I'm convinced that there is a discrete outpost within the southern climes of my stomach— approximately the size of an average avocado pit—where my loaI'm convinced that there is a discrete outpost within the southern climes of my stomach— approximately the size of an average avocado pit—where my loathing resides. In this theory, my loathing, in its neutral state, is a congealed knob of greenish wax-like substance which radiates a faint, mostly evenly-distributed rancor throughout my body. It isn't an assertive affect—just a general disposition which can be given in to or overcome (with effort) as one wishes.
But certain stimuli have the power, it would seem, to activate this usually semi-dormant nugget of bilious hatred. When activated, the globule softens and then melts into a highly acidic solution that sloshes within and throughout the gastrointestinal system, corroding its protective walls and debilitating its normal functions. The deleterious effect of this substance cannot be overstated. Historically, it has incited wars, occasioned crimes of passion, and precipitated unmanageable bouts of diarrhea. Its direst symptom, of course, is the impairment of rational judgment—that fragile mechanism which maintains (however precariously) an ordered society. If the substance remains activated and in its liquefied form indefinitely, profound and irreversible mental dysfunction can occur—which is why aromatherapy and meditation have become so popular, I guess.
To get to the point: Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy liquefied (and boiled) my globule. It is such an astoundingly inept novel that I'm not sure exactly how to approach it. It's as if somebody asked me what the main problem with the movie 2012 was. How does one answer that? I want to tell you what's wrong with this novel, but I think I would have to set aside two weeks at a writer's retreat to get it all out.
Do you like novels that are populated only by two-dimensional characters who never change or evolve in any way over the course of three hundred pages—but who instead act in the same (ridiculous, undermotivated) way over and over and over and over again? Do you like when completely implausible events comprise almost the entirety of a novel's plot? Do you like it when a novelist satirizes things (e.g., the banking industry, power trips, the cult of personality) that are, for all practical purposes, self-satirizing and require no exaggeration whatsoever to illustrate their failings and absurdities? Do you like funny novels that aren't funny—I mean, novels that try so fucking hard to be biting and hilarious but fail almost uniformly to be anything but tepid and obvious? Do you like novels about unlikable characters whose unlikability (its genesis, its motivation) is never explored in any real way and never used to make any point whatsoever?
WELL, HAVE I GOT A NOVEL FOR YOU, SUCKER!
Ride a Cockhorse is about a fortysomething woman named Frances 'Frankie' Fitzsimmons, who at the very outset of the novel has changed. She was once a sweet, helpful, milquetoast kind of gal (we are told, anyway), but suddenly she is now a megalomaniacal asshole who seduces a high school boy, ruthlessly forces her way up the corporate ladder, and loses all grasp of reality. We aren't told why she changed. Raymond Kennedy has simply told us that she has changed, and we shouldn't question it. If Frankie Fitzsimmons were an actual character, maybe Kennedy would have offered up a little insight, a little shading, but she's not. She's a cartoon. A cardboard cut-out. A one-note idea dressed up in a skirt. Although Frankie generally acts like a freak and engages in the most ridiculous behavior, she is constantly rewarded by fate (or she reaps the benefits of having weak and ineffectual enemies).
Oh. And I hope you like reading monotonous ravings... (You made it this far into this monotonous raving, so I suppose you do.) Because Frankie goes on and on and on about how great she is. She's like Muhammed Ali in three-inch heels.
You know how I said she's an asshole at the beginning of the novel? Well... SPOILER ALERT! She's an asshole at the end of the novel too! Nothing has changed. She hasn't grown or learned anything or been developed by the author in any way. I guess Kennedy didn't really have a choice though—because when a character is defined only by one characteristic, you can only tinker around with that characteristic at the risk of losing the character altogether.
ARGH! My globule is so melted right now that I need to go listen to some sitar music or visit a Japanese garden to re-coagulate it. So if you'll excuse me......more
The Cullens, a boorish, wealthy Irish couple, pay a visit to their friend Alexandra Henry, an American heiress living in France. Rather than bringing The Cullens, a boorish, wealthy Irish couple, pay a visit to their friend Alexandra Henry, an American heiress living in France. Rather than bringing a bottle of grocery store wine or a modest floral arrangement, Mrs. Cullen brings her 'pet' hawk Lucy—the hooded, undomesticated, pigeon-eating symbol of the book. Fortunately enough, Alexandra has another guest staying with her named Alwyn Tower (that's a man, not an office complex) to do the play-by-play on all the character psychology, so if the blinking, glow-in-the-dark symbolism of the book escapes your notice, he's the giant, pointing finger that says, 'Hey. Will you look at that?' Even though Tower is mostly cold and supercilious, I'll admit that he can turn a nice phrase here and there—which makes many of his trite insights more digestible than they really have any right to be.
The entirety of this very brief novel takes place during this visit and consists (in large part) of Mrs. Cullen's Wild Kingdom-like reportage on the habits of the hawk and the ins and outs of falconry, which—after a brief flirtation with political radicalism—is her latest hobby. Of course, many of these avian behaviors she describes are synonymous in some blindingly metaphorical sense to the workings of her troubled marriage, as well as to the tumultuous relationship between Jean and Eva, two servants in the house. (At one point, the hawk shits on the parquet floor. Ain't that just the way love is?) But it doesn't help that the Cullens are unlikable, and any interest we normally might take in their conjugal health is surpassed by an urgent desire to get away from them.
It's hard not to respond to The Pilgrim Hawk with a patronizing attitude and to send it off with a pat on its quaint little head. On the one hand it seems puffed-up and dated—both in style and sensibility—but on the other hand I wasn't bored at all by it. Some of the passages, in fact, had me thinking, 'Wow. This must be a lot better than I think it is.' But it's all in the service of something so banal that it's just not easy to get excited about. ...more
Feeling barfy and delirious this past weekend finally gave me the necessary downtime to finish this book—which isn't meant to imply that Warlock is a Feeling barfy and delirious this past weekend finally gave me the necessary downtime to finish this book—which isn't meant to imply that Warlock is a chore to read, but only that I had developed a sudden distaste for reading itself and preferred to while away my hours watching bad television with my hand down my pants. (By the way, from the mouthbreathing vantage of my sofa, all of you nerds mooning over Bolaño and Pynchon look like Urkel.) Anyway, even though this western novel has a lot of insightful things to say about the precariousness of law and order in civilized society, you can forget all that if you're not into intellectually redeeming qualities—because it's just a good old-fashioned matinee yarn. Warlock (played by Julian Sands in the film adaptation) is actually a dusty, blink-and-you-miss-it mining town in the Old West that hasn't been officially recognized as governmental entity by the Powers That Be, leaving it in a hybrid state of lawlessness and makeshift authority that doesn't seem to be working very well. (Suddenly, while typing the previous sentence, I've lost interest in writing this review—mainly because it's 4:30 AM and I'm hungry—but I want to tell you that you should read it because it's really, really good. Or don't read it. It's your life.)...more
Among countless other things—both real and imaginary—I'm afraid of water. Not drinking water, of course, but the roiling seas whose power and caprice Among countless other things—both real and imaginary—I'm afraid of water. Not drinking water, of course, but the roiling seas whose power and caprice spell certain doom for the likes of me. Because (of course) I can't swim. Complementing this missing skill set, I lack any effectiveness in crisis situations, so my chances of successfully floating until the sharks ate me are (in the most generous of terms) laughable. My inability to swim was primarily informed by a perplexity at why anyone would even want to, recreationally speaking. Near-nudity in what amounts to a communal bath tub doesn't exactly appeal to my demographic. The demographic of one.
Richard Hughes' seafaring adventure In Hazard clearly benefits from my fear of water. Certain parts of it—where the protagonist ship the Archimedes is tossed hither and thither in the eyeteeth of a monstrous hurricane—are suspenseful and utterly gripping. Hughes has a talent for transmitting a breathless sense of real peril to his readers. On more than a few occasions, I actually lost myself in the adventure of it—which is remarkable for me because when I am reading a book I am also usually thinking about myself reading a book. There is very little direct access to experience for me; it's generally mediated by a self-awareness which deflects some of the impact.
But... (With a three-star rating, you knew there'd be a 'but' ambling along shortly.) Other parts of In Hazard are just really boring and uneven. Let me explain. This may surprise many of you who know me, but I am not a steam ship captain of the 1930s. I'm often mistaken for one on the street, in my jaunty sailor's cap, my striped shirt, and my careless stubble, but it's true: I can not actually pilot a seaworthy vessel. Shocking, I know. Richard Hughes, however—owing to some sort of epic misunderstanding of Three's Company proportions—seems to believe I'm well-versed in the nomenclature and mechanics of steam ship travel. In the first half of the book in particular, he speaks casually about all kinds of gadgets and whatchamacallits that keep a ship running and presupposes of his readers a working knowledge of their general operation. Yeah, good luck with that one, Dick Hughes.
So in essence, this is how passages of the book read to your average layman:
Seeing that the overhead bearing platform had come loose from the whinny rig, Henry clamped the number eight finglestick to the precariously unmoored cumble rack, which was dripping oil from the reclamation spout on its leeward side. In a panic, Captain Bieber mounted the aft reversible humperdinck valve to the mainstay colander support and shouted, 'You better turn the kardashian valve forty-five degrees toward the summer salad duodenum or we'll lose all of our stippled cobblerspeck, goddamnit!'
But that's not the only problem. In the second half of the book Hughes devotes a wildly disproportionate number of pages to the backstory of one of the Chinese crew members who has never been mentioned before. It's odd and extremely conspicuous because it really goes nowhere and seems to have been inserted into the novel for no apparent reason. I'm not saying it isn't (sort of) interesting, but why is it here? And where was the editor—the voice of reason to say, 'Hey, Dick, love what you've done with this, but it's like you've eaten three or four different meals here and puked them up into the same toilet bowl.' I mean, he could be more diplomatic about it, but constructive criticism was warranted....more
As is the case with many great and memorable children's tales, Pinocchio is predominated by the threat of violence and death. At one point the incorriAs is the case with many great and memorable children's tales, Pinocchio is predominated by the threat of violence and death. At one point the incorrigible puppet is actually lynched by a Fox and a Cat who are after his gold coins. The Talking Cricket (the model for Disney's Jiminy Cricket) is killed by Pinocchio, using a mallet to smash him against the wall, as early as chapter four. The Cricket's primary offense? Giving some lame moralistic advice to the anarchic puppet. (The Talking Cricket was a social conservative, apparently.) Later the magical fairy, a strange deus ex machina with blue hair and an even bluer temperament, is introduced as the ghost of a dead child. I could go on and on, but you get the picture here. If you don't behave, children, and do your schoolwork, you'll probably suffer ghastly and various permutations of misery, including but not limited to being eaten by a giant shark. The tension lies in Collodi's celebration of (in Rebecca West's hyperanalytic parlance) 'transgression' set against the book's explicit moralizing and voluble tsk-tsking and pooh-poohing. Although the anonymous narrator states outright that peril and misfortune are the consequences of bad behavior, Collodi makes Pinocchio's adventures oddly exhilarating. One wonders if the story is less proscriptive than it is a subtle lamentation of the freedoms we must surrender to become 'human.'
Collodi's world is troubling, to say the least. We are conditioned to expect the magical in storytelling—so long as there is an internal consistency. Collodi, however, doesn't bother with logic. Why does Pinocchio seem human and vulnerable in some predicaments but resilient and indomitable in others? Why are the fairy's powers arbitrary and situational? Why does Pinocchio turn into a donkey—other than in the service of a metaphor? I'll admit I'm a stickler for details, but the simplicity and surprising humor of Pinocchio distracts me from the fundamental realization that Collodi has created a world without rules that is overly indebted to coincidence and/or providence. In other words, I liked it—despite everything....more
I just don't get Robert Walser. I want to. I really do. I mean, I've read a lot of the other reviews on this site (most of which should come with a moI just don't get Robert Walser. I want to. I really do. I mean, I've read a lot of the other reviews on this site (most of which should come with a mop and some wetnaps), and apparently anybody who ever reads this thing ascends immediately into the heavens with a pure, beatific light emanating from the nucleus of his soul while a thousand choirs erupt in a song so rapturous that its very vibrations elicit a cataclysmic orgasm in all its listeners. (In other words... I'll have what they're having.) So I sit there, reading this book, and... and... I don't know any other way to put it—I'm actually pressing my mind into it with an almost physical force. I can feel myself exerting all of my being—almost grunting, in fact—in a vain attempt to decipher that miraculous je ne sais quoi that makes everyone soil their trousers. Where is it? Where the fuck is it?! I start to panic—but no—I will not panic! This is all a practical joke, right? Allen Funt, come out from your hiding place... but not if you're dead, okay? I don't know how to concentrate on these words any harder and make them come alive. I feel as if my eyes are bulging out of my head like Barbara Bush's. I hope nobody's watching me. I mean... they've got to be kidding, right? The JFK conspiracy, and now this. The Walser conspiracy. It's not that Walser is even or especially bad; that would actually be interesting. It's just that he's almost nothing. A dandelion puff, scattered to the four winds—or how ever many winds there are. But here I am, still waiting for my orgasm. And waiting. Whom can I sue? I'm feeling litigious. ...more
This is admittedly a half-baked and unfair question—but it's a necessary one too, if only to get one's foot in the doo1. What is the Thirty Years War?
This is admittedly a half-baked and unfair question—but it's a necessary one too, if only to get one's foot in the door. It's a bit like asking, What is World War I? In response, we can certainly list the belligerent nations, we can outline the (ostensible) military and political goals, we describe the significant events and battles, and we can offer up some (partially speculative, partially causal) analysis of how the war affected and determined that which followed it, but does this compilation of fact and critical analysis satisfactorily answer the question? Or does it merely lead to other, more complex questions which nag at us until we arrive some overly simplified, discrete 'essence' of the conflict, predominantly ideological in nature, which tidies up the practical messes that arise out of a long-lasting, far-reaching war?
But to hell with postmodernist qualms. I'll stick my toe in the cold waters of the provisional and attempt an answer. Keep in mind that I only became conscious of the Thirty Years War (as anything but a name) earlier this year, so I lay no claims to authority. I am a student. This is the yield of my studies, however incomplete:
The Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648) began as an internal crisis and civil war within the Holy Roman Empire and ended in an international war fought largely on German soil. In the early 1600s, the Holy Roman Empire was an odd agglomeration of royal domains, electorates, free cities, duchies, landgraves and other territorial units in Central Europe, centered in present-day Germany and Austria but incorporating portions of other modern nations, such as eastern France and the Czech Republic, as well. I say that the HRE (Holy Roman Empire) is odd for many reasons—chief among them (1) that it did not incorporate Rome, (2) that although its leadership fought on behalf of Roman Catholicism, the Pope was actually against the ruling family, thus problematizing the adjective 'Holy,' (3) that the Emperor was elected by the prince-electors of the Empire, some of whom were Protestant, ambivalent about the integrity of the Empire, and openly antagonistic toward the imperial authority, (4) and that the Emperor could claim only very limited power in that he was bound to certain decisions of a 'Diet' (or congress of the prince-electors) and his military forces were relatively weak, ineffectual, and therefore unable to enforce imperial decrees. (In fact, some of the princes of the Empire had stronger armies at their disposal than the Emperor did.) Obviously, you can tell from this cursory description of the HRE in 1618 that it is a heterogenous, decentralized entity ripe for conflict.
It is also difficult, from the vantage of modernity, to discuss the HRE in that it fails to conform to any of our notions of nationhood (or even Empire, really). It's just this giant mish-mash of indistinct, variable territories governed not with respect to national integrity, but only with regard to the self- aggrandizing and often mercenary interest of their respective rulers. Maximilian, the Duke of Bavaria, for instance, had his own dynastic and territorial interests at heart when he switched sides during the war. His land was ravaged, his people were brutalized and on the verge of revolt, but he thought only of his own political and territorial preservation; after all, he wanted to accumulate as much land as possible—even scorched, ruined land—to leave to his heirs. There was no Bavarian national feeling in the way that we might understand it today.
Against the volatile background, we need only the match to light the tinder. And that match was a Protestant German prince's attempt to 'usurp' the throne of Bohemia after the Emperor already laid claim to it himself (in circumstances too complicated to go into here). The Emperor's partisans were thrown out of a castle window in Prague, and this touched off a civil war within the Empire in which (for the most part) the Protestant princes fought the Emperor and the Catholic princes.
It's worth noting that the Holy Roman Emperors during the war were Ferdinand II and, later, Ferdinand III, who were members of the House of Habsburg, which also (but separately and distinct from the HRE) ruled Spain. Naturally other European powers were extremely threatened by the power of the Habsburgs—the Bourbon dynasty of France most especially, since it was hemmed in on both sides by the Habsburgs. Thus, the civil war in time blossomed into a greater European war, which in various intervals involved France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, the (Dutch) United Provinces, and the Spanish Netherlands. (Did I leave out anyone? Oh, yeah. Maybe some Italian duchies were involved for short periods.)
In the end, although Sweden played a significant role in the war, it seemed to culminate in a dynastic battle between the Habsburgs (and their allies) and the Bourbons (and their allies) that, some suggest, marked a shift in European conflict, generally speaking, from religious warfare to proto-nationalist warfare. Needless to say, between the foreign powers and the German territories, there are too many reversals of fortune and changes of sides to retell here, but suffice it to say that it did not end well for the Habsburgs. The war effectively marked the end of a Spain as a major world power, Emperor Ferdinand III was forced to cede parts of the HRE to French and Swedish authority, and some electorate lands were returned to their previous Protestant rulers. Although the HRE was surely already in decline, the Thirty Years War gave it another swift kick in the ass. Besides the territorial loss, much of the empire was utterly wasted, plague and famine ravaged entire populations, and the various armies horribly abused the locals as they passed through: burning their towns, raping their women, stealing their food and valuables, and killing them indiscriminately. (Often the armies were as abusive to the people of their own lands as they were to their adversaries.) Cannibalism and disease were widespread. To say the least, it was not a fun time to be a German.
2. What about the book?
Well, I went through this looong-ass discussion of what the war is so that you might be able to tell whether it sounds interesting to you. If the above portion of this review makes you want to know more (and—trust me—there's a lot more to know), then pick up C.V. Wedgwood's The Thirty Years War. At over five hundred pages (in the NYRB edition), it is certainly thorough, especially during the first twenty years of the war, but it is also quite accomplished as a narrative. I don't know whether you've noticed this or not, but most historians are unfortunately not good writers. While they're bursting with facts, interpretations, and insight, they are unable to put them together in a clear or interesting fashion. Often they bog us down with too much detail, trying to show off with all their research; at other times, they assume that the reader already has a thorough knowledge of the background—which is probably the worst trait of all in a historical writer. If I were already well-versed in history, I probably wouldn't need your stinkin' book to begin with.
To be fair, Wedgwood is sometimes guilty of assuming you already know stuff that you might not know. That's also why I provided a general overview of the war (and the HRE) above—for dummies like me who might, for instance, have a difficult time grasping the structure of the HRE. At other times, she is fond of printing short quotations in their original Latin or French without an English translation. I hate that. I mean, really, really hate that. Why do you assume I know the same languages as you, C.V.? (She does offer German translations, however. Why is this? We're supposed to know Latin and French but not German? Give me a list of the prerequisites before I start, okay?) Anyway, don't let this worry you because the untranslated quotes are inconsequential. You don't need them to make sense of the history. (I also fault NYRB here. When you reprint these books, you should correct the oversights. Add editorial footnotes, you idiots.)
Another gripe with Wedgwood: She's a British intellectual. No, this isn't a fault, per se... but how do you imagine that a 1930s British intellectual, born to privilege, would talk? If you answered, 'With a stick up her ass,' you are correct. While she moves the narrative along nicely, her diction is starchy and unpersonable. It's like Queen Elizabeth wrote a book. Maybe this won't bother English people as much, but sometimes in my fantasies I sought her out so that I could remove the long steel pole from her sphincter.
Another quibble (again with NYRB)... There are two maps toward the beginning of the book. Unless you are well-versed in Central European geography of the 1600s, you will often refer to these maps. There's only one (BIG) problem: a great deal of the center of both maps is lost in the binding! It certainly doesn't help that a lot of the action happens in these lost territories. How can any non-moronic book publishing company want to reprint these 'classics' and yet not correct these major problems? I don't care if you just copied the old typesetting, NYRB; you need to REDO the maps because they are stupid and nonfunctional as they are. So I advise all readers to look for maps of the HRE during the Thirty Years War online (there are many), print one, and tuck it into the front of your book for future reference. You have to do this extra work because the NYRB people are kind of idiots, I guess.
3. Hey! You've said a lot of bad stuff about this book! What's with the four stars?
Despite all that stuff, I really enjoyed reading it—and as I said before, it's very, very difficult to find well-written historical books about subjects you're interested in, so I have to grade a little on the curve. In fact, this book made me want to read more about the Holy Roman Empire. So I went to Amazon and discovered there's not much about the subject (specifically) in print. This branched off into quite a few other related topics I wanted to know about—but likewise there were few or no books available, and if a book was available, all of the reviewers seemed to hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns.
So do you see what I mean? This book is great, relatively speaking. It's about an interesting subject, it's reasonably coherent, the pacing is just right, and it sparks interest in related topics. Therefore, it gets four stars. Mind you, I don't know that I would have wanted to spend a lot of time partying with C.V. Wedgwood. But some people you want to learn about the HRE from, and some people you want to get drunk and watch Birdemic: Shock and Terror with. If you ever meet someone who fulfills both needs, start worshiping them because it might be a messiah of some sort....more
I had some problems with We Think the World of You—some of which aren't exactly J.R. Ackerley's fault. For one, this is a novel depicting low-class BrI had some problems with We Think the World of You—some of which aren't exactly J.R. Ackerley's fault. For one, this is a novel depicting low-class British scum who neglect and sometimes abuse a wonderful German shepherd named Evie. Anyone who knows me even a little will realize I will be bothered by this, even though Ackerley himself and his narrator both love, champion, and celebrate dogs, particularly Evie. Ackerley was a misanthrope devoted to his own dog in real life, apparently, so there is a strong affinity in that respect, but I have to lay my predisposition out on the table: in general, I don't want to read books about imperiled or suffering animals—even if the writing is good (as it is here), even if the point of the work is the defense or celebration of animals, and even if it ends happily ever after (view spoiler)[(again, as it does here, with respect to the dog at least) (hide spoiler)]. This aversion will necessarily color my appreciation of this book.
We Think the World of You tells the story of Frank, an irritable gay man, in a longterm relationship with a married working class man named Johnny, who has just been put in prison at the outset of the novel for theft. Johnny needs someone to take care of his puppy Evie while he's in prison, but Frank, peevishly, refuses. The responsibility then falls to Johnny's parents Millie (a blithe dingbat) and Tom (a cruel old grouch). Also saddled with one of Johnny's kids, Millie and Tom take little interest in Evie—keeping her shut inside all day with little or no attention or love. After Evie charms Frank during a visit, he becomes obsessed with the plight of the dog, trying to rescue her from her fate, but he is regularly blocked in his efforts by Millie, Tom, Johnny's jealous wife Megan, and—to some circumstantial extent—by Johnny himself. Evie is, of course, a barking, put-upon symbol in the lives of these characters, and as such she must suffer neglect, loneliness, and the effects of superfluity in the lives of her 'family' while the ever persistent Frank works for her salvation—and, in so doing, his own.
Postscript: I've just been reading reviews of J.R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip, an autobiographical novel about his own relationship with his German shepherd. According to multiple reviewers, Ackerley becomes obsessed with breeding his dog (twice) and then both times considers drowning the puppies. Fuck you, J.R. Ackerley. If there is a hell, I hope you're in it, you miserable crank....more
Where has this book been all my life? I've been dreamily gazing out my window all these long hot summers, yearning for just the novel to fulfill my evWhere has this book been all my life? I've been dreamily gazing out my window all these long hot summers, yearning for just the novel to fulfill my every need—to take me in its sweet-lovin' arms and say without ever quite saying, 'I'm the one. And I've brought the hot oils and penicillin.' It seems a little cruel, or at least irresponsible, for A High Wind in Jamaica to have hidden in the shadows of literary obscurity for so long, forcing me to waste precious hours of my life reading dreck like V.S. Naipaul and Auster's Brooklyn Follies, but why bemoan the past when in fact we're the lucky ones? Some poor saps read all their lives without meeting their literary soulmates and then die with that nagging dissatisfaction pursuing them to the grave. Not me. I've found Salinger, Proust, Bernhard, Krasznahorkai, Richard Hughes, and the rest. (Okay—so I have a lot of soulmates.) This is my orgy of destiny, and the Do Not Disturb sign is on the doorknob.
Just now I said that A High Wind in Jamaica has been hiding 'in the shadows of literary obscurity.' That's not exactly true. It came in at number seventy-one (I believe) on the Modern Library's ridiculous best novels of 20th century list. But still—it doesn't exactly have widespread name recognition like Hemingway, Orwell, or Joyce. It should be just as well-known, of course, but this isn't a fair world. Remember that the Kardashians are celebrities. (That's my current back-to-reality incantation. It quickly counteracts any tendency to expect justice in this world.)
A High Wind in Jamaica is a wickedly unsentimental portrait of childhood and the innocence thereof. It is a needful antidote to the prevailing sense that childhood innocence is the equivalent of moral goodness—because it clearly is not. Young children are largely amoral and, as such, are capable of nearly anything. From the vantage of our adult morality, children can seem callous, cruel, and perhaps even evil. This is a misinterpretation, of course, because they as yet lack the signal posts to act in defiance of a proscribed morality. What they are (to a certain extent) is unmoderated expression. This is a little terrifying to us once we've been fully domesticated by society. And Richard Hughes understands this.
The story is simple enough. In the 1800s, several children are shipped by their parents from their Jamaican plantations back home to London to avoid the environmental and climatic perils of island life. On the way, their ship is hijacked by pirates and they are unintentionally taken prisoner. Thereafter, they become accomplices of the pirates in their continuing adventures. Hughes embellishes the story with an astonishing gift for imagery and turn of phrase and a knack for the blackest kind of humor. I'm well aware that the vague synopsis above is likely to turn away as many readers as it will woo. Just let me assure you that it isn't what you think, and it's probably like nothing you've ever read. It may not be your literary soulmate, but its uniqueness of tone, vision, and temperament deserves to be read....more
Italo Svevo's 1890s novel As a Man Grows Older is the perfect gift for people who have never experienced human emotions but are curious what they are Italo Svevo's 1890s novel As a Man Grows Older is the perfect gift for people who have never experienced human emotions but are curious what they are like. So the next time you're wondering what to get that certain hard-to-buy-for humanoid for his Inception Day gift, put that boring spark plug down and hook him up with some Svevo. It's much easier to wrap anyway....more
Céleste Albaret, Marcel Proust's majordomo and jacqueline-of-all-trades for the last ten years (or so) of his life, 'wrote' this memoir in the 1970s. Céleste Albaret, Marcel Proust's majordomo and jacqueline-of-all-trades for the last ten years (or so) of his life, 'wrote' this memoir in the 1970s. And by 'wrote' I mean that she rattled off her memories to a ghostwriter, and then the ghostwriter's book Monsieur Proust was later translated into English. So the NYRB edition of Monsieur Proust referenced here is really twice-removed from a first-person account. But probably another layer of removal is implied by the fifty years which passed between the events of the book and Albaret's recollections. I don't know about you, but I have a difficult time remembering what I did or said last week, so (to my thinking) an account fifty years after the fact necessarily implies approximation. Albaret, ironically, weakens her case for accuracy when she insists that she remembers (quite a few) exact quotations and precise details. But nothing is more damaging to her claim of nearly exhaustive knowledge of Proust during the final years of his life than her insistence that he was not a homosexual. Her arguments seem motivated by rationalizations and perhaps by her own preference that Proust not be homosexual, but who really knows? One of Albaret's lamest attempts to buttress her case is her claim that Proust told her pretty much everything, so he would have likewise told her of his 'indiscretions.' Either this assertion overstates her intimacy with Proust or vastly understates what it meant to be a closeted gay man in the very early part of the twentieth century. Without any hint of irony, Albaret maintains that Proust several times visited a male brothel but only for purposes of research. Of course, his observations at the brothel are featured memorably in Time Regained, but one tends to raise an eyebrow at the claim that his interests were solely educational. Albaret spends one chapter itemizing the 'loves of his life' (all of them women, all of them seemingly chaste) and discusses the 'real' Gilberte Swann, Duchesse de Guermantes, Madame Verdurin, and others (although these characters were amalgams of many real people). All of this is interesting, even if it belies the true objects of his affections.
Despite all this, Albaret's book is fascinating for Proustophiles. (And make no mistake—this book is only for hardcore Proustophiles. Dabblers need not apply.) Maybe Albaret didn't know all of the particulars of Proust's sexual tastes, but she certainly knew almost everything about his reclusive lifestyle during his final decade. After having read Monsieur Proust, I have a very specific, fully fleshed-out idea of a day-to-day existence that was only hazy and trivial before. The cork-lined walls, the nocturnal life, the phobia of germs and illnesses, the ascetic diet, the ritualistic behavior... the fabled bedroom on Boulevard Haussmann... It's all here, in vivid detail. Albaret, who is one of the models for the maid Francoise in A la recherche du temps perdu, is worshipful; she adores Proust, and she has almost nothing to say that is critical of him—except on those curious occasions when she reveals things she doesn't imagine to be damning but which—in the minds of most readers—will probably seem so. Is there evidence to support the many claims of Proust's snobbishness? Yes. Is he demanding and authoritative? Yes. Do we get the sense that Proust is emotionally cold, dryly analytic, as if he stands resolutely apart from the world he observes? That his melacholy is somehow abstract and unengaged? Absolutely. But he's also charming, generous, and funny—and unfailingly loyal to Céleste Albaret. There's an absorbing chapter on the notorious dandy Count Robert de Montesquiou, who serves as the primary model for the equally notorious Baron de Charlus. Montesquiou was a frightening kind of man capable of outrageously rude and spiteful behavior. Proust warned Albaret that if he ever received chocolates from Montesquiou, they should be thrown out; they might be poisoned. There's also a great section on Proust's (and Albaret's) atttitude toward André Gide, the famed French writer who rejected the manuscript of Swann's Way and later came to regret it. All in all, Monsieur Proust, faults and all, is a must-read for any diehard Proust fan, and I'm kind of shocked only twentysome people have rated it on Goodreads. If you've devoted a significant chunk of your life to reading all of A la recherche du temps perdu, then make time for the additional four hundred pages of Monsieur Proust....more
Daphne Du Maurier is very British. And I am very not. Her language leaves me at a cool, unengaged distance, mostly—which clearly isn't desirable for tDaphne Du Maurier is very British. And I am very not. Her language leaves me at a cool, unengaged distance, mostly—which clearly isn't desirable for the kind of fiction she traffics in (i.e., horror, basically, but of a more cerebral variety). Two of the stories in this collection ('The Birds' and 'Don't Look Now') have been adapted into films by Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Roeg, respectively. In the former case, Du Maurier's story easily outshines Hitchcock's goofy, overlong film—and is certainly the best and perhaps only truly visceral story in the collection—and in the latter case... well, let's just say neither the film nor the story is terribly successful. And in the film there's a distressing amount of Donald Sutherland nudity. (And any amount of Donald Sutherland nudity is, as you might well guess, a distressing amount.) I've read these stories over a month, and I can't remember many of them. I can't make up my mind whether to blame this on my memory or Du Maurier's failure as a writer, but either way I'm probably being too generous by giving this three stars. (Yeah, just look at me being all generous. And you thought I was an asshole.)...more
I'm abandoning this one by the roadside like an old shoe or a sack of dead lithium batteries. It probably wasn't fair to Comrade Serge to embark upon I'm abandoning this one by the roadside like an old shoe or a sack of dead lithium batteries. It probably wasn't fair to Comrade Serge to embark upon his novel immediately after a Chekhov compilation. (It's not likely he would blossom in the shade of the master.) But I had hope. A fictional indictment of (the realities of) Stalinism? What's not to love, right? The Case of Comrade Tulayev may call itself a novel, but it's essentially a collection of related short stories. A Stalinist-era political functionary is killed one night in the streets of Moscow; this murder, carried out by a single man without much premeditation, is subsequently used as a pretext for purging the Communist Party of undesirables. (If you understand anything about Stalin's sociopathic paranoia, then you know that 'undesirables' is a heterogeneous category comprised largely of innocent scapegoats and other unfortunates whose only crime was the inability to read Stalin's mind and to predict his highly changeable political agenda.) The first chapter details the actual murder of Comrade Tulayev, and the following chapters (so far as I read) chronicle the downfall of particular Party members. Some parts of the book are riveting (if predictable, since the reader is apt to know much more about the excesses of Stalinism than Serge's contemporary readers). But last night Victor Serge irritated me. And I wanted him out of my sight. It was the chapter on the Spanish Civil War that did it. A Soviet advisor arrives in Spain to oversee the Communist engagement in the anti-fascist war there. Fine, okay. But Serge, as always, writes in a very ungenerous way. He assumes his readers know more than a little about the Spanish Civil War, and throws around specifics as if he's talking to himself in his own head. Throw us a bone, Serge. Some of us are ignoramuses who maybe wanna be edified, you know? Even the chapters in the Soviet Union, I think, would be somewhat of a challenge for a reader who didn't know anything about the Stalinist era. Sometimes when I read a book that doesn't want to meet its readers halfway, I muscle through anyway, but last night I wasn't in the mood. I was bored, irritable, and a little sick, and I didn't really like Victor Serge taking it for granted that readers' bodies of knowledge and social orientation are the same as his own. His tactic, of course, is mostly immersive. He throws us in the cold water without a life vest, and we're supposed to sink or swim, I guess, based on our abilities and efforts. Well, I choose neither to sink or to swim. I'm climbing back in the metaphorical boat. ...more
No matter how much Russian literature I read—in English translation, of course—and no matter who the translator happens to be, I am left with the naggNo matter how much Russian literature I read—in English translation, of course—and no matter who the translator happens to be, I am left with the nagging suspicion that there is something essential about Russian literature and culture that I don't fully 'get.' The reactions and behavior of these characters and the social milieux they inhabit are mostly familiar, I suppose, but they are also haunted around the edges by an irreducible strangeness which no particular translation and no generosity of footnotes will ever make fully intelligible to the non-Russian. And I would be lying if I told you that this elusiveness isn't part of this literature's appeal. Anton Chekhov is no different from his marquee name compatriots Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in this respect. The several short stories and two novellas in this Edmund Wilson-curated collection point to sociocultural questions about Russian life at the end of the 19th century and the very beginning of the 20th century that Chekhov, of course, takes for granted. This, in fact, is the distinction of this collection, as Wilson points out in his brief introduction; these late stories of Chekhov, all relatively bleak, speak of the greater social problems of Russian life at this unique moment of transformation. And make no mistake: Chekhov harbors no illusions about the future; his prognosis for Russian society is hardly optimistic and offers few consolations to its victims. A stubbornly backward, underdeveloped empire has been delivered into the 20th century greatly handicapped by its cultural immensity and diffusion, its recalcitrance in the face of 'progress,' and the tragic collisions between the old and the new. In this collection of stories, translated by Constance Garnett, Chekhov illustrates these 'challenges' (this word feels like a banal euphemism here) with sadness and, occasionally, with bitterness—but never with garish sentimentality. In the story 'In the Ravine,' for example, a vulgar, well-to-do family of the developing merchant class live in a typically wretched Russian village, making money off the peasantry through black market sales, while bribing the powers-that-be; the unscrupulous son of the family takes a poor peasant girl as his wife, simply because of her beauty. The misery that's heaped upon this girl at the hands of this miserable family is nearly unbearable to read, and yet she takes this cruelty almost as a matter of course. Her equanimity is disturbing, in fact, to this reader. This is part of the inscrutability of Russian literature for me. Characters often don't act in ways you'd expect—or, more accurately, in ways you'd want them to. Their resignation to or acquiescence in their fate sometimes seems hopeless—and yet very real. I think it's wrong to assume that stories like these were the norm of Russian life at the time, but they certainly highlight the unique circumstances of fin de siècle Russia—a nation which seems always to be the exception to every known rule....more
