edwinbcn's Reading Journal 2012, Part 1

My participation in Club Read 2011 has been very satisfactory. Reading the threads by all other members has inspired me, and this year I will certainly read some books reviewed by some of you guys / gals in 2011.

Club Read 2011 has stimulated my reading, far beyond my target for the year. End of December, I will probably finish reading about 180 books, that is 30 books over my target of 150 for 2011.

Writing reviews on my thread did not slow me down, but, as I more or less expected, gave me more satisfaction, and it was nice to be able to share my thoughts with others here.

Another, quite remarkable positive effect of my participation in Club Read 2011 has been that I have started reading some POETRY again, for the first time in 20 years (!). I have bought a few more volumes of poetry, which I intend to read next year.

Unfortunately, my job has periods of frantic activity, burdening me with the reading of students' papers, which slows me down twice six weeks each year, at the end of the term. Busy work also keeps me from reading along with very demanding reading groups. It remains a pity I don't have the concentration and time to read along with some of your major works selections. Also, because I cannot acquire the publications fast enough, either because they are in storage in my home country or not available in China.

My reading plans for 2012 are:
* more about China (mainly secondary literature)
* more professional literature
* more French and Spanish

001. Appreciation of classic Naxi Dongba sayings
Finished reading: 1 January 2012



The population of China is made up of 56 ethnic groups, of which the Han form by far the majority, counting for about 92%. The largest minority group are the Zhuang, of about 18 million people. The other groups are considerably smaller.

The Naxi, in English often referred to as Nakhi are a mere 300,000. They live mainly in Yunnan Province. Relatively much is known about the Naxi through books such as Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart (free download here and the works of the American explorer Joseph Rock.

Many of the ethnic minorities of China have their own languages, which are all in grave danger of extinction. In the late 1950s the Chinese central government tried to replace all Chinese pictorial script languages (including Mandarin) by Latin alphabet-based script forms. Instead of preservation and revival, that attempt has mainly led to the destruction of those languages, which was aggravated by the destruction of material resources during the Cultural Revolution.

The language of the Naxi, which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages, now exists in three forms, the Latin alphabet version, the Geba script and the Dongba script. The Dongba script is believed to be 1,000 years old, and consists of an independently developed proto-writing system consisting of a combination of pictographs and ideographs.



Appreciation of classic Naxi Dongba sayings is a popular science type of publication, printed trilingually rendering all texts, the introduction and postscript in Chinese, English and Japanese. The author, He Pinzheng (和品正) is attached to the Lijiang Dongba Culture Research Institute. In the postscript, the author writes that the script has been in disuse for more than 40 years.

The book is totally useless. While it pretends to print samples of the Dongba script, the pictographs and ideographs are redrawn by a calligrapher. A frontis page shows a colour reproduction of an authentic sample, which can be seen to display the script in horizontal fashion, as above. However, in the book the majority of samples are represented as vertical strips, apparently following the Chinese tradition of New Year's couplets.

The script is represented horizontally in International Phonetic script with an unexplained Chinese (character) transliteration below it. There is no way to explain or figure out how the author made the step from the script to the transliteration. There is no help or suggestion how to read the Phonetic script.

The most one can get from this book is a sample of about a hundred proverbs and sayings, displaying a compilation of the sources of wisdom among the Naxi people. Here are some examples:

(1)
A very happy time in the New Year,
A long and prosperous life in good times.

(2)
Good-bye to the Old Year, sickness and misfortunes,
Hello to the New Year, fitness and hapiness.

(3)
Unity of Heaven, unity of Earth, unity of man is supreme,
This is good, that is good, peace is the very best.

(4)
All that a chick pecks is not grain;
All than a man says is not true.

(5)
An old horse knows the way;
A gray-haired man knows life.

(6)
Seeing is believing,
Doing is knowing.

(7)
Singing and dancing ensure a happy life.
Running and jumping ensure a long life.

(8)
Kindness brings in happiness.
Friendliness brings in wealth.

(9)
A wise man creates a culture,
A laborer creates the world.

(10)
The Yulong Mountain will not fall in earthquake,
The Naxi people will not perish in disaster.

002. Barack Obama. Our 44th President
Finished reading: 1 January 2012



This edition is a children's book, so I the reading went rather fast and easy, keeping the total number of pages low and probably omitted lots of burdensome details and references. So, it was an easy and enjoyable read.

Nonetheless, the book taught me a lot about Obama's family background and sparked some of that enthusiasm I felt about him back to life. It will be interesting to read one of his books, or a more extensive biography. Have any been published already?

003. Nobody's business
Finished reading: 2 January 2012



There is now widespread agreement that 'literary fiction' may be regarded as a particular genre, rather than a quality distinction, and it seems that main stream literary fiction shares a narrow band of characteristics, one of which must be readability and a certain mainstream cultural preference. If editors select manuscripts out of thousands, as they claim, then they must have a specific frame or muster that publishable work falls into. The recent unrest around the Man Booker prize may reflect some uneasiness about that muster, what it allows for and how it flattens or smoothens out uniqueness or literary expression.

The work of Penelope Gilliatt is characterized by a kind of quirkiness, freshness, and originality one does not find in (current) mainstream fiction. Nobody's business is a collection of nine short stories, first published in 1972. What all stories have in common is a quirky way of dealing with dialogue, thoughts, interior monologue, etc, which often shows how clumsy a tool language really is, as in the following example (p.1):

"Your mother sends you her love," he said.
"Where is it?" said Ashton.

Most of the characters are unusual people, writers, a musician, an inventor, an impresario, etc who move in an exclusive environment or upper-class, intellectual and international circles. The honesty in the dialogues is often a source for a great deal of humour. The disconnectedness in language finds a parallel in loneliness, where spouses have died or are away. Then, the language takes the form a wry, often ironic comment on situations, which are not always equally clear to all characters.

A very enjoyable read, probably not everybody's cuppa.

Hi Edwin - I see you are already off to a great start this year. Loved the Naxi sayings. I'm writing some of those down for future use.

Edwin great start to the new year and good review of Nobody's business I remember Penelope Gilliat as a film critic for the Observer newspaper. I used to avidly read her quirky column. I did not realise she was a novelist, I might try one of her books.

An old horse knows the way
A Gray-haired man knows life I think that says it all.

Nobody's Business sounds entertaining. Thank you for the review.

004. Conversations with sacred mountains. A journey along Yunnan's tea caravan trail
Finished reading: 3 January 2012



In Conversations with sacred mountains. A journey along Yunnan's tea caravan trail the author, Lawrence Brahm, describes how he found inspiration to look for a new life-style through mainly three Chinese artists, who, in recent years have moved away from the big cities to lead more fulfilling lives in southwest China. He relates how some Chinese people, especially artistically minded, are becoming aware of cultural and earth preservation, and rather than protest, choose to create positive, new life-styles away from the polluted and capitalism-driven urban centres.

Many people are drawn to Tibet, with the vague expectation of finding some deeper meaning of life. For some, this search starts with disillusionment in their daily life. Lawrence Brahm, the author of this book, describes how all his life, he had a longing for the purity of life in the East. In two very muddled paragraphs on page 142 the author gives his opinion about capitalism, and the role of the (American) government and the media in creating and sustaining a "dysfunctional society" which alienates people from their own selves. Brahm explains how he quit his fast-life career in finance and law in bustling Hong Kong and Beijing after two decades, to dedicate himself to cultural heritage protection and eco-tourism, make films and do other projects along those lines.

The book, Conversations with sacred mountains. A journey along Yunnan's tea caravan trail, starts on that note, and takes the shape of a travelogue, plotting a trek from Yunnan's capital Kunming, via Dali, Lijiang, and Lugu, to Zhongdian and Mount Kawagebo in Tibet. This route has existed for about 1,000 years as the "Tea Horse Road", the road along which China exported Pu-Erh tea to Tibet and beyond, to India, in exchange for war horses from the Tibetan plateau. Yunnan Province, in southwest China, is home to many ethnic minorities, such as the Bai in Dali, the Naxi in Lijiang and the Mosu matriarchal society near Lugu. In each of these places, Brahm interviews local people and friends about their ideas and ideals in life.

As the journey progresses, the aim of the journey changes. In Lijiang, the author wonders what fascinated Joseph Rock to live there for so many years, and suggests that Rock's publications were the real source for James Hilton's novel The lost horizon, a book which first describes the magical land of Shangri-la. Brahm's journey then changes to a quest for Shangri-la.

Shangri-la is a mythical land, which cannot be found on any map. "It is within," the author tells us, "actually, Shangri-la is Shambhala." (p.44). From that moment, the journey becomes a pilgrimage. The author is guided on the path to deeper understanding of himself.

The book can be read as a travelogue of southwest China. It is richly illustrated, and its approach through interviews with local people, especially people belonging to ethnic minorities, makes the book quite unique. At the same time, the book may serve as a guide to Tibetan Buddhism, especially for people who would enjoy to know more about it through a light and entertaining reading, without religious overtones.

005. A week in December
Finished reading: 5 January 2012



A week in December is a novel which functions at different levels. Superficially, it describes the daily lives of seven characters in contemporary London in a great amount of detail. The amount of detail is so overwhelming, that it takes all of the reader's attention. At the same time, the reader is all too familiar with all these details, as they are the fabric of the everyday media reports we consume. The novel hold up a mirror of our time: high finance, terrorism, pornography, football, drugs, etc.

At a different level the enormous amount of detail in the novel works like a kind of source code. The seven characters in the novel become like characters in a virtual reality quest, in which the reader becomes an auctor, an actor and author at the same time. In an attempt to make sense of it all, the reader is persuaded to create a plot which brings the seven characters together. The most likely event would be a cataclysmic horror scenario, which might involve the terrorist, the tube train driver, and any combination of the other characters, perhaps even the Queen. Everything seems possible, except when Olya appears "in the flesh," almost at the end of the novel (p. 501). It is a little teaser. All connections are possible.

However, most characters live very disconnected lives. There are some connections, but they are work relations, such as between Jenni and Gabriel (legal), and Tranter and 'Rocker' (consultation). The most meaningful connections, family, friends are hollowed out. Only love can bring redemption, as in the end it does.



Other books I have read by Sebastian Faulks:
The fatal Englishman. Three short lives
Birdsong
Charlotte Gray
Engleby

006. "America"
Finished reading: 6 January 2012



"America" is a pictorial of the United States of America in the 1980s, as seen and described in a very personal essay by Andy Warhol. Interesting for Americans, too.

Nobody in America has an ordinary life. (p.176)

Some interesting books edwin. I am intrigued by A Week in December Your excellent review had me scurrying to the bookshelves as Sebastian Faulks is one my wife's favourite authors, but alas she had not got this one.

Enticing reviews, Edwin. So sorry my own prescribed reading list is so long. Both the Lawrence Brahm and the Faulks sound like books I would enjoy.

Very interesting review of A Week in December, Edwin. I'll probably read it this summer.

Hi Edwin, you took a flying start this year!
I've wishlisted A Week in December since I think it'll be my cup of tea. I enjoyed Engleby a few years ago, so Sebastian Faulks is a writer I'd like to read more of.

You made a good start of the year (yes, I'm jealous). Week in December already was on my wishlist and you review keeps it there.

Got you starred!

Ebooks must be a boon to you in China, even though they're not as appealing as real books. Is it feasible to order books from online booksellers, or are there problems with censorship and the post? You have read quite a range so far.

>16 pamelad:

Unfortunately, I realized a bit too late where things were going with ebooks. I have long hated reading electronic books on the PC, and therefore continued buying / collecting books. Also, I had a life-long passion for collecting books. So, here I am with 10,000+ paper books. I have not yet bought an eReader, because I am waiting till the price drops (further). I am still buying paper-based books, but not as many as before. I don't like buying things on line, my basic philosophy being make do with what I can find locally. Therefore, I buy most book either new or second-hand in local bookstore in Beijing. The owner of the largest foreign-language private bookstore is an Australian woman, so we get relatively many books "from down under", which also feels right, as both China and Australia are members of ASEAN. Last year, I read several books by Nicolas Jose, although I suppose he is not very widely read in Australia, is he?

007. Hirtennovelle
Finished reading: 7 January 2012



In 1935, Ernst Wiechert was at the top of his career as an author. His books were popular with German people and Nazi leaders alike, as they celebrated Blut und Boden, i.e. simple life, German traditional values, and describing the German landscape, viz. northern Germany, of his youth in his early works and the Bavarian mountains, where he moved, in his later works. In the 1930s, Wiechert was one of the most popular authors in Germany.

Germany must already have been a very dangerous place to live in 1935. Bertold Brecht and Thomas Mann left Germany in 1933. By that time, Hitler had sold 240,000 copies of Mein Kampf. The Night of the Long Knives had already taken place in 1934. Jewish people and German intellectuals started leaving or had already left Germany.

Ernst Wiechert decided to stay. Throughout the 1930s he became increasingly, and explicitly outspoken against the Nazis which led to his internment in concentration camp Buchenwald in 1938. Upon his release, he was warned by Goebbels personally to refrain from further publication and resistance. Nonetheless, 1939 saw the publication of his most popular novel, Das einfache Leben.

The novella Hirtennovelle was published in 1935. To the Nazis this work was already distasteful, but it is hard to say why, and that is probably why publication, and further publication of other work was not hindered.

Hirtennovelle tells the story of a young boy, whose father is killed during a wood logging accident. He grows up to be the shepherd of the cattle of the village. At the end of the story, he is killed trying to protect a lamb as killing marauders invade.

The novella celebrates traditional German values. The pastoral setting in the forests and meadows around the village, far from the city, create an idyllic setting. Michael, the shepherd boy, is extremely dedicated and dutiful to his task as the shepherd of the cattle of the village. His sense of duty is exemplary. The novella exemplifies the natural, good values of life in the countryside, as opposed to the perfidious influence of the unnatural and evil from the city. Although the sixteen-year old Michael is attracted to Tamara, a painter from the city, nature prevents him from precocious sexual intercourse, and he rejects her altogether when he discovers that she has painted him naked.

If the the Nazis did not like Hirtennovelle, then the motives that led to that distrust must be hidden. Criticism must mainly be implied. This has been done very cleverly, mainly by inverting Nazi ideals.

Hirtennovelle can be read as a parable. The bull of the village is named Bismarck, so the link with Germany is clearly established. The herd of the village is described as colourful, varied, consisting of all races of the world, representing a polyglot empire (p.20). Bismarck is like a slave in shackles. The mayor, also referred to as the King, with his gold tooth, is viewed by some in the village as "the great whore Babylon" now, confers the care of this greatest treasure of the village, this great responsibility, not on a great leader, but on a pale, twelve-year old boy. At the end of the book, Michael dies protecting a lamb, even though the mayor cries to let it go. This persistent emphasis of weakness, protecting all, and protecting the weak, would have been in clear opposition of Nazi values.

Michael's father was killed by a falling tree, and subsquently, Michael is only referred to as "the son of a widow". This sense of shame and emphasis on the matriarchal line, is far removed from the heroism of Nazi ideals.

Nazi art celebrated the (naked) male body, while it rejected "unnatural" art. Michael rejects Tamara's painting of him naked, tearing the canvas apart as if it is an unnatural, and disgusting depiction. This scene parodies the Nazi's art ideals.

Possibly, Laban stands for the Jews who reject the idea of leaving Germany, who still feel secure enough, and fear the journey to the promised land more than the good life they have been living in Germany, until now.

Superficially, Hirtennovelle can be read as a simple, pastoral story. A rereading, however, will undoubtedly reveal many other motives and themes which would reveal this interesting novella as thorn in the flesh of Nazi readers.

Very good review, Edwin! I think it's very interesting to read books that were written in the 1930s re. contemporary issues the way Wiechert did.
As for the E-books, I bought an e-reader a couple of years ago (BeBook One) and have downloaded hundreds of books (classics) from Project Gutenberg etc. for free. They are a very welcome addition to my library. I'm a bit reluctant to pay for digital books though. I prefer to buy" the real thing".

Many of the shorter work are made available for free download (with permission of the publisher) on the web site set up by Mr Joseph Bogdan www.ernst-wiechert.de. I acquired the Hirtennovelle and an antiquairian edition of Das einfache Leben through Bookmooch, two years ago. Now, I will definitely read more of Wiechert.

008. Wish you were here
Finished reading: 7 January 2012



Wish you were here, Graham Swift's latest novel, is about a moment of madness, as the first sentence testifies, "there is no end to madness (..) once it takes hold" (p.1). The action described in the story, from Jack looking out of the bedroom window, as the November "rain stings the glass" (on page 5) till the last page, where Jack holds up the umbrella for his wife, "the rain beating a tattoo against it" (on page 353) covers only about an hour, perhaps even less. The rest of the book are flash backs, and descriptions of Jack's life and the events of the past few years and past few days, especially the 'homecoming' of his younger brother, Tom.

The opening of the book moves very slowly, and within the first fifty pages, the reader has already counted six deaths in the family. The novel ponders heavily on death and destruction; casualties of war, suicide, and disease, BSE taking a prominent place. Family members, cattle, his dog, the ancestral home, -- all gone. Amidst all that loss, Jack only has his wife, Ellie, whom he can barely miss out of eye sight, even on a short errand, always in his mind, wish you were here, a wish, which acts like an invocation.

Wish you were here is an elegant exploration of a that contemporary problem, often featured in the news media as the family tragedy.



Other books I have read by Graham Swift:
Waterland
Ever after
Last orders
Making an elephant. Writing from within

009. China 2020. How Western business can - and should - influence social and political change in the coming decade
Finished reading: 8 January 2012



Many books about contemporary China are either about history, thick ponderous tomes, often condemning China's recent past, or flashy, and highly speculative, ill-researched best-sellers selling pie-in-the-sky. I was a bit worried when I bought China 2020 by Michael A. Santoro, which seems to be a manifest, as I feared it would be another book to tell the Chinese what's wrong with their country and their economy. The Chinese get very tired of foreigners coming to tell them that everything is wrong, and all will be well, if only they do it the Western way.

I found China 2020 a very well-researched, very spot-on description of some of the major problems that China struggles with, without the usual pointing-the-finger style of writing. Despite its conciseness (a mere 140 pages), the author covers a lot of ground, and has picked some essential issues still achieving a fair sense of comprehensiveness. The book covers issues which bother a foreign audience such as human rights, freedom of speech (Internet), Rule of Law, working conditions, product safety, etc. The most interesting thing about the book is the perspective it offers, highlighting how foreign companies hold back changes for the better, and pointing out what foreign companies could and should do to facilitate developments in China, which will, eventually, be inevitable anyway.

Very impressive, and highly recommended for people who are looking for a short-cut into understanding what's really going on in China today.

010. Reptielen & amfibieën
Finished reading: 9 January 2012



Like most Dutch and Flemish readers, I only knew Paul Snoek as a poet. Reptielen & amfibieën is a collection of 18 short stories. In Dutch literary criticism, they are classified as paraproza. They are too long to be called flash fiction, and should therefore be considered and short short stories with some qualities of "prose poetry".

In an interview in Beroepsgeheim, deel 3, the author appeared somewhat dismissive of these short stories, which he apparently only considered "style exercises", fit for publication in magazines, but unfit for book publication. As a genre, this type of writing seems to have not found any contemporary practitioners. Snoek said he followed Van Ostaijen in this genre, which is best known through Gust Gils.

This lack of following, the attitude of the author, and the fact that such prose was written by a few mainly Flemish authors in the 1950s and 1960s, but then abandoned, does not, as the writer of the afterword contends, provide sufficient ground to present these short pieces of prose the status of a classic. The inclusion of this slim volume,62 pages + 12 pages afterword by Dirk de Geest in the series of the Vlaamse Bibliotheek by Houtekiet in 2001, is somewhat dubious. They provided a mere hour of light entertainment: most stories are ludicrous, absurd is an understatement.

Excellent review of Hirtennovelle; I enjoyed your other reviews, as well.

BSE=bovine spongiform encephalopathy, right?

... or mad cow disease; just another reference to madness in the book) (not that any of the characters is affected by BSE. I saw somewhere that Wish you were here is on your wish list (that is an odd juxtaposition, btw). I did not really enjoy reading the book (hence 3.5 stars only). It is too slow, and "too easy" to understand, not much of a challenge. But, as I wrote, an interesting exploration of that theme, and quite successful at that,and obviously, I have tried not to spoil all in my review. You might still enjoy it more than I did. After all, it seems I am sometimes a bit harsh in my evaluations.

Great review and thoughts on Hirtennovelle Edwin.

Interesting and enlightening reviews, Edwin.

Re Obama's books -- you're probably aware of of his Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. I've only read the first, which was published in 2004, and is far more biographical than political.. I thought it was very well written and thoughtful.

>27 janeajones:

Thanks for the recommendation. Indeed, I think I would be more interested in Dreams from my father, as my interest is more in Obama as a person, his background and the cultural links.

>17 edwinbcn: You are quite correct about Nicholas Jose being not widely read here. I have located one of his books, The Red Thread, in a library, so will give him a try.

China is possibly Australia's most important trading partner. We have avoided the worst of the global recession here because we export so many primary products to China, so depend on China's boom continuing.

An interesting analysis of Hirtennovelle. It seems that few of Wiechert's books are available in English. I have recently read two books by Irmgard Keun and have put Wiechert's The Simple Life (can't find touchstone) on the wishlist with Hans Fallada's Little Man What Now. Multiple perspectives on Germany in the thirties.

Last year, I joined Club Read 2011 around the middle of the year, and found it impossible to catch up with all that was going on, let alone catch up on the back-log of books I had already finished and wanted to list and review. I was not in the mood to join the reading of The Faerie Queene and could not acquire most of the other books that were being read, e.g. Porius.

My main objective is still to read through my own TBR mountain, so I am reluctant to buy books for group reads. However, in real life, not buying books is no option, and in the book store my choices are now clearly influenced by discussions and recommendations on the board.

Also, I enjoy the comments on the boards and will try to make my reading a bit more converging, at least by prioritizing the reading of books which I already possess.

So, last week I bought 1Q84, which I will start as soon as I am done with The Andy Warhol diaries.

Today, I started reading Moby-Dick.

Although my teacher used to say one should not read the introduction, unless one could not understand anything, I did just that. The introduction to the Penguin edition of Moby-Dick by Andrew Delbanco did not clarify anything. It was actually rather dense, and did not spurn on to further reading.

I spent quite some time on the etymology page. This was really quite interesting. I had never thought about the etymological background of these words. The observation that the "H" in the words is just there to puff it up, make it bigger, more swollen, presents itself. The etymology of the English word "whale" can be traced from early 14c., "whale" from Old French balaine (12c.) from Latin ballaena, from Greek phallaina and apparently related to phallos "swollen penis," (probably because of a whale's shape), from the Proto Indo-European base *bhel- = "to swell" .

The Dutch reference to "to roll" and "to wallow" branches out to lascivious enjoyment of Dutch "wellust" (I was unable to check this); and, Dutch "zwelgen"; the past participle Dutch "verzwolgen" (swallowed) almost instantly triggers the idea of Jonas, swallowed by the whale, of disappearing all-and-all into the abyss. Through this complex of meanings, it may be possible to trace a sense of "obsession", totally lost in the pursuit of something.

With some creativity, is is easy to see that Melville's Fegee must be Fijian, and Erromangoan must be Erromanga; The words Melville presents here cannot be traced. They probably belong to an extinct pidgin, known as "South Sea Jargon" used by 18th and 19th century whalers to communicate with islanders in the South Seas, from Hawaii to Vanuatu. Whether these words are related or not to the etymological meaning above (which they may not, as the Polynesian languages bear no relation to the Indo-European languages), they nonetheless show that Melville was still looking at experiences in the South Seas. The South Seas were also the place where much of the emerging industry of whaling too shape during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Hi Edwin – hope you enjoy your reading of Moby Dick. I highly recommend you check out an annotated version of the novel on line. It explains all the obscure words and more. It is very helpful, especially in view of an unhelpful introduction. You can find the annotated Moby Dick here:

http://www.powermobydick.com/

011. Why the Chinese don’t count calories
Finished reading: 10 January 2012



Why the Chinese don’t count calories is based on the wrong assumption that all Chinese people are slim because Chinese food habits would prevent them from getting fat. According to the acknowledgements, the author, Lorraine Clissold came to China in the early 1990s. That was the time when virtually all Chinese were indeed slim. However, by the middle of the first decade of the new century, it is becoming clear that increased affluence in China leads to the same epidemic of obesity as elsewhere in the world. That effect must already have been very clear to the author in 2008, when the book was published.

The book is a bit of a jumble. Most chapters are devoted to unlocking the secrets of Chinese philosophy and relating that to food habits, interspersed with recipes for some common, popular Chinese dishes, and supplemented with two chapters on drinking tea and physical exercise. For the largest part, the book leans heavily on “Qi Gong” a popular pseudo-scientific philosophy, which had its hey day in the 1990s, but was subsequently suppressed. The book presents a wide range of “Qi Gong” philosophical concepts, which are presented in a unified framework which supposedly explains a “philosophy of food.” The most puzzling are the (several) five-point star diagrams, which link the (always) five elements, five (vital) organs, five orifices, five flavours, five climatic conditions, five elements of the life cycle. In addition to that, there are (of course) five characteristics of a Chinese meal. The diagrams show how and in which order these elements influence each other. This basic set-up of the book suggests that the author did an extensive Internet search and uncritically connects all she found in an all-encompassing, all-inclusive system. Least known, and least logical seem the “five orifices,” in which the tongue (!) is an orifice beside the mouth and only orifices on the head are included. Surely, Shakespeare would link the heart with the tongue, but perhaps even he would not see how to connect the ear to the kidneys/bladder. In my 12 years in China, I have never heard anyone refer to these ideas. They are about as popular in China as the theory of the five humours or “Ages of Man,” of the European Middle Ages.

Beside the “Qi Gong” base of ideas, the author discusses more widely accepted philosophical concepts such as Yin and Yang and relates these to food. These ideas, while perhaps less known in the West, are a part of Chinese medicine and form an integral part of Chinese (cultural) belief. Common people in China all refer to food that either promotes “heat” or cools the body. While Western medicine also considers these ideas as pre-modern, they can be seen to fit with ideas about food which causes or soothes inflammation. In my experience, many Chinese people have some idea of the main food stuffs and their effect. Unfortunately, rather than keeping things simple by suggesting hot as opposed to cool, the author divides the diagram in five columns listing Hot, Cold, Warm, Cool and Neutral. Listing food in five categories makes it much more difficult to understand or apply.

Another dichotomy rules by Yin/Yang is whether food is hard and dry, or soft and wet. This section clearly shows that the author has applied very little critical thought to her subject. Surely Western food matches Chinese food in variety of soups and dishes. Where Western food might be drier and harder than Chinese food, the author overlooks the fact that the Western kitchen prepares sauces which can be added to food, and Western people often drink beverages during a meal, whereas Chinese people do not. (They do nowadays, but that is a novelty.)

To sum up, this book mystifies rather than clarifies Chinese food culture, presenting a view which is dubious, uncritical and not current in China.

012. Young Lonigan
Finished reading: 15 January 2012



Young Lonigan is the first volume in the trilogy James T. Farrell wrote about Studs Lonigan. A fair number of copies of the trilogy is listed on LT, but it seems this early modern classic, first published in 1932, does not have as many readers as it deserves.

The story is fairly simple and straight forward. Told over the period of a summer holiday, it relates how young Studs Lonigan, just graduated from junior high school does not really know what to do with himself. Procrastination prevents him from getting a job, while boredom drives him to join a street gang. Aged fifteen, sixteen Studs has just started smoking, shaving, masturbating in the bathroom, looking at girls, showing off his muscles and brawny attitude, fighting in the gang. The book is written in the vernacular of that time, the style of these young working class boys:

Wilson’s a morphidite,” Studs said.
“What’s that?”
“ A guy that’s both a man and a woman at the same time, like fat Leon,” said Studs.

The action and the language get progressively ruder toward the end of the book. There is some anti-semitism throughout the book, and the Jewish kids are also organized in their own gangs. On page 177 the Irish gang, to which Studs belongs, beats up two Jewish boys in an alley, calling them “Christ killers” and various other offensive words are used throughout the book.

While there’s a lot of talk about girls, there’s also action. One day, the boys of the gang “visit” Iris at home, when her Mom isn’t home, and we are told that most of the guys were having a gang-shag at Iris. (p. 191). And that action leads to some useful life lessons, as illustrated by this dialogue:

”How’s it going today, Paulie?” asked Studs.
“Oh, the athlete is still running,” Paulie said.
“Still running?” said Studs.
“Yeh, he’s a good track man,” said Paulie.
“If I was you, I’d get the jane that did it to you, and paste the living hell out of her,” said Weary.
(p.200)

013. The Andy Warhol Diaries
Finished reading: 17 January 2012



Pat Hackett was Andy Warhol’s secretary for more than 20 years. Although she describes herself as his secretary, their cooperation was much closer than that professional label suggests. Warhol and Hackett co-authored two books. In case of The Andy Warhol Diaries, Hackett is presented as the editor. On the other hand, the two-line biographical note in the Penguin Modern Classics edition lists her serving as his diarist.

The Andy Warhol Diaries is preceded by a 25-pages foreword, written by Pat Hackett, explaining how the diaries were written, and how they should be read. According to Hackett, the diaries should be read cover-to-cover, to be read as a whole, without skipping. That is quite a bold statement for a book which counts 1123 pages, and is, in fact, rather boring. She does not tell the reader exactly why it should be read that way, but it suggests, covertly, that the work should be seen as a Gesamt Kunstwerk, something that only works as a whole, not in parts.

Diaries are usually published after the author’s death. If published during their life time, diaries are either considered to provide key information on a particular period or were conceived in a particular way by their authors to describe (part of) life as the author (intentionally) wants to share with their readers. A diary is usually written by the author him- / herself, and usually provides intimate, personal descriptions of their life, work and reflections. Readers of diaries are usually motivated to read through hundreds or thousands of pages, hoping to find a representation of the historical life time of the author, and become closely acquainted with their lives and ideas.

Andy Warhol is the author of these diaries, but he did not write them. This is not so unusual as it seems; for hundreds of years there have been writers who dictated a scribe to do the actual writing, and in modern times, authors are known to have recorded their journal entries with a tape recorder. Warhol telephoned Hackett every day, and she recorded what was discussed. How this was done is not explained, which is an important omission. The reader is told that the morning call consisted of a “warm up” – a free talking, which they considered not part of the diary, followed by one or two hours of “doing the diary.” Beside the ‘Diary calls’, Hackett and Warhol worked closely together, and many parts of those conversations are added to the Diary. It is not clear whether Hackett recorded and subsequently transcribed everything, or typed while they were on the phone or made notes. The foreword does tell us that these 1123 pages represent only about 10% of the total material, which is estimated at 20,000 pages. In any case, the journal entries must have been edited at some stage, because they consist of full, complete and grammatical sentences, clearly not merely a transscript.

Hackett tells us that this selection presents the reader with the best and most representative part. She claims that although in some cases entries for days or whole weeks were omitted, the cutting entailed most often, just parts of days, citing as an example that if Andy went to five parties on a day, only one is reported. How and when such decisions were made is not explained, or mentioned in a byline. For example, the two weeks during which Truman Capote’s death occurred are missing, apparently because Hackett was away for other work between August 22 and September 11, 1984.

Reading the diaries it also becomes clear that a lot of information that the reader might look for is missing. Actually, Andy Warhol is missing, most of the time. The diaries are not a particularly intimate or personal record. They are much more like a log book. It is explained that the diary started as a log to register expenses, which could be used to satisfy the Tax Office. The Diary / Log was preceded by Lists of names of famous people Warhol met or visited. For the most part, these Diaries report where he went, whom he met (there) and how much the taxi + meal cost, etc. Really rather boring.

The Andy Warhol Diaries span the period from November 1977, till his death in February 1987. Artistically, this was a relatively uninteresting period in Warhol’s life, as most of the work he is famous for took place in the period before that. The Diaries are more about “work”, and less about his “life”. His private life is specifically kept out of the Diary. On the few occasions where Warhol is overcome by emotion, he refuses to report to Hackett telling her that the Diary can write itself. The Diary calls were only made on Monday through Friday, but the weekends were reported on the following Monday.

There is some travel, mostly to Paris and Zurich, and a trip to China (Oct. 27, 1982 Hong Kong, Nov. 1-4 Beijing, and Nov. 4-6 Hong Kong). Most is reported about ongoing work on paintings, books and Interview. It is advisable to read the introduction first, as a number of relations are explained, as well as the expression gluing myself.

However, some of Warhol’s life does seep through. Firstly, we learn that “apart from his work”, he leads a very regular, perhaps even boring life. He hangs out with all these groovy people, and is dazzled by gay life and discos, but invariably goes home alone. The Diary never reports sex or infatuation. There does not seem to be a partner. There is only the merest suggestion that he was fond of Jon (Gould), until Gould’s death is reported on Sept. 21, 1986, news which I don’t want to talk about., adding And the Diary can write itself on the other news from L.A. The news is included in (the only) Note added by Hackett on this page (p. 1057).

The Diary only once reports that Andy felt depressed and cried (April 19, 1981), because he feels he is getting old. Warhol regularly goes to church. He reads very little, or it is only reported in relation to his work, for example some pulp fiction on a plane, or authors who are featured in Interview. Lots of famous people pop in and out of the picture, and there is a lot of names dropping. Victor Bockris appears regularly, which lends him more credibility as Warhol’s biographer. Mostly absent is Michael Jackson. In the early Eighties Warhol makes the emergence of AIDS (first referred to as “gay cancer) very palpable, capturing the fear that surrounded it originally: I didn’t invite Robert Hayes to ride up with me because he was with his sister and his boyfriend Cisco, and Cisco has AIDS so I didn’t want to be that close to him. (Feb 11, 1983).

It can probably be argued that The Andy Warhol Diaries fits Warhol’s philosophy and other art work, in that it exemplifies the ordinary.



Other work I have read by Andy Warhol:
America

and the biography about Andy Warhol by:
Victor Bockris: Andy Warhol. Biografie

published in English as

014. Among flowers. A walk in the Himalaya
Finished reading: 18 January 2012



I had kept this book for a good moment to savour reading it, and was then sourly disappointed. Among flowers. A walk in the Himalaya by Jamaica Kincaid was a very disappointing read. Fifty pages into the book, I leafed back to the Contents page to check whether I was still somehow reading an introduction, but discovered that there was no introduction. The loosely structured, plebeian style was what confused me. I was quite ready for a travelogue, expecting beautiful descriptions of landscapes in northern Nepal, and a lot about botany. Kincaid is known for her love of gardening, and the book is a report of a seed collecting expedition in Nepal. I was appalled by Kincaid’s constant complaining about the trip, focusing almost completely on herself and her (physical) discomforts as in I couldn’t fall asleep and so I went of our tent, just outside the entrance, and took a long piss. This was a violation of some kind: you cannot take a long piss just outside your tent; you are not to make your traveling companions aware of the actual workings of your body. (p.91) Instead of observations of the local populations, as one might expect in the tradition of National Geographic, the publisher who commissioned the book, Kincaid is stuck is the most incredibly amateurish and immature babble, secretly giving one of the porters, a Sherpa boy who looks like the people from Tibet, maybe only as old as her son, a one-thousand-rupee note (p.108). The photos included in the book are of the same low quality, mainly depicting the author or showing the most ordinary, sentimental pictures.

015. De spiegel
Finished reading: 18 January 2012



In 2009, I acquired a few, small, promotional publications, each presenting a choice of short stories of selected Dutch authors, in small hardcover editions. De spiegel takes its title from one of the three short stories included in this volume. I did not care much for the other two, but this one, the longest had a particular chute and was therefore the most enjoyable.

015 Mother’s milk
Finished reading: 19 January 2012



Perhaps I don’t like books which are praised for being humourous. For sure, I don’t like books which are told from the perspective of children. This book is, at least partly, told from the perspective of a baby, but apparently the baby speaks to us in an adult voice (does that make it funny?). I think it isn’t even that original to describe your own birth.

016. The grass arena
Finished reading: 19 January 2012



Penguin Books uses a rather flaky definition of what makes a book a “Classic,” so, while generally speaking I would classify Penguin Books as a very reliable publisher, and would buy their books “unseen”, following their good judgment, I must say that, especially in recent years, I feel some books in the series of “Modern Classics” were misfits, and it seems commercial rather than literary motives lead to the re-publication of books in this series. The grass arena originally published in 1988 (!), (doesn’t that feel like yesterday?), fits that category.

It is the autobiography of John Healy, and describes a part of his life, particularly the time he lived on “the street in London,” which is what the title refers to. While the author of the Afterword correctly identifies such people, as he writes that few who live and work in Central London (..) have not encountered the inhabitants of The grass arena it is hard to imagine that he is truthful when he writes that had never considered, nor imagined the texture of their lives (…) the round of begging, drinking, sleeping, fighting.

An important omission, which leaves the reader wondering, is the time, when this life story took place. It is only through reconstruction, as the paper clipping from the Evening Standard is dated 5 April 1975 (included on page 250). That means that Healy’s ordeal should be situated as taking place during the 1960s and early 70s. That is a bit of relief, although the apparent lack of temporality makes that it can be imagined to be situated in the 1980s, as it would well fit Thatcherite Britain, or even today, as the effects of Neo-Liberalism financial policy gradually erodes the welfare state.

The story is not beautiful, and neither is the language used, so be ready for some stiff vernacular. Much of it reads like the autobiography of a modern-day Dickensian character, one of the lowlier ones, in his own words. The account is by all means shocking, the type of horror story that parents hold up to their children when they warn them that if they do not do their homework, they will slip and fall to the lowest strata of society; or actually, probably still worse.

It is the prerogative of the editor / writer of the afterword, to highlight and emphasis the literary qualities of the book, but it seems unfair to downplay its value as a sociological document. Alcohol and addiction are pointed out, while abject poverty is never mentioned as a possible cause for such terrible life circumstances. It is therefore best to let the book speak for itself.

017. North
Finished reading: 25 January 2012



North was published in 2006 by MacMillan’s imprint MacMillan New Writing. Its author, Brian Martin was already 68 years old when this book came out as his literary debut, although Mr. Martin has written and edited academic books, and regularly contributed to the literary press. As a former teacher in Oxford, it is almost inevitable that this novel reminds the reader of the novels by Iris Murdoch, not just in its setting, but also in the scope of its sexual freedom, plot and characterization. However, North is not an imitation, and can very well stand on its own, as another thing which it shares is that it is very well-written, creating the feel of a novel by Henry James. It was very enjoyable to read.

The plot has some funny twists, but is fairly straight forward. Set at a high school, in the last term before graduation, the novel describes the lives of various teaching staff, especially in relation to the uncannily handsome, and charming student, called North. This young man, seventeen, of American extraction and coming from an apparently very affluent, American aristocratic family, is described as having a very refined taste and enchanting personality. At the beginning of the story, his relation to the narrator as a mentor is already well-established. The narrator is clearly charmed by North, but their relation throughout the book remains Platonic. Even as a teacher-student, their relation seems much closer, and much more personal, hinting at a much deeper affiliation. North needs his mentor to share his ideas and feelings, and feels completely relaxed with him, while in a sense the narrator also needs North’s company.

The omniscient narrator cannot avoid being pushed in the role of a voyeur, and is thus aware of all personal relationships North spins. These relations are seemingly purely for his own sexual enjoyment, not spiritual, and aimed at confusing or upsetting people. Monty Ross, the Head of Physics has an extramarital affair with Bernie, one of the young female teachers and Head of the History Department. North seduces both Bernie and Monty, and maintains separate, sexual affairs with them, bringing out Monty’s homosexual or bisexual tendency. He also concocts and brings about the homosexual feelings of the Headmaster, Aitken, and machinates the scandal in which Monty is caught kissing Aitken, which leads to the suspension of both, at the end of the story.

From the earliest parts of the book, the reader is given the feeling that North is a bit of a devil. Always dressed in black clothes, wearing the most expensive brands of clothes, apparel and fragrances, from the start, the narrator warns the reader of impending danger, describing North as a manifestation of evil, perhaps best characterized as Milton’s Satan.

The most intriguing character in the novel, of course, remains the narrator himself. He has no name. His experience and theological training warn him of North and be alert, but this does not fully explain or make their mutual attraction clear. This is saved for the last act, the climactic end.

018. Ihr blöden Weiber
Finished reading: 30 January 2012



Ihr blöden Weiber is a short novel (141 pp.) by the German theatre maker and author Friederike Kretzen. After her study in Sociology and Ethnology, she worked in the theatre and moved to Switzerland in 1983. She worked and studied for extensive periods of time in the Netherlands, US and UK, each time returning to her home in Basel. Ihr blöden Weiber is her third novel.

Sometimes, a novel can be better understood if seen in a series or prospect of a publisher. A few years ago, I read Der Känguruhmann by Jürg Acklin, published by the same Swiss publishing house Nagel & Kimche. In similar fashion, both books present a very unusual perspective, written in a very quirky style. It seems both authors share a deliberately contrived, peculiar view or way of presenting their characters, in this case three very old women, sisters, all of a very high age.

This book irritated me even more than that previous book. There is no apparent plot, various chapters describe everyday occurrences, ideas and babble of the three demented old women.

019. Onderweg. Verhalen uit het nabije Westen
Finished reading: 30 January 2012



Onderweg. Verhalen uit het nabije Westen is a collection of short stories and columns about travel and travelling experiences by the Dutch author Rik Zaal, which have all been previously published in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.

Although the table of contents suggests and lists a large number of European countries, most stories, or all stories are mostly about Dutch people and their idiosyncrasies, and the author’s apparently favourite countries Germany, Spain (especially Catalonia) and the Czech Republic, especially Prague. Almost all stories are written in 1990 and 1991. So, since these are also my favourite countries, and I lived and travelled in these countries in about the same period, Germany, where I lived in 1988 / 1990, Spain (1991) and Prague (1993), it was a pleasure to read these stories, as Zaal’s experiences are very similar to my own.

A lucky find.

020. 1Q84
Finished reading: 31 January 2012



I rarely read literature outside my fields of interest, and to stop my book glut would prefer not to buy more books, but was swayed by the enjoyable group experience on LT and bought the hardcover edition of 1Q84, Book 1, 2 & 3 in one volume by Haruki Murakami for the January group read. Unfortunately, I have not been able to share my views and ideas on this book very much, because my Internet connection has fallen away, and I can now only get on line a few hours and not every day, until the network administrator comes back from his holiday in March.

In one of the classes I teach, Study Skills, I ask students what they see when they look in the mirror, to which they usually answer that they “see themselves”, which is followed by my wise-crack that that is not true. The image in the mirror is a reflection. (I try to teach them that “reflection” is useful, because you can find out what’s wrong with yourself, your hair, your face, etc). Unfortunately, I cannot ask my students to read the 925 pages of 1Q84, although it would be a very good way of practicing their critical thinking skills.

Occasionally, I have to explain to students that the image in the mirror is not “you,” because “you” cannot exist in two places at the same time, and what’s in the mirror is not reality, and it is different. When you look in the mirror, your right hand becomes your left hand. We do not really notice that with too much awareness, because we are so much used to it.

For the most part of 1Q84 we do not think about that, until in the final chapters Aomame discovers that the advertising bill board of the “tiger in your tank” is mirrored. (Unless, like me you read the Harvill Secker hardcover edition, which has mirrored page numbers on alternate pages.) I can no longer recall whether there are any references to the way the human eye works, where reality is mirrored upside-down on the retina, but I believe there are. As a characteristic feature of literary prose, 1Q84 holds up a mirror to show us something about modern Japanese society. I have previously, elsewhere written that I am reluctant to read and interpret foreign literature, as I believe that some of it is hard to understand outside the Japanese context, and may be felt differently or more strongly by Japanese readers.

The mirroring effect is worked out in various ways in 1Q84, turning things upside down, in-and-out, etc. So what is long becomes short, and what is good becomes bad, what is normal becomes strange, and what is strange becomes the norm. For example, the main plot is incredibly short and simple, something like “boy falls in love with girl and they live happy for ever after”. In our, real, world thick books are written about that, but in 1Q84 this comes about in just a few short chapters at the end of Book 3. In 1Q84 our sympathy is with Aomame and Tamaru, two characters who are cold-blooded ruthless killers, while we are tempted to believe that Ushikawa, Buzzcut and Ponytail are the villains, even though in all their words they are the most humane characters, respecting life etc. In our world, men are the sexually active partner, and would take the initiative, in 1Q84 the men are paralyzed and raped by sexually immature girls, or seduced by women hunting for men (Aomame and Ayumi). The reference to Orwell’s Nineteen-eightyfour can also be understood as an effect of mirroring: The horror of fiction in Orwell’s novel, has become the horror of reality. Our modern reality, or at least all that we (can) accept as normal in our reality or the fictional worlds of Aomame, is a horror in itself, as surely it would be to the generation of our parents (or at least, people (or characters) in the age category of the parents of Aomame, Eriko, and Tengo.

The younger people are, the more likely and more able they are to accept the idea of other, virtual or alternative realities, to the effect that they can no longer distinguish between them, and reality and fantasy, fact and fiction become a fluid continuum. Reality is seen to mimic fiction, or fiction to mimic reality, and the boundaries become unclear. Fuka-Eri has all the outward characteristics of a Manga character: big eyes, big boobs and pretty stupid (Do Manga characters look like real people, or are real people trying to look like Manga characters?) The near pornographic depiction of Fuka-Eri just tickles every Japanese salary-man’s fantasy. Just like Ayumi’s kinky sex games.

Fiction is never reality, so both Aomame’s 1984 and Aomame’s 1Q84 are both fictional worlds, and even in the novel they are almost the same. Unfortunately, as with the mirror, many readers nowadays believe that the ordinary fictional worls (Aomame’s 1984) is identical to our reality, and therefore strange story elements, which would otherwise be hard to believe in can only be set in an alternative world. Suspense is based on the reader’s willingness to keep reading and accept the story as relatively plausible. In the case of 1Q84 plausibility is enhanced by labeling the novel as “Magical Realism” or “Science-Fiction,” or painting two moons in the sky. The reader now knows that this is “not real”.

A hundred years ago, a rabbit hole was a plausible conduit to a different realm, the way for Alice to reach Wonderland. Oddly enough, that would be a bit awkward now: it is hard to imagine Aomame descending into a rabbit hole. The emergency stairway on the elevated highway works very well, supposedly because you seen them a lot in Japan, whereas Japanese readers have less experience with rabbit holes. However, a few chapters further into the book the reader’s patience is tested by asking them to accept the mouth of a dead goat as a conduit for creatures from yet another realm to emerge into the world of 1Q84.

Actually, our inability to accept these creatures, the “Little People” is what is more surprising. Referring to James Frazer’s The Golden Bough the readers is asked to accept what mankind has accepted for thousands of years, namely the existence of other creatures in other realms, even explicitly the “Little People.” They are the stuff par excellence of myth, folk lore, fairy tales and religion. It is our secularized, modern society which is peculiar, in the sense that we can no longer accept these creatures, beings, gods.

Religion or beliefs are an important motive in 1Q84. In the context on the novel, different sets of beliefs are explored. What the beliefs and ideals of the parents’ generation have in common is that they are based on ideologies of the creation of a better world in the future, as Janáček’s Sinfonietta is usually understood to herald the birth of New Man. Sakigake, forerunners or perhaps even avant-garde started as a communist ideological community and morphed into a religion. The Society of Witnesses awaits the end of this sinful world, after which the chosen few can start anew. In the absence of a religion or belief, duty can fill that void, as in the case of Tengo’s father. But the beliefs of the younger generation are selfish or escapist.

It is hard to identify or sympathize with any of the characters in 1Q84. I would say the author most sympathizes with Ushikawa. In 1Q84, not unlike our own world, the smart and beautiful are sometimes selfish, while the less good-looking or ugly have a heart of gold. Part of Ushikawa’s problem is that he does not believe in himself, or believes himself to be ugly and that that is why nobody likes him. The most optimistic passage describes how good he feels when somebody is friendly to him.

Both in the case of religion and personal, individual beliefs, the overarching theme seems to be that our beliefs shape our reality. The brain works quite naturally with hypothesis. An image of what we think is normal is stored in the brain; each new day we get up and test the hypothesis that the new world, at sun up is the same as we last saw it, before sun down. Nobody can know the whole world, and test the hypothesis to the full. Aomame discovers that something is amiss very fast (the police uniforms), but in the newspaper archive she sees that there are many other things she never heard about. It takes other characters in 1Q84 much longer to discover that there are two moons, and the suggestion is that the majority of people have not (yet) found out.

Perhaps we all live in a strange world that isn’t ours, but we haven’t found out yet, because we do not know what are the tell-tale signs to identify that horror world. There are no alternative or parallel worlds to escape to. The only thing to do is change reality through our beliefs.

These reviews were all written off line, and posted at once. I have another spell without an Internet connection, i.e. I have lost the school LAN connection, and am now on a temporary wireless connection, so I can only come on line every now and then, and for a short time, having to save minutes for other work that must be done.

Less time on line = a lot of time to read.

Fantastic review of IQ84, Edwin -- maybe when I retire I'll have time to read it -- yours is the first review to tempt me!

>34 edwinbcn:: That is a terrific review of a book I never, ever want to read. :)

Interesting reviews as always, Edwin. Hope you get connected again soon!

Catching up with your reviews edwin. Your review of The Andy Warhol diaries was very informative. I have often wondered whether I should read them, but after reading your review there does not seem to be enough there. All I can say edwin is thanks for reading them for me and posting your review.

Great review of IQ84. Now this is a book I want to read at some time, though probably not this year

North, Brian Martin sounds interesting, a book that I have not come across before.

Hope it is not too long a wait for your improved internet connection.

Great reviews, Edwin, especially 1Q84. I read it last month too, and picked up some of the same ideas, but not nearly to the extent and clarity you have put them in your review.

Nice reviews, Edwin. I'm almost halfway through 1Q84, so I'll read your comments when I finish it next week.

A wide range of reading there. North looks interesting. Very useful review of IQ84. I've enjoyed many of Murakami's books, but this one sounds more like Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which I didn't like, than The Windup Bird Chronicle, which I did.

Edwin - I'm only just now catching up with your thread. Wonderful stuff here. Love the image Dongba script, fascinated, especially, by your reviews of Hirtennovelle & North. And your review of 1Q84 is simply wonderful.

>52 pamelad:,

Pam, IQ84 and I do not really intend to read more of Murakami; judging from the reviews on the work page, you might be right about the link between 1Q84 and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which makes it very tempting to have a look.

I have heard that many people, especially fans of Murakami dislike The Windup Bird Chronicle, but you are the second person whose views I would take more seriously to say that they particularly liked that book. So maybe I'd better spend some more time reading Mr Murakami.

022. The gates of wrath
Finished reading: 4 February 2012



Not the "grapes" but The gates of wrath (1903), a light novel by Arnold Bennett; on the "works by"-page in my 1927 edition this work of fiction is separated from the novels in a category under the heading of fantasias; this, and the sub title, A melodrama suggest that this should be regarded as a light diversion, nothing as serious as a novel.

The story is frightfully simple, the characters have little depth (they are more like stereotypes), and the development of the plot verges on the absurd: highly predictable, and nonetheless highly unlikely.

There are three villains, Mrs (Marie) Cavalossi, Dr (Frank) Colpus and Sims (footman). There is a pure, ideal friendship between Arthur Clinton Forrest and Arthur Peterson. There is romantic love between Arthur Forrest and Sylviane Cavalossi. And, there is murder and madness.

Apart from the friends, the two Arthurs are consanguine half-brother, and Forrest is the rightful heir to the Peterson fortune. The villains assume that Forrest is unaware of that, and reckon on his greed. To their surprise and dismay, Forrest knows, but does not want to claim his right.

Mrs Cavalossi is a beautiful woman in her prime, a widow of only 35 years, and apparently very affluent. Her even more beautiful daughter was a widow at the age of sixteen, her late husband deceased the very day after their marriage. Marie and Frank reckon on Sylviane's complicity, and they are surprised and dismayed when she truly falls in love with Forrest, and would be quite happy to live modestly with him

Despite the transparency of the plot, there are some funny, though unlikely turns, which make The gates of wrath a very entertaining, light read.

"Frank!" she murmured, and he smiled. By some extraordinary fatuity, or lack of insight, on the part of his parents, Dr. Colpus had been baptismally named Francis. It was the last name in the world that they should have bestowed on him. p.65

The gates of wrath bears some characteristics of other novels by Arnold Bennett, notably by their setting in the rich demi-monde of large hotels, such as The Grand Babylon Hotel, and somewhat reminiscent of the world in the novels of Henry James. From the Petersen estate, especially at night, the sky is lit up by the industry in Five Towns, where Mr Petersen has invested and made his fortune, a link to other work by Arnold Bennett, particularly Anna of the five towns and the "Five towns" series.



Other books I have read by Arnold Bennett:
How to live on twenty-four hours a day

023. Islam in China
Finished reading: 5 February 2012



Lin Yutang wrote that Chinese people are not much in the way of writers. Compared with Western literature, Chinese literature counts very few thick novels. Most Chinese literary works, prior to Lin Yutang's life time, consist of poetry, aphorisms, reminiscences, and little stories. While since the advent of Modernism, notably Lu Hsun, who changed from writing in classical Chinese style to writing in the vernacular, modern Chinese novelists have caught up. However, in the bookstores in China, you might see that more than half of the books on offer consist of paperback editions on low quality paper, of books on all kinds of topics of relatively little text around very many illustrations, which although full-colour, do not present very well on the low quality paper.

Islam in China is like that. Although the book has 126 pages, there are only 17 pages of text, including 2.5 pages for the preface. The most interesting illustrations are photos of different architectural styles of mosques in China, built over 14 centuries. Many of these historical buildings are omitted from travel guides for Western tourists, and I would surely have made visits to:

The Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, the oldest in China (dating back to the Tang Dynasty):



The Grand Huajue xiang Mosque in Xi'an:





The Songjiang Mosque in Shanghai



etc

Living in Beijing, I have of course more time to scout around and visit the less-trodden paths, such as a visit to the Dongsi Mosque in Beijing:



and the Niujie Mosque, also in Beijing

The rest of the photos show imams and muslim students, as well as heads of state of various Islamic countries from the early 1950s through the first decade of the 21st century.

The text is not very informative, and apparently not very well translated. Twenty years ago, Chinese books in English were very cheap. In recent years, however, prices have steeply risen, and while the print quality has gone up a lot, the translations have improved, but are still far from perfect, 90 yuan (about $13 USD) seems to be over-priced.

024. Flamme, die sich verzehrt
Finished reading: 5 February 2012



After graduation from university in Vienna, Von Rezzori served in the Romanian army and lived in Bucharest for four years. Going back to Czernowitz, his hometown in Bukovina which would soon be claimed by Stalin, was not really an option. Aged 24, he moved to Berlin in 1938, the year of the Anschluss of Austria. From 1938 - 1942 he fully enjoyed life in Berlin, and is quoted: "When living on the volcano, one might as well dance on it, as the proverb goes." (Quoted in Spiegel, 1959.

Living without money in a Pension on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, he turned to writing to make a living, and wrote his first novel, then under the name Gregor von Rezori (one "z" missing), Flamme, die sich verzehrt (1938), which was first serialized in a women's magazine, and appeared in book form in 1942.

The first novels of Gregor von Rezori are light, and romantic pulp fiction, supposedly especially fit to meet the taste of the women who subscribed to the magazine in which they were serialized.

Flamme, die sich verzehrt starts with a long drive by car from Budapest to Vienna. The streets of Budapest, the music, the food, and especially, as small silver plaque on the dashboard, inscribed J. T. P. Q. H. E. M. Q. D. : an abbreviation of nine letters, which comes back to Alexander Rainer's mind all too often. The largest part of the novel consists of a flash-back, describing how Alexander fell in love with Beatrice Kelmeny, a successful Hungarian violist. However, their love affair is doomed to fail. Alexander is a novice, a student, without a job or source of income, especially since his father condemns the bond. Beatrice is a somewhat older, virtuoso violin player, and the height of her career. Rainer is swept up by love, but their love has no future. In the end, he has to take up a simple job as a clerk in an office. This leads to a reconciliation with his father, who leaves him a fairly large estate upon his death. This wealth and his improved position, secure him a respectable marriage with Ruth, daughter of a wealthy Viennese family. If only he could forget Beatrice.

But he cannot. There are always the nine letters: J. T. P. Q. H. E. M. Q. D.: Je t'aime plus que hier et moins que demain..

025. One man's bible
Finished reading: 7 February 2012



The Cultural Revolution was a 10-year long, horrific period in China's modern history. To Western readers of One man's bible by Gao Xingjian, a Chinese writer who has now settled in France, the almost incredible descriptions of the struggles during that period will impress them most. Details about, for instance, the Jinggangshan group at Tsinghua University are outragious and not usually known to the general readership, as they are largely omitted from films and history books. Historical landmark events mentioned throughout the book track the progress in time through this dark period.

It is tempting to assume that the unnamed main character is the book, who is also a writer, stands for the author, but this is not logical. The novel is a work of fiction, and the main character would be several years younger than the author would have been at that time. The sense of distance is enhanced by the use of the second and third person singular throughout the narrative.

Some readers have expressed discontent about the title of the novel, One man's bible. They suggest One Man's Testament would be more appropriate. However, by using the word "testament" would shift the focus to the events of the Cultural Revolution is the book, which is clearly not what the author has in mind. The Cultural Revolution should not be in the foreground of the story, but in the background: Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution alone could not be blamed. He himself was also to blame, although this could not compensate her for her lost youth.. The context of this quote is his divorce from Qian -- the woman he took because she was available.

The Cultural Revolution in the background, what is in the foreground, and partly the blame of the CR, is the writer's yearning for the freedom to write, and the freedom to fuck around. Rationing and restrictions did not only apply to rights, food, goods, but also to social relations, access to women in particular.

The sexual freedom the main character experiences in the village, learning from the peasants, an unmoderated expression of vulgarities, incest and rape, is not exactly what he seeks, but it is "liberating." He marries Qian there, but is soon deserted by her, as his eyes and heart wander to other girls and women in the village.

Lin, Xu Qian, Maomei, Xiaoxiao, Martina, Silvie, Linda, Margarethe; they do not all have names, sometimes it is merely a French filly.

You are filled with gratitude to women, and it is not just lust. You seek them, but they do not necessarily want to give themselves to you. You are insatiable, but it's impossible for you to have them all. God did not give them to you, and you don't have to thank God, but, finally, you do feel a sort of universal gratitude. p.448

and

While he could not find a way out, by seizing these beautiful specks of feeling, he was able to avoid spiritual collapse. p.447

The words 圣经 (shengjing) in the original Chinese title, 一个人的圣经, may refer to the Bible or the Confucian Classics. They are not a testament, but guides to avoid spiritual collapse.



Other books I have read by Gao Xingjian:
Kramp

An interesting review of One Man's Bible, Edwin. I have just begun reading The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian, my first work by this author. But I haven't yet made it past the rather lengthy, but very informative introduction.

Well done edwin for posting a review of The Gates of Wrath, Arnold Bennett. There are only two people on LT that own this book and I had never heard of it before.

Nice pictures.

>56 edwinbcn:

Other great Chinese mosques are in China's Far West in Kashgar (the tomb of Xiang Fei, the "Fragnant Concubine") and Turpan (the Emin Minaret). All these are Central Asian in style. More surprising is the small Qingjing Mosque in Quanzhou, also in Central Asian style. Quanzhou is in Fujian Province, not far from Xiamen, whose Gulangyu Islet was Slauerhoff's original Lente-Eiland. When I toured the Fujian hinterland, I got the idea that Slauerhoff's descriptions of China in the 1930's must have been quite adequate. Supposing that you have read his stories, what do you think?

By the way, I found all these mosques with the Rough Guide to China.

Wow. Your review of 1Q84 is marvelous, and reading it helped me to appreciate the book that much more. Thank you for taking the time to write it!

I particularly enjoyed your comments about One Man's Bible, as well. I tried to read it several years ago, but stopped about halfway through. Unfortunately I don't remember many details about the book, but what I read was perplexing.

Very happy to see your review of One Man's Bible. This has been sitting on shelf for awhile (8+ years! my catalog tells me), picked up at used book store. I never knew what to make of it or when I might read it. I'll do a China theme some time, and be sure to include this book.

Darryl, just saw your post. Interesting to read your reaction to One Man's Bible.

>63 dchaikin: Maybe you could read it during the Reading Globally 4th quarter theme on China and neighboring societies? I was thinking of reading it then.

maybe, the 4th quarter is the only one that I haven't yet over-planned for reading right now.

Your review of One Man's Bible is a very helpful one, especially clearing up the confusion about the title. I would have steered clear of it thinking the "Bible" was a Christian reference and that it was a story of spirituality and very atypical of Chinese culture.

>62 kidzdoc:, 63

I was positively surprised about One Man's Bible myself. When I started reading it, I was not so sure what to expect. Part of that apprehension had to do with the fact that the book is banned in China. But the censorship criteria are not clear. Probably it is banned because it is very explicit and very accurate about the Cultural Revolution.

On the other hand, you cannot win a Nobel Prize purely on a soppy story about the CR. Gao Xingjian's work is controversial in the Chinese language community. Stories about the CR are not in themselves interesting to Chinese readers. Millions of people, especially intellectuals, have the same experience, and many of them are even nostalgic about parts of that period, especially the "Down to the Countryside Movement." Ironically, many of them will admit they learnt an important lesson from is, albeit a very hard lesson. In fact, it laid the basis for a great deal of solidarity which shaped social relations in recent China, a solidarity which is now eroding under neo-liberalism, with the gap between rich and poor widening.

But they also learnt more, there. People in the countryside had preserved age-old Chinese (folk) culture, more primitive strands of religion and they stood much closer to nature. I think Chairman Mao's objective was to create the former experience, but he probably did not envisage the second, especially the up-close experience with nature.

That experience is a not very pronounced part of One Man's Bible, although the quotation I gave there (While he could not find a way out, by seizing these beautiful specks of feeling, he was able to avoid spiritual collapse. p.447) (emphasis added), refers to that.

Wolf Totem, which I haven't read yet, is apparently an exponent of that new, ecological writing. I expect Soul Mountain also to dwell more on that line.

I cannot (yet) read such novels in Chinese, but have read that Chinese intellectuals, especially celebrate the work of Gao Xingjian for its literary qualities and use of the Chinese language.

>61 mercure:

Perhaps I should have formulated my advice a bit more generally. I have never used the Rough Guide or Lonely Planet travel guides, which, I have heard, apparently, aim at including everything. My experience is based on older travel guides, especially my much cherished Baedecker. In recent years, I rely on locally published travel guides or other sources of information.

My choice of pictures above, refers only to mosques which I would have visited, if I had known about, at the time of travelling, but which I missed because they were not in my travel guides, or travel itinerary. The reviewed book, Islam in China contains more photos, of very varied, and impressive architecture, including mosques which display much stronger influences of Arabic architectural styles. You can find such images by "googling" e.g. mosques in China.

I had brought the Collected Prose of the Dutch author Slauerhoff with me, to read in China, but never did. It is still on my TBR pile. I did not know that "Lente-eiland" is actually Gulangyu, the small "piano island" off the coast of Xiamen (formerly known as Amoy). I visited that area, and the hinterland, a few years ago. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

I like your balanced view of the Cultural Revolution. Having lived on a farm for several years as a child, I can appreciate the value of such exposure. Looking at the growing divide between rich and poor, it is clear that the Chinese, like the Russians, threw the baby out with the bathwater when it came to embracing capitalism.

I have Wolf Totem and plan on reading it, and several other Chinese novels, this year. Gao Xingjian's work wasn't among them, but I may reassess.

68, 70 I read Wolf Totem a few years ago, along with several other recently translated Chinese novels. It was before I started reviewing books on LT, but my recollection is that it had a great sense of place but was overly didactic and obvious.

>71 rebeccanyc:

I have not read a lot of contemporary Chinese literature, am actually somewhat avoiding it for two reasons. Firstly, I want to wait till I can read it in the original Chinese language editions, and also because a lot of modern Chinese literature is so called scar literature.

I can agree to your feeling about much of it being overly didactic and obvious. Basically, all artists in China are ideologically screwed up. Chinese modern art serves a purpose, it serves the people (wei renmin fuwu). That's why it is never top of the bill.

>70 StevenTX:

Don't get me started on the CR. Chairman Mao was 100% right when he purged Deng Xiaoping as "a capitalist roader." China is on the high way to capitalism; some people would even say, if you want to see capitalism, leave America, come to China.

The password is: Chinese characteristics

Another fascinating collection of books. How unedpected those mosques are, with their Chinese decoration and almost insignificant turrets.

Your perspective, as a resident familiar with Chinese culture, adds another dimension to the review of One Man's Bible, a book which your very useful review deters me from attempting. How long do you think it will take before your Chinese is sophisticated enough for reading a book like this in the original language?

>74 pamelad:

If I would seriously spend some time studying, 2 or 3 years; however, I have a very busy job, and am not really studying, still making progress though, guess it will take 5 to 6 years, more.

026. Knielen op een bed violen
Finished reading: 10 February 2012



Up until the publication of Knielen op een bed violen(2005) the Dutch author Jan Siebelink was relatively unknown, even in the Netherlands. Knielen op een bed violen has proved to be his opus magnum, which became a bestseller, and kindled interest in all his other work. The novel is very well-written and presents a very compelling story. This story is the biography of the author's father. Chronologically, the events in Knielen op een bed violen precede the story in the novel Engelen van het duister, which was published in 2001, and in which the two sons have different names. Another novel by Siebelink based on the same material, De kwekerij was published in 2007.

The novel is structured in two books, together seven parts, each part describing an episode in the life of the main character, Hans Sievez. The episodes are separated by intervals of about seven years, youth, apprenticeship, early marriage, etc. The story is set in the early to mid-twentieth century, somewhere between the 1920s and the 1960s; the Second World War, is only marginally referred to.

The beginning of the story shows how the young Hans runs away from home, to get away from under the suffocating religious sphere and his tyrannical father. During his apprenticeship in the Hague, he first meets Joseph Mieras, who is trying to convert him to Christianity, particularly of the same ultra-conservative denomination as that to which his father belonged. He is barely able to get rid of this person, but ultimately succeeds. The next episode described his marriage with Margje, the birth of two sons, and the difficulties of running the family business of a truck farm. After the war, Mieras gets back in touch, and converts Hans to the faith, drawing him further and further into it, and the story relates the growing tensions this causes in the family. Following a crisis, Hans severs all contacts with the group, which are however restored on his deathbed, causing more grievance and misery to his family.

The ultra-conservative religious sect, which pesters Hans Sievez consists of conservative Protestants, or Calvinists, inhabiting the so-called Dutch Bible Belt. Throughout the story, they stick to him like leeches.

The author uses some very compelling imagery to convey central motives to the story. In the first episode, Hans' pet rabbit is killed by his father. His "impotence" to protect his mother, and his sentimentality for the rabbit foreshadow his life-long inability to stand up for himself. In various episodes, throughout his life Hans is exploited and humiliated.

The pervading images describing the Calvinist preachers are dirt, ugliness and disgust. Their clothes, shoes, suitcase etc, are always dirty, mud bespattered, torn, and the books they sell Hans are all torn, missing pages, smelly and stained; They are all ugly, ugly faces, spittle in corners of the mouth, odd swellings in the neck, thin, unhygienic or otherwise disgusting, and their behaviour is always described as strange, yelling, waving arms, whispering. They always congregate in secret, ill-lit places, shadowy corners of the garden, sneaking in and out by creeping through the hedge. They are all dressed in black, none of them works or has a regular income, and they are all described as lazy parasites.

It is quite remarkable that a novel set in this fanatic, fundamentalist religious environment can attract such wide readership. I suppose it is the author's consistent unsympathetic description of the preachers, which makes the book palatable to the general reader.

While generally I am not a fan of stories and authors with this type of Calvinist background, the story is very compelling, and the novel is very well-written. A great work of literature.



Other books I have read by Jan Siebelink:
Engelen van het duister

027. Moby-Dick, or The whale
Finished reading: 13 February 2012



It has been said, and must be said again, that Moby-Dick is for the large part tedious to read, and only a very small portion of the book, notable the last three chapters are full of fury, and heart-throbbing excitement.

The endless succession of page-upon-page of knowledge about whaling, are like the vastness of the oceans, and the huge lapses of time that the voyage of the Pequod takes. The sparse encounters with other ships, emphasize the loneliness at sea, especially the isolation of Ahab. (It is a bit odd they never enter a port.)

Early in the novel, we are told that few people understand or appreciate the whaling business, and this oversight is clearly and effectively remedied by including so much knowledge about whaling. Some of this knowledge is clearly needed to read the later chapters in the novel. This part of Melville's novel does what Hemingway's Death in the afternoon does for bull fighting.

To understand why bull fighting is heroic, and what is the aesthetic value of it, you need a fair amount of knowledge and an open mind. The sincere, and easy-going friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg, which was probably odd in Melville's day, and might even be unusual in ours, shows what it means to be truly open-minded.

There are several moments, when the prose takes the shape of "merry comedy", which breaks the dour seriousness of the novel. The second half of the book seems to allow for more humour, as in:

The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. p.424

and:

"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb. "Broke it?"
"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!" (...)
"But what are you holding yours for?"
"Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, aint it?" p.442-3

With chapter 132 entitled "The symphony", the next three chapters are like movements of a symphony, or acts in a ballet. The dance of the whale is splendid and graceful.

The best thing about reading Moby-Dick was to get to the story first-hand, and peel or scratch away all the layers of comment and interpretation of others, that had encrusted the this story from my earliest memories. Finishing this book required some perseverance at times, but was ultimately very rewarding.



Other books I have read by Herman Melville:
"Billy Budd, sailor" and other stories
The piazza tales

028. De wilde getallen
Finished reading: 13 February 2012

Published in English as:

Philibert Schogt is a Dutch author, who was born in the Netherlands but spent his youth from the age of four to seventeen in Canada, where he grew up. As Schogt is a relatively young and not very well-known author in Holland, it is unusual that all of his novels have already appeared in English translations, especially in Canada and the United States, which makes me wonder whether he translates or authors dual language versions, Dutch and English.

De wilde getallen (The Wild Numbers) is his first novel. The title refers to a fictional unsolved mathematical problem, in the novel ascribed to the fictional 18th century French mathematician Anatole Millechamps de Beauregard, probably a reference to the Canadian mathematician Gilbert de Beauregard Robinson.

It is the main character, a lecturer at a university, Isaac Swift's ambition to solve this problem. His colleague and supervisor have also already, but unsuccessfully tried to solve the same problem. At the beginning of the novel, it seems Swift has succeeded to solve the problem, and his paper is approved by the faculty and sent to a leading academic journal. Trouble starts when a "student", an elderly retired math teacher who is clearly out of his mind and enrolled in Swift's class, accuses him of plagiarism. The suspense of the novel is based on the question whether or not Swift has used Mr Vale's notes, and whether or not Mr Vale, in a stroke of madness, has been able to solve this problem, a wild story, which leads to a surprising conclusion.

The story is quite exciting, even a bit ludicrous, and very recognizable. Fortunately, the reader does not need to be a mathematician or even have a liking for mathematics, to follow the story. Schogt's main character, Isaac Swift, does not relate very well to other people, an inhibition apparently caused by fanatic determination, something which can be seen in other characters in other novels by Philibert Schogt. There is very little character development, and some characters are stereotypical, such as the lone figure of Mr Vale. Another similarity with later novels is a sense of anti-climax: the story develops to a certain peak and then implodes like a bubble.



Other books I have read by Philibert Schogt:
Daalder

That's interesting about the tedious bits in Moby-Dick being like the tedium of a long sea voyage. I found that the parts that I found dull were parts other people found tremendously interesting and vice versa.

Excellent thoughts on Moby-Dick edwin. Stubb is so funny. I thought some of the writing in the "Knowledge" chapters was tremendous, but not all of it. I agree it is a five star read there is just so much to read in it. A bit of an experience and one that I will go back to, but not this year.

Oh yes, if it had only been for the tedious parts I would have rated it only three and a half stars, but especially the contrast, and the tremendous excitement of the last three chapters make it a five-star novel for me.

I have also decided to spend a little more time with Moby-Dick by reading some literary criticism about it. For that purpose, I bought The Cambridge companion to Herman Melville by Robert S. Levine last Friday. Although, at flip through, it does not seem to have so much on Moby-Dick, apparently just one chapter dedicated to the novel, it will give me a broader introduction to Melville, which will be interesting to go on reading.

I am also very interested in the South Sea tales, by Melville, but also Stevenson and other writers.

Some interting reviews! I've read Moby Dick some years ago and although some parts were pretty boring to me (I never fancied an interest in whales), I liked to book. Both Knielen op een bed violen and De wilde getallen are on my shelves, waiting to be read.

029. The gardener
Finished reading: 14 February 2012



The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated 2011 as the Year of Tagore, celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth. Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1913. Authors from the Eastern world are heavily underrepresented, and it wasn't until the late 1980s that the Prize was awarded to writers in Arabic, Japanese and, later on, Chinese-speaking traditions.

In the first forty years of his career, Rabindranath Tagore wrote in his native Bengali, fearing that his English was not good enough. After 1911, he started translating some of his own poetry into English, but the vast majority of his poems remains untranslated.

Tagore is mostly known for his poetry, although he also wrote novels, short stories, plays, and essays, and composed more than 300 pieces of music and more than 2,500 songs. He also wrote for the theatre, both dramas, musical plays, and ballets. Nonetheless, Tagore is still relatively unknown in the West, perhaps heard of, but little read. At a higher age, Tagore also expressed himself in drawing and painting.

The gardener is a cycle of 85 love poems. Tagore's poetry in Bengali was mostly written in rhyme. In his later years, he also experimented with prose poems. His English translations, such as the poems in The gardener have alliteration, but no end rhyme.
His poetry is lyrical, tinged with an all pervading optimism, drawing on observations of simple life and nature. Extensive use of simile, metaphor and allegory create an atmosphere of mysticism, and Tagore's spirituality may, at first, estrange the Western reader. His many references to God in the English poems should be understood as reference to an over-arching God Being, never entirely pan-theistic, and never specifically referring to any known Gods or deities.

{1}

SERVANT: Have mercy upon your servant, my queen!

QUEEN: The assembly is over and my servants are all gone.

Why do you come at this late hour?

SERVANT: When you have finished with others, that is my time.

I come to ask what remains for your last servant to do.

QUEEN: What can you expect when it is too late?

SERVANT: Make me the gardener of your flower garden.

QUEEN: What folly is this?

SERVANT: I will give up my other work.

I will throw my swords and lances down in the dust.

Do not send me to distant courts; do not bid me undertake new conquests.

But make me the gardener of your flower garden.

QUEEN: What will your duties be?

SERVANT: The service of your idle days.

I will keep fresh the grassy path where you walk in the morning,
where your feet will be

greeted with praise at every step by the flowers eager for death.

I will swing you in a swing among the branches of the saptaparna,
where the early

evening moon will struggle to kiss your skirt through the leaves.

I will replenish with scented oil the lamp that burns by your bedside,
and decorate your

footstool with sadalwood and saffron paste in wondrous designs.

QUEEN: What will you have for your reward?

SERVANT: To be allowed to hold your little fists like tender lotus-buds and slip flower
chains over

your wrists; to tinge the soles of your feet with the red juice of
ashoka petals and kiss

away the speck of dust that may chance to linger there.

QUEEN: Your prayers are granted, my servant, you will be the gardener of my flower garden.

030. Secrets of the camera obscura
Finished reading: 14 February 2012



Photography has lost its magic since digital camera technique makes it easy and available to anyone, everywhere, whether you own a camera or a mobile phone. The old exposure camera still suggested some form of craftmanship, in the play with angle, light and shutter time, etc. Now, photography has become so commonplace that many people do not even carefully look what pictures they shoot. Why look now, we'll look later.

The camera obscura an age-old invention, known to the ancients, and used since the Renaissance, had its hey-day in the Victorian Age. While a camera obscura can be constructed of various sizes, nowadays the most spectacular experience in to visit and sit inside the camera.

Such a camera consists of a dark room, in which the outside, surrounding reality is projected on a table, through a system of lenses and mirrors. The lense, mounted on a kind of periscope, can be turned 360 degrees. In recent years, there is quite a revival of interest in the camera obscura. The experience is described as meditative, magic.

Secrets of the camera obscura by David Knowles is a novella which explores the history of the camera obscura. Through alternating episodes, we read about the history of the camera obscura, starting with the invention in China, the use of the camera by Leonardo Da Vinci and Johannes Vermeer, who may have used it. These accounts are fictionalized.

The other story line, is the murder of an Italian woman, a regular visitor of the camera obscura in an American city. The story is written from the perspective of the owner / caretaker of the camera, who apparently observed the murder from within the concealment of the camera.

The two story-lines are connected through violent murders, involving decapitation, the use of the camera obscura, and the motive of concealment. Another theme which is featured is that of betrayal.

What have I learned so far from the story of Mo Ti and Chuang Chou? Many things. First of all, that the betrayal of a friend's trust is at the root of the problem, and at the heart of our story. (p.54)

The end of the story is a bit obscure, perhaps fitting the setting.

031. The rivered earth
Finished reading: 18 February 2012



The rivered earth is a volume of poetry which brings together many facets of the rich experience of its author, Vikram Seth. It is the textual companion to four literary festivals, held in four subsequent years, from 2006 to 2009. These four, interdisciplinary festivals were organized as a project, named Confluences, and aimed to bring together the poetry of Vikram Seth (author), the music of Alec Roth (composer), and the virtuoso of Philippe Honoré (violinist). The project brings together various other strands of interconnection between participants, their work, their lives, and their interests.

Aim of the project was for Vikram Seth to write the lyrics, which would be set to music by Alec Roth, and performed by orchestra, soloists and choir, with a prominent role on the violin for Philippe Honoré. This way of working led to the joke among the artists, recorded in this volume as: Seth wrote, and Roth set.

The book consists of four parts: a longish introduction, and four cycles of poetry, each preceded by a short introduction. The long introduction describes the background to Project Confluences, and reproduces two interviews recording their ideas between Seth and Roth, and between Seth and Honoré.

In the first cycle, entitled Songs in Time of War, the libretto consists of 12 poems by the Chinese Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu. The translations are from Vikram Seth's volume Three Chinese Poets, originally published in 1992. The title of the libretto for the second cycle is Shared Ground, which consists of six poems inspired by the early Seventeenth century British poet, George Herbert. For the third libretto, The Traveller, Seth selected and translated 25 classical Indian poems, interspersed by seven verses from the Rig Veda Creation Hymn, from the Indian poetic tradition. The fourth cycle aims to bring all threads together in seven poems under the title for the libretto Seven Elements. This cycle is closed with a poetic coda:

The Hermit on the Ice

The hermit sits upon the ice.
The bluish light burns all around,
Immune to flame and sacrifice,
To breath and death and scent and sound.

The scent of pine, the river's roar
Are muted in his breath and pace.
The blue earth with its iron core
Spins on through time, spins on through space.

I felt that the first, third and especially the fourth cycle of poetry seemed lacking in inspiration, possible as the texts separated from the full experience of the performances is somewhat clinical. A redeeming quality of Seth's translations of Du Fu is that they are set to rhyme, which I have not seen in any other translations.

In my opinion, the warmest and best poetry, are the poems of the second cycle. They are inspired by the immediate surroundings of Seth's house in Salisbury, the old rectory which was once the home to George Herbert, which Seth at first shared with his lover at the time, Philippe Honoré.

And

And then I woke. I tried, once more, to sleep,
But could not coax or keep
The thought of you, your laugh, your hands, your eyes,
Blanked by the sun's calm rise.

The dream was done; your voice was gone; the day
That rose now, pink and grey,
Was there to work through, till the dark hours came,
And you, your voice, your name.

For a richer experience of The rivered earth and Confluences, signumrecords will bring out the music performances on CD. So far the following CDs have come out:

Songs in Time of War SIGCD124 & Shared Ground SIGCD270

Note: According to page 6 Shared Ground is brought out as SIGCD127; this is clearly an error, and should be SIGCD270.

Interesting stuff as usual edwin.

I love the extract that you posted from The Garden. I am definitely going to get some of Tagore's poetry

I am not sure you should be forgiven for the pun at the end of your review of Secrets of the Camera Obscura.

The rivered earth sounds a fascinating project. From the snatches of music I have heard it might be worth following up.

The Tagore excerpt is lovely. I mostly know Tagore from the selections in the Norton Anthology of World Literature which I use for my world lit classes.

I really enjoyed your post on Tagore.

>87 janeajones:, 88

I had always heard about Tagore, and I am surprised he has such few readers on LT.

032. Stray birds
Finished reading: 26 February 2012



As discussed on the *Poetry Thread* with Barry, reading poetry and aphorisms, raises the question how to read. As a teenager, I would read each poem with full detail, in declamation, and pore over its meaning. Visiting a museum or gallery is a good comparison. I would stand in front of every painting, and study it, looking at all parts, and at the whole; then move on, and come back, to confirm my impressions. With "ugly", unusual or "difficult" paintings, I would do some soul searching, telling myself that my lack of appreciation lay in my inability to see it in the right way. Nowadays, I would call that the immature way of appreciating art and poetry.

In order to appreciate art, the challenge is to find those images and poems that you are ready for. You know you are ready when you can perceive meaning or beauty. The work of art has to "strike a chord". So, in galleries a visit at walking pace, and quick glancing are sufficient to spot what is of interest. I may be done with it in 20 minutes. (This is not the way I visited the Uffizi the year before last -- I was transfixed, some people might have thought I was one of the exhibits (as in stuck to it :-)). For poetry, it means I read everything, but only pause to reread and read more deeply into it when a chord has been struck.

Stray birds by Rabindranath Tagore is the first volume of aphorisms I have ever read, and have read from cover to cover. Previously, I would avoid aphorisms thinking it a particularly bothersome genre, the fleetingness of poetry and the depth of snobbery. However, it seems I was ready for Stray birds.

And having read Stray birds now, I regret that I haven't read it before. Rabindranath Tagore was a contemporary of my favourite Dutch author Frederik van Eeden, who translated much of Tagore's work into Dutch, which at the time -- I read most of Van Eeden as a teenager -- I shunned.

As with The gardener, Tagore wrote Stray birds originally in Bengali and then translated them into English. While I use the word aphorisms, other reviewers prefer to refer to the work as poetry, comparing each short poem to Haiku. In my edition, 325 such short poems are included. They are lyrical, and many rely on images of a personified, metaphorical use of nature and the elements, some invoking a God-like being, that any reader may read as his or her own, whether Christian or of other denomination.

My feelings about Stray birds is that one should read it in each of the ages of man; It seems wonderful reading for spiritually minded teenagers, aged 15 - 17, I regret not having read it at that time. Reading it now, in my mid-forties, I enjoyed it tremendously, surely seeing things I could or would not have understood in youth. And I expect that a reading at a higher age, will yield more, new wisdom, things I am not ready for now.

It is difficult to choose from between the many poems I liked. Here are some samples.

10.

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees.

15.
Do not seat your love upon a precipice because it is high.

17.
These little thoughts are the rustle of leaves; they have their whisper of joy in my mind.

42.
You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.


73
Chastity is a wealth that comes from abundance of love.

151.
GOD's great power is in the gentle breeze, not in the storm.

154.
By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.


169.
Thought feeds itself with its own words and grows.

171.
Either you have work or you have not.
When you have to say, "Let us do something," then begins mischief.

228.
Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth.

258.
The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.

262.
The trembling leaves of this tree touch my heart like the fingers of an infant child.

278.
We live in this world when we love it.

302.
GOD kisses the finite in his love and man the infinite.

318.
I long for the Island of Songs across this heaving Sea of Shouts.



Other works I have read by Rabindranath Tagore:
The gardener

Stray birds is available as a free ebook from the Project Gutenberg.

For my review, I read and used the edition by the Yilin Press (2008). This edition includes Chinese translations of all poems besides the English originals. In the preface, the translator Lu Jinde describes how he first became enthralled by the works of Tagore, in what must be assumed an earlier Chinese translation. Dissatisfied with at least 15 extant Chinese translations, Mr Lu decided on retranslating Stray birds. No mention is made whether he consulted and translated from Bengali or English.

Unfortunately, this edition omits one poem, namely Stray Birds-263:

263.
This sadness of my soul is her bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.

As a result, in my review above, all references after 263 are off by one.

As a Chinese publisher, the Yilin Press edition also found it opportune to include a short essay on Tagore's reception in China. Unfortunately, this essay consists of an unchanged reprint of an essay dating from 1923. The choice to include (only) this essay, 泰戈尔来华 {Tagore’s Visit to China} is peculiar and inappropriate. Within a week after the essay was published, various essays and newspaper articles were published attacking Tagore and the hosts who had invited him to China. By the time Tagore arrived in China, he was met with hostility. The Yilin Press edition does not relate any of the development in the appreciation for Tagore leading up to that moment, nor the controversy around his visit in 1924, or the current revival and interest in Tagore.

Furthermore, this edition includes two interviews with Tagore, one between Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore, dating from 1930 and the other between H.G. Wells and Tagore, in the same year. The interview with Einstein is the more interesting, especially after they have skipped the preliminary remarks on metaphysics and find common ground in discussing music. Both interviews are freely downloadable, elsewhere.

In recent years, many Chinese publishers have discovered they can make a quick buck publishing out-of-copyright works in paper editions, which is nice, because they come at low prices. Unfortunately, these editions are unedited, or the editing is somewhat substandard, allowing for inaccuracies, and uncritical throwing together of freely available texts.

Edwin, what a lovely way to start the morning. Thank you for you excellent review of Stray Birds!

033. The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights
Finished reading: 26 February 2012



The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights by John Steinbeck is a retelling of Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Steinbeck worked on it, on and off, for about a decade, between 1956 and 1965, before abandoning it. The unfinished manuscript was published posthumously in 1976.

It seems that in the field of literature, retelling has a negative ring. It smacks of abridgement, and simplification, especially for immature or inexperienced readers. In Western literary circles, the text is sacred and untouchable. This, unlike music, where the vitality of the cultural experience is defined by successful reinterpretation, although even here there is a discernable striving for the perfect performance.

John Steinbeck had a vision about the value of retelling. This vision resulted in the creation of so called play-novelettes, such as Burning Bright, Of Mice and Men and The Moon Is Down, which are retellings or rewrites of drama into short novellas, in order to keep them available, and readable in an enjoyable format for the wider public. Many classical plays are forgotten or seldom performed, while very few people enjoy reading drama. The play-novelettes recreate the stories from the drama in prose, which a wider audience may read and appreciate.

A similar didactic vein can be traced in the retelling of The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights. Few people will attempt to read Malory's Morte D'Arthur in the original version. In the introduction, Steinbeck relates how as a child he was mesmerized by the magic of the story and the wonder of the language, and it has been his life-long dream to share that experience render the Morte D'Arthur in a way readily accessible to modern readers.

The Penguin Modern Classics edition includes nearly 70 pages of correspondence between John Steinbeck and his editors about his research, and the development of his ideas with regard to this project. Unfortunately, only Steinbeck's letters are reprinted, omitting the answers from his correspondents, with the exception of a single letter from Chase Horton to Steinbeck, in June 1968. This correspondence makes a very valuable contribution to the book, which could have been enhanced by a critical introduction by the editor.

It becomes clear that Steinbeck invested a great deal of time and effort in this project, aiming to base the work on the best possible source, and working with eminent experts in the field of interpretation of the work. The published work is unfinished, which may partly account for the relative shortness of only 293 pages. Steinbeck also consciously omitted sections from the original text, which he felt did not fit the unity of the work.

The posthumously published version falls apart in two parts, which are stylistically very different. Some reviewers regret this division arguing that the work should have been finished in one style, pointing at the demerit of the other style.

The first five books, Merlin, The Knight with Two Swords, The Wedding of King Arthur, The Death of Merlin and Morgan Le Fay are written in a fairly close translation. This section best preserves the freshness of the original text. Much of the text seems emblematic and repetitive, with a lot of emphasis of events and description, but little or no psychology or character development. The story has a distinctive, medieval feel to it.

The final two books, Gawain, Ewain, and Marhalt and The Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot of the Lake are novelized. In this section, the story is rewritten in Steinbeck's own, American novelistic style. The emphasis in this section is on character development, and experience of the tale. The stylistic divide is so great, that if it weren't for the characters' names, it could have been an entirely different story. The story has a typical, contemporary feel to it.

Some reviewers have expressed their opinion that it was Steinbeck's intention to rewrite the entire work in the contemporary, Twentieth Century novelistic style. The two chapters we have show that it would be a very interesting possibility. While I did enjoy reading these two books, my preference is with the style which remains closer to the original. Perhaps the book remained unfinished because of Steinbeck's indecision in this matter.



Other books I have read by John Steinbeck:
Burning bright

Excellent review of stray birds edwin.

The acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights I did not know of the existence of this book. I am going to be one of the few to read the original by Mallory, I will probably get to it later this month. I might just be tempted to read the Steinbeck as well.

If so, Barry, I would not read them with a short interval. At least for me, a large part of the enjoyment was that The acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights read as an echo to the prose version of Malory's Le morte d'Arthur in the 2-vols. set by Penguin Books, edited by John Lawlor, which I read at university. Reading the Steinbeck book, so much of the enjoyment of reading Malory came back to me.

I also have a copy of Le morte d'Arthur or The hoole book of Kyng Arthur and of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table in the Norton Critical Edition, which I will read some other time, not now at least. The Norton edition is apparently unabridged, and reproduces the Winchester manuscript, the same Steinbeck used for The acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights. Needless to say, the Norton edition comes with a rich selection of secondary literature.

I will also have to reread and finish reading that Penguin edition at some time (now they are in my parents' home). That edition is based on Caxton's original printed edition.

According to Steinbeck's research, the ultimate edition is the 3-vols. set edited by Eugène Vinaver. I do not have that edition, but do have Vinaver's Malory (1929), which is a biographical companion to that edition. I read that in 1988, and may re-read that, too.

Tagore has been on my tbr list for quite a while, so I have downloaded The Home and the World from Project Gutenberg. Your wide reading and thoughtful reviews continue to impress.

>96 pamelad:

Yes, many works of Rabindranath Tagore are available as free downloads from the Gutenberg project. I still haven't got an ereader (though planning to buy one), and still have piles of books which should go first, among which I also have a paperback copy of The Home and the World, which I may read later this year.

At the moment, I am reading a biography and critical assessment of the work of Tagore, The great sentinel. A study of Rabindranath Tagore (1947) by Professor Subodh Chandra Sen Gupta (S. C. Sen Gupta) (1903 - 1998). Apparently, I am the sole owner of this book as far as LT is concerned.

034. Maurice, or The fisher's cot
Finished reading: 27 February 2012



I remember how in late 1997 literary circles were exited by the discovery of supposedly lost manuscript by Mary Shelley. This story, Maurice, or The fisher's cot, was subsequently published in a fine, and well-polished hardcover edition by Viking, Penguin in 1998. As the story itself counts only about 30 pages, the book is embellished with a long introduction (55 pages) by Claire Tomalin, many illustrations of authors described in the introduction plus four high-quality photographs of manuscript pages, and reproduces the full text of the story in modernized spelling, followed by a transcript after the manuscript.

In 1998, Claire Tomalin was already established as an important biographer, specifically of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley's mother, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley's husband. Therefore, the introduction is a very readable and very interesting piece of writing in its own right.

The relations of the many people and their cross-generational ties are a bit confusing, and best summarized by viewing the illustrations facing page 50. In 1786 Mary Wollstonecraft worked as a a governess to the Kingsborough family in Ireland. One of the Kingsborough children, Margaret King, then about 13 years old, later became Lady Mount Cashell, by Tomalin spelled as Lady Mountcashell and settled in Pisa, where she was friends with the Shelleys. Mary Shelley wrote Maurice, or The fisher's cot for Lady Mountcashell's daugher, Laurette.

The introduction poignantly describes the difficulties of women to fend for themselves and develop a career as writers in the late 18th and early 19th century. Incidentally, their husbands and men in their circle are shown to be little understanding or outright pricks, notably Lord Byron. The introduction goes on to describe how Lauretta Tighe developed as a writer, and the manuscript remained in her family.



Maurice, or The fisher's cot is a charming, little tale, which made an enjoyable read.



Other books I have read by Mary Shelley:
Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus

035. The wayward bus
Finished reading: 1 March 2012



In The wayward bus Steinbeck describes how a group of people, a seemingly random sample from society, get along for a day while they are stuck in the middle of nowhere. Through the fabric of their palaver emerges the sense of deep loneliness, sexual repression and a craving for belonging. There are hidden dreams and façades suggesting success, which is longed for but not (yet) attained.

The setting, the so-called middle of nowhere, is quite clearly described, and even to modern readers recognizable as a place quite out of the way, a place one would have little hope for betterment. While some live there, others get stuck temporarily, as their bus makes an unscheduled stop. Causes for the bus to stop may be fate, as with the torrential rain that threatens to wash away the bridge, accident, as with the mechanical failure of the bus, or purposeful mishap, as the driver intentionally steers the bus into the mud, where it gets stuck in a rut.

However, in all cases, the state of being sidetracked seems temporal. The title The wayward bus suggests that the bus is turned away from the main road, or its destination; wayward being the short form for awayward meaning "turned aside" or "turned away," a word Steinbeck may have encountered in his reading of Malory's Le morte d'Arthur, which reads:

And therewithal she turned her from the window, and Sir Beaumains rode awayward from the castle, making great dole, and so he rode here and there and wist not where he rode, till it was dark night.

Likewise, their location, incidentally the starting point of the bus, is named Rebel Corners, a place historically associated with self-imposed laziness and ignorance.

The wayward bus is in its core an optimistic, hopeful story. As the characters are essentially stuck in the rut temporarily, the novel clearly shows the way out. Nicknamed sweetheart, the bus will eventually go on, and find its way back, away from Rebel Corners and on to its destination, and from there to any other place. Everyone may at some stage find themselves stuck at crossroads, and Steinbeck's message is that love and belonging are the path out of the mire.



Other books I have read by John Steinbeck:
Burning bright
The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights

Fascinating information about Maurice, or the Fisher's cot

There's been several interesting reviews of The Wayward Bus on LT recently. I read a great deal of Steinbeck in my younger years, but this is one that I missed. Sounds like one for the wishlist.

036. At the bottom of the river
Finished reading: 2 March 2012



At the bottom of the river by Jamaica Kincaid is a colourful and poetic evocation of the Caribbean. The prose has a thoroughly poetic quality. Rhythmic repetition of sentence patterns and words hints at the rhythms of life, short sentences at a relative simplicity. Beauty is enhanced by detail-rich descriptions of people and the surrounding natural world.

With this work Kincaid completely lives up to her reputation. The book gave me exactly the reading pleasure I was hoping to find.



Other books I have read by Jamaica Kincaid:
Among flowers. A walk in the Himalaya

Sounds lovely, Edwin.

037. Sun under wood
Finished reading: 3 March 2012



The first edition of Robert Hass' Sun under wood is a fine cloth-bound volume with a paper cover showing a woodcut. Many critics place Hass in the fine tradition of poets writing about nature, together with Wordsworth, Thoreau and Muir. It was with eager anticipation for some excellent nature poetry, that I opened this volume of poetry.

The first poem, Happiness, is indeed a fine example of nature poetry, in free verse. It begins as follows:

Because yesterday morning from the steamy window
we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek
eating the last windfall apples in the rain --
they looked up at us with their green eyes
long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things
and then went back to eating --

There are a number of such gems in this volume, but unfortunately, not many. In fact, my over-all feeling about this volume is one of some disappointment.

The problem seems to be that Sun under wood is a very unbalanced collection of poems. Besides "nature poetry" there are verses which seem to represent the poet's full life experience, ranging from alcoholism, strained parental relations, family life, activism, etc. Some poems are long, and meditative, while there are also prose fragments, long, free and provocative poems, as well as short poems which read like an afterthought. Some of those "other" poems are also very beautiful. The poem I liked most is called The Gardens of Warsaw.

I was quite startled and seriously frowned at the lines included in the poem English: An Ode:

There are those who think it's in fairly bad taste
to make habitual reference to social and political problems
in poems. To these people it seems a form of melodrama
or self-aggrandizement, which it no doubt partly is.
And there's no doubt either that these same people also tend
to feel that it ruins a perfectly good party
to be constantly making reference to the poor or oppressed
and their misfortunes in poems which don't
after all, lift a finger to help them. Please
help yourself to the curried chicken.

Perhaps there are people who think that nature poetry is the same as ecological poetry. In my opinion, the first celebrates the delight in natural history and is merely descriptive, while the latter has a political agenda. It seems Robert Hass belongs to that category of poets who wants to make poetry instrumental to politics.

Sun under wood (1996) came out while Hass was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. It seems that Hass was more concerned with presenting himself and his radical agenda than with raising the nation's consciousness to an enhanced appreciation of the reading and creation of poetry. Perhaps it was too tempting to not exploit the opportunity of raising awareness in ecoliteracy, rather that foster a love for poetry. I would certainly like to read a more balanced volume of nature poetry, free from activist sentiments.

#102 - This brief compliment of At the Bottom of the River has some extra weight coming from you. Noting.

Also, interesting review of Hass. I agree an agenda tends to kill poetry.

038. Questioning the Millennium. A rationalist's guide to a precisely arbitrary countdown
Finished reading: 7 March 2012



Ease shows the Master's hand. Questioning the Millennium reads very easily, and is quite a light read. Whether it is worth to have it book length, is questionable. I would rather have it a bit shorter than the current 190 pp. Some parts of the book feel a bit "stretched" but never strained. There is some repetition, which could have been trimmed, and the ease with which it is written makes it at bit puffed up, but all the extra words add to readability.

This long essay was originally published in 1997, well before the Millennium Madness really began, and no attention is paid to what subsequently became known as the Millennium Bug.

Although the millennium moment now lies more than a decade behind us, it is still worthwhile to read this essay, as the discussion is not only about time, calendars and the millennium, but explores themes of apocalypse, armageddon and the destruction of the world and the postponement thereof. The confusion about the millennium moment, and what exactly counts as the millennium, that is not just the end, but the also especially beginning of the millennium, make the book much less ephemeral than expected. Phenomena such as (American) preachers predicting the end of the world are put in a clear perspective, not forgetting the Mayan calendar.



Other books I have read by Stephen Jay Gould:
The lying stones of Marrakech. Penultimate reflections in natural history

039. Ragnarok. The end of the Gods.
Finished reading: 10 March 2012



Ragnarok. The end of the Gods. by A. S. Byatt is not a retelling. Fragments from medieval literature, such as the Arthurian romances can be retold, as they are composed of epics, and they were originally told. Ragnarok is neither an epic nor a story. It is a word that refers to a believed event in Norse mythology, and part of a huge pantheon of gods, goddesses and other mythical beings. Modern readers may have the sense that there is a story, because this wealth of material has been used by other writers, especially in the late Nineteenth Century. In its pure form, however, there is no narrative, except for the description of some events, such as "The creation of the world" or "The end of the Gods".

This lack of narrative seriously hampers Byatt book. To create a sense of a narrative element, Byatt introduces the thin child. The story is that of the thin child, possibly standing for the author, reading Asgard and the Gods in her youth, a youth overshadowed by the Second World War. Throughout the book, “the child” is reading and thinking about her father, whom she believes is missed in action. The association of Ragnarok and the end of the Gods and Nazism / the German war aggression creates a peculiar tension, especially because the book the child reads is originally from Germany, and in the child’s mind these two strands become associated.

A. S. Byatt lists the book, Asgard and the Gods, in the bibliography, as translated and adapted from the work of Dr. W. Wägner (1880). Since its publication, the book was very popular, and went through several editions. The full title of the 1880 and 1884 editions was Asgard and the Gods. The Tales and Traditions of Our Northern Ancestors. In the eighth edition of 1917 the subtitle was further expanded to Asgard and the Gods. The tales and traditions of our Northern ancestors, forming a complete manual of Norse mythology. The expanded subtitle increasingly well described the nature of the work, which is reflected in Byatt book. If anything, Byatt book could be regarded as a retelling of Wägner’s book, which is more like a reference work, a compendium, and almost complete “manual of Norse mythology.”

Ragnarok. The end of the Gods. is a book which can only be read slowly, for two reasons. Firstly, lacking a binding narrative, the book consists of a kaleidoscopic overview of Norse Gods and Goddesses. There is an overwhelming number of them, all with estranging Germanic names, although a few are known and recur. Nonetheless, the encyclopaedic nature of the book is a bit confusing.

Then, too, A. S. Byatt writing style is extremely flowery. I first noticed this extremely rich style in the short story collection Elementals. Stories of Fire and Ice, published in 1998. Beside the use of adjectives, Byatt’s descriptions of the natural world read like a complete flora or fauna, which creates an extremely full, and rich vocabulary, quite overwhelming in its own right. This lexical density makes the work very poetic, but also more difficult to read. Each story or part of the story resembles a richly decorative Art Deco tableau. While beautiful, these elaborate descriptions are also a bit over-worked, and give some passages a tiresome weightiness.



Other books I have read by A. S. Byatt:
The biographer's tale
Possession
Still life

Interesting review of Ragnarok. The End of the Gods which I will now have to look for. Is sounds as if it loosely shares some of the same themes and style as The Children's Book. Byatt is one of my favourite authors; not only does she write beautifully, I never fail to learn from her books.

Excellent reviews edwin. Do you think that your disappointment with the Robert Hass book was because you were expecting one thing (great nature poetry) and ended up getting something else.

>108 SassyLassy:

I have to admit that I am not that fond of A.S. Byatt (although I have bought most of her novels). My reading of her books has been somewhat unsystematic, so I cannot track the development of her style. I find these later novels terribly "baroque"; very beautiful language, but very tiresome to read. Ragnarok. The End of the Gods was very short; as are the stories in Elementals. Stories of Fire and Ice, which, by the way, I did not finish. I got started on The Children's Book, but then let it go. I will go back to those books and finish them, later.

I much more prefer the work of Iris Murdoch.

040. Vierzig Jahre. Ein Lebensbericht
Finished reading: 13 March 2012



Vierzig Jahre. Ein Lebensbericht (eng: Forty Years. A Memoir is the second part of Günter de Bruyn's memoirs. Volume one, Zwischenbilanz. Eine Jugend in Berlin describes his youth, growing up in Berlin during the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Volume two describes his life over the forty-years lifespan of the German Democratic Republic. The two volumes were published separately, and can be read separately. There is some overlap between the end of volume one and the beginning of volume two; each volume is specifically tied in with a period of German history, and therefore, quite distinct.

Forty Years. A Memoir is a rather bland description of the author's life between 1949 and 1989. The word "memoir" (my approximation of "Lebensbericht") is only used in the title. It is not very clear how accurate the memoirs are. Some descriptions and recall of conversations is very detailed, while at other moments the author (twice) mentions that he has forgotten particular details.

Boredom, drabness and grey are epithets often applied to the (former) German Democratic Republic (GDR). Supposedly, as a librarian, developing into an author, Günter de Bruyn must have been rather on the edge of cultural life, rather than in the centre. The author mentions some other authors, but there are no descriptions of cultural life or the literary scene in the GDR. The image arises of De Bruyn as a rather isolated figure. He dutifully describes his life, which is rather boring. While it could be maintained that history should be described elsewhere, and names-dropping is not always a positive thing, the lack of historical and cultural background makes Forty Years. A Memoir a rather uninteresting account of Günter de Bruyn's life. Does the author really belief readers are that much interested in him, rather than in his life in the German Democratic Republic?

041. Foucault's pendulum
Finished reading: 16 March 2012



Some books are hyped, and in the process each aspect gets blown up beyond recognition. I should have known better, that is, to stay away from best-sellers, like this. It's all puff.

The opening chapter is difficult to read, a perhaps deliberately oblique description of the function of Foucault's pendulum. This is soon followed by a racy description of the crusades and the origin of the order of the Knights Templar. This is probably the most interesting part of the book. This is ended by a ruse, the suggestion of a conspiracy, by a character who promptly disappears. Subsequently, the story falls flat for about 200 pages. The book would be a lot more readable, and portable, if you would tear out chapters 34 - 80. These chapters seem to have no other function than to separate the 'facts" in part 1 from the 'fiction' in part 2. From chapter 81, the story picks up with the alchemists, spinning candy floss out of the ideas introduced in the first part of the book. The mystery presented here is quite ridiculous.



Other books I have read by Umberto Eco:
Five moral pieces
Travels in hyperreality

042. Verpfändetes Leben
Finished reading: 20 March 2012

Published is English as:

Vicki Baum was a Jewish author, born in 1888 in Vienna. Up until 1932, she was a very popular and successful German author, but in 1933 the Nazis targeted her and burnt her books. In 1932 she settled in the US, obtaining citizenship in 1938, and started writing in English in 1941. Mortgage on Life (ger: Verpfändetes Leben was published in English in 1946.

Mortgage on Life can be classified as a crime novel, although lovers of that genre may be disappointed, as the interest of the book is more on psychology than on mystery. The book is somewhat difficult to read because of the large number of characters and its structure of flash-backs through time.

The novel opens with a dramatic scene in which Betsy Poker shoots Marylynn, and turns herself in. Miss Poker is Marylynn's agent. Betsy discovered her and turned her into a super-star: the deal that was struck, a 50-50 profit share. Marylynn's success was built up from the ground: Miss Poker gave her life, and more. As Marylynn lies in hospital, three men flock to her bedside: they all once courted Marylynn with some success, but were all, eventually, rejected. Marylynn remains somewhat elusive; as much as the novel is mainly written from Miss Poker's point of view, Marylynn's point of view, her ideas and what she wants or may have wanted remains unclear. The rejection of the three men, and an apparent preference for a certain Jack, a simple guy from her hometown, is puzzling. For him, she wants to give up her career, as if this career is not something she had wanted...

When Vicky Baum moved to the US in 1932, she settled in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, to work on the motion picture script for Grand Hotel based on her novel Menschen im Hotel (eng: Grand Hotel). The stage adaptation was a Broadway hit, and it was filmed by MGM with Greta Garbo in 1932. This film takes particular precedence in Garbo's career as she became closely associated with a line from the script: "I want to be alone, I just want to be alone"

The connection and proximity to Hollywood must have given Vicky Baum access and opportunity to observe the life and careers of film stars. The Faustian bargain to success is a worthy theme for a novel, which seems remarkably unexplored. There are many rags-to-riches careers in Hollywood, in which happiness seems left out, somewhere

It seems Mortgage on Life could very well be inspired on the career of Greta Garbo, as an echo of the myth at the beginning of Garbo's career: I can make a star out of her. It is the power of the novel to call yet other film stars to mind, such as that other famous Marylynn who, incidentally started her career in 1946, and in that very year picked the name she did not like much: Marilyn.

Edwin you are in for some serious controversy with your thoughts on Foucault's Pendulum I happen to be aware of at least two active members of this group who think it is wonderful. Me I have not read it and so cannot comment.

Get your tin hat on.

>114 baswood:

If they could explain why, I would seriously wonder. Intuitively, I had always avoided Umberto Eco, but a few years ago, 2008 / 2009, I bought a few of his novels to see what the hype is all about. So far, I haven't liked any of it much. Of course a label such as "a mystery for intellectuals" with a sneer at Dan Brown is just an appeal to snobs.

In my review I did not mention what is so ridiculous, as that might be a spoiler.

043. Martin Eden
Finished reading: 21 March 2012



Published in 1909, three years earlier than G.B Shaw's Pygmalion (1912), Martin Eden is a male Eliza Doolittle. Saving an upper-class gent in a brawl leads to Martin's introduction into this wealthy family, where he falls in love with the daughter, Ruth Morse. From his point of view, Martin realizes that he must 'improve' himself to meet Ruth at an equal level: he sets out to learn proper English, mend his ways, and goes to school to learn all subjects. Bent on giving up his life as a sailor, he tries to change jobs, and hits on the idea that a career in writing is the best way to go to make a fortune, which would put him on an equal footing with Ruth. Years of toil and rejection follow, but Martin perseveres. In the meantime, however, Ruth's parents steer her away from an unthinkable marriage with Martin Eden, who, in their eyes, will always remain an unworthy choice. Losing Ruth, and achieving fame and riches through the (same) stories which were rejected so many times before, Martin Eden becomes disillusioned. He writes no new stories, and in the end goes back to sea, where he came from.

At just over 400 pages, Martin Eden by Jack London is a remarkably readable novel. It is semi-autobiographical, and puts an interesting angle of the reality of becoming a writer, in particular getting stories published in literary magazines. With class differences in the young American nation being less important than in Shaw's Great Britain, the Morse family supposedly nouveau riche, class plays a minor role in the novel.

044. The hours
Finished reading: 22 March 2012



I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good
deal about The Hours, and my discovery: how
I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters: I think that gives
exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves
shall connect and each come to daylight at the present moment.

Between October 1922 and October 1923, Virginia Woolf made four references to a novel she was writing, called The Hours, later published as Mrs. Dalloway.

In The hours Michael Cunningham, typically, explores the other possibilities. The three characters in the book are taken from the "surroundings" of The Hours, Clarissa ('Dalloway') Vaughn, Laura Brown, perhaps the "Mrs Brown" taken from Woolf's talk given at Cambridge University in 1924 called Character in Fiction, in which she presented her literary goals using characters of Mrs Dalloway (later revised and published under a new title Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown), and the author, Virginia Woolf.

The novel is remarkably uneventful. It only tries to construe character, digging out caves behind the characters. This makes the novel rather boring, and hard to follow. The connections between the characters are contrived, and the end is metaphysical. It could not hold my attention.



Other books I have read by Michael Cunningham:
Specimen days

>116 edwinbcn: Nice review of Martin Eden, Edwin. I often find autobiographical fiction to be fascinating and I wasn't aware of this one by London.

Edwin -- I totally agree with you about The Hours -- I never understood the hype. And I think I liked the movie even less.

045. The House of Sleep
Finished reading: 23 March 2012



Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

Jonathan Coe does not refer this poem in The House of Sleep, but he could have, as it seemingly applies very well to the novel. This poem is the first stanza of a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, questioning how we can distinguish between reality and fantasy.

The House of Sleep is a novel written in six parts: Awake, Stage One, Stage Two, Stage Three, Stage Four and REM Sleep. The latter five are stages of sleep. The attentive reader will notice that in the first section Awake the last sentence does not end with a full stop (p.56). Stages 1, 2, 3 & 4 neither start with a capital letter, nor finish with a full stop. The last section, REM Sleep does not begin with a capital letter, but ends with a full stop. This orthographic aberration suggests that the wakeful state cannot be distinguished from the state of sleep, and that at least one of the characters cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Since we all have some degree of sleep deprivation, sleepiness in itself is not particularly interesting but Narcolepsy is a condition that throws in quite a few other quirks that make Sarah a more interesting character, beside her inability to see the difference between reality and dreams.

There are four characters, who all know each other. There are flash backs to their time at college. Sleep is an important theme, of course, and Sarah is treated for her condition, so there are several scenes with doctors. There is quite a lot of confusion. One of the characters, Terry, is a film fan; as in other books by Coe there are many references to film and popular culture.

Unfortunately, this is another example of a book based on an interesting idea (sort of), but the execution of which is about as sleep arousing as can be. I quickly lost interest.



Other books I have read by Jonathan Coe:
What a carve up!

046. Schweigeminute
Finished reading: 27 March 2012

Published in English as:

I did not enjoy A Minute's Silence (ger: Schweigeminute) as much as I had anticipated. The main reason seems to be that the story is more realistic, rather than romantic.

The novella describes the love of a high school student, Christian, for his English teacher, Stella. But the story is told retrospectively, in the form of flash-backs, while Christian attends the memorial service for Stella, who has died in an accident. The story is not very romantic; Stella's interest in Christian, which seems insincere, does not meet Christian's youthful adoration. She plays with him.

The coldness is further created by the interrupting effect of flash-backs and attendance of the memorial service, and the accident and subsequent hospital scene. Other distracting or detracting parts of the plot are scenes at school and multiple references to George Orwell's Animal farm, a book which is read in Stella's class. It is a bit difficult to see how this relates to the story, but with some stretching it could be suggested that it emphases the inequality between Christian and Stella: some animals are more equal than other animals.

I had the feeling there were too many characters in the book, and too many scenes.

However, I loved the cover of the German edition, which shows a painting by the German painter Tobias Duwe, entitled: Sylter Dünen. The landscape, on the German North Sea Isle Sylt, is very similar to that near my hometown, the coast of North Holland.





Other books I have read by Siegfried Lenz:
Ein Kriegsende

I remember when I read the Coe book I also wanted very much to sleep.

047. The winter of our discontent
Finished reading: 31 March 2012



The winter of our discontent is the novel which won John Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was also his last novel.

Many readers consider The winter of our discontent a flawed or weak novel, particularly part one, seems to contribute little to the story. It is the author's provenance to express clearly in words what is difficult for others to describe. An adage remembered by many authors is that showing is better than telling. So, within the space of just under 300 pages, The winter of our discontent is a short novel, John Steinbeck shows us how a man starts doubting himself.

What are morals? Are they simply words? (p.186) Ethan Allen Hawley asks himself. Aren't people thinking anymore? Thinking about their actions, their motives, and whether what they do is moral or immoral, honourable or dishonourable. Ethan concludes that it all depends on whether they succeed or not. What a man thinks does not show in his face, and as long as they succeed, they can get away with anything. To most of the world success is never bad. (...) Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism.(p.187).

At the beginning of the book,the Hawley family is a happy family. Chapter One starts with one of the lightest, happiest dialogues in literature. Ethan is content with his station is life. But his family members are not. Harking to a more glorious past, when Ethan's ancestors were rich, they want to improve their situation, and have a share in the riches of the world. All around Ethan, people are busying themselves making money or fame, in ways which are morally objectionable to Ethan. But as he is constantly battered by others, suggesting how to do such things and get away with it, Ethan starts contemplating and making steps to get on in life. He considers taking kick-backs, he plans and prepares to rob a bank, he betrays his boss and gets entangled into a business deal, where obstruction rather than cooperation reaps him wealth.

However, Ethan's new lifestyle shows in cracks. He is not as happy as before, and the lightness which characterized part one is gone. Doubt first arises, when his boss, Marullo, whom he has betrayed, bequeaths the grocery store to Ethan, honouring his boundless honesty, a thing Ethan would no longer believe of himself, the irony being that this all comes following his betrayal. However, what brings it all home to Ethan is his son's plagiarism in a National Essay Competition. His son receives favourable mention, and is chosen to appear on television, which is eventually cancelled as it is discovered, belatedly, that the essay is largely plagiarized.

Published in 1961, The winter of our discontent describes a process that Steinbeck saw happening in American society; a transition from the ethos of hard-working and honest citizens in the 1940s-1950s, to the greed and money-driven erosion or morals of the 1960s and subsequent era. The fact that so many readers dislike or fail to understand this book, shows how far we have drifted.



Other books I have read by John Steinbeck:
Burning bright
The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights
The wayward bus

048. Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics
Finished reading: 1 April 2012



C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) was a scholar, and a writer. Beside scholarly publications, he wrote and published novels and a small body of poetry. Having fallen away from his faith in his youth, becoming an atheist at the age of 15, he regressed to theism in 1929, and converted to Christianity in 1931, becoming a member in the Church of England. Following his conversion he became an apologist of the Christian, and published many books exploring religious questions.

Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics was published in 1919, when C. S. Lewis was just 20 years old. It is a difficult cycle of poems, dark and gloomy, and packed with references to Irish-Celtic mythology, as well as Classical mythology. The cycle consists of three parts: (I) The Prison House, (II) Hesitation and (III) The Escape, consisting of 40 poems and a Prologue. The cycle suggests a progression from (Winter, through Spring), Summer and Autumn (in Part 1); the following parts contain no references to the seasons.

The dark atmosphere of the cycle can be ascribed to Lewis's experience in the Great War. Despite his atheism, his interest in the occult speaks through the place given in the poems to Satan, sorcery (ghosts and witches) and the ruthlessness of nature. Fear and hesitation are the effects of these brutal forces. Poem (II) French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux) speaks explicitly of the horror of the war, the trenches, bombing and sacked villages.

Another theme, apparent, is homesickness. While the Phoenicians describe and long for a Paradise in the West, the Garden of the Hesperides, Lewis's longing for the Tin Isles is a longing for home and the steadfastness of that home as expressed in the poems In Praise Of Solid People (XXIV) and Oxford (XXX).

The cycle also describes a turn in fate of the spirit, over the course of a day, from Night, To Sleep, Noon, Autumn Morning and Night, again, the mood swings from Despair, to desolation, to an idle hope in dreams and revelry, and back to despair, the way out only to be found in death.

Superficially, the poems could be seen as an adolescents verbal Symphonie fantastique; however, since they were written by C.S. Lewis they deserve closer scrutiny. Regarding his professed atheism, the religious overtones of the poems are remarkable, particularly the references to Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

Milton Read Again (In Surrey)

Three golden months while summer on us stole
I have read your joyful tale another time,
Breathing more freely in that larger clime
And learning wiselier to deserve the whole.

Your Spirit, Master, has been close at hand
And guided me, still pointing treasures rare,
Thick-sown where I before saw nothing fair
And finding waters in the barren land,

Barren once thought because my eyes were dim.
Like one I am grown to whom the common field
And often-wandered copse one morning yield
New pleasures suddenly; for over him

Falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight,
New mystery in every shady place,
In every whispering tree a nameless grace,
New rapture on the windy seaward height.

So may she come to me, teaching me well
To savour all these sweets that lie to hand
In wood and lane about this pleasant land
Though it be not the land where I would dwell.

Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics is the only work of C.S. Lewis in the public domain. I enjoyed listening to the Librivox recording, and have reread the poems several times, using the etext from the Project Gutenberg.

Rereading is a must, for a complex work like this.

I enjoy your reviews and also enjoyed the picture of the German North Sea beach. Having read several novels that at least partly take place on the German part of the North Sea, it's good to see what it looks like.

Thanks for reviewing Spirits in bondage. I was not aware that this existed and free on Project Gutenberg. I am also interested in The Winter of our Discontent, which from your review sounds intriguing.

Edwin, the Vicki Baum sounds a bit of a departure for you, a bit trashy. I've enjoyed Shanghai '37 and Hotel Berlin, but haven't come across any of her American books.

You are right, Pam. In 2004 I bought the first edition of Hotel Shanghai in Amsterdam; In 2009, I bought the first edition of Hotel Berlin '43 and an early printing of Grand Hotel in Beijing. Although still unread, based on these purchases, I had the idea that Vicky Baum was an interesting author, so in 2010 I purchased Menschen im Hotel, i.e. the German original of Grand Hotel, Zwischenfall in Lohwinkel (eng. And Life Goes On, Die goldenen Schuhe (eng. Ballerina and Verpfändetes Leben (eng. Mortgage on Life.

I soon got confused about "original language," an realised only very late that the latter two were originally written in English, Baum's adopted language after her naturalisation to US citizenship.

I regret that I haven't been able to find a German edition of Liebe und Tod auf Bali, which I think would interest me very much. (I am also very interested in the persona and art work of Walter Spies).

It seem to me that the three novels set in hotels, the formula which first brought Baum fame, are the most interesting, also historically.

You are right, I did not like Mortgage on Life. In my review I tried to explore to what extent the novel could be considered of interest (it would have been better to read it in English). The only striking thing I found is that it seems to predict the typical type of tragedy of stardom, we later became so familiar with. It occurred to me that the main character of the novel, Marylynn, might be modeled on Marilyn Monroe; the funny thing is, is that it is more the other way round. Monroe's manager chose and gave Monroe the name Marilyn, a name Monroe never liked, in the year Mortgage on Life was published. How he made that choice and why she did not like the name, I do not know, but I wondered whether there was a connection with Baum's novel.

Another intersting thing seemed the connection between Greta Garbo and Vicky Baum. While I have not read any biographies of either, I have assumed that they knew each other and in my review suggested how that link could be important for the novel (hence the two portraits of these two female super stars of the early Twentieth Century American movies.

My basic philosophy for reading is to read at least two books for each author, and as many as possible for any author I like, some of their best and some less successful. As a result, I do in fact also read a lot of trash, but as i have said elsewhere, the trash can sometimes be the foil to make the real gem glitter.

I am a bit behind reviewing books again, as real life, i.e. work, takes up the larger part of life, and most of my spare time goes into finalizing books for publication.

Yesterday, I celebrated the news that the Primary School English book project I am attached to has won approval of the Chinese Ministry of Education "beautifully" ending in the Top-3 of a bid by 28 publishers, and the MOE has given the green light and exempted the publisher from further submission of following textbooks in the series. (Ten years ago, while my high school textbook series won approval, two teams of authors preparing textbooks for Primary School English failed to get Ministerial approval, which was then considered a major shame for the publisher, which at that time was the market leader). The current publisher I am working with is a totally unknown player in this market.

At the same time, I am finalizing a textbook for Academic Writing which will go into print in July, to be used in the next academic year 2012-2013.

My "tragedy" as an author is that on LT I am the only person to list copies of my books (my Mum hasn't entered them on LT), while my books have sold in millions upon millions of copies, as my high school textbook was the last textbook series published and compulsary by decree of the MOE. It was 7 years in use nation-wide in China, and continues to be in use 15+ provinces. Back home, I often joke that I am the best sold author abroad.

Congratulations on the approval of your primary English series, Edwin.

How about offering an incentive for your students to enter their copies of your text books on LT? And one for your mum!

keep working edwin sounds like you are doing a grand job. Congratulations on your good news.

049. Ragtime
Finished reading: 5 April 2012



Traditionally, historical fiction places fictional characters and fictional events against a background of historical fact, or historical figures against a historical background embellished with fictional detail. Suspense is achieved by expectation and the enjoyment of what the reader already knows about history and the new elements introduced in the novel. E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime is quite different, in the sense that historical and fictional characters and events intermingle in a way which blurs the division between history and fiction.

Few readers will be fully aware of American history between 1906 and 1914, the historical period in which the novel is set, although this may be different for future readers, once this period is more closely studied and more history books appear about the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. Still, many historical characters in the novel are familiar, such as Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. They also help to anchor the story in time. Other, less well-known historical characters can be identified by the way they are described, such as Emma Goldman, and Evelyn Nesbit. The fictional characters, mostly having no name, merely indicated by Father / Tateh, Mother / Mameh, Mother's Younger Brother / Little Girl, makes them iconic or everyman characters.

With limited knowledge of the period, the reader is at the mercy of the author. Some events are likely and believable, such as Emma Goldman's lecture and the ensuing riot. However, other events are highly unlikely, and typical of postmodern fiction, such as the pornographic scene in which Mother's Younger Brother follows and peeps from a closet at Emma Goldman and Evelyn Nesbit's lesbian romp (p.54). The history of the third family, the African-Americans, is confusing because they have names, which pulls them into the realm of the "historical figures" while obviously their actions are fictitious.

While the non-academic reader has some urge, initially, to look up characters, -- now, in the age of Internet and Wikipedia so much easier than in 1975, when the novel was first published, the myriad of characters and events is so dense that one is coerced into giving up that urge and go with the flow of the novel, wondering about the likelihood of events. Reading in that mode, the novel's sweeping scale makes for a very enjoyable read.



Other books I have read by E.L. Doctorow:
The waterworks
Sweet land stories

Excellent review of Ragtime, Edwin. I am intrigued by your observations about knowledge of American history of that period. It will be interesting to explore that further.

#132 - I saw the movie as a kid, and have been curious ever since, but haven't picked up my copy yet. Intriguing review.

050. The moon is down
Finished reading: 6 April 2012



Readers and commentators make a lot noise about the didactic value of The moon is down, and apparently originally regretted that Steinbeck portrays the oppressors in the book as human rather than monstrous. It seems these commentators forget that literature often serves a didactic purpose, intentionally or unintentionally.

The moon is down tells the story how a village is conquered and occupied by a alien army force, which then puts the villagers to work to extract coal to support the needs of the occupying army. The story is wryly humourous. The oppressors are portrayed as civilised and orderly, but rigid and cruel when met with opposition. However, they are powerless against subtle resistance and refusal to be liked. As resentment among the oppressed rises, the populace is increasingly willing to run risks and extend its actions from passive resistance to active resistance, to repel the oppressor, and deal serious blow upon blow.

The didactic value of the novel lies in the fact that it shows how anyone can take part in passive resistance and which roads are open and possible to both passive and active resistance. Portraying the oppressor as human makes it possible to understand and see the possible weaknesses of that oppressor. An enemy who is perceived as superhuman, can not be understood, only feared. The novel convincingly shows which possibilities people have in a situation like that; to readers in Nazi occupied Europe, the parallels between their situation and the novel would be evident. As the overall tone of the novel is optimistic, it would be enjoyable to read, and instructive at the same time.

With hindsight, knowing or assuming the oppressor to be the Nazis, the novel is an interesting read that illustrates the situation of war-like occupation, as is known from many novels and history books, written after the war.



Other books I have read by John Steinbeck:
Burning bright
The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights
The wayward bus
The winter of our discontent

051. Up at the villa
Finished reading: 6 April 2012



What makes a beautiful woman odious, especially to a politician whose star is rising?

The events of the story, quite simple and a joy to read, are ideal to set the stage for chapter eight. That chapter belongs to the best I have ever read, in the sense that the conversation is entirely plausible.



Other books I have read by W.Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil

052. The Beacon
Finished reading: 10 April 2012



Susan Hill's novels are characterised by a lack of action, and rely heavily on suspense, the brooding sense of fear or anticipation of fear and thread. It has been suggested that the novels she wrote before her marriage in 1975 are better than subsequent work, with the exception of The Woman in Black, published in 1983.

It seems that in the early novels, the fear was stronger, while in the later novels the suspense is weaker or more subtle. When The Woman in Black was published in 1983, no work had been published for ten years, and the next novel, Air and Angels appeared in 1991.

I had hoped that The Beacon would recapture some of the strength of the early work, but was disappointed, again. The story is very simple, and the contrast between the entirely likeable character of May and the unlikeable character Frank is not particularly interesting. It happens.



Other books I have read by Susan Hill:
I'm the King of the Castle
The bird of night
The Woman in Black
Air and Angels

053. The children of Dynmouth
Finished reading: 12 April 2012



The children of Dynmouth by William Trevor was originally published in 1976. The atmosphere in the novel is brooding and spooky, and the reader's ideas about the main character, Timothy Gedge, slide from sympathy to disgust.

The setting is a small-sized British town, a community which, while there is still some traditional social cohesion, mainly provided by the church, is disintegrating, and in which the first indications of a rebellious youth culture are emerging. Features of that youth culture would be a lack of respect for the elder generation, though still largely covert, and the urge to take initiative, and experiment with in what ways and how far conventional borders can be crossed.

The character of Timothy is gradually revealed as highly manipulative. His insistence to deliberately irritate and terrorize people to get his way is frightening, and his "creative" ideas, seemingly innocent and funny at first, turn increasingly sinister.

While to most adults Timothy is mainly a major pain in the neck, in the imagination of the children of Dynmouth he is a veritable devil. To them the horror is real.

The children of Dynmouth was reissued by Penguin Books in the last quarter of 2011 in their series "Penguin Decades", as a novel representative of the 70s.



Other books I have read by William Trevor:
My house in Umbria

Intriguing reviews, Edwin -- trying to catch up with all the interesting reviewing going on.

Echoing Jane, enjoyed your reviews. Intrigued by the Trevor novel.

>140 dchaikin:

Yes, Dan, the novel by Trevor was an interesting one. I was also surprised that there were relatively few copies on LT (152), and no review had been written before.

I have picked up several volumes in the Decades series by Penguin Books, and had the impression that quite a few of them were more or less forgotten.

054. The abomination
Finished reading: 15 April 2012



Reading The abomination, the 500+ page debut novel of Paul Golding published in 2000, one wonders whether the title reflects on the content of the book, or on the book itself. This huge novel drags the reader into the life story of its main character, the young (James) Santiago Moore Zamora.

The book is divided into four parts, Parts One and Five cover Moore's contemporary life in London, Part Two describes his early youth, Part Three his time at Prep School, and Part Four his time at public school. Part 2 is about double the length of Part 1, and Part 4 is about double the length of Part 3. The middle three parts length is mainly determined by incredibly detailed descriptions.

Part 1 evokes a vivid description of the London gay scene in the 1980s in about fifty pages, which is continued in another fifty odd pages in Part 5. This part of the novel describes the apparently unfulfilled life of James Moore, his inability to build a lasting relationship with a gay partner, and his substitute affection, and love for a rent boy.

Part 2 describes his early youth; this part is quite boring; The slow-paced Part 3 is dominated by the development of a homoerotic relation between James, aged nine, and one of the teachers, Mr Wolfe. This pedophile relation is exposed and means returning trouble to Mr Wolfe, and James as he moves on to public school. The overall impression is that James liked Mr Wolfe's attention and the sexual relationship.

This is in stark contrast with James' experiences at public school, where he is raped and forced into a repeated, involuntary sexual relationship with Dr Fox. James disgust is reflected in the utterly disgusting way the sexual acts are described, from explicit details to Dr Fox' lack of hygiene, and James subsequent gagging. In both Part 3 and 4, James is plagued by fear of discovery, and toward the end of Part 4 he becomes the victim of blackmail.

Part 4 is quite uneventful; the most remarkable seems the fact that James relation with Dr Fox develops from disgust to a kind of Platonic friendship, in which Dr Fox takes James out to fine dining restaurants, showering money. Clearly, out of the demise of the blackmail scam, adolescent James emerges with an air that sex and money are intricately linked, and Dr Fox takes him out to expensive restaurants, see and be seen, although little attention is paid to this aspect.

From references to popular culture and history (e.g. Spain under Franco, or the film Death in Venice), and by deduction, the reader can establish that James was born in the late 1950s, went through school in the 1960s and 1970s, and emerged on the gay scene in London in the early 80s.

It has been suggested, and the structure of the book surely contributes to that, that the novel poses that James' school experiences form the basis and cause for his unfulfilled adult life. However, throughout the novel, apart from the initial violence and smelliness of Dr Fox, James seems to enjoy his school boy experiences. There is never a particular hint that young James either regrets his youth or his adult life, with any serious doubt. On the contrary, the novel seems to suggest that his coming of age, if not typical, is not entirely unexpected either.

The abomination of the title is not felt by James; and in as far as the reader feels abominated, it seems less with the content of the novel, than its form. The novel would be a whole lot more readable, if it had been 200 - 300 pages shorter; the enormously detailed descriptions are numbing; however, the novel is obviously very well-written, and despite the baroque style, the beauty of the language is quite compelling to keep on reading. Some details are absolutely gorgeous, such as James seeing "nest of swollen up, dead house mice" in a pile of tea bags in the headmaster's litter box.



Other books I have read by Paul Golding:
Senseless

Intriguing reviews as always edwin. The Moon is Down and Ragtime look particularly interesting. They are both sitting on my book shelf. I will get to them one day.

055. A year with C. S. Lewis. 365 daily readings from his classic works
Finished reading: 16 April 2012



C. S. Lewis'book A year with C. S. Lewis. 365 daily readings from his classic works is edited as a devotional calendar. For everyday of the year, in chronological order from January 1 through December 31, the book consists of excerpts from a number of C.S. Lewis' philosophical and spiritual books. Philosophical and spiritual means Christian, in this context. The excerpts are taken from The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, A Grief Observed, Mere Christianity, Miracles, The Problem of pain, The Screwtape Letters, and The Weight of Glory. From each of these works, short readings are chosen for every day of the year. There is no discernible logic to the selection and spread over the year. However, while on most devotional calendars selections for a day are "stand-alone" pieces, presenting a selections of disconnected pieces every day, this book by Lewis cannot be read in that way, because some days would have to be read consecutively, as entries could otherwise not be understood. There are many such short series, which require quite concentrated reading, and since the book consists of rather philosophical texts, a day-by-day reading is rather disruptive (although I suppose Christians are quite used to that kind of reading mode). Rather superfluous seem the sparse, ultra-short and factual notes on some pages, referring to facts and events in C.S. Lewis' life.

From a reading of this book, C.S. Lewis appears as a deeply, and dogmatically religious person. The aim of the book is quite clearly to convert readers to Christianity. References to God or Jesus appear in multiplicity in almost every paragraph, telling readers how misguided they are when they do not believe. The main theme in all excerpts is the proof of the existence of God. In this book, Lewis is dogmatic and uninspiring.

What a horror to include this book in the Library of the International Space Station .



Other books I have read by C.S. Lewis:
Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics

A good warning. The title and cover don't imply religious aspects. And, while C S Lewis's Catholicism was important, it was hardly the only thing about of interest.

#144

Oh, that's... grotesquely hilarious. Among other things. Thanks for bringing that account to (my) notice. I expect the catalogue is not complete, but it looks heavy on absolute rubbish. And all-English rubbish too, apparently, except for the lone English-Russian dictionary.

One can only hope the crew of the ISS has no time for reading!

056. Wide open
Finished reading: 17 April 2012



While in the genre of magical realism reality is magnified or distorted, surrealism presents the reader with a larger than life, absurd panorama. Superficially, the plot of the novel is very simple, although it is told in a hilarious manner. Throughout the book, the story is larded with clues that reveal the chute, however, in first time reading, these clues are hard to read for their real value. A second time reading highlights these clues, and shows how the reader could have known about the highly peculiar main character from the very beginning. What seems hidden is actually out, in the open all the time. The main idea appears enclosed in the story, but it is actually very clearly there, wide open.

Nicola Barker often presents very ordinary, socially lowly positioned characters in her books. In her debut novel Small Holdings that was a gardener in a project for the unemployed, in Wide open one of the characters, Ronny, has a similar position, although weeding is replaced here by spraying toxic herbicides, while his brother, Nathan, leads a leeway life in a lost-and-found department.

The novel presents a number of themes and motives, such as the contrast between the city and the country, and almost parallel to that, the contrast between life and death. Perception, looking at things, is important throughout, such as regarding the question whether Luke is an artistic photographer or creates pornography. This focus on perception also compels the reader to perceptiveness, and keep an eye open, wide open, for details. For example, by looking at shoes -- sandals or shoes (p.71).

Another important theme in the novel is identity. When Ronny meets Jim, at the beginning of the novel, this meeting seems entirely coincidental. However, the reader soon discovers that this meeting is not a matter of chance, but apparently very intentional. In fact, Jim enters Ronny's life with great deliberation, and his actions are aimed at assuming Ronny's identity, to which he first appropriates some of his possessions and then his name. There is a quite clever, but rather transparent ruse, about Jim's origin. Where does he come from?

A very important clue, literally, is contained in a box, which belongs to Jim. The characters in the novel do not know what is in the box, but this fact is slipped to the reader on pp. 108-110. An exhibit in a glass case. What is in it is very important to Jim. He wants to protect it from exposure, because, as he says, “I saw myself in him.” (p.110). However, to the other characters the box is just there, “just another part of the furniture” (…) It was right there, wasn’t it? Margery had brushed up against it several times and had even gone and laddered her stocking on a protruding staple. Yes. So she had been fully aware of its sudden materialization, surely?
Surely. Yet Margery didn’t think to enquire about the box. She simply let it ride. There are no secrets here, Nathan thought, righteously. No secrets. It just fitted. The box.
And inside? Inside? (p.110)

Margery is Nathan’s wife. She is a naturalist, who explored the inlands of a faraway country and its tropical forests for years, sure to be on the track on a great discovery, a great unknown animal, a great pale ape, which is characterized by a distinctive physical feature, particularly on its feet. She believes it to be hidden in a cave, a pitch-dark cave. Most of the time she seems to be groping in the dark. She also wants to protect her creature from hunters who want to destroy the cave and kill it.

Wide open is characterized by Nicola Barker’s typical style. The story is racy, and hilarious, with a lot of humour, including a trademark scene in which Sara rocks herself to an orgasm (chapter 15). Still, this type of humour works very well in short stories, but in a full-length novel it becomes very tiresome after a while. A distinctive feature of Barker’s work is to shock the reader; In Wide open the element of the paedophile father seems a bit obsolete. There is no clear function, other than to add to the ridicule, and shocking effect of the book.



Other books I have read by Nicola Barker:
Small holdings
Love your enemies

>145 dchaikin:

Speaking of the cover: it is indeed a blurry image of a garden chair, seen from the perspective of lying on the lawn.

Slipped, dropped and broke my glasses, is what it tells you.

I really hated reading that book, being much more on the side of Dawkins The God Delusion. However, C.S. Lewis was the monthly author choice of the same-named group, and I thought I would be able to appreciate it somewhat open-minded.

I also read The Problem of Pain, which I will review later this week.

>146 LolaWalser:

That catalogue must be incomplete. There must be books in other languages, for example. it seems they have quite some pulp fiction to read off-duty up there. And what about Around The World In Eighty Days?

I've added Wide Open to my list of books to keep an eye out for.

Hi Alison,

If you've never read anything by Nicola Barker you will find her work refreshing. It is really unlike anything else. For Wide Open you can also read avaland's excellent review. The long quotation in her review is another example of a clue which readers will at first miss, but which after reading the book is so telling. In fact, the novel is chock-a-block with such clues.

I also tremendously enjoyed Love Your Enemies, which is a short stories collection by Barker. She unashamedly writes about women's sexuality, that made me love out loud (I am not particularly extrovert, and I was reading in a cafe, so other people looked at me, meaningfully...)

Great link to the international space station. I won't need to worry as I will not be working there and anyway I have read all the Asimov. Intriguing review of the Nicola Barker book.

I have read a few of C S Lewis's books on medieval literature and there is little evidence of his catholic faith in them. I have steered well clear of his more religious books.

Nice review of Wide Open, Edwin. I have three of her books, Darkmans, Behindlings and Burley Cross Postbox Theft, but I haven't read any of them yet. I'll probably read Darkmans this summer, though.

Hi Darryl, thanks for dropping bye. I still have Darkmans, Behindlings and Clear on my TBR. I may have a try at another, this year.

057. Hadley
Finished reading: 18 April 2012



For about 155 years, Hong Kong was a crown colony in the British Empire, until it was returned to China in 1997, now 15 years ago. The promise is that the legacy of colonial rule in Hong Kong has a 50-years death bed, no major changes are expected before 2047.

Hong Kong as an English-speaking metropolis in Southeast Asia is important to all (English-speaking) foreigners in the region, from Beijing and the Greater China region, to Bangkok and beyond. This broad geographical area, despite the fact that there are relatively few foreigners resident in it, has nonetheless proved to be a fertile ground for literature, and Hong Kong has brought forth several publishing houses and authors, of which Timothy Mo and Christopher New are perhaps the most well-known. But even in since the handover, Hong Kong has remained important, and new authors emerge on the literary scene there, such as Jonathan Chamberlain and, more recently, Nick Macfie.

Nick Macfie has lived in Asia for more than 30 years. From the late 1980s, he worked in Hong Kong as a journalistic writer and editor for 14 years, followed by a stint in Beijing for six years, before moving to Singapore in 2009. Hadley published in 2010 is his first novel.

The plot of Hadley is rather unlikely, although the author told Time Out Hong Kong that living in Asia brings about the kind of serendipitous events that shape the story. The main character in the novel is a journalist, called Hadley Arnold. One day, Arnold spots "a man with a pony tail" whom he is sure to have seen before. It turns out that he written about a film this American director, Joe, made in England, several decades earlier. Beside his work as an editor, Hadley dabbles a bit in the film business, where he acts dubious minor roles. It is in this scene where he witnesses how a Chinese man draws a pistol on the famous British actor Chris Torment who is at that time visiting Hong Kong, and who will be cast to act as the new James Bond in the next 007 film.

It turns out that the attempted assassination is politically motivated, and the following day Hadley flies to Sri Lanka to further investigate the political faction which goes by the name The Democratic Association for the Liberation of Jaffna Chinese (DALJC), "a left-wing youth group based on the war-torn island of Macho."

Joe's presence in Hong Kong is no coincidence. His aim is to employ Hadley in preventing Chris Torment from becoming the next James Bond. The subsequent adventure in which Hadley gets involved in Sri Lanka bears all the characteristics of a 007 adventure.

For its unlikely plot, Hadley is a well-written novel, particularly strong in the dialogues. Clever about the plot is that it provides the vehicle for a thorough contemplation on the British identity. The James Bond saga is perhaps one of the last, and relatively modern representations of the British colonial influence, which, like the glory of Hong Kong, is waning.

Hadley is praised for its humour. I was not very charmed by the beef bayonet, which the author enjoys so much to include it twice, and the bond market and the hedging tool, Like a Black & Decker? are perhaps the kind of drunk expat jokes you get in the Far East. On the other hand, the more subtle humour about Britishness is priceless.

The novel is a must read for aficionados of the James Bond series. Readers familiar with the city of Hong Kong will immediately feel at home in the pages of Hadley. The local scene of Hong Kong, with the Star Ferry, Tsim Tsa Shui, Cheung Chau and many other features calls the familiar landscape of Hong Kong to mind, and for people who lived there in the last decade of the twentieth century, there are other familiar places, such as bars and clubs. In a way, Hong Kong is not only a setting, but almost as much a character in the novel.

I'm catching up on your excellent reviews and have moved William Trevor and Nicola Barker up the priority list.

058. The Virgin of the Seven Daggers. Excursions into fantasy
Finished reading: 20 April 2012



The British Victorian author Violet Paget (1856–1935) was considered an authority on Italian Renaissance art and aesthetics, along with Walter Pater and John Addington Symonds. She was born in France to English parents, and spent most of her life in Italy, living in Florence for many years. Using the pseudonym Vernon Lee, she published a number of works on aesthetics, such as Euphorion: Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the Renaissance and Renaissance Fancies And Studies Being A Sequel To Euphorion.

Beside this body of non-fiction and essays on art and travel, she published several novellas and short story collections of ghost stories and supernatural fiction. The Virgin of the Seven Daggers. Excursions into fantasy, published by Penguin Books in 2011 is a representative selection from her fiction.

The first in the collection is Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady, which originally appeared in 1895. This is a rather long (60 pp.) brooding story about a young prince who becomes obsessed by a mermaid or snake-like woman featured on a tapestry in his room. His obsession eventually drives him insane. Most stories are set in Italy and feature ghosts or out-of-body experiences. The last story in the collection, The Virgin of the Seven Daggers is set in Spain.

Most stories have a slow start, and do not really become interesting until in the final pages. However, the twist at the end is in most cases surprising and original, though not very frightening. The scene of most of the stories is very Italianate. Descriptions are very elaborate, and some turns of the authorial voice in the stories seemed to suggest that the stories were written to be read aloud to the family. Perhaps, these stories could best be enjoyed as an audio-book.

Your review are always interesting, Edwin, even if these are two books I normally would not read.

Interesting information about Vernon Lee. I don't think I will read her ghost stories bu I am tempted with her books on the renaissance. I note they are available for free at the Gutenberg Project site and so I will dip into them.

Yes, Barry, I was particularly thinking of your reading program.

059. The driver's seat
Finished reading: 26 April 2012



The driver's seat is a short novel about a ludicrous woman, perceived by most people as "garish" who is frantically looking for her murderer. To be murdered is not so much her fate, she is creating that situation to happen, shaping her own destiny.

If not a comment on predestination, as the lousy introduction to the Penguin Classics editions, by John Lancaster, suggests, then perhaps, more likely it is the world turned upside down, where the female victim takes the initiative to the murder in the role of the agent, and the male perpetrator appears to be the victim of the situation. The novel also strongly urges the reader to think about Lise's role and behaviour and that incredibly male chauvinistic comment that "she asked for it." Not just the murder, but all her trouble, and the various men who want to have sex with her.

All of the action takes place within barely 24 hours. While tragic and shocking, the book is also hilarious. However unreal, Lise appears real enough to me, albeit perhaps a bit exaggerated. There is some suggestion that she is not in her normal do, and that she has had this problem before: at her work it is concluded that she needs another holiday. Her infliction is not exactly described, but likely a depression, or similar debilitating condition. But rather than gloom, the world turned upside down, her condition is expressed in the brightest colours, the most garish and illogical behaviour. It is as if her life is switched into top-gear, and the intense vigour and over-drive make it catching. A great book.



Other books I have read by Muriel Spark:
The prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The abbess of Crewe
The takeover
Territorial rights
The girls of slender means
Curriculum Vitae. Autobiography

060. The letters
Finished reading: 27 April 2012



Letter writing is practically dead, so an epistolary novel based on a (fictional) correspondence between the two main characters requires explanation, to which the author concedes on page 2:

It's been years back--to our courtship really--since I wrote you a letter. And I am beyond email, or any electronic communication. Even to call would take a satellite phone, and I suspect we should stand by our decision to take a break for a while to sort out what our marriage means or how it should end. Letters seem like a more reasoned way to communicate. (p.2)

In the time line of the novel, that would have been the early 1980s. It is an interesting, and complicating choice. While the authors of the novel, Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger, are of an age and generation, which is likely to have written many letters, half of their readership will not, perhaps never have written a letter in long-hand.

Many (older) people will agree that letter writing is more intimate. The characters in the novel, or at least Sam, need that kind of quiet intimacy. Apart from the fact that letters are the only real option open to him, as he is on a mush to the plane wreck in a remote location in Alaska. Sam and Hadley live separately, after their marriage had stranded a short while before, but divorce proceedings have not yet started. Three years earlier, they lost their son in that plane crash.

Nostalgia is an important motive in this novel. Particularly Sam is shown to cling to the past, not just in his choice for the letter as a medium of communication, but also, for example, the choice of mushing as a mode of transport, rather than a snowmobile, and more general the way he hopes to bring Hadley back, which may be as hopeless as his pilgrimage to the site of his son's death.

While letters may be the most suitable medium, Sam's letters seem to become too intimate, rather too soon. After only a few exchanges, his letters become almost erotic, which is possible, but not entirely logical in the context of the novel.

Letter writing itself is a important aspect of the story, and is explored in all its facets, ranging from express mail to misdirected letters, and Hadley straining her wrist and so having difficulty to write. A bit far-fetched, it seems, but perhaps a secret nostalgia of the authors for the art of letter writing?

Thanks for the review of The Driver's Seat, Edwin. Even a mediocre Muriel Spark is worth reading, and it sounds as though this is a good one. Adding it to my list.

It seems The Driver's Seat is unknown for no particularly good reason. I liked it more than some of her other novels. In its unreality, it feels very real. I think it is entirely justified that Penguin includes it in the Modern Classics series. It is very 1960-70s.

I used to be a great fan on Muriel Spark, but hadn't read anything of her since I last read Curriculum Vitae in 1995. I read The Driver's Seat for the Virago Modern Classics Group Muriel Spark Reading Week (23-29 April).

The driver's seat was a great way to get back to this author. I should try to delve up that unread copy of Symposium, which according to LT I should have somewhere.

Great review of The Driver's Seat, Edwin. I have not read anything by Muriel Spark and this seems like a good place to start.

061. The problem of pain
Finished reading: 29 April 2012



The problem of pain is C.S. Lewis first book about Christianity. Many readers are disappointed that the book is not about "pain," as they might be looking for solace. In C.S. Lewis' book pain is a problem, because it seemingly denies the existence of God.

In The problem of pain Lewis is still a hesitant apologist. His main thesis is born out of a negation. In the first chapter he refers to the time he was an atheist as "not many years ago" (which was in fact nearly a decade), posing that if anyone had asked him then why he were not a Christian, his answer would refer to the coldness and suffering in the world. Had God designed the world, it would not be a world so frail and faulty as we see. (Lucretius in On the Nature of Things

C.S. Lewis had been an atheist since his early teenage years. The foundation for his atheism seems rather weak. After a Christian upbringing he "abandoned" the faith for Nordic mythology and the occult. It seems Lewis built a personal cult around his professed atheism, which was more like a cloak, a screen behind which he made up his mind about the existence of God.

Although Lewis remained an atheist until at least 1929, when he embraced theism, before his Christian conversion in 1931. The problem of pain seems born out of his youthful "{anger} with God for not existing" and the horrors Lewis had witnessed during the trench war of the Great War in France. His poetry of that period Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics seems to carry the seeds of a return to Christianity, with its focus on evil, pain and suffering.

A peculiar aspect of the publication history is that Lewis originally hoped to publish The problem of pain as shame and inexperience (as a layman) made him want to hide in anonymity. It hints at a certain uncertainty and discomfort at making bold statements, which he however not shuns, and which make this and later books so unpalatable to readers. Unlike many of his later works, which are outspoken apologetic, The problem of pain is written as a theodicy, an attempt at reconciliation.

Superficially, The problem of pain seems a very readable book. At a glance, many sentences are captivating and invite to further reading. However, as in other, later works, Lewis has a very dogmatic style, which leaves the reader no space to make up their own mind. There is no residual trace of doubt in Lewis' mind, but denying readers to retrace their own steps, makes his books unreadable, to all those readers who are less convinced.

Lewis' Christian works are likely enjoyable to Christian readers. But what is the point of writing apologetic works for your own congregation?



Other books I have read by C.S. Lewis:
Spirits in bondage. A cycle of lyrics
A year with C. S. Lewis. 365 daily readings from his classic works

062. Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie
Finished reading: 30 April 2012



Ian Kershaw, author of the monumental two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, is a British historian who is widely regarded as a leading authority on Nazi Germany. Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie is a short publication, focusing on the various attempts to murder Adolf Hitler.

Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie consists of two parts, the historical description of the facts and events, and a set of 13 primary source documents related to the events. The historical description is identical to Chapter 14, "Luck of the Devil" (pp. 655-684) and Chapter 15, "No Way Out", Sections I and II, (pp. 687-705), and are taken from the second volume of Kershaw's Hitler biography, Hitler, 1936-1945. Nemesis. However, the photos added to Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie are different from the photos in the biography, related to the same event.

The documents, except the fourth, are all taken from the fifth edition of Germans against Hitler, July 20, 1944, with some amendments of the translation. These documents consist of a witness account of the assassination attempt on March 13, 1943, plans and timetables drawn up by the conspirators, the SS report on the conspiracy, Hitler's speech afterward, extracts from the trials, a gruesome description of the executions, and preserved farewell letters from two of the conspirators. The fourth, added document contains amended plans for the murder attempt.

While the historical description of the murder attempt by Von Stauffenberg are described at unprecedented detail and set in a wider context of a conspiracy, the drawbacks of creating a book by lifting chapters from an existing book are evident. Despite the amount of detail, the text is clearly not a biography of Von Stauffenberg. Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie is not a monograph of the murder attempt, and in that aspect remains wanting.

Nonetheless, the publication shows that throughout the war, there was a basis for resistance to Hitler, and that the German General's allegiance to Adolf Hitler rested more on loyalty to institutions than on sympathy with the person of Adolf Hitler or his ideas. Far more, the book suggests that the military code of honour prevented the military from taking action against Adolf Hitler.

The historical documents, reissued in this edition, and not included in the biography, give the reader a taste of primary source authenticity, and being in touch with history. The description of the executions makes Hitler's vengeance palpable. Still, it is remarkable that out of the chaos, documents of planning, proceedings, trials and personal documents, such as the farewell letters of the captured conspirators have survived.

Most interesting among the documents are the Kreisau Circle's "Principles for the New Order in Germany", drawn up in August 1943, and Carl Goerdeler's Peace Plan of late summer to early autumn 1943. These documents show an early awareness of necessary action and plans for the next stage for Germany, after the end of the Third Reich. In effect, Carl Goerdeler's Peace Plan is nothing short of a blue print for the European Union.

To sum up, it seems Luck of the devil. The story of Operation Valkyrie would be a very thorough short exposition of the murder attempts on Hitler, for prospective readers who will not read Ian Kershaw's monumental 2-vols. biography, either because they have read other biographies or historiographies of the period, or are not that deeply interested in Adolf Hitler. On the other hand, readers with a deep interest in the period and events may find the additional photographs and documents a valuable addition to their library.

063. Another part of the wood
Finished reading: 2 May 2012



Beryl Bainbridge writes in an inaccessible style, with a lot of dialogue and very little description. That is why it is difficult to get a grip on the story, which only develops through the interactions of the characters. Only late into the story, as the reader becomes more acquainted with the main characters, we may get glimpses of what Bainbridge may have intended to share.

In the autumn of 2011, Penguin Books reissued Another part of the wood in their Penguin Decades series, as a novel representative of the 1960s.

The title obviously refers to Shakespeare, where magic usually happens in the wood. Throughout the 60s and 70s novelists set stories to take place in (artists') communities in forests, as an ideal setting away from ordinary life, a place where a transformation might take place. In that sense, the forest retreat is often the time or place where something unusual might happen.

Not so in Bainbridge's Another part of the wood. The families spending their time in this holiday camp, are very ordinary people, who carry their ordinary lives with them. There is no magic, and no happenings. They have taken with them, and play the same games as at home, with the same quibbles and irritations. Playing Monopoly does not bring out the best in them, and in their selfish concentration they lose eye for what is around them. The death, at the end of the story, is the result of this neglect.



Other books I have read by Beryl Bainbridge:
Sweet William
Master Georgie
English journey, or The road to Milton Keynes

064. Rogue Herries
Finished reading: 2 May 2012



Rogue Herries, the first volume of a four-volume chronicle, describing a family saga from the early 18th till the early 20th century, is a novel painted on a large canvas. The main character of volume one is Francis Herris, nicknamed "Rogue Herries" because of his capricious and cruel nature. He is not as dark as Heathcliff, but at least as wild. The book starts with Herries and his family moving to the rugged landscape of the Lake District, where they move into a house in Borrowdale. The household consist of Francis Herries, his first wife Margaret, his two children, David and Deborah, and his house-keeper and mistress Alice Press, and valet Benjamin. Bringing The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy to mind, Herries sells Alice at a fair, after she has insulted his wife Margaret. But despite his rugged nature, Francis has a kind heart. This, however, rarely shows, and because of his wild behaviour Herries is misunderstood and feared by the villagers. For example, one day he witnesses a witch trial. He retrieves the body of the old village woman and buries her on his estate, which convinces the villagers that Herries has a pact with the devil, or is a devil himself. However, on another day he gives his cape to a beggar woman, and an amulet to her child on the road. This chance meeting and act of kindness determines the whole further development of the story and shapes Herries destiny.

Years later, he sees the mother and her daughter again at a Christmas party in a barn. The daughter has grown up, and Herries is struck by her flaming red hair. However, they disappear in the wink of an eye. The next time he sees her, another few years later, is during the Jacobite rising of 1745. In a tavern, Herries observes her in the company of her lover. Incidentally, Herries finds himself in the battle side-by-side with Mirabell's lover and witnesses his death.

Francis Herries has by now realized that he is in love with this young girl, who is at least 30 years younger than he is. After the skirmishes are over, he roams the countryside to look for Mirabell, and eventually finds her in a very decrepit state living in a cave. He proposes to her, but she rejects him. He then pledges to wait for her until she comes to him.

Many years later, she turns up on his door step, and they marry. However, Mirabell cannot bring herself to say she loves Herries, and this leads to a growing tension, with a climax of Mirabell fleeing from Herries. For years, he keeps looking for her, all over the country, until one day he finds her again, by chance. She is an actress in a traveling troupe. She breaks her promise to meet him after the performance. Yet years later, Mirabell returns to him, and by now, out of her own volition, says she has come to love Herries, just as Francis had always hoped it would be. He had to wait all his life for it.

Along the main story, David Herries grows up, meets his wife Sarah, whom he abducts from the home of her uncle, and marries. He sets op in a modern estate not far from Herries. Deborah, falling short of becoming an old spinster, eventually marries a parson.

The weakest point of the novel seemed the opening chapter, but soon after that it developed into a very gripping, fascinating story. There are beautiful, detailed descriptions of the natural scene in the Lake District, the old life-style of village life in Olde England, and exquisite descriptions of detail, light etc.

Along the main story, a large number of side characters are introduced, family members of Herries who play a role in this and following volumes. Some other characters have familiar sounding names for people with some knowledge of British history, e.g. Peel, but only vague suggestions are made to the role of these characters in, supposedly, subsequent volumes.

Hugh Walpole is a now largely forgotten English novelist, born in Auckland, New Zealand, who was a best-selling author during the first three decades of the twentieth century. The Herries chronicle in four volumes was reissued by the London publisher Frances Lincoln in 2008.

His work certainly deserves wider readership.

Great review of Rogue Herries, Edwin. I notice that there are free Kindle versions of several of his other works. Thanks to your review, I think I will give Walpole a try.

Interesting review of the Walpole -- I had heard his name, but I've never read anything by him. I'll certainly consider picking this one up.

I've downloaded the four books in the Herries series from Gutenberg Australia.

http://gutenberg.net.au/

Edwin, perhaps you should not read any more books by C S Lewis, especially those about his Christianity as they seem to annoy you.

Interesting stuff about the attempted Hitler assassination. I will one day get around to reading the Ian kershaw biography

Excellent review of Rogue Herries. Hugh Walpole is an author that I have not considered reading but your review might change my mind.

>172 baswood:

That's for sure. The problem is that I am such an impulsive buyer. C S Lewis was the author of the month in the Monthly Author Reads Group. I had voted for this author myself. I had hoped to finish reading The Allegory of Love, and did not know much else about this author.

Then, I bought the two books about Christianity, when I saw them in the bookstore, on impulse. And you are right, they annoy me incredibly.

Worst of all, I still haven't finished reading The Allegory of Love.

Enjoyed your latest reviews. I'll try to remember your comments on Muriel Spark, who I haven't read. Good luck with C. S. Lewis. For what it's worth, the reviews are interesting.

Personally, I find Lewis to be a much better medievalist than Christian apologist (but then I'm an atheist/pantheist) -- I do like his medieval literary criticism.

065. Live girls
Finished reading: 3 May 2012



Live girls by the American author Beth Nugent is impressive in that pulls the reader into a very depressive world, which is hard to forget, long after finishing the novel. For the first part of the story, the action is centered in the film theatre, the cinema Dave owns. Catherine works there selling tickets. The scene is permeated by alienation. The characters are deeply entrenched in their own misery, which is their reality. They cannot see what their world is like, and therefore they cannot break free from it.

The characters' inability to see outside the box is best illustrated by their concerns over the popcorn vending machine. Popcorn is strongly associated with watching movies, but not in a porn cinema. While Catherine still believes she is there to sell tickets, the casual remark that no tickets were sold in the afternoons before she started working there suggests that her real function is quite different. Another denial of her existence is that Dave always calls her Karen, rather than Catherine.

The ticket vending booth is consistently referred to as the "bubble". Catherine lives and works in this bubble, which stands for nothing less than her depressed state of mind. Catherine has all the characteristics of a manic depression. She is a college graduate, but works in this seedy porn cinema for a guy who has murdered hid wife. Her thoughts are dominated by memories of her dead sister. She lives in a gruesome tenement building, and has no friends or social attachments other than a anorexic, drug addict and transvestite hustler, called Jerome.

Dave's decision to try to improve the business by bringing in "live girls" subconsciously triggers Catherine to escape from this misery. She takes Jerome with her in her car, and while their initial plan is to drive to Hollywood, the reality of harsh winter weather they would not withstand, compels them to drive south towards Florida.

The journey shows Catherine ever more vulnerable by the contrast between her and Jerome, and other people they meet. Removed from the relative safety of her bubble her sister's pull on her becomes stronger, a pull towards death. The book ends with a sense of some terrible impending danger, near at hand.

066. Home for the day
Finished reading: 8 May 2012



In contemporary literature, telling a story in chronological order is simply not done. A story cannot be told without flash-backs, otherwise the story might actually be frightfully straightforward, or just too obvious. Home for the Day by the American author Anderson Ferrell, starts with a startling episode, situated in the present, or perhaps the recent past. The episode is a little bit puzzling, because nowhere in the book does it become clear why the father acts the way he does. Is it because the son is gay, or because he "wanted" to bury his deceased lover in the family burial plot? The order of the subsequent episode is more or less as follows: Clean-up of the burial plot; Meets his lover; Growing up gay; Story of the parents; Lover dies; Childhood; Burial of the lover.

The transitions between the episodes and not very clear, and the meaning of some episodes is vague, especially the story of the parents and the childhood; these episodes are only sideways related to the main story, the first episode, apparently exploring the theme of love, and the childhood episode exploring the theme of death.

Parts of the novel, particularly at the beginning, and very beautifully written, with a great amount of detail for the natural world, and very good dialogue. The description of growing up gay is original, and somewhat erotic.

But there are also episodes whether the reader loses track. There are three of four pivotal moments in the novel, but they seem a bit hard, while not reaching the optimal effect, seemingly because the introduction of these moments is too abrupt, and the story does not lead up to those moments (because of the botched structure). Thus, cause of the conflict in the first episode is not clear, the significance of the witnessed murder isn't clear, the death of the lover is not moving, and the digging scene at the end (not looking for worms), is too abrupt. The childhood story, the digging scene and the end of the novel are contrived and neither dramatic nor moving.

The novel has a number of strong moments, but unfortunately also a number of weak moments. Compare, for instance this example. After a paragraph built around the main character's wishes ("What I wish" is used in three sentences in a 4-sentence paragraph), the next paragraph continues:

But it is my daddy himself who has always said that I want things the way I want them. It is my daddy who used to tell me to want in one hand and to spit in the other one and see which hand gets full first. It was also my daddy who said that I usually get things just the way I want them. (p.4)

The weakness, of course, lies in the substitution of the word "want" for "wish", and "spit" for "*".

The unnaturalness is emphasized by the fact that some remarkable details are included, while other remarkable details are left out. For instance, it is not clear what the lover, Pete, dies of. While the cause of death may not seem essential, leaving it out from a story that is roughly set between 1977 (1979) to 1996, is a bit strange. The effect is that the reader cannot identify as strongly with the characters.

However, there are enough strong moments to give the novel a sense of authenticity, which makes it, despite its flaws, a worthwhile read.

Interesting reviews of two books and authors I'd never heard of. I'm putting Live Girls on the wishlist.

>178 StevenTX:

Live Girls received quite some critical attention, and many reviews are available on websites of large American newspapers. Critics are somewhat divided over the merits of the novel.

Beth Nugent published only two works, City of Boys in (1993), a collection of short stories, and Live Girls (1996). I have not been able to find any biographical information on the author. She may no longer be active as a novelist. However, I believe there is a Kindle-version of Live Girls, so her work is still available.

067. Tree of heaven
Finished reading: 9 May 2012



There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

In Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn the tree of heaven stands for the ability to thrive in a difficult environment. At the heart of R.C. Binstock's third novel, Tree of heaven, we find an unlikely love affair and the struggle for its survival.

Tree of heaven tells the kind of story of humanity among atrocities. Quite a few stories and novels have acted on this theme of the good Nazi who shows benevolence and cares for or even develops a love affair with a war victim, a bit along the lines of Captain Corelli's Mandolin .

In Tree of heaven Kuroda, a well-educated captain in the Japanese army, is disgusted by the atrocities of the Japanese soldiers raping and murdering Chinese women. When his superior officer decides to move on, leaving Kuroda in charge, Kuroda decides to protect one woman. Under the pretense of making her his house-keeper, he picks up Ms Li, whose family has been murdered by Japanese soldiers. An unlikely love affair develops, which can only exist as long as Kuroda lives. With his death, at the end of the novel, the protective shield is shattered and Ms Li belatedly falls victim to the rapists.

While contemporary literary criticism takes the stance that the author's assumed intentions are irrelevant, the story does send a message, which can be examined critically. Hardly any biographical information is available on the author. It is therefore difficult to assess whether the author while writing the novel was inspired by an authentic source, connected to either the Chinese or the Japanese point of view. Or is this novel just the result of the author's imaginative creativity? In the author's note on the last page, the author thanks various people with Chinese names (but no people with Japanese names), which may suggest a biographical connection to the theme of the novel, or simply a consultation on facts.

The novel is highly ambiguous and seemingly naive. Tree of heaven is set in war-torn Anhui Province, China, a scene known from The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. In critical discourse about the war and atrocities committed by the Japanese, viz. Wartime Shanghai by Wen-hsin Yeh it has been suggested that Tree of heaven could be seen as a novelistic attempt to develop nuance in an otherwise complete black-and-white view of the war era in China. I would endorse that view if Tree of heaven were a primary source, written by a Chinese or Japanese author, or inspired by an authentic source, but not if it were a story written by a naive author in search for an original take on a story less well known.

Apart from the historical context, the story cannot be read as a simple love story, which the reference to the title of Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn suggests. A further suggestion that Li loves Kuroda is that he impregnates her. Earlier in the novel it was stated that Li had been abandoned by her Chinese husband because she was barren. Nonetheless, Kuroda is able to sire a child with her.

A war time relationship, especially where the weak partner has so much to gain from a bond with the stronger partner, obviously cannot be regarded as a simple romance. The motives of the Japanese soldier, to pick up the weakest, dirtiest possibly most bereaved woman are merely a cultured variation of the same lust of appropriation. The woman could not truly love her captor, although that is just what the novel suggests. On top of all of the most unlikely circumstances, Li can speak Japanese, which forms the basis for the relationship.

The end of the novel shows most clearly how contrived the story really is. After Kuroda's death, Li is raped by the soldiers Kuroda had all the time been protecting her.

They were afraid to fuck me at first. He was dead but still they felt small traces of respect, duty. They beat me with great joy but were afraid to go further. Finally I tore my tunic open and then they did the rest. (...) The pain was great but then it ebbed and were almost organized, even efficient in the way they took their turns, and I found that I could bear it. (p.211)

As they marched off down the road I lay there on my back for a few seconds, one hand on my crotch wet with blood, the other covering my swollen left eye (...) (p.212)

The author should know how contrived and unlikely this end is. The second epigraph of the book reads:

We played with the daughter as we would with a harlot. As the parents kept insisting that their daughter should be returned to them, we killed the mother and father. We then played with the daughter again as before, until our unit marched on, when we killed her. --Japanese soldier in China, Letter home

R.C. Binstock is the author of three novels "The Light of Home" (1992), The Soldier (1996) and Tree of Heaven (1996). He continues to work as a professional writer, although no new creative writing has appeared since 1996.

The Tree of Heaven sounds awful. Have you ever given up on a book and not finished it?

>181 pamelad:

No, I always read books through till the end. Perhaps that's why so many of the books I read end up with low ratings.

068. Lives of the Saints
Finished reading: 11 May 2012



In Lives of the Saints by David R. Slavitt an unnamed journalist tries to come to terms with the loss of his wife and little daughter, Leah and Pam, in a car crash four months earlier. A former college professor, he now works for a tabloid newspaper, which thrives on the most absurd types of stories, with headlines such as "DIETER GOES BERSERK TRIES TO EAT DWARF", or "MAN DIES, REVIVES, 16 TIMES", etc. The chief editor gives him a job he feels he is not up to, but nonetheless takes: to write a series on the victims of a mass murder killing spree.

There are no logical reasons why the murderer, John Babcock, instead of killing the youths who crossed his lawn drove to the local Piggly-Wiggly and opened fire, killing a random six people: Amanda Hapgood, Hafiz Kezemi, Roger Stratton, Laura Bowers, Ambrosio Marquez Martinez and the three-year old Edward Springer. He makes visits to each of these people's relatives to try to find out more about them, specifically asking to see their personal possessions, which he gradually comes to see as relics.

Relics are all child's toys, which are holy things. Transitional objects, psychiatrists call them. They offer solace if not security and are reminders of a better time. p.91

and later, describing grief therapy the possession of a special object that links (...) to the dead person, such as a piece of jewelry... These objects are symbolic tokens jointly 'owned' by both the mourner and the deceased person. p.207

The veneration of the dead and their relics leads to a parallel obsession for saints and their attributes.

The deaths of Leah, Pam and the six victims defy logic. They are wiped out. Their lives were just erased, as if they had been pictures on a Magic Slate.

The absurdity of their deaths links the six victims to Leah and Pam. He manages to see John Babcock in prison, but can only confront the killer of his family, the drunk driver James Macrae in his dreams, which are rare anyways, as he mostly has sleepless nights. Perhaps in that dream he came closest to what one of the victims, Hafiz Kezemi, a devout Muslim, would call erfan a momentous insight into the "mystical knowledge of the true world," a mystic belief which proclaims every person a sign of God.

His search for the truth runs in circles, returning again and again to the philosophical works of Nicolas Malebranche whose seminal work The Search After Truth provides the philosophical and religious underpinning for the idea that there is no causality, and that everything that happens in the world is the will of God. It denies the logic of cause an effect, as well as the epistemology of common sense, very much like Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey. The more taunting, because Malebranche's philosophy supposes the inevitability of progress toward the general good. Man's inability to see this, his innocent belief in the senses, is the punishment for the Fall. Shame and guilt did not exist in the prelapsarian state.

His ramblings are not productive, and do not lead to a solution. They are more like the subterranean rumblings of the mind. Both the journalist and the editor are fired, as a new editor comes in and cleans up, to make for a new, better start. Eventually, that is also what the main character must do. Throw away old relics, make a clean slate and catch up on a new life, through hard work and love.

A difficult, but interesting novel.



Other books I have read by David R. Slavitt:
The cliff

069. Mandrake
Finished reading: 13 May 2012



The most important short-comings of Susan Cooper's science-fiction novel Mandrake are its slow pace and lack of humour. Otherwise, the premise of the story could have been quite entertaining, and of unexpected interest to readers half a century on.

Published in 1964, Mandrake is a science-fiction novel set in the near future, possibly the last decades of the twentieth century, as for example reference is made to a military installation which was built in 1970. In this future world, Britain has regressed, to a relatively primitive society of serfs bound to the land.

The story explains that the British government in the course of the 1960s realized that the world powers crystallized in four blocks, the US, the Soviet Union, China and Federal Europe, and chose a strategy to withdraw into splendid isolation. This strategy was achieved by sending everyone home: aliens were sent home overseas, and the British were sent home to the towns where their roots lay. Through campaigns such as "Guard Thine Own" all British citizens are encouraged to focus on their own land, and stay where they are. The movement leads to abandoned townships, while historical towns and cities are fortified as in the Middle Ages. Strangers, even passing through are attacked and may be killed. Bound as they are to their homes, travel of any kind soon disappears, as do all communication with the outside world, both international and domestic cease. In fact, citizens become so attached to their homestead that leaving their town becomes lethal; people cannot survive outside the boundaries of their own communities.

This peculiar society developed all within a three-year period, although the government claims a decade long preparation. All power rests with the Ministry of Planning (MOP), a sort of Ministry of Homeland Security, which acts like a sinister organization controlling all. To maintain international security the Ministry has built a laser weapon missile shield,capable of destroying any incoming threat. It prides itself on its achievements, drawing a comparison with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. At the head of the Ministry stands Mandrake, also referred to as the Minister. Mandrake, like Satan, no clear first or family names are given, is a sinister character, and for some time there is the slight suggestion that he might be an alien force, of some kind.

The only people who are not affected by the madness are people without roots, of which there are a few, the most important being Dr. David Queston. Queston is an anthropologist, whose experience in the Amazon leads him to develop a hypothesis about what is going on in Britain. His theory postulates that the Earth possesses intelligence and is aroused by human activity. The angered Earth want to obliterate mankind, and does so through earthquakes and swallowing up people in fissures and collapsing caves.

The Ministry first tries to win Queston to work with them, but as he refuses it confiscates his work and tries to track him down. Staying out of the hands of the ministry, Queston travels all over Britain, witnessing various strange excesses of the cult that hold Britain in its grip. A threat a great as the Ministry's men is the Guild of Women, an organization of women which has sprung up in every town. In Gloucester, Queston sees how a congregation of women of the Guild is destroyed in an earthquake which collapses their underground meeting hall.

Eventually, Queston is captured and brought before Mandrake. Mandrake ridicules his theory, and reveals what is going. Mandrake refers to other scientists work claiming that reality is shaped by ideas which exist in a huge collective subconscious, into which all individuals, particularly mediums can tap. This continuum also explains for ghosts, and other, such supernatural phenomena. Mandrake claims to have found a way to direct this subconscious. However, individual free minds, such as Queston's, disrupt the continuum, and unleash misdirected, chaotic forces such as storms, earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis which threaten Britain. Therefore, Queston must be stopped.

Even now, Queston manages to escape, taking Mandrake as a hostage. They release Mandrake a few miles outside Oxford, believing him to be dying. Eventually, Mandrake is able to track Queston and his companions down near a military installation in Bradwell. As the two powerful men stand face-to-face, the earth's most destructive powers are unleashed, and evil is destroyed.

As the story of Mandrake is packed with ideas, and relatively little action, the book, a mere 250 pages, is a slow read. It is not clear whether the prolonged isolation of Queston is really functional; it puts rather a drag on the story. This feeling is amplified, as the reader, like the main character is kept in the dark about what is going on till the very end of the novel.

A somewhat hard to read, but original story, which, although it is largely wrong about our future, still contains some elements, which it correctly predicted, and which are not among those achievements of man to be proud of.

Edwin, you seem to have unearthed something with Mandrake, with its original story line.

Your reviews are definitely getting longer and you are becoming more generous with your ratings. Interesting reviews as always.

Enjoyed your new reviews. Intrigued by Lives of Saints and Slavitt. And I love knowing about Mandrake, even if it's something I'll never read.

Thanks, Dan.

Thank you for disinterring Muriel Spark. I very much enjoyed The Driver's Seat, and The Ballad of Peckham Rye has started promisingly.

With your wide-ranging reading, there's always something interesting here.

070. Scenes from Provincial Life
Finished reading: 17 May 2012



Now largely forgotten, William Cooper's novel Scenes from Provincial Life, published in 1950, is set in 1939. The title calls E.M. Delafield's five volumes The Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930) The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932), The Provincial Lady in America (1934) and The Provincial Lady in Russia: I Visit the Soviets (1937) The Provincial Lady in Wartime (1940). William Cooper continued to publish several sequel volumes to the first Scenes from Metropolitan Life, which was written but unpublished in the mid-1950, Scenes from Married Life (1961), Scenes from Later Life (1983) and Scenes from Death and Life (1999). With Delafield's last volume leaving off in 1939 / 1940 and Cooper's first starting around that same time, Cooper's series seems a continuation of the genre. At least both authors describe an apparently autobiographical series of episodes, centred around an aspiring author and their daily affairs, Delafield writing from the female point of view, abd Cooper from the male point of view. Both books share a suble, wry and ironic humour. But wheras Delafield's writing is still firmly rooted in the late-Edwardian writing tradition, Cooper's writing feels quite modern. He also writes much more frankly and openly about sexuality, and people's psychology.

Scenes from Provincial Life is centred around the lives of Joe Lunn, his girl friend Myrtle, Tom and his lover Steve. Joe and Tom are aspiring writers, who have both already published and are working on subsequent novels. Joe, whose main job is his work as a teacher, has a rather free pre-marital sexual relationship with Myrtle. She believes he will one day marry her, but Joe's feelings are much more that he does not want to be bound. He at various times expresses this sentiment that he does not want to be tied down, a sentiment which, while is Britain seems connected with his inflated idea of his bohemian life-style, while in connection with his planned emigration to the US is inspired by his idea that he could not support her. Despite the fact that Joe seems quite sure that he does not want to marry Myrtle, he is quite envious of the attention she receives and her possible courtship by Haxby.

Quite surprising for a novel published in 1950 is the gay relationship in the novel between Tom and Steve. This relationship is not problematised, and appears as a quite natural part of the bohemian life-style of Joe and Tom, who share the rent of a weekend house where they meet their lovers on an alternating basis.

Tom appears, through the eyes of Joe that is, a rather nasty character. He shock of red hair has warned the reader at an early stage of course that Tom will act the part of the evil character, and thus he is portrayed as domineering, manipulative and dishonest, often seen as outright lying or distorting the truth. There are several humourous moments is the novel where his cunning is outdone by Steve or Steve and Joe.

Both Joe and Tom have elaborate plans to emigrate to the US, but as the net closes, and the war descends over Europe, these plans are thwarted.

Like Delafield's books Cooper's Scenes from Provincial Life has very little to offer in the sense of a plot. Nonetheless, the human relations are poised with irony, which makes the book a thoroughly enjoyable read.

071. Scenes from Married Life
Finished reading: 18 May 2012



Scenes from Married Life (1961) was written as the third installment, but published as the second volume in William Cooper's 5-volume fictionalized (auto-)biographical novel series, after the second installment was suppressed, and subsequently published in 1982.

The "missing" volume does not hinder the reading and understanding of the continued story. In part 1 of Scenes from Married Life Joe says that he has no intention of marrying Sybil after fifteen years (p.245). His unwillingness to try to understand Sybil demonstrates his disinterestedness in having anything else but a sexual relationship without any attachments. Being still unmarried, the reader can fill in the blanks themselves, and draw the conclusion that Joe must have ditched Myrtle, his girl in the first volume of the series Scenes from Provincial Life most likely in the same way. This attitude seems shared by his friend Robert, who cares very little for his girlfriend Annette.

Joe is now a somewhat more successful author, with a novel coming out, but still lacking in a true sense of responsibility. He now works as a civil servant, but money is still tight, and works on a new novel in his free time. He is now married to Elspeth, and a certain dullness creeps in. The description of "the morning after" the marriage, with its concealed implication of the consummation of marriage is exemplary of the anti-climax experience of Joe as a voracious but now tamed womanizer. The rest of the novel is divided between problems surrounding the new novel as danger of a law suit which might be brought forward if it is published over scenes which could be understood as rape, and difficulties at work.

The problems with the novel referred to in the story probably refer to the suppression of volume two in the series, but are as such difficult for the reader to understand. Scenes from Married Life lacks the crispness of the previous volume, Scenes from Provincial Life, mainly because Robert is a much less interesting character than Tom. While Scenes from Provincial Life sparkled with sarcasm, Scenes from Married Life seems a rather dull affair.



Other books I have read by William Cooper:
Scenes from Provincial Life

072. Scenes from Provincial Life: Including Scenes from Married Life
Finished reading: 18 May 2012



In 2010 Penguin Books published Scenes from Provincial Life and Scenes from Married Life for the first time in an omnibus edition in their series Penguin Decades as a landmark of storytelling from the 1950s.

While there is broad agreement that the suppression of Scenes From Metropolitan Life, which was to be the volume linking Scenes from Provincial Life and Scenes from Married Life was damaging to both the continuity of the novel series and Cooper's career, the publisher has not set that right. It would have been logical to publish the first two or first three volumes from the series in one omnibus edition, instead of just volume 1 and 3, as they were originally published in that order. Restoring the original order would have given old readers the satisfaction of inclusion of that second volume, while to new readers the book would probably more balanced.

In the current omibus edition there is the hiatus which leads to the broken story-line which leaves readers wondering what has become of the characters Myrtle and Tom (from volume 1), while the new, main secondary character Robert is not properly introduced.

The introduction by Nick Hornby is flimsy, insincere an merely repeats what everyone can find on Wikipedia for themselves.

Scenes from Provincial Life is great, and well worth reading. The subsequent Scenes from Married Life is rather disappointing. The presentation of Scenes from Provincial Life: Including Scenes from Married Life as a seminal work for the 1950s seems dubious.

However, readers who are interested in the genre of the somewhat humourous, literary novel serial, may read William Cooper's 5-volume series in conjunction with E.M. Delafield's five-volume series The Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930), The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932), The Provincial Lady in America (1934), The Provincial Lady in Russia: I Visit the Soviets (1937) and The Provincial Lady in Wartime (1940). With Delafield's last volume leaving off in 1939 / 1940 and Cooper's first starting around that same time, Cooper's series seems a continuation of the genre. At least both authors describe an apparently autobiographical series of episodes, centred around an aspiring author and their daily affairs, Delafield writing from the female point of view, abd Cooper from the male point of view. Both books share a suble, wry and ironic humour. But wheras Delafield's writing is still firmly rooted in the late-Edwardian writing tradition, Cooper's writing feels quite modern. He also writes much more frankly and openly about sexuality, and people's psychology.

The genre is continued with works by Paul Gallico's series following the exploits of Mrs Harris in four volumes, in Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris (1958), and subsequent titles in the series Mrs. 'Arris Goes to New York (1960), Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Parliament (1965), and Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Moscow (1974).

An interesting series Edwin. Have you got Scenes from Metropolitan life or is it difficult to get hold of. I know that you have problems getting books because of where you are living.

Just catching up on your thread -- interesting reviews. I remember reading Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris when I was in junior high school.

Hi Barry,

No, I haven't got Scenes from Metropolitan life, which seems essential reading to get the best out of the Scenes from Provincial Life omnibus.

If Scenes from Metropolitan life would be more like Scenes from Provincial Life it might be very interesting to read. However, if it is similar to Scenes from Married Life it might not be, as the latter was much less exciting than the former.

Unfortunately, the ratings on LT do not really bear that out, as there are too few (rated) copies, the breakdown is as follows:

Scenes from Provincial Life 74 copies; 16 ratings averaging 3.91

Scenes from Metropolitan Life 19 copies; 2 ratings averaging 4

Scenes from Married Life 41 copies; 4 ratings averaging 4.13

I don't have (want) a credit card, so ordering from overseas Amazon is impossible. I have never tried ordering books through state-owned bookstores. I have heard it is troublesome. I have tried ordering through the Bookworm but they messed the order up. There is a new bookshop, Page One, that offers ordering service but I haven't tried it.

"Scenes From Provincial Life" is used by J. M. Coetzee as subtitles for his memoir Boyhood and Youth. I wonder if there's a connection.

>195 Rise:

It is an interesting observation. In 2011 all three volumes of Coetzee's fictionalized memoirs, Boyhood, Youth and Summertime, each with the sub-title "Scenes From Provincial Life" were published as a 3-volume omnibus under the title Scenes From Provincial Life. It seems very likely that there is a connection with William Cooper's Scenes From Provincial Life.

Edwin, I have Scenes from Metropolitan Life, which was published by Macmillan in 1982, as were the other three volumes in the series. Joe is now working in the civil service, a job arranged for him by his friend Robert, who is now his boss. Myrtle is married, but pops in to visit Joe from time to time.

I enjoyed this volume slightly less than Scenes from Provincial Life, but a lot more than Scenes from Married Life. I gave up on Scenes from Later Life, which was just too dreary.

Perhaps Scenes from Metropolitan Life was banned for telling too much truth about the civil service? I will do a quick scan to jolt my memory.

Scenes from Metropolitan Life was suppressed for thirty years because Myrtle's prototype sued. I can see why.

073. The hills of Adonis. A journey in Lebanon
Finished reading: 19 May 2012



The hills of Adonis. A journey in Lebanon by Colin Thubron is a rather bookish travelogue of his trek through the hills of Lebanon. While the book contains sufficient references to observations made on the way, the book mainly reads as a history book, a great deal of historical background information probably penned over from the books in the extensive three-page bibliography at the back of the book.

Presumably, a young author, new to the craft of travel writing, without a commission, would go to a country or region of his intrinsic interest. Thubron's first books are all set in the Middle East, Mirror to Damascus (1967), The hills of Adonis (1968), Jeruzalem (1969) and Journey into Cyprus in 1974. For all these destinations, Thubron visited on the brink of war, awhile they were still quite pristine.

Throughout the book, Thubron appears a rather aristocratic traveller of independent means, roaming the countryside on foot free of fear and shunning luxury.

Most readers know very little else about Lebanon than that it is a country thoroughly devastated by war. Its close proximity to Europe, both geographically and historically are overshadowed by its muslim character. Like Turkey and other countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon has a rich culture viewing both to the West, with pockets of Christian villages and to the East, as a mainly muslim country. The first book to open my mind to this aspect of Lebanon was The dream palace of the Arabs. A generation's odyssey by Fouad Ajami. The hills of Adonis. A journey in Lebanon is an excellent introduction to the ancient, Phoenician part of the history of the country.

We have all read and heard about the Phoenicians in our history classes, but oddly I have never been able to connect the Phoenicians to any country. In The hills of Adonis Thubron visits and describes the background of the earliest cities in Lebanon founded, occupied and abandoned by the Phoenicians. While bookish, this is a very interesting part of the book.

Throughout the book, Thubron weaves the myth of the resurrection of Adonis, a myth with connects Pagan, Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Christian culture through the ages. There are beautiful landscape descriptions of cypress and lemon groves, almond blossom and other to dream away into.

Overall, the book reads like an intellectual and sensual journey through history and the region of and around Lebanon. There are some, but few encounters with local people. Many travel books focus on the landscape and particulars of local population. The hills of Adonis has very little of that, and its tone is somewhat more erudite and intellectual. A very interesting read indeed.

074. Quiet days in Clichy
Finished reading: 20 May 2012



French literature has a long history of relative openness and tolerance of pornographic literature, although even in France writers such as Albert de Routisie, a pseudonym of Louis Aragon, taunted the authorities and works such as Le Con d'Irène (1927), republished in 1968 as Irène were still seized and destroyed as pornography.

It is remarkable how little influence this type of literature has had on the American writers living in Paris in the 1920s - 30s, other than on Henry Miller.

Miller arrived in Paris in 1928 and stayed there for a full decade. Born in 1891, he was already in his late 30s when he settled in Paris, but still unknown and unpublished. Most of his works, while published in France, were banned in the US and UK, being considered pornographic.

Quiet days in Clichy consists of two short stories which were written in 1940, when Miller had returned to the USA. As all of his books were banned, he earned no royalties and made a living writing pornography, which paid a dollar per page. "Quiet days in Clichy" and "Mara Marignan" were two such stories, later published together in book form under the title Quiet days in Clichy .

The first story, "Quiet days in Clichy", tells how two American writers in Paris, Joey and Carl, who take in a homeless girls, Colette, who soon turns into their "Cinderella, concubine and cook" (p.40). The second story is about the same Joey and Carl and their adventures with prostitutes in Paris.

Written shortly upon his return to the USA, after a stay in Paris of more than a decade, the stories breathe the atmosphere of Paris, and would be seen, and appreciated by modern readers much more as literature, while the pornographic dimension now seems secondary. Contemporary fiction may contain equally or more explicit references to sexuality. Rather, the stories in Quiet days in Clichy provide an interesting view on life in Paris of the 1930s that other writers were too shy to write about.

I greatly enjoyed your review of The Hills of Adonis: A Journey in Lebanon, Edwin. You have captured his writing style very nicely. Thubron is certainly not your average travel writer and my introduction to him, To A Mountain in Tibet, is one of my favorites for this year so far. Your review has reminded me that he has many other books waiting to be explored. Thanks!

Thanks Linda. My earlier comments and doubts about Thubron were based on flip-through impressions. Shortly after that, I bought The Hills of Adonis: A Journey in Lebanon and To A Mountain in Tibet and discovered Thubron as a fine writer.

I've long been intending to read more by Henry Miller than just Tropic of Cancer. Based on your comments I've just ordered Quiet days in Clichy (an easy decision since it's just $1 for the Kindle, but I'll miss out on that pretty cover).

075. The house on Mango Street
Finished reading: 31 May 2012



The house on Mango Street is a short novel that seems deceptively easy to read. It strongly evokes Mexican / Puerto-rican Hispanic-American culture. The apparent simplicity of the novel is created by the narrative voice belonging to a young, pretty girl, named Esperanza. She is described as pretty and intelligent, attributes that make no real difference in her social situation, or only call for trouble.

The novel describes the way Hispanic women deal with and accept sexual conflict as a part of life. The sexual prowess of men is taken as a fact of life, something the women do not protest or try to understand. Men are men, and women are women.

The men in the book appear and disappear, or abandon. The men are daring, tricking women into kissing or rape them when vulnerable (p. 270). Underage marriage and teenage mother ship runs throughout the book.

The women role is support, and where possible protect each other. Sally's man beats her, and the women dress her bruises (with lard).

The house on Mango Street stands for the reality of Esperanza's life, its dangers but also the familiarity of the cultural setting. Esperanza's dream of another house, are perhaps her longing for greater safety, a different life, although she would find it hard to separate from Hispanic culture.

>203 StevenTX:

Hi Steven. I forgot to mention in my review that I was particularly pleased with the edition I bought, published by Oneworld Classics. Both cover and high-quality paper a a fine touch, notes listed at the end clarifying French expressions, and a wealth of information about the biography of the author plus an annotated overview of Henry Miller's publications.

Postscript: Ah! i see where you are going after The Proof of the Honey... It has wetted your appetite.

Postscript 2: whetted

Edwin, please tell me you meant to say "whetted"! ;-)

On a less lubricious note, The House on Mango Street is an excellent book about the Hispanic experience in the U.S. and has for some years been on required reading in local schools. I was fortunate enough to see a performance a couple of years ago in which the entire book was read and enacted on stage.

076. The uncommon reader
Finished reading: 2 June 2012



In 1925, Virginia Woolf published the first series entitled The common reader, and referring to Samuel Johnson defined the common reader as different from the scholar and critic, as one who reads for pleasure. Alan Bennett is not concerned with the common reader, but rather with The uncommon reader.

The British love their Queen, but the royal family and the Queen are also often the object of (mild) satire. In The uncommon reader the Queen is that reader who is different from all other common readers; as an uncommon person, she must be an uncommon reader.

For the largest part, the novella describes the path the Queen follows in developing as a reader, and how her reading influences her. It seems to be an appeal to all readers to read more, to develop their reading upon finishing The uncommon reader into reading more literature. The satire is very well done, and it shows how through reading the Queen can come down to be at the same level as her subjects, as they can share in their reading. For those who think the book is only about the Queen coming down, there is the "commoner" Norman who exemplifies how reading elevates him to a level nearly equal to that of the Queen.

The Queen being an uncommon reader, the question remains whether there are other readers who would qualify as an uncommon reader. The answer seems to be "yes". There are those readers who, like the Queen towards the end of the novella, may find that reading does not give the highest satisfaction, and want to take their art one step further, and start Writing. The novella shows that the natural path, as followed by the Queen, would be to ponder and make notes, and ultimately take the big step to give up whatever occupation to devote all time to writing.

Writers are uncommon readers. They are the kings and queens of reading.



Other books I have read by Alan Bennett:
Writing home

A great selection of books you have reviewed edwin. I want to read them all.

I could echo Bas...but I think I really should pursue Colin Thubron...

077. Der kleine Grenzverkehr
Finished reading: 3 June 2012



Originally published as Georg und die Zwischenfälle in 1937, Der kleine Grenzverkehr by Erich Kästner is a light, somewhat predictable story. Part of the story is autobiographical.

Kunst und Wirklichkeit, Theater und Leben: überall sonst sind's zwei getrennte Sphären. Hier bilden beide ein unlösbar Ganzes. (p.86)

Art and reality, theatre and life: everywhere else they're two divided realms. Here they form an inseparable union. Perhaps that's why happiness resides here?

Role-play, and the inversion of reality and theatre, plays an important role in this short novel.

A young unknown author, Georg, from Berlin wants to visit the Salzburg Festival, but does not have enough money (in foreign currency) to stay in Salzburg. He solves this problem by staying in a hotel in Bavaria, and crossing the border every morning and evening, and half-hour bus ride to-and-fro Salzburg. His expenses are covered by a friend, named Karl. One day Karl does not show up, and Georg cannot pay for his bill. He is saved by Konstanze, who pays for his coffee. Konstanze is a parlour maid, and Georg falls in love with her.

A few days later Karl spots Konstanze with another man in the casino, and overheard them addressing each other as count and countess. Georg feels deceived and disappears to his hotel in Bavaria. He is visited there by Konstanze's brother, who explains that indeed they are nobility but that Konstanze introduced herself as a parlour maid because this is part of a hoax they are playing with all members of their family that summer. Their father, who is an amateur playwright, has sublet the manor to an American family who has been told the family has travelled elsewhere. However, the family has taken over the role of the household staff, which the father hopes will inspire him to write a play. To go on seeing Konstanze, Georg must enter the play... Futher developments in the story occur within this framework, comic and melodramatic.

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Erich Kästner did not emigrate, but chose to stay in Germany. The Nazis forbade circulation of his books within Germany, but his books were published as they brought in foreign currency. In fact, his works were so popular that Goebbels allowed him to publish and write film scripts for the German public under a pseudonym. However, when Hitler discovered who he was, all further publications were completely banned.

The autobiographical part of the story consists of the basic idea of a writer who cannot reside in Salzburg, and instead commutes between a hotel in Bavaria and Salzburg, while relying on a friend to cover his expenses. Kästner had done that himself in the summer of 1937. However, when the book was published the following year, Austria was already incorporated into the German Reich.

This was the first book I have read by Erich Kästner.

078. Work and other Sins. Life in New York City and thereabouts
Finished reading: 8 June 2012



Work and other Sins. Life in New York City and thereabouts is a tender portrait of the city of New York, that emerges from essays about a very careful selections of some of New York's most original city dwellers.

The urban structure of a city often obscures the underlying landscape, which forms a link with the past history of the city. A superficial description of traffic, infrastructure, sky scrapers, etc lacks the quality of specificity to distinguish modern cities. Many books like this fail to catch the details that build up a really comprehensive image of the city as a whole.

However, Charlie LeDuff has done a very good job in describing the people of New York an thereby the city itself. His portraits of a number of old citizens, and their dying out occupations such as fishermen in the bay area, trappers, etc creates detailed portraits of the landscape and the rural structure of the city before it froze into the concrete superstructure. There are touching stories of people affected by 9/11, and portraits of people from all walks of life.

LeDuff 's writing style is that of a careful observer. While many journalists tend to describe people as idiosyncratic caricatures, specifically drawing their physical and facial characteristics, LeDuff describes their lives, background and surroundings in meticulous detail.

A book that deserves a much wider readership.

079. Tender buttons. Objects, food, rooms
Finished reading: 8 June 2012



This is exactly the kind of poetry that many people despise.

Trash.



Other books I have read by Gertrude Stein:
Three Lives. Stories of the Good Anna, Melanctha and the Gentle Lena
Q.E.D

080. The Diary of a Provincial Lady
Finished reading: 8 June 2012



The Diary of a Provincial Lady is just the absolutely most boring book. The first 80 pages or so, are kind of OK, from the historical point of view, as the reader gets a peek into the interbellum; Naturally, nothing ever happens in the life of a provincial lady, even one with literary aspirations, so the book is a chain series of gossip + husband + reading list. The provincial lady mainly reads a lot of second, and third-rate novels from the Edwardian era to her own time.

I wouldn't know what readers then or now could get out of it, except as a way of passing the time.

Edwin, perhaps Diary of a Provincial Lady is too much a women's book. I found it very funny, particularly the understated descriptions of the dreadful husband, Robert. Despite my lack of interest in the financial and servant problems of the British upper classes, I had a good deal of sympathy for the narrator and the more of Delafield's books I read, the more I liked her. In contrast, William Cooper became less admirable with each sequel.

I too read and enjoyed Der kleine Grenzverkehr fairly recently; it really is mostly froth, like much of Kästner's prose and poetry, for adults and children alike. The one exception I've read was Fabian.,

But I'm surprised you didn't read any of his children's books, as a kid, I mean? Emil and the detectives, The little man, etc.? My favourite is Pünktchen und Anton, about a rich little girl and a poor little boy, the best of friends and partners in (almost) crime. Kästner knew how to present the world as a child's domain but there's never any sentimentalizing it into some imaginary Neverland, there are traces of grim reality, the postwar poverty, famine, crime, dissolution, everywhere.

Speaking of his film work, just the other day I got the 1943 Münchhausen, produced by the UFA on occasion of their 25th anniversary, directed by Josef von Baky, which Kästner wrote. His name didn't originally appear on the film. I still feel guilty about how much I liked it. Excellent script and terrific production from every point of view. A must see.

>214 pamelad:

It seems the best explanation. I can recognize the irony with which husband Robert is described, but I don't find it humourous. The Diary has some appeal as a peek into life of that period, the way people spend their days and their pastimes, such as playing Ludo. But this interest is not sufficient to make the book work for me.

The most interesting dimension consists in the books which the Provincial Lady reads and discusses with her children, friends and the members of the book club.

As an aspiring writer, the Provincial Lady meets other aspiring authors, some of them frauds, as she discovers The Symphony in Three Sexes at the Library "that it is not in stock, and never has been." (p.9)

In the The Diary of a Provincial Lady the Provincial Lady mentions and discusses a large number of authors and books. To get an overview of that, I have created a profile for the Provincial_Lady on LibraryThing.

The Diary of a Provincial Lady was published in 1930, so it is no surprise that the Provincial Lady thinks that G.B. Shaw, Arnold Bennett, and John Galsworthy are truly great writers. Other writers whom she often mentions are H.G. Wells and Dostoevsky spelled as "Dostoeffsky".

She reads classics, of course, such as Jane Eyre, and Edwardian literature such as Orlando, and The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West.

She deplores having read Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and reads her contemporaries such as The good companions by J.B. Priestley, Harriet Hume, a London fantasy by Rebecca West, A high wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes and Journey's End by R.C. Sherriff.

The Provincial Lady also reads American literature, such as An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and The Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The people around her read much less literary book, although she can guide her children Vicky and Robin in their reading. The old Mrs Blenkinsop reads biographies of Victorians, such as The Life of Lord Beaconsfield by James Anthony Froude and Mr. Froude and Carlyle.

A woman on the train reads The Life of Sir Edward Marshal-Hall. A visitor refers to Bulldog Drummond by Sapper. The reading at the Literary Club is of varying quality and includes The good companions by J.B. Priestley, besides A brass hat in No Man's Land by Frank P. Crozier.

Daughter Vicky reads in French, especially novels by the Comtesse de Ségur (1799–1874), such as Les Malheurs de Sophie and Les mémoires d'un âne. The Provincial Lady encourages her to read Jane Eyre, Little Dorrit or The Daisy Chain by Charlotte Yonge.

Son Robin wants to read The Coral Island by Ballantyne, Gulliver's Travels, The Swiss family Robinson and Pip, Squeak and Wilfred by A.B. Payne.

However, the Provincial lady sometimes also reads less elevated stuff such as The exciting family by Mary Dorothea Hillyard.

The dreary husband Robert hides himself behind the newspaper, or various magazines. He is never seen reading a book, or heard discussing authors and literature.

I agree with you on William Cooper. The first volume was great literature, but the subsequent volumes were much less interesting.

For E.M. Delafield, I will find out when I read the subsequent volumes: The Provincial Lady Goes Further (almost done), and then The Provincial Lady in America and The Provincial Lady in Wartime. My edition of The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a 4-volume omnibus. It bought it unseen / unopened in a 10-volume box of ten Virago classics, which set me back $62.50.

>215 LolaWalser:

I never read anything by Kästner when I was a kid, and during the years I lived in Germany, between 1988 - 1991, I never bought any of his books, because on flip-through I could see they weren't my cuppa tea.

However, here in China, no German books are for sale until recently, this Spring, the Foreign Languages Bookstore started selling them. They only have one bookcase dedicated to German, and 70% of the books are German translations of French and English literature. So, in two batches, I bought copies of all literary titles, including three books by Erich Kästner. After Der kleine Grenzverkehr oder Georg und die Zwischenfälle, I can still go on with Als ich ein kleiner Junge war, which is an autobiography about Kästner's youth is Dresden, before it was destroyed. I also bought Fabian. Die Geschichte eines Moralisten, which I am glad to hear you liked most of all.

Erich Kästner is mainly described as Unterhaltungsliteratur, which I suppose translates as Belletrie, nothing too serious. Kästner's works before 1933, starting from 1929 already consisted mainly of stories for children. I have no idea on what grounds the Nazis banned his work from circulation in the Reich, whether they say actual or potential resistance. That his books lacked substance for the 15 years of Nazi Germany is not surprising. However, both before and after, it his work wasn't much different.

Then again, they are light and easy reads, so a few hours spent reading them are not wasted.

081. Monday or Tuesday
Finished reading: 15 June 2012



More so than the novels, Virginia Woolf's short stories are difficult to read. One reason for that, is that in the stories, particularly in this early collection titled Monday or Tuesday she was looking for a new form. Her writings take the form of an experiment. Another reason is that Woolf's view of the world is idiosyncratic. This makes that her writing has a very particular feel to it; Woolf's style is not easy to follow. A moment of inattention, and the reader may be lost, having to retrace steps and reread to catch the thread. Finally, in her work Woolf makes many references to people and events of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century; without knowing what she refers too, even in fiction, the stories are difficult to understand, or it is hard to see the significance. For example, in the story "A society" there is a reference to a publication in 1920 by the Edwardian author Arnold Bennett, who posed that women were intellectually inferior to men. However, the reference in the story is very vague, and it requires an annotated edition (such as the Selected short stories) or quite some research in the library to pick up such allusions.

A short story collection such as Monday or Tuesday might be difficult to start reading Virginia Woolf, but for people who have already read some of the later novels, the collection is very rewarding. The collection is very typically Woolf, including all features of her style and themes.

Highly recommended, but difficult to read, and therefore I would suggest to read an annotated edition such as in the Penguin Classics series, rather than a free download. An additional advantage is that the Penguin Classics edition reprints the woodcut illustrations by Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell.



Other books I have read by Virginia Woolf:
A room of one's own
Orlando
Jacob's room
Mrs. Dalloway

082. Talking about China
Finished reading: 16 June 2012



When Lisa Carducci came to China she was already in her late forties, and like many foreigners started by teaching at a Chinese university. Before that, she had already published various collections of poetry in French and Italian, which were awarded prices in both Canada and Italy. In China, she found time to write more, and besides poetry, she started writing essays about China, and about the life of foreigners in China.

A selection of such essays and columns, published in the English-language newspaper China Daily between 1993 and 2000, appeared in book form, bi-lingually in English and Chinese, in 2001, under the title Talking about China.

Talking about China contains 29 columns about specific aspects of Chinese culture and customs which may surprise foreign visitors or expats. Carducci's essays show that China has changed considerably over the past two decades, although most of her observations are still valid. Upon the book publication, Chinese translations of all essays were added, to interest Chinese readers in the experiences of foreigners in China.

The tone of the essays is slightly pedantic, as if the author reads both foreigners and Chinese a lesson. Typical of almost all publications in China the essays high-light the positive side of China, and offer no criticism. However, for readers intending to get a snap shot introduction to everyday life in Beijing, this small book (230 pages bilingually) would do a very good job.

I will take your advice Edwin and ensure I get an annotated edition of the Woolf short stories.

Edwin, is there a political reason for the lack of German books, or was it just one of those administration things?

Sounds like the Provincial Lady's son Robin had the best reading. He could have added her High Wind in Jamaica to his other nautical novels.

Your review of Work and Other Sins has made LeDuff's potential readership increase by at least one. Thanks, I had not heard of this author before.

> SassyLassy, no, not for political reasons. In Chinese universities, the foreign languages are basically English, Japanese, French, German and Russian (in order of relative size and importance). University libraries will usually have moderate holdings of literature in those languages. The Foreign Languages Press has on average 10 - 15 bilingual publications of original works in those languages, often a dismal selection. For English there used to be a large market of pirated paper editions. This black market is now banned from official stores, but continues to exist around universities.

The Foreign Languages Bookstore used to stock manly English imported books, mainly for purchase by foreigners. For most Chinese people imported books are far too expensive: Signet / Wordsworth Classics & Dover Thrift sell at 4 USD and imported paperbacks at prices between 9 and 24 USD.

15 years ago, they had a reasonable selection of English, a fair selection of Japanese, 1 shelf of Russian, and half a shelf of French. After an international book fair, there were usually remainders in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. Last year, the Foreign Languages Bookstore started selling French books (1 book case), and this Spring German (1 book case).

English books can now be bought in many privately owned bookstores. The French have opened a fantastic bookstore of their own. The Spanish have a Cervantes Cultural Centre, but do not sell books, and neither does the German Goethe Institute. They do have libraries. The Chinese National Library is also said to have many foreign books. In 2001 they banned lending books to foreigners, because too many did not return them.

After reading, I donate my books (80% of them) to various libraries.

Just catching up on your interesting reviews and commentary.

211 - Interesting review. I'll keep an eye out for this one.

083. The string of pearls
Finished reading: 21 June 2012



The string of pearls or Sweeney Todd is a very entertaining, gruesome Victorian horror story.

The story is set in 1785, and the opening chapter quickly introduces the main characters and the leads of the story that will be developed over the about 400-page length novel: Lieutenant Thornhill is on shore-leave carrying a valuable string of pearls, which he is to deliver to Johanna Oakley, the lover of Mark Ingestrie who is supposedly reported as lost at sea. Thornhill never reaches Johanna and the trail leads to his mysterious disappearance from Sweeney Todd's barber's shop. The opening chapter strongly points out Todd as an evil personage, characterised by a disagreeable, mirthful, hyena-like laugh. He is described as an ill-fitted, ugly and weird person having a most terrific head of hair - "like a thickset hedge, in which a quantity of small wire had got entangled"- keeping all his combs in it, and some said his scissors as well. There is a strong suggestion that something must be going on at the shop in Fleet street, as we are told rents the whole building but only uses the first floor. He is extremely secretive, and utters the most violent threats at the address of his assistant, Tobias Ragg. When Tobias replies that he "won't say anything {as} I wish, sir, I may be made into veal pies at Lovett's in Bell Yard if I as much as say a word" this is an oddly ambiguous statement, which seems to refer to urban legend or suggests that Tobias already knows exactly what is going on.

Despite the fact that the reader realizes so early what the gruesome secret is, the reader is not aware of the details, the characters in the novel do not, and the story leads up to this horrific discovery, revealing one disgusting detail after another, and as the truth comes out (to the novel's characters) the revelation is still a gruesome climax to the reader.

Each strand of the story is cleverly and extensively developed to its fullest potential. The personal and business relation between Sweeney and Mrs Lovett, which is dominated by Todd's incredibly evil genius. The ingenuity of Todd's scheme and the connection between the shop in Fleet Street, Saint Duncan's Church and Mrs Lovett's pie shop in Bell-Yard. The hazards of selling the string of pearls. The involvement of Johanna, who dresses up as a boy to gain access to Todd's shop and the danger to which she exposes herself snooping around at the barber shop trying to discover Todd's secrets.

Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls also publshed under the title Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is an extremely entertaining story that deploys various story telling devices of the adventurous Victorian novel. There are only one or two chapters of digression from the story, causing attention to slack a bit, but most of the time the story is adventurous and engaging. The characters bear various traits of characters from Victorian literature, such as the chivalrous Colonel Jeffrey, but the characters are nonetheless real enough, as even Colonel Jeffrey admits to acting out of more than just chivalry, as he develops feelings for Johanna, which, however, he controls.

Tobias Ragg is a somewhat Dickensian character, reminiscent of Oliver Twist, and his experiences at the hands of Watson and Mr Fogg, the keepers at the madhouse belong to the best parts of the book.

While many people have heard of Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls , very few people seem to have read it, and the book is owned by less than 150 people on LibraryThing. Possibly this is caused by the fact that for the longest time the book was published anonymously, and still authorship of Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls is disputed.

The 2011 Penguin edition ascribes Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls to Thomas Peckett Prest a Victorian hack writer of whom little is known (not even date of birth and death are certain), who parodied Charles Dickens publishing novels with titles such as he Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy, David Copperful and Nickelas Nicklebery beside another 14-odd novels. However, there is a considerable number of scholars who suggest that the real author of Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls was James Malcolm Rymer, another Victorian writer of "penny dreadfuls". Scholarship supports that Thomas Peckett Prest and James Malcolm Rymer jointly wrote Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls, authoring alternating chapters, originally published serialized over eight weeks. Such mixed or unclear authorship may be the reason why the novel is little read. On LibraryThing, various editions are listed by the name of their respective editors, while the novels are not combined.

Excellent stuff!

That sounds like a good read and a fascinating story about who wrote the novel. 4.5 stars edwin you must have been entertained.

I heard of Sweeney Todd through its being a Broadway musical (not that I ever saw it), but I never knew the story behind it or how fun it sounds.

Much of the fun in reading Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls is in the eating of Mrs Lovett's pies. The reader knows what is going on, almost right from Chapter 1, so each time a meat pie is eaten you get goose pimples and shivers along your spine.

Their fame had spread even to great distances, and many persons carried them to the suburbs of the city as quite a treat to friends and relations there residing. And well did they deserve their reputation, those delicious pies; there was about them a flavour never surpassed, and rarely equalled; the paste was of the most delicate construction, and impregnated with the aroma of a delicious gravy that defies description. Then the small portions of meat which they contained were so tender, and the fat and the lean so artistically mixed up, that to eat one of Lovett's pies was such a provocative to eat another, that many persons who came to lunch stayed to dine (p.36)

Yes, Barry. For most people, the meaning of the ratings is, obviously, very similar. For me, a five-star rating means that the book gave me an emotional jolt: tears, real fear, disgust, etc. Sweeney Todd or The string of pearls was very close to that: the goose pimples are proverbial: had I had real goose pimples and shivers, I would have marked the book five-star!

>227 rebeccanyc:

On Wikipedia there is a wealth of information about spin-offs, which include films and a musical in 1979, Rebecca. There is even a computer game based on the story with a free download. The music in the game comes from the soundtrack of the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.



Fascinating, also, the search for the inspiration of the story and the possible historical figure on which Sweeney Todd may be based. There are many suggestions pointing in that direction, although no conclusive proof has been given that there was a historical person whom the author took as a model for the story.

There's always something interesting in your thread, Edwin. You read such a variety of books.

Enticing review of Sweeney Todd or The String of Pearls. I've downloaded onto the Kindle, ready for the next trip away. 99 cents at Amazon.