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

______________________________

   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...

_____________________________

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

Thoughts on Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

So it shall be read, and so it shall be written.  I just finished Christopher Moore's "Lamb".  It was glorious, divine, and strangely erotic ;) It may sound like this book is just one big heresy waiting to happen, but it wasn't.  It was well-poised and philosophical and in no way demeaning to faith. 

Our story starts in Heaven.  Biff, Jesus (or as he is known in the book, Joshua)'s best friend from ye olde days of the bible is brought back to life to write the "true" story of Christ.  Biff is stranded on earth with his dumb angel Bodyguard, Raziel to write his gospel. And so Biff, the inventor of sarcasm and the original propagator of the prolific joke "so... two Jews walk into a bar...", starts off on Josh's childhood adventure. 

What is gained by this gospel?  It portrays Joshua as a unique, sometimes doubtful and always inquisitive young man.  Biff is the cynic (and wildly sexually promiscuous) and Josh is forever the believer (and perpetually celibate).  Yet the two harmoniously tackle magicians, emotional attachment to yeti, meditation and the study of both Yoga and Buddhism (not at the same time...).  Simultaneously, you are laughing, learning and eventually (and inevitably) cringing at Joshua's final death and rebirth. 

Honestly, I needed a good laugh, and this book is laugh-out-loud funny.  The Bible has always been portrayed to me as this weighty tome whose language and subject matter is almost impenetrable.  "Lamb" was quite the contrary.  It was completely accessible and, as I mentioned before, tread the thin line between disrespect and worship with ease. 

Oh yeah, and Joshua says Fuck a lot.  Awesome.  And eats Bacon.  Also awesome.

If you're not a big reader, but want to pick up something you know that you will enjoy and finish, I thoroughly recommend this book.  It is engaging and altogether a hilarious, saucy little caprice that will knock your socks off.  9 stars out of 10.

ET

Thoughts on: We So Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy

This weekend I had the pleasure of finishing a collection of short stories by Barbara Gowdy called "We So Seldom Look on Love". 

I've never read anything by Gowdy before, but I do remember buying this book.  It came highly recommended to me by a friend.   In university, I harboured a strange fascination (and obsession) with what I placed under the idea of the Carnivalesque (Bakhtin-style).  I watched Freaks often, at least once a month.  I read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn and thought it was a brillant masterpiece of real human drama.  I was obsessed with Rabelais and did all kinds of weird research on side shows and travelling circuses.   Weird, I guess, but also completely fascinating.  This book tickled the same spot that found all of that interesting. 

In "We So Seldom Look on Love", Gowdy explores, in a series of short stories, little pockets of freakishness.  Each story focuses on one character whose life is changed by some profound physical affectation.  Mothers with the skin of a lizard.  A Necrophiliac whose heart is broken by cadavers.  A man who kills his second head.  A woman who grew up with a second set of legs named Sue. Her prose is very normal, matter of fact.  By normal, I don't mean not that good, not that bad.  I mean, it's not extreme or lush or visceral.  It deliberately tells a commonplace story in the most plain language possible.  This lends itself well to stories about life in small town america, and the stories are told in a very human, poignant and expressive way.  Preconceptions about marriage, familial relationships, surgeries, and even sexual identities are calmly and precisely challenged. 

Altogether, I found the book uncomfortable in a pleasant way.  I have another Gowdy book in the collection and I'm looking forward to cracking it open some time down the road.  I have the feeling that settling into a Gowdy book will always feel like I'm patting myself on the back.

Thoughts on Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

Another one bites the dust, to quote a famous Queen song.  Another famous Queen lyric, "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the Fandango?".  Thus, a not so subtle segue into my most recent read, Rafael Sabatini's "Scaramouche" (1921).  Full of political intrigue, sword fights and sword-fighting politicians (isn't redundancy redundant?), "Scaramouche" was an interesting period piece and had one of the best opening lines I have ever read: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad".  

It was a rollicking journey that began in the French countryside at the beginning of the French Revolution.  In walks our not so heroic hero, Andre-Louis Moreau.  He is the most unlikeable, cowardly, hypocritical and yet oddly intriguing protagonist I've had the pleasure to go on an adventure with.  After the murder of his best friend at the hands of a protector of the Privileged (M. de la Tour d'Azur), Moreau goes on a rampage, inciting revolutionary riots and causing general menace.  Eventually, he settles in with an acting troupe and on goes his journey of revenge.  There is a GREAT ending, and a solid romance that subtly intertwines itself with Moreau's more human qualities. 

Recently, I finished helping a friend produce a piece of theatre that included segments from Commedia dell'arte charactures so the Theatre scenes were really thrilling for me.  For those unfamiliar, this is a form of Italian Improv that surrounds the use of character masks.  Each mask denotes (and the characters have evolved and changed over time) a certain personality, name and set of characteristics.  Take for example, Dotorei, the bumbling Doctor who is brilliant, loves science and often misses the point.  Or Arrlechino, the harlot who ends up getting the better of everyone with her shenanigans.  Scaramouche is one such character, and Andre-Louis Moreau's character is defined by Scaramouche's characteristics.  Not only does he play Scaramouche on the stage, but he lives his life with the sardonic wit, devious plotting and the ability to get out of any sticky situation.  Endlessly adaptable, the character of Scaramouche gives a new dimension and narrative frame to the book.  A character within a character. 

Also, did I mention the sword-fighting?  and the Frenchness (although Sabatini was born in Italy and raised in England I believe)?  I ended up putting on "Fan Fan la Tulipe| and making lentil salad just to capture the mood.  Le sigh.

Oh, and there is a great movie adaptation, if you like that kind of thing.  Which I do.

Thanks for reading.  I'm sure to read another book soon so keep checking back.  Ta for now.

Thoughts on: The Human Stain by Philip Roth

This morning as I slowly came to life, I finished reading "The Human Stain" by prolific American writer Philip Roth.

I've never read anything by Roth before, but I must say that reading this book was a wholly delightful experience.  Every word, scene and character is hand crafted in such a way that you are pulled into the far-reaching narrative as soon as the light turns green.  The result is a multi-faceted, sharp and profound plot that focuses on a cast of players that are as real and human as a next-door neighbour. 

The story begins with Coleman Silk, the Dean of Athena University.  His life has slowly been falling apart.  First, he is forced to resign from teaching under suspicion of racism.  During roll call of one of his classes, he comes across the same two students who never attend the class.  So he calls out "Does anyone know these people?  Do they exist or are they spooks?".  It turns out the two students whom were always absent were African Americans, and when they heard the comment, took it to be an archaic racial slur and mounted an offensive against him.  Slowly he is pushed from the university, the tides change, his wife dies from a stroke and all that rage and loneliness wells up inside of Coleman Silk.  He begins writing a book called Spooks, in the belief that it will prove that the university killed his wife.

In comes our narrator, Nathan Zuckerman.  He is a neighbour of Coleman who comes into his life abruptly one day, raving about the book, the murder of his wife and asking Zuckerman to help him with the writing.  Slowly Zuckerman befriends Coleman and in so doing discovers both the great person and the great secrets that have surrounded his life.  What ensues is a historical, lively and character-focused account of not only Silk's life, but those that came in contact with him by blood or bond.

Coleman is a compelling character, as is Zuckerman but Roth does not stop there.  Whether you are reading about Les Farley (PTSD afflicted Vietnam War Veteran, angry, failed dairy farmer and incredibly courageous and self-searching) or Delphine Roux (Parisian born, beautiful, petite and highly intellectual Athena professor who both hates and strangely loves Coleman Silk despite her better judgement), Roth brings each sliver of each person to life through his unique writing style.  You aren't just reading an overarching narrative when you read this book.  You slip into their minds, from character to character, until each slice of life, each painstakingly simple scene has fully come to realization. 

I loved it, beginning to end.  That being said, it was DENSE and took me a long time.  Never once did I feel that I was slogging, instead, I felt as if I was savouring.  On the addition of the book that I read, the front cover has a quote that reads "In American literature today, there's Philip Roth, and then there's everybody else" - Chicago Tribune.  Huge words, and I'm not well read enough to in any way ratify the statement.  However, it was an awesome (in the actual sense of the word) piece of literature, and one that will continue to develop in my mind for years to come.