Thoughts on: Stunt by Claudia Dey

I decided to read something comfortably contemporary this week.  It turned out being anything but comfortable, and all too enjoyable.  Let's give it up for Stunt by Claudia Dey:

Our young narrator is Eugenia, obsessed with her father, she was a premature baby who was born into a bizarre family.  Her mother, Mink, was once a contortionist and dancer.  Immaculata, her sister, takes after her beautiful mother.  She is graceful and nurturing.  Eugenia is like her father, wild and ugly.  She has Synesthesia, and can immediately recall minute details from her childhood at the drop of a hat.  When her father, Sheb Wooly Ledoux, leaves with nothing but a note and a pan, still warm from his breakfast, Eugenia knows that she is meant to connect the dots and follow him.  Like a map of her childhood, she begins her search.

What follows is an intricately fragmented narrative.  Snippets of sensual memories slowly build into vivid personal identities.  Every colour, smell and sight is carefully revealed, unearthing a much larger birdseye view of modern mythology.  Inter weaved with the plot is cowboy poetry, postcards from outer space, tightrope walkers and apples. 

If I had to compare it to anything else I'd read, I'd say that it has some similarities to Lullabies for Little Children by Heather O'Neill.  Both novels are humourous but engage what I would call little girl ugliness.  By this I mean, all of the rotten things that can happen to little girls when they are young and still forming their identities.  But their styles are altogether different.  Dey is originally a playwright and her sense of "setting the scene" is impeccable.  This is her first novel, but the format really suits her writing style.  Eugenia is a wonderful heroine.  She can see what is not there better than most people can see what is there.  Her overactive imagination is her best friend.  There are elements of "magic realism" in that supernatural things occur, and you just have to accept them.  Mostly, there are just so many genres that I could squash into this novel, that I'll stop the comparisons.  Stunt was a complete success.  I loved the way the moments breathed in and out.  I loved the way that I could smell the moments, just like Eugenia. 

Ta for now,

ET

Thoughts on: Pan by Knut Hamsun

I hear exceedingly different profiles of Knut Hamsun, and I doubt none of them.  He was a complicated man, I'm sure.  He has been described as the soul of Norway, but at the same time he was a vehement supporter of the Nazi Regime, going so far as to mail his Nobel Prize to Joseph Goebbels. 

He began his career very much as an "outside artist", much like Henry Darger.  He most certainly did not stay there.  After the success of Hunger, he began to tour and lecture, often condemning his contemporaries for what he believed to be their shortcomings, that there was not enough emphasis placed on the interior voice, the crevices of the human mind.

His choice of narrative style became clear, and was incredibly successful in his 1894 novel Pan:

Thomas Glahn is the main character.  He lives on the edge of a city, and of Nature (capital N).  He often states in the novel that he is a child of the forest, and enjoys solitude.  Nonetheless, he is still a part of society, though he often commits social gaffes.  The novel goes through summer he spent in Nordland, from the voice of his own memory.  Often a rambling and unreliable Narrator, Hamsun creates a vivid and enticing charachter in Glahn, and most remarkably, an erotic one.

One of the most striking aspects of the book, and the plot points that most reveal Glahn as a character, are his relationships with women.  There is Edvarda, the fickle but beautiful highborn lady who loves Glahn for his Animal Eyes.  Eva is sweet, married to the blacksmith, but nonetheless drawn to Glahn and gives up all her other happiness to be with him.  Henriette, a milkmaid, passes through the story fleetingly.  These women define Glahn, although he himself dismisses them quite out of hand.  He somehow attracts women without a thought, but is ultimately unsuccessful at any kind of long lasting relationship. 

Drawn between moments of pathos, serenity and extreme anger, Glahn embodies the myth of Pan.  The eroticism of the myth is combined with a man who is of nature at the same time as society.  The myth weaves through the book and strengthens the overall narrative.

I don't think that ther e is any one way to read this book.  It is SO incredibly subjective.  He could be a psychopath.  Or maybe a Rousseauian man of nature.  Maybe Glahn is meant to be read by Freudian or Jungian theorists.  You can find legitimate examples for each.  For the rest of us, who are content to read the tales and either enjoy them or not, Pan is a must read.  You will never forget the short, but meandering, narrative of Thomas Glahn.  And you will be suprised by his selfishness and sacrifice. 

Ta for now,

ET

Thoughts on: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

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   The wind whistled through the slight crack beneath the sill and the wall.  Emily, sitting across from the sagging ediface, could feel the breeze through her petticoats.  It's sharp, chilling touch enveloped her soul.  She sat in her aging parlour, the paper yellowing.  When she was young, she could imagine the room as it once was.  Vibrant.  Comfortable.  Now, she simply waited as she slowly wasted away.  She was waiting for him to come.

But sigh, what was to be heard but an inalienable scream from the other room, followed by a sharp crash.  Emily, upon hearing the terrifying sound, felt faint and clammy.  A paleness fell over her countenance.  In the following silence, Emily rose from her chair to examine the source.  Her face full of horror, she peered around the door frame, only to see a broken window beyond.  Puzzled by the scene before her, she slowly walked into the seemingly abandoned room, warily moving closer to the broken glass that covered the floor. 

All at once she heard a voice behind her.  Deeper than mortally possible, it startled Emily beyond conceivable reason.  It said - Emily, beware the broken window.  Beware the yellow canary as it enters the mineshaft.  Beware the depths of hell...

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Okay, that's about as good as I got.   Now let's face it, I don't have a vague aging parlour, nor do I have petticoats.   But what I do have is "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole.  And now I've read it too!

1764 was the year, and Horace Walpole was the MAN.  He claimed he found some manuscript and got it published it.  Oh yeah, he also remodeled his house so it was super spooky and crazy castle like.  Only later did he reveal that the whole story was inspired by a dream he had, and that he had written the whole thing.

It kind of reads like an acid trip.  Punctuation and style were vastly different in the 1760s.  A lot of the dialogue took me a long time to read, just because I started getting confused about who was saying what. 

SPOILER WARNING BELOW!!!!!  I AM SUMMING UP THE PLOT!!!!! clumsily and without much intelligence.  I never do understand the plot very well when I am reading in an British accent.  

However, it is a ghost story of awesome proportions.  Plagued by a sinister prophecy, Manfred, owner of the castle of Otranto, is obsessed with his son's marriage to the young and beautiful Isabella.  His daughter, Matilda, and his wife, Hippolita, also live at Otranto.  On the wedding day, screams come from the Servant's quarter.  A Giant helmet had started to float and killed the son, due to bloody dismemberment.  In shock and anguish, Manfred means to divorce his wife and marry Isabella, who is of noble blood, himself. 

Isabella flees, and brings the dashing (and secretly noble, but thinks he is a farmhand) Theodore into the story.  He ends up saving her twice, so she thinks he digs her.  BUT, once Theodore and Matilda meet (Theodore is behind bars for pissing off the crazy Manfred), it is love at first prison break.  Upon Theodore's freedom, he finds out he is a noble.  Duh duh duh duh.  Some more random pieces of armour float around, and it turns out it is not really Manfred's castle.  It was stolen by his great grandfather after the Crusades.  Manfred is ruined!!!!!! RUINED!!!!!

In a case of mistaken identity, Manfred stabs Matilda, his only living child, in the heart.  But she stays alive long enough to be transported around, get into bed, say goodbye to Theodore, forgive her father and tell her mommy that she loves her. 

Then Theodore ends up marrying Isabella, assumingly.  I'm reading into the ending a little bit there.


SPOILER OVER!!!!!!!!

Awesome.

ET out for now. 

Thoughts on: Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Hey folks,

Long time, no blog.  This is in no small due part due to three things:

1) My laziness and general malaise when it comes to finishing what I start
2) I just took a massive road trip all over the USA.  Farthest point south, Tucson AZ USA.
3) The book that I chose to read was 874 PAGES long.  I can't believe I actually finished.


So without further ado, here are my thoughts on Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.

 

Published in 1794, Mysteries of Udolpho was Ann Radcliffe's 4th novel.  I've read Gothic novels before, but never before have I read one so sweeping in scope, and so drawn out.  As aforementioned, it weighs in at 874 pages, not for the faint of heart or for those with a fear of commitment.  The heroine (if you can call a fainting, weeping, sensitive, idiotic and naive woman a heroine) is Emily St. Aubert.  She has a happy home life, living in Languedoc (that's in France...), until her mom dies.  Her father's health never really recovers, and during a romantic and fateful trip to the Italian countryside, Mr. St. Aubert's life stops altogether.  Orphaned, Emily is thrown at the mercy of a cruel and simpering Aunt who swiftly marries (for money... ironically) the penniless and cruel Monsieur Montoni, Italian landowner and generally evil dude.  What follows is a journey to and eventually an escape from Montoni's haunted castle, Udolpho.

Although the book did drag (because I mean it just was so long, too long for my modern youtube sensibilities), it was full of everything that is great about fiction.  There was true love, sword fights, banditti, apparitions, horror, nuns, gambling, mistaken identity and more.  I can absolutely see why it was such a popular novel in its time.  Ann Radcliffe creates a landscape like no other.  You feel like you are riding next to Emily in the coach.  As my name is Emily, I liked to pretend that Radcliffe was writing about me, especially during the romantic stuff.  *sigh* 

FYI, the book is interspersed with poetry, some of it original, some of it quoted from various other sources including contemporary writers and canonical ones.  Some of the poems are pages long.  They're alright.  They don't anything a lot to the plot and I stopped reading them after page 300.  Some sacrifices have to be made for the sake of sanity.

Ta ta for now.  I need to choose what to read next.  My guess is that you'll hear from me soon because whatever I pick, it will be relatively short.

ET