Current book: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Pages read: 312 - 497 (end)
I read a lot, as you can see. That's because I read very, very fast. Because when nothing happens at all, it's easy to keep up with the plot points. (And I'm sick to death of this book.)
A bunch of fascist soldiers attack one of the other nearby guerrilla groups, and Augustin and Robert just have to stand by and listen, because to help would mean they wouldn't be able to complete their mission. However, this means that the enemy is more than prepared for the attack that Robert's group is supposed to be supporting with the demolition of the bridge. Robert, therefore, sends a message to the general in charge of the operation to say that it should be called off. That message makes it through, but not until moments before the attack, by which time it's already too late. (Oh, the futility of war! Alas! Alack!)
Meanwhile, Pablo betrays our friendly guerrillas by making off in the middle of the night with half the explosives and all the detonators. But it's ok, because he comes back in the morning, all contrite, with grenades, having changed his mind. So, they go out on their big operation, successfully blow up the bridge, and return. Half of them get killed, but there you go. They're attempting to make their escape, with Pablo's help, when Robert gets thrown off his horse and breaks his leg. It's a bad enough injury that there's no way he can make it out, so they leave him, with Maria weeping and protesting. He marshals his strength enough to stay alive and kill the next fascist that comes along, and, on the last page, we see him lying in wait for that solider, ready to kill him with his last dying breath.
So, my mother summed it up pretty well in yesterday's comment, "The bell is tolling for all of these characters every time they witness or participate in an act that diminishes mankind." War is terrible and futile and pointless, and half the time it's all a mistake. The young and brave waste their lives by throwing them at foolish goals determined by the old and cowardly, and no one cares. Love is extinguished by the brutality of violence, and for no good reason. Robert is completely dehumanized because of the fact that, even in the moment of his own death, he plans to kill someone else. Hooray.
I maintain that once you've read one book about war, you've read them all. This was too long and I didn't care for the style in the least. Does that make it not a good war novel? No, not really, but I'm also not sure it's a seminal work. If I hadn't already read books about war, I might feel differently, but I have, so I don't. I think the first novel I read of this nature, though, was All Quiet on the Western Front, and I didn't like that either.
It's not worthy of the list largely because it's an unnecessarily long slog and not particularly original. The Old Man and the Sea is better Hemingway. Also shorter.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
I'll show you profanity.
Current book: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Pages read: 99 - 311
I read yesterday, despite appearances, and just completely forgot to post. It's not like I didn't have time, either. I just didn't even think about it. At all. Because that is how boring this novel is. It's actually better that I didn't post yesterday anyway, because nothing happened. No, really.
Robert Jordan and Maria have sex. Everyone argues. We find out that Pilar watched Pablo organize and oversee the killing of fascists in his hometown after it was taken over by rebels at the beginning of the conflict. (That was 100 pages, right there. Seriously.) The guerrillas (Man, that is a hard word to spell. I'm a good speller, but guerrilla gets me every time. It's the double r that I can't seem to remember.) pick up camp in order to move closer to the site of the bridge that needs to be blown up. Robert and Maria have sex again. Pilar is jealous of both of them and is apparently bisexual. (I'm not interpreting; it's really in there.) Pablo threatens Robert's command, but it comes to nothing when some enemy cavalry rides through and everyone switches into combat mode. Now, Robert and a fellow guerrilla named Augustin are keeping watch over the area. Also, it snows quite a bit.
There's a lot of wistfulness about Robert and Maria's relationship (which actually seems to be pretty genuine) and how they're having the rare experience of real love, but it has to be curtailed by the necessities of warfare. There's a lot of bemoaning of killing people, as well, especially when it's brutal and vengeful, as it was with Pablo and the fascists. (They were beaten to death with flails. Lovely.) I don't understand how so little can have happened, but there you are. Robert has these long internal monologues about his life, too, and we find out that he joined the fight with the Russians as kind of a pseudo-Communist, and that he used to be a professor of Spanish in Montana. It's the same stuff Hemingway always does, which is stark prose and unrealistically straightforward, repetitive dialogue interspersed with angst-filled musings about the past.
Also, for some reason Hemingway felt the need not to actually write any profanity in this book, but since it's a feature of many of the guerrillas' dialogue, he put it in as the actual words "unprintable," or "obscenity," or "I obscenity in the milk of your..." It's just obnoxious, frankly. If you want to swear, swear; if you don't, don't. But don't pretty it up for the censors. Where's the integrity? I don't find it endearing or indicative of the characters' speech patterns. I find it cheap as hell. Also, it's often confusing and jars you out of the narrative because it makes you stop and mentally translate back into normal swearing. Anyway, aside from the annoyance factor, it's idiocy to stop short of writing profanity, but to graphically describe people being beaten to death by flails. I'm not going to be more shocked by the word "fuck" than I am by torture and war crimes. Christ.
Pages read: 99 - 311
I read yesterday, despite appearances, and just completely forgot to post. It's not like I didn't have time, either. I just didn't even think about it. At all. Because that is how boring this novel is. It's actually better that I didn't post yesterday anyway, because nothing happened. No, really.
Robert Jordan and Maria have sex. Everyone argues. We find out that Pilar watched Pablo organize and oversee the killing of fascists in his hometown after it was taken over by rebels at the beginning of the conflict. (That was 100 pages, right there. Seriously.) The guerrillas (Man, that is a hard word to spell. I'm a good speller, but guerrilla gets me every time. It's the double r that I can't seem to remember.) pick up camp in order to move closer to the site of the bridge that needs to be blown up. Robert and Maria have sex again. Pilar is jealous of both of them and is apparently bisexual. (I'm not interpreting; it's really in there.) Pablo threatens Robert's command, but it comes to nothing when some enemy cavalry rides through and everyone switches into combat mode. Now, Robert and a fellow guerrilla named Augustin are keeping watch over the area. Also, it snows quite a bit.
There's a lot of wistfulness about Robert and Maria's relationship (which actually seems to be pretty genuine) and how they're having the rare experience of real love, but it has to be curtailed by the necessities of warfare. There's a lot of bemoaning of killing people, as well, especially when it's brutal and vengeful, as it was with Pablo and the fascists. (They were beaten to death with flails. Lovely.) I don't understand how so little can have happened, but there you are. Robert has these long internal monologues about his life, too, and we find out that he joined the fight with the Russians as kind of a pseudo-Communist, and that he used to be a professor of Spanish in Montana. It's the same stuff Hemingway always does, which is stark prose and unrealistically straightforward, repetitive dialogue interspersed with angst-filled musings about the past.
Also, for some reason Hemingway felt the need not to actually write any profanity in this book, but since it's a feature of many of the guerrillas' dialogue, he put it in as the actual words "unprintable," or "obscenity," or "I obscenity in the milk of your..." It's just obnoxious, frankly. If you want to swear, swear; if you don't, don't. But don't pretty it up for the censors. Where's the integrity? I don't find it endearing or indicative of the characters' speech patterns. I find it cheap as hell. Also, it's often confusing and jars you out of the narrative because it makes you stop and mentally translate back into normal swearing. Anyway, aside from the annoyance factor, it's idiocy to stop short of writing profanity, but to graphically describe people being beaten to death by flails. I'm not going to be more shocked by the word "fuck" than I am by torture and war crimes. Christ.
Monday, October 3, 2011
On little cat feet
Current book: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Pages read: 10 - 98
So, I finally got the book - the library was totally holding out on me, and clearly had another copy. I went to get some other books on Saturday and just strolled by the shelf to check, and there it was, quietly Hemingwaying with the other Hemingways. Come on, library. You're supposed to want people to read books.
Our hero's name is Robert Jordan, which is amusing if you're familiar with modern fantasy novels (and one wonders if Robert Jordan chose his nom de plume because of this novel), and he seems to be American, although it's not entirely clear. Anyway, he's a demolitionist working for the allied forces waging guerrilla warfare in Spain during World War II. So far, he's arrived at the rebel camp and met some people, amongst them Pablo, the de facto commander, who's a drunk and seems to be close to turning traitor; Anselmo, an older, wise man who's fought before; and Maria, a girl rescued from prison. Pablo seems like he's eventually going to be a problem, but hasn't done anything yet. Pilar, Pablo's wife, is really in charge of the guerrilla camp, and is keeping everything in order and Pablo in check. Honestly, they just seem to hang out, eat, and drink wine. Robert cases the strategic bridge that he's been sent to this particular area to blow up and decides it will be quite easy to set and detonate the explosives. (We're also informed through flashbacks that he has to wait for an army-initiated attack to start before he actually destroys it.) In addition, he finds himself very attracted to Maria, and they eventually sleep together. She's the initiator of the tryst, which is good, since it seems like she was raped in prison, and we'd hate for Robert to take advantage of her.
It's pretty much really boring. I wish I could say that it was somehow changing my mind about Hemingway, but it's definitely not so far. His dialogue is bizarre and stilted, too, which the appreciators of his style will, I'm sure, put down to the fact that it's spare and unique, but makes it sound sort of like everyone's a robot. Also, watching guerrillas bicker in a cave is not my idea of a good time. I'm sure there's an important lesson about the monotony of war and the futility of plans in a time of conflict, but I am not looking forward to spending the next 600 pages learning it.
How come there are never any six-toed cats in Hemingway's books? You'd think they might have sneaked in. I assume they're good at sneaking. What with the six toes.
Pages read: 10 - 98
So, I finally got the book - the library was totally holding out on me, and clearly had another copy. I went to get some other books on Saturday and just strolled by the shelf to check, and there it was, quietly Hemingwaying with the other Hemingways. Come on, library. You're supposed to want people to read books.
Our hero's name is Robert Jordan, which is amusing if you're familiar with modern fantasy novels (and one wonders if Robert Jordan chose his nom de plume because of this novel), and he seems to be American, although it's not entirely clear. Anyway, he's a demolitionist working for the allied forces waging guerrilla warfare in Spain during World War II. So far, he's arrived at the rebel camp and met some people, amongst them Pablo, the de facto commander, who's a drunk and seems to be close to turning traitor; Anselmo, an older, wise man who's fought before; and Maria, a girl rescued from prison. Pablo seems like he's eventually going to be a problem, but hasn't done anything yet. Pilar, Pablo's wife, is really in charge of the guerrilla camp, and is keeping everything in order and Pablo in check. Honestly, they just seem to hang out, eat, and drink wine. Robert cases the strategic bridge that he's been sent to this particular area to blow up and decides it will be quite easy to set and detonate the explosives. (We're also informed through flashbacks that he has to wait for an army-initiated attack to start before he actually destroys it.) In addition, he finds himself very attracted to Maria, and they eventually sleep together. She's the initiator of the tryst, which is good, since it seems like she was raped in prison, and we'd hate for Robert to take advantage of her.
It's pretty much really boring. I wish I could say that it was somehow changing my mind about Hemingway, but it's definitely not so far. His dialogue is bizarre and stilted, too, which the appreciators of his style will, I'm sure, put down to the fact that it's spare and unique, but makes it sound sort of like everyone's a robot. Also, watching guerrillas bicker in a cave is not my idea of a good time. I'm sure there's an important lesson about the monotony of war and the futility of plans in a time of conflict, but I am not looking forward to spending the next 600 pages learning it.
How come there are never any six-toed cats in Hemingway's books? You'd think they might have sneaked in. I assume they're good at sneaking. What with the six toes.
Monday, September 19, 2011
We have the technology!
Current book: None
Pages read: None
Still no copy of my book from the library. However, that said, I have been very productive on the blog lately. All posts are now tagged with the name of the book and the author's name, and the final post for each book is tagged with an assessment of whether it was worthy of the list. I'm also going to be making the list along the left side of the page into links that will give you a page of every relevant post, but I haven't gotten there yet.
Pages read: None
Still no copy of my book from the library. However, that said, I have been very productive on the blog lately. All posts are now tagged with the name of the book and the author's name, and the final post for each book is tagged with an assessment of whether it was worthy of the list. I'm also going to be making the list along the left side of the page into links that will give you a page of every relevant post, but I haven't gotten there yet.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
MLA, eat your heart out.
Current book: None
Pages read: None
My book has not yet been returned to the library. Come on, random person. You have like $3.50 in fines by now. Cough up the goods already.
Regarding the Scientology expose - I've decided that I'm annoyed by the fact that there aren't citations. She's got a huge bibliography in the thing, and a bunch of notes at the end, but there aren't any superscripts to indicate where those notes might correspond to the text. Her footnotes are purely to add asides and clarification, but don't offer any sources, or at least not sources that are cited in an academic fashion. (They'll say something like, "The Church denies this.") It's lazy and it undermines the legitimacy of her research. You would think, when she spent this much time investigating the thing, she'd want it to come across as rigorous and meticulous. Apparently not. So if you, dear reader, decide to write a book that relies heavily on source material, don't be as ass - cite.
Pages read: None
My book has not yet been returned to the library. Come on, random person. You have like $3.50 in fines by now. Cough up the goods already.
Regarding the Scientology expose - I've decided that I'm annoyed by the fact that there aren't citations. She's got a huge bibliography in the thing, and a bunch of notes at the end, but there aren't any superscripts to indicate where those notes might correspond to the text. Her footnotes are purely to add asides and clarification, but don't offer any sources, or at least not sources that are cited in an academic fashion. (They'll say something like, "The Church denies this.") It's lazy and it undermines the legitimacy of her research. You would think, when she spent this much time investigating the thing, she'd want it to come across as rigorous and meticulous. Apparently not. So if you, dear reader, decide to write a book that relies heavily on source material, don't be as ass - cite.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Ask not for whom the fines accrue...
Current book: None
Pages read: None
Well, whoever was supposed to return his or her copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls to the Saint Paul library by September 1st has failed to do so, even though I put a hold on it. So, needless to say, I haven't got the book yet for this next one. Amusingly, I already have the copy of Slaughterhouse-V that I also put on hold. But to go out of order would be anathema, so instead I'll just wait. I hope that said delinquent will rectify the situation soon.
In other news, I'm reading an expose of Scientology right now, and man, it is a giant cult. I always had a very suspicious view of it, but now that I'm reading details (which seem quite well researched and accurate), I'm sort of actively horrified by it. It has a lot of the important hallmarks of a cult: it promises to solve all your problems, it has a great, venerated leader, it requires you to invest a significant amount of money to learn its practices, it assigns you new ways of thinking, it punishes its initiates with isolation and physical labor for disobeying its tenets, it encourages you to cut ties with non-members, et cetera. (Also, reading that list makes me realize how many religions are characterized by at least some, if not many, of those attributes. Money, I think, tends to be the deciding factor in a cult. Well, that and building compounds. (Seriously, compounds - are they ever good?)) Anyway, it's fascinating, though I must admit to feeling a little voyeuristic reading it.
I'm clearly very upset that the Hemingway hasn't come in yet. I suppose I'll attempt to keep you entertained in the meantime.
Pages read: None
Well, whoever was supposed to return his or her copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls to the Saint Paul library by September 1st has failed to do so, even though I put a hold on it. So, needless to say, I haven't got the book yet for this next one. Amusingly, I already have the copy of Slaughterhouse-V that I also put on hold. But to go out of order would be anathema, so instead I'll just wait. I hope that said delinquent will rectify the situation soon.
In other news, I'm reading an expose of Scientology right now, and man, it is a giant cult. I always had a very suspicious view of it, but now that I'm reading details (which seem quite well researched and accurate), I'm sort of actively horrified by it. It has a lot of the important hallmarks of a cult: it promises to solve all your problems, it has a great, venerated leader, it requires you to invest a significant amount of money to learn its practices, it assigns you new ways of thinking, it punishes its initiates with isolation and physical labor for disobeying its tenets, it encourages you to cut ties with non-members, et cetera. (Also, reading that list makes me realize how many religions are characterized by at least some, if not many, of those attributes. Money, I think, tends to be the deciding factor in a cult. Well, that and building compounds. (Seriously, compounds - are they ever good?)) Anyway, it's fascinating, though I must admit to feeling a little voyeuristic reading it.
I'm clearly very upset that the Hemingway hasn't come in yet. I suppose I'll attempt to keep you entertained in the meantime.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Everybody who's anybody drinks.
Current book: On the Road
Pages read: 260 - 307 (end)
Well, I missed reporting on yesterday's antics. Let's see. Everyone drank and slept with girls.
Sal spends a small amount of time in New York and then eventually finds Dean again, who's now married to Camille in San Francisco. (I think. Honestly, the endless, dead-end, empty relationships are getting hard to keep track of.) Anyway, he and Dean decide to go on another great road trip cross-country, leaving the pregnant Camille all alone and with no support. (Technically, she "threw them out" for staying up all night in her house drinking with strangers. There's this great scene where all of Dean's friends' wives confront him about his treatment of her, and all Sal can do is think about how wronged Dean is. It's almost funny, except that instead it fills me with rage.) They drive like fucking maniacs across the country, sometimes with passengers who fear for their lives (an instinct that Kerouac mocks as dull and pedestrian of them). Eventually they get to New York, where Dean settles for a while, and then marries yet another woman, Inez. (I'm pretty sure he's actually a bigamist at this point, but there may have been divorces. It's unclear.)
Later, Sal goes on a trip alone to Denver, but eventually Dean follows him and they decide to go to Mexico with some other random guy named Tim. They make it all the way to Mexico City, after, you guessed it, drinking and sleeping with girls (actual prostitutes, in this case, and some of them as young as 15). Sal falls ill in Mexico City with a fever, and Dean abandons him there. In the end, Sal ends up in New York and has a steady girlfriend, and Dean ends up back with Camille, miserable and penniless. Gee, I'm all broken up about it.
I can't decide whether I like the misogyny or the utter disregard for everything that's important in life less. One could argue that those go hand in hand. I suppose I shouldn't hold Kerouac responsible for the overt, absurd sexism, since it's a product of the time, but it offends my sensibilities that he thinks everyone should be free and easy and whatever else he decides, but not women. They're either whores or shrews, apparently, and it's just blatantly unfair. At some point, they meet a friend's wife who allows him to go out at all hours, bring friends home, and treat her like she doesn't exist, and Dean has this to say about it,
I realize that I'm about to sound like the biggest square in the world, but as I mentioned in a previous post, Sal and his friends' utter disregard for all responsibility is pretty despicable. In Dean's case, leaving his pregnant wife alone and with no support is the worst crime; in Sal's, I suppose he doesn't have a reason to stay anywhere, but I'm baffled as to how wasting his money, getting smashed, and having sex with women he doesn't like is a good choice, especially since he spends all his time unhappy and fighting, or thinking about how sad America and bars and things like that are. (To be fair, he usually calls things glorious a second before he calls them sad, but there you are.) My favorite moment*, and one that I think characterizes Sal pretty well, is when he says the following to Dean.
To be fair, the writing is decent, and his voice is both immediate and convincing. I can, I suppose, fathom how some people might enjoy that about it. But honestly, it's like listening to a pompous drunk guy blather about the summer after senior year.
Unworthy of the list. Moving on.
*Another quote that is amusing only because it proves that Kerouac is, quite possibly, insane, is on the last page.
Pages read: 260 - 307 (end)
Well, I missed reporting on yesterday's antics. Let's see. Everyone drank and slept with girls.
Sal spends a small amount of time in New York and then eventually finds Dean again, who's now married to Camille in San Francisco. (I think. Honestly, the endless, dead-end, empty relationships are getting hard to keep track of.) Anyway, he and Dean decide to go on another great road trip cross-country, leaving the pregnant Camille all alone and with no support. (Technically, she "threw them out" for staying up all night in her house drinking with strangers. There's this great scene where all of Dean's friends' wives confront him about his treatment of her, and all Sal can do is think about how wronged Dean is. It's almost funny, except that instead it fills me with rage.) They drive like fucking maniacs across the country, sometimes with passengers who fear for their lives (an instinct that Kerouac mocks as dull and pedestrian of them). Eventually they get to New York, where Dean settles for a while, and then marries yet another woman, Inez. (I'm pretty sure he's actually a bigamist at this point, but there may have been divorces. It's unclear.)
Later, Sal goes on a trip alone to Denver, but eventually Dean follows him and they decide to go to Mexico with some other random guy named Tim. They make it all the way to Mexico City, after, you guessed it, drinking and sleeping with girls (actual prostitutes, in this case, and some of them as young as 15). Sal falls ill in Mexico City with a fever, and Dean abandons him there. In the end, Sal ends up in New York and has a steady girlfriend, and Dean ends up back with Camille, miserable and penniless. Gee, I'm all broken up about it.
I can't decide whether I like the misogyny or the utter disregard for everything that's important in life less. One could argue that those go hand in hand. I suppose I shouldn't hold Kerouac responsible for the overt, absurd sexism, since it's a product of the time, but it offends my sensibilities that he thinks everyone should be free and easy and whatever else he decides, but not women. They're either whores or shrews, apparently, and it's just blatantly unfair. At some point, they meet a friend's wife who allows him to go out at all hours, bring friends home, and treat her like she doesn't exist, and Dean has this to say about it,
"Now you see man, there's a real woman for you. Never a harsh word, never a complaint, or modified; her old man can come in any hour of the night with anybody and have talks in the kitchen and drink the beer and leave any old time. This is a man, and that's his castle." (204)Jesus Christ. It's like goddamned Stepford in here. (Also, "or modified"? What the hell does that mean?)
I realize that I'm about to sound like the biggest square in the world, but as I mentioned in a previous post, Sal and his friends' utter disregard for all responsibility is pretty despicable. In Dean's case, leaving his pregnant wife alone and with no support is the worst crime; in Sal's, I suppose he doesn't have a reason to stay anywhere, but I'm baffled as to how wasting his money, getting smashed, and having sex with women he doesn't like is a good choice, especially since he spends all his time unhappy and fighting, or thinking about how sad America and bars and things like that are. (To be fair, he usually calls things glorious a second before he calls them sad, but there you are.) My favorite moment*, and one that I think characterizes Sal pretty well, is when he says the following to Dean.
"It's not my fault! It's not my fault!...Nothing in this lousy world is my fault, don't you see that? I don't want it to be and it can't be and it won't be." (214)And there it is, really. That's the material point of this entire novel. Nothing is my fault and I don't care about anything. Seriously, Kerouac? You are such an asshole.
To be fair, the writing is decent, and his voice is both immediate and convincing. I can, I suppose, fathom how some people might enjoy that about it. But honestly, it's like listening to a pompous drunk guy blather about the summer after senior year.
Unworthy of the list. Moving on.
*Another quote that is amusing only because it proves that Kerouac is, quite possibly, insane, is on the last page.
"...and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?" (113)For Christ's sake, Jack. Masturbate on your own time.
Monday, September 12, 2011
A lark, a spree, it's very clear to see.
Current book: On the Road
Pages read: 179 - 260
I read today, but I also spent seven and a half hours cleaning. I'll finish tomorrow and just do a comprehensive one for the whole book. So tired now.
There was more drinking and screwing around. Shocking.
Pages read: 179 - 260
I read today, but I also spent seven and a half hours cleaning. I'll finish tomorrow and just do a comprehensive one for the whole book. So tired now.
There was more drinking and screwing around. Shocking.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Well. There it is.
Current book: On the Road
Pages read: None
Did I mention I'm not posting on Fridays? I'm not posting on Fridays.
Pages read: None
Did I mention I'm not posting on Fridays? I'm not posting on Fridays.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
A faaaaabulous new car!
Current book: On the Road
Pages read: 86 - 178
Guess what happens in this section? If you said, "Sal gets drunk and fights with his friends," you're right! Tell the contestants what they've won!
Sal spends some time with his Mexican...girlfriend? I'm not really what we're supposed to be calling these liaisons, but we'll go with that. Anyway, they run out of money, shockingly, and try their luck going out to the California farms to pick fruit and cotton. Predictably, Sal sucks at hard labor, and fails to make any real money, but is happy being "a man of the earth," as he says. Happy, of course, until he decides it doesn't suit him anymore. Also, Terry, the Mexican girl, picks up her son, a youngish kid, who lives with them in their farm-laborer tent city for a while. Eventually, Sal ditches Terry back with her family and goes home to New York.
Some months later, during a Christmas vacation from college, in which Sal is now enrolled, his friend Dean shows up with Dean's ex-wife, Marylou. They've decided they're in love again, despite the fact that Dean has another live-in girlfriend in San Francisco named Camille. Dean inspires Sal to want to go to California again, so they head out in Dean's new car, which he drives fast and recklessly. They've also got another guy with them, Ed, who, as it turns out, left his wife on the way out to the East Coast with Dean. (And by left, I mean they actually abandoned her at a motel on the road during the trip. And we're supposed to like these people. Christ.) They stop in New Orleans, where Ed finds his wife, and they spend the rest of the trip running out of money, picking up hitchhikers, and fighting about everything. Eventually they get to San Francisco, where Marylou goes off with some guy and Sal decides she's a whore. This in spite of the fact that he's been propositioning her the entire way to California, and was, previously, pleased when she reciprocated. Almost as soon as they arrive in San Francisco, Sal goes back to New York.
It's not any better. If anything, it's even more ridiculous because of the hypocrisy that's crept in. During one of their periods on the road, Sal chastises Dean, Ed, and Marylou for not getting their lives together, and tells them that they have to figure out what they're doing and have a real impact. My jaw didn't actually drop at the unintentional irony, but it was close enough. You can't have it both ways, Sal/Jack. Either freedom and the road are glorious, and you're making the most important decision of your life by abandoning all responsibility, or you need to make a decision about your life and choose something to do. Not both. (I'll have some more to say about abandoning responsibility when the whole book is finished. I'm waiting to pass judgement on that one.)
Also, Sal is just so damned presumptuous. When he's with Terry, at some point he decides he needs to make sure that no one breaks into their tent and threatens them harm because they're Mexican. He says, "They thought I was a Mexican, of course; and in a way, I am," (98). Ignoring, for a moment, the improper use of the semicolon, we'll move on to the improper appropriation of a Mexican identity. And why? Because he's "balling" a Mexican girl, whom he will leave in approximately three seconds. (All right, it's at least a couple of weeks, but still.) And this makes him a Mexican?
It's terrible. There still haven't really been any drugs. They smoked pot once. Also, I've decided I want this book to be a satirical criticism of the lifestyle it's illustrating, and it's really, really not one.
Pages read: 86 - 178
Guess what happens in this section? If you said, "Sal gets drunk and fights with his friends," you're right! Tell the contestants what they've won!
Sal spends some time with his Mexican...girlfriend? I'm not really what we're supposed to be calling these liaisons, but we'll go with that. Anyway, they run out of money, shockingly, and try their luck going out to the California farms to pick fruit and cotton. Predictably, Sal sucks at hard labor, and fails to make any real money, but is happy being "a man of the earth," as he says. Happy, of course, until he decides it doesn't suit him anymore. Also, Terry, the Mexican girl, picks up her son, a youngish kid, who lives with them in their farm-laborer tent city for a while. Eventually, Sal ditches Terry back with her family and goes home to New York.
Some months later, during a Christmas vacation from college, in which Sal is now enrolled, his friend Dean shows up with Dean's ex-wife, Marylou. They've decided they're in love again, despite the fact that Dean has another live-in girlfriend in San Francisco named Camille. Dean inspires Sal to want to go to California again, so they head out in Dean's new car, which he drives fast and recklessly. They've also got another guy with them, Ed, who, as it turns out, left his wife on the way out to the East Coast with Dean. (And by left, I mean they actually abandoned her at a motel on the road during the trip. And we're supposed to like these people. Christ.) They stop in New Orleans, where Ed finds his wife, and they spend the rest of the trip running out of money, picking up hitchhikers, and fighting about everything. Eventually they get to San Francisco, where Marylou goes off with some guy and Sal decides she's a whore. This in spite of the fact that he's been propositioning her the entire way to California, and was, previously, pleased when she reciprocated. Almost as soon as they arrive in San Francisco, Sal goes back to New York.
It's not any better. If anything, it's even more ridiculous because of the hypocrisy that's crept in. During one of their periods on the road, Sal chastises Dean, Ed, and Marylou for not getting their lives together, and tells them that they have to figure out what they're doing and have a real impact. My jaw didn't actually drop at the unintentional irony, but it was close enough. You can't have it both ways, Sal/Jack. Either freedom and the road are glorious, and you're making the most important decision of your life by abandoning all responsibility, or you need to make a decision about your life and choose something to do. Not both. (I'll have some more to say about abandoning responsibility when the whole book is finished. I'm waiting to pass judgement on that one.)
Also, Sal is just so damned presumptuous. When he's with Terry, at some point he decides he needs to make sure that no one breaks into their tent and threatens them harm because they're Mexican. He says, "They thought I was a Mexican, of course; and in a way, I am," (98). Ignoring, for a moment, the improper use of the semicolon, we'll move on to the improper appropriation of a Mexican identity. And why? Because he's "balling" a Mexican girl, whom he will leave in approximately three seconds. (All right, it's at least a couple of weeks, but still.) And this makes him a Mexican?
It's terrible. There still haven't really been any drugs. They smoked pot once. Also, I've decided I want this book to be a satirical criticism of the lifestyle it's illustrating, and it's really, really not one.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
No one wants a fellow with a social disease.
Current book: On the Road
Pages read: 1 - 85
Ew. Just ew.
So, Jack Kerouac is apparently the original hipster, and, as such, is obnoxiously irresponsible and proud of himself for it. I'd tell you what happens, but something would have to happen first. I mean, honestly, in 85 pages, the main character, Sal Paradise (Paradise? Seriously? Give me a goddamn break.), hitchhikes from New York to Los Angeles and gets drunk a lot. That's about it. He stops in Denver for a while, where he hits on girls (who are, by the way, pretty much just pieces of meat to Jack...I mean Sal...and he even refers to them as such) and fights with his friends because they're all drunk and idiotic. He proceeds to San Francisco (which he refers to as Frisco, and, though I have never been there, I cringed on behalf of all San Franciscans), where he, you guessed it, gets drunk a lot and fights with his friends. He has no money, because he's wasted it all on whiskey, basically, so he's constantly crashing with people (and by people, Jack Kerouac always means men), hitting on their girlfriends, and eventually fighting with them until he gets kicked out or leaves.
Anyway, he also gets a job as a barracks guard for the navy, of all things, and spends some time discussing how his fellow guardsman are all terrible people with "cop minds." (And normally, I'd be on his side there, because I know what he means by that, but frankly, I was so disgusted with him at that point that I wasn't inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Eventually, he leaves and goes to Los Angeles. On the bus there, he meets a Mexican woman and successfully propositions her. When they get to his hotel room in L. A., however, she accuses him of being a pimp and they have a tawdry little fight before falling into bed together, an experience that Kerouac describes as "having found the closest and most delicious thing in life together," (85), clearly indicating that he has no idea what it is to be in love with someone, if you ask me.
Um. Wow. I hate it a lot. I'm also failing to see the redeeming value of the book (because I'm pretty sure there isn't one). I mean, I get what we're trying to say here, which is that, when you abandon all pretense of social obligation, you can choose your own path and be free to move along it. But frankly, the message so far seems to be that, in so doing, you will waste all your time and money drinking and pissing people off, and mostly you'll be sorry about it later. The narrator often regrets his decisions and is sorrowful and depressed about his circumstances and surroundings. He remarks on how awful bus stations are, no matter where you find them, for example (and you can't deny him on that one), but it's hard not to think, "Well, then go home, for Christ's sake."
I'm sure there are a lot of people who argue for this book being original and saying something about the era that produced it, that it characterizes the desire for freedom and that it lead a whole generation of people to question, pardon my diction, the establishment. I'm sure they're right about the generation of people who paid attention to it, but that doesn't make it original, and it doesn't make it great literature. It's Tropic of Cancer all over again, with fewer drugs and set in America. Original, my ass.
Also, did I mention it's sexist? It's ridiculously sexist. The women are all either "untamed shrew[s]" or simple sex objects, and he often describes "balling" and "banging" them. I have very little patience for that sort of nonsense.
Pages read: 1 - 85
Ew. Just ew.
So, Jack Kerouac is apparently the original hipster, and, as such, is obnoxiously irresponsible and proud of himself for it. I'd tell you what happens, but something would have to happen first. I mean, honestly, in 85 pages, the main character, Sal Paradise (Paradise? Seriously? Give me a goddamn break.), hitchhikes from New York to Los Angeles and gets drunk a lot. That's about it. He stops in Denver for a while, where he hits on girls (who are, by the way, pretty much just pieces of meat to Jack...I mean Sal...and he even refers to them as such) and fights with his friends because they're all drunk and idiotic. He proceeds to San Francisco (which he refers to as Frisco, and, though I have never been there, I cringed on behalf of all San Franciscans), where he, you guessed it, gets drunk a lot and fights with his friends. He has no money, because he's wasted it all on whiskey, basically, so he's constantly crashing with people (and by people, Jack Kerouac always means men), hitting on their girlfriends, and eventually fighting with them until he gets kicked out or leaves.
Anyway, he also gets a job as a barracks guard for the navy, of all things, and spends some time discussing how his fellow guardsman are all terrible people with "cop minds." (And normally, I'd be on his side there, because I know what he means by that, but frankly, I was so disgusted with him at that point that I wasn't inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Eventually, he leaves and goes to Los Angeles. On the bus there, he meets a Mexican woman and successfully propositions her. When they get to his hotel room in L. A., however, she accuses him of being a pimp and they have a tawdry little fight before falling into bed together, an experience that Kerouac describes as "having found the closest and most delicious thing in life together," (85), clearly indicating that he has no idea what it is to be in love with someone, if you ask me.
Um. Wow. I hate it a lot. I'm also failing to see the redeeming value of the book (because I'm pretty sure there isn't one). I mean, I get what we're trying to say here, which is that, when you abandon all pretense of social obligation, you can choose your own path and be free to move along it. But frankly, the message so far seems to be that, in so doing, you will waste all your time and money drinking and pissing people off, and mostly you'll be sorry about it later. The narrator often regrets his decisions and is sorrowful and depressed about his circumstances and surroundings. He remarks on how awful bus stations are, no matter where you find them, for example (and you can't deny him on that one), but it's hard not to think, "Well, then go home, for Christ's sake."
I'm sure there are a lot of people who argue for this book being original and saying something about the era that produced it, that it characterizes the desire for freedom and that it lead a whole generation of people to question, pardon my diction, the establishment. I'm sure they're right about the generation of people who paid attention to it, but that doesn't make it original, and it doesn't make it great literature. It's Tropic of Cancer all over again, with fewer drugs and set in America. Original, my ass.
Also, did I mention it's sexist? It's ridiculously sexist. The women are all either "untamed shrew[s]" or simple sex objects, and he often describes "balling" and "banging" them. I have very little patience for that sort of nonsense.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Boy meets fish. Boy gets fish. Boy loses fish.
Current book: The Old Man and the Sea
Pages read: 9 - 127 (end)
No, seriously, the post title is a good summary.
All right, all right, there may be a few more details, but not many. Let's see. Santiago is an old, weathered Cuban fisherman (one might call him an old salt, if one were inclined toward nautical terminology) who hasn't caught a fish in eighty-five days. He is friends with a boy, Manolin (who, honestly, I'm not sure is actually named Manolin; he may just be called that. (You missed the parentheses, didn't you? It's ok. You don't have to say. I know.)), who once fished with him as an apprentice, but who now fishes with a different boat due to Santiago's bad luck.
So, anyway, Santiago goes out fishing alone on the eighty-fifth day, and he hooks a marlin. The fish is enormous, and it tows him far out into the Gulf, while he muses upon his life and his relationship with the sea. For several days, the fish pulls him, and he thinks about the fact that he loves and respects the sea and the fish, but also wants to triumph over the fish by killing him. Santiago also contemplates his left hand a great deal, which cramps up on him and doesn't work properly, as well as the fact that he was born to be a fisherman and feels that it's his calling. (He's got a whole thing about baseball and Joe DiMaggio, too, which frankly, seemed somewhat irrelevant.)
He finally fights the fish in, injuring his hands (and possibly his internal organs) badly in the process, and harpoons it, killing it; he ties it to his little boat, towing it alongside because of the fact that it's fully two feet longer than the boat itself. Making his way back to Havana, Santiago is set upon by sharks, and, though he fights and kills many of them with his harpoon and his bare hands, they manage to eat the entire fish, skeleton excepted, before he can make it back. Upon his return, he is greeted and nursed by Manolin, who weeps for his loss of the fish that everyone can see was the most magnificent ever caught. It's unclear whether he dies at the end, but signs point to his imminent demise.
It's funny, actually, that the back of the book in the edition that I have says that this is a story about "personal triumph won from loss." I just don't know, Scribner, if I can agree with that. It's more, as my husband said this morning, about loss in the face of personal triumph, when you get down to it. Not to go all allegorical, but the fish is clearly representative of something here. (Man, also, what is it with giant sea animals and symbolism? Eat your heart out, Herman Melville.) Is it the great tragedy that is life itself? Hemingway has a real glory-worship thing, and there's nothing, it seems, that he likes more than killing large animals as a manifestation of that glory. So, I'd say that the hunting of the fish is supposed to represent all that is good and noble in man, in that it is a sort of simultaneous respect and love for, but also dominance of, nature (and therefore the world).
However, if that's true, then the subsequent destruction of the fish must represent the futility of that search for glory. After all, Santiago fought so hard and so long for the fish only to lose all that he had gained. Certainly he is still covered in glory, in a way, because both he and his comrades know that he caught the greatest marlin they'd ever seen, but in the end, he has nothing to show for it but sorrow and regret. He even says, after it becomes obvious that the whole fish is going to be eaten by sharks, that he never should have come out so far and that he broke his own luck by dooming both himself and the marlin to destruction. The waste, as he sees it, of the fish's carcass is the waste of his own life and his own fate as a fisherman, and it is the hunt for the great glory of the catch that brought them both to that waste.
A lot of people agree more with the Scribner interpretation, which is that the great glory of the fight with the marlin dignifies and ennobles Santiago, proving that it's the fight that's important, and that, even in defeat, glory lives on. Frankly, I just don't know about that. I think there's an indication of that, since, as I said, Santiago retains his glory, but there's a pretty melancholy cast to the whole thing, what with the loss of the fish and Santiago's injuries. The fact that something breaks inside him and he coughs up blood near the end of the book is a pretty dire indicator to me. Then again, he finishes the novel dreaming of his happy youth, so who knows?
It's a pretty good book, regardless of the fact that I don't like Hemingway. You have to admire the style, as well, which is stark and matter-of-fact, but also evocative. He was one of the first to write this way, and The Old Man and the Sea is a particularly good example of the clean spareness of his prose. (Probably because it's a later novel.) It also helps that this particular book doesn't have any war or woman-beating in it, which are things Hemingway likes to put into his books, I've noticed. Anyway, I'm not sure that it's worthy of the list. We'll call it borderline.
Also, this book reminds me vaguely of The Pearl, by Steinbeck, and I'm not sure why. The prose is similar, I think. It could also be the setting, but I suppose it's mostly the fact that they're both about the endless pursuit of something that is, in the end, ruinous to your life. The themes aren't really the same, but they're tangential to each other, which just makes me think that you could arrange a college topics course about stories of the consuming need to conquer and own. Oh, wait. We just call that Western literature. (Zing!)
Pages read: 9 - 127 (end)
No, seriously, the post title is a good summary.
All right, all right, there may be a few more details, but not many. Let's see. Santiago is an old, weathered Cuban fisherman (one might call him an old salt, if one were inclined toward nautical terminology) who hasn't caught a fish in eighty-five days. He is friends with a boy, Manolin (who, honestly, I'm not sure is actually named Manolin; he may just be called that. (You missed the parentheses, didn't you? It's ok. You don't have to say. I know.)), who once fished with him as an apprentice, but who now fishes with a different boat due to Santiago's bad luck.
So, anyway, Santiago goes out fishing alone on the eighty-fifth day, and he hooks a marlin. The fish is enormous, and it tows him far out into the Gulf, while he muses upon his life and his relationship with the sea. For several days, the fish pulls him, and he thinks about the fact that he loves and respects the sea and the fish, but also wants to triumph over the fish by killing him. Santiago also contemplates his left hand a great deal, which cramps up on him and doesn't work properly, as well as the fact that he was born to be a fisherman and feels that it's his calling. (He's got a whole thing about baseball and Joe DiMaggio, too, which frankly, seemed somewhat irrelevant.)
He finally fights the fish in, injuring his hands (and possibly his internal organs) badly in the process, and harpoons it, killing it; he ties it to his little boat, towing it alongside because of the fact that it's fully two feet longer than the boat itself. Making his way back to Havana, Santiago is set upon by sharks, and, though he fights and kills many of them with his harpoon and his bare hands, they manage to eat the entire fish, skeleton excepted, before he can make it back. Upon his return, he is greeted and nursed by Manolin, who weeps for his loss of the fish that everyone can see was the most magnificent ever caught. It's unclear whether he dies at the end, but signs point to his imminent demise.
It's funny, actually, that the back of the book in the edition that I have says that this is a story about "personal triumph won from loss." I just don't know, Scribner, if I can agree with that. It's more, as my husband said this morning, about loss in the face of personal triumph, when you get down to it. Not to go all allegorical, but the fish is clearly representative of something here. (Man, also, what is it with giant sea animals and symbolism? Eat your heart out, Herman Melville.) Is it the great tragedy that is life itself? Hemingway has a real glory-worship thing, and there's nothing, it seems, that he likes more than killing large animals as a manifestation of that glory. So, I'd say that the hunting of the fish is supposed to represent all that is good and noble in man, in that it is a sort of simultaneous respect and love for, but also dominance of, nature (and therefore the world).
However, if that's true, then the subsequent destruction of the fish must represent the futility of that search for glory. After all, Santiago fought so hard and so long for the fish only to lose all that he had gained. Certainly he is still covered in glory, in a way, because both he and his comrades know that he caught the greatest marlin they'd ever seen, but in the end, he has nothing to show for it but sorrow and regret. He even says, after it becomes obvious that the whole fish is going to be eaten by sharks, that he never should have come out so far and that he broke his own luck by dooming both himself and the marlin to destruction. The waste, as he sees it, of the fish's carcass is the waste of his own life and his own fate as a fisherman, and it is the hunt for the great glory of the catch that brought them both to that waste.
A lot of people agree more with the Scribner interpretation, which is that the great glory of the fight with the marlin dignifies and ennobles Santiago, proving that it's the fight that's important, and that, even in defeat, glory lives on. Frankly, I just don't know about that. I think there's an indication of that, since, as I said, Santiago retains his glory, but there's a pretty melancholy cast to the whole thing, what with the loss of the fish and Santiago's injuries. The fact that something breaks inside him and he coughs up blood near the end of the book is a pretty dire indicator to me. Then again, he finishes the novel dreaming of his happy youth, so who knows?
It's a pretty good book, regardless of the fact that I don't like Hemingway. You have to admire the style, as well, which is stark and matter-of-fact, but also evocative. He was one of the first to write this way, and The Old Man and the Sea is a particularly good example of the clean spareness of his prose. (Probably because it's a later novel.) It also helps that this particular book doesn't have any war or woman-beating in it, which are things Hemingway likes to put into his books, I've noticed. Anyway, I'm not sure that it's worthy of the list. We'll call it borderline.
Also, this book reminds me vaguely of The Pearl, by Steinbeck, and I'm not sure why. The prose is similar, I think. It could also be the setting, but I suppose it's mostly the fact that they're both about the endless pursuit of something that is, in the end, ruinous to your life. The themes aren't really the same, but they're tangential to each other, which just makes me think that you could arrange a college topics course about stories of the consuming need to conquer and own. Oh, wait. We just call that Western literature. (Zing!)
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Hemingway...not that trashy
Current book: None
Pages read: None
I've decided I'll be back after Labor Day. It lets me continue to procrastinate, but does actually put an end date on it. Also, at that point I'll have a job with lots of computer downtime, so it'll work out well. Until then, go read trashy summer books.
Pages read: None
I've decided I'll be back after Labor Day. It lets me continue to procrastinate, but does actually put an end date on it. Also, at that point I'll have a job with lots of computer downtime, so it'll work out well. Until then, go read trashy summer books.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
I actually do have all day.
Current book: None
Pages read: None
I realize that I'm a complete delinquent, just so everyone's aware. It's already more than halfway through March, my schedule has certainly cleared up, and yet, still, I am not reading Hemingway. This is because I have no desire to read Hemingway, and since I am not, technically, obligated to do so, I haven't. Clearly I need an incentive, so you, loyal readers, will have to provide me with one.
I'll just wait right here.
Pages read: None
I realize that I'm a complete delinquent, just so everyone's aware. It's already more than halfway through March, my schedule has certainly cleared up, and yet, still, I am not reading Hemingway. This is because I have no desire to read Hemingway, and since I am not, technically, obligated to do so, I haven't. Clearly I need an incentive, so you, loyal readers, will have to provide me with one.
I'll just wait right here.
Monday, January 10, 2011
In like a lion
Current book: None
Pages read: None
It turns out that I'm going to have to take a longer hiatus than I thought. I have a different job until the end of February, and it's simply not conducive to writing long posts about what I've read. Rather than half-assing it and feeling rushed, I'm going to wait until the job is finished to read literature again. Also? I could kind of use a break from the classics. Especially the classics I'm not choosing myself and that, frankly, I'm sort of starting to hate. These list authors. I just don't know. If you preview what's coming up next, you'll notice that in the remaining 32 books there are four Hemingway novels. Four? Really? And that's not even counting the one I already read. Do you really think that Hemingway wrote five of the 100 greatest novels of all time, list-makers? Well, I'm just not buying it.
Anyway, I may pop in from time to time and write about other things I'm reading, but I will be back to regular posting at the beginning of March.
Pages read: None
It turns out that I'm going to have to take a longer hiatus than I thought. I have a different job until the end of February, and it's simply not conducive to writing long posts about what I've read. Rather than half-assing it and feeling rushed, I'm going to wait until the job is finished to read literature again. Also? I could kind of use a break from the classics. Especially the classics I'm not choosing myself and that, frankly, I'm sort of starting to hate. These list authors. I just don't know. If you preview what's coming up next, you'll notice that in the remaining 32 books there are four Hemingway novels. Four? Really? And that's not even counting the one I already read. Do you really think that Hemingway wrote five of the 100 greatest novels of all time, list-makers? Well, I'm just not buying it.
Anyway, I may pop in from time to time and write about other things I'm reading, but I will be back to regular posting at the beginning of March.
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