My love for author Daphne Du Maurier only grows.
Once this list of 100 books comes to an end I am absolutely certain I will be looking into more of her novels. Her sense of pacing and timing is simply impeccable. Mrs. Du Maurier's word choices and insight into the universal bits of the human condition, and the manner in which she plays on them, is nothing short of masterful. When most women write women I find myself not caring. Call it a condition of my gender view, but I find it to be often to over dramatically done, too foreign to my way of thinking, or too forgiving of a female character's flaws. In Rebecca I find only a perennially relatable character who reacts in completely legitimate ways that any human might to the given situation.
This section of the novel opens with the beginning of a breakdown for our unnamed heroine. She continues to see Rebecca everywhere, in the rooms she enters, at the table, and even well into the minds and hearts of everyone she meets. She begins an inevitable slide into a minor form of madness believing she is losing her identity with the knowledge that everyone is comparing her and finding her short to the nearly sainted Rebecca. She is driven by this need to know her, who she was and how she died but no one wants to speak of her but to praise her. Finally Maxim's friend, Frank, reveals how Rebecca died, capsized at sea in a boat she often took out alone.
Frank calms the heroine and comforts her, telling her that no one is actively trying to compare her. He reassures her that Maxim is happy, her own qualities are quite admirable, and that all of her paranoia is unfounded. Naturally she has to ask if Rebecca was as beautiful as everyone says. For all his faults Frank is an honest man and declares that she was, "...the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life."
Domestic bliss, or what passes for it at Manderley, continues. Our Mrs. de Winter continues to act bashful around the servants, even to the point of dashing into the dining room to quickly gather food and duck out so that the help wouldn't feel obliged to serve her. It's such a strange moment but so oddly relatable to me. To this day I have a strong aversion to an employee of any business making much of a fuss over me. I just don't like it. When we went on a Caribbean cruise there was a formal dinner we had to attend every night with our table having three different waiters for three different purposes. One poured the wine, one served the meal, and the third was in charge of anything we might need done which included cutting up our meat. If I'm at a fast casual restaurant I won't even ask for a soda refill if the machine is behind the counter because I don't want to be a bother, and there I am with three waiters for eight people. I was mortified. The only way I got through it was remembering the words of Mrs. Macready from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe "That's their function. We mustn't deprive people of their function." At a hotel with a free breakfast I get in and out as fast as possible. If a place gets my order wrong I spend no less than five minutes trying to decide whether it's worth saying anything. That is all to say...I feel ya sister.
The heroine goes out for a walk to a cove that Maxim had warned her away from earlier and finds a dim witted man who knew of Rebecca's death. He also tells her that some great secret is being kept and that a dark snake like lady, clearly Mrs. Danvers, doesn't want him to speak on it. When she returns to the house she finds a car there and a man talking to Mrs. Danvers. Later she discovers it's a man Maxim had forbidden to ever come to the house while Rebecca was alive thought Rebecca knew the man well. Plot thickens.
Chapter fourteen is one of the most beautiful and creepy chapters. Our Mrs. de Winter finds herself in a corridor and dives into an unlocked room to avoid being seen by the servants and made a fuss over. The room wasn't like many others in that wing. It was not forgotten and covered to keep out the ravages of dust and light. It was well kept and cleaned. Mrs. Danvers and begins to reveal her obsessive behavior towards Rebecca, whose room it was. This chapter makes it clear why Alfred Hitchcock stood up and took notice, this and the final moments of the eighteenth chapter. Dang. Our lady escapes and naturally chalks it up to normal grief rather than something more sinister.
Things seem to be on the upswing again as Beatrice returns to whisk Mrs. de Winter away from the gloom and melancholy. Beatrice is quite the great soul, on par with Samwise Gamgee when it comes to down to earth thinking and lifting spirits. She takes her to see her and Maxim's grandmother who has some dementia. Our lady is quite accepted by the woman who longs to return to Manderley some day, and why has there not been a ball in some time? The warmth, serenity, and confidence the grandmother engenders is suddenly broken as she calls for Rebecca. You can almost palpably feel our heroine's pain as the warmth and joy, the possibility of acceptance is wrenched from her. Beatrice apologizes profusely and our lady puts on a brave face, but the wounds are so much deeper than she'd like to admit.
After she recovers from the shock and grief she considers what everyone has told her, that there should be a ball at Manderley. Maxim agrees, as long as he doesn't have to be a part of the planning, and plans are underway. She agonizes over what to wear until Mrs. Danvers suggests that she would look rather fetching in a costume based on a painting. The death faced woman insists again and again. With no other ideas our lady agrees. Come the day of the ball, she realizes that Mrs. Danvers is not as well meaning as she had believed. What follows, the reaction and the confrontation, I won't ruin for you but Mrs. Danvers pulls an almost Norman Bates style performance that is simply amazing. You can feel the creeping fear as our lady realizes just what she is up against and why. *shiver*
Pax,
W
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
Life In Another's Shoes (Rebecca ch. 1-10)
"Wait. What happened to 'Catch-22'?"
Oh, it's a thing. It still exists. In fact it is still sitting on my bookshelf with the other of those 100BYSRBYD. The only reason that I'm moving on to the next book on the list is because I couldn't take the inanity anymore. I spent months trying and months avoiding it by setting parenting magazines and random flyers I received on top of it. Sure enough it kept peeking out from under the stack with an accusing glare. "FINE," I shouted and sat down with it for thirty minutes a day for about a week. At the end of those few days the book magically leapt from my hand, flew across the room and smacked into the wall.
Final Word on "Catch-22": While I'm sure that it has a place in the great works of literature I don't believe that a slot in the top 20 of the top 100 is deserved at ALL. This book is pretty much the novel equivalent of many "Palm d'Or" Winners at the Cannes film festival or, indeed, some of the "Best Film" winners at the Oscars. Often it seems that those films win not because of artistic merit but because it has something perceived as "worthy", a political message or something socially "relevant" to the time. It is in that same manner that I view this novel. It has an audience, sure. The Mary-like deification of prostitutes, the disregard and target abuse of any virtuous character that happens to come along, and the constant Post-Modern message that there is no goodness, there is no virtue, and all your institutions are crap so let's tear them down, violate innocence & goodness, and somehow society will magically hold together since we don't have any constructive ideas; it all coalesced into something I realized wasn't worthy of my time. I've ranted about Post-Modernism before and I realized that just because the fecal matter is being sold at the market doesn't mean I have to purchase it. It's a clever parlor trick devoid of any substance. /rantoff
"Rebecca" on the other hand has been quite a joy to read. I started it less than a week ago and I'm already one-third of the way through it.
WIKA (What I Know About): Essentially the only thing I knew about this novel coming into it was that if I was reading it in public, chances were someone would think I was reading a trashy romance novel as opposed to a literary romance novel. The cover looks as though it is wrapped in scarlet silk, much like rumpled bed sheets, and only the title and author's name besides. It has all the indications of being a Harlequin novel too hot to put something representative of the contents on the cover. Yes, I could have gotten a handsome looking trade paperback edition that would be less scandalous looking...but I would have paid 10$ more for the privilege. Other than that I knew nothing. I hadn't even heard of the opening line, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" which is supposedly as famous as, "Call me Ishmael". I was ready for a surprise.
The novel begins with something you couldn't get away with in fiction these days; two chapters of tease. The author spends those two chapters making it clear that they occur long after the end of the book. It describes the emotional state of two nameless characters who are trying to move on from some unnamed tragedy that has expelled them from Manderley much like the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden.
The first thing that grabs me about this novel is the author's writing style. I'm going to say it right here and right now...I'm in love with Daphne Du Maurier. I have not "swooned" this much while reading a novel because of spot on word usage to create a mood in a long time. She is absolutely fabulous and this novel is a moment of literary lightning captured for all time.
Describing the Manderley in her dreams she writes: "Nature had come into her own again and, little by, little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers....The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church."
In chapter two she begins: "We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and the sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it had been before."
In describing the unnamed male companion stuck in this emotional turmoil (also from chapter two): "He will fall to smoking cigarette after cigarette, not bothering to extinguish them, and the glowing stubs will lie around on the ground like petals. He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, snatching at any subject as a panacea to pain."
Woo! Somebody fan me. I've got the vapors.
It's this combination of excellent language usage and insight into the human condition that makes a good book for me. As we've said all along, a great novel speaks to these common, universal human experiences and sheds light on them. It sets us in the direction of hope and we can glean wisdom along the way, even if it is only the comforting wisdom of, "You are not alone."
In the third chapter we are introduced to Mrs. Van Hopper, who is easily one of my favorite characters in fiction. Not my favorite in the same way Bilbo Bagins, Jane Eyre, or Hamlet is. She is more in line with a Falstaff, or Meriadoc Brandybuck. Not essential for the whole novel, but a delight as they come on and enter the stage.
Mrs. Van Hopper is a bit of a one woman paparazzi. She travels to Monte Carlo every year not to take in the sights and relax. Rather, she goes to find and ingratiate herself to the rich and famous also on vacation there.
"It seemed as though notables must be fed to her, much as invalids are spooned their jelly; and though titles were preferred by her, any face seen in a social paper served as well. Names scattered in a gossip column, authors, artists, actors and their kind, even the mediocre ones, as long as she had learnt of them in print."
The unnamed protagonist is introduced as a sort of hired companion for Mrs. Van Hopper. She was hired for ninety pounds, payable at the end of the season. She is often draw into the games Mrs. Van Hopper plays with the famous. Essentially the old woman runs a scam where she declares that she saw the individual at the wedding of her nephew, produces a picture of the happy couple on their honeymoon, and trusts the fact that famous people attend a ridiculous number of weddings they can't remember and depends on their good manners to treat her like an acquaintance they simply forgot. This nets her no end of favors and invitations to parties and lavish estates.
"There was nothing for it but to sit in my usual place beside Mrs. Van Hopper while she, like a large, complacent spider, spun her wide net of tedium about the stranger's person."
Seriously..."wide net of tedium". My goodness, I'm in love heart palpitations and all.
The following chapters contain the whirlwind romance with the much older and previously married Maxim, aided by Mrs Van Hopper catching a nasty case of influenza, and lends some foreshadowing of future difficulties and a secret buried or, more appropriately, drowned. In the end the two get unexpectedly married, have a honeymoon in Italy, and return to Maxim's home of Manderley.
The introduction to Manderley chapters are quite beautifully written and you get a genuine sense of awkwardness as the protagonist begins her life in someone else's place, and with someone else's things. How strange and otherworldly would it be to sit in a chair beside your husband knowing that its cushion had already had years forming to someone else, that the dog cuddled up to you did so because of a habit formed with someone else, that your bed, desk, bathroom items and all were previously used by another who came before you. She struggles with this throughout. Then she begins to meet people who all judge her against Rebecca, commenting on how different she is from her, wondering if she will uphold the traditions of parties and balls, etc. Everywhere Rebecca is praised and our unnamed heroine begins a slide down into a mental breakdown as she begins to compare herself to Rebecca in her own soul.
I actually look forward to this book with delight every time I sit down to read it. While I know what happens in the end (because I'm like Harry from "When Harry Met Sally") I look forward to the end. It's not a happy ending, but it is certainly in keeping with the tone of the book.
Fun Fact: Daphne Du Maurier was also the author of "Birds" which Alfred Hitchcock based his film "The Birds" on.
Pax,
W
Oh, it's a thing. It still exists. In fact it is still sitting on my bookshelf with the other of those 100BYSRBYD. The only reason that I'm moving on to the next book on the list is because I couldn't take the inanity anymore. I spent months trying and months avoiding it by setting parenting magazines and random flyers I received on top of it. Sure enough it kept peeking out from under the stack with an accusing glare. "FINE," I shouted and sat down with it for thirty minutes a day for about a week. At the end of those few days the book magically leapt from my hand, flew across the room and smacked into the wall.
Final Word on "Catch-22": While I'm sure that it has a place in the great works of literature I don't believe that a slot in the top 20 of the top 100 is deserved at ALL. This book is pretty much the novel equivalent of many "Palm d'Or" Winners at the Cannes film festival or, indeed, some of the "Best Film" winners at the Oscars. Often it seems that those films win not because of artistic merit but because it has something perceived as "worthy", a political message or something socially "relevant" to the time. It is in that same manner that I view this novel. It has an audience, sure. The Mary-like deification of prostitutes, the disregard and target abuse of any virtuous character that happens to come along, and the constant Post-Modern message that there is no goodness, there is no virtue, and all your institutions are crap so let's tear them down, violate innocence & goodness, and somehow society will magically hold together since we don't have any constructive ideas; it all coalesced into something I realized wasn't worthy of my time. I've ranted about Post-Modernism before and I realized that just because the fecal matter is being sold at the market doesn't mean I have to purchase it. It's a clever parlor trick devoid of any substance. /rantoff
"Rebecca" on the other hand has been quite a joy to read. I started it less than a week ago and I'm already one-third of the way through it.
WIKA (What I Know About): Essentially the only thing I knew about this novel coming into it was that if I was reading it in public, chances were someone would think I was reading a trashy romance novel as opposed to a literary romance novel. The cover looks as though it is wrapped in scarlet silk, much like rumpled bed sheets, and only the title and author's name besides. It has all the indications of being a Harlequin novel too hot to put something representative of the contents on the cover. Yes, I could have gotten a handsome looking trade paperback edition that would be less scandalous looking...but I would have paid 10$ more for the privilege. Other than that I knew nothing. I hadn't even heard of the opening line, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" which is supposedly as famous as, "Call me Ishmael". I was ready for a surprise.
The novel begins with something you couldn't get away with in fiction these days; two chapters of tease. The author spends those two chapters making it clear that they occur long after the end of the book. It describes the emotional state of two nameless characters who are trying to move on from some unnamed tragedy that has expelled them from Manderley much like the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden.
The first thing that grabs me about this novel is the author's writing style. I'm going to say it right here and right now...I'm in love with Daphne Du Maurier. I have not "swooned" this much while reading a novel because of spot on word usage to create a mood in a long time. She is absolutely fabulous and this novel is a moment of literary lightning captured for all time.
Describing the Manderley in her dreams she writes: "Nature had come into her own again and, little by, little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers....The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church."
In chapter two she begins: "We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and the sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it had been before."
In describing the unnamed male companion stuck in this emotional turmoil (also from chapter two): "He will fall to smoking cigarette after cigarette, not bothering to extinguish them, and the glowing stubs will lie around on the ground like petals. He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, snatching at any subject as a panacea to pain."
Woo! Somebody fan me. I've got the vapors.
It's this combination of excellent language usage and insight into the human condition that makes a good book for me. As we've said all along, a great novel speaks to these common, universal human experiences and sheds light on them. It sets us in the direction of hope and we can glean wisdom along the way, even if it is only the comforting wisdom of, "You are not alone."
In the third chapter we are introduced to Mrs. Van Hopper, who is easily one of my favorite characters in fiction. Not my favorite in the same way Bilbo Bagins, Jane Eyre, or Hamlet is. She is more in line with a Falstaff, or Meriadoc Brandybuck. Not essential for the whole novel, but a delight as they come on and enter the stage.
Mrs. Van Hopper is a bit of a one woman paparazzi. She travels to Monte Carlo every year not to take in the sights and relax. Rather, she goes to find and ingratiate herself to the rich and famous also on vacation there.
"It seemed as though notables must be fed to her, much as invalids are spooned their jelly; and though titles were preferred by her, any face seen in a social paper served as well. Names scattered in a gossip column, authors, artists, actors and their kind, even the mediocre ones, as long as she had learnt of them in print."
The unnamed protagonist is introduced as a sort of hired companion for Mrs. Van Hopper. She was hired for ninety pounds, payable at the end of the season. She is often draw into the games Mrs. Van Hopper plays with the famous. Essentially the old woman runs a scam where she declares that she saw the individual at the wedding of her nephew, produces a picture of the happy couple on their honeymoon, and trusts the fact that famous people attend a ridiculous number of weddings they can't remember and depends on their good manners to treat her like an acquaintance they simply forgot. This nets her no end of favors and invitations to parties and lavish estates.
"There was nothing for it but to sit in my usual place beside Mrs. Van Hopper while she, like a large, complacent spider, spun her wide net of tedium about the stranger's person."
Seriously..."wide net of tedium". My goodness, I'm in love heart palpitations and all.
The following chapters contain the whirlwind romance with the much older and previously married Maxim, aided by Mrs Van Hopper catching a nasty case of influenza, and lends some foreshadowing of future difficulties and a secret buried or, more appropriately, drowned. In the end the two get unexpectedly married, have a honeymoon in Italy, and return to Maxim's home of Manderley.
The introduction to Manderley chapters are quite beautifully written and you get a genuine sense of awkwardness as the protagonist begins her life in someone else's place, and with someone else's things. How strange and otherworldly would it be to sit in a chair beside your husband knowing that its cushion had already had years forming to someone else, that the dog cuddled up to you did so because of a habit formed with someone else, that your bed, desk, bathroom items and all were previously used by another who came before you. She struggles with this throughout. Then she begins to meet people who all judge her against Rebecca, commenting on how different she is from her, wondering if she will uphold the traditions of parties and balls, etc. Everywhere Rebecca is praised and our unnamed heroine begins a slide down into a mental breakdown as she begins to compare herself to Rebecca in her own soul.
I actually look forward to this book with delight every time I sit down to read it. While I know what happens in the end (because I'm like Harry from "When Harry Met Sally") I look forward to the end. It's not a happy ending, but it is certainly in keeping with the tone of the book.
Fun Fact: Daphne Du Maurier was also the author of "Birds" which Alfred Hitchcock based his film "The Birds" on.
Pax,
W
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Mustn't Be Hasty (Catch 22 chapters 10-19)
It is official. I am halfway through Catch-22 and find myself quite happy about this. Two books in a row now I've been less than interested in the listed novel and it has been wearing on me. Naturally my wife has been casting me funny looks and shaking her head.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" she asks.
I've asked myself that for months now. The answers have wavered very little. Because it is there. Because it is a challenge. Because not everyone does this. It is something I can take a bit of pride in. I'll have a shelf full of books that I didn't have before.
Above all, however, stands one particular reason; Because they have lasted the test of time, centuries some of them. I want to know why they endure. I want to dig into them and find the redeeming value. Catch-22 however is the product of the 1960s remembrances of World War II and written for a disaffected generation. Will it stand the test of time?
Nelson Algren said of it, "This novel is not merely the best American novel to come out of World War II, it is the best American novel that has come out of anywhere in years."
So...why?
As the title suggests I may have been a bit hasty in my previous assessment. Oh sure, the post modern snobbery is still there going "Validate me! I don't need you to validate me but...Tell me I'm clever!". The format of this blog lends itself to mistaken impressions, however. I write as I'm reading it. There have been slews of books that have changed my mind mid-course. (Wondered where "slew" came from as I was writing this. From the Irish "sluagh" which means "a large quantity". #WordNerd)
You'll be ambivalent to learn that I'm coming around to not liking but at least understanding Yossarian. I have a hope that this will turn into something worthwhile reading after all.
The first few chapters are very much in the same vein as the previous nine. The dead man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't there was finally explained as a replacement pilot who arrived at the base, set his stuff in his assigned tent, but went on a mission immediately and was shot down. "Because he had never officially gotten into the squadron, he could never officially be gotten out..." which enhances the strange limbo quality of the novel.
The Bologna mission is mentioned and addressed with more frequency. All of the characters, save the officers, live in fear of the mission and keep coming up with excuses and stratagems to delay or call off the mission. It rains for days straight keeping the squadron grounded. "When it did stop raining in Pianosa (where the squadron is) it rained in Bologna. When it stopped raining in Bologna, it began again in Pianosa. If there was no rain at all, there were freakish, inexplicable phenomena like an epidemic of diarrhea or the bomb line had moved. Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back."
Come to find out Yossarian bribed the cook to put soap flakes in the mashed potatoes to cause the diarrhea, and he was also responsible for moving the bomb line (the line on the map showing how far ground forces had advanced and therefore where the squadron should bomb). This proves potentially tragic when Major de Coverly wakes one morning to find, according to the map, ground troops had taken Bologna.
Major de Coverly is written of in particularly glowing terms. Well, I say particularly glowing but remember the kind of book we are talking about. According to the book every military man appears to be a coward, self serving, conceited, or outright incompetent. Major de Coverly has the distinction of being a man who gives a proverbial poop. He cares about his job, and he cares about his men. He cares about his men so much that in chapter 13, when he sees that Bologna has been secured not knowing Yossarian moved the line, he does was he always does when a new major city has been liberated. Without a word he gets in his plane, flies to the city and secures lavish apartments complete with cooking staff, maids, and laundry so his men can be pampered during their days and weeks of leave. Because of Yossarian's antics he is heading straight into dangerous enemy territory believing it to be secure. No good deed goes unpunished. And so it goes...
Because of the odd nature of the novel we get chapters out of sequence. When the reader comes to chapter 14 it shows Yossarian's side of the Bologna mission which ends quickly for him when he fakes not being able to hear anything over the intercom and in the confusion the pilot turns back thinking those were the orders. They return to the squadron base and the writer gives this beautiful otherworldly scene of Yossarian stripping off his parachute and flight suit, and walking through the camp, down to the beach. Throughout you get the feeling that Yossarian is taking in the beauty of the world as only a man who came near death can. At the same time the beauty seems pointless. In Yossarian's head they had done the bombing run and all was well. In reality, the mission was still ahead. It is at this point you realize that Yossarian is the least reliable of all possible narrators.
The next chapter both gives reason to Yossarian's mentality and further expands on his unreliability as a narrator. Chapter 15 is a nightmare of war. The reader can really get inside Yossarian's head as he relates the scene of the moment he snaps while on a mission. This is where I got a real sympathy for the character. High above the earth in a bomber amid the exploding flak, bullets ripping into the hull, confusion over the intercom the pressure mounts and suddenly Yossarian is scared for his life. It's a real PTSD inducing kind of experience for him. Suddenly he realizes that people he doesn't know want to kill him and he's being told to kill people he doesn't even know. Fearing for his own life blends into some sort of mystic personal experience where he superimposes his plight on the plight of soldiers on the other side. He doesn't want to die and neither do they but they are being puppeteered by people who are far away encouraging them to kill.
Chapter 18 opens with, "Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork, and good sportsmanship; it was to get away from them all that he had first discovered the hospital." After the above mission (two chapters later that involves him falling in love with a whore and then spending time with the commander's wife in the same capacity) Yossarian instead of going as ordered to morning calisthenics he, while in emotional turmoil from the bombing run that made him snap, went to the dispensary with a fake pain in his side. It's there that the doctors began to, some blatantly others unintentionally, train him on how to fake a liver complaint and get to stay in the hospital for 10 days at a time. This facilitates his desire to never experience a bombing run again. The doctors, clearly tired of watching good men die, start bargaining with him even to the point of promising him more hospital time if he pretends to have a different ailment for the records so that they can prove some hypothesis, or pretend to be someone's dying son.
Somewhere in all the dark comedy the book reached up and grabbed me by the feels in much the same way the ending of Catcher in the Rye did. Suddenly I could relate to the character I despised not having known his story. Fear of death makes "cowards" of us all at some point or another. I've never been in the military. I've never even been in much of a life threatening situation before. As a result my understanding is very limited. That is one of the wonders of novels, though. It may be fiction and therefore an imperfect representation, but it can begin to weave in some threads of sympathy into our world view.
That may very well be why this novel endures.
Pax,
W
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" she asks.
I've asked myself that for months now. The answers have wavered very little. Because it is there. Because it is a challenge. Because not everyone does this. It is something I can take a bit of pride in. I'll have a shelf full of books that I didn't have before.
Above all, however, stands one particular reason; Because they have lasted the test of time, centuries some of them. I want to know why they endure. I want to dig into them and find the redeeming value. Catch-22 however is the product of the 1960s remembrances of World War II and written for a disaffected generation. Will it stand the test of time?
Nelson Algren said of it, "This novel is not merely the best American novel to come out of World War II, it is the best American novel that has come out of anywhere in years."
So...why?
As the title suggests I may have been a bit hasty in my previous assessment. Oh sure, the post modern snobbery is still there going "Validate me! I don't need you to validate me but...Tell me I'm clever!". The format of this blog lends itself to mistaken impressions, however. I write as I'm reading it. There have been slews of books that have changed my mind mid-course. (Wondered where "slew" came from as I was writing this. From the Irish "sluagh" which means "a large quantity". #WordNerd)
You'll be ambivalent to learn that I'm coming around to not liking but at least understanding Yossarian. I have a hope that this will turn into something worthwhile reading after all.
The first few chapters are very much in the same vein as the previous nine. The dead man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't there was finally explained as a replacement pilot who arrived at the base, set his stuff in his assigned tent, but went on a mission immediately and was shot down. "Because he had never officially gotten into the squadron, he could never officially be gotten out..." which enhances the strange limbo quality of the novel.
The Bologna mission is mentioned and addressed with more frequency. All of the characters, save the officers, live in fear of the mission and keep coming up with excuses and stratagems to delay or call off the mission. It rains for days straight keeping the squadron grounded. "When it did stop raining in Pianosa (where the squadron is) it rained in Bologna. When it stopped raining in Bologna, it began again in Pianosa. If there was no rain at all, there were freakish, inexplicable phenomena like an epidemic of diarrhea or the bomb line had moved. Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back."
Come to find out Yossarian bribed the cook to put soap flakes in the mashed potatoes to cause the diarrhea, and he was also responsible for moving the bomb line (the line on the map showing how far ground forces had advanced and therefore where the squadron should bomb). This proves potentially tragic when Major de Coverly wakes one morning to find, according to the map, ground troops had taken Bologna.
Major de Coverly is written of in particularly glowing terms. Well, I say particularly glowing but remember the kind of book we are talking about. According to the book every military man appears to be a coward, self serving, conceited, or outright incompetent. Major de Coverly has the distinction of being a man who gives a proverbial poop. He cares about his job, and he cares about his men. He cares about his men so much that in chapter 13, when he sees that Bologna has been secured not knowing Yossarian moved the line, he does was he always does when a new major city has been liberated. Without a word he gets in his plane, flies to the city and secures lavish apartments complete with cooking staff, maids, and laundry so his men can be pampered during their days and weeks of leave. Because of Yossarian's antics he is heading straight into dangerous enemy territory believing it to be secure. No good deed goes unpunished. And so it goes...
Because of the odd nature of the novel we get chapters out of sequence. When the reader comes to chapter 14 it shows Yossarian's side of the Bologna mission which ends quickly for him when he fakes not being able to hear anything over the intercom and in the confusion the pilot turns back thinking those were the orders. They return to the squadron base and the writer gives this beautiful otherworldly scene of Yossarian stripping off his parachute and flight suit, and walking through the camp, down to the beach. Throughout you get the feeling that Yossarian is taking in the beauty of the world as only a man who came near death can. At the same time the beauty seems pointless. In Yossarian's head they had done the bombing run and all was well. In reality, the mission was still ahead. It is at this point you realize that Yossarian is the least reliable of all possible narrators.
The next chapter both gives reason to Yossarian's mentality and further expands on his unreliability as a narrator. Chapter 15 is a nightmare of war. The reader can really get inside Yossarian's head as he relates the scene of the moment he snaps while on a mission. This is where I got a real sympathy for the character. High above the earth in a bomber amid the exploding flak, bullets ripping into the hull, confusion over the intercom the pressure mounts and suddenly Yossarian is scared for his life. It's a real PTSD inducing kind of experience for him. Suddenly he realizes that people he doesn't know want to kill him and he's being told to kill people he doesn't even know. Fearing for his own life blends into some sort of mystic personal experience where he superimposes his plight on the plight of soldiers on the other side. He doesn't want to die and neither do they but they are being puppeteered by people who are far away encouraging them to kill.
Chapter 18 opens with, "Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork, and good sportsmanship; it was to get away from them all that he had first discovered the hospital." After the above mission (two chapters later that involves him falling in love with a whore and then spending time with the commander's wife in the same capacity) Yossarian instead of going as ordered to morning calisthenics he, while in emotional turmoil from the bombing run that made him snap, went to the dispensary with a fake pain in his side. It's there that the doctors began to, some blatantly others unintentionally, train him on how to fake a liver complaint and get to stay in the hospital for 10 days at a time. This facilitates his desire to never experience a bombing run again. The doctors, clearly tired of watching good men die, start bargaining with him even to the point of promising him more hospital time if he pretends to have a different ailment for the records so that they can prove some hypothesis, or pretend to be someone's dying son.
Somewhere in all the dark comedy the book reached up and grabbed me by the feels in much the same way the ending of Catcher in the Rye did. Suddenly I could relate to the character I despised not having known his story. Fear of death makes "cowards" of us all at some point or another. I've never been in the military. I've never even been in much of a life threatening situation before. As a result my understanding is very limited. That is one of the wonders of novels, though. It may be fiction and therefore an imperfect representation, but it can begin to weave in some threads of sympathy into our world view.
That may very well be why this novel endures.
Pax,
W
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Post Modern War (Catch 22 chapters 1-9)
First off...I'm going to start by being honest. I already don't like this book. It is going to take a major emotional shift near the end (much like the one that happens at the end of Catcher in the Rye which no one pays attention to anyway for how to interpret the book) for me to agree that this is one of the 100 Books You Should Read Before You Die.
From the very first chapter it has all the flavor of the play "Waiting for Godot" which is a play best summed up in the review "Ninety minutes, nothing happens, and nobody learned anything".
The first nine chapters are some fairly decent character studies on different people that the main character, Yossarian, has come into contact with both in his flight group and at the hospital. Yossarian has a naturally high temperature and he complains of pain in his liver which gets him out of having to go back to war. Since he is an officer he spends his hospital time, when not annoying or being annoyed by his fellow patients, with the job of redacting letters. He doesn't follow any specific protocols in redacting said letters. Sometimes he has a ban on adverbs, other times he blacks out everything in the body of the letter leaving only the closing. Why? Because it entertains him to do so.
Every officer who does the redacting must sign the redacted document. He signs not his name but instead Irving Washington, or Washington Irving so that they can't trace it back to him.
And it's about this time that I realize this is a book of Post Modernism. It isn't labeled as such. Some people call it Black Humor, others Absurdist Fiction, but ultimately it has the saccharine likability of Post Modernism. It screams from every page, "Ooooh, I'm clever. Look at me!! I'm Clever! Wasn't that writing clever? Here, I'll even spin round and do the same joke with different words because I'm so effing Clever. That's right. I'm clever with a capital "c"! That's how clever I am."
Imagine Abbott and Costello performing "Who's on First" except with knowing "didja get it" nods to the audience, and then if there was even an iota of doubt they would repeat the whole line again, stomp after the punchline, and hold out a hand to signal that the audience should laugh.
Yossarian is not at all a likable character in my estimation. Like many in Post Modernist fiction, the man has no heart or consideration beyond himself. He is not a passive observer so much as a vindictive observer. Each good thing he sees he pours his derision on. And this is my issue with Post Modernism in general. It says, "Let's tear down and destroy anything good and noble...and then not replace it with anything." It is vanity.
For instance when Yossarian describes the, "Texan who was from Texas." Ok, I will admit happily that it was the one line that actually got a laugh from me. I mean, who hasn't met a Texan who would happily tell you with overpride "I'm a Texan from Texas"? However the line later follows, "The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous, and likable. In three days no one could stand him." In speaking of Clevinger, another patient who seemed nice enough, "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." These other guys are decent men who simply aren't in on the joke, so let's deride and mock them. Why? Cause we're bored and there's a war on that we are trying to avoid going back to.
In the aspect of criticism of war I do have to give it props. It echoes much of my own sentiment as a pacifist. The military sends a C.I.D. man to catch Washington Irving or Irving Washington in the hospital and in chapter two it begins, "In a way the C.I.D. man was pretty lucky, because outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their lives."
All sorts of horrible things happen in war that are against all rationality. I could never volunteer for such a thing. If I was drafted I would be more of a liability than anything because of certain sensibilities like not being able to put away rationality and that would cause me to hesitate. I tend to over think especially when the pressure is on. However, the difference between myself and Yossarian is the fact that when called upon I would go, and once there I would do my best to protect the one on my left and my right. I would fight with everything rather than sit in a hospital criticizing others and childishly redacting love letters with no thought to those on the other side of them.
"Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who belived in God, Motherhood, and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them, and everybody who knew him liked him. 'I hate that son of a bitch,' Yossarian growled."
A few back and forths later Yossarian reveals his "Rebel Without a Cause" style philosophy.
"What son of a bitch do you hate, then?"
"What son of a bitch is there?"
Many of the men got together to build a sort of Officer's Club that ended up taking a lot of work which Yossarian never went to help at until it was already finished. "It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his."
In the world of Catch 22 everyone hates someone, everyone is trying to scam everyone else, there is nothing to live for, nothing to die for, and nothing worth anything. Every hero is torn down, every man with any value despised and held in contempt. It's very much the world we live in now fifty five years later. This mentality has spread everywhere to the point that schools are stopping teaching the founders of this country as "Great Men". They are being taught as average guys who didn't really do anything special. We tear down our heroes, eviscerate virtues, call truth a lie. We are swinging a sledgehammer at anything solid in a two story house and expecting it to magically stay in tact.
I don't believe war to be a virtue, or even something glorious. War is, as has been famously said, hell. War is madness. But it is sometimes a necessary madness. Even I, pacifist I am, have to admit that.
In these first one hundred pages the only real thing I got from any of this were brief moments where PTSD shown through the murk. Chapter 6 on Hungry Joe had a lot of really good moments where the damage of war was clear and made me think differently about those coming home. Naturally Doc Daneeka ruins plenty of moments by bemoaning how he had to go to war and left behind a 50k a year medical practice with plenty of tax free income on the side. "I gotta laugh when I hear someone like Hungry Joe screaming his brains out every night. I really gotta laugh. He's sick? How doesn't he think I feel."
Consumed with self, zero empathy, null compassion is what characterizes much of this novel. The book casts a microscopic lens on the cracks in any seemingly good individual while neglecting to cast it upon those deriding such individuals. It casts promiscuous wives of higher ups as blessed saints. Literally says "He had sinned, and it was good..." "Major Major had lied, and it was good" in a bit of mockery of God declaring the different phases of creation "and it was good".
I don't hold out much hope for my enjoyment of this novel. It tears down everything and affirms nothing which is pretty much the opposite of the novels I've loved in this series.
Well...I do have to admit it taught me what the word "furgle" means so...that's something.
Pax.
W
From the very first chapter it has all the flavor of the play "Waiting for Godot" which is a play best summed up in the review "Ninety minutes, nothing happens, and nobody learned anything".
The first nine chapters are some fairly decent character studies on different people that the main character, Yossarian, has come into contact with both in his flight group and at the hospital. Yossarian has a naturally high temperature and he complains of pain in his liver which gets him out of having to go back to war. Since he is an officer he spends his hospital time, when not annoying or being annoyed by his fellow patients, with the job of redacting letters. He doesn't follow any specific protocols in redacting said letters. Sometimes he has a ban on adverbs, other times he blacks out everything in the body of the letter leaving only the closing. Why? Because it entertains him to do so.
Every officer who does the redacting must sign the redacted document. He signs not his name but instead Irving Washington, or Washington Irving so that they can't trace it back to him.
And it's about this time that I realize this is a book of Post Modernism. It isn't labeled as such. Some people call it Black Humor, others Absurdist Fiction, but ultimately it has the saccharine likability of Post Modernism. It screams from every page, "Ooooh, I'm clever. Look at me!! I'm Clever! Wasn't that writing clever? Here, I'll even spin round and do the same joke with different words because I'm so effing Clever. That's right. I'm clever with a capital "c"! That's how clever I am."
Imagine Abbott and Costello performing "Who's on First" except with knowing "didja get it" nods to the audience, and then if there was even an iota of doubt they would repeat the whole line again, stomp after the punchline, and hold out a hand to signal that the audience should laugh.
Yossarian is not at all a likable character in my estimation. Like many in Post Modernist fiction, the man has no heart or consideration beyond himself. He is not a passive observer so much as a vindictive observer. Each good thing he sees he pours his derision on. And this is my issue with Post Modernism in general. It says, "Let's tear down and destroy anything good and noble...and then not replace it with anything." It is vanity.
For instance when Yossarian describes the, "Texan who was from Texas." Ok, I will admit happily that it was the one line that actually got a laugh from me. I mean, who hasn't met a Texan who would happily tell you with overpride "I'm a Texan from Texas"? However the line later follows, "The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous, and likable. In three days no one could stand him." In speaking of Clevinger, another patient who seemed nice enough, "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." These other guys are decent men who simply aren't in on the joke, so let's deride and mock them. Why? Cause we're bored and there's a war on that we are trying to avoid going back to.
In the aspect of criticism of war I do have to give it props. It echoes much of my own sentiment as a pacifist. The military sends a C.I.D. man to catch Washington Irving or Irving Washington in the hospital and in chapter two it begins, "In a way the C.I.D. man was pretty lucky, because outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their lives."
All sorts of horrible things happen in war that are against all rationality. I could never volunteer for such a thing. If I was drafted I would be more of a liability than anything because of certain sensibilities like not being able to put away rationality and that would cause me to hesitate. I tend to over think especially when the pressure is on. However, the difference between myself and Yossarian is the fact that when called upon I would go, and once there I would do my best to protect the one on my left and my right. I would fight with everything rather than sit in a hospital criticizing others and childishly redacting love letters with no thought to those on the other side of them.
"Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who belived in God, Motherhood, and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them, and everybody who knew him liked him. 'I hate that son of a bitch,' Yossarian growled."
A few back and forths later Yossarian reveals his "Rebel Without a Cause" style philosophy.
"What son of a bitch do you hate, then?"
"What son of a bitch is there?"
Many of the men got together to build a sort of Officer's Club that ended up taking a lot of work which Yossarian never went to help at until it was already finished. "It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his."
In the world of Catch 22 everyone hates someone, everyone is trying to scam everyone else, there is nothing to live for, nothing to die for, and nothing worth anything. Every hero is torn down, every man with any value despised and held in contempt. It's very much the world we live in now fifty five years later. This mentality has spread everywhere to the point that schools are stopping teaching the founders of this country as "Great Men". They are being taught as average guys who didn't really do anything special. We tear down our heroes, eviscerate virtues, call truth a lie. We are swinging a sledgehammer at anything solid in a two story house and expecting it to magically stay in tact.
I don't believe war to be a virtue, or even something glorious. War is, as has been famously said, hell. War is madness. But it is sometimes a necessary madness. Even I, pacifist I am, have to admit that.
In these first one hundred pages the only real thing I got from any of this were brief moments where PTSD shown through the murk. Chapter 6 on Hungry Joe had a lot of really good moments where the damage of war was clear and made me think differently about those coming home. Naturally Doc Daneeka ruins plenty of moments by bemoaning how he had to go to war and left behind a 50k a year medical practice with plenty of tax free income on the side. "I gotta laugh when I hear someone like Hungry Joe screaming his brains out every night. I really gotta laugh. He's sick? How doesn't he think I feel."
Consumed with self, zero empathy, null compassion is what characterizes much of this novel. The book casts a microscopic lens on the cracks in any seemingly good individual while neglecting to cast it upon those deriding such individuals. It casts promiscuous wives of higher ups as blessed saints. Literally says "He had sinned, and it was good..." "Major Major had lied, and it was good" in a bit of mockery of God declaring the different phases of creation "and it was good".
I don't hold out much hope for my enjoyment of this novel. It tears down everything and affirms nothing which is pretty much the opposite of the novels I've loved in this series.
Well...I do have to admit it taught me what the word "furgle" means so...that's something.
Pax.
W
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Tess of the D'urbervilles No More...
I was encouraged by a cousin of mine to include the following as my review of Tess of the D'urbervilles:
It...wasn't for me. They put the character through multiple hell's, gets the love of her life, they get married, he leaves her because of what Alec did to her, she marries Alec under protest for the money for her family, the husband comes back, she murders Alec, she and husband run off from the law, the law catches up with her, she tells husband to marry her little sister which he does even before her execution. Blech.
That short encapsulation of my entire experience for a friend on Facebook is pretty much the easiest way I could put it. On a scale of Pride and Prejudice to Wuthering Heights I'm giving this a "First Chapter of Wuthering Heights when I still had a shred of hope and some dignity as a reader.
I can hear some of the Thomas Hardy admirers already clamoring, "But this is an important novel! It ended how real life ended and that should be applauded!"
I will certainly not debate that first point. It is an important novel that challenges the social mores of the times that were at best hypocritical and at worst outright debasing of a whole section of the female gender that individually did no wrong. Hardy did his best to challenge the Victorian establishment and things actually changed. My issue isn't with the general drama of the novel. It's the ending because, let's face it dearios, it's a cheap ending.
One can very easily compare this novel to Jane Eyre if one does not consider the challenge to moral standards of the time. In each chapter, at every side, the heroine is beset by all manner of difficulties, all manner of ridiculous prejudices, holier-than-thou hypocrisy, and looming, larger than life jerks that stand between them and their shot at some form of happiness. Each heroine refuses to be defined by their circumstances...well...until Tess does. She gives in to marrying her rapist for financial security. Sure, it can be seen as a virtue that Tess did it for her family who was left fatherless and more penniless than before. However, she submits to her rapist for money and security. It can be argued that it was because she honestly believed that her husband was never coming home after all. When all was lost for Jane there was not a moment that she altered what she believed or who she was for security or because of a man. Tess changes everything that defines her for her rapist and for her struggling family.
The moment that the ending comes off as horribly cheap is not in the murder of Alec because, as she said, he lied about Angel never coming back. The cheapness didn't even come off in Angel and Tess running off having an idyllic time on the lam. No. It's in the moment when Tess actually tells her husband to go off and marry her little sister Liza. Why? Basically because she looks like a young Tess but without all the being raped thing.
What the hell?
No, seriously...what...the...hell?
When I read that part I literally looked at my wife and said, "He better not do it. Hell no."
Oh, he does it. Angel doesn't even wait for Tess' execution to be carried out. He's running through town with Liza hand in hand, happy as a lark, going to surely get some uncomplicated lovin' from Tess' little sister later that evening, and oh...well...they pause and see a black flag that's raised to signify that Tess had died.
It occurs to me as I write this that maybe this is another bit of social commentary, that maybe Angel is still one of the upper class jerks at heart. In which case, bully to Mr. Hardy. However...I doubt it.
One of the things that annoys me in all manner of fiction is when a character isn't called out on their BS. The most prevalent example that comes to mind is Magneto in the X-Men comics and movies. Here he is all pissed off about the holocaust, about this jerks who are some sort of master race condemning the "lesser races" to execution or servitude because the Aryans are obviously superior. And yet he's a jerk who is part of a master race condemning....because Mutants are obviously superior. No one EVER calls him out on that horrible glaring inconsistency.
In Tess that horrible inconsistency is the fact that Angel admits to Tess on their wedding night that she's not his first, that he spent thirty days in Egypt (?) in the sordid embrace of a woman he had no intention of marrying. He willingly went into bed not once but for thirty days with a strumpet...but heaven forfend that Tess be accepted by him. I mean she was raped...that's a sin...by nature she has a husband already. "And by that rationale you have a wife, you whore monger!" I accidentally said out loud in a Starbucks when I read it. He never faces up to that reality. He never admits that wrong. Oh, sure, he says, "I treated her too harshly," but that's not the same as actually seeing that the far far greater "sin" is his.
Back to the cheap ending...
It is my considered opinion that books with this sort of ending are simply not for me. I much prefer the endings of books like Jane Eyre and Little Women. Those books don't end in a perfect or idyllic way either, but they give us something we drastically need in this world...hope. Yes, your life won't turn out the way you wanted it to at the first blush of life or love. However, if you stick by your guns, cling to your faith and your principles, then in the end you will get something good, maybe even something better than you thought it could be. It may be like at the end of Jane Eyre where it has been years apart, each of them covered in emotional scars, they're older but wiser, and yet I guarantee what those two feel sitting near the fire together after all that is more solid, more valuable, and a more intense love than what they would have had if they said, "Screw the fact that I have a crazy wife in the attic, lets get hitched and get it on."
Give me an ending that reminds me that life is hard...but there's a light.
Pax,
W
It...wasn't for me. They put the character through multiple hell's, gets the love of her life, they get married, he leaves her because of what Alec did to her, she marries Alec under protest for the money for her family, the husband comes back, she murders Alec, she and husband run off from the law, the law catches up with her, she tells husband to marry her little sister which he does even before her execution. Blech.
That short encapsulation of my entire experience for a friend on Facebook is pretty much the easiest way I could put it. On a scale of Pride and Prejudice to Wuthering Heights I'm giving this a "First Chapter of Wuthering Heights when I still had a shred of hope and some dignity as a reader.
I can hear some of the Thomas Hardy admirers already clamoring, "But this is an important novel! It ended how real life ended and that should be applauded!"
I will certainly not debate that first point. It is an important novel that challenges the social mores of the times that were at best hypocritical and at worst outright debasing of a whole section of the female gender that individually did no wrong. Hardy did his best to challenge the Victorian establishment and things actually changed. My issue isn't with the general drama of the novel. It's the ending because, let's face it dearios, it's a cheap ending.
One can very easily compare this novel to Jane Eyre if one does not consider the challenge to moral standards of the time. In each chapter, at every side, the heroine is beset by all manner of difficulties, all manner of ridiculous prejudices, holier-than-thou hypocrisy, and looming, larger than life jerks that stand between them and their shot at some form of happiness. Each heroine refuses to be defined by their circumstances...well...until Tess does. She gives in to marrying her rapist for financial security. Sure, it can be seen as a virtue that Tess did it for her family who was left fatherless and more penniless than before. However, she submits to her rapist for money and security. It can be argued that it was because she honestly believed that her husband was never coming home after all. When all was lost for Jane there was not a moment that she altered what she believed or who she was for security or because of a man. Tess changes everything that defines her for her rapist and for her struggling family.
The moment that the ending comes off as horribly cheap is not in the murder of Alec because, as she said, he lied about Angel never coming back. The cheapness didn't even come off in Angel and Tess running off having an idyllic time on the lam. No. It's in the moment when Tess actually tells her husband to go off and marry her little sister Liza. Why? Basically because she looks like a young Tess but without all the being raped thing.
What the hell?
No, seriously...what...the...hell?
When I read that part I literally looked at my wife and said, "He better not do it. Hell no."
Oh, he does it. Angel doesn't even wait for Tess' execution to be carried out. He's running through town with Liza hand in hand, happy as a lark, going to surely get some uncomplicated lovin' from Tess' little sister later that evening, and oh...well...they pause and see a black flag that's raised to signify that Tess had died.
It occurs to me as I write this that maybe this is another bit of social commentary, that maybe Angel is still one of the upper class jerks at heart. In which case, bully to Mr. Hardy. However...I doubt it.
One of the things that annoys me in all manner of fiction is when a character isn't called out on their BS. The most prevalent example that comes to mind is Magneto in the X-Men comics and movies. Here he is all pissed off about the holocaust, about this jerks who are some sort of master race condemning the "lesser races" to execution or servitude because the Aryans are obviously superior. And yet he's a jerk who is part of a master race condemning....because Mutants are obviously superior. No one EVER calls him out on that horrible glaring inconsistency.
In Tess that horrible inconsistency is the fact that Angel admits to Tess on their wedding night that she's not his first, that he spent thirty days in Egypt (?) in the sordid embrace of a woman he had no intention of marrying. He willingly went into bed not once but for thirty days with a strumpet...but heaven forfend that Tess be accepted by him. I mean she was raped...that's a sin...by nature she has a husband already. "And by that rationale you have a wife, you whore monger!" I accidentally said out loud in a Starbucks when I read it. He never faces up to that reality. He never admits that wrong. Oh, sure, he says, "I treated her too harshly," but that's not the same as actually seeing that the far far greater "sin" is his.
Back to the cheap ending...
It is my considered opinion that books with this sort of ending are simply not for me. I much prefer the endings of books like Jane Eyre and Little Women. Those books don't end in a perfect or idyllic way either, but they give us something we drastically need in this world...hope. Yes, your life won't turn out the way you wanted it to at the first blush of life or love. However, if you stick by your guns, cling to your faith and your principles, then in the end you will get something good, maybe even something better than you thought it could be. It may be like at the end of Jane Eyre where it has been years apart, each of them covered in emotional scars, they're older but wiser, and yet I guarantee what those two feel sitting near the fire together after all that is more solid, more valuable, and a more intense love than what they would have had if they said, "Screw the fact that I have a crazy wife in the attic, lets get hitched and get it on."
Give me an ending that reminds me that life is hard...but there's a light.
Pax,
W
Monday, January 18, 2016
A Woman of Sullied Virtue (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Phase 1)
Upon reading the first few pages of Tess of the D'Urbervilles I really had no idea what to expect other than what the back of the book had already declared:
There's a family called the Derbeyfields who might be related to the wealthy D'Urbervilles and so they send Tess to maybe claim a bit of the fortunes. Her manipulative "cousin" does some shocking act of betrayal that makes Tess an outcast upon returning home. The parson's son, Angel Clare, comes along and is probably the man she ends up with in the end. Manipulations, twisted morality, and other frustrations ensue.
I have to say I have been a little apprehensive to delve too deeply into this one. There's a bit of a Wuthering Heights vibe from the get go with the manipulative cousin and "shocking act of betrayal". I swear I'm still suffering some PTSD after that damnable novel.
Thomas Hardy starts out the novel in one of the best ways that I can imagine. Tess' father is walking down the lane when the local minister calls out a greeting to him by the name "Sir John". Confused John asks why. The minister tells him it's because of something he'd read, that John Durbeyfield's last name is a corruption of an older family name "D'Urberville" which was once a noble name in those parts. The minister bids "Sir John" good evening and walks off. From there the tale becomes further embroidered by "Sir John" into how rich the family was, how noble, how many holdings they had, and a knightly shield that they once carried, and all this he tells down at the local pub in a drunken game of "Telephone". The legend grows so great in his telling of it that he and his wife send Tess to the "D'Urbervilles" to claim kin and perhaps gain some amount of fortune...BUT...that particular clan of D'Urbervilles is a false clan given that the man, a financier or merchant, trying to escape debts and/or trouble changed his christened named to D'Urberville which just happened to be an ancient he discovered in some old and musty books. It suited his purpose and he set himself down in peace sure he'd never have trouble come knocking. Fast forward a few years and there is Tess knocking on their door gaining the unfortunate attention of one Alec D'Urberville.
Now, it is important for me to relate that I really appreciate Hardy's style. There are moments where the sentences and imagery is a bit overwrought, but that aside the man has a very good eye for someone who wasn't born in the era of moving pictures. We go from the evening meeting with the minister to the pub, with a pass by Tess with other women in white dresses dancing for some peculiar village reason where she meets and dances with the man I'm fairly certain she ends up with, and then back to home where Mrs. Derbyfield is tending to a house full of her own urchins. It is so well paced and timed I could practically see the film in my head with scene handoffs like that.
When we first meet Alec the reader almost instantly, on "sight", by which I mean his physical description, we know him for exactly who he is. After Tess leaves him the first time Hardy let's the "camera" that has been exclusively by Tess' side hang back to look over Alec's shoulder as he hints to no one in particular his terrible intentions. The next few chapters in the phase highlights Tess' innocence and Alec's grooming of her in an incredibly cinematic manner, pulling in focus on this, giving a landscape there. Even Alec's return at night in the wood where he left Tess is fraught with cinematic cues that naturally blossom within the modern mind. Out of all the books I've read in the 100BYSRBYD series so far none of them have been so ready for filming as this one.
Today I finished Phase One and, naturally, I came to the part that I had been dreading. At least I assume what happened in my head actually happened. I mean it was written in the later half of the 1800s and so he couldn't just come out and say that Alec raped Tess.
My natural outrage came out at the act. Hardy wrote Alec so well in his monstrous regard that I was somewhat shocked that Alec's desires and reasons for doing it are still used to this day. "She wanted it." "She owed me." "She shouldn't have dressed or acted like that." His grooming of her all along the way is still typical in this modern age and that was half of the shock for me. "We still haven't learned. There were jerks like that back then. So little has changed." was the first series of thoughts.
Fortunately what has changed is our level of compassion as individuals.
You can't look up information on this novel without coming across the fact that it garnered such outrage and such scandal not because Tess was raped. Rather the scandalous nature of the novel was in suggesting that after the rape act Tess was still a "pure woman". These days we can acknowledge the fact that it is not the victim's fault. Back then there was no such consideration at all. The man would get away with it, might be frowned at, but the victim would be marred for life. It's still something I'm not sure I can wrap my mind around. The idea that she is somehow to be punished for it, as if she "allowed" it to happen, is immediately repugnant to any modern thinking human being.
It will certainly be difficult to dig into the following chapters and "phases" while attempting to understand their viewpoint. It's easy for us to point and go "bloody idiots" to that society, but we often forget that they had actually reasons for behaving the way they did and thinking the way they did. These reasons made sense to them or they wouldn't have ascribed to them. Someday our values will be mocked by future generations, so it should be possible to at least a gain a sense of it.
Given that the novel appears to be a long treatise on how that society acts in shaming Tess, I imagine this is going to be quite the difficult novel to get through. I hope for a happy...ish ending...but it's got that battery acid tang of Wuthering Heights to it that unsettles me to my core.
Pax,
W
There's a family called the Derbeyfields who might be related to the wealthy D'Urbervilles and so they send Tess to maybe claim a bit of the fortunes. Her manipulative "cousin" does some shocking act of betrayal that makes Tess an outcast upon returning home. The parson's son, Angel Clare, comes along and is probably the man she ends up with in the end. Manipulations, twisted morality, and other frustrations ensue.
I have to say I have been a little apprehensive to delve too deeply into this one. There's a bit of a Wuthering Heights vibe from the get go with the manipulative cousin and "shocking act of betrayal". I swear I'm still suffering some PTSD after that damnable novel.
Thomas Hardy starts out the novel in one of the best ways that I can imagine. Tess' father is walking down the lane when the local minister calls out a greeting to him by the name "Sir John". Confused John asks why. The minister tells him it's because of something he'd read, that John Durbeyfield's last name is a corruption of an older family name "D'Urberville" which was once a noble name in those parts. The minister bids "Sir John" good evening and walks off. From there the tale becomes further embroidered by "Sir John" into how rich the family was, how noble, how many holdings they had, and a knightly shield that they once carried, and all this he tells down at the local pub in a drunken game of "Telephone". The legend grows so great in his telling of it that he and his wife send Tess to the "D'Urbervilles" to claim kin and perhaps gain some amount of fortune...BUT...that particular clan of D'Urbervilles is a false clan given that the man, a financier or merchant, trying to escape debts and/or trouble changed his christened named to D'Urberville which just happened to be an ancient he discovered in some old and musty books. It suited his purpose and he set himself down in peace sure he'd never have trouble come knocking. Fast forward a few years and there is Tess knocking on their door gaining the unfortunate attention of one Alec D'Urberville.
Now, it is important for me to relate that I really appreciate Hardy's style. There are moments where the sentences and imagery is a bit overwrought, but that aside the man has a very good eye for someone who wasn't born in the era of moving pictures. We go from the evening meeting with the minister to the pub, with a pass by Tess with other women in white dresses dancing for some peculiar village reason where she meets and dances with the man I'm fairly certain she ends up with, and then back to home where Mrs. Derbyfield is tending to a house full of her own urchins. It is so well paced and timed I could practically see the film in my head with scene handoffs like that.
When we first meet Alec the reader almost instantly, on "sight", by which I mean his physical description, we know him for exactly who he is. After Tess leaves him the first time Hardy let's the "camera" that has been exclusively by Tess' side hang back to look over Alec's shoulder as he hints to no one in particular his terrible intentions. The next few chapters in the phase highlights Tess' innocence and Alec's grooming of her in an incredibly cinematic manner, pulling in focus on this, giving a landscape there. Even Alec's return at night in the wood where he left Tess is fraught with cinematic cues that naturally blossom within the modern mind. Out of all the books I've read in the 100BYSRBYD series so far none of them have been so ready for filming as this one.
Today I finished Phase One and, naturally, I came to the part that I had been dreading. At least I assume what happened in my head actually happened. I mean it was written in the later half of the 1800s and so he couldn't just come out and say that Alec raped Tess.
My natural outrage came out at the act. Hardy wrote Alec so well in his monstrous regard that I was somewhat shocked that Alec's desires and reasons for doing it are still used to this day. "She wanted it." "She owed me." "She shouldn't have dressed or acted like that." His grooming of her all along the way is still typical in this modern age and that was half of the shock for me. "We still haven't learned. There were jerks like that back then. So little has changed." was the first series of thoughts.
Fortunately what has changed is our level of compassion as individuals.
You can't look up information on this novel without coming across the fact that it garnered such outrage and such scandal not because Tess was raped. Rather the scandalous nature of the novel was in suggesting that after the rape act Tess was still a "pure woman". These days we can acknowledge the fact that it is not the victim's fault. Back then there was no such consideration at all. The man would get away with it, might be frowned at, but the victim would be marred for life. It's still something I'm not sure I can wrap my mind around. The idea that she is somehow to be punished for it, as if she "allowed" it to happen, is immediately repugnant to any modern thinking human being.
It will certainly be difficult to dig into the following chapters and "phases" while attempting to understand their viewpoint. It's easy for us to point and go "bloody idiots" to that society, but we often forget that they had actually reasons for behaving the way they did and thinking the way they did. These reasons made sense to them or they wouldn't have ascribed to them. Someday our values will be mocked by future generations, so it should be possible to at least a gain a sense of it.
Given that the novel appears to be a long treatise on how that society acts in shaming Tess, I imagine this is going to be quite the difficult novel to get through. I hope for a happy...ish ending...but it's got that battery acid tang of Wuthering Heights to it that unsettles me to my core.
Pax,
W
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
To Endings that are Good...Enough (Little Women wrap-up)
By heaven. Has it really been since September that I last wrote in this blog? I haven't been idle, if that comforts anyone. It does me a great comfort given that I usually spend quite a bit of time idle.
`There's been October, which really needs no excuse. October is a time for celebration for my people, the Autumnals, and is the one month of the year which I look forward to the most. It's also the one month of the year where the temperature is perfect for going out of doors. The summer is too sticky, spring too wishy washy, and winter too frigid by half. October is, in a word, perfection.
There was a wedding in there somewhere within that month, and a vacation to Colonial Williamsburg.
November was my birthday and the time of NaNoWriMo was upon me in which I get really crabby, exhausted, and want nothing to do with writing after the requisite 50k words have been accomplished.
December came quite hard and fast, as they are wont to do. You never realize how busy a December can be until you're in recovery mode somewhere in the later part of the month. And that's why we find ourselves here and now. While in recovery I finished Little Women.
I don't remember if, and I'm too lazy to go look, I talked last time about the marked difference between the first half of the novel and the last half. Part two took me completely by surprise with the difference in tone. It was as if so much time had elapsed between the two parts that she had no idea where to begin and, when in doubt, moralize.
Ms. Alcott did have quite a bit of moralizing going on in the novel to begin with, however she diffused it by employing her characters rather than herself as the agent of it. If I was a better blogger I would have researched the time in between parts, but alas. What I do suspect is that the two parts were sold separately and she was told what people liked about the first part. Praise before a novel's completion can be a terrible thing.
A few months ago at my writer's group the members had almost universal praise for my chapter, especially how poetic each line was which was so appropriate for the genre and subject matter. It was so well praised that when I sat down to write the next chapter instead of flowing naturally like it usually does I was given to fits and half starts. Why? Because I was focusing on the poetry of the language than the actual story.
Halfway through this second half of the book, somewhere around where Mr. Bhaer is established as a fixture in Jo's life away from home having moved beyond acquaintance, Alcott picks up with the verve, wit, and natural ease of her writing that I quite admire. The little pastiches showing life with Meg's family became a bit heavy handed again, but I do have to admit that the problems they suffered are remarkably still issues in families today.
I was as surprised as anyone to find that my opinion of Amy has actually softened. My recollection of the movie version was that they tried to turn it into a little love triangle with Amy stealing Laurie and Jo being outraged or, at least, a little miffed about the whole thing. Here I was actually overjoyed to find that Amy grew up, that she caused Laurie to grow up, and Jo was completely grown up about the whole thing; that she truly never did harbor any feelings Laurie beyond sisterhood. I do understand that it's difficult to make a wholly interesting movie in the modern age with that as the story, and I wonder how many faithful readers of the book were outraged. Jo didn't miss her chance because she never wanted one. Showing a young woman who is actually mature, wise, and thoughtful would likely be an unbelievable thing in media these days where we embrace figures who live on the edge, are incomplete without a man (any man), and act foolishly at every turn but it all seems to work out in the end anyway.
I was equally interested in Beth's passing. It was such an understated, almost normal sort of thing to happen. I suppose most of that is due to the fact that everyone knew, had time to prepare, and loved her through the whole ordeal. Had it been a sudden death it would have been handled differently, I'm sure. Mourning occurred but it wasn't drawn out. The pain was there but not quite so acutely portrayed. So much of modern movies and books is all about grabbing you by the emotions and tugging as hard as you can. This was something different; a sweet passing, a gentle goodbye, a loving caress of a death. I could moralize here myself and write about how we are so desensitized and so yearn to feel anything that of course we gravitate towards more overtly emotional tales.
The romance of Bhaer and Jo was something that I was naturally predisposed to enjoy. Separation, mounds of letters in a year, sensible yet whole hearted love between them, etc. is something that mirrors my own love story. Ok, my beloved was the sensible one. I was the one who racked up a $450 phone bill while she was at school in Oxford. I've never claimed sensibility when it comes to my bride.
My only complaint about the novel, and it is such a petty thing, was the ending. It ends as it began, of course, being a portrait of a simple, loving family with all their faults, foibles, blessings, and the wisdom of their parents on display. I can't imagine an appropriate ending that would tie everything in a nice bow, and so perhaps I shouldn't complain.
Overall I pretty much loved this novel, and all the more to find that Amy doesn't remain a hideous person. I set out on this journey to see if the novels would change me, and so far they have, this one especially. When I consider their "simple" life I don't do too much romanticizing. Modernity certainly has more avenues to and support for living a crazed hectic life, but somewhere between the pages I made a connection. It's a connection I'm not sure I can vocalize here, but naturally I'll try.
There wasn't more time in a day back then with which we could sit, ruminate, and come to a correct course of action. There are a bajillion more choices of things we can do with our time, but that is what they all are; choices. The life best lived is not in embracing every possibility of what we can do with our time, but choosing well and, as it laughably turns out, choosing fewer. The right things, the beneficial things, the healthy things, the great and honorable things are all still there for us to choose. They have endured. Maybe society is more like my daughter who prefers the mediocre but color episodes of The Andy Griffith Show because, "Old things are not good and these are better because they are new" (yes...she'll be brought to wisdom if I have to drag her kicking and screaming). I've gained an appreciation for the old and timeless because of those two qualities. The old endures because of its virtues and timeless things are...well...timeless. I shy away from every brand new iteration of Apple Products that they just have to have while the old one is just as usable. A disposable, constantly upgradeable society is by its very nature a house of cards. We have virtue and principles when it is convenient and violate them when it is not, and that's not the world I want to live in. Remember...once upon a time a handshake was a legal agreement...and now we prenup our marriages.
Likesay, I'm not sure where I'm headed because of these books, but I'm fairly certain it will be better than the direction I was heading without them.
Pax,
W
`There's been October, which really needs no excuse. October is a time for celebration for my people, the Autumnals, and is the one month of the year which I look forward to the most. It's also the one month of the year where the temperature is perfect for going out of doors. The summer is too sticky, spring too wishy washy, and winter too frigid by half. October is, in a word, perfection.
There was a wedding in there somewhere within that month, and a vacation to Colonial Williamsburg.
November was my birthday and the time of NaNoWriMo was upon me in which I get really crabby, exhausted, and want nothing to do with writing after the requisite 50k words have been accomplished.
December came quite hard and fast, as they are wont to do. You never realize how busy a December can be until you're in recovery mode somewhere in the later part of the month. And that's why we find ourselves here and now. While in recovery I finished Little Women.
I don't remember if, and I'm too lazy to go look, I talked last time about the marked difference between the first half of the novel and the last half. Part two took me completely by surprise with the difference in tone. It was as if so much time had elapsed between the two parts that she had no idea where to begin and, when in doubt, moralize.
Ms. Alcott did have quite a bit of moralizing going on in the novel to begin with, however she diffused it by employing her characters rather than herself as the agent of it. If I was a better blogger I would have researched the time in between parts, but alas. What I do suspect is that the two parts were sold separately and she was told what people liked about the first part. Praise before a novel's completion can be a terrible thing.
A few months ago at my writer's group the members had almost universal praise for my chapter, especially how poetic each line was which was so appropriate for the genre and subject matter. It was so well praised that when I sat down to write the next chapter instead of flowing naturally like it usually does I was given to fits and half starts. Why? Because I was focusing on the poetry of the language than the actual story.
Halfway through this second half of the book, somewhere around where Mr. Bhaer is established as a fixture in Jo's life away from home having moved beyond acquaintance, Alcott picks up with the verve, wit, and natural ease of her writing that I quite admire. The little pastiches showing life with Meg's family became a bit heavy handed again, but I do have to admit that the problems they suffered are remarkably still issues in families today.
I was as surprised as anyone to find that my opinion of Amy has actually softened. My recollection of the movie version was that they tried to turn it into a little love triangle with Amy stealing Laurie and Jo being outraged or, at least, a little miffed about the whole thing. Here I was actually overjoyed to find that Amy grew up, that she caused Laurie to grow up, and Jo was completely grown up about the whole thing; that she truly never did harbor any feelings Laurie beyond sisterhood. I do understand that it's difficult to make a wholly interesting movie in the modern age with that as the story, and I wonder how many faithful readers of the book were outraged. Jo didn't miss her chance because she never wanted one. Showing a young woman who is actually mature, wise, and thoughtful would likely be an unbelievable thing in media these days where we embrace figures who live on the edge, are incomplete without a man (any man), and act foolishly at every turn but it all seems to work out in the end anyway.
I was equally interested in Beth's passing. It was such an understated, almost normal sort of thing to happen. I suppose most of that is due to the fact that everyone knew, had time to prepare, and loved her through the whole ordeal. Had it been a sudden death it would have been handled differently, I'm sure. Mourning occurred but it wasn't drawn out. The pain was there but not quite so acutely portrayed. So much of modern movies and books is all about grabbing you by the emotions and tugging as hard as you can. This was something different; a sweet passing, a gentle goodbye, a loving caress of a death. I could moralize here myself and write about how we are so desensitized and so yearn to feel anything that of course we gravitate towards more overtly emotional tales.
The romance of Bhaer and Jo was something that I was naturally predisposed to enjoy. Separation, mounds of letters in a year, sensible yet whole hearted love between them, etc. is something that mirrors my own love story. Ok, my beloved was the sensible one. I was the one who racked up a $450 phone bill while she was at school in Oxford. I've never claimed sensibility when it comes to my bride.
My only complaint about the novel, and it is such a petty thing, was the ending. It ends as it began, of course, being a portrait of a simple, loving family with all their faults, foibles, blessings, and the wisdom of their parents on display. I can't imagine an appropriate ending that would tie everything in a nice bow, and so perhaps I shouldn't complain.
Overall I pretty much loved this novel, and all the more to find that Amy doesn't remain a hideous person. I set out on this journey to see if the novels would change me, and so far they have, this one especially. When I consider their "simple" life I don't do too much romanticizing. Modernity certainly has more avenues to and support for living a crazed hectic life, but somewhere between the pages I made a connection. It's a connection I'm not sure I can vocalize here, but naturally I'll try.
There wasn't more time in a day back then with which we could sit, ruminate, and come to a correct course of action. There are a bajillion more choices of things we can do with our time, but that is what they all are; choices. The life best lived is not in embracing every possibility of what we can do with our time, but choosing well and, as it laughably turns out, choosing fewer. The right things, the beneficial things, the healthy things, the great and honorable things are all still there for us to choose. They have endured. Maybe society is more like my daughter who prefers the mediocre but color episodes of The Andy Griffith Show because, "Old things are not good and these are better because they are new" (yes...she'll be brought to wisdom if I have to drag her kicking and screaming). I've gained an appreciation for the old and timeless because of those two qualities. The old endures because of its virtues and timeless things are...well...timeless. I shy away from every brand new iteration of Apple Products that they just have to have while the old one is just as usable. A disposable, constantly upgradeable society is by its very nature a house of cards. We have virtue and principles when it is convenient and violate them when it is not, and that's not the world I want to live in. Remember...once upon a time a handshake was a legal agreement...and now we prenup our marriages.
Likesay, I'm not sure where I'm headed because of these books, but I'm fairly certain it will be better than the direction I was heading without them.
Pax,
W
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