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0143039164
| 9780143039167
| 0143039164
| 4.31
| 13,347
| 1920
| Sep 27, 2005
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it was amazing
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Why in the world don't hardly any of the literati speak of this in the same breath as Tolstoy and George Eliot? I have a tough time seeing how any oth
Why in the world don't hardly any of the literati speak of this in the same breath as Tolstoy and George Eliot? I have a tough time seeing how any other 20th century novel is objectively better. There's so much else I could write and maybe I will someday, but suffice it to say that this is easily one of the most worthwhile fictional reading experiences you can give yourself, and you won't regret a moment of the time you spend with it. It's a simply told story that anyone can follow and be engrossed in, but the prose still glistens with beauty through all 1,124 pages; Undset is very wise about what to show and what to tell, and it's about the most effective that writing can be. You may find parts of it challenging to get through—the material is emotionally intense (to put it mildly), but like Tolstoy there are stretches of political descriptions that can get tedious, and if you think memorizing 20 various Fyodoriviches and Federovnas in a Russian novel is hard, then wait until you see all the Søns and Datters here! This leads me to my only real critique, and that is that at times it tries a bit too hard to be a borderline-discursive "informative explanation of a different time" in the same sense that, say The Good Earth and Things Fall Apart will always inevitably have a touch of the school assignment about them. But the setting is also probably the novel's greatest asset, and there is perhaps no better retrospective literary treatment of the Middle Ages and all it meant and still means to the world than Undset's massive artistic triumph. There are hints of hagiography, saga, and epic throughout. It's impressive just for the huge amount of research that Undset must have done to capture so many details with such loving care. At times it struck me that Undset was consciously imitating and riffing on Beowulf, a work that I hold to be the wellspring of English literature and its great tradition of pilgrimage stories. Its treatment of medieval Catholicism is such that both the skeptic and the faithful will be challenged. But it quite literally takes in all of life along the way, and both its childbirth and its death scenes are among the most moving and immediate you will ever read. You could read yourself silly making all sorts of amazing connections between the novel's richly archetypal tapestry of recurring scenes and experiences. But even without such conscious meditation, Kristin Lavransdatter will stick in your soul if you read it all the way through at once (which is how you should read it, rather than spacing out the three volumes)—well, at least I know that's what has already happened to me. And whenever a work becomes a part of one's consciousness, that's about the highest praise one could lavish upon it. To conclude, I've reproduced one of the novel's characteristic eye-wateringly beautiful passages below as a teaser if you're still unsure about the commitment of reading it: "Her heart felt as if it were breaking in her breast, bleeding and bleeding, young and fierce. From grief over the warm and ardent love which she had lost and still secretly mourned; from anguished joy over the pale, luminous love which drew her to the farthest boundaries of life on this earth. Through the great darkness that would come, she saw the gleam of another, gentler sun, and she sensed the fragrance of the herbs in the garden at world's end." Two spoilery postscripts below: 1. In the second half, I had really high hopes that Undset would develop Simon to such an extent that the novel would morph into his story in the same way that Anna Karenina is really Levin's story. I was both shocked and a bit disappointed to see what Undset chose to have happen to him. 2. The second that the penultimate chapter mentioned the year, I knew exactly how Kristin was going to die. Still, that didn't prevent the final chapter from moving me to tears in a way that I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I haven't been since I was blown away by To Kill a Mockingbird as a kid. ...more |
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0140424555
| 9780140424553
| 0140424555
| 4.19
| 1,160
| 1671
| Jun 28, 2005
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it was amazing
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Herbert's poetry is the equivalent of Bach's cantatas: an endlessly exploratory yet infinitely orthodox wellspring of sacred feeling that richly illum
Herbert's poetry is the equivalent of Bach's cantatas: an endlessly exploratory yet infinitely orthodox wellspring of sacred feeling that richly illuminates the wonders of the church year. No poet makes me more grateful for the blessing of faith than him. But if he were merely a great devotional poet, he would not have survived: his musical ear and command of the language is capable of impressing even the most hardhearted skeptic. If the truest task of the Christian artist is to cloak the verities of Scripture and the experience of the church in the beauty and delight of a sanctified imagination, then indeed Herbert is up there with Bach. For a taste of his formal mastery, sample the small jewel "Virtue," whose stunning crystalline purity makes it perhaps the most perfect lyric ever written in English (only a supremely gifted poet could repeat one word so much in such a short poem and make it work): Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky; The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye; Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives. Or try "Prayer," with its enraptured cavalcade of golden metaphors mimicking the medieval world picture: Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age, God's breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six-days world transposing in an hour, A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, Exalted manna, gladness of the best, Heaven in ordinary, man well drest, The milky way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood, The land of spices; something understood. Whether he is composing such wondrous lyrics, teeming interior monologues, deceptively simple anthem-like pieces, biblical or moral glosses, or encapsulations of the spirit of the Eucharist; a complete volume of Herbert, despite its relative brevity, will be a treasured lifelong companion year in and year out. ...more |
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Dec 31, 2022
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0199538859
| 9780199538850
| 0199538859
| 4.36
| 644
| Oct 24, 2002
| Apr 15, 2009
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it was amazing
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There is simply no poet who resonates so deeply within my kardia as Hopkins. There are plenty of other poets who have pierced my soul—Donne, Dickinson
There is simply no poet who resonates so deeply within my kardia as Hopkins. There are plenty of other poets who have pierced my soul—Donne, Dickinson, Eliot, Keats, and Herbert among them—but perhaps none that have become part of my being as Hopkins has. The dour Jesuit, tormented by fears of baseness and inadequacy, seizes upon his status as a pilgrim and pours forth his praises and fears in language that must be eaten like golden manna rather than simply read. Literary critics rightly point out that he was a great early modern heralding the end of Victorian primness and optimism, a quivering voice hanging desperately onto an emotionally-heightened faith amidst the quickly filling quagmire of the late century—and the devout rightly tell us that no one reveled in the beauty of creation quite like him. Indeed, Hopkins has helped me to know the English countryside so well that I hardly feel like I need to visit it. But what ultimately keeps me coming back is his lavish celebrations of sacramental embodiment. His poems are child-like expressions of play imbued with the gravest adult realizations. But unlike, say, Frost, who continually returns to "nothing gold can stay," Hopkins celebrates a world that is built to last eternally. In the early lyrics which comprise the first half of a complete volume, some of them a mere single line, he achieves a concentrated eloquence of perception that is almost unbelievable, and it boggles me that these poems are not given as much recognition. Many of them anticipate the "imagism" of Pound's petals on a wet bough or Williams' red wheelbarrow. In the fragments of unfinished dramas, he gives us tantalizing tastes of what would surely have been the greatest English verse plays since Shakespeare. In his magnum opus "The Wreck of the Deutschlander," he starts with a modern scene of martyrdom at the hands of "brute nature" and spirals soaringly up to a climax that matches the final pages of the Paradiso in sheer eye-watering ecstasy. In the other mature "sprung rhythm" poems such as "The Woodlark" (which is maybe the most fun piece of verse ever written, right next to "The Bells") and the frequently anthologized pieces, he weaves sonatas of verbal music that dance and gleam like seraphim. Whenever I see piles of dirty snow residue stacked up against brown grass under the gray sky of a Midwest April, I call it an "Inversnaid sight". And in the late "Terrible Sonnets," he spins the psalms of supplication into expressions of blackest agony that almost crush the bones just to read them. Hopkins' early death, sorrowing as it is, is surely not as full of unrealized beauty as those of Schubert, Mozart, and Austen. For how could one possibly say more about reality than what is said in poems like "The Windhover"? Hopkins did indeed work to cultivate the "habit of perfection," and if you routinely experience him, you just may do so as well. P.S. This volume also contains a selection of letters, journal entries, and sermons; all of which are extremely valuable. The sermons are surprisingly conventional, but the more personal prose is often captivating, especially when he outlines his theory of poetics. The scholarship and annotations in the Oxford edition are mostly helpful, but I would prefer some more interpretation rather than just dry explanation of textual history and allusions - the editors seem to shy away from Hopkins’ spirituality, which is of course unforgivable. ...more |
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0140422099
| 9780140422092
| 0140422099
| 4.15
| 9,851
| 1633
| Aug 25, 1977
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it was amazing
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Donne is one of the most uncompromising and most extraordinary of poets. There are some ways in which I admire him more than Shakespeare, and even if
Donne is one of the most uncompromising and most extraordinary of poets. There are some ways in which I admire him more than Shakespeare, and even if that seems like hyperbole, his body of work is a stunning counterpart to that of the Bard. They are both gifted with an unfathomable range of tone and style, and make many demands on the reader who is unfamiliar with the Elizabethan world picture in which they worked (Read Tillyard! Read Tillyard! Read Tillyard! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...) They deal equally in the sensuous and the sublime, the bawdy and the transcendent. Their best work is often shot through with suffering, but toward the end of their lives they emerge into a realm of enraptured wonder in which that same suffering is redeemed beyond words—compare the world of The Winter's Tale and The Tempest with that of the Holy Sonnets. They ravish our ears and hearts even as they teach us how to love, pray, contemplate; and, yes, even how to sin. Man is revealed as the half-angel, half-clay that he really is. Even outside of the fact that Donne's life was perhaps the most interesting, variegated, and poignant of all great literary figures; one marvels at, despite the sheer density of the language he weaves, the unalloyed personality he reveals in his compositions. His love poetry arguably represents the highest feelings that can be had between a man and a woman (though not the "Elegies," which are essentially artless soft pornography), and some of the images in these poems, like the parting of lovers being compared to a mere turning away from each other in bed, are some of the most beautiful that man has ever dreamed up. (Also, I love saying "Busy old fool, unruly sun!" to people to see their reactions). I have spent minimal time with the Satires and Anniversaries, which make my head spin in the best way possible, but there is much to admire in their labyrinthine depths. And the divine poems, few as they may be, are achingly honest expressions of penitence and earnest longing for eternal harmony. "A Hymn to God the Father" lives in my head almost daily; it is the most perfect example of transcendent simplicity in the written word that I know. Donne has his faults. C.S. Lewis saw his love poetry as objectively bad because he "held love and lust at arm's length," failing to provide a teleological or authentically spiritual basis for his passions. I sympathize with that criticism, even though I tend to see that same near-baseness as a moving affirmation of embodied-ness and earthy, elevated Eros. But even with his crudities and frequent lack of lyricism, he is one of that small handful of poets I would advise all devotees of serious literature to read as often as possible. He is a unique genius with very few parallels. FYI, the Penguin edition is very good. A full half of the thick volume is devoted to detailed notes and glosses on the poems, which are absolutely essential for understanding Donne's Metaphysical style—it's as well-annotated as you could ask for (though oddly without a formal introduction). The only downside is that the spelling and punctuation are modernized, which won't make it the ideal volume for the serious scholar. But I don't mind this as much as some. Amusing postscript: In "The Triple Fool," Donne anticipated by four centuries the legions of disgruntled Goodreaders railing against immortal classics: "I am two fools, I know/For loving, and for saying so/In whining poetry." ...more |
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0140449140
| 9780140449143
| 0140449140
| 3.96
| 215,671
| -400
| Feb 25, 2003
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it was amazing
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9/2024: It really is the most influential text on the West besides the Bible. All of my previous comments still stand. 8/2022: Can one review the Repu 9/2024: It really is the most influential text on the West besides the Bible. All of my previous comments still stand. 8/2022: Can one review the Republic? It certainly is a daunting task. I can think of few other books where the reader must make such a sharp distinction between the objective greatness and influence of the work in question (which in this case, is not even up for debate) and a fair literary evaluation of it. I was always skeptical of the old platitude (ha!) that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato, but that truism could be applied only to the Republic with perfect accuracy. Socrates and his interlocutors are not the only characters in the dialogue. Machiavelli, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, et al. make cameos throughout; ultimately weaving the reader himself into the work as its most important character, as all the dialogues do. Speaking of which, I am continually floored not only by the vernal splendor of Plato's ideas, but by the artfulness of his construction. Yes, most of it is Socrates stretching his method to the limits of its definition and lecturing rather than teasing out truth, but the work may be comfortably viewed as an essay (in the classical sense of the term). The Republic blooms from its humble, quotidian setting (the rarity of Socrates himself as the narrator is seldom mentioned) past the standard takedown of an arrogant questioner to craft each layer of the Ideal State with meticulous finery: starting with a discussion of the arts and the character of the guardians, then moving progressively upward to take in a succession of gradually "worthier" themes, and rabbit trails relating to them, until literally all of human thought and desire is covered and the State has been proven, at long last, to be an emblem for the self, and Plato concludes with a magnificent paean to the raptures and mysteries of Wisdom that lies somewhere between Dante and the Hindu world. The Republic goes down as smoothly as hotcakes, and it is remarkably easy to lose oneself in the journey to the cosmos which it charts. My copious highlighting and margin notes will always beckon me back to its treasures. But if there's one thing that interests me most in it, it's the reckoning that those of us who value the Classical View of Life must do with the vision that Plato spreads before us. If we sincerely adhere to all the tenets that he presents: that contemplation of truth, beauty, and goodness is the ultimate aim of existence; that there are certain fields and modes of inquiry that will lead us to an overwhelming awareness of wonder and others that degrade and dehumanize: then the remorseless logic leads us to the conviction that it would be best to adopt a society such as the one that Socrates sketches; if not all in all its disturbing implications, at least in its superstructure. Why wouldn't we want to cultivate a class of the best humans possible to rule us, the coarse and ugly to be abolished, the routines of liturgy incorporated into our existences? This is the terrifying conclusion we are led to if we are serious about what we believe. The American Founders struggled with the knowledge that if any State is going to survive, it is going to have to be something like Plato's, but they also clung fervently to their cracked Enlightenment ideals. We too must do the same, except as cherishers of the vision of freedom detailed in Scripture and as anti-gnostics who love the secular for its lavish abundance (which simply cannot happen in Platonism). I actually think there are many more fruitful implications if we adopt the Republic into our souls and consider it as a map of the Ideal Man (and his deep potential for catastrophe) than if we stick to its physical manifestation, which isn't the main point of the dialogue anyway. But there remains no more relevant text for pursuing the reconciliation of contemporary pluralism and democracy with the Great Classical Tradition. Perhaps, then, we ought to view the Source of All Footnotes not mainly as literature, philosophy, theology, or political science—all of which it undoubtedly is—but as a towering challenge to perpetually rise to the occasion and properly order our souls and communities as they ought to be, projected with steel authority into every corner of our fractured world. ...more |
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0060611626
| 9780060611620
| 0060611626
| 4.18
| 2,332
| 1980
| Dec 22, 1999
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it was amazing
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Absolutely extraordinary. Perhaps a new personal plumb line for what great Christian art in the contemporary world should look like: intensely saturat
Absolutely extraordinary. Perhaps a new personal plumb line for what great Christian art in the contemporary world should look like: intensely saturated with beauty and wonder, glorying in the gift of language to its utmost potential, filled with rich theology but never even approaching didacticism, refusing to shy away from our messiness and depravity, but infused with a bittersweet love for life. The prose snatched my breath away. It is maybe the most incredible prose I have ever read besides that of Moby Dick. There is a unique and privileged euphoric feeling that a reader gets when he knows that he is in the presence of a writer who is exceptionally skilled in the deployment of language, and that feeling immediate hit me from the first paragraph. The most stunning thing about it is that all of Godric's narrative is essentially composed in iambic verse. It could be cast as a narrative poem and no one would bat an eye. Not one sentence deviates from the earthy, lilting rhythm but it never sounds forced or trite. Buechner's work can best be described for the uninitiate as an amalgam of Chaucer, Greene, and Percy; but the result is entirely sui generis. This is an uncomfortable read at times due to the unflinching accounts of Godric's sin-oppressed life, and it will leave you pondering the meaning of grace for days after. Buechner even refuses to condone Godric's interpretation of faith, simply presenting his portrait and leaving us to contemplate it. If Christians produced more art like this, would the world be a little different? Rarely have I read a novel that impressed upon me with such force an image of the sheer mastery of its author and of his multifaceted vision for existence. One of a handful of perfect novels. Update: I just realized that Buechner died the day after I wrote this review. He lived to a very ripe age, but it is still a sad loss. Rest in Christ to one of the most authentic Christian writers of our time. ...more |
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0198320043
| 9780198320043
| 0198320043
| 3.77
| 26,366
| 1595
| Dec 18, 2003
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it was amazing
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This, for me, is simply Shakespeare. Absolutely everything great about him is contained here, and it's hard to imagine a more downright perfect dramat
This, for me, is simply Shakespeare. Absolutely everything great about him is contained here, and it's hard to imagine a more downright perfect dramatic product. It's by far my favorite history play—of course, the other three entries of the Henriad are wonderful, but I tend to get exasperated at all the Falstaff shenanigans in Henry IV, and the understated irony of Henry V takes a while to warm to. Among the first tetralogy, the second entry is strong and Richard III is outstanding, but not as disciplined or poetic as this gem. In crafting his epic history on a chamber scale, Shakespeare spins us through worlds of expression and possibility. The characters as they appear at the beginning of the play might as well be totally different people than what they become by the end. The language and imagery are astounding; next to Romeo and Juliet this might be his most euphonious drama. The leitmotif of tears is relentlessly prominent, and this matches the theme of irreversible upheaval that runs throughout. The golden city signified by the "sacramental" institution of the monarchy has been uprooted to be replaced by an outsider, and the work of the nation now shifts to picking up the pieces. Yet this is full of Shakespeare's typical searing irony and irreducible complexity. The garden scene is the most important one for understanding the play's essence, and is one of the clearest examples of Shakespeare's archetypal and theological insight. In fact, on the whole, the play would be impossible if the bard was not, at the very least, highly sympathetic toward the idea of a biblical master story. The Henriad is none else but a mythological poetizing of history so that we may further understand our role in the grand narrative; and in Richard II, God and man are the most intimately intertwined as they ever become in Shakespeare before the late great romances. This may crack my top 5 of his plays.
...more
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1573353604
| 9781573353601
| B001NM2DWC
| 4.10
| 888,683
| 1878
| 1995
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it was amazing
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The great mark of genius is not "originality," whatever that's worth, but simply elevated insight. I know of no other literary artist who meets this c
The great mark of genius is not "originality," whatever that's worth, but simply elevated insight. I know of no other literary artist who meets this criterion so wholly as Tolstoy. He is very far from the most polished or creative writer that I know, but I cannot think of anyone else who makes me feel as if I am physically living my life alongside his characters. There is decent reason to critique Tolstoy for his rambling plots (in fact, the observation that his novels don't actually have plots is quite accurate) and for his often obsessive focus on apparent trivialities, but that's only valid if you don't think a novel should be concerned with real experience. Say what you will about his occasionally endless stretches of political dialogue, farming discourses, balls, and carriage rides (yes, I did sometimes get bored during these stretches and skimmed them; someday when I'm wiser and more patient I'll be able to truly say I read the whole thing)—these characters utterly haunted my soul during the reading experience. I had dreams about these characters and stayed up at night dwelling on my empathy, concern, hatred, and love for them. Mind you, I'm about the last person in the world to get emotionally invested in fictional characters. But if properly read, it is impossible not to do this with Tolstoy. His work is crafted such that this is the only possible result if you're reading it authentically. The epic scope and length of the novel quite literally mimics the spires and interstices of life as it is really lived. With each sitting, you feel as if you are actually passing your time in the novel's world. I can't really describe how astonishingly poignant this effect is, but once you put aside all your impatience, preconceptions, and hesitations and succumb entirely to Tolstoy—this might take a couple hundred pages to fully set in—you will experience what I can only call a revelation. You will be talking with these people who you have obviously known your whole life and getting intimately involved in their destinies. For this reason alone, there is no other book like this. Since I have never had this sensation, even with my favorite books, I can only conclude that Tolstoy is a genius. Yet it did take me a very long time to tune into this book and to truly appreciate what Tolstoy was doing. In War and Peace, after I had spent the first hundred pages being totally confused by who everyone was, I was utterly compelled by everything that followed. But here, I kept waiting for the novel's pace and intrigue to pick up steam— waiting—and waiting. But then Anna's near-death scene happened. And it clicked. Who would ever have thought that such an apparently simple action as Anna telling her lover to forcibly remove her husband's hands from his face so she can see his expression would move me to tears? But it did. Even just thinking about that scene I get goosebumps. The only time I've ever experienced anything close to that feeling is with Lear's "Let's away to prison" speech. From then on, I couldn't put it down. That's just one of several scenes in this novel that seem etched in the stars; of such staggering poignancy that they brand themselves on the brain. There are moments in this book that don't even seem like a writer could have thought of them because they are so incredible. Yet simultaneously they are so painfully real. This is the true watermark of accomplished fictional writing: the perfect marriage of the natural and unexpected. Yet all these moments capture the mundane ebb and flow of life rather than resorting to riveting, implausible, high-octane scenarios as Dostoevsky does (but so masterfully that we can forgive him for it). A wedding. A dinner party (Tolstoy's ear for conversation and observation of minutiae during these scenes is unparalleled). Giving birth. The deathbed. A day out laboring in the fields. A ride through the city. These are the commonplace events that comprise Tolstoy's great tapestry, and which most truly mark him as a genius. He manages to paint these events so that they seem like the most extraordinary things in the universe. Art can attempt to be more than that, but it will not be as true, good, and beautiful as if had simply stuck to that vocation. By all accounts, there was a jarring disjunct between Tolstoy's life and art. He appears to have been a bitter, angry little man with misogynistic views whose religion amounted to good works, and whose discontent stemmed from the inability of his beliefs to correctly describe man. Yet what he gave us bespeaks a diametrically opposite outlook. It is difficult to reconcile his neglect of his wife and apparent inattention to family matters with the fact that he gave us some of the most memorable and full-bodied female characters in all of literature. Yet in their art, creators can convey the selves that their tragic flaws prohibit them from showing in their other actions, and in Constantine Levin, Tolstoy produces perhaps the most honest self-portrait in literature, second only to Dante—yet that's exactly who Tolstoy mirrors here! This is the story of Levin's journey to Paradise, illustrated all the more vividly by Anna's parallel descent into the Inferno. Levin longs to love life: everything he does is directed toward embracing what is most authentic. But he is held back by his assumptions. He experiences theophanies throughout the novel, but he cannot reach the unmasked contemplation of God until he is regenerated by his encounters with death and birth, and rapturous love disproves his materialism. Life itself will always convert us if we only recognize it. In fact, God is known constantly through the miracles of the mundane, but our hearts are usually closed to them. Levin's concluding epiphany turned out to be the biggest problem of the novel for me. As moving as it was, I just didn't find his reasoning and his conclusion to be all that satisfactory. I refuse to believe that Tolstoy settled for watered-down TMG (Therapeutic Moralistic Deism) at the end of it all, but that's what it sure sounds like. Honestly, I'm still not sure what it is exactly that Levin discovered about God. That final episode illustrates Tolstoy in a nutshell: it's extraordinarily real and brimming with poetic wonder, but his ideas themselves are often vague and simplistic, at odds with the joyously complex life that he shows us in his craft. Dostoevsky would have handled the spiritual content much better, but the conversion itself would have been too drastic (as indeed it is in Crime and Punishment). But in some ways, the fundamental dissatisfaction that lingers amidst the wonders of the denouement makes me love the novel even more, just as Dostoevsky's borderline-campy melodrama and Dickens's syrupy tendencies illuminate their humanness all the more. Levin's conversion forces us to meditate on the allures of liberal and pietistic theology, and the "authenticity" that they promise. What is Levin still missing? Will his happiness last? Can even the most beautiful experiences still leave our soul empty? Is there more to life than mere desire? Does Levin miss the power of the Word even as he revels in the power of sacramentality? Thus, maybe Tolstoy's work really does mirror his life. His gift for perception was astonishing, but he was unable to see past the filth of the world and could not give himself to the biblical Christianity that would cure him of his misanthropy. He longed to take hold of the vision that he has his comic characters embrace, but his portrayals are suffused with a longing for all-wellness that covers up his tragic pride. In War and Peace, he strove to understand and communicate how history works. His discursive interjections are baffling, while his pure fiction is simultaneously knife and nourishment to the being. In Anna Karenina, he strives to understand how love works. Love of one's fellow man, one's circumstances, one's existence, and one's God. He reaches solutions of transcendental insight. He reveals close to everything we knew about ourselves but were too proud to admit. There are many faults in his work, but is not this life itself? I grieve that he was never able to settle on convictions that would allow him to accept his own comic vision, but remain infinitely grateful for his labors in service of humanity. I remain unconvinced by the basis for Levin's conversion but I overflow with love for the life that he learns to marvel at. I remain lacerated with pity for the Shakespearean Anna. I puzzle over the cruel contradictions of Vronsky. I long for a society that would have allowed Oblonsky and Karenin to believe and act differently, and for a future life in which I may be allowed to taste the familial ecstasy that Levin and Kitty are graced to achieve. After reading War and Peace, I got the impression of life as a sublime terror that awes us into submission. But after reading Anna Karenina, I long to nurture the image of God in me. I long to amble through the country and the city with the taste of beauty on my lips. There is too much in this novel to comprehend at once. But that, too, is life; and yet another reason why spending a lifetime with this book must be like spending a lifetime with the wisest teacher alive. ...more |
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0521293731
| 9780521293730
| 0521293731
| 3.71
| 35,025
| 1623
| Mar 08, 2007
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it was amazing
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Contrary to what some may assume, reading Shakespeare is never an easy feat even for those enthusiastic about great literature, and even for those who
Contrary to what some may assume, reading Shakespeare is never an easy feat even for those enthusiastic about great literature, and even for those who particularly adore the astonishing body of work produced in England from the roughly 150-year period between the mid 16th and late 17th centuries. Each time I sit down to voyage with the Bard into the world of one of his dramas, I frequently struggle to deduce meaning from the construction of sentences, the baffling characterizations, and the opaque ideas. Sometimes I read a passage up to twenty times in a row, pronouncing each word slowly, until I can whittle it down to its essence. The experience is not always enjoyable (often reminding me that these works are, of course, not intended to take place solely within the theater of the mind), and sometimes it is even frustrating. Especially in these lesser-known plays, no insight or takeaway comes easy. The reader must wrestle with the text to its fullest extent in order to glean out the smallest kernel of meaning. The great quartet of tragedies contains boundless riches, but they are relatively streamlined in construction and present accessible surface ideas which readers can use to mine deeper into their potential. But the trio of late "romances," works which defy genre categorization more than any that I know, along with that other great "problem play" Measure for Measure, are perhaps the most advanced and headache-inducing works of Western civilization, far more than even the thorniest modernist solipsisms of Joyce and his ilk. They are the most mature, original works of our culture's most mature, original writer; and hence, I hesitate to write a conventional review for this play because it doesn't feel as if I hardly even got anything out of it on my first relatively perfunctory study of it. So complete and effortless is Shakespeare's facility that he writes one of his simplest plots, one that on paper sounds beneath his ability, and, by running it through a transmogrification of blurred-together modes (tragic, comic, pastoral, romantic, fantastic, philosophical), turns it into what most surely be his most complex, restrained, and truthful exegesis of humanity. The second half of the play provides a remedy to the horrific implications of the Greek tragic model which Shakespeare emulates to a T in the first half (to such an extent that its contours could easily be taken as a classical play) and acts as the quintessential Shakesperean response to the problems posed by his ancient predecessors, thus turning the play into a conceit and solution of which Donne would be proud. In these late plays, Shakespeare is comfortable using a surrealist façade to cloak his extrapolations—the characters' very names sound exotic and dream-like, Bohemia has a coast (?) and exists at the same time as classical Greece and the Delphic oracle (??) and, of course, the ending—because he is totally confident in his conclusions and knows that his audience will accept the truth that this portrayal of life as a vast fairy-tale is the authentic reality. I think of Shakespeare's fundamental device as something like a golden-plated nautilus shell in which the valuable sheen is the knowledge of the world's impeccable order, the triumph of beauty, and the certainty of grace amidst catastrophe. Follow the spiral to its infinitesimal apex, and it never loses the golden hue, but expresses itself in an endless number of ways and through a million different shades of nuance. In other words, he has mastered the fusion of unity and diversity, which is the backbone of all true art and life. I have now read a little more than half of the man's complete oeuvre of plays. Only Donne and Milton have joined his elite echelon as I thank God for allowing such men to grace the earth and furnishing us with such sheer wonder at the ecstatic mystery of existence. ...more |
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0743484908
| 9780743484909
| 0743484908
| 3.67
| 30,038
| 1604
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it was amazing
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It’s not difficult to understand why this astounding composition resides quite far down the list of most popular Shakespeare plays. It occupies a uniq
It’s not difficult to understand why this astounding composition resides quite far down the list of most popular Shakespeare plays. It occupies a unique position between Allegory, Satire, Philosophical Treatise, and Drama; beginning like a playful thought experiment, quickly morphing into high Tragic rhetoric, meandering through delicious diversions and masterful modulations of tone and outlook until its somewhat standard, quasi-whimsical finale. It is indisputably a Comedy, and one of the greatest such; only the “Dream” can rival it for sheer innovation and perfection of the base model. And as highly as I’ve come to regard the “Merchant” (despite and maybe even because of its inevitable and nearly insurmountable flaws), this play transcends it in its discussion of law, legitimacy, and the “quality of mercy” because its cast is so uniformly inspired; in fact, I’d argue that it’d be tough to identify a Shakesperean array of characters that matches that found here in necessity to the final product. Isabella has instantly become one of my favorite Shakesperean women - she is given some truly ravishing lines and all signs point to her as chief protagonist, but her victory almost seems empty - and the Duke, in his embracing of both kingly and priestly roles, challenges our conceptions of authority and morality in every regard. Outside of the four great tragedies, I’m not sure I would prize another work by the Bard over this one. This is not a play for the Shakespeare initiate - not by a long shot - but it is for those who want to experience one of the most formally wondrous fictions of all time, and to witness in action the confluence of Renaissance and Reformation that fuels the incandescent fire of Shakespeare’s penetrating creative and analytical vision.
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0800871863
| 9780800871864
| 0800871863
| 4.09
| 36,634
| 1966
| Feb 15, 1980
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it was amazing
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This is a book that epitomizes the power of High Art to unearth depths in your mind and soul that you were never aware of. In an era where “spiritual
This is a book that epitomizes the power of High Art to unearth depths in your mind and soul that you were never aware of. In an era where “spiritual fiction” mostly means hopelessly kitschy and diluted “inspirational” stories on even lower levels of writing, Endō’s novel is potent enough to burn forests and disintegrate metal with its acid. It exemplifies the breadth and diversity of a Christian worldview to treat with all topics no matter how unforgiving, and most importantly to freely question the meaning of things with no easy answers. Endō’s unique non-Western perspective is certainly refreshing, his prose is some of the cleanest and most effective I’ve read lately, and the tight construction of his drama is to be lauded. Yet this is not just the work of a man of faith content to stay within a comfortable sphere. This is the product of an artist with an outlook on life that can seem contrary to the apparent proceedings of the world. He makes no attempt to justify it but only to show the effects of clinging to those beliefs in the midst of suffering. The novel teems with jaw-dropping details of symbolism and ambiguity. The spiritual outlook is so raw, so visceral, so overwhelming in interpretive force, that by the end one has no choice but to consider whether we live for something more than what we can see. Ultimately Endō gets down to that most elemental of inquiries - why would anyone place faith in the intangible? What does faith actually mean? The novel stands as one of the treasured few works of “theological fiction” that far transcends the moniker to become a Great Book of the human dilemma, projecting such an utterly convicted voice into the cauldron of 20th century art that it makes us long for more such metaphysical literature not only capable of affecting us, but challenging our beings to the core.
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3.91
| 228,667
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it was amazing
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7/17/24: Second read. Having completed the Shakespearean canon, I can say that I honestly don't think there's a better one than this. I'm not sure if
7/17/24: Second read. Having completed the Shakespearean canon, I can say that I honestly don't think there's a better one than this. I'm not sure if it is my favorite, but I consider it the greatest of Shakespeare. Its effect is truly beyond words, weaving more into its texture than many other authors have managed to weave into their entire life's work. Nakedness and disguises. Fathers and children. Nature and grace. Flattery and sincerity. Blindness and clarity. Pre-Christian paganism and intimations of the True Myth. Cordelia as Lady Wisdom. Madness and misery as prerequisites for personal transformation. It has more in common with the late romances than with the other tragedies, but I had forgotten just how incredibly sad the final act was after the glimmers of grace we see in Act IV. This time I found Lee Oser's essay in "Shakespeare and Christian Humanism" very helpful, as he combats the common opinion that this is a nihilist or anti-redemptive play by asserting that it presents a theological vision for the meaning of suffering in a world where beauty and goodness never seem to win. He compares the play to the book of Lamentations and the idea of the Deus absconditus that is found in both medieval mysticism and Luther's theology, and also relates it to the context of current events that Shakespeare's audience would have been bringing into it. A very helpful way of looking at a play that might otherwise leave one crushed in spirit. 12/2020: This darkest pearl of Shakespeare's oeuvre is perhaps his tragic magnum opus, but that’s not exactly the impression one gets when first experiencing it. Even more than other Shakespeare it is exceedingly complex in every dimension. The plot is dazzlingly assembled, sewn with a robust tightness and spun in a sprawling fashion that somehow manages to remain clean. The characters often change personalities every time they appear, leaving one to wrestle with the problem of disguises and the true nature of the play’s environment. The themes are bottomless in infinitude, and cover so many ideas that it would seem silly if anyone else tried to write it. There is an exceeding amount of blackness and diabolicism, perfectly illustrating Burke's conception of the sublime as a figment of terror. The passion and pathos exposed throughout is unrivaled in the history of drama; not even Hamlet and Macbeth are such shockingly melodramatic creations as Lear, Edmund, and the two scheming sisters. The classical purity of Cordelia's character mediates the opening and closing sections of the play with piercing, refreshing sincerity; and the reconciling interchange between her and Lear is perhaps the only passage in all of literature that involuntarily draws tears from my eyes. At first it can all seem overwhelming and overdone. By the time we reach the end, we feel as if we have been dragged through the gutter before being rocketed to the skies, then having our parachute cord cut. Necessity vs. action. Nature vs. grace. Duty vs. ambition. The creation vs. the created. Your time with King Lear may not be as immediately rewarded as it will be with the radiant beauty of the great comedies, the linear dramas of the other tragedies, the ethereal earthiness of the late romances, or the engrossing philosophical sweep of the Henriad. But spend some serious minutes (or days, or months) with the world of this play and you will be taking a major step towards understanding humanity. It’s one of those works of art that seems to belong to a different plane of the universe, and which, like other creations in the vein of Tristan und Isolde, is capable of leaving the consumer utterly exhausted and even appalled by its overwhelming passion. There is deadly poison in art like this - even more so than in Macbeth - and one would not want to spend every day or even year of one’s life with it. No one can inspire superlatives like Shakespeare. But no one was ever so superlative in his art as Shakespeare. ...more |
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1593080182
| 9781593080181
| 1593080182
| 3.56
| 592,697
| Oct 18, 1851
| Apr 01, 2003
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it was amazing
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"Oh, grassy glades! Oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye- though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life- in ye, men yet
"Oh, grassy glades! Oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye- though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life- in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof; calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause- through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence, doubt (the common doom), then skepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them; the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.” Everyone has a White Whale. That's right. Something we devote our lives to scoping out. Some vague objective we thrust the engines of our souls and the motors of our minds into full gear to gain possession of. Something we need, something we crave, something we cherish deeply and darkly in a foreboding chamber of our beings- something without which, we feel we will never have achieved our purpose. Us humans have an odd way of chasing after rewards by our own doing. Rarely do we ponder whether this is what we're meant to do. Creation has a grand intrinsic order embedded within its framework. What is man called to do with it? Revel in it, appreciate it, humbly prostrate himself before the greater good? Or conquer it, exalt himself above it, aim to be the ideal superman? When put in those terms, the choice seems pretty transparent. But say the natural order is fallen. Say that man sees no other option but to pacify it, slake it, push his lusts and motives upon his universe. Fate dictates that he is great and must fulfill his greatness. Is nature, the given cosmos of eternity, equally great? Infinitely greater? Or simply there, devoid of value? Man vs. nature. The ultimate thematic dichotomy. One that has obsessed millennia of artists. The unmendable fulcrum of Romanticism. In Herman Melville's stupendous literary achievement, there are no simple paths to success and no neat ends to tie together. But there's a whole lot of adventure along the way. And a whole lot of beauty, conflict, fun, joy, pathos, grandeur, and introspection. Just like life, really. Most authors would sell their soul to write a paragraph like the one above, but Melville manages to churn out scores of them throughout. Some art makes you marvel, some makes you cry, some makes you drop your jaw in disbelief. But rare is the creation where human inspiration seems so rapt, so pure, and so soulful, that you can't even begin to fathom how someone could do it. There are passages in this novel that seem to come from on high. But, eschewing the mysticism, the honest impression one gets from Moby-Dick is that it's a top-tier example of a writer having the time of his life. Contemporary writers are often pressed by deadlines, hell-bent on ekeing out money, or crushed by expectations. But Melville didn't care about any of that. Yes, he may have been trying to impress Hawthorne. But when consumers are given the rare privilege of experiencing an artist having fun, it's a remarkable treat. The potential of the English language and the boundaries of what the novel could do had no limitations in Melville's mind. So he invents his own words and plays around with established ones, experiments with avant-garde ideas that start to morph into Joycean stream-of-consciousness (Chapter 99), meta-references, and bizarre but wonderful scenes written as stage plays (Chapter 39, plus a lot towards the back end) and often with no clear indication of who's speaking, completely contradicting the first-person voice. And this particular sentence must be counted as one of the most beautiful to be composed in English: “The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose-water snow.” Melville even messes with the narrator himself, starting us off with one of the great first chapters in literature. Though masterfully constructed, it seems to reveal a host of absurdities and surrealisms hiding within Ishmael, watering down the often highly convincing realistic descriptions of whaling. Even the ubiquitous first sentence, for crying out loud. How do we know that's even our narrator's name? The obvious inference is, we don't. That's just what he wants to be called, and so, that's what we'll refer to him as. As the narrative develops, Melville tosses a potpourri of Swiftian devices into Ishmael's spiels: blatant falsities, tall tales, and irrationalities that contribute much of the novel's humor. This is the kind of stuff they don't tell you in English class. There is some true comedy in here. The Queequeg debacle (please don't read anything else into it- it's humor), the sermon to the sharks (Chapter 64), the Rose-Bud gam (Chapter 91), and the semi-ironic chapters about the glory of whaling (Chapters 24 and 72) come to mind. But then, he also tries his hand at monstrous Shakesperean soliloquies that elsewhere would seem flowery and overdone (the charged sequence of Chapters 36-38, and in many other places). But here, somehow, it works; and the poignancy gleaned from these is probably greater than most expect a novel to be capable of containing. And he also nails the sing-song threnodies and obscurities of sailors' banter, rabbit-trails that transform into achingly lovely blank verse in the blink of an eye, Father Mapple's truly apocalyptic table-setting sermon (Chapter 9), and just plain lovely descriptive prose that plunges you onto the high seas with almost impressionistic effect, branding with vivid clarity upon the mind such unforgettable visions as bowls of steaming, fish-infused chowder, deranged Ahab threatening his crew with a lightning-incensed harpoon, a pure-hearted slave boy transformed by realization of reality, a ring of nursing whales feeding their young, work-worn hands squeezing lumps of congealed sperm oil into liquid. You don't even have to read Moby-Dick with the purpose of getting any deeper meaning out of it. If you're content to just sit back and watch a writer do his thing, then you will probably adore it. This book is all high imagination of the greatest degree. A lot of it is a purposeful pastiche to Homer and Shakespeare, but Melville's adaptations of these giants to his own age is nothing less than ingenious. As Carl F. Hovde mentions in his introduction to the Barnes and Noble edition, Melville creates interest and engagement in the reader during a 500-page voyage where all the action is confined to a single ship by utilizing wildly creative Homeric similes and assimilating the romance of the blossoming American culture into his work. We are routinely brought back to the land in allusion and passing, and this not only helps to enrich the novel but assists in Melville's purpose in crafting a Great American Epic. Homer's influence is also felt in some particular scenes, such as the forging of the harpoon in Chapter 113 (an obvious reference to Achilles's shield) and the finely-wrought descriptions of the battles with whales. One significant aspect of the style that has turned many off (at least in editions without explanatory notes) is the excessive use of allusion. Much of this cross-referencing is to add even more depth to the novel's symbols and to solidify the setting as literally epic: worldwide, alluding to everything from Eastern religions to Greek myth to the American frontier to the Bible. Shakespeare's influence has already been touched upon in the soliloquies, but there's also the delicious wordplay, philosophical musings, and explorations of unbridled, diabolical passions. And that's how we get to the heart of this insufferably weird and unexplainably moving book. It's fair to say that Melville's main plot point is an imitation of Hamlet. Crazed "madman" (for that is how others see him) ends up destroying himself and those around him by obeying his thrist for revenge. But that's just a springboard. It's when Melville introduces the epic theme of the natural world and its inherent qualities that things start to simmer, and we start to extract the precious oil from the beautiful exterior. The whale is, of course, the focal point of the book. Melville even had an alternate title- simply, "The Whale." The encyclopedic digressions are the aspect of the novel that have gained the most criticism, but to be honest, I don’t see a problem with at all. I see their inclusion as part of a similar model as Tolstoy's War and Peace: not only to add scores of food for thought and to show off the author's intellect (this is, after all, a show-off book), but to center the work's material around a coherent spectrum of ideas. Without the essays on historiography, War and Peace becomes a gargantuan series of family sagas that can bore the reader to death. Without the "nuts and bolts" of whales and whaling, Moby-Dick would arguably be a much duller read. Why, Melville reasons, would you not want to know about my subject matter? After all, many of his readers were unfamiliar with the business, and it's better to know about what you're reading about than to be ignorant- imagine reading Pride and Prejudice without knowing what marriage is (extreme example, yes, but you get the point). These chapters help to set the table exquisitely for the final 100 pages, which contain some of the most staggeringly rich loads of literary euphoria of all time. Mostly, though, they serve to illuminate the whale as Melville's chief topic of interest. The final whaling chapter ends with this potent and ominous forewarning: "If ever the world is to be again flooded...then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the top-most crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies" (Chapter 105). The whale is equated to the biblical Leviathan (I highly recommend you read Job 41 before reading this) and parallels are drawn to the story of Jonah. In so doing, it sets up for a whole new dimension to the old "revenge" question. Ahab is mad. But by whose standards? Mad because he puts everyone else in jeopardy, turning what should be a wondrous adventure across the globe into a hellish prison for his crew? Because he trains his life's goal on killing a simple animal? Because he ignores God's commands to leave nature alone in favor of his own desires? Ahab is, after all, an "ungodly, grand, god-like man" (Chapter 16) who strives to fulfill the innate instinct to venge. But the whale is incapable of forgiving. Hamlet's story moves us because he forsakes what it means to be human at the cost of his own wants. But Ahab's tale perhaps not so much- he is dealing with a creature who is not soulless because he has not a soul. Are we to tame the evil in the world? By that logic, the destroying whale is evil and Ahab's mission is just. But the whale is an animal, has no soul, and therefore is not capable of being either good or evil. Is nature capable of being good or evil? The trail of questions never stops. Ahab reflects profoundly on mankind but never reaches finality. But it all goes way beyond the surface of “man vs. nature”. It’s about our nature as well, which is constantly in flux; against the solidity and sublimity of the spheres, which are unmoved except by the Mover. We set out on the sublime sea to find something- whether that be ourselves, God, or His creation. What we find depends on what we're looking for. And in this uncomfortable world of ours, what we're looking for truly matters. We try in vain to ensnare the White Whale when we ignore our very own souls. We race futilely after a final destination and try to master existence itself. Moby-Dick is ultimately a tragedy of the most epic proportions, and a spire of the Romantic movement as a whole. But what it asks us goes beyond simple labels and straight to the core of our beings, running the gamut of the purely divine and the dreadfully fallen; the overwhelmingly lovely and the hopelessly lost; and everything, everyone, and every creature in between. Melville has the right to enjoy his own work. Nothing like it has ever been written: a book that scans the face of the earth and exhausts every technique for solutions to quandaries that faze us all, but ends up caught in the tangles of its own immense thematic whale-line, leaving the reader to discern the good, true, and beautiful in Melville's view of life. ...more |
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Paperback
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0374528373
| 9780374528379
| 0374528373
| 4.38
| 357,613
| 1880
| Jun 14, 2002
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it was amazing
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I think that the Brothers K has one of the widest gulfs between reputation and the success of its literary structure in the canon. The exhilarating br
I think that the Brothers K has one of the widest gulfs between reputation and the success of its literary structure in the canon. The exhilarating breadth of its sweep is wildly ambitious, Dickensian in the amount of subplots. Dostoevsky tries to mirror his famous exploration of Big Ideas in the construction of the work itself, but it’s difficult to say that he really pulls it off with complete brilliance. Characters are left undeveloped and unexplained, odd and haunting leitmotifs float in and out of the tapestry like little reminisces from a dream. The prose is spartan and serves only to point us beneath the surface - as is, indeed, the trademark of the 19th-century Russian novelist. Stretches of furious and riveting plot advancement contrast jarringly with immense monologue interludes, with the great soliloquy of the Russian Monk serving as a central fulcrum. Would it be blasphemy to opine that “The Idiot” is a greater overall success at this remarkable brand of polyphonic novel? This is, of course, not to diminish Dostoevsky’s achievement here. There is no reason to get into what makes it so beloved, so towering, and so objectively great (yes, I believe in such a thing!) But I do think it’s helpful to point out that it’s not a flawless, untouchable work in the way that it’s sometimes seen. A soulless formalist critic would find much to admire, but also many faults. Dostoevsky spends considerable time building up his Magnum Opus but doesn’t leave us with any sort of satisfying resolution - technically, aesthetically, or emotionally. But do we really require solid answers in order to determine whether a book is great or not? Perhaps this very ambiguity is the intended outcome of this voyage through the soul all along, reflecting at once the impenetratibility of divine mystery and the pessimism of the incoming century. Another criticism that could be very reasonably made is that Dostoevsky only gives us characters on overdrive - Alyosha and Father Zossima are the only ones that aren’t either mad, wildly passionate, or contradictory. But the same charge could be leveled at Shakespeare’s tragedies, which this novel is deeply indebted to to such an extent that we wonder if such artists as Shakespeare and Dostoevsky were keen enough to observe that this state of humanity is really its natural one, and that attempts to smooth it over are futile. After reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, you start to wonder if the mellow, cultured, starched figures that populate so many 19th century British novels are too glossy and appealing to be true. The justly celebrated, culture-spanning attributes of the novel will be perpetually discussed and considered: its almost unbearably authentic psychological thrust, going deeper than anything that the animalistic Freud could ever tell us despite his admiration of the novel. Its remarkable awareness of the world’s inherent spirituality and our rocky relationship with it. The clash between nature and grace, law and individuality, order and chaos. The sheer unalloyed insight of “The Grand Inquisitor” and “The Devil,” passages that can leave the reader in a sort of stunned stupor. Bountiful riches on every page that simply transcend the infinite amount of analysis which it is possible to perform. Yes, the Brothers K is the ultimate novel of ideas, and it is, in some ways, the ultimate Christian novel as well. But let us not lose sight of its sprawling ambition and yes, its flaws. Somehow it humanizes the results even further and makes it even more appreciable. We do the greatest artists the deepest disservice when we idolatrize or elevate them above mere humanity. They are seen, then, as “superhuman” rather than “über-human,” dealing with us as we really are rather with the most exquisite common sense rather than from a unique vantage point. ...more |
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0143039997
| 9780143039990
| 0143039997
| 4.16
| 349,539
| 1869
| Nov 28, 2006
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it was amazing
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It's been argued that War and Peace is the greatest example of an artist's goal to encapsulate the whole of human existence within a single work. Thou
It's been argued that War and Peace is the greatest example of an artist's goal to encapsulate the whole of human existence within a single work. Though that's a fair way of looking at it, I think Tolstoy would take great offense to this form of criticism. On one hand, if you're going to write a 1358-page novel, you darned well better have that achievement in mind. On the other hand, we must question whether the entire spectrum of life in its silliness and surliness; its glee and gumption; its precipices and pitfalls; its irregularities and its incongruities; its dainty moments and sweeping vistas, is contained within its scope. War and Peace simply evades explanation in all its facets. Hard as I've thought about a single word to describe it, I've failed. Part of that stems from the simple fact that it would be a gross degradation to the most eternal art and its craftsmen to confine it to a lone, easily-grasped description. That being said, War and Peace is probably the closest to a legitimate attempt to analyze, explore, and revel in the all-encompassing miracle of life. If to write a novel is to create a universe; then to Tolstoy, to write a novel is to probe the universe for its goodness, truth, and beauty amidst everything that threatens to erase it. Dipping into these pages a bit, it doesn't take a complete reconnoitering of Tolstoy's creative landscape to deduce that he's trying to make a kind of art that had never been done before. This should be the model for all third-person-omniscient writing, period. Another reviewer put it best by explaining that the current obsession with "showing instead of telling" is a significant harm to classical writing technique. Thank the Lord that Tolstoy didn't live to see the rise of the modernist novels (though, I admit, it would be fascinating to see him write about the Russian Revolution and the World Wars). This viewpoint gives us a complete understanding of each character and a miraculous plumbing of events both monumental and miniscule, achieved through a consistently engaging and clipped prose, that I don't think I've ever obtained from any other work of fiction. If one becomes "attached" to characters in modern romance novels, then you'll be crying tears of desire for more time to be spent with the characters after closing War and Peace. Tolstoy is not a perfect writer. His "telling" method does lead to some over-explanation and repetition at times, and certain passages made me long for some subtlety (that is one word that I can assure you this novel is not). You don't read Tolstoy for narrative perfection (though he's really good at it), you read him for unparalleled insight and wisdom of the world wrapped up in a story so rich and marvelous that the world you inhabit feels like it has been bathed in a deep, piercing light. The merging of the original and the observational in utter harmony is the standout insignia of War and Peace. Of course, the reason why the vast majority of us don't even think about touching this is because of its heavenly length. All art has its challenges. Shakespeare is avoided because of his "arcane" language, Bach his "intellectualism", Homer his "weirdness". Yet, despite the challenges faced in understanding them, all of these elements contribute to the full experience of these works. Tolstoy's "heavenly length" should be viewed not as a formidable obstacle but a significant landmark in literary technique. The length of the novel is, I am led to believe, purposeful. By offering us a glimpse into as much of life as he cares to show, and doing it through his massive framework, Tolstoy produces a unique psychological effect unparalleled elsewhere. After a while, one begins to feel that the world presented in the novel has become a part of their own life. Novellas and short stories have their artistry and their importance; herculean mountains like War and Peace have their indelible impact on the human condition. By expanding the horizons of the Battles of Austerlitz and Borodino to include the lives of complex, ordinary individuals affected by the choices of the "great men"; by elevating the mundane occasions of existence; by simultaneously humbling and exalting the human being, Tolstoy demonstrates life as an enveloping marvel of curiosity streaked with pain, sorrow, and desperation brought on by the actions of men. I can see the (quite justified) criticism that Tolstoy portrays his characters most often in implausible peaks and troughs of emotion, impulse, and supernatural experience instead of mundane circumstances. But in so doing, he shows just how fickle and just how marvelous we really are and what we are truly capable of, as well as the despicable consequences that stem from poor choices and worldviews. By interspersing the philosophy behind his art throughout, he also creates an intriguing thematic dichotomy between free will and necessity to ponder throughout (yes, I read Part II of the Epilogue, yes, it's too long, yes, it's probably unnecessary, and yes, it's worth your time.) There are too many scenes, quotes, and passages in this novel that struck me as so incredibly profound so as to be earth-shaking, to list here. When I knew I was drawing to its end, I felt a remarkable sensation that filled me with empathy, euphoria, and struggle along with the characters. As the inevitable grip of history closes in on Russia and its inhabitants, so I felt the unavoidable grasp of truth stirring around and within me. I became aware of the complex yet worthwhile sphere of existence that was there all along. The second I was done, I wanted to read it all over again. The attitude of this great Russian artist and the great Russian artistic mindset had infiltrated me to the core. War and Peace has its faults. Some are so significant so as to force me to ponder whether my five-star rating was undeserved. I don't consider it the greatest novel of all time, as if there was such a silly notion as that in the first place. I consider it an integral component of the Western canon and in the evolution of art. And I consider its messages and its literary fabric to be infinite in potential for pleasure and meaning. I've barely scraped the surface of my ideas on this work. After all, I'm not Tolstoy. But the real question is: is War and Peace the greatest example of an artist's goal to encapsulate the whole of human existence within a single work? Read it yourself and discover your answer, just as you'll discover existence in a way you never have before. ...more |
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031242440X
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| 3.85
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| Oct 28, 2004
| Jan 10, 2006
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3/2025: I recently read King Lear for a graduate class and learned about the interesting hypothesis that the progression of Lear's physical and mental
3/2025: I recently read King Lear for a graduate class and learned about the interesting hypothesis that the progression of Lear's physical and mental symptoms throughout the play aligns very closely with that of angina pectoralis. Also, I discovered that the last line of Gilead is a direct quote from the play. Does Jack Boughton serve the role of Edgar or Cordelia for Ames? This is officially one of my ten favorite novels. 11/2022: It's hard to believe that it's going on six years since I first read Gilead. I was a high schooler who wasn't really familiar with literary fiction, and I remember glossing over or simply not comprehending many of Ames's theological passages, but I fondly recall being overwhelmed by the reading experience. I had never read anything that was written with such extraordinary grace and serenity, like a doe walking in the woods. I was fascinated, disturbed, and inspired by the central conflict with Jack Boughton, which I still think is the most finely-drawn relationship between a pair of fictional characters that I have ever encountered. And in my original review, I called the novel "a birthday party for the miracle of existence"; a phrase that I undoubtedly congratulated my 16-year-old self for cooking up. This time around, reading it for a college seminar within the context of other modern American works that deal with the possibilities of faith in the contemporary era, I encountered it completely afresh. The vast majority of the book felt totally new to me, thrown into a totally different light by all the reading and thinking I have done since that first memorable experience. Robinson's prose is so light and mellifluous, yet so pregnant and luminous with meaning, that it bears the reader along as effortlessly as a kayak down the rapids, even as she explores the richest and most challenging aspects of being human (and incorporates many moments of sterling humor—after all, it's rare that a great novel does not contain comic elements). This time around I also picked up on the fact that, beneath all the apparent disarming simplicity and directness of the book lies a convoluted, labyrinthine Faulknerian narrative technique and hardly any conventional novelistic elements. By stripping plot, conflict, and character development down to their bare minimum and presenting a series of gently adorned snapshots of internal and external contemplation, Robinson produces one of the most purely literary texts I've ever read—one that reads like life itself, and winsomely forces us to adjust our souls to its nature. It's perhaps the single greatest piece of imaginative writing that America has produced this century. The only other novel that has caused me to weep at its sheer plenitude of beauty is Middlemarch. John Ames's voice is a lighthouse that will beckon every subsequent generation of readers to return to the clear springs that feed life. Situated as it is on the brink of the Age of Anxiety and the Information Age, it is piercingly elegiac, but utterly bereft of bitterness or advocacy. Prior to this, critics had declared for decades the death of language that consoles and affirms and ideas that kindle one to seek the transcendent. Any attempt to resurrect them would be equivalent to didacticism or sentimentality. And to answer the quagmire of postmodernity, Robinson crafted a novel that, more than anything else, simply exists, suspended in a perpetual pool of light. As Ames emphasizes so repeatedly, the mere existence of something wondrous is more than reason enough to embrace it. Gilead makes a number of arguments, but that is not its primary intention. Rather, it is the still small voice that speaks after the storm, fire, and earthquake. This is the definition of a humanitarian artwork. ...more |
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B0DSZFFBST
| 4.02
| 1,002,630
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| Jul 01, 2003
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it was amazing
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One of the greatest works of art ever produced. If anyone can ever weave drama, language, philosophy, humanity, pathos, logos, and universal ideas int
One of the greatest works of art ever produced. If anyone can ever weave drama, language, philosophy, humanity, pathos, logos, and universal ideas into such a gorgeous package again...well, even that wouldn’t be Shakespeare. Because Shakespeare is himself, and what he understood about humanity and the consequences of both thought and action are so profound; so crystalline; so encapsulating; that in our modern world, it wouldn’t be well-received (even Hamlet has been maligned in support of the very ideas Shakespeare meant to warn against, as evidence by the popularity of its “To thineself be true” quote. Question: How does following that idea work out for Hamlet in the end?) The flow of his plot; the shades of his characters; the drops of truth that fall from his tapestry of entertainment...who am I to describe it, anyway? Just read it. There is nothing more to say.
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Mar 18, 2017
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0393320979
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| 3.49
| 328,882
| 1000
| Feb 17, 2001
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it was amazing
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This is an extraordinarily advanced and accomplished piece of literature, and I can't for the life of me comprehend why so many slam it as archaic, ba
This is an extraordinarily advanced and accomplished piece of literature, and I can't for the life of me comprehend why so many slam it as archaic, backward, and simplistic compared to the great classical works (I don't know if this attitude is still that common, but I have some older books of criticism that are very unkind toward this work). I suspect this is primarily due to a combination of received antipathy against the "dark ages" and the fact that it is repeatedly assigned and studied in high schools and universities as more of a historical document than a Great Book. Of course, its historical importance shouldn't be underplayed considering it's the most valuable window we have into Anglo-Saxon England, but I have a tough time seeing how anyone could honestly dismiss its heady, mythical, resonant beauty that bridges the gap between the primal heroic ethic and the medieval code of virtue. I actually recommend reading it before Homer to get a taste of the epic genre which seems to be an uncanny commonality across most developing cultures (surely no one is going to make the argument that the society that produced Beowulf knew the works of Homer?) I side with Tolkien in that the Christian elements far outweigh the pagan ones and it is quite clearly the work of a single poet retelling Germanic legends, but there are some incongruous things—i.e. the lack of mention of Christ (Beowulf himself is the salvation archetype, at least for 3/4 of the poem), biblical connections that seem hastily applied, strength and honor being largely prioritized over love and temperance, the final section being very different in quality to reflect a more Christian ethos—that prevent a wholehearted adoption of this view. But even if the work were to lack any such references, the joy of the Christian exegete is that he can hear the familiar, universal tones that resound across the entire plane of humanity's writings, and, as C.S. Lewis would say, he is liberated to appreciate the fundamental power of myth and its inseparable roots in the One True Myth. The secularist scoffs at myths and must view fiction as having no concrete connection with objective truth, but the Christian is permitted to discern reality in all paradigms. Even if one is skeptical about whether Beowulf is a truly "Christian" poem, its sense of myth is unmistakably rich, and ultimately it is its painfully tender awareness of life's dangers and felicities; and its deep sympathy toward the complexity of our responses to them, that gives me upon every reread that signature endorphin rush known to all literature lovers who know they are experiencing art as it is meant to be. I can’t stack up Heaney’s translation to others, but I can say that it is moving, well-worded, and just quirky enough in the right places to give it a sense of folk-tale color. I have a soft spot for Heaney's poetry and it may be more Heaney than Beowulf, but I have the bilingual edition and from what I can make of the Old English, I like what he does with it. Someday I wouldn't mind learning enough of the language to attempt a translation of my own. ...more |
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Mar 01, 2016
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0199537828
| 9780199537822
| 0199537828
| 3.98
| 68,941
| 400
| Feb 15, 2009
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it was amazing
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4/2024: This very well may be my favorite book. Certainly it has impacted me more than any other besides the Bible. This time I finally got around to
4/2024: This very well may be my favorite book. Certainly it has impacted me more than any other besides the Bible. This time I finally got around to reading the whole thing, including the philosophical sections in the last quarter. Augustine has officially become my dearest "heart" writer, the one who most fundamentally informs the way I view myself and the world. Though I stuck with my beloved Chadwick this time around, I did some comparison with the newest translation by Thomas Williams (Hackett, 2019), which is in many ways more direct while investing some familiar phrases with a unique punch and sparkle, but it's just a bit too informal for my liking. I still like how Chadwick keeps the highly polished, rhetorical style without trying to make it too "raw", as Williams arguably does. Reading the Latin, it's clear that Augustine was really a prose-poet who aims to impress and delight with his language, and that quality needs to be wholly preserved in any worthwhile translation. Next time I read it, I'll probably try to do it all in the original language. Original review: If you're looking for a conventional "autobiography" (that term is quite misleading when applied to this work) or theological treatise, Augustine’s style can be frustrating due to its willingness to jump around into random ruminations and seemingly irrelevant minutiae of his life. But if you have the patience and a taste for poetic wonder, you will uncover poignancy and relevance beyond all expectations. The Henry Chadwick translation is remarkable for its transformation of an achingly poetic and distinctly literary Latin (I think all Latin students have to translate the first section or two at some point in their studies; it's usually their first look at artistic Latin prose that abandons the tidy grammar of the formal exercises) into a gorgeous English with plenty of passages that perfectly distill Augustine’s rhetorical brilliance while remaining faithful to the text. This is much better than, say, the strange and borderline unreadable Garry Wills translation, which ironically approaches paraphrase while simultaneously using obscure and pretentious Latin derivatives in an attempt to sound "faithful". ...more |
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Apr 28, 2015
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1593080956
| 9781593080952
| 1593080956
| 3.85
| 174,373
| Jan 01, 1667
| Aug 26, 2004
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it was amazing
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Far be it from me to exercise ill-advised hubris and attempt to write a review of the greatest English-language poem, and perhaps the most infinitely
Far be it from me to exercise ill-advised hubris and attempt to write a review of the greatest English-language poem, and perhaps the most infinitely fertile literary work of the ADs, on Goodreads. One of my favorite proofs for the authority of the Bible is that its themes are so intricately interwoven, so bottomlessly complex, and cloaked in continuous threads, that it is impossible to be composed without divine inspiration. The sheer richness of Milton's work comes the closest to challenging that argument, and even though it doesn't change my opinion on Scripture, it is probably my favorite non-sacred text of all time. The unbounded eloquence, spiritual and theological zeal, incendiary passion for knowledge, mastery of style, proportion and affect; and overwhelming vistas of beauty contained in this poem move me to tears. There is nothing more to say.
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Oct 27, 2021
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