Tag: book review

“The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway (Review)

I love Hemingway’s writing style, as bold and fancy free as it is. This is a classic example of the genre. It probably helped that I read this novel after completing Dickens (Our Mutual Friend) so the style could not have been more different. Both are, of course, classic approaches to writing and it is wonderful to experience the differences.

Many of Hemingway’s passions are on display here, especially his abiding love of bull fighting. Many years ago I was enthralled (and appalled to be honest) with his non-fiction account of this sport in “Death in the Afternoon” and much of the same is on display here as this coterie of lovers/friends/rivals makes their way to the Pamplona festival in Spain.

The writing is, of course, matter of fact but nevertheless when dealing with the love/unrequited love/jealousy themes there is much depth here. In may ways the feelings and emotions are merely hinted at, leaving it to the reader to imagine how those must be played out. This is particularly true of Cohn who seems to suffer the most from the dalliances of Lady Brett, even more so than her intended husband Michael, who seems to be long suffering indeed. There is no doubt that the friendship (more than friendship) of Brett and Jake is central to this story, and again, the reader is certainly encouraged to imagine how this will play out finally.

I think it would have been fascinating to have met Hemingway, either in his Parisian years or later, although I think I would have found him incredibly boorish, sexist, homophobic and probably anti-semitic. He does, however, live large still, and his shadow in literature is long indeed. His writing reveals his passionate life and he is very unafraid to surprise the reader and generally take us on a journey with him.

This has been described as the quintessential novel of a lost generation, meaning those for whom WW1 was uppermost in their formative or early adult lives. I understand that. However the war, as in several of his novels, forms the background, or even the foundation to what follows rather than being front and center. That certainly seems to be the case here. Jakes wound is never discussed in detail, and it is easy to miss in the narrative itself although it shapes his entire relationship with Brett. It is rather melancholic in times I feel – there is a lot of drinking, partying, arguing, lovers flings, depression etc. Again, these all seem to reflect the character of the man and his life. He is perhaps one of the best equipped authors to explain these things to us through prose. There is clearly a lot of his personal experience here, a roman a clef indeed.

There are may themes of interest here but some things are troubling to me. There seems to be a streak of implied or actual anti-semitism in much of the canon of world literature. Those of the jewish faith often seem to be depicted in a distinctly unflattering like (Shylock, Fagin) herein represented by Cohn who is very much an outsider and subjected to anti-semitic taunting. This is unsettling to me as is Hemingway’s overtly masculine approach to seemingly everything.

Still, this is book I much enjoyed. This type of dialogue-heavy, minimalist writing that nevertheless has a lot of depth beneath the surface is very well worth reading. It’s a book that keeps you thinking throughout, and post-reading.

“Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Review)

Don Quixote is one of those truly weighty classics that one know something about even if one has never worked their way through the 1000 plus pages that make up the two books telling the tale of the worthy, though slightly mad Don and his faithful Sancho.

Since this book was written in the 1600s it has a long and storied history in the annals of literature. Of course, it is translated from Spanish so it is bound to lose something in translation (maybe even from 1600s Spanish to modern Spanish?) but since my language skills are poor I don’t have a choice unfortunately.

There is also quite the history to Quixote of which I was unaware prior to reading the book and researching it a little. It covers the wanderings (quixotic having entered the lexicon) of the titular character and his long suffering sidekick and squire Sancho Panza. The book is in two parts, written a decade apart although they are basically of a similar ilk. The cover Quixote’s obsession with chivalry and knight errantry that he learned from reading books. It is strongly implied, especially in the second half, that Quixote is mad. There is quite the evidence to suggest this throughout (tilting at windmills, seeing all inns as castles) the narrative but it is more up front in part 2.

Cervantes seems to really admire Quixote and is always writing about his good heart. Panza, too, is given sympathetic treatment and is quite the comical character although, of course we are seeing the wise fool versus the foolish wise man. The literary style of the novel has been commented upon by people a lot more erudite than me but it is very interesting, interspersed as it is with sub stories (including the introduction of another widely used term in “Lothario”) that sometimes cover a lot of ground in their own right.

The wanderings are long and frankly, sometimes I was rather lost in the lengthy descriptions of events but the development of the relationships is fascinating and well explained, but wow, it takes a lot of time to work through this novel. However that seems to be true of all such epic novels and I am glad that I made the effort and I feel more able to understand the terms that have made it into common usage as a result of the influence of this novel. It takes some reading though!

“Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert (Review)

It is never satisfactory to read a translation of course. However, being unable to read this in the original language, I am not able to do anything else. In this case, one hopes that the translation is reasonably accurate and reflects the literary style of the original. This is not possible for someone who isn’t bilingual to determine of course, but I did very much enjoy the prose and the writing style.

This is supposedly one of the first “realist” novels, and some have deemed it to be the greatest ever written. I am not sure I would go that far but there is no question of its strong merit and readability, as well as what it has to say about the human condition. As with much classic and serious literature, this is not necessarily good! This is a dark theme of contrasts, in particular the titular character’s disgust with her boring provincial life and husband, and the life she wishes she had that leads her into affairs and profligate spending and eventually to ruin.

There is certainly realism here. I find none of the characters likable. At all. Emma herself is on this quest for true love and excitement since these are things about which she has read. However she marries a boring man and then embarks on a life of cheating, duplicity, extravagance, Machiavellian sorties and general “bad behavior”. Her husband is, to me, much the more sympathetic figure although he comes across as week and ineffectual. This is where Flaubert does have a genius though; all the characters are recognizable from our everyday lives. Dare we say it, recognizable within ourselves and this is uncomfortable.

The story is one that probably plays out everywhere, every day. Lies, scheming lovers, overly trusting spouses, attempts to generate excitement in an otherwise boring life. I doubt many end in such a dark way as this one does, and with one of the other unlikeable, albeit more minor character, prevailing to the detriment of the main protagonists.

There is a pleasure to be had here in the writing, the straightforward story telling and the fluidity of the story itself. It is easy to follow and one is not overly bogged down in the minutiae of separate story lines that need to be kept straight. There is pleasure in that too (Dickens being perhaps the prime example) but a story that unfolds along a linear path like Bovary has much merit too. Hard to imagine in these more, ahem, liberal times, that this novel should have been scandalous in its depictions of the morals and sexual relationships of Madame Bovary, but apparently this was so.

The writing, albeit in translation is wonderfully flowing and imparting the details of the scenes with delightful smilies and use of language. A couple of examples:

“One’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”

“But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.”

I find other elements that amuse me in this narrative, most especially some of the snide remarks about religion put into the mouths of some of the characters. Can’t help feeling this is what Flaubert felt, along with the frequent and relatively admiring references to Voltaire. A great read, pity that I found no characters to like or admire but, I guess, that is the point of realism sometimes.

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

As I progress down this literary road, I have already come across several bumps. This is one of them. Never having studied literature per se (apart from basic middle school English) I have found that I lack an appreciation for the more, shall we say, imaginative styles of prose. In short, I don’t understand them.

Absalom is one such novel. I really struggled with it and I have had to resort to study guides to get beyond a most basic understanding of, frankly, what the heck was going on. Add to the difficulty I found in actually piecing together the story from the disparate strands of the prose, the fact that the sentence structure is interminable. This being the case for me, I found the wonderful language employed to be bordering on the pretentious.

I think I erred in not reading the three previous novels (The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and A Light in August) so I at lease knew who the narrators were. It was not even clear to me from the text who was writing. There are interesting themes here for sure, and the irony for me is that I read a lot about the South, the Civil War, racism and white privilege and so on and Faulkner has a lot to say on this subjects but I found it impossible to get much out of this due to the impenetrable style of writing. This is a shame and a missed opportunity as the story itself  of dynasty building, war, racism, family feuds etc. is in itself, very interesting.

Hopefully as I read more such novels (and I will try some of his others) I will get more out of it and this style, but this joins Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse 5 as novels that I just found hard going and that passed me by somewhat.

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley (Review)

As amazing as it sounds, this book somehow passed me by when we were studying literature in high school. It was on the list but for some reason my class didn’t read this one. So it wasn’t until I reached my fifties that I finally read it, and then for a book club in combination with that other dystopian classic, Nineteen Eighty Four.

It is definitely worth comparing the two and whilst the horror of totalitarianism is perhaps more viscerally illustrated in 1984, I am not sure that Brave New World isn’t perhaps the more disturbing for me. The endings in particular, whilst very strong in both, and more disturbing in Orwell’s work, is very poignant in Huxley’s horrific vision.

Of course, I am sure there are nuances of plot and symbolism that passed me by although I found the most profound and interesting section the Controller’s explanation of World civilization and particularly his discussion with John the Savage late in the novel. It is an interesting take on future society for sure and the intimation that we truly need suffering to be human is well taken here. Even though I sometimes feel that a few grammes of Soma would certainly be welcome, we all know that, with the drugs we do have, that isn’t the long term answer.

It was these messages, as well as the consumerism and the conditioning that I found more interesting than the “process” of producing children. I found the reverence for Ford, though, to be somewhat bizarre and whilst I understand this in terms of his production line approach, it just seems weird to me and a little forced, although perhaps this was AH’s way of suggesting that the introduction of the Model T was somehow the start of the descent into this dystopian nightmare.

More relevant to today’s horrendous descent into a modern day nightmare is what I fear is actually becoming true i.e a disdain and contempt for history and reading in particular and intellectualism in particular. It is pathetic and disappointing to me how many people never pick up a book to read for pleasure, spout the importance of one’s country and patriotism without the first idea of the major events in said country’s (or indeed any world) history. Today’s equivalent of the feelies in Brave New World is surely reality TV to which we are endlessly subjected when the information age should make learning easier than ever. I think that Huxley’s fear that nobody will want to read books is more prescient that Orwell’s fear that they will be banned, although the latter may well happen too.

There is a lot that is prescient here of course but it would be interesting to see what Huxley would write now, given an understanding of genetics and genetic engineering. However as one who generally believes in conditioning, this element of the novel is fascinating indeed. Also the guess that helicopters would still be the primary means of transport in 2450 seems off the mark given where we are with transport in 2018, many decades after this work was penned.

Very much an enjoyable read though, ultimately as I suspect is the intent, a bleak ending. I guess if one is looking for a happy ending then one has innumerable options from which to choose. This ending somehow strikes me as much more satisfactory and frankly, if such a society were to develop (as it certainly could) much more likely.