Current book: Light in August
Pages read: 146-290
Well, actually, this post is going to be about all 290 pages, seeing as how I never wrote about the first 146. There just wasn't time. The interview went well, though, so I had a good reason to slack off. And yesterday I didn't get up at 5:45, after my flight home the night before got in at 11:45, to work out, and therefore did not read Faulkner, and therefore did not post. Anyway.
This book is not what I was expecting. I read some short story by Faulkner in high school ("The Bear," I believe it was called), that was just excruciating, so I was expecting this to be also. I recall Faulkner's prose being confusing and boring and jumping around in time, and this really doesn't do any of that. It jumps around in time a bit, I guess, but you can follow it with little trouble.
Lena Grove, a young poor woman from Alabama, is traveling in order to find her no-good boyfriend who has gotten her pregnant. He said he'd go on to his next job and then send for her, but he never did (What a shocker.). We get a little dusty-road-traveling time, and then she ends up in the town where she's heard he is. It turns out it's not him, though, just a man with a similar name (Bunch to Burch). Her boyfriend, though, is in the town anyway, going by the name Joe Christmas, which Bunch subsequently makes clear to her. So, then Faulkner pauses her story, aside from telling us the fact that Bunch is smitten with her, and we get the story of the local pastor, instead. Why? Hard to say at this point. The local pastor, Hightower, used to be in charge of the church, but after his wife ran away to the city with another man and then died in a freak accident, they kicked him out, and he now lives in disgrace. He and Bunch, who seems like a decent guy, are friends. After his story is concluded, we get Joe Christmas's story.
Joe Christmas is actually not in town after all, though he was very recently, because he's killed his mistress, with whom he was living (well, in a cabin nearby her, really), and set fire to her house. Ok, so now that that's established, we go way, way back to find out that he spent his childhood in an orphanage, until they found out that he had minority blood of some kind (Let me take this moment to say that Christ, this book has a lot of racial slurs. It's "nigger" this and "nigger" that, every five seconds. Don't get me wrong, I understand the time period and the fact that Faulkner is discussing what's going on in realistic detail, but sometimes it gets to be a bit much.), and placed him immediately with an extremely straitlaced farmer and his wife, who go by the name of McEachern. His foster father basically beats him whenever he doesn't know his catechism, and he quickly becomes maladjusted and angry. He also has a lot of self-hatred going on with the mixed blood situation. We watch him grow up, start beating women, and continue to hate his foster father, until, eventually, the woman he's sleeping with on the sly takes him to a party. They are discovered by McEachern, who confronts him, and he ends up hitting and killing him, after which his girlfriend (who is also a prostitute, by the way) leaves him. He chases her down and confronts her, and she and her other boyfriend beat him up, take his money, and leave him bleeding on the floor.
All this basically establishes his life of vagrancy and crime, and he spends the years between this incident and the present wandering through the South, doing odd jobs and sleeping with girls like Lena. He eventually settles in the town where he's killed his mistress, Joanna Burden, and we get a bunch of her backstory, too. She works for minority rights, especially with African-American colleges, and has a good relationship with the black community in the South as a whole. It's this that makes her willing to have a relationship with Christmas, but also what makes him resent the whole thing, what with his self-hatred and all. They have a lot of confrontations about that, and it all eventually results in her killing herself, it seems. So, I guess, though I'm a little confused at this point, that Christmas saw her kill herself and then, for some reason, made it look like he did it, and then burned down the house. That's really where we are, plus the fact that Bunch plans to take Lena out to the cabin near Christmas's house and get her settled there so she can wait for him. Which doesn't make any sense, but there you go. Oh, also, Christmas is a bootlegger, and has a heavy-drinking partner named Joe Brown who seems eager to bear witness to the fact that Christmas was sleeping with his mistress and then offed her. (The subtext here, too, is that even if Christmas didn't kill her, he was still a mixed-race man sleeping with a white woman, which will be grounds for his execution.) Confused? That's all right, I am a little, too. I think it'll resolve itself.
I'm surprised at the fact that this is a sharp examination of racism in the South at the time. I wasn't expecting that, and I respect Faulkner for doing it. It certainly couldn't have been easy. Also, the prose is interesting and sort of revelatory. He combines words in poetic and unexpected ways, and the sentences are well-crafted, yet simple. His description has all the power of precision without the encumbrance of overly complex syntax and diction. Colour me impressed, Faulkner. I had no idea.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Business before pleasure
Current book: Light in August
Pages read: 1 - 146
The heading of this entry is deceptive; it appears as though I'm going to talk about the book, but actually, I don't have time for it. I was traveling all day today for an interview tomorrow, so no post today or tomorrow, actually. Faulkner will wait. He always does.
Pages read: 1 - 146
The heading of this entry is deceptive; it appears as though I'm going to talk about the book, but actually, I don't have time for it. I was traveling all day today for an interview tomorrow, so no post today or tomorrow, actually. Faulkner will wait. He always does.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A nice change from the ubiquitous tomato.
Current book: None
Cooking this week, on the subject of not literature, included Farfalle with Pine Nuts, Prosciutto, Spinach, and Raisins, and was excellent, especially when I added lemon juice not called for by the recipe. (Because my habit of reading too many cooking blogs and trying new recipes allowed me to recognize the fact that the dish lacked an acid component.) After I added it, it went from "Oh, this is good," to "Excellent!" I was pretty proud of myself.
This post, you might note, is a bit late for me. I forgot to update until just now, but I didn't have anything else to say about Henry James anyway. I'm glad I'm done with him. Of course, William Faulkner's next, so it's a bit of the old "frying pan, fire" problem. But I endure. It's because I'm stoic. I am! Totally stoic! Oh, shut up.
Cooking this week, on the subject of not literature, included Farfalle with Pine Nuts, Prosciutto, Spinach, and Raisins, and was excellent, especially when I added lemon juice not called for by the recipe. (Because my habit of reading too many cooking blogs and trying new recipes allowed me to recognize the fact that the dish lacked an acid component.) After I added it, it went from "Oh, this is good," to "Excellent!" I was pretty proud of myself.
This post, you might note, is a bit late for me. I forgot to update until just now, but I didn't have anything else to say about Henry James anyway. I'm glad I'm done with him. Of course, William Faulkner's next, so it's a bit of the old "frying pan, fire" problem. But I endure. It's because I'm stoic. I am! Totally stoic! Oh, shut up.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Damned if you do
Current book: The Wings of the Dove
Pages read: 586 (369) - 689 (472) (end)
Done! Huzzah! So. Kate never goes and has sex with Merton, much to my dismay, although we don't really cover the fallout of that; I guess maybe she does and James is just too delicate to talk about it. Anyway, in the end, Lord Mark goes to visit Milly and, out of spite for the fact that Kate won't marry him, he tells her that Kate and Merton are secretly engaged. This sends her into some kind of fit of illness, and she starts fading fast. She won't see Merton, who decides that this is as good a reason as any to give up the deception he's long been uncomfortable with, and he goes back to England to marry Kate. She's disappointed in him for failing to get engaged to Milly, but they're still, apparently, in love.
Shortly after Merton gets to England, Milly snuffs it, but, as it turns out, she leaves him a generous bequest in her will. When he discovers this fact, though, his conscience smites him, and he gives Kate an ultimatum: either they don't touch the money and they get married, or he gives her the money and breaks off the engagement. So, basically, it comes down to Kate choosing the money or the marriage. She chooses the marriage (I'd like to point out that this happens in the space of like, one page, and is incredibly abrupt, and I was forced to go, "Christ, James! Hundreds of pages of description to get to this point, and now you're rushing?), but they both recognize, ruefully, the fact that they've been spoiled for each other, to some extent, by their mutual machinations.
Blah. The real problem with James is that, on some level, you have to recognize the guy as a talented writer, but he's just agony to have to actually read. He clearly knows the craft and has a beautiful command of language, but when he puts it all together to tell a story, it's like it never goes anywhere. (Not to mention his 19th-century need to make everything a cautionary tale. God, that gets old.) So, I don't know; it is, on a literary level, a good novel because of the fact that it's well written and it delves deeply into the psychology of its characters. Personally, I don't like it at all, and I don't think it's one of the best one hundred novels of all time. Also, it's a bit sensationalist, really. It was kind of like reading Danielle Steele. (Ok, I've never actually read Danielle Steele. But it's what I imagine reading Danielle Steele would be like. Only I'm guessing she's less boring and not as talented. The end.)
Pages read: 586 (369) - 689 (472) (end)
Done! Huzzah! So. Kate never goes and has sex with Merton, much to my dismay, although we don't really cover the fallout of that; I guess maybe she does and James is just too delicate to talk about it. Anyway, in the end, Lord Mark goes to visit Milly and, out of spite for the fact that Kate won't marry him, he tells her that Kate and Merton are secretly engaged. This sends her into some kind of fit of illness, and she starts fading fast. She won't see Merton, who decides that this is as good a reason as any to give up the deception he's long been uncomfortable with, and he goes back to England to marry Kate. She's disappointed in him for failing to get engaged to Milly, but they're still, apparently, in love.
Shortly after Merton gets to England, Milly snuffs it, but, as it turns out, she leaves him a generous bequest in her will. When he discovers this fact, though, his conscience smites him, and he gives Kate an ultimatum: either they don't touch the money and they get married, or he gives her the money and breaks off the engagement. So, basically, it comes down to Kate choosing the money or the marriage. She chooses the marriage (I'd like to point out that this happens in the space of like, one page, and is incredibly abrupt, and I was forced to go, "Christ, James! Hundreds of pages of description to get to this point, and now you're rushing?), but they both recognize, ruefully, the fact that they've been spoiled for each other, to some extent, by their mutual machinations.
Blah. The real problem with James is that, on some level, you have to recognize the guy as a talented writer, but he's just agony to have to actually read. He clearly knows the craft and has a beautiful command of language, but when he puts it all together to tell a story, it's like it never goes anywhere. (Not to mention his 19th-century need to make everything a cautionary tale. God, that gets old.) So, I don't know; it is, on a literary level, a good novel because of the fact that it's well written and it delves deeply into the psychology of its characters. Personally, I don't like it at all, and I don't think it's one of the best one hundred novels of all time. Also, it's a bit sensationalist, really. It was kind of like reading Danielle Steele. (Ok, I've never actually read Danielle Steele. But it's what I imagine reading Danielle Steele would be like. Only I'm guessing she's less boring and not as talented. The end.)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Ah, Venice!
Current book: The Wings of the Dove
Pages read: 505 (288) - 585 (368)
So, Milly goes gallivanting off around the Continent again in order to follow her doctor's advice. We skip over a lot (which I'm just tragically upset about), but eventually she ends up in Venice, where she's sort of bored, crushed by the pressure of society, and lonely. During one of her lonely moments, Lord Mark shows up, and, because she's vulnerable and emotional, she confesses her terminal illness to him. He offers to marry her, which is precisely the kind of pity she's hoped to avoid by leaving everyone (except Kate) in the dark about things, and she flips out at him and sends him away. Next to visit (and I mean next, because they run into each other in Milly's Venetian foyer) is Merton, newly committed to the idea of paying Milly lots of attention. He does just that, and then continues to visit for the next several days.
We're treated, also, to a couple of conversations between Merton and Kate that finally make it clear that Kate actually wants Merton to marry Milly and inherit her money when she dies. Merton pretty much agrees, which makes him more mercenary than I was expecting, but demands that Kate prove her love to him by "coming to him" later at his hotel. I'm going to go ahead and interpret this as "having sex with him," which makes him yet more mercenary. He's turning into a regular bounder. I mean, really, it's kind of awful to demand a woman's chastity as a guarantee that she won't leave you. Anyway, so that's about where we are. Merton's holding off on proposing to Milly until he gets his guarantee from Kate, and it's looking like Milly will say yes to him, though Lord Mark has raised doubts for her about Kate and Merton's mutual honesty. Milly, after all, is still under the impression that Kate doesn't care for Merton, but she is, due to the aforesaid doubts, beginning to reconsider that idea.
What will happen next? I'm trying really hard to care! No, actually, it's a bit better since things started to happen, though clearly it's not going to end well for the people involved. These things never do. More analysis will be forthcoming when we reach the thrilling conclusion. I'm guessing there'll be morals. Consider yourselves warned.
Pages read: 505 (288) - 585 (368)
So, Milly goes gallivanting off around the Continent again in order to follow her doctor's advice. We skip over a lot (which I'm just tragically upset about), but eventually she ends up in Venice, where she's sort of bored, crushed by the pressure of society, and lonely. During one of her lonely moments, Lord Mark shows up, and, because she's vulnerable and emotional, she confesses her terminal illness to him. He offers to marry her, which is precisely the kind of pity she's hoped to avoid by leaving everyone (except Kate) in the dark about things, and she flips out at him and sends him away. Next to visit (and I mean next, because they run into each other in Milly's Venetian foyer) is Merton, newly committed to the idea of paying Milly lots of attention. He does just that, and then continues to visit for the next several days.
We're treated, also, to a couple of conversations between Merton and Kate that finally make it clear that Kate actually wants Merton to marry Milly and inherit her money when she dies. Merton pretty much agrees, which makes him more mercenary than I was expecting, but demands that Kate prove her love to him by "coming to him" later at his hotel. I'm going to go ahead and interpret this as "having sex with him," which makes him yet more mercenary. He's turning into a regular bounder. I mean, really, it's kind of awful to demand a woman's chastity as a guarantee that she won't leave you. Anyway, so that's about where we are. Merton's holding off on proposing to Milly until he gets his guarantee from Kate, and it's looking like Milly will say yes to him, though Lord Mark has raised doubts for her about Kate and Merton's mutual honesty. Milly, after all, is still under the impression that Kate doesn't care for Merton, but she is, due to the aforesaid doubts, beginning to reconsider that idea.
What will happen next? I'm trying really hard to care! No, actually, it's a bit better since things started to happen, though clearly it's not going to end well for the people involved. These things never do. More analysis will be forthcoming when we reach the thrilling conclusion. I'm guessing there'll be morals. Consider yourselves warned.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
When first we practice to deceive*
Current book: The Wings of the Dove
Pages read: 437 (220) - 504 (287)
Somehow I misread earlier (Gee, I wonder how that could possibly have happened. Surely it wasn't the fact that my stultified brain was unable to force itself to absorb all of the information in James's interminable paragraphs of description. Must have been the 19th century American literature goblins. They're always making you forget stuff. Little scamps.) and it turns out that Milly actually does like Merton. I was right about Kate, though, asking Merton to dance attendance on Milly because of the fact that she's a terminal case and she loves him. Despite his better judgment, he agrees to do it, and correspondingly (I don't think that's the word I mean. Something else with a c. Consequently. That's the one.) goes to visit Milly at her hotel, where she is flattered and surprised to receive him. Looks like he'll be able to make her love him, or fulfill her fantasies of being in love, anyway, with relative ease. We also learn that Aunt Maud thinks Merton should actually go after Milly, and she tells Susie so in a meeting the two have. Susie, however, had heretofore been under the impression that Kate didn't love Merton; Aunt Maud, during the same meeting, corrects said impression, making this little love triangle even more complex.
Here's how it breaks down:
1) Kate loves Merton.
2) Merton loves Kate.
3) Milly loves Merton.
4) Milly thinks Kate doesn't love Merton.
5) Susie knows that Kate does love Merton.
6) Kate asks Merton to pretend to love Milly.
7) Aunt Maud tells Merton to really love Milly.
8) Merton thinks Milly is a nice girl and very pretty, but doesn't love her. Yet.
A couple of things could happen at this point: Merton could actually fall in love with Milly, which would certainly be awkward; Merton could con Milly into marrying him, wait until she kicks the bucket, and use her fortune to make himself marriageable in Aunt Maud's eyes, though we've seen no evidence that he'd be that calculating; Milly could find out Merton's just pursuing her out of pity, and die of hurt feelings; or something else entirely could happen. (I'd like Milly to snap and kill everyone, but then it'd be postmodern.)
The excessive description is still obnoxious. It's like James has to cover everything three times: once before it happens, when it actually happens, and then after it happens. Just the middle one would be fine with me. He's probably trying to create a sense of dramatic irony, as well as to illuminate the social and psychological aspects of his characters' decision-making, which, to be fair, is brand new and exciting in James's literary America, and is why he's a respected author. (See? See how reasoned and fair and objective that was? I'm being good.) But I don't have to like it.
*I'd like to point out that this quote is from Sir Walter Scott's Marmion, and not, in fact, Shakespeare. Because I'm here to inform the public. Be informed, public.
Pages read: 437 (220) - 504 (287)
Somehow I misread earlier (Gee, I wonder how that could possibly have happened. Surely it wasn't the fact that my stultified brain was unable to force itself to absorb all of the information in James's interminable paragraphs of description. Must have been the 19th century American literature goblins. They're always making you forget stuff. Little scamps.) and it turns out that Milly actually does like Merton. I was right about Kate, though, asking Merton to dance attendance on Milly because of the fact that she's a terminal case and she loves him. Despite his better judgment, he agrees to do it, and correspondingly (I don't think that's the word I mean. Something else with a c. Consequently. That's the one.) goes to visit Milly at her hotel, where she is flattered and surprised to receive him. Looks like he'll be able to make her love him, or fulfill her fantasies of being in love, anyway, with relative ease. We also learn that Aunt Maud thinks Merton should actually go after Milly, and she tells Susie so in a meeting the two have. Susie, however, had heretofore been under the impression that Kate didn't love Merton; Aunt Maud, during the same meeting, corrects said impression, making this little love triangle even more complex.
Here's how it breaks down:
1) Kate loves Merton.
2) Merton loves Kate.
3) Milly loves Merton.
4) Milly thinks Kate doesn't love Merton.
5) Susie knows that Kate does love Merton.
6) Kate asks Merton to pretend to love Milly.
7) Aunt Maud tells Merton to really love Milly.
8) Merton thinks Milly is a nice girl and very pretty, but doesn't love her. Yet.
A couple of things could happen at this point: Merton could actually fall in love with Milly, which would certainly be awkward; Merton could con Milly into marrying him, wait until she kicks the bucket, and use her fortune to make himself marriageable in Aunt Maud's eyes, though we've seen no evidence that he'd be that calculating; Milly could find out Merton's just pursuing her out of pity, and die of hurt feelings; or something else entirely could happen. (I'd like Milly to snap and kill everyone, but then it'd be postmodern.)
The excessive description is still obnoxious. It's like James has to cover everything three times: once before it happens, when it actually happens, and then after it happens. Just the middle one would be fine with me. He's probably trying to create a sense of dramatic irony, as well as to illuminate the social and psychological aspects of his characters' decision-making, which, to be fair, is brand new and exciting in James's literary America, and is why he's a respected author. (See? See how reasoned and fair and objective that was? I'm being good.) But I don't have to like it.
*I'd like to point out that this quote is from Sir Walter Scott's Marmion, and not, in fact, Shakespeare. Because I'm here to inform the public. Be informed, public.
Monday, January 11, 2010
First do no harm.
Current book: The Wings of the Dove
Pages read: 350 (133) - 436 (219)
You know, it's not often that I find myself reading a book in which I get to the bottom of the page, pause, and go, "Wait, what?" Henry James, though - if anyone can get me to do it, he can.
Well, despite the fog of intricate syntax, I've managed to divine the following: Milly doesn't actually have feelings for Merton, though Kate thinks she does. Kate and Merton are still very much in love. Aunt Maud asks Milly to come and stay with her as a...I don't know, permanent houseguest, I guess...but Milly declines. In the meantime, Milly asks Kate to accompany her to visit a doctor and to keep the visit secret. Milly learns, from the doctor, who clearly subscribes to the "women shouldn't be told any actual information about their health" school of medicine (also known as the "misogynist bullshit" school), that she should go see everything she possibly can and live life to the fullest. Clearly, she's going to die. So, Kate knows this, but no one else does. Merton chooses this moment to return from his trip to the States, and immediately meets with Kate, soon after which she tells him that he has to go see Milly, because Milly is in love with him. Merton, rightfully so, is confused by this message (and he's not the only one), coming, as it does, from his affianced, and wants to know why he should do such a thing. Kate provides no explanation, but it seems to me that she wants him to dance attendance on Milly so that the poor girl can experience love before she snuffs it.
That's all. Again, far too many pages for this information, and lots of them consisted of long-winded description of the attitudes of various characters that would have been better delivered through action and the observation thereof than through paragraphs of narration. There's actually disconcertingly little dialogue in this novel, when you think about it.
Also, can we go back to the horrible doctor thing? Put yourself in this position: you go to your doctor, concerned that you may have a terminal disease, and he says, "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. But you should go see everything you want to see that's important, travel as much as possible, and really live life to the fullest." What would you do? Cause I'm pretty sure I'd sock him in the face and get a second opinion. Sometimes I forget how condescending the world was to women for...you know, almost all of recorded history. Also, this kind of thing is why I don't like doctors. You can't trust them. They're always telling you things like, "Your eczema is caused largely by stress. Try to relax." Sure, doc. I'll get right on that.
Pages read: 350 (133) - 436 (219)
You know, it's not often that I find myself reading a book in which I get to the bottom of the page, pause, and go, "Wait, what?" Henry James, though - if anyone can get me to do it, he can.
Well, despite the fog of intricate syntax, I've managed to divine the following: Milly doesn't actually have feelings for Merton, though Kate thinks she does. Kate and Merton are still very much in love. Aunt Maud asks Milly to come and stay with her as a...I don't know, permanent houseguest, I guess...but Milly declines. In the meantime, Milly asks Kate to accompany her to visit a doctor and to keep the visit secret. Milly learns, from the doctor, who clearly subscribes to the "women shouldn't be told any actual information about their health" school of medicine (also known as the "misogynist bullshit" school), that she should go see everything she possibly can and live life to the fullest. Clearly, she's going to die. So, Kate knows this, but no one else does. Merton chooses this moment to return from his trip to the States, and immediately meets with Kate, soon after which she tells him that he has to go see Milly, because Milly is in love with him. Merton, rightfully so, is confused by this message (and he's not the only one), coming, as it does, from his affianced, and wants to know why he should do such a thing. Kate provides no explanation, but it seems to me that she wants him to dance attendance on Milly so that the poor girl can experience love before she snuffs it.
That's all. Again, far too many pages for this information, and lots of them consisted of long-winded description of the attitudes of various characters that would have been better delivered through action and the observation thereof than through paragraphs of narration. There's actually disconcertingly little dialogue in this novel, when you think about it.
Also, can we go back to the horrible doctor thing? Put yourself in this position: you go to your doctor, concerned that you may have a terminal disease, and he says, "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. But you should go see everything you want to see that's important, travel as much as possible, and really live life to the fullest." What would you do? Cause I'm pretty sure I'd sock him in the face and get a second opinion. Sometimes I forget how condescending the world was to women for...you know, almost all of recorded history. Also, this kind of thing is why I don't like doctors. You can't trust them. They're always telling you things like, "Your eczema is caused largely by stress. Try to relax." Sure, doc. I'll get right on that.
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