Wise Blood :: Flannery O'Connor

Title: Wise Blood

Author: Flannery O'Connor

Read: NYC

Format: Trade paperback

The word is dour.

I was trying to explain Wise Blood to TG and all I could say was that the writing reminded me, in some ways, of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But not soul-crushingly bleak like The Road. And not quite as depressing as The Road. Just a similar tone: dour. It's a testament to O'Connor's writing, then, that such a stark and gloomy tone doesn't overwhelm this very rich work.

In Wise Blood, the troubled Hazel Motes struggles with faith and religion and all that stuff. He returns from the war to no family and sets out to establish and preach his new 'Church without Christ.' He meets a blind preacher, his homely daughter, and an irritating kook named Enoch. They all play their roles in Hazel's crisis of faith and his eventual triumph/degradation to enlightenment/insanity. Find out which it is yourself.

I continue to be wowed by O'Connor's writing. Even as she explores the darker side of people and spirituality and life, as she does so well in Wise Blood, she never sacrifices or over-stylizes her characters or plot. She measures out style and substance with awesome balance.

More O'Connor please.

4 out of 5 stars

Madame Bovary :: Gustave Flaubert

Title: Madame Bovary [2011 White Whale #1]

Author: Gustave Flaubert, Lydia Davis translation (2010)

Read: NYC, Boston

Format: Kindle

I've read the first 3 pages of Madame Bovary like a billion times, but I never followed through. I blame my failures on the ratty old used-book-store paperback I've been working with. After reading a cool article in New York magazine about a new translation by renowned fiction writer Lydia Davis, I decided to give it another go. To help my cause, I bought it for my Kindle, since on it I tend to read faster.

Unlike my experience with other White Whales (namely Wuthering Heights), Madame Bovary did not disappoint. Reading novels like Madame Bovary resurrect the old English major in me, so to spare you I will simply report my musings in list form.

• Emma Bovary is a jerk. I get that she wants more than her provincial life can offer, but so does everyone else. She's unjustifiably cruel.
• Charles Bovary is some kind of pitiful rube. He hasn't got much of a backbone and is so desperate for approval and love that he is just permanently a victim. Poor guy. I liked him.
• There are a bunch of other townspeople who make regular appearances in the plot. They both underscore the provincial lifestyle. But even they, like the Bovarys, want to make more out of their small town lives.
• I never know what to say about writing when I read something in translation. What got lost? What got added? I've never read another translation (obvi), nor have I read it in French, but I found the translation beautiful nonetheless. It was incredibly descriptive, but not at all overdone. Spare, but still vivid.

I guess that's all I have to say. People often commend Madame Bovary for the patterns Flaubert develops, but I think that's why I have limited things to say. The characters kind of do the same things over and over, but it's all to show the crappy choices they keep making out of desperation. It also cements the character development further, one subplot at a time. But it's all to the same effect: to make me feel even stronger about the first two bullets I list above.

Madame Bovary is beautiful and thought-provoking. Is it the [insert superlative] novel ever written, as it is often touted to be? I'm not so sure. But I know I liked it a lot and that I'd recommend it so long as you're in the mood.

A classic worthy of that designation.

4 out of 5 stars.

Tender is the Night :: F Scott Fitzgerald

Title: Tender is the Night [book club selection, VM]

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Read: CDG > JFK, NYC

Format: trade paperback

I've had Tender is the Night on my bookshelf since 1999 when I was supposed to read it for my 20th Century American Novel class. I was inspired to actually go ahead and read it after re-reading The Great Gatsby last year. Clearly, I was slow to respond to that inspiration. In any event, when it came time for me to choose the next Anything Goes Book Club selection I decided thought it might be a good option. My fellow readers agreed.

One of the reasons I was so interested in reading Fitzgerald again was how swept away I was with the writing in Gatsby. I was really looking forward to that same caliber of lyrical prose and while Tender is the Night was beautiful in its own right, it didn't quite compare. The strength of this novel lies in Fitzgerald's wrenching development of his and Zelda's semi-autobiographical stand-ins, Dick and Nicole Diver. It is this couple's relationship that is the centerpiece of the novel. In it, their life is chronicled from their glorious (glorified?) early days through the challenges and changes that test not just their marriage, but them as individuals.

I'm not sure if it was one of the ladies at the club meeting or if it was in the introduction, but someone notes that the novel starts out one way (through the eyes of a young Hollywood ingenue who is smiiten with and eventually tempts Dick Diver) and ends in another (as a study of Nicole and Dick's chiasmatic relationship). I believe the introduction also explains that the novel was much, much longer and was considerably edited. I think my biggest complaints about the work can be explained by these facts/observations. First, the story does read as unintentionally uneven because of the change in perspective. But, death of the author be damned. Fitzgerald was clearly inspired by his own experience; so much so that the work he started out writing morphed in the process. Knowing this makes the book feel more personal and more beautiful, in its own way. Secondly, the novel seems a little out of balance in some ways. That is, some portions seem intensely detailed - to the point of tedium - and others seem wildly under-described. It's very possible that this is a casualty of massive editing, but I have to imagine that something could have been done to prevent such distinct pockets of dense description alongside single sentences that change the trajectory of the novel.

All in all, a beautiful novel. Even if I don't believe it to be Fitzgerald's greatest work (as some critics claim).

4 out of 5 stars

Wuthering Heights :: Emily Bronte

Title: Wuthering Heights [White Whale 2010, #2]

Author: Emily Bronte

Read: NYC

Format: Trade paperback

Let's not beat around the bush: I really, really didn't like Wuthering Heights.

In a nutshell: Heathcliff and Catherine love each other, but she marries someone else (isn't that always the way). After she marries and eventually dies, he gets all gloomy and haunted and vengeful and mean. They live on a landscape that matches Heathcliff's 'tude. He makes life miserable for everyone in two households. At the end, he dies and things start looking up.

Thoughts:

- I hate when character's accents are written phonetically.

- Heathcliff is overbearing, scary, and completely unsympathetic.

- Catherine, too, is unlikeable. Also, she is annoying.

- Bronte doesn't convincingly develop their 'love' or any kind of passion; as a motivation for decades of revenge, it falls flat.

- The narrative requires that the moor be a very insular world. But, the fact that everyone just accepts it as their whole world out of some under-developed sense of obligation is weak and convenient. Heathcliff was able to leave. If he's such an ass to everyone, why do they stick around?

- Rocky moors, unkempt terrain, cold, damp. It's gothic, I get it.

Even though I didn't like it, I'm glad I read Wuthering Heights - even if only to cross it off my list. Also, there are certain books that are referenced so frequently that it just makes sense to go through them. Even if they are not your thing.

Maybe if I read it when I was 12 I would have liked it more:

2 out of 5 stars

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass :: Lewis Carroll

Title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass

Author: Lewis Carroll

Read: NYC; JFK > SFO; Palo Alto, CA

Format: mass market paperback

I don't really get this book. But, I'm guessing it's because I'm (a) old, (b) not old enough to care that much about the subtext, (c) expected it to be really great.

Of course I'd seen the cartoon and I'm aware of most of the main characters. I just thought that there would be more plot. Instead, Alice just kind of walks around from one weird symbolic interaction to another. The writing is descriptive and imaginative, but not mind-blowing. In fairness though, over the years Carroll's tableaus have been colorfully imagined so many times - by artists ranging from Disney to Tom Petty - that despite being the inspiration it would appear to fall short, creatively.

I think most books are best enjoyed in specific windows, be they age, date, or circumstance-based. I missed my window with Alice.

It was fine: imaginative, but with no surprises (neither in plot or writing):

3 out of 5 stars

james and the giant peach :: roald dahl

Title: James and the Giant Peach
Author: Roald Dahl
Published: Puffin, 2008
Read: October 2009; NYC, CT
Format: trade paperback

After a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger, James accidentally sets an amazing voyage in place. He becomes captain of an enormous peach and finds travel companions in a gang of giant insects. Together, they face adventure and embark on lives far more extraordinary than the ones they knew before.

Like most of Dahl's children's books, James and the Giant Peach is a wonderful, comforting joy to read. I have nothing to say by way of criticism and will not theorize about possible messages or subtexts. Instead, I'll relish in one of Dahl's more darling moments:

'...Some of us, of course, are born with more spots than others, but we never change them. The number of spots that a Ladybird has is simply a way of showing which branch of the family she belongs to. I, for example, am a Nine-Spotted Ladybird. I am very lucky. It is a fine thing to be.'

'It is, indeed,' said James, gazing at the beautiful shell with the nine black spots on it.

'On the other hand,' the Ladybird went on, 'some of my less fortunate relatives have no more than two spots altogether on their shells! Can you imagine that? They are called Two-Spotted Ladybirds, and very common and ill-mannered they are, I regret to say. And then, of course, you have the Five-Spotted Ladybirds as well. They are much nicer than the Two-Spotted ones, although I myself find them a trifle too saucy for my taste.'

'But they are all of them loved?' said James.

'Yes,' the Ladybird answered quietly. 'They are all of them loved.'

Perfect. Charming. Sweet:
5 out of 5 stars.