Books Read and Reviewed 2008.3 (May-June)
Submitted by JohnnyW on Fri, 05/23/2008 - 12:25
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- 5/16/08: Alexandre Dumas/The Count of Monte Cristo (1846): Easily the longest novel I've ever read (1200+ pages), but I don't regret the three weeks of sixty pages a day at all. As a matter of fact, when I neared the end, I realized I wasn't ready for the book to end! Dumas has done something rare here, creating a riveting suspense and adventure novel, while also providing a darker subtext: how bitterness and anger eventually eradicates everything that makes us human. I sympathized with Edmund Dantes when he was falsely imprisoned and forgotten as a young man, felt joy when he made contact in the dungeons with the "crazy priest," and rooted for him when he first made his reappearance in Paris, bent on ingenious revenge. But soon, a curious thing happened--I felt sorry for his victims. Would Dantes allow his humanity to be completely swallowed by his lust for vengeance?
- As if the central story weren't enthralling enough, Dumas shines during some of the set pieces that could almost stand as short stories--the tale of how the shepherd Luigi Vampa becomes a feared Italian bandit, for instance, or the recounting of the noble warrior Ali Pasha's betrayal to the Turks by one of his trusted officers. A masterpiece of narrative, if not always of character.
- 5/26/08: Oscar Wilde/The Picture of Dorian Gray (1895): An entertaining marriage of the gothic and the decadent, two genres that often overlapped, just never before with quite so many witticisms. Wilde's prose is deliriously easy to read, skating along on a shiny surface of rapid-fire exchanges and facile summaries of the fin-de-siècle worldview, but there are certainly some intriguing things going on beneath that surface. The link between outer beauty and inner beauty, so beloved by the Renaissance, is reexamined but not necessarily disproven, just left ambiguous. And the "love that dares not speak its name," the same "sin" that led to Wilde's imprisonment, is part of Dorian's debauchery, although he seems to be bisexual rather than gay (he "ruins" many young women as well as men). I think Wilde is most effective in his dramas, but his one novel is simultaneously thoughtful and superficial: not a bad combination.
- 5/31/08: George Sand/Indiana (1832): On one level, Indiana is about the numerous attempts of Raymon, a debauched aristocrat, to seduce Indiana Delmare, a simple and innocent girl just returned from Reúnion (called Ile Borboun in the novel, its then name), a French colony in the Indian Ocean. On a deeped level, however, Sand clearly is concerned with that preoccupation of so many in the decades after the Enlightenment--does "civilization" necessarily corrupt? Are those raised away from the artificiality of metropolitan culture closer to the ideal of a good and just humanity? Judging by this novel, Sand would answer both questions with an enthusiastic yes. Indiana only truly achieves happiness when she returns to her colonial home for the last time, turning her back on France and its temptations; the lovely, isolated valley that she and Ralph end up sharing, filled with fragrant fruit trees, tropical birds, and an awe-inspiring waterfall, becomes a type of Eden, a promise on the part of Sand that we as humans can return to paradise if we are only brave enough to renounce the world. Of course, it is interesting to note that Sand herself never visited Reúnion, instead relying on a friend's memoirs.
- Having previously read both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, I also couldn't help but compare Indiana to Antoinette/Bertha, another simple Creole girl whose complex colonial identity couldn't prepare her to deal with the (of course) twisted, selfish ways of Europe.
- 6/4/08: Ian Fleming/From Russia With Love (1957): Ian Fleming's James Bond is not the Hollywood Bond. At no point while reading a novel like From Russia With Love do I imagine Sean Connery, much less Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, etc. No, Fleming's Bond is hard and cynical, with no interest in tossing out witticisms every time he kills an enemy or beds a lover. Fleming's Bond seems to have made himself almost untouchable, possibly because of what he's seen both in WWII and as a spy through the first decade or two of the Cold War, a convincing persona for a man in the position of Bond. I was also fascinated by Fleming's depiction of Turkey (and by extension, the East) as a place where men and women are more honest, especially in their gender roles and their relations towards each other--this means a lot of domineering men and passionate women, violent towards each other but utterly submissive to their men (check out Kerim Bey's account of how he "tamed" his Bessarabian lover); Bond clearly admires Bey, but how much of this is Fleming's construction of the cold Bond, and how much reflects Fleming's own attitudes?
- 6/7/08: C. S. Forester/The African Queen (1935): An exception to the truism "the book is always better than the movie," except with a film as classic as the Humphrey Bogart-Ketherine Hepburn one, it would be difficult for the book to match up. And so it doesn't, but that doesn't mean the novel isn't worth reading--it's engaging, and it differs from the familiar film in at least one major way. One problem here is the prosaic nature of the characters; Rose and Allnut don't have much depth, and the transformation of Rose from prudish missionary to passionate lover (in the novel, their relationship is sexual, an aspect understandably never implied in the film) seems to be a rather facile condemnation of fundamentalist Christianity. An enjoyable, fast read, but not one I expect to stay with me.
- 6/19/08: Jacques-Henri Bernadin de Saint Pierre/Paul and Virginia (1787): A remarkable tale that explores the corrupting influence of civilization and the goodness of those allowed to grow in the purity and beauty of nature. Paul and Virginia are raised in a gorgeous backcountry valley in Mauritius, a French colony in the Indian Ocean, by their mothers, and the love and compassion they have for each other and all around them arises naturally from their surroundings: the crying birds, the fruit-bearing trees, the refreshing streams, and the dazzling constellations of the night sky. Perhaps we should know that Paul and Virginia are not destined to become a latter-day Adam and Eve when Virginia gets sent back to France for "polishing," but the ending is none the less affecting. The novella should not be read as realism, but rather as a deeply resonant, symbolic tale, with Paul and Virginia as the derailed potential of all of us, and their beloved valley the world that we simply can't inhabit because "civilization" perverts our aims and characters. Perhaps naïve, but still a haunting plea for a return to the nobility of our unfettered human natures.
- 6/29/08: William Morris/The Wood Beyond the World (1894): The fantastic romances of William Morris are among the most important early works in the evolution of the fantasy genre, and The Wood Beyond the World is one of his canonical tales. The book is short, barely 100 pages, and even then, this is not a book full of action and excitement. No, this is a book with a dream-like quality, as Golden Walter leaves his native city and strikes off into the enchanted land hidden behind the sheer cliffs and mountains of the coast. He falls into an almost gentle intrigue with the Lady, magical ruler of the land, and the Maiden, her servant but winner of Walter's heart. Although I appreciated the languid pace and the setting evocative of Medieval tales, The Wood Beyond the World became tedious reading after awhile. It is also difficult not to read autobiographical elements into this story, especially Walter's betrayal by the wife he loves, when you are aware of Jane Morris's affairs with Dante Rosetti, among others. In that light, The Wood Beyond the World becomes a moving reverie of a heartbroken man finding the gentle, faithful love he longs for.
Cloned From:
For awhile I've been frustrated by the idea that after I read a book, it begins to fade from memory. This is an attempt to keep a sort of reading log, but with impressions as well as titles.