Ragtime, The Haunted Hotel, The Go-Between

A few more book clubs have gone by, two very good books, one very bad books:
SPOILER ALERTS APLENTY:

Ragtime

Plot summary: Start of the 20th century in America, a glorious rambling tale through the various major figures of the age as well as two families who come together in unusual circumstances. Race, gender, class issues delved into, with some beautiful portraits of Houdini, J P Morgan, Ford and a few excellent fictional creations. Sweet sex scene also, "...great filamented spurts of jism that traced the air like bullets and then settled slowly over Evelyn in her bed like falling ticker tape."

PBC thoughts: One of the best books we've read so far. Maybe not "the Great American Novel" as the introduction suggests but captures a seminal period of history brilliantly while keeping a nice touch on a central driving plot. Perhaps the end a little bit too easy with the resolution at the end. Also watched Firefly during bookclub, a great TV show if there ever was one. Very easy read as well, short, declarative sentences, reminiscent of Tom Wolfe.

Average rating: 8.5/10

The Haunted Hotel

Plot summary: Woman and her brother kill husband in Italian hotel for insurance money. People figure it out. The woman eventually writes what she did in a play and dies.


PBC thoughts: An decent representation of the genre in the context of time. Personally I found it awful, a rambling, woeful excuse for a murder mystery, with such a blatant devise used for the communication of what actually happened, I am sure any detectives would have wept with joy. Loads of accused wracked with guilt must submit scripts with what actually happened on them. Most people did not have this level of issue.


Average rating: 6/10

The Go Between

Plot summary: Starts with "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Beautiful tale with themes of a loss of innocence and the end of a golden age. An elderly man looks back at a summer spent a rich families house, where he passes messages between two lovers after defeating bullies with a spell at school. All ends in tears. Really poignant exploration of the sexuality and world of early 20th century England.

PBC thoughts: I don't think there was universal agreement that this was a masterpiece, I can't remember why. Powerful themes, perhaps a little bit of ambiguous character development, with the two lovers pretty much adopting a straight line towards destruction and it all affecting the protagonist perhaps a little too significantly. I don't know, it is a glorious read.

Average rating: 8/10

Years Go Real Fast These Days

So its been like a year since I posted on this thing, some books we have read, and some vague thoughts that I can remember (generally I disagree with the book club on most books because I am awesome):

FREQUENT SPOILER ALERTS BELOW

Came a Hot Friday
Score: 7ish.
Quick Plot: Con-men in some New Zealand town try to rip off Bookies, get away with it with the help of crazy Western Maori "Kid"; all mostly a lesson for a young used car salesmen to listen to his dad.
Thoughts of the PBC: Good times mostly, but the crazy Kid is rather silly and this symbolises the general silly nature of proceedings kinda detracting from a reasonable plot, nice characters and fractured picture of a time in NZ post-colonial history.

Raffles
Score: 5ish
Quick plot: Gentleman thief, plays cricket, steals diamonds, all gradually comes crashing down.
Thoughts of the PBC: Ambiguous morality, clearly saying "this is not good" but doing so haphazardly, rather silly really, nothing much to it, a lot of repetition but still funny and interesting in bits.

Obernewtyn
Score: 4ish.
Quick plot: Dystopia post-nuclear bomb, people gain powers but hunted down by autocratic evil overlords, except for sanctuary in the hills, story of girl who gets to sanctuary and beats evil people controlling sanctuary.
Thoughts of the CLUB: Very silly, not well written, kids story.

Farewell My Lovely
Score: 7ish
Quick Plot: Gum shoe detective, gets hopelessly messed up with a bunch of crazy characters and it turns out everything is linked together and he solves the day but its a bit of a bitter sweet thing with people dying and all that.
Thoughts of the PBC: Very enjoyable, great example of genre, a bit pointless but a certified good read.

Notes From Underground
[Not present at book club]

The Sheltering Sky
Score: 7ish
Quick Plot: Can't distinguish from really shit movie in my mind now. Couple touring round Africa, like a "worst case" travel novel, ending in crazy carnage with protagonist dying and wife raped.
Thoughts of the PBC: Quite profound in places, surprising in others, a very good read. Can't remember there being too much bad said - although the movie was woeful, truly woeful, the author is in it and everything and talks to the camera. Jesus. I can't say enough about how bad this movie really is. John Malkovich too.

Scoop
Score: 6ish
Quick Plot: A kinda "man who knew too little" tale about the wrong family member sent to cover a war who ends up getting the "Scoop".
Thoughts of the PBC: Very different from first Evelyn Waugh we'd read (Brideshead), a riproaring adventure, exceedingly racist, a little silly employing a few rather ridiculous turning plot points but one expects reflective of a rather silly era, still highly enjoyable and very funny in places.

The History of Sexuality: Volume 1

[Not present at book club]

The Pit and the Pendulum (and other stories)
[Not present at book club]
BUT:
Personal Thoughts: Some smegging fantastic stuff, although the whole Sherlok Holmes vibe gets a bit tired as it does in Connan Doyle. Some of the gothic horror stories though: Descent into the Maelstrom in particular, very evocative, amazingly before its time and pretty damn terrifying. Has a way of beautifully describing a little world and expressing it relatively briefly and capturing and creating profound emotions.

How We Are Hungry
[Not present at book club]

Getting further back in time now, quick description will do for each.

Lucky Jim
Hilarious, truly, gloriously hilarious, especially for the thesis student just finished. Captures the utter pointless back breaking drudgery of academia from the perspective of a lazy dickhead who gets lucky. I think book club found it a little tiresome, but remember, these people can't be trusted.

Therese Raquin
Relatively shit, moralisticish take on adultery. Suggests certain people mechanical and animalistic, just rather bleak in the end. I think generally people did not enjoy this.

Foe
SHIT. Like. really shit. like "ou lets be all post modern and do a modernist take on the whole idea of Robinson Crusoe. Quite like this quote, at the time seen as a bit of a shitty nothing piece by South African critics:

"In our knowledge of the human suffering on our own doorstep of thousands of detainees who are denied recourse to the rule of law, Foe does not so much speak to Africa as provide a kind of masturbatory release, in this country, for the Europeanising dreams of an intellectual coterie."

I think it goes without saying that Giles loved this book. BUuurrrnrnnnn. 

The end.

Books v Movies

So I just watched this really good movie, Toy Story 3, and immediately noticed that facebook announced bravely the two or three "friends" who had also seen it discussing how great it was. I had a post myself all ready to click.

Then it struck me, the other day I completed a book, unpenguiny - "A Fraction of a Whole" Man Booker Shortlisted Aussie tale by Steve Toltz or something, utterly brilliant. Like really enjoyable, a great story, brilliant self conscious style, memorable and gloriously twisted characters and nice binding philosophic dialogue and philosophy underpinning it all.

But I would have never contemplated posting on it. Why...why is it that it is ok to post on movies but not books.

Am I that convinced my friends are morons? My friend, the genius, Giles, posts all intellectual styles all the time. Rdoc and Johnny post on their artistic accomplishments. Everyone posts on work and thesis progress. As far as I can tell, strangely, books - which as us popular penguin enjoyers will testify to, can evoke more profound emotions than movies can ever hope to project - are a bit of a taboo topic.

What is the reason? You can post a quote happily, but I have rarely seen emotion expressed about how great a book is. I am genuinely interested. Tell me. What is the reason?

A Choice of His Own

An illustration of why Virginnia Wolfe whining about her gender is powerful but lame

Being a rich, white male is sometimes frustrating.

Firstly, almost all the problems in the world are the fault of your choices.

Whether its for our incompetancies and evils in dealing with race, sex, religion, economics, politics, ethnicity, disability or music taste, white, rich males are usually at the head of every well meaning, tree hippies hit list. For good reason too, our forefathers fucked up.

Secondly, and closely related to firstly, you are given an awful lot of responsibility.

With the immense choice open to you as the elite of the world, you are expected, somehow to succeed on three fronts. 1. Find a Gorgeous Girl, Knock Her Up. 2. Become Financially Literate, Invest Wisely and 3. Become An Adaptable Expert.

Probably in exactly the opposite order but you get the picture. A lot is expected, fail on any of these accounts and society deems you as a failure, and trust me, there is no being more depressed than a failed rich male (except a failed rich male's wife).

It is therefore surprising and humbling that so many manage to pull out a number 4. Become Creative Enough to Write A Novel.

There are the odd few that divert their efforts from 3 to 4, and certainly 4 can come at the expense of any of 1 to 3 but it is nevertheless a profound achievement that deserves respect. Indeed, the mere attempt, often allocating an individual firmly into the failure bucket, is something worth celebrating.

It is perhaps a fruitless hope but I would like to live in a world where the pursuit and failure of 4 would not necessarily be deemed a failure. A world where a man can have a choice of his own.


Its almost like chicks have it easier, they can make the mistakes and fail but always have the option of marrying and leeching off a success. Its what comes with all this power, this immense responsibility.
 
It is hard being a super gender. But someone has to do it.

Steinbeck is the king of books

So Cannery Row is one of the best books by far that we have read at book club!

But that was obvious right, I mean come on, Steinbeck for crying out loud. Once again he threads together a mix match of characters into a inconceivable story that comes out as a highly enjoyable read. His ability to construct novels from quirky events tied together with modern themes make Steinbeck the number one writer.

Favourite character has to be Doc, firstly he is a marine biologist, next his name is slightly like my name i'm posting this post with. But apart from that, he reflects what I think Steinbeck may be feeling about himself at times, well above the intellectual level of his neighbours yet frustrated at some parts of life, and able to pull babes like crazy. Except Doc is contempt with his mediocre surroundings which Steinbeck probably managed to escape seeing he put out many a popular novel and therefore getting him in to high society...

But really the best part of the book is that it is set in Cannery Row which you can go and visit any time, even on google maps in street view, which is amazing:


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Three Hundred Pages of Confusedness

Marquis' classic is by all accounts the best Spanish thing since Don Quixote. As I've only seen a poor ballet interpretation of the classic and a few vaguelly related movies, I can't comment on that comparison but 100 Years of Solitude is hardly what you'd expect near the top of a language's literature. Obviously, English speaking people are inherently superior to Spanish speaking people, proved decisively in the Spanish invasion of 1588, where Clive Owen single handedly defeated the Spanish Armada but you'd still hope for something better than this.

The book didn't exactly disappoint but it certainly wasn't the classic I'd expected. I am a great fan of Louis de Bernières, a self expressed "Marquis parasite" who produced a trilogy of novels in the style of 100 years of solitude. The similarities are powerful, but Bernières follows one generation and adopts an unambiguous underlying political message, in contrast to the weird, winding pathways in Marquis opus.

The good things

• Its certainly not all bad, critics pose it as an exemplar of magical realism and that it is. Similar to Bernières who perfects the idea, the supernatural is deemed mundane. Tarot card reading, premonitions and ascensions to heaven are described in the same rambly style as the romantic involvements of the main characters, without even the characters involved noting any particular disbelief. Fantasy does itself a favour when it doesn't take the fantasy too seriously and focuses on the story, this (mostly) avoids the pitfalls of the post-Tolkein, pre-Gaimen era.
• The characters, who make up the subject matter of the book, are ridiculously vivid and jump out of the page hitting you with a laugh out loud, gasp out loud and cry out loud moments.
• One of the central themes is time, and Marquis manipulates, and dances on the concept of time with the expertise of a Star Trek writer. Never has a novel stated the rather obvious "history repeating itself" message in such an eloquent manner. However, it is its rather ambiguous treatment of time which makes for its greater failings.

The bad things

• Its really, really confusing. Characters have the same name, you can be twenty pages through a particular little plotline and suddenly realise the author is talking about a different character. Although this plays neatly into the time theme, it also makes it incredibly frustrating read at times. 
• Most of those vivid characters reside in a single dimension, as you'd expect from a novel which describes a families history, you only get fleeting glimpses, but as described in the novel, you tend to get quite polemic character traits, that although often exchanged between confusing names, remain pretty constant.
• At times, you feel Marquis phones in a section. The peculiarity of magical realism appears to make ascending a character to heaven or having them disappear and reappear particularly easy, rather than explaining things. And just occasionally, there is a focus on the magicalness which loses touch with the plot.
• It is very politically ambiguous. He seems to be trying so hard not to make a statement, yet the unthinking sexism/racist ideology seems to pervade everything slightly, ever so slightly. I don't know, but I don't like it.

It fails on some levels, but by no means on all. It is just surprising that this is given so much critical love. For its time, it probably was something completely different but its influence on post modernist writing means you have a million novels since which do it better without the negative aspects. Still, for you popular penguinites out there, a worthy and absorbing read, and probably worth it for the historical aspects.

New Directions

Warning: This is the first in a new trend for the blog, seeking to inject it with more life. From here on out, the thoughts of members on non-book club selected popular penguins will be permitted to be recorded on the wall of this hallowed temple. These have not been subjected to the rigid scrutiny of Popular Penguin Book Club and thus the opinions stated cannot truly be given with the type of excellent critical analysis hyou will have come to expect from the blog. Nevertheless, this provides an opportunity for wider discussion and anyone is welcome to contribute, reply with your blogger email and we will add you to the contributers.

For the record, here is the official constitution of Book Club, as declared by authoritarian proclamation by Leader Poms on 20 March 2010:

1. Never discuss book club outside of book club.
2. No books selected for official book club discussion will have been read by any book club member during the course of their natural lives before the selection of that book at an official book club.
3. Each book club starts with a human sacrifice to the Penguin, God of the Books.
4. After the sacrifice, each member gives their first thoughts, then discussion rages, followed by final thoughts and a ranking based on an integer scale between 0 and 10.
5. Membership is open to all, except obviously Jews. (Just kidding, we are all Jewish at heart).

A Confederacy of Dunces

The story of this book's publication makes it immediately interesting regardless of its content: it was written by John Kennedy Toole in the early 60s, who failed to find a publisher and ended up killing himself. His mother then shopped around the manuscript until finally it was published in 1980, winning the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1981. I doubt there are many other books with such a history...

But as all of us here are products of the liberal elite postmodernist University system such things as the author's biography, intents, and interesting histories are beside the point! Is it any good?

Well it's certainly very original. The main character, Ignatius Reilly, is an amazing creation. Spouting all sorts of high-brow scorn, he also is a bit of an idiot when it comes to doing...uh, anything. He wildly swings from furious to hurt and pathetic, and is a master manipulator who only engineers spectacular failures. He is hilarious (on finding out his on-and-off girl has a new Kenyan man: '"Oh, my God!" Ignatius slobbered. "The minx has been raped by a Mau-Mau."') and has a certain admirable grandeur but is also a total dick to everyone.

For just one example, he gets a low-grade job filing papers in a clothing factory office, which he 'does' by chucking away all the papers. He then decorates the office with all kinds of elaborate signs and artwork, and organizes a worker's revolt that evaporates into nothingness just as it starts to get going when it turns out Ignatius has no idea of what he's actually trying to achieve with it.

As he blasts his way through various quarters of New Orleans we get a great depiction of the strange nooks and crannies of that city as well as a host of interesting minor characters. But the book is dominated by Ignatius and his unpredictable interactions with anyone he comes across. Although it's hard to imagine actually having to deal with someone as totally impossible as Ignatius, his conflicts with the world often strike close to reality. His university-educated disdain for simple work, crappy films, and regular people could come from any number of us highbrow types in a moment of weakness. Nobody envies the guy who sells hot dogs do they? And why should I have to do some lame job, I'm so well-educated!

Ignatius stands in for the frustrations of all of us university graduates brimming with mostly useless knowledge and with not much productive to do with it. While most of us will probably manage to 'grow up' and enter the normal, real world, Ignatius is what happens when a kid fails to understand that everyone is 'special' and 'unique' and has to do boring and inane things to be a member of society. But, just as in real life, such sociopathic personalities can still get along fine in their own little bubbles, since they don't care about what they are doing to other people.

So although the disasters of Ignatius's character act as a caution against his type of selfishness and sense of entitlement, the book also seems oddly sympathetic towards him. By portraying him as a big child who has been failed by society, his 'success' in spite of his anti-social tendencies is a happy ending of sorts that also suggests a very depressing view of society's ability to handle outliers. Ignatius just takes advantage every time normal people act nicely towards him, and ends up in the box seat despite nobody actually liking him. Society sucks like that.

A Short Little Read On A Sunny Sunday Afternoon

Coming in at a stretched 77 pages, The Pigeon, by Patrick Suskind is a good way to spend an hour on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but is probably not worth the $12 you have to pay for it brand new.

Being a tiny little read it is impossible for it deal with complex subjects thoroughly, but instead does a fantastic job at giving you a snapshot in to the main characters wacky mindset. The entire seventy seven pages are spent wisely on each event that happens during an offhand day displaying just how neurotic Jonathan Noel has become after a life of self inflicted isolation. Entertaining moments include a description of a homeless man taking a squat in full view of everyone on a public road, this gives Jonathan a sense of satisfaction in his job that has kept him standing in the same spot for ten of thousands of hours.

But after the hour it takes to read this novella you are left slightly disappointed. Not enough to use the seventy seven pages as cigarette papers to get some value in the $12 you spent on it, but enough to give the book only a six on the popular penguin out of ten scale. There wasn't anything to give the book an edge, let alone a reason for placing it in the popular penguin series. It was difficult to come up with deeper meaning from the read, or find something to take away which would make you remember the book. I think if it wasn't for writing this blog I'd have forgotten completely ever reading it by now. All The Pigeon is, is a well told story of a neurotic character's day, but nothing more. So get the book out from the library but take your $12 and go for a trip out to a beach and buy an ice cream, then spend an hour sitting in the sun with your short little read.

Revisting Brideshead

Evelyn Waugh revisits Brideshead Revisited in its 1959 revised edition; "It was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disaster — the period of soya beans and Basic English — and in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful."

The contrast between war-ravaged 'soya bean' England and the luxuriant hedonistic memories of Charles and his friendship with Sebastian was, for me, the most emotionally engaging and well written part of the novel. Overall I wanted to like this book much, much more than I actually did.

Waugh's depiction of love and marriage, a commentary within the frames of Catholicism and the English Upper Class, was simply that. Julia and Charles' blossoming relationship was sort of mechanically written, as was other relationships/affairs between the other characters (except Charles and Sebastian's -- perhaps if it was called "Brideshead Revisited: the Adventures of Charles and Sebastian," it would have been better). Waugh can wax lyrical on the delicious and extravagant, but is reluctant to get emotive in his description of romance and its turmoils. There are glimpses of witty and vibrant Marchmain family vignettes, but in obvious contrast Waugh turns the latter part of the book into a serious narrative with hints of redemption and/or resolution for some characters, but it is generally boring because I had little empathy for any of the characters to begin with.

Brideshead Revisited: a great and sweeping bittersweet reverie of a British soldier, rests comfortably on this idea and doesn't take it too much further.

A Visit Down to Brideshead

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh.

Initially after reading Brideshead it took a while to really understand what the book was about. Without a second thought you might assume that it is entirely about a quirky family with lots of problems and has no real point to the disjointed plot. This was very similar to our discussion on it at book club. It was only when we were wrapping up the night that we got into a real discussion of the books subtle main theme.

Maybe this is why the book is so highly regarded, you can revisit the book and get more out of it each time (not that i'll read it again). Mid way through the book I was ready to conclude that this was a fantastic read. I was thoroughly enjoying the story about two young men getting into trouble whilst drinking tremendous amounts of alcohol. It rung true with my own life. But this story died off with Sebastian becoming an alcoholic and eventually running away from not only Brideshead but also the book. This left me feeling lost, not knowing what the rest of the book was really about. Charles steps up the story about his own life, finds some romances and sees all the older Marchmains die.

But this is not what Brideshead is about at all. The house and the characters and the little stories about each one are just a instrument for Waugh to make his point about the Catholicism song. Subtly interwoven throughout the book are discussions and actions discribing Waughs own religion. These tidbits were all a little too weak for me to actually believe that Waugh is a man of strong faith. He consistently mocks Catholic logic, like where he questions how Alexander Flyte crossing himself on his death bed is going to make up for the years of anti-Catholic behaviour, and then gives a small argument for divine grace in Charles's moment where he feels some spirituality after seeing Alexander die. Not nearly dramatic enough to convince me it was really life changing.

A theme should be somewhat of a statement, some kind of goal that the book is trying portray and hopefully persuade the reader into questioning their own ideologies or whatever. But here I am more fascinated by Charles youthful agnostic beliefs than his later conversion. The reader should also be clearly able to understand the conversion if all the Marchmains talk and actions that helped to lead to Charles's conversion have been told. Clearly Waugh would want his audience to be somewhat more understanding of the Catholic teachings and himself being a Catholic would probably want the book to help grow the church. But as I reached the end of the book I'd have to agree with Henry Green who says "The end was not for me. As you can imagine my heart was in my mouth all through the deathbed scene, hoping against hope that the old man would not give way, that is, take the course he eventually did."

The Operation of Grace

Bookclub often involves heated arguments, whether about the aforementioned science fiction issue or related with a particular interpretation of a certain character or theme, the participants are always up for a bit of loud, racous defence of silly ideas. Last night, we examined Waugh's self-proclaimed opus, Brideshead Revisited and engaged in a particularly heated debate concerning the religious quality of the novel.

There is (and was) no denying the strong religious themes dealt with in the book. The inhabitants of Brideshead are set apart by their religion, although the protagonist is adament in his atheism. This is with several large exceptions, chief of which is this passage taken from Charle's first discussions with religion:

I had no religion. I was taken to church weekly as a child, and at school attended chapel daily, but, as though in compensation, from the time I went to my public school I was excused church in the holidays. The masters who taught me Divinity told me that biblical texts were highly untrustworthy. They never suggested I should try to pray. My father did not go to church except on family occasions and then with derision. My mother, I think, was devout. It once seemed odd to me that she should have thought it her duty to leave my father and me and go off with an ambulance, to Serbia, to die of exhaustion in the snow in Bosnia. But later I recognised some such spirit in myself. Later, too, I have come to accept claims which then, in 1923, I never troubled to examine, and to accept the supernatural as the real. I was aware of no such needs that summer at Brideshead. (page 18)

This passage alone hints at a conversion, although admittedly offers no claim of creed or even monotheistic character. However, a cursory glance at what the author has said about the novel and his own context reveals much. Waugh wrote to his literary agent A. D. Peters, "I hope the last conversation with Cordelia gives the theological clue. The whole thing is steeped in theology, but I begin to agree that the theologians won't recognise it." The writing style does not explicitly state anything, but carefully threads the concepts beneath the relationships. The author's avowed intent is to "deal with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself".

While in other books of the time, secularlism rules unheralded, it is the secular values that Charles holds that are somehow empty in the face of the deep spirituality expressed through the Catholic tradition. The flawless logic that Charles employs does not even convince himself, when he sits at the side of Lord Marchmain's bed and prays for a sign.

Whether Charle's converts in the book is contested in the critical literature but kneeling down in front of the tabernacle of the Brideshead chapel and saying a prayer, "an ancient, newly learned form of words" - implies "recent instruction in the catechism" and the strange smile is testament to some form of enlightenment.

Waugh speaks of his own faith in grace in a letter to Lady Mary Lygon: "I believe that everyone in his (or her) life has the moment when he is open to Divine Grace. It's there, of course, for the asking all the time, but human lives are so planned that usually there's a particular time — sometimes, like Hubert, on his deathbed — when all resistance is down and Grace can come flooding in."

This is not to say the author portrays Catholicism in an entirely positive light. Waugh paints a tainted picture of his ideal, the deeply flawed Brideshead family torn apart from the offset. Sebastian could be happier without religion and Cordellia agrees "Sebastian is very holy and no one is holy without suffering." Julia believes one has to sacrifice happiness to be close to God and Charles logically deconstructs every aspect of religion that he can. I believe these issues simply display religion in a real light: Catholicism does not preach that having faith will bring happiness. Happiness is seen as a transitory thing in the novel, something ultimately unfulfilling. There is something more that exists, that perhaps one must be faithful to understand.

By no means am I claiming understanding, the concept of faith falls outside my worldview but Waugh, in his strangely poignant tale of his relationship with the Brideshead family, sheds some light on the strange nature of divinity and its interaction with our fleeting existence.

the immutable science fiction

When I first claimed The Picture (Portrait) of Dorian Gray was an excellent example of early science fiction I was mocked. Vilified almost.

Every book club since, my name has been tainted with the brush of science fiction.

"Oh Poms." They say, "Has this something to do with science fiction."

And laugh, laugh like an episode of the US office, which is surprisingly consistent.

To those doubters I turned the laughing tables tonight, when, not really thinking too carefully about what I was saying, I came up with a theory that will put that feverish doubt so hungrily dumped at my door in the same coffin as the fantasy authors utility to society.

About when Newton was sitting under apple trees, Gottfried Leibniz was postulating just as interesting theories on the other side of the Channel, particularly involving the possibilities of there being other worlds existing parallel to our own. While his theories, revolving around our own forming some kind of perfect vision of God, Kripke and others converted the ideas into semantic tools, allowing us to logically deal with concepts like "possibility."

X is possible, means there exists a possible world, where x is true. X is necessary, means X is true in all possible worlds. Neat, tidy, wonderful. And from this idea, stems a befuddling idea that effectively states all these worlds might exist. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics effectively postulates the physical existence of all possible worlds.

This is beside the point slightly, my point is that every piece of fiction, postulates a possible state of the world. The novel is a peek into a world that actually exists beyond our potential observation and probably beyond my understanding of the principle, but nevertheless states something profound about the nature of consciousness and how we shape worlds according to our perception of what is possible.

Can we create these worlds by placing them on paper or what appears to be more logical, are we actually desecribing actual worlds and events, whether in the far off junk fantasy of Jordan's Wheel of Time or the near autobiographical approach of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

A subject that has absolutely no potential impact in the real world, but is worth thought, if only after a bottle of wine.

A Travel Book, Murder Mystery and Historical Account

Three books in a row left our crowd of noble literary voyagers rather cold and this bold companion lays the blame firmly in the hands of the creator.

Dark Star Safari, Sin: Pride

Africa is an incredibly suitable subject for Paul Thereoux, the massive, wild origin of humanity, where the vast resources are slowly siphoned off by the Vikings progeny and returned in the form of small parcels of food to keep people just about alive some of the time, is a great subject to rant on and on and on about. And his rants are on occasion, poignant, thoughtful and important. Thing is, Thereoux's ego is so unbelievably massive that it can barely be contained on the pages with the already heavy subject-matter. He seeps through the individuals described, through the utter hopelessness of it all and it left me so utterly uninterested that I found myself unable to complete reading the book. Its all about him, all about his feelings and his experiences and his utter contempt for anything that seems to disagree with him, I wanted to punch him, or for him to die, or for some horrific accident to hurt him terribly, perhaps extreme but let us be clear, he is a fucking wanker.

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, Sin: Greed

Barbara Vine on the other hand, produced a technically excellent little mystery thing that is quite satisfying and interesting. You just kept feeling she was trying so hard to create something "good" that in the end it just seemed forced. Too many symbols spoil the plot and this text is so overflowing with symbols, subtle literary devices and pointless character development that its a surprise the central story-arc remains quite strong. Perhaps blaming the author is harsh as she constructed something very enjoyable, but one feels the opportunity to create something great is spoiled by over-cooking.

The Surgeon of Crowthorne, Sin: Envy

Finally, Simon Winchester's historical account told a fascinating story very competently. Winnie plays the game with a spring to his prose and an interesting format, comparing and contrasting two of the major writers of the Oxford Dictionary as well as describing the general origins of the book. His crime is the rather bizarre building of tension that is more reminicent of a work of historical fiction than non-fiction. It is almost as if Winchester wants to be writing fiction but finds himself hemmed in by the restrictions of the actual history. After a while, interest in the facts fade away and you are faced with a potted history of a pointless book and lets be clear, no one ever really convinced me of the value of this universal definition book, other than to ruin lives and give the criminally insane something to do. The oddly perverse climax is not really a climax at all, its just another little tragedy in the life of a man who is beyond much help. Non-fiction is not the appropriate route to address this story, it is begging for narrative invention to allow for a nice, binding central arc that can evoke that oh, so crucial, cathartic satisfaction. An interesting account but nothing approximating the literary greatness that Popular Penguins should be all about.

So there we have three authors who produced something interesting but failed to produce something great. Next up, an author who failed but in a much more magnificent way. The real question has to be put: considering the number of wonderful books in the world, why is it this stupid Popular Penguins list is filled with such average examples of the English novel.

Special Super-Delayed Review Editions, Vol. 2

The Surgeon of Crowthorne, by Simon Winchester

A non-fiction book, the Surgeon of Crowthorne is concerned with the origins of the ultra-ubiquitous Oxford English Dictionary. Perhaps the most respected reference book of all time ("Yo Brittanica, you got some great facts, imma let you finish..."), it was also the first to be constructed around quotations from actual usage, aiming to cover everything in the language. I found all the background on the history of dictionaries very interesting since I didn't really know anything about it beforehand, but Mr. Foulkes said he already knew most of it so if you're an expert in dictionaries it may not be the best reading.

The major focus is of course on the eponymous surgeon, a mentally ill man who started as an American civil war medic and ended up shooting a man in London and being sent to an asylum. From there he sent massive wads of quotations to the dictionary's editors, who were for a long time unaware that this helpful character was in an asylum. Although the story centres on this strange character I'd say at least half of the book describes the process of the dictionary being made with him somewhat in the background. It is amazing that such a respected and seemingly conventional and boring reference book has this weird, almost unbelievable character attached to it, and after reading the book the dictionary itself appears much more interesting than I previously thought.

The Surgeon of Crowthorne is competently written, but really is more like a giant magazine article than a piece of literature. As such there's not really too much more I can say about this particular Popular Penguin. It's a really strange and interesting story told in a mostly factual way about an unusual topic. I enjoyed it, but Poms threatened severe violence to anyone ranking the book above a 0/10, so you'll have to decide for yourself!

Special Super-Delayed Review Editions, Vol. 1

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, by Barbara Vine

The blurb describes "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy" as "one of the finest, most accomplished and chilling tales of psychological suspense ever written." While this is an exaggeration I think the most apt word is "accomplished". Barbara Vine aka. Ruth Rendell is an exceptionally experienced writer who really does know her craft. She always keeps the plot moving at just the right pace and her writing style, while not particularly exciting, has plenty of nice touches.

That said, I found the book unsatisfying. The symbolism (like the butterflies) was a bit heavy-handed and there were a few too many passages which were obviously just put in as clues to the mystery. The general outline of the solution to the mystery is pretty easy to see coming, though the details were unexpected (to me anyway). The strongest part of the book is the characters, who all have believable, slightly strange habits and flaws that still seemed realistic. Nobody's actually normal in real life are they? The plot itself is a bit more artificial but I could certainly imagine it happening.

I think the main thing that let down the book as a whole was the lack of much deep insight. Vine may have been just a bit too obsessed with building a story about a Serious Issue and let that get in the way of making a well-rounded story. I've never read any other Ruth Rendell but from this book I imagine her straight crime novels are really great examples of the genre. I think she certainly deserves credit for writing something much more ambitious and morally complex than a typical mystery book, and while it didn't work perfectly I did find it a good read.

A Confederacy of Dunces - A Review

I think it's fair to say that when one picks up a good-sized novel, one expects to be drawn into a good story. A Confederacy of Dunces did well to keep me wanting such enticement, and 400 pages is a long time to be waiting.
It simply lacked a coherent narrative. The farcical comedy, while at times hilarious, in my opinion didn't make up for this weakness. Furthermore, I felt little affinity with any of the characters, although in retrospect (and after bookclub discussion) the more extreme bits of all of us can be found lurking in the psyche of the book's gargantuan centre, Ignatius Reilly. Perhaps I failed to notice this because I was so repelled and revolted by his habits and behaviour most of the time. Unfortunate.
There was too much ranting too, which I absorb enough of in my everyday existence as a student, that to read it in a fiction novel is like cleaning a well-used bathroom - something of a chore. Hidden among these rantings, brandishing of plastic cutlasses and blocking of valves were small gems of social commentary that addressed themes of sexuality, reputation, mental illness, modernity, and the wobbly wheel of fortune. First and foremost however, A Confederacy of Dunces is a book about a confederacy of dunces. Even Angelo, who had enough sense to solve the mystery of the brown packet trade spent most of the book locked in a bathroom, or sulking around the streets in a ridiculous costume. Would it be utterly pretentious of me to be disappointed by his almost complete lack of back-bone? And Ignatius himself could be squeezed into a nutshell (if we could find one big enough) with the force of the single sentence, 'In his wake he had left a trail of overturned tables.'
Provided it was done well, this book would definitely translate into an excellent slapstick comedy film, with plenty of opportunities for symbolic visuals like the pirates earing flashing about, and closeups of a steaming, quivering hot-dog. But this is not a film, it is a book, and despite moments of genius comedic exaggeration and pertinent mockery of modern society, it is a novel which perhaps requires a certain type of reader, or a certain type of reading, to make it an overall enjoyable read. As one of our number aptly put it, this novel promises much but never truly delivers.
I give it 5/10.

Pornography like you've never seen it before

Spoilers alert!!

The placing of a father's penis next to the face of his son, the rape of a young boy by his classmates and the cutting of vaginas make up the first three stories in the collection of erotica from Anais Nin. How to define pornography is difficult, at one end of the spectrum, books like Lolita fester, without doubt exploiting sexuality and the description of sexuality but still pretty decisively lying in the literary domain, at the other lies "Pirates".

Where do Nin's titilations penetrate the scale. On the one hand, it was coaxed towards the descriptive by the Collector who commissioned the tales, every time demanding more actual sexual escapades and less context. Yet he hired literary types and especially in the case of Delta, the writing inevitably strayed towards the artistic. The depravity infesting all the stories is unmistakably poking fun at the Collector but at the same time deeply contemplating the absurdity and necessity of sexual morality.

Why is it we react with such horror at notions of fathers sleeping with their daughters and sons? Is it right to care that women are murdered brutally by sadistic men? Should we happily let the weak get sexually abused by the strong and revel in the pleasure of it all? Should we embrace the darkness that seems to surround these acts, allow suffering to become our motivation. As should be reasonably evident to any person with any semblance of sanity, the answer is no.

The most magnificent tale in the book featured a man who found he gained sexual pleasure from exposing himself eventually finding love in a like minded soul. This did not as the others did, rely heavily on exploitative relationships. The cheap pleasure he derived from exposure would psychoanalytically speaking, probably originate somewhere in the power he gained from his sexuality without consent or effort. Yet he found familiarity and accepted it, and lived happily ever after. A silly little fable but one that used such ridiculous subject matter that it actually remains quite vividly in the memory.

In a few of her stories, Nin titilates and inspires satisfaction, in some she invokes horror and others, merely pleasure. As a book, it leaves one wanting for more substance and a suitable memory blocker to get rid of certain images.

If there can be any conclusion to this rant, it is that pornography can do more than titilate. The deep satisfaction derived from an excellent narrative can be compared very loosely with the strange, magnificent, animal stupour induced by the orgasm; yet few would choose a really good book over a really good orgasm. The strange pleasure in this little collection is that it manages to walk the line.

Dark Star Safari

Dark Star Safari is a travel book, but it is not a holiday book. Theroux decided to go from Cairo to Cape Town using anything other than airplanes (though he does end up having to take one plane), and he portrays himself as a crotchety old man who has no time for traditional tourists, photography, sightseeing, and luxury. His method reminds me a little bit of Kerouac: traveling without a specific purpose, just observing normal lives and making spur-of-the-moment decisions to adventure into unexpected places. And like Kerouac his view is not a grand vision of the continent but a series of miniature portraits of individuals and towns.

Theroux references Heart of Darkness several times, particularly when he is traveling by boat along the Nile, and his view of the state of Africa is not much better than that in Conrad's story. Most of the countries Theroux travels through have thrown off their colonial Kurtzes only to have them replaced by local despots, tyrants and corrupt governments. Where there is copious foreign aid we are repeatedly shown the image of men standing around underneath trees with nothing to do, waiting for their foreign benefits. Where there is little aid people rely on subsistence farming, one bad season from famine. In Zimbabwe (as it was in 2001) Theroux describes a country on the edge of the abyss, about to go from a reasonably peaceful, prosperous country with modern farms and services to a lawless disaster ruled by a madman. "Even the democratic" South Africa sounds terrifying, with insane rates of seemingly unstoppable crime and plenty of racism.

For the first quarter or so of the book I found Theroux's mocking of the aid agencies and their expensive Land Rovers a bit tiresome, but by the time he's described the horrors of genital mutilation, poverty, AIDS denialism, useless government officials in expensive suits and on and on I pretty much agreed with his extreme cynicism, although this cynicism is uncomfortably close to saying "not our problem, too hard, nothing works".

It seems silly to say that I "enjoyed" such a depressing book, but it was worthwhile reading and Theroux's account was fundamentally honest and truthful despite his grumpy old man persona. The standard Western liberal view is that Africa is gradually getting better, and we just need to give a bit more to speed up the process. Dark Star Safari challenges everything about this view: In many places it's getting worse, "better" to us isn't necessarily better to them, aid is often counterproductive...it's all so depressing.

A Fine Romance

A quick perusal of Wikipedia reveals that Jane Eyre inspired a huge number of adaptations in film, music and television form throughout the 20th century, involving such names as Hitchcock, Welles, and Huxley. I would suggest that this is due to the timeless structure of the plot and its miraculous convergence with the narrator's own thoughts about romance and purposeful life. Film pitch: independent woman is down for some reason or other, meets some guy who is totally not her type, God, goes off and does something else, gets the guy in the end once he's renounced his fault(s) in her eyes. I don't know how common it was to have a female first-person narrator in the mold of Jane Eyre in the 19th century, but in its favour Jane Eyre does at least pass the DTWOF test.

Jane certainly wouldn't warrant a profile in Ms., but she is a perfect match for what I would call "post-feminism", which in its extremest form is roughly "that set of views in which a woman who dresses tarty, gets smashed, and sleeps around is the really free feminist". To transpose to the context of Jane Eyre: Jane is a free woman, free to choose the life of a dutiful wife with the perfect man, but not until he's really proven himself and she has proven that she could have got on without him.

But enough of this more-feminist-than-thou mockery. Jane Eyre is a great read, well-paced and well-written (apart from the occasional spell of overwritten dialogue) with a classic plot that ends well for all the characters Bronte has you sympathise with. Remove the Christian moralizing and the weird demon wife and you've pretty much got the blueprint for a modern romantic film script. I'd like to conclude by quoting my favourite passage from Jane Eyre:

"Are you well?" she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was blanched as her gown.

"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all.

Ahh, unrequited love...