Deus ex Libris

No war novel is an island.

2011-10-06T10:17:00.003-05:00

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.

I'll show you profanity.

2011-10-05T08:42:00.003-05:00

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.

On little cat feet

2011-10-03T10:00:00.005-05:00

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.

We have the technology!

2011-09-19T10:40:00.001-05:00

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.

MLA, eat your heart out.

2011-09-15T07:26:00.003-05:00

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.

Ask not for whom the fines accrue...

2011-09-14T07:11:00.003-05:00

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.

Everybody who's anybody drinks.

2011-09-13T07:19:00.010-05:00

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,

"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.

A lark, a spree, it's very clear to see.

2011-09-12T17:46:00.003-05:00

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.

Well. There it is.

2011-09-09T13:58:00.002-05:00

Current book: On the Road
Pages read: None

Did I mention I'm not posting on Fridays? I'm not posting on Fridays.

A faaaaabulous new car!

2011-09-08T07:05:00.004-05:00

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.

No one wants a fellow with a social disease.

2011-09-07T07:11:00.005-05:00

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.

Boy meets fish. Boy gets fish. Boy loses fish.

2011-09-06T08:37:00.006-05:00

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!)

Hemingway...not that trashy

2011-07-14T14:27:00.002-05:00

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.

I actually do have all day.

2011-03-17T14:29:00.003-05:00

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.

In like a lion

2011-01-10T09:59:00.004-06:00

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.

Soon it will be Christmas day

2010-12-20T08:54:00.002-06:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

It's Christmas break from literature time. You may expect me back in the new year.

Look at his little face!

2010-12-16T18:24:00.003-06:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

Ok, so instead of starting On the Road, I just kept reading the copy of Call of the Wild that I have, because it also includes White Fang. So, mostly, I read about the antics of an adorable wolf puppy.
I am not ashamed.

Man's best friend

2010-12-15T11:11:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Call of the Wild
Pages read: 40 - 81 (end)

Wow. Short. This might be the shortest book so far. It's kind of a weird edition, so the pages are really wide, but still.

After Buck becomes team leader, the team completes their run to Dawson, Alsaka, in record time. They're immediately sent out on another, however, which is both virtually unprecedented and very tough on the dogs and the men. By the time they return from the round-trip journey, they've traveled 1800 miles in three weeks, and the dogs are virtually spent. Since the Canadian government has no use for tired, injured dogs, they're sold to a worthless party of two men and a woman (Hal, Charles, and Mercedes) who have no idea what they're doing in Alaska. The men overload the sled and buy dogs with no experience, and Mercedes is an obnoxious citified idiot, so their trip turns into a fiasco. They end up using up the food rations halfway through the journey, which means they run the dogs starving for the rest of it. By the time they reach the frozen river they have to cross in order to finish their trip, half the team is dead and the rest nearly so. Before they cross the river, they meet a man named John Thornton camping at the water's edge. Buck, sensing that the ice on the river is rotten, lies down in the traces and refuses to rise. Hal tries to beat him to death, but John Thornton steps in and stops him. The sled goes on without Buck and crashes through the ice, killing everyone. (We're not sad. Well, a little for the dogs.)

John Thornton becomes Buck's new master, and one to whom he gives his whole self, heart and soul. Buck regains his strength and becomes an amazing specimen, both of dogdom and loyalty to his master. He saves Thornton's life in a bar brawl, wins him 1600 dollars by proving he can pull a sledge with a thousand-pound load, and rescues him from whitewater rapids. When Thornton and several other men venture into the wild to look for gold, Buck enjoys the trip immensely, feeling more and more drawn to the wilderness. He stays with Thornton, but hunts his own game, ranges far and wide, and bonds with a wolf. One day, returning to camp, he finds that Thornton and his friends have been killed by Indians. He attacks and scatters the Indians, killing some of them, and, after mourning Thornton, joins a wolf pack, becomes its leader, and roams free and wild for the rest of his days.

Well, my impressions from the first post are pretty much the same. Thematically, there's the sense that the wilderness calls to something in all of us, man or beast, and has a purifying effect on our needs and emotions. Impulses are stripped down to their raw form; the needs to eat and to fight are foremost at all times. There is also the sense, though, that the humanizing element of love, in this case Buck's for John Thornton, is the only thing that can ever override that urge to satisfy need. Buck stayed with Thornton until Thornton was gone, and even after he died, returned to the spot where he was killed each year to hold vigil. The point is not that the call of the wild is overwhelming and all-controlling, but it is a powerful force that sways us all and can be overcome only by love and loyalty.

Also, the scene where Buck has to pull the thousand-pound sledge is one of the most compelling moments in my experience of literature. I actually said, "Come on, Buck!" out loud. I was alone in the workout room, so it's all good, but really! Way to go, Jack London! (Also, it reminded me of Stone Fox, which, if you haven't read, you should. But be prepared to cry.)

Superb. Any book that makes me cheer out loud for the main character I'll call worthy of the list. In seriousness, though, I'm impressed at the depths that London plumbs in what seems, on the surface, to be a simple adventure story.

And puppies! Lots of puppies!

2010-12-14T09:15:00.003-06:00

Current book: The Call of the Wild
Pages read: 1 - 40

Oh, man. This book is awesome. I don't mean to sound too much like a 12-year-old boy here, but come on - the thrilling tale of a courageous dog sent into the harsh wilderness of the frozen Yukon, fighting it out against the men and savage dogs who will destroy him if he gives them half a chance? Excellent.

Buck, our heroic half-St. Bernard, half Scotch-shepherd, lives on a sunny California plantation, but is sold by his master's servant to pay off a gambling debt. He's beaten and shipped cross-country for several days with no food or water, until, finally let out of the crate, he's nearly mad with thirst and rage. His new owner, however, beats him until he at least gives the appearance of obedience, though his heart is still defiant. He learns that the only way to survive is to be constantly on the defensive, but also ready to fight for what he wants and needs. He's sold again, this time to a man who procures dogs for the Canadian government's sled teams, and is broken to the harness and educated in team-driving. Soon he learns that the leader of his team is a dog named Spitz, but the two don't get along. After weeks of fighting and badgering each other, they have it out in the snow, and Buck kills Spitz. Afterward, he becomes the leader of the team, which is passed into the hands of the mail service. Buck is a good team leader, but secretly rejoices more in the fresh outside air and the wilderness than he does in working for men.

There you go, then. Superficially, of course, it's an adventure story, and a fast-paced, exciting one at that. Underneath, however, it's a story about men as much as dogs. Dogs aren't the only ones who have to change the way they behave in survival situations, yes, but more important than that is the fact that men squabble over power, nip at each other until they're driven mad with rage, and eventually fight one another for supremacy at the cost of lives. To his credit, London never overtly says anything of the kind, but it's not hard to find it below the surface.

Books about animals are always actually about people. It's a great literary truth.

Maintiens le droit

2010-12-13T10:16:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Call of the Wild
Pages read: None

Haven't had a chance to start this one yet, thought I'm quite looking forward to it. I actually haven't read it, which is odd, considering it's so often assigned in school. Judging by the fact that I used to love Silver Chief: Dog of the North, I'll probably enjoy it.

Like a memory long since past

2010-12-10T14:18:00.006-06:00

Current book: To the Lighthouse
Pages read: 144 - 242 (end)

Well, Woolf went ahead and shocked the hell out of me by moving the story forward ten years in a few pages. She narrates the passage of time from the perspective of the house (not in its voice, but simply as though you were in it), detailing the slow decay and empty seasons it witnesses in the Ramsey family's absence. During the decade-long gap, Mrs. Ramsey dies, as well as two of the Ramsey children.

When the family returns, it is with Lily Briscoe and Augustus Carmichael, but no one else. Mr. Ramsey decides he must take a trip to the lighthouse with James and Cam (the youngest daughter of the family). The two children are ambivalent, but Mr. Ramsey is obsessed with the idea. They go, and Lily stays on the beach, painting. On the trip to the lighthouse, James steers the boat and Mr. Ramsey reads a book. When they finally reach the island, Mr. Ramsey praises James's steering, and Cam regards it as an important moment - one for which James has been waiting a long time. Mr. Ramsey is triumphant at the lighthouse, and Lily, back on the beach, successfully finishes her painting with one distinctive stroke through its center.

Huh. That was not what I expected. I'm struggling with what the lighthouse is really supposed to represent now. The idea of success and happiness may still hold true, but it's odd, then, that Cam and James had no interest in it. Maybe it's something closer to a sense of achievement, of being finished with what life has to offer. Mr. Ramsey is desperately in need of validation all the time, so that would make sense for him. James needs Mr. Ramsey's validation, too, but is happy to get it during the journey, and doesn't need to have achieved all of his goals yet, since he is still a young man. It would mesh with Lily's contemplation of the lighthouse as well; she thinks that she knows when the Ramseys reach the lighthouse, and that's the moment when she finishes her painting. It is also the moment when she realizes she is content to be alone with herself and not to seek out a husband. It's not as though it has to be that black and white and only represent one thing, but it seems to be something along those lines.

In addition to that, there's sort of a sense that no one has really reached their true goals, since both Mr. Ramsey's and Lily's lives are clouded by the fear of failure, and James has hardly gotten started. The lighthouse, then, is a sort of unattainable ivory tower - even when James reaches it, he realizes it doesn't seem the same as when he was a child, and therefore he will never really be able to get to the place it used to be. Much as Mr. Ramsey and Lily can never rest assured that their work will make them immortal (though Lily reconciles herself to that fact upon finishing her painting), no one can truly reach the ideal, far-away beacon of the lighthouse because of the fact that it becomes a different object when one arrives at it. (Is this making sense? Shit is getting existential, is all I'm saying.) So, in addition to contentment and achievement, it has the melancholy air of the loss of what can never even be had.

Ok, Virginia Woolf. You have made me think about this for a considerable amount of time and I am still unsure of what it means. I am also, however, convinced of the importance of understanding it. This one is definitely worthy of the list.

Full speed ahead

2010-12-09T09:59:00.003-06:00

Current book: To the Lighthouse
Pages read: 70 - 144

All right. I have considerably more patience to write today. In true Virginia Woolf form, there aren't a lot of plot events occurring, but there is a lot of internal thought that's being communicated for each of the characters.

The setting is a vacation house on the Isle of Skye, where Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and their eight children are on holiday, along with a group of friends and acquaintances. Mr. Ramsey is a famous writer of philosophy who struggles with everyday interactions and has a tendency to become agitated when he doubts his own genius. Mrs. Ramsey spends most of her time looking after (read: worrying about) her children, but also invests a lot of her energy in facilitating smooth and pleasant social interactions amongst her guests. Also along is Lily Briscoe, an unmarried thirty-something who fancies herself a painter. Mrs. Ramsey longs for Lily to marry another guest, William Bankes, but the two aren't interested in the match. Paul Rayley, a young gentleman, is, however, in love with Minta Doyle, who is, frankly, obnoxiously ditzy, and Mrs. Ramsey is also interested in their match. To round out the party, we have a pedantic, defensive scholar and disciple, Charles Tansley, and a slightly crazed opium addict, Augustus Carmichael.

I won't reel off the names of the eight children, but the one we're most concerned with is the youngest boy, James, upon whom Mrs. Ramsey dotes, and who desperately wants to visit the nearby lighthouse (hence the title). Mrs. Ramsey promises him he can go when the weather is fine, since the trip requires a boat, and there's a steady thread, through the story, of his hope for fine weather, her indulgence of it, and Mr. Ramsey's pessimism about the next day being stormy and wet.

The first half of the book takes place over the course of an afternoon and largely features conversation between Lily and William and the Ramseys and Charles Tansley, during which we learn the facets of their characters I've already mentioned. Toward the end of the afternoon, Minta and Paul go off the the beach with two of the younger Ramseys and come back engaged. There's also a long scene of the evening's dinner, during which Mrs. Ramsey thinks about how obsessed her husband is with his work, Mr. Ramsey thinks about how obsessed his wife is with social convention, Charles Tansley thinks about how stupid everyone is, and Lily thinks about her paintings. At the close of the section, Mrs. Ramsey puts the children to bed and she and Mr. Ramsey sit up together, considering, but not discussing, their relationship.

There are some interesting themes, the most prevalent of which is probably the difference between one's inward and outward selves at any given moment. The complexity of the thoughts of each character and the careful description of them in contrast to his or her actions portrays the starkness of that difference and implies that the outward self is simply a social veneer. I'm not entirely sure it's supposed to be a negative judgment, however, since there are some characters who would be better off if they were more successful at maintaining that veneer. The second theme that jumps out at me is, I must admit, Oedipal in nature. James Ramsey clearly resents his father for using up his mother's attention, and wishes to have her all to himself. His father also represents realism and a harsh, uncompromising view of the world, while his mother promises both optimism and comfort, giving him even more motivation for valuing one over the other.

We'll see what happens with the lighthouse, which is obviously a central symbol, probably representing success and happiness (which explains why Mr. Ramsey is so pessimistic about reaching it, seeing as that's all he can think about and feels that it's out of his reach). There are a lot of ways the ending could go, but my guess is that Woolf will make it characteristically inconclusive.

Do not pass go.

2010-12-08T11:24:00.002-06:00

Current book: To the Lighthouse
Pages read: 3 - 70

You know, I'm just not feeling writing about literature today. Rather than writing a half-assed post about a pretty good book, I'm going to wait until tomorrow and hope I'm in a better mood for it.

For better or worse

2010-12-07T08:51:00.003-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 500 - 591 (end)

Ok, I'm finally done! (muted cheering) This is even the last book by Henry James, which, frankly...yay.

Gilbert just gets worse after everyone's gone, especially since he realizes that Isabel's been working against his interests in the matter of Pansy's marriage. In retaliation, he sends Pansy away to the convent where she spent much of her youth. A couple of months later, Isabel receives a telegram from Henrietta telling her that Ralph is dying and requesting her presence. Isabel wants to go see him in England, of course, but Gilbert forbids it because he's a vindictive asshole. She discusses the matter with Gilbert's sister, who, though silly, has been a friend. Gilbert's sister reveals (I guess by way of comfort? It's kind of unclear.) that Pansy is actually Gilbert and Madame Merle's illegitimate daughter, not the child of a first marriage as Isabel had previously thought. Madame Merle and Gilbert are, in fact, still having an affair. Gilbert's sister also tells Isabel that Madame Merle persuaded Gilbert to marry Isabel because of her money and the fact that Isabel would be able to provide for and act as a mother to Pansy.

Isabel takes this information as permission to disobey her husband and go to England. She visits Pansy on the way out of the country and asks her to come on the journey, but Pansy, though torn, refuses out of obedience to her father. She also begs Isabel to come back some day. Isabel makes it to England and watches Ralph die. She realizes that she loves him and wishes she would have married him, but clearly it's too late. Afterward, Caspar proposes that she come with him to America and he'll help her to escape Gilbert and her unhappy marriage. She considers it, and almost does so, but in the end, decides against it and departs for Rome without saying goodbye.

Huh. It actually ended up a lot more sympathetic to Isabel than I thought it would. As I've mentioned, James tends to go all cautionary-tale on his young heroines and make it out like they're responsible for their own miseries. To some extent, Isabel is responsible for her own misery in that she could have chosen a better husband earlier on, but was stopped by her need for freedom. At the same time, though, Gilbert Osmund is clearly a punishment that far exceeds the crime. James must, therefore, be remarking upon the fact that women are powerless in their marriages, and that the level of control their husbands have can be absurd.

I'm a little unclear, though, on what the point of Isabel's going back to Rome at the close of the novel is really supposed to be. She seems to go back out of a sense of duty, to both Pansy and to the conventions of society, but I don't know why it is that that duty outweighs every shred of her personal happiness. She passes up the chance to go with Caspar in order to return to certain misery. It's true that she doesn't love Caspar, so perhaps things wouldn't improve, but it would be worth a shot considering the emotional abuse she would be escaping.

I don't know that it's worthy of the list. It's not bad, but I think there are other books that might communicate the same idea from the time period just as well. It seems sort of unremarkable. Daisy Miller is more compelling, I'd say, and also not 600 pages long.

Seriously. Filled with hate.

2010-12-06T12:01:00.003-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 446 - 500

So, Isabel sort of dissuades Warburton from proposing to Pansy, or a least doesn't encourage him, and he doesn't act any further, since he knows Pansy isn't really that interested in him. True to form, Gilbert is incensed that his wife would choose to disobey him in this manner, and their relationship deteriorates further. Later, Henrietta comes to see Isabel, who finally confides to her that she's in a hate-filled, punishing marriage. Henrietta is sympathetic, but it seems there's little to be done. Caspar Goodwood shows up, too, and is saddened to see Isabel in such a state. Ralph, who's been hanging around Rome in ill health the whole time, finally decides to go back to England, and everyone goes with him as an escort. (Everyone, in this case, being Henrietta, Caspar, and Warburton.) Isabel's all alone and miserable.

So, I guess the message at this point is pretty much, "Take what you can get if it seems at all reasonable, because otherwise you'll end up in a hate-filled, punishing marriage." I have to say, it's kind that no one's said "I told you so" to the poor girl yet, but clearly they're all shocked by how miserable she is.

I'll have some more thoughts after the thrilling conclusion.

Taste of India

2010-12-04T09:19:00.002-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: None

Man, Friday is not a good day for my updating. Not that I read anything, but still - I could have at least come on here and made some excuse about it.

I did make beef curry, though, if you're at all consoled by that. No? Oh, well.

At a fancy ball or minuet

2010-12-02T08:40:00.003-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 353 - 446

Well, Gilbert and Isabel get married, much to everyone's chagrin, and then we leap forward a couple of years to the future of their loveless marriage. (Yay loveless marriage!) Isabel has, in the intervening time, had a child that died at birth. Now, Pansy (oh, I didn't mention earlier, actually - that's the name of Gilbert's daughter) is beginning the rituals of courtship. First up as a suitor is Edward Rosier, a long-ago friend of Isabel's who is only just rich (as opposed to comfortably or even insanely rich). Pansy falls in love with him and he with her, but Gilbert won't permit the marriage because Edward hasn't enough money. Following Rosier is our old friend Lord Warburton. There's a bit of a problem with his suit of Pansy because Isabel thinks that Warburton is still half in love with her (which, honestly, he probably is). Gilbert, however, very much wants Warburton to marry Pansy, what with him being landed nobility and all.

The relationship between Gilbert and Isabel is clearly a complete disaster. She thinks, we learn, that he actually completely loathes her, and that, in fact, he has sort of organized his life around hating her. He's very controlling, and demands, basically, that she obey him - even more than that, sort of represent him - all the time. So, knowing that, when Gilbert tells Isabel to make sure that Warburton is the successful suitor and not Rosier, we can see where it's going. At first she's uncertain, but when she couples the knowledge of Warburton's old passion for her with the possibility of defying Gilbert, it seems her decision is easy enough. She tells Rosier that she'll give him whatever help is in her power.

This part was significantly more exciting than the previous 350 pages, I must say. It actually seemed like there was some action for once, and, though Isabel's predictably tragic marriage wasn't exactly cheery, it was nice to see her contemplate standing up to her horrible husband. The part with Warburton still loving Isabel and planning to propose to her stepdaughter was a little odd, but then, Isabel's only six years older than Pansy, so it's not as strange as it might seem. There's a nice little scene where Warburton is discussing dancing at a ball, and fails to ask Pansy to dance the cotillion because he's planning to ask Isabel instead. It's a nice little analogy for the relationship, and I have to give James a point or two for sneaking it in.

We'll see what happens. Honestly, I'd love to see Isabel go all Tess of the D'urbervilles and murder Gilbert, but it probably won't happen. Especially not at Stonehenge.

Don't go up the stairs! You moron!

2010-12-01T11:02:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 260 - 353

I lied about Rome and Venice; it was actually Florence. Um, sorry? Anyway, like I said, Isabel decides she likes Gilbert Osmond because he seems to know what is right and think the absolute best of himself at all times. (Which, as we the readers can see, actually makes him a pedantic asshole, but there you are. Of course, we also know that he's after her money.) Eventually he proposes to her and, though she takes a few months to think about it and travel the globe, she accepts him. Caspar Goodwood (who comes to renew his courtship) is pissed off, Lord Warburton (whom Isabel stumbles upon in Rome (no, really Rome this time, I swear)) is hurt, and Ralph Touchett (who's been hanging around the whole time) is stricken with ill health (to be fair, he was already troubled by long-term illness, but still) as a result. Everyone hates the match except for Madame Merle, which only increases Isabel's determination to make the marriage work.

It's like watching a horror movie during which you feel compelled to instruct the main character not to do the idiotic things that she's doing because of the fact that they'll surely result in her death. Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done. Some part of me wants to believe that James is trying to criticize the difficulties that society creates for women who want to be independent, but it seems to me more like he's saying that women need to accept what's good for them and settle down to marriage before they're swept off by disastrous wooers. (That's right. I said wooers.) This is probably unfair, but I get the feeling that if I had been alive at the time and had ever met Henry James, I would have found him a bit hysterical. (In the sense of reactionary, not amusing. Amusing is not really a word we use for ol' Henry.)

Poor little rich girl

2010-11-30T08:58:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 198 - 260

Well, Mr. Touchett dies in good time and, true to his word, leave Isabel lots and lots of cash. She's shocked and overwhelmed, but manages to collect herself enough to take advantage of the money and tour Europe. She heads first to Paris and then to Rome and Venice with Mrs. Touchett. She's still trying to figure out what it is that she wants to achieve in life, but she has a pretty fun time looking at museums and antiquities while she's working on that.

Madame Merle, who is also in Italy, has a friend named Gilbert Osmond, who has a 15-year-old daughter that has just left her convent school. It seems like Madame Merle is half in love with Gilbert, but that doesn't stop her from recommending that he marry Isabel. He agrees to meet her because he's interested in his new fortune. Since he's charming and attractive, she immediately likes him.

That's your lot for this round. It seems that now we're going to learn the perils of a young girl who falls prey to fortune-hunting. I wish I had more to say, but Henry James is so busy presenting a cautionary tale for all independent-minded young women that he's forgotten to do anything else. Honestly, I feel like I'm reading an admonitory pamphlet. Except it's so, so long. (Want to know an incredibly shocking fact? This book was written in installments for a magazine. That means James was paid by the word. Are you terribly shocked?)

In want of a wife

2010-11-29T09:33:00.003-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 132 - 198

So, Lord Warburton feels upset and betrayed and can't understand why Isabel doesn't want to marry him. She's annoyed with him for being presumptuous, but doesn't really say so. Not long after her first refusal, she also gets to refuse Caspar Goodwood when he comes to see her in London. He's way more presumptuous than Lord Warburton, and gives her a talking-to about how it's her duty to marry and she's just being difficult and unruly. Isabel cites her independence and her desire to see the world as her main reasons for refusing to marry.

Mr. Touchett the elder, who, as you may or may not remember, is an invalid, takes a turn for the worse. He calls Ralph to him to tell him that it's his desire that Ralph marry Isabel. Ralph objects on the grounds that she doesn't want to marry him and also that they're cousins (which I can get right behind because, come on, incest taboo), but he asks his father to leave Isabel half of the money that's supposed to be his, about £60,000 or something like seven million dollars. This is all so Isabel can pursue her dreams of independence and discovery and avoid a marriage of necessity.

Isabel, meanwhile, has taken up with Madame Merle, a friend of Mrs. Touchett's. She's an American living in Venice, and she's learned and talented, being both a painter and musician as well as an avid reader. Initially she's quite the role model for Isabel, since she's independent and continental, but Isabel soon discovers that she's incredibly annoying, and spends most of her time criticizing her friends and acquaintances.

That's where we are. I can't help but feel it's just going to turn into a morality tale about how Isabel ought to have married so as to save herself the pain and anguish due to every "independent" woman. I don't have a lot of other commentary at the moment except to relate this little exchange of dialogue:

"I don't wish to marry. There are other things a woman can do."

"But none that she can do so well."

Christ, Henry James. Thank you for that.

I'm thankful for literature. Well, some of it.

2010-11-25T09:47:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 57 - 132

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, blog post on Thanksgiving! That is the level of dedication here. Working on Thanksgiving: U.S. postal service? No! Deus ex Libris? Yes!

Unfortunately, despite all the above fanfare, not that much happened in the book. Isabel is attracted to Lord Warburton, but is warned off of him by Mr. Touchett the elder. Warburton proposes to Isabel after only a few days of acquaintance and she turns him down, crushing his hopes and rather angering him. She cites as the reason that she can't marry him the fact that she feels a social responsibility not to let herself be blissfully and ignorantly happy. Simultaneously, Isabel's American friend, Henrietta Stackpole (Which man, is quite the name. I have this thing where I associate the name Henrietta with white farmyard chickens. Why? No idea.), comes to visit her and brings her the news that another rejected suitor of hers, Caspar Goodwood (Also quite the name. I feel like this whole thing is begging to be made into a comic book, where Isabel Archer is actually a superhero, and only refusing her suitors out of a sense of duty to the populace to continue her masked crime-fighting career.), is in the country and wants to see her. Meanwhile, Ralph Touchett realizes that he has feelings for Isabel, though he's been trying to deny it to himself.

Man, I am having a problem with Henry James because he keeps featuring free-spirited young women in his books who follow their independent ideals and come to no good end. I mean, ok, I don't actually know what's going to happen to Isabel, but twenty bucks says she comes to no good end. I get the feeling Mr. James wasn't too fond of feminine independence. He always makes these women out to be both independent and ignorant, rash, and arrogant. Because women can't possibly be well-informed and independent at the same time. That would be absurd.

I feel a little bad for poor old Lord Warburton. He's quite charming and amiable and is given every reason in the world to think that Isabel will be amenable to his proposal of marriage, and then she shuts him down because of what she conceives of as her civic duty to tend to the misery of others. He makes the very fine point that there's no reason she can't be his wife and also tend to the misery of others, but she's immovable. It's pretty harsh.

No post tomorrow, because, though I'm dedicated, I'm not getting carried away or anything. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Henry James, I cannot break bread with you.

2010-11-24T16:24:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: None

No reading. Cooking for Thanksgiving!

I will take a moment to muse upon the holiday atmosphere of some books, however. Whenever Thanksgiving and, subsequently, Christmas, roll around, I start to feel like there are certain books I need to read. Chief amongst these is Little Women, and I think it's probably because it starts at Christmastime and covers a number of Christmases as well. Thanksgiving doesn't lend itself as well to books, but Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy from Laura Ingalls Wilder are big contenders. Anyone else? What books remind you of Christmas and Thanksgiving? Or am I just a little crazy?

Can you feel it? The love?

2010-11-23T08:39:00.004-06:00

Current book: The Portrait of a Lady
Pages read: 3 - 57

All right, I admit it: I was procrastinating yesterday because I didn't want to read Henry James. Again. And I was right to be reticent. I've found, upon thinking about it, that James and Tolkien have something in common in that they both feel the need to explain the entire history of each character upon the audience's first meeting him. It really drags on the narrative flow. Then again, I'm not sure Henry James is familiar with the idea of narrative flow.

I have to say, I was rather enamored of the first few sentences of this one.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do, - the situation itself is delightful.

It's just so...charmingly English.

Anyway, it doesn't take James long to get boring, but the first 50 or so pages boil down to the following. Mr. Touchett is an American banker who came to England 30 years ago and bought a manor house and is now something of an invalid, confined to a wheelchair. His wife, Mrs. Touchett, is virtually separated from him because, as she says, she's "not suited to England." She comes back once a year or so to see him, but spends the rest of the time traveling. They have a son, Ralph Touchett, who is of marriageable age but is single, and that son has a friend, Lord Warburton, of a similar age and situation. On Mrs. Touchett's recent trip to America, she went to see her niece, whose father (Mrs. Touchett's brother) had recently died. She swept the niece, Isabel Archer, along with her and has now brought her to England to stay at the estate. Ralph meets Isabel and is instantly attracted to her, as is Lord Warburton. Isabel is an independent, strong-minded young woman who think she's always right and has a dim view of marriage.

Blah blah blah, love triangle, Isabel's eventual acceptance of the inevitability of marriage and the value of love over high-minded independence, etc, etc. Lots of complex sentences with too much description and not enough exposition. The end. Gosh, I just love Henry James so much.

Not on bread alone

2010-11-20T10:06:00.003-06:00

Current book: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Pages read: 166 - 253 (end)

I actually read yesterday and simply didn't have the time or energy to update. I also made bread and completely screwed up the first batch of dough. Ruining dough is not good for one's analytical skills. (I believe that I mismeasured my liquids through haste and inattention. I'm here to provide cautionary baking tales for you, ladies and gentlemen.) That said, even though I got nervous and stressed out about the second batch and possible under-kneaded it, it still came out well, and I made absolutely delicious Monte Cristos with it for supper. French toast with homemade bread and cream in the custard, covered with ham and Swiss cheese? A-OK.

Deborah, apparently, just kind of got sick and died, but not before she found out about Gabriel's child out of wedlock. Anyway, after the conclusion of his story, we get Elizabeth's. She came to New York with her fiance, Richard, who was a nice young man she met back at home. They planned to get married in New York once he had enough money, but, times being what they were, it never happened. Elizabeth got pregnant, but before she could tell Richard, he was arrested on bogus charges by the police, and, after being exonerated at trial but also beaten and humiliated, he killed himself. This, of course, left Elizabeth as a single mother. Her friend, Florence, however, introduced her to Gabriel when he came up to New York, and, eventually, they married. That means, though, that John is Richard and Elizabeth's bastard son, not Gabriel's.

As Elizabeth's story concludes, Baldwin returns us to John's perspective. He falls into a religious reverie during the prayer service, and, after spending all night wrestling with his hatred of his father and his faith in God, is "saved" as the sun rises in the morning. At the close of the novel, John hopes that he can stay saved despite temptation (a hope that he expresses to another congregant, Elisha, in a vaguely homoerotic way) and Florence threatens to tell John the truth in front of Gabriel. The last line of the book consists of John telling his mother, "I'm coming. I'm on my way." It could mean that he's on his way to becoming a religious man and living his life well, or that he's on his way to the destruction inherent in the black condition in America.

I've pretty much maintained my impressions from the first two-thirds. Baldwin is portraying a lot of the negative aspects of religion - the controlling nature, the false hope, the hypocrisy - but he's also giving it some credit for providing an alternative to alcohol and crime as a way to survive. I don't know what to make of John's revelation at the end. He's able to face his father, unfaltering and unblinking, as a result, but at the same time, the ending line seems fairly ominous to me. I'm inclined to come down on the side of pessimism for this one and say that it's pointing to the fact that he's going to come to the same grief that all the other characters have come to, or something similar to it, at least. After all, what waits for him, as a young black man, but poverty and discrimination?

Henry James next. Oh, Henry, I know that I will be incredibly annoyed by your ridiculously complex sentences and your tendency toward unnecessary double negatives. So we meet again.

Come to Jesus

2010-11-18T08:51:00.003-06:00

Current book: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Pages read: 90 - 166

Continuing with Florence's story, we learn that she moved to New York, married a deadbeat drunkard who left her ten years later, and has since been single. After Florence gets done with the prayer that reveals all this to the audience, it's Gabriel's turn to give us his life story (not that it's being written in the first person, which I feel like I'm implying).

After his sister left, Gabriel became a hoodlum, drinking and screwing around with the local girls, until one day, after leaving his lover's bed, he experienced a religious epiphany under a tree. It was your classic "pray for forgiveness and be welcomed into the bosom of the lord" kind of thing. So Gabriel became a preacher, and quite a popular one, well known for his fire and brimstone. Florence's friend, Deborah, who had been raped as a young teenager and since devoted herself to prayer and chastity, greatly admired Gabriel. Eventually, as a result of a message from God, Gabriel married her. It wasn't long before he cheated on her with another local girl called Esther, who got pregnant and gave birth (having moved to Chicago at that point) to his first son, Royal. Esther later died, and Royal, too, and Gabriel was left with his guilt and Deborah. We don't yet have information on how Deborah died and Gabriel married his current wife, Elizabeth, but I'm sure we will soon.

It continues to be pretty interesting and rely heavily on character development, but there's also a lot of discussion of both race and religion. When Florence is arguing with her husband, Frank, about his tendency to spend their money on alcohol, she says that they'll never be able to save up to move away from "all these niggers," if he keeps wasting it. He replies that she'll never be able to "get away from niggers." This part sort of knocked me back a little, just because of the implication that Florence regards all the members of her race as a bad element in society. That's not true, of course but she's clearly conflating race and class; frankly, it seems impossible not to in the time period she's a part of. She wants to get away from poverty, violence, and alcoholism, and all she's ever seen in the black community are situations that enforce those conditions. Baldwin's point, then, that self-hatred can stem from the conditions imposed by society, is well made and well taken. (Also, "nigger" is just never an easy word. Ever.)

As far as religion goes, the message is still a mixed one. Clearly, not everything about religion is bad, since it changes Gabriel from a hoodlum into a productive member of society. It's not, however, fixing all his problems, what with the adulterous relationship and bastard child. Gabriel thinks, at one point, that his "brothers and sisters" are losing themselves in worshiping golden idols in the form of jazz and blues clubs, which is also an interesting point from Baldwin, given the fact that the black identity in America at the time was so heavily defined by music. I still need more time to see where he's going with that.

So, so alone.

2010-11-17T09:58:00.003-06:00

Current book: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Pages read: None

No reading today, I must admit. I could be reading now, but instead of reading the book I'm supposed to be reading, I'm reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay instead. Which, so far, is better than most of the books on this list. So, there you are, then. I just don't know, list-makers. I just don't know.

Anyway, more religion, faith-questioning, and race in America tomorrow. The Baldwin is actually halfway decent, which makes for a nice change.

Speaking of whining about things, also, has anyone read The World According to Garp and liked it? I keep looking stuff up about it online, and all I find are these incredibly laudatory reviews. I can't believe it's so well respected. With some of the books I've hated, I can understand the praise, and I sort of can with the Irving, but surely I can't be the only one overwhelmed by the sexual violence and disturbing content. Can I?

The son of a preacher man

2010-11-16T09:39:00.004-06:00

Current book: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Pages read: 9 - 90

Ok, the first problem with this book is that I constantly have "Go Tell It on the Mountain" stuck in my head. It's kind of an issue.

The novel itself is kind of...odd...so far. I don't really know what Baldwin is trying to say just yet, but I think he's very, very angry. My initial impression is that he hates religion, but it may just be that he hates the oppression that religion can represent, especially to someone who's been raised in a family where it's used as an excuse for abuse and control.

So, John, the 14-year-old son of Baptist preacher living in Harlem, is questioning his faith. His father, Gabriel, beats everyone in the family and constantly tells them what they can and cannot do. For his whole life, John's accepted that Jesus and the church will be his future, but he's starting to think that the "holy life" - praying, abstaining from pleasures like movies and alcohol, devoting one's life to Jesus - is not the life that he wants to live. Soon after John's thoughts begin to head this way, his brother, Roy, is stabbed. It brings the family to a crisis in which his father, mother, and aunt have a huge fight about the way Gabriel treats the family. As a result, John's aunt, Florence, comes to Gabriel's church to pray for salvation, something which she has never done before.

At that point, we get a little backstory on the family. Gabriel and Florence were raised by their mother, a former slave, and never got along. Florence hated Gabriel and hated living in the poor, rural south. After many years of promising herself that she'd get out, she bought a train ticket to New York and left their mother on her deathbed for Gabriel to look after.

That's it so far. Like I said, Baldwin seems very angry, as much about the place of blacks in America as the fact that religion can be used to manipulate them. He's not entirely against religion, I think, but rather is against its use as a different kind of whip and chains in the black community - as a new, self-inflicted slavery. (I may be going too far with that metaphor, but I don't think so.) We'll see what happens between John and Gabriel, which looks to be the central conflict of the story. I don't think it'll be pretty.

As far as writing goes, it's quick and engaging and does a good job of creative multiple, convincing perspectives. John is a little hard to relate to just because of the extremity of his hatred towards his father. That said, his yearning for the comfort of faith and his inability to experience it is compelling. Speaking as an agnostic, I've had the experience myself: that bewilderment that results from understanding that there's a group of people that seems to get this great comfort out of something that continues to elude you, and that seems not only far-fetched, but, in fact, impossible.

Psychologically disturbed

2010-11-15T09:40:00.005-06:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: 285 - 437 (end)

Sorry to keep you waiting, loyal readers. It was a complex week that involved no working out, the aforementioned cold, and a very sick cat. All is now well (including the cat), working out has resumed, and, as you can see, I've finished this terrible, terrible book.

I don't even know how to conclude the plot. The rest of the book covers everyone's life until he or she dies, but to no great effect. The Garps have another child and Garp writes an incredibly sexually violent book which is very popular. Garp's mother is shot and killed by a violent anti-feminist. Eventually Garp is killed, as well, because of an article he wrote decrying an extremist feminist group. Their kids grow up, and the epilogue follows everyone through his or her eventual death.

Honestly, it was just wretched at the end. I completely lost all patience with it and pretty much skimmed the last 75 pages or so. Everyone is either sexually transgressive, violent, or both, and after a while I just can't take that anymore. I don't know what the point is supposed to be except to make the reader vaguely nauseated. It sure had that effect on me.

Within the novel, the last book that Garp writes is called The World According to Bensenhaver, and I can't help but think that Irving is trying to point to himself with it. Garp's book, of which we are treated to the first chapter, begins with the disgustingly violent rape of a woman who kills her rapist while he's still raping her. Garp (Irving) shares every horrific detail. (I won't, because I'm not going to put you through that experience, but believe me, you're better off.) I wish I could unread it, really; I want not to have experienced reading it. Anyway, the point is that the critics of Garp's work call it, basically, what I'm calling it - disturbingly, pornographically violent. So what the hell is Irving doing by putting it in? Perhaps he's trying to defend his own book, (which I am also happy to call perversely disturbing and violent) from critics? Perhaps he's trying to say that the society that values a book like Garp's (and his own) is somehow sick? I have no idea; I just wish I hadn't had to go through the experience of reading it in order to be left wondering.

Ew. Just ew.

No list, Irving! It's not for you.

An addendum: I just looked at the New York Times review of the book from 1978, and in it the reviewer talks all about how the book will make you laugh with its absurdist treatment of violence, rape, and death. Whatever, Times reviewer. Laughing at this book never even occurred to me. And frankly, I worry about your sanity. Sure, the violence overblown and ridiculous, but that doesn't make it funny; it makes it even more sickening. Maybe I'm a Philistine, but if so, I'm happy to be one.

Apologies

2010-11-09T19:47:00.004-06:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: None

I lied. Posting isn't back yet today due to a head cold and a lack of working out as a result. Perhaps tomorrow, but I can't make any guarantees at this point.

Vagina dentata

2010-11-03T16:13:00.003-05:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: 216 - 285

Well, hell. I started out liking this novel, moved on to dislike, and now I actively hate it. Seriously, Irving? I know you can do better than this 70s sexual deviance bullshit.

Helen starts having an affair with a graduate student in one of her courses. One night Garp finds out and tells her to break it off. He takes the kids to a movie so she can accomplish that, but comes back early to find her giving the guy one last blow job in his parked car in the driveway. The problem is, he doesn't see the car until the last second, and ends up rear-ending it. One of their sons is killed, one loses an eye, Garp's jaw is broken, Helen's arm is broken, and the unfortunate other man gets his penis inadvertently bitten off. (Do you see what I mean? What the hell is the point of scenarios like this in fiction? Honestly, can anyone explain it? Because I'd like to know.) The wounded family goes to stay with Jenny in her enormous house on the east coast, and they meet all sorts of herweird hangers-on there. After a while, the guy that Garp kicked out of his Duncan's friend's mom's bedroom (follow that?) shows up, too, to spend time with Garp because he loves Garp's books so much.

That's all so far. I can't wait to find out what disturbing and nonsensical plot twists are in store for me next. Seriously, though, I have some major issues with authors who like to torture their characters, especially when they have to delve into the realms of highly improbable circumstance to do so. There's just something about the events in this book that seem like a fun-house mirror version of reality. I'm disoriented and annoyed, just like at a real fun-house. I don't find that it gives me a new perspective, either, as I can only assume it's meant to do. It's just...degrading. It makes me feel bad about the world, bad about people, and even, sometimes, bad about myself. It certainly makes me feel bad about Irving.

Well, anyway, at least I get a break - I'm headed off to celebrate a very good friend's wedding, so there will be a hiatus from posting until next Tuesday, the 9th.

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

2010-11-02T10:07:00.003-05:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: 120 - 215

You know, I thought I was going to like this book when I started it, and things seem to going downhill rapidly. Everything's getting tawdry and sensational for no good reason, and it's bothering me. It seems too much a product of the 70s right now, in that everyone spews insults and sounds like a semi-violent idiot. I can't really work with that. (I mean, really, we just met a character who called Garp "chickenshit" at least four times in as many pages. Who talks like that?)

Anyway, to move on to the plot: Garp finishes his short story and sends it to Helen, who agrees to marry him, and Jenny gets her book published. It sells phenomenally well, and suddenly Jenny and Garp are famous for being its author and subject, respectively. Garp hates it, of course, and Jenny collects a pack of feminist hangers-on, whom Garp also hates. Garp and Helen, however, have two children, both boys, and a fairly happy marriage. Garp writes two novels, neither of which is particularly popular, and spends the rest of his time as a homemaker. He has a couple of one-night stands with babysitters, which is pretty reprehensible, but eventually gets over his need for infidelity. Later, Helen and Garp have a weird four-way relationship with another couple they know, which ends with Helen making them stop and everyone else resenting her for it. (What did I say? 70s.)

It's pretty much just all twisted, strange domestic scenes. In the part right at the end of this section, Garp's older son, Duncan, goes to a friend's house to spend the night, and Garp, who's very overprotective, ends up checking on him at 1 am. He finds the friend's mother in bed with a younger man, whom she asks him to kick out. He does so, but then she, in a drunken haze, tries to seduce Garp and is angry when he won't sleep with her. (This is the part with all the "chickenshit" usage.) He ends up taking Duncan home, slung over his shoulder in a sleeping bag, and gets stopped by the cops, but manages to prove his innocence.

I seem to be failing to see the point. It started out as a book that seemed to be about the possible complexities of life and finding oneself. I think it's trying to continue to be that, but it's failing miserably. Everyone is cartoonishly reactionary. It kind of reminds me of White Noise, actually, the way the characters act toward each other. They're enraged or they're consumed with lust or they're weeping or they're laughing, but rarely are they somewhere in the middle. Add to that the odd and slightly disturbing sexual material, and things just seem overblown and ridiculous. I just can't relate to this much unorthodox sexual angst all in one place. Sometimes I feel like 70s authors are so bent on getting you to believe that this stuff happens all the time that they forget to include a story. Makes the novel rather difficult to relate to.

I'm hoping the sexual content settles down a little, or, at the very least, starts to contribute to the plot.

Tell me about your mother.

2010-11-01T12:01:00.004-05:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: 62 - 120

Garp graduates from Steering and decides to go to Europe instead of college, but he takes his mother with him. He's ostensibly learning to be a writer, but Jenny ends up writing a 1,500 page autobiography while he works on one short story. He corresponds the whole time with Helen, eventually proposing to her via letter. She denies him at first, but we'll see what happens next, because she seems likely to change her mind.

That's really all that happens of substance in these pages, but clearly the relationship between Garp and his mother is just odd as hell. She insists on coming to Austria with him, but he lets her get away with it, and then they live together while they're there. He fulfills the caretaker role, largely because he speaks German and she doesn't, and does the cooking and shopping. They also get into these weird arguments about lust, since Jenny has never felt any and thinks it's disgusting when Garp does. Garp sleeps with some prostitutes and gets the clap, as well, but it's sort of peripheral, and Jenny doesn't find out.

I don't have a lot to say right now, other than that the relationship with Jenny and Garp is strange. I guess she wants to infantalize him, since he's all she has in the world, but she also reacts very strongly to his interest in sex, I think because of her general distaste for men and the sexuality she thinks they represent. I suppose, if we were to give Jenny a modern label, we'd call her asexual. She seems to think everyone else ought to be, too. Honestly, I don't like her much, but Garp isn't a whole lot better. He seems to be going through an adolescent disdain phase where he thinks nothing is good enough for him. I hope he grows out of it.

His formative years

2010-10-29T17:53:00.003-05:00

Current book: The World According to Garp
Pages read: 1- 62

It's the middle of World War II, and Jenny Fields, a young woman with a rich family, decides that she doesn't really believe in society's values - that is, getting married to a suitable man - so she drops out of Wellesley, where her family sent her, and attends nursing school instead. She becomes a nurse, which she loves, and lives alone, which she also loves, but is constantly bombarded with innuendo from her family that she's sleeping around and wasting her life, neither of which is true. Eventually she decides she would like to have a child, but is still contemptuous of all men to the extent that, using a scalpel she'd gotten (legally) from the hospital, she slashed a guy who was sexually harassing her in a movie theater. (He was out of line, but still. Opened his arm to the bone and sliced his lip. Ouch.)

After some time, a nearly brain-dead ball-turret gunner, name of Garp, comes to the hospital for treatment. He can only say his own name, has no capacity for reason, and frequently gets erections and masturbates to orgasm wherever he happens to be at the time. One time, Jenny climbs on top of him and uses him as a sperm donor for the child she wants so badly. She gets pregnant, Garp dies of his injuries, and she's eventually fired from her job for being an unwed mother.

She has the child, names him T.S. Garp (no meaning behind the letters, except that Garp's rank was technical sergeant) and moves to a boarding school called Steering School where she works as a nurse. Jenny raises Garp at the school, and we see some scenes from his childhood: he almost falls off the roof after playing in a rain gutter, he gets bitten by the dog of another staff member, he generally wanders around the infirmary and talks to older boys. Jenny eventually becomes head nurse and slowly fills the infirmary with books, since she reads constantly. Eventually, Garp enters school at Steering, which he loves. One day, it becomes apparent that he needs to choose a sport to play, and his mother happens upon the wrestling coach and chooses that as his sport. The coach's daughter, Helen Holm, loves Jenny because she resembles her long-lost mother. Garp, while wrestling for all the years of his Steering career, slowly falls in love with Helen Holm.

That's where we are. Lots for 60 pages, really. I like it so far; it's very engaging, and I always love the "childhood at school" parts of novels like this. The narration is interesting because it's often interspersed with references to Jenny's autobiography, published later, and by excepts from things that Garp has written that offer a sentence or two of commentary on the situation. It's clear already from the story that Garp aspires to be a writer, and apparently his aspirations are going to come to fruition.

It's also oddly vulgar sometimes, which usually bothers me, but it seems to be passing just under the radar in this novel. He just tends to talk about erections, sperm, and other excreta more than is really necessary, but for some reason it's coming across as frankness rather than vulgarity in this book.

I think it's going to be a good one.

I'd take the seasick crocodile.

2010-10-28T08:39:00.003-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 550 - 661 (end)

I'm not sorry to be done, I'll say that about it. The ending was pretty sensational, and I don't mean that in the nice way.

Just after the scandal gets cleared up, Tom Stark gets injured in a football game and ends up paralyzed. As a result, Willie Stark withdraws his deal with the crooked contractor because he feels he has nothing to lose and is, for the moment, politically untouchable. The contractor, who was in cahoots with Stark's Lieutenant Governor, "Tiny" Duffy, is displeased, of course. As a result, an unidentified caller gets in touch with Adam Stanton and tells him that Anne slept with Stark, and that's why he was given the hospital directorship. Stanton is so incensed that he assassinates Stark at the capitol building and gets himself shot and killed in the process.

Afterward, Burden finds out that Duffy was the one who called Stanton, and, while he does go to his office and threaten him, resolves to leave well enough alone about it, since Duffy has no future in politics anyway. Burden, in fact, has a dramatic change of heart, marries Anne Stanton, and decides to write his long-lost dissertation about Cass Mastern. Burden finally realizes that the past doesn't define the future, only provides a jumping-off point for it, that he's wasted his life up until now, and that he wants to make the world a better place.

In the words of the immortal valley girl of 90s California, "Gag me with a spoon." I mean, really, Warren? This guy, who has no moral fiber of any kind, and who we've seen, time and time again, make reprehensible decisions more out of apathy than anything else, who's written off both the women in his life because they didn't do exactly what pleased him, and who blackmailed the only man in his life he ever really respected - this guy turns it all around and is filled with the light of righteousness and truth? For fuck's sake, man, you can't just completely change your mind about everything you've said in the entire novel right at the end.

I don't know, maybe you can, and I should be happy about it, since I just whined about how I hate books that condemn humanity as worthless, but I wanted it to be more believable, in the end. I just don't know that there was enough reason for Jack Burden to have a change of heart. It's not as though there was any one event that could have changed my mind, I suppose, it's just that I needed to see some flicker of morality in Jack's soul at some point before the very end of the novel. It's like deus ex machina, in a way, or deathbed conversion - it doesn't mean anything when it's sudden and without reason.

Speaking of deathbed conversions, there was some sense of Stark having wanted to do right all along that sneaked* into the novel in this end bit. When he was dying, he told Jack that he wished it had all been different, and Jack reflected on the fact that sometimes good men act badly in order to achieve good. Warren seemed to be arguing not for the idea that the ends justify the means, but for the idea that politicians who have fallen prey to that logic are not necessarily bad, but are just trying to act within the limitations of the political system. That was the kernel of truth in this book, really, and the idea that I liked best in it. The political system seems designed, in a way, to cause moral compromise. A senator can never get the law that he really wants passed, because it will have to be tweaked and amended, defanged by the opposing party, and passed through a committee that will make more changes, so that eventually it will be barely recognizable. That, too, is a kind of moral compromise. However, I think Warren carries the idea a little far. I don't think Willie Stark is actually a sympathetic character, simply because we've seen him bully, both verbally and physically, too many people. You want to build a hospital? That's great, but it doesn't excuse the years of corruption and blackmail that stand behind your career.

I don't know what to say about it. It was one-sided, a bit rambling, and disorganized, but it had moments of truth and discussed the political system in a way that hadn't been done before it was written. The ending was a bit of flash-in-the-pan, but I'm not sure most people would object to it as strongly as I do. I'm slightly swayed by the fact that it won a Pulitzer (which I shouldn't be, since that's very emperor's new clothes of me), but I still don't think it's worthy of the list. It's marginal. I don't have a good answer.

*As a side note, did you know that snuck is actually not a grammatically correct past tense form of sneak? I learned that today, and, I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. Snuck seems much more illustrative to me. Alas.

Then my father is truly dead.

2010-10-27T09:26:00.004-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 460 - 550

I grudgingly admit that Warren actually managed to surprise me with a plot twist. I'm still annoyed with him for being constantly and consistently depressing, but at least I got a moment of shock out of this book.

It turns out that Jack and Lois's marriage ended because Jack left Lois with no warning or explanation. (Jack's narration actually manages to kind of blame her for it, which is pretty spectacularly unfair, but he also sort of half acknowledges that he's in the wrong.) Anyway, shortly after that part, we find out that Anne Stanton never married, and always seemed vaguely disappointed in Jack. He resolves his conscience about his bad relationships by painting Anne and Lois with the same brush - namely, that of all women, whom he dismisses as needy and bound by social convention. (Whatever, Jack. What. Ever.)

Back in the present, Willie Stark's son, Tom, gets himself into trouble with a girl. In the usual way, she gets pregnant and then accuses him of being the father, and he denies it and says she sleeps around. This results in Stark trying to buy her off with pressure from her senator, namely the guy that Judge Irwin endorsed way back at the beginning of the book. So, of course, that means that Stark wants to pressure Irwin into withdrawing his endorsement unless the senator erases the scandal with Tom, and to do that, he wants Jack to blackmail the judge with the scandal he unearthed. Stark still doesn't know what it is, but he trusts Jack to deal with it. So, Jack, who, remember, used to admire Irwin, goes to blackmail him. Irwin refuses the deal, of course, and, after Jack leaves, shoots himself.

When Jack's mother finds out that Irwin shot himself after Jack visited him, she breaks down and tells Jack that Irwin is really his father. (Music sting! Honestly, it was really quite a shock, but it made sense in the context of Jack's mother's many husbands, so it didn't seem underhanded of Warren or anything.) Jack is remorseful, but not nearly enough, frankly, and still goes back to work for Stark. He refuses to do any more blackmailing, however. Stark's hand is forced by circumstance now that Irwin is dead, and he ends up having to give the contract to build his hospital to a crooked contractor in exchange for the erasure of Tom's pregnancy scandal. Stark is incredibly upset about it, what with the hospital being the one thing he was actually going to do right.

Jack is just so awful that I'm having a hard time mustering any emotional connection with the events of the book. Every time we learn something about his past, I feel like I'm supposed to be sympathetic to him, sorry for his loss of innocence or something, but it feels to me like he never had any innocence to lose. Maybe that's the point - that he's supposed to represent the inevitability of corruption and its inherent place in the human soul - but it's not working for me. The fall from grace is just so much more powerful. Warren took a stab at that with Willie, but he didn't give us enough evidence for Stark's initial goodness, either.

I'm just not cut out to read books where the message is that people suck and everything's awful. I fight it the whole way through, because I think it's untrue and even, sometimes, damaging. Also, it's not very nice first thing in the morning.

Objectification much?

2010-10-26T10:22:00.003-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 373 - 460

All right, I'll admit it: I've been remiss in explaining the roles of a couple of characters because they kept being peripheral, but now I have to because they gotten important to the plot. This is what I get for cutting corners.

So, Adam Stanton, the hero-surgeon guy who was once Jack's good friend, is also the son of the previous governor, Governor Stanton. Adam's sister, Anne, was also good friends with Jack, and, there is an implication, had some kind of romantic relationship with him as well. This next section is mostly one long flashback that gives us details about the friendship and romance between the two of them.

After Jack finds out about the dirt on Judge Irwin, he tells Anne, who tells Adam, and both are devastated because it implicates their father, the former governor, in the scandal. As a result, Adam decides to take the hospital job that Stark has offered him, perhaps to make up for his father's corruption, or perhaps because he now sees the whole world as corrupt (and therefore doesn't mind Stark's hand in the business). Meanwhile, Jack finds out that Anne has had an affair with Willie and possibly manipulated him into offering Adam the job. This discovery launches Jack into a spiral of despair during which he drives across the country, stops in a motel, and gets drunk while he remembers his past.

In Jack's flashback, we see his blossoming relationship with Anne when they both teenagers, he in the summer after high school, she a year younger. They were simply friends at first, then found mutual attraction, and finally ended up almost having sex, but stopped just short of it. Adam was less than pleased to find his friend dallying with his sister, but didn't say much about it. The two planned to get married, but after several years of college, Anne lost interest in Jack, who was slacking off and had no ambition, and the relationship died. Afterward, Jack married Lois, who was nice to look at but not much else to him, and lived unhappily in the marriage for a while. That's where I had to stop, so I don't know how their marriage ended just yet, but I'm sure it did.

The way Jack talks about Anne is characteristic of that idea of the young, unspoiled maid who is attractive because of her potential for being spoiled. Once you have her, you won't want her anymore. It's a disturbing little paradox, really (and a pretty common one - look no further than your local mall and the dozens of available Catholic schoolgirl miniskirts), and one which Warren is playing up pretty strongly. There's a sense in it that Jack spoils everything he touches, or, more than that, that the world spoils everything in it.

The way Jack talks about Lois is, if anything, even more disturbing. He says, multiple times, that he is attracted to the "machine" of Lois, but not the "being" that is Lois. In other words, he likes the way she looks and the fact that she has sex with him, and that's about it. He often refers to her as an "it" in this part, and says things like, "when it opened its mouth to say words," in reference to her. Frankly, it's so offensive that it's difficult to read. I'm not saying Warren is a misogynist, because I think he's using the corrosive nature of this idea for a reason, but Jack sure as hell is. Lois is nothing to him but a tool to get over Anne - a toy that he thought would make him happy for a while - and he's proving it to us in the narration.

It's seldom that I've disliked a narrator as much as I dislike Jack Burden. He seemed vaguely human when we were hearing about his first love with Anne, but everything else he's done and is doing is almost cartoonishly reprehensible. I guess Warren's trying to make him the ultimate example of the ruination that is political corruption, but, once again, I think that nuance would suit better than extremity. I'd much rather seem him as an ambiguous character struggling with his morals than as the completely fallen man that he is. Even the scenes of his past never show him doing anything truly moral - he's just icky.

The road to hell

2010-10-25T09:02:00.004-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 268 - 373

Hey, things are exciting in this bit because there is actually a glimmer of hope that not everyone in the entire world is completely beyond redemption! It's very, very faint, but it's there. I'll let you know where in the synopsis it comes in, because it might be hard to tell.

So, back to Cass Mastern. After killing his friend in order to secure said friend's wife, he and the woman have an argument about a slave that she sold. The slave had been in Mastern's family for some time, and the only reason his new mistress sold her was because she felt threatened by her beauty. Mastern heads off to go retrieve her, and in so doing, loses his mistress forever. He doesn't end up finding the slave, but does get in a fight, become ill, and then come dragging home feeling guilty for the whole thing. Afterward, he's a broken man, and ends up fighting in the Civil War and dying of a bullet wound. And the moral of all this, as Warren points out through Burden's narration, is that the world screws everyone over and makes him miserable. (Awesome. This is not, in case you were wondering, the glimmer of light part.)

After the Mastern bit, we get back to Burden's activities in Stark's employ, and follow him as he digs up dirt on the judge Stark was threatening way back at the beginning. He succeeds in finding out that the judge, Judge Irwin, once took dirty money when he was attorney general. As a result of the deal, a lawyer for the state lost his job because he tried to bring a suit against the company that was doing the lawbreaking. After appealing to the governor at the time (not Stark) and being told he'd better quiet down or risk even greater consequences, said lawyer killed himself. Burden hasn't yet reported this information to Stark, but will soon, and then, we assume, ruin Irwin's reputation with it.

In the meantime, Stark has been making plans to build a huge, free hospital in the state, and, lo and behold, he actually wants it to be politically clean. He wants to build it in order to do good, rather than just to make money and connections. (See the glimmer? An actual good intention!) Burden is given the task of convincing his old childhood friend, Adam Stanton, now a famous surgeon, to take on leadership of the place. Adam has, for now, refused, but the discussion is certainly not over.

As I said, it's kind of nice that Warren complicates Stark's character here with the sense that he actually wants to do some good, and isn't just completely, permanently corrupt. That said, it seems like Burden's going to strong-arm Adam into taking on a position he doesn't want, so it's not an entirely virtuous situation. But still, it's a helluva lot closer than we've gotten in this book so far.

I don't know, maybe I'm just naive as hell, or maybe it's that this book is too much a product of its time, but I guess I don't believe that everyone who's ever even come close to touching any aspect of politics has become part of a corrupt machine. That seems to be Warren's thesis, and I honestly think it errs pretty heinously on the side of cynicism. To be fair, some of that is a product of the narrative voice; Jack is supposed to be completely cynical himself, after all. But I think there's room for nuance that I've only just now seen evidence of, and I'm not entirely convinced is going to be pursued as much as I think it should be.

In other news, Warren used a word I didn't know: marmoreal. It means "like marble or suggestive of marble, especially as it relates to a sense of coldness or aloofness." From context, before looking it up, I'd decided the meaning ran something along the lines of "dignified and severe," so I was pretty close. (Although, honestly, part of me really wanted it to mean "like a marmot.") It's not often I have to look up a word, so I liked it, but I didn't like that he used it three times in as many pages. Have the wit to vary the tune, Warren.

Lame duck

2010-10-23T13:15:00.002-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: None

No pages read at all, and I didn't even cook anything, so I have no real excuse. Yeah, sorry.

On the subject of political novels, has anyone ever read a modern American political novel that was actually good? I know I haven't. Mostly they seem to stumble around, wallowing in scandal and poorly disguised commentary, until they come to unsatisfying endings. Unfair? Tell me how.

Violent tendencies

2010-10-21T08:41:00.003-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 173 - 268

I honestly don't know how to relate to this book. It seems to be a series of confused recollections of various instances of corruption, but I don't feel like I'm really getting anything out of it or that it's moving the plot along.

I mean, for example, in this bit we see Willie Stark get his attorney general out of an impeachment scandal, and it's clearly underhanded, and then there's a bunch of reflection about it on Burden's part. At this point, I get that there are lots and lots of scandals, so listing each one isn't really doing a whole lot for me. His wife threatens to leave him. I guess that's new. Then we get the story of Jack Burden's doctoral dissertation, randomly, which is about the diaries of a guy named Cass Mastern, an ancestor of his, and his marital infidelities. He was a good guy, basically, who went to college and ended up sleeping with a friend's wife and then, eventually, killing the friend.

That's really all there was. I just...I don't know. I'm bothered by how often we're switching time periods and by how unimportant the information we're getting is. Everything just seems like a foregone conclusion, and it's obnoxious. If Warren hadn't started out with the utter corruption of Stark right at the beginning, it would be a lot better. The characters are all just so horrible. I want to punch everyone in the face.

Either I'm dead right or I'm crazy

2010-10-20T09:39:00.003-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 70 - 173

Well, when I said "argue with the judge" yesterday, what I really meant was "try to intimidate the judge into changing his endorsement." Despite the fact that Governor Stark seems to have a great deal of power, he fails to get the judge to back down. Burden, the narrator, is disgusted at his own involvement; he used to know the judge well, and is ashamed of his own part in the political corruption. You wouldn't know it from the way he acts, but his narration is full of self-loathing.

After they leave, Warren throws us back to the beginning of Willie Stark's political career. It turns out he gets into politics by becoming treasurer for his county. While he's in that position, a vote comes up for a contract to build a new schoolhouse, and Willie insists that the county take the low bid (like you do). However, the county commissioner wants to give the contract to his brother's contracting firm (which has been accused of substandard building practices and also offered a higher bid), and gets Willie kicked out of office in order to do so. Willie is disgusted, of course, but later vindicated when one of the fire escapes crumples during a fire drill, killing three children and making Willie look the righteous do-gooder. Shortly thereafter, upon the request of some concerned citizens, Willie runs for governor. It turns out that one of the other candidates arranged Willie's run so that he'd split the vote of the first candidate's opponent, and when Willie finds out, he exposes the whole plot in a high-profile speech. Afterward, he spends the rest of the campaign time speaking for the opposite side, having changed his whole persona and political diction (formerly righteous, informational, and boring and now inflammatory, didactic, and exciting). Burden covers Willie on the campaign trail and takes care of him when he finds out about the scandal and drinks himself into a near-coma.

A few years later, Willie runs for governor in his own right and is elected. Burden gets fired from his newspaper for refusing to write articles that hold the party line (which is in favor of the other candidate), and, after a period of whiny unemployment, Willie hires him. To do what, you ask? Whatever Willie decides, it seems.

Right now, it sounds from my description like both Stark and Burden are upstanding gentlemen who are fighting for what's right. That's misleading, though, because their actions belie the undercurrent of cynicism in the book. Burden's narration is so damn jaded and hopeless that it seems like everyone in the world is corrupt. I know Warren's doing that on purpose, since it's retrospective and Burden, has, in fact, lived in a corrupt world for years, but doing it through that lens makes it seem like no one has ever been honest. Even Stark, in this early example of crusading for what's right, seems like he's dirtied by corruption; Burden never stops calling him a dupe, and a fool, and a blind, naive moron. It's fairly impossible, then, to sympathize with either of them. Burden's obnoxious because he's so bitter that he can't take joy in anything, and Willie's obnoxious because he's presented as either an idiot (in the past) or a tragic example of corruption (in the present). Can no one actually be good? It's like watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, only at the end, Mr. Smith just takes the graft money and screws the boy scouts out of their camp. Cheery.

I'm kind of annoyed by the dialogue, also. I don't know if it's just a product of the 40s, or what, but I find the way people speak to be stilted and unrealistic. It sounds like film noir or something, and I don't appreciate it as stylization, if that's what it is, so it comes across as affectation instead.

We'll see what happens, but it's hard to get into a book when you hate the narrator. And all the other characters, come to think of it.

Checkers

2010-10-19T10:39:00.004-05:00

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 1 - 70

Willie Stark, the governor of Iowa (I assume, because they keep talking about Mason City), is visiting his father at the former's childhood home. Our narrator, a journalist who works for Willie and goes by the name of Jack Burden, is accompanying him, along with Mrs. Stark and a couple of other flunkies. It's apparent from the description of Willie and his home town that he was raised as a simple country boy, and, now that he's gotten into politics, has become a fat cat who does whatever it takes to get what he wants. (I already kind of hate him. Actually, not just kind of. I already hate him.) After using his old, broken-down father and his father's old, broken-down dog for some photo ops, Willie takes Jack over to the house of a judge whom Burden used to know. That judge, as it turns out, has just endorsed a candidate for office of whom Governor Stark does not approve. Willie proceeds to argue with the judge about his choice.

That's as far as I got, which, honestly, doesn't seem very far for having read 70 pages, but there's a lot of description going on. Snippets of both Stark's and Burden's childhoods are sneaking into the narrative, as well as an account of their first meeting, years ago when Stark wasn't yet a politician. Warren's made a good, though perhaps not particularly risky, choice by tipping his audience off to the fact that Stark's political life has corrupted him. Now, instead of waiting in suspense to see if he'll give in, we're waiting in suspense to see what exactly his downfall will be. I wonder, too, if Warren's going to go beyond just the governorship and take Stark to the presidency. It seems fairly likely, based on the title , but it's probably not necessary for the portrait of corruption it seems we're heading towards; could go either way.

This book makes me wish I knew more about Watergate. It was written long before Watergate ever occurred, but I still feel like it's the most relevant modern political scandal I can think of. Warren was probably thinking about the general disaster that was 1920s politics in Chicago and elsewhere when he wrote the novel, but it resonates more for the modern reader when applied to recent scandals. Anyway, Watergate - I mean, I've got the basic gist of it, that Richard Nixon authorized illegal search and seizure of Democratic party records in order to improve his political position. But I know there's more to it than that, and that I'm missing information. More than the details, though, I wish I had a better idea of how Watergate affected the political climate of the U.S. at the time. What did it feel like to have the president disgraced? What did it feel like to know that the highest office in the land was one of the most corrupt? Sure, I was alive during the Clinton impeachment, but frankly, it was a kangaroo court that had nothing to do with actual corruption on Clinton's part, and it didn't seem like it undermined American political confidence much. I only assume that Watergate did, and that it really had an impact on everyday life. I could be wrong, though - maybe half the population ignored it, as they mostly seem to do these days. Well, that or scream crazy slogans and deny evolution. Apathy or insanity - it's hard to say which is worse. I've digressed, so I'll exit. More scandal coming soon.

What happens in Florence stays in Florence.

2010-10-18T09:58:00.003-05:00

Current book: A Room with a View
Pages read: 158 - 211 (end)

Well, everyone spends some more time together, Cecil keeps being an asshole, and eventually George and Lucy find themselves alone together. George admits that he still loves her, kisses her, and tells her to leave Cecil. She's angry and resistant and denies him, but later in the evening realizes that he's at least right about Cecil. Lucy calls off the engagement, which Cecil handles fairly well, and she vows to go to Greece on a pleasure trip to avoid complications and gossip in England. Before she can leave, however, she meets George's father, who realizes that she loves his son, and he tells her so. His certainty causes her to realize the truth, and she vows to reconcile with George.

Forster skips forward several months here for the final chapter, and we see the two young people already married and vacationing, once again, in Florence. Lucy's family is, apparently, angry with her about their marriage, but she and George are, nonetheless, happy and full of hopes for the future.

It was a cute, cheery little novel with an undercurrent of cutting social satire. All in all, it was pretty enjoyable, but I'm not sure it was deep and moving, or even particularly memorable. I will admit that the portrayal of Cecil kept cutting me to the quick, though. Some of the reasons he's an asshole, as I mentioned before, are traits that I share with him, and it made me think about my personal flaws. I suppose that's a mark of good satire, really - that it results in self-examination.

Anyway, I wasn't blown away by the novel, and I don't think it really deserves to be on the list, but it's worth reading. It did have a bit to say about women not letting themselves be controlled and protected by men or their families, so that was nice, but honestly I think Forster was thinking more about being entertaining than anything else. Sometimes that has its place.

Breaking the fourth wall

2010-10-15T16:34:00.003-05:00

Current book: A Room with a View
Pages read: 72 - 158

Well, the scandal is surprisingly unexciting, since all that happens is that George Emerson stumbles away in embarrassment and Miss Bartlett whisks Lucy back to the carriage. The whole party leaves, actually, since there seems to be a storm coming, but they do so without George, whom no one can find. They get back to Florence just fine, and, much later that night, George does, too. Lucy, pressured by Miss Bartlett, agrees to flee to Rome, the next stop on their tour, early the next morning.

At this point, the narrative jumps ahead a few months, to Lucy's home in England after she's returned. She has just gotten engaged to man named Cecil, whom she met in Rome, and who is clearly a jerk. He's incredibly snobby, but less about money than about intellectual prowess and high taste, which is, usually, just as obnoxious. Anyway, just after the engagement, the Emersons of the kissing scandal rent a nearby house. Lucy is conscience-stricken, not having told Cecil about said kissing incident, and she doesn't know what to do. Miss Barlett eventually comes up to stay at Lucy's for the wedding and adds the pressure of having the only other person who's aware of the scandal also present. To add to the trouble, Lucy's brother, Freddy, is becoming friends with George. Lucy, therefore, sees him oftener than she'd like and finds herself attracted to him (though she doesn't really realize it).

Well, it's honestly a bit silly. I mean, it's fairly well written, sure, but the subject material seems a bit...fluffy...to tell the truth. If this book were translated into modern diction and jazzed up for the publishing trade, it'd be a pink paperback located on the "chick lit" table. Seriously. That does mean, though, that's it's pretty entertaining.

Cecil being a total snob without really being a snob about money is an interesting interpretation of class difference. He just sort of places himself in a higher intellecutal and cultural bracket than everyone else and gets peevish when they violate his sense of dignity. (Honestly, it hit a little close to home. I have tendencies that are not always unlike Cecil's. For example, there's a bit where Forster describes how Cecil sneers at Freddy while the latter is singing comic songs, and I was reminded, uncomfortably, of my inability to tolerate the broad comedy of popular movies like Anchorman, Superbad, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.) I was impressed that Forster thought to include a subtly different take on snobbery and hierarchy.

Also, one oddly glaring flaw occurs when Forster first introduces Cecil; he says something like, "We've come far enough in the story now that Cecil must be described." There's been no narrative presence at all up to this point, and frankly, I was annoyed by the sudden inclusion of one. You can't just turn to the camera and talk, as it were, whenever you feel like it. It has to be established early and continue throughout. Poor form, Forster. Poor form.

Pond of Doom!

2010-10-14T08:35:00.004-05:00

Current book: A Room with a View
Pages read: 9 - 72

Well, we're back to gawking at the idle rich, as we always do in novels from the period between 1800 and 1940. Gee, isn't it fun? Don't you just love observations about the privileged classes?

Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin, Charlotte Bartlett, are visiting Florence as part of a tour of Italy. Lucy is quite young and Charlotte has been engaged by Lucy's mother to act as her chaperone. They are staying in a pension, which is basically a rooming house with meals, and the story so far is pretty much about their interactions with the other guests. Everyone is, of course, English, but there are still snotty little cliques and vendettas within the pension. (Don't get the idea that this is something that's happening over a long time period, either, because it's maybe a week. But you know how alliances and prejudices are - they pretty much occur instantly. Especially if you're a snotty Brit.)

A father and son, Mr. Emerson and George Emerson, are also staying in the pension. Nobody likes them because they say what they mean. (No, really. They're nice, but completely without guile, and it drives all the snobby tourists crazy.) Ms. Lavish, who has been in Italy for a long time, is a stuck-up artist type trying to write a novel. She constantly goes on about "her Italy" and likes all of the most squalid parts of it. Mr. Beebe, a clergyman from Lucy's parish, seems nice enough, actually tolerates the Emersons, and tries to promote relations between all the guests at the pension.

Plot-wise, Lucy encounters the Emersons several times in her tours of Florence and has positive experiences with them, so is inclined to like them. After wandering around the square alone one day, she stumbles across a heated argument between two Italian men and ends up seeing one of them stab the other right in front of her. She faints, and, by chance, George Emerson is there to catch her. She begs him not to tell anyone about it, and he agrees. Later, the pension guests go on a driving tour together during which they get out of the carriages to take a stroll through the countryside. Lucy, alone, comes upon a hill covered in violets where George is standing. Seeing her overcome with joy at the beauty of it, he kisses her, at which instant her cousin Charlotte arrives as well.

My goodness, the scandal! I was reading the introduction to this edition and found that they described the novel as a "comedy of manners." It's fair in that it's certainly using manners and politeness as fodder for absurdity, but honestly, it's a good deal more cutting than that. The British tourists that populate the pension are cruelly caricatured versions of the rich, and we laugh at them accordingly, but it feels more spiteful than comedic. There's definitely some contempt on Forster's part for people who spend all their time looking at guidebooks and none of it actually experiencing their surroundings. That said, there's also a lot of contempt for people who set too much stock in experiencing the "authentic" and in so doing still fail to understand the places they visit. Honestly, Forster's main message seems to be, "For the love of God, just relax." Which, you know, is kind of fair.

The Grey Havens

2010-10-13T09:57:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: 313 - 385 (end)

Everybody goes to Rohan to entomb Theoden and celebrate his great sacrifice, and Faramir and Eowyn get engaged there (which is a little macabre, but whatever). Afterward, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, and the hobbits set off for Orthanc, where they find that Treebeard has let Saruman go out of pity. Legolas and Gimli depart at this point to travel through each others' homes, and Gandalf and the hobbits go on to Bree. There they find that things have gone downhill, and there has been unrest and economic trouble, though they don't know why. Gandalf leaves the hobbits to go back to the Shire on their own and deal with whatever awaits them.

In the Shire, a gang of thugs, under the leadership of one of the hobbits, supposedly, has taken over and done all sorts of nasty stuff. They've created a bunch of "sheriffs" and made them accost people on the street for speaking ill of "the Boss," stolen crops, built ugly and polluting buildings, and cut down a bunch of trees. Merry, Pippin, Frodo, and Sam are having none of it, and they immediately start cleaning the place up. They rally the hobbit population and move against the invaders, killing some and driving the rest out. After the majority of the rabble is gone, they go to find "the Boss," Lotho Baggins, to whom Frodo sold Bag-End when he left, but instead find Saruman, the instigator of the whole mess. Though Frodo tries twice to let him go, Saruman's servant, Grima, ends up killing the old wizard, and is then shot by hobbit archers. Afterward, they clean up the whole Shire, demolishing the ugly buildings, rebuilding homes, and replanting trees. Sam takes a special interest in the trees, since he is, after all, a gardener, and uses some of the sacred earth of Lorien that Galadriel gave him to help them along.

They live in the Shire for the next year or so, enjoying a great prosperity and their fame and recognition, and Sam marries his sweetheart and has a child. Frodo, however, never really recovers from his wounds, both mental and physical. Eventually he decides to go with Gandalf and the elves on the ships to the West, which is, effectively, dying. Sam, Merry, and Pippin see him off, and then return home to go on with the business of living.

Well, the reports were correct; the end was a bit anti-climactic. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, honestly, but I do think it detracts from the major climax of the successful destruction of the Ring to have another significant event occur afterward. That said, Merry and Pippin are totally awesome when they ride into the Shire and meet with the new regime. They're basically just like, "I'm sorry, you wanted to do what? Arrest us? Mmm, don't think so. Swords and armor. Total awesomeness. We win." It's pretty great.

The final ending, too, when Frodo goes off into the West, is done poignantly and well. Tolkien knows how to write that sense of sadness, of grief and nostalgia, that you get from parting with a friend, but also from enjoying something truly important and emotional. His ability to make his reader feel grief is just as apparent in Sam's homecoming after Frodo has gone, when he describes Sam returning to his warm, firelit home, as it is when Frodo leaves on the ship. It's quite impressive.

All right, so, overall assessment time. You have to give Tolkien credit for doing something that had never been done before. Honestly, these probably have to be recognized as the first fantasy novels ever written, and certainly the first fantasy epics. (Yes, there's The King of Elfland's Daughter, but it's really a fairy tale, not a fantasy novel.) He created an impressively detailed world and he told a story that, in the end, was quite stirring. There are, however, major flaws in his writing. He was so focused, it seems, on the mythology and creation of his world that he failed to pay attention to creating characters to populate it, or to crafting his plot in such a way as to tell his story well. There's a great tradition in the English canon, though, of including books because they are groundbreaking, radically new and different in some way, and it's hard not to say that Tolkien accomplishes this.

I'm going to go with not worthy of the list, but just barely. I feel like they deserve a sidebar for being genre-defining, but the writing just doesn't warrant best 100 status.

I love weddings! Drinks all 'round!

2010-10-12T08:40:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: 218 - 313

Sam makes it back to Frodo, due to the fact that all the orcs guarding him have fought amongst themselves and killed each other. Frodo is still alive, and Sam gets him up and dressed in orc's clothing, which Sam also dons by way of camouflage. They venture out into Mordor to get the Ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. It's rough going, and it takes days of miserable trudging across the blackened, smoking landscape. Frodo is half-dead with the dark poison of the Ring, and both of the hobbits are suffering from thirst and starvation. Gollum is also lurking about and following them from place to place. Finally, after having to march a considerable distance with a troop of orcs, they come to the mountain.

Frodo is so exhausted at this point that Sam has to carry him up, and, while doing so, is beset by Gollum. Sam manages to fight him off, but finds that Frodo is nearly mad with the Ring's power, and has put it on and gone upward himself to the open cracks on the mountainside. Gollum chases him and gets there first, and Frodo and Gollum have a last fight over the Ring. Gollum bites Frodo's finger completely off to get it, but in so doing loses his balance and falls into one of the cracks, destroying himself and the Ring. The task, therefore, is completed, and Sauron's great dark tower falls, his power destroyed. All of Mordor, in fact, seems to collapse in on itself. Sam and Frodo consider trying to leave, but it seems hopeless until Gandalf's giant eagle friends, having come for the battle, swoop into Mordor and save them.

The hobbits wake up days later in Ithilien, under the care of Gandalf and the elves. All the forces of Mordor scattered and fled when the Ring was destroyed, precluding the final battle for which the forces of men had girded themselves. The hobbits are great heroes, and Aragorn and the elves recognize them as such. In Ithilien, they are reunited with Merry and Pippin, Gimli, and Legolas, and marvel at the fact that they've survived and succeeded. Finally, they go back to Gondor, where Faramir and Eowyn have fallen in love, and Aragorn is crowned king. After a short time there, Arwen, Aragorn's elven love, arrives, and the two are married. Eowyn gives Frodo the gift of a pendant which will allow him to go west with the elves and leave the world, if he so desires.

Well, you may be thinking that it seems like the book is over and I haven't said (end) yet. That's...um...very true. The climax and a great deal of denouement have, in fact, occurred, and yet, we seem to be carrying on. This is considerably further than I got when I tried to read these books before, so I don't really know what the last chunk is going to consist of, but I have heard rumors. "Giant anti-climax" is pretty much what I've been told. I can't really see how it wouldn't be.

That said, the final destruction of the Ring is quite stirring, especially when the hobbits are rescued and the whole company of elves and men celebrates them for their great sacrifice. There's something about scenes like that. It's never the great sacrifice itself that's the most touching part for me; it's always the recognition afterward - the mourning or the celebration - that's the most affecting part. I also liked the fact that Arwen and Aragorn continually recognize the fact that the hobbits, and especially Frodo, are not simply going to be fine again. The fact that Arwen offers Frodo the chance to sail into the west with the elves is a fitting recognition of, basically, post-traumatic stress disorder. (Or, in gentler, less technical terms, the fact that you just don't go through something so massively difficult and frightening and exhausting and come out the same on the other side.) Too many fantasy novels forget that.

On the side of things I didn't like about this section, Sam's dialogue with himself about the suffering he and Frodo are going through and his devotion to his master is heavy-handed and ridiculous. It's partly because you simply don't speak to yourself the way Tolkien has Sam do it, and partly because it seems canned and trite, but it's jarringly unsuccessful to me. The other bit I've got problems with is Eowyn. She's pretty depressed after she wakes up in the Houses of Healing, as I mentioned, because she has not achieved the glory of dying in battle and because she sees little chance for further valor. She wanders around sadly for a while, and then, lo and behold, Faramir shows up, they fall in love, and everything's all better. She vows to be a healer and take care of people and things, and live with Faramir, who will have tamed a wild shield-maiden (no, I am not making this up), and there you go. Everything's just all neat and pretty and Donna fucking Reed. Seriously? Don't get me wrong; I recognize the transformative power of true love, having experienced (and still experiencing) it myself. But that doesn't mean you can use it to make your strongest and most excellent female character simply stop wanting everything that she wanted before. Damn it, Tolkien. I was really beginning to respect your treatment of Eowyn, and then you went and ruined it.

Once upon at time...

2010-10-08T16:02:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: None

A bit busy today, and my husband and I are leaving for a long weekend tomorrow morning, so there won't be another post until Tuesday.

In the meantime, though, I had a thought about these books in general that I found sort of helped me to better understand, if not enjoy, the writing style. If you think of them as examples of storytelling - actual oral storytelling, perhaps even epic storytelling - they make a lot more sense. The digressions to give the history of minor characters, the emphasis on the long, arduous nature of the travel, the unnecessary vignettes with odd or inexplicable conclusions - all of these are characteristics of oral epics. Add in the fact that Tolkien was a Beowulf scholar, and things suddenly seem to fit together better. Does that mean that they're well-written? Not necessarily, but it's indicative, at least, of some intentionality behind choices that might be considered ill-advised.

No man born of woman

2010-10-07T08:45:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: 139 - 218

With Rohan's aid, the tide of the battle turns in favor of Gondor, though the King of the Nazgul still wreaks havoc. Theoden seeks him out, but his dark powers make Theoden's horse panic and fall on him, mortally wounding him. Dernhelm, who now reveals himself to be Eowyn, is at Theoden's side, and, turning from his wounded form, engages the Witch-King. She cuts off his dragon's head, forcing him to dismount, though he laughs in her face and strikes a blow against her shield that breaks her arm. Merry, cowering up until now under the forces of darkness, stabs the Nazgul king in the leg, distracting him, and Eowyn takes the moment to strike a killing blow. Eowyn is struck senseless by his evil, and Merry, also wounded, stays by her and Theoden's body until Eomer comes. The rest of the battle is pretty much what you'd expect - a bunch of fighting - until Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli arrive by ship. (They took over the ships after using the army of the dead to destroy one of Sauron's waiting forces. Then, holding their oath fulfilled, Aragorn dismissed the ghost soldiers. It was less exciting than it could have been.)

After the major thrust of the battle, Eowyn is taken to the Houses of Healing, where Faramir, who Gandalf has rescued from death at Denthor's hands, is already ensconced. (Denethor, after Gandalf's intercession, and having gone completely mad, has killed himself.) Eventually, Pippin finds Merry, who's wounded and wandering around, and brings him to the Houses as well. They, along with many others, are suffering from the ill effects of the darkness of the Nazgul, and the healers can't help them. Eventually, Aragorn comes, and, in keeping with legend, is able to heal those afflicted by the darkness, due to his royal lineage. (Also, some herbs.)

Later, all of the leaders and heroes get together to talk about what to do. It's clear that this was only the first battle, and that there's a great deal more to come that the forces of men cannot possibly withstand. Because they still have hope that Frodo will destroy the Ring, however, they decide to rally their remaining forces and lead them to the Black Gate of Mordor in order to draw Sauron's attention away from the Ring. They do so, and, after a few days' journey, the army arrives at the gate. Sauron sends out a representative to talk, and he demands what amounts, virtually, to complete surrender. They refuse him, and a great host of orcs and trolls comes out to do battle.

Then, of course, we flip back to Sam in Mordor. He's still trying to get to Frodo, who's been moved (I think) to a different tower. Um, that's all.

The battle outside Minas Tirith is kind of anticlimactic. I mean, the part with Theoden and Eowyn is excellent, but then, afterward, the action kind of just peters out. They still seem to be fighting some of the opposing forces when Aragorn goes to the Houses of Healing, and then, afterward, they're just sort of done? I don't know. I didn't find it particularly satisfactory after all the buildup. Except Eowyn, because, seriously, she was pretty great. I was also pleased by how, after Aragorn heals her and she wakes up, she is not immediately convinced that everything will be ok. She still questions her ability to hope, and wonders what the future will hold. It's certainly true that she could just be thinking about the fate of Middle-Earth, but I think there's more to it than that. She has completed an act of great valor, yes, but what guarantees does she have that she will continue to lead a life of adventure and honor and not simply be relegated, once again, to the unsatisfactory role of a woman? It's nicely nuanced, and I appreciate the degree of realism it lends Eowyn's situation.

Also, man, did Tolkien have a thing for royalty-worship. I know that he was thinking of these books as a mythology for England, and it therefore makes sense that he'd base his system of government on a monarchy, but the idea that Aragorn actually has healing powers, simply because he is the king, is a bit much. It's just like scrofula. (Which, if you don't know, is a disease called, in medieval times, "the King's Evil," because it was thought to be curable by the touch of the king. Actually, it was an infection of the skin and lymph nodes from tuberculosis and was, until the 18th century, incurable.) Anyway, point being, it's very "divine right of kings," even though Tolkien takes care never to discuss god or gods at all in these books. Which, frankly, though I'm no huge fan of religion, is kind of a gross oversight. The idea that these people in this situation would have no religion at all, or never talk about it, is kind of absurd.

Ere the sun rises

2010-10-06T10:04:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: 70 - 138

Theoden and the Rohirrim, camped out along the route, get an urgent message to hurry to Minas Tirith because it's under siege. They commit to sending almost all of their forces as quickly as possible, and leave the next morning. Theoden, however, tells Merry to stay behind because he will be of no use in an actual battle. Merry is, of course, very unhappy about the idea, but luckily one of the Rohirrim, Dernhelm, takes pity on him and carries him along on his horse. (Dernhelm is suspiciously small and lithe and speaks very seldom and then in a rather softer voice than one would expect of a warrior. Who could he be?)

Aragorn succeeds in traveling the Paths of the Dead, though they're pretty much scary as all-get-out, and earning the allegiance and obedience of the vast hordes of ghosts that live there. He'll be bringing them along to battle at some point, though we don't know when.

At Minas Tirith, Sauron's dark forces are arriving to attack the outskirts of Gondor. Faramir returns, and Denethor, really ticked off that Faramir let Frodo and the Ring escape, sends him out on a suicidal mission to defend the river crossing outside of Minas Tirith. Faramir is wounded gravely and Denethor, maddened by his own grief and folly, gives up command to weep at his side and rave, eventually planning to burn them both alive. Merry, hearing his plans, runs to find Gandalf's help. Gandalf, meanwhile, takes over command of the forces of Gondor to try to hold off the orcs and sundry other evil forces attacking the city. In so doing, he comes face to face with the Witch King of Angmar, one of the Black Riders and a former king of men, who breaks open the gates.

Simultaneous to Gandalf's confrontation, the forces of Rohan arrive. They come by way of a secret path that one of the Wild Men showed them in return for a promise of future peace, and arrive just in time to attack Sauron's forces from behind, drawing away the attention of the Witch-King.

The best part of this bit is Theoden's arrival at Minas Tirith, which, frankly, is stirring and beautiful. Tolkien does a lovely job of making Theoden into a mythically inspiring figure, conferring on him the attributes almost of a god or legend, so that when he rides out in front of his riders, he is a shining, thundering warrior whose heart goes before his army, leading them onward. It's good stuff, guys, it really is.

"Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it...Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed."

Denethor's kind of interesting, too, in that he's a nice trope of the old man blinded by power, but he gets a little dimension when he realizes that he's responsible for Faramir's downfall. He's definitely a bit mad, but I like that his repentance only drives him to the even greater folly of despair, rather than causing him to suddenly turn it all around and be a good leader. That would be obnoxious and unrealistic, and I'm glad it didn't go that way.

Now that the preparations for battle are over and the battle has actually started, things ought to be a bit more exciting, I think.

What do you fear, my lady?

2010-10-05T09:05:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: 23 - 70

I didn't get that far today for some reason, despite the fact that I read for the same amount of time that I always do. I think it's partly that the beginning of this installment is dragging, but I was also just distracted for no good reason.

So, anyway, as I said at the end of the last book, we're switching back to the other storyline for now. Pippin and Gandalf ride to Minas Tirith to speak with Denethor, the steward of Gondor. What about the king? Well, that'd be Aragorn, technically. It seems that, regardless of the fact that the men of Gondor have been kingless for hundreds of years, they've been content to let the steward rule the place as though he were king. (It's fine; I'm just impressed there hasn't been a coup or something.) Point being, Gandalf and Pippin see Denethor to try to impress on him the importance of men joining together and defending their lands from Sauron. Pippin, after relating the story of Boromir's death, swears an oath of fealty to Denethor by way of payment for Boromir's suicidal defense of the hobbits. Denethor seems odd and a little crazed, and Gandalf seems to mistrust him, but that's really about all we get out of the encounter. It is made clear, as well, that Sauron's force could attack Minas Tirith at any moment.

Meanwhile, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Theoden decide to take all of Rohan's forces to help defend Minas Tirith. Merry and Theoden and the Rohirrim head off one way, across the plains, to get to the city, but Aragorn, according to prophecy, must go by way of the Paths of the Dead. The Paths of the Dead are so called because they are haunted by the spirits of band of treacherous warriors who betrayed their oaths of loyalty; it is said that only Isildur's heir (Aragorn) can command them, and that he'll have the power to call them to battle in order to repay their debt of betrayal. Legolas and Gimli decide to go with him, and though Eowyn, Theoden's awesome warrior-woman niece (who's in love with Aragorn), begs to go, Aragorn refuses her. They head into the forbidding, cave-like tunnels.

Like I said, it's dragging a little. There's a lot of standing around and talking about things interspersed with warriors massing for battle. You might be thinking, "Hey, warriors massing for battle is exciting," but you would be wrong. It's sort of like listening to a business meeting, only they use the word valour more.

It's funny to me that Tolkien makes this big point about Eowyn wanting to take part in the battle and being discontent to remain only in the woman's caretaking role, but then he almost completely ignores female characters in the rest of the books. Galadriel is the only one with any substance at all, and everyone else is simply a backdrop to a powerful or interesting male. Even Eowyn is one dimensional and seems constructed to serve a purpose. I'm not saying Tolkien was a misogynist at all - let me be clear - I'm just saying that his big lecture about women being able to fight is undermined by his failure to recognize female characters as worthy of complexity and attention.

Also, there's a part with Pippin in Minas Tirith where he's shown around the place by a 10-year-old boy and they become fast friends. Though they have a bit of an argument at first when the boy assumes that Pippin is a child because of his small stature, it's clear that they get along well afterward. I bring this up because I feel like the treatment of the hobbits as men rather than boys is inconsistent in the novel. Tolkien want to make a big deal out of the halflings being heroes and even, in some cases, respected warriors, but he often shows them acting childishly or submissively to their companions. The fact that Pippin gets along famously with this little boy is one such instance, mostly because their interaction is not presented as an adult/child relationship, but rather as a meeting of equals. Merry fits this pattern, too; when he swears to Theoden to help him defend Minas Tirith, he says that Theoden will be his father. Why do men have a proprietary relationship with hobbits? I hate to go all English major on you, but it seems kind of post-colonialist to me. As I said, the idea of that post-colonialist influence is contradicted by the fact that Frodo carries the Ring and will be the great hero, but somehow there's a sense that men are still inherently greater, inherently more worthy of their own dominance and others' submission than is any other race.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out

2010-10-04T09:17:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pages read: 360 - 447 (end)

So, I was kind of wrong about Faramir taking the hobbits back to Minas Tirith - he actually just takes them to cave behind a waterfall on the way to Minas Tirith and then decides to let them go about their business. While they're discussing things, however, Gollum, who wasn't with the hobbits when they ran into Faramir's patrol, shows up again. Faramir's men want to kill him, but Frodo convinces them to spare his life. Frodo goes to get him and ends up coaxing him into coming into the cave, though Gollum feels betrayed when he realizes said cave is full of men. Anyway, Faramir realizes the importance of their quest and sends them on their way, though he warns Frodo that the path they're taking, through Cirith Ungol, has a very dangerous reputation.

Gollum leads Sam and Frodo to a huge stairway up a towering cliff, and they slowly climb it. At the top, they find themselves in a dark, foul-smelling cave, and, once they're sufficiently lost in its twists and turns, Gollum abandons them. They're able to get out with the help of one of Galadriel's gifts - a vial full of starlight - though they have to fend off the giant spider, Shelob, who makes her home in the cave. Just when they think they've escaped, Gollum returns to attack Sam while Shelob goes after Frodo. Sam successfully fights Gollum off and rushes to Frodo's aid. He wounds Shelob and the spider retreats, but Frodo has already been bitten, and appears dead. Sam takes the Ring, determined to finish the task, and sets out to carry on, but before he can, a group of orcs arrives. He overhears them say that Shelob has a poison that paralyzes her victims, and that Frodo is not, in fact, dead. Sam curses himself for his stupidity and follows the orcs, who have taken Frodo's unconscious form to a nearby tower. He doesn't quite catch them in time, however, and the doors of the tower are slammed shut before he can enter.

This book definitely felt as though it had more of an ending than the first one. I mean, it's not as if there's any real resolution or anything, but the cliffhanger works pretty well, I'd say. This section, where the hobbits climb Cirith Ungol and fight Shelob, is fairly entertaining. Tolkien seems to speed things up a little here in order to move the Ring toward Mordor a little faster. I realize that we're going to switch back to the storyline of the other heroes at the beginning of the next book, but it feels startlingly close to ending right now.

I find myself musing a little on the fantasy trope of giant spiders. First, let me just say that I am an arachnophobe, so I'm coming at this from a very particular perspective. (Well, I'm not that much of an arachnophobe, I guess. I'm what you'd call a functional arachnophobe, meaning I am able to deal with spiders when necessary, and they don't make me scream and panic. I strongly dislike them and do not want them to touch me or be in the same room as I am, but I can and will kill them and dispose of their bodies. I do, however, sometimes have nightmares about them.) I just think that giant spiders aren't as scary as everybody seems to think they are. Ok, they're kind of gross, I guess, but all the horror is taken out of them when you make them giant. A spider has to be small enough that it can be somewhere without your knowledge; that's what makes it creepy. When they get big, they're just outsized, almost comedic monsters. Now, surround them with hordes of smaller spiders, and then you've got something. Something completely terrifying.

The hobbits would approve.

2010-10-01T17:47:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pages read: None

Didn't read. Roasted a chicken, though, if it makes you feel any better.

Somebody's throwing stuff.

2010-09-30T09:23:00.006-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pages read: 243 - 360

After they leave Saruman stewing in his tower, Wormtongue throws a palantir at Gandalf. A palantir is basically a crystal ball, when it comes down to it, that has a mental and visual connection to Sauron. Pippin, like an idiot, sneaks off with it in the night because he thinks it's cool, and ends up face-to-face with Sauron himself, via the palantir. Nothing terrible comes of it, other than the fact that Sauron seems to mistake Pippin for the ring-bearer, and so marks him for pursuit. Gandalf takes Pippin off to Minas Tirith to try to convince Denethor, steward of Gondor, to help the war effort, while the rest of the heroes hang around Edoras.

Sam and Frodo, during all this time, have been making their way toward Mordor. Gollum follows them for a while, and they eventually catch him and force him to promise to lead them to the Black Gate of Mordor. He agrees, but is clearly untrustworthy and completely insane. They trudge around for a while and finally come to the Black Gate, where it's instantly clear that they'll never be able to enter Mordor that way. Gollum promises to show them another route, and they backtrack through Ithilien, a nearby part of Gondor. There they meet Faramir, Boromir's brother, who tells them of Boromir's death and, eventually, reveals that he knows about the Ring. Faramir decides he has to take the hobbits back to Minas Tirith, because the power of the Ring can't be left to fate in the wilderness.

Wow, so, new levels of boring in this part. (I say that, but honestly, is it more boring than F. Scott Fitzgerald's rich people whining about the meaninglessness of their lives and falling into decadence and debauchery? Not really.) I don't know why, for the life of me, Tolkien didn't alternate chapters between Sam and Frodo and the other group of adventurers. Maybe it was because he was already skipping back and forth between Merry and Pippin and Aragorn et al.? Trust me, though, Tolkien, I could have handled it. The way it is, however, there's just eons of Sam and Frodo struggling through the Dead Marshes and arguing with Gollum. It's pretty annoying. Gollum's writing is decent, though. The films are a lot closer to the books that I would have given them credit for with Gollum. The way Tolkien presents him as having developed multiple personalities is pretty clever; I'd actually go so far as to call it well done.

I'm going to go ahead and take this moment to apologize for all the inadvertent mistakes I'm making with terminology and names, also. I'm sure I'm screwing up a bunch of stuff, and that those of you who have read these a million times are like, "Christ. Get it right." Some of it's rather confusing, though, and I never want to refer to the map in the front because I'm lazy. (Lazy and on the elliptical. Which is a bit of a contradiction, really.) For example, I'm unclear on the difference between Orthanc and Isengard. Orthanc is the tower at the center of Isengard, yes? And Isengard is what, exactly? The fortress around it? The lands around it? Any land touching the river Isen? I'm just saying; this stuff is pretty unclear, and Tolkien doesn't try very hard to help you out with it.

Now for ruin

2010-09-29T19:38:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pages read: 143 - 243

The ents go medieval on Isengard and win handily, trapping Saruman in his tower at the center. Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn find Theoden bewitched into poor decision-making by Saruman's servant, Grima Wormtongue. Gandalf breaks the spell on Theoden and convinces him to go to war against Saruman and his army of orcs. The Rohirrim ride out against Saruman, and after holing up in their fortress at Helm's Deep, are victorious. They have the aid of Gandalf and a huge wood full of trees sent by the ents near the end, and all the orcs are killed or driven off. Afterward, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, and Theoden go to Isengard to find out its fate. They meet Merry and Pippin there, along with Treebeard, and try to reason Saruman into joining the side of good, but he will not.

No time for analysis tonight, but the battle wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. I often have this problem with written descriptions of combat, though, so I don't necessarily think it's Tolkien's fault. This time.

What news from the Riddermark?

2010-09-28T09:18:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pages read: 17 - 143

Wow, so when Tolkien starts where he leaves off, he really starts where he leaves off. The first sentence of this book just keeps going exactly where the last book ended. There was a little synopsis first, in case you forgot anything, but still.

Anyway, so, while Sam and Frodo are leaving, everyone else is fighting the orcs that have just come pouring into the woods. Boromir tries to defend Merry and Pippin, but there are too many enemies, and he's eventually killed. The orcs tie Merry and Pippin up and carry them off. Aragorn finds the dying Boromir, swears to him that Minas Tirith won't fall, and then meets Legolas and Gimli. Together they decide to pursue the orcs and try to rescue the hobbits. They follow the orcs cross-country for three days, all the way to a place called the Riddermark (which, I have to say, I did not realize had that second R in it, because you can't hear that when it's spoken aloud by actors with pseudo-English accents), but fail to catch up to them. Eventually, though, the meet the Rohirrim, the horsemen of Rohan (a kingdom of men) who tell them that they've killed all the orcs and there were no hobbits with them.

Merry and Pippin, meanwhile, escape the orcs and flee into the nearby Fangorn Forest. There they meet Treebeard, an ent (which is like a big walking tree guy, pretty much) who listens to their tales of the war and decides that he and his fellow ents should have a meeting to discuss their involvement in the war. They do, and decide that Saruman, who has burned a lot of the forest, should be stopped. They set off to destroy Isengard, his fortress-tower.

Back on the Riddermark, Aragorn finds the tracks of the hobbits and the three heroes follow them into the forest. There they meet Gandalf, by whose appearance they are all astonished, of course, since he was supposed to have fallen into the black abyss of Moria. He tells them how he fought the balrog and won, but has clearly gone through something of a transformative experience. He seems sort of ethereal and disconnected at this point. Together, all four of them head to Edoras, the capital of Rohan, to see Theoden, the king.

You know, I have to say that this isn't nearly as mind-numbingly boring as I remember from the first time I tried to read it. I have a couple of theories about that: one, I'm reading it faster because I know what happens; two, I'm reading it faster because I'm on the elliptical machine at the same time; three, it reads a lot better the second time through; and four, all of the above. I honestly think a lot of it is that it reads a lot better when you're already familiar with the world. Tolkien was so wrapped up in the mythos of the place that he'd been inventing for years that I think he forgot that the rest of us wouldn't be so familiar with it. The first time I tried to read these I had an overwhelming feeling of missing a great deal of information. Coupled with the feeling that I was also getting too much information, it was pretty off-putting. It's as though I was supposed to a member of the society of Middle-Earth who was reading the story, but I wasn't, so I was left feeling like I was reading a mythology in translation and missing a bunch of culturally-dependent information.

Ents, though - gotta love 'em. There are a bunch of cool things in here, really. They just don't always string together that well.

Way to get yourself killed.

2010-09-27T09:23:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pages read: 432 - 527 (end of the first book)

After they get out of the mines of Moria, they head to Lothlorien (No, I'm not doing accents for anything in here. It was bad enough for the German guy's name in Sophie's Choice, and Tolkien will just have to forgive me.), an elvish territory that consists of tree-constructions. (Cities in the trees are pretty much just always cool. In case you were taking notes on what I think is cool.) So, anyway, they get there, and the queen of the elves, Galadriel, greets them and gives them leave to stay for a while and rest (which is fairly unprecedented, especially for Gimli, since the elves and dwarves have been on unfriendly terms for a couple of hundred years), as well as to inform Lothlorien of the events surrounding the Ring and the Fellowship. In the evening, Galadriel talks with Frodo and Sam and allows them to look into the elves' magical scrying pool. They see disturbing scenes of trouble and destruction in both the Shire and the rest of Middle-Earth. Frodo offers Galadriel the Ring, but she refuses, saying that its power is too great even for her. Eventually, the whole party leaves the elves, determined to continue on their journey, and Galadriel gives them all magical gifts.

After leaving Lothlorien, they travel by boat further toward Mordor, where Sauron waits, and Minas Tirith, one of the strongholds of men. Boromir and Aragorn had originally intended to split off and go to Minas Tirith together, but now that Gandalf is gone, Aragorn says he must stay with the rest of them. Before they can really make headway, however, Boromir, overcome by the enormous power of the Ring, gets Frodo alone and tries to take it from him. He doesn't succeed, but Frodo realizes that he can't stay with the others and sets out on his own. Sam chases after him and manages to convince Frodo to take him along. The two set off together, leaving the rest of the party behind.

And that's the end of the Fellowship, both book and group of people. This part is not terribly exciting, since there is a lot of discussion of various elf things, but not a whole lot of action. Lothlorien is clearly very cool, though, and I like Galadriel. She has considerably more character than a lot of the others (which is funny, really, since she's fairly minor), most notably because she's tempted by the Ring and realizes the devastation it could wreak upon both her soul and her people if she were to take it up, even in the name of good.

On a more whiny note, I was annoyed by a moment that occurs right after they leave the mines of Moria, when Aragorn looks back toward the mines as if in mourning for Gandalf. They've just come out from where Gandalf has been dragged into the black abyss, and Aragorn turns around and goes, "Farewell Gandalf! Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true." I mean, I know what we're going for there, which is that Aragorn is regretful about the outcome of the situation, but it pretty much sounds like saying "I told you so" to a dead guy. Not particularly inspiring.

Too greedily and too deep.

2010-09-24T15:18:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pages read: 336 - 431

At the Council of Elrond we also get to hear about what happened to Gandalf. He met Aragorn, who'd found Gollum for him, and they interrogated Gollum about the Ring for a while and then threw him in prison to be guarded by the elves. Afterward, Gandalf went to Saruman, a leader among the wizards and a supposed ally, to ask for help. Saruman had turned traitor, however, and tried to get Gandalf to join him, then imprisoned him atop a tall tower when he refused. Luckily, Gandalf's giant eagle friend came to save him. (Because who doesn't love a giant eagle?) Anyway, we also find out during the Council that the elves let Gollum escape, and that the Ring must be destroyed or Middle-Earth may soon be annihilated. The group decides to send Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir (leader of the men of Gondor), Legolas (the elf who came to report about Gollum), and Gimli (a dwarf warrior and son of the dwarf leader) to take the Ring to Mordor and destroy it in the only place it can be destroyed - Mount Doom, where it was forged, and which is also pretty much the dead center of Sauron's domain. (Best mission ever. Woo!)

They spend a long time preparing, and eventually set out, first trying a dangerous road through the mountains, but getting turned back by storms sent by forces in league with Saruman. They therefore must go through the mines of Moria, a long-abandoned dwarf stronghold that has been overrun by evil orcs and other monsters. They make it quite a long way without trouble, but are, in the end, beset by orcs. They fight the orcs off and run, but, when they're almost free, meet a balrog, which is a sort of fiery-demon guy. Gandalf uses his magic to save them, but in so doing is dragged down into a gaping abyss by the balrog. The rest of the companions escape the mines and carry on.

Once the Council of Elrond was over, this part is fairly exciting, too. They spend kind of a long time traipsing around the countryside, but the part in the mines is pretty great. There's a lot to capture the imagination there; the idea of a huge underground city, carved and embellished and long-ago populated by a whole race of people is just cool. So that was nice. Having seen the movie, I had a really good idea of what a balrog should look like, which turned out to be helpful, since Tolkien's description was obnoxiously amorphous. All he said was that it was shadow and smoke and it might have a man-shape. But then, afterward, he talked about a bunch of details, like the fact that it had a fiery mane, and fire came from its nostrils, and I couldn't help but remark on the fact that we hadn't gotten enough description of its frame to place the details of a mane and nostrils upon. I was annoyed.

On another note, I'm sure I'm completely unoriginal here, but it struck me for the first time that this book is clearly a product of immediately-post-World-War-II society. I mean, really - a great evil rises from nowhere that threatens to engulf the world, and those who have never before banded together must fight it or be overwhelmed? You could say that that's any war, but Hitler represented a new kind of uncontrollable darkness that Sauron strongly echoes. I want to parallel the French with the elves, the English with the dwarves, and the men of the West with Russia, too, which leaves Aragorn as the American savior figure, but honestly, I'm probably getting too literal with all that. Still. It's an interesting way to look at it.

Deep roots are not reached by the frost

2010-09-23T08:47:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pages read: 230 - 336

Gandalf's message says that the hobbits are in more danger than he'd thought and that they need to be on their guard as much as possible. It also tells them that Strider is a friend, that his real name is Aragorn, and to trust him. They do, and, on his advice, don't go back to their bedrooms that night, but sleep in the common room. It's a good plan, which is made clear by the fact that their beds are torn apart and slashed when they check in the morning. They set off as quickly as possible for Rivendell. The road is difficult and treacherous, but they make headway until they get to Weathertop, a high hill with a good view. It's here that the Black Riders catch them. Frodo, entranced in some way by their magic, puts on the Ring (I feel like I should be capitalizing it now, so I guess I will.) and sees the Riders' true forms - ghost-like spirits with crowns - but is also made visible to them. One of them stabs him in the shoulder with a poisoned, enchanted blade, but he calls out in Elvish and his sacred words scare them off.

Frodo is made very ill by his wound, and Strider tries his best to move them along to Rivendell as quickly as possible so that the elves can treat Frodo's injury. Luckily, an elf called Glorfindel has ridden out to meet them, and he leads the party quickly toward Rivendell. Before they can reach it, however, the Black Riders catch up to them. Glorfindel puts Frodo on his magically swift and nimble elf-horse and sends him on ahead, and Frodo makes it across the river that serves as Rivendell's border. There he is protected by elf-magic, and so is safe.

Frodo wakes him days later in the luxurious and comforting guest houses of Rivendell, where he, Sam, Merry, and Pippin rejoice to find themselves whole and well fed. Eventually, they discover that Bilbo is also there, as well as Gandalf. Many others have gathered in Rivendell, too, to discuss the problems of the encroaching darkness and what's to be done about it, and together they hold the Council of Elrond. There, Elrond, a super-ancient elf (seriously - so old), recounts the history of the Ring, and we learn that Sauron forged it to control the world and that it is the seat of all of his powers, but that it was cut from his finger at the last moment of a great battle. Unfortunately, Isildur, then king of men, chose to keep it rather than destroying it. It has passed from hand to hand ever since.

The action in this part was really quite exciting. The Riders attacking the inn in the dark and the subsequent flight of the hobbits was engaging, as was the attack on Weathertop and their race to Rivendell with the Riders in hot pursuit. The Council of Elrond is kind of boring, but at this point, we probably actually need the back-story, so it's not terrible. There's too much of it, especially since we get the stories of most of the participants in addition to that of the ring, but it's serving as necessary, though overdone, exposition. The dialogue is kind of an issue, though - and, again, I'm coming back to seriousness as a problem with it. There's just some kind of quality to it that makes it sound so stilted. I feel like I'm not really hearing the voices of any of the characters. Strider and the hobbits are the biggest problem - Gandalf is a little better, and Bilbo quite good, but nobody else seems to have any discernible character. They seem like constructions rather than people. And sure, you can argue that they are constructions, not people, but in good books characters don't come across that way.

So, you're sitting around in a tavern...

2010-09-22T09:34:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pages read: 124 - 230

After the elves leave, Frodo and his friends try to get to Buckland, where Frodo's new house is, as quickly as possible. They get a bit of help from Farmer Maggot (Seriously, Tolkien? Maggot? Who does that?), who warns them that the Black Riders have been asking for Frodo by name, and then gives them a ride to a nearby ferry. They make it to the house, where they meet up with Peregine (Pippin) Took. (I think. I might have gotten Merry and Pippin switched around in this bit. Honestly, it really doesn't matter at this point, since neither of them have achieved any character development.) Sam, Merry, and Pippin get together and tell Frodo that they've known his plans to take the ring to the elves all along, and that they all intend to accompany him on his dangerous journey. He is appropriately grateful, and they all agree to spend one night at the house and leave the next morning for Rivendell.

Frodo and his friends decide to take the cross-country route to Bree, their first stop along the way, so as to avoid the Black Riders on the road. Unfortunately, their path takes them through a dangerous forest in which the trees are hostile, and they end up being attacked. Tom Bombadil, some sort of immortal forest overseer, rescues them, and, after feeding them and letting them rest, gets them out of the forest and sends them on their way. They run into trouble soon after, however, when they're enthralled by wights (which are undead guys of some kind, though it's unclear) and trapped underground by magic. Luckily, Frodo keeps his wits and calls Tom Bombadil for help. He saves them once again and, once again, sends them on their way. This time they make it to town and find lodgings at an inn, The Prancing Pony. There they meet a man called Strider, who has a reputation for being a wanderer and at first seems threatening. Soon it becomes clear that though he is ominous, he means well, and he offers to be their guide and to try to protect them from the Black Riders. At the inn, they also discover that Gandalf left a message for Frodo three months since, and that is why he has not met them as promised.

That's where I stopped, so I don't know the contents of the message yet, though I'd predict dire warnings, most likely. You know, I'm struck at how serious everything is right from the get-go. I mean, I know it's the One Ring, and it could lead to the destruction of all Middle-Earth and everything, but at the beginning of a journey, it seems as though it would be hard to foretell all the dangers and hardships that it's going to entail. Yet there's all this rather clumsy foreshadowing, in which Tolkien has the characters say that they feel that there's great evil and darkness ahead, and that kind of stuff. It would create a better contrast to what's going to happen later if the hobbits were more happy-go-lucky in this part, more excited by the prospect of travel and adventure. Instead, we're set up for the great conflict and drama, and the poignancy of what could have been is lost.

Also, Tom Bombadil annoys the hell out of me. He shouldn't even be in the book. Bascially, Tolkien creates not one, but two dangerous situations that the hobbits cannot extract themselves from and then uses Tom Bombadil as deus ex machina in each of them. Why? I only assume it's because he created the character and he couldn't bear not to include him in the story, regardless of the fact that he is not only completely unnecessary, but results in the use of an extremely clumsy literary device. (Deus ex machina is poor form, in my opinion.) Also, he talks largely in rhyming couplets, and it's obnoxious.

Concerning Tolkien

2010-09-21T09:36:00.005-05:00

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pages read: 20 - 124

Just to clarify the title part up there, the list counts these three books as one book, which, considering their content, is fair, but I thought I'd differentiate my post titles so that you could tell I was actually making progress. Full disclosure on LotR: I have read one-and-a-half of them before, and that's as far as I got. I have seen the movies...a lot of times. So I know what happens and am inclined to be gentle toward these books because I love their film incarnations. That said, Tolkien's writing style drives me up the wall, so I'll probably whine fairly frequently. But you're used to that.

I was surprised, on starting this one, to find that it's more entertaining than I remember. I don't know, maybe it just improves in comparison to the last 18 months of early-20th-century lit I've had to endure, or, in the same vein, maybe I'm used to the more wandering plots and complex sentence structure of that period, but it's easier to tolerate than I remember.

So far, we've learned about the general history of hobbits, a small-statured race living in Middle-Earth alongside elves, dwarves, and men. They are fond of food, smoking, and comfort, and are largely agricultural. Right. That part done, we move on to actual story. Bilbo Baggins, having been one of the few hobbits to travel outside the Shire, their land of origin, and having had a great adventure in which he acquired, by rather underhanded means, a magic ring that makes one invisible, has since lived in relative quiet for many years. He has, in the more than 60 years since he returned from his journey, not aged a proverbial day. As the story begins, on his 111th birthday, he's decided to leave the Shire for another adventure and never to come back. He does so, disappearing abruptly by means of the magic ring. That evening, he discusses his plans with Gandalf, an old wizard and friend of his, who convinces him to leave the ring with Frodo, his nephew, to whom he has also left his house and possessions.

17 years later (and I'm not making that up) Gandalf comes back to Frodo and tells him that the ring is dangerous magical object, forged by a cruel and evil ruler/creature/monster/giant eye, Sauron, in order to hold the leaders of all other races in its thrall and overwhelm Middle-Earth with his dark power. (Pretty much.) Gollum, from whom Bilbo stole the ring, and who is a twisted creature maddened and destroyed by the ring, has given up its location to Sauron, who will now be searching for the ring and anyone with the name Baggins. Frodo is horrified, and decides, partly from Gandalf's council, that he has to take the ring from the Shire and hide it and himself. He sets off, several months later (because seriously, everything takes a million years in this book) with his friends Meriadoc (Merry) Brandybuck and Samwise (Sam) Gamgee.

During their trip to another part of the Shire where Frodo has bought a house (by way of cover - he intends to go further, on to Rivendell where the elves live), the three companions are threatened by dark riders on dark horses that seem to be hunting them out. Though they aren't caught, they escape only narrowly. Just afterward, they meet a group of elves that escorts them a fair distance, feeds them, and warns them that the black riders are, indeed, a great danger. They are further warned to exercise great caution and move with haste, lest things go terribly awry. (Elves. They just never stop with the dire warnings. It seems to be their raison d'etre.)

Like I said, more entertaining than I remembered it, so far, though Tolkien feels the need to give a great deal of background information about everything and everyone in the world. The entire preface, "Concerning Hobbits," is completely unnecessary and fairly stultifying. The problem is that Tolkien is an academic, and, as an academic, feels the need to write in an informatively complete manner. Stories are not informatively complete. Half the point is that you leave stuff out because it makes the rest more interesting. So, you know, it's impressive when you develop an intricate, developed mythology and history for the world your story is in, but you have to let that mythology and history peek through where they naturally ought, not wedge them in in huge, didactic chunks whenever something obliquely related to them occurs.

The characters are ill developed at this point. I feel like Frodo seems incredibly serious for no reason, and I'm a little bit like, "Why do I like you right now?" So I'm waiting for some interesting characteristics to arise in him. Gandalf's pretty good, though - archetypal, I suppose, and weak in that way, but we still like him because he's a wise old wizard with fireworks. I mean, really. (Also? He's Ian McKellan. I'm sorry, but it will just always be that way for me now. But it makes me love him.)

He who saves one life saves the world entire.

2010-09-20T09:42:00.004-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 326 - 397 (end)

The war ends! All Schindler's Jews survive! Schindler is exonerated of any possible crimes, but is pretty much impoverished and never finds business success again. Fortunately, he is taken care of by the Schindlerjuden and goes to Jerusalem every year to visit. He is recognized as a Righteous Gentile by the state of Israel, and, at his death, is mourned throughout Israel and the world.

I don't have any particularly new insight about the end, though it's nice that Schindler was taken care of because of his good deeds. Keneally makes the point throughout that he isn't a perfect, monolithic hero, and that his personal life and business dealings were never pristine, but, in the end, Schindler's deeds surpass all of that. He is a hero for saving lives at the risk of his own, and the mere fact of that salvation supersedes his fallibility.

However, my verdict from earlier stands: it's not a novel. It was pretty interesting, and it certainly makes one reflect on the Holocaust and the meaning of relative merit, so, in that respect, it's a pretty good book. But that doesn't make it a novel. It is unworthy of the list by virtue of disqualification.

Next up: Lord of the Rings. It will last for all eternity.

You love it. Don't lie.

2010-09-17T15:21:00.002-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: None

My recap for the week goes like this: this is not a novel; the Holocaust sucks.

I'm just so pithy, aren't I?

The hottest places in hell.

2010-09-16T09:22:00.003-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 241 - 326

Hey, action kind of started to happen! So, the Reich decides that the Plaszow camp and Schindler's factories need to be liquidated and all prisoners "relocated" to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Schindler, as soon as he hears, spends the next few weeks desperately putting together money and goods with which to bribe all and sundry. He manages to get permission to move his factory and establish a new one and an accompanying camp for his workers at a place called Brinnlitz. In order to do so, he composes the titular list of names of the Jews he requires. Just before the move is to take place, Amon Goeth is arrested for embezzlement from the Reich. Schindler is implicated, but, though he's arrested, is let go because of a lack of evidence against him. Meanwhile, Schindler's workers make their way to Brinnlitz, but it takes time; the train cars they're loaded onto stop at Birkenau for several days. The men are only there for three days or so, though they're subjected to very poor conditions for those days, but the women are held up for several weeks, and begin to wonder if they'll ever get out. Eventually they do, but the Gestapo maintains fiercer control over the Brinnlitz camp than Schindler would like, and ends up "selecting" some of the children to go to Birkenau because they're unsuitable for work.

Keneally is making a big deal here about how much money Schindler is spending to get the Jews out of his camps. While that's certainly important, and, in some measure, shouldn't be ignored, I feel like the bigger issue is the risk that he's incurring by attempting it at all. Yes, he's a businessman, and therefore money is important to him, but his life and the lives of many others are continuously at risk during this process. That's the more striking idea to me - he could have bowed his head and let them go rather than put everything and everyone he knows in the path of danger, but instead he looked upon it as his duty to save them.

Really, the horrifying part is how few people did the same. Yes, Schindler is a hero, but he's also doing what common decency demands. Do I blame other people for not standing up for the Jews during World War II? The PC answer, I think, would be to say that conditions were so difficult, and the time so different, that it's hard to understand and therefore also hard to condemn their choices. But you know what? I say bullshit to that. It is not only our duty, but our very definition as human that requires us to act in situations like this. Overseas, it's harder, and I don't really blame people who are far away and fairly ignorant of the realities of situations like this. But when your neighbors are getting dragged out of their front doors and shot in the street? For the love of all that is good in the world, you have got to do something. Whether that's hiding someone, forging papers, swearing that that person is Aryan when he isn't...whatever it takes. There were lots of people who did such things. But there were also lots of people who stood by and watched.

I just don't know. Historical horrors are so difficult this way. American slavery causes me similar problems: conventional wisdom seems to say that we extend a certain amount of understanding to the people who practiced it, since it was the social atmosphere of the time. On a conceptual level, I suppose I can understand that, but on a practical level, I don't excuse them. You don't keep someone in chains and beat them for not working for you, you don't separate husbands and wives to make a profit, and you don't exploit people for your own gain, torturing and maiming them on a daily basis, and still get to call yourself a respectable human being. I'm sorry, but cultural and social mores aren't a free pass to forgiveness. They sure as hell weren't for the Nazis. If no one stands up against them and calls them wrong, then we will never change.

adj: new; not resembling something formerly known

2010-09-15T08:43:00.004-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 185 - 241

I don't really know how to describe the plot of this book, as you may have gathered from the previous posts about it. Basically, this entire 60 pages or so was about the various ways in which Schindler contrives to get as many Jews into his factories as possible. Sometimes he helps out individuals at the request of their families or in other special circumstances, but mostly it's just as many people as possible as often as possible. His workers get fed well, are housed in barracks that have no SS supervision, and even get the chance to bathe on occasion; all of these privileges, of course, are amazing in comparison to the work camps. There's also a lot of information about all the bribery and double-dealing Schindler has to do to continue to run his operations this way, and about the great risks that he takes to do so. (There are also lots more horrifying Holocaust stories, but I will, once again, skip those.)

I'm taking this moment to point out Webster's definition of a novel: "an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events." The key word here is "invented." This has not been invented. It has been altered slightly to include dialogue, but that's hardly the same thing. So, I maintain my "this is not a novel" stance. At some point in this part, Keneally mentions a survivor who has a story about Schindler, but calls him M, which, he explains to us in a footnote, is because he doesn't want to be identified by name. Protecting the names of your sources is a perfectly responsible thing to do, but it's not required when you're writing a novel. I'm not sure what Keneally's definition of "novel" actually is, but it's clearly not the same as mine. Or Webster's.

Not terribly much more to say today, I'm afraid. I'm sure that at some point soon something is actually going to happen that resembles a climax, and then I'll have some material to work with. Until then, just go read anything about the Holocaust and you'll get the idea.

The Problem of Evil

2010-09-14T09:25:00.004-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 130 - 185

It's time for the catalog of Holocaust horrors. I won't reproduce it for you, because chances are good that you're fairly familiar with it, and frankly, I don't really want to write about it. Suffice it to say, as things worsen in Nazi-occupied Poland, more and more terrible stuff starts happening to Krakow's Jews, and Keneally details it for his reader. (Is it wrong of him to do so? No, not really - it's simply hard to take. It's important to remember that these things happened; it's just incredibly unpleasant.) Most of the Jewish population has already or is in the process of getting shipped to the concentration camps at this point, and Schindler is maintaining as complete a workforce as he possibly can, since he can save almost every person he employs.

Amon Goeth, a Nazi commander, moves his operations to Krakow, where he's put in charge of the work camps that have been populated by the emptying of Krakow's ghetto. (The camp is located at Plaszow, and I'll refer to it by that name in future.) Goeth wishes to continue the lucrative relationship between the Nazi forces and Schindler's factory, and asks him to move the operation inside the camp so that there won't have to be foot traffic between the locations each day. Schindler coaxes Goeth into letting him keep the factory separate from the camps, and it's clear that Schindler thinks this will allow him to maintain better working conditions.

Schindler clearly despises Goeth, who takes pleasure in his assigned task: the brutalization and extermination of thousands of innocent people. He, Schindler, is beginning to develop a sense of desperation and helplessness at the massive number of murders that occurs on a daily basis and his own powerlessness to save anything resembling a majority of the innocents that are at risk. However, Keneally is careful to address the fact that Schindler is almost forced into his heroic role. He is, after all, something of a war profiteer, especially at the beginning, using Jewish labor because it's cheap. He knows that his working conditions are significantly better than anyone else's, but he still signs up to be part of a slave labor market. It's clearly the lesser of two evils, but does that make it right? Is it acceptable, even necessary, to sign up to be part of a great dark machine of malice in order to save some of the lives it's working so hard to destroy?

It's the same question, really, as saving your own life by dismissing, even if only temporarily, your principles. It boils down to the question at the end of The Crucible. Do you stand up for what you believe, even if only verbally, and die to no end but that of your personal honor? Or do you denounce what you've formerly espoused, stain your honor forever, and live to prove that you're the person your words have belied? I've never come to a conclusion about what I think is correct. It is, perhaps, the most important question.

On another note entirely, the author makes a point through one of the characters in the book that the Nazis might have won World War II if they hadn't devoted so much manpower and so many resources to the extermination of the Jews. That hadn't occurred to me before, but it sure sounds plausible. It's rather a cruel irony that the obsessive, horrifying destruction of millions of people was, perhaps, responsible for the salvation of millions more - or even the salvation of the world itself.

To act without asking questions

2010-09-13T09:33:00.003-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 70 - 130

Well, I'd like to tell you about the plot of this book, but there isn't really one. It's pretty much, "Watch the dark, encroaching tide that is the Holocaust slowly engulf Krakow." I don't know, I mean, Oskar runs his metalware factory in Krakow, which makes pots and pans, and, as the situation grows more dire for the Polish Jews, he begins to hire more and more of them. He assures his Jewish workers that their positions will guarantee them survival because he has made it clear to the SS that the supplies and cut of his profits that he gives to the Nazi regime can only continue if his business remains successful.

Eventually, Krakow opens its ghetto, and all the Jews are forced into it. Even Schindler can't stop his Jewish workers from being forced to live there, although he does open dormitories at the factory for some of them. More and more Jews are disappearing, however, and, at one point, Oskar has to rescue his office manager and 11 other men from the cattle cars of the trains going to concentration camps. Oskar himself is arrested several times for minor offenses like kissing a Jewish worker, but always manages to call on his powerful German contacts and thereby escape. Meanwhile, the situation continues to worsen, and the SS begins systematic "relocation" of Jews from the streets of the ghetto to places unknown. Oskar and his mistress, Ingrid, witness the first day of these "relocations" (as well as the multiple shootings and beatings that accompany them) and are horrified.

I still maintain that this isn't really a novel. Every single time we meet a new person, we're treated to an explanation of his connections to other people in Krakow, and a paragraph or two about what happens to him during the course of the war. It's almost like a little encyclopedia of what Keneally discovered during his research rather than an actual story. I just find it obnoxious when the purpose of an entire book seems to be show off research, not to actually communicate something about humanity (or even just tell a good story). Like I said, it seems to me that this is more about what it's like to be in Krakow during the Holocaust than it is a work of fiction. I'm sure that some of Schindler's experiences and conversations are fictionalized, and that's why Keneally felt a responsibility to call this a novel, but really, he's just covering his ass for taking small creative liberties with history. He ought to have written a biography.

That doesn't mean it's not interesting and engaging, however, because it is. Sure, it's fairly informational, but Keneally is a good biographical writer, and he keeps you interested. He's doing fairly well with balancing what he's willing to report about the horrors of the Holocaust against the more mundane details of surviving a pogrom in Krakow, too. While I've read a lot of books about the Holocaust, Schindler's removed perspective - that of someone who is not immediately threatened by extermination but also does not buy into the Nazi message - is informative in a unique way. We're able to see that things are escalating and growing more horrifying, but also that are avenues through which "normal" citizens are able to influence the situation. The experience of attempting to live something that resembles a regular life during the period is interesting too, in that it's both completely understandable and a little reprehensible at the same time.

Eat it, too.

2010-09-10T16:58:00.003-05:00

Current book: Schindler's List
Pages read: 13 - 70

Sorry about the lack of post yesterday; frankly, there was just no energy left. 12 and a half hours door-to-door doesn't make for a day that lends itself to blogging.

Anyway, exciting Holocaust action time! (Forgive me if I sound flippant; I've read so many Holocaust books that it sometimes causes me to lose perspective.) Oskar Schindler is a wealthy young man living in what was then Austria-Hungary and is now the Czech Republic (and was also Czechoslovakia in between - woo!). He marries a young but wealthy farm girl, Emilie, and becomes a businessman and a spy for the Germans in the Czech Republic. He's basically spending a lot time hanging out with the Nazis and is a member of the party, but Keneally (the author) makes it clear that he's a Nazi of convenience, as it were, and doesn't actually believe in the party's ideals. He warns several Jewish business associates of the coming German invasion of Krakow, as well.

That's where we are. I have to say, I'm pretty annoyed with Keneally at this point. He makes a big deal in the introduction about how he's written the book as a novel because he has a novelist's skills and because he wants the reader to be clear that not every detail is the truth. However, so far he's spent most of the book falling all over himself to be accurate at the expense of good writing. He keeps saying things like, "if we were to assume this were true," or, "one might imagine it, but there's no evidence," and I'm a bit like, "Are you writing a freaking novel here or not, Keneally?" It's fiction or non-fiction, and you can't have both. I'm going to give it time, but I'm skeptical as to whether I'd call this a novel at all. It's still sort of interesting, but it's more biography than it is fiction.

Make love, not polite conversation.

2010-09-08T19:33:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Age of Innocence
Pages read: 186 - 270 (end)

So, May and Newland get married and do ok, though he's often annoyed at her simplicity and lack of adventurousness. Eventually, Ellen comes back and Newland is tempted by her, but in the end, resists the temptation. Well, sort of. Mostly, they don't do anything because May tells Ellen she's pregnant and Ellen feels duty-bound to leave Newland alone. There's also some drama about Ellen's husband wanting her to come back, but it comes to nothing. In the end, we skip forward 30 years to Newland's future life. His children are all grown and May has recently died, and he has the opportunity to see Ellen in Paris. He gets all the way to her hotel, but cannot make himself go upstairs because he's afraid that finally seeing her again will burst the bubble of his lifelong fantasies.

Society is bullshit and gets in the way of true love.

Succinct, no?

It was all right. It was fairly predictable and not particularly interesting, but the writing was good and the point well made. The end was surprisingly poignant. Not bad, but not one of the best 100. I've had a long day, once again, so you don't get much analysis.

Tomorrow, Schindler's List. I'm hoping to avoid Holocaust nightmares.

Tempus fugit

2010-09-07T20:52:00.002-05:00

Current book: The Age of Innocence
Pages read: 132 - 186

No time. No time at all.

Etymology, my dear Watson!

2010-09-03T08:24:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Age of Innocence
Pages read: 66 - 132

Poor Ellen Olenska decides she wants to ask her estranged, abusive husband for a divorce, and Newland's family is desperate to stop her, due to the fact that divorce is a great scandal amongst the best families of New York, no matter the circumstances. Because he is her most trusted friend, Newland gets saddled with the job of convincing her not to sue for divorce and manages to accomplish it. He is under the impression that Ellen had an affair with the secretary who helped her escape her marriage, and that to bring the divorce to court would reveal that information publicly.

Newland desperately wants to get married to May because he is afraid, if they have a long engagement, that'll he'll have an affair with Ellen. He hasn't admitted to Ellen that he loves her, but he clearly does, and she clearly loves him back. May goes down to St. Augustine for a few months in the winter, and Newland stays in New York to work at his law firm (because he is, apparently, a lawyer, regardless of the fact that he doesn't need any money). After some time, which he spends thinking mostly about Ellen, he goes down to Florida to see May and ask her, once again, to shorten the engagement, regardless of convention. She, suspecting his real motives and citing said convention, refuses.

Newland returns to New York and goes to see Ellen. At their meeting, he discovers that she never had an affair at all, but was, in fact, in the right all along. At this, he proposes that she petition for a divorce after all, and that they get married. She tearfully refuses him, saying that he's right, after all, about the social stigma, and also that it wouldn't be fair to May. Newland says that May would marry him quickly if she really wanted to keep him, and her insistence on the long engagement proves that she wants to give him the chance to choose someone else, if he truly loves another. Ellen still refuses, but there's a sense of possibility - that is, until Newland returns home to find a telegram from May saying that she's changed her mind, asked her parents, and initiated preparations to be married in a month.

Oh, the irony! Well, Wharton is making a statement about the ridiculousness of social constraints by pointing out the fact that society would much rather have Ellen remain married and have a series of affairs than it would have her get a divorce and happily remarry. I have to admit that I always forget that the stigma attached to divorce stuck around for so long. I mean, this novel is taking place in the early 20th century, and yet, still there's a sense of any (female) divorcee being somehow tainted. I surmise that it stems from the basic institution of marriage itself as a device to ensure monogamy; after all, if a woman has been divorced and wishes to remarry, she's clearly stepped outside the bounds of monogamy. However, it's ridiculous that monogamy only matters for a woman, and a man is free to sleep around as much as he wants to before marriage. Newland's repeated notion that women should be free is Wharton's notion, too, and she's proceeding to point it out by tragic circumstance.

On an etymological note, this novel uses the word appertain, and it made me wonder what the difference between pertain and appertain was. As it turns out, there isn't one. Which made me wonder, in turn, why the hell we've got two words that sound the same when one will do. I suspect bastardization may be the culprit. This is why I need a copy of the OED. Etymological mysteries require a good casebook!

Tree pretty

2010-09-02T08:27:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Age of Innocence
Pages read: 6 - 66

Pages read of the Beast! Right. And...moving right along. This book is about Newland Archer (Yes, you read that right. Newland.), a young New York socialite who has just been affianced to May Welland, another young New York socialite. Ms. Welland's cousin, Ellen Olenska, has recently come to town. Ellen, it turns out, is a disgraced woman who is still married to her estranged Russian husband, but left him with the aid of his (male) secretary because he was abusive. As a result of her checkered past, New York society, and, initially, Newland himself, try to reject her. However, upon rumination, Newland decides that women shouldn't be shackled by their misfortunes, and so moves to include her in society by exerting his personal influence. So far, he has introduced her to some Old Families and given her a lot of attention at parties. He finds himself dwelling on her and her situation and comparing her to his fiance.

Gee, do you think he'll fall in love with her? Do you think he might realize that he's straitjacketed by social convention? Do you think it'll end in tears? I do. It always ends in tears. Anyway, the point is this is shaping up to be a pretty classic early 19th-century novel about the pressures of class and society. Wharton's a fairly dense, but also fairly decent writer, though. It takes a long time to read her prose, but you get lovely little gems of imagery along the way:

"The bare vaulting of trees along the Mall was ceiled with lapis lazuli, and arched above snow that shone like splintered crystals. It was the weather to call out May's radiance, and she burned like a young maple in the frost."

Ceiled! How awesome is that? I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff.

Do unto others

2010-09-01T12:16:00.005-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 620 - 727 (end)

Well, in the end, Keating's housing projects (designed, as you recall, by Roark) get amended and therefore ruined by other architects. Roark responds by blowing them up with dynamite. (Jerry Bruckheimer should make a movie.) He allows himself to be arrested and tried for the crime, though he pleads not guilty. While awaiting trial, he is condemned by the public and made a scapegoat for all social ills.

Wynand defends Roark in his paper, earning the contempt of the public and his board, and eventually instigating a strike against the paper. Though he gamely runs it himself with just Dominique's help for two months or so, eventually he gives in to the strike and relinquishes editorial control. He hates himself for it and realizes that he is not a paragon of the virtues of selfishness and integrity that he's learned to appreciate from knowing Dominique and Roark, and sort of shuts down. Meanwhile, Roark and Dominique become lovers again, due to the fact that she has finally accepted the idea that standing up as a model of integrity is the only way to show that you are truly an individual, and therefore is willing to let herself love Roark again.

At Roark's trial, he gives an impassioned speech about the virtue of selfishness in which he says that it's the individual who deserves all the praise in our society. He says that the public good is the greatest of all evils, and that countries are ruined by being governed by committees. To be ruled by the will of the people is to be ruled by the lowest common denominator. The man who invented fire was probably burned at the stake for his own invention, but he was the most heroic and deserving of all men. The creative urge is purely individual, and man has no instinct toward altruism, which is only a fictitious virtue. The jury, convinced by his absolute conviction and calm, declares him not guilty.

At the close of the book, Wynand hires Roark to design the tallest building in New York, the Wynand building, and swears that it will be devoted to only the virtues he espouses. Roark agrees and begins building it (though Wynand still seems to be broken by his own failure), and the novel ends with Dominique (now Mrs. Roark) visiting the half-built tower, where she sees, at the top, a vision of Roark standing above everything, with only the sky and sea as a backdrop.

Well, it's vastly better than Atlas Shrugged in that it actually held my interest for 725 pages, rather than making me want to shoot myself. I was surprised by the fact that Roark won his trial; I think it shows that Rand was much more optimistic at this point in her career than later on. While Atlas focuses on failure after failure after failure and ends by predicting the coming revolution, The Fountainhead seems to suggest that individuals who have been part of the ignorant masses (in this case, the men of Roark's jury) are already able to assert themselves and recognize what is important when the choice is offered to them.

What about the message? Well, it makes its point more convincingly and more moderately than Atlas Shrugged, I think. It says that selfishness is the virtue by which we should all live, and that the greatest examples of mankind have done so. I think that in the realm of the artistic, literary, and technological, the idea of the individual being the most important of all things is probably the correct one. However, I also think that Rand's logic fails when she tries to apply this idea to the political, the economic, and the social. In the case of the political, she posits the idea that the individual leaders of men are not exemplifying the selfish because they are working for power, which is, in effect, the approval of others, and not actually self-interest. However, she fails to offer any useful alternative. If we're not supposed to have leaders who want power, and we're definitely not supposed to be communist (Communism clearly terrifies her, since the thought of being entirely governed by committee is pretty much anathema to her philosophy.), what exactly are we supposed to do? Find ourselves a benevolent dictator with perfect personal integrity? Good luck with that. In the case of the economic, I think she didn't really try to explain that in this book, but left it for later, which is fair. I've already discussed it at length in Atlas Shrugged posts, so I'll let it go, too.

In the case of the social, by which I suppose I mean the divisions of class and the ideas of social responsibility, Rand probably falls the shortest. It's tied to the political in that she offers no solutions to the problems of class. She clearly has a great deal of contempt for the poor who have not somehow gotten themselves out of their situation through perseverance and hard work, so perhaps that is her only answer: they deserve what they've got and the only responsibility lies with them. I feel like it's completely unrealistic, but I guess she's happy to write them off. I wonder what she'd say about universal health care? Does selfishness as a virtue extend to the modern health care system? I'd say the incredible uselessness of the health insurance system in America is a result of insurance companies' selfishness, and it's leaving most people, integrity and hard work or not, in an untenable position. And yet, to take care of people who cannot pay to be cared for would be altruistic, and therefore despicable? So that must be wrong. Let me just write off all my uninsured friends then, and condemn them to pain, illness, and, in at least one case, probable death. I'll get right on it.

The real problem, sarcasm aside, is that at least one of Rand's conditions is incorrect. It is not true that altruism is not an instinct. Altruism, and its simpler form, cooperation, are, in fact, genetically programmed because they are often evolutionarily advantageous. There is actually an equation to determine when populations of animals will act altruistically and when they will not. In animals, its determined by shared genetic markers. In humans, it's expanded beyond that, but the principle is sound. Cooperation has allowed humanity to create and build in a way that would be impossible without it. Roark's buildings would never have been made had he had to act alone. Yes, you could argue that the contractors and construction workers who worked for him were being paid for their skills, and were therefore selfish, but that kind of selfishness goes hand in hand with cooperation. If they were truly selfish, they'd rob banks and wouldn't bother to work at all. When the city government had the streets built that Roark's building was connected to, when the pioneers who settled the area worked together to create a town that became a city, indeed, when the first humans acted as lookouts for one another, they were being selfish and cooperating at the same time. Does that sometimes result in pure altruism, too? Yes, it does. When genetically-motivated altruism is extrapolated to modern human society, sometimes we're nice to each other for no reason. Is it despicable that we build free museums that are full of art that we would never see any other way? Is it despicable that we house the poor so that they won't die in the streets? Is it despicable that I stop and help someone change a flat tire? Is it even, you can ask, truly selfish? These kinds of altruism are selected for genetically because they help us to survive better as a group, a tribe, and, eventually, a society. To condemn them universally as a weakness is not only absurd, it's blind to one of the basic realities of evolution. We didn't get this way by accident.

I digress. Is the book literature? No. Once again, Rand falls prey to her message over her art. It's closer than Atlas Shrugged, but it still exists to state its political message rather than to speak to the universal truths of humanity. I'm not emotionally involved, only intellectually. I don't consider Plato's Republic literature, either. Philosophy, sure; literature, no.

All the news that's fit to print

2010-08-31T08:45:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 525 - 620

Well, Wynand is basically being redeemed by Dominique through their marriage and his recognition of her high ideals. As a result, he decides to build a house for her and gets Roark to design it, without letting Dominique know. When Wynand tells her his plans, she is both delighted and shocked, and, seeing Roark again, is reminded of why she loves him. As the house progresses, Roark and Wynand become good friends, despite the fact that Wynand's paper tried to destroy Roark. Wynand soon becomes a man of principle, and begins to change the content of his previously pandering and sensationalist paper. He forces the editorial staff to write articles supportive of Roark, as well. There's a movement against him within the ranks, and it looks like it'll come to a head at any moment.

Keating, who's been almost completely destroyed by the loss of Dominique and his own lack of talent, comes to Roark and begs him to design a new set of public housing projects for him. Roark agrees, but only on the principle that he's doing it so that the buildings will be right, and because it will benefit him to do so. Keating finally understands that Roark's way of doing things is the "right" way, and that he's made a mess of his life by acting always for others.

The message comes off so much better in this book than Atlas Shrugged. The individualist take works really well for art. It still doesn't necessarily work for me economically, but the idea of standing on your own principles when you lead your life is one I can relate to. (I've tried to do it myself, actually, but it mostly seems to result in quitting jobs that I can't stand because they go against my nature and character. It doesn't seem quite as noble in those circumstances.) Anyway, point being, despite my prejudices, Rand is making her points fairly convincingly in this book. I still refuse to extrapolate them to their political and economic extremes, but that doesn't mean they're without merit. Let's see how it turns out.

The discovery and defense of the new

2010-08-30T08:41:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 433 - 525

Keating finds himself unhappy with Dominique as his wife because she plays the perfect model wife but never expresses an opinion. After a while, Wynand, the amoral newspaper magnate, marries Dominique, securing Keating's assent with a huge architectural contract. Keating is pretty much destroyed by the fact that he realizes that he's achieved all his goals and dreams and is still miserable.

Wynand loves Dominique because of the fact that she won't bow to the illnesses of society, but, though she comes to respect him more and more, she doesn't love him back. He's still in charge of the papers that give Toohey and his ilk their voices, after all. Toohey's making plans to take over Wynand's major paper, as well, which Dominique sees through and warns Wynand about. He doesn't listen. We haven't heard much from Roark; he's building small-scale stuff out in the country.

This bit is mostly about Dominique continuing to punish herself by trying to quash her self-love and make herself as miserable and unworthy as everyone else. It's not working. That's really all. Not a great deal of development here. Rand is emphasizing the uselessness and even malice of critics, though, by pointing to them as leeches that not only never create, but poison those on whom they feed by choosing the most conformist and jingoistic works to celebrate as art. While that's sometimes true, it misses the fact that sometimes critics are the champions of the new and experimental. There is room for the critic as paragon of integrity, too - but, of course, that would defeat Rand's point.

I should finish in a couple of days and be able to provide a more comprehensive assessment.

I am a baker, and this is my manifesto.

2010-08-27T17:40:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: None

I was too busy baking bread and making pie dough to read or really post today. Bread is delicious. I will build visionary architecture made of bread. The people may not understand me, but my bread will stand as a monument forever.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough...

2010-08-26T07:14:00.005-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 320 - 433

Roark continues to get commissions, despite Dominique and Toohey's best efforts to stand in his way. Unfortunately, his commissions go badly; the large hotel he designs runs out of funding, partially finished, and the "Temple to the Spirit" he designs is a disaster. He's set up for that disaster by Toohey, who tells the building's sponsor to give Roark complete freedom and not even to look at the designs. The sponsor tells Roark that he wants a non-denominational cathedral, and what Roark gives him is a building that honors the spirit of humankind, elevating man to the level of God. Dominique poses for the naked human statue at the temple's focal point.

The sponsor sues Roark for gross malpractice and wins. Dominique testifies on the sponsor's behalf, but says, basically, that the reason Roark should lose the suit is because his temple was wrong to glorify man when he is, in actuality, so despicable as to sue a visionary for his genius. Afterward, she agrees to marry Peter Keating, and Roark lets her, though he promises her she will one day come back to him when she has learned to value herself. The temple is transformed into a home for "subnormal" children and redesigned. Keating snubs his fiance for Dominique.

Moving on, we begin to learn the history of Gail Wynand, newspaper magnate that owns the newspaper Dominique wrote for before she married Keating, who is a foil for Roark. He makes every decision to prove the futility of living to an ideal, playing the public's baser instincts against it to take advantage of it for his own gain. That's as far as I got with him.

I was wrong about Dominique's motives. Well, that's not actually true; I had thought of the proper interpretation, but I forgot to make a note of it in yesterday's short post. The real reason she's sabotaging commissions for Roark seems to be that she finds society so bankrupt of merit that she can't stand to see it criticizing Roark's genius. Not that she'd be any happier, really, if they appreciated it for the wrong reasons, but the point is that she thinks they aren't worthy of him. Roark, disagreeing with her, explains that it's not reason enough to let society break him, but rather he must simply be who he is and remain untouched by the consequences.

This book is infinitely more tolerable and subtler than Atlas Shrugged, mostly because, as I've said, it's all about artistic integrity (which can be extrapolated to other integrity, of course). That said, it's still hitting the point that genius is the only mark of human worth pretty damn hard. The "subnormal" children are a good example of that. Rand clearly has a great deal of contempt for the people who care for them. She doesn't go so far as to say they should be killed at birth, but the implication is kind of there. Do I have a perfect solution for people with mental disabilities? No, but I'm not willing to discount them entirely, either. (Maybe I'm a coward for that. Maybe I should just say, "No, their brains don't work properly and therefore they don't count." Rand would want me to.) Also, there's the idea that anyone who's not a genius has nothing to stand for, which is pretty hard to take. Or, on the flip side of that, that everyone should act as though he or she is a genius and stand on that principle all the time, which is not only unrealistic, but pretty misleading. (One might argue that that idea is a huge problem in the current generation. In fact, the New York Times recently did.)

The focus on upholding the individual's responsibility to act in his own interest is so great, too, that it negates any understanding or acknowledgement of the contribution of circumstance to the problems of poverty. Almost every powerful man in the book raised himself up by his bootstraps from poverty. The implication is that the poor are poor by choice and laziness. Those who raise themselves up, however, are always improbably tenacious or intelligent or gifted, so what does that make of those who are not particularly tenacious or intelligent or gifted? Is it all right (or even feasible, really) to act in one's own best interest at all times if one is unintelligent?

I do like, though, the fact that Roark points out to Dominique that her motives are incorrect. The proper solution is not, according to Roark, to hide genius from those unworthy of criticizing it, but rather to make it public, in an uncorrupted state, and ignore the criticism. This idea is great if the art or architecture is great - if it's a shining, inspiring example. Of course, if your work is no good, it goes back to my previous complaint. But, with the examples of great downtrodden artists and writers in mind, I'll give Rand the point that genius is often unappreciated, or even actively persecuted, in its own time, and remaining immune to criticism can be both helpful and necessary in those cases.

We Built This City

2010-08-25T12:27:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 225 - 320

In today's installment, Roark and Dominque continue their bizarre control and loathing-fueled relationship, and Roark gets some more commissions, though Dominique tries as hard as she can to destroy his career, which she tells him she is doing. Peter becomes more and more successful, and finally meets and earns the great acclaim of Ellsworth Toohey, his theoretical father-in-law. We also learn that Toohey has always been a slimy manipulator of people, and is, basically, trying to bring all of society down to his level, since he has no real talents of his own.

I don't have a lot of patience for analysis right now, so I'll just say that the main problem when reading this part of the book is figuring out why Dominique is trying so hard to destroy Roark. She obviously admires him and his work a great deal, so there must be a reason. Since she hates dependence and the falseness of society, I'm going to interpret it as an attempt, on her part, to save Roark from the inevitable corruption that fame and success with bring him. She must be reasoning that, eventually, his success will cause him to compromise his morals (which are, in this case, only to do precisely what his artistic vision requires of him), and she can't bear to see that happen to him.

Probably? More tomorrow.

The beast with two backs

2010-08-24T08:27:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 115 -225

Plot-wise, we've got Roark quitting the firm he was working for to build a house for a rich eccentric. As a result, he sets up his own firm and gets a few commissions, but eventually goes bankrupt and gets a job quarrying stone at Francon's quarry in Connecticut. There he meets Dominique Francon, who is immediately sexually attracted to him and simultaneously repulsed by her own inclination toward human dependency. (We've also learned that Dominique considers any kind of dependence on anything or anyone absolute anathema.) They have a couple of adversarial conversations (though the hostility is veiled on both their parts) and then, eventually, violent sex. (Rape? Hard to say. Not really? The whole thing's dependent on Dominique not wanting it, but Rand says, a couple of times, that the only reason she's aroused is that Roark doesn't acknowledge her with any sort of tenderness.) Dominque never learns his name, and doesn't actually know who he is. Only a few days later, Roark returns to New York to meet with a prospective architectural client.

As far as Keating goes, he's under pressure from Catherine to marry her, and yet is fascinated with Dominique. He proposes to Dominique, actually, and she turns him down, saying that she would only ever marry him in order to punish herself. Around this time, Keating becomes a partner in the firm, having driven Heyer, the previous partner, to have a stroke by threatening him with blackmail. In addition to making partner, Keating has achieved acclaim by winning a well-known architectural contest, which he accomplished with a design that Roark edited significantly for him. After winning the contest, he visits Roark and offers him some money as compensation for his involvement in the plan, and they fight about Keating's lack of talent and Roark's unwillingness to compromise his artistic ideals. Keating decides, afterward, that he hates Roark.

This Rand novel is significantly more tolerable than Atlas Shrugged. I'm not sure why; it might be that it's about needing to assert creative freedom in order to be truly free. I respond better to the idea of creative freedom than I do the idea of economic freedom. There has been less of an emphasis on selfishness so far, as well. Although, thinking about that statement, I'm not sure Rand would agree; she would say that asserting one's creativity is a form of selfishness, since it's something you do to reach personal satisfaction. It's just that I identify a lot more with that need than I do with creating a railroad empire, as in Atlas Shrugged. Anyway, I think the story also moves along significantly better, and there's been less repetition of similar events, as well. Roark's story seems to be evolving more fluidly than Dagny Taggert's did.

The sex, though, and, in fact, Dominique in general, I'm not sure what to make of. It seems like her assertion of a complete lack of dependence is supposed to be a good thing, and yet, she seems to be making herself miserable, which, in turn, makes her happy. I can't tell if Rand is supporting that or condemning it. Clearly, she's more admirable that Keating, who is so dependent on the opinions of others and any type of external motivation that even his selfishness isn't really selfish, and yet, she's not as admirable as Roark, who is driven by his own vision of great architecture, and therefore dependent on seeing that vision realized. So, what does Dominique mean? I'm not sure. She may be an example of the idea of independence carried too far, but it seems unlikely that Rand would be portraying that message. I'm also confused about the violent sex, though it's not the first time we've seen it in Rand. Dagny Taggert seemed to have the need for violence and control in her sexual experiences as well. Is it supposed to be another example of weakness, or a statement about the character of sexual relationships for strong, dominant women? If so, is it good or bad, or is Rand simply showing it to us? I'm reluctant to say it's simply a fact and let it go at that, but what is it supposed to prove? To be part of a truly independent relationship, sex can have no emotional meaning, and, therefore, is reduced to its raw state, which is one of male dominance and female submission? I don't know, and solutions are not forthcoming.

Speaking of reducing things to their raw states, I think it's interesting, too, that Rand seems to deny the social nature of the human species. Her most admirable characters are almost completely socially inept, mostly because they refuse to compromise their values and morals for the needs of the group. (It's almost as though Roark and Dominque are autistic, actually; they simply don't think of social needs and interaction the way that other people do. It's not wrong, but is outside the normal mental spectrum.) I understand why she's saying that, and that she considers such moral integrity not only good, but necessary, but it seems hard to ignore the fact that the phenomenon of social organization itself is built on the principle of compromising for the good of the group. Is it possible to function as a society without it? I'm sure Rand would argue that it's necessary to subvert the base instincts of the social animal in order to create a better society, but, to carry Rand's idea of complete independence to its logical but absurd conclusion, a society cannot function when all its members are completely independent. It will fall apart.

You can't fault her for making you think about stuff, at least. It counts for a lot.

What happened to the soul of wit?

2010-08-23T08:38:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 1 - 115

Hey, an actual post! It's so new and different! Too bad it's about Ayn Rand, who is not new and different.

Before I get snarky, let's do a run-down of the plot so far. Howard Roark, our hero, (who is almost completely emotionless, because emotion is clearly an ignoble weakness) gets kicked out of architecture school because he won't design Greek and Roman and Renaissance Revival style buildings, but instead only designs original Modernist architecture. (Do you get kicked out of architecture school for that? It seems like a bit of a stretch. But we'll move on.)

Peter Keating, who graduates at the same time that Roark gets kicked out, is the Golden Boy of the school, though has very little actual talent. Keating immediately gets a job at the top architecture firm in New York, Francon and Heyer, where he proceeds to manipulate people into quitting or getting fired until he's made top designer.

Roark has come to New York, too, where he starts work for a failed Modernist architect named Cameron, who recognizes his genius but warns him it will be his downfall. Eventually Cameron retires, and Keating gets Roark a job at Francon and Heyer, which he loses when he refuses to design a Renaissance-style building. He gets a job working for a new firm designing things like department stores.

We also meet Dominique Francon, Keating's boss's daughter, who hates all Revivalist architecture, and with whom Keating immediately falls in love. Unfortunately, Keating is engaged to the penniless Catherine Halsey, niece of Ellsworth Toohey, the foremost architecture critic in the country, who believes only in reproducing the great masterpieces of Classical and Renaissance architecture. That's about where we are, then: the downtrodden innovator can't catch a break, and the slimy, talentless manipulator is thriving.

Are you unsure about what the message might be? Do you need me to explain it? Do I know exactly where the following 600 pages of this book are going? You bet your lacy green knickers I do. Gee, will it be the story of genius held back by the machine of the establishment? Gee, will it be public opinion crushing the spark of creativity and rewarding the repetition of old ideas? Gee, will it espouse complete selfishness of Roark's variety as the only way to achieve any degree of freedom in society, while ignoring the fact that Keating's brand of selfishness is virtually the same thing? Gee, Ayn, I can hardly wait to find out!

Ok, I'm laying it on thick, but seriously, this is my problem with Rand. Everything's so damn ham-fisted that I know exactly what's going to happen five pages in. From the moment, on the third page, when I found out that Howard Roark got kicked out of architecture school for his innovative designs, I was like, "Oh, the point is that society and the establishment are so entrenched in their dogma that it's difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to change them, regardless of the merit of the new ideas one is interested in realizing." And now there are 700 more pages to prove that point in exhausting detail. So far, I must admit, the storytelling is a bit better than in Atlas Shrugged, but I don't doubt that I'll lose patience before it's over. We'll see if there are any 75-page speeches, I guess.

Also, when presenting a counter-argument, as I often tell my high-school-age writing students, it's a good idea to make the other side's position believable, rather than so exaggerated as to be ridiculous. Ayn Rand, apparently, didn't get the memo on that one. Here's her version of Toohey's statement about a piece of Classical Revival architecture:

"The discipline of an immortal tradition has served here as a cohesive factor in evolving a structure whose beauty can reach, simply and lucidly, the heart of every man in the street. There is no freak exhibitionism here, no perverted striving for novelty, no orgy of unbridled egotism. Guy Francon, its designer, has known how to subordinate himself to the mandatory canons which generations of craftsmen behind him have proved inviolate, and at the same time how to display his own creative originality, not in spite of, but because of the classical dogma he has accepted with the humility of a true artist. It may be worth mentioning, in passing, that dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true originality possible..." (41)

Dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true originality possible? Seriously, Rand? I know you're presenting the other side's argument in a light which you hope will make it ridiculous, but would be like to attempt to strive for realism, at least?

Did you miss the whining about Ayn Rand? I bet you did.

No, it has nothing to do with sailing. Be quiet.

2010-08-20T16:18:00.004-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

What ho, dear readers! News from the front! The Fountainhead has finally landed at the branch library, and your correspondent on the high seas will set off to collect it tomorrow! Keep a weather eye, mateys!

Bored now.

2010-08-19T19:27:00.003-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

Still no book. This is taking forever. Sorry for the two days without posting, but waiting around isn't very exciting. The end.

...if there were enough tarragon around.

2010-08-16T18:15:00.003-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

I don't have anything exciting to say about literature in general. Instead, I'll give you an update on what I'm currently reading while we're waiting for Ayn Rand to filter through the library system.

Impatient with Desire, by Gabrielle Burton, which totally sounds like porn, is, in fact, very far from it. It's a novel about the Donner party told from Tamsin Donner's point of view. It's related in journal entries and letters, which normally isn't a trope I'm particularly fond of, but the epistolary form is narrative enough that it works in this book.

Anyway, I'm surprised to find that I'm really enjoying it. Burton does an excellent job of capturing her protagonist's voice, and an even more masterful job of spinning out the suspense about how the party got itself into its famous cannibalistic dilemma. I have not yet been bored, nor have I been frustrated with the decisions of the main character. Frankly, the only thing I've wondered about is why, after subsisting on boiled oxen hides (which I didn't even know you could eat) for several weeks, they didn't eat any of their dead sooner. I mean, I know, I know, taboos, but starving is starving, guys. Tamsin herself is strong, rational, compelling, and even, at times, inspiring. Her story is impressive in that it puts her far ahead of her time in standing up for her own rights, being an independent earner, and even confronting her husband in a public discussion. And all of this in the context of crossing the Rockies by wagon train. I recommend it.

Also, I thought the members of the Donner party were Mormons, which is completely untrue.

It was the worst of times

2010-08-13T15:45:00.003-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

So, I failed to update yesterday, but it was because I was being social. On a weeknight. So, I think it was a good excuse.

Moving on, here's a list of things I think literature is not:

1. Vulgarity for the sake of shock.

2. Complexity of syntax and language for the purpose of sounding smart. (Also known as pretension.)

3. Long-windedness. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Charles Paid-by-the-word Dickens.)

4. Political sermonizing thinly disguised with a narrative.

5. Religious sermonizing thinly disguised with a narrative.

6. A complete lack of narrative.

7. Non-fiction.

Other ideas?

It was the best of times

2010-08-11T17:00:00.003-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

Well, as with any discussion of the definition of a difficult concept, we'll start with the dictionary. Webster's has this to say about the word literature: "writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest (2) : an example of such writing." Not bad, MW, not bad. I quite like "excellence of form or expression and...ideas of permanent or universal interest." It straddles a nice line between vague and strict, just as the dictionary should.

I'm tempted to say that my personal definition of literature has to be something that has an intellectual or emotional effect on its reader, but that's so terribly subjective. And yet, to be honest, I think it's fairly accurate for me. If I don't care about it, in one way or another, I'm unlikely to call it literature. If it catches my attention with its ideas, its beauty, or its ability to move me emotionally, I'm likely to want to call it literature even if the establishment might not.

Still, the definition is incomplete, because I can recognize that innovation also has a place in the canon, and that we have to respect some authors and works simply because they did what had never before been done. Charles Dickens, for example, is rather stultifying, and I have a lot of difficulty recognizing the worth of his work based on its artistic and emotional merit, but he wrote novels about everyday life before anyone else did. That's pretty important. (Sure, he may have been the John Grisham of the age, but he was the first John Grisham of the age. If you reach mediocrity first, you're still remarkable by virtue of novelty alone.)

Next time, I think I'll give some thought to what isn't literature. Nothing like defining by exclusion.

The Socratic Method

2010-08-10T17:54:00.004-05:00

Current book: None
Pages read: None

I don't have The Fountainhead yet because I refuse to buy it and all the copies are checked out of the library, so I have to wait. I'm guessing somebody's assigned it for summer reading, but I could be wrong; the popularity of Rand never ceases to amaze me. Hopefully, whatever idealist has it checked out will realize his folly and, consumed by bitterness, return it early. Alternatively, he could realize that checking out books from the library violates the principles of Rand's philosophy, seeing as it's a form of undermining free market economics, and, wishing to be a paragon of his new ideals, also return it early. Whatever works.

So, I'm not starting this today, but I have in mind a couple of posts for the rest of the week on what exactly the definition of literature is. Does anyone have ideas they'd like to contribute? What do you think the definition of literature is?

"Why don't you write books people can read?"*

2010-08-09T17:38:00.005-05:00

Current book: Finnegan's Wake
Pages read: 3 - 628 (end)

Initially, I'd considered writing a paragraph in the style of this horrendous monstrosity masquerading as literature, but I couldn't bring myself to emulate, even for the purposes of showcasing its ridiculousness, the masturbatory excrescence that James Joyce created when he wrote what we shall, for the purposes of discussion, refer to as a "book."

Do you want to know what it's about? Well, so do I. As far as I can tell, nothing. It's...well, here are a couple of characteristic sentences from the first page.

Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface. The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovar-rhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.

Did you...can you...help? Help me. There is nothing to be done with this tripe. (Sheep's stomach may be too kind an epithet, actually.) I do not have time for men who sit in dark rooms and make up nonsense words, interspersing them with contrived attempts to sound, by turns, like drunken old men speaking in dialect and scholars so full of themselves that they can speak of nothing else. Was anyone paying attention when this book was published? Did anyone read it?

People do, I guess. And are, somehow, impressed by it. Granted, he spent a lot of time on it; I'll give you that. Apparently some people find it incredibly amusing, which is beyond me, and others are impressed by its complex network of allusions, but frankly, what good are allusions when they are written almost entirely for the author? The wordplay, too, gets a lot of respect, but once again, I have to protest that wordplay is only successful when it occurs as part of a nuanced whole that engages its reader, as opposed to when it makes up the bulk of a work that is nothing more than a tangled mess of etymological whims that haven't been properly sorted out. I call foul on you for this, literary world! I say that the emperor is naked! And not just a little bit light on the clothing, here. Stark, buck-ass, skinny-legged, shriveled-penis-hanging-out-for-everyone-to-see naked.

To give a sort of...summary-ish...thing...about this, it really is like 625 pages of drunken ranting. Sometimes, there are little conversations between people you don't know that also don't make sense, and there are a couple of miniature plays that are completely incomprehensible. There's a long section where he footnotes himself, mostly to preempt anyone who might actually attempt to footnote him by mocking said prospective scholar mercilessly. He mocks a lot of things, really, which is, I guess, where the amusement factor comes in for some readers (and if you find opaque rambling funny, then sure), the two most prominent of which are religion and academia. He mentions Levy-Bruhl at one point, (who is a famous anthropologist, which I know because I was an Anthropology minor in college (for no good reason, as it turns out)) which was the only moment from which I got a sense of the excitement many people feel about all the allusions, but then he subsides pretty quickly back into his normal murky quagmire.

I was excited, on page 108, to see a sentence that actually maintained grammatical integrity (and of course, it's a mockery of the idea of writing itself). This is as clear as the entire book gets, in case you're wondering.

To conclude purely negatively from the positive absence of political odia and monetary requests that its page cannot ever have been a penproduct of a man or woman of that period or those parts is only one more unlookedfor conclusion leaped at, being tantamount to inferring from the nonpresence of inverted commas (sometimes called quotation marks) on any page that its author was always constitutionally incapable of misappropriating the spoken words of others.

I know. You're amazed that I read this, aren't you? Well, as you can see from the number of pages read today, I didn't so much read it as look at all of the pages in order and read some words on each one. I gave it a fair shot, but after 50 pages of complete and utter raving insanity reminiscent more of the delusions of an educated madman than anything we might be willing to consider calling literature, I decided I would give it the amount of attention that would prevent me from becoming uncomfortably akin to its author. In other words, I skimmed the hell out of it.

I can't go on. There's really nothing more to be said, except this: you know how when you read a normal book, sometimes you skip a page and it's confusing, because the line that starts the next page doesn't fit with the line that ended the previous page, and that's how you figure out that you accidentally skipped one? Well, that doesn't happen with this book, because there's no way to tell whether one page has anything to do with the next one.

Is it worthy of the list? WHAT DO YOU FUCKING THINK?

*This is a quote from Nora Joyce, James's wife. Hah.

By accident I hit them in the stomach.

2010-08-06T15:41:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Jungle
Pages read: 294 - 346 (end)

Wow, total failure to update yesterday. I meant to have an apologetic post about not having time, and I forgot even to do that. Well, you ought to be used to it by now. (Um...I mean...I was keeping you on your toes?)

Anyway. Jurgis gets rescued off the street by Marija (well, basically - it's complicated, but you don't need the detail), an old family friend, who, as it turns out, is working as a prostitute. She manages to support a family that way, though, so at this point, who is Jurgis to judge? (She's also addicted to morphine, which many of the whorehouses feed to their employees to keep them docile and trapped. Lovely.) Marija makes sure Jurgis gets fed and tells him to go back to the in-laws and they'll be happy to see him, but he's so ashamed that he won't, and instead wanders around until he ends up in a political meeting. He intends to go only for the warmth and shelter, but actually listens to the speaker, instead. The speaker, it turns out, is a socialist. Jurgis is transformed by his words and the concept of socialism (and boy, do we get to hear the whole concept explained in the pages and pages of the speech that are included). He's a complete convert, and carries the message home to his family and friends. He lucks into a job as a hotel porter, working for another socialist, and spends the next months canvassing for the socialist party. The book ends by illustrating, through the election, the growing socialist trend in the United States, and promising that it will be a great, sweeping movement that will soon control the country.

Well, obviously, the book has been a buildup to the idea that socialism will correct America's ills, and, though Sinclair was overly optimistic about that, it's not entirely incorrect. There were certainly socialist tendencies to the measures passed in subsequent years concerning welfare and working conditions. Even the idea of the minimum wage was based on those ideas. However, it was hardly the huge and sweeping movement that Sinclair predicted.

The great irony of the book, of course, is the Sinclair included the information about the impurity and filth of the meat-packing industry as something of a sidenote. He must have meant for it to be a revelation to his readers, but it was clearly supposed to be secondary to the revelation of the insane and horrific working conditions of those men and women employed by the industry. The information about the food that they were eating, however, was what hit American readers the hardest. It wasn't long afterward that the government passed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as meat inspection legislation. Sinclair was aware of the fact that he missed his real goal, and was pretty bitter about it.

Do I think it's one of the greatest 100 novels of all time? Not really. The writing is clumsy and verges on hysterical, the plot is simply a device for communicating a political message, and, in the end, its impact of disgust is what distinguishes it the most. It is not unlike Atlas Shrugged, even down to the fact that it ends with pages and pages of political treatise masquerading as an event in the story - except, of course, for the fact that they are espousing completely opposite beliefs. I'd like to put them next to each other on the shelf and see if the covers start to burn on contact.

Where depression's just status quo

2010-08-04T16:58:00.003-05:00

Current book: The Jungle
Pages read: 209 - 294

Ok, so, after Ona's death in childbirth, Jurgis lucks out and manages to get a job in a steel mill, where he can make a decent wage, though he only gets to come home on weekends. Antanas, his surviving one-year-old son, is his only joy. So, of course, one week while Jurgis is at the steel mill, Antanas meets with an accident in the street and dies. Afterward, Jurgis becomes a tramp for a while by riding trains through the countryside, then learns to mug people for a living, after which he works for the Chicago politicians doctoring votes, and eventually he becomes a strikebreaker. As a strikebreaker, however, he breaks his arm, loses his job, and, having crossed the wrong people, can't get another. He's currently reduced to a life of begging on the street.

Well, clearly, Sinclair is having a dandy time showing the plight of the working man. I'm not saying his descriptions of the horrors of the stockyards and the swindling and abuse inflicted on poor immigrant workers at the turn of the century are unrealistic, but it's obvious that Jurgis represents the Everyman, and as such, all the horrible things that can happen to someone in his socio-economic class are happening to him. Sinclair is laying it on a bit thick, but then again, he's hoping to make a dramatic emotional impact on his reader.

The irony of Jurgis's strikebreaking shouldn't be lost on the reader, either, since he's basically helping the very men who have destroyed his entire life. Sinclair is careful to make it clear, though, with this and all the irresponsible or immoral acts that Jurgis commits, that any man in his position, driven by injury, grief, maddening frustration, and physical hunger, would do the same. And it's true. By the time Jurgis starts mugging toffs for their cash, you're asking yourself why the hell he didn't start doing it sooner.

The thrilling conclusion in tomorrow's episode.

The oncoming train.

2010-08-03T18:05:00.002-05:00

Current book: The Jungle
Pages read: 123 - 209

I simply don't have the time to update tonight. Bad things happened. Jurgis went to jail for assaulting the foreman who forced Ona to have sex with him just to keep her job, and Ona died in childbirth. They lost the house. More later.

Slaughter is the best medicine.

2010-08-02T17:03:00.004-05:00

Current book: The Jungle
Pages read: 53 - 123

Plot-wise, Grandfather Antanas dies of sepsis from working in a pickle factory, and when Marija and Jurgis have their first son, they name him Antanas after the deceased. Jurgis sprains his ankle and loses his job, which is obviously a huge issue, since they have to pay the mortgage. The company that sold them the house will repossess if they miss even one month's payment. Um, that's all? Oh, I almost forgot - Jurgis joined the union! Socialism is afoot!

The rest is just story after story of dangerous working conditions and unfair treatment. I'll try to be more descriptive tomorrow. Frostbite from freezing cow blood is a common complaint, and blood poisoning from handling rotting meat with cuts on your hands, as well. Fun times.