A wonderful piece of erotic (though rarely arousing) realism. The style is a blend of the romantic and the practical, as is the novel's treatment of sA wonderful piece of erotic (though rarely arousing) realism. The style is a blend of the romantic and the practical, as is the novel's treatment of sex, which is neither idealised nor relegated to the background, but portrays both the ugliness and beauty of the act, and above all (as so few novels do) the importance of this most fundamental human connection.
The final chapter seemed unnecessary, but I suppose you can't have everything....more
This is a beautiful little novella that should receive more recognition. From its perfect opening sentence, Alexis is written in an captivating, intenThis is a beautiful little novella that should receive more recognition. From its perfect opening sentence, Alexis is written in an captivating, intense, elegant style. It is an epistolary novel comprised of a single letter: a confession. Its manner of treating matters of homosexuality are perhaps too subtle and understated by today's standards, but must have been groundbreaking when the novel was published in the 1920s. The author describes her work as a character study, in which aim it succeeds, though perhaps to its own detriment, being somewhat too lacking in dimension and too inevitable to be entirely satisfying as a complete work....more
There is more to Gulliver's Travels than you might expect based on the numerous adaptations we have all seen in popular culture. Throughout the book tThere is more to Gulliver's Travels than you might expect based on the numerous adaptations we have all seen in popular culture. Throughout the book there is a progression from the familiar, jaunty adventure to more serious satire and criticism.
The first two parts of the book (Lilliput and Brobdingnag) are most recognisable, most straightforward in their premises, and are perhaps the most entertaining of the four parts in terms of their storytelling. By the third part, something has developed akin to modern science-fiction. The premises become more detailed and complex, allowing Swift to isolate, highlight and contrast various aspects of culture, politics, science and technology, history and anthropology. The relevance of many of these analyses is diminished by the passage of time, but they are nonetheless thoughtful and trenchant. The fourth section is most surprising in its tone and in the degree of its pessimism. It presents a bleak portrayal of humanity as irredeemable by its very nature, and therefore purposeless in its striving.
All of this makes Gulliver's Travels quite a strange yet compelling mix of styles and themes. It is perhaps itself like an adventure into unknown territory: it begins in search of one thing and ends up discovering something else entirely....more
This is where I get off the train. A Death in the Family was something special: Knausgård's ability to extract poignancy and meaning from the minuThis is where I get off the train. A Death in the Family was something special: Knausgård's ability to extract poignancy and meaning from the minutiae of life felt compelling and innovative. But four books in, it feels repetitive. Maybe Knausgård's approach to storytelling has changed, or maybe I've become numb to it, but it feels as though the detail has become amplified, but the heart is gone....more
One cannot separate The 120 Days of Sodom from the biography of its author, the deranged aristocrat the Marquis de Sade, and the fascinating story of One cannot separate The 120 Days of Sodom from the biography of its author, the deranged aristocrat the Marquis de Sade, and the fascinating story of its authorship: hastily scrawled in tiny print onto a 12-metre scroll of paper over the course of 37 days, while the author was imprisoned in the Bastille, just before the French Revolution. These scrolls were presumed lost during the storming of the Bastille, only to be rediscovered and published for the first time in the 20th Century.
The novel's structure is a sort of twisted Decameron, set in a remote castle during the months of November to February, with each day delivering increasing levels of degradation and depravity ("increasing" here being perhaps a little misleading, for the novel begins with allusions to murder, abduction and child-rape, but it does indeed manage to escalate considerably even from this starting point).
Understandably, given the conditions of its composition, The 120 Days of Sodom is an incomplete work. There are only 30 or so fully fledged days, with the remainder presented only in outline (as they are stated directly without context, some of these outlines are actually quite hilarious. I had considered quoting some of them here, but have decided to spare you). Even the "completed" sections are unfinished, containing many marginal notes, abbreviations and grammatical inconsistencies. The novel as it exists today was intended to be a draft for a much longer work, which was never completed (it is said that the Marquis cried tears of blood upon learning his manuscript was lost). I doubt, however that the completed version of this novel would have been the comprehensive encyclopaedia of sexuality that the Marquis may have envisioned; so fixated was he on his own proclivities - those of sodomy, violence and manipulation of bodily discharges - that the work consistently hits only a few tones, disturbing as those tones may be. The four hundred extant pages are more than enough for the reader to get the idea.
So why read these ramblings of a deranged mind, and why lend them literary importance? Ted Bundy, who killed 30 or more women, would perform sexual acts with the corpses and severed body parts of his victims. It is difficult to comprehend what could drive someone kill and mutilate another person (let alone do it repeatedly), but this confusion evaporates when you realise that his motive, as is so often the case, was sexual. John Wayne Gacy, after his first murder (which he claimed to be accidental) described experiencing a mind-numbing orgasm as he killed the boy, which likely encouraged him to subsequent acts. If these figures seem extreme in comparison to the Marquis, know that their acts are in fact described and exceeded in The 120 Days of Sodom.
Such is the power of sexual desire that it has the capability to overpower all other natural tendencies. What's fascinating is that human sexuality is composed along such a wide and multi-dimensional spectrum, by which the same natural tendency in one case may lead to stable and normal family relationships - the very perpetuation of life - and in others can lead to atrocities such as those referred to above, and described in this novel. I suspect the number of people living with sexual proclivities that may impel them to do harm to others is much higher than might be imagined; these people prevented from acting by their own moral inhibition, or fear of legal or social repercussions, or perhaps solely due to lack of opportunity.
For examples perhaps less extreme than Bundy and Gacy, we need look no further for evidence than the recent examples of Geoffrey Epstein or Harvey Weinstein, whose power over others was for a time able to shield them from accountability. It may therefore be the case that power does not corrupt, it simply overcomes the barriers and inhibitions one faces, facilitating the actualisation of one's existing proclivities. Those who are able to control themselves against their instincts are pitiable in a different way: they are condemned to a life of dissatisfaction and self-loathing. We should indeed be thankful for this self-sacrifice.
The existence of people who are driven to criminal behaviour by their sexual preferences - take even your garden-variety pedophiles, sadists and zoophiles - is a reminder of our own moral luck in not having been born with such desires. While condemning their actions, we must also remember that, "there but for the grace of God go I", or in the Marquis' own words (p41):
"All these things depend upon our constitution, our organs, the manner in which these react, and we are no more able to command our tastes to change in this than we are to vary the shape of our bodies"
It is important not to overlook the horror of the crimes described in this novel (that would be a failure to imagine the totality of the scenes being depicted), or dismiss them as idle fantasy (the Marquis was able to act on some of them, and there have been others to later take up his mantle), or to romanticise the Marquis de Sade as some sort of enlightened sexual adventurer. He was a deranged man whose education, wealth and position afforded him the freedom to act upon his desires with some success. His offences were not limited to upsetting the delicate mores and moral sensibilities of his time: he was unequivocally a rapist, and likely a murderer. His sexual preferences are today classified in the DSM as a mental condition which bears his name (sexual sadism disorder). He is certainly not a man to be admired. And yet The 120 Days of Sodom has a place in literature as a rare, comprehensive and unfiltered account of this dark part of the range of human experience. It is a reminder of what the human mind is sometimes capable. And what is perhaps most unsettling, is that though our proclivities may differ, we all share with the Marquis this same underlying sexual impulse, and occupy points within a common spectrum of sexual desire....more
My plan for 2020 is to explore the history of the novel by returning to its origins, beginning with Rabelais and Cervantes. And so I decided to close My plan for 2020 is to explore the history of the novel by returning to its origins, beginning with Rabelais and Cervantes. And so I decided to close this year with The Decameron as a sort of introduction to the project, in order to be able to better recognise the stylistic innovations introduced by those later writings. I don't think I would have read it otherwise.
In all honesty, The Decameron offers very little to a modern reader. It is very much of its time, filled with witty references to local people and places, which would have been easily understood and considered very clever at the time, but which are more or less lost on us today, even with the benefit of footnotes. Its themes are not universal. It is concerned, on the whole, with trifling subjects, witty turns of phrase, and bawdy adventures. While the stories can be entertaining, they lack the sort of substance we have come to expect today. But is difficult to criticise the book on this basis given its place in history. It was certainly outstanding in its own historical context, as is apparent in its influence on literature for many hundreds of years.
One thing I found notable about the book is its high cynicism; its lack of reverence for political and religious figures, as well as a lack of credence for religious ideas in general. There is rarely a moral element to these stories, which focus instead on material and corporeal concerns. This is contrary to what I had expected, given the position and authority of the Church at the time.
This is as good a time as any to note that the rating system doesn't really hold for books like The Decameron, and others I intend to read next year. The Decameron doesn't deserve anything less than five stars given its historical importance. But I feel that automatically giving the maximum rating to the "classics" is not all that helpful an indication as to whether a book is still relevant and worth reading today. So I will try find a balance in my rating between historical context and my own reaction as seems appropriate. ...more
This short novella captures all the confusion and naïveté of young love. Turgenev requires only a few pages of understated prose to completely expose This short novella captures all the confusion and naïveté of young love. Turgenev requires only a few pages of understated prose to completely expose his subject: Despite the intolerable pain of heatbreak, and the fact that one might view love as folly, in hindsight or with age, young love nonetheless has an enduring, preternatural strength, against which life's other fruit seem pale in comparison....more
Even more stripped-down than A Man in Love; Boyhood Island hits only one note. Knausgård has abandoned the wider view; the generalised portrait of lifEven more stripped-down than A Man in Love; Boyhood Island hits only one note. Knausgård has abandoned the wider view; the generalised portrait of life at a distance, focusing exclusively on the microscopic details. In doing so he somehow remains eminently readable - his account is sympathetic; relatable, and rings every nostalgic bell. Yet there is something hollow and one-dimensional about this third book in the series, when compared to the vibrant, poignant and pathos-filled A Death in the Family....more
A classic adventure story and early prototype of the spy/thriller genres. Plenty of action but none of it all that believable. This one wasn't really A classic adventure story and early prototype of the spy/thriller genres. Plenty of action but none of it all that believable. This one wasn't really my style....more
Douglas Hofstadter, in his informative (but self-indulgent) Le Ton beau de Marot, devotes over 500 pages to the subject of translating a 28-line pDouglas Hofstadter, in his informative (but self-indulgent) Le Ton beau de Marot, devotes over 500 pages to the subject of translating a 28-line poem from French to English. The book is filled with a multitude of attempts, each with its own character, its own aims in conveying some element of the original, and each differing significantly in style, language and emotion. There is a seemingly infinite linguistic freedom and complexity in the translation of even a poem of just 60 words, between languages that are virtual siblings.
By comparison, Eugene Onegin is a poetic novel consisting of over 200 pages, which utilises a "poetry of grammar" completely alien to English understanding. What is left, then, must be regarded as a vague ghost of the original, and it would be pure folly to attempt an earnest review. Perhaps all that survives the distortion of translation are the most salient and immutable elements: the captivating story itself; Pushkin's playful genius; and his eclectic passion and enthusiasm. As for the rest, I will leave that to the judgement of the great Russian writers, who have universally regarded Onegin as one of the singular works of Russian literature....more
It took Hugo nearly 20 years to write Les Misérables, and it shows. The novel is as comprehensive a work as is imaginable. Digressions, essays and asiIt took Hugo nearly 20 years to write Les Misérables, and it shows. The novel is as comprehensive a work as is imaginable. Digressions, essays and asides make up a large percentage of the word count, and nothing seems omitted for the sake of narrative pacing. The first fifty or so pages are devoted almost entirely to the detailed personal history of a priest. Later, there are sections of comparable length containing a detailed account of the battle of Waterloo, a series of essays on the clergy, an editorial on street urchins, accounts of French history and the reigns of monarchs, even a lengthy description of Paris's sewer system. But the novel is far better for their inclusion, than if they had been edited out. While these digressions may sound indulgent, in fact there is very little that is truly extraneous. Hugo's asides provide an essential framework through which the story weaves. Rather than disrupting the narrative flow, they immerse the reader in this turbulent period of French history, frame the characters and locations, and in fact serve to elevate the stakes, when the action resumes.
The story itself is utterly compelling, and brilliantly composed. Les Misérables is an epic moral drama, in which characters are at once the embodiment of societal forces, while being themselves simultaneously subject to those same external forces. This creates a sort of circular philosophical perspective, a reciprocal resonance between the individual and the society he inhabits. Hugo exposes the corrupt contradictions inherent in the morality of his age; the moral inversion that is brought about by the inequitable economic system. One really feels the true horror of industrial-era poverty, the way it subverts humanity and eliminates moral choice.
But beyond any analysis of the novel's plot or themes, what I must emphasise here, and what I cannot overstate, is the experience I had reading this novel, which was one of the most intense and satisfying in memory. Simply, this is one of the greatest novels ever written....more
For its first two books, The Mill on the Floss is an intelligent and moving depiction of family drama and childhood struggle, interspersed with pleasaFor its first two books, The Mill on the Floss is an intelligent and moving depiction of family drama and childhood struggle, interspersed with pleasant digression and astute observation on the part of the narrator. However there is an abrupt change of tone and thematic direction in the third book, which re-frames the novel as a love story: a choice that perhaps could have been made to work were it not handled in such a haphazard and confused manner. In particular the character of Stephen Guest, introduced in this final book, seems better suited to a trashy romance, and stands at odds with the authenticity of the rest of the novel (his inclusion is so bewildering, the publisher felt it necessary to include an explanatory postscript). Nonetheless, even accepting the new narrative direction, one's expectation of an earned, satisfying resolution is denied by a tacked-on, incongruous conclusion, which sacrifices everything for a few poignant scraps. A very disappointing end to an otherwise outstanding novel....more
This is some top-shelf literary erotica. This is some five-star filth. The Fermata treads a line between ironic, self-aware social commentary and out-This is some top-shelf literary erotica. This is some five-star filth. The Fermata treads a line between ironic, self-aware social commentary and out-and-out smut. Baker's use of language is simply stellar: he constantly invents wonderful phrases and neologisms that are as absurd as they are brilliant. The novel is shamelessly lewd, and sex-obsessed. But it is also honest, intelligent and sensitive, not to mention hilarious - I laughed out loud on several occasions. I'm almost ashamed to publicly acknowledge how much I enjoyed this novel. It may be the most fun I've had all year....more
I am reminded of the popular idea within biology of the "Precambrian rabbit" - that is, a bunny found fossilised within a much earlier geological straI am reminded of the popular idea within biology of the "Precambrian rabbit" - that is, a bunny found fossilised within a much earlier geological stratum - considered something that would be so out of place as to call into question the entire Theory of Evolution. Tristram Shandy is like a literary Precambrian rabbit. Here is a work of pure postmodernism, published in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. Whereas even with other "revolutionary" works one can usually still trace a line of incremental innovation as styles are popularised and movements take hold, Tristram Shandy seems to appear fully formed and lacking the usual explanatory pedigree. It is (language aside) so unlike the works of its time and so very much like those that would become popular two hundred years later, that it's difficult to know what to make of it, except to acknowledge that perhaps in our quest to neatly define and categorise history we can sometimes overestimate the achievements of the recent past, and overlook the incredible capacity for human creativity that has been with us from the beginning....more
Dangerous Liaisons is a story of intrigue and sexual manipulation, set during the height of French aristocratic decadence. It is said that the novel, Dangerous Liaisons is a story of intrigue and sexual manipulation, set during the height of French aristocratic decadence. It is said that the novel, by drawing attention to the moral corruption of the upper classes, was actually a contributing cause of the French Revolution. The novel also highlights the severe imbalance between the sexes, derived from their difference in moral standing. Whereas a scandal would be utterly devastating for a woman, it could be borne by a man with little permanent damage.
The story is told entirely through letters, and I was surprised at how immersive an experience a purely epistolary novel can be. In fact it creates a unique, voyeuristic intimacy, and I enjoyed reading these representations of a lost literary art form. My main criticism of the novel is that its resolution was not entirely satisfying. It was a little too simple, convenient and moralistic, especially given the detail and complexity of the plot up to that point. I would have preferred something with a little more nuance....more
Wuthering Heights is a beautiful, dark spectacle. Its relentless gloom and utter lack of redemption seem extraordinary for its time, and refreshing inWuthering Heights is a beautiful, dark spectacle. Its relentless gloom and utter lack of redemption seem extraordinary for its time, and refreshing in a peculiar way. The choice of removing the narrative by two degrees from the novel's events has the effect of obscuring the motives of the principal characters, which leaves the novel unfortunately prone to a simplistic interpretation. One, however, must read between the lines. These are complex characters, caught in a web of causation that amplifies and perpetuates their flaws. I love the novel's ambiguity, its refusal to guide the reader to a clear destination, forcing you to seek your own way thorough its dark moors....more
Jacques the Fatalist is complex and witty, and contains some fairly interesting ideas about free will and determinism. I enjoyed Jacques' experimentalJacques the Fatalist is complex and witty, and contains some fairly interesting ideas about free will and determinism. I enjoyed Jacques' experimentalism and humour, though these are far less impressive given the novel's similarities and proximity to Tristram Shandy....more
The first thing to note about Tom Jones is that it is very, very long. Certainly, much longer than its simple love story and relatively few charactersThe first thing to note about Tom Jones is that it is very, very long. Certainly, much longer than its simple love story and relatively few characters would seem to require. I admit that I was not consistently enraptured all the way along, throughout all the little diversions, asides, and layered intricacies of plot. And as much as I enjoyed the novel, there were many times I just wished the thing to be brought to a speedy resolution.
So why the high rating? In short, Fielding’s writing is spectacular. It brims with enthusiasm, never losing steam or simply “going through the motions”. It soars with clarity and wit on every page. The influence of Don Quixote is apparent, and it retains much of that Quixotic flavour. But Tom Jones is far more polished and cohesive than its predecessor. Its characters are more developed and realistic, and its narrative is tighter and more focused. It represents a significant step forward for the novel. ...more
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