Books Read and Reviewed 2008.4 (July-August)
Submitted by JohnnyW on Mon, 07/07/2008 - 10:19
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- 7/7/08: H. Rider Haggard/Allan Quatermain (1887): Wow. I believe this sequel to the iconic King Solomon's Mines is a better novel, whether in plot, character, or theme. Allan Quatermain is the second of the Quatermain novels written, but chronologically it comes at the end, and becomes a sort of "explorer in winter." As the book opens, Quatermain's son Harry has just died serving in a smallpox hospital, and Allan decides to throw himself into one last adventure in the Dark Continent, half hoping to find death himself.
- Yes, all of this is pretty dark, as are Quatermain's occasional existential musings on death and on the fleeting nature of our accomplishments and relationhips. But, no fear, Quatermain and his friends Good and Curtis find plenty of thrilling adventures, whether a battle with the Masai at a remote missionary station, or their journey down an underground river. And when the friends find themselves in the land of Zu-Vendis, homeland of a lost white race ruled by sister queens on the verge of civil war, they don't hold back.
- For anyone interested in Victorian views on empire and race, this is an essential text from the populist point of view. A white race that is further advanced than surrounding black peoples speaks for itself, and Haggard's troubling misogynist streak rears its head here, as it inevitably does in his novels. While the Masai are depicted as dishonorable, cruel savages, the Zulu, represented by the exiled warrior-king Umslopogaas, come off as a tribe worthy of British respect. Umslopogaas is not a three-dimensional character, but he is as developed as any of the white figures in the novel, and he clearly shares Quatermain's existential outlook more strongly than anyone else. The Zulus, like the Maoris, the Ghurkas, and numerous other peoples the Brtish encountered, fell under the label "martial races" and therefore earned levels of respect most peoples never received until the independence movements decades later. All this said, Allan Quatermain is anything but a history lesson--it is an enthralling, rip-roaring adventure several notches above the average.
- 7/9/08: Graham Greene/The Ministry of Fear (1943): Graham Greene's "entertainments," a term he used to differentiate thrillers like The Ministry of Fear from his more serious "novels" like The End of the Affair and The Power and the Glory, should not be approached as though they were vacations for Greene, tossed off between more profound ideas for books. The Ministry of Fear takes place as London is nightly being blown up around its residents by Nazi bombers, and for the protagonist, Arthur Rowe, the urban wasteland he confronts by day mirrors his inner devestation brought on by the "mercy killing" of his ailing wife years before. When he mistakenly wins a raffle meant to be won by a member of a spy ring, shadowy conspirators make attempt after attempt on his life; Rowe is torn between his survival instincts and his feeling that maybe he deserves to be killed for his past actions. Greene has difficulty maintaining the suspense, but the atmosphere of dread and claustrophobia, whether in an asylum out in the countryside or in a bomb shelter deep beneath the city, never eases, and the novel ends with perhaps the saddest "happy ending" I've encountered.
- 7/12/08: J. M. Falkner/Moonfleet (1898): Falkner's late-nineteenth century tale of smugglers on the remote coast of southern England is a little bit Twain and a whole lot Stevenson, but despite the strong influences, it is enjoyable and often thrilling. Orphan John Trenchard falls in with the only men in his small village of Moonfleet who care about him, but it turns out they are smugglers, landing spirits to circumvent the steep tarriffs imposed by the revenuers who seem to have their spies all around. An ambush, a ghost story, a treasure-hunt, a prison stint, and a horrific shipwreck pretty much sums up the rest. The first half or more of the novel, when John is still a boy, is the most gripping, as he describes his poor village and explores tales of Bluebeard's ghost until he stumbles upon the smuggling ring that uses ghost stories to keep people away from the cemetery vault they use to stash their goods. The true strength of the novel lies in Falkner's ability to evoke a wretched, decrepit fishing town hanging on for life near a treacherous stretch of the Dorsetshire coast--his descriptions of the town's only road sloping down to the beach and the natural pebble reef that encloses a lagoon and has been the end of many an unfortunate ship vividly fired my imagination as I read. When he writes about the strong surf sucking pebbles off the beach with a deafening roar, I could feel the fear sailors must have experienced when storms tossed them towards that coast. Despite the somewhat derivitive plot, Moonfleet is one of those rare books with such powerful, evocative descriptions that I wish I could visit the locations used in the book.
- 7/13/08: Jack London/The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. (1910/1963): A curious part of London's canon, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. is one of those addendums so common nowadays: an unfinished or discarded work, resurrected, tidied up, and presented to the public posthumously, wishes of the author be damned (not like he or she is going say anything). In the last decade or so, high profile works by Hemingway and Ralph Ellison have been published, but The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. predates them by several decades.
- This unfinished and abandoned work was published in 1963, with the last one-third written by Robert L. Fish, and reading the book, one can clearly understand why London had no intention of finishing it. The premise is intriguing enough: the head of a violent anarchist group devoted to pure logic is bested in a discussion about the morality of its actions, so he orders himself to be the next (and last) target of the group's assassination machinery. The problem with the work can be found in its framework of logic and reason--much of the work becomes bogged down in impenetrable discussions between various members of the bureau about the philosophical bases of both their aims and their methods. Meanwhile, Dragomiloff, the leader/target, doesn't know whether to prove himself a resourceful revolutionary by escaping or to allow himself, an enemy of society, to be eliminated. London's original work cuts off with Dragomiloff and his assassins in a type of Mexican stand-off--one holds a bomb and must decide if he should kill all of them in order to kill their onetime chief.
- In the first years of the twentieth century, anarchy, conspiracy, espionage, and revolution joined together to inspire several great works of fiction, including Conrad's The Secret Agent, Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, Caldwell's The Riddle of the Sands, and Buchan's The 39 Steps. Sadly, though The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. rises out of the same milieu, it stands as nothing more than a curiosity and a footnote both to an emerging genre and to London's career.
- 7/17/08: Robert Hugh Benson/Lord of the World (1908): Robert Hugh Benson's 1908 novel, best as I can tell, is set in 2008, a world of dirigible travel, huge electric "placards" for news, underground apartment blocks, the gentle worship of "Humanity," and, uh-oh, The Anti-Christ. In many ways, Lord of the World is a curiosity, a predecessor of the vastly popular Left Behind series, but do not make the mistake of writing it off for that reason. Lord of the World is significantly different than its end-time succesors for one main reason: Benson was a Catholic. Benson's conversion, which apparently caused some waves as he was the son of a prominent Anglican clergyman, led him to write this novel, and the zeal of the converted makes its presence known, as in a world increasingly hostile to faith in the supernatural, all other traditions of Christianity have fallen away, leaving the Roman Catholic Church the lone light in a very dark night. When an eloquent, charismatic American politician (Julian Felsenburgh--shades of Julian the Apostate?) achieves world peace, all nations thank him by making him the "President" of the world; unfortunately, his peaceful course for humanity hinges upon one little policy--eradicate Christianity. Benson's prose is dry and tedious at times, but his ideas are fascinating, and his visioning of a future world seems at least as prescient as anything out of Wells; he anticipates the horrors of the twentieth century in the firebombing and decimation of Rome by aircraft, and in the sweep of multi-national armies across vast swaths of the globe.
- 7/19/08: Jean-Jacques Rousseau/Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (17--): For anyone interested in the history of colonialism or in post-colonial theory, the concept of the "noble savage"--the idea that civilization perverts our natural goodness, therefore "savages" are closer to an ideal state of humanity--rears its head again and again. And any attempt to understand the philosophy behind the "noble savage" begins with Rousseau, especially his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. A reading of Rousseau's essay, however, reveals that his work has often been grossly oversimplified. Yes, Rousseau argues that "natural" man--he who has not formed communities or societies--lives in equality with his fellow humans, concerned only with existence in the present, and obeying his "natural" impulses to help others, all very Romantic notions. He goes on to argue that ownership--whether of land, foodstuffs, precious metals, or women (read: marriage)--created competition, violence, and subjugation, vices the "civilized" West are infected with. All of this seems to imply that native peoples, innocent of our concepts of land ownership and hoarding, live happier, more moral, almost Utopian lives. However, Rousseau stops short of endorsing the natives encountered in the Carribean, Africa, and Oceania as ideals, asserting that probably no tribe or people existed in his day that were truly "natural"--all had begun traveling to varying degrees down the path towards civilization, so no people would be discovered in that smiling, child-like state traditionally attributed to the "noble savages" (a term Rousseau never uses). A thoughtful, if naïve, work, one that would come to have enormous influence, even if its ideas would be twisted by later thinkers and artists.
- 7/25/08: Gustave Flaubert/Sentimental Education (1869): A portrait of a young man so self-obsessed that he misses the monumental changes going on around him, Sentimental Education seems to be Flaubert's case against humanity. Frederic Moreau, initially idealistic, discards friends, obsesses over mistresses, spends money flagrantly, and fixates on his public perception. I never had the slightest sympathy for Frederic, but Flaubert likely intended it that way--his novel seems to be an important antecedent to naturalism, and I can imagine Hardy, Dreiser, Norris, and their ilk reading Sentimental Education, jaws agape in amazement. Flaubert doesn't present an absolutely repugnant view of humanity, however--those passionate and involved in the 1848 revolution for the most part want honest change, and the women Frederic pursues elicit our sympathy, even as they are bruised and hurt by the selfishness around them. Madame Arnoux loves Frederic but resists his advances, believing in his goodness until the end of the novel, and Rosanette, despised as a "kept woman," but who becomes vulnerable with Frederic, suffers both from his callousness and from the death of their baby, but is also glimpsed at the end, having adopted a child and seemingly content.
- 7/30/08: Frederick Forsyth/The ODESSA File (1972): How many works of fiction had such an effect on real events as The ODESSA File? In preperation for his novel, Forsyth received information from Simon Wiesenthal on Eduard Roschmann, an infamous Nazi war criminal still on the run, and he suggested Forsyth incorporate Roschmann into his work. He did, and the resulting publicity flushed Roschmann out of hiding in Argentina. Unfortunately, Roschmann evaded capture and died several years later, but as an illustration of the power of art--even in its pulpiest form--this story is hard to beat.
- And make no mistake--The ODESSA File is pulp. It may be dressed up with discussions of the meaning of justice and what is acceptable when attempting to achieve it, but at heart it is a sturdy story of investigation and conflict. Peter Miller, a journalist, reads a diary left by a suicide in Hamburg, a survivor of the concentration camps, and decides to uncover the whereabouts of Roschmann, the "Butcher of Riga" and sadistic warden of Riga's ghetto. The most fascinationg sections of the book concern his investigation, tracking down leads and interviewing sources, but even the weaker second half, which follows Miller's infiltration of ODESSA, a group of former SS men, maintains a decent level of excitement.
- 8/2/08: Daphne du Maurier/Jamaica Inn (1936): Sadly, the covers of many of du Maurier's novels indicate they are second-rate, cheesy romances--check out the florid cursive on the covers of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. When I finally got past the cover thanks to my curiosity, I found Jamaica Inn to be one of the more enjoyable reads I've experienced in quite a while. Reminiscient of Stevenson's Treasure Island in some ways, the novel begins with Mary Yellan, an orphan, settling into a traveler's inn and encountering shady happenings. Her Uncle Joss, who runs the Jamaica Inn, is domineering, amoral, and violent, and the plot is driven by Mary's dilemma--should she inform on him and his murderous activities? Should she attempt to rescue her Aunt Patience from Joss? Should she trust Joss's younger brother, Jem? The strength of Jamaica Inn is undoubtedly the atmosphere; du Maurier's evocation of rural Cornwall--the moors, the crashing surf, the relentless winds and chill--is note perfect. My one disappointment comes in the last two pages--at the very end of the novel, du Maurier sinks to the level of Harlequin romance instead of having Mary be true to the strength of character she had displayed up to this point.
- 8/6/08: Umberto Eco/The Name of the Rose (1983):
- 8/8/08: Robert Louis Stevenson/An Inland Voyage (1878): One of Stevenson's earliest works, An Inland Voyage is a pleasant, gentle float down a series of rivers and canals in Belgium and northern France. Because Stevenson and his companion don't shoot rapids or fight vicious eddies, the pace lends itself to a series of goodhearted ruminations on humanity, from those who live on the barges that line the canals to the children who crowd the bank to wonder at the two sleek canoes slicing by. As I read, An Inland Voyage reminded me of Thoreau's earlier A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, only the two writers' characters stamp their respective books so differently: Thoreau spends time on vegetation and nature, eschewing human contact, while Stevenson, as he would in later travelogues, revels in his encounters with people along the way, displaying his optimism and generosity of spirit towards humanity.
- Interestingly, while Stevenson only encounters a series of small villages and towns, places seemingly avoided by history, his peaceful rivers, the Oise and the Sambre, have seen their share of moments. The cathedral town of Noyon, on the Oise, was the site of Charlemagne's coronation in 768, while one of the last major battles of World War I would take place on the Sambre-Oise canal, where Stevenson floats by dozens of houseboats and barges, chatting happily with the families on board. On this same narrow canal, in 1918, the great war poet Wilfred Owen would be killed, only weeks before the armistice.
- 8/11/08: Abbe Prevost/Manon Lescaut (1731): Manon is an enigma: devoted yet opportunistic, sincere yet calculating, loyal yet sexually free. Part of the problem in unraveling the true character of the young woman in Prevost's novel lies in the way her tale is filtered through at least two men (sometimes three if Des Grieux hears of her actions secondhand). The narrator, a compassionate Marquis, has two occasions to help the young Chevalier Des Grieux, and during the second encounter he hears the now-dead Manon's tale from Des Grieux, Manon's heartbroken lover. What we can know is that Manon is in many ways a "free spirit," early on estranged from her family due to her sexual nature and subsequent refusal to enter a convent. She seems motivated by the poverty always looming over her as a single woman with no means or family of her own, and this partly explains her serial desertions of Des Grieux--cut off from his own family--for a series of wealthy men interested in a young mistress. Many of the debates over the corrupting influence of civilization are foreshadowed here in two ways--similarly to Defoe's Roxanna, exact sums of money are often mentioned in the text, suggesting sexual and other relationships are founded on financial considerations, and secondly, Manon can demonstrate her ultimate, and ultimately fatal, loyalty to Des Grieux only when they are transported to the wilds of the Louisiana colony, away from the merciless and exploitive grind of Paris.
- 8/12/08: Helene Hanff/84, Charing Cross Road (1970): What a wonderful book! Hanff collects the letters between her and, among others, Frank Doel, who manages the little London bookshop located at the address of the title. And what letters--Doel, reserved at first, becomes warmer as the years roll on and he continues to find Hanff the nice, secondhand editions of the classics she wants, while Hanff maintains her sarcastic and demanding tone the whole time, but we quickly come to perceive her generous spirit, whether it's through writing anyone and everyone she can or through sending food to the bookshop workers suffering from rationing in post-WWII England. Hanff effortlessly spins off memorable insights on books ("I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins. I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned."), and goes from zero to exasperated in an instant ("this is some busybody editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from pepys' diary may he rot."). I smiled almost the entire time I was reading, but I was also touched by the gentleness of the friendship that developed over the years between not only Hanff and Doel, but between Hanff and Doel's wife, Doel's coworkers, even Doel's next-door neighbor. The last few letters, written after Doel's unexpected death, turn the book sharply toward regret and loss, but ends with Doel's daughter giving Hanff permission to publish their correspondance. A book that feels like a friend and comfort. I’ll definitely return to it.
- 8/14/08: Henry James/The Aspern Papers (1888): Henry James may have written The Aspern Papers in 1888, but it was like he was describing contemporary academia. A critic, obsessed with the Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern (read: Lord Byron), discovers that his famous mistress, muse for many of his dreamy lyrics, is still alive and living in Venice with her niece. Our hero, who is not very heroic after all, becomes a boarder in their villa and attempts to get at the legendary Juliana's private cache of love letters from Aspern by any means necessary. He attempts to befriend Juliana, and, when that doesn't work, waits until she is on her deathbed and nearly manages to rifle her bureau before being discovered. Worst of all is his disingenuous courtship of Juliana's niece, Tina, a middle-aged spinster whose life has been measured out in attending to her aunt--she has been so monopolized over the years that she doesn't even know much of Venice, her home for many years, when our hero takes her out in his gondola. A disturbing study of amorality and the self-importance of the modern academic.
- 8/17/08: Oliver Goldsmith/The Vicar of Wakefield (1766): If you're looking for an incredibly naive, oblivious figure, than step right up to Rev. Primrose, the Vicar of Wakefield. Isolated in his little bubble of writing tracts on an obscure Anglican doctrine, the vicar can't see what we do--that his family, vain, ambitious, and full of passions, isn't really the sweetly Christian family he perceives them to be. Then again, he may be oblivious, but he certainly is no hypocrite. As an astounding run of tragedies afflicts his family, he never loses his spirit of humility and selflessness; when his house burns down he is happy that his family is safe, when his daughter is seduced and deserted he doesn't have to forgive her for he never judges her, and when he languishes in a debtor's prison he sets about encouraging his fellow inmates. Some have argued that The Vicar of Wakefield is a satire, and undoubtedly some of it is, but if anything it is a gentle satire--one in which we may smile at the vicar but also admire him. Our modern sensibilities make it difficult to accept someone so genuinely kind and steadfast as the vicar, but that may be our loss, not our sophistication.
- A brief anecdote about the possible comforts of this novel: in 1845, Sir John Franklin took two ships into the Arctic to find the "Northwest Passage." Fourteen years later, searchers finally found evidence that Franklin's ships had gotten trapped in the ice, and some of the men who remained alive had attempted to strike out overland before dying of cold and starvation. Among the items these men had loaded in a small boat to drag behind them was a copy of The Vicar of Wakefield.
- 8/23/08: Jack London/The Iron Heel (1908): Unlike many dystopian novels, The Iron Heel has a grittiness, an evocation of the brutal conditions for the working class of the early twentieth century--in fact, London's novel reminds me more of Sinclair's The Jungle than it does Brave New World or 1984. Some of this is due to the narrative structure of the book--while the present of the novel is a utopian workers' state in the 26th century, we are actually reading a memoir of the vicious revolution between labor and the newly established oligarchy in the 1910s and 20s. The revolt is led by the suggestively named Ernest Everhard, a self-educated child of the lower classes clearly modelled on London himself. As we follow Everhard from agitation to outright revolt, we similarly see the "captains of industry" move to formally take power and to enslave the workers. London always had a bleak worldview, seeing every aspect of life and society as a Darwinian struggle, and it is no different here--he presents us with a chilling vision of totalinarianism and urban warfare that accurately depicts many of the atrocities of WWII and beyond.
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.