REMEMBER:
1. I’m not a genius. I just like books.
2. I can be a little off-task at times.
3. I’m not exactly topical.
4. I never claimed to have good taste.
Books read since last we spoke: The Time Traveller’s Wife, The Sirens of Titan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, The Shadow of the Wind
I am extremely reluctant to confess my ardent, moony, schoolboy-like love of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I’m not sure I know how best to explain this reluctance…I mean, it’s a great book. It’s beautiful, lyrical, and heartfelt, its characters are passionate, its ideas stimulating. Why be ashamed to like that?
Well, it’s because I kinda feel like I’m supposed to like U.L.O.B. You know? It’s like there’s a type of person who’s just gonna be a sucker for all that truth and beauty. It’s like being manipulated, it’s a little like being a lightweight. I picture some older, more experienced reader jerking his thumb at my thunderstruck face from across the library and saying "Hey, look at the kid over there. Somebody can't handle a little truth and beauty. Christ, what a mess. Do you think he's gonna try and drive?"
Fellas, do you like film version of High Fidelity? Because I felt the same way about that movie: it gave me a creepy feeling like someone, somewhere, in a nice suit, had me a little too pegged. As if in some Hollywood boardroom a marketing exec stood up said “We’re going to make a movie for guys in their mid-to-late twenties, who are intellectual, ineffectual, really really like music, fear real life and obsess over there romantic ineptitudes.” Then he clicks a little trigger and a slide of my face pops up on the screen. “Guys like him,” he says.
That's one too many clunky metaphors for one blog, so I'll suffice to say that if one can be that finely marketed to, can be placed so effectively in such a narrow group, it gives one the feeling that perhaps one isn’t quite the individual one thinks of oneself as.And I don’t know a single brainy, hip, well-read, romantic, creative, thoughtful person (of either sex) in their mid-to-late twenties who doesn’t love this book like a Baptist loves judging you. So if that means I belong to a ‘type’…oh well, there are worse types I could be a part of. Baptists.
Enough of this mad banter. Let’s talk about the book. Please don’t think for a moment that I was saying that High Fidelity and Unbearable Lightness of Being are similar, for while I love them both equally (and one is actually referenced in the other…hmm…weird) that is about the only thing they have in common. Both works are highly referential, but while High Fidelity draws its life from pop music, U.L.O.B. (as befits a novel of ideas) is all over the board. Kundera weaves his tapestry using threads from Kafka, Beethoven, Nietzsche, Parmenides, and Tolstoy. If that sounds like a mess, if it sounds over-intellectualized and inaccessible, I assure you it isn’t: all of these ideas are illustrated in a quiet, calm way, as they apply to the lives of his characters. The book has been called narration-heavy, and perhaps it is. But what a narrator! I wish that someone so wise, well spoken and understanding was following me around, explaining my life.
I feel odd about wrapping the blog up right now, because I know that some of you are no doubt saying: “that’s all well and good, but what’s it about?” I don’t think I’m going to tell you. It’s not laziness that stops me, or the very pertinent fact that I have to go the bathroom. It’s that a summary of plot is irrelevant to an understanding of this book. Beauty cannot be synopsized. I could say it’s about the journey through life of four characters–one Swiss, three Czech–as they live out what Kundera calls the symphony of their lives. I could tell you it’s about how they love and betray each other, about how some die and others live. But that would be shallow. When I was assembling my thoughts for this blog I asked my friend Jeremy how he would summarize U.L.O.B., and he said he wouldn’t bother trying. When he talks to people about this book, he says “just read it.”
So just read it.
If that’s not enough, here are some quotes:
“Love does not make itself known in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends itself to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep.”
“In Tereza’s eyes, books were the emblem of a secret brotherhood.”
“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according the laws of beauty without realizing it, even in times of great distress.”
“She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical slogans in unison.”
"Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity."
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
You gave up on me, didn't you? That's okay, I did too.
REMEMBER:
1. I’m not a genius. I just like books.
2. I can be a little off-task at times.
3. I’m not exactly topical.
4. I never claimed to have good taste.
The last 7 odd months have been momentous. I offer this not as an excuse for why I've failed to blog, but as an explanation. There is a difference. Look it up. Anyway, if the bookishness doesn't run too long I may give you all an update.
I don't really know where to start, because I've read a great many books since the last time I talked with you fine people. (might even be a fuck-ton, but I can't be sure if it's an English or Metric fuck-ton. So I'll just retreat from the point rather than risk the mistake). I even finally bested the Brothers Karamazov. It turns out that publicly shaming yourself is a hell of a motivator. Also reads: The Godfather, Ironweed, Goodbye Columbus, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (twice... really did dig that book) I finished up both the Harry Potter series and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (both ended a bit disappointing). I rocketed through Richard Yates brilliant short story collection 11 kinds of lonliness, which has the distinction of being the only short story collection I've ever read cover-to-cover without interruption. I've been enjoying Kirkman's utterly badass zombie comic book The Walking Dead. And there's probably some other shit I'm forgetting about.
So...how about a lightning round? That sounds like a pretty good way to get back into the swing of things. A dozen books in manageable bite-sized chunks.
The Godfather: Pretty much lived up to the legend. As much a book about loyalty as the mafia, it was a surprisingly quick read and a lot of fun. The constant reminders of Italian sexual prowess started to get annoying, especially because this man writes love scenes with all the skill of a horny teenager in the marching band (it's almost like you can hear Puzo in the background, shouting "Hey, that's like me! I'm Italian!") But that's a minor complaint.
Ironweed: I jumped into William Kennedy's story of Depression-era Albany unaware that it was the concluding segment of a trilogy. It held up nonetheless. It's the story of Francis Phelan, a former ballplayer and family man who returns to his hometown on Halloween night after years of transient life. The homecoming forces him to face the ghosts of his past: the scab he murdered, the family he abandoned, the infant son he drunkenly dropped and killed. The author turns Francis's inner demons into literal night-walking spirits in an effective and haunting (no pun intended) touch of magic realism. Francis Phelan is in many ways the stereotypical Irishman: brash, good-natured, drunk, venturesome, inebriated, independent, worldy-wise, and plastered. One might be offended, but it's so well done that you barely notice it.
Goodbye Columbus: This was a pretty good book. I found the titular novella to be the least affecting of the bunch, and would turn the readers attention to the other stories in the book, particularly The Conversion of the Jews, and Defender of the Faith. Conversion is about a young boy who is smacked by a Rabbi for asking impertinent questions about the divinity. "You shouldn't hit people about God."
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: This book has a lot wrong with it; it's sentimental, it's naive about questions of race and sexuality and politics, it's dialogue (especially when McCullers is trying to write in dialect) is maddeningly clunky, almost silly. But all of these problems are forgiven and made good by the great love McCullers shows for the sad, flawed humans she peoples her world with. It's the story of four lonely people, who all meet a mute named John Singer, and create out of him the companion they have longed for. He is able to become The Person Who Understands to them all because he can't open his mouth and ruin the illusion. It's simply beautiful.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: I would re-name this book Harry Potter and the Anti-climax of Doom. 'nuff said.
The Amber Spyglass: The concluding segment of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is written with all the imagination, philosophical daring, and brilliant blasphemy that his fans expect of his work. My only complaint is that it suffers from a case of too-many-characters-too-many-worlds-not-enough-book. Pullman's strength as a writer heretofore has been his ability to create well-crafted and believable fantasy worlds, and people them with characters that were utterly outlandish, yet still compelling and relatable. He overuses this skill in this third installment; adding new worlds and new characters to the point that those characters you've already fallen in love with seem short-changed. Still worth the time.
11 Kinds of Lonliness: I've never tried to review a collection before, and don't really know how to do it. All I can say is that I never once finished a Yates story and thought that I'd do anything other than read the next at the earliest opportunity.
The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman has helped me rediscover my love of Comic Books. And yes, I do mean Comic Books (big letters) and not 'graphic novels'. Basically, this saga is for anyone who has ever loved zombie movies and wished they could be longer.
Well, I could have said a lot more about all of these. Especially Ironweed and 11 Kinds of Loneliness, but there isn't a single one of these I wish I could get my time and money back on. Not even Deathly Hallows, because I enjoyed it pretty much right up until the end. Anyway...it's running long so I'm going to go. But I'll talk at you again soon.
1. I’m not a genius. I just like books.
2. I can be a little off-task at times.
3. I’m not exactly topical.
4. I never claimed to have good taste.
The last 7 odd months have been momentous. I offer this not as an excuse for why I've failed to blog, but as an explanation. There is a difference. Look it up. Anyway, if the bookishness doesn't run too long I may give you all an update.
I don't really know where to start, because I've read a great many books since the last time I talked with you fine people. (might even be a fuck-ton, but I can't be sure if it's an English or Metric fuck-ton. So I'll just retreat from the point rather than risk the mistake). I even finally bested the Brothers Karamazov. It turns out that publicly shaming yourself is a hell of a motivator. Also reads: The Godfather, Ironweed, Goodbye Columbus, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (twice... really did dig that book) I finished up both the Harry Potter series and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (both ended a bit disappointing). I rocketed through Richard Yates brilliant short story collection 11 kinds of lonliness, which has the distinction of being the only short story collection I've ever read cover-to-cover without interruption. I've been enjoying Kirkman's utterly badass zombie comic book The Walking Dead. And there's probably some other shit I'm forgetting about.
So...how about a lightning round? That sounds like a pretty good way to get back into the swing of things. A dozen books in manageable bite-sized chunks.
The Godfather: Pretty much lived up to the legend. As much a book about loyalty as the mafia, it was a surprisingly quick read and a lot of fun. The constant reminders of Italian sexual prowess started to get annoying, especially because this man writes love scenes with all the skill of a horny teenager in the marching band (it's almost like you can hear Puzo in the background, shouting "Hey, that's like me! I'm Italian!") But that's a minor complaint.
Ironweed: I jumped into William Kennedy's story of Depression-era Albany unaware that it was the concluding segment of a trilogy. It held up nonetheless. It's the story of Francis Phelan, a former ballplayer and family man who returns to his hometown on Halloween night after years of transient life. The homecoming forces him to face the ghosts of his past: the scab he murdered, the family he abandoned, the infant son he drunkenly dropped and killed. The author turns Francis's inner demons into literal night-walking spirits in an effective and haunting (no pun intended) touch of magic realism. Francis Phelan is in many ways the stereotypical Irishman: brash, good-natured, drunk, venturesome, inebriated, independent, worldy-wise, and plastered. One might be offended, but it's so well done that you barely notice it.
Goodbye Columbus: This was a pretty good book. I found the titular novella to be the least affecting of the bunch, and would turn the readers attention to the other stories in the book, particularly The Conversion of the Jews, and Defender of the Faith. Conversion is about a young boy who is smacked by a Rabbi for asking impertinent questions about the divinity. "You shouldn't hit people about God."
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: This book has a lot wrong with it; it's sentimental, it's naive about questions of race and sexuality and politics, it's dialogue (especially when McCullers is trying to write in dialect) is maddeningly clunky, almost silly. But all of these problems are forgiven and made good by the great love McCullers shows for the sad, flawed humans she peoples her world with. It's the story of four lonely people, who all meet a mute named John Singer, and create out of him the companion they have longed for. He is able to become The Person Who Understands to them all because he can't open his mouth and ruin the illusion. It's simply beautiful.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: I would re-name this book Harry Potter and the Anti-climax of Doom. 'nuff said.
The Amber Spyglass: The concluding segment of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is written with all the imagination, philosophical daring, and brilliant blasphemy that his fans expect of his work. My only complaint is that it suffers from a case of too-many-characters-too-many-worlds-not-enough-book. Pullman's strength as a writer heretofore has been his ability to create well-crafted and believable fantasy worlds, and people them with characters that were utterly outlandish, yet still compelling and relatable. He overuses this skill in this third installment; adding new worlds and new characters to the point that those characters you've already fallen in love with seem short-changed. Still worth the time.
11 Kinds of Lonliness: I've never tried to review a collection before, and don't really know how to do it. All I can say is that I never once finished a Yates story and thought that I'd do anything other than read the next at the earliest opportunity.
The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman has helped me rediscover my love of Comic Books. And yes, I do mean Comic Books (big letters) and not 'graphic novels'. Basically, this saga is for anyone who has ever loved zombie movies and wished they could be longer.
Well, I could have said a lot more about all of these. Especially Ironweed and 11 Kinds of Loneliness, but there isn't a single one of these I wish I could get my time and money back on. Not even Deathly Hallows, because I enjoyed it pretty much right up until the end. Anyway...it's running long so I'm going to go. But I'll talk at you again soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)