A Senior Moment

I recently finished A Clockwork Orangea meditation upon the relationship between the individual and society, and decided to lighten things up by reading a thriller by Frederick Forsyth.  Of the great thriller writers I have read, I think Forsyth may be the best.  Clancy is certainly the most accessible, but probably the least skilled stylist.  Ludlum is more proficient than Clancy, but not as good as he thinks he is when he launches into certain “writerly” passages – though his plots are perhaps the twistiest.  Le Carre is perhaps the best pure writer of them all, but his subtle, understated work can sometimes be short on action.  Forsyth seems to combine the lucidity of Clancy with more sophisticated plots and characterization, and indulges in more action than the subdued Le Carre.

Anyhow, I started digging into The Fourth Protocol which begins with a jewel heist and quickly spins into international intrigue (it’s cold war vintage, too, when all the best spying was done).  About 75 pages into it I got this nagging feeling of familiarity with the unfolding plot.  By 100 pages in I was sure – I had read the book several years ago!  ‘Bekah was unimpressed by this – she reads 100 books a year, and every couple years she rereads good ones, their plots having been blurred over by the hundreds of intervening books.  I read about a third that much, however, and usually retain plots excellently.  As soon as I remembered that I’d read this, I recalled just how it played out, right down to the memorable ending.

So I’ve moved on to Howard Cosell’s autobiography I Never Played the Game. Hopefully, I won’t turn out to have read this one.  Heh.  I Never Read this Book.

The List is a Harsh Mistress

Many of you know that I created, while in my last semester at high school, a list of books that I should read for the enrichment of my mind.  There wound up being 162 books on the list, a number arrived at unintentionally, but coincidentally the number of games in a baseball season.

Anyhow, I meticulously structured the list, eventually arriving at a precise order in which I would read each book on it, and I have been plugging away ever since.  I take frequent breaks, of course – I have certainly read more than 162 books since high school!  I am nearing the end of the list now, and due to the way it is structured, this means that I am reading more and more of the books that intrigued me most in high school.

Y’see the compulsively complex way that I ordered the list was to first divide it into eight sub-lists of roughly 20 books apiece, each set grouped by the degree of interest and anticipation I had for reading the book.  The books were then placed on the list with an early emphasis on books from the set I least looked forward to – the “chores” if you will.  More interesting books were spaced at precise intervals to keep me from abandoning the list, but the end result is that I long ago finished my chores and have slowly been moving toward the most-anticipated books.

Now that I have finished The Bourne Ultimatum, a purely recreational choice, I am returning to my list with A Clockwork Orange.

Sketches

I was reading Irving’s Sketchbook last night, and came across a passage which seems resonant at the moment,   so I thought maybe I’d transcribe it.  It’s taken from “Philip of Pokanoket” an account of the wars between the Native Americans and early colonists, circa the Last of the Mohicans or Pocahontas era.  It was written in the early 19th century, so please forgive the author his use of the “universal he” and his tendency to refer to humanity as “man” or “men”, they didn’t know any better back then.

“In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part.  The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the leveling influence of what is termed good breeding; and he practices so many deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.”

Old Wash is a pretty good writer, and his Sketchbook is full of musings that crystallize into well-wrought paragraphs like the one above.  Unfortunately, in between his forays into the myth and folklore of his day, like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” he seems for the most part content to use his talent chronicling subjects which range from the tame to the tedious.  Occasionally, however, even in the midst of a humdrum narrative, one will be arrested by a singularly sharp portrait or charming turn of phrase.  This is much like my experience of life itself, which can mingle the banal and the sublime with little warning.

An Avian Invasion…

…of sorts.

I plan on writing about writing today, but a bird will be mentioned.  After yesterday’s shocking developments in the donkeys vs. birds controversy, it almost seems like I am switching sides…

Before digging into the main matter of today’s post, however, there are a couple of niggling things to clear up.  First, it has been pointed out that there was a rather egregious typing error in yesterday’s post.  Luckily, by the time it was pointed out I had already caught it myself and fixed it.  I actually encourage the reporting of typos, but I myself am fairly good about rereading recent posts and catching them.  Occasionally I will go back and work on word choice or other things as well.  The first draft goes up, and is sometimes replaced by a second draft later in the same day.  I usually don’t bother with older stuff, unless there was something that really bothered me.

The other matter upon which clarification has been requested is my claims of fact-checking.  Admittedly, I don’t have investigative reporters on the ground or anything, but I did check multiple internet sources, so I’m doing approximately as well as Fox News…

Okay, on to the ostensible purpose of today’s post, which is to talk about Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes.  This was ‘Bekah’s annual Valentine’s Day book selection for me, and she did a good job.  It is a very writerly book, however, and in addition is largely about a writer, so it is really a “bookworms only” type of novel.  I had not read Barnes before, but he has done such an excellent job with this book that I expect I shall want to read him again.

The novel is like one of those dance performances where the dancers’ movements are so perfectly synchronized that you begin to think of them as one organism.  Every detail, every revelation is perfectly placed, perfectly integrated, in a way that is only possible through long, careful toil, but which invariably seems natural and easy to the reader.  This is real talent, though I think one reviewer’s linking of Barnes with Joyce may be a bit of a stretch.

Flaubert himself was the perfect subject for a novel like this, as much of his personal correspondence has survived and is, in fact, his true masterpiece as a writer, his excellent novel Madame Bovary notwithstanding.

Acthung!

Posting has been disrupted recently due to terrorist activities (the “terrorists” in this case being Comcast, our service provider, who are waging a war against all of their customers through price hikes, service stoppages, and the occasional car-bombing.)

Today, service has resumed, so I will make up for the recent drought with a spate – a spate, I say! – of posts today.

For this first one, I would like to point out something that has recently been brought to my attention.  Prepare to have your mind blown.

On June 14th, 1928, Che Guevara was born.  He would go on to become a famous revolutionary and face-on-a-t-shirt (although the “rebellious” teens and undergrads wearing the shirts  typically know little-to-nothing about his actual career or politics, and merely see him as a classier alternative to Tony Montana, who they admire for the same qualities they worship in Che).  He believed passionately in the doctrines of Lenin and Marx.

On October 9th, 1940, John Lennon was born.  He would go on to become a famous rock star and face-on-a-t-shirt who wrote songs about revolution and is often confused with the Lenin that Che worshiped by teens who have successfully rebelled against the efforts of their history teachers.

On October 9th, 1944, (John Lennon’s 4th birthday), Peter Tosh was born.  He would go on to become a core member of The Wailers, backing band of famous musician and face-on-a-t-shirt Bob Marley,  as well as  a successful reggae musician in his own right.

On October 9th, 1967, Che Guevara was shot to death.  It was Lennon’s 27th birthday, Tosh’s 23rd.  Guevara was 39.

On December 8th, 1980, John Lennon was shot to death.  He was 40.  He won a grammy for the last album he released during his lifetime.

On September 11th, 1987, Peter Tosh was shot to death.  He was 43.  He had just won a grammy award for the last album he would release during his lifetime.

Pretty heavy, huh?  I’m not sure what any of this means, but it is clearly important…

And it’s all true, except that Peter Tosh was actually born on on October 19th, which messes up the whole thing unless you delete the 1 in the interest of good storytelling journalism.  You read  it here first – unless you read Mass Historia by Chris Regan, who actually found the “connection” when he botched Tosh’s birthdate – I caught it when fact-checking for this post (yes, I fact-check!), but decided to run with it anyway.

What Made the Pan Refuse to Grow…

I finished reading Peter Pan last night, and I observed something that some of you may find intriguing.  While the book is famous for being a children’s story filled with wonder, I also perceived a subtle but definitely sinister undertone to it.  I’ve always noticed this mildly disturbing undercurrent in the writing I feel best captures dreams and/or childhood, most notably Neil Gaiman’s work.  It reminds us, I think, that dreams (and the waking dream of childhood) are things of both wonder and terror.  Perhaps it is impossible for the soul to be open to the wondrous without making itself supremely vulnerable, a truly terrifying prospect to many.

Anyway, fans of Neil Gaiman (and there should be some out there, lord knows I work hard enough to enlarge his cult), check out Peter Pan.  Fans of Pan, check out Gaiman’s Coraline.

In the Meantime, I thought I’d leave you with a description of one of literature’s most memorable villains:

“A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock….

In the midst of them, the blackest and largest jewel in that dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared.  He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of his right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace.  As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him.  In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance.  His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly.  In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute.  He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanor, showed him one of a different caste from his crew.  A man of indomitable courage, it was said of him that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual color.  In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.  But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.

Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method.  Skylights will do.  As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on.  He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth.

Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted.  Which will win?”

Bourne Again

It’s been an axiom of mine for years that any given narrative will fare better as a book than as a movie.  I haven’t decided whether this is because of any inherent strength in the medium, or simply because less people are involved in producing a novel than a feature film, or for some other, more esoteric reason, I just find it to be true in nearly every case.

The biggest exception I have found in my career as a reader and moviegoer has been The Godfather.  This was a very good book, but it was a great movie, for two primary reasons that I can discern.  First, whereas the novel tends to sprawl a bit, spinning out a couple of secondary plotlines that frankly don’t add much to the book, the film is more tightly focused and compact, trimming away the extraneous bits and gaining power and momentum because of it.  Second, while Mario Puzo was an adept writer, and skilled at characterization, the film had the advantage of employing a handful of  the most brilliant actors in the profession to invest these same characters with a humanity and intensity Puzo did not achieve.

This stood as a lone example in my experience for many years, but recently it acquired a companion when I finished reading Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity.  Now, the gap is much narrower in this case, and I admit that I wasn’t sure I liked the movie more until the very end of the book.  Which I suppose is a backhanded way of recommending the novel.  Ludlum, unlike Puzo, is not a terribly good writer.  The following passage from early in the novel is fairly typical: “the white sprays caught in the night sky cascaded downward over the deck under the force of the night wind.”  Why not throw “night” in there a couple more times, really drive the point home for the reader?  And how about stacking some more prepositions into this sentence?

“The white sprays caught in the night sky plummeted downward through the night toward the benighted ship below, cascading over the deck beside the cabin ahead of the stern under the force of the night wind, all beneath the concealing cloak of night?”

Anyway, Ludlum also has a mild case of Clancyitis, drawing characters that are occasionally unrealistic or corny.  On the other hand, he came up with a very good premise, and is clearly ferociously intelligent, twisting and turning a convoluted plot in ingenious ways and using cleverly constructed traps and dangerous situations to produce crackling action sequences.

Ultimately, the movie transcends the book because it, like The Godfather, trims away the extraneous (and in this case, that includes some of the thinner characterizations) to weave a tighter version of the story.  Also, director/producer Doug Liman and company are clearly more adept at the execution of their craft than Ludlum was at his – the film has a terrific economy and intelligence in its selection of shots, cuts, etc.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Did you know that Sherlock Holmes says that line just once in all the stories that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about him?

I finished reading the last of the stories Sunday night, and worked through a couple of Sir Doyle’s parodies and essays last night to finish things up properly.

Now according to scholarly sources, there are two famous lists of the best Holmes stories: one by the author himself, and one by the prominent fan publication The Baker Street Journal.  While these lists are all well and good, that for which the literary world has clearly been crying out for such a long time now is obviously a list by a roly-poly drudge with no academic standing or repute in international circles.  This is an article with which I can easily supply them – and you, faithful readers.  First of all, I’d like to mention that all four of the Holmes novels are worth reading, but I think The Hound of the Baskervilles might be my favorite, though The Sign of the Four is the most similar to the short stories.

As far as the short stories go, there are 56 of them, so really picking more than six or eight “best-of” would be like the NBA postseason, where half the teams in the sport advance to the playoffs (sometimes with losing records!).  I’ve always preferred baseball’s model, which happens to be the stingiest of any major American team sport.  Here are my top eight picks in the order in which they were published:

1.  “The Red-Headed League” (made both of the other lists as well, I love the whimsical premise which leads to more serious matters)

2. “The Five Orange Pips” (made Doyle’s list, not a great mystery-story, but one of the first I read as a child, and one of the more haunting)

3.  “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (made the Journal‘s list, a kind of Sherlock Holmes Christmas story)

4. “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” (made neither list, but I think the initial mystery hangs together well, and the bleak revelation at the end has a very noir feel to me)

5. “The Stockbroker’s Clerk” (another piece that didn’t make either list, I just really enjoyed the problem or mystery of this one – nothing too sensational, just a well-constructed plot)

6. “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” (both lists feature this one, kind of a proto-Indiana Jones/Dan Brown exercise in ancient-riddle-solving)

7. “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” (The Journal agrees with me that this is just one of the finest mystery plots Doyle ever produced)

8. “The Problem of Thor Bridge” (made neither list, possibly isn’t as good as some of these others, but it was produced at the end when Doyle was either mailing it in or just putting his name on the franchise, and it is clearly the best of the last dozen or so stories – maybe after reading “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” or “The Adventure of the Three Gables” anything fairly clever seems like a classic)

There you have it, the most selective list of the best Holmes short stories – the Journal did a “top ten” and Doyle indulged himself with a top twelve, but I suppose they were his babies.

Tomorrow I’m starting The Bourne Identity – should be fun.

All Night Long

I am not recovering as planned from my late night Tuesday.  I made it through work yesterday, and expect to finish the week okay, but there have been lots of little errands to run and lots of small pieces of bad news coming in, and I find that my emotional reservoirs are drained.  It may not seem like it, but the “Day in the Life” pieces (like today’s scheduled post concerning the sulfur mines) are actually some of the tougher ones to write, so I’m going to slide it back ’til the weekend and just try to recuperate.

It has been an ugly little week so far, with the demise of an appliance, some horrible behavior by the pets, some disheartening news about a family member, etc.  Also, two of my main sources of rejuvenation, the gaming group and my reading, have kind of let me down this week.  Admittedly, I had a good time Tuesday night, but it was kind of stressful, what with a new potential member (whom I had never met before) turning up unexpectedly.  Hopefully it will work out, but it makes me nervous – there’s just so much that could go wrong.  Also, I’ve reached the final collection of Holmes stories ever released under Conan Doyle’s name, and I can understand why there is scholarly suspicion that he didn’t actually write these – they are going downhill fast.  It really does seem that he allowed his name to be used for other people’s work – the writing switches points of view, dramatically changes the characterization of Holmes and Watson, and is just generally poorer in quality.  Like Watson, however, I find that my own bulldog tenacity won’t let me drop this thing ’til I have got to the bottom of it.  Eight stories to go…

Bookshelf 2008

Everybody knows that ‘Bekah is the true bookworm in our household (although Clementine is the most likely to actually eat books).  Nevertheless, I plug along, polishing off a book every fortnight or so.  I thought I’d list the tomes I have perused this annum and append a short comment to each entry so there is some sort of evaluative/recommendation element to the whole exercise.  The list is in chronological order.

1. Gorky Park – Martin Cruz Smith /  A well-crafted detective novel with an interesting setting (Soviet Russia).

2. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway /  I love Hemingway, and this earlier novel may be easier for non-fans to like, as he is still honing his prose down to the incredibly terse style for which he is famous.  The story itself is as starkly masculine and brutal as you would expect.

3. 1916 – Morgan Llewelyn  / At times I thought this book about the Easter Rising was better researched than it was written, but it stays entertaining while being informative, and what more can you ask from historical fiction?

4. War and Peace – Leonid Tolstoy  / What a monster of a novel.  If nothing else, Tolstoy was a master builder when it came to weaving together multiple stories to create a rich, layered narrative.  Probably the best pure novelist I read this year.  If you are planning on reading this, get an edition with good footnotes, and I would also recommend the translation by the Maudes: although I haven’t read any other translations of this novel, I did prefer their translation of Anna Karenina to the other version I read.

5. The Underdog – Joshua Davis  / This is a very funny book about a scrawny everyman who decides to try his hand at some of the world’s most unusual sports in order to fulfill his lifelong aspiration of becoming a champion of something.

6. Captains Courageous – Rudyard Kipling  / A great coming-of-age story set on a fishing boat.  Recommended for fans of The Perfect Storm who wanted a happier ending.

7. The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane – Robert E. Howard  / Pulp Fiction!  Howard is better known for creating Conan the Barbarian, but his witchhunting puritan, Solomon Kane, is just as much fun to read.

8. Futureland – Walter Mosley  / A collection of short stories set in the near future.  Most entries are intriguing, and they gradually build up a very convincing world-of-tomorrow that I don’t want to live in.

9. Musashi – Eiji Yoshikawa / The classic version of Musashi’s life follows Japan’s most famous swordsman on his journey of self-perfection.  Driven far more by fascinating characters and relationships than slashing swordfights, this novel has been called the Japanese Gone with the Wind, a comparison I found surprisingly apt.

10. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert / This novel resonated strongly with me this year.  Emma Bovary is certainly one of those literary characters who will stay with me for the rest of my life, as I perceive echoes of her struggles  in some of my own darker moments.

11. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson / This well-wrought novel follows the intertwined stories of a WWII cryptologist, a badass marine, and the cryptologist’s grandson, a computer programmer trying to establish a data haven.  Probably the most exciting book about cryptology and codebreaking ever written.

12. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott / Another version of the Robin Hood legend, wrapped in a tale of chivalry and romance between a knight and his lady (ladies, actually!).

13. Gates of Fire – Stephen Pressfield / This narrative of the famous Battle of Thermopylae provides both the authenticity of meticulous research and the gripping drama of good writing.  Probably a better call than seeing 300.

14. The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux / Much more of a “monster-movie” feel to the original novel, in which the Phantom is nowhere near as sympathetic as in the recent stage and screen adaptations.

15. The Old Man and the Boy – Robert Ruark / Another fine story about growing up, this one set in the rural south during the first half of the 20th century.  I guess my reading this year has taught me that the decline of hunting and fishing as occupations for boys in this country has just about killed off any chance they had of growing up right.

16. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe / Thomas (not to be confused with Tom) Wolfe is one of those blessed writers who craft prose like poetry.  This book offers a penetrating look into the human soul, complete with all the weakness and wretchedness we know so well, but it also possesses such a keen eye for beauty that its world never becomes as crushingly depressing as Faulkner’s stuff.

17. The Sweet Science – A.J. Liebling / A.J. Liebling was a regular writer for The New Yorker, and he was every bit as polished and cosmopolitan as that implies.  Luckily for me, he brought all of his culture and erudition with him when he visited the seamy world of boxing, a milieu in which he was just as comfortable.

18. The Lady of the Lake – Sir Walter Scott / This actually has nothing to do with Arthur’s “lady of the lake”, being instead a tale of inter-clan feuds in the Scottish highlands.  A romance, in the older sense of that term.

19. Angels & Demons – Dan Brown / Just imagine The Da Vinci Code, but without the crackling pace that dragged you through the book at breakneck speed.  This novel really exposed Dan Brown’s weak characterization and uninspired prose style to me.

20. The Trial - Franz Kafka / A convoluted novel about alienation from society.  The sentiments in this book, horrifyingly prescient at the time it was written, are almost commonplace now, leaving little reason to read it unless you are looking for some gratuitous depression.

21. The Amber Room - Steve Berry / This thriller follows two fairly vanilla protagonists as they become entangled in a search for perhaps the world’s greatest lost treasure.  The villains of the piece, a deadly pair of rival art thieves each trying to thwart the other as well as the bland heroes, are far more interesting, and make this book well worth the read.

22. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow / A loose, jazzy narrative that transports the reader back a hundred years to a more vital America.

23. Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad – Edited by George R.R. Martin / I love the Wild Cards books.

24. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / Probably a must read for any fan of detective fiction.

25. Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty - Edited by George R.R. Martin / Such a cool blend of alternate history and superheroes.

26. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / I’m right in the middle of this, it’s a pretty good time.