dmsteyn 2012 - only reading boy on my street? part 2

I'm moving on to a new topic - this is the second quarter of 2012, after all.

Currently Reading:
50 Great Short Stories, edited by Milton Crane
The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life by Harold Bloom
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

Finished in:

December
62. Edmund Spenser: A Life by Andrew Hadfield
61. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

November
60. The Vivisector by Patrick White
59. Keats by Andrew Motion
58. John Keats: The Major Works
57. Nietzsche: The Body and Culture by Eric Blondel
56. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
55. The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim

October
54. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
53. God's Eyes A-Twinkle by T.F. Powys

September
52. Milton's God by William Empson = re-read
51. Encounters: An Anthology of South African Short Stories, edited by David Medalie = re-read
50. The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow
49. Open City by Teju Cole
48. Boesman and Lena by Athol Fugard = re-read
47. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett = re-read

August
46. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
45. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
44. England in the Age of Wycliffe by George Macaulay Trevelyan
43. Mort by Terry Pratchett = re-read
42. The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas
41. The New Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker (edited by Leslie Klinger)
40. The Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch

July
39. Minor Poems and Paradise Lost by John Milton
38. John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought by Gordon Campbell & Thomas N. Corns
37. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye
36. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

June
35. The Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion by Laura Weeks (editor)
34. The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
33. Why the West Rules-For Now by Ian Morris
32. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
31. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov = re-read
30. The Complete Poems by D.H. Lawrence
29. Modern Movements in European Philosophy by Richard Kearney
28. Basic Writings by Friedrich Nietzsche (Translated by Walter Kaufmann)

May
27. Imajica by Clive Barker
26. Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw = re-read
25. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens = re-read

April
24. Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg
23. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
22. On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
21. Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty
20. The Mistress's Dog by David Medalie

March
19. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
18. Flame Into Being: The Life and Work of D.H. Lawrence by Anthony Burgess
17. Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
16. She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith = re-read
15. The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Aries
14. Part 1 of Faust: A Tragedy (Norton Critical Editions) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
13. Goethe's "Faust": The Making of Part 1 by John Gearey
12. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

February
11. Macbeth (Modern Library Classics) by William Shakespeare = re-read
10. A Brief History of Death by Douglas J. Davies
9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Norton Critical Edition) = re-read
8. London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City by Steve Roud
7. Unclay by T.F. Powys
6. Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson

January
5. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
4. End Procrastination Now! by William J. Knaus
3. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake = re-read
2. Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings by John Gray
1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Edith Grossman translation) = re-read

Hi dewald - just catching up to say that I am also an admirer of Merleau-Ponty.

I have taken to heart one of his statements:

"The existence of other people is a difficulty and an outrage for objective thought."

Nice quote, Zeno!

I like his play on Sartre's 'We are condemned to freedom':

“Because we are in the world, we are condemned to meaning, and we cannot do or say anything without its acquiring a name in history.”

Short Story 10: 'The Curfew Tolls' by Stephen Vincent Benet

General Estcourt is convalescing in France in 1788. He writes letters to his sister, in which he describes the local people. One man catches his eye, and they become, if not friends, then at least acquaintances. The man, from Sardinia or Corsica, is also convalescing, after having served as a major in the French Royal Artillery…

The title of this story pretty much gives away its intent: it is from Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, in which he laments those who might have achieved greatness, had they had the right opportunities. I assume that most of you can guess who this epistolary alternate history refers to…

The story is quite interesting, though Benét is a bit heavy-handed in pushing his themes. I would have preferred a subtler reflection on fame and destiny. But for anyone interested in, well, you-know-who, this is a great meditation on his character.

I am enjoying your short story reviews, Dewald. Are they all from the collection you list above, edited by Milton Crane? I am somewhat wary of such collections, but this one seems very worthwhile.

Yes, after the Medalie ones, they are all from the Crane book. I bought it a long time ago, before I also became wary of these types of collections, but so far it hasn't disappointed.

I had my graduation ceremony for English Honours today, so I might not have time to read and review a short story - I'll post two tomorrow, then.

Short Story 11: 'The Gioconda Smile' by Aldous Huxley

A perhaps overly long story which is also difficult to summarise. Mr Hutton seems to be in an enviable position – he is rich, married to a devoted wife, and has an equally devoted mistress. Then there is also Miss Janet Spence who, like wife and mistress, is enamoured of Mr Hutton. He is intrigued by her, especially her ‘Gioconda Smile’, which seems to conceal something mysterious beneath her veneer of sophistication. Despite Mr Hutton’s happy situation, things start going wrong for him when his wife suddenly dies…

As I said, the story seemed a bit lengthy, but other than that, it is a fascinating study of obsession and betrayal. Huxley is a better writer than he is sometimes given credit for; not just a ‘writer of ideas’, but also a sophisticated stylist. I have only read the ‘big one’, Brave New World, which I enjoyed less than this story, so I will be reading more of Huxley’s works.

Congratulations on your honours degree!

I wanted to add my congratulations also, Dewald. Based on your contributions to LT, I am certain that it is very well-deserved!

Thank you, SassyLassy and Linda!

Short Story 12: 'Father Wakes Up The Village' by Clarence Day

A very funny autobiographical story about Day’s father, who insists on having ice-cold water at all times, especially after a hard day’s work in the city. One hot day, the ice man doesn’t show up: there is hell to pay.

Not one of the best stories I've read this month, but quite humorous.

Yes, indeed, congratulations on your degree. I'm enjoying your story reviews.

Congratulations Dewald, hope you had a great day.

Checking in on the new thread. I've mostly lurking lately, not posting much, but enjoying your short story comments. And congrats on the honors degree.

Thank you guys! It was a wonderful day.

Short Story 13: ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ by James Joyce

Several Dubliners spend the evening in the Committee Room on Ivy Day, drinking and talking. That’s about it as far as the story goes – Joyce apparently prided himself on never having devised a plot in his life.

This may sound somewhat boring, and, in a sense, the story is ‘pointless’, but that misses the ‘point’ of Joyce’s artifice. His dialogue is, as always, brilliant in its verisimilitude, and his insight into Dublin society is as sharp as ever. The story, although not ‘about’ anything in the traditional sense, does present the different characters’ response to the legacy of Parnell, the Irish nationalist leader. I would have got more from the story if I actually knew more about Parnell and Ireland.

Short Story 14: ‘The Chrysanthemums’ by John Steinbeck

Elisa is planting chrysanthemums in her garden when an itinerant tinker comes by, offering to fix her pots and pans and sharpen her scissors. They discuss flowers and the tinker lifestyle. Elisa gives him chrysanthemum sprouts to take to a woman ‘down the road a piece’.

Did I understand the full import of this story? No. I got the idea that it was about a woman’s place in society: Elisa asks whether a woman could follow the tinker lifestyle, and the man replies that it would be very hard. There is also a sexual tension running through the story that made me somewhat uncomfortable. So, not my favourite story, although it was quite well-written.

Short Story 15: 'The Door' by E.B. White

A very peculiar ‘story’ of which I cannot give a synopsis, as that would imply that I actually knew what was happening. But the text is obviously meant to be discombobulating: White uses ‘and’ continuously to hurry the reader on, preventing you from actually forming a picture of what is happening, and there are many parentheses containing seemingly pointless information. I think the story is about someone who is mentally unstable, or who has been experimented upon, or both. Luckily, it is very short, so I didn’t have to hurt my mind too much in reading White’s tortuous prose.

Not bad, but a bit too post-modern for me, even though it was published in 1939. I can’t believe White also wrote Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web!

Short Story 16: 'An Upheaval' by Anton Chekhov

A young woman returns to her lodgings to find everything in ‘an upheaval’: the lady of the house has had her valuable brooch stolen. Being suspected of the theft causes the young woman a great amount of distress, which is compacted when she finds out who actually stole the brooch.

Another one of those stories that sounds humdrum in a summary, but which really has to be read to be appreciated. Chekhov as always brings acute psychological insight to his depiction of Russian life, whether it is the young woman, the lady of the house, the master, or the other servants.

Short Story 17: 'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf

A beautiful prose-poem more than a story, this is another one of those pieces that I am not quite sure I understood completely. But I think Woolf wants it to remain open to interpretation.

I really liked this, despite its nebular qualities. Even though I prefer shorts that have more narrative to them, I thought this was elegant and poignant.

23. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

This is a very funny book, but it has its faults. Charlie Asher is a happily-married, self-avowed Beta male, whose wife, Rachel, has just given birth to their first child, Sophie. After he (reluctantly) leaves the hospital to go rest, he finds his wife’s Sarah McLachlan CD in the car. He decides to take the CD back to her, but when he enters the room, he sees a large man in a green jumper looming over his wife. Obviously, Charlie is surprised, and then worried. But not as much as Minty Fresh (don’t ask), the aforesaid large-man-in-a-green-jumper. Charlie is not supposed to be able to see Minty, because Minty is a self-styled Death Merchant: he collects the soul objects from the recently deceased, and then delivers them to those in need of a soul. Now, with a dead wife, a new daughter, and a hole heap of problems, Charlie must learn the trade of Death Merchant before the Forces of Darkness can lay claim to the surface world.

This is quite an entertaining premise, although the role of the soul objects could have been fleshed out a bit more – the Death Merchants just keep them in their stores until the right person coincidentally comes along. Moore can be very funny, and luckily avoids scatological humour (for the most part). He does make quite a few non-PC jokes, usually involving sex, but that did not bother me inordinately. The book is, however, a bit long at 430 pages, and could have done with a trimming. Moore’s musings on the Beta male psychology is quite entertaining – maybe because it seemed a tad, ahem, applicable to my own situation. His introduction of speculative content is done well for the most part, though he does take extreme liberties in mixing his mythologies: he uses the Morrigan, Orcus, Buddhist eschatology, and more. One gets the sense at times that he was just introducing things for the hell of it, especially near to the end of the book.

The only substantial problem I had with the book also came near to the end of the book. Moore introduces a character with powers that completely unbalances the ending. While the Death Merchants only kept custody of the soul objects, this character causes the ending to lack any real tension. Moore also ends the book on a jarringly ‘humorous’ note which, despite the humorous tone of the book, did not quite fit with the more serious mood of the rest of the ending.

I enjoyed this book, and will try more of Christopher Moore’s work in the future. Hopefully, his other books are more streamlined and less improvisational.

Short Story 18: 'How Beautiful with Shoes' by Wilbur Daniel Steele

This story begins with the strangely-named Amarantha Doggett busy doing chores on the farm, when her fiancé arrives with the news that a ‘loony’ has escaped from a nearby institution. The fiancé leaves to help the town search for the man, and, as these things go, the loony turns up on the farm. He falls in love with Amarantha because of her name (it’s from a poem by Richard Lovelace), and decides to take her for his own. Will she escape from him? And how will this experience affect a poor farm girl?

This story, although a bit ambitiously long, had brilliant moments of tension and lyrical beauty. Steele’s description of the ‘loony’, Humble Jewett, was also tremendous. It made me think about what is really ‘sane’, about what we sacrifice to remain mentally stable (things like caprice and spontaneity, perhaps even poetry), but also about the dangers of sentimentalising insanity. Very good.

Oh, and the title comes from the Song of Solomon.

On the movie front, I wonder if any of you have seen Take Shelter? I hadn't heard anything about this movie before I saw it with a friend yesterday, yet I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. In the movie Michael Shannon plays a man who keeps having these incredibly vivid nightmares of storms, but storms like you've never seen before - end-of-the-world stuff. He's convinced that they are premonitions, so he starts taking precautionary measures, like retooling the old storm shelter on his property. But he also starts seeing a therapist. Question is, is he losing his mind, or, you know, really experiencing precognition of a terrible future?

The movie provides interesting insights into mental illness, and Michael Shannon is brilliant as the protagonist. It does a lot with relatively few special effects, and kept me guessing until the end.

Yes I enjoyed Take Shelter. An excellent central performance by Michael Shannon who seemed not to need to do too much acting to appear insane.

Oops is insane Ok to use or should I be using the term learning difficulties these days.

I don't mind, Barry. In Afrikaans, we have to say 'geestelik versteurd' nowadays, which translated directly means 'spiritually disturbed'.

Short Story 19. ‘The Catbird Seat’ by James Thurber
Mr Martin lives simply – doesn’t drink or smoke, doesn’t speak much, works for F & S with the file system that has always worked very well, thank you. When a new employee gains the trust of one of his bosses, and starts bringing about changes to his perfect system, Mr Martin comes to the only logical conclusion: he will have to kill her. As things turn out, however, there are sometimes better ways of getting rid of one’s problems...

This is a very well-known story, and I can see why: it’s very clever and interesting, and introduces some chilling concepts. I did not, however, think it was as brilliant as the hype might imply. Despite its cleverness, I doubt whether the story could actually work, even in 1942. That said, I enjoyed it.

Short Story 20. ‘The Scharz-Metterklume Method’ – Saki (H.H. Munro)
A young lady misses her train, and is mistaken for the new governess by an older lady who comes by to pick up said-governess. The young lady decides to have some fun, and introduces much-needed education reforms into the lives of the children by way of the ‘Scharz-Metterklume method’.

This was quite funny, but not as hilarious as I expected. It’s more witty than laugh-out-loud, which I may have been expecting. But it was charming and enjoyable.

24. Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg

In July, 1830, the Reverend Neil MacKenzie and his wife Lizzie arrive at the islands of St Kilda, on which an isolated community of Gaelic-speaking live in isolated splendour. Neil wishes to convert these people, whom he views as benighted pagans, to the Scottish kirk. Lizzie, in the advanced stages of pregnancy, is uncomfortable and sick on board ship, and also apprehensive about the new life ahead of her. When Neil and Lizzie arrive on the island, they are shocked by the lack of development on the island. Neil, who has grown up with the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, wants to help the people rise from their backward status, but he also brings a missionary zeal to his appointment. Lizzie is less sure of her role on the island – unable to speak Gaelic, she initially has no-one except her husband to converse with. Nor does she feel assured in the role of wife of the Reverend.

The new challenges the couple faces on the island form the backbone to the story. Neil carries a terrible burden: he survived a sinking ship as a young man, while his friend drowned. Now, he blames himself for this, but projects his uncertainties into fundamentalism and harshness to his young wife. This manifests itself most clearly in the beginning when Lizzie loses their first child – Neil blames her for this, as she ‘disobeys’ him by going for a walk on the cliffs near their new home, where she is attacked by skuas (a type of bird), falls, and has a miscarriage. Neil never allows her to forget this calamity. She also loses the next two children to a sickness the locals call the ‘eight-day sickness’ (actually neonatal tetanus), but later bears Neil six healthy children. As Neil struggles to convert the local St Kildans from their superstitions, the couple slowly grow estranged, with Neil becoming more withdrawn and fanatical, and Lizzie growing to accept her role as mother. There are, however, moments of renewed passion and love between the couple, but these are few and far between. The breakdown of a marriage is never pleasant reading, but Altenberg maintains a fine balance between complete dreariness and homily by focusing on the changes that time enacts on her cast of characters.

This book is very sorrowful; one can almost feel the cold Atlantic wind blowing its indifference over the characters and their individual lots. Despite this, Altenberg includes beautiful and bracing descriptions of the wind-swept, bird-infested islands. Perhaps there is even a beauty to sorrow well described, which it certainly is in this book. The fact that the book is based on real events is even more extraordinary, as one would not think that anyone could survive in the conditions that the islanders lived through. Altenberg never sentimentalises the islanders and their plight – she has some truly horrifying descriptions of their dwellings, which consisted of manure-packed hovels filled with the carcasses of dead birds, their main source of nutrition. There is, however, beauty even here, as the islanders sympathise with Lizzie and her plight, and Lizzie begins to return the sympathy. Neil remains an enigmatic character throughout the book; he loves his wife, but this love changes, even degenerates, with time. He is not a blind zealot, but he can be uncompromising towards his children and the islanders (whom he also views as children).

The questions of faith and superstition were interesting, as were Altenberg’s musings on civilisation and ‘barbarity’. Obviously, things are not presented in such straight-forward dichotomies. The only real negatives in the book for me were Altenberg’s overuse of explanative adverbs, which is excusable in a first novel, and her sometimes questionable reasoning: characters sometimes seem to make unsupported conceptual leaps, and utter some questionable non sequiturs. But I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to those looking for a read based in an exotic location which is still concerned with basic human questions.

Sounds like a book I need to read! St Kilda as a place has always fascinated me and your review is excellent. It seems that the book has really caught the feel of the setting.

The Afrikaans expression in >25 dmsteyn: is intriguing.

Yes good review Dewald.

An excellent review of Island of Wings, Dewald. I am tempted to immediately download it to my Kindle.

>28 SassyLassy: - Thank you, Sassy! I had only heard about St Kilda in passing before reading the book, but it does paint a vivid picture of isolation amid the North Atlantic swell.

Afrikaans is close to German in this regard. For instance, we call the humanities 'geesteswettenskappe', like the German 'Geisteswissenschaften', as opposed to 'Naturwissenschaften', or the natural sciences.

>29 baswood: - Thanks, Barry.

>30 Linda92007: - Linda, I hope I haven't over-sold the book. Looking at the other reviews, they range from positive to fairly negative, so caveat emptor, I guess. Hope you enjoy it, if you decide to get it.

I've been away for a while, busy with tutoring, drinking, birthdaying, etc., but I should be finishing a few books in the coming days. Here's the first, though I'm not going to review it:

25. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Probably the 6th or 7th time I have read this book, as I had it as a prescribed book in high school and as an undergraduate. Now that I have put away childish things, I return full circle to Dickens's classic treatment of the French Revolution. It is a very good book, and very teachable, too. But having read it so many times, now I only tend to notice the flaws in the book. I am not going to list them here; suffice it to say, the book is still a favourite of mine, like a childhood friend whom one cannot help noticing has hitherto unsuspected character flaws. Halitosis, say, or a disconcerting squint. All forgivable, of course, especially in the case of such a warm-hearted companion.

Dickens intrigues me. Seeing as it is the 200th anniversary of his birth, I may have to read the Tomalin biography in celebration of the great man of letters.

26. Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw

This is the only play I have read or seen by Shaw, but I must admit to enjoying it immensely. It is one of two plays I am tutoring undergraduates on this year, the other being Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, both of which are very funny, but I think Shaw takes the cake for thoughtful social commentary. Whereas Goldsmith still buys into the dominant social discourse of his times, Shaw lacerates the war-mongering ethos of his 1890's audience while retaining great dramatic and humorous momentum.

The play is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war of the 1880's, but this does not matter much to the plot. Shaw wrote the play without reference to any specific conflict; in fact, he did not even give his characters names, but filled in the blanks in the text after consulting one of his friends on recent historical conflicts. Raina Petkoff, daughter of a Bulgarian major, is betrothed to Sergius Saranoff, a rising star in the Bulgarian army and Shaw's representation of the overly-Byronic hero. When Sergius initiates a suicidal cavalry charge on the Serbian forces, he and his forces miraculously survive, as the Serbs ordered the wrong ammunition for their machine guns. The Serbs retreat through the Petkoff's home town, and one of their hired mercernaries, the Swiss officer Bluntschli, escapes by climbing the balcony to Raina's room. She manages to hide him from the advancing Bulgarian forces for reasons that are not initially clear, though an amatory grounds are hinted at. Bluntschli, who carries chocolates instead of ammunition, returns to the Petkoff's house after a peace treaty to thank Raina and to return her father's favourite coat. But Sergius and Major Petkoff also arrive, leading to intrigue and confusion...

Shaw, a practicing Socialist, is often accused of writing polemics and dressing them up in plays, but that does not seem true of this play, at least. The juxtaposition of Sergius, who believes in military glory, with Bluntschli, who views war pragmatically, is interesting and well handled. I also enjoyed the way Shaw deflates romantic views of love by, for instance, exposing the hypocrisy at the heart of Sergius and Raina's relationship, which, though supposed to be predicated on the ideal of the 'higher love', actually rests on empty emotions and deceit. Shaw also has things to say about class relationships, which aligns him with Goldsmith, but as mentioned above, Shaw seems much more perceptive concerning these issues.

The play is very funny, and has aged well. I look forward to reading more Shavian plays - God knows the man wrote enough of the things (more than 50!).

I read this at school and remember it being amusing.

Dewald - Enjoyed your review, even if I have never read or seen a GBS play.

27. Imajica by Clive Barker

A fantasy epic spanning five Dominions, scores of characters, and over 800 pages, Imajica promises much and, though it does not deliver on all these promises, it is still quite an achievement. Barker is usually thought of as a horror writer in the mould of Stephen King, an idea that is not completely inaccurate, as he has written straight-up horror stories. But neither King nor Barker can be pigeon-holed as mere horror writers; perhaps as popular genre writers, but neither are purveyors of penny dreadfuls. I know King’s work much better than Barker’s, but I have to say that as a first experience of Barker, this book excites me tremendously. It is very well-written, considering its subject matter and literary background, and it also makes good on its picaresque promise, especially in the first half of the book.

The book has two main characters, Gentle and Judith, erstwhile lovers, who both set out on journeys from the Fifth Dimension (our reality) across the Imajica. The dual-protagonist structure is notable, as the book is very concerned with gender roles and expectations of fantastic journeys. The Imajica is a wonderful puzzle-box of the imagination, with creatures of all shapes and sizes inhabiting the world(s). One is constantly assailed by new stimuli – like Mervyn Peake, Barker is also a visual artist – and the visual spectacle is bolstered by other sense information. (I suspect, though it is never made explicit, that the five Dimensions also refer to the senses). As mentioned, this is especially noticeable in the first Book of the novel, in which Gentle and his otherworldly companion, Pie ‘oh’ pah, journey across the Imajica. Pie is a mystif, a being that conforms to one’s desires and expectations of it, but which is essentially androgynous. This gives an even more interesting spin to the gender question, with Gentle becoming ever closer to Pie. Their relationship forms the backbone to the first Book, as Judith tries to reach Gentle across the dimensions. We later learn that no-one is really who they seem; both Judith and Gentle initially suffer from a strange kind of amnesia, which only lifts as they travel and learn more about their histories. What they learn is both distressing and illuminating, and will eventually determine their roles in the Reconciliation of the Dominions. I do not want to give away too much about what is revealed about the characters; not because it would spoil the book, but because it would detract from Barker’s sophisticated smoke and mirrors act. Suffice it to say that characters are doubled and refracted through their histories and families.

Barker makes an interesting point about power relations between the genders, while also commenting on faith and doubt. Without going into too much detail, Barker posits the Imajica as the handiwork of Hapexamendios, a male god (or God) who has subjugated and, in some cases, destroyed, the Goddesses of the Imajica. We get a very intriguing reading of this most-familiar dichotomy, with Hapexamendios and his children representing a very patriarchal and fundamentalist type of religion, while the Goddesses represent the matriarchal and more generous interpretation of religion. But this is not quite the binary opposition that it at first appears to be. Some of the God’s (male) children rebel, some of the Goddesses are dangerous in their own right, and Pie ‘oh’ pah spans the gap that seems unbridgeable.

The book loses some momentum after the first part, but this is understandable in such a long book. Perhaps Barker could have trimmed it a little, but he is such a generously-gifted fabulist that one would be hard-pressed to say what should be left out. After the picaresque journey of the first part, the second part, which is mostly set in our reality, seemed somewhat quotidian. Not a major quibble, but still a bit disappointing. I also found the resolution of the Reconciliation a bit arbitrary and unconvincing. But endings, especially after enjoyable beginnings and middles, are often disappointing.

So, a very entertaining book that considers some heavy topics, without falling into a feminist or masculinist reading of its topics. The book is not perfect – perhaps it worked better as originally published in two parts. Now it is a bit of a shaggy monster. Still, very readable and imaginative.

A note on the edition: if the book sounds interesting, I would get the Perennial edition, as it has a beautifully illustrated appendix that is very useful for keeping track of everything that is going on. Just be careful when looking in it when you read the book for the first time; there are many spoilers!

>34 baswood: - It's always interesting how the things one read at school tend to stay with you, Barry.

>35 dchaikin: - Thanks, Dan.

Dewald you are not the first person to say that Clive Barker's books are shaggy monsters, but I guess that if you enjoy the prose you keep on going until the end. I remember reading the Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Stephen Donaldson not once but twice.

Excellent review of Arms and the Man, Dewald. I have always been interested in Shaw, although I have little experience in reading his plays, or any others for that matter. I should probably give it a try, as I also don't seem to get around to seeing actual productions much.

>38 baswood: - Barry, a very accurate summation of what I experienced. I often enjoy books that just keep on giving, even when I realise that quality is probably being sacrificed for quantity. Have you read all the Thomas Covenant Chronicles twice? I want to give Donaldson's books a look sometime, as I've heard good things about him.

>39 Linda92007: - Thanks, Linda! We had a reading of the play for the sake of our undergraduates, but I missed it due to unforeseen circumstances (i.e. not foreseeing that I would have to learn for the test I was writing the next day). Shaw seems like an incredibly interesting character in his own right, although much of that was probably a public persona that he had to keep up.

Yes very sadly I have read all the Thomas Covenant chronicles twice. I have been successful in stopping myself read them for a third time.

28. The Basic Writings of Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann

To paraphrase Hazlitt's comment on King Lear, "We wish that we could pass this book over, and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it."

If you think you know Nietzsche, yet you have not read him - at all? closely? - then you do not know Nietzsche. And if you want a review of Nietzsche's work, then read his Ecce Homo. Completed just before his - mental collapse? withdrawal from society? - this book says everything that really needs to be said about his work. As Kaufmann notes: "Who would not rather have Shakespeare on Shakespeare... than the exegeses and conjectures of thousands of critics and professors?"

I like Nietzsche immensely. I dislike him immensely, too. He should be read on his own terms, and judged accordingly. Or not judged at all, at least, not in a binary way. Dichotomies of good/bad, good/evil, etc., lacerated by Nietzsche, are always a sign of lazy thinking. Life is too variegated for Manichaeism.

A quote from Nietzsche's preface to Ecce Homo, and then silence:

Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else.

I like your comments on Nietzsche. I've read just the first piece from The Basic Writings, "The Birth of Tragedy," but haven't made time yet to get back to the rest. I'm also planning on reading The Portable Nietzsche, also translated by Kaufmann, and containing all the major works not in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche.

Man, I've had The Basic Writings of Nietzsche on my TBR pile forever and ever. I think I've always been a little intimidated about starting it.

>43 StevenTX: - "The Birth of Tragedy" is interesting as a debut piece, but the past part about it in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche is the preface Nietzsche wrote for it years later. And, yes, I also need to get to The Portable Nietzsche. Not having read it yet was one of the (many) reasons I refrained from doing an in-depth review.

>44 bragan: - bragan, I understand the feeling! I began reading this a few years ago, but stopped after a hundred pages, or thereabouts. Nietzsche is not that difficult to read, to be honest - he isn't Heidegger or Kant! - but I think his style is deceptively simple. Also, some of his ideas may make one feel uncomfortable, such as equating Christianity to a "slave morality".

Oh my, I seem to be insinuating that one should feel intimidated about reading Nietzsche! In all honesty, I'm sure that you're more than capable of facing up to him. I hope you dis/like him as much as I do!

Heh. Well, I think you've encouraged more than discouraged me, anyway, although whether that'll translate to actually getting around to reading the darned thing is another question. I think I'm perhaps intimidated more by the idea that I will find him annoying than that I'll find him difficult. (Not that I'm a fan of Christianity, myself.) But, of course, there's only one way to really know how one will respond to a book, and that's to read it!

A fabulous and intriguing review of The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Dewald. You couldn't have said it any better. This is going on my wishlist.

>47 Linda92007: - Thanks, Linda, though, in this case, I really think it wasn't much of a review...

29. Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism by Richard Kearney

I spent the first semester of 2012 studying the philosophy of subjectivity, which brought me into contact with many philosophical schools from Cartesianism to Feminism. One of my favourite “discoveries” was the phenomenological school of philosophy, specifically that of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (and, yes, I am aware that Heidegger probably would not have considered himself a phenomenologist). I had to do an assignment discussing Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty’s views of the self, which brought Richard Kearney’s book to my attention, among others. As the title makes clear, Kearney discusses various strands of modern European (or Continental) philosophy. He presents the works of nineteen philosophers under the broad headings of Phenomenology, Critical Theory, and Structuralism. A slight complaint would be that Kearney sometimes shoehorns certain philosophers into the respective categories, even when they themselves denied that they practised philosophy of that school (the above example of Heidegger is one; Foucault’s presence under the Structuralists is another). Kearney does, however, always indicate these instances, and cogently argues for their inclusion under the specific categories. Perhaps he could have done without the broad categories – perhaps he thought the broad categories would help to structure his book. In any case, it is only a minor quibble.

Of the three categories, I am constitutionally most drawn to the phenomenological philosophers, and consequently found Kearney’s explication of their theories the most congenial. Here it is Merleau-Ponty’s arguments concerning embodied subjectivity that I find most interesting and cogent. On the other hand, I also find Edmund Husserl’s ground-breaking phenomenological work interesting – he was, after all, the father of such studies – and Heidegger is always intriguing. Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Ricoeur are also great French philosophers in this tradition, with Sartre providing both philosophical and literary works to support his standpoint. To be honest, the only phenomenologist (though he would also deny this categorisation) that Kearney considers whom I actively dislike, is Jacques Derrida. Like heady wine, Derrida is an acquired taste that I never managed to, well, acquire. It is not that I completely disagree with deconstructionism, however you might want to define deconstructionism (would you want to define it?) Rather, I dislike Derrida’s arrogance. His claims about literature are too complex to go into here. Let us just say that I think a lot of his writing is pure hokum. Maybe my inbuilt sh*t-detector is overactive when it comes to his textual strategies. Maybe I just feel threatened by his decentring of the literary canon. Maybe… well, enough of that. I would rather be reading Merleau-Ponty, in any case.

Critical Theory was a whole new field to me. It is, basically, a Marxist school of philosophy. On the whole, I do not have a high regard for Marxism, especially its positivist adherents, but some of the Critical Theorists seem like interesting and convincing thinkers. I do not have the required knowledge to really write anything coherent about their philosophies, but I would like to read some of their works, especially those of Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse.

I am a bit more acquainted with Structuralist theories, though not so much that I can really write intelligibly about most of the Structuralist thinkers. I studied Ferdinand de Saussure, who introduced Structuralism into linguistics, for a bit during a course in English grammar, but that was a few years ago. He seems like a very original thinker, even though his writings are mostly very technical. Similarly, I studied Claude Lévi-Strauss in a course on Ancient Cultural History. He introduced Structuralist thinking into anthropology, but all I can really remember about his work is how unconvincing I found most of his explanations of myths. Of the other Structuralists, I know the most about Foucault, who, though an interesting and controversial thinker, I do not particularly like. His work on madness and sexual deviancy interests me, even though I doubt I would agree with most of his conclusions. Then we have Lacan, Althusser, Barthes, and Kristeva. I am aware of Barthes’s claims concerning the ‘death of the author’, thanks to a Poetics and Literary Theory course I took. Kristeva also seems interesting, especially her “post-feminist” ideology, if ideology is the right word.

This is a great introduction to some of the most important philosophers of the previous century. Even though I doubt I will be reading more of some of them, I found it a mind-expanding prolegomena to modern European philosophy. I recommend it for its clarity and inherent interestingness.

A note: I feel that this is, in some ways, a sorry, bedraggled excuse for a review, as I have mostly relied on value-judgements, instead of focussing on the content of Kearney’s book. My problem was how to condense Kearney’s complex explications of the philosophers’ theories into a readable, and not overlong, review. Being intimidated by this problem, I took the coward’s way out and relied on the aforesaid personal judgements. I am sure that a better review of the book is possible, but it would involve more effort than I am willing to expend at the moment.

Why not rely on value judgements after studying the philosophy of subjectivity?! I thought this was a great overview and review. I have read only a few of the people you mention and that was some time ago. You have actually encouraged me to find this book and do a catchup and expand into some of the other authors.

It is not that I completely disagree with deconstructionism, however you might want to define deconstructionism (would you want to define it?) gave me a great chuckle.

Way to go dewald, excellent review. Sounds like the book achieved its premise set out in the title.

It is easier to read about a good many philosophers than to read them. I want never to read Heidegger, but he is too important to ignore. I have put this book on my wishlist. Thank you.

Robert

>50 SassyLassy: - Thanks, Sassy! This book definitely makes me want to run out and find the works of some of these authors. On the subjectivity front, I guess that's a fair comment, but my studies were more concerned with views on the self as subject, rather than subjective viewpoints.

Who of these authors have you read, by the way?

>51 baswood: - Thank you very much, Barry. It definitely gave a great oversight of European philosophy in the 20th century. This was the second edition, so it goes up till the 90's. I think only Kristeva has actually published anything since then (the others being mostly dead and all).

>52 Mr.Durick: - Oh, I agree so much with that comment on Heidegger! Although, to be fair, all of his writing isn't as impenetrable as that in Being and Time. I hope you enjoy the book, if and when you get to it.

The advantage of the value judgments is that you've written a review that I can understand it (albeit, with a list of terms that don't mean anything to me). Interesting to follow your philosophical readings.

Sorry, it was a poor attempt at a pun. Knowing the real nature of subjectivity, I was afraid it wouldn't work.

To answer your question, of the people you mention, I have read Heidegger, but not as a phenomenologist, Sartre, Benjamin, Levi-Strauss, a bit of Marcuse and Foucault, and a lot of Marxist thought. Structuralism in the form of structural functional analysis was big. It was long ago and far away. At that time as far as philosophy went, I was caught up in the Rationalists, not the twentieth century. Now I would like to do some catching up, especially with Foucault and Derrida, as my family members lean more in that direction, so your book looked like a good way to get back into it.

>54 dchaikin: - Dan, glad to hear that the review is not too esoteric to understand.

>55 SassyLassy: - I figured as much, so no need to apologise. I really think the book is a good introduction; Kearney makes a concerted effort to remain intelligible, while not dumbing down the concepts. He also has many quotes from the philosophers' works, which I found illuminating.

30. Complete Poems by D.H. Lawrence

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times. – Randall Jarrell

D.H. Lawrence was, and remains, a great writer. You can say what you will about his style, his subject matter, or his personal life, but the fact remains that Lawrence was one of the most important writers of the last century. One may not like what Lawrence dug up, but that he broke new ground remains undisputable. As a writer of novels, short stories, essays, and travel pieces, Lawrence reveals his mastery of prose style. But here I only wish to say a few things about his poetry. As the above quotation indicates, inspiration is a rare thing, even among gifted poets. Yet Lawrence seemed not so much to wait for lightning to strike, as to give off sparks of his own. His poetry is, admittedly, uneven, but it always retains a certain smell of ozone, the divine charge of stirring soul-fullness. Lawrence, as poet, is much neglected nowadays. This is mostly because people read his Pansies (or, God forbid, Nettles) and think that these collections are all that Lawrence has to offer. I admit to also feeling ambivalent towards these two collections, in which Lawrence seems to have plonked down his thoughts willy-nilly, without due consideration for artistic effect. Unfortunately, they make up a large part of his oeuvre, and give the idea that Lawrence was a bit of a doggerel poetaster. I hope to show in this review that nothing could be further from the truth.

The best way to appreciate someone’s poetry is to read it. Obvious, really. I will therefore quote one of Lawrence’s poems in full. Hopefully, this does not break any copyright laws. I would have liked to quote from Lawrence’s most ambitious, and best, collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but the poems tend to be very long (e.g. many people know his poem, Snake, from this collection, which, although not the longest, is already three pages in length). Therefore I will quote a poem from his Last Poems, the poems collected from manuscript after Lawrence’s early death. Lawrence, who had been sick for a while, was fascinated by death, the main subject of nearly all his last poems. This is one of the best.

Bavarian Gentians

Not every man has gentians in his house
in soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.

Bavarian Gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the day-time, torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto’s dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter’s pale lamps give off light,
lead me then, lead the way.

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the lost bride and her groom.

The poem really needs to be read aloud to appreciate the cumulative effect of the repetition, the ominous tone, the references to Greek mythology and to Milton… it all builds up to a poem of immense atmosphere and startling depth. Lawrence is contemplating his own death, which seems morbid enough, but there is an artistic detachment here that gives the poem force and originality. Lawrence detested sentimentality, as is obvious from his withdrawal from overly emotional responses to death, especially his own. Lawrence also rebelled against doctrinaire Christianity (perhaps indicated by his reference to ‘slow, sad Michaelmas’?), turning to the religions of other cultures, not as a believer, but as a man who was interested in humanity and the beauty it was capable of. He thus incorporates both Greek and Roman mythology, and even older traditions, like those of the Etruscans. But his incorporation of these myths does not lead to a dilettante’s eclecticism. Rather, Lawrence indicates how death is part of a universal, natural cycle, like the seasons (the Persephone myth is instructive here). How many of us could accept such a dark, dreary destiny with the élan and vitality that Lawrence displays, less than a year before his death?

Lawrence is a life-affirming poet and writer. He would not have given a damn about his detractors. It is, however, a shame that he is not more widely read today. In many ways an English Walt Whitman (whom he admired, but also criticised), Lawrence deserves more recognition as a truly great modern poet.

Excellent review of the collected poems and I absolutely agree with your views of Lawrence as a life affirming poet. I think everything he did was life affirming. I have no doubt in my mind that he was a great poet and there are many great poems in his collected works. I even like the scattershot approach of Pansies and Nettles, much of which makes me laugh.

People who are afraid of Lawrence I think are afraid of life and perhaps of death.

I have only got one thumb

Barry, thank you so, so much for your gracious post. I know Lawrence is, how shall I put it, not de rigeur at the moment, but I think he is excellent, and, yes, Pansies and Nettles can be very funny.

Fabulous review, Dewald, and wonderful insights on Lawrence and "Bavarian Gentians". I have not read any of his poetry, but now that seems like a gap that I should fill.

Thanks, Linda. I think one of the main advantages of Club Read is that it highlights gaps that one might like to fill. In my case, this pertains especially to Eastern literature - in fact, non-Western literature as a whole.

31. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Just a few thoughts, as this one has been reviewed to death. (Ironically enough, as the narrator of the novel is Death.)

Books about the second world war, especially those dealing with the Holocaust, have to walk a pretty fine line between sentimentality and brutality. Zusak’s book manages this for the most part, which is enough to make it better than most of the books of this kind. With an acknowledged similarity to Anne Frank’s diary, but from the other side of the divide, The Book Thief manages to both entertain and horrify, quite an accomplishment for what is usually billed as a YA novel. I found the book’s short paragraphs and staccato style irritating at first, but this soon faded into the background as I was drawn into the story. Despite being wary of the affective fallacy, I will admit that this book, ahem, affected me deeply, and had me close to tears at parts near the end. A good book, which I raced through despite its 500 odd-pages.

Quite a change from your previous books. Enjoyed your comments.

Thanks, Dan. I read it because of the narrator, who (which?) also plays a role in the book.

32. Why the West Rules-For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris

The book took me ages to get through, mostly because it is a long and detailed historical account of the rise of both the Western and Eastern ‘worlds’, but also because I disliked reading it. This may just be me – it certainly is not badly written or argued. But on both those points – the writing and the argumentation – I found myself becoming irritated with Morris. Morris’s style is not bad, but it can be dishearteningly bland and formulaic. He has what is generally called a ‘breezy’ tone, where I would prefer a more sober and reflective approach. Minor stuff, but still annoying. I can understand that Morris wants to come across as approachable – this is not a specialist book – but does he really have to use hackneyed literary quotations so often? I am really tired of the expression ‘dark satanic mills’ when reading about the Industrial Revolution, or factories of any kind. (Mostly because Blake was probably referring to churches, not factories or sweatshops). In any case, many contemporary historians and journalists use these worn out expressions, so I probably should not blame Morris too much for this.

I will not go into Morris’s main arguments concerning the West and the East here, as I would have to write about two pages to convey his whole line of reasoning. Suffice it to say that I was not completely convinced by Morris’s statistical model for explaining the whole of pre-history and modern history. It certainly is plausible in some circumstances, and I would also need at least two pages to completely explain why I disagreed with Morris. Succinctly put, I thought that Morris was a bit too sceptical about the role of culture in history, especially the humanities, such as art and literature. Morris does not completely discount the influence of these aspects of human life, but he seems too dismissive of the role of individual humans in history. Writing as a South African, who is not too enamoured of either West or East, I also thought that Morris should have expanded his thesis to take in other parts of the world. This is only a suspicion, but I think he refrained from doing this because it would have illuminated certain lacunas in his theory of history.

Well, what can I say? Some books just do not captivate you the way you might have expected. Generally, I like wide-ranging histories, but the above-mentioned problems made this book a chore. I am sure others will enjoy this book much more than I did. I commend Morris for his attempt to move away from Occident-central reading of history, but I did not like this book.

Why the West Rules-For Now is already on my wishlist. I will keep your warning in mind.

Robert

It's a much simpler world if you can block out all but two parts. Glad to have read your comments.

66, 67- Thanks for taking the time to read my review. As mentioned, I'm sure different people will have different reactions to the book. I just disliked it on a gut-level.

33. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good.

- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII

What is Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita about? I find that an impossible question to answer, at least, in a nutshell. The meaning of the novel is too complex and multi-faceted to summarise in a few words. The content of the novel can be conveyed a bit more readily, although even here, one experiences problems: the titular ‘Master and Margarita’ do not appear in the novel until almost the half-way point. Problems also arise with descriptions like ‘Satan and his retinue arrive in 1930s Moscow and wreak havoc’. For one thing, do we know that Woland, the diabolical foreigner, really is Satan? Bulgakov is certainly coy about this identification. Moreover, we do not even know whether this really is 1930s Moscow. Again, Bulgakov avoids giving particulars about the period. It is certainly Moscow, but a fictional representation of the Russian city that mixes in fictitious places (Griboedov House) with real locations (the Patriarch Ponds). And what about the scenes from the Master’s manuscript? Are they really about the Passion of Christ? Bulgakov goes out of his way to contradict the gospels, changing facts (well, putative facts) and adding information that is quintessentially apocryphal. His use of Aramaic names and other details give these scenes a verisimilitude that contrasts strongly with the actual Biblical narratives. Why does Bulgakov go to such lengths to obscure his source material? Any lengthy consideration of Bulgakov’s masterpiece leads to a proliferation of questions, as this introductory paragraph illustrates (perhaps too clearly). I do not pretend to be able to answer these questions, but I will attempt to illuminate some of them, especially as concerns the interpretation of the novel. Most of my tentative conclusions are based on the excellent Critical Companion to the novel edited by Laura Weeks.

Several approaches to the novel are considered by Weeks in her introductory essay concerning the novel. Although, like Weeks, I prefer a unified reading of the novel, I will consider each of these approaches briefly. The first is the view of the novel as carnival, as suggested by the Russian formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin. This reading takes its cue from the medieval mystery plays, where the ‘collision of the eternal… and the ephemeral allowed carnival goers to air their social and economic grievances and… set the prevailing social and moral order on its head’ (p.18). The representation of the Passion story was a popular part of the carnival days, and was often presented very realistically. This part of the carnival contrasted with the foolery and horse-play of the rest of the celebrations, which can by analogy apply to the role of Koroviev and Behemoth (Woland’s humorous assistants) in the novel. Some critics see this reading as applying to the novel because they claim that, just as nothing really changes after carnival, with the social order reasserting itself, so nothing really changes in Moscow after Woland and his retinue leaves. I do not completely agree, but more on this later.

Another way of seeing the novel is as a Menippean satire. Briefly, such a satire is a ‘mixture of seemingly contradictory elements: history and myth, philosophy and fantasy, the serious and the comic, high- and low-narrative levels’ (p.19). A famous English example would be Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Being satirical, this kind of writing aims to ridicule the vices of society, which Bulgakov obviously does in writing about Stalinist practices. Closely following this satirical reading is the view of the novel as roman-a-clef, or a novel in which actual people and events are disguised as fictional characters and events. Bearing in mind Bulgakov’s own treatment at the hands of the Stalinist authorities, this reading is certainly tenable, but only to a degree, as it unfortunately leads to the parlour game of ‘identify-the-character-with-the-person’, which distracts from actual interpretation. This is also a problem with reading the novel as a straight political allegory of Stalinist Russia. Although this type of interpretation was quite in vogue for a while, there are several problems with it. As Weeks notes, there are problems of chronology, but it also cheapens the novel, implying that once one has guessed the ‘actual’ meaning of the scenes and who the characters ‘actually’ represent, ‘most of the marrow has been sucked from the bone’, (as Weeks puts it), which obviously is not true.

A different reading is to see the novel as a parody of Goethe’s Faust. There are certainly similarities between the two works, with characters sharing names and roles, and both works sharing similar moral concerns: the epigraph at the beginning of The Master and Margarita (which is from Faust) makes this clear. It is, however, important to note that Bulgakov consistently undermines our expectations. For instance, Woland, who initially seems to be a Mephistophelean figure, quickly departs from this role (as Weeks mentions, he does not conform to the Faust-Gretchen-Mephistopheles triangle in his relations with the Master and Margarita). Also, the Master does not conform to the role of the ever-striving Faust; nor does Margarita remotely resemble the innocent, demure Gretchen. So, while the novel can be seen as a reworking of the dramatic poem, direct analogies quickly break down. Similar problems arise from viewing the novel as a form of ‘miraculous Russian fairy tale’. Although there are certainly similarities (Russian fairy tales posit a similar blending of reality and fantasy), the fairy tales tend to strongly endorse binary oppositions of good and evil, while the fact is (as Weeks puts it) that ‘no one in this novel (except Yeshua) is unambiguously good or evil’ (p.25).

None of these formal approaches are quite satisfactory, as they ignore aspects of the novel that do not quite fit into their views. An example from Weeks:

For those haunted by the images of Rimskii’s shaking head and white hair, Baron Maigel’s burning body, and Berlioz’s severed head, this is no Bakhtinian “temporary liberation” from the prevailing social and moral order.

As Weeks goes on to mention, this is because these approaches ignore the theological and metaphysical aspects of the work. A useful way of looking at this is through Christian iconography, which I will not go into here, and the possibilities that Bulgakov was influenced by Gnostic and Manichean worldviews. The Gnostic and Manichean views both posit two plains of existence: ‘one transcendent, divine; the other fallen, material – a division that is echoed in the polarization of Bulgakov’s universe.’ The courage-cowardice polarization is of utmost importance in the novel, as it is the crux on which Pilate’s and the Master’s redemption hinges.

And what, then, of Woland and the opposition of good versus evil? Bulgakov’s cosmology differs markedly from traditional Christian eschatology, which was strongly influenced during its formative years by Persian dualism in which ‘good and evil do not coexist in the creation but are forever battling it out, until the final reckoning’ (p.42). This is obviously simplifies Christian eschatology, but it does contrast interestingly with the role of Satan in the Old Testament (especially in Job), where he is an agent of divine justice. Woland also seems to fulfil this role of punisher, but he also rewards characters. Weeks notes that ‘a number of critics see Woland as source of evil’ (p.43), or as playing the role of the Father of Lies. For example, Edward Ericson says that ‘the contrast between the end of Woland and Company and that of the Master and Margarita… should lay to rest any notion of Satan as a “good guy” in this novel’ (p.65).

As I began this review with a quote from Paradise Lost, I will end it by saying that I see a correlation between the roles of Satan in both these works. Critics, perhaps swayed by their personal beliefs, tend to interpret Satan and Woland (who may not be the same entity) as either fundamentally good or evil. I would contend that both play roles outside traditional Christian doctrine. Both Bulgakov and Milton were forming their own cosmologies based on Christianity, but neither were doctrinaire practitioners of their faiths. Their diabolical characters, though very different, are both ambiguous agents of a will which is perhaps not quite divine. As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, ‘The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose’. Perhaps writers can cite the Devil for their purposes.

Fabulous and thoughtful review of The Master and Margarita, which should be of interest to all those club readers that read it recently.

Another wonderful review of The Master and Margarita. Really nice to have a good summary of the varying interpretations.

I am looking forward to reading your M&M review with more care when I have more time, but thanks for posting it.

>70 baswood: - Thanks, Barry! I know it's a bit belated, but it took me some time to get to the Weeks book.

>71 DieFledermaus: - I hope I haven't scared off too many people with the literary theory :)

>72 rebeccanyc: - It's a bit... long, isn't it? But I really wanted to give a good overview of what I had read, and some of the ideas touched on in the novel. Posting is always a pleasure, so no problem, Rebecca.

M&M goes so many different places, I think one could could spent a good bit of time getting pleasantly lost exploring it further, at least I imagine I could. You review captures that, but what I most of love about your review is that I'm now pondering the relationship between M&M and Paradise Lost - which I've only read through book four, and which I have a certain plan to read through (starting over) at least once...just don't know when.

#69

That's a very apposite epigraph--to the entire project of Soviet Communist utopia, AND to Bulgakov's novel which comments on it.

Of the many points you raised, addressing only one, the ethical nature of Woland & Co. (btw, I see no reason not to equate them with Satan)--I agree it's ambiguous, beyond good and evil, as is possibly the god's. The only unequivocal exponent of goodness, in this tale, is Jesus. And wondering whether Woland is supposed to be "good" or "bad" is to me entirely beside the point, and more likely than not obscures more interesting questions.

Why did Bulgakov choose the diabolical supernatural to visit Moscow, and not the angelic? If he had merely wanted to state that, contrary to whatever the Communists said, there was indeed a (Christian) god and all the rest of it, why not send down angel Dulcimel and his buddies Peachblossom, Honeydew, and Marshmallow the giant talking hamster, to spread a good word or two?

Have you read any other Bulgakov? In one story in particular, The Diaboliad (Endiablade; English touchstone leads to one wrong option), which precedes M&M, one man's life is ruined by the irruption of initially minor errors and misunderstandings, which gradually take on the appearance of a diabolical plot, carried through by malevolent or simply careless characters, who, to the victim, begin to seem like the devil himself.

In M&M Woland & Co. become a vehicle through which this malevolent chaos enters human life, but not only--they reveal the existing disorder and faults in a society which is supposedly perfect or getting there. The devil is useful in showing people for what they are (eg. stupid, greedy materialistic sods, traitors, weaklings), which was, I think, one of the main, important messages from Bulgakov to readership--that place, that time, first of all.

>74 dchaikin: - Thanks, Dan. It certainly does go to some very interesting places, some of which Bulgakov probably wasn't even considering (consciously?) at all. Good luck with the Paradise Lost. I am busy with it at the moment (Bk IV, coincidentally), but took the epigraph from the introduction in the Complete Poems and Major Prose collection.

>75 LolaWalser: - You make some very cogent points, Lola, and I'll try to address all of them. As I mentioned to Dan, the epigraph came from the introduction of the Milton volume I am reading at the moment, and is concerned with the 'Fortunate Fall' of Adam & Eve. And I agree, it also chimes nicely with the idea of Soviet utopia, though I wasn't really thinking of that so much.

I also tend to equate Woland & Co. with Satan, and don't really know why some critics don't. I can, however, see why they would shy away from equating him with Mephistopheles for reasons mentioned in the review. I don't think Woland's morality is entirely beside the point (the death of Baron Maigel worried me a bit) but I agree that it is not fundamental to interpreting the novel.

Thanks for the whole 'angel Dulcimel and retinue' paragraph; besides making me laugh, it also made me think. A slightly (but only slightly) tongue-in-cheek answer for Bulgakov's decision to choose the diabolical might be because, to (mis)quote William Blake:

the reason Bulgakov wrote... at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

On a side note, I think that writing about angels is particularly difficult, and not that popular, either. Everyone likes Inferno; few bother to read Paradiso.

I unfortunately have not read The Diaboliad, or any other Bulgakov, but I do have Heart of a Dog and Theatrical Novel/A Dead Man's Memoir sitting on the shelf. I don't know whether you know this (probably) but Bulgakov's father was a professor of Theology, which some critics see as a reason for his interest in religious themes.

And I agree that it is important to keep Bulgakov's intentions in mind, though I would caution that we should remember what Wimsatt and Beardsley said about authorial intention: 'the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art' (I do not go as far as Wimsatt and Beardsley in denying any use of looking at authorial intention, but I do think that interpretation often rests on things that the author would hardly have noticed at all in the white heat of creation).

Well, that was a mouthful. Thank you for your input; you really made me reconsider some aspects of The Master and Margarita.

I have finally read your comments and find them thought-provoking. Essentially, having now read M&M twice, I find it operates on several/many levels at once, so all of the factors you mention may be playing a role. Mostly, though, I agree with Lola's last paragraph that Woland's actions reveal the evils of the society and the characters of the people.

All Russians are theologians, it comes with having a Slavic soul. ;)

I'm only half-joking, but to my mind the "theology" or religious themes in M&M hardly need that explanation--they are first of all the dramatic framework most fitting the response to the imposition of Communist dogma, in style as in content, because in style as in content Communism was reminiscent of a new religion: messianic (and, to many critics, apocalyptic), it promised the end of times (strife, class struggle), equality, security, heaven on earth. It usurped the position of traditional religion, pretended to solve the large existentialist questions (also traditionally a prerogative of the church), replaced Christ the saviour, turned the holy family into squatters etc.

You mentioned the satirical nature and the carnivalesque elements--you'll keep finding them in everything Bulgakov wrote, and that in itself throws a light on their role in M&M. Not only did it suit his expression best, I think it suited the times, witness also the brief upsurge in the popularity of absurdism and absurd theatre, the final admission that reality has become uncommunicable and unrepresentable, because life is--complete nonsense. What is more fantastic than ending up in Siberia for cracking a joke? And yet such fantastic, dream-like things now happened. A literary parallel? Why not ending up in Yalta because the devil needs your apartment.

My question about why not the angel was of course partly rhetorical: Bulgakov was a consummate dramatist, and it nowhere shows as well as in this great novel. The devil is dramatic in ways an angel (in good standing) could never be, the devil incites to action, sets up opposition and creates tension, and this is lively, exciting, interesting. (Another thing to remember is that Bulgakov was inspired by Gounod's melodramatic operatic Faust rather than by Goethe's philosophical one. Your mention of "parody" jarred, but perhaps it is fair to hear Gounod as--unwittingly--"parodying" the unbearably solemn German.)

I've taken up enough space in your thread, thanks for providing this impetus for discussion.

77 - Thanks for taking the time, Rebecca. I certainly agree that that is a genuinely insightful reading of The Master and Margarita. My only qualms are that it is perhaps a bit limiting to view the novel as only an indictment of society and its morality. (I am aware that that is not quite what Lola is proposing ;)

78 - Please, take up as much space as you would like! The kettle's boiling, and I'll be serving refreshments... well, soon. ;)

My only problem with reading the novel as primarily reflecting Bulgakov's stance towards Soviet society is that the novel still 'works' even if one knows absolutely nothing about the Soviet apparatus and its influence on culture and society. Obviously, you will be missing a lot if you don't know these things - no argument there - but the same is true of many works of literature. Off the top of my head, I might mention Paradise Lost again. If you haven't read a great deal of Classical literature (or have an annotated version) most, maybe all, of the references to The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, etc. will go right over your head. Yet you will still get a lot from the poem.

I think Bulgakov's achievement is greater than a work of art contingent on prior knowledge.

And now for something completely different:

36. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

This collection of novellas, although not as good as Different Seasons, still had its moments. A few summary desciptions:

‘1922’
An interesting story which had a few padding issues. A Nebraska farmer murders his wife with the coerced help of his son, but their lives unravel after the crime in strange and unexpected ways. This is a typical King story, with great characterisation and suspense, but also with too much unnecessary details – it would have been better as a short story than as a novella – and a hint of the supernatural that seemed gratuitous. One probably cannot blame King for the supernatural element – it is, after all, his stock-in-trade feature – but it was not really necessary to the story.

‘Big Driver’
Like all the stories in Full Dark, No Stars, this story was quite upsetting: it has a depiction of a brutal rape, and then relates how the victim sets out on a vigilante quest for vengeance. The main character (the rape victim) is a writer, a ploy that King often uses – write what you know, I suppose – but at least she is not a horror writer. She does, however, use her skills at writing detective novels to enact justice on her own behalf. If you can accept that premise, than this is quite an arresting story of tables-turned revenge. I do not like vigilantism, but King does not seem to be advocating it; rather, he posits a horrifying situation and then extrapolates how it might play out. Nothing wrong with that.

‘Fair Extension’
A man dying from cancer meets a stranger selling life extensions next to the road. There is something… diabolical about the stranger, but the protagonist decides to give his extensions a try. His best friend, whom he secretly hates, inherits the protagonist’s bad luck, but in unexpected ways. This story does not really have a neat, wrapped-up conclusion; it just seems to peter out, sans resolution. Which is fair enough, as King seems to be implying that life is pretty much like that.

‘A Good Marriage’
If I was not particularly enthused by the first three stories in this collection, then this one convinced me that King has still got something special up his sleeve. A woman discovers that her husband of 30-odd years is secretly a sadistic serial killer. What will she do with this knowledge, especially when the dear husband arrives home? A great premise, wonderfully plotted and told, with trademark suspense and attention to detail. I sat up till three in the morning reading this one, and can report that that is not a great idea.

So, grimly satisfying reading, some of which was well-worth my time, some of which wasn't quite as convincing.

Fabulous review of The Master and Margarita, Dewald, and very interesting discussion that follows. I know that I missed a great deal on my initial read of the book and if I return to it some day, I will look for Laura Week's Critical Companion - and your informative review!

Thanks for the tip about reading King till 3 am. : )

>81 Linda92007: - Thanks Linda! I really enjoyed the experience of re-reading Bulgakov's masterpiece, and I'm sure you will too.

>82 dchaikin: - Heh-heh, Dan, that's what happens when something really grips me.

I'm skipping the review of Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism for now: I want to re-read it before trying to put my ideas into writing. So here's something else:

38. John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought by Gordon Campbell & Thomas N. Corns

A very erudite biography of John Milton which smashes some commonly-held misconceptions concerning Milton and his works. A heterodox Protestant, a supporter of regicide, though not quite the radical republican that some have thought, Milton is best known for Paradise Lost, yet he mostly wrote polemical prose (in both Latin and English) for the Protectorate and other state bodies before releasing a great deluge of creative work in his last decades. He is perhaps the only English writer that can meaningfully be compared to Virgil, though Edmund Spenser fans might dispute this. He is also of the eminence of Shakespeare, though much less widely read.

This biography takes a chronological approach, which is fair enough. It relates each major period of Milton's life, focussing on important events in his life and in the wider world. In fact, that focus on the wider world becomes a bit egregious at times. Yes, all of it is probably relevant and interesting, but Campbell and Corns often focus as much on minutiae of statecraft as on Milton's creative work. It probably depends on what one's interests are, but would have preferred more analysis of the poetry and other creative work.

The biography is very professional, and has oodles of notes and a great bibliography. Anyone interested in Milton should read this as a corrective to commonplace misconceptions, such as that Milton was not paid fairly for Paradise Lost, or that Samson Agonistes is a veiled biographical work.

Thanks for the review of John Milton: Life Work and Thought Duly noted and I will get to it when come to read Milton.

#38 A good reference. I will get back to PL one of these days.

Thanks, Barry and Dan.

41. The New Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker (edited by Leslie Klinger)

Well, and what can one really say about Dracula that has not already been said (in a better or worse way)? This book revealed to me that the subject has not been, ahem, sucked dry. Leslie Klinger does a brilliant job of reanimating the desiccated corpse that is Dracula. Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, everyone knows about Dracula, or think they do. But most of that knowledge is decidedly of the popular ilk, based on other media like cinema. Frankenstein’s monster is an example of how this “knowledge” can be mistaken. In the same vein (if you’ll excuse the pun), Dracula himself has been appropriated by mass culture, turning him into a svelte, handsome aristocrat. Stoker’s actual vampire is an old man with facial hair, for crying out loud! And he can survive in sunlight, though the misunderstanding here is a bit more forgivable, as Stoker himself seems to be unsure about this (Dracula walks around during the day, at times, yet Van Helsing says that daylight destroys vampires). Strange how the mythic images we grow up with relate to the reality of their origins.

Even if you have not read Dracula, you should have an idea (how ever warped) about what happens in the novel: Jonathan Harker comes to Transylvania to arrange the affairs of a mysterious count (a title which Klinger notes did not actually exist in Transylvania at the time), who wishes to emigrate to England. Harker becomes embroiled in a dark adventure in Dracula’s castle, where he is imprisoned and accosted by beautiful female vampires. Dracula arrives in England after an eventful sea voyage, and then the fun really begins, with stakings, blood transfusions, and a lot of searching for boxes of earth. In the end, Dracula is forced to flee back to his castle, where he gets destroyed (or does he?) and the gallant heroes rejoice.

What Klinger does in this annotated edition is quite interesting. He gives copious notes on background, points out inconsistencies, and collates the published version of Dracula (both the 1897 and later abridged version) with the Manuscript. This manuscript is in private hands, and Klinger is apparently the first person to critically compare it to the extant novel. It reveals many interesting titbits, including a slightly different end to the novel. I thought that some of Klinger’s notes verged on the side of nit-picking, and some were overly long, but on the whole, they added a fascinating extra dimension to the story.

One thing I did find strange was Klinger’s approach to the novel: he writes the notes as though the events of the novel actually occurred, and Stoker merely transcribed them in a fictional manner to conceal the identity of the characters. Although this is a harmless bit of tongue-in-cheek, it does start to become a little gratuitous at times, which grates. Klinger’s obsessive collating of the dates, times of the moon, tide, etc. became a bit ridiculous, as he tried to date the time of the “actual events”. There is nothing wrong with being thorough, but it can (and does) get taken a bit too far, in my opinion. Apparently, he also did this with the Annotated Sherlock Holmes, so it seems a bit of a trademark.

The story of Dracula remains a seminal horror text: it is a great adventure, and is (for the most part) much better written than one might expect. Anyone who is interested in speculative fiction or the count should get this book. Despite its somewhat studious character, Klinger does an excellent job of elucidating the cultural milieu and the background on vampire lore. As an added bonus, the book contains appendices on Dracula in other media (mostly film and on stage), the influence of Dracula on some other writers (with special focus on Anne Rice and the “Buffy the Vampire-Slayer” universe), and even an essay on Dracula in academic writing.

I am glad I read this book. It is always good to get back to the ur-myths of modern society. With the popularity of vampire stories in the present market, and their (for the most part) utter banality, it is good to get back to the original text, and examine it critically but lovingly.

Great review of The New Annotated Dracula. I wonder how many people in awe of Buffy will want to read this. The notes sound worthwhile and as a reader you have always got the option of ignoring them if you wish.

It sounds like Klinger has staked his claim in producing the authoritative text, but he would only be able to scratch the surface with the appendices as the Dracula industry just keeps motoring on.

Loved your review! Sounds like a book I need for my small Dracula collection, not entered as yet as not sure how to tag some of them.

You might enjoy Bram Stoker and the Man Who Was Dracula for a look at Stoker's real world existence.

Dracula was a pleasant surprise for me too, and I've tried (without success) to convince others that it's not just a prequel to Buffy, etc. It sounds like the annotated edition might be best for a second reading. A very useful review.

Nice review of The New Annotated Dracula (love the puns). I've never read Dracula but it is on my wish list after seeing the Coppola-directed version, a film that didn't impress me entirely. It would be interesting to know what versions of the story on film are a closer match to the novel.

Your review of The New Annotated Dracula is intriguing, Dewald. Nicely done.

89 - Thanks, Barry. Nice pun, too ;). Klinger makes no bones about the fact that he cannot possibly cover all Dracula-related media, but he does try to give a decent overview of what is out there.

90 - That sounds like an interesting book, Sassy. Klinger mentions a lot of details about Stoker's life and his other books, but I'm sure that there's much more to discover.

91- Thank you, Steven. I know vampire have a stigma attached to them (especially after the success of the Twilight novels) so I can understand that people might be reluctant to try any books based on them, but there are a few excellent speculative novels on the nosferatu. Hope you get around to a second reading some time.

92- Hi, avidmom, and fangs thanks for reading. Klinger also criticises the Coppola-film for straying very far from the premisses of the novel. It seems that Dracula are moving further away from the book, which is a bit of a shame, as there isn't really a definitive Dracula movie. The best one based on the movie is the classic Nosferatu, which I haven't seen, but which receives high praise from Klinger for its style, if not its authenticity.

93 - Thank you, Linda!

I know vampire have a stigma attached to them (especially after the success of the Twilight novels)

Yes, and it's upsetting this vampire who wrote a song about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glNuQiE77E

(Sometimes it pays to have teenagers around. They can find the goofiest stuff on youtube. ;)

44. England in the Age of Wycliffe by George Macaulay Trevelyan

An old history book, but a goody. Yes, some of Trevelyan's facts are now disputed, as are some of his conclusions. And, yes, his outlook can be a bit Victorian (not always a bad thing). But despite these caveats, I learned some new things, and as an introduction to a period in which I am interested, it served its purpose.

This was Trevelyan's first book, based on his thesis. As the title indicates, it mostly covers English history of the second half of the fourteenth century, though Trevelyan does extend his coverage of the Lollard movement up to the Reformation. Trevelyan addresses most aspects of the history of this age, from the political machinations to the social milieu. Again, the title makes clear that his main focus is on Wycliffe and his contribution to the religious turmoil of the age, but Trevelyan contextualises this very well.

Trevelyan is always accessible and engaging, though he can be biased towards Wycliffe. As his Wikipedia page makes clear 'Trevelyan's history is engaged and partisan. Of his Garibaldi trilogy, "reeking with bias", he remarked in his essay "Bias in History", "Without bias, I should never have written them at all. For I was moved to write them by a poetical sympathy with the passions of the Italian patriots of the period, which I retrospectively shared."' This may not be the preferred way to write history books anymore, but it certainly makes them interesting. I should note that the edition of England in the Age of Wycliffe I read was published in the 1970s, and has a valuable introduction which makes clear where Trevelyan is inaccurate or mistaken.

I especially enjoyed Trevelyan's recounting of the peasant uprising of 1381, though I am sure there are more comprehensive treatments of this event (I seem to remember baswood reviewing a book about this). So, despite its flaws and age, a well-writtten chronicle that whetted my appetite.

Good review of England in the Age of Wycliffe I think I know enough about the period to appreciate the bias and so I will look out for Trevelyan's book.

You have made me want to pick up an old history book.

97 - Thanks, Barry! But I would not get my hopes up for finding the book, except if you have access to some or other university library.

98 - Hopefully not because of my misrepresenting the book, Dan ;-)

No problems dewald, there are plenty of copies available through Abe books.

45. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

The machinist climbs his Ferris wheel like a brave
And the fire eater's lyin' in a pool of sweat, victim of the heat wave
Behind the tent, the hired hand tightens his legs on the sword swallower's blade
And circus town's on the shortwave

Well, the runway lies ahead like a great false dawn
Whoa, Fat Lady, Big Mama, Missy Bimbo sits in her chair and yawns
And the man-beast lies in his cage sniffing popcorn
Yeah, the midget licks his fingers and suffers Missy Bimbo's scorn
The circus town's been born

- ‘Wild Billy’s Circus Story’, Bruce Springsteen

This is, I am ashamed to admit, the first book I have read by the late Ray Bradbury. I own Fahrenheit 451, and I have a good idea of what happens in that book, but I have never cracked open the cover. Now, having read Something Wicked This Way Comes, I look forward to reading more of Bradbury’s immense oeuvre. Because Something Wicked is a great book. I make no bones about that. It has certain weaknesses that I will respond to below, but it is an uplifting read that makes one taste the wonderment of being young, as well as the terror of growing up. It shows friendship at its best, but also how such a bond can be tested in the breach. I loved William Halloway and Jim Nightshade, the two young protagonists, for their bravery, but also for their fragility. Bradbury manages to capture something essential about that period between youth and adolescence; something not wicked, but something virtuous.

Will and Jim are two young boys living in Greentown, gallivanting around like only two young tomcats can. Then the carnival comes to town, but no ordinary carnival. It is something essentially wicked, evil beyond imagining. Will and Jim are thrown into an eternal life-threatening situation, with only Will’s elderly father to help them. The leader of the carnival, Mr Dark, also known as the ‘Illustrated Man’ for his tattoos, is an implacable opponent, hell-bent on adding to his menagerie of freaks and sideshow performers. Jim, Will, and Will’s father must figure out how to battle an insidious foe, which does not fear secular authority (the police are useless against Dark’s misdirection) nor holy writ (Dark even throws a bible in the rubbish bin).

There is a mythical intensity to Bradbury’s writing that could easily tip over into purple prose. Hell, sometimes it does. But I forgive Bradbury for his exuberance, as that is exactly the tone of boyhood enthusiasm that he needs to capture in presenting Will and Jim’s situation. Bradbury’s writing is peculiar, and takes some getting used to. But it is a delight when one gets over the initial awkwardness.

Bradbury is often accused of presenting a simplistic morality in his writing, and the dichotomy between Mr Dark and his young protagonists can be somewhat Manichean. But the following extract, in which Will and his father discuss humanity, should make it clear that Bradbury is concerned with showing the complexity beneath the surface veneer of morality:

’Now, look, since when did you think being good meant being happy?’
‘Since always.’
‘Since now learn otherwise. Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he’s covering up. He’s had his fun and he’s guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit our appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others, and look to wonder if he didn’t just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt and sin, why, often that’s your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two…’

Will’s father is one of these good men who have almost broken under the strain, and Mr Dark will exploit this in their eventual confrontation. Jim Nightshade is also a peculiar character: unlike while, there is a duality to his character, as he is drawn towards the carnival. He must strain to escape the tug of the magical carousel, which can retard or accelerate aging. Helping him fight this war is his love for Will and their friendship. Mr Dark is aware of Jim’s dilemma, and tries to also exploit this whenever they encounter each other.

Many of today’s famous fantasy and horror writers, including King and Gaiman, have tipped their hats to Bradbury over the years, especially to this book. I can see why, and I can also recognise the family resemblance between their works and Bradbury’s wonderful phantasmagoria. A treat of a book, meaningful and brave. Thanks, Ray!

For being good is a fearful occupation...

What an explanation and a great review! A book to look for. Thanks dm.

>45 dmsteyn: Loved your review. I read Fahrenheit 451 a few years ago. It hooked me from the opening sentence, IMHO, one of the best opening lines of any book.

>101 dmsteyn: - interesting review, almost the opposite my reaction to it when I re-read it last year. I found Bradbury's prose overly poetic, often turning purple but my main problem was the fact that I thought Bradbury had nothing particularly interesting to say about a good and evil, which was disappointing in a novel about good and evil.

Bradbury is an amazing writer, and I'm glad you've finally discovered him! I'd recommend Dandelion Wine, which has no supernatural elements, but is all about making you "taste the wonderment of being young" and does for vanished childhood summers what Something Wicked This Way Comes does for creepy childhood Octobers. My biggest personal response to Bradbury is amazement at his ability to make me feel deeply nostalgic for places that I've never been, indeed, places that have never even existed. How he does that, I don't know. It's a weird kind of magic.

#99 - irrelevant. You've just made me want to pick something old, dusty, very sure of itself in context of it's era.

Great stuff on Bradbury, and enjoyed the Springsteen lyrics at the top.

Excellent review of Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dewald.

>101 dmsteyn: - despite my earlier views about Something Wicked This Way Comes I would like add that The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle is my favourite Bruce Springsteen album. I'm with the reviewer at Allmusic who says -

And the album's songs contain the best realization of Springsteen's poetic vision, which soon enough would be tarnished by disillusionment. He would later make different albums, but he never made a better one. The truth is, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is one of the greatest albums in the history of rock & roll.

Great review of Something Wicked this way Comes a book I have not read but will put that right soon. I have always admired Bradbury as a short story writer and I love his collection in The October Country

Bruce Springsteen........... you know how sometimes you have a blind spot about certain rock musicians, well one of my blind spots is Springsteen

Q - What do you get when you cross The Beach Boys with Chuck Berry.
A - Bruce Springsteen.

102 - Thanks, Sassy. I think that quote encapsulates Bradbury's ethos.

103 - Thank you, avidmom. Must get to Fahrenheit 451 sooner rather than later. Have any of you read the graphic novel based on it? I see it in the shops quite often, but I'd rather read the book.

104 - That's an interesting response, Jargoneer. As I mentioned, I think that the poetic prose worked in this novel, but I doubt it could be sustained over a longer work. And I disagree with you about Bradbury having 'nothing particularly interesting to say about good and evil'. Maybe what he says is not particularly original, but he makes it clear that evil can be both mundane and extraordinary. And both strains of evil have their enticing aspects, just as mundane and extraordinary goodness have their daunting or discouraging aspects.

105 - I'm always surprised by the lacunas in my reading history, and Bradbury certainly was a great gap for someone who likes (some of) King's work. Dandelion Wine sounds excellent, so thank you for the recommendation! And I agree, that feeling of nostalgia is definitely there. For instance, we don't even celebrate Halloween in South Africa - well, not traditionally - and would in any case be spring here, not autumn, but I still felt myself identifying with the fall atmosphere and childhood experiences of Will and Jim.

106, 108 - Thanks, Dan! And I have to agree about The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, Jargoneer. I'm ashamed to admit that I only discovered it (along with the rest of Springsteen's older discography) last year, after buying The Collection 1973-1984. What a grand experience that was!

107 - Thanks, Darryl!

109 - Thanks, Barry. I'm sure that I read some of Bradbury's short stories years ago in an anthology, but I cannot quite remember what they were about. Hope to read more soon.

I like Bruce, though I'm not terribly excited about his newer stuff. I think he's an honest lyricist, at least, and he tries to use his popularity for what he believes are the right things.

> 110 Have any of you read the graphic novel based on it?

I didn't know there was such a thing so I peeked on Amazon for a sample; I wasn't impressed. Then again, I've never read a graphic novel before so what do I know?

46. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Madam, I have no wish to be cut off from you
I have no wish to hurt you with the meanings
Of the land where you were born
It was with unbelieving ears I heard
My artless songs become the groans and cries of men.
And you, why you may pity me also,
For what do I do when such a voice is speaking,
What can I speak but what it wishes spoken?
- Alan Paton, 'Could You Not Write Otherwise?'

This is a book with a very uplifting, though not superficial, message about racial attitudes from a man who knew all about living in a segregated society. It is a South African classic, which I approached with trepidation, fearing that I might actively dislike it. A superfluous fear! I enjoyed Paton’s story immensely, though I did have some problems with his writing and his conclusion. Not calamitous problems, but niggles, which I will get to later.

Father Stephen Kumalo is a preacher in deepest rural Natal. He has had a full life, guiding his flock and raising several children with his devoted wife. At the beginning of the novel, Father Kumalo (or “umalusi”, as he is respectfully addressed in Zulu) receives a letter from Father Msimangu, calling his attention to his sister, who has become ill in Johannesburg. Kumalo sets out on a journey to the big city, into which his eldest son, Absalom, has also disappeared. Kumalo’s deracination is expertly handled by Paton, who perfectly captures Kumalo’s alienation in Johannesburg. After eventually meeting Msimangu, he sets out on a journey to find his sister, which leads him into the seedy heart of the city. To his horror, he discovers that his sister has become a prostitute. He manages to save her from her situation, but much worse follows: Absalom is accused of murdering a white man. The rest of the story is concerned with the fallout from this horrible event.

Despite a glaringly convenient coincidence (the white man killed Absalom happens to be the son of a farmer from the same valley as the Kumalos) I found Paton’s story touching and worrying. Despite being published four years before my own father’s birth in 1952, this book contains warnings about South African society that were unfortunately not heeded until much later. In fact, I think that some of them have still not been heeded. An example: the book mentions a miners’ strike which is getting out of hand… if Marikana does not ring a bell, look it up for yourself. I will not get polemical in this review, so I will leave it at that.

Paton’s writing is often described as poetical, and just as often compared to that of the King James Bible. A not quite salubrious comparison, in my opinion. Just as reading too much of the KJ can be taxing, so Paton’s truncated dialogue and limpid prose can become a bit much. I found out short pieces of his writing better than the novel as a whole. Admittedly, it is a short novel, so not much of a problem. What did bother me more was Paton’s somewhat unlikely denouement. It seemed a bit too neat and final, especially considering the events that followed this era in South Africa. Paton’s dislike of capitalism was also a bit too polemical in the novel, too prescriptive rather than descriptive.

That said, I found the novel thought-provoking and rich. I do not think it is the best South African novel of the last century, but who am I to be setting up canons anyway? It made me realise how far South Africans have come since the Apartheid days, but also reminded me how far we still have to go. An exemplary tale.

Very interesting to read your response. I wonder if when I think of this as an intro into SA culture, I'm seeing it from my own naive point of view, or if I'm consistent with most readers who approach this. Of course could be both.

Fabulous review of Cry, the Beloved Country, Dewald. I thought I owned it, but apparently I don't, so I'll add it to my wish list.

BTW, what books would you list as the best South African novels of the 20th century?

Excellent review of Cry The beloved Country. I did not realise the book dates from the late 1940's and admit I have only heard of it because of the relatively modern movie.

It must have been a difficult book to start for you, because of it's status as being one of the best South African novels, and also because more recent events in South Africa's history may have led to it's themes/message being somewhat antiquated and no longer relevant.

Great review of Cry The Beloved Country, Dewald. I read this many years ago as a young adult and have long meant to re-read it.

BTW, The NYS Writers Institute is bringing J.M. Coetzee here in the Fall, preceded by a talk by Dorothy Driver, described as a scholar in South African literature. From the little I can find on her, she apparently lives and teaches in Australia, but spends considerable time in South Africa and has a particular interest in issues of gender and race, both under and post-Apartheid. I wondered if you were familiar with her or had read any of her work. I am not having much luck finding her books here but have yet to check the University library. I believe that her latest is a 2011 critical study on the Botswana author, Bessie Head.

114- Dan, I wouldn't say your point of view was naive, as it does do a good job of sketching the racial tension in South Africa, especially at that time. 'At that time' is apposite, however, because things have changed in ways that Paton obviously could not have predicted. As a previous reviewer (patrickgarson) mentioned, it doesn't feel right to call the novel prescient, but I think 'pertinent' would be a good description.

115- Thanks, Darryl. I shudder to list books as the best South African novels of the 20th century, mostly because I haven't read as many as I maybe should've. That said, I am a great fan of Coetzee, of whom I have read Foe, Age of Iron and Summertime; I really need to get to Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace! I also think Gordimer is a good short-story writer, but I haven't enjoyed her novels. Zakes Mda is also very good. Then there is, of course, Olive Schreiner and her Story of an African Farm, which I read when I was too young, really.

116 - Thanks, Barry. Are you thinking of the one starring James Earl Jones? I know of it, but haven't seen it. It was a difficult book for several reasons, but I think you hit the nail on the head: I really thought it might be irrelevant to South Africa's present situation. But it really wasn't. The details change, but the broad strokes have remained eerily the same.

117 - Thank you very much, Linda.

Coetzee is a bit, I don't know, irascible when it comes to interviews, so I hope you get him on a good day ;)

I think I may have heard about Dorothy Driver; she wrote the Afterword to David's Story by Zoë Wicomb, a book I read for a Post-Modernism honours course. She was still at the University of Cape Town then, I believe. Don't know much else about her, unfortunately.

Well, talk about a coincidence! I just looked through my father's newspaper (Beeld; it's an Afrikaans-language paper based in the Gauteng region of South Africa), and guess who I saw on the book review page? Dorothy Driver! Apparently, she is J.M. Coetzee's partner, so that explains the connection. Also, you guys might want to look out for J.C. Kannemeyer's biography of Coetzee, called A Life in Writing. Don't know when it will be available overseas - maybe only next year. Should be out in South Africa by November.

Thanks for the interesting tidbit on Driver and Coetzee, Dewald. I am very excited about both of these talks and hoping that they have an assortment of Driver's books for sale.

I have heard about Coetzee's temperament. They have him paired 'in conversation' with Paul Auster and I am guessing they won't be promoting the open style of questions from the audience that usually prevails at these events. But that's okay, as I would certainly be too intimidated to ask him questions anyway! There is a book coming out next year of Auster and Coetzee's letters to each other, Here and Now - an odd combination, but I guess they have developed a professional friendship.

I have only found reference to one book by Kannemeyer that has been translated to English and that is apparently not very available. Hopefully the Coetzee biography will be an exception. I will be watching for it.

49. Open City by Teju Cole

“Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book – and does.”
- Groucho Marx

In Open City, Teju Cole has created a perplexing work of semi-autobiographical fiction which eschews plot, though not incident. It is both beautifully written and yet apparently “pointless”. I use “pointless” carefully, as I happen to believe that the best art is purposeless in the sense of not being grossly utilitarian. Yet… and yet. Cole seems to skirt dangerously close to the sort of navel-gazing of which post-modernist writers are so often accused. There is, however, a story beneath his purported stream-of-consciousness technique. I say “purported” because many reviewers have focused on this aspect of Cole’s technique, but I do not think that it is really stream-of-consciousness as one would find in, say, James Joyce or Virginia Woolf.

While the whole book may be one long soliloquy by Cole’s protagonist, Julius, it hardly ever becomes a “difficult” book to read. We get Julius’s thoughts, but they are never really confused or contradictory. Everything is explained sequentially, and the “plot” is very easy to follow: Julius, an immigrant from Nigeria, is a newly-qualified psychiatrist in New York City, who walks the streets of the city on apparently random rambles. There is an interlude in this basic structure when Julius goes to Brussels to look for his grandmother (his parents were a mixed-race couple), but this is ultimately unsuccessful. Julius returns to New York… and not much else happens. Well, there is a bit of a shock near the end of the novel, which I will not reveal, but it does make one reconsider Julius’s whole narration: has he been honest in relating events? is he merely a brilliant psychopath, cold and calculating? or are all writers something like this, in their detached and clinical observations?

The book definitely left me with more questions than answers. It is quite inscrutable at times, with Julius commenting on all kinds of interesting things, but never really revealing himself. I enjoyed his meditations on race, 9/11, immigration, and the hidden history of New York. The problem was that these recountings were often in the form of information dumps that seemed somehow gratuitous. Were they always really necessary? Probably not, but that might be to miss the point of the book. I always attempt to be charitable in interpreting a book, so perhaps Cole has some deeper intention that was not quite clear to me. I assume it has something to do with noticing details, and how real life often does not make sense in the way that a strongly-plotted book might. Maybe this is why the book elicits such divergent responses: some readers accept the meandering tone as reflective of modern… ennui? confusion? Well, something to that effect. For others, the book seems pointless in a more than art-for-art’s-sake way. I think I am somewhere on the borderline here. Perhaps I have read too many plot-based novels, or I have a congenital love of story, but I found that the book kept on swerving towards, and then away from, a satisfactory reading experience.

Cole is certainly a promising writer, and this book is also far from an aborted effort to capture something about early 21st-century life. What that something is remains debatable. I will not say I have great expectations of Cole, as that might sound condescending, but I certainly hope that he keeps on writing. His novel, all reservations aside, has a great freshness and immediacy, a poignancy of place that few writers capture as effortlessly as Cole has.

Open City sounds an intriguing book. Teju Cole would have to be some writer to be able to pull off a stream-of-conscious technique to equal Woolf and Joyce, but I know that was not your point.

Excellent review of a book that has proved difficult for some readers to get into.

I was disappointed by Open City too. I wanted to like it better than I did, and I enjoyed wandering through Julius's mind, and I felt Cole addressed interesting and important issues, but I never really warmed up to it. Darryl/kidzdoc liked it a lot better than I did.

Superb review of Open City, Dewald. I did like it, but my opinion about it is closely in line with yours. I remember very little about it, so clearly it didn't resonate with me very deeply.

123 - Thanks, Barry! The stream-of-consciousness aspect just seemed to be praised so much by reviewers, and Cole doesn't really do anything particularly experimental with it. It's just a basic first-person narrative, with some time lapses and an obscured plot. Not a bad thing necessarily, but not mind-blowing.

124 - Thanks, Rebecca. I read your review before posting mine, and would have to agree that the revelation near the end seems out of place.

I've never been to New York; do you think he does a good job of capturing the contemporary city?

125 - Darryl, I doubt whether I'll remember a lot about the book either. Maybe because it isn't really packed with incidents.

Enjoyed your thoughts on Open City.

Fabulous review of Open City, Dewald.

I attended an author talk by Teju Cole last February, and you are inspiring me to hunt down and read the copy that I bought that day. But I did go back and look at my notes from the talk and thought I might share some of what he said. Hope you don’t mind. My apologies in advance for not being exactly sure where I am directly quoting or simply loosely paraphrasing.

Cole said he started with the idea for his character, Julius, and then became interested in writing a story about living in post-911 NYC and “what it means to privately mourn a public event… how it is connected to older, personal trauma…and the idea of grief being connected to geographical space”. This grief is revealed through Julius’ interactions with a wide array of characters. Cole said he is always puzzled by “how narrow the spaces of stories are”, while the reality of life in NYC is its great diversity of race and class. He wrote it as someone telling his story to another person whom he trusts, but who does not know him. He is drawn to use of the first person narrator for the “shadings and subtleties of a story being told by someone who doesn’t know everything.” He also said that he wanted the book to have “a flat affect, like a deposition,…with small fragments of poetry”.

Cole spoke some about the experience of being an immigrant in America. He made the interesting comment that he discovered that being black was important to other people only when he came to the US. Cole struck me as a person and writer who thinks deeply about issues and his craft. He is also a street photographer and said that most days he actually prefers that as you can go out and take a photo that you did not expect – “divining magic out of the everyday world” – while” language is more calculated, more intentional…a matchmaking between ideas and words.”

His current work in progress is Small Fates, a non-fiction narrative of Lagos, his childhood home. It sounds very interesting and I will be watching for it, but have no idea when it is expected for publication.

126 Like Darryl, I've forgotten a lot about Open City, but I'm sure I felt he did a good job of capturing NYC because if he hadn't I would have commented on it, as it always irks me when people get things about the city wrong. Of course, he mostly stayed in Manhattan, as I recall, which is only a small part of the city.

128. Interesting comments by Cole -- thanks for posting them, Linda.

127 - Thanks, Dan!

128 - Of course I don't mind, Linda! Very nice comments, and Cole sounds like a fascinating person; isn't he also an art lecturer? Small Fates also sounds interesting.

129 - Glad to hear he captured NYC. I would love to see the city sometime, but it will probably be several years before I can visit the USA; Interpol is still looking for me...

50. The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow (touchstone for author does not seem to work properly)

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
- 1 Samuel 15.23

In The Last Witchfinder, James Morrow has created an interesting amalgam of historical fiction, fantasy, and scientific treatise. Morrow is obviously a skilled writer, and manages to pull this witches’ brew off quite well. The story is interesting and at times arresting, and Morrow has important things to say about superstition and reason, religion and science. I called the book a fantasy, but it does not in fact contain any speculative elements, it being more an inspired alternate history in which several historical personages make their appearances, including Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and the Baron de Montesquieu. It works surprisingly well, especially considering its length. Morrow does sometimes become a bit forceful in his arguments, which could be construed as polemical. But I enjoyed the story immensely, and found myself agreeing with most of Morrow’s standpoints on the dichotomy of faith and reason. Perhaps the book could have done with some more pruning, but it is such an interesting picaresque adventure, combining the physical with the metaphysical, that it would be shrewish of me to find too much fault with Morrow’s exuberance.

I could try to summarise the plot, but it presents certain difficulties, not least of which is that it seems completely absurd and unworkable in précis. Any story that contains burning-at-the-stake, a foetus-carnival, living-with-American-Indians, Robinson-Crusoe-marooning, and lots of sex, would be difficult to make sense of in synopsis. Despite this, I should mention that the story is set in the late 17th century, and follows the adventures of Jennet Stearne, the child of a witchfinder, who rebels against the practice after the immolation of her aunt. She becomes a natural philosopher, or quasi-scientist, hell-bent on disproving the existence of witchcraft, demons, and all the paraphernalia that goes with such hokum.

The novel’s framing device was quite original: Morrow has Jennet’s story narrated by a book, namely Newton’s Principia Mathematica, which is in a heated battle with the Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Hammer of the Witches”. This device did not always work for me: the Principia sometimes makes Morrow’s arguments for him too forcefully, and, because the book writes as though from modern times (i.e. the 21st century), it felt like it was making anachronistic comments quite often. But Morrow also reveals fascinating facts in these vignettes, so I feel a bit ambivalent about them.

The novel is also a bildungsroman in which Jennet’s development from precocious child to self-sufficient woman is depicted. Jennet is a strong female character, but Morrow does not fall into the trap of making her invulnerable or inhuman. Although initially taken for a bit of a bluestocking, Jennet learns about the practical side of life during her time in America, especially when she is abducted by Algonquin Indians. Morrow walks a fine line when depicting his Indians, avoiding both the noble savage and, well, savage savage stereotypes. That said, this part of the novel seemed a bit inconsequential, and its inclusion only really made sense towards the end.

The final witch-trial of Jennet Stearne is probably the best scene of the novel. How could it be otherwise, with Montesquieu defending Jennet and Ben Franklin writing up the court reports? Morrow paints a searing picture of the practice of witch-finding, which was, to all intents and purposes, a form of genocide mostly aimed at old, vulnerable women, although men and children were not always safe. The Salem-trails, which make an appearance earlier in the novel, make it clear how this type of hysteria could sweep a community, leading to the deaths of many innocent (that is, innocent of witchcraft) people. Jennet’s trail is another miscarriage of justice, but it eventually has a salutary effect on later practices. And as for Jennet herself, well, you will just have to read the book for yourself to discover what happens…

The Last Witchfinder was tremendously enjoyable, a veritable romp through history and philosophy. It has its problems, but Morrow’s humanity and exuberance make up for most of these. Quite hilarious at times, it satisfied me no end.

That's on my wishlist now.

Thanks,

Robert

Enjoyed your review of the exuberant The Last Witchfinder - thumbed

Not sure I want to read this book, but, nonetheless, fascinated by your review.

Fascinating review of The Last Witchfinder, Dewald.

132 - Glad to hear it, Robert! People seem to have varied responses to the book, so I hope you enjoy it.

133 - Thank you very much, Barry.

134 - Thanks, Dan. Anything specific reason why you might not want to read it, or is it just a general feeling?

135 - Thank you, Linda!

Cry, the Beloved Country has been on my want to read list and TBR pile for many years, but I have always been afraid to read it in case I was disappointed. After reading your great review, I don't think I have to worry anymore.

Is that the first time you read James Morrow? If so, his older books might prove even more delightful... I'm partial to Towing Jehovah and Bible stories for adults; Only begotten daughter sounds similar in some ways to that one, with its unusual and central female character.

137 - Thanks, SassyLassy. I guess it depends on what you're expecting from Cry, the Beloved Country, but I certainly wasn't disappointed.

138 - Yes, this is my first James Morrow, but I have heard about Towing Jehovah. Both it and Bible Stories for Adults sound interesting, and I really enjoyed Morrow's approach to questions of faith and reason, so I'll keep my eye out for these. Thanks!

#136-from 134 - I think that word, "fantasy" turned me off. It doesn't always though. Not sure really.

>122 dmsteyn: - Really great review of Open City. A good examination of what worked and didn't for you. I think I'd like to give it a try.

Any story that contains burning-at-the-stake, a foetus-carnival, living-with-American-Indians, Robinson-Crusoe-marooning, and lots of sex, would be difficult to make sense of in synopsis.

Heh heh. That one sounds like fun. I read some bits of the Malleus Maleficarum for a witch trials class that I took - a nasty but effective document.

I have more or less the same views on religion as Morrow does, and he's sometimes a little too polemical for me. I do remember Towing Jehovah being well worth reading, though, so I second the recommendation. I haven't read The Last Witchfinder, but it's already on my wishlist.

The Last Witchfinder sounds very entertaining, and i don't know why I haven't read Morrow before he sounds like my kind of author.

140 - I think the "fantasy" label is used pretty loosely for this book, Dan, so don't let that scare you off. Not sure if everyone would like this book, but it is quite philosophical and original.

141 - Thanks, DieFledermaus! If you give Open City a try, I hope you enjoy it. They have witch trails classes? That sounds very interesting...

142 - Thanks for seconding the recommendation, bragan. Hope you enjoy The Last Witchfinder when you get to it.

143 - I hope you'll like the book, Kevin. I think most people with an open mind would enjoy Morrow's writing, even though some of his other books do sound somewhat more polemical than most of The Last Witchfinder.

#144 - Dewald - noting your comment.

Been very quiet, mostly due to RL pressures...

53. God’s Eyes A-Twinkle by T.F. Powys

”... God Almighty is the greatest of antiquaries – He made the world for the tombstones.”
From “The Stone and Mr Thomas” – T.F. Powys

”I am without belief; - a belief is too easy a road to God.”
From Soliloquies of a Hermit - T.F. Powys

T.F. Powys is an odd writer. Let us be clear about that. In this eclectic collection of his short stories, he writes about the village life to which he became so accustomed in Dorset, but his is hardly a realistic depiction. God, Jesus, and the Devil often make appearances in his stories, yet Powys must be one of the most heterodox religious writers I have ever encountered. His allegories seem whimsical on the surface – sea-weed marrying a cuckoo-clock, a bucket and a rope holding a conversation – but they are anything but facetious: that bucket and rope are the instruments in a suicide, for example. Powys also has a style all of his own, a simplicity of diction and style that hides deep pools of roiling water. On the whole, this is an odd collection of stories, but this is an oddity of a deliciously eccentric kind.

Powys’s obscurity, as compared to his brother John Cowper, is not that surprising: I doubt whether most people today would enjoy Powys’s writing – it often makes for uncomfortable reading, and his deceptive simplicity encourages the kind of slow reading that seems to be unfashionable nowadays. I, however, loved his stories. They are not all of the same calibre, some being little more than sketches, but they are all interesting. They are different from most English fiction, and have an almost magic realist quality to them. That said, they also seem typically “English” in their depiction of the unvarnished countryside and its inhabitants.

I would discuss some of the individual stories, but this collection is such a cornucopia that to choose only a few for explication would do it an injustice. Let me just mention my favourite: “The Only Penitent”, in which the pastor, Mr Hayhoe, decides to introduce the Roman Catholic idea of penance to a confessor into his church. But, to his infinite dismay, nobody is willing to repent their sins to him. Except for, at the very end of the story, Tinker Jar. Now, Tinker Jar is not only an itinerant fixer of pots. In Powys’s world, he also happens to be God Almighty…

That should give you an idea of the type of stories Powys tells. Strange and wonderful they are, but also disquieting and somewhat sacrilegious. If that sounds enticing, I would advise you to find a copy of Powys’s work. It was worth my while.

I was so happy to read your great review on a T.F. Powys book! I had a feeling Powys would be a "strange" writer but that's OK by me. Unclay has been on my wishlist for a long, long time but could never find a copy. I mentioned this to a friend of mine while we were chatting on FB. He happened to find it on eBay & hopefully will send it to me soon. I am looking forward to it.

Great review of T.F. Powys!

A very interesting review, Dewald. Disquieting and somewhat sacrilegious sounds like something I would enjoy, if I am able to lay my hands on a copy.

>147 avidmom: - Thanks, avidmom! I hope to still read Mr Weston's Good Wine later this year, which is a companion novel to Unclay. If your arrange with your friend falls through, you can always try to get an edition of Unclay from the Sundial Press. I think they ship worldwide - well, if they can ship to South Africa, they probably do.

>148 edwinbcn: - Thanks, Edwin.

>149 Linda92007: - Linda, finding a copy really was a problem - it was in our university library, but not on the electronic system, so I had to go stack hunting.

Wonderful review. This seems to be a book I would enjoy. I will try to find a copy.

Thanks for the tip, dmsteyn. Never heard of Sundial Press so looked it up & this came up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l1ggb
I'm off to listen .........

You have made T. F. Powys to be an author worth searching for.

Another great review of T. F. Powys. I have Unclay on the list and my university library does have it - put it on hold.

>151 deebee1: - Hope you find a copy, deebee1!

>152 avidmom: - Oh wow, that's great. I have Gray's introduction to Unclay, but it's interesting to hear him talk.

>153 baswood: - Well, you and the guys at the Salon made the Powys family interesting initially, Barry, so thanks.

>154 DieFledermaus: - I really hope you enjoy it, DieFledermaus. As I say, his writing can take some getting used to, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Terrific review of God’s Eyes A-Twinkle.

54. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies

Fifth Business

Fifth Business follows the life of Dunstan Ramsay from childhood in Deptford, Canada, through the Great War, and up till his old age as a professor at a Toronto university. Davies has created an interesting if not particularly likeable character in Ramsay, who will also play a role in the later books. The story begins with Ramsay’s retelling of a formative event in his childhood which involved his friend, Boy Staunton, and how it reverberated throughout their lives. Boy will play a central role in the rest of the trilogy; his death (not much of a spoiler: my edition reveals this on the back page) is the fulcrum on which it turns.

Ramsay himself is the ‘fifth business’ of the title: a character in a play who is not one of the main characters, but without whom the play could not function (Horatio in Hamlet springs to mind). Ramsay is side-lined throughout the novel, despite his interesting life and rare abilities: Boy keeps on taking centre-stage. To elaborate on Ramsay: he loses a leg in the War, and becomes a hagiographer (in the older, literal sense: he writes biographies of the saints). He also has an important relationship with another character that will later play an important role: Paul Dempster, whom Ramsay introduces to conjuring tricks and other magical paraphernalia.

The novel was quite satisfying as the first part of a trilogy: it introduced the characters, but also set the stage for the intrigue of the later novels. My only complaint would be the number of coincidental encounters in the book, which seemed much too good to be true.

The Manticore

This second novel in the trilogy is narrated by Boy Staunton’s son, David. After his father’s death, David, who has become a famous criminal lawyer in Canada, decides to go see an analyst in Switzerland because of his deteriorating mental health. He ends up with a female Jungian analyst, who uses different techniques, including regression and dream interpretation, to help him come to terms with his problems. These also serve as a useful device to tell David’s story.

David’s relation of events, although personal, helps to throw a light on the same events that Ramsay’s story covered, but giving different emphases. We find out more about the events surrounding Boy’s death, but David’s story is mostly concerned with his own recovery. It is only at the end, when he runs into Ramsay (again, a bit coincidentally) that the story starts to come full circle. Ramsay is now living in Switzerland with Paul Dempster, who has become the world-famous magician, Magnus Eisengrim. How Paul became Eisengrim is the focus of the next book, however.

I really enjoyed this book, which is very different from the first book. David’s psycho-analysis is fascinating, as is his story. I thought that the end came a bit suddenly, but perhaps that is fitting for a book dealing with sudden breakthroughs in one’s psyche. The ‘manticore’ of the title is David himself, who has dreams with definite mythological undertones. In fact, these mythological and religious undertones may be the most enjoyable part of Davies’s writing. He has a knack for making intelligent use of subtexts, and for making the reader feel intelligent as well. Very enjoyable!

World of Wonders

In this last part of the Deptford Trilogy, Davies has Paul Dempster, aka Magnus Eisengrim, relate the story of his life. He is busy filming the life of a famous 19th-century conjuror, and relates his own story to Ramsay and the film crew (well, the famous director and a few others). Dempster describes being abducted by the magician of a travelling sideshow (the World of Wonders of the title), and how he eventually gained his freedom and, later, fame.

Dempster’s life story is, in many senses, quite harrowing. For instance, Willard, the show magician, rapes him repeatedly. Davies does not pull punches in relating these disturbing aspects of his story, though he does not describe them in an egregious fashion. Ramsay is again the narrator, and he and the film crew have interesting conversations concerning the nature of evil, the Devil, and other pertinent topics. These conversations were quite an interesting way of conveying the story – reminiscent of older books, like Thomas Love Peacock’s “novels”, which I only know by reputation.

Davies brings the trilogy to a satisfying, if enigmatic close, without wrapping everything up like a neat present. There is a sinister undertone to some of the events of the novel – though, ironically, Boy Staunton’s death is actually one of the less-sinister parts of the book. Davies is obviously a very philosophical writer, yet he retains the necessary sleight of hand that a plot requires. “Sleight of hand” is quite an apt term, as the trilogy, concerned with magic throughout, is itself a wonderfully staged piece of entertainment. Despite being overly long for a straight read-through (which is what I did), the trilogy remains satisfying throughout, which is a rare distinction. Enjoyable, enchanting, enhancing.

Excellent review of The Deptford Trilogy I hope to get to it next year.

Great review of the Deptford Trilogy. This was very helpful for me because despite the fact that I have the book, I only had a vague idea of what it was about. A friend recommended it, I heard good things about Davies so when I saw it at the book sale for a dollar, I picked it up and didn't bother to do the usual research. Rebecca's review of the other trilogy sounded interesting as well.

I also have Unclay sitting on the pile now and will start it soon-ish.

Excellent review of The Deptford Trilogy, Dewald.

Great review of The Deptford Trilogy. It's so good to see that Robertson Davies stands up all these years later. I think you read it the best way by going through the three in a read through. Any plans for The Cornish Trilogy?

The Deptford Trilogy got me started reading Davies, and I'm now reading The Salterton Trilogy, having loved The Cornish Trilogy earlier this year.

>158 baswood: - Thanks, Barry. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

>159 DieFledermaus: - I'm glad to hear that the review was helpful. I tried not to go too deep into plot, as I know (with reference to discussions on Questions for the Avid Reader) that some people dislike that kind of thing.

Also, I hope you like Unclay!

>160 Linda92007: - Thank you very much, Linda.

>161 SassyLassy: - Thanks, Sassy! I think that it's a bit long for a straight read-through (as in one sitting), but I know that's not what you mean. I'm definitely going to read all of Davies sometime in the future, seeing as how I own The Cornish Trilogy and The Salterton Trilogy.

>162 rebeccanyc: - I'm glad that they brought out all of his books in new editions this year. Do you think you'll read Murther and Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man as well?

I imagine I'll go out and get them eventually!

60. The Vivisector by Patrick White

Let me start off by saying that this is not going to be much of a review of The Vivisector, as it has been thoroughly reviewed by several members of Club Read 2012. Instead, I am going to focus on J.M. Coetzee’s introduction to the 2008 Penguin edition of the novel. In my own opinion, the novel is excellent, which is broadly Coetzee’s opinion as well. But he does have a few caveats, which I’ll get to soon enough.

Coetzee begins by giving a brief biography of White, focused mainly on his work as a writer. Apparently, White became popular in Europe and America long before he was accepted in Australia. Coetzee then tries to pinpoint White’s relative obscurity in contemporary academia. I’ll quote what he has to say, as it is a neat summing up of attitudes towards White:

To Marxists he stood for elitist high art; to cultural materialists he was too much of an idealist; feminists felt he was a misogynist; to postcolonialists he was too wedded to European canons and too little concerned with the advancement of Australia’s Aboriginal minority; to postmodernists he was simply a belated Modernist.

Coetzee contends that “White’s plots tend to be rudimentary”, which is certainly true of The Vivisector, in which Hurtle Duffield’s life is presented in chronological vignettes. According to Coetzee, the novel is therefore held together more by White’s writing style and thematic motifs than by incidents. The style, which includes street argot and lucid visual descriptions, combines with White’s pre-occupation with spiritual and personal “vivisection” to render a portrait of the artist as a whole man.

As Coetzee says, the “great challenge that White faces in The Vivisector is… to get the reader to believe that Duffield’s paintings are as disturbing, and even overwhelming, as people in the book find them to be.” He contends that “ultimately we are required to take it on trust”. It is, in fact, like the old joke about writing about music being like dancing about architecture: a somewhat hopeless endeavour.

Apparently, White was worried that the public would receive the book as “Sex Life of Famous Painter”. And, yes, there is quite a bit of sex in the book. Duffield mostly uses women (against his better intentions?) to further his artistic growth. Coetzee’s main criticism of the book is concerned with the sections on Katharine Volkov, which he says resemble Lolita too closely, and are not written with the same “white heat” as the rest of the novel. But, in the end, Coetzee finds the portrait of Hurtle Duffield, with its flaws and cracks, “compelling”.

Interestingly, White did not include either The Vivisector or Voss in a list of his best books. Coetzee speculates that this was at least partly because he was tired of being known as “the author of Voss". Why he did not include The Vivisector on his list (which consisted of The Aunt’s Story, The Solid Mandala and The Twyborn Affair) I have no idea, but I certainly look forward to reading more Patrick White.

Great way to approach a book that has been heavily reviewed.

I haven't read White, but your quote from Coetzee (whom I also haven't read) is excellent. It makes you wonder how anyone has the courage to put a book out there in the face of the critics and certainly shows the difficulties a serious writer can face.

Interesting to read about Coetzee's opinion of Patrick White. The paragraph you quoted is particularly apt, but I feel White himself would have loved that said about him. He was certainly not interested in writing in a popular literary style/fashion, he very much ploughed his own furrow in a way that was always slightly out of fashion. He was of the old school, his views could not be described as progressive. He certainly did not care about what certain "groups" thought about him for example Marxists or feminists, as all he was concerned with was producing great literature.

He was certainly stung by literary critics especially those in his native Australia, who he felt failed to acknowledge his greatness. He firmly believed that he had written more than one great Australian novel

>166 SassyLassy: - Thanks, SassyLassy. I thought I'd share some thoughts on Coetzee's introduction (while trying to avoid plagiarising Coetzee) as not everyone with the book has this introduction.

As someone who would like to publish someday, I've often wondered whether I have a thick enough skin for this kind of criticism. White even comments on this (well, tangentially) when he relates Hurtle Duffield's anguish after being initially snubbed by the critics.

>167 baswood: - Interesting comments on White's possible reaction to such a quote. I think he and Coetzee might have been kindred spirits as far as popularity and/or obscurity goes. Coetzee is generally respected here in South Africa, but many have also criticised him for "doing a runner" to Australia. He also tends to be more popular overseas, and he was criticised for writing Foe (a book that re-imagines the Robinson Crusoe story) at the hight of the Apartheid troubles during the 1980s, as many felt it wasn't relevant to the needs of literary opposition to the times.

Whether or not it was relevant (in my opinion it, like all good books, both was and wasn't), I think Coetzee might also have felt stung by the critics over the years. White's situation certainly elicits interesting ideas concerning a writer's place in the national canon and how a writer should approach concerns over their own identity. Apparently, White initially wanted to go live in Greece with his lover, but ended up living in Australia for reasons that Coetzee doesn't elaborate on.

I have also just finished The Vivisector, Dewald and enjoyed your discussion of Coetzee's introduction (also the edition that I have). But now I am left to struggle with writing anything intelligent that has not already been covered by Deborah, Barry, Steven and yourself!

Well done, D.

#169 Linda wrote "But now I am left to struggle with writing anything intelligent that has not already been covered by..."

- To this and other related comments, keep in mind that simply posting your personal reaction (ok, sometimes not so simple) is interesting by itself.

>169 Linda92007: - Good luck, Linda! I look forward to reading your response to The Vivisector.

>170 dchaikin: - Thanks, Dan. And I agree; you definitely don't have to write something "profound" to be interesting. Some of my favourite reviews by LTers have been humorous, and even about books that the reviewer disliked "profoundly".

61. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl is an excellent science-fictional account of a near-future Bangkok in which terrible plagues and food- and energy-shortages have ravished the earth, with only a few pockets of humanity left. The Kingdom of Thailand is one of these last outposts, where thanks to a precious seed-bank (and other factors) people have clung to a hard-scrabble existence. Bacigalupi has made some terrifying extrapolations from present circumstances, though the novel is more than a cautionary tale. There are also fascinating insights into Thai culture, specifically Buddhist practices, and how these impact on a future circumscribed by scarcities that we can hardly imagine.

The “Windup Girl” of the title is Emiko, one of the “New People”. She is a genetically-engineered being, specifically created by the Japanese to cater to the needs of a nation with falling birth-rates and an old population. After her master abandons her in Thailand, Emiko must struggle to survive in the slums of Bangkok. She has not been engineered to survive in the tropical heat, but she does possess certain qualities that will play a crucial role in Bacigalupi’s plot. She later also meets up with Anderson Lake, the other main protagonist of the novel. Lake is what is called, rather derisively, a “calorie man”: he works undercover for a firm that is hell-bent on gaining access to the above-mentioned seed-bank of the Thais. Lake sets up a factory as a front which he uses to establish a presence in Bangkok, while trying to gain a foothold amid the political tensions in the Kingdom.

These political tensions form the backbone to much of the story, with the Trade and Environment Ministries battling to gain the upper hand, all the while kowtowing to the Palace and its titular Child Queen (who may or may not actually still be alive). There is a fascinating amount of detail on Thai society, although it is obviously embellished and altered somewhat to reflect the near-future setting. I particularly enjoyed the way in which Bacigalupi handled his characters’ more metaphysical questions concerning religion and the nature of humanity. Are the “New People” also human beings? Do they have souls? These questions end up playing a huge part in the novel, as do questions of responsibility and culpability. There is, for instance, a Chinese character who managed to escape Malaysia before a fundamental Muslim uprising led to the deaths of most of his family. He now works for Lake, but knowing his precarious situation as a so-called "yellow card", he must plan to escape Thailand in case he is again caught up in political intrigue. When problems arise in the factory, he must decide whether to betray the workers and run for it, or try to save at least some of them.

This is not your typical science fiction, with spaceships and alien encounters (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that type of science fiction). Rather, Bacigalupi describes it as “the stuff you see with Aldous Huxley or George Orwell, where you’re extrapolating about who are we, where are we going, what our society looks like…” Bacigalupi goes on to say that he feels a special connection to this type of science fiction, and I can only say, so do I. The book is not perfect; there are a few too many protagonists, and the bad guys can be a bit overly evil (though Bacigalupi does address this at the end to a degree). On the whole, however, this is an excellent addition to the science-fiction corpus, and worthy of the accolades it has garnered.

Excellent review of The Windup girl (which I keep getting confused with the windup bird chronicles. perhaps if I read them both next year it would end my confusion.

I really must get to The Windup Girl sometime soon. It's been on my TBR Pile far too long now.

Great review of The Windup Girl it's going on the wishlist to stay this time.

Enjoyed your review of The Windup Girl. (#173 Bas - I have the same problem)

>173 baswood: - Thanks, Bas. I'm also still to read The Windup Bird Chronicle, but I assume that the title and the Asian settings are the only resemblances. ;)

>174 bragan: - I hope you enjoy it, bragan. Been on my TBR Pile since it came out as well.

>175 stretch: - Thanks, Kevin. It's really good, although I have noticed in the reviews that some readers have accused Bacigalupi of a neo-colonialist bias. I really didn't notice this, for what it's worth.

>176 dchaikin: - Thanks, Dan.

62. Edmund Spenser: A Life by Andrew Hadfield

The first word that comes to mind after reading through this monumental new biography of the 16th-century poet is definitely thoroughness. Hadfield does an excellent job of filling in the lacunas surrounding Spenser who, as with his contemporary William Shakespeare, left little in the form of hard evidence concerning his life. Of course, there is always the poetry, which is obviously the main reason for being interested in Spenser. But Hadfield goes much further than this in giving an overview of the milieu in which Spenser existed. This biography gives one great insight into the late 16th century, contextualising Spenser and his contemporaries while still focussing on the tangible aspects of Spenser’s life.

Hadfield mentions in the introduction that some literary critics actively dislike “speculative” biographies (of course, all biography is, to a degree, speculative). But he points out that, given the dearth of evidence concerning Spenser’s life, it is often necessary to offer some conjectures about Spenser and his work that are not cast in stone. For the most part, Hadfield walks a careful line, avoiding overly trite speculations while not being afraid of relating Spenser’s life to what is genuinely known about other 16th-century writers. Admittedly, I sometimes found myself strongly disagreeing with some of his suppositions, especially regarding his readings of some parts of The Faerie Queene. But Hadfield is thoroughly aware that everyone will not agree with his arguments, and he gives ample notes on differing interpretations. The notes are on the whole incredibly thorough, and Hadfield also provides a detailed bibliography at the back of the book for anyone interested in Spenseriana. He also has appendices on Spenser’s progeny, portraits of Spenser, and other biographical writing on Spenser.

The book has interesting things to say about Spenser’s upbringing and his religion which, although Protestant, seems to have been more ecumenical than previously thought (both his sons seem to have become Catholic, although one later recanted). Hadfield’s account of the growth of “The Prince of Poets’” sensibilities is enthralling, showing how the imposition of Protestantism in England affected the common people and the aristocracy, as well as artists and writers. Spenser’s career is clearly delineated, showing that he was never really an insider at court, but neither was he banished to Ireland (well, probably not). Hadfield does an excellent job of tying together the different strings of Spenser’s life, sifting fact from fiction, and presenting Spenser as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, who was much more highly regarded than Shakespeare at the time.

Hadfield also writes sensitively about Spenser’s time in Ireland and his writings concerning the Irish, which have often been vociferously criticised. Hadfield makes clear the historical situation and the pressures that Spenser experienced as a new inhabitant/colonialist, without making excuses for Spenser’s sometimes shocking responses to the situation in Ireland and his defence of English policy in the country. I am somewhat wary of writing too much about this, as it is hard to give a swift overview of this aspect of Spenser’s writings without distorting the truth or hurting the feelings of those whose ancestors suffered because of English policy. Perhaps I should just say that I admire Spenser’s poetry, dislike his writing about Ireland, but understand the context in which he wrote. I would rather focus on his accomplishment as a poet, while not condoning his other views.

This is Hadfield’s first full biography (he has written short entries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), and he claims that it might be the last one he writes. This would be a shame, as he writes superlatively well, and obviously has an extensive knowledge of the period. Although I did not always agree with him, I genuinely enjoyed reading the book. It might, however, be heavy going for people who have not read anything by Spenser. I finished reading The Faerie Queene in conjunction with Hadfield’s book, which enriched my reading of Spenser. Now I only have to get to his shorter poems.

Great review of Edmund Spenser; A Life. I never got back to picking up where I left off with The Faerie Queene, but I will certainly do so next year and the new Spenser biography would appear to be a must read.

That's a book I want to read. Thanks for mentioning and for the terrific review here.

>179 baswood: - Thank you very much, Barry. This biography is the first completely new and complete biography since the 1940s, so I think it is a "must read" if you're serious about Spenser. Where were you in The Faerie Queene, by the way?

>180 dchaikin: - That's great, Dan! I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

I completed the first two books but stumbled at the start of book 3

What a range here: from Patrick White to sci-fi to Spenser! I love it and I must say the biography sounds really well done.

Well, what can I say, I like to keep things eclectic. Not always a good thing - I admire Barry's more structured approach to reading, for instance. But I'm a bit tired of structured reading after four years of university set-lists. ;)

The biography really is well done, Sassy. I love the way Hadfield paints a picture of Spenser as an outsider who came close to being an insider, but never quite became (as Karl Marx described him) "Elizabeth's arse-kissing poet".

>178 dmsteyn: - A very thorough review of what sounds like a very thorough biography!