I actually got further than 100 pages with that one, but it just kept getting worse, actually. Note that the completion of 100 pages is a necessary but not sufficient requirement. There may be other overriding reasons that compel me to finish a book or for which I will consider going on after 100 pages. Most recently this happened with The Puttermesser Papers, because I had unfortunately and terribly misguidedly chosen Cynthia Ozick for my 'O' author in my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project and so it was Too Late. UGH.
The point is that because of my 100 pages rule, I have decided that 100 pages is also a good time point at which to reflect on what I think of the book I'm reading here on the blog. And it just so happens that yesterday I got to page 100 in Fathers and Sons.
I am reading it quickly -- but it goes quickly. It also REALLY makes me want to learn Russian, because as is generally the case when I read Russian authors, I am so aware I am reading a translation. That was the less the case with War and Peace than others, because I guess in order to publish a translation of War and Peace you do have to be damn good, but even then there were moments. It's just bound to happen because of the patronymics and the way the language is used differently to talk to different people and such. I totally think learning Russian is going to be one of my first post-law school projects.
So in Fathers and Sons we've got Arkadii and his good friend Bazarov -- or is he such a good friend? -- hanging out at Arkadii's father's country estate. Bazarov is basically telling all the old guys, like the father and uncle, that they are outdated and have no idea what's up with the philosophical and political realities of the day. Bazarov is a nihilist, and Arkadii is trying to be a nihilist to be as cool as his friend, and the father and uncle are a mix of baffled and annoyed by this young whippersnapper who does not appreciate anything (including art and nature), and the whole scenario really shows us that generations have always fought with the generation before and the more things change -- well, you know the rest.
"In earlier times, young people had to study -- they didn't want to be taken for ignoramuses, so they had to work hard whether they liked it or not. But now one just has to say, 'Everything on earth is absurd!' and the deed is done -- young people are overjoyed. In fact, they were simply dolts before, whereas now they've suddenly become nihilists." --p. 56
I've been considering going to spend some time in Phoenix soon, what with the end of law school and not having a job or money to pay the rent in New York or any idea what to do next. Basically, I might totally be like Arkadii Kirsanov a mere few weeks from now: returning home to the parents' pad with all my worldly, educated, big city ideas but clearly not able to do anything with them.
The friend, Bazarov, is kind of a jackass. And if Brian and I go to Phoenix, I won't be bringing a jackass. In fact, for us the roles might be reversed: I might be more of a nihilist (and/or more of a pessimistic dolt) than Brian is. But Bazarov is funny, despite his pretense of not caring about anything and being above it all. He is a scientist becoming a doctor and he likes to wander around the forest examining trees and cutting open frogs. That is more important to him than learning about people and what they feel -- and certainly more important than love or any silly notions of a soul. Things might change after page 100; they are spending quite a bit of time with the beautiful Mrs. Odintsov... but for the moment, he still feels this way.
"And what's all this about mysterious relationships between men and women? We physiologists know what these relationships are. You study the anatomy of the eye: where does that enigmatic gaze, as you put it, come from? The rest is all romanticism, nonsense, aesthetic garbage. We'd be much better off going and looking at the beetle." -- p.34
So what about y'all? Do you stop books you have started? Do you have any guidelines for doing so? Have you experienced the ultimate satisfaction of throwing a book across the room? (Which can also be done at the end of a book, of course.) Do tell!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Still more evidence that I need to give Faulkner another chance
now finished: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
now reading: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The word, I believe, is "wow."
My boy Styron is a fantastic writer, compelling storyteller, deep thinker, and furthermore, I think he was a really insightful and beautiful person! That part kind of snuck up on me at the end of the book, but this man was a thinker and a good soul. I want to be his friend!
There are a whole bunch of things I liked, but I will say one of the things I keep thinking about as I reflect is that this is exactly the kind of book I'd been hoping to find when I embarked upon this project. I wasn't looking for another War and Peace, Infinite Jest, or Moby Dick -- you know, something that I knew would be Great. And I certainly wasn't looking for the likes of Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers -- something I'd have to continue to wonder why anyone found it great. I was looking to just read good books, and especially to be delighted to have finally read authors I'd neglected far too long. The difference between Styron and the likes of Umberto Eco and Truman Capote is that I've heard SO MUCH about The Name of the Rose and In Cold Blood, but Styron is a bit less mainstream, somehow. Not that that matters. I don't know, I can't explain it. Let's just say that 'S' = success!
Styron makes me think about a few things I've previously considered. One is place as it relates to writing. I often wonder how much my own personal geography comes out in my writing; I don't see myself as a Tony Hillerman/Edward Abbey/Terry Tempest Williams type in my Southwesternness, but maybe I am? Then again, I have been out of Arizona almost as long as I was there. But then again again, doesn't it always stick with me?
The South has long had an obviously strong, notable, controversial sense of place and self in the U.S., not to mention a slew of amazing writers. In the last part of Lie Down in Darkness the action moves to New York and what happens to Peyton there. Now, if I have not yet been clear on this point, I relate to the tragic figure of Peyton. I've babbled about her father Milton, but Peyton is really where it's at. After all, she has to suffer the effects of her totally screwed up parents. It was in her wedding and in the New York pages I really came to appreciate how much like her I could be. And, I like how Styron via Peyton calls out the New Yorkers on their totally insular New Yorkerness, asking them why they have to be so bigoted against the South and totally closed to the idea that it could rise from its dark and mighty problems, which are still quite recent, into a position of strong and mighty progress.
Styron matter-of-factly calls New York (ers) "provincial and myopic." This caused me to cheer, to pretty much weep with joy.
So, geography, self, progress, and how they interrelate -- we get all this, plus soap operaesque drama and beautiful descriptions. What's not to love?
I am definitely eager to read more Styron. Meanwhile, of course, I'm on 'T' and am happily back in that other region of the world, besides the U.S. South, that has produced ridiculous amounts of amazing writers: Russia.
Which means I'm back to that old familiar problem of really wanting to learn Russian, that I may read some of the world's most amazing literature in the original language. This just might be the year I embark upon that goal.
now reading: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The word, I believe, is "wow."
My boy Styron is a fantastic writer, compelling storyteller, deep thinker, and furthermore, I think he was a really insightful and beautiful person! That part kind of snuck up on me at the end of the book, but this man was a thinker and a good soul. I want to be his friend!
There are a whole bunch of things I liked, but I will say one of the things I keep thinking about as I reflect is that this is exactly the kind of book I'd been hoping to find when I embarked upon this project. I wasn't looking for another War and Peace, Infinite Jest, or Moby Dick -- you know, something that I knew would be Great. And I certainly wasn't looking for the likes of Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers -- something I'd have to continue to wonder why anyone found it great. I was looking to just read good books, and especially to be delighted to have finally read authors I'd neglected far too long. The difference between Styron and the likes of Umberto Eco and Truman Capote is that I've heard SO MUCH about The Name of the Rose and In Cold Blood, but Styron is a bit less mainstream, somehow. Not that that matters. I don't know, I can't explain it. Let's just say that 'S' = success!
Styron makes me think about a few things I've previously considered. One is place as it relates to writing. I often wonder how much my own personal geography comes out in my writing; I don't see myself as a Tony Hillerman/Edward Abbey/Terry Tempest Williams type in my Southwesternness, but maybe I am? Then again, I have been out of Arizona almost as long as I was there. But then again again, doesn't it always stick with me?
The South has long had an obviously strong, notable, controversial sense of place and self in the U.S., not to mention a slew of amazing writers. In the last part of Lie Down in Darkness the action moves to New York and what happens to Peyton there. Now, if I have not yet been clear on this point, I relate to the tragic figure of Peyton. I've babbled about her father Milton, but Peyton is really where it's at. After all, she has to suffer the effects of her totally screwed up parents. It was in her wedding and in the New York pages I really came to appreciate how much like her I could be. And, I like how Styron via Peyton calls out the New Yorkers on their totally insular New Yorkerness, asking them why they have to be so bigoted against the South and totally closed to the idea that it could rise from its dark and mighty problems, which are still quite recent, into a position of strong and mighty progress.
Styron matter-of-factly calls New York (ers) "provincial and myopic." This caused me to cheer, to pretty much weep with joy.
So, geography, self, progress, and how they interrelate -- we get all this, plus soap operaesque drama and beautiful descriptions. What's not to love?
I am definitely eager to read more Styron. Meanwhile, of course, I'm on 'T' and am happily back in that other region of the world, besides the U.S. South, that has produced ridiculous amounts of amazing writers: Russia.
Which means I'm back to that old familiar problem of really wanting to learn Russian, that I may read some of the world's most amazing literature in the original language. This just might be the year I embark upon that goal.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Here comes the suicide
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
I've told you that Milton Loftis is a lawyer, right?
"'I'm interested in your work. You tell me about your cases --'
'I don't have many cases,' he interrupted, sitting down across from her; 'they bore even me. I wish I had been a poet.'" -- p. 179
Amen, brother! This is yet another mistake of Milton's that I myself have caught in time, so maybe I won't end up like him? Oh, Milton. I'm three-quarters of the way through the novel now and he is making a fine mess of everything, not the least of which is his daughter Peyton's wedding. Doom, doom, doom is all that awaits this family. We know that from the beginning of the book, but it's still a great read as we watch them fall apart.
As we get to the end, we start to see how Petyon, too, is doomed. She is a bit resilient ("to people so young there is nothing final in disaster, the disaster itself often opening up refreshing vistas of novelty, escape or freedom..." -p. 232) but as more and more happens, what resilience she does have clearly won't be enough. And girlfriend NEVER should have come back home to get married, methinks. Totally should have had the ceremony in New York and made any of the Virginians who wanted to see it go north. Not that I'm not enjoying all the comments about how foreign the "New York Jews" are to these coastal Virginian people.
Styron's descriptions of the wedding are awesome. I love how he makes the reader slowly discover what a staged happiness it is, and how he hits the nail on the head. This might be my favorite thing written about a wedding, ever:
"There is a lull in the celebration, for it is the duty of each guest to have some of the cake, although cake goes poorly with whisky or champagne, and it is the last thing the guests want to eat. Few of them would care, really, about eating, but the guests have been to too many wedings. The cake has become symbolic of something and they have to face it: it must be eaten. Besides, it would be a pity to let that huge thing go to waste." -- p. 286
Symbolism and huge ordeals abound at this wedding. It's a great scene because it is just a disaster waiting to happen, the culmination of this family's descent. But also just the first step toward their final tragic chapter. Which, I am about to go read -- the last 100 pages. Have I made you want to read Styron yet? I hope I have.
I've told you that Milton Loftis is a lawyer, right?
"'I'm interested in your work. You tell me about your cases --'
'I don't have many cases,' he interrupted, sitting down across from her; 'they bore even me. I wish I had been a poet.'" -- p. 179
Amen, brother! This is yet another mistake of Milton's that I myself have caught in time, so maybe I won't end up like him? Oh, Milton. I'm three-quarters of the way through the novel now and he is making a fine mess of everything, not the least of which is his daughter Peyton's wedding. Doom, doom, doom is all that awaits this family. We know that from the beginning of the book, but it's still a great read as we watch them fall apart.
As we get to the end, we start to see how Petyon, too, is doomed. She is a bit resilient ("to people so young there is nothing final in disaster, the disaster itself often opening up refreshing vistas of novelty, escape or freedom..." -p. 232) but as more and more happens, what resilience she does have clearly won't be enough. And girlfriend NEVER should have come back home to get married, methinks. Totally should have had the ceremony in New York and made any of the Virginians who wanted to see it go north. Not that I'm not enjoying all the comments about how foreign the "New York Jews" are to these coastal Virginian people.
Styron's descriptions of the wedding are awesome. I love how he makes the reader slowly discover what a staged happiness it is, and how he hits the nail on the head. This might be my favorite thing written about a wedding, ever:
"There is a lull in the celebration, for it is the duty of each guest to have some of the cake, although cake goes poorly with whisky or champagne, and it is the last thing the guests want to eat. Few of them would care, really, about eating, but the guests have been to too many wedings. The cake has become symbolic of something and they have to face it: it must be eaten. Besides, it would be a pity to let that huge thing go to waste." -- p. 286
Symbolism and huge ordeals abound at this wedding. It's a great scene because it is just a disaster waiting to happen, the culmination of this family's descent. But also just the first step toward their final tragic chapter. Which, I am about to go read -- the last 100 pages. Have I made you want to read Styron yet? I hope I have.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Alcohol and ancient Greeks
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
And don't those two things go so well together?
Well, there is no shortage of alcohol in this book as one of our main characters, Milton Loftis, is totally lost in whiskey and his drinking pretty much ruins his family. Well, that and his betrayal and his just general inability to be good and/or deal with reality. But I really relate to him sometimes on the alcohol.
"At the age of fifty he was beginning to discover, with a sense of panic, that his whole life had been in the nature of a hangover, with faintly unpleasant pleasures being atoned for by the dull unalleviated pain of guilt. Had he the solace of knowing that he was an alcoholic, things would have been brighter, because he had read somewhere that alcoholism was a disease; but he was not, he assured himself, alcoholic, only self-indulgent, and his disease, whatever it was, resided in shadier corners of his soul -- where decisions were reached not through reason but by rationalization, and where a thin membranous growth of selfishness always seemed to prevent his decent motives from becoming happy actions." -- pp. 152-153
Of course that obviously doesn't describe me, right? Everybody knows I'm not fifty.
Also interesting to consider is that Styron later wrote a memoir about his descent into depression. And we all know about how many of us self-medicate with alcohol, etc. Not that I think that's any worse than big-pharma-medicating, but I digress. I still don't really care for the memoir genre, but the fact that Styron is a good writer, that he wrote Darkness Visible late in an accomplished life and actually had something to remember in his memoir, plus now the idea that it might contain some insight into grappling with our good friend Al(cohol), make me want to maybe check out that book, too.
This also makes thinks about the whole creative genius/madness issue again, and makes me sad to again think about other writers who haven't been able to write about and/or work through their depression, notably in the last year David Foster Wallace, who hanged himself.
Meanwhile, speaking of writers who allude to all kinds of obscure things, Styron totally busts out this reference, in the middle of talking about Milton's wife's counseling sessions with Carey, their minister:
"Then at times they would talk of Milton, of the sad vanishing of love and passion, and why, Carey explained, using Diotima's discourse as a point of departure, it was necessary, after the falling away of years and the dissolution of the object of love on earth, to search for the lasting, the greater, the eternal love." --p.142
I mean, really? "Oh, you know, just talking to the minister about love, marital strife, and Diotima's infinite wisdom." Hello, had to look that one up. Sometimes I feel woefully ignorant about my ancient Greeks. And then I am sad.
So what this has all taught me is that I clearly need to spend less time fretting about law school and more time reading great novels such as Styron's, studying my classics, and pondering alcohol. Which I will now go do at the bar where we are watching Michigan State in the National Championship game. Hmmm, and I just read the chapter where Loftis really screws up by getting all sloppy drunk and going to the big, exciting Virginia football game in search of his daughter/a friend/elusive happiness while his other, handicapped daughter is dying in the hospital down the street ... what are you trying to say, Styron?
And don't those two things go so well together?
Well, there is no shortage of alcohol in this book as one of our main characters, Milton Loftis, is totally lost in whiskey and his drinking pretty much ruins his family. Well, that and his betrayal and his just general inability to be good and/or deal with reality. But I really relate to him sometimes on the alcohol.
"At the age of fifty he was beginning to discover, with a sense of panic, that his whole life had been in the nature of a hangover, with faintly unpleasant pleasures being atoned for by the dull unalleviated pain of guilt. Had he the solace of knowing that he was an alcoholic, things would have been brighter, because he had read somewhere that alcoholism was a disease; but he was not, he assured himself, alcoholic, only self-indulgent, and his disease, whatever it was, resided in shadier corners of his soul -- where decisions were reached not through reason but by rationalization, and where a thin membranous growth of selfishness always seemed to prevent his decent motives from becoming happy actions." -- pp. 152-153
Of course that obviously doesn't describe me, right? Everybody knows I'm not fifty.
Also interesting to consider is that Styron later wrote a memoir about his descent into depression. And we all know about how many of us self-medicate with alcohol, etc. Not that I think that's any worse than big-pharma-medicating, but I digress. I still don't really care for the memoir genre, but the fact that Styron is a good writer, that he wrote Darkness Visible late in an accomplished life and actually had something to remember in his memoir, plus now the idea that it might contain some insight into grappling with our good friend Al(cohol), make me want to maybe check out that book, too.
This also makes thinks about the whole creative genius/madness issue again, and makes me sad to again think about other writers who haven't been able to write about and/or work through their depression, notably in the last year David Foster Wallace, who hanged himself.
Meanwhile, speaking of writers who allude to all kinds of obscure things, Styron totally busts out this reference, in the middle of talking about Milton's wife's counseling sessions with Carey, their minister:
"Then at times they would talk of Milton, of the sad vanishing of love and passion, and why, Carey explained, using Diotima's discourse as a point of departure, it was necessary, after the falling away of years and the dissolution of the object of love on earth, to search for the lasting, the greater, the eternal love." --p.142
I mean, really? "Oh, you know, just talking to the minister about love, marital strife, and Diotima's infinite wisdom." Hello, had to look that one up. Sometimes I feel woefully ignorant about my ancient Greeks. And then I am sad.
So what this has all taught me is that I clearly need to spend less time fretting about law school and more time reading great novels such as Styron's, studying my classics, and pondering alcohol. Which I will now go do at the bar where we are watching Michigan State in the National Championship game. Hmmm, and I just read the chapter where Loftis really screws up by getting all sloppy drunk and going to the big, exciting Virginia football game in search of his daughter/a friend/elusive happiness while his other, handicapped daughter is dying in the hospital down the street ... what are you trying to say, Styron?
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Southity South
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
This book has spoken to me no fewer than two times. To begin, we have the experience of leaving home. This is something I ponder a lot, particularly now that I've been away from Arizona almost as long as I was there. There are still days, such as today in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as we walked into the desert display, when I get kind of gobsmacked by how much more sense my desert home makes to me than other places. Like New York. Then again, it's spring, and the Northeast never makes sense to me in the bi-polar springtime. I yearn for the Southwest in the spring more than any other season. However, I do know that the South is nice in spring, which brings me back to my point: Styron, the South, the sense of place and who we are.
"You go North -- you become expatriated, exiled. You reach out for the first symbol that completes your apostasy -- you become a Communist or a social worker or you marry a Jew. In all good faith, too, yearning to repudiate the wrong you've grown up with, only to find that embracing these things you become doubly exiled. Two losts don't make a found." -- p. 74
So William Styron gets it. Clearly. He's a great writer, and he has a sensibility that I really like. Next, how about divinity?
"...she thought of God -- painfully -- it was beyond reflection, like trying to picture your remotest ancestor. Who is He?" -- p. 140
That's fun, too. I just like how he puts things like that. I also like being plunged into his story and his Southern setting, replete with mimosas, sycamores, mosquitoes, country club dances, and sultry nights. But I really like the way he grasps what happens to you when you go to a new place.
This book has spoken to me no fewer than two times. To begin, we have the experience of leaving home. This is something I ponder a lot, particularly now that I've been away from Arizona almost as long as I was there. There are still days, such as today in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as we walked into the desert display, when I get kind of gobsmacked by how much more sense my desert home makes to me than other places. Like New York. Then again, it's spring, and the Northeast never makes sense to me in the bi-polar springtime. I yearn for the Southwest in the spring more than any other season. However, I do know that the South is nice in spring, which brings me back to my point: Styron, the South, the sense of place and who we are.
"You go North -- you become expatriated, exiled. You reach out for the first symbol that completes your apostasy -- you become a Communist or a social worker or you marry a Jew. In all good faith, too, yearning to repudiate the wrong you've grown up with, only to find that embracing these things you become doubly exiled. Two losts don't make a found." -- p. 74
So William Styron gets it. Clearly. He's a great writer, and he has a sensibility that I really like. Next, how about divinity?
"...she thought of God -- painfully -- it was beyond reflection, like trying to picture your remotest ancestor. Who is He?" -- p. 140
That's fun, too. I just like how he puts things like that. I also like being plunged into his story and his Southern setting, replete with mimosas, sycamores, mosquitoes, country club dances, and sultry nights. But I really like the way he grasps what happens to you when you go to a new place.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Ready to 'T' off
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
While I am still cruising along in my 'S' author, it IS spring break and I do have a a lot of time to read seeing as we're too broke to go anywhere. That means I will probably finish 'S' shortly, and I'm having some trouble selecting a 'T' author! The usual rules apply: I'm reading a novel by an author whose works I have not previously read (eliminating, among others, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Amy Tan whom I wouldn't want to read again anyway), and I prefer the author to be at least as famous as his/her book(s) and not have just one mega-famous book (I'm using that to eliminate Thackeray's Vanity Fair, just like Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was out).
Therefore, I do believe my choices have been narrowed to:
Hunter S. Thompson -- and if so, The Rum Diary or the more obvious Fear and Loathing..., which I've been meaning to read for years?
Anthony Trollope -- and if so, which one?
Ivan Turgenev -- I do love me some Russian literature. Did you know Fathers and Sons is actually literally Fathers and Children in Russian? I just learned that today.
Help!
Thanks.
While I am still cruising along in my 'S' author, it IS spring break and I do have a a lot of time to read seeing as we're too broke to go anywhere. That means I will probably finish 'S' shortly, and I'm having some trouble selecting a 'T' author! The usual rules apply: I'm reading a novel by an author whose works I have not previously read (eliminating, among others, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Amy Tan whom I wouldn't want to read again anyway), and I prefer the author to be at least as famous as his/her book(s) and not have just one mega-famous book (I'm using that to eliminate Thackeray's Vanity Fair, just like Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was out).
Therefore, I do believe my choices have been narrowed to:
Hunter S. Thompson -- and if so, The Rum Diary or the more obvious Fear and Loathing..., which I've been meaning to read for years?
Anthony Trollope -- and if so, which one?
Ivan Turgenev -- I do love me some Russian literature. Did you know Fathers and Sons is actually literally Fathers and Children in Russian? I just learned that today.
Help!
Thanks.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Darkness
now finished: An Essay on Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
So, I read a random book between 'R' and 'S' and while it may sound like a law school thing it actually wasn't. I first became inspired to read Beccaria's important little treatise (it's not long, really) when I read the excellent Voltaire in Exile a few years ago, back in Cambridge, Mass. Voltaire, as pretty much anyone knows who has ever been near me while I think a literary thought, is one of my all-time favorite people and his Candide is my favorite book: the perfect blend of sarcasm, humor, intelligence, zaniness, and deep thought. Anyway, reading all about Voltaire during his time in exile and his epiphany about human rights I discovered that he is not only a literary and philosophical hero but a humanitarian thinking human rightsy hero, too ("Ecrasez l'infame!") The Italian Beccaria's widely published and praised essay influenced Voltaire, and some editions of it were published with an intro by Voltaire or apparently even with Voltaire's name on it when they didn't know at first who the anonymous author was. (Beccaria kept it on the down low at first that it was his work because of his aristocratic family and whatnot, but it turned out the government liked his treatise so it was okay in the end.)
What the essay/short book does is deliver a page or two of thoughts on many, many topics related to criminal justice such as laws, confessions, the death penalty, sanctuary, torture. Frankly, I want to quote his entire torture chapter word for word for all to see; he logically proves why it's no good. I knew I would be very interested to read this ever since I bought it a few years ago, and I'm glad I finally read it. It also has the uncanny effect of making me wonder (AGAIN) if I shouldn't have done a two-year master's in philosophy or history or something instead of law school. But I recall that there weren't a lot of M.A. options for Philosophy, when I looked into it during those aimless twentysomething years of mine; you pretty much had to get a PhD. Hmmm...
Anyway, now it's back to the literary blog project. By the way, I am so senioritised about school it's not even funny. I have stopped caring about whether I "should be" reading something else, and I am considering school and all its attendant work a three-days-a-week job, with the rest of my time available for reading novels if I so choose -- plus figuring out what to do with my life.
So, 'S.' William Styron. I've always been intrigued and I chose to go with his first novel instead of his Pulitzer-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner because I will read that anyway (since it won a Pulitzer) and I had a feeling I'll want to read more than one of his. (Although I took the same approach to Normam Mailer and was really not that impressed with The Naked and the Dead...or at least, not as impressed as I wanted to be.) I also opted to not read Sophie's Choice just yet, partly because I've seen the film. And even as I type that I know it's so terrible. Poor authors whose books get made into films.
Lie Down in Darkness is so far so good. He's obviously a very talented writer and about 100 pages in I am getting caught up in this Southern family, the various characters, the plush country club, the shacks on the edge of the town, the train, the hearse, the servants, and a lot of repressed emotion amidst it all. It isn't luxurious slow moving epic, just a really novel-y novel, taking its time to introduce you to the characters but doing so through both flashbacks and their interactions with one another. So far I like it.
I am also rather intrigued that his late-in-life memoir about depression was called Darkness Visible. Darkness can so clearly be so many things.
now reading: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
So, I read a random book between 'R' and 'S' and while it may sound like a law school thing it actually wasn't. I first became inspired to read Beccaria's important little treatise (it's not long, really) when I read the excellent Voltaire in Exile a few years ago, back in Cambridge, Mass. Voltaire, as pretty much anyone knows who has ever been near me while I think a literary thought, is one of my all-time favorite people and his Candide is my favorite book: the perfect blend of sarcasm, humor, intelligence, zaniness, and deep thought. Anyway, reading all about Voltaire during his time in exile and his epiphany about human rights I discovered that he is not only a literary and philosophical hero but a humanitarian thinking human rightsy hero, too ("Ecrasez l'infame!") The Italian Beccaria's widely published and praised essay influenced Voltaire, and some editions of it were published with an intro by Voltaire or apparently even with Voltaire's name on it when they didn't know at first who the anonymous author was. (Beccaria kept it on the down low at first that it was his work because of his aristocratic family and whatnot, but it turned out the government liked his treatise so it was okay in the end.)
What the essay/short book does is deliver a page or two of thoughts on many, many topics related to criminal justice such as laws, confessions, the death penalty, sanctuary, torture. Frankly, I want to quote his entire torture chapter word for word for all to see; he logically proves why it's no good. I knew I would be very interested to read this ever since I bought it a few years ago, and I'm glad I finally read it. It also has the uncanny effect of making me wonder (AGAIN) if I shouldn't have done a two-year master's in philosophy or history or something instead of law school. But I recall that there weren't a lot of M.A. options for Philosophy, when I looked into it during those aimless twentysomething years of mine; you pretty much had to get a PhD. Hmmm...
Anyway, now it's back to the literary blog project. By the way, I am so senioritised about school it's not even funny. I have stopped caring about whether I "should be" reading something else, and I am considering school and all its attendant work a three-days-a-week job, with the rest of my time available for reading novels if I so choose -- plus figuring out what to do with my life.
So, 'S.' William Styron. I've always been intrigued and I chose to go with his first novel instead of his Pulitzer-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner because I will read that anyway (since it won a Pulitzer) and I had a feeling I'll want to read more than one of his. (Although I took the same approach to Normam Mailer and was really not that impressed with The Naked and the Dead...or at least, not as impressed as I wanted to be.) I also opted to not read Sophie's Choice just yet, partly because I've seen the film. And even as I type that I know it's so terrible. Poor authors whose books get made into films.
Lie Down in Darkness is so far so good. He's obviously a very talented writer and about 100 pages in I am getting caught up in this Southern family, the various characters, the plush country club, the shacks on the edge of the town, the train, the hearse, the servants, and a lot of repressed emotion amidst it all. It isn't luxurious slow moving epic, just a really novel-y novel, taking its time to introduce you to the characters but doing so through both flashbacks and their interactions with one another. So far I like it.
I am also rather intrigued that his late-in-life memoir about depression was called Darkness Visible. Darkness can so clearly be so many things.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Rush, die
NOW FINISHED: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Salman's last name is made up of two verbs. That's fun. So, I finished his book and I still feel pretty much the same way about it as I have this whole time: he's a good writer, it's basically interesting, it's weird, fanciful things happen, and I'm certain these allusions and wordplay and characters would mean more to me if I knew/cared anything about Islam, etc.
For all the hullabaloo about this book's blasphemy, it's not particularly anti- anything, although once in a while somebody calls out religion, like near the end when Sisodia says, "Fact is...religious faith, which encodes the highest aspirations of human race, is now, in our country, the servant of lowest instincts, and God is the creature of evil." That's certainly appropriate for the U.S., too. (note: that chracter stutters, but I wrote the quote from page 533 normally, instead of "cococountry" etc.)
Then again, I guess the pilgrimage to Mecca via the sea, which they expect to part and which most believe to have parted, even though bodies wash up ashore when they drown because the sea has not in fact parted, is supposed to be making fun of religious zealots a bit ... but, duh. I guess you just have to be a devout believer in some dumb crap to get your feathers ruffled when people make fun of devout believers in dumb crap.
I think the line that has most stuck with me of this entire book is what Alicja says to her daughter Alleluia Cone:
"Alicja at first offered little more than world-weariness. 'So a woman's life-plans are being smothered by a man's,' she said, not unkindly. 'So welcome to your gender.'" -- p. 358
That was funny/true. I guess a lot of the book is funny/true. The end was riveting: I definitely wanted to power through the last 100 or so pages and see what was going to happen. All in all it's worth a read and totally not worth a fatwa.
Salman's last name is made up of two verbs. That's fun. So, I finished his book and I still feel pretty much the same way about it as I have this whole time: he's a good writer, it's basically interesting, it's weird, fanciful things happen, and I'm certain these allusions and wordplay and characters would mean more to me if I knew/cared anything about Islam, etc.
For all the hullabaloo about this book's blasphemy, it's not particularly anti- anything, although once in a while somebody calls out religion, like near the end when Sisodia says, "Fact is...religious faith, which encodes the highest aspirations of human race, is now, in our country, the servant of lowest instincts, and God is the creature of evil." That's certainly appropriate for the U.S., too. (note: that chracter stutters, but I wrote the quote from page 533 normally, instead of "cococountry" etc.)
Then again, I guess the pilgrimage to Mecca via the sea, which they expect to part and which most believe to have parted, even though bodies wash up ashore when they drown because the sea has not in fact parted, is supposed to be making fun of religious zealots a bit ... but, duh. I guess you just have to be a devout believer in some dumb crap to get your feathers ruffled when people make fun of devout believers in dumb crap.
I think the line that has most stuck with me of this entire book is what Alicja says to her daughter Alleluia Cone:
"Alicja at first offered little more than world-weariness. 'So a woman's life-plans are being smothered by a man's,' she said, not unkindly. 'So welcome to your gender.'" -- p. 358
That was funny/true. I guess a lot of the book is funny/true. The end was riveting: I definitely wanted to power through the last 100 or so pages and see what was going to happen. All in all it's worth a read and totally not worth a fatwa.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Everyone jump upon the L train
I'm still waiting for someone to say something to me as I read The Satanic Verses on the subway or bus in New York City. I look around at the diverse crowds to see if they notice me reading it -- because I always spy on what other passengers are reading -- and only half-jokingly wonder if anyone wants to say something to me about it. So far all I've had were a couple people across from me on the L train into Manhattan once who started talking to each other about it, instead of me. I heard the 30-ish girl tell her twentysomething guy friend, "No, and Cat Stevens like totally said, 'He should die,' like, he completely said he should die because of the fatwa."
She refers, of course, to when the artistformerly still known to me as Cat Stevens was widely, famously quoted as "supporting" the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing the book. Having now read a bit more about it, I think I understand what Cat Stevens, fairly new to Islam at the time, was trying to say: that blasphemy is, under Islamic law, a sin punishable by death. I think he was trying to qualify his statement a lot that if he were in an Islamic state bound by that law in that court then he would be bound to carry out the sentence, but it still didn't (doesn't) sit well, particularly with those of us who thought Cat Stevens would be on the side of goodness and non-violence in all things. He probably shouldn't have said anything at all; I think he still gets asked about it and tries to say it was a media-induced frenzy.
Frankly, the worst fallout for me personally was that after that happened 10,000 Maniacs removed their cover of "Peace Train" from their album In My Tribe and from then on it was sold with one less track and then when I wanted to replace my In My Tribe cassette with a CD it took forever to find online an old copy that included "Peace Train," and I had to pay like $40 for the CD (hello, this was 1995, pre-Napster, even), and so, yeah. Plus Natalie Merchant has since refused to sing it in concert. Good for her, but bad for those of us who'd love to hear it. It's certainly more sensible than Indigo Girls refusing to ever again play "Nashville" live, though. At least Nashville didn't advocate killing anybody. Unless you count all the God-told-me-to-go-to-war-in-Iraq nonsense songs in popular country these last few years. Which, ugh.
ANYWAY. About the book. I'm on page 433, closing in on an ending. It's such a mish-mash of peoples, although at least all the little bits are interesting. I'm not particularly moved or wowed, but it's solid. Worth a read -- particularly if you want to show off to your literary friends. (Joke, okay.) I don't suppose you can really start any trouble by reading it, as long as you're not in a mosque or Iran, although I guess back in the day you couldn't have it in, like, Malaysia or somewhere either so any hipster backpackers carrying it under one arm with Lonely Planet tucked under the other could have been majorly screwed.
My favorite part of the last couple dozen pages was a rumination on how Machiavelli is misunderstood. Saladin Chamcha, the sometimes devil character, reminds himself there are lessons to be learned from Niccolo Machiavelli:
"...a wronged man, his name...a synonym for evil; whereas in fact his staunch republicanism had earned him the rack, upon which he survived, was it three turns of the wheel?...if Niccolo could survive such tribulation and live to write that perhaps embittered, perhaps sardonic parody of the sycophantic mirror-of-princes literature..." (p. 415)
I love it! No one ever seems to agree with me that Machiavelli was just messing with us. Other parts I have recently enjoyed include all the Mount Everest talk and analogies (I like Everest things), including the character Alleluia Cone who climbs Everest, sees dead people, and then occasionally sees them in London, too. I also really liked the twelve-women-in-the-brothel part. I guess that might also be one of the blaspheming parts, comparing Mohammad's twelve wives to the twelve ladies of the evening? But...it was so cleverly done. And it called him out on his polygamy.
Well, this is definitely a literary book, with allusions to Shakespeare, Islam, and all kinds of things, and I like it, although I'm not backing away from calling it weird just yet. Meanwhile, it's almost time to pick an 'S' author!
She refers, of course, to when the artist
Frankly, the worst fallout for me personally was that after that happened 10,000 Maniacs removed their cover of "Peace Train" from their album In My Tribe and from then on it was sold with one less track and then when I wanted to replace my In My Tribe cassette with a CD it took forever to find online an old copy that included "Peace Train," and I had to pay like $40 for the CD (hello, this was 1995, pre-Napster, even), and so, yeah. Plus Natalie Merchant has since refused to sing it in concert. Good for her, but bad for those of us who'd love to hear it. It's certainly more sensible than Indigo Girls refusing to ever again play "Nashville" live, though. At least Nashville didn't advocate killing anybody. Unless you count all the God-told-me-to-go-to-war-in-Iraq nonsense songs in popular country these last few years. Which, ugh.
ANYWAY. About the book. I'm on page 433, closing in on an ending. It's such a mish-mash of peoples, although at least all the little bits are interesting. I'm not particularly moved or wowed, but it's solid. Worth a read -- particularly if you want to show off to your literary friends. (Joke, okay.) I don't suppose you can really start any trouble by reading it, as long as you're not in a mosque or Iran, although I guess back in the day you couldn't have it in, like, Malaysia or somewhere either so any hipster backpackers carrying it under one arm with Lonely Planet tucked under the other could have been majorly screwed.
My favorite part of the last couple dozen pages was a rumination on how Machiavelli is misunderstood. Saladin Chamcha, the sometimes devil character, reminds himself there are lessons to be learned from Niccolo Machiavelli:
"...a wronged man, his name...a synonym for evil; whereas in fact his staunch republicanism had earned him the rack, upon which he survived, was it three turns of the wheel?...if Niccolo could survive such tribulation and live to write that perhaps embittered, perhaps sardonic parody of the sycophantic mirror-of-princes literature..." (p. 415)
I love it! No one ever seems to agree with me that Machiavelli was just messing with us. Other parts I have recently enjoyed include all the Mount Everest talk and analogies (I like Everest things), including the character Alleluia Cone who climbs Everest, sees dead people, and then occasionally sees them in London, too. I also really liked the twelve-women-in-the-brothel part. I guess that might also be one of the blaspheming parts, comparing Mohammad's twelve wives to the twelve ladies of the evening? But...it was so cleverly done. And it called him out on his polygamy.
Well, this is definitely a literary book, with allusions to Shakespeare, Islam, and all kinds of things, and I like it, although I'm not backing away from calling it weird just yet. Meanwhile, it's almost time to pick an 'S' author!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Man-made
NOW READING: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
I've just been humming along contentedly reading The Satanic Verses, except when taking time out to do things like take gigantic lawyer ethics exams for hours on a random Saturday. I'm just about halfway through and I have yet to find anything worth getting Muslims all in a snit, but then, I don't really pretend to understand what goes on in the heads of those who believe religion justifies violence.
So, my relationship with reading is interesting. I can't believe in only four and a half months I will again be able to read only what I want when I want ... unless of course I get some job that assigns reading to me, but that would require me to get a job so I'm not holding my breath on that one.
The Satanic Verses has a lot of weird characters running around doing a lot of weird things. It's pleasant enough, but I haven't really fallen in love with it. Every once in a while, though, there's a sentence or phrase that Rushdie puts SO WELL. He is a good writer, and I can get behind that. I may even be surprised and satisfied in the end when these characters come to some sort of resolution, if they do. I've been told I should also read Midnight's Children. We'll see.
The main weird thing that happens in this book is with each new scene you have to redetermine where and when you are. (Much like an episode of Lost, these days.) The funny thing is that Rushdie is using all these characters who I vaguely recognize are characters from the mythology of Islam --for example, I got that Mahound was Mohammed, which was apparently lost on some British reviewers when the book came out -- and sometimes I just have NO idea what is going on with them. It makes me wonder how differently the book resonates with people who have grown up with/know about the characters in the Islam story.
Today is a Jewish holiday. Apparently. I guess it's not high and holy enough for us to have the day off, but "Furim" (?) involves dressing up and giving out treats. Like a spring Hallowe'en? I'm not sure; when I tried asking some classmates why they dress up the reply was, "For the holiday." Like pulling teeth, people. Anyway, in one particular class this afternoon even the professor was dressed up, and he brought cookies. Good enough for me.
So here's the point. It just so happens that this class deals with the topic of negotiation, and my professor as part of today's discussion showed a few film clips, featuring very different looks at negotiation, from Life of Brian, Erin Brockovich, and Five Easy Pieces ("I want you to hold it between your knees!") As he brought up the Life of Brian clip from the computer, he was saying, "I don't know who this guy is supposed to be; he's running away from the Romans..." And I may be reading too much into this, but first of all I thought that it was odd that someone would show a clip from a movie JUST for the negotiation lesson (trying to get Brian to haggle in the market when he just wants to pay and continue outrunning the Roman centurions) while having no idea what the film is about. I mean, wouldn't you become at least a tiny bit curious what the movie was, even if the scene was brought to your attention by a colleague in an academic seminar or something? Wouldn't you at least look it up on Wikipedia or Netflix?
Secondly, though, I thought it seemed like an almost willful not knowing what the plot was. Here's where what may be my bias comes in: as I said, I could be reading too much into it, and by all accounts I am the one Out of My Element on Long Island asking "What holiday? Why are you dressing up? Cookies, really?" all day, and I can appreciate the subversive satisfaction to be felt by someone Jewish and devout in the face of my ignorance when they later demonstrate ignorance of anything Christ-related that many of us raised in a predominantly somewhat-Christian society take for granted ... but I still think it's weird to not have looked up the plot of the movie at ALL, and weird to claim not to know what's going on at ALL in that scene. Oh well.
The point of all these musings is that ... hmmm, I'm not sure what my point is. I guess it's that Life of Brian was controversial, making light of Jesus and all. Still, I'm told that blasphemy is a far more egregious "sin" in Islamic society than the West can understand, hence the Satanic Verses fatwa. It's supposed to be more like the revulsion and lack of sympathy we feel for child molesters, that in Islamic society they wouldn't feel bad to see a blasphemer die. THAT is messed up, I say. Get. Over. It. I've never understood, in any religion, why people think their gods and prophets are not strong enough to endure a little satire.
I've just been humming along contentedly reading The Satanic Verses, except when taking time out to do things like take gigantic lawyer ethics exams for hours on a random Saturday. I'm just about halfway through and I have yet to find anything worth getting Muslims all in a snit, but then, I don't really pretend to understand what goes on in the heads of those who believe religion justifies violence.
So, my relationship with reading is interesting. I can't believe in only four and a half months I will again be able to read only what I want when I want ... unless of course I get some job that assigns reading to me, but that would require me to get a job so I'm not holding my breath on that one.
The Satanic Verses has a lot of weird characters running around doing a lot of weird things. It's pleasant enough, but I haven't really fallen in love with it. Every once in a while, though, there's a sentence or phrase that Rushdie puts SO WELL. He is a good writer, and I can get behind that. I may even be surprised and satisfied in the end when these characters come to some sort of resolution, if they do. I've been told I should also read Midnight's Children. We'll see.
The main weird thing that happens in this book is with each new scene you have to redetermine where and when you are. (Much like an episode of Lost, these days.) The funny thing is that Rushdie is using all these characters who I vaguely recognize are characters from the mythology of Islam --for example, I got that Mahound was Mohammed, which was apparently lost on some British reviewers when the book came out -- and sometimes I just have NO idea what is going on with them. It makes me wonder how differently the book resonates with people who have grown up with/know about the characters in the Islam story.
Today is a Jewish holiday. Apparently. I guess it's not high and holy enough for us to have the day off, but "Furim" (?) involves dressing up and giving out treats. Like a spring Hallowe'en? I'm not sure; when I tried asking some classmates why they dress up the reply was, "For the holiday." Like pulling teeth, people. Anyway, in one particular class this afternoon even the professor was dressed up, and he brought cookies. Good enough for me.
So here's the point. It just so happens that this class deals with the topic of negotiation, and my professor as part of today's discussion showed a few film clips, featuring very different looks at negotiation, from Life of Brian, Erin Brockovich, and Five Easy Pieces ("I want you to hold it between your knees!") As he brought up the Life of Brian clip from the computer, he was saying, "I don't know who this guy is supposed to be; he's running away from the Romans..." And I may be reading too much into this, but first of all I thought that it was odd that someone would show a clip from a movie JUST for the negotiation lesson (trying to get Brian to haggle in the market when he just wants to pay and continue outrunning the Roman centurions) while having no idea what the film is about. I mean, wouldn't you become at least a tiny bit curious what the movie was, even if the scene was brought to your attention by a colleague in an academic seminar or something? Wouldn't you at least look it up on Wikipedia or Netflix?
Secondly, though, I thought it seemed like an almost willful not knowing what the plot was. Here's where what may be my bias comes in: as I said, I could be reading too much into it, and by all accounts I am the one Out of My Element on Long Island asking "What holiday? Why are you dressing up? Cookies, really?" all day, and I can appreciate the subversive satisfaction to be felt by someone Jewish and devout in the face of my ignorance when they later demonstrate ignorance of anything Christ-related that many of us raised in a predominantly somewhat-Christian society take for granted ... but I still think it's weird to not have looked up the plot of the movie at ALL, and weird to claim not to know what's going on at ALL in that scene. Oh well.
The point of all these musings is that ... hmmm, I'm not sure what my point is. I guess it's that Life of Brian was controversial, making light of Jesus and all. Still, I'm told that blasphemy is a far more egregious "sin" in Islamic society than the West can understand, hence the Satanic Verses fatwa. It's supposed to be more like the revulsion and lack of sympathy we feel for child molesters, that in Islamic society they wouldn't feel bad to see a blasphemer die. THAT is messed up, I say. Get. Over. It. I've never understood, in any religion, why people think their gods and prophets are not strong enough to endure a little satire.
Friday, February 27, 2009
So, what's the big deal?
NOW READING: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
This is kind of like one of those moments when you have been hearing so much about something for so long that it could not possibly be as fantastic/scary/earth-shattering as it has been built up to be by the sheer amount of upbuilding. You know, like Amelie...The Blair Witch Project...The Catcher in the Rye...(ahem)Harry Potter... I'll even give it up to my peeps (of which I have several) who have proudly made it through three decades or more without seeing It's A Wonderful Life. That film IS wonderful, but you're right: it will never live up to all you have heard about it. At this point, it simply can't.
However, I would like to point out that this is only kind of like one of those moments. Because the work of art of which I now partake, the work of art about which I have heard so much for twenty years, the truly big famous deal, is not just big and famous and built up subjectively, and it is not a mere subject of enthusiastic acclaim, but it also was, like, objectively a big deal. It sent Salman Rushdie into freakin' hiding! A "fatwa" was issued against him, and all those involved in the publishing of the book. In fact, I recently learned, several of the translators and publishers in countries around the world were attacked and while some survived assassination attempts, the translator in Japan WAS stabbed to death.
Perhaps more shocking: the fatwa is still in place. If it weren't so murderous and wrong, it would just be pathetic. You want to kill someone for writing a book? Give me a break!!! Only it's not pathetic, because it's a threat to people's lives.
Now, I will (obviously) go on the record as saying that any such death threat to anyone for simply writing anything is so clearly unacceptable it's not even up for debate.
But my goodness, when I finally get around to reading the book I would at least expect there to be something to it. Something shocking, let's say. Something blasphemous and juicy. Something that could at least purport to try to pretend to be "worth it."
Yeah, not so much. It's kind of a silly, whimsical story. I'm 150 pages into it. As a book it's somewhere between average and good, but I am definitely carried along in reading by my fascination that this? THIS?! is what has motivated some twisted people on this planet to be violent. I just can't believe they actually feel justified in doing so.
I was already a huge supporter of Salman Rushdie, just for the idiocy of the whole thing against him. But now I'm reading this and all I can say is -- really, though?
This is kind of like one of those moments when you have been hearing so much about something for so long that it could not possibly be as fantastic/scary/earth-shattering as it has been built up to be by the sheer amount of upbuilding. You know, like Amelie...The Blair Witch Project...The Catcher in the Rye...(ahem)Harry Potter... I'll even give it up to my peeps (of which I have several) who have proudly made it through three decades or more without seeing It's A Wonderful Life. That film IS wonderful, but you're right: it will never live up to all you have heard about it. At this point, it simply can't.
However, I would like to point out that this is only kind of like one of those moments. Because the work of art of which I now partake, the work of art about which I have heard so much for twenty years, the truly big famous deal, is not just big and famous and built up subjectively, and it is not a mere subject of enthusiastic acclaim, but it also was, like, objectively a big deal. It sent Salman Rushdie into freakin' hiding! A "fatwa" was issued against him, and all those involved in the publishing of the book. In fact, I recently learned, several of the translators and publishers in countries around the world were attacked and while some survived assassination attempts, the translator in Japan WAS stabbed to death.
Perhaps more shocking: the fatwa is still in place. If it weren't so murderous and wrong, it would just be pathetic. You want to kill someone for writing a book? Give me a break!!! Only it's not pathetic, because it's a threat to people's lives.
Now, I will (obviously) go on the record as saying that any such death threat to anyone for simply writing anything is so clearly unacceptable it's not even up for debate.
But my goodness, when I finally get around to reading the book I would at least expect there to be something to it. Something shocking, let's say. Something blasphemous and juicy. Something that could at least purport to try to pretend to be "worth it."
Yeah, not so much. It's kind of a silly, whimsical story. I'm 150 pages into it. As a book it's somewhere between average and good, but I am definitely carried along in reading by my fascination that this? THIS?! is what has motivated some twisted people on this planet to be violent. I just can't believe they actually feel justified in doing so.
I was already a huge supporter of Salman Rushdie, just for the idiocy of the whole thing against him. But now I'm reading this and all I can say is -- really, though?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Let's eat!
NOW FINISHED: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
NOW READING: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Ishmael, for all its silly contrived gorilla-ness, made me seriously consider a thing or two. Among the thing(s) was the very notion of agriculture. As he interrogates the narrator, Ishmael opens our eyes to the fact that everything we've grown up learning about the agricultural revolution is the mythology of our culture. We learn about the cradles of 'civilization' as the beginning of it all. But of all of what? There were peoples before that, and some peoples continued living the old ways without dominating the land for years after that. There are even some such peoples around today, though fewer and farther between, and we civilized folk tend to call them "primitive."
Now, one of the things that Ishmael helps the narrator realize is that we defy the laws of nature with our agriculture. As opposed to hunting and gathering, if you will, we have ceased accepting that this or that food will be available in limited amounts, and we store it up and more importantly we insist that we have X amount available for ourselves at all times. Do you ever see the lion kill more than one gazelle, putting some aside for tomorrow?
Whether you are into the touchy-feely earthy-crunchy stuff or not, it is interesting to ponder agriculture. A few days after I finished Ishmael, Brian and I were eating dinner at our neighborhood Peruvian restaurant and pondering many things and he was talking about Anthony Bourdain, whom we love to watch (who doesn't love Anthony Bourdain?) Brian was saying how much he loves the way Bourdain gets at the heart of a culture by eating the food there, and it suddenly dawned on me in that way things will dawn on you when you are munching and pondering things, that that's the whole point. The whole point of Ishmael and of us. Agri-culture. Field cultivation. Our whole concept of "culture" IS a concept of dominance, but also creation. It's as if producing food gave us cultures, and that is in fact why each culture has representative food. Meanwhile, the "primitive" peoples are handing down over the millennia the ways of their ancestors and all kinds of wisdom and guidance about the right way to live. Did we lose that wisdom by turning the focus to food? Is it possible to pass down both?
NOW READING: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Ishmael, for all its silly contrived gorilla-ness, made me seriously consider a thing or two. Among the thing(s) was the very notion of agriculture. As he interrogates the narrator, Ishmael opens our eyes to the fact that everything we've grown up learning about the agricultural revolution is the mythology of our culture. We learn about the cradles of 'civilization' as the beginning of it all. But of all of what? There were peoples before that, and some peoples continued living the old ways without dominating the land for years after that. There are even some such peoples around today, though fewer and farther between, and we civilized folk tend to call them "primitive."
Now, one of the things that Ishmael helps the narrator realize is that we defy the laws of nature with our agriculture. As opposed to hunting and gathering, if you will, we have ceased accepting that this or that food will be available in limited amounts, and we store it up and more importantly we insist that we have X amount available for ourselves at all times. Do you ever see the lion kill more than one gazelle, putting some aside for tomorrow?
Whether you are into the touchy-feely earthy-crunchy stuff or not, it is interesting to ponder agriculture. A few days after I finished Ishmael, Brian and I were eating dinner at our neighborhood Peruvian restaurant and pondering many things and he was talking about Anthony Bourdain, whom we love to watch (who doesn't love Anthony Bourdain?) Brian was saying how much he loves the way Bourdain gets at the heart of a culture by eating the food there, and it suddenly dawned on me in that way things will dawn on you when you are munching and pondering things, that that's the whole point. The whole point of Ishmael and of us. Agri-culture. Field cultivation. Our whole concept of "culture" IS a concept of dominance, but also creation. It's as if producing food gave us cultures, and that is in fact why each culture has representative food. Meanwhile, the "primitive" peoples are handing down over the millennia the ways of their ancestors and all kinds of wisdom and guidance about the right way to live. Did we lose that wisdom by turning the focus to food? Is it possible to pass down both?
Saturday, February 07, 2009
No, I ain't gonna work on the farm no more...
NOW READING: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
I should be saying a lot more about Ishmael. It's really grown on me. But not in a normal novel way. I give Quinn an A+ for his Philosophy 101 essay but I still don't really understand how (let alone why) he decided to make a "novel" out of it. It is barely, barely, barely a story. And there are barely characters. Just dude and Ishmael, with the occasional forced interaction with a janitor or carnival roustabout or something.
But I get excited about my periodic checking in! I look forward to my little nightly gorilla lesson. I am almost finished with the book, actually, and I'm eager to see what dramatic little exhortation will be used to send the reader back out to the world.
Most recently, Ishmael has taught the narrator and me about how the story of our civilization, our post-agricultural revolution civilization(s), were destined to fail. Ishmael has also taught us that we are totally misguided in how we look to the story of Adam and Eve as the meant-to-be dawn of our culture, when it is really more of a cautionary tale about how Adam/Cain/dominion slays the pastoral lifestyle... In fact, I have a whole deep thought to share about the meaning of food in culture, and of agriculture. But I'm tired tonight so I might save that for tomorrow. Tonight, it's straight from the gorilla's mouth.
"Whenever a Taker couple talk about how wonderful it would be to have a big family, they're reenacting the scene beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They're saying to themselves, 'Of course it's our right to apportion life on this planet as we please. Why stop at four kids or six? We can have fifteen if we like. All we have to do is plow under another few hundred acres of rain forest -- and who cares if a dozen other species disappear as a result?"
--page 181
Funny, just today I was reading octuplets' mother news and caught a clip of Jon & Kate Plus 8...
I should be saying a lot more about Ishmael. It's really grown on me. But not in a normal novel way. I give Quinn an A+ for his Philosophy 101 essay but I still don't really understand how (let alone why) he decided to make a "novel" out of it. It is barely, barely, barely a story. And there are barely characters. Just dude and Ishmael, with the occasional forced interaction with a janitor or carnival roustabout or something.
But I get excited about my periodic checking in! I look forward to my little nightly gorilla lesson. I am almost finished with the book, actually, and I'm eager to see what dramatic little exhortation will be used to send the reader back out to the world.
Most recently, Ishmael has taught the narrator and me about how the story of our civilization, our post-agricultural revolution civilization(s), were destined to fail. Ishmael has also taught us that we are totally misguided in how we look to the story of Adam and Eve as the meant-to-be dawn of our culture, when it is really more of a cautionary tale about how Adam/Cain/dominion slays the pastoral lifestyle... In fact, I have a whole deep thought to share about the meaning of food in culture, and of agriculture. But I'm tired tonight so I might save that for tomorrow. Tonight, it's straight from the gorilla's mouth.
"Whenever a Taker couple talk about how wonderful it would be to have a big family, they're reenacting the scene beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They're saying to themselves, 'Of course it's our right to apportion life on this planet as we please. Why stop at four kids or six? We can have fifteen if we like. All we have to do is plow under another few hundred acres of rain forest -- and who cares if a dozen other species disappear as a result?"
--page 181
Funny, just today I was reading octuplets' mother news and caught a clip of Jon & Kate Plus 8...
Monday, February 02, 2009
There is only one Ishmael
Well, actually, I guess there are two. But I mean only one post-biblical literary Ishmael. In Moby Dick. I guess it's sort of funny how I just discounted the original Ish, eh?
Anyway, I am currently reading my 'Q' author. This brings me to the upstart, wanna-be Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Ishmael in this book is a gorilla. A gorilla teacher. How can a gorilla teach his pupil? Well, in this case he "talks" via a sort of telepathic communication to his earnest, ex-hippie kind of narrator.
If this is all starting to sound very new age and perhaps silly, well, it is. I've heard about this book for a while, mostly that a)some book lovers I know hated it and b)these days, some high schools are making it required reading. But only adventurous high schools. Of course both of those things did nothing to promise me it would not be very new age and perhaps silly.
I'm having novel issues with it again, as I have with some other letters (O, J...) This one strikes me as particularly not a novel, not even a thinly veiled memoir or anything. It's more like a metaphysical self-help philosophy book that Quinn makes into a novel by giving it two "characters" who have the conversation, instead of Quinn just writing his philosophy for the world to see. I'm 157 or something pages in, and the man and his instructing gorilla never go anywhere or do anything. The man leaves at night and comes back the next day for more instruction. The whole book is dialogue, nearly.
So if one can handle all that and get over the fact that 'Q' is not going to be a novel, what then does one think about Ishmael?
Well, it's a little weird. (Obviously.) But I kind of like some of its ideas: humans think they're not subject to the laws of nature, etc. Most recently, the idea that the gods had a perfectly good reason for telling man he'd "surely die" the day he tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge was pretty fun. I liked the explanation behind that. But I am still convinced as I read it that I'm secretly sitting in Philosophy 101 and not actually reading a novel.
I read a slew of reviews on Good Reads that totally ripped Ishmael up one side and down the other. I half agreed with them. The book is really kind of silly, and yet not. I am currently quite amused with myself when I think, "hmm, I'll just go off and check in with my gorilla for a little while."
Anyway, I am currently reading my 'Q' author. This brings me to the upstart, wanna-be Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Ishmael in this book is a gorilla. A gorilla teacher. How can a gorilla teach his pupil? Well, in this case he "talks" via a sort of telepathic communication to his earnest, ex-hippie kind of narrator.
If this is all starting to sound very new age and perhaps silly, well, it is. I've heard about this book for a while, mostly that a)some book lovers I know hated it and b)these days, some high schools are making it required reading. But only adventurous high schools. Of course both of those things did nothing to promise me it would not be very new age and perhaps silly.
I'm having novel issues with it again, as I have with some other letters (O, J...) This one strikes me as particularly not a novel, not even a thinly veiled memoir or anything. It's more like a metaphysical self-help philosophy book that Quinn makes into a novel by giving it two "characters" who have the conversation, instead of Quinn just writing his philosophy for the world to see. I'm 157 or something pages in, and the man and his instructing gorilla never go anywhere or do anything. The man leaves at night and comes back the next day for more instruction. The whole book is dialogue, nearly.
So if one can handle all that and get over the fact that 'Q' is not going to be a novel, what then does one think about Ishmael?
Well, it's a little weird. (Obviously.) But I kind of like some of its ideas: humans think they're not subject to the laws of nature, etc. Most recently, the idea that the gods had a perfectly good reason for telling man he'd "surely die" the day he tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge was pretty fun. I liked the explanation behind that. But I am still convinced as I read it that I'm secretly sitting in Philosophy 101 and not actually reading a novel.
I read a slew of reviews on Good Reads that totally ripped Ishmael up one side and down the other. I half agreed with them. The book is really kind of silly, and yet not. I am currently quite amused with myself when I think, "hmm, I'll just go off and check in with my gorilla for a little while."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Genre fiction, no less!
Hey, I read an actual book! Two, in fact! (Actual book = not a law school text.) I read two of Alafair Burke's mysteries, Judgment Calls and Dead Connection. Why, you ask? Why mystery/thriller novels in lieu of, say, the next project book? Because Ms Alafair Burke is also my Criminal Procedure professor this semester, or, I should say, was because the semester is finally OVER! I took her final the day before yesterday in fact. I justified reading her novels this month because they totally were review. She peppers them with criminal procedure issues! Take that, stuffy overworked classmates who never crack a literary spine!
Tomorrow morn I'm off to Curacao, and I'm bringing with me 'Q' - Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
Yay!
Tomorrow morn I'm off to Curacao, and I'm bringing with me 'Q' - Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
Yay!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
the end of The Road
now finished: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Well, would you look at that? I almost went the entire month of November without a post to this here literary supplement! But never fear: in the nick of time, and thanks to the holiday weekend during which I did not feel guilty about picking up the novel from the bedside table instead of lugging a few law textbooks into my lap, I have just finished reading The Road.
Short answer? I love it.
Of course I have more to say than just that. But it's one of those about which it is hard to speak eloquently. The book itself is simply and elegantly written, despite being about harsh things. Or maybe because it's about harsh things. You'll surely hear a lot of people going on and on about how it's depressing, dismal, bleak, and so forth because it is about a man and a boy journeying together along the road through a post-apocalyptic, basically destroyed country. There's a lot of death. And desperation. And ashes.
But the book is so life-affirming, as these so-called "depressing" works often are. I'm not going to give away the ending, because I highly recommend it and want you to read it. I am just saying this: how can a book that contemplates death, destruction, and the real possibility of entirely destroying civilization not make a reader contemplate life and come away with a renewed sense of all that is good about your life, relationships, and communities?
I am all kinds of excited for the movie, which, unfortunately, has been delayed until next year. (It was supposed to be out this month, but needs more time in post-production.) It's such a powerful story. It's kind of weird that just last year we had Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, which was the first book of his I'd read, and which I basically read because the movie was coming out. Actually, I read half of it because the movie was coming out, and then I went back and read the second half of it to try to figure out how it ended, since the movie certainly doesn't tell you. I must say I am glad I delved deeper into McCarthy's oeuvre because I was much more impressed by The Road, but I was expecting to be thoroughly impressed because as you may know The Road won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. See, everyone loves the road - me, Oprah, the Pulitzer committee. What more do you need?
The book starts a little slowly as it draws you into this world, but you become a part of it and it's really hard to put down. I'm sure if I hadn't been obliterated by law school fatigue on any given night I would have read it in one or two sittings; it moves quickly. But there are moments when the boy or the man expresses some thought summing up all the despair and hope into one tight, worried, heartbreaking sentence and at those moments you pause, you must pause, before going on to the next page.
While it is about what would happen to the survivors as they approach the end of the world, it's much more about the relationship between the man and the boy, and what that says about all of us and how we treat each other even before we get to the end of the world.
Well, would you look at that? I almost went the entire month of November without a post to this here literary supplement! But never fear: in the nick of time, and thanks to the holiday weekend during which I did not feel guilty about picking up the novel from the bedside table instead of lugging a few law textbooks into my lap, I have just finished reading The Road.
Short answer? I love it.
Of course I have more to say than just that. But it's one of those about which it is hard to speak eloquently. The book itself is simply and elegantly written, despite being about harsh things. Or maybe because it's about harsh things. You'll surely hear a lot of people going on and on about how it's depressing, dismal, bleak, and so forth because it is about a man and a boy journeying together along the road through a post-apocalyptic, basically destroyed country. There's a lot of death. And desperation. And ashes.
But the book is so life-affirming, as these so-called "depressing" works often are. I'm not going to give away the ending, because I highly recommend it and want you to read it. I am just saying this: how can a book that contemplates death, destruction, and the real possibility of entirely destroying civilization not make a reader contemplate life and come away with a renewed sense of all that is good about your life, relationships, and communities?
I am all kinds of excited for the movie, which, unfortunately, has been delayed until next year. (It was supposed to be out this month, but needs more time in post-production.) It's such a powerful story. It's kind of weird that just last year we had Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, which was the first book of his I'd read, and which I basically read because the movie was coming out. Actually, I read half of it because the movie was coming out, and then I went back and read the second half of it to try to figure out how it ended, since the movie certainly doesn't tell you. I must say I am glad I delved deeper into McCarthy's oeuvre because I was much more impressed by The Road, but I was expecting to be thoroughly impressed because as you may know The Road won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. See, everyone loves the road - me, Oprah, the Pulitzer committee. What more do you need?
The book starts a little slowly as it draws you into this world, but you become a part of it and it's really hard to put down. I'm sure if I hadn't been obliterated by law school fatigue on any given night I would have read it in one or two sittings; it moves quickly. But there are moments when the boy or the man expresses some thought summing up all the despair and hope into one tight, worried, heartbreaking sentence and at those moments you pause, you must pause, before going on to the next page.
While it is about what would happen to the survivors as they approach the end of the world, it's much more about the relationship between the man and the boy, and what that says about all of us and how we treat each other even before we get to the end of the world.
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