I finished Possession by A. S. Byatt while on a trip to
Boston last week. It is a 530 page book with a great amount of detail, numerous Gothic and epic poems and 19th century letters ... it is no quick read. And as for reviewing it, it's the sort of book that dissertations are made of, so I'll keep this short and sweet.
Byatt used every part of her brain to create this one. It is dense, intricate, intellectual and deep. The prose is stunning.
Two modern-day literary researchers find clues about the possible relationship of two 19th century poets. What ensues is a chase through the English countryside as well as a poring over dusty archives to trace the poets' movements. As they do this, they are just steps ahead of their colleagues and adversaries -- who are also trying to claim the prize of discovery. The story of the two poets unfolds bit by bit, with a delicious Agatha Christie style wrap-up that neatly concludes the tale. Quite delightful.
I was not up for the slow-paced work of piecing together clues when I began reading this book and instead tried to blaze through
it. That was a big mistake. The book deserves a careful reading, and eventually I was able to find the time to give it its due. That involved rereading the first 200 pages I had raced through. It was worth it. I rank this one highly -- not quite as high as Atwood's excellent The Blind Assassin, but The Possession is a very good book. (****)
Sunday, March 25, 2012
LUCKY JIM
You would have thought I'd had enough of English Humor of the 30s after
Powell's Dance and try something completely different next. But instead I
picked up Lucky Jim by Powell's friend, Kingsley Amis.
No dry humor here, this is slapstick. The story is about an agreeable and easily victimized new PhD of history trying to make his start in a back-water college in England. He is mentored by an old professor who prefers putting on plays to teaching history classes and who invites him to preposterous parties where he drinks too much and gets into hilarious fixes. He is befriended by and nearly betrothed to a neurotic colleague who plays suicide games to get what she wants. He is nearly done in by an exercise to create and give an "important" lecture on the topic of Merrie England. However, there is hope in the form of a lovely lady, the fiance of his mentor's son, who conspires with him in various ways. This, of course, causes more problems, but by the end, he pops out of the tangled mess, lands on his feet and thumbs his nose at the bunch of them. This is a very silly book. Not sure why it is on the Time 100 except to fill out the humor genre. Pleasant enough. **
No dry humor here, this is slapstick. The story is about an agreeable and easily victimized new PhD of history trying to make his start in a back-water college in England. He is mentored by an old professor who prefers putting on plays to teaching history classes and who invites him to preposterous parties where he drinks too much and gets into hilarious fixes. He is befriended by and nearly betrothed to a neurotic colleague who plays suicide games to get what she wants. He is nearly done in by an exercise to create and give an "important" lecture on the topic of Merrie England. However, there is hope in the form of a lovely lady, the fiance of his mentor's son, who conspires with him in various ways. This, of course, causes more problems, but by the end, he pops out of the tangled mess, lands on his feet and thumbs his nose at the bunch of them. This is a very silly book. Not sure why it is on the Time 100 except to fill out the humor genre. Pleasant enough. **
A Dance to the Music of Time
I can't believe that I finished this series. 2500 pages! What started out as an immensely pleasurable experience got very, very old in the end when the prose - always at the edge of tediousness became awash with $10 words and 40-word sentences. But I must admit, I was addicted to this series, tedious passages and all and am glad to have read it.
The books cover 50-60 years in the life of narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, an upper middle class literary reviewer/writer with friends in the arts and family with titles. He knows everyone and so is invited to interesting soirees where he meets and becomes friends with a number of outrageous characters. The cast of hundreds has society mavens, alcoholics, hostesses, artists, musicians, millionaires, normal business people, a nymphomaniac, a necrophiliac, cult leaders, seers, and on and on.
The most outrageous character is Kenneth Widmerpoole who first shows up in book 1, an overly-serious lad, running down a lane on his way to a life as a successful businessman, colonel and peer. He is a man without a conscience and without a heart. He marries a sulky nymphomaniac who steals the show (the plot) in several of the later books with her many moods and antics. Widmerpoole makes his final curtain call, again running down a lane, in book 12, an old and very changed man.
The books are full of dry humor. Kingsly Amis, who wrote upper middle class slapstick, called Powell "the most subtle writer now performing in English". Subtle, indeed. If you aren't paying attention, you miss all sorts of jests. Which gets back to the issue of tediousness. It's not always easy to pay such close attention at that level to prose that feels foreign and dated.
The highlights? Books 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7-9. I enjoyed book 3, a romance, quite a bit. It was both sexy and graceful (in a 1950ish sort of way). Books 7-9 - the war years - were second best. Although Jenkins did not go off to war, the war most definitely came to him in many ways. He spent 5 years in the army ending up as a liaison to other countries. These books provide a solid look at London in blackout conditions with buildings and people disappearing nightly. I found books 4 and 5 boring, but I was addicted to the prose and so got through them quickly. Book 11, set in 1958 is all about sex - and book 12, set in 1968 extends that and wraps up the series with both solemn endings and just desserts.
My Take: The strength of the books is that they chronicle a certain culture in time with wit and insight. The subject matter, with its serious moments, is generally not deep. This series will either enthrall you or bore you to tears. I stand with the former group. (****)
The books cover 50-60 years in the life of narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, an upper middle class literary reviewer/writer with friends in the arts and family with titles. He knows everyone and so is invited to interesting soirees where he meets and becomes friends with a number of outrageous characters. The cast of hundreds has society mavens, alcoholics, hostesses, artists, musicians, millionaires, normal business people, a nymphomaniac, a necrophiliac, cult leaders, seers, and on and on.
The most outrageous character is Kenneth Widmerpoole who first shows up in book 1, an overly-serious lad, running down a lane on his way to a life as a successful businessman, colonel and peer. He is a man without a conscience and without a heart. He marries a sulky nymphomaniac who steals the show (the plot) in several of the later books with her many moods and antics. Widmerpoole makes his final curtain call, again running down a lane, in book 12, an old and very changed man.
The books are full of dry humor. Kingsly Amis, who wrote upper middle class slapstick, called Powell "the most subtle writer now performing in English". Subtle, indeed. If you aren't paying attention, you miss all sorts of jests. Which gets back to the issue of tediousness. It's not always easy to pay such close attention at that level to prose that feels foreign and dated.
The highlights? Books 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7-9. I enjoyed book 3, a romance, quite a bit. It was both sexy and graceful (in a 1950ish sort of way). Books 7-9 - the war years - were second best. Although Jenkins did not go off to war, the war most definitely came to him in many ways. He spent 5 years in the army ending up as a liaison to other countries. These books provide a solid look at London in blackout conditions with buildings and people disappearing nightly. I found books 4 and 5 boring, but I was addicted to the prose and so got through them quickly. Book 11, set in 1958 is all about sex - and book 12, set in 1968 extends that and wraps up the series with both solemn endings and just desserts.
My Take: The strength of the books is that they chronicle a certain culture in time with wit and insight. The subject matter, with its serious moments, is generally not deep. This series will either enthrall you or bore you to tears. I stand with the former group. (****)
Falconer
Falconer, by John Cheever details the slimier aspects of prison life, moving between the over-the-top, sadistic behavior of prison guards to the boring (for me) details of how prisoners manage their sexual lives. The protagonist, Farragut, did not come alive for me and so I did not care about his outcome. Details in the surprise ending seemed contrived. All that said, the beauty of the prose kept me going. (***)
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Recent Books
My work schedule has increased and I am having trouble keeping up with blogging about what I've been reading. Here are some micro reviews.
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME
When I picked up Anthony Powell's series 0f 12 books (about 2500 pages), I had to decide whether to read the books over a period of months or years and risk forgetting the early stories, characters and locations OR read them all at once and burn out. I chose the latter course, and it nearly put me off of reading completely. I liked most of the books - especially the war years.
The first several pages of each book is horribly cryptic. I found myself reading paragraphs out loud to get a better handle on 40 word sentences with several $10 words in them. Once past that, the reading was usually interesting. The narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, a writer and member of the upper middle class with many musicians, artists, writers and art critics for friends, is an acute observer of human nature. The characters are, well, "characters" and the humor is dry. The settings are typically grand salons or artists' hangouts - pubs and galleries filled with people who seem to have a lot of time to party. The books start when Jenkins is a teen and leave off in his 60s. People come and go throughout the books. The war changes everything and then life starts again. It is truly a dance through time.
I thoroughly enjoyed books 1-3 (see the review of book 1 and books 2-3). Books 4-6 kept me engaged, but were not thrilling. Books 7-9 were a fascinating look at England and London, in particular, during the war years. For me, it could have all stopped there and I would have been satisfied with a "good read". But it didn't. Book 10 introduced an incredibly unpleasant (and highly unbelievable) character who along with her paramours stole the show for the next 500 pages. She is no longer a part of the story in book 12, but that storyline tops 10 & 11 for being factitious. This is humor, (or humour), but it felt over-the-top.
Sometimes when I read a very long book, I'll go back to the beginning and reread sections to help plug the gaps in my understanding. I felt no desire to do that with this series - and in fact, am not sure that an exercise of that sort would be of much value. The books have depth, but not in that way. I think that I would notice changes in style and treatment of character - and perhaps personal philosophy - Jenkins does get more conservative as he ages. I do not think I would find great and deep themes to ponder - but perhaps I'll try the exercise at a later time and see what I've missed.
BTW: There is a reader's guide for the books which I own (but have loaned out, and can't recall the title) which helped to keep names and places straight.****
LUCKY JIM
You would have thought I'd had enough of English Humor of the 30s after Powell's Dance and try something completely different next. But instead I picked up Lucky Jim by Powell's friend, Kingsley Amis.
No dry humor here, this is slapstick. The story is about an agreeable and easily victimized professor of history trying to make his start in a temporary position in a back-water college in England. He is mentored by an old professor who prefers putting on plays to teaching history classes and who invites him to preposterous parties where he drinks too much and gets into hilarious fixes. He is befriended by and nearly betrothed to a neurotic colleague who plays suicide games to get what she wants. He is nearly done in by an exercise to create and give an "important" lecture on the topic of Merrie England. However, there is hope in the form of a lovely lady, the fiance of his mentor's son, who conspires with him in various ways. This, of course, causes more problems, but by the end, he pops out of the tangled mess, lands on his feet and thumbs his nose at the bunch of them. This is a very silly book. Not sure why it is on the Time 100 except to fill out the humor genre. Pleasant enough. **
POSSESSION
I read and finished Possession by A. S. Byatt while on a trip to Boston last week. It is a book with a great amount of detail and a great amount of Gothic poetry and 19th century letters - plus it is 530+ pages long. This is no quick read. I started out trying to blaze through it, and then eventually had to come back and reread the better part of the first 200 pages. Fortunately, I managed to slow down and enjoy the book. I found it very enjoyable in the end. ****
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG
I got to page 113 and then gave up on it. It is awful. The only reason I read that much is because I was traveling and had no other book on me. The word that comes to mind is cloying. *
AND MORE .....That's a lot of books. I travel a lot, and so I have large chunks of time for reading. I am currently reading three books. I picked up Willa Cather's, My Antonia, which is a soft sweet book and had the crazy idea to use it as antidote for what I figured would be two venomous books, Cheever's Falconer and the last half of Gone With the Wind.
Scarlet is certainly venomous. Farragut, the protagonist in Falconer, seems, if not innocent (he is in prison for the murder of his brother), then at least agreeable, but his prisoners are sadists.Taking turns with the three books is making it possible to finish two of them but is absolutely destroying my pleasure in My Antonia.
In any event, Falconer is going fast, and will be completed shortly - this is not a book I choose to read slow and savor. I also learned not to read it late at night, because you never know when the sadistic games will show up. They are fodder for very bad dreams. Gone With the Wind feels infinitely long. After letting it lie unopened for six months I come to it with more patience, but until I hit the last 10 pages, I will not be happy.
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME
When I picked up Anthony Powell's series 0f 12 books (about 2500 pages), I had to decide whether to read the books over a period of months or years and risk forgetting the early stories, characters and locations OR read them all at once and burn out. I chose the latter course, and it nearly put me off of reading completely. I liked most of the books - especially the war years.
The first several pages of each book is horribly cryptic. I found myself reading paragraphs out loud to get a better handle on 40 word sentences with several $10 words in them. Once past that, the reading was usually interesting. The narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, a writer and member of the upper middle class with many musicians, artists, writers and art critics for friends, is an acute observer of human nature. The characters are, well, "characters" and the humor is dry. The settings are typically grand salons or artists' hangouts - pubs and galleries filled with people who seem to have a lot of time to party. The books start when Jenkins is a teen and leave off in his 60s. People come and go throughout the books. The war changes everything and then life starts again. It is truly a dance through time.
I thoroughly enjoyed books 1-3 (see the review of book 1 and books 2-3). Books 4-6 kept me engaged, but were not thrilling. Books 7-9 were a fascinating look at England and London, in particular, during the war years. For me, it could have all stopped there and I would have been satisfied with a "good read". But it didn't. Book 10 introduced an incredibly unpleasant (and highly unbelievable) character who along with her paramours stole the show for the next 500 pages. She is no longer a part of the story in book 12, but that storyline tops 10 & 11 for being factitious. This is humor, (or humour), but it felt over-the-top.
Sometimes when I read a very long book, I'll go back to the beginning and reread sections to help plug the gaps in my understanding. I felt no desire to do that with this series - and in fact, am not sure that an exercise of that sort would be of much value. The books have depth, but not in that way. I think that I would notice changes in style and treatment of character - and perhaps personal philosophy - Jenkins does get more conservative as he ages. I do not think I would find great and deep themes to ponder - but perhaps I'll try the exercise at a later time and see what I've missed.
BTW: There is a reader's guide for the books which I own (but have loaned out, and can't recall the title) which helped to keep names and places straight.****
LUCKY JIM
You would have thought I'd had enough of English Humor of the 30s after Powell's Dance and try something completely different next. But instead I picked up Lucky Jim by Powell's friend, Kingsley Amis.
No dry humor here, this is slapstick. The story is about an agreeable and easily victimized professor of history trying to make his start in a temporary position in a back-water college in England. He is mentored by an old professor who prefers putting on plays to teaching history classes and who invites him to preposterous parties where he drinks too much and gets into hilarious fixes. He is befriended by and nearly betrothed to a neurotic colleague who plays suicide games to get what she wants. He is nearly done in by an exercise to create and give an "important" lecture on the topic of Merrie England. However, there is hope in the form of a lovely lady, the fiance of his mentor's son, who conspires with him in various ways. This, of course, causes more problems, but by the end, he pops out of the tangled mess, lands on his feet and thumbs his nose at the bunch of them. This is a very silly book. Not sure why it is on the Time 100 except to fill out the humor genre. Pleasant enough. **
POSSESSION
I read and finished Possession by A. S. Byatt while on a trip to Boston last week. It is a book with a great amount of detail and a great amount of Gothic poetry and 19th century letters - plus it is 530+ pages long. This is no quick read. I started out trying to blaze through it, and then eventually had to come back and reread the better part of the first 200 pages. Fortunately, I managed to slow down and enjoy the book. I found it very enjoyable in the end. ****
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG
I got to page 113 and then gave up on it. It is awful. The only reason I read that much is because I was traveling and had no other book on me. The word that comes to mind is cloying. *
AND MORE .....That's a lot of books. I travel a lot, and so I have large chunks of time for reading. I am currently reading three books. I picked up Willa Cather's, My Antonia, which is a soft sweet book and had the crazy idea to use it as antidote for what I figured would be two venomous books, Cheever's Falconer and the last half of Gone With the Wind.
Scarlet is certainly venomous. Farragut, the protagonist in Falconer, seems, if not innocent (he is in prison for the murder of his brother), then at least agreeable, but his prisoners are sadists.Taking turns with the three books is making it possible to finish two of them but is absolutely destroying my pleasure in My Antonia.
In any event, Falconer is going fast, and will be completed shortly - this is not a book I choose to read slow and savor. I also learned not to read it late at night, because you never know when the sadistic games will show up. They are fodder for very bad dreams. Gone With the Wind feels infinitely long. After letting it lie unopened for six months I come to it with more patience, but until I hit the last 10 pages, I will not be happy.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullersMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Prose is excellent. The plot went over the top at one point and I had to put the book down for a few days. I think that she tackled a bit too much for 1 book - even a 357 page book. Very sophisticated subject matter for a 23-year old (McCullers) to have written. McCuller's young age shows in dealing with matters of sex, but otherwise paints some very realistic views of the world in the late 1930s.
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