W. Somerset Maugham is one of those prolific, craggy-faced British writers who seem rather irrelevant and fusty today. No one reads or discusse[image]
W. Somerset Maugham is one of those prolific, craggy-faced British writers who seem rather irrelevant and fusty today. No one reads or discusses him anymore, and I’m sure he’s not taught in schools, although he enjoyed decades of success and wrote many novels, plays, collections of short stories and – a term that perfectly captures his particular era – “belles-lettres.”
(I think his problem was he was writing around the time modernist writing – Joyce, Faulkner – broke through. And his style is definitely not as “innovative,” although in some ways it has aged better.)
That said, I’m glad I picked up this engrossing, compact and well-written novel. It’s “inspired” by the life of post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, whose Tahitian works I of course have seen in galleries and reproductions.
Maugham sets up the novel as if it consists of memories from an unnamed semi-autobiographical figure who’s also a young novelist and playwright. (I think it’s a device he also used in The Razor’s Edge, at least according to the Oscar-winning film version I’ve seen.)
Charles Strickland is a perfectly ordinary, comfortable, middle-class 40-something London stockbroker who one day leaves his wife and children to go to Paris to become a painter. His wife, believing he’s run off with another woman, asks the narrator to locate him in Paris, which he does. But instead of finding a man caught up in a torrid mid-life-crisis affair, he discovers a loathsome, hateful, irritable man living in a garret and learning how to paint. Strickland isn’t the most articulate man, but he believes painting is his calling. He doesn’t care about his wife, or his reputation, or even money, although he needs it to live.
The narrator also meets another artist, the corpulent Dutch immigrant Dirk Stroeve, who is commercially successful but a bit of a fool. A lot of poor Parisian artists sponge off him, including Strickland. Stroeve is one of the few people, however, to recognize Strickland’s genius. And he goes out of his way to help him, including opening up his apartment to the man when he falls ill; he and his wife, Blanche, help restore him to health. Not that Strickland is in any way grateful.
[image]
I appreciated this novel not as a biographical portrait of Gauguin but rather as a ruthless, unromanticized look at the idea of the artist. Should it matter if an artist is brilliant but a complete and utter asshole? Strickland’s calling almost seems religious, and I liked thinking about this theme as well. Maugham wasn’t as experimental as his modern contemporaries, but I found his use of the narrator figure fascinating. And his writing about sex was telling, especially knowing that Maugham was a closeted gay man, which added depth and richness to his depiction of an outsider figure.
Finally, the idea of someone leaving their comfortable job to pursue something more meaningful felt very timely during this moment, which has been dubbed “The Great Resignation.”
I was all set to give the book 5 stars… until I got to the final section, which felt anti-climactic. And warning: there are some racial and cultural epithets that will seem offensive to contemporary eyes and ears. Plus it’s important to keep in mind that, like Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings themselves, this book – especially the final part – is deeply influenced by colonialism.
One interesting note: the title never comes up in the book. Apparently it comes from a review of Maugham’s earlier book, Of Human Bondage. It’s about being “so busy yearning for the moon that [you] never see the sixpence at [your] feet.” That sentiment in itself is a thoughtful statement about art, idealism, ordinary life and commerce.
This is a remarkable novel. I’m definitely going to read more Maugham....more
Is Undine Spragg the most odious fictional character ever?
I know The Custom of the Country is more than a century old, but Undine Spragg is certainly Is Undine Spragg the most odious fictional character ever?
I know The Custom of the Country is more than a century old, but Undine Spragg is certainly one of the most despicable characters in all of literature. She uses people. She’s vain. She lies. She’s horribly superficial. She treats her child like a pawn. She’s greedy. Long before the term was coined, she was a shop-a-holic. All she cares about is looking fashionable and making her way up society. And once she’s there, she’s bored and wants more.
AND YET!
And yet she keeps on going. She’s tenacious, stubborn. She uses what assets she has (basically her youth and looks) to their full advantage. And wow, can she ever read people, especially men. When she’s down, she figures out a way to get back on top. That’s got to be admirable, right?
And in a way, she’s the product of a consumerist society, one that doesn’t care how you get something as long as you get it.
I’m a huge Wharton fan. I loved The Age Of Innocence and really liked The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome. Watching the highly addictive new HBO series The Gilded Age made me think I should finally read this book, and I was right. There are passages of absolute brilliance, and Wharton seems to have a love-hate relationship with her protagonist as she works her way up from Midwestern nobody to New York society and then graduates to the jet set (steamer set?) and aristocratic circles in Europe.
Apparently Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes has said The Custom of the Country has inspired his work. There are definitely echoes of Custom in Gilded Age.
I’ll never forget Undine. I think I even like and admire Scarlett O’Hara more, because she at least did what she did for her family. Spragg thinks only of herself. Which, I suppose in this day of self-styled “freedom warriors,” is pretty relevant....more
I doubt I can add anything original here about Hemingway's late masterwork about an old fisherman who battles for several days with an enormous marlinI doubt I can add anything original here about Hemingway's late masterwork about an old fisherman who battles for several days with an enormous marlin far off the coast of Cuba. It's your classic man vs. nature scenario, and it's given poignancy because the man – Santiago – is so old and alone and has, as outlined in the book's opening sentence, "gone eighty-four days without taking a fish."
Fishing is his life (he's also got an interest in baseball). And his only true friend, a boy named Manolin, has been told by his parents not to fish with Santiago because he's unlucky. The novella is beautifully structured; Hemingway sets up the old man's routine at the beginning, with the loyal boy helping him after another fruitless day out in his skiff, fetching him food and beer and then bait for the next day's fishing. We can imagine this scenario happening nightly.
The bulk of the book takes place far out in the gulf, where Santiago hooks the enormous marlin – a creature who's also old – and spends a couple of days trying to reel it in, cutting his hands on the line, trying to eat and drink from a single bottle of water. The man talks to himself, studies the water and sky and remembers episodes from his past. And although some symbolism creeps into the tale, none of it feels writerly or mannered.
Hemingway's reputation and persona have often got more attention than his writing. But damn, when he was good, he was very good, finding just the right diction and rhythm to capture this archetypal story. Apparently the book used to be taught in high schools. I'm glad I didn't read it when I was too young. You've got to have lived a few years and grown some calluses to appreciate just how profound and powerful this simple-seeming tale is. ...more
[image]
Photograph by Paramount Pictures (no photographer credited)
A few weeks ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed James M. Cain's Mil
[image]
Photograph by Paramount Pictures (no photographer credited)
A few weeks ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce. So I thought I'd pick up another well-known tale from the master of hard-boiled fiction.
Double Indemnity is a brief novella about an insurance salesman, Walter Huff, who falls for Phyllis Nirdlinger, the wife of a client, and agrees to sell her accident insurance on the guy and then help kill him so she collects on it. Because the murder involves an accident on a railway – a pretty rare thing – the "double indemnity" clause kicks in. She'll collect a cool $50,000, which must have seemed like a lot in 1936, when the book was serialized in Liberty magazine.
Cain obviously did his research on the insurance biz, its workers, investigators and potential scammers. Some of the best passages involve the experienced Walter telling us about his industry. He knows so much that he carefully covers his tracks at every turn.
Unfortunately, Cain isn't as careful depicting his torrid love story. I wanted more sparks between Walter and Phyllis. They've barely met before Walter is hooked and putting his career – and life – on the line for her. And what about Phyllis's husband? We barely know anything about him – a missed opportunity, I think, to learn more about Phyllis, hint at some tension in their marriage, and generally raise the stakes for the murder itself.
But there is an entertaining subplot involving Phyllis's step-daughter, Lola, and her mysterious boyfriend. And 1930s Los Angeles comes alive in a few brief, sharp strokes. (Perhaps it's because of the famous Billy Wilder film, but when I pictured the events happening they were in black and white.)
One of Cain's stylistic triumphs is the first-person narration by Huff himself. Who is he telling his tale to? That, the suspenseful plot and the ending (different from the film), helped make this a fun bit of escapism during this difficult year....more
This hardboiled 1941 novel about an entrepreneurial single mom trying to secure a better life for her and her two daughters during the Depressi[image]
This hardboiled 1941 novel about an entrepreneurial single mom trying to secure a better life for her and her two daughters during the Depression surpassed my expectations.
Everyone probably knows the 1945 film noir classic, which won Joan Crawford the best actress Oscar. (The novel was also adapted into an acclaimed five-part miniseries in 2011 starring Kate Winslet.)
What I didn't realize was how different the book is, and not just because of the more overt depictions of pre-martial sex and the suggestion of abortion, which wouldn't have got by the film censors back in the 1940s.
Even though the general characters remain the same, many plot points, including a major one (which I won't spoil), were altered to fit into a two-hour movie.
The Depression-era setting resonates strongly today. At the beginning, housewife Mildred (much younger than Crawford was) earns some pocket money by selling cakes and pies to neighbours. But when her unemployed husband Bert leaves her, she has no way to make the mortgage payments on their Glendale (an unfashionable L.A. suburb) home, and has to pound the pavement looking for a job.
The detail James M. Cain puts into these early passages is illuminating. Mildred's refusal to work as a waitress or cleaning lady tells you a lot about her character. (She has no work experience, and doesn't type, but she vaguely thinks she'd like to be a receptionist, which the employee agency women basically laugh at.)
The book really comes alive when Mildred, while at a restaurant, witnesses the firing of a waitress. Suddenly she has to decide whether she's going to step in to support her two daughters, or starve. In a way, this book provides as valuable a snapshot of urban social hierarchies as more literary novels like Sister Carrie.
Dissertations could be written on the role of women and work in this book. Mildred's rise from waitress to restaurant owner, and the women she chooses to bring up with her (chatty neighbour Lucy, fellow waitress Ida), is fascinating. So is Mildred's daughter Veda's desire for the easy life. (Veda is ashamed of Mildred's work, even though it helps pay for her bills.)
There's also some shrewd commentary about the fashionable, high-society set. Mildred's run-in with the dashing Monte, a playboy, affects her life – for good and bad. And I wasn't prepared for so much writing about classical music; in the book Veda is an aspiring pianist and then singer. Cain, a great lover of classical music (which features in three of his novels), has great fun with a couple of music teachers (California at the time was a haven for many gifted émigré artists who had left the old country for the new). He knew what he was writing about.
Mildred is a strong, if not very deep or introspective, character. Like Scarlett O'Hara, you admire her because of her hard work. And yet you also can't help but pity her because of how she's being used by those around her. And there are some intriguing passages where Cain describes her listening to music; she's not an aesthete, but so what? She's still worthy of respect.
Without the big plot device added to the film, Cain twists the story in some unlikely ways near the end. There are also a few over-the-top words and phrases that may have seemed tough and hardboiled in the 1940s but today seem laughable. When one woman says she's been "on the town" I had to read the passage a couple of times to understand the sexual innuendo. Elsewhere, Cain repeatedly likens a woman's large breasts to "the dairy," which was unfortunate. I was also a little shocked to see the word "fag" used as a put-down of an effeminate man.
But details like that make reading a period novel so interesting. I'm definitely going to look up some more Cain, like The Postman Always Rings Twice and the novel that inspired one of the noir-est of noir movies, Double Indemnity....more
I don't know how Patricia Highsmith did it. But she got me to root for a psychopathic murderer.
Tom Ripley is a smart, nondescript young man in[image]
I don't know how Patricia Highsmith did it. But she got me to root for a psychopathic murderer.
Tom Ripley is a smart, nondescript young man in his 20s barely scraping by in 1950s Manhattan. When the wealthy father of an acquaintance offers to pay him to go to Italy to convince his aspiring artist son to return to America, Tom can't believe his luck. An all expenses paid trip to Europe? To hang out on beaches, drink cocktails and visit galleries? Si!
Alas, things don't go as planned. The son, Richard (or Dickie) Greenleaf, is happy with his life painting in a sun-drenched village on the Amalfi coast. He's also got a sort of relationship with another ex-pat, Marge Sherwood, and is perfectly content where he is. Soon Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie. He wants his life – the leisure, the trust fund, the nice clothes. Perhaps he even wants Dickie himself.
So some bad things happen. Tom – who's got a gift for impersonation and improvisation – covers them up. But one lie begets another, and another. Soon other bad things happen. And then people start investigating: Marge, Italian police officers, Dickie's father, an American detective...
Can the resourceful Tom not only cover his tracks but stay a step ahead of everyone?
Anyone who's seen the Anthony Minghella movie starring Matt Damon (as Tom), Jude Law (Dickie) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Marge) knows the answer, of course. (The film introduced another major character not in the book.) Also, this is the first of five Ripley books, so you know he survives to go on to other adventures.
But Highsmith is such a good writer that she keeps you constantly on edge. She also fills in Tom's backstory so you sympathize with him. His parents died when he was young, and he was raised by a cold, judgemental aunt. He was never the popular kid, always an outsider. Doesn't he deserve some happiness? True friendship? Love? Who among us hasn't envied – and perhaps resented – the beautiful and privileged one-percent?
What's fascinating to a contemporary reader is how submerged Tom's same-sex desires are. I'm not sure what a typical 1950s reader would have thought, but it's pretty clear that he's in love with Dickie; Highsmith, who wrote the ahead-of-its-time classic lesbian novel Carol under a pen name, depicts both men's private lives in a suggestive, tantalizing way that was probably clear in its implications to queer readers at the time.
It's also amusing to think how a modern-day Tom Ripley would flourish in the digital world. Imagine what he could discover about people through Instagram and Google.
Repressed desires; elegant clothes; lavish European settings (including Rome, the Cote d'Azur, Naples and Venice); shakers full of martinis; plus a murder or two and a generous helping of guilt – what's not to love?
A classic novel that shouldn't be relegated to genre fiction....more
Death in Venice is one of those works of art that is so familiar it seems to have been around forever.
Stuffy middle-aged German writer Gustav von AschDeath in Venice is one of those works of art that is so familiar it seems to have been around forever.
Stuffy middle-aged German writer Gustav von Aschenbach vacations in the Floating City, where he gradually becomes obsessed with a beautiful Polish youth named Tadzio staying at his hotel and eventually succumbs to a mysterious cholera epidemic.
The novella is a curious mixture of allegorical tale, campy melodrama and academic study of the Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy.
Mann's prose is alternately fussy, claustrophobic and hypnotically sensual. There's no clear explanation of what happens. Is Tadzio the angel of death? Does he represent everything the intellectual Aschenbach avoided in his life? Is the scholar simply going through a major midlife crisis, involving coming out? All of the above; none of the above – which makes the story frustrating but also amusingly enigmatic.
I'm looking forward to reading more Mann, especially one of his big novels like The Magic Mountain....more
“God’s nightgown!”* How can I ever review the behemoth that is Gone With The Wind? Rather than write a traditional review, I’ve decided to organize my“God’s nightgown!”* How can I ever review the behemoth that is Gone With The Wind? Rather than write a traditional review, I’ve decided to organize my thoughts into separate sections.
*One of the many quaint and highly amusing Southernisms used in the book
WHY READ THIS 1,037-PAGE BOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE? I’d seen the film several times, and had always wanted to read the novel, if only to compare the two. Also: it won the Pulitzer Prize – so it had to have literary merit, right? And many people whose tastes I respect on this site love it. Then, while perusing my local library, I saw a brand new hardcover copy of the 75th anniversary edition, and that was my sign. I thought: As God is my witness, now is the time to read it. And read it. And keep on reading it. I renewed it several times. It took me well over a month to get through (albeit during a super busy time at work). But like Scarlett clawing her way back to Tara after the war, I persevered. And I'm so glad I did.
A GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL There’s everything in here. Immigration. Slavery. A brutal war and its aftermath. A moving romance. An examination of ethics and morality. There are big themes like money vs. love, passion vs. friendship, the old world vs. the new. And at its centre is one of the most complex characters in all of literature, Scarlett O’Hara.
OH, SCARLETT She’s vain. Selfish. Petty. Culturally ignorant. She’s a terrible, terrible mother (the film only shows her with one child, Bonnie, but she has two other children from different husbands, and barely pays them any attention). She is deluded about her beloved golden boy Ashley Wilkes (at times the book reads like an Old South take on He’s Just Not That Into You) and doesn’t appreciate Ashley’s wife, Melanie, until the end. BUT: Margaret Mitchell makes us root for her. She’s a survivor. She’s a hard worker. She’s street smart. And ultimately, even though she complains while doing it, she helps her family. She doesn’t care about social niceties or appearances (unless they can help her); they won’t feed and clothe her and her brood. Her eye’s always on the bottom line. And if something’s not working out, she’ll ignore it and think about it tomorrow. She’ll find a solution. What. A. Character.
RHETT Swarthy, muscular, tanned, hairy, interested in fashion, well-travelled, super well-educated even though he was kicked out of West Point, Rhett Butler is a bit of a romance novel wish fulfillment type. And he always seems steps ahead of everyone else. But the dashing, enterprising blockade-runner is one helluva romantic lead. The evolution of his relationship with Scarlett is so carefully and artfully structured that the final 100 pages will make your heart ache. And what Mitchell got away from censors – the love-making on the night of Ashley’s surprise birthday party is pretty much rape – is incredible.
A CAVEAT Reading this book in 2018 is often an uncomfortable experience because of the treatment of the African-American characters. The N-word and the euphemism “darkie” are all over the place. Few of the Black characters are given any agency or dignity, except Scarlett’s Mammy, and even she is often described in animal terms - compared to an old ape. There's a strange disconnect, too. Often the Blacks are described as lazy and loafing. And yet, Mitchell frequently has her characters working "as hard as a field hand." So who was lazy? Worse, in sections that are supposed to be written in some objective third-person narration (they provide lots of fascinating information, to be fair), Mitchell clearly sides with the Confederates. One chapter in particular, 37, was extremely difficult to read; it’s pure propaganda.
THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION As a Canadian, I didn’t have to study the war in school, and what I know about it has been cobbled together from bits and pieces. The way Mitchell interweaves the war into the narrative is incredible. You see it from a macro and micro perspective. I’m very curious now and want to read other books, both fiction and non, about it.
THE MOVIE I plan on rewatching the film in the next month or so, but I wanted the book to settle in first. Here’s what I remember about the differences: Besides leaving out Scarlett’s other two children, we don’t get Archie, an ex-convict taken in by Melanie, who becomes Scarlett’s driver for a time, and Will Benteen, a simple but hard-working man who helps run Tara while Scarlett’s away, but you can see why the filmmakers excluded them. One of the best minor characters is Grandma Fontaine, an embittered old woman whom everyone (including Scarlett) fears. She digs the truth out of Scarlett in a scene that is seared into my brain it’s so powerful. I also don’t recall anything about the Ku Klux Klan, and that Ashley and Scarlett’s second husband, Frank Kennedy, are part of it. Good call, filmmakers! Rhett’s determination that Bonnie be accepted by good society is much more pronounced than it was in the movie. And it’s interesting that Scarlett’s aristocratic mother, Ellen, was in love with someone else but married her husband, Gerald, in the same way that Scarlett, in love with Ashley, did with husbands 1, 2 and 3. That’s not in the movie, but it adds so much texture to the book, and makes you see patterns in human behaviour. (Also: Scarlett’s daughter, Bonnie, has inherited Scarlett’s and Gerald’s stubbornness.) And the book also features a fascinating motif of Scarlett having nightmares that is ingeniously integrated into the climax. That couldn't be done in the movie.
SUMMARY A flawed masterpiece about a flawed character and a flawed country that’s still, in some ways, dealing with the effects of this chapter in its history. The book features one of the most unforgettable characters and romances in the canon. I can’t give it anything less than 5 stars....more
Edwardian-era propriety meets Italian passion with entertaining results in E.M. Forster’s sunny, slight, but ever so charming comedy of manners.
Well-Edwardian-era propriety meets Italian passion with entertaining results in E.M. Forster’s sunny, slight, but ever so charming comedy of manners.
Well-known from the sumptuous Merchant-Ivory adaptation (which I rewatched immediately after finishing the book), the novel tells the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a proper English girl who, while on vacation in Florence with her cousin/chaperone, Miss Bartlett, meets George Emerson, a handsome but odd philosophical soul, who’s travelling with his eccentric, truth-telling father.
All four are staying at the Pension Bertolini, and the others they meet there – the lady novelist Eleanor Lavish, the two older, unmarried sisters (dubbed the Miss Alans), and someone from Lucy’s village, the very accommodating Reverend Arthur Beebe – will cross paths with them later in unexpected ways.
As in the other books by him I’ve read, Forster’s narration is delightfully genial. He’ll remind us, for instance, that we haven’t really spent much time with a particular character, tell us that we know more about Lucy’s actions than she does herself, hint at plot developments to come, and generally treat his characters with a satiric, gently chiding tone. At times that tone can seem trivial; midway through the book I felt it was all just so much upper-middle-class flim flam.
(More quibbles: George’s physical treatment of Lucy, especially in light of today’s sensitivity around consent, seems less romantic than troubling. And I know we’re meant to be at a remove from the authentic Italians in the first half of the book, but I wish we got more than just clichés about tempestuous murderers and horny carriage drivers.)
But there is so much to enjoy in the book: the tart dialogue, the grand themes of love, country vs. city life, fate and coincidence… there’s even a comment on the idea of novels and writers themselves. Lucy’s mother, a fine comic creation, has a preposterous attitude towards female writers that I’m sure Forster, a friend and admirer of Virginia Woolf’s, for one, didn’t share.
I also like that the book’s stuffiest character, Lucy’s fiancé, the pretentious aesthete Cecil Vyse (a whole review could be written on the book’s beautifully suggestive names), comes across with his dignity intact in his later scenes.
If anything, of the main players only the character of George seems the thinnest, which is perhaps why he’s given some intriguing actions in the film (otherwise he might be a cipher). And I like how a significant scene near the end makes us reflect on the nature and motivation of Charlotte.
But above all, I’ll remember this book for its knowing glimpse into the life of a girl discovering her voice, freedom and strength – even in a restrictive society. It’s suggested early in the book that Lucy, a pianist, plays Beethoven in a way that is surprising; if she could apply that same passion to her life it would be quite thrilling to watch.
By the end of the book, we see her begin to do that, and yes, it’s quite something....more
Classics are classics for a reason I was too busy to write a proper review of this last year after I'd finished it, but let me try now. It's Steinbeck'Classics are classics for a reason I was too busy to write a proper review of this last year after I'd finished it, but let me try now. It's Steinbeck's epic look at two families – the Trasks and the Hamiltons – in the Salinas Valley, California setting of his own childhood. (Steinbeck himself is a minor character in the book.)
There are lots of biblical echoes: Cain and Abel; the sins of the father; etc.
What amazed me was how contemporary the book's language and insights felt. This is not some dusty, fusty classic.
I'm not sure about the character of the depraved Cathy, who seems to have been born simply evil. But she's certainly a powerful figure in the book, and the mystery around her drives a big chunk of the book. Also of interest is the character of Lee, the Chinese-American cook, who speaks in a pidgin English (even though he's well-educated) because he says that's a reality the people can accept.
East Of Eden is like a lot of great art; it feels like it's always been around. When you read it, it will resonate deep in your bones as something essential, true and disturbing.
Note: the famous James Dean movie only covers a fraction of the novel. I tried watching it afterwards, but found it overwrought and unduly melodramatic. ...more
A couple of months ago, I picked up To Kill A Mockingbird, a book I last read in high school. What fascinated me about the exercLORD OF THE REREADINGS
A couple of months ago, I picked up To Kill A Mockingbird, a book I last read in high school. What fascinated me about the exercise was how much I remembered and how much I didn’t, what I appreciated as a teen and what I do now.
After that, I began wondering how I would respond to the other books I had to read and analyze as a youth. Hence my rereading of Lord Of The Flies. It’s equally powerful – shocking, even by today’s standards. And it’s all very efficiently done.
Both books are deserved classics. I don’t regret a moment spent rereading either one.
So… perhaps this will become a series. What’s next: Catcher In The Rye? A Separate Peace? Anyhow, on with the review... and keep in mind that if you weren't forced to read this back in school, THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD (or A-HEAD - if you'll excuse the pun).
What do I remember from my first reading? • The set-up, of course. After a plane crashes, a group of English boys finds themselves stranded on an island and, with no adults to guide them, form a kind of society that quickly breaks down, resulting in madness and murder. • The symbols, among them: the conch (for order and civilization, I suppose, since if one holds it one can speak in front of a group); the glasses (or “specs”), which help create fire and, since they belong to the nearsighted, brainy yet mercilessly bullied Piggy, might also represent intelligence. • The idea of monsters, both real and imagined. • I remember being entertained by the nickname Piggy – what a childish thing, but it is memorable and symbolic in its own way. What a smart move on author William Golding’s part to call him that. • The ending. I knew a couple of children died, and that eventually the rest were rescued.
What don’t I remember from that reading? • I’d forgotten that many of the book’s “hunters” were (back in civilian life) members of a choir! • I’d totally forgotten about the young twins, Sam and Eric, whose names are blended by Golding into the very contemporary-sounding name Samneric. • I should have, but didn’t, realize the book took place during some unspecified war.
What do I appreciate now? • The economy and compactness of the book. There’s very little fat in it (besides the fat dripping from the roasted boar). And though there are lots of vivid descriptions of clouds, forests and sun glinting on sand, nothing feels gratuitous. • How beautifully Golding captures children’s behaviour, especially in groups. This was Golding’s first novel, and he knew boys so well. (Perhaps he was raising sons at the time.) • There are lots of characters with Anglo names that sound a lot alike (Ralph, Jack, Roger, Robert, Simon, Henry – something that instantly “dates” it, I suppose), but Golding gradually fills you in on them. It took a while for me to understand Roger’s sadistic nature, for instance. • The theme of bullying, which is as relevant as ever. Is this a fact of nature? Does every species find someone/thing among them to tease and ridicule? Piggy is overweight, unathletic, myopic and has asthma (and another thing I didn’t notice: his speech places him in a slightly lower class than everyone else), but he’s also incredibly smart. He can see things that the charismatic, initial leader Ralph doesn’t, which is why they make a good pair. But the fact that everyone, from the oldest to the youngest, teases him, is very disturbing. • The hallucinatory scenes with Simon (often thought of as the book’s most intuitive character) and the “beast,” which gives the novel its title. I wasn’t prepared for the sheer nightmarish horror of these episodes. No wonder Stephen King was so influenced by this book (he borrowed the novel's “Castle Rock” and uses it regularly as a setting). • The political/social allegory at its centre. How do we make a society work? Is hunting (to feed us) more important than providing shelter or coming up with a way to be rescued? What happens when people don’t pull their weight? • All of this is done so very subtly. There’s a moment when “chief” Ralph is gradually losing his power, and Piggy suggests he blow the conch to form an assembly. And Ralph knows that if he blows the conch and no one comes, it will be irrevocable. Brilliant observation. • The idea of the “beast.” Is the idea of the “other” something intrinsic and primitive? Or do we create monsters as a mere projection of our own fears? • The little visual details, like Ralph pushing the hair out of his face. It’s both a naturalistic detail and one that points out how all the boys are becoming savage (funnily enough, Piggy’s hair doesn’t grow) • I had no idea how exciting the plot got in the last couple of chapters. Golding cranked up the tension to 11. Even though I knew how the book ended, I was still turning every page, heart thumping, hoping Ralph survived being pursued by Jack and his gang.
The few things that didn’t work this time around: • The line “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart…” in the penultimate paragraph of the book seems way too on the nose. I can imagine a million students underlining that with a big "Aha!" • I forgot Piggy used the N-word. Really. It’s there.
***
I recalled a lot more of this book than Mockingbird. Once read, it has the power and heft of something that is so true and essential that it must have always been around. (I’ve felt this way about other literary works, like Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” for instance.)
But, and here’s the weird thing, I think this book is better appreciated as an adult. Younger people are so caught up in the immediacy of every complication. I remember studiously talking about themes before I fully understood them from life. Adults, because we’ve lived through decades, can recognize the patterns of behaviour, the archetypal figures looming behind bullies and visionaries, both in private and public life, that emerge so strikingly in this book.
Finally: why haven’t I read more William Golding?...more
Quick: Can you remember the plot of The Maltese Falcon?
I read it a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve seen the classic 1941 film noir at least twice. But eQuick: Can you remember the plot of The Maltese Falcon?
I read it a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve seen the classic 1941 film noir at least twice. But even I’m hazy on the fine details of the story.
In late 1920s San Francisco, a bunch of people want the priceless titular statue, and will do anything – bribe, steal, frame, kill, and lie their faces off – to get their claws on it.
It’s up to detective Sam Spade to keep various parties in the dark about what the others know. There’s the mysterious woman who initially hires him and his partner Miles Archer to “find her sister” – that backfires, since Miles winds up dead (not a spoiler: it's revealed a dozen pages in). There are the two cops who suspect Sam killed Miles because he’d been sleeping with the guy’s wife. And there are the three unsavoury characters who’ve been following the black bird across the globe.
While navigating all of these rather unlikeable characters (I think the receptionist is the only “good” person in the book), Sam has to figure out where the statue is, who killed Miles and try to pocket a few bills as well. And damn it, he's not gonna take the fall for anyone.
The thing is, the plot isn’t the point of this crime classic. It’s about the mood, the atmosphere, the hardboiled language and tough talk. It’s about people being up at 3 am in the morning and thinking nothing of it. It’s a character using sex to distract someone from asking difficult questions. It’s the pair of contrasting, grotesque quasi villains, one an effeminate Greek homosexual* (whose relationship with another character was written out of the film version), the other a morbidly obese man whose fat rolls jiggle every time he laughs.
And it’s about the steady and cool way Spade figures out what’s going on, the way he gets out of situations using his brains and brawn, and his nearly expressionless attitude towards crime and carnality. He’s tough, but he’s still got something of a moral code buried beneath his stony demeanour.
I noticed some things in the book that aren’t in the movie (besides the two gay lovers subplot):
• A full description of the history of the eponymous statuette! It has quite the provenance! (These details would have slowed down the film’s pace.) • When there’s the suspicion that the central female, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, may have stolen a $1000 bill, Spade takes her to the washroom and demands she remove all her clothes so he can see if she’s hiding it. She complies. Wow. This definitely wouldn’t have passed the Production Code inspection!
Dashiell Hammett’s writing is entertaining and quite effective. There’s one passage where a woman talks, looks down at a settee, her eyes “tracing eights,” which is a clever way of showing us that she’s probably lying.
I literally LOL'd when I read the following description of a contemptuous bit of dialogue: "two words, the first a short, guttural verb, the second you." (We can assume that "short, guttural verb" began with the letter F.)
And there are Sam’s classic quotes: “If they hang you I’ll always remember you.” “I don’t care who loves who I’m not going to play the sap for you.”
Rumour has it that director John Huston said, while approving the script (and I’m paraphrasing), “How can you improve on the dialogue in the book?”
So true. I look forward to reading some other Hammett books, like The Glass Key and The Thin Man.
* By today's standards, reading the descriptions of Joel Cairo with his mincing walk, his use of perfume and his "high-pitched voice" – and the sneering, dismissive way the other characters treat him and call him "queer" and "a fairy" – is difficult. But this book was written in 1930, so I suppose it's understandable....more
Hermann Hesse’s 1922 book feels absolutely timeless and ageless – almost like a religious or spiritual text, not a work of fiction.
It’s about the lifHermann Hesse’s 1922 book feels absolutely timeless and ageless – almost like a religious or spiritual text, not a work of fiction.
It’s about the lifelong journey of Siddhartha, a Brahmin’s son who leaves the comfort and intellectual stimulation of his home life to become a wandering ascetic, renouncing all possessions. After meeting the famous Buddha, Gautama, he realizes he wants or needs more, and so crosses a river with the help of a ferryman (who lets him ride for free - saying he’ll be back and will pay him in another way) and goes to take part in city life. There, he embarks on an extended affair with a beautiful courtesan and works for a ruthless businessman. He has mind-blowing sex, amasses wealth and drapes himself in fine clothes, but he’s unfulfilled. In fact, he’s in despair. Then, revisiting the river he was at years earlier, and meeting the same wise but uneducated ferryman who helped him cross, he has a sort of epiphany. People from his earlier life eventually find him at the river, and he comes to a fuller and richer understanding of the nature of time, life, suffering. And he reconnects with a childhood friend, now a Buddhist monk, who recognizes in Siddhartha true enlightenment.
What an unusual but powerful book: quiet but full of profound things to say about what’s ultimately important in life. I can see how the book would have resonated with generations of young people in the 1960s seeking meaning in a society clamouring after wealth and power.
It makes you think about essential things: How important are possessions? What’s the purpose of pain and hardship? Does learning only happen in the classroom?
It’s a slim volume, but it’s written in a clear, timeless prose, and it’s packed with wisdom. I’ll definitely be making repeat journeys to it in the years to come....more
Like almost everyone in North America, I read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird back in high school. Could it really have been Grade 9 or 10? Yes, itLike almost everyone in North America, I read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird back in high school. Could it really have been Grade 9 or 10? Yes, it was. I even remember the cheap paperback copy our class read.
What do I remember from reading it as a child?
Memory is a strange thing. Along with the bare bones of the story, basically a coming of age tale in Depression-era small town Alabama (Maycomb County), I never forgot how Calpurnia, the Finch’s cook, once gave Scout a tablespoon of coffee “and filled the cup to the brim with milk” (Was it possible that I had yet to drink coffee when I myself read the book?)
I also remembered that nasty, irritable neighbour, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, who captured my imagination with her crabbiness and her strange affliction which I didn’t quite understand at the time.
I remembered that powerful scene at the end of the trial, when all the Black people are standing up and the reverend says to Scout: “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.” That final memory could be from the film version, though.
And, of course, I remember the children’s fascination with their reclusive, initially spooky neighbour, Boo Radley.
Here are some things I likely didn’t appreciate back when I was a kid:
The prose: relaxed, precise, clear and unfussy. From the opening lines about the narrator’s brother Jem’s broken arm to the quiet, poignant ending about their father, Atticus, staying up all night with Jem on the night that he broke that arm, we know we’re in the hands of a masterful storyteller.
The narrator: Jean Louise Finch, a.k.a. Scout, is one of the most charming narrators in English language fiction. She’s smart without being showoffy, tough and scrappy (she’ll get into fights to defend her father’s name), and she’s got an innocence – for lack of a better word – about her. Lee’s very careful about letting us know what Scout understands and doesn’t, especially when it comes to the trial at the centre of the book involving the alleged rape of a white woman (Mayella Ewell) by a Black man (Tom Robinson). The scene where Scout, Jem and their friend Dill (modelled after Truman Capote, Lee’s childhood friend!!!) travel at night to visit Atticus, who it turns out is protecting Tom in the county jail, is fraught with tension. What a powerful moment when Scout recognizes one of her classmates’ fathers among the lynch mob and engages him in talk.
Also: consider how that very classmate, Walter Cunningham, played a part in Scout’s first day at school. Which leads me to…
The discussion of class: We get a convincing and unsentimental look at the dividing line between town and country. And near the end we see how those divisions can also contribute to prejudice of all sorts: “The thing about it is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks.” This from a 12-year-old boy. Which brings me to…
The race question: Obviously this would have been studied even when I was back in high school. It's deeply upsetting to read the N-word, of course, but wouldn't it be even more upsetting to "whitewash" it and substitute it with a euphemism? (And it's upsetting to see that it's being removed from school reading lists – see comment by Suzy below.)
Lee was writing about the world she knew, and I think we can trust her usage of the word – especially when we know who's saying it and why. That doesn't mean it's right or correct; it just means that it is, and feels, accurate for the time and place depicted.
What I’d forgotten was a little scene late in the book where the students are discussing Current Events and the rise of Hitler (Scout’s teacher shows her own hypocrisy, criticizing the dictator yet condoning the separation of whites and blacks).
Today, I can understand the arguments that the book falls neatly into the “White Saviour” trope of the white character “saving” the helpless Black character.
What got me to reread this book in the first place was seeing a new play in Toronto called Calpurnia, about an upper-middle class, pampered Black screenwriter who’s working on a revisionist script about the Finch’s cook.
Now that I've reread the book, I don’t think Calpurnia is particularly mistreated by the author; I’m glad Lee included a scene in which the cook takes Scout and Jem to the Black church one Sunday. It offers up a range of voices and attitudes that I didn’t remember from that first reading. And the scene in which the Reverend asks the parishioners to contribute to a fund for Tom Robinson’s wife – he’s shut the church doors until they raise enough – is incredibly moving.
And of course the idea that a white jury will side with a white man is nothing new, even, sadly, today. Another thing I'd forgotten: the subtle explanation of why the all-white-male jury was drawn from country, and not from town. (The townsfolk would find excuses not to sit on the jury, fearing repurcussions.)
***
I forgot so much about this book. Like all classics, it opens up a complete world – albeit, one seen through the limited eyes of its child narrator – in a very specific time and place. And its most universal theme – that you never really know someone until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them – is instructive, especially in today’s fractured, divided world.
Note: I uploaded the audio version of the book, narrated by none other than Oscar-winning actor Sissy Spacek, and while I was enjoying it, I stopped and decided to continue the old-fashioned way. First, there were a couple of words I couldn’t understand and wanted to see in print; but second, Lee’s language was just so vivid, I wanted to read and hear the voices in my head. Perhaps I’ll do a straight audio listen another time....more
Loading...
![[image]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double-Indemnity-LIFE-1944-2.jpg#/media/File:Double-Indemnity-LIFE-1944-2.jpg){kind=link}