steven03tx's 2012 reading log, part 4

Recently Finished

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Castle of Communion by Bernard Noël
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
Scandal by Shusaku Endo
Recollections of Things to Come by Elena Garro
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories by Li Ang
The Fear of Losing Eurydice by Julieta Campos

Currently Reading
(in some cases very slowly)

The Isles: A History by Norman Davies
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi
Plus dipping into various collections of stories, essays, poems and plays.

2012 Statistics

Unless otherwise noted, these statistics are based on works read, not physical books. Every novel or play is a separate work, even if I read them from an omnibus volume. For short stories the physical volume is considered the work. Novellas are counted separately if they were originally published on their own, otherwise they are considered short stories.

Summary of Books Read
135 - works
113 - physical volumes
17 - ebooks

By Type
117 - novels
5 - plays
9 - short story collections
3 - epic verse and prose poems
0 - poetry collections
1 - non-fiction

Authors
100 - different authors
61 - first-time authors
70 - male
28 - female
4 - anonymous, unknown or mixed

Authors with Multiple Books Read
6 - Ryu Murakami
4 - Patrick White
4 - Shusaku Endo
3 - Kobo Abe
3 - Tobias Smollett
3 - Umberto Eco
2 each by Pierre Louÿs, Anthony Burgess, Roberto Bolaño, Herta Müller, Kenzaburo Oe, Hilary Mantel, William S. Burroughs, Michael Ondaatje, Kim Stanley Robinson, Émile Zola

Authors by Country of Origin
18 - England
17 - United States
9 - China
9 - France
8 - Japan
5 - Ireland
4 - Mexico
3 - Hellenistic Greek
3 - Scotland
2 - Egypt
2 - Canada
2 - Argentina
1 each from Chile, Norway, Croatia, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Colombia, Albania, Romania, Italy, Austria, Ukraine, Brazil, Syria, Turkey, Ancient Greece, Russia, Taiwan, Wales

Works by Original Language
62 - English
20 - Japanese
10 - Chinese
10 - Spanish
10 - French
5 - Greek
3 - German
3 - Arabic
3 - Italian
2 - Hebrew
1 each in Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian

Works by Decade of First Publication
10 - Pre-1700
1 - 1740s
1 - 1750s
1 - 1770s
1 - 1790s
3 - 1820s
1 - 1840s
1 - 1850s
1 - 1860s
2 - 1870s
2 - 1880s
3 - 1890s
2 - 1900s
1 - 1910s
6 - 1920s
3 - 1930s
7 - 1940s
6 - 1950s
9 - 1960s
13 - 1970s
16 - 1980s
22 - 1990s
11 - 2000s
9 - 2010s

Turbulence by Jia Pingwa
First published in Chinese 1987
English translation by Howard Goldblatt 1991

 

Turbulence takes place in rural China during the post-Mao years. The title stands for the economic and political turmoil of the time. It also refers to the dangerous waters of the Zhou River, the setting for most of the book. And it represents the confused emotions of its principal characters, Golden Dog and Water Girl.

Golden Dog is the son of a simple sign painter in a little village known as Stream of Wandering Spirits. A stint in the army has given him an awareness of the outside world and taught him how to express himself in writing, but he begins his career as many local men do: poling a raft taking small cargoes from the mountain villages down the river to market. Water Girl is an orphan who lives with her uncle Han Wenju, the local ferryman. She and Golden Dog have grown up almost as close as brother and sister, so they are very awkward about the affections they feel for one another. Unable to understand, much less express, his love for Water Girl, Golden Dog is easy prey for the seductive wiles of Yingying, the step-daughter of a local official. "Water Girl was a bodhisattva, Yingying was a wild animal. People revere bodhisattvas, but they fall in love with wild animals; the holiness of the bodhisattva had steered him clear of wicked thoughts, but the seductiveness of the wild animal had forced him into a quagmire from which there was no escape."

Ironically, Golden Dog does escape from the quagmire, at least temporarily: His application for a job as a newspaper reporter is accepted, and he is whisked off to Zhou City, leaving Water Girl hurt and Yingying frustrated. In the city, Golden Dog learns the harsh political realities that dominate this socialist country struggling to implement capitalism. And he learns that no one exposes corruption without himself becoming the target of retribution.

Jia portrays a China still steeped in ancient traditions and beliefs, overlaid with the teachings of communism and the bitter experience of the Cultural Revolution, and now struggling to implement reforms that few fully understand. Feudal structures remain in the form of clans which dominate local party offices. Bribery is an indispensable part of any business enterprise.

But Jia sees China's problem as something even deeper, for "no sooner do some people set themselves up in business than they're rolling in money, and most of the new wealth has come through business practices that would give you the creeps." He sees "serious graft and corruption, and a deterioration of public morality the result." The author blames this loss of public morality on the character of the Chinese people. "After a major upheaval, changes in social attitude invariably occur: the people grow agitated, begin to lose their sense of public morality, shun discipline, and grow more complacent about violence." And further: "Our race is beset by an inherent failing, that of invariably transforming normal enthusiasm into abnormal stimulation, and of turning confidence into irrational fanaticism."

Turbulence is a memorable portrayal of a land of changes and contrasts, where a semi-literate peasant can become a millionaire almost overnight through pure speculation. The people are wrenched from their traditional occupations by the temptation to follow get-rich-quick schemes. A mountain is deforested for the making of walking sticks that are soon nothing but firewood. A fad for pig raising results in such overproduction that the swine are soon worth less than the grain they consume in a single day. And the great river, as treacherous and unpredictable as history itself, is always there to remind the villagers that all gain is fleeting.

The love story of Water Girl and Golden Dog takes a back seat to the author's portrayal of a nation in a period of difficult transition as China struggles to achieve socialist ends through capitalist means. Turbulence is a slow-paced novel that provides valuable insight but requires some patience on the reader's part, so I would recommend it most to those with a particular interest in recent Chinese history.

Fascinating review -- I'll definitely put this on a wish list.

Fascinating review of Turbulence. If you're interested in fiction about China, China historian Jonathan Spence wrote some historical fiction.

Good review of Turbulence. On the previous thread - a very informative review of Juliette. I've only flipped through a couple of his books but they do seem to be philosophy-orgy-philosophy-orgy and not for me. It was interesting to read your clear summary of his philosophy though.

Very interesting review, and sounds more thoughtful than some of the recent Chinese fiction I've read.

It sounds both fascinating and important. I think the year of publication, 1987, is significant. This is something of a cultural turning point in China when non-Chinese visitors were beginning to be allowed more access. But the "slow-paced" and "requires some patience" will make me hesitate. Terrific review.

Great review of Turbulence, Steven. I am adding it to my wishlist, despite your cautions, as I feel it is important to gain a better understanding of today's China.

For those interesting in Chinese literature, the Reading Globally group has just started doing a quarterly focus on China and its immediate neighbors. The discussion thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/142067

I am the co-chair of this discussion, and for background and reference I created this Wiki page: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Reading_Globally:_Asia_II

Excellent review of Turbulence, Steven; I'll look for it next month.

Steven, I'm deliberately not reading this review (although I was hoping you would review it) as the book is on my TBR pile for the Reading Globally read. I did read the responses though and I am really looking forward to reading it and then reading your review. Does anyone else do this?

I'm deliberately not reading this review ... Does anyone else do this?

I do know of others who avoid reading anything about a book if they already know it's one they're going to read. But in most cases isn't it a review that convinces you to read it in the first place?

I'm not overly concerned about spoilers, so I usually do read reviews before the book. Sometimes they clue me in to something I should be looking for as I read it. However, I try to avoid any type of spoiler in my own reviews. As a rule of thumb I usually summarize only the first third of the plot, and discuss only the broader themes that emerge in the rest of the work.

I have, however, soured a bit on introductions. Many of the introductions you read were never intended to "introduce" the book, but are simply reprinted journal articles. They will not only tell you everything that happens, but what you're supposed to think about it, which I do find annoying. So I usually skip the introduction unless the work is from a place or period I know very little about.

Reviews are indeed one of the things that convince me to read a book, and I keep a list of books that I hear of this way and would be interested in, including quite a few of your own reviewed books! However, as in this case, if I already have the book and am going to read it in the near future, I try to avoid reading anything about it.

Most Club Read people are really good at not giving away a plot or putting in spoiler alerts and that is much appreciated.

I have to agree with you about introductions. I skip them before I read the book and then go back to them after, usually for things about the author or the period that I might not have known.

Excellent review of Turbulence, Jia Pingwa. That recent period of Chinese history is fascinating.

Getting in on the spoilers discussion - I personally do not worry about spoilers and will read reviews of books that I am going to read. I sometimes check out reviews halfway through a read. because then I have a better idea of whether the review is valuable or not.

Many newspaper reviews or at least the snippets that make it onto LT or the cover of the book are actually advertorials. I no longer read a daily newspaper (as they are not available in China), but I do hope the critical review still exists.

What I like about (longer) reviews by LT members is that they are critical and authentic. To me they are reviews as well as contributions to an ongoing cultural debate or discourse on literature.

I read all reviews, and they surely influence my thinking about reading, as for example your recent review of Juliette. Such reviews are excellent, because I want to know about De Sade but will probably never read those books (again). (I read a few in translation when I was a student, bu would not reread them in French, now.)

I often make mental notes about books I will eventually want to read, but purchase may be postponed several years. For example, I am now very interested to read Porius, which was extensively discussed on Club Read 2011.

I avoid including spoilers in my reviews, but am not hindered by spoilers or clues in the reviews of others.

I read all reviews, but do not always comment. Most of the time (except during holidays, like now) I am really rather busy with my work. I can read a lot, but often lag behind in reviewing or commenting on threads.

#10 Steven - that wikipage on China (Reading_Globally:_Asia_II) is spectacular.

>10 StevenTX: - I'll try to participate in the group read though I only have a couple popular Chinese books on the pile. Might check out the library ebooks. I've been feeling a bit guilty about not having enought non-American/non-European lit this year.

>13 StevenTX: - I agree, I never read introductions until after reading the book. I'm pretty resistant to spoilers though (piles of Henry James novels/short stories and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd were spoiled for me before I read them and it didn't bother me) and I like to read reviews before reading a book. The detailed reviews here at CR have actually made me change my mind about some books or think that I should read them sooner rather than later. Sometimes I think my reviews are a bit spoiler-y but I do try to not give things away.

So many of the books I've read and loved over the past several years have come into my life because of reviews I've read here on LT, more on threads of people whose reviews I trust than on the book pages. I do read introduction, especially for older books or boos from other cultures, because they can help set the stage for me so I get more out of the book. I don't necessarily mind spoilers, but I try to avoid including ones that would be really annoying when I write reviews.

If I don't get much reading done this month, here is the reason. The gas company has chosen my front yard as the place from which to drill and insert a new 12-inch gas pipeline. The window just under the arm of the excavator in the first picture is my library where I do most of my reading. They started this a week ago and will be working 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM six days a week until early November. It is very noisy.

 

Hope it doesn't rain too much, because you don't want it to be messy as well as noisy.

Yikes!

The horror! The horror!

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
First published in Italian 2010
English translation by Richard Dixon 2010

 

Simone Simonini, a lawyer by training, is a professional forger of documents. In 1897 he begins a diary, hoping that it will help him recover from an apparent and mysterious partial memory loss. We learn that he is a solitary man, of Italian birth but living in Paris. A misogynist, he takes his pleasures only at the dinner table. And, as a result of his grandfather's teaching, Simonini is bitterly anti-Semitic.

Not long after he begins his diary, Simonini makes an amazing discovery. Someone else--a man identifying himself as the Abbé Dalla Piccola--has been making entries in his diary while Simonini slept. This Dalla Piccola claims to remember more of Simonini's past than the forger himself, but can't explain his own origins. The two men immediately suspect that they are, in fact, the same person. They carry on a dialogue, reconstructing and interpreting their past.

Simonini, it seems, has been a major player in many of the great events and scandals of the late 19th century, from Italy's wars of unification to the Franco-Prussian War, to the Dreyfus affair, and more. But his rôle is always behind the scenes, recruited by various espionage agencies. Through Simonini and Dalla Piccola we explore many of the undercurrents of European history, as well as its current fads and sensations, along the way meeting a variety of historical figures from Garibaldi to Freud. In fact, Eco explains in an author's note that the only major character in the novel who is entirely fictional is Simonini himself.

With deception and duplicity underlying every motive and cause, Eco appears to be telling us that truth has multiple faces, just as people often have multiple personalities. No explanation is ever final, as there is always another layer of mystery and motivation lying beneath the surface, and likewise there are always hidden links like Simone Simonini that make it impossible to isolate one cause from another.

Having someone who is not only an unprincipled criminal but a vicious anti-Semite as the primary narrator is a bold move on Eco's part that may be disturbing to some readers. Of course the author makes sure that we see that everything Simonini accuses the Jews of being--ruthless, devious, manipulative and greedy--is true of no one more than Simonini himself. On the whole, The Prague Cemetery is an entertaining, intriguing and informative novel that, while not one of Eco's best, is still well worth reading.

Other works I have read by Umberto Eco:
The Name of the Rose
Foucault's Pendulum
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Cover art: The gargoyle on the cover of the American edition overstates perhaps the Gothic elements of the novel. I prefer this Italian cover.

Fabulous review of The Prague Cemetery, Steven. I am anxious to read this book and appreciated your insights regarding Eco's intended message.

And my sympathies on your front yard having been turned into a construction zone. How awful.

I've had The Prague Cemetery on my TBR since it was a hard cover (hate when the paperback comes out before I read something!) and may have to move it up a little now that I've read your review.

And ditto what everyone has said about how terrible the construction in your front yard is.

The Eco books looks good. And your lawn is going to have a strange bald patch when they're done...

I went book shopping yesterday to get away from the construction noise (at least that's the excuse I tried on my wife). Among other things, I found two more novels by Émile Zola, then when I got home ordered the rest that I wanted from Amazon. Inspired by rebeccanyc's reviews and my own reading of Germinal, I've decided to embark upon a Zolathon, reading first Therese Raquin, then all the novels in the Rougon-Macquart series that have modern English translations (skipping Germinal since I just read it this year) in Zola's suggested reading order. That'll be 13 titles in all, and my goal is to finish by the end of 2013.

Great to have you as another Zola reader, Steven. I"m curious about what Zola's suggested reading order was for the Rougon-Macquart series. So far, I've read Germinal, Nana, L'assommoir, The Fortune of the Rougons, and The Kill.

I thought I've acquired all the other titles available in recent English translation:

The Masterpiece
The Beast Within
The Belly of Paris
The Ladies Paradise
Pot Luck
and I have The Earth on order

But if your total is 13, that makes two more, and I'm wondering which they are, because I'd like to get them too.

The two I have that you don't list are:

La Reve (The Dream) translated by Michael Glencross, published by Peter Owen.

The Debacle translated by Elinor Dorday, Oxford World's Classics. There is also a Penguin edition translated by Leonard Tancock.

And you can add to that:

The Sin of Father Mouret translated by Sandy Petrey. This translation from 1969 is out of print, and I wasn't sure if the used copies listed on Amazon with a publication date of 1983 were the same translation (sometimes they mix editions), but I just did some checking on Google Books and saw that there was a 1983 University of Nebraska Press edition of the modern translation, so I just now ordered a copy.

Thanks, Steven. Just ordered them. The Oxford World Classics edition of The Debacle seemed to be out of print on Amazon so I ordered the Penguin edition, and I'm going to order the The Sin of Father Mouret from ABE Books, which has more choices.

Your comment reminded me that the Oxford edition of Debacle doesn't turn up on Amazon when you search by title. They probably have it entered as La Débâcle, and it doesn't equate. You can find it by ISBN 0192822896 or by a search using the translator's name such as "Zola Dorday." But I actually bought my copy yesterday at a used book store.

I got the list of modern English translations, by the way, from this Wikipedia article. It seems to be accurate based on my own online searching:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rougon-Macquart_Series

Thanks again, Steven. I've found much the same in my online searching, except that I hadn't found the ones I had missing. The Oxford La Debacle is available only from "other sellers," not from Amazon directly, but since it looks more recent I cancelled my order of the Penguin edition and bought a used copy from ABE.

I also appreciate the list of what order to read the books in, and may start following it for the ones I have left.

Thanks for the link with the recommended order. I have read three of these books to date, but would like to read them in a more organized fashion, however, I am experiencing the same difficulties with availability and translations. You and Rebecca are encouraging me to try again though.

Exciting news about your Zolathon read, so much to enjoy there. My aim for next year is to finish Therese Raquin (I am struggling with the original French version) Great review of Prague Cemetery

Sorry about your poor front yard and lost quiet. Yuck. Excellent review and brief analysis of The Prague Cemetery.

The Vivisector by Patrick White
First published 1970

 

Patrick White explores the nature of art and the mind of the artist in his searing novel The Vivisector. The fictional subject is Hurtle Duffield, an Australian born circa 1900 into a large and poor family. It is obvious to all that Hurtle is a prodigy, teaching himself to read by age five. It is less obvious to his parents that Hurtle's special talent is the unique, often cold way in which he sees the world as manifested in his passion for "droring."

Hurtle's mother works as a laundress for a wealthy family, the Courtneys, and is eager to expose her son to the cultured life to which he might aspire. By chance Hurtle meets Mrs. Courtney, and the fashionable young matron is immediately endeared to the brilliant and attractive child--all the more so for the contrast between Hurtle and her own offspring, a dwarfish and hunchbacked daughter named Rhoda. Mrs. Courtney easily prevails upon her husband to consider adopting Hurtle into the family, and his natural parents agree to surrender their brilliant child in return for a large beneficence. Thus Hurtle is sold from poverty into privilege, and before long begins his formal training as an artist.

The narrative leaps ahead by years, and occasionally by decades, focusing on the key episodes in Hurtle's life. They are characterized by his relationship with women and the way in which these relationships drive his art. Hurtle's affairs are twisted and often destructive, as Art pushes everything else to the side. Creation and destruction are united in the metaphor of the creator as a vivisector, cruelly dissecting the living to find the truths hidden within. As a child, Hurtle found compelling beauty in the entrails of freshly slaughtered sheep. As an artist he finds beauty in revealed truth, no matter how cruel and devastating to the subject.

"God the Vivisector. God the Artist." This refrain is echoed throughout the novel. The implication being: "The Artist as Vivisector. The Artist as Creator. The Artist as God." Indeed, in Hurtle's final relationship with a woman--a teenage girl, in fact--he no longer vivisects the woman's soul as a subject for his art. Instead Hurtle attempts to make her his creation, a living work of art. Ultimately, though, in his final years Hurtle comes to the realization that it is himself he must vivisect that he may recreate himself through his art.

The details of Hurtle Duffield's life do not closely parallel those of Patrick White's, but it is obvious that White has transposed his feelings as a writer into those of the painter. This is an intense novel, often brutal. White's writing style is amorphous, shifting from first, to third, and even second person. It flows from stream of consciousness to dialogue, from terse prose to florid expansiveness. The author's insight and descriptive powers are enormous and often disarming--clearly matching the changeable but always eviscerating painting styles of his subject.

The Vivisector is, in my opinion, as good if not better than White's more celebrated novel, Voss. White's writing in general should appeal to anyone who likes Henry James or D. H. Lawrence, two writers whom he resembles both in writing style and penetration.

Other works I have read by Patrick White:
The Living and the Dead
The Tree of Man
Voss

Great review of The Vivisector steven. It is comparable to Voss, but I think that the overall shape and construction of Voss makes it the greater novel. However I prefer The Vivisector because of, as you say, the intensity of the writing, that verges on brutality at times. Hurtle Duffield the iconoclast and the "Artist as Creator."

There are some interesting themes or motifs in the novel which are worth thinking about. Cats and pianos spring to mind.

Yes, there are lots of cats, and they play an important symbolic role (Cosma's "bagful of cats"). White was apparently himself a cat person (keeping company with such writers as Mark Twain and Haruki Murakami).



Another recurrent motif is Hurtle's reaction on seeing women smoking. First Alfreda Courtney, then Nance, then Hero, and finally Rhoda. He makes too much of it for there not to be a purpose behind it.

And there is all the jewelry mentioned, starting with Hurtle's father's family ring.

Something else that I've noted in other White novels is that the two world wars are just big holes in the story that don't seem to have any impact on the participants.

I suppose we should take this and other topics up over on the Patrick White group thread.

I forgot to mention the farting that also seems to crop up in White's novels., and on that note I think it is as well to take the discussion to the Patrick White thread.

That's my favourite picture of Patrick White (he's the one on the left)

Excellent review of The Vivisector, Steven. My schedule this month has me trailing far behind you and Barry, but I will eventually catch up!

The Vital Needs of the Dead by Igor Sakhnovsky
First published in Russian 1999
English translation by Julia Kent 2012
An Early Reviewer selection



The Vital Needs of the Dead is a coming-of-age novel, probably autobiographical, set during the final years of the USSR and Russia's subsequent transition to capitalism and gangsterism.

Gosha Sidelnikov lives in a city in the Urals, mostly with his grandmother Rosa who is the guiding force in his life. After her death, as Sidelnikov finishes school and goes away to college to study literature, Rosa remains a voice in his head and in his dreams, attempting to guide him out of harm's way. She is only partly successful, as Sidelnikov gets involved in a prolonged love affair with an older woman, several quickie romances, and spends a wild and tempting night with a group of black marketeers.

The dingy atmosphere of decay, apathy and corruption as the Soviet Union nears its collapse is memorably depicted, and is this short novel's chief attraction. Sidelnikov himself isn't particularly appealing or interesting, and our introduction to Rosa, the grandmother, before her demise is too cursory to explain why her memory has such mystical importance for her grandson. Rosa's appearances in Sidelnikov's dreams border on magical realism (the only non-Russian author mentioned, albeit misspelled, is Gabriel García Márquez), but are out of place in an otherwise bleak, existential story.

Perhaps the point of the novel is to ask what it is that guides our actions and shapes our decisions: chance, fate, or the "needs" of the dead--those "needs" being the sense of place, propriety and purpose that we derive from our upbringing. But this novel is too short, fragmented and uneven to carry such a weighty theme with any success. (An unpolished translation may be to blame for some of this.) For the most part it is just vignettes of drinking, sex and adolescent angst in various dirty and dilapidated tenements. It is the settings themselves which make The Vital Needs of the Dead worth reading for someone interested in a realistic picture of life in a typical Soviet city during the 1980s.

Cover art: The cover is gorgeous (Botticelli? It is uncredited.), but has very little to do with the novel. I suppose it is meant to represent a guardian angel, but it certainly doesn't look like anyone's grandmother.

Great review of The Vivisector. Are you intending to read Riders in the Chariot? The Second World War, particularly the Holocaust, is an important part of that book, in relation to one of the main characters. I think White's portrayal of these events was magnificent, particularly because as far as I know (I haven't looked into this) the war affected him only peripherally.

Are you intending to read Riders in the Chariot?

I think I'm through with White for a while, not for lack of interest but because so many other group and theme reads are calling. I'm way behind in my planned reading, thanks in large part to the continuing distraction of the pipeline work just outside the window.

The Vital needs of the dead doesn't sound like a very catchy title. I am wondering if it is because of a poor translation from the Russian.

Maybe there is a word play there. The dead having no vitals. :p

The Vital Needs of the Dead sounds interesting for just the reason you describe -- possibly something I might look for just because I've read so much Russian/Soviet literature already.

The title in Russian is: Насущные нужды умерших

Google translates this as "Urgent Needs of the Dead," so it appears to be a literal translation except that there is probably no pun on the word "vital."

There is one direct reference to this phrase in the novel itself. It is basically a nagging conscience speaking to Sidelnikov in the voice of his grandmother. I think we all probably personify our sense of guilt as the person who taught or expects us to do better, so to me there is nothing profound or magical in this. The fact that the grandmother is dead is really incidental--his conscience would have spoken with her voice while she was alive.

"Hасущный" does mean "vital", in the sense of "essential", sine qua non (I'm not sure I'd list "urgent" as a possible meaning at all, although I suppose there could be some such application. But there are overtones in Russian that "vital" in English doesn't have.) To a Russian speaker the immediate association would be to the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread, xлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь.

I'd say it's an ironic title, so yes, wordplay of sorts.

> 37

Sounds interesting. Reminds me of The "Genius" by Theodore Dreiser, a favorite from high school. Both feature artists who subordinate (use?) their personal relationships as aesthetic fodder. Ultimately the protagonist in Dreiser's book realizes his mistake, but not before many broken hearts and {plot spoiler censored}.

Doctor Copernicus by John Banville
First published 1976

 

John Banville's biographical novel about one of history's most important astronomers is unusual in that it says very little about astronomy. It is more concerned with the personality of Copernicus, the world in which he lived, and the medieval concepts of science and truth.

Nicolas Koppernigk was raised in ethnically German surroundings in a part of Prussia that had only recently given its allegiance to the King of Poland. Though his Polish father was only a tradesman, Nicolas was related on his Prussian mother's side to a powerful clergyman, his uncle, who undertook to raise Nicolas and his three siblings when their parents died. Nicolas was, therefore, destined for the clergy, but this also meant an opportunity for the brilliant youth to obtain a university education in Italy.

Nicolas was intoxicated by the liberal intellectual atmosphere of Renaissance Italy, but repulsed by the sensuality and moral laxity of the Italian clergy. Taking his degree and the title of "Doctor Copernicus," it was with few regrets that he returned to the colder, sterner climate of the Baltic to assume his duties as a church canon. His native land was still very much medieval in its mores, its social structures, and its values.

As canon, Copernicus was not an ordained priest, but was required to live and work where and as directed by his chapter. He was also required to follow the same rule of celibacy as a priest. His assignments reflected the breadth of his university education, and included everything from providing medical care to administering a city during time of war.

Banville is surprisingly obscure on when, how, and why young Nicolas came to question the idea of an Earth-centered universe. Even before he goes to Italy, there is mention of his bold ideas about astronomy, but not precisely what those ideas were or how they came to him. While Nicolas was still a teenager, his contemporaries knew he was developing a theory that the Earth and planets revolved around the sun. Yet his book on the subject was not published until the year of his death, at age 70, in 1543--and even then apparently against his will. Copernicus's lifelong reticence was based in part on his overpowering modesty, but also on his fear of offending the Church and provoking a vengeful reaction. Apparently it was safe for his ideas to travel Europe as rumor, but it could be fatal to put them in print.

What emerges literally from the astronomer's deathbed is the distinction between truth and reality. Copernicus believed his theory to be true insofar as it was a mechanism that made it possible to predict the future motions of the planets and to develop a more accurate calendar. But whether it represented reality was something he did not claim and seriously doubted.

In rich prose, John Banville gives us a sympathetic portrait of a a man and his time--though both the man and the time are unattractively severe. One segment of the novel is a narration by Georg Joachim Rheticus, a young student who forced himself upon the aging Copernicus and eventually coaxed his master into releasing his manuscript for publication. Rheticus's pompous, spiteful, and obviously unreliable narrative not only provides some welcome levity, but underscores the treacherous nature of the historical record. Whether Banville's interpretation of Copernicus is accurate is something we will never know, but there is much to appreciate in his depiction of a scientist's mind struggling in a world dominated by faith and tradition.

Other works I have read by John Banville:
The Sea

Great review of The Vivisector. The reviews I've seen so far make it sound very interesting but I'll probably read Riders in the Chariot first. Also liked the picture of White with the cat.

The Vital Needs of the Dead has one of those weird titles that I find appealing but after reading your review, I think I'll skip it.

Also a thorough review of Doctor Copernicus.

Excellent review of Doctor Copernicus, which sounds like a book I will want to read.

A great review, Steven. Doctor Copernicus does sound very interesting, as do the other two books in his Revolutions Trilogy, Kepler and The Newton Letter. It is fascinating to contemplate the lives of individuals whose scientific insights were so far advanced as to be in dangerous conflict with the beliefs of the day. It also makes me wonder who such individuals may be among our own contemporaries and what theories they are pursuing.

Doctor Copernicus sounds like an excellent book in your review. The struggle between faith and emerging science is an incredibly difficult one for those who dare to question, and as Linda points out, it is still ongoing for some.

Chiming in to agree that your review of Doctor Copernicus is fascinating, as is the man himself.

But whether it represented reality was something he did not claim and seriously doubted.

The claim that this heliocentric model represented reality was made by Galileo, who had the tactlessness to also insult the pope and tell biblical exegetes how to read scripture. I recently read somewhere that many scientists didn't think he had enough evidence yet to overturn the geocentric model, and that his claims were too audacious. Personally I think popular history has come down too hard on the church for that one. :P

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje
First published 1970

 

I'm not very much at home with modern poetry or stories of the Old West, so I won't attempt to review this one. It is a strange montage of prose, verse and photography giving impressions more than telling the story of William "Billy the Kid" Bonney, his associates and enemies. Someone more familiar than I with the history and legend of Billy the Kid would probably find it fascinating. I'm not sure why I had this book--it may have been for a group project that didn't pan out--but I had never read anything before by Ondaatje. Next year my reading group is doing The Cat's Table, so I decided to read the other works of his I had on the shelf first, and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid was the earliest published, so I started there. There are some memorable images in this book, but there were also parts that made no sense to me because I wasn't familiar with the story.

Out of curiosity, is there a bibliography in Banville's book and does it list Arthur Koestler's The sleepwalkers?

I recommend the latter as a history of cosmological ideas from ancient times through Newton, and especially the detailed discussion of how and why Copernicus and Kepler developed their systems. (It also provides excellent perspective on the role of the church in smothering ancient knowledge and obstructing its rediscovery, as well as new discovery.)

Copernicus began with a dissatisfaction with the Ptolemaic system because it didn't fulfill the requirement that celestial bodies should move at a uniform speed in perfect circles. He "solved" it by charting epicycles and constructing a system in which the observed celestial bodies moved as required by the "perfection" of heavens... assuming one granted certain new axioms, a mere detail, except for their revolutionary (no pun intended) content.

From what I recall, it's not that he didn't want to publish his ideas--he sent letters describing his system to a number of scholars, in a work preceding his book (whose title escapes me). Apparently no one jumped up to print it (for reasons one can imagine), but from that time his ideas began to circulate and his reputation grew. It was publishing of sorts, if publishing means "to make public". Anyway, once it WAS in print, Rome banned it in time, so it's not like he wasn't right about procrastinating.

#73 - Here are the sources Banville lists in his Acknowledgements:

Nicolaus Copernicus by Ludwig Prowe (1883-4, no English translation)
Copernicus, Founder of Modern Astronomy (1938) by Angus Armitage
Sun, Stand Thou Still (1947) by Angus Armitage
Nicolaus Copernicus (1973) by Fred Hoyle
The Copernican Revolution (1957) by Thomas S. Kuhn
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959) by Arthur Koestler

Of the last two he says: "To these two beautiful, lucid and engaging books I owe more than a mere acknowledgement can repay."

The other sources he cites for background information are:

The Origins of Prussia (1954) by F. L. Carsten
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964) by Frances A. Yates
Science in a Renaissance Society (1972) by W. P. D. Wightman
The Borgias (1969) by M. E. Mallett

Of the last two he says: "To these two beautiful, lucid and engaging books I owe more than a mere acknowledgement can repay."

Aha! It's funny, I got the Koestler vibe even from your brief review.

Thanks for making the effort to list all that!

>58 StevenTX:

I wasn't familiar with the story.

I also just finished reading The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje the day before yesterday. I think the charm of the book is that it evokes a kind of feeling, somewhere between romance, smut and violence, around a character little is known about for fact. I think everyone has heard of Billy the Kid, but no-one knows much about him or his story, and very little is known from reliable sources. Much of what appears to be known is just conjecture or legend. The book seems to operate well on that edge of the poetic imagination.

I did not find The Collected Works of Billy the Kid representable of Ondaatjes work. In the afterword it is explained that this was his first work, and is based on his youth fascination with the Wild West.

Wow, Vivisector, Copernicus, discussions on Russian translations plus. Thomas Kuhn left me in awe way back when. I'll add The Sleepwalkers to the wishlist.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
First published 2010

 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an enormously entertaining and informative historical novel set in Nagasaki, Japan, at the turn of the 19th century. The Empire of Japan was still a closed society. The only contact permitted with the outside world was at the port of Nagasaki, where the Chinese and Dutch were each permitted a small trading outpost. The Dutch outpost was an artificial island named Dejima, where a handful of Dutch were permitted to remain under close supervision. The only Japanese allowed on Dejima were the official interpreters, some prostitutes, and a small group of medical students.

The novel follows Jacob de Zoet, a clerk who arrives at Dejima in 1799 in the company of a new Chief of the trading post. Jacob's job is to unravel the records after years of corruption. He is deep in this unpleasant and unpopular task when he has a chance meeting with a Japanese woman named Aibagawa Orito.

Orito is the daughter of a prominent scholar. A badly burned face has made her unmarriageable, so she has taken up the profession of midwife. She is one of the medical students permitted to study under the Dutch doctor at Dejima. Jacob is smitten with Orito, and risks his career, if not his life, to seek further contact with this scarred but intriguing beauty. This will lead to his becoming involved in a deadly power struggle between the local magistrate at Nagasaki and the leader of a mystical cult into whose clutches Orito soon falls.

David Mitchell draws an unforgettable portrait of the meeting and occasional clash of cultures from opposite sides of the world. Nagasaki is the port where Portuguese missionaries first introduced Christianity to Japan, leading to civil unrest which led the Japanese to ban the religion and severely constrain all outside contact by Japanese. The Dutch themselves are in a period of transition, for the French will soon conquer the Netherlands and, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, Dejima will become, at one point, the only place on the globe flying the Dutch tricolor. The English will soon enter the picture, and their attempt to force their way onto Dejima will become Jacob's greatest challenge.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is highly recommended for anyone who likes good historical fiction or just enjoys a well-told story.

Great review of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Steven. I loved it as well.

Excellent review for a very well-written novel, indeed.

Excellent review of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Steven. Luckily, I have this one already in my TBR pile.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet sounds great! On to the wishlist it goes .....

Great review, Steven! I enjoyed Thousand Autumns immensely, but I thought that some parts were a bit too much ninja-action-adventurish, and I didn't think the main "villian" was realistically portrayed. But still, a very well-written and rewarding book, which had extra meaning for me, a descendant of Dutch emigrants.

I agree that the villain could use some fleshing out, and I was left wanting to know a lot more about his organization and its beliefs. As far as I can tell, it was the author's invention while most of the rest of the novel was based on actual events.

I'm trying not to say more than I have to about this because it could be a spoiler for some, but the practices of said villain and his followers had an eerie resemblance to the black mass, which was described in four books I've read recently: the two by Umberto Eco and La Bas by J. K. Huysmans.

One interesting aspect of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is that of national character. It's something people at the time certainly believed in. The author manages to portray the Dutch, Japanese and English all sympathetically but shows how differences in their culture and national aims inevitably led to conflict.

One other thing intrigued me, and that is the possibility that Orito's burned face and the large number of Japanese minor characters with birth defects could be a symbolic reference to Nagasaki's eventual fate under the atomic bomb.

For some reason, I've been avoiding The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, but your review intrigued me.

Excellent review steven. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is one of the best contemporary novels I have read. Interesting thoughts on the atomic bomb victims of Nagasaki, which completely escaped me, but on reflection Mitchell is just the sort of writer that would draw those parallels.

Therese Raquin by Émile Zola
First published in French 1867
English translation by Robin Buss 2004

 

Therese Raquin is a harrowing story of lust, murder, terror, and madness.

A French officer brings his black-haired love child, the daughter of his North African mistress, to his sister in France, a Mme Raquin. He returns to Africa where he is soon reported killed. Mme Raquin, a widow, is only too happy to raise her orphaned niece as a companion to her sickly son Camille. Young Thérèse, full of healthful vitality, is forced to endure the claustrophobic life of her sick cousin. Seeing nothing of the world, she becomes a silent introvert, suppressing her natural desires. When she reaches adulthood, Thérèse apathetically complies when Mme Raquin insists that she marry Camille so she can continue to be his caretaker.

Thérèse gradually comes to loathe her banal, sickly husband, but continues to repress her feelings and desires. This comes to an end when she meets Laurent, Camille's virile, self-indulgent friend. The two begin a passionate affair behind the backs of the unsuspecting mother and husband. When circumstances make it impossible for them to continue their clandestine meetings, sexual frustration drives them to plot to murder Camille so they can eventually marry. The plot is successful, but each is tormented by the fear of detection, and instead of the bliss they expected, their lives become a living hell.

The novel created a sensation when it was first published in 1867, for its violence, its sexual candor, and most of all for its amorality. This is a tale devoid of religious content or social message. Zola's defended his novel, saying his purpose was "to study temperament, not character." He contrasts the sanguine nature of Laurent with the nervous constitution of Thérèse, and treats their romance and its tragic end as something as inevitable as a chemical reaction. Zola's psychological analysis may seem primitive and simplistic, but it was a bold venture for its time. The characters and their mental states are always believable even though modern psychologists would explain them in more sophisticated terms.

Therese Raquin has none of the social criticism for which Zola's later novels are known. Instead it bears a strong resemblance to some of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, whose writings probably influenced Zola. It does, however, convey a sense of the lives, institutions, and surroundings of mid-19th century Paris. It is an intense and memorable novel, highly recommended.

Other works I have read by Émile Zola:
Germinal

Cover art: It's amusing to look at the generic pictures of 19th century women which have been featured on various editions of Therese Raquin. One of them is the same painting as on the cover of my copy of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. Another was used for the edition I read of Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Pérez Gáldos. My Penguin edition features a painting by Degas that aptly depicts a troubled woman, but I prefer this one below as it reflect Thérèse's oft-mentioned cold, inscrutable stare.

Interesting review. I'll probably read this when I finish the Rougon-Macquart cycle. The woman in the red dress on the cover you like looks surprisingly modern to me.

Excellent review of Therese Raquin, Steven.

Great review of Therese Raquin, Steven!

Oh yes, Excellent review of Therese Raquin

a harrowing story of lust, murder, terror, and madness
I do love nineteenth century novels!. This sounds like a great one. The only thing more you could ask for would be politics/social commentary and as Zola can do this so well elsewhere, this book sounds just fine without it. Great review.

>74 rebeccanyc: I agree that this is definitely not what you would think of as a nineteenth century face.

#74 & 78: The painting is "Portait of a Young Girl, the Shiverer" by Jean-Jacques Henner. Henner's dates are 1829-1905. I can't find a date for this particular work, but Henner was active from the 1850s to around 1900. There is a similar portrait by him of an older woman in red dated 1890. So even though she post-dates Thérèse Raquin, hers is a 19th century face.

To Live by Yu Hua
First published in Chinese 1992
English translation by Michael Berry 2003

 

The American folk song "Old Black Joe" was the unlikely inspiration for this excellent modern Chinese novel. It begins with a narration by a carefree young student wandering the Chinese countryside in the 1970s collecting folk music for a culture study. He meets an old man working his rice field with an equally aged ox. While man and beast take a break, the researcher starts up a conversation. Over the course of the day, the old man tells the student his life story.

Xu Fugui was born to an old family of prosperous landowners in the southern part of China. He begins his story in the 1930s, during the Japanese occupation of China, and admits to having been a spoiled young man. He was carried everywhere on the back of a servant and learned nothing of work and responsibility. Instead he took to gambling and whoring, and continued even after his marriage to the beautiful and patient Jiazhen. Eventually Fugui gambles away not only all his cash, but his family's land as well. They must face the disgrace of moving out of their beautiful home and into the thatched roof shack of a common peasant. Fugui and Jiazhen must learn to labor for meager wages in the rice fields he formerly owned. Not long after this--in 1945 after the Japanese surrender--Fugui is pressed into service in the Nationalist army. He is unable even to let his wife know what has happened; for all Jiazhen knows, Fugui has abandoned her and their two children.

Fugui's experiences include the Chinese Civil War, the famine years of the Great Leap Forward, and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. He survives all of this, but other family members are not so lucky. One by one, Fugui must bury those he loves most. He owes his survival to his unpretentious simplicity as well as blind luck. Had he not gambled away his inheritance he would have been executed in the purge of landlords in the wake of the Communist victory. He eventually develops a simple philosophy, devoid of ideology: to live.

Yu Hua vividly portrays the consequences of war, economic failure, and social upheaval, but does not dwell on them. This is more a personal story than a political one. The simple villagers are largely unaware of the goings on at the national level. Their concerns are centered on providing food and clothing for themselves and their children. To Live is an engrossing, poignant, and often heartrending tale of love, loss, and patient endurance.

Cover art: Those are not the scarred and weather-beaten hands of a rice farmer. Though the image is poor, this is a much better cover.

As I commented on your other thread, the part about the 1930s is interesting to me because much of the book I'm currently reading, Red Sorghum by Mo Yan, takes place during the Japanese occupation.

Thanks for the info on the Zola cover. The ox and farmer is a good cover for To Live.

The animal on the second cover is a water buffalo, or water ox.

You are right! I think I was meaning ox in the context of Asia, not as the kind of creature in double harness with bells on at the fair. I should have said water buffalo though. The creature in the To Live was referred to as an ox.

Villette by Charlotte Brontë
First published 1853



Charlotte Brontë's Villette is a romance with Gothic elements. It is also a partly autobiographical novel and, if not anti-Catholic, at least a staunch defense of Protestant values and temperaments.

The narrator is the aptly named Lucy Snowe. She is cold, secretive and, for most of the book, unlovable. We first meet Lucy as a teenager spending a few months at the home of her godmother, Mrs. Bretton. Even at that age, Lucy's character is puritanical, reclusive, and cautious. She seldom speaks, and never discloses her feelings to others. Nonetheless, she develops a fond attachment for Mrs. Bretton, her son Graham, and another guest, a younger girl named Paulina.

Lucy's family situation is troubled, but she never discloses the cause. She resumes her narrative years later when, as a young woman, she is forced out into the world almost penniless to earn her own living. After a short stint as companion to a dying woman, she decides to escape to France (though not speaking a word of French), and eventually comes to the city of Villette where she applies for a position as an English teacher in a girls' school.

Villette, though described as a French city, is actually based on Brussels, Belgium, where Brontë and her sister Emily were employed in a situation not dissimilar to Lucy's.

Lucy's employer, Madame Beck, is the novel's most memorable character. Though genial in appearance, she maintains a strict rein on her teachers as well as her students by gathering all the information she can--spying on their every move, reading their mail, and exploring their belongings. Brontë uses Madame Beck and others to contrast the French temperament with the English and the Catholic mentality with the Protestant.

She has much to say, in fact, about Catholicism, some of it quite bitter. Of the school's educational goals, Lucy says "There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy, hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning." Later: "For man's good little was done; for God's glory, less." Lucy concludes, "the more I saw of Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism." Yet she does not condemn Catholics as individuals, just the church and its hierarchy.

In Villette, Lucy suffers the ordeals anyone would who finds herself alone and friendless in a foreign land, and she is severely tested by an unsympathetic headmistress and by rebellious students. Her solitary ways and self-reliance are the armor that protect her, but eventually she begins to change and develop as she learns more about herself. She finally experiences the joys of friendship and even dares to entertain romantic feelings. At the same time, however, she is both troubled and mystified by encounters with an apparition said to be a ghost haunting the grounds of the school.

The plot of Villette is unremarkable, and it takes most of the novel before we can begin to warm up to its chilly narrator, but Villette is rewarding as a study in character and for its portrayal of the attitudes and conventions of the time. The writing is quite beautiful as well, with many powerful and inventive descriptive passages and clever sarcasms.

Other works I have read by Charlotte Brontë:
Jane Eyre

wow great review - for the first time I've been convinced to read Villette :)

Excellent reviews of To Liveand Villette, Steven. I think I may own a copy of Yu Hua's Brothers: A Novel, although it is not showing up in my library. My books are in considerable disarray at the moment, many in boxes and bags, as some work we are doing on two upstairs rooms required emptying a number of bookshelves.

#86 - I'm glad you like it, but I was afraid my review would have the opposite effect. Some people think Villette is a better novel than Jane Eyre, but I wouldn't say so.

#87 - I own Brothers as well. It's a big fat novel, so I started with the much slimmer To Live. However, if the prose is anything like To Live's, it will be smooth reading despite its size.

I know the feeling of disarray, Linda. They are still drilling a pipeline in my front yard and everything is covered in dust. Since my shelves will all need a good cleaning if and when they ever finish, I decided this is a good time to begin reorganizing my books. I had succumbed to my granddaughter's urgings to put matching books like Penguin Classics together, but now I can't find anything. So I'm starting the long process of putting them back the way I had them in alphabetical order by author. The problem, of course, is that I have more books than my shelves can hold and those nasty people at Half Price Books and Amazon keep making me take more.

Oh the joy of re-organising your bookshelves and discovering those books that you just have to read before putting them back on the shelves.

Great review of Villette, which is on my bookshelves, but it will have to stay there for the time being. Sorry to hear that the disruption continues - perhaps they will be finished by Xmas?

Excellent review, and interesting about the anti-Catholicism, having just encountered that in The Monk. I'm not particularly inclined to read Villette, but I enjoyed reading about it.

I just remembered something I meant to mention as a postscript to my review of Villette but entirely forgot. There are a large number of untranslated passages in French throughout the novel. Many of these are key to the story, and their meaning cannot readily be inferred from the surrounding text. Obviously Brontë expected her readers to speak French even though her heroine (initially) did not.

I'm sure most current editions of the novel from major publishers have these passages translated in footnotes. I was reading from a free ebook that did not. Fortunately my Kindle has a built-in translator that gave me the gist of those passages where I couldn't figure it out on my own. But if you're reading a bargain edition or have an e-reader without translation capability, you should be forewarned that you will encounter a lot of untranslated French.

Fabulous review of To Live, Steven. It's already on my wish list, but I plan to read his book Brothers first, as I already own it.

Steven, your Kindle has a built in translator? Did that come as a standard program or did you somehow acquire it? I'm wondering if either of mine have that capability and I am just not aware of it.

#93 Linda, I have the Kindle Touch model. The translation feature came with it. I discovered it just by exploring the menus.

If you highlight a single word, you get the dictionary definition. If you highlight a phrase you get a menu. Either way, one of the choices on the next screen is "More..." Just select that, and then select "Translation." If it can detect the language that the phrase is in, it will automatically translated it to English. Otherwise you can specify the language to and from. The translation is done via the Internet, so you have to have wireless turned on, and if your Kindle is WiFi-only like mine you have to be near a hotspot. The translation isn't great. Hyphenated words throw it off, and it can't handle dialect or archaic terms, but in the majority of cases it quickly helped me understand what was being said.

Thanks Steven. One of my Kindles is a Touch, so I will try that. I guess I should explore the menus more thoroughly!

They're Cows, We're Pigs by Carmen Boullosa
First published in Spanish 1991
English translation by Leland H. Chambers 1997

 

In 1666 a young man named Smeeks took ship from France for the New World as an indentured servant. By a strange chain of events, he first acquired valuable medical knowledge and then, upon obtaining his freedom, fell in league with a notorious band of pirates known as the Brethren of the Coast. Twelve years later he published an account of his exploits under the name "Alexander Olivier Exquemeling." The book was titled De Americaenesche Zeerover (The Buccaneers of America).

Smeeks/Exquelmeling's book was soon translated into other languages, but each time changing in ways that reflected the national character and prejudices of the translator. With no two editions alike, and the narrator's identity and veracity questionable to begin with, the history of the story is as intriguing as the story itself. This is the impetus for Carmen Boullosa's novel They're Cows, We're Pigs.

Boullosa divides her novel into two parts. In the first half we are given the story of Smeeks's arrival at Tortuga, an island off the coast of Haiti and the base of operations for French pirates preying upon the Spaniards. We see how Smeeks comes to learn herbal medicine from a slave, then surgery from his master. When his master dies, Smeeks takes his place as chief surgeon to the Brethren of the Coast. But this is not a straightforward narrative. Some episodes are told twice and differently, while others are admitted to be questionable. In this metafictional manner, the author represents the uncertainty of the historical record and how its interpretation varies with perspective.

For the second half of the novel the narrator announces that he is switching from the horizontal to the vertical, that is from a narrative that moves across different versions to one that is strictly chronological. It is an account of Smeeks's expeditions and travails with the pirates under their bloodthirsty leader, François l'Olonnais. These chapters center around the sack of Maracaibo, Venezuela, by 600 pirates under l'Olonnais in 1667. The treachery, slaughter, and rapine are horrific. The Brethren are taught to believe that the Spaniards as well as the natives are simply cows, born to be slaughtered, while the pirates are the pigs, born to be predators and gorge themselves on whatever they can find.

Boullosa makes the Brethren of the Coast into an interesting study in utopian philosophy and gender. The Brethren had a credo that everything was to be shared equally. While ashore they lived in communal housing and shared food and supplies. There was no private property. Most importantly, there were no women. The pirates believed that their social order would break down if they took wives, for it is women who are possessive. For their sexual needs the pirates made regular trips to the whorehouses of Port Royal, Jamaica, or simply turned to each other.

This is a short novel that leaves you wanting to know more about the cruel but fascinating world of the Brethren of the Coast. The first half was a little confusing until I realized that it was meant to be so. The second half, though, was a completing engrossing story of conflict and survival.

Although I usually shy away from metafictional works, this one sounds intriguing.

Up the Junction by Nell Dunn
First published 1963

 

Up the Junction is a collection of loosely linked short stories portraying life among the poor working class in the district of Battersea, London, in the early 1960s. Nell Dunn, though wealthy and well educated, chose to live and work in Battersea when she was in her early 20s, and she puts herself into several stories as the "Chelsea heiress."

The stories are simple vignettes showing conditions and attitudes more than action. They consist largely of unattributed dialogue with little or no distinction between the characters. Most of the characters are young, white women living in squalor and relying on menial jobs or petty crime for their income. Yet they cling to the aspirations their culture has sanctioned via popular culture. They'll break the law if they think they can get away with it, but there's no sense of rebellion or clamor against injustice. They accept that the only way out of poverty is through their own efforts or good fortune. Only rarely is there a hint of despair:

'Are you frightened of dying, Sylvie?'
'No, you can't get hurt when yer dead.'

Their thoughts often turn to sex, which to them is something to be enjoyed, but also a commodity to be bartered for money, gifts, or a good meal.

Sylvie pisses in the road. 'Quick Sylv, there's a car comin' in ter park!' The headlamps beam. 'Pull yer drawers up!'
'It's all right.' She jumps to her feet. 'I don't wear no drawers Friday nights--it's 'andy...'

Back street abortions are commonplace and resorted to without qualms or regret.

Much of Battersea was, at the time, still devastated from wartime bombing, and its people are in no better condition. Crime, alcoholism and debt are rampant. "Here, look at that old bloke laying in the gutter. We'd better turn him over in case it's me dad," says one of the girls matter-of-factly. In another scene we see a man buying a dozen tins of cat food. "My Gawd," the clerk asks, "however many cats you got?" "I ain't got no cats, lady," he answers. "I've got six kids."

The stories in Up the Junction present a portrait of a time and place. They don't explain, they don't question, and they don't call for action--they just describe what the author saw and heard, letting the reader react as he or she chooses.

Reading your review of Up the Junction brought back plenty of memories for me steven. I read it sometimes in the 1970's when I lived near "the Junction". I vaguely remember being less than impressed by the characterisation and sense of place depicted in Nell Dunn's book, which did not seem real to me. On reflection though there were enormous changes taking place in that area of London between the publication of the book and the date that I read it.

Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
First published in Chinese 2005.
English translation by Julia Lovell 2007.

 

Wu Dawang has made a successful career for himself in the People's Liberation Army by remembering the Army's three most important rules: Don't say what you shouldn't say, Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, Don't do what you shouldn't do. He also knows that to serve the Army is to Serve the People. Promoted to Sergeant of the Catering Squad, he has now been assigned as personal orderly to the Division Commander. To serve the Division Commander is to Serve the People, so he joyfully and diligently tends the Division Commander's garden, cleans the Division Commander's house, and prepare's meals for the Division Commander and his wife. And when the Division Commander is absent for weeks at a time, his superiors remind Wu that to serve the Division Commander's wife is to Serve the People.

But the Division Commander's wife, the young, beautiful, neglected, bored and lonely Liu Lian, wants to be served in a manner that shocks poor Wu Dawang. At first he refuses, but a bit of pressure from Liu Lian convinces Wu that his Army career is at stake. Before long the two are enjoying a passionate secret romance straight out of the pages of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Serve the People satirizes the institutions and propaganda of Mao's China, showing that behind all the patriotic slogans the Chinese are no different than anyone else. Everyone wants a little more than he has. The soldiers want to be officers, the officers want promotions, the farmers want jobs in the cities, the low-ranking officials want to be high-ranking officials, and behind every ambitious man is a wife who wants better food and nicer clothes. The dedication to Mao and the slogans of self-sacrifice are a game everyone plays to get ahead but no one eventually believes in.

This is an enjoyable, bittersweet romance. Notwithstanding the satirical purpose of the work, the characters are believable, and their volatile relationship offers scenes that are insightful, moving, and heartrending.

As real poverty is descending on Europe and parts of the US, it is good to have a look at books describing poverty as it only existed less than 50 years ago. Excellent to bring the books of Nell Dunn to attention!

What a tear you're on...three books that all sound excellent in completely different ways. Great reviews.

I thought Serve the People! was a lot of fun when I read it, although perhaps a tad obvious.

As for poverty in England postwar, I was surprised to learn the extent of it in Hilary Mantel's memoir, Giving Up the Ghost; that took place in Northern England; the Nell Dunn sounds like it offers a more urban perspective.

This thread has become one of the biggest dangers to any TBR reduction plans I have. They're Cows, We're Pigs and Up the Junction have been added to my wish list. Fortunately I read Serve the People! a couple of years ago, so I don't have to add it as well.

Having fallen behind, I just read your last seven reviews going back to Davd Mitchell. They are all so different that I'm at a loss of anything useful to say, but I enjoyed them all. To Live seemed to standout.

Thanks, Barry, Edwin, Sassy, Rebecca, Darryl and Dan.

...in completely different ways.... They are all so different...

I can't imagine reading the same type of book over and over. It would be like eating the same food every meal. Yet there are people (not in Club Read, of course) who thrive on that, and want each book to be as much like the previous one as possible. I suspect they are equally cautious and conservative in other types of choices.

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
First published 1976



Coming Through Slaughter is the imagined life story of the early jazz musician, Charles "Buddy" Bolden. Bolden was born around 1876 in New Orleans. He played they coronet, led his own band, and developed a musical style that blended ragtime and gospel music into an early form of improvisational jazz. In 1907 Bolden went insane from alcohol poisoning and was institutionalized for the rest of his life.

Ondaatje's unorthodox novel presents Bolden's story from several perspectives, with short blocks of text alternating narrators, occasionally in first person, and occasionally with documentary interjections. Near the end of the novel the author summarizes what little is actually known about Bolden's life and career, revealing that much of what we have read is Ondaatje's invention.

The Bolden of the novel is eccentric, erratic, usually drunk and occasionally violent. But he is also sensitive and compassionate, especially with women. Most of the women in Bolden's life are prostitutes, and they are part of a vivid picture the author provides of turn-of-the-century New Orleans.

Coming Through Slaughter would probably appeal most to those interested in jazz pioneers. Not having any background in that musical genre, I was interested chiefly in the place and time, but found the narrative too fragmented to develop much interest in Bolden or the other characters.

Other works I have read by Michael Ondaatje:
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

Another early effort you have read by Ondaatje, Despite your reservations I will probably get to this sometime.

The Fear of Losing Eurydice by Julieta Campos
First published in Spanish 1979
English translation by Leland H. Chambers 1993

 

The Fear of Losing Eurydice is a lyrical examination of literary metaphors and the longings they represent. The chief idea is that of the island.

Island: The sum of all improbabilities; intoxicating improbability of fiction. Island: image of desire. Archipelago: proliferation of desire. All the islands formulated by human beings and all islands appearing on maps comprise a single imaginary archipelago--the archipelago of desire... Every text, everything ever written up to the moment I write these words, outlines the image of that cartography of desire. Every text is an island.

There are two levels of narrative in the novel, distinguished by indentation. In what we might call the outer level, a teacher of French, Monsieur N, is sitting in a café devising a translation exercise for his students. It involves the Jules Verne novel Two Years' Vacation, a story of a group of schoolboys stranded for two years on a deserted island. As he is pondering the notion of the island, Monsieur N is observing a pair of lovers who have rendezvoused at the café and are drinking cocktails. His thoughts turn to the notion of love as a form of island.

The inner narrative is the story of the couple, but in many forms and places. It is a theme with variations, but always with the idea of the island as central, even though the island can be a metaphor for paradise, for love, for death, for despair, for solitude, for eternity, for a labyrinth, for a dream, and for the author alone with her creation. The idea of the text as an island in a dream is always present. "And I write as if I were dreaming. Or dream as if I were writing... The story of love is a dream that is writing me." And the characters live in the dream which is the text: "Expelled from paradise, the couple wanders in the limbo of unformulated words, of expressions scarcely roughed in, until they emigrate from one dream to another. Or, with their desire, they beget that other dream, which is an island."

In the margins of the inner narrative there are quotations from dozens of literary works illustrating the use of the island as a symbol or evocation. The narrative itself incorporates numerous references to historical events and literary landmarks, traveling from the islands visited by Odysseus and Aeneas to the island cities of Venice and New York. The text morphs continually from one story to another. Cortez's first glimpse of the Aztec island city of Tenochtitlan interweaves with elements of the Labyrinth of Minos on the island of Crete to become a scene of lovers watching swans on a lake, then strolling the coast of a tropical island--all within a single paragraph.

"I feel you in my flesh with fingers that are yours because they once felt you." With sumptuous prose poetry like this, Julieta Campos brings us to her conclusion that "To give up telling a love story is to give up telling any story at all, because telling about anything whatever is already to tell a love story: desire begets the tale." The Fear of Losing Eurydice is a work of experimental fiction that won't appeal to those who insist on conventional plots and characters, but it is an exquisite treat for those who enjoy authors like Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.

The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories by Li Ang
Novella and stories first published in the 1980s
Translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt

 

This collection consists of a short novel and five stories, all set in Taiwan and dealing with the complexities of gender issues.

The Butcher's Wife begins with the end of the story: Lin Shi murders her husband, the pig butcher Chen Jiangshui, with his own butcher knife. Despite knowing that Chen brutalized his wife, neighbors and authorities automatically assume that Lin Shi had an adulterous relationship and condemn her.

The story is set in a Taiwanese fishing and farming community at an unspecified time, probably mid-20th century. Lin Shi is a painfully shy girl who has known nothing but abuse and neglect since her mother was taken away on similar charges of presumed adultery. Her uncle gives her in marriage to Chen Jiangshui, the butcher. Chen is a man who can only be sexually aroused by women who scream in pain as the pigs do when he slits their throats. But this, ironically, isn't Lin Shi's greatest woe. She suffers even more from the pain of rejection by the vicious women of her village who support the patriarchal system with even more fervor than their husbands.

Aside from being a painful story of domestic abuse and social pressure, The Butcher's Wife contains a vivid, if gloomy depiction of impoverished village lives dominated by fear, fatalism and superstition.

The five short stories are all set in modern Taiwan. In "Flower Season" a young woman is so dominated by her fear of male sexual aggression that she can't recognize a simple act of generosity for what it is.

In "Wedding Ritual" a young man is taking a gift from his grandmother to a woman he doesn't know named Auntie Cai. He goes through a Kafkaesque ordeal in just finding Auntie Cai, only to discover that even stranger things are about to happen to him.

"Curvaceous Dolls" is the bizarre tale of a young woman suffering from strange and increasingly sinister dreams that reawaken in her the yearning she felt as a girl for the comforting touch of the breasts of the mother she never knew. She becomes obsessed--in an entirely asexual way--with breasts.

The final two stories, "Test of Love" and "A Love Letter Never Sent," are both about unrequited love and, in very different forms, demonstrate the frustrating complexities of relationships involving conflicting demands of romantic love, morality, sexuality, devotion and domesticity.

The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories is recommended as both entertainment and for a balanced and insightful look at gender in traditional and modern Asian cultures.

More excellent reviews, Steven. The Fear of Losing Eurydice sounds particularly interesting.

Interesting about your thoughts on the first two Ondaatje novels. I felt the same way and ignored his books for some years after reading them. Then I started reading him again starting with The English Patient and continuing on from there, finding that I really liked his work. Reading your reviews has made me think it must be more the books themselves than a stage of life when you read the books effect.

Campos and Li Ang: more new authors to look for. I don't think I have read any authors from Taiwan.

Wonderful review of Coming Through Slaughter; I am not very familiar with the early work of Ondaatje.

I was also very interested to read your review of El miedo de perder a Eurídice which I have added to my wish list. I had never heard of its author, Julieta Campos, whose work seems very interesting.

#108 - Barry, I thought of you as soon as I started reading the book, but you might be disappointed that the author says relatively little about Bolden's music.

#112 - It had been my thinking that if I was going to read widely in an author's work I should just start chronologically by date of publication. I'm now rethinking that approach after having read two books by Ondaatje on subjects that didn't really interest me to begin with. I fully expect to enjoy The English Patient, and that may be where I should have started.

In my reading group we asked a member from Mexico to recommend some modern female writers from his country. He named three: Josefina Vicens, Carmen Boullosa, and Elena Garro. (I've reviewed books by the first two in recent weeks, and we're doing Garro in a group read in December.) I discovered Julieta Campos on my own, probably while doing background research on the other three. She was actually Cuban by birth, but moved to Mexico as a young woman in the 1950s after marrying a Mexican diplomat. After publishing three novels, she gave up her career as a writer in favor of social and cultural causes when her husband was elected governor of the state of Tabasco. She returned to writing in her 70s, publishing one more novel before her death five years ago. Yesterday I ordered her first novel, She Has Reddish Hair and Her Name Is Sabina. It won Mexico's prestigious literary prize, the Xavier Villaurrutia Award, an award also given to Josefina Vicens for The Empty Book, to Elena Garro for Recollections of Things to Come (which I'll be reading next month) and to Carmen Boullosa for one of her novels.

the author says relatively little about Bolden's music.

That's one of New Orleans legends, enigmas passed into myth. What did Buddy Bolden's horn sound like? Nobody knows, everyone dreams. Louis Armstrong was said to swear that he had heard once Bolden's tone floating clear over from Canal Street to Algiers Point. The ineffable more-than-perfect past.

Very interesting reviews of interesting books, as usual!

A couple of brilliant reviews steven and you have done everyone a great service by pointing out the strengths of The Fear of Losing Eurydice. It's good to have your review on the book page.

I think you might have been attracted to the book in the first instance by it's cover. The cover of The Butcher's wife and other stories carries a completely different message

Now, Barry, you'll just get me in trouble again. Actually the cover of The Fear of Losing Eurydice is more chaste that it appears in the smaller image. The dancers are wearing tights. I don't think even Apple would object. The cover credits say "The Joffrey Ballet's Leslie Carothers and Tom Mossbrucker in Gerald Arpino's Light Rain." The scene has nothing directly to do with the novel except as an elegant representation of a couple in love.

If I had to pick a cover image for the novel, however, it would probably be this painting, "The Island of Life," by Arnold Böcklin:



The cover of The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories is inaccurate in one detail: there was no cleaver involved, just the knife. It's understandable, however, why the artist included it, because you automatically associate a cleaver with a butcher.

There were some details given of the butchering process, which was quite interesting. The Chinese find a use for every part of the animal. When I was in China two years ago I had pig ears. They were tasty enough, but quite chewy.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Novellas first published in Japanese 1986 & 1988
English translation by Megan Backus 1993

 

Two novellas titled "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow" comprise the book also titled Kitchen. Both stories are about loss, grief, and recovery. Each is narrated by a young woman, and in each case she has a younger male friend who has also suffered a devastating loss.

In "Kitchen" the narrator, Mikage, is a college student living in Tokyo with her only remaining relative, her grandmother. When her grandmother dies, she realizes "I was tied by blood to no creature in this world. I could go anywhere, do anything. It was dizzying." But, of course, this very freedom, along with loneliness and grief, threaten to devastate her. She is rescued, at least from her loneliness, by a family she doesn't even know which offers to take her into their house on the basis of the teenage son's casual friendship with Mikage's grandmother.

Mikage finds a refuge from her grief and purposelessness in the kitchen. She develops her love of cooking into a career and calling that gives her a basis of strength to call up on when she, in turn, is needed to give strength to someone who has lost his last family member and is now alone in the world.

In "Moonlight Shadow" the narrator, Satsuki, and her young male friend, Hiiragi, suffer their losses simultaneously when Satsuki's boyfriend (who is Hiiragi's older brother) is killed in a car wreck along with Hiiragi's girlfriend whom the brother was giving a lift home. Both Satsuki and Hiiragi develop behavioral obsessions that only sink them deeper into their grief. They can see this in each other, but not in themselves. The events which allow them to recover and get on with their lives involve the supernatural, which you can chose to read as allegory, spirituality or magical realism.

Both stories are very well written in a style that is neither flippant nor sentimental. Yoshimoto's handling of the theme of managing grief is perceptive without being preachy. There's nothing profound here, but just some good, quick and comfortable reading.

More great reviews-four reveiws in fives days, and today isn't over yet! Fascinated by The Fear of Losing Eurydice - and what a terrific review you wrote about it.

Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
First published 1996



Blue Mars is a novel I often found easier to admire than to enjoy, but it was worthwhile in the end. The conclusion to Robinson's Mars Trilogy begins with the terraforming of the planet Mars essentially complete in the late 22nd century. Mars has recently asserted its independence from Earth's governments and Earth's corporations, but it doesn't yet have a government of its own. Forming that government is the chief concern of the first half of the novel. In the second half the principal issue is how much immigration to allow, and how fast. Along the way, however, their are numerous side trips into other political, social and scientific issues.

The novel is structured just like its predecessors, in long chapters each from the perspective of one of several principal characters. Thanks to the longevity treatments, these characters are essentially the same as the cast of Red Mars and Green Mars, only they are now around 200 years old. There is only one new major character introduced, late in the novel, and in my opinion this was the book's best chapter.

There are long discourses on such subjects as political science, economics, aging, the study of memory, weather, and, of course, geology (or, more properly, areology). There are also some lengthy chapters featuring solitary ramblings in the wilderness, flying, boating, or other forms of recreation. Like a Wagner opera, this is a work that will not be rushed, and it's best to sit back and sink into the mood of the piece without worrying that nothing much is going to happen for a long while.

Blue Mars offers an appealing vision on where our species might be headed, socially and technologically. There are also some thought-provoking debates on issues relevant to our own time. It could easily have been about 200 pages shorter, though. Because of frequent references back to events in the previous volumes, I would recommend that if you are going to read the trilogy, you treat it as a three-volume novel and not let your memory of the earlier volumes get stale.

My memory has gone stale after throwing in the towel half way through Green Mars. Strange really because I can usually cope with slow reads. Perhaps it was all those rocks. Your review sums it up nicely.

The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato
First published in Spanish 1948
English translation by Margaret Sayers Peden 1988

 

"I was suffering the tortures of the damned in my personal hell of analyzing and imagining." The narrator of this short novel finally realizes the truth about himself only after he has murdered the woman he loves. From his prison cell he tells us how it happened.

Juan Pablo Castel is a successful artist in Buenos Aires, but despises the very critics who praise his work because they praise it for the wrong reasons. One day at a showing he sees a young woman gazing intently at a detail in one of his paintings--the one detail in all his work that, in Castel's mind, has meaning. It is a a detail all other have overlooked or ridiculed. Castel later obsesses about this woman. She understands him! They are meant for each other! He must find her! Finally he does find her. He learns that her name is María Iribarne. She is the woman he will murder.

Ernesto Sábato gives us a remarkable portrait of a disturbed mind, but one that never ceases analyzing itself. "Before the words were out of my mouth," he recalls, "I was slightly repentant. Behind the person who wanted the perverse satisfaction of saying them, stood a purer and more compassionate person ready to take charge." Repeatedly he acts on a cruel and selfish impulse, then abjectly begs forgiveness, only to repeat the cycle minutes later.

Castel sees himself imprisoned in a tunnel through which he travels from birth to death, unable to veer from its "dark and solitary" course. Other people he sees as being free to relish life, make choices, party and be happy, but not himself. His only hope is to find another troubled soul in a her personal tunnel somehow parallel to his own. But having found the woman of his dreams, he is consumed by an irrational jealousy that destroys them both.

The Tunnel is a grim but captivating study of the darker side of human behavior. Highly recommended.

---

ETA: As I was reading this book I kept thinking it reminded me of something else I had read recently. I just realized it was The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. In both cases a murderer is relating his own actions, is aware of his own defects and delusions, but is so constructed that he would do the same thing all over again even with that awareness.

Your review bring to mind the Underground Man - but with a little more violence. Good stuff.

Sounds fascinating!

> 123

How depressing. Interesting that the author chose an artist to go through this mentally ill (?) literary-psychological exploration. When I was in high school I read The "Genius", by Theodore Dreiser, about an artist who womanizes for the sake of his art. We seem to have a fascination with artists being somehow messed up, but perhaps in a way that makes their work deeper. Sylvia Plath comes to mind.

As a counterpoint, I was watching the "Coldplay Live 2012" DVD and one of the band members said that the band doesn't talk public about their drama, disagreements or hardships. After all, he said, everyone has problems, and problems don't become glamorous or cool just because someone's a rock star.

Quantum Mechanics and Literature: An Analysis of El Túnel by Ernesto Sábato by Victoria Carpenter and Paul Halpern
First published 2012



Ernesto Sábato was a nuclear physicist before he turned novelist, so the premise of this monograph is not as far-fetched as it first sounds. Sábato was also an admirer of Jorge Luis Borges, whose short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" can similarly be seen as a literary exposition of quantum physics.

The authors begin by explaining the scientific principles involved. At the subatomic level, matter and energy can exist simultaneously in different physical states. The phenomenon "collapses" into one state or another at the moment it is observed. This gives the counter-intuitive appearance of the effect having preceded the cause. One implication of this is that time is not linear just because we perceive it as such. Further, the famous thought experiment called Schrödinger's Cat introduced the idea of quantum uncertainty at the macro level: the cat in the sealed box is neither dead nor alive until it is observed, but is in both states at once. This led to the notion of parallel realities or universes. All outcomes are not only possible, but real. Our experience is one, not of making things happen, but of choosing which reality we observe. As the authors point out, this has enormous implications for the concept of fate and predestination.

A close reading of Sábato's novel, The Tunnel, shows that there are three scenes in which cause and effect are hard to explain in conventional terms. First, María, an apparent stranger to Juan Pablo, sees a painting by Juan Pablo in which a woman is looking out to the sea. Later María writes a letter in which she describes herself as though she were, at that moment, literally the subject in that painting. Finally there is a scene in which Juan Pablo and María are together on the sea shore, which could have been when he painted her. But Don Pablo doesn't meet María until after she has viewed the painting. There is no way to arrange these three events chronologically in which the effect doesn't precede the cause.

Most readers will assume, as I did when reading The Tunnel, that María simply chose to imagine herself as having been painted by Juan Pablo. And when she has her first conversation with Don Pablo and refers to sad and tragic memories, we assume that this is something from her past that she will never disclose. Carpenter and Halpern theorize, however, that María's memories are of the future, when Don Pablo destroys their happiness, and the three episodes are not consecutive at all, but simultaneously existing in different planes of reality. Sábato most directly references the idea of choosing among alternate realities when he has Don Pablo speak of his life as "only one tunnel, dark and solitary, mine," while implying that others have choices in the reality they experience.

This is an intriguing paper, and given Sábato's background in nuclear physics, a very credible one. The physics are not as intimidating as I thought they might be, though I did have some background knowledge of such ideas as wave/particle duality and Schrödinger's Cat. The quotations from El Túnel are all in Spanish with no English translation, but this was an ebook, and the Kindle's translator took care of this. I think anyone who has read The Tunnel will find this monograph worthwhile.

What serendipity to find this as you finished the Sabato book. Excellent reviews.

Excellent review of The Tunnel, Steven. I'll definitely read it for next year's Reading Globally South American literature theme.

Definitely fascinating to have found that essay, and very intriguing.

I enjoyed your explanation of Quantum Mechanics and Literature, but it is a place I dare not go.

#126 - We seem to have a fascination with artists being somehow messed up, but perhaps in a way that makes their work deeper.

Another example is The Vivisector by Patrick White which several of us read recently. It may not be that artists are more messed up, but that their mental messes are so vividly illustrated by their art.

ETA: I was just recalling probably the greatest novel about an unhinged painter: The Recognitions by William Gaddis.

Excellent reviews of The Tunnel and the related monograph, Steven. My partner was at one time a physics major and has tried any number of times to explain the basics of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's cat at least sounds familiar.

#123/127 - fantastic pairing, always something interesting to learn here.

We seem to have a fascination with artists being somehow messed up, but perhaps in a way that makes their work deeper.

I start thinking of a response to this and it goes on and on as I have to explain my explanations to myself. There is something moving and powerful about struggle. A messed up person who can deeply explore and/or express their own struggles has a lot of offer readers suceptible to that kind of fascination. Does it make their work deeper or simply more poigant? Begin essay here.

Great review Steven, and interesting discussion concerning "messed up" artists. I remember struggling with this same problem in writing a mini-dissertation on John Clare, the (relatively obscure) Romantic poet who spent much of his later life in mental asylums. What really shaped my ideas concerning this was Geoffrey Grigson's comment on Clare's derangement. As he notes:

We must guard against the attitude that madness itself makes a man’s art; or makes it more rich and original.

I think madness might help some creative artists to find a means of expressing themselves, but conversely, there are millions of people in mental asylums around the world who have not become great artists because of their insanity. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Recollections of Things to Come by Elena Garro
First published in Spanish 1963
English translation by Ruth L. C. Simms

 

Two worlds: the world of reality in which we live, and the world of illusion which we create. Two memories: the past and the future. These are the themes and the experience of reading Recollections of Things to Come.

The setting is the fictional town of Ixtepec in southern Mexico. Ixtepec itself is also the narrator, the "I" and "we," of the novel. "I am only memory and the memory that one has of me," says the town, contemplating its own existence. The time is the mid-1920s after the end of the Mexican Revolution. Ixtepec is occupied by a military garrison under the command of General Francisco Rosas, the central character in the novel. An uneasy peace prevails. The town's principal families live on in the shadow of their former splendor, while in the countryside the corrupt administration of President Plutarco Elías Calles is subtly undoing the very reforms that the Revolution had promised. Every few weeks, Indian peasants are executed on spurious charges, their lands confiscated. An air of fear and suspicion pervades the town.

The novel is divided into two parts. In the first half the story centers on General Rosas's mistress Julia. All the officers live in the same hotel with mistresses they have brought from other parts of the country. They walk the streets openly and proudly. Each of the women is beautiful, but none more so than Julia. She has captured the town's imagination just as she has captured the General's heart. But Julia herself is almost silent, listless and melancholic. She gives the impression of living on bittersweet memories, heedless of the present or the future. This remoteness stokes a constant, simmering jealousy in General Rosas, which bursts into an irrational flame when a stranger enters town and dares to speak to Julia.

In 1926 President Calles began a systematic persecution and dismantling of the Catholic church. Counter-revolutionaries known as "Cristeros" fought back, beginning a four-year conflict known as the Cristero War. Its impact on the people of Ixtepec is the subject of the second half of the novel. (The Cristero War is also depicted in Graham Greene's famous novel The Power and the Glory.) General Rosas closes the town's church, destroys the religious artifacts, and converts the building to his headquarters. The parish priest disappears, and the sacristan is hunted down on the streets of Ixtepec and murdered by a group of soldiers. But when they return to take away the sacristan's body, it has disappeared. The hunt for the body brings the town's leading families under suspicion, including the Moncada familiy, whom we met at the beginning of the novel. The decision to submit or resist is especially difficult for the Moncada's daughter Isabel who has developed a secret fascination for General Rosas and the life he represents.

The author, Elena Garro, uses magical realism to depict the duality of reality and illusion. Martín Moncada, Isabel's father, orders the clocks in his house stopped every night at 9:00 PM so that he may retreat into a world in which he is not a failure and his son's don't have to work in the mines to support him. "He did not understand the opacity of a world that had money for the sun in the sky." Illusion and memories of the past protect us from that other kind of memory: the memory of what is to come. A grim and fatalistic Isabel explains to the general, "We have two memories. I used to live in both of them, and now I only live in the one that gives me the memory of what is going to happen." And what is going to happen is that...

One generation follows another, and each repeats the acts of the one before it. Only an instant before dying, they discover that it was possible to dream and to create the world their own way, to awaken then and begin a new creation.... For several seconds they return to the hours that guard their childhood and the smell of grass, but it is already late and they have to say goodbye, and they discover that in a corner their life is waiting for them, and their eyes open to the dark panorama of their disputes and their crimes, and they go away astonished at the creation they made of their years. And other generations come to repeat their same gestures and their same astonishment at the end. And thus I shall go on seeing the generations, throughout the centuries, until the day when I am not even a mound of dust, and the men who pass this way will not even remember that I was Ixtepec.

Elena Garro was a maverick among left-wing Mexican intellectuals. She left her husband, Nobelist Octavio Paz, for self-exile in Paris where she lived in seclusion with her cats. Recollections of Things to Come reflects her unique and dark vision, with its disillusionment, its mixed sympathies, and its pessimistic outlook. But to balance the harsh realities it depicts, the novel offers us the magical and uplifting world of childhood memories, dreams, and the beauty of language.

Once more, a wonderful review.

And, once more, a fascinating book I never heard of!

Great review steven and all power to your elbow in finding these gems from the world of literature. It seems sometimes that your reading takes you on some incredible journeys.

Wonderful review.

But to balance the harsh realities it depicts, the novel offers us the magical and uplifting world of childhood memories, dreams, and the beauty of language.

That clinched it. To the wishlist it goes.

Fabulous review of Recollections of Things to Come, Steven. I especially liked the last quote, and I was even more interested to learn that Elena Garro was once married to Octavio Paz. This goes onto my wish list as well.

They finally finished the pipeline work in my front yard this afternoon and filled the hole! The project they said would take only two weeks has taken two and a half months. Now I can read without the distraction of having backhoes driving back and forth outside the window, having the house shake, or having to listen all day to a 2000 horsepower drill.

Yeah! Although based on what you have been reading with the noise, it's hard to imagine what you will be reading when you have no distractions.

I'm getting a headache just reading about the noise! Glad it's over, and like Sassy I'm amazed at your ability to read through it.

That looks quite a deep hole.

Coming in late, but echoing all the comments above about your review of Garro. Every one of these Mexican authors you have reviewed have sounded like splendid books to explore. Maybe we need a Mexican themed read sometime.

Glad the whole is filled!

#146 - The irony is that I've never read anything by the more well-known Mexican authors: Mariano Azuela, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz and Laura Esquivel. Maybe next year.

I haven't done much reading recently because my wife and I spent the weekend in the town of Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-a-dish), Louisiana. Founded by the French in 1714, Natchitoches is the oldest continually occupied settlement in the Louisiana Purchase (about a fourth of the current United States). It was a bustling river port on the Red River until the river changed course in the 1850s, turning its former course into a 30-mile-long lake now known as the Cane River. A number of steamboats were stranded there, one of which was pulled up on shore and converted into a house--now the bed & breakfast where we stayed.

South of Natchitoches are several well-preserved plantations originally established by French settlers in the 18th century. Simon Legree's fictional plantation from Uncle Tom's Cabin was located here, and Kate Chopin, author of The Awakening, drew much of her material from her life on a Cane River plantation. In Natchitoches itself there are numerous 18th and 19th century homes, several of which have been used as the setting for movies such as Steel Magnolias. In modern times the town is known for its annual Christmas festivals in which the banks of the Cane River are lined with lights.

The signature cuisine of the region is the Natchitoches meat pie, a pastry filled with seasoned ground beef and pork and fried in peanut oil. Based on the empanada, the meat pie reflects the region's Spanish influence. Stuff it with "mud bugs" instead of beef and you have a crawfish pie. I enjoyed both varieties, as well as plenty of fried catfish, grits, and a blackened 'gator po' boy, all accompanied by either chicory coffee or an Abita Turbodog.

Scandal by Shusaku Endo
First published in Japanese 1986
English translation by Van C. Gessel 1988



At age 65 a Japanese novelist known for his rigid Christian values must confront the fact that even he has a dark inner self. Suguro is at a reception following an award ceremony in his honor when a strange woman confronts him. She accuses him of hypocrisy, saying she knows him to be a frequent visitor to peep shows and other sex businesses. Suguro is stunned, assuming she has confused him with someone else. But an ambitious and unprincipled reporter has heard the exchange and is now out to prove that Suguro isn't the faithful husband he claims to be.

Suguro's attempt to clear his name brings him into contact with a side of life--and a side of himself--he did not suspect existed. He explores such phenomena as masochism, sadism, schizophrenia, racial memory, reincarnation, out of body experiences, and astral projection. But the mystery of his red light district impostor, or double, or alternate self, only deepens.

That we all carry within us a secret, evil inner self is the inevitable conclusion of Scandal. In some people this dark side is self-destructive. In others it is sadistic, seeking to destroy that which is most beautiful and which we love the most. Endo's view is rather harshly puritanical, as he appears to equate sexual desire--indeed any form of sensuality--with this dark and evil corner of the human heart. It is also enigmatic that Endo, whose Catholicism dominates much of his writing, steers away from a spiritual interpretation of evil in favor of Freudian language.

Overall I found that Scandal offers only superficial answers to some profound questions. Much of it reads like a catalog of pop psychology ideas and paranormal phenomena. The most convincing part of the novel is the way in which age and failing health have caused Suguro to become introspective, to lose his self-confidence, and to begin to question the assumptions that have shaped his life. I would chiefly recommend this book to those who are already familiar with Endo and want to see a different facet of his writing.

Other works I have read by Shusaku Endo:
The Sea and Poison
Silence
Deep River

Very interesting review, Steven, especially since I just read Scandal too. I agree with you that it was a puritanical perspective and a little too much on the pop psychology side, but I did think it gave me insight into Endo, if not into "profound questions."

This is one of those odd coincidences that happen occasionally in reading: Scandal was the fourth book I've read in the last three months that has mentioned Gilles de Rais, the French general under Joan of Arc who turned satanist and child murderer. (The others were books by J. K. Huysmans and Umberto Eco.)

And speaking (reluctantly) of the murder of children, I would warn anyone who is thinking of reading Scandal in the near future that there is a scene, a recollection of a World War II atrocity, that some might find very difficult to read in light of recent events.

Enjoyed reading about your trip to Natchitoches, a part of the world that I know nothing about. I had to google in "mud bugs", po'boy and grits to find out what you were eating - great stuff.

The more reviews I read about Shusaku Endo's books then the more convinced I am that I do not want to read him.

Very funny about Endo, Barry. I've read a bunch by him this year, because of the Author Theme Reads group, and I would say that the first I read, The Sea and Poison, is the one that stands out.

What brought you to Natchitoches, the Christmas festival? My sister went to high school there so I spent some time up there during that period. I've always found north LA a strange place though, culturally barely recognizable to me, much more like Arkansas or Mississippi.

#153 - It was for the Christmas lights (the festival itself was the previous weekend) and just because my wife wanted to go somewhere and had always heard how nice Natchitoches was.

I lived briefly in Shreveport about 30 years ago. The people in northern Louisiana were eager to tell me that they had much more in common with conservative, Protestant
Dallas than with liberal, Catholic New Orleans.

The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
First published in French 1871
English translation by Brian Nelson 2012

 

The Fortune of the Rougons was both the first book written and the first in internal chronology of Zola's 20-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. It tells of the origins of the Rougon and Macquart families, as well as the beginnings of France's Second Empire in 1851.

The novel begins with the late-night secret rendezvous of two teenage lovers in a secluded cemetery. Silvère, a 17-year-old apprentice coachmaker, has come to take a final stroll with 13-year-old Miette before he leaves to join the insurgents who are protesting the coup d'état in which Louis Napoleon has overthrown the French republic and proclaimed himself emperor. Zola uses their languorous and reluctant walk in the winter moonlight to describe at length the town of Plassans, its people and its surroundings. (Plassans is based on Aix-en-Provence.) Much to their surprise and delight, when they have strayed several miles from Plassans, the two children encounter the very column of republicans whom Silvère has planned to join. Armed with scythes, pitchforks and a few ancient muskets, they march together, singing the Marseilles, into Plassans.

Zola now digresses to give a lengthy history of the family of Adélaïde Fouque, a woman given to strange attacks of the nerves and to unconventional behavior. Inheriting her father's substantial farm, Adélaïde suprises Plassans by marrying a simple peasant named Rougon. She gives him one son, Pierre, before Rougon dies. Adélaïde then begins an affair with a smuggler named Macquart and gives birth to two illegitimate children before Macquart is killed. This sets up a conflict between the two lines: the Rougons: legitimate but somewhat tainted, grasping for wealth and bourgeois respectability; and the Macquarts: passionate and impulsive, nursing a bitterness not only against the legitimate Rougons but against all authority. They and their descendants will people all twenty of the Rougon-Macquart novels, a series which chronicles in parallel the crimes and foibles of the Second Empire.

Returning to the present we find the Rougons and the Macquarts on opposite sides of the political divide. Pierre Rougon has sided with the reactionaries and is scheming to use the uprising to serve his personal ambitions. Silvère, a descendant of the Macquart line, has, of course, joined the peasants and laborers who will strive in vain to restore the Republic. The contrast between the two leaves no doubt where Zola's sympathies lay.

But Zola's stated purpose in writing The Fortune of the Rougons and its sequels is to study human personality and behavior as it is shaped by two factors: heredity and environment. He doesn't describe his characters as "good" or "evil," but rather as the inevitable end result of the factors that went into their making. Zola's notions of human psychology and heredity are both archaic and simplistic by modern standards, but this detracts very little from the value of the novel.

"For a moment he thought he could see, in a flash, the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of wild, satiated appetites in the midst of a blaze of gold and blood." With this teaser, Zola gives us a foretaste of the Rougon-Macquart novels he had yet to write. The Fortune of the Rougons serves as both a standalone novel and as an introduction to what is to come. Zola does introduce a number of characters who will become significant only in later volumes, and his true masterpieces were yet to come, but The Fortune of the Rougons is worthwhile on its own.

Other works I have read by Émile Zola:
Thérèse Raquin
Germinal

Thank you for the excellent background summary to the Rougon-Macquart novels. Reading the whole series looks like a fine project that I might not be able to resist for much longer. Great to hear that the first book in the series is a worthwhile read.

I enjoyed The Fortune of the Rougons too, for many of the same reasons you did, and am now more or less reading the Rougon-Macquart series in order, although I'm glad I started out of sequence with some of Zola's best (Germinal, L'Assommoir, and Nana) to get a real feel for his writing powers.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
First published 1998

 

Tipping the Velvet is a lesbian love story set in the boisterous London of the 1880-90s. The narrator is Nancy Astley, the daughter of a restaurateur in Whitstable, a town famous for its oysters. Nancy grows up with a passion for the musical variety shows that were the most popular form of stage entertainment for the lower classes. Many of these shows featured male impersonators, young women performing song and dance routines in trousers that showed off their figures. Nancy becomes infatuated with one such performer, a girl only a few years older named Kitty Butler. She attends every one of Kitty's shows, not, of course, without attracting Kitty's notice. Before long the two become acquainted, and Kitty hires Nancy to be her dresser. When Kitty receives an offer to take her show to London, Nancy goes with her. Eventually Nancy's singing talent is discovered, and she becomes part of the act herself. Finally, as Nancy has been hoping all along, the two become lovers.

But her success with Kitty is only the beginning of Nancy's tumultuous life in London. Her experiences will range from abject poverty to luxurious opulence and from prostitution to social work. She will learn that the lesbian women of London have their own working class bars and their own exclusive clubs, and that they are prominent in high society as well as socialist political causes.

Sarah Waters makes Nancy's lesbianism as much a part of the novel--no more and no less--than the heterosexuality of any other 19th century heroine or hero. Though she knows she must conceal her orientation, Nancy Astley neither questions why she is a lesbian nor feels any shame or guilt. It is as natural to her as having two eyes. Religion, it should be noted, is entirely absent from the novel.

Much of the appeal of Tipping the Velvet is in the novel's convincing picture of the English seaside and London circa 1890, especially the working class neighborhoods and the theater scene. There is attention to the smallest detail, from the food on the table, to the clothes, to the furnishings of a room, to the sights and sounds of everyday street scenes. One can read this as a lesbian novel set in the late Victorian era, or as an historical novel that just happens to feature a lesbian character; either way it is a most entertaining book.

The Castle of Communion by Bernard Noël
First published in French 1969
Current version published 1990
English translation by Paul Buck and Glenda George 1993

 

The Castle of Communion is a protest against what Noël calls "sensureship." The bourgeois establishment, he says, has impoverished language of its meanings and power of imagination as a subtle form of brainwashing. The novel, much of which was written in response to the Algerian War, is also a more direct protest against colonialism and racism. Noël explained his motivations in a 1975 essay entitled "The Outrage Against Words" which is appended to the novel in the Atlas Press edition.

The novel itself begins in folkloric fashion with the unnamed narrator setting out across the desert interior of a large, fictional island. Eventually he comes to a village on the other shore. The natives are at first very wary of him, as they conduct elaborate nocturnal rituals in apparent worship of the moon. Gradually he gains their trust, and is finally invited to participate. He finds himself the focus of the strange rite, in which he is both punished and pleasured. He also gets his first glimpse of an amazingly beautiful woman who appears at the head of a procession clad only in her flowing red hair.

After the ceremony, the narrator inquires after the mysterious beauty. He learns that she is known as the "Countess," and that she lives in a castle on an island off the shore. It is she who invents and directs the rites in which he has participated. Aside from her monthly appearance, it is forbidden to see or approach her. Naturally, our narrator wastes no time in setting out for the forbidden island.

With his arrival on the island, the narrator's experiences move from the exotic into the surreal. Strange and dreamlike visions alternate or coincide with extreme violence and bizarre sexual experiences as though the narrator is being tested in a series of ordeals. Eventually he concludes "What the world shows me is not there. What I see emerges barely from the edge of habit. What I see myself in the process of seeing is actually what I create and that is all that exists." Eventually he begins to take control of the situation by controlling his pain and fear, overcoming his prejudices and assumptions, and replacing the meanings projected upon him with meanings and images of his own choosing.

Much of The Castle of Communion is confusing. It is a labyrinth of mythic landscapes and geometric constructs that probably stand for nothing at all and are only a protest against the convention that says everything must have a definition and a purpose. The novel also has passages that are deliberately and shockingly obscene, again as a protest against the "sensureship" of language. It is recommended for those who appreciate literature that is unconventional, challenging, and transgressive.

Excellent review of a difficult sounding novel The Castle of Communion. I wonder how many club readers will be tempted by that one. I think I will pass for the moment. It was also good to read your review of Tipping the Velvet a book title that has almost passed into common usage.

The deadline for 2012 reads is fast approaching!

Excellent review of The Fortune of the Rougons, Steven. I have been wanting to read Zola and have Germinal waiting. Although I am tempted to start at the beginning of the cycle, I doubt I would make it through all 20 volumes anytime soon.

Thanks, Barry & Linda.

#161 - According to Sarah Waters, "Tipping the Velvet" was a phrase in common usage in the 19th century (at least among those who would mention such a thing), which is why she chose it for her title, so she's just revived it. It's funny how expressions can come and go. I used to think my generation invented the phrases "if you don't like it, you can lump it," and "sock it to me, baby!" until I ran across the former in Jane Austen and the latter in Mark Twain.

#161 - I started with Germinal, and I don't think it was diminished in the least for my not having read any of the earlier works in the series. It ranks among my top 10 all time favorite novels.

#162 I can echo what Steven said about Germinal. I started with it and it got me excited enough to want to read a lot more Zola.

Not to put you on the spot, Steven, but that's an intriguing comment about your top 10 all-time favorite novels. Do you have a mental list of those, or was that a general statement of worthiness?

#162 - I made a list at some point in time, but can't find it now. I remember that War and Peace was on top, and Germinal somewhere in the middle. I find it very hard to compare works from different eras, though, so it doesn't have much meaning. How do you rank works as different in purpose and style as The Iliad and Lolita? I'm still maintaining my wiki of favorite books by decade, however, which is much easier and more relevant.

Just looked over your wiki. An interesting way of classifying books. I wonder what my list would look like if I were to do the same.

Bernard Noël seems to be an interesting author; reading him in French will probably be quite a challenge, from what I gather reading your review.

According to the wikipedia page, Bernard Noël is a very productive author, of whom I had nevertheless never heard.

What an amazing list! I haven't read nearly that many from some of those categories (nor do I remember a lot of them well enough), but what a fascinating way to categorize books. I would probably have to do it by century up to at least the 1960s, but I'm quite sure I'm not systematic enough to do so! I may start thinking about some of my favorite novels of all time: War and Peace would certainly be on it, and Life and Fate too. Hmmm. Worth some thought.

I agree with Rebecca. It's an amazing list and one that I intend to refer back to.

Catching up a little. I enjoy all your reviews, but it's especially a treat to read one of your takes on Zola.

And I looked at that list...wow...

That is an amazing wiki list steven. Many of my favourite books are listed and so I must try and catch up on the ones I have not read.

I am starting with one in the new year - What Maisie knew by Henry James which is a book club choice.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
First published 1992

 

Doomsday Book is a suspenseful and moving story of sacrifice and devotion. It is also an artful blend of science fiction and historical fiction.

The novel begins in 2054 in Oxford, England, where university researchers are using a time machine to send historians back into the past. A young woman named Kivrin is about to be sent back to the year 1320 to report on village life in the vicinity of Oxford. But this is not a routine mission. Missions to the Middle Ages are considered too dangerous for human explorers, but with the faculty head away on Christmas vacation, an ambitious department head has authorized the mission in his stead and rushed carelessly through the preparations. Kivrin's mentor, Mr. Dunworthy, can only offer a helpless protest as his favorite student vanishes into the distant and alien past where she will be alone and out of touch for weeks until her retrieval.

Dunworthy's fears are only too well-founded, but in ways that he couldn't possibly have imagined. Kivrin no sooner arrives in the Middle Ages than she is stricken with disease that renders her delirious and helpless. And disease strikes 21st century Oxford as well, incapacitating hundreds and raising doubts whether they will be able to bring Kivrin back even if she is able to return to the drop point. But the worst is yet to come, for Kivrin is neither where nor when she is supposed to be, and she is about to be plunged into one of humankind's darkest hours.

Connie Willis writes science fiction with a bare minimum of science. Except for the existence of time travel, her 2050s are no different from the 1990s. Doomsday Book is more about the past than the future, but it is even more about the timeless question of what binds one human being to another or to a community, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves. It is no coincidence that the novel takes place at Christmastime. Anguishing over Kivrin's unknown fate, Dunworthy wonders how God could ever have sent His son knowingly into a cruel world and to a crueler end. And Kivrin, surrounded by infinite suffering, questions how people can possibly continue to believe in a God that would bring such misery and destruction down upon the innocent. Yet each finds a form of sanctity in the love and devotion of those who persevere on behalf of others in the face of all adversity.

What could have been an unbearably grim story is lightened by a surprising amount of humor, largely directed at academia but also poking fun at Americans, overprotective mothers and religious zealots. This is a science fiction novel to recommend to those who don't particularly care for the genre, because with it's vivid picture of life and death in the 14th century it reads more like historical fiction. I found it unputdownable and highly rewarding.

Excellent review of Doomsday Book, which I read a couple of years ago. I also thought that Willis depiction of 14th century England was superb. I got a bit annoyed by the 2050's portrayal of Oxford, which sounded more like 1950's Oxford than anything believable. Having said that the book is well worth reading and you hit the nail on the head when you said it would appeal to those who are put off by the science fiction tag.

Although I enjoyed Doomsday Book I have not been tempted to read anything else by Willis.

That does sound like a book I might want to read even though I don't read science fiction!

I had the same reaction as rebecca. I do love time travel wen it goes back in time.

Rebecca, if you read it you will find much that reminds you of Shusaku Endo's Silence.

Great review of Doomsday Book. I recently read To Say Nothing of the Dog, loved it, and have been checking 2nd hand shelves for Doomsday Book ever since.

Steven, you do have a knack for finding books and authors that I have never heard of but that sound extremely intriguing. Without your review, I doubt I would have even glanced at something entitled Doomsday Book. Thank goodness for Amazon gift cards.

I ordered it from The Book Depository (cheaper than Amazon, along with Jonathan Wild which DieFledermaus mentioned on my thread in response to my reading of Jack Sheppard. They take longer to get here, but it's not like I don't have plenty of other books to read.

I too loved Doomsday Book and reread it occasionally, for in a strange way it is a comfort read for me. It and To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is related to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, although I haven't read the latter. There were others by Willis that I enjoyed, but these two are my favorites. If you read the Passage, I would recommend not reading any reviews first. It spoils it terribly, IMO, if you know what it's about.

I have Three Men in a Boat on the TBR, but haven't read it yet.

#179 - Thanks for the advice on Passage, and it looks like I would want to read Three Men in a Boat before To Say Nothing of the Dog (which means, I assume, that the dog is in the boat too). I don't know when I'll get around to more of Connie Willis, as the various group and theme reads have my calendar more than full.

I read them backwards - Willis's first, then Jerome's. There are several literary allusions in To Say Nothing of the Dog, with Three Men in a Boat as a strong one.

If you don't mind e-readers or audio books, Three Men in a Boat is available in both forms on Gutenberg (audio quality really hit and miss!).