Benefits of Being Unpopular

Sometimes, it's really quite nice to be reading books that nobody else wants to read. The past few times I've gone to the library, I've checked out quite a few books. I've not bothered to return the ones that I've finished (which I really need to do, but there you go), so I have built up quite a stack of books that I've read and just keep renewing. Fortunately, no one else seems to want to read The Midnight Examiner or Lost Illusions, which is very nice for me, if sad for Balzac.

Delayed Gratification

I finally got around to celebrating the quarter milestone! I ran into some bakery issues, so I ended up celebrating with cheesecake instead. Now, I do realize that caloricly speaking that's not exactly an even trade-off, but whatever. Life is short, it was delicious, and this is quite the milestone, I think.

Quietly Upset

So, I know that The Quiet American is supposed to be Greene's masterpiece or whatever, but I must say it was probably my least favorite of his that I have read. Well, maybe second least favorite, but still, not exactly a fan. I know that movies have been coming up lately, but maybe I need to see the movie on this one. I think it actually is available on Instant Watch. I think that this one more than the others by Greene that I have read really made the women non characters, even though in a way the story more than the others revolved around a woman.

It's strange. I would say that in the previous Greene novels that I've read, women are never the focus exactly, but they always felt real in some way. Sort of like, yes they aren't the main character of this book (often more a catalyst), but they are the main character of their own story. In this one, she didn't feel like she could be the main character of her own story. Almost as though she wasn't a person in the way the male characters were. I was definitely intrigued by the ending of this one. Not what I had expected, I must say.

I guess the common theme of this post is, I liked other books more. The Unconsoled is definitely my least favorite Ishiguro that I have read. Now, I loved Never Let Me Go, and Remains of the Day is exquisite, so that's important context. The Unconsoled is still masterful and beautiful in many ways. Unfortunately, it is also a bit maddening.

The basic plot of the story is that this man shows up in the small town to give a concert, and he has no memory of agreeing to do the concert. It has an almost Alice-in-Wonderland quality to it, since reality and relationships are always shifting in a dreamlike way. The story also explores rules and the folly of adhering to them in strict, nonsensical ways (foolish consistency and all of that), which is a fascinating device when you consider that the novel changes its own rules along the way in some ways. So, from a craft perspective it's amazing, but I always get so annoyed with characters who seem to be causing their own problems (it's why Kafka makes me crazy).

You'll say that we've got nothing in common/No common ground to start from/And we're falling apart

Truly, I don't think Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Cat's Cradle have ANYTHING in common, at all. Well, aside from the fact that I rather enjoyed both of them. But thematically and stylistically, they are rather dissimilar.

First, dear Miss Pettigrew. What a fun read. I had seen the movie before, (and reading this again annoyed me that it is not available on Netflix Instant Watch, because I have such a hard time working through my DVD queue, and Pushing Daisies is available to watch instantly and I don't care about that; sigh). This is one of those ones where there were aspects of each that I enjoyed, but neither is the obvious winner of being superior. For example, I liked that some of the characters in the book were more nuanced, but I enjoyed the romance more in the movie.

There isn't really all that much to say about it, though. It's a very fun read, but that's really it. Many laugh-out-loud moments, and some very clever dialogue, but not much to really reflect on.

I think I am starting to get a better sense of Vonnegut's style. I definitely enjoyed Cat's Cradle more than Slaughter-House Five, for what that is worth. I continue to be fascinated by these authors who always or almost always frame their stories as being narrated by an author working on a story; in this case, it worked because the author actually becomes part of the story, but still.

This book was also quite funny, of course, albeit in a rather dark way most of the time. Generally I enjoy satire, so this was up my alley in many ways. It took a bit for me to really be engaged, pretty much up until the plane piece. Once that got going, I read the rest of it quite quickly. Again, I feel like I should have more to say on this one (confession time, I'm running behind and have read several in the interim; what can I say? Work has been more manic than usual).

Random thoughts (in an attempt to make this post be a descent length):

• It might be interesting at some point to do a paper on various made-up religions/theologies/philosophies in different books.
• It's probably helpful to have some understanding of the nuclear arms race/development of the atom bomb (but then, who doesn't, really?).
• Clearly Slaughter-House Five was an exemplar, not an outlier.
• Apparently, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company has optioned this (thanks, Wikipedia), so maybe we'll be able to do a film comparison at some point! I wonder who would play Mona? Maybe Olga Kurylenko?

I say, this is rather horrifying; Or: Cthulhu!

I knew, of course, that H. P. Lovecraft was responsible for Cthulhu. I first encountered Cthulhu via those adorable little plush stuffed dolls they have at various gaming stores. As a side note, this may have not been the best foundation for viewing At the Mountains of Madness in the proper way. I did not realize, though, that Cthulhu appeared so prominently in many of Lovecraft's works, and I did not expect to encounter him/it? on my first foray into his canon. Imagine my surprise and delight!

I wish that I could say that The Shining had brought an equally lovely surprise, but alas, I cannot. This is another one that really did nothing for me. I think I started off a bit on the wrong foot, and I can't really blame Stephen King for that. After so many books that you read at least in part for the prose/language, I entered this one and found it jarring. No one should read Stephen King for his prose, end of story, and the sooner you get comfortable breezing through his works the better.

That said, I don't think that horror is my genre. I'm not saying that these stories aren't scary, I just didn't find them to be scary. I think a lot of that has to do with ones desire, though, to find them terrifying. You can enter and decide you won't be scared, and by and large you won't. I'm not willing to let horror into my life in that way, so these don't do much for me.

I don't think horror ever really had the right impact on me, even as a child. I was rather a morbid child. I always loved Hansel and Gretel, and I had a fascination for the weird parts of E.T. At the same time, I never could handle Miles and Otis or that Winnie-the-Pooh with the bird. For whatever reason, I enjoyed the Charlie Brown where the little girl gets leukemia, but I could not handle Snoopy Come Home. Now, in my defense, the little girl goes into remission and her hair grows back! That story has a happy ending! And do not tell me that the bird flies back and Snoopy comes home. I do not want to hear anything about those stories and I am not listening.

Vonnegut Faze

I believe that Slaughterhouse Five was my first Vonnegut. I could be wrong about that, but I do not think so. For some incredibly inexplicable reason, I always sort of lump Vonnegut, Kafka, and Faulkner together in my head. This really makes absolutely no sense. It's not like I mix them up or anything, I just lump them together the way I do Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky, for example, but at least that lumping makes sense. Vonnegut, Kafka, and Faulkner really have nothing in common. They don't even have a letter in common. Ah, well.

Anyway, stories about war are an interesting genre. This one had several laugh-out-loud moments, but like many war novels, it's focus is the senselessness of war, which isn't exactly a cheery theme. Since it's my first Vonnegut, I can't really make any intelligent remarks about his style or anything. I have no idea if this is an exemplar or an outlier. From a craft perspective, it's method of construction is intriguing. Of course, the problem with telling a story about non-linear time is that we do experience time linearly, more or less at least. Thus, even though the story may be told in chunks with some jumping around, it's not really disorienting or truly non-linear within each chunk. That said, the structure works and brings out the novels themes rather than distracting from them.

The Power and the Glory was my third Greene. Man, this guy thinks about Catholicism all the time! It's sort of exhausting. Not only does he think about Catholicism, it seems to give him a rather high-level of anxiety. I think he needs to calm down a bit. Every novel of his that I have read has taken place in a vastly different geographical context, which is interesting. Many writers essentially settle down in familiar areas. Like the other ones of his that I have read, the ending is not a surprise; the story is on a collision course with the ending and that's obvious from the beginning. That doesn't detract from the story at all, but it's an another intriguing trend of his.

His female characters fascinate me. On the one hand, they are often peripheral to the story in many ways. They move in and out of focus, and aren't ever the leads. However, they drive the story in subtle ways and are as real as the leads. They are neither Madonnas nor whores, instead occupying a more complex space, and some are quite original (the young girl in this one is particularly excellent). This particular novel would be particularly interesting to analyze in juxtaposition with The Scarlet Letter.

250 Down, 751 To Go!

Yay! Go me! I'm not exactly sure that The Power and the Glory is quite epic enough for this milestone, but there you go. It was a fun enough read, and I'll write more on it and Slaughterhouse Five in a bit. However, I just wanted to write this little post in celebration. Next weekend I am going to have a cookie to celebrate (since there is a bakery I want to visit in Georgetown). I also do plan to buy my favorite book from the first 250; the challenge there is that I still can't decide between The Ground Beneath Her Feet and The Forsyte Saga. We shall see.

In other news, my next read is The Shining. This should be interesting, since I really have no idea what it is about or any preconceived notions about it. From reading the back of the book, I have learned that it takes place in a hotel. I think that's a good sign, since I rather like hotels.

It Said We Weren't Likable

Writers and literary critics always seem to take issue when someone (specifically, your average reader who reads for pleasure, rather than pretentiousness) says they didn't like a book because the characters weren't likable. As writers and literary critics rightly point out, just because you wouldn't want to take a road trip or go bowling with someone doesn't mean that they aren't interesting, compelling characters or that stories they are in aren't worth reading. Some of the best characters would be horrible human beings. Thus, they argue, finding characters unlikable is not a good reason to not read or enjoy a novel, it's just readers being immature.

I disagree. The real issue here is that readers are not being precise enough when they say that the characters weren't likable. Yes, I do not have to think, "man, I'd love to go to see spectacularly excellent action movies with this person" to find them compelling in a story (actually, there's really only one person with whom I really enjoy seeing spectacularly excellent action movies, but that's not the point here). However, I do have to think that they are not so annoying and/or boring and/or loathsome that I want to spend time with them. Average readers probably do need to be more precise when they say they found the characters unlikable, but I think annoyance with the characters is a perfectly excellent reason to hate the novel.

For example, I found every single character in The Corrections to be mind-numbingly dull and painfully irritating. Not only would I not want to be stuck on a Greyhound bus with them, I did not give a flying fig what happened to them as they bored me to tears. In real life, the heroine of The Ground Beneath Her Feet would be a rather terrifying person to know, the lead of The Joke is rather a bitter person, and the whole ensemble of The Secret History are essentially murderers, but these are all very compelling, rich, fascinating novels.

Ultimately, I do have to find something that I like in a story to enjoy it, and in general I would rather enjoy a story than admire it. This is coming from someone who mostly loves prose and the ways that words are put together, too; I'm not just a character person, but words are their most beautiful in service to an exquisite narrative and a richly created world and characters.

Operation Insanity

There are some books that inspire a good deal of reflection, books that I am eager to write about and find that I have thoughts that I want to share. For a subset of these books, I also have ideas for more in-depth, academic-y papers in addition to these breezy blog reflections; I want to discuss their symbolism or explore them in relation to another work or larger theme/issue/genre.

Operation Shylock is not one of those books. I really have nothing to say about this novel. Philip Roth does very little for me. Don't get me wrong, he is clearly an excellent writer, and I can appreciate the prose and the craft. He has forceful ideas that drive his novels, and they explore intricate and complex issues. But they just don't do anything for me.

Moreover, Operation Shylock is one of those books that makes me feel sort of insane, rather like that Beckett trilogy I read ages ago. Whenever I try to explain this story to someone, I start off by telling them that it's really weird. Then I explain that it's about this guy who finds out that someone is impersonating him to extol this sort of reverse diaspora, this movement for the Jews in Israel to return to Europe. Then the person looks and me and is like, that's not that weird, because I actually make the story sound like it makes more sense that it does. Please take my word for it: this book is trippy.