The Overstory is a powerful, literary novel, shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. It sings, in part, a paean to the wonders of trees and the multitude of wonders that old-growth forests and a variety of trees brings to our world. It also mourns a tragedy: how humans relentlessly annihilate these priceless resources, and what drives some people to eco-terrorism.
The Overstory is brilliantly organized in a form that reflects an actual tree. It begins with a section aptly titled “Roots,” a set of eight apparently unconnected stories in which we meet nine disparate characters: An artist whose family home in Iowa boasts one of the last healthy American chestnut trees. The engineer daughter of a Chinese immigrant. An odd, unmotivated teenager inspired by a book about human behavior and psychology. An intellectual property attorney who falls in love with an unconventional stenographer. A Vietnam veteran who stumbles into a job planting seedlings to replace mature trees that have been cut down. A brilliant computer programmer, permanently disabled by a fall from a tree. A postdoc, hearing- and speech-impaired woman who studies trees, discovering that they communicate with each other, and is ridiculed for her conclusions. And a beautiful, careless college undergrad who dies from an accidental electrocution and returns to life with a vision and a purpose. And all of these characters have been deeply affected by trees, in one way or another.
Richard Powers traces the lives of these nine people ― often back to their childhood or even their ancestors ― to explore how they have developed into the people they are. These introductory stories of their lives are excellent and insightful; good enough that they could stand alone as individual short stories. But Powers is just getting started.
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In the next section, “Trunk,” their lives come together and begin to affect each other. Four of them become eco-warriors, part of the tree-hugging movement whose proponents will do almost anything to stop the logging and stripping of irreplaceable mature redwoods and old-growth forests. “Trunk” culminates in a terrible, unexpected event that will change their lives forever. And so we proceed to “Crown” and then the shorter, final section, “Seeds.”
The Overstory is a little bit magical realism, with messages being shared with some of the characters by some mystical source, and a little bit science fiction, as the genius computer programmer develops video games that turn into a type of artificial intelligence. But mostly Richard Powers is trying to convince us, as readers, of the wondrous nature of trees, and to treat trees, and our world generally, with deeper respect. The novel shifts its focus somewhat in the final section, with a somewhat cryptic hint that trees may well outlast humanity.
Parts of The Overstory rate five stars, easily, but personally I hit a bit of a wall with the lengthy middle section, “Trunk.” As brilliantly written as the book is, it’s also sometimes slow-paced, repetitious and didactic, as Powers delves into the evils of the corporations and groups who are indiscriminately cutting down trees and eliminating forests, and the worst of the tactics they use against those who try to oppose them. I think this novel would have benefited by being edited down by about a hundred pages and by being less overtly preachy. But Powers is clearly angry, and wants us to share that anger and be moved to take action. It may be message fiction, but this is potent stuff. Also, as Powers points out more than once, trees live very slowly compared to humans, and that is echoed in the deliberate pacing of The Overstory.
For readers already of the view that humans are doing profound damage to the ecology of our world, The Overstory will give you additional arguments and inspiration. For those more skeptical, it may cause you to reexamine some of your views. The Overstory isn’t an easy read, but it’s a powerful and persuasive work of art.
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I received a free copy from the publisher for review. Thank you!
Content notes: some, very limited adult content (language, violence, sexual situations). This isn’t a book for younger readers in any case.
Initial post: This hefty, literary book looks a little intimidating, but interesting. The Secret Life of Trees. Off we go!...more
This classic 1853 Herman Melville novella is absurd and bleak, darkly humorous and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's the first time I've read it This classic 1853 Herman Melville novella is absurd and bleak, darkly humorous and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's the first time I've read it since a college English course years ago, when I didn’t much care for it. I appreciated it much more this time around.
Bartleby is a scrivener - essentially, a human copy machine, back in the pre-Xerox days - working for a Manhattan-based lawyer who is the narrator of the tale. His co-workers: two other irritable scriveners of dubious temperament, and a office boy, identified only by their odd nicknames. Initially an industrious employee, Bartleby declines to participate in certain normal office tasks, giving no reason other than his oft-repeated mantra: "I would prefer not to." <----If you say if often and implacably enough, other people will grudgingly accept it and move on.
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But as Bartleby's reluctance to do his work expands to more and more tasks until it becomes all-consuming, his employer, though sympathetic to Bartleby's forlorn, lonely life, has to decide what to do with him.
Bartleby is an elusive work. It's partly a cry out against materialism and the dehumanizing effect of the pursuit of money (the subtitle is "A Story of Wall Street") and partly an examination of isolation and depression, but there's much more to it, and it defies easy explanation. Some observations toward the ending are heart-wrenching:
Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? ... a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.
Gah! Those last lines killed me!
And just because it's interesting, I'll share the one observation my college English professor made that has stuck with me through the years. There's a reference in the end to Bartleby sleeping "with kings and counselors" that the professor pointed out is a reference to these lines from the Bible:
"13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then would I have been at rest 14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves, 15 or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver"
Job 3:13-15 (KJV) - It's a reference not just to death, but to a certain equality men have in death, despite their differences in worldly fortunes. Food for thought, like so much of this story!...more
4.5 stars, rounding up. I read and then reread several of these stories (some of them for a third time) while I was writing my final review for Fantas4.5 stars, rounding up. I read and then reread several of these stories (some of them for a third time) while I was writing my final review for Fantasy Literature, and they keep impressing me more ... for the most part. My literary friends will be so proud of me! :D So here's the full review, where you can follow along with the journey of myself and my (severely challenged, but ultimately edified) brain cells ... [image] Ficciones is a classic collection of seventeen short stories by acclaimed Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, originally published in the 1940s in Spanish, and winner of the 1961 International Publishers Prize. These stories and mock essays are a challenging mixture of philosophy, magical realism, fantasy, ruminations on the nature of life, perception and more. There are layers of meaning and frequent allusions to historic figures, other literary works, and philosophical ideas, not readily discernable at first read. Reading Ficciones, and trying to grasp the concepts in it, was definitely the major mental workout of the year for me. My brain nearly overloaded several times, but reading some critical analyses of these works helped tremendously with my understanding and appreciation of these works … well, at least most of them.
The stories in Ficciones are divided into two parts: The first part, The Garden of Forking Paths (El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan) was originally published in 1941. The first six stories in Part Two, Artifices, were added in 1944, and the collection was named Ficciones at that time. Borges added the final three stories to Ficciones in the 1956 edition.
Part One: The Garden of Forking Paths
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” ― The narrator tells how his search for information about Uqbar, mentioned to him by a friend and found in only one edition of an encyclopedia, leads him to Uqbar’s literature about the imaginary world of Tlön, with its fantastical culture steeped in psychological and philosophical concepts. A brief taste:
The nations of that planet [Tlön] are congenitally idealist. Their language, with its derivatives ― religion, literature, and metaphysics ― presupposes idealism. For them, the world is not a concurrence of objects in space, but a heterogeneous series of independent acts. It is serial and temporal, but not spatial. There are no nouns in the hypothetical Ursprache of Tlön, which is the source of the living language and the dialects; there are impersonal verbs qualified by monosyllabic suffixes or prefixes which have the force of adverbs.
Heady stuff! This twenty page story (the longest in the book) is so abstruse and heavily laden with philosophical ideas and allusions that I found it almost completely impenetrable. It reminded me of trying to read James Joyce’s Ulysses. I was so completely lost that I’ll confess I had to put this book down and retreat to a fluffy romance while I mentally regrouped for another attack on this book. Brain cell verdict: no response. They totally shorted out on this one.
“The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim” ― This allegorical story purports to be a review of the titular novel, about the years-long pilgrimage of a law student in India, who murders a man in a riot and falls among the lowest of society. When he perceives a note of tenderness and clarity in one of these vile men, he concludes that it is the reflection of a perfect man who exists somewhere. The student embarks on a lengthy search for this man, whom he calls Al-Mu’tasim. We have met the divine and it is us. My brain cells concluded that, although some of the allusions are obscure, this tale is far more readily grasped than the first one. There is hope!
“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” ― Another story set up as a mock review of one Pierre Menard’s attempt to recreate Don Quixote ― not copy it, but study Cervantes and his world so deeply that he can write Don Quixote exactly as it was originally written. The reviewer lauds Menard’s work, which uses the identical words as Cervantes, as far richer and more profound than the original. It’s satirical in tone, but otherwise I was at a loss as to the theme and meaning of this work. The brain cells were getting restive again.
“The Circular Ruins” ― A stranger makes his way into the circle of ruins of an ancient temple, lies down and begins to dream, with great purpose: he wants to dream a man, to create a son to whom he will be the father, by imagining him in great detail. It succeeded for me as a symbol of the creative process of authors, even though I’m still wading through tricky but entrancing sentences like this:
He understood that modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task that a man could undertake, even though he should penetrate all the enigmas of a superior and inferior order; much more difficult than weaving a rope out of sand or coining the faceless wind.
It’s still a challenge, but my brain cells are starting to feel a little more hopeful. So we moved on to …
“The Lottery in Babylon” ― In the city of Babylon, a lottery morphs into an game that takes over all aspects of life in Babylon. A lucky drawing might lead you to be elevated to the council of wizards or reunite you with a long-lost love; a losing ticket might land you in jail, or get your tongue burned, or lead to infamy or death. The ubiquitous lottery seems to be a symbol of the capriciousness of chance in life and the story in general seems to be taking an ironic view of the questionable role of deity in human life. My favorite part was the sly reference to Franz Kafka in the form of the “sacred privy called Qaphqa,” where informants can leave accusations for agents of the Company that runs the lottery. The brain cells were quite amused.
“An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” ― This is another satirical review piece, purporting to review four (non-existent) works written by a (fictional) author. Borges playfully explores the labyrinth concept in different ways in each of these works. This story, frankly, didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
“The Library of Babel” ― One of Borges’ most famous stories, “The Library of Babel” posits a universe in the form of a library made out of connected hexagonal rooms, each room filled with books and the barest necessities for life. Each book contains 410 pages, with 40 lines of 80 letters each. There are 25 letters and punctuation marks in the alphabet. The Library contains every possible combination of those letters. Most of the books are complete gibberish, of course, but like the Infinite Monkey Theorem says, if you have enough monkeys banging away on typewriters for long enough, eventually they’ll write Hamlet. But life for the people dwelling in this library is profoundly frustrating, even depressing, since only a vanishingly small percentage of the books make any sense at all. Borges explores the ways that people react to this, with several nods to religion and philosophy. Mathematicians have had a field day with this book’s concept, figuring out how many books such a library would contain. Per Wikipedia’s article on this story, there would be far more books in this library (1.956 x 10 to the 1,834,097th power) than there are thought to be atoms in the observable universe (10 to the 80th power).
“The Garden of Forking Paths” ― Dr. Yu Tsun, a Chinese professor of English, is living in Great Britain during WWI. Dr. Yu is spying for Imperial Germany for a psychologically complicated reason: he wants to prove to his prejudiced German chief that a person of his race, a “yellow man,” can save the German armies. Yu discovers that an MI5 agent, Richard Madden (an Irishman who also has equivocal feelings about the nation he is serving, due to his nationality) has captured another German spy and is on the verge of finding him. Dr. Yu goes on the run. The plot is thickened by the fact that Dr. Yu has just found out the location of a new British artillery park. How can he pass that information to his German handler before he’s captured? This is the first story in this book that has a substantial plot to go along with the play of ideas; hence, I enjoyed reading it more than the previous tales. The concepts in it are not as mentally challenging, although the labyrinth imagery and philosophical conjectures resurface toward the end. Still, “The Garden of Forking Paths” was straightforward enough that my brain cells didn’t hurt too much trying to wrap themselves around the story.
Part Two: Artifices
“Funes the Memorious” ― Borges, as narrator, meets up with a young Uruguayan boy, Ireneo Funes, who has the ability to tell you exactly what time it is without looking at a clock. When Borges returns to this village three years later, Funes is now crippled from being thrown by a wild horse, but his mind is unimpaired. The narrator realizes that Funes also now has an infallible memory, with perfect recall. But the depth and detail of Funes’ memory makes it impossible for him to grasp general, abstract ideas.
To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details.
This tale was, again, a little too opaque and short on plot for me to really enjoy. The brain cells were grumbling a little.
“The Form of the Sword” ― In this story, which deals with themes of identity and betrayal, the narrator is passing through a town and asks an “Englishman” whom he meets there (actually an Irishman) about the terrible, crescent-shaped scar across his face. The Irishman tells a story of his involvement in the battle for Irish independence, and his dealings with a disagreeable, cowardly man named John Vincent Moon. There’s a twist to this tale, echoing the Irishman’s portentous comment that “[w]hat one man does is something done, in some measure, by all men.”
“Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” ― A man named Ryan researches the death of his great-grandfather, an Irish nationalist hero named Fergus Kilpatrick, who was assassinated and is now viewed as a martyr to the cause of Irish independence. Something about the manner of Fergus Kilpatrick’s death strikes Ryan as enigmatic, a series of events that are like “circular labyrinths” (that image again!), oddly echoing elements from Macbeth and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s classic tragedies of betrayal. In “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” the conceptual aspects of this tale don’t override the compelling plot, and this was one of the stories I really loved.
“Death and the Compass” ― Erik Lönnrot, a highly intellectual detective, works to solve a strange set of murders by figuring out the pattern underlying them and the clues left by the murderer, referencing the unspeakable Hebrew four-letter name for God. Lönnrot foresees a final murder, but can he prevent it? As Lönnrot explores the house where he has deduced the final murder is to occur, once again we have maze-like imagery:
On the second floor, on the top story, the house seemed to be infinite and growing. The house is not this large, he thought. It is only made larger by the penumbra, the symmetry, the mirrors, the years, my ignorance, the solitude.
This detective story had enough philosophy in it to make it intriguing and give it more depth than a typical mystery, but not overload my brain cells, which are feeling like they’re now on a roll.
“The Secret Miracle” ― A Jewish playwright is arrested by the Nazis and sentenced to die by firing squad. All he wants is the ability to finish up a play he has been working on, his masterpiece. A divine voice tells him that he will be granted the time to do this — even though he is set to die the next day. But God works in mysterious ways, and the playwright is able to weave “a lofty invisible labyrinth in time.”
“Three Versions of Judas” ― In yet another mock literary review, Borges reviews three imaginary works by Nils Runeberg about Judas, the betrayer of Christ. Borges-as-Runeberg recasts the character and nature of Judas in three different, heretical ways, including as a righteous man who knowingly accepted his role as the person who would force Jesus to declare his divinity, and even as another incarnation of God Himself. He challenges our comfortable religious views.
“The End” ― A shopkeeper, who has suffered a paralyzing stroke and is lying on a cot, sees and overhears a confrontation between a Negro man, who has been hanging around the shopkeeper’s store, playing his guitar and waiting, and a man who rides up to meet him. Their conversation makes it clear that the black man has been waiting seven years for this meeting. As mentioned in an editor’s footnote, this brief, bleak story is essentially a coda to a famous Argentine 19th century epic folk poem, “Martin Fierro,” about the life of a violent gaucho. In a famous scene in the poem, Fierro crudely provokes a black man and then kills him in the resulting knife fight. Several years later, in this story, Fierro is an aging man with some regrets for the life he has lived, and whose free and lawless gaucho way of life is passing. Once I really grasped the connection between the poem and this story, it became one of my favorites in this collection.
“The Sect of the Phoenix” ― There is a group of people in all societies and times, tied together by the Secret that they share, which Borges coyly never reveals. Is it sexual intercourse? Or perhaps more particularly, homosexual sex?
In the prologue to Artifices, Borges comments:
In the allegory of the Phoenix I imposed upon myself the problem of hinting at an ordinary fact ― the Secret ― in an irresolute and gradual manner, which, in the end, would prove to be unequivocal; I do not know how fortunate I have been. Of “The South,” which is perhaps my best story, let it suffice for me to suggest that it can be read as a direct narrative of novelistic events, and also in another way.
“The South” ― This is one of my favorite stories in this collection, as well as Borges’. The main character is Juan Dahlmann, a mixture of German and Spanish ancestry, whose life is mundane but who dreams vaguely of a more romantic life, inspired by the Flores side of his heritage and the Flores ranch in the South that he owns but has never visited. One day Dahlmann brushes his forehead against something in a dark stairway and realizes afterwards that he is bleeding. He develops a life-threatening infection and is taken to a sanitarium for treatment. After many excruciatingly painful and feverish days, he recovers, and decides that he will take a trip to his ranch to convalesce. He travels out of the city on a train, feeling as though he is traveling into the past, and has an unexpected confrontation as he nears his final destination. Or does he? You decide, but several clues in the text ― a mysterious cat, a spitball that brushes his face, a dagger tossed to him by an old gaucho ― have led me unequivocally to my own conclusion. The brain cells, by the way, were completely engaged by this tale, which was complex and layered enough to make me think, but didn’t lose me in a labyrinth of difficult-to-grasp ideas.
Repeated labyrinth imagery, scenes of deception, and challenges to our perceptions of what is real echo throughout the stories of Ficciones. These stories are often elusive, twisting out of your grasp or revealing unexpected depths just when you think you’ve got a handle on them. Even the lightest stories have several layers and hidden meanings to unpack. If you’re interested in philosophical ideas and are up for a literary challenge, I highly recommend Ficciones. The 1962 English translation by Anthony Kerrigan and other translators is excellent....more
I read "The Story of an Hour," written in 1894, with my real-life book club, and we had an interesting discussion about the themes in this story and sI read "The Story of an Hour," written in 1894, with my real-life book club, and we had an interesting discussion about the themes in this story and similar ones in some other stories we read at the same time, like The Yellow Wall-Paper. Kate Chopin, a US author, was one of the earliest feminist authors.
Louise Mallard, a young wife with heart trouble, has just been told by her sister that Louise's husband was killed in a terrible train accident. She weeps wild and abandoned tears, then goes to her room and shuts herself away, to contemplate her life and what lies before her now. And what comes to her, I think, surprises even her.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Louise begins to realize that now she can live for herself, not bending to someone else who, even if lovingly, was imposing his will on her. It's a freedom that she never thought she would have. Louise runs the gamut of emotions in just a single hour of her life.
It's worth reading, and it's free online here. It's a good lesson about loving others without trying to manipulate and mold them, without regard to what they really might want and might be afraid to say....more
$1.99 Kindle sale, April 17, 2021. This enigmatic literary fiction novel does a great job of playing with perceptions. I pulled out this short Booker $1.99 Kindle sale, April 17, 2021. This enigmatic literary fiction novel does a great job of playing with perceptions. I pulled out this short Booker Prize novel one night, thinking I'd just read a bit to get a feel for it, to know what to tell my book club about it, since I needed to suggest a choice of 4 or 5 books to my book club the next day for their vote. A few hours later I finished the book, moved but a little bewildered.
In the first fifty pages the narrator, Tony, tells of some events in his high school and college days: a group of rather pretentious friends (who, for the most part, play at being intellectuals), a relationship with a girl, Veronica, that didn't work out, a friend's suicide, marriage, divorce, retirement ... it sounds pretty pedestrian when he tells about it, though Julian Barnes has a wonderful way with words.
Then the next hundred pages happen: a bequest in a will. A short, enigmatic note from the woman who died. A renewed acquaintance with Veronica. More surprises. And everything that Tony—and I as the reader—thought got upended. You need to rethink and reinterpret everything you’ve read/been told by Tony(view spoiler)[, who is NOT a reliable narrator (hide spoiler)].
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.
Some readers dislike Tony enough that it dampens or ruins their enjoyment of the book, but I had a great deal of sympathy for him.
I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded — and how pitiful that was.
But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but we were only being cowardly.
I've felt those feelings.
This blog has one writer's explanation of what was really happening, and an extremely long but intensely interesting comment section where various readers chip in with their theories and insights, which gave me a lot of food for thought. (view spoiler)[How unreliable of a narrator is Tony? Can we even trust what he says in the end? I tend to think so, at the very end, but I think it's clear that, at the least, he's still oblivious about some things, like how Veronica felt about him when they were dating. The comments that gave me the most food for thought were the ones that suggested he, too, had a fling with Veronica's mother, and was the actual father of her child. I don't think I buy it, ultimately, but ... (hide spoiler)]
So much food for thought ... and debate ... in this one!
Content notes: Scattered F-bombs and some sexual content....more
"The South"* is perhaps my favorite story from this collection, as well as Borges’ himself. In the prologue to Artifices, Borges comments:
Of “The Sout
"The South"* is perhaps my favorite story from this collection, as well as Borges’ himself. In the prologue to Artifices, Borges comments:
Of “The South,” which is perhaps my best story, let it suffice for me to suggest that it can be read as a direct narrative of novelistic events, and also in another way.
The main character is Juan Dahlmann, a mixture of German and Spanish ancestry, whose life is mundane but who dreams vaguely of a more romantic life, inspired by the Flores side of his heritage and the Flores ranch in the South that he owns but has never visited.
One day Dahlmann brushes his forehead against something in a dark stairway and realizes afterwards that he is bleeding. He develops a life-threatening infection and is taken to a sanitarium for treatment. After many excruciatingly painful and feverish days, he recovers, and decides that he will take a trip to his ranch to convalesce. He travels out of the city on a train, feeling as though he is traveling into the past, and has an unexpected confrontation as he nears his final destination. Or does he? You decide, but several clues in the text ― a mysterious cat (view spoiler)[symbolic of eternity (hide spoiler)], a spitball that brushes his face (view spoiler)[echoing his initial injury in the stairwell (hide spoiler)], a dagger tossed to him by an old gaucho, and some other clues ― have led me unequivocally to my own conclusion.
I was completely engaged by this tale, which was complex and layered enough to make me think, but didn’t lose me in a labyrinth of difficult-to-grasp ideas. This isn't the most philosophical of Borges' short stories, but I think it's one of the most accessible ones and, thankfully, it has an actual plot!
*This used to be a review space just for "The South" but a Goodreads editor, in their infinite wisdom, moved it to this collection as part of a general effort to get rid of review spaces for individual short works that appear in collections. I've read a number of the stories in this collection, though - see my Ficciones review....more
I read "The Library of Babel," one of Jorge Luis Borges’ most famous stories, as part of the Ficciones collection. “The Library of Babel” posits a uniI read "The Library of Babel," one of Jorge Luis Borges’ most famous stories, as part of the Ficciones collection. “The Library of Babel” posits a universe in the form of a library made out of connected hexagonal rooms, each room filled with books and the barest necessities for life. Each book contains 410 pages, with 40 lines of 80 letters each. There are 25 letters and punctuation marks in the alphabet. The Library contains every possible combination of those letters. Most of the books are complete gibberish, of course, but like the Infinite Monkey Theorem says, if you have enough monkeys banging away on typewriters for long enough (i.e., infinite time and infinite monkeys), eventually they’ll write Hamlet.
But life for the people dwelling in this library is profoundly frustrating, even depressing, since only a vanishingly small percentage of the books make any sense at all. Borges explores the ways that people might react to this, with several nods to religion and philosophy. There's not any real plot to this story; it feels more like an essay or an intellectual exercise ("How would people react if...").
Mathematicians have had a field day with this book’s concept, figuring out how many books such a library would contain. Per Wikipedia’s article on this story, there would be far more books in this library (1.956 x 10 to the 1,834,097th power) than there are thought to be atoms in the observable universe (10 to the 80th power). It's mind-boggling.
But this story is not so much about the numbers, as about what it would be like to live in this intriguing but highly frustrating world.
This is a collection of stories by noted author Irwin Shaw (author of Rich Man, Poor Man, The Young Lions, and numerous shorts published in magazines This is a collection of stories by noted author Irwin Shaw (author of Rich Man, Poor Man, The Young Lions, and numerous shorts published in magazines like The New Yorker). New York City, in fact, seems to be a favorite setting of Shaw's.
These stories, written between 1935 and 1960, deal with the human condition. They tend to be grim and are more than a bit existential, but they're definitely insightful and thought-provoking. I like reading this type of stuff in short stories: it give me a hit in the heart, but I'm not up to a whole novel's worth of unhappiness.
"The Eight-Yard Run" - 5* You know those people who were big shots in high school or college, and everything since has been downhill for them? It's always sad (if a little vindicating for those of us who weren't so popular back then) to see them at class reunions. This is about a former college football player whose life peaked with one magnificent run in a college game.
"Main Currents of American Thought" - 3* A day in the life of a harried radio screenwriter (which definitely dates this story to the 1930s). Debts and job and family pressures are really getting to the poor guy.
"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" - 4.5* I think I read this one in a college lit class years ago. Michael has been married to a lovely, and loving, woman for five years, but like a little boy in a candy store, he just can't stop scoping out other women. His wife finally has had enough of his constant ogling, and they have it out. Whew! The last line of the story is a killer.
"Sailor off the Bremen" - 2.5* A demonstration on a ship against the Nazi regime (by a group of communists!) leads to one of the demonstrators getting beat up, losing some of his teeth and being blinded in one eye. Revenge is plotted by his wife, brother and friend. It's interesting that this was written in 1939, just before the Nazis began their military invasions.
"Welcome to the City" - 3.5* It's a pretty cold welcome when you're a poor, struggling actor or actress, even when you look just like Greta Garbo (except with the jagged, ruined teeth that poverty brings). I could almost smell the crappy, cheap hotel where this story is set.
"Weep in Years to Come" - 3* A little slice of life, as a man planning to sign up for combat in WWII strolls around NYC with his girlfriend.
"Search Through the Streets of the City" - 4* Paul meets his old girlfriend Harriet shopping in NYC. Harriet's now married (and pregnant) and Paul gradually realizes the mistake he made in letting her go. "I didn't realize I was looking for you until I saw you."
The middle set of stories -- "Night, Birth and Opinion," "The City Was in Total Darkness," "Hamlets of the World," "Walking Wounded," "Gunner's Passage," "Medal from Jerusalem," and "Act of Faith" -- all deal with WWII from one point of view or another, usually from the soldiers and other military personnel. They're gritty and interesting in that they're written concurrently with the war, so it feels highly realistic and there's an immediacy to these tales. Shaw definitely writes well and insightfully, but frankly this part was a bit of a slog for me. The most interesting story in this group was "Medal from Jerusalem," about an American man's affair with a Jewish woman who escaped the Holocaust, and the story she tells him one night.
There were about ten more stories from the post-war era, some tedious ("The Climate of Insomnia"), some poignant ("The Sunny Banks of the River Lethe," about a man slowly succumbing to dementia). The most memorable stories for me were "Mixed Doubles," where a woman evaluates and reevaluates her feelings her husband as they play a tennis match, and one of my favorite stories in the entire book, "The Green Nude," about a Russian painter who repeatedly outrages society with his occasional "decadent" and "subversive" green nude paintings that he comes out with every few years (in between he paints very normal portraits and still life paintings), when all he's really doing is subconsciously exorcising his anger toward his domineering wife. It's bitterly humorous about society and politics.
Shaw was a great, if quite cynical, observer of humanity, and his stories have some telling insights into what makes us tick.
Halfway through my 2016 Classics Bingo challenge: 12 down, 12 to go!...more
Anna, a paramedic in her late 30s, finds out that she has early-onset Alzheimer's. When it becomes too severe and endangers the people she loves, she Anna, a paramedic in her late 30s, finds out that she has early-onset Alzheimer's. When it becomes too severe and endangers the people she loves, she moves into Rosalind House, a small assisted living center. There she meets Luke, who's also in his late 30s and has a type of frontotemporal dementia that affects his speech. As they get to know each other, Anna eventually finds to her surprise that she still has reasons to live. But others around them, particularly Anna's brother, her guardian, aren't at all sure that their relationship should be allowed to continue.
Anna and Luke's story is interspersed with Eve's, a once-wealthy young widow whose life has fallen apart (for more reasons than her husband's suicide). Eve is now working as a cook/cleaning lady at Rosalind House, trying desperately to keep her daughter Clementine in the same school by using the facility's address as their own.
The story alternates between the present and the past (starting sixteen months ago, when Anna first moved to Rosalind House, and slowly moving forward), and between three narrators: Anna, who is gradually losing her memory; Eve, who befriends Anna and tries to help her; and 7 year old Clem, who is hiding fears and troubles of her own.
Sally Hepworth effectively shows Anna's point of view: the searching for words that have been lost, the lack of recognition of familiar faces, the confusion, the frustrations, the suicidal thoughts.
"I'm sorry," I say. I concentrate on my words to make sure this comes out right. "It sounds horrible, what you said. I know I'm . . . not getting things right anymore, I'm getting confused and doing strange things. But I'm . . ." I pause to wipe my face. "I'm still here. It's just--you have to look a little longer and harder to find me."
Eve and her daughter, as well as Anna, have experienced a traumatic loss. Though their losses seem very different on the surface, Hepworth effectively draws out the similarities and ties between their stories. The things that we can keep in spite of these losses--self-worth, independence, and especially love--are of vital importance, no matter what our situation.
"When you get to my age," he says, his face softening, "you don't waste time with regrets. In the end, you just remember the moments of joy. When all is said and done, those are the things we keep."
It's hard for me to define this moving novel: it's got some romance, some interpersonal drama, and some sentimentality, but it shouldn't be solely defined by any of these things. It's well worth reading, and a poignant reminder of the bonds that connect all of us.
Content advisory: A few scattered F-bombs and non-explicit sexual scenes.
Many thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for a free copy of this book for review....more
What a genius story! I read four classic short stories back to back one night in a "great short stories" reading binge, and this one was by far my favWhat a genius story! I read four classic short stories back to back one night in a "great short stories" reading binge, and this one was by far my favorite of the four. (They were all online freebies; there's a good link for this one below.) This is a memorable tale that has stuck with me.
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During the U.S. Civil War, Peyton Farquhar, a southern gentleman and a Confederate sympathizer, is being summarily hanged to death on Owl Creek Bridge by Union forces, after trying to sabotage the bridge. Unexpectedly the rope breaks! and he's off on a desperate swim and run, trying to evade recapture. This is a well-known story and short film, and if you haven't read it yet you really need to do that before reading many reviews, because spoilers are almost impossible to avoid and you really don't want to be spoiled if you don't know the ending yet.
After you've read it once, I strongly recommend that you reread it, to see how many clues Bierce gives you (view spoiler)[about what's really happening: Farquhar's feeling like he's swinging on a pendulum, the dreamy yet oddly vivid and detailed imagery of his escape, and the physical details -- like his swollen tongue and eyes -- that indicate what is actually happening to Farquhar's physical body while he hallucinates (hide spoiler)]. I was completely fascinated by the dual nature of Bierce's storytelling.
It's free online many places, including here at www.ambrosebierce.org. Read this unannotated version here, and then read the annotated version here right after that (you have to browse through or skip some notes, a bibliography, and another unannotated version of the story first). The annotated version has a truly fantastic section-by-section analysis and compilation of critical commentary that gave me a lot of additional insights.
Here's some of the most interesting analysis that I saw there, if you're interested in a deeper dive. The biggest spoilers are tagged, but proceed at your own risk:
Part I: • Notice that this first part of the story is told in clear, concise, abrupt sentences, fitting the military setting and the summary punishment being dealt out here. • Some of the narrator's language describing Farquhar is a little sardonic (e.g., "Evidently this was no vulgar assassin."), perhaps indicating that the narrator doesn't really view Farquhar as much of a gentleman or as particularly intelligent. • As the point of view slips into Farquhar's inner perceptions, notice how the language changes to become more emotional and unreal. • Notice how the ticking of his watch seems "as slow as the tolling of a death knell." His subjective view of time is stretching(view spoiler)[, a hint that the time that his later escape seems to take may be much longer than the time that's actually passing (hide spoiler)].
Part II: • This part flashes back to describe what happened before the scene at the bridge. Reading it carefully, you can see some more suggestions -- often using ironic language -- that Farquhar isn't quite the hero or gentleman that he might at first seem: he's a slave owner (which is his primary reason for supporting the Confederacy, not more noble feelings like patriotism), he somehow avoided military service, he "in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war." • Note the twist at the end of this section(view spoiler)[, foreshadowing the later twist at the end of the story (hide spoiler)].
Part III: • As Farquhar fell, he felt like "he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum." (view spoiler)[Of course he actually is swinging from the rope that's hanging him. (hide spoiler)] • He feels himself rising to the surface of the river (view spoiler)[but it's probably just the jerk and lift as he hits the end of the rope and bounces upward (hide spoiler)]. • All of the strangely clear details Farquhar notices are a hint (view spoiler)[that he's hallucinating. (hide spoiler)] • Somehow he sees, through a rifle scope, a shooter's grey eye staring at him. Since he himself has grey eyes, this implies that he's subconsciously seeing himself(view spoiler)[, and that he himself caused his own death (hide spoiler)]. • As he walks through the night toward his home, his neck is in terrible pain, his eyes are congested and can no longer close, his tongue is swollen and sticking out, he can't even feel the road beneath his feet...
A few weeks ago I noticed that a couple of my GR friends, karen and Mary Beth, had both read and reviewed this collection of short stories and given iA few weeks ago I noticed that a couple of my GR friends, karen and Mary Beth, had both read and reviewed this collection of short stories and given it highly positive reviews. I was all, "Hey! I love short stories!" even though since finishing my English B.A. the vast majority of the short stories I've read have been of the SF/fantasy variety. So I brashly sent a PM to the author, Jacob Appel, asking him if he'd be interested in sending me his book for review, and he very kindly said yes, and sent me an honest-to-goodness paperback copy rather than the ebook I was expecting, which is just one more thing that endeared him to me.
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
-- Erma Bombeck
The eight stories in this collection explore this thin line, and the humor and pain in the lives and the relationships of ordinary people. Sometimes I would be smiling right up to the time the story gave me a gut punch of despair. In other stories I could feel hope shining through the pain. All of the stories were thought-provoking and disturbed my complacence.
"Hue and Cry" - Two teenage girls: one audacious and reckless, the other anxious to please her friend. A sex offender in the neighborhood. Vocally incensed neighbors. A dying father trying to teach his daughter about forgiveness. The pieces add up to both less and more than you might expect.
"La Tristesse Des Herissons" (the sadness of hedgehogs) - a man and his live-in girlfriend adopt a hedgehog, Orion, which promptly develops depression and other mental conditions--or does it?--that the girlfriend insists on having treated by a very expensive specialist. The boyfriend thinks this is ridiculous but is (mostly) biting his tongue because his girlfriend is so wrapped up in this. A little transference? One of the funniest stories in the book, but it was killing me at the same time.
"Strings" - Beware of former lovers asking favors. The ending of this story was a paradigm-shifter. So good.
"Limerance" - An ode to the girl who got away, who was never really the boy's at all, who probably would have been terrible for the boy if she'd ever given him the time of day. A great exploration of teenage relationships and unrequited crushes.
Einstein's Beach House" - Another tragicomedy, or comical tragedy. A family claims to be living in a beach house once owned by Albert Einstein, and then everything gets upended. I'm still a little confused about what really happened here...
"The Rod of Asclepius" - A 6 year old daughter accompanies her widowed father as he seeks revenge for his wife's death.
What my six-year-old self doesn't realize then, though it is clear to me now, is that this may be the first time my father has left our apartment in several months, that I am witnessing the man emerge from a winter-long twilight of raw anger... "Are you ready to change the world, princess?" he asks. At that moment, I am suddenly persuaded that the world does indeed require changing, that the entire cosmos yearns for radical transformation.
Heartbreaking in so many ways.
"Sharing the Hostage" - More animal humor, as a desert tortoise named Fred becomes the center of attention between a divorcing couple and the wife's new boyfriend. Orion and Fred would get along well, I think. Fred is a placid soul who would probably help even out Orion's jags.
"Paracosmos" - Imaginary friends can become a little too real. Or are they real?
Jacob Appel's stories are well-written and touching. I highly recommend this book to readers who appreciate tragi-comical stories that raise questions with no easy answers.
ETA: After thinking about this for several more days, I realized that these stories are really sticking with me. That's one of my main criteria for a 5-star read, so I'm upping my rating from 4 stars to 5. These stories won't be everyone's cuppa tea, but those who like this type of literature will really love them.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know thThey all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there.
This 1973 Hugo Award-winning fantasy short story is extremely short, and online, and this review will contain some spoilers, so if you haven't read this already, I strongly recommend that you take 5 or 10 minutes right now and do so here. I will wait.
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**Random trivia while we're waiting: Le Guin said that the name Omelas came from seeing a road sign for Salem, Oregon, in a car mirror.**
Ready? The story begins with an idyllic description of the lovely, joyous city of Omelas, "bright-towered by the sea." The air is clear, young people play and race horses, there's lots of food, non-habit-forming drugs if you want them, guilt-free sex if you want it. Whatever is wonderful, it must be part of Omelas. Everyone is SO HAPPY.
[image] We're so happy you're so happy!
But there's something just a little bit artificial, perhaps overanxious, even a smidge desperate, about our narrator's description of Omelas. And then the narrator, supposedly in an effort to make the listener believe in this utopian place, finally tells of the one thing that is ugly and despicable about Omelas.
Consider this question:
Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a [utopian] world ... and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?
And then you wonder: Would I also rationalize that the happiness of a whole city is worth the terrible misery of one innocent child? Would I try to comfort myself with the thought that trying to fix it wouldn't really work anyway? Or would I walk away? And is walking away good enough?
And in what ways do we already do this in our own lives, going along with the crowd despite our qualms or hesitations, or thinking that the end justifies the means in some questionable case? When the choice is as stark as it is in this story, it might be easy to think, I would never--but would we? And in what more obscure ways do we?...more
I try to mix up my reading diet, including some more literary and thought-provoking reading along with F&SF and brain candy romances. William FaulknerI try to mix up my reading diet, including some more literary and thought-provoking reading along with F&SF and brain candy romances. William Faulkner is always good for a mental workout, and his short story "Barn Burning" is free online here.
I studied two Faulkner short stories in college, this one and A Rose for Emily. "Barn Burning" doesn't have quite the shocking impact that "A Rose for Emily" does, but it is a profound and moving story of an impressionable young boy living in the South during the post-Civil War period. He's burdened, or perhaps uplifted, by his given name of "Colonel Sartoris Snopes," or "Sarty" for short. Colonel Sartoris was a Civil War hero and a symbol for truth and justice. But the "Snopes" part of his name reflects his low class, degenerate family. So, Sarty's full name epitomizes his internal conflict between his yearning for beauty and honor and justice, and his desire to be accepted by his family, especially his cruel, grim, mean-minded father.
As the story begins, Sarty's father has been hauled before a Justice of the Peace in a small town, accused of setting fire to a richer man's barn. In rural 19th century society, losing your barn and all of its contents would have a devastating effect on a person's livelihood. The Justice lacks sufficient evidence to find Abner Snopes guilty, but warns him to leave the county. The family does leave, but they carry their troubles along with them, particularly inside of Abner Snopes' vindictive, jealous heart. And as the title suggests, it's only a matter of time before his hatred of those who have more than him leads to another barn burning.
Faulkner's tendency to use long, complex, layered sentences is on full display in this story. Here, for example, is the second sentence of the story:
The boy, crouched on his nail keg at the back of the crowded room, knew he smelled cheese, and more: from where he sat he could see the ranked shelves close-packed with the solid, squat, dynamic shapes of tin cans whose labels his stomach read, not from the lettering which meant nothing to his mind but from the scarlet devils and the silver curve of fish - this, the cheese which he knew he smelled and the hermetic meat which his intestines believed he smelled coming in intermittent gusts momentary and brief between the other constant one, the smell and sense just a little of fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood.
It's a mouthful, but it tells you so much about Sarty's confusion, his hunger, his despair, and the pull of his family ties.
I love Faulkner's imagery and the way he uses words and symbolism to build tension:
[T]he element of fire spoke to some deep mainspring of his father's being, as the element of steel or of powder spoke to other men, as the one weapon for the preservation of integrity, else breath were not worth the breathing . . .
Faulkner's words pull me into Sarty's head and heart, and made me feel both the tragedy and the hope in his life. Highly recommended....more
An amazing book! East of Eden, a 1952 novel by John Steinbeck, is a long, sprawling, sometimes slow but often very intense read. Steinbeck considered An amazing book! East of Eden, a 1952 novel by John Steinbeck, is a long, sprawling, sometimes slow but often very intense read. Steinbeck considered it his magnum opus. It begins at the turn of the century in Connecticut, telling about the difficult childhood of Adam Trask and the pains and troubles caused him by his half-brother Charles. Adam meets and marries Cathy Ames, whom he blindly loves, but who is a truly evil, completely self-centered woman at heart.
They move out to the Salinas Valley in California, where they have twin sons, Aron and Cal ... and the Cain and Abel motif repeats itself in a second generation. Cathy abandons her young family and heads off to (secretly) be a prostitute in a nearby town, adopting the name of Kate. Aron and Cal grow to be young men: Cal is wild and reckless, Aron dependable and good-hearted, always believing the best of others.
To make things even more complicated Steinbeck weaves in a storyline about the Samuel Hamilton family, Irish immigrants ... and Steinbeck's actual ancestors.
So often, Steinbeck's insightful comments on a person or a situation struck me deeply; he has a marvelous way with words. He also has a gift for writing complex and conflicted characters, though it's not always exercised fully, especially with some of his female characters. However, Abra, Aron's girlfriend, is a wonderful character, especially in her resistance to Aron's false idealization of her and her parents' focus on social position and wealth.
The Cain and Abel theme, reflected in the reoccurring C & A pairs, which shows up with Adam and Charles and resurfaces in the second generation with Aron and Cal, was fascinating: not just the good and evil dichotomy (though the evil is mixed with some good, and is often more just human weakness), but also other echoes of the original Biblical story. For example, the Cain characters work with farming and the land, like the original Cain; Abel was a shepherd and Aron wants to be a priest (a spiritual shepherd), and so on. I loved how Steinbeck humanizes the Cain characters and emphasizes how we all have a choice in how we act and react to events in our lives.
"The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel--'Thou mayest'--that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'--it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' "
I really enjoyed how Steinbeck wove his own family history into the pages of this book:
[image] Samuel Hamilton, the prophetic Irishman and Steinbeck's grandfather
[image] Olive Hamilton Steinbeck (Steinbeck's mother) and her famous -- and crazy! -- airplane ride
My favorite character was Lee, the Chinese servant of the Trask family. He grows from hiding behind his queue and pidgin English (he actually can speak excellent English) to full acceptance of himself. He gives sound advice to the various Trask family members, and loves them with all their faults. He is the best, and I really wish he were a real person as well. (Cathy/Kate, on the other hand: though she was an intriguing character, I'm glad to leave her and her psychopathic ways in the pages of this novel!)
This novel is not without its flaws. It tries to do so much that it's a bit fragmented, and it sometimes veers toward heavy-handedness and melodrama. But overall it's such an amazing and profoundly moving work. No question: it gets all the stars!
I picked up this collection of ten Ernest Hemingway short stories when I was looking for Literature (with a capital L) to suggest to my real-life bookI picked up this collection of ten Ernest Hemingway short stories when I was looking for Literature (with a capital L) to suggest to my real-life book club for its monthly read (whoever is hosting book club that month is responsible for nominating 5 or 6 books, and then everyone in attendance votes). Poor Hemingway was a no-vote-getter; North and South won in a landslide. But since (a) I'd already brought this book home from the library, (b) I like short stories, and (c) I felt like I needed to add more Hemingway to my life than the one or two short stories I'd read in the past, I decided to read this book anyway.
These stories were written in the 1920s and 1930s. Ernest was a good-looking guy when he was young: [image]
Maybe his good looks and intelligence and talent made it more difficult for him to be happy and satisfied in life; I don't know. In any case, he lived an adventurous and problematic life (he was married four times, had any number of affairs, and committed suicide at age 61 due to serious illness).
Hemingway had a somewhat unique and testosterone-soaked code of honor in which dignity and courage were the paramount virtues, and that comes through pretty clearly in most of these stories. They're chock-full of violence and brutality and various types of unpleasantness:
* detailed, brutal scenes of hunting on an African safari in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" * a man dying of an infected leg in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" * a fixed (or is it?) boxing match in "Fifty Grand" * hit men on the prowl in "The Killers" * men suffering both physical and mental war wounds in ... several stories.
The women characters in these stories are of the ball-and-chain variety and/or actively predatory and cruel; the first and last stories in particular have some really nasty relationship issues. Some of the stories are so slice-of-life that I'm not sure what their point was.
It would be very easy, especially in our day and age, to be dismissive of his stories. I can't say that the values espoused in them really speak to me in any profound or moving way.
And yet there's something in these stories, often below the surface of his simply-told tales, that has worked its way into my head and pokes at me and my comfortable life. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is, at least in part, a cautionary story about using your talents and not letting life pass you by because it's easier to say "I'll do that sometime later." These stories have made me think a little harder about being, and doing, what is important to me, even if they're not the same things that Hemingway thought were important....more
Interesting little bit of philosophical musing in a SciFi wrapper, about what happens in the afterlife and What It All Really Means. I don't think theInteresting little bit of philosophical musing in a SciFi wrapper, about what happens in the afterlife and What It All Really Means. I don't think the point is whether you agree with the total ideology, as much as whether it makes you think a little harder about living the Golden Rule more fully.(view spoiler)[ I also like the "gods in embryo" concept. Actually, I totally thought that it was going to be revealed at the end that the two characters talking are really the same person (you know, through time travel) at different points in his life cycle, so the ending surprised me a little. (hide spoiler)]
Grendel, the famous monster from Beowulf, tells his side of the story here. Philosophies clash, along with monsters and men. [image]
This story of GrenGrendel, the famous monster from Beowulf, tells his side of the story here. Philosophies clash, along with monsters and men. [image]
This story of Grendel, told from his point of view, is an unusual amalgamation of Grendel's stream-of-consciousness thought (which becomes more clear and organized as Grendel grows and develops) about his loneliness and self-centeredness, his attempts to make sense of the world, and his cruelty and hatred toward men, while being drawn to them at the same time. Grendel watches the Danes at Heorot at night, eyeing the old king, his young wife and family, and his thanes (warriors), and listening to the heroic songs sung by a bard.
Grendel seems to toy with different philosophies: nihilism, religion, existentialism, and solipsism all seem to be part of his worldview at different times in the story. It helps - a lot - if you're familiar with these and other philosophies. I'm really not; the only reason I can throw all those words around in my review is because I've been doing a little studying the past few days and reading some of the analyses of this book. :D I could tell a lot of the writing was going over my head. More erudite readers than I will probably get a lot more out of this book than I did.
It will also help if you're familiar with Beowulf, or at least the first part of that old poem. I re-read it (well, the first 40% of it) in preparation for reading Grendel, and being familiar not only with the plot and the characters, but with the way people spoke and thought back then, was tremendously valuable in helping to understand and appreciate this book. [image] But I still think that knowing more about various philosophical ways of thought would have been even more helpful.
One cool thing was that each of the twelve chapters of this book takes as its theme the signs of the zodiac. A ram appears in the first chapter, a bull in the second. In the third chapter (Gemini) there is talk of animal twins and a two-headed beast, along with more symbolic discussion of double-talk and the bard's creation of a second (and false) reality through his songs. Along with re-emphasizing the cyclical reality of Grendel's life and life in general, it was just plain fun to track how each zodiac sign appeared and was handled in the text. It helped to amuse me when I was getting bored with the philosophical discussions. I'm kind of simple that way.
I feel a little guilty for giving this book three stars.* It's a brilliant book in a lot of ways; I appreciate it but I just didn't particularly love it. If this sounds like it might be your cuppa tea, though, I strongly encourage you to read it.
* ETA: A funny thing happened. A week or so after finishing it, Grendel is still creeping around in my thoughts, lurking in corners and jumping out occasionally to surprise me. And his final words continue to haunt me. So I've decided it deserves 4 stars.
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Content advisory: Lots of violence (it's Grendel, people). One or two F-bombs. Some crude sexual talk....more
It took me over a month to work my way through this third novel in Dorothy Dunnett's challenging Lymond series. It's lengthy and complex historical fiIt took me over a month to work my way through this third novel in Dorothy Dunnett's challenging Lymond series. It's lengthy and complex historical fiction novel, and there were more than a few detours for me along the way (I was easily distracted by other books in the early stages, but that was my fault as much as this book's). But once again, as the story started moving toward its climactic scenes, and events got more and more exciting and gripping, and the pieces started to fall into place and answers to surface, I was totally sucked in.
It's the 1560's, and Francis Lymond, who is too talented and observant for his own good, is sent by the King of France to the island of Malta, which is in the control of the religious order of the Knights of Malta. Immediately he's surrounded by political and religious intriguing for power, which takes a break (or does it?) when the island is attacked by a Turkish force. From there the action moves to Tripoli (more battles and intrigue, and a truly nail-biting scene with attempting to defuse a bomb) and then back to Scotland, where Lymond forms a private army and continues his life-or-death battle with an opponent who is subtle beyond belief.
The sometimes excessive flowery language and use of random and obscure quotations (more often than not in a foreign language, untranslated of course; Dunnett isn't one for coddling her readers), which was a major issue for me in the first book and somewhat less in the second, has been toned down a lot, making this book much more readable. This is still a challenging read, however, with lots of different personalities to keep track of, political and family conflicts to understand, and layers of complexity and deception to unravel. It challenged my brain, and occasionally frustrated me, but in the end I can only say that this was incredibly awesome.
Content notes: Fair warning: There’s a significant subplot involving a (view spoiler)[promiscuous and devious (hide spoiler)] teenage girl that’s seriously off-putting to our modern view. It makes some sense in the end, but it was rough sledding.
Also, huge spoilers in the discussion thread below, mostly unmarked. Read the thread at your own risk....more
The island of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The late 1850s. [image]
Hero Hollis, an orphaned young American woman with a large fortune, aThe island of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The late 1850s. [image]
Hero Hollis, an orphaned young American woman with a large fortune, an overabundance of self-confidence and a determination to rid the world of all its evils, sails to Zanzibar to join her relatives for an extended stay. This is the heyday of the slave trade in Africa, and Zanzibar is at the center of the slave trade. Hero is washed overboard in a storm and, luckily, is picked up by Captain Rory Frost, whose ship smuggles guns and other contraband . . . which has included slaves. And so begins the love-hate relationship between the self-righteous crusader Hero and the independent British captain, who breaks all rules except his own.
Hero was a hard character to identify with. She's so completely certain that she's right that she barges ahead and often ends up doing far more damage than good. Part of this book is her journey toward self-awareness, but it takes a good long while for her to get there.
Unless you love the (seriously) bad boys and the anti-heroes, Rory is even more difficult to accept than Hero. He's done some coldhearted things in his life. Things come to a head eventually with a scene that's a deal-breaker for many readers (serious spoilers here): (view spoiler)[Rory kidnaps and deliberately rapes Hero. He has his reasons; they're understandable, especially given the circumstances, the culture and his character, but clearly these don't justify the deed in any way. There's no real question that their first time together is a rape, and not a forced seduction, although the bedroom door is firmly closed. The second is more mutual, though he's still taking advantage of her. The question is, after this happens, and given Rory Frost's character in general, can you bring yourself to accept that the two eventually fall in love? (hide spoiler)]
The more I thought about this, and tried to figure out if there was any way to accept (view spoiler)[their eventual romantic relationship (hide spoiler)], the more muddled I felt.
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In a weird way I wanted to be able to accept it, or at least believe that people could accept it--I like to believe in HEAs and all--but I invariably kept circling back to the idea that ultimately, there are some things that are just not to be tolerated. Some behavior goes too far. Your mileage may vary.
Aside from this extremely problematic part of the plot, there is a lot to appreciate in Trade Wind. M.M. Kaye is great at exploring the history of other cultures, giving respect to different ways of life and viewpoints, and evoking the feel for what it would have been really like to live through some turbulent times in history. She gives a more nuanced view of the problems with eradicating slavery than I previously was aware of . . . maybe a little too nuanced, as she almost justified it in some circumstances. Maybe she was just trying to get the reader inside of the heads of those who were part of this culture.
This is a well-researched, complex and fascinating novel, but it’s really problematic, and I had too many issues with it to really love it. A soft 3 stars....more
As a college English major, I studied Beowulf without any great enthusiasm; my real love was for the Romantic poets. And Chaucer, but that might have As a college English major, I studied Beowulf without any great enthusiasm; my real love was for the Romantic poets. And Chaucer, but that might have been partly because I thought it was hilarious that we were studying such bawdy material at BYU. Plus you can still puzzle out The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English, with the help of a few handy annotations, while Beowulf in the original Old English--other than the immortal (at least in my mind) line "Bēowulf is mīn nama"--is beyond anyone but scholars, and it loses something in translation.
So I cheerfully forgot about Beowulf until I was puttering around in Barnes and Noble one day, and came across Seamus Heaney's recent translation. I read his foreword and was absolutely entranced by its brilliance. Heaney tosses off phrases like "the poem possesses a mythic potency" and talks about the "three archetypal sites of fear: the barricaded night-house, the infested underwater current, and the reptile-haunted rocks of a wilderness." He discusses how we are enveloped "in a society that is at once honour-bound and blood-stained, presided over by the laws of the blood-feud." And he explains in detail how he went about creating a new translation of the poem and the difficulty of finding the right voice:
A simple sentence such as "We cut the corn to-day" took on immense dignity when one of [my father's relatives] spoke it. They had a kind of Native American solemnity of utterance, as if they were announcing verdicts rather than making small talk. And when I came to ask myself how I wanted Beowulf to sound in my version, I realized I wanted it to be speakable by one of those relatives.
Anyway, all this is to explain why, after years of blissfully ignoring Beowulf, I felt compelled to buy this book and give it another try. Did it hold up to my hopes? Well, not quite. I still appreciate Beowulf more than I love it. But I heard the solemn, deliberate voice that Heaney was seeking to use, and I thought he did a great job of translating it as well as possible into modern English while preserving the original feel and intent of the poem. I love the liberal use of alliteration and the compound words (whale-road = sea; ring-giver = king) that are found in the original version of the poem as well as this translation. I felt the side-by-side nobility and brutality of these characters from (it's surmised) 6th century Scandinavia. And I was getting some serious Tolkien vibes from the ending, which is not at all a bad thing.
In the end, it was a bit of a tough slog reading through the entire poem, but I'm glad I did it. I think I still love Heaney's foreword more than I love the actual Beowulf poem. I need to check out J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf translation one of these days....more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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