A Moving Spotlight

I tend to forget plot lines and endings of most books I read.  What usually sticks with me is the style of writing: the use of adjectival phrases, the tone, the sentence structure.  Thus, I remember one of my favorite books, Mrs. Dalloway, not for the story, but for the literary devices employed by Virginia Woolf.  What makes Mrs. Dalloway so intriguing to me is the shift of narrative focus in stream of consciousness.  I will always remember this device employed by Woolf as something magical, something real.  Reading it again this week, brought back all the memories of this perfect device.  It is as though the reader is walking through London with the narrator, shining a spotlight on the various characters as he sees them, learning their inmost thoughts and journeying with them on one particular day.   As one character walks by, suddenly, the narrator spots them and the reader follows them in the same way.

But reading Mrs. Dalloway again, led to greater observations than my 17 year old self could have made.  These insights brought further depth to a novel I already loved.  Most notable among these was the presage of the future.  Woolf wrote of the prevailing philosophies of the day.  These, naturally, were indicators of the future.  Her character Sir William (a doctor), a progressive thinker obsessed with the twin goddesses of proportion and conversion, is a somber warning of the horrors of eugenics and power-hungry rulers:

Sir William not only prospered himself but made England prosper, secluded her lunatics, forbade childbirth, penalised despair, made it impossible for the unfit to propagate their views until they, too, shared his sense of proportion.

Conversion is her name and she feasts on the wills of the weakly, loving to impress, to impose, adoring her own features stamped on the face of the populace.  At Hyde Park Corner on a tub she stand preaching; shrouds herself in white and walks penitentially disguised as brotherly love through factories and parliaments; offers help, but desires power, smite out of her way roughly the dissentient, or dissatisfied; bestows her blessings on those, who looking upward, catch submissively from her eyes, the light of their own.  This lady too had her dwelling in Sir William's heart, though concealed, as she mostly is, under some plausible disguise; some venerable name; love, duty, self sacrifice.  But conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will. 

All the characters of this novel can be sorted out by their adherence to these goddesses.  Their willingness to bow their hearts to proportion and conversion is the test of the will of each character.  Some have chosen to submit for ease, some refuse and suffer the consequences.  It seems the whole of Mrs. Dalloway could not stand without this small portion of writing centered on a minor character.  This is the key to unlocking the secrets of Mrs. Dalloway. 

Thus this is a novel about choices.  Choices made.  Choices regretted.  But always choices.  Many will say this is one of the first feminist novels, but I say it is a novel about self-determination.  It is about how you choose to live your life, suffering consequences or bearing them up.  The things of the past for some characters are events to get beyond; for others, they are something to live inside.  Some would say that women before the turn of the century did not have choices, but this novel would point out just the opposite.   Each character (especially Clarissa) had the right to choose.  One must remember there is a difference between not having a choice and regretting making the decision. 

Rating: 6 out of 7

-L

The Poisonwood Bible

Upon opening this week's book, I was immediately struck with the feeling I would never get through it.  The prose is so ethereal and without context.  My persistence was rewarded upon turning the first page of the first section: The Things We Carried.  I was suddenly immersed in a world of context narrated by the female relations of a missionary man from Georgia, setting himself and his family down in the strange land of the Congo at the precipice of independence.  His ignorance of almost everything in life leaves scars on his daughters, his wife, and even himself; only he is unable to recognize or admit them.  The tale of The Poisonwood Bible (by Barbara Kingsolver) is one of striving for the purpose of independence to find there is no such thing.  Oppression is the lot of all men in life - it is just a matter of one's perspective on their suffering.   Do you choose to submit under the hand of an angry god?  Do you choose to build a life of the scraps of hope you find along the way?  How will you survive a land so destructive even the jungle will creep in on you, seeking dominion, if you turn your back on it for a moment?

The themes of this book are worn on it's sleeve.  They permeate every page with an outspokenness that must fit the struggles for independence of all conquered nations.  If someone does not stand up and raise their voice, there will never be freedom, right?  In telling this story oppression must be defined.  Kingsolver accomplishes this through the first two books: Genesis and Revelation.  She identifies the major players in their respective roles of oppressor and oppressed, each a metaphor for the greater struggle for Congolese independence.  The third (Judges) serves as the wake-up-call to the consciousness of all involved.  There must be a paradigm shift; something must change.  The last four books cover the ground of independence sought and gained (?). 

Maybe it is just me, but the last couple of books really could have been left off.  Maybe it is the free person in me that understands the struggle, the attainment, that doesn't need reminders of a life of oppression left behind.  They slithered and crawled and worked their way free, I don't need a recap of the rest of their lives.  They are free, right?  Well, "not so much," says Kingsolver.  They only thought they were free, they were only free of certain things.  They still have the memories.  The memories will never free them, no matter how they deal with them.

Memory is the device of the narrators of this tale.  All is told in reminiscence.  All is recounted with the understanding of what happened in the end, where each person ended up.  In keeping with this Kingsolver foreshadows many of the plot points  in a heavy-handed way.  For the most part the reader knows what is going to happen well before the action takes place.  Somehow it doesn't mar the story.  It reads like a person telling a joke and letting slip the punchline, long before they are supposed to.  It doesn't mean it is not just as enjoyable, it is just not surprising. 

Memory also is the thing each person carries out of the Congo with them.  The memory of what has happened shapes the lives of each character.  Each character remains true to the original sketch of themselves, but because we are looking back, they tell only the things they think are important to who they are now.  Each one a pragmatist, a scholar, a narcissist, a survivor.  The reader gets from them just what they want to give; but cleverly, he knows more about them than they think he does.  This is due to the device of multiple narrators.  Kingsolver tells her story through the eyes of the Price women.  Each is a a fully realized character, with her own narrative style.  My favorite is Adah, the crooked-backed, palindrome spouting, lesser-twin to Leah.  Her story resonates more fully because she uses words sparingly and speaks even fewer.  Her chapters are rich because the reader would not know her otherwise.  Each of the other characters are easily understood through the telling of their counterparts; but because Adah is silent most of the time, she is privileged to tell her story her way.  She is easily one of the most compelling characters in modern literature. 

With memory comes regret.  Kingsolver deals with this in various ways, but no more clearly than here, the words of Orleanna Price:

Try to imagine what never happened: our family without Africa, or the Africa that would have been without us.  Look at your sisters now.  Lock, stock, and barrel, they've got their own three ways to live with our history.  Some can find it.  Many more never do.  But which one among you is without sin?  I can hardly think where to cast my stones, so I just go on keening for my own losses, trying to wear the marks of the boot on my back as gracefully as the Congo wears hers.

The scars remain; the bruises, and the illnesses never healed.  But the characters learn how to deal with regret, by understanding it must have been this way.  The story could not be told, but by walking down that particular road.  What they would have been otherwise is unthinkable; this is who they are now.

I could write a whole other post on the particulars of the theology that took them there.  A works-based system, insisting the justice (in human perception) of God would reward the "goodness" of a man bent on becoming a spiritual giant, without any of the tools necessary. I would set it against the backdrop of a tribal theology that is not very far displaced from the theology of the missionary, just set on a different focal point.  This could be discussed in grand detail to tedium by this humble church history (theology) major, but I have already said the most important stuff regarding this book.  Read it for yourself and discover a world of themes hidden just under the skin, like the zillion parasites of the Congolese jungle.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 7

-L

Angels. Did you really mean Angels?

After taking so long to read the last book, I was relieved to find it was not a chronic condition as I read this week's book in just three evenings.  The choice this time around?  Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster.  What a delightful thing to find quotation marks after an entire novel of dialogue written directly into the text.  How lovely some punctuation marks are!

First observations upon reading this novel.  The dialogue is so much like a play that I could see it being performed upon a stage quite easily (at least the first couple of chapters).  Forster must have felt much the same as he drops hints to playwrights a couple times: "dropping like a curtain on the scene" and a mention of "horrible modern plays where no one is right."  Forster also makes glorious use of adjectival phrases.  He often couples them together in odd ways, creating a poetry-like quality to his prose.  I found myself writing down these couplets often and just thinking about how many authors do not think so much upon their adjectives as Forster must have.  He packed more descriptive dynamite in the short 114 pages than most authors do in 300.  It truly is something to behold.  Here are a few of my favorites:

glorious invariable creature...brief and inevitable tragedy...purple quivering beef...smart and vociferous...grating sprightliness....timorous, scrupulous...burly obtuseness

. 
And to think, he must have accomplished these feats of literary magic without the assistance of a thesaurus. 

The themes of this book are varied and interesting for the period.  The repression of women ( quotes: "as if she could choose what could make her happy!" and "the usual feminine incapacity for grasping philosophy") juxtaposed against the supreme mother rule of  a certain female character over most other players in her game (her son calls himself her "puppet" and does not think of "his own moral or behavior anymore.") is a theme that weaves its way through the entire novel.  As I was reading, it seemed one could make a case that Forster was one of the first feminist authors (sorry to Kate and Virginia).   He appeals to the plight of women, while pointing out their absolute authority over other women and men in certain social circles. 

Another theme picked up and then dropped as the novel progresses is hypocrisy as a social convention.  All the characters float through this world performing for societal acceptance rather than following their own hearts.  They maintain their social status by conforming to what they call "proper behavior."  All the while, their hearts betray them by their very words.  As most of the characters develop, the hypocrisy is not so easily hidden, and thus it becomes less evident.  The climax of the novel finds most of the characters laid bare, unable to hide their inner feelings any longer.  This incisive character study of both men and women by Forster is not just accurate for his day, it is a statement of the human condition for all ages.

The last theme worthy of discussion for this post is the abandonment of all moral strictures when on vacation.  There is something about getting out of one's comfort zone that strips one of all one's closely-held customs.  In the novel, each character that dares leave the comfort of Sawston, finds themselves utterly changed, doing surprising things and exploring feelings they would have never imagined.  Forster uses the change of scenery to depict a literal change in character and then mentions, late in the book, that people are more apt to notice change in others than in themselves who "hold [their own] characters immutable, slow to acknowledge they have changed even for the better."  He also speaks of one of the characters "changing her disposition never and her atmosphere under protest."  This is the one character who rebels the most against the strictures of her societal restraints upon being thrust into the world of Italy.

The last thing I kept track of whilst reading was the mention of angels.  Because I had never read this book before, nor had a read anything about it; I was unaware of the reason for the title.  Thus, I wrote down every mention of angels, thinking it would help me discover the purpose.  Well, for those of you who will in the future read this one, don't bother.  I discovered that the mention of angels is not important.  After reading the book,  I looked it up and found it is a reference to a quote from some other book: "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." - Alexander Pope.  Don't I feel sheepish?  But, honestly, that fits a lot better than anything I came up with.  Would have been nice to have included this quote in the front page of the novel for us unlearned folk.

Rating:  4.5 out of 7

-L

Robinson

I have been toiling away attempting to read a book consisting of 206 pages for the last 2 1/2 weeks.  I am not sure how this has happened other than to say the name of the book is Robinson Crusoe.  My thoughts on this book are many, so this post may be a bit long.  I will attempt to divide them into observations.
Observation 1:  the details.  This is often called the first English novel.  As such, it is an autobiographical novel with no chapters, no line breaks, no divisions.  The sentence structure is hypergrammatical and long.  Paragraphs feel like they go on for days and go into too much detail.  It is tedious, woefully tedious.
Observation 2: the issue of plagiarism.  I know, I know you must be thinking, "Plagiarism, how can the first English novel be plagiarized."  Well, I am not accusing anyone of plagiarism in Daniel Defoe's day, but I certainly found more than a passing similarity between Robinson Crusoe and Life of Pi (my previous review here).  I remember being outraged around page 50 at the way that Robinson Crusoe and Pi Patel's paths seemed to be running parallel.   As I read on, I discovered the themes of the books must be the same.  One must explore the process of survival in a desperate situation to an exhausting degree (for believability sake, I guess).  One must have a background in faith tested and changed over the course of the stranding.  But it was a bit disheartening to know that Yann Martel's Life of Pi was really just a restructuring of an already trod story.  As a note on this: Yann Martel was also accused of plagiarizing another book, but after speaking with the author of the other book, the other author dropped his case.  I wonder if Defoe and Martel had some sort of medium-coerced meeting that would make all claims of plagiarism of Robinson Crusoe moot, too?
Observation 3: the verdict.  So far it seems like after reading one book, I despised two books.  Well, that is not necessarily the case.  Although reading the story of Robinson Crusoe after reading the story of Pi Patel instilled in me again that everything must go in order; I actually ended up liking (to a degree) both books.  Robinson Crusoe, in particular, is filled with the most amazing quotes.  It is absolutely unbelievable in it's plot line, tedious in the telling, and a little long on ending; but there are these moments where the book shines.  I believe the book to be a cross between novel and theological treatise.  As I was a Church History (Theology) major in college, this intrigued me greatly.  I found myself wading through the waist deep, soporific story line to get to the parts where Robinson speaks of faith.
Observation 4:  the gospel.  The book is largely a book of faith (must be why they don't assign it in public schools anymore).  It tells the story of a man who is regretful of all his wrong choices, finds faith in God, lives his life according to faith's principles and shares his faith with another.  In the middle of the telling are some of the most thought-provoking statements on the nature of faith, humanity and God.  Robinson said of himself early in the book, he "was born to be [his] own destroyer," "the willful agent of all [his] own miseries."  He speaks of prodigal sons in their youth:

[T]hey are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action, for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools; but are ashamed of the returning, which can only make them be esteemed wise men.

  Thus Robinson, being youthful, travels on the sea and begins a life of many terrors.  He of, course ends up shipwrecked on a desert island and stays there under the hand of Providence for almost 30 years.  During this time, he begins to create a life around him from the things he salvaged from the wreckage of the ship.  A few years in, he discovers the work of God in providing him these things and works out the struggle to survive as a work of God: 

How mercifully can our Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can He sweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons and prisons! What a table was here spread for me in a wilderness, where I saw nothing, at first, but to perish for hunger.

Robinson survives not because of his strength or his ingenuity, but because he works under the hand of Providence with what he has.  He lives on his island, not in a state of fear and terror, but of serenity and calm.  The disruption of his calm, by certain events, causes him to ruminate on the protection of God even from one's own thoughts: 

How infinitely good that Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene of the dangers which surround him.

The story of Robinson is the story of redemption and sanctification.  There is a weight of sin, a realization of that weight, a Savior found, a faith placed, and a life lived in thankfulness for the removal of the weight. 
Observation 5:  If you decide, based upon this review, to pick up this book and read it; I advise you to stop reading at the point where Robinson Crusoe sails home.  The rest of the book is unnecessary and boring.  It does not further the story in any way.  But I do cut Defoe a little slack because he was writing a new form of fiction altogether.  We can't expect him to get it right the first time, can we?

Rating: 4.62 out of 7

-L

A Little Old Time Detective Novel

I am chronically late to the party.  Whatever the party may be, I am one of those procrastinating, walking in 5-20 minutes late kind of people.  This is never more true in my life than in literature and film.  It takes a long time for me to get around to watching the "it" movie or reading the besteller.  So long, in fact, that I often don't get around to it.   
I am currently refusing to buy any more books until I have cleared away many of the books on my "to read" shelf.
These two realities in my life are leading to great new discoveries...and for that I am happy.
The discovery this week: Wilkie Collins.  As part of my Classics Challenge, I decided to read The Moonstone, A Romance.  The subtitle of the book seems a misnomer for most of the book, but I guess is fitting for the ending.  Part of the beauty of the story is it could be called The Moonstone, A Mystery or The Moonstone, A Character Study just as easily.  The romance is definitely in the background (it can get a little soapy every once in a while); but it really is a detective story (of the English sort).
Whilst reading this one, I found myself guessing at the resolution endlessly, changing my decision of whodunnit at many turns.  The gift of Wilkie Collins is the sleight of hand created by the numerous narrators and the red herrings placed throughout.  What emerges while reading is a layered storyline of mystery upon mystery, but you start questioning if they really are mysteries or character quirks.  It is truly something to behold...like an old time Lost for the generation of the 1850's (mind you I never have gotten around to watching Lost, but I am told it is maddening in it's mysterious storylines). 
The multiple narrators charged with telling all they personally know of events is delightful.  Collins employed the right narrators at the right time and devoted more pages to the ones he must have known the reader would like better.  My favorite narrator (the dead-wife-despising house-steward) begins and sums up the book.  He gets what he calls "detective fever" as the pages fly by, but his fatal flaw preventing him from actually solving any mystery is a constitutional "superiority to reason."  He implores the reader on many an occasion to avoid it, once stating: "Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scatch you for your own good."  He is also entirely loveable for his unadulterated devotion to the book Robinson Crusoe.  It is his bible, his prophet, his comforter.  Collins did not create an entire cast of characters with odd personality traits, but the few characters he created are memorable. 

Rating: 5.75 out of 7

-L

Life of Pi

It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith.  Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - then they leap. - Pi Patel

I tried to be really clever and type the pi symbol in my title.  I say tried because you can see the result. 
This week's book for me was Life of Pi by Yann Martel.  I have heard good things about it from different sectors, and Stacie brought it over one day for me to read.  It has been sitting in the office for a while and I had never even looked at the bookleaf to figure out what it was about.  The bookleaf is intriguing in it's complete vagueness.  Don't worry about having to find a copy to read it, here it is in it's entirety:

A Boy
A Tiger
And the vast Pacific Ocean

This is a novel of such rare and wonderous storytelling that is may, as one character claims, make you believe in God. 

Can a reader reasonably ask for anything more?

This struck me because I already believe in God and wandered what story other than the one I have already heard could make a believer out of an atheist.  It also struck me because I LOVE when I don't know anything about what I am about to experience (be it movies, music, or books).  I love a good surprise!

Did I find what I was looking for while reading this book?  Yes and no.
I did think the story was remarkable, well told, even if it was a little tedious toward the end (although I do think this too was an author's device).  Did it make me a believer?  No.  I already have a knowledge and faith in a well-defined God, not the/an undefined god of this book.  The story plays well into the fate/hand of God  ideas of many stories that have gone before (e.g. he never would have been prepared for that if he hadn't done this), but stops short somewhere along the way.  I was also put off by the multi-god religion the main character builds for himself, especially considering they are mutually exclusive faiths. 
I did enjoy the air of mystery the book jacket provided.  Each page truly was an adventure until a little past two-thirds in.  By this time, I was done with the surprising story and was ready for the denoument.  Just get there already!  The first part of the book was what I found most intriguing over all.  If you are a person who likes to start a book and then lay it down, this could be a candidate.  Just read the first half and you will have lots to chew on. 

In regards to the athiest-turning claim of the book jacket, there are some great quotes in the first section of the book.  One is at the top of the post, but there really could have been a few more. 

Rating:  4 out of 7

-L

The Classics Challenge

Whilst travelling around the internet in search of like-minded bloggers, I came across a Classics Challenge and I was intrigued.  I signed up and started scanning our shelves to figure out just what would be read for the challenge.  I have settled on the entree option with the bonus.  I have until October to get it finished and I am looking forward to checking off some of the books on my list.  Currently I am thinking of authors with only a couple of titles in mind.  Here is the rundown:
1. Melville
2. Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway
3. Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
4. Forester
5. Collins - The Moonstone
Bonus: Life of Pi

I will not be reading in this order, and I do reserve the right to change my mind at any time.  Any suggestions of other classics I must read?

-L