edwinbcn's 2013 Books

My participation in Club Read 2012 has been very satisfactory. Reading the threads by all other members has inspired me, and this year I will certainly read some books reviewed by some of you guys / gals in 2012.

Club Read 2012 has stimulated my reading. By the end of December, I will have finish reading about 158 books, that is 8 books over my target of 150 for 2012.

Unfortunately, my job has periods of frantic activity, burdening me with the reading of students' papers, which slows me down twice six weeks each year, at the end of the term. Busy work also keeps me from reading along with very demanding reading groups. It remains a pity I don't have the concentration and time to read along with some of your major works selections. Also, because I cannot acquire the publications fast enough, either because they are in storage in my home country or not available in China.

My reading plans for 2013 are:
* more about China (mainly secondary literature)
* more professional literature
* more French and Spanish

Two other resolutions are:
* Buy fewer books (last year was gluttonous)
* Make more use of my Kindle (in use since November)

You also posted a similar topic here: http://www.librarything.nl/topic/146972# Only with 2013 instead of 2012?

They are the same, but I cannot delete the other. Since you've chose this one, this one it's gonna be ;-)

Maybe change the 2012 in this thread to 2013 then :P ? In the sentence "My reading plans for 2012 are:"

Maybe a moderator can delete the other topic.
Though I should've commented on the other thread then ^^;

>4 mene:

Yes, thanks; no, threads cannot be deleted. Just ignore it.

I'm w/you on buying fewer books this year, though there still are so many to buy, calling to me ...

Looking forward to following your reading this year.

I've enjoyed following your reading last year (without commenting), and look forward to doing so again this year. I am in awe of the number of languages you read in!

fooled by the other...oops. Now on the right thread.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I finally finished up writing the remaining reviews over at Club Read 2012 edwinbcn's Reading Journal 2012, Part 2

For those of you who haven't looked at Club Read 2012 since December 31, I am listing here the last 15 books reviewed since that date.








140. Pawels Briefe. Eine Familiengeschichte
141. Haanvroeg
142. The Prague cemetery
143. Eigentlich möchte Frau Blum den Milchmann kennenlernen, 21 Geschichten
144. You went away
145. Too loud a solitude
146. Erasmus
147. Forbidden colours
148. Wanderungen im Norden
149. Wachsender Mond, 1985 - 1988
150. Im Dunkeln singen, 1982 bis 1985
151. This is water. Some thoughts, delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life
152. Don't fall off the mountain
153. Affinity
154. Korea. A walk through the land of miracles
155. Rheinsberg – ein Bilderbuch für Verliebte

001. The Google Book
Finished reading: 3 January 2013



Published in 1913, The Google Book is a picture book with short poems about imaginary birds. The illustrations consist of exquisite water colours. The book must be a joy for children, and their parents alike. Wonderful!



FAR! FAR away, the Google lives, in a land which only children can go to. It is a wonderful land of funny flowers, and birds, and hills of pure white heather.

The Google's Garden (Looking West):



You can never see these birds anywhere except in Google land which is far far away, and only children can go there; and even they must be nearly – but not quite – asleep.



The Lesser Nockit

How can one describe this remarkable bird
Which no one has seen and which everyone's heard;
It hammers and knocks on the trees and the rocks,
And batters and raps at the windy,
And rattles old bones and shuffles the stones
And kicks up a terribly shindy
And hullaballoo!
It never stops still and it makes people ill
With its nerve-racking ear-splitting cry,
Which it utters they say both by night and by day,
And really I cannot think why!
No more can you!



The Junket

The little Junket spots his food
From almost any altitude,
Volplanés from an awful height
And plunges almost out of sight!



The Swank

The Swank is quick and full of vice,
He tortures beetles also mice.
He bites their legs off and he beats them
Into a pulp, and then he eats them.



The Mirabelle

Old sailors have a tale they tell,
How once the song of a Mirabelle
Enticed a ship upon the rocks
Where perished all the crew.
I think it most improbable
That such a bird would cast a spell
Upon a ship, don't you?

The Google

The Google has a beautiful garden which is guarded night and day. All through the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for food.

The sun is setting –
Can't you hear
A something in the distance
Howl!!?
I wonder if it's –
Yes!! it is
That horrid Google
On the prowl!!!

002. Fantastic beasts and where to find them
Finished reading: 3 January 2013



Fantastic beasts and where to find them by Artemis Fido "Newt" Scamander is known to be one of Harry Potter's schoolbooks. It consists of a reference guide to the natural history of fantastic beasts.

While most readers will be familiar with such animals as the Centaur, Sphinx, Merpeople, Fairy, Dragon and Unicorn, and may even have observed the Salamander in its natural habitat, the majority of animals in this guide are rarely observed in the wild. The guide describes fantastic beasts worldwide, but seems to concentrate on North-West Europe; it would have been prudent, had the editor indicated this somewhat limited scope.

While many animals are well-known through local folklore, it is to be hoped that international travel guides soon learn from this publication to warn travellers to the dangers they may unknowingly expose themselves when travelling to Africa, or Bornea, for instance, the dwelling place of the Acromantula.

Contrary to The Google Book, Fantastic beasts and where to find them is sparsely illustrated, with occasional BW sketches of some of the less gruesome specimens, with the exception of the red-haired, spider-like Quitaped, a.k.a. "the Hairy MacBoon".

Fantastic beasts and where to find them classifies the fantastic animals into five categories of danger to Wizards and Muggles. It is very useful to know that a number of these animals are carnivorous, having sheep, pigs or human beings as their favourite prey.

A weakness of Fantastic beasts and where to find them is that it is limited to describing fauna, and neglects flora. While this edition comes with a lengthy foreword, and footnotes elucidating particulars with regard to the animals, there are no cross-references or explanations to specimens of plants, fungus or lichens. Thus, while well-read Muggles have no difficulty identifying Mandrake, the favourite diet of the Dugbog, the average reader may be hard-pressed for knowledge of Alihotsy, the leaves of which may cause hysteria upon ingestion, to which the Glumbumble produces an antidote in the form of a melancholy-inducing treacle.

Undoubtedly, in as much as magic potions contain parts of animals, and animals' excretions, fresh and dried plant parts must surely belong to their ingredients, and one wonders whether a companion volume with special interest in fantastic flora would hit the shelves. A preliminary survey shows that such a volume could include species such as Alraune, Audrey var., Broxlorthian Squidflower, Bubotuber, Cow plant (Laganaphyllis simnovorii), Flitterbloom, Katterpod, Leaping toadstool, Papadalupapadipu, Peya, Sapient Pearwood, Sukebind, Triffids, Tumtum tree, and the Walking tree of Dahomey (Quercus nicholas parsonus), to name just a few. Otherwise, it is to be hoped that there will soon be trade editions of works such as
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore, the Encyclopædia of Toadstools, Magical Mediterranean Water Plants and their Properties and Flesh-eating Trees of the World.

Unfortunately, Fantastic beasts and where to find them is not complete and contains at least one error. To begin with the latter, the paperback edition incorrectly lists the Erkling on page 27, which should obviously be the Erlking. Ashamedly, even a bright student such as Harry Potter, has not seen or noticed this error. It is to be hoped that this error will be corrected in the next edition. Furthermore, a large number of fantastic beasts are omitted, such as the Blast-Ended Skrewt, the Fire Slug, the Hinkypunk a.k.a. Will-o'-the-wisp, the Nargle and the Vampyr Mosp. It would be nice if future editions would include cross references to the Snidget and the Golden Snidget, while the editor could be clearer on the sub-species of Merpeople, viz. Mermaid, Merrow and Selkie, and likewise indicate the status of the Puffskein versus the Pygmy Puff.

Finally, one would expect some comment, or an appendix with some explanations for animals of lesser known status, such as Banshees, Boggarts, House-elves, Cockatrices, Dwarfs, Dementors, Fluffy, Giants, Mummies and Veela and the status and classification of creatures such as the Bicorns, Blibbering Humdinger, Blood-Sucking Bugbears, Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Gulping Plimpy, Heliopath and Wrackspurt. On the other hand, it could be argued that inclusion of these latter specimens would fall beyond the scope of a schoolbook, and be more appropriate to a more specialized guide, such as The Monster Book of Monsters.

A very interesting and edifying read, indeed.

The Google Book looks absolutely delightful, Edwin.

I agree with Linda!

>11 edwinbcn: – Well, the Blast-Ended Skrewt is an illegal cross-breed, so it might be some time before it is included in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Hopefully they never make it out of the Hogwarts' grounds ;)

003. Fiere
Finished reading: 3 January 2013



The Scottish poet Jackie Kay writes beautiful poetry. Her poetry is modern, but written in a quiet and pleasant style, with various forms of rhyme; many of her poems have a natural rhythm, and repetition gives some the characteristics of a ballad. Kay's poetry is recognizable and accessible to a large audience.

The poems in Fiere, published in 2011, is her sixth volume of published poetry. The poems in this collection are inspired by friendship in all variety of relations. There are also some poems written alongside Kay's memoir Red dust road, which describes her search for her father in Africa.

The title of the collection, Fiere derives from archaic English or Scottish Gaelic:

Fere, feare, feer, fiere or pheere (archaic)
noun: a companion, a mate, a spouse, an equal

Fere (Scot.)
adj: able, sound

Some of the poems are in Scottish Gaelic, such as the first, with the title Fiere which was commissioned by the Scottish Poetry Library, and which was composed in response to a poem by Robert Burns.

One of the two epigraphs to the collection is from Burns:

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere
And gie's a hand o' thine

Robert Burns

the other epigraph reads:

Wherever someone stands,
something else will stand beside it.

Chinua Achebe

Fiere

If ye went tae the tapmost hill, Fiere
Whaur we used tae clamb as girls,
Ye’d see the snow the day, Fiere,
Settling on the hills.
You’d mind o’ anither day, mibbe,
We ran doon the hill in the snow,
Sliding and singing oor way tae the foot,
Lassies laughing thegither – how braw.
The years slipping awa; oot in the weather.

And noo we’re suddenly auld, Fiere,
Oor friendship’s ne’er been weary.
We’ve aye seen the wurld differently.
Whaur would I hae been weyoot my jo,
My fiere, my fiercy, my dearie O?
Oor hair micht be silver noo,
Oor walk a wee bit doddery,
But we’ve had a whirl and a blast, girl,
Thru’ the cauld blast winter, thru spring, summer.

O’er a lifetime, my fiere, my bonnie lassie,
I’d defend you – you, me; blithe and blatter,
Here we gang doon the hill, nae matter,
Past the bracken, bothy, bonny braes, barley.
Oot by the roaring Sea, still havin a blether.
We who loved sincerely; we who loved sae fiercely.
The snow ne’er looked sae barrie,
Nor the winter trees sae pretty.
C’mon, c’mon my dearie – tak my hand, my fiere!

Perhaps the following poem is perhaps the world’s first (published) epithalamion on the occasion of a gay marriage.

The Marriage of Nick and Edward

When you get home from your wedding, dear boys,
And you’ve exchanged your plain and beautiful bands
—rose-gold with platinum for Nick,
rose-gold with gold for Edward—
and held together your handsome hands,
and kissed, and pledged a life of happiness,
I suggest you get out the Quaich,
your special two-handled drinking bowl—
made of pewter; for your gifted future—
and pour some Hallelujah into the loving cup
and knock back the rose-gold liquid
and drink up, drink up, drink up!

Here are your years stretching ahead,
and the rose-gold love of the newly wed.

Oh dear. Edwin, I knew you'd be dangerous this year and already I have two more books to look for: The Google Book and Fiere. Wonderful excerpts from both.

Ooh -- how nice to start out the year with such delightful poetry (and gorgeous pictures)!

Fantastic start to your new thread Edwin.

There is really only one tome that you need for fantastic monsters and that is: D & D Monster Manual

> 18

Thanks, Barry. Cyberspace in another domain altogether.

To carry the discussion over from the 2012 thread, yes, I thought you might be interested in the Erasmus biography by Huizinga.

The book was really full of wonderful details. For example, we learn that in Erasmus' time it was customary for travellers to sleep two-to-a-bed. At the opening of Moby Dick Ishmael has to share a bed with Queequeg. We get the feeling that this is normal in that setting, but only because the inn is so full. Nowadays, we wouldn't want to share a room with a stranger, in most cases.

The sleeping two-per bed came up in a Lincoln biography too. When he occasionally wrote or said he slept with so and so, he actually meant they what he said, sans the euphemism.

Good stuff here. Your review of Fantastic Beasts was great fun to read.

Superb reviews as always, Edwin. I've added Fiere to my wish list.

>15 edwinbcn: accessible to a large audience
Some of the poems are in Scottish Gaelic

Seemed conflicting but then I read "Fiere" and loved it. Loved both, and the topic of friendship.

004. All over
Finished reading: 3 January 2013



All over is a collection of 19 short stories, by the American author Roy Kesey. Kesey is the author of four books, Nanjing: A Cultural and Historical Guide, and two short stories collections: Nothing in the World, and All over, written and published in 2007 while living in Beijing, and his latest, Pacazo, a novel published in 2011. Kesey now resides in Maryland

At a total of 145 pages, this means each story in All over is very short, at an average length of just about eight pages. All stories are highly charged with a feverish energy and dynamic, and some of them are characterised by a frantic verbosity, which make them somewhat difficult to read, and require attentive reading. The writing can be called experimental, with parts of regular prose interspersed with ultra-short paragraphs, and short-style dialogue, which raises the pace of reading. Formal and informal styles are mixed.

The premise of most stories is some form of weirdness, but very close to real-life experience. For instance, the first story, "Invunche y voladora" swirls around the irritations that develop between lovers in long relationships, but this couple is newly-wed. Thus, the story bears out the tale of many failed marriages on the first day of honeymoon. Cleverly done, and one of the better stories in the collection.

In the short story "Loess", the narrator is the former Chinese Prime-Minister Zhou Enlai who outlines to Chairman Mao Zedong how they will shape Chinese history. The story is told from their pre-natal perspective.

There are other stories that betray their origin as being written in China, for example, "At the Pizza Hut, the Girls Build Their Towers". The story describes how customers at the Pizza Hut, being restricted to a single serving from the salad bar (used to) pile their salad incredibly high, to maximize the amount of salad ingredients which could be held on top of one (small) salad bowl.

Another story that seems inspired by China is "Scroll", the second story in the collection. It tells the story of an artist who spent 34 years to create a painting that is nine miles long and then fails to find a gallery to show it.

This collection of stories will be very interesting to readers seeking out the avant-garde of modern short-story writing, and it will be interesting to follow the further development of Roy Kesey as an emerging author.

4 stars from you edwin, sounds like you think these stories really have something.

>24 baswood:

That was a clear error I had overlooked.

The story describes how customers at the Pizza Hut, being restricted to a single serving from the salad bar (used to) pile their salad incredibly high, to maximize the amount of salad ingredients which could be held on top of one (small) salad bowl.

My wife invariably conducts herself in this fashion where there is a salad bar (curiously, even where there is no 'single serving' rule).

Well, I've added it to my list of books to keep an eye out for.

005. Landesbühne
Finished reading: 4 January 2013



Landesbühne ("Countryside Theatre") is a short novel by the German author Siegfried Lenz. Like Schweigeminute, (transl. A Minute's Silence) reviewed here, Landesbühne feels closer to Anglo-American literature, than to German literature.

In fact, the story is so accessible that it feels as if you've read it somewhere else. Perhaps, this effect is created by the hyper-realistic setting. At the centre of the story are two prisoners, one, a professor, Clemens, who seduced students in exchange for fraudulent exam results, and his cellmate, Hannes. The prison is located near a small town. The mayor of the town promotes a project, aimed at raising the town's profile. To this effect, the prisoners are brought to the town by bus to participate in the cultural activities which are part of the annual Carnation Festival. Throughout the week, the prisoners sleep in the bus, rather than being brought back to the prison. Typically, this inspires some inmates to escape. Clemens, who has completed half of his four-year imprisonment period decides not to flee. Back in his cell, he finds that Hannes has decided to stay as well. Respect and friendship are the main motives.

Landesbühne is a very short, and easy read. A bit too easy, perhaps.



Other books I have read by Siegfried Lenz:
Schweigeminute
Ein Kriegsende

All Over sounds promising, but your 1-1/2 star rating suggests otherwise.

>24 baswood:, 29

My original rating, after I finished reading All over was 1.5 stars. However, I sometimes adjust this rating after writing the review, as reviewing makes you look at a book somewhat differently, and writing it all up seems to bear the real value out.

In this case, I was a bit over-enthusiastic, and upgraded the rating to four stars. However, as Barry remarked, four out of five for this books quite mars with my regular rating, so I readjusted the rating back to 1.5.

1.5 means it is readable, but could not really captivate me, and I had difficulty concentrating. The style and structure are experimental, and therefore not really comfortable to read. The depth of human experience in somewhat shallow.

At the same time, bearing in mind that this is a new author, the work is interesting, and I will definitely read more by this author.

I suppose there will be other readers who can appreciate the stories much more than I do.

006. The forgotten waltz
Finished reading: 6 January 2013



Readers' appreciation of a novel often depend on the extent to which they can identify with the main character. In The forgotten waltz, the main character, Gina Moynihan is a selfish and egotistical woman, and therefore, readers tend to dislike the character as well as the novel.

It is brave of Anne Enright to write a novel in which the narrator is a dislikable character. As a type, this protagonist is probably universal: a self-conscious, ambitious and modern woman, who is driven by unscrupulous lust and ambition. She is not 100% bad or evil. She is just that type of person, perhaps quite typical of the 1990s and early decades of the 21 century, that type of go-getter, with a good job, an eye always on stock market and real estate prices, believing social darwinism means cruelty is part of social competitiveness. Naturally, this is not the way she perceives herself. In her own self-perception, Gina appears a quite normal, emancipated woman. There are some (not so) subtle hints in the first part of the books that Gina would think of herself as particularly pure, worried of smut and dirt. There are several times references suggesting that other people are abnormal or weak, in her eyes. Gina's character is soon enough clear to the reader, who will realize that Gina should be considered an unreliable narrator. Her analysis of social relations, or morals and of her own motivations is incorrect.

While omitting any specific reasons, Gina seduces Seán Vallely at a barbecue party in her sister's garden. The total randomess of their relationship is emphasised by Gina's characterization of how it came about. She was looking intently at a man who was turned away from her. Had he not turned around, she would have let him go, but as he did turn around and face her, she made her move.

From the way Gina has described her husband Conor, mentally undressing him as in her mind she strips his well-built body -- a jacket, and under that a shirt, and under that a T-shirt, and under that a tattoo...-- it is clear that Gina picks her man on physical appearance and her own lust rather than anything else. The fact that Seán is married matters not to her. The time when adultery was a man's thing lies far in the past.

Apparently, Gina is very successful at seducing Seán, but meets one obstacle: the couple's daughter, Evie. The child is a factor that Gina has not reckoned with, and completely underestimates.

Ever since Freud, it is clear that children are no longer just innocent. The novella that first attested to that insight is probably Henry James' What Masie knew. The forgotten waltz is a modern variation on this theme.

Anne Enright's prose is almost as understated as that of Beryl Bainbridge, but gives the reader more clues. Likewise, The forgotten waltz is a fairly thin novel.

True, The forgotten waltz was not quite an enjoyable read, but then leaves the reader with a lot to ponder.

Excellent review of The Forgotten Waltz, Edwin. I saw Enright give a talk on this book and it did not compel me to read it. But I did like The Gathering, which many did not.

Good review, Edwin. The book does seem to elicit a knee-jerk response because of its protagonist, which is unfortunate. I have The Gathering, so I'll try that before deciding about this one.

007. Die Kirschen der Freiheit
Finished reading: 9 January 2013

Published in English as:

Quite a number of German authors who started their career at the time of the Nazi German Third Reich, and became celebrated authors of the postwar period, are now forgotten or in disrepute. Especially those writers who did not go into exile are under fire as their integrity is questioned. For many authors whose career was built during the late 1940s to circa mid 1980s no substantial evidence existed except for personal testimonies by eye witnesses or close relations with whom they may have shared the most intimate details of their personal histories. These personal testimonies are only recently appearing or made known to the public. In some cases, as with Alfred Andersch speculation has proved to be without foundation. Still, any dispute of an author's moral integrity must negatively influence readers' ideas, even though the value of the authors' works are not reevaluated.

Die Kirschen der Freiheit is a beautifully written personal account of pre-war Germany and the Nazi period from about 1919 to 1945. It should definitely be considered on a par with for instance Ernst Toller's Eine Jugend in Deutschland.

Andersch biography Die Kirschen der Freiheit starts with the demise of the Munich Soviet Republic (Münchner Räterepublik) in 1919. In subsequent years, with a father who is a fanatic Hitler fan, Alfred became a leader the a Communist youth organization, for which he was arrested and locked up in the concentration camp Dachau in 1933. This instills so much fear in the young Alfred Andersch that after his release he abandons his political activities and turns to the relatively innocent occupation or art and writing. He describes how circumstances force him to cheer and welcome Hitler as the new Reichskanzler a few months later, waving a little flag as Hitler's motorcade passes through the streets.

Next, the autobiography describes how Andersch, who was conscripted into the German army (Wehrmacht) since 1940, deserted from his unit while fighting on the last front in Italy in June 1944. While his desertion seems frightfully simple, the reader is persuaded to feel the fear of doing so, as recapture would inevitably have meant immediate execution.

Apart from a (personal) history, Die Kirschen der Freiheit explores the question to what extent personal human freedom can be said to exist. Obviously, none of Andersch actions and life since his arrest in 1933 were motivated by even the merest semblance of free will, but more likely the result of a lifelong fear. In addition, Andersch explores the question to what extent an oath is binding in creating loyalty to a loathed master. Andersch conclusion is that people are never really free, and that freedom only exists in rare moments, which may possibly even only occur once in a lifetime. For who is ever truly free from fear or duty?



Other books I have read by Alfred Andersch:
Wanderungen im Norden
"... einmal wirklich leben". Ein Tagebuch in Briefen an Hedwig Andersch, 1943 bis 1975

The Cherries of Freedom, right? (My German isn't great, but I still remember a few basics, and some words are quite close to Afrikaans). Sounds incredibly interesting, Edwin. Your high rating is also enticing.

> Yes, Dewald. Thanks for pointing that out. I usually check whether an English translation is available, but with only 47 copies on LT I had assumed that it had not been translated.

>36 edwinbcn: I actually didn't even check whether there was a translation, just translated it for myself ;)

Now I wonder whether to try reading it in German, or to stick with the English...

That does sound interesting. And to elicit five stars, as well! I'll keep an eye out for it.

I really enjoyed The Forgotten Waltz, but I can see how the personality and actions of the protagonist could be off-putting, I think I liked it in part because of her. I liked diving into the thoughts and motivations of someone so different from myself.

>38 RidgewayGirl: You might, Alison, especially with your upcoming relocation to Munich, which was politically very much astir during the first half of the Twentieth century. You might also want to have a look at the German expressionist author Ernst Toller.

I did not really dislike reading The Forgotten Waltz, although much of my appreciation developed contemplating the novel after I finished reading it. The low rating is not based on the unsympathetic character of Gina, but more on the understated, sparse prose style. The plot is not very interesting, except if you are very interested in the psychology of the main character.

I've noted the authors. Thank you.

008. Arabesques. A tale of double lives
Finished reading: 9 January 2013



Boys as dark as violets

Arabesques. A tale of double lives is Robert Dessaix' very personal, and very subjective biography of André Gide. In fact, it is more of a kaleidoscopic travelogue than a biography. The subtitle A tale of double lives refers as much to the double lives led by Gide, as well as the intertwined exploration of the parallels and contrasts between the lives of Gide and the author. In the absence of a clear chronologie, the book has a dream-like quality of preponderences on the life of André Gide and its author Robert Dessaix, as Dessaix retraces Gide's steps in his travels all over the Western Mediterranean, with particular attention to North Africa, as chapter titles suggest visits to Algiers, Blidah, Tornac, Anduze, Morocco, Cuverville (France), Sousse and Biskra.

Without overmuch emphasis, Dessaix clearly emerges from the narrative as a very seasoned, and openly gay person, whose promiscuity may have been tempered with age. On the other hand, Dessaix portrays Gide as a very timid and closeted homosxual, who may not even have considered himself gay, and whose adoration of boys and young men verged on Platonic aestheticism. However, it is clear that Dessaix rejects that image. At the same time, the author seems to be at a loss to explain the apparent lifelong devotion of Gide for his cousin Madeleine, whom he married at a very young age, and is said to have truly and deeply loved. This contrast, the suggestion that Gide came to homosexuality after meeting Oscar Wilde and subsequently lived as a completely repressed homosexual, who may have truly loved his wife, seems to be a construct in the mind of Dessaix which is not really born out by autobiographical facts.

An interesting aspect of Arabesques. A tale of double lives is that it uncovers the history of various Algerian cities as travel destinations of the international demi-monde and gay sub-culture at the end of the Nineteenth and beginning of the Twentieth Century, which included such illustrious travellers as Oscar Wilde and "Bosie", among others. Richly illustrated, including many antiquarian postcards, point at the lost glory of cities such as Algiers and Biskra under French colonial rule. Some of the descriptions are also reminiscent of Albert Camus descriptions of Oran.

Especially in the first part of the book, Arabesques. A tale of double lives is slightly marred by some narrative techniques used by the author. In the first two or three chapters, there are multiple repetitions of the suggestion that Gide's life would all have been very different if, at paying his hotel bill in Blidah he would have "glanced to the left instead of to the right." Throughout the book there are many references to "Jacoub", one of Dessaix's guide in Algeria whom he portrays very unsympathetically. Maps at the beginning of the book suggest that the journey, followed tracing Gide's steps will lead through various countries, including Spain, Portugal and Italy, while in fact very little attention is paid to these countries. A whole chapter is devoted to Morocco, which seems much more relevant in the life of Dessaix than in the life of André Gide.



Other books I have read by Robert Dessaix:
Corfu

Gide interests me, and this book seems intriguing as well. I was a bit surprised that you gave it 4 ½ stars, especially considering the criticisms in the last paragraph.

>

My appreciation for Arabesques. A tale of double lives increased with reading, although the problems described in the last part of my review, occurring in the first few chapters actually irritated me very much.

However, on the whole, the book has a very ejoyable poetic quality that is borne out as one reads more. The Picador first edition paperback's paper quality is, unfortunately, not very high, but the rich illustrations, and the fairly large size of the book, make for a really nice reading experience.

The high degree of subjectivity make the book quasi intimate. It is possible that these tricks are used by the author to stimulate the readers' imagination. Without annotation is is hard to make out what is factual about Gide North-African adventures. Dessaix in clearly well-informed about the life of André Gide, but, typically, some details of what could have happened usually are not included in biographical accounts or even primary sources. Therefore, Arabesques. A tale of double lives substitutes fact with some speculation and quite a lot of suggestiveness. This is a feature that makes the book attractive, although perhaps not to every type of reader. The book is probably somewhat more appealing to gay readership.

Another thing I really liked about the book was how, as a travel memoir, it introduced various cities in Algeria and North-African culture, which formed a nice complementary experience to my reading of essays from Noces (English tr. Nuptials) by Albert Camus.

I'm very curious about Alfred Andersch's memoirs and the conclusions it gave. I read a very critical essay on him by W. G. Sebald in On the Natural History of Destruction.

Edwin, you have read some very interesting books lately and made some very fine reviews. I will pass on The Forgotten Waltz because the main character would annoy me too much, Although I am intrigued by your comparison to What Maisie Knew

For who is ever truly free from fear or duty Well stated Edwin, I am sure I have rarely been. That was a fascinating review of The Cherries of Freedom

The book that really interests me is Arabesques: A tale of double lives, which goes straight onto my to buy list.

Thanks, Barry. Actually, I haven't read What Masie knew and my comparison and suggestions in relation to The forgotten waltz are mainly based on ideas you expressed in your review, which was posted around the same time. I was tempted to read What Masie knew at that time, but have to postpone that to some later date.

>44 Rise:

Yes, Rise, the essay by W.G. Sebald in On the Natural History of Destruction basically started the controversy around Alfred Andersch. That essay, "Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Alfred Andersch. Das Verschwinden in der Vorsehung" was first published in 1993. It was then included in the German first edition of Luftkrieg und Literatur: Mit einem Essay zu Alfred Andersch, This book was later published in a slightly different form and expanded to include two more essays as On the natural History of Destruction: With Essays on Alfred Andersch, Jean Améry and Peter Weiss (English trans. Anthea Bell (2003).

Sebald's essay marks the beginning of a 20-year controversy around the moral integrity of the German author Alfred Andersch, among others. This controversy has not been concluded.

Anyone interested to read postwar German literature, written by authors who were basically aged 18 before 1944, and may or may not have been active as writers during the period of the Third Reich, while not living in exile, should be aware of possible controversy around their authorship and moral integrity. Similar debates regularly flare up over other German authors belonging to that generation, and many of these controversies started or were refueled by new, recent discoveries in the 1990s or even through to the present, as I showed in my reviews of autobiographical work of Luise Rinser in various reviews last year. These controversies and attacks have bothered the Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass as well as several other members of the socalled Gruppe 47 (Engl. "Group 47", originally founded by Alfred Andersch, and others such as Wolfgang Koeppen, Christa Wolf, Peter Huchel, Günter Eich and Martin Walser.

The controversy around Alfred Andersch relates in particular to his representation of the facts around his marriage, and the suggested strategic use of that marriage to his own advantages. Die Kirschen der Freiheit (Cherries of Freedom) takes a key position in that debate, with Rolf Seubert claiming that, after detailed analysis of the manuscript and external documents "in „Kirschen der Freiheit“ kaum ein Detail mit den Quellen und Berichten übereinstimme." (hardly any detail corresponds with the sources). These details relate to Andersch position in the Communist youth organization, the duration of his imprisonment in concentration camp Dachau, factual observations in Dachau, his release from the German army, his marriage and anullment thereof and his status as a POW in 1944.

The main discussion, and the issue or moral integrity, raised by W.G. Sebald is about his marriage. In 1935, Alfred Andersch married Angelika Albert, who was half-Jewish. Conscripted into the German army (Wehrmacht) in 1940, Andersch met and fell in love with Gisela Groneuer while he was on leave in the autumn of 1940. In March 1941, Andersch was released from the army. Andersch claims that his request for release was based on his imprisonment in Dachau, but such imprisonment could not form a ground for release. In fact, reference to that imprisonment would have made his situation worse. In 2008, it was proved that Andersch requested release on the ground of being married with his half-Jewish wife. This release was enabled through the Nürnberger Gesetze (Nürnberg Laws) which forbade conscription of soldiers into the Wehrmacht who were married to partners who were not Arian (Angelika was classified as mixed blood of the first degree). Although his mother-in-law was deported, Angelika and their daughter was apparently and eventually not exposed to any danger. German citizens of mixed ancestry were never persecuted or deported, and were not treated in the way Jewish citizens were.

In the course of 1941, Andersch started an affair with Gisela, with whom he had a baby, and lived separately from his wife from 1942 onwards. Encouraged in his career as an author by Gisela, Andersch applied for the right to publish his work in Germany in 1943. To obtain this right he had to divorce Angelika. In his application he told the commission that he had already divorced from Angelika, which was factaully not true. The actual divorce came through later in 1943. This is supposedly the second case in which Andersch made strategic use of his marriage to Angelika to his own advantage.

As a result of the divorce, Andersch was again conscripted into the German army (Wehrmacht). Following his desertion from the army, described in Die Kirschen der Freiheit (Cherries of Freedom) was captured and locked up as a POW by the Americans in Italy in 1944. During this imprisonment, Andersch claimed to be married to Angelika. This claim constitutes the third time he made strategic use of the marriage to Angelika Albert, as marriage to a "Jewish mongrel" helped him secure his earlier release and the release of his manuscripts which had been confiscated. After the war, Andersch married Gisela.

Throughout the controversy about Alfred Andersch moral integrity, the moral integrity of W.G. Sebald was equally disputed, as Sebald's claims in 1993 were based on very scanty and inconclusive evidence. Sebald's accusations were later strengthened by new discoveries in 2008. However, Alfred Andersch biographer Stephan Reinhardt, in Alfred Andersch. Eine Biographie had already suggested that Andersch marriage to Angelika had floundered. To many, Sebald's position resembles more that of a troublemaker, who did not do sufficient research, and would possibly benefit from the exposure.

The Alfred Andersch controversy is not a small matter. The debate has raged for more than 20 years, since the publication of Reinhardt's biography in 1990 and Sebald's essay in 1993. Several books have been published about it, notably following a conference on the issue in 2010 and Alfred Andersch 'revisited'. Werkbiographische Studien im Zeichen der Sebald-Debatte (2011) by Jörg Döring and Markus Joch (Eds).

The controversy is no longer merely about "proof". In matters of moral integrity over Andersch marriage, it seems the reader must decide which version to believe (with Andersch biographer, who believes the marriage was at an end). In Die Kirschen der Freiheit (Cherries of Freedom), Alfred Andersch has already convincingly argued that fear limits freedom and makes people make choices and do things they would or might not otherwise.

With regard to Die Kirschen der Freiheit (Cherries of Freedom), it needs to be seen to what extent this work is autobiographical.

Thanks for the fascinating insight into the Andersch controversy, Edwin. I wasn't aware of it at all, but I'll definitely keep it in mind when I get to Die Kirschen der Freiheit. The ambiguities make me somewhat uncomfortable, I'll admit. That said, we are dealing with living human beings here, so some ambiguities, even falsehoods, might be expected. Not having lived Andersch's experiences, I won't condemn him solely based on this.

Thanks, edwin. That was a comprehensive summary of the literary controversy. I have to admit I was also turned off with Andersch when I read Sebald's essay on him.

Very interesting stuff here, edwin. I'm interested to read Cherries of Freedom as the author is from Germany's post war period which I have a mini-theme read on this year. I know almost nothing of the works of the Gruppe 47, except of Wolfgang Koeppen's (which I like very much), so I appreciate learning about this book, including the controversies surrounding it, which means a measure of skepticism is required in its reading.

009. Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde
Finished reading: 11 January 2013



Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (Engl. "Goethe's correspondence with a child") is not a real correspondence with Goethe, although many contemporary readers in the early nineteenth century thought it was. Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde by Bettina von Arnim is an epistolary novel, which includes some of Goethe's poetry and an occasional authentic letter from Goethe. It is, however, a largely fictional work, written in the style of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) and passed off as authentic. It is written is the same style of over-sentimentality.

In 1774, Goethe published Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Engl. The Sorrows of Young Werther), which sparked a wave of idolatry known as the Werther-Fieber ("Werther Fever"). It made Goethe an international celebrity, a status he thoroughly resented.

In 1806, Goethe received a letter from the young Bettina von Arnim, which he left unanswered, as he felt she idolized him. von Arnim struck up a friendship with Goethe's mother, and through her was introduced to meet Goethe in 1807, which led to a friendship and correspondence from 1807 through 1811. In that year, Bettina von Arnim had a row with Goethe's wife, which made Goethe decide to break off their correspondence and friendship, or any form of contact, even ignoring von Arnim and her husband Achim von Arnim.

Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde was appeared in 1835, three years after the death of Goethe, and was published in three volumes. It appeared in a 2-volume edition in English two years later, in 1837, in a translation made by the author, Bettina von Arnim, herself. Volume 1 consists of a (fictional) correspondence between Bettina von Arnim and Goethe's mother, followed by the (fictional) correspondence between von Arnim and Goethe. Volume 2 consists entirely of (fictional) correspondence with Goethe, and volume 3 is a diary.

All three volumes are written are written in the style of "Storm and Stress" giving free expression to individual subjectivity and extremes of emotion. Volume 1 contains a scene in which Von Arnim can barely persuade her friend Günderode to refrain from suicide with a dagger. All three volumes consist of endless idolization of Goethe. As Goethe's (fictional) replies are sparse and far between, most of the text is composed of Bettina's letters, full of musings on her moods, philosophical fads of the day, and descriptions of natural scenes, bordering over into the style of the early Romantics. Although the poetry by Goethe appearing in the text is genuine, the poems were not addressed to Von Arnim as is suggested.

While descriptions are very beautiful, the overbearing style, typical for the period, makes the reading (of well over 680 pages) a heavy fare. The one-volume paperback edition by the German publisher DTV is the first to appear unabridged, and restoring characteristics of von Arnim's orthography.

Bettina von Arnim has been criticised for the publication of Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde. Some critics blame her for passing of the fictional epistolary novel purporting to be an authentic correspondence. There are also critics who claim that the young von Arnim stole up to celebrities, starting friendships and correspondences with the premeditated aim of using them to further her fame, and use letters in her literary work. Whether or not the 21-year old Bettina was infatuated with Goethe, or was simply calculating to make use of Goethe's fame, is hard to tell. Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde was her first book. Her second book, Die Günderode (1840), was written following the same muster, published as a fictualized correspondence with her friend, the German poet Karoline von Günderrode, who died in 1806.

Bettina von Arnim, born Bettina von Bretano, came from an artistic family. The novelist Sophie von La Roche was her grandmother, while her brother Clemens Brentano was a poet in his own right. Bettina married Achim von Arnim, a famous Romantic poet, in 1811, and one of their children, Gisela von Arnim became a writer, too. Elizabeth von Arnim belongs to the same family of the Von Arnims.

010. Better living through plastic explosives
Finished reading: 12 January 2012



Better living through plastic explosives is Zsuzsi Gartner attempt at trying to be original or funny, possible both.

The prose style is wildly explosive, outragious and incoherent, written as if the author is permanently on crack.

Editors of major publishers must be on the look out for this type of trash: the crazier, the better. In a world already suffering from over-stimulation through the media, psychopaths and lunatics may still be able to catch the attention of the multitasking gaming freak. Together with authors such as George Saunders and Augusten Burroughs, the literary landcsape is further polluted with the appearance of Zsuzsi Gartner.

>51 edwinbcn: This sounds very interesting but, again, I am a bit uncomfortable with the dishonesty. I've read some Goethe (well, only the first part of his "Faust"), but I don't really care for the Sturm and Drang type of writing. I think Goethe himself grew a bit tired of Werther's popularity.

>52 edwinbcn: That's a strong reaction. I haven't read any of the authors you mention, but George Saunders is receiving a lot of attention with his new collection. I'll take your caveats on board when I get to him.

>53 dmsteyn:

I know. My assessment of George Saunders is based on reading In Persuasion Nation, and of Augusten Burroughs I have read three works, Magical thinking. True stories, Dry and Running with scissors. A memoir.

All these works, including Gartner's Better living through plastic explosives are described as being humourous.

Saunders' and Gartner's work are just quirky; it isn't particularly clear what the stories are about. It is a bit like the virtuosity of a high school kid, with the teacher's praise suggesting them to become a writer. They are only humourous as long as weird means funny.

Magical thinking. True stories and Dry by Augusten Burroughs were indeed hilarious, nd well-written, but Running with scissors. A memoir is a freak show.

If Running with scissors. A memoir is fiction then Burroughs must have a pretty sick mind (or corresponding genius), and if it is indeed autobiography, as it is purported to be, well then he is truly a running freak. As it is, I wouldn't even dare to pick up A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father, which promises to be even more horrendous.

Reading other reviews on all these three authors, you will find opinions differing widely. There are those praising the sky-high, and those condemning their work as postmodern trash. I suppose I belong to the latter category.

Thanks for the in-depth response, Edwin. Of all the books you've mentioned, I only have... wait for it... A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father. Yikes!

Well, I won't get to it for years, probably, so I won't worry too much.

011. For the relief of unbearable urges
Finished reading: 12 January 2013



For the relief of unbearable urges is a collection of nine short stories, which are all very well-written, but a trifle boring. Placing the author on an equal footing as Philip Roth or Saul Bellow is really rather premature.

Jewish people are not by definition more interesting than other people. A short story must be infused with some inspiration. It is here where Englander's stories are wanting.

The first two stories are excellent. They are recognizable, very well-written, and deal with some of the major themes in the literature of Jewish writers on the Twentieth century. The first story in the collection "The Twenty-seventh Man" is reminiscent of Kafka, descrbing the fate of Jewish intellectuals under Stalin, while the second story, "The Tumblers" deals with the holocaust. Both stories are original, and immediately accessible. To some extent that is also true of the title story (number eight in the collection), "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges", which end with on a "funny" note. The other stories miss the characteristic accessibility through familiarity with the stories as belonging to the genre of Jewish (-American) literature.

Englander is also receiving a lot of praise these days. I agree that it is premature to group him with Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, though I haven't read enough of these authors' work to comment intelligently. I do, however, want to read some of Englander's stories.

ETA: I hope you don't mind me commenting so often on your thread. I'm a bit idle at the moment (work begins next week) so I'm on the forum most of the time.

012. Le colonel Chabert
Finished reading: 16 January 2013



Le colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac is a neglected masterpiece. The beginning of this short novel is a bit confusing as it starts in media res of clerks in a notary's office having lunch or supper and making fun of an old beggar in the street who apparently wants to see the notary. The old man, dressed in rags, is admitted and able to tell the notary his gruesome story. He relates how as a general he fought alongside Napoleon in the Battle of Eylau, in Prussia, and was slain so badly that, unconscious, with a gash over his skull, he was left for dead at the battlefield. He managed to escape from the mass grave into which he had been dumped and through the melting snow cry for help. Rescued, he was nursed back to health and after nine years returned to France to discover that his wife had remarried and disappeared and his dominions were sold off. The notary explains that his case is a difficult one, as officially colonel Chabert is dead, and to regain his possessions he must prove that he is who he claims to be, and not some impostor. The notary lends the colonel some money, to live on, while he agrees to represent him. A meeting with his (former) wife is arranged. She immediately recognizes him by his voice, but otherwise the colonel has unrecognizeably changed. The notary visits the colonel in his humble abode and explains that his fortune has dwindled, and that he could only hope to receive a fraction therof, if any at all.

Le colonel Chabert is a very pitiable story. As Chabert, the war hero, returns after nine years, he finds himself among the nouveau riche of the new society. Several times there is mention that there is a considerable difference in age between colonel Chabert and the other major players in the drama, notably his (ex-) wife,her new husband, the notary and the lawyer. While colonel Chabert still loves his former wife, and isn’t even attempting to regain his full possessions, he is met with coldly calculating cunning, to swindle him and deny him his rights. This cold-hearted society, in which money rules, is very reminiscent of our own times.

Le Colonel Chabert certainly seems to be worth reading and I enjoyed your review of Goethe's correspondence with a child.

Interesting reviews, Edwin. I was a bit disappointed that you didn't find Englander's stories more compelling, as I am hoping to read one of his collections soon, in advance of an author talk I plan to attend.

I agree completely with your assessment of George Saunders. I read an ER copy of Tenth of December and cannot fathom what all the praise is about. I like your comment: A short story must be infused with some inspiration. I found none of that in Saunders - mainly shallow characters in contrived situations and a writer trying too hard to be edgy and relevant.

013. Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise
Finished reading: 16 January 2013



Honoré de Balzac’s main oevre consists of 91 stories, novels and analytical essays, and 46 unfinished works together constituting a grand Comédie Humaine. This colossal series of works, with the subtitle Study of mores, aims to describe all aspects of society. Each novel or story focuses on a different layers, genders, social classes, ages, professions and institutions in French society during the Restauration and July Monarch period (1815 – 1848), showing the causes and effects in society.

A less well-known part of Balzac’s oevre are the five stories constituting Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise. These stories are directly linked to La Comédie Humaine. They are parables which make the reader reflect on human society through the eyes of animals.



These five stories were written by Honoré de Balzac as a contribution to a series of short stories, plays, etc collected and edited by Pierre-Jules Hetzel, who used the pen name P.-J. Stahl. Hetzel was active as an editor as well as writer. He knew and was friends with many French authors who were active during the first half of the nineteenth century, including many great illustrators and artists, whom he asked to contribute to the magazines and collaborative book projects he initiated. Besides his editorial work, Pierre-Jules Hetzel produced a considerable oevre which can appreciated in its own right.



Hetzel’s first success was with Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux. Études de mœurs contemporaines. This serialized work consists of novellas, satirical stories, and short plays, each richly illustrated with wood cuts by Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, usually known under the pen names J.J. Grandville or Jean-Jacques Grandville. Grandville specialized in zoomorphic pictures, and illustrated books and magazines of various authors during his life time. Over a period of two years he contributed 320 wood cuts to Hetzel’s Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux.



Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux first appeared serialized between 1840 and 1842, and then in book form in two volumes in 1841 and 1842. The books were very successful and were reprinted several times throughout the nineteenth century.



Volume one of consists of sixteen episodes. P.-J. Stahl is the main contributor, writing the Prologue and three episodes. Honoré de Balzac also contributed four episodes to the first volume, but one of his contributions in this volume, , although written by Balzac was attributed to George Sand. Other authors who contributed to volume I are Émile de La Bédollière, Gustave Droz, Jules Janin, Édouard Lemoine, Paul de Musset, Charles Nodier and Louis Viardot.


Volume two consists of fourteen episodes, five by Stahl, two by Droz, and one each by Bédollière , Alfred de Musset, L. Baude, Ménessier Nodier (daughter of Charles Nodier), Pierre Bernard and Honoré de Balzac.



The five episodes or novellas written by Balzac are collected and published as a separate volume. This type of “out-of-context” publication makes for quite difficult reading. For example, my edition has neither an introduction which might explain the broader framework of Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, nor footnotes, nor illustrations. Knowledge of the broader framework is needed to understand direct references to the framework. In the Prologue the animals form an editorial board for the whole work, so when Balzac opens his second story as follows:

Messieurs les Rédacteurs, les Ânes sentent le besoin de s'opposer, à la Tribune Animale, contre l'injuste opinion qui fait de leur nom un symbole de bêtise. (p. 133)

Seasoned readers would know who those Rédacteurs (editors ) are, but without proper references the reader is at a loss.

Generally, Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise is difficult to read because of many references to politicians, scientists and other real-life people during the first half of the nineteenth century, and cross references between the episodes, to episodes contributed by other authors. Therefore, Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise may not be such a light read, and for full appreciation, the reader without an annotated edition may have to spend some time looking up references.



Balzac’s first novella is titled Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise. It is an amusing story which can be read without much difficulty. It very clearly portrays Victorian mores about what does and what does not constitute proper behaviour in public. Like all other stories it is completely, cleverly and convincingly, written from the point of animals, in this case cats, and therefore presents humourous descriptions of how cats eat, drink milk or spend the whole night sleeping on the lap of their owner whilst he plays whist. Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise is a love story, describing the love of a fairly common cat for an “aristocratic” breed, and subsequent developments.


The second story by Balzac Guide-âne à l’usage des animaux qui veulent parvenir aux honneurs is much more difficult to understand as it refers to a scientific debate about the classification of animals by competing zoologists at the time the story was written.
The third story, Voyage d’un moineau de Paris à la recherche du meilleur gouvernement is more readable again. It is this story which was attributed to George Sand, as Balzac said he did not want to dominate volume 1. As a kind of introduction, the story opens describing the social structure of classes in Paris, or rich and poor sparrows, suggesting that the growing gap between the classes needs to be addressed by finding a more suitable form of government. Subsequently, the sparrow travels to three imaginary realms, the realm of the Ants, the Kingdom of the Bees, with their glorious Queen, clearly a reference to Victorian Britain, and the realm of the Wolves, to descide on the most appropriate form of state.



The next story, Voyage d’un lion d’Afrique à Paris, et ce qui s’ensuivit was difficult to follow. Superficially, it describes the visit of the Lion, the crown prince, to Paris. He is astounded to find that in France “the King reigns but the people rule” (A Paris, the roi règne et ne gouverne pas (p.204). The Lion describes contemporary Paris where anything is sold and anything can be bought. The story is written in epistolary from, of letters written home to his father. It is a satire of the demi-monde of Paris at that time (a propos the word “demi-monde” wasn’t coined until 1855). The story was difficult to understand because many references are not clear.



The last story Les amours de deux bêtes offerts en exemple aux gens d’esprit : histoire animau-sentimentale was the most readable, and most beautiful story to read. It is a love story that reads like a fairytale about the love of a Ladybug for a Caterpillar. The structure of the story is a little bit confusing because the story is set up as people’s observations of true love among animals, while the story contains references to the human world, the animal world an another realm inhabited by imaginary animals. These three layers are a bit confusing, but do not prevent the reader from an enchanting, magic reading experience. This story, was by far the most beautiful.



Overall, Balzac’s Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise is a very difficult, but with the right references, very rewarding, and thence, also, very enjoyable read. It is definitely advisable to buy an annotated edition, or read the stories within the context of Hetzel’s Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux.



Other books I have read by Honoré de Balzac:
Le Colonel Chabert











Besides the larger contributions to Hetzel’s Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux. Études de mœurs contemporaines, there were also smaller contributions, forming intermissions between the more substantial episodes. On of these smaller contributions to Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux was written by Benjamin Franklin. It reads as follows (complete):

DERNIÈRES PAROLES D'UN ÉPHÉMÈRE.

C'était l'opinion des savants philosophes de notre race qui ont vécu et fleuri longtemps avant le présent âge, que ce vaste monde ne pourrait pas subsister plus de dix-huit heures ; et je pense que cette opinion n'était pas sans fondement, puisque par le mouvement apparent du grand luminaire qui donne la vie à toute la nature , et qui de mon temps a considérablement décliné vers l'océan qui borne cette terre, il faut qu'il termine son cours à cette époque, s'éteigne dans les eaux qui nous
environnent, et livre le monde à des glaces et à des ténèbres qui amèneront nécessairement une mort et une destruction universelles. J'ai vécu sept heures dans ces dix-huit; c'est un grand âge; ce n'est pas moins de quatre cent vingt minutes; combien peu entre nous parviennent aussi loin! J'ai vu des générations naître, fleurir et disparaître. Mes amis présents sont les enfants et les petits-enfants des amis de ma jeunesse, qui, hélas! ne sont plus, et je dois bientôt les suivre; car, pour le cours ordinaire de la nature, je ne puis m'attendre, quoique en bonne santé, à vivre encore plus de sept à huit minutes. Que me servent à present tous mes travaux, toutes mes fatigues, pour faire sur celte feuille une provision de miellée que pendant tout le reste de ma vie je ne pourrai consommer? Que me servent les débats politiques dans lesquels je me suis engagé pour l'avantage de mes compatriotes, habitants de ce buisson? Que me servent mes recherches philosophiques consacrées au bien de notre espèce en général? En politique, que peuvent les lois sans les mœurs? Le cours des minutes rendra la génération présente des éphémères aussi corrompue que celle des buissons plus anciens, et par conséquent, aussi malheureuse. Et en philosophie, que nos progress sont lents! Hélas! l'art est long et la vie est courte. Mes amis voudraient me consoler par l'idée d'un nom qu'ils disent que je laisserai après moi. Ils disent que j'ai assez vécu pour ma gloire et pour la nature; mais que sert la renommée pour un éphémère qui n'existe plus? Et l'histoire, que deviendra-t-elle, lorsqu'à la dix-huitième heure le monde tout entire sera arrivé à sa fin pour n'être plus qu'un amas de ruines?
Pour moi, après tant de recherches actives, il ne me reste de bien réel que la satisfaction d'avoir passé ma vie dans l'intention d'être utile, la conversation aimable de quelques bonnes dames éphémères, et l'espérance de vivre encore quelques secondes dans leur souvenir, lorsque je ne serai plus.

Benjamin Franklin.

Wow, that's such an informative review, and beautifully illustrated to boot. Thanks, Edwin.

By the way, the picture above Voyage d’un lion d’Afrique à Paris, et ce qui s’ensuivit made me think of this famous picture of Walt Whitman:

Le colonel Chabert sounds superb.

Haven't read Englander yet, but you confirmed my suspicions.

Gartner used to be a columnist in a Toronto newspaper and sometimes did cultural analysis. Even then I found her writing annoying, so didn't follow up with her book.

Great post on Balzac’s: Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise with some wonderful illustrations and excellent background material. Thanks Edwin

014. Le colonel Chabert / Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise
Finished reading: 16 January 2013



The first novel or novella in this edition is Le Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac, a neglected masterpiece. The beginning of this short novel is a bit confusing as it starts in media res of clerks in a notary's office having lunch or supper and making fun of an old beggar in the street who apparently wants to see the notary. The old man, dressed in rags, is admitted and able to tell the notary his gruesome story. He relates how as a general he fought alongside Napoleon in the Battle of Eylau, in Prussia, and was slain so badly that, unconscious, with a gash over his skull, he was left for dead at the battlefield. He managed to escape from the mass grave into which he had been dumped and through the melting snow cry for help. Rescued, he was nursed back to health and after nine years returned to France to discover that his wife had remarried and disappeared and his dominions were sold off. The notary explains that his case is a difficult one, as officially colonel Chabert is dead, and to regain his possessions he must prove that he is who he claims to be, and not some impostor. The notary lends the colonel some money, to live on, while he agrees to represent him. A meeting with his (former) wife is arranged. She immediately recognizes him by his voice, but otherwise the colonel has unrecognizeably changed. The notary visits the colonel in his humble abode and explains that his fortune has dwindled, and that he could only hope to receive a fraction therof, if any at all.

Le Colonel Chabert is a very pitiable story. As Chabert, the war hero, returns after nine years, he finds himself among the nouveau riche of the new society. Several times there is mention that there is a considerable difference in age between colonel Chabert and the other major players in the drama, notably his (ex-) wife,her new husband, the notary and the lawyer. While colonel Chabert still loves his former wife, and isn’t even attempting to regain his full possessions, he is met with coldly calculating cunning, to swindle him and deny him his rights. This cold-hearted society, in which money rules, is very reminiscent of our own times.

A less well-known part of Balzac’s oevre are the five stories constituting Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise. These stories are directly linked to La Comédie Humaine. They are parables which make the reader reflect on human society through the eyes of animals. These five stories were written by Honoré de Balzac as a contribution to a series of short stories, plays, etc collected and edited by Pierre-Jules Hetzel, in Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux. Études de mœurs contemporaines. This serialized work, later published in book form, consists of novellas, satirical stories, and short plays, each richly illustrated with wood cuts. Volume one of consists of sixteen episodes of which four were written by Honoré de Balzac although one of his contributions was attributed to George Sand. Volume two consists of fourteen episodes, of which one by Honoré de Balzac.

The five episodes or novellas written by Balzac are collected and published as a separate volume. This type of “out-of-context” publication makes for quite difficult reading. For example, this edition has neither an introduction which might explain the broader framework of Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, nor footnotes, nor illustrations. Knowledge of the broader framework is needed to understand direct references to the framework. In the Prologue the animals form an editorial board for the whole work, so when Balzac opens his second story as follows:

Messieurs les Rédacteurs, les Ânes sentent le besoin de s'opposer, à la Tribune Animale, contre l'injuste opinion qui fait de leur nom un symbole de bêtise. (p. 133)

Readers of the complete edition would know who those Rédacteurs (editors ) are, but without proper references the reader of the novellas out-of-context is at a loss. Generally, Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise is difficult to read because of many references to politicians, scientists and other real-life people during the first half of the nineteenth century, and cross references between the episodes, and to episodes contributed by other authors, which are not included in this edition. Therefore, Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise may not be such a light read, and for full appreciation, the reader without an annotated edition may have to spend some time looking up references.

Balzac’s first novella is titled “Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise”. It is an amusing story which can be read without much difficulty. It very clearly portrays Victorian mores about what does and what does not constitute proper behaviour in public. Like all other stories it is completely, cleverly and convincingly, written from the point of animals, in this case cats, and therefore presents humourous descriptions of how cats eat, drink milk or spend the whole night sleeping on the lap of their owner whilst he plays whist. “Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise” is a love story, describing the love of a fairly common cat for an “aristocratic” breed, and subsequent developments.

The second story by Balzac “Guide-âne à l’usage des animaux qui veulent parvenir aux honneurs” is much more difficult to understand as it refers to a scientific debate about the classification of animals by competing zoologists at the time the story was written.
The third story, “Voyage d’un moineau de Paris à la recherche du meilleur gouvernement” is more readable again. It is this story which was attributed to George Sand, as Balzac said he did not want to dominate volume 1. As a kind of introduction, the story opens describing the social structure of classes in Paris, or rich and poor sparrows, suggesting that the growing gap between the classes needs to be addressed by finding a more suitable form of government. Subsequently, the sparrow travels to three imaginary realms, the realm of the Ants, the Kingdom of the Bees, with their glorious Queen, clearly a reference to Victorian Britain, and the realm of the Wolves, to descide on the most appropriate form of state.
The next story, “Voyage d’un lion d’Afrique à Paris, et ce qui s’ensuivit” is difficult to follow. Superficially, it describes the visit of the Lion, the crown prince, to Paris. He is astounded to find that in France “the King reigns but the people rule” (A Paris, the roi règne et ne gouverne pas (p.204). The Lion describes contemporary Paris where anything is sold and anything can be bought. The story is written in epistolary from, of letters written home to his father. It is a satire of the demi-monde of Paris at that time (a propos the word “demi-monde” wasn’t coined until 1855). The story was difficult to understand because many references are not clear.

The last story “Les amours de deux bêtes offerts en exemple aux gens d’esprit : histoire animau-sentimentale” was the most readable, and most beautiful story to read. It is a love story that reads like a fairytale about the love of a Ladybug for a Caterpillar. The structure of the story is a little bit confusing because the story is set up as people’s observations of true love among animals, while the story contains references to the human world, the animal world an another realm inhabited by imaginary animals. These three layers are a bit confusing, but do not prevent the reader from an enchanting, magic reading experience. This story, was by far the most beautiful.

Overall, Balzac’s Peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise is a very difficult, but with the right references, very rewarding, and thence, also, very enjoyable read. It is definitely advisable to buy an annotated edition, or read the stories within the context of Hetzel’s Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux.

Thus this edition brings together two interesting works, somewhat less well-known works.

015. The children Of Captain Grant
Finished reading: 19 January 2013



The children Of Captain Grant is a classic adventure story, the fifth of Jules Verne's series of "extraordinary travels and voyges". The story is very entertaining, and, provided the reader can bear Verne's extentive descriptions of geography, flora & fauna, and local customs, all very entertaining.

The story begins as Lord and Lady Glenarvan, sailing home to Glasgow in with their ship, the Duncan find a bottle with a message. The message is written identically in three languages, but the papers in the bottle have sustained water damage and the message is barely readable. Nonetheless, it is clear that the message comes from Captain Grant, who was shipwrecked. Research reveals that the message must have been posted by Captain Grant after the supposed shipwreck of his vessel, the Brittania. Lord Glenarvan also locates Captain Grant's children, Mary and Robert. As the Admiralty refuses to undertake a rescue mission, Lord Glenarvan decides to undertake such a mission himself, bringing along his wife and Captain Grant's children. A very valuable additional team member will prove to be Paganel, a somewhat muddle-headed geographer who mistakenly boarded the Duncan in the harbour of Glasgow.

After the most meticulous interpretation of the three messages from the bottle, compared with the last call in port of the Brittania, it is decided that Captain Grant is most likely to be found in South-America. Based on details from the message they decide to cross the continent along the 37th parallel south. The Duncan lands them on the continent from where their travels to search inland for Captain Grant, whom they believe to be held captive by native tribes. During their search in Patagonia, they encounter a native who tells them about a white man who was taken, and they follow this lead hoping to find Captain Grant. However, half-way through they realize the story is incorrect. Crossing the continent, they come across the wildest adventures including an earthquake and a flood, while observing all the most typical flora an fauna, such as the condor, for Latin America. There are also mentions of typical culture of south American indians. After a strenuous journey, they are taken on board the Duncan which awaits them at the agreed point on the other side of the continent.

Despairing after their failure in finding Captain Grant, Paganel is inspired to read the message in a different way, explaining that they should pusue their search along the 37th parallel, but should set sail for Australia. They set course, via Tristan da Cunha and Amsterdam Island, to the west coast of Australia. Here, they meet a sailor called Ayrton, who was the quarter-master of the Britannia. He promises to lead them across the continent to the place where the Britannia was shipwrecked. They set out with a caravan of waggons, oxen and horses, to follow the trail and cross over to the east coast. However, in the middle of their journey Ayrton rouses suspicion, as their animals die one after the other, and they are shadowed by a band of crooks. Ayrton leaves them stranded, while getting away with a letter by Lord Glenarvan which he will use to board and direct the Duncan, which he wants to take control of. After a long journey of foot, the rescue party reaches the east coast of Australia, and failing to meet the Duncan at the appointed location, they believe their mission is a complete failure. They have not found Captain Grant, and have lost the Duncan. They pay passage on a ship to New Zealand, but this ship is wrecked off the coast of New Zealand. The unhappy party falls into the hands of a maori tribe they believe will kill them, but with the help of Robert, who was not captured they manage a spectacular escape, and making use of the Maori's superstitious believes in taboo, the escape being recaptured by the cannibals. Crossing over land, they reach the coast, but here they are again in danger of being captured. They try to escape in a canoe, and as they are about to be overtaken by Maori in pursuit, they are rescued by a European ship, which turns out to be the Duncan. Back aboard ship they hear how Ayrton's attemp to capture the Duncan was foiled. At his own request, Ayrton is transported to to be left at an uninhabited island, Tabor Island, on which they discover Captain Grant.

To modern readers, the features of the geography, flora and fauna, and anthropology of local peoples of South America, Australia and New Zealand may be a bit tedious to read, but most of it is quite entertaining. It is obvious that the novel is structured in such a way to enable the author to maximize the descriptive potential. Coming from Scotland, in search of a shipwreck in South America the most logical attempt would be to land on the east coast of the continent and cross over to the west coast. Upon failing to find the captain, the most logical thing would then be to cross over to New Zealand, as if the travellers would have followed the 37th parallel they would then have found Captain Grant immediately on Tabor Island. In the novel, however, the globe is circumvented, sailing from the west to the east.

Beside the extensive descriptions of geographical features, natural history and disasters, readers are entertained with lock, stock, and barrel clichés about cannibalism and "once a convict, forever a convict" regarding the settlers in Australia.

Altogether a very entertaining novel.



Other books I have read by Jules Verne:
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers
De la terre à la lune
Around the World in Eighty Days
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
All Around the Moon

I had not heard of The Children of Captain Grant. I don't mind Verne's descriptive writing, it didn't slow down the action too much in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. He does tell a good story.

Wow...so many great reviews here! I read roughly half of them, and I'll read the rest a bit later. I enjoyed your very fair review of The Forgotten Waltz, which I absolutely hated because of Gina; I'm all but certain that it was my least favorite book of 2012. Arabesques is a book I'll have to look for in the UK, as it doesn't seem to be available here (for a reasonable price, anyway). Die Kirschen der Freiheit sounds very interesting, but it doesn't seem to have been published in English from what I can tell. And, your review of Better Living Through Plastic Explosives made me laugh out loud!

Just catching up with all these fascinating reviews. Especially interested in the Balzac, and love love love those illustrations!

I'm glad you enjoyed Le Colonel Chabert so much. My mother gave me that one last time she went to France and the synopsis sounded great but I was concerned that it wouldn't be able to stand on its own so I wouldn't be able to read it. Now I know that is not the case.

016. The swerve. How the world became modern
Finished reading: 20 January 2013



Stephen Greenblatt is the main proponent of New Historicism, the branch of literary criticism which argues that a literary work must be studied and interpreted while analyzing the history of its author. In contrast with Historical Criticism, which only aims to demonstrate how a work rflects the time in which it was created, New Historicism "evaluates how the work is influenced by the time in which the author wrote it. It also examines the social sphere in which the author moved, the psychological background of the writer, and the books and theories that may have influenced him or her. Beyond that, many critics also look at the impact a work had and consider how it influenced others."

In The swerve. How the world became modern, Greenblatt applies the principles of New Historicism to the evaluation of De Rerum Natura by Lucretius. The description of the life and ideas of its author, the social circles he (may have) moved in, particularly describing the history of the Villa of the papyri in Herculaneum make for very interesting reading. There are descriptions of the history of books, and an extensive biography of the Renaissance notary Poggio Bracciolini and how he rediscovered the single extant manuscript of De Rerum Natura in a German monastery in 1417. Subsequent chapters describe the significance of the text and its impact, particularly in terms of the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, suggesting that it was the cornerstone to the development of the modern world.

It is at this point that Mr Greenblatt seems to be overplaying his hand. The conclusion that Lucretius' De Rerum Natura hold the key to the development of the modern man implies that this development could not start until after the discovery of the manuscript in 1417. This conclusion in clearly wrong.

Common knowledge sees the beginning of the Renaissance in the early 1340s with Petrarca. Rather than suggesting that De Rerum Natura was a contributing factor, or katalysator of a movement which had already begun, Greenblatt's book suggests that Petrarca was a precursor of that movement. Other authors of political movements, such as the revolt of the Ciompi in 1378 are marginalized and downplayed. The most important omission is the revolt of Cola di Rienzo in 1347, which suggests that Greenblatt is selective in his choice of sources and facts to the extent of distortion or oversimplification. Long before Poggio Bracciolini expeditions to hunt for ancient texts, Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccacio were contemporaries and friends who collected and studied ancient texts.

The swerve. How the world became modern has many characteristics of a work of popular science. Sources and references are not noted in the text, but listed as end notes, however, without clear reference in the text. Although not exlicit in the text, the book suggests that a the turn from the Middle Ages to the Rennaisance can be pinpointed to a particular year, and even a particular moment, namely the moment Poggio picked up the book from the shelf. This type of suggestion is very reminiscent of recent history bestsellers such as 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies.

The swerve. How the world became modern is a very readable and very interesting book, but should certainly be read critically.

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern certainly sounds intriguing, but I have a dislike for some aspects of New Historicism, as exemplified by the problems you had with the book. I'll certainly keep them in mind, if and when I get to this book.

Yes, Dewald, you are probably more familiar with New Historicism. I do not recall that that was part of my curriculum; it took me quite some pondering to write the review of The swerve in terms of historical criticism, when I chanced upon new historicism.

The focus of the book and Greenblatt's relation to De Rerum Natura are all very clear when you read the introduction to the book. While reading The swerve I was mainly focussed on the development of the Renaissance and the biography of Poggio, but then became annoyed with the careless description of the early Renaissance period from the 1340s till 1420s. It was only after reading the book and reflecting that I realized that not the Renaissance is the main focus of the book, but De Rerum Natura, its author and its impact.

I think Galileo might have done everything in much the same way if he hadn't known about De Rerum Natura.

A friend gave me The Swerve but it hasn't called out to me yet. I enjoyed your review, and it still isn't calling out to me.

Excellent critical review of the Swerve: How the World became Modern I am not so sure I want to read this now. Sounds like another author who has a point to prove and so is blinkered to much else that is evident. It makes for a good novel, but I am not so sure it makes good history.

I think it's too convenient to hinge history on key events/people/books.

Also, knowing doodley-squat about literary criticism, I wouldn't expect a single 'correct' approach to applicable to all works/authors. I guess the Swerve might not be for me.

Catching up...from all the back to The Forgotten Waltz. Some rich reviews here..and quite a variety.

Your review of Englander parallels my own impression from back about the time it was published. It really felt like the cheapened the experiences he was writing about. But then I read it at a time I wasn't reading anything else like it. I've been wondering whether I would think differently of it now.

Wonderful review of Arabesques by Robert Dessaix

I think I would like The Swerve despite the problems you raised, but I have to say you put down a good critique, enough to discourage me.

And, I need to add, terrific stuff on Balzac.

Thanks, Dan. It is always reassuring to hear that some others share ideas about books, such as with Englander.

Incidentally, The Swerve does contain some interesting tid-bits about Lucretius poem, and its history. It just should not be read as an introduction or history of the Renaissance.

Like many readers, I am new to the works of Balzac. I have owned books and editions of his some of his works for as long as I know, but had never really read any. The reading with the Author Theme Read Group is the step that made me actually pick up and start reading some.

Currently, I m in my South-China retreat, celebrating Chinese New Year and catching up on some long-overdue writing assignments. I left Balzac behind in Beijing, and only brought my Kindle (of course, I could download some).

I now first want to finish Les Travailleurs de la mer (Engl. The Toilers of the Sea) group read, before plunging into other books in French.

Happy New Year, Edwin! I hope you're enjoying the festivities.

Edwin, nice to see you on the Featured Authors slot on LT

#81 Cool!

>81 baswood:

Featured Authors slot on LT

Sounds interesting. Can someone show me where that is on LT?

Featured Authors shows up on the Home page, on the right hand side. It's between "From the Blogs" and "Early Reviewers." And there you are! ... at least that's how it is over here in the U.S.
:)

Well, perhaps to stem vanity, that feature isn't visible to me. If I log out and log in with my other account, then I can see it, but not with my regular account.

You've probably hidden it.

Go to your Home page and next to your name in the box, there is a link "customize this page". Just make your selections there and you are all set. You can show/hide and you can also change the order of the pages on the home page.

You are right, Annie. I found it!

017. Jack Sheppard
Finished reading: 28 January 2013



In 2010, Penguin Books published ten Victorian bestsellers as "Pocket Penguin Classics". These novels appeared without introduction and notes, which make the Penguin Classics series such a wonderful resource. Missing this critical apparatus in the 2010 Pocket Classics series, is quite a loss.

One of these ten Victorian bestsellers is William Harrison Ainsworth's historical novel Jack Sheppard, which was first published in 1839.

The story of Jack Sheppard is set in the early Eighteenth century, between 1703 and 1724. The historical novel deals with the life of Jack Sheppard. The novel consists of a fictionalised account of Sheppard's life entwined with a fictional, more romantic plot line. The characters which appear in that part of the novel referring to Sheppard's life are historical figures, notably Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, and Blueskin. Alongside the story line of Jack Sheppard's notorious life, the novel tells the story of Thames Darrell, which is a type of "pauper & prince" plot added to the historical story.

The novel belongs to the particular genre known as the "Newgate novel". Novels belonging to this genre often portray and glorify the lives of criminals. Dickens' Oliver Twist is usually mentioned as an example of this type of novel.

The historical figure Jack Sheppard was a young, and handsome fellow, who excelled at escaping from prison. His good looks and tender age, Jack was executed at the age of 21, and his marvelous exploits escaping from prison, won him the sympathy of commoners in the early Eighteenth century. The execution order was regretted, and in the months before his execution various pamphlets appeared describing his biography. One of these authentic pamphlets was written by Daniel Defoe. Sheppard was visited in prison and had his portrait painted. References to these biographical facts are included in the novel.

Jack Shepard's main adversary in the novel is another historical figure, named Jonathan Wild. Wild is a very complex character, and central to understanding the plot of the novel. While Wild appears as a character in Jack Sheppard, Henry Fielding has written a novel, called Jonathan Wild.

The novel Jack Sheppard consists of three parts. The first part is set in 1703, and has the sub title "Jonathan Wild". Without a proper introduction to the background of the characters, the role of Jonathan Wild is hard to grasp. The action in this part of the novel is swift and confusing, and rather puzzling, as two infants are swapped and multiple characters appear and disappear in successive scenes. Reading this part of the novel is not very smooth. The style of writing lacks the suaveness of the novels by Dickens, and more resembles the somewhat cruder style of Walpole's The castle of Otranto.

The second part of the novel, dedicated to Thames Darrell, describes the youth of Jack Sheppard; Again, large parts of the story line are obscure. Both parts one and two of the novel describe the character of Owen Wood as particularly benevolent, and Jack Sheppard, apprenticed to Wood as a carpenter appears as a very naughty boy, but the figure of Darrell remains unclear. An interesting, unusual feature of the early part of the novel is the inclusion of various ballads.

However, the third and longest part of the novel, called "The prison-breaker", set in 1724, Sheppard's last year, is very well-written. This part of the novel is very exciting. It described various exploits of Jack Sheppard, particularly his many successful escapes from various prisons. In this part of the novel the full, evil genius of Jonathan Wild is unfolded, and the romantic plot around Thames Darrell is fully developed.

The novel features a number of characteristics of Victorian novels. There are some heart-rending descriptions of the treatment of people in the mad house, as well as prison. There are extensive descriptions of the architecture of the Newgate prison, and the architecture of Jonathan Wild's house is quite a marvel. This part of the novel introduces various characters which, though not central to the plot, are very interesting, notably the prison wardens. Last but not least, in the final part of the book, the readers feelings toward young Sheppard are so successfully swayed that he is less looked upon as a criminal, the more as a noble youth, who would deserve a spectacular Robin-Hood-fashion liberation.

Difficult to get into, and somewhat hard to read in the first 250 pages, especially the last part of the novel makes Jack Sheppard very well worth reading.

Excellent review of Jack Sheppard Edwin . I will certainly keep this one in mind. I won't be put off by the fact that the novel is difficult to get into.

I will put in a good word for The swerve because Lucretius needs to be read, and I think Greenblatt's book whets this appetite considerably. De rerum natura is amazing, and while I'm certainly not saying it kick-started the renaissance and engendered modernity all on its own (neither does Greenblatt), one can easily see it as a source, harbinger and inspiration of things to come.

This comes out clearly enough in Greenblatt's book, in the middle chapters dealing with the ideas in De rerum natura (I admit I skimmed quite a bit of the story of the manuscript's discovery and Poggio Bracciolini himself). This is probably doing an injustice to Greenblatt's effort, but to me a sufficient reason for recommending it in answer to "why should I read Lucretius?"

*muttering under my breath*
And he went and did it again - now I want this book. And the other 9 in these 10 Penguin published.
*end of muttering*

Great review Edwin - some days I wonder how did I decide what to read before LT? :) Now off to research these 10 Victorian novels that Penguin published...

88> I was reading Lovecraft's long essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" last night, and Ainsworth was mentioned favorably as a significant, if not major, contributor to the genre. I didn't know he ventured into Jack Shepard territory too. I've had The Lancashire Witches sitting around forever. I should check Ainsworth out after reading your enlightening review.

I loved Jack Sheppard and just read Jonathan Wild -- haven't reviewed it yet, but it was a little disappointing.

I started reading Jack Sheppard around the same time as you did, but then was very busy for nearly three months, so I finished it in late January. Ever since, I have been looking forward to your review of Jonathan Wild. I suppose from your review it will become clear what is disappointing about it. (It is not a book that pops to mind when we think about Henry Fielding.)

Ainsworth wrote Jack Sheppard as a historical novel, a hundred years afterwards. Henry Fielding and Jonathan Wild (and Jack Sheppard) were contemporaries, and the novel was published about 20 years after Wild was hanged.

I am still thinking about reading The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard - Containing a Particular Account of His Many Robberies and Escapes by Daniel Defoe as a follow-up after Jack Sheppard. Defoe's is a contemporary biography of Jack Sheppard.

Fielding's Jonathan Wild is a satire of Robert Walpole, isn't it, rather than an historical novel?

(It's been a lo-oo-oo-ong time since I read it...)

> 91

I have meant to put this list together before, so here it comes:

The ten Victorian bestsellers published by Penguin Books in 2010, in the series "PENGUIN POCKET CLASSICS".

1. LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (9780141192338 )

2. PAUL CLIFFORD by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
(9780141191881)

3. JACK SHEPPARD by William Harrison Ainsworth
(9780141191898 )

4. THE STRING OF PEARLS by Thomas Preskett Prest (9780141192345)

5. THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins
(9780141191911 )

6. THE MOONSTONE by Wilkie Collins
(9780141191928 )

7. THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO by Ann Radcliffe
(9780141191935)

8. A SICILIAN ROMANCE by Ann Radcliffe
(9780141191942 )

9. THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole
(9780140437676 )

10. THE MONK by Matthew Lewis
(9780141191966 )

ISBN numbers are all to paper editions; the books appeared between April and May 2010.

Thanks for that; I was wondering about The String Of Pearls (which I really need to get to).

>97 lyzard:

O, yes, Liz, I read The String Of Pearls last year (and posted a review on the work page). That was great stuff.

Each time I am having a meat pie at the "Comptoirs de France" I think of The String Of Pearls.

>96 edwinbcn: Thanks :)

What a great list, though I have to agree with you about the lack of introduction and footnotes being a loss. The new Penguin English Library: A Tale of 100 Books is doing the same thing: neither notes nor introduction. I bought the edition of North and South from it, not realizing the omission, and it has actually been delaying my reading of it.

Enjoyed your review and will look for this in an older edition.

95 Lyzard Yes, it is said to be a satire of Robert Walpole, although it can be read as being about Jonathan Wild. However, Fielding focuses on the aspects of Wild's life that are effective for satirizing people in power (exclusive self-interest, thievery, lying and deception) rather than on historical aspect like his being a notorious thief-taker as well as a thief.

94 Edwin The Defoe sounds interesting too.

96 I loved The Monk which I read last year. It had been on the TBR, but I wouldn't have picked it up if Liz hadn't been leading a tutored read of it. I didn't participate in the read because I zoomed through it too fast!

>100 SassyLassy:

I think it is a quite logical idea; Wordsworth and various other publishers have series just like that, aiming at the lowest prices. Classics are the books that literally everybody buys (but rarely read). They can keep many publishers afloat.

Let's face it, even to well-educated readers the introductions and notes can be daunting; I am sure they would be very off-putting to large groups of readers, who are just looking for an enjoyable read.

For that matter, many facts about Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, the historical facts, the genre, the novel itself, etc., could be easily found on the Internet.

Introductions by experts must cost the publishers money. In a world where all these classics can be downloaded for free, I suppose it would be logical to print books at the lowest possible price.

On the other hand, those introductions might be a selling point for a different target audience.

I am at a point where I do not read introductions if I had not read the book already - for way too many people, it is ok to discuss plot details in introductions...

>103 henkmet:

It is remarkable in so far that Penguin, OUP and CUP have traditionally published high-quality, annotated and prefaced editions.

Which reminds me that a two months ago, I bought Wives and daughters in another series of Penguin dubbed "Read Red", which are also published without introductions and notes. I had previously bought some more recent books ("modern classics") in this series, which now seems expanded to include other classics.



With its contemporary cover design, the bookstore, Page One had also shelved it with contemporary fiction.

Do you have "Page One" bookstores in Malaysia, Henk?

I'm surprised at anyone doing that for Wives And Daughters - is there a warning (if that's the right word) that it is an unfinished novel?

The 10 above are technically part of the Read Red as well - even if they were in a subseries of their own (or so my research shows anyway)...

>106 lyzard:

No, Liz, there's no such "warning". No introduction whatsoever. On the back flap Andrew Davies (who's that?) is quoted 'A masterpiece'.

>107 AnnieMod:

I don't think so. On the colophon page of the "Read Red" Penguins it says "Published in Red Classics" followed by the year. For the Victorian bestsellers the colophon page says: "Published in Pocket Penguin Classics" followed by the year.

On the back flap, the Victorian bestsellers are listed 1 to 10, itemized.

By the way, someone mentioned elsewhere that they are not all Victorian bestsellers, that is to say, the Victorians may have loved them, but the authors themselves do not belong to the Victorians, notably Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe.

Traditionally, the definition of Victorian is "published during the reign of Queen Victoria, which would be between 1837 and 1901.

The Castle of Otranto was first published in 1764., A Sicilian Romance in 1790 and The mysteries of Udolpho in 1794.

105 No, we have Borders, Kinokuniya and the Malaysian MPH. Other than that there are second hand shops and a discounter offering surplus (but of decent enough quality). The rest is kiosk. I see on their site that there' was a Page One in Singapore and I'm quite sure I visited the one in the Festival Walk when I was in Hong Kong last. There seem to be quite a few in Bangkok, so if I memory endures till May I'll take a look when going to see the Phantom of the Opera there. Thanks for the pointer.

I generally appreciate notes for older books, as there are so many references I might otherwise miss. While I read Jack Sheppard in that Penguin Victorian books series and found it quite readable without notes, I think I would have been lost in The Monk without notes and would have missed a lot in Jonathan Wild without them. I've definitely read some books where I would have appreciated notes. On the other hand, introductions are a mixed bag. Sometimes they're helpful and sometimes they're not. I don't really mind most of the time if they reveal some of the plot, because usually for an older work I have some idea of the plot anyway, but sometimes they just don't say anything very useful. I am grateful for the publishers that pay for them and for notes, and I am very worried about what may happen to Penguin and its backlist now that it is on the verge of being bought by a big commercial publisher whose name I've blocked out!

#110 - Random House.... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/business/global/us-regulators-approve-random-h...

Thanks! It is worrisome.

Andrew Davies is the head of one of the BBC's two period drama production groups (if I can call them that). I don't particularly care for his adaptations myself but I seem to be in the minority.

I never read the introduction until I've finished the novel, as I take it for granted there will be spoilers. I'm also noticing a worrying trend where you find spoilers for other novels in introductions and sometimes even in the notes.

#112 - I agree Rebecca. It's sad to see all these publishing mergers.

(Before this merger there were already only six publishers who dominated US publishing. Here is a basic summary: http://www.criticalpages.com/tag/the-big-six-publishers/ )

018. Lieutenant Gustl
Finished reading: 28 January 2013



Lieutenant Gustl (published in English as None but the Brave) is a novella by the Austrian novelist Arthur Schnitzler. With this novella, which appeared in 1900, he was one of the first authors to experiment with, and write a story conceived entirely in monologue interieur.

The novella has very little to offer in the sense of plot or action. The story consists entirely is the ruminations of Lieutenant Gustl. The difficulty in reading and appreciating the novella lie in the ability to put up with Gustl's stream of thoughts, and understanding his thoughts and conclusions in the setting and time frame of nineteenth century Austria.

The novella opens with Gustl being bored, sitting through a performance in a Viennese concert. While collecting his coat from the cloakroom he is offended by the local baker. Unable to settle this affront there and then, he comes away feeling utterly humiliated, and spends the night ruminating on what he should have done, and how to rid himself of this blemish, seeing no other way out than to commit suicide. He decides to postpone this gruesome act until after his morning coffee in his regular cafe, where he is informed that the baker died unexpectedly the previous night from a heart attack. Utterly relieved, Gustl abandons his suicide plans.

When it appeared, in 1900, the novella caused a scandal, as it purported to show the cowardice of an officer of the Austrian Imperial and Royal Guard. Gustl's decision to commit suicide must be seen within the context of the then current military code, which prescribed suicide in such a situation, where the officer was prevented from settling the matter there-and-then, not by a duel, which would suit offenders belonging to the same aristocratic class, but by immediate action.

Readers who can put up with Gustl's depressing ruminations, may find Lieutenant Gustl an exemplary early example of a novella entirely based on interior monologue.



Other works I have read by Arthur Schnitzler:
Flucht in die Finsternis

Hmm. Interesting to read about, but probably not one I'll read myself.

019. Pollyanna
Finished reading: 30 January 2013



Pollyanna (1913) by Eleanor H. Porter is now mainly read as a children's book, but is wasn't written or intended as such. It was an immediate bestseller and influenced many people and popular culture during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The story is about a young girl, who, as an orphan, is sent to live with her aunt, the stern Miss Polly. Pollyanna's father has taught her a game, which consists of always seeing things and situations in a positive light, and always being delighted with anything, in short, always be glad. The young, bright, innocent Polyanna spreads this belief, and starts influencing the people around her.

Within a few months she has made friends with most people in the community, even people, such as Mr Pendleton, who was considered to be unapproachable. Her unlimited optimism cheers up all the people around her, and brings people together, who were separated through years of miserly sorrow and anguish.

Underlying Polyanna's "glad game" lies the idea that everyone should be happy with small things. There are subtle suggestions that money is not the most important thing in life, and that apart from money there are many other things that may make people happy. The novel also suggests that Americans should care for each other before caring for others, far away, as there were still many poor and needy people within the US, at that time.

To the modern reader the book may appear repetitive and very simple, probably why it is now seen as a children's book. Because of its young protagonist, and its message, the novel also seems aimed at children. However, it is likely that children will merely focus on the superficial and rather simplistic message about being happy with anything, while missing the more subtle criticism on a society which is increasingly ruled by money, turning people in miserly Scrooges, having a lot of money, but unable to find happiness in life.

The Schnitzler book sounds really interesting as early interior monologue. I just looked him up in amazon and was amazed to see how many titles and films were associated with him.

Pollyanna was one of my favourites and when I saw an older edition of it again last summer in a book store I scooped it up. Much of it came back reading your review. Now I will have to read it as an adult, but your review makes it seem as if it would hold up.

Glad to see you posting again and looking forward to your thoughts on the James Palmer book.

Lieutenant Gustl sounds a very strange book, probably you have to be in tune with the time in which it was written to get the best out of it.

>118 SassyLassy:, 119

While not the first, Arthur Schnitzler experimented with techniques such as monologue interieur and stream-of-consciousness at a very early time. He was also revolutionary in what he wrote about, which often led to scandals in the very anally retentive Viennese society. Freud positively encouraged Schnitzler.

I had a very busy first quarter, which involved travel, and, back in Beijing plunged me in an overwrought working schedule. As a result, I did not read as much as I would have liked, and wasn't able to post reviews, particularly during the past three weeks.

I made some notes about some of the books I read, but now, typically, cannot find those notes; so some reviews may seem a bit bland.

It might be interesting to read Lieutenant Gustl simply to take a look at a point of view entirely alien to my own.

"...while missing the more subtle criticism on a society which is increasingly ruled by money, turning people in miserly Scrooges, having a lot of money, but unable to find happiness in life."

Enjoyed your reviews and this comment.

020. Pollyanna grows up
Finished reading: 31 January 2013



In 1915, Eleanor Porter published a sequel to her bestseller Pollyanna. It seems that in Pollyanna grows up she wanted to retain the elements that made the original book so successful, while overhauling the story with many new elements and characters.

Overall, the plot of Pollyanna grows up seems very contrived. Towards the end of the original Pollyanna, the little girl had managed, single-handed, to turn a whole, gloomy community to happiness. Therefore, in Pollyanna grows up, the tonic of Pollyanna's infectuous optimism, must be sprinkled over a new set of gloomy characters, which she encounters on a visit, replacement of characters who die off and boarders moving into her home. Many plot situations are the inverse of elements from the original story. The story feels contrived and lacking the spontaneity of the first volume.

Although supposedly Pollyanna grows up to about the age of 20 by the end of the story, her behaviour and mindset remain largely characterised by the naivete and childishness of the original novel. The suggestion that old Mr Pendleton, aged 70 or thereabouts, might marry her, seems very peculiar.

Both volume one, Pollyanna, and volume two, Pollyanna grows up, end in a low key. Towards the end of Pollyanna, the main character is hit by a car (probably still a novelty in 1913), and by the end of Pollyanna grows up, the character Jimmy Bean is troubled by his lowly class background.

As in the original novel, Eleanor Porter, makes the oblique suggestion that people should not think too much about money, and that losing all one's money, can never be the worst thing to happen in one's life (p. 376).

While the original Pollyanna was a bestseller and inspired many people, the word Pollyanna has slipped into the language with a negative connotation as an excessively or blindly optimistic person while pol·ly·an·na·ish has come to mean unreasonably or illogically optimistic.

These negative connotations may suggest that there is a limit to how much optimism the reader can stomach.



Other books I have read by Eleanor H. Porter:
Pollyanna

021. Pollyanna / Pollyanna grows up
Finished reading: 31 January 2013



Pollyanna (1913) by Eleanor H. Porter is now mainly read as a children's book, but is wasn't written or intended as such. It was an immediate bestseller and influenced many people and popular culture during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The story is about a young girl, who, as an orphan, is sent to live with her aunt, the stern Miss Polly. Pollyanna's father has taught her a game, which consists of always seeing things and situations in a positive light, and always being delighted with anything, in short, always be glad. The young, bright, innocent Polyanna spreads this belief, and starts influencing the people around her.

Within a few months she has made friends with most people in the community, even people, such as Mr Pendleton, who was considered to be unapproachable. Her unlimited optimism cheers up all the people around her, and brings people together, who were separated through years of miserly sorrow and anguish.

Underlying Polyanna's "glad game" lies the idea that everyone should be happy with small things. There are subtle suggestions that money is not the most important thing in life, and that apart from money there are many other things that may make people happy. The novel also suggests that Americans should care for each other before caring for others, far away, as there were still many poor and needy people within the US, at that time.

To the modern reader the book may appear repetitive and very simple, probably why it is now seen as a children's book. Because of its young protagonist, and its message, the novel also seems aimed at children. However, it is likely that children will merely focus on the superficial and rather simplistic message about being happy with anything, while missing the more subtle criticism on a society which is increasingly ruled by money, turning people in miserly Scrooges, having a lot of money, but unable to find happiness in life.

In 1915, Eleanor Porter published a sequel to her bestseller Pollyanna. It seems that in Pollyanna grows up she wanted to retain the elements that made the original book so successful, while overhauling the story with many new elements and characters.

Overall, the plot of Pollyanna grows up seems very contrived. Towards the end of the original Pollyanna, the little girl had managed, single-handed, to turn a whole, gloomy community to happiness. Therefore, in Pollyanna grows up, the tonic of Pollyanna's infectuous optimism, must be sprinkled over a new set of gloomy characters, which she encounters on a visit, replacement of characters who die off and boarders moving into her home. Many plot situations are the inverse of elements from the original story. The story feels contrived and lacking the spontaneity of the first volume.

Although supposedly Pollyanna grows up to about the age of 20 by the end of the story, her behaviour and mindset remain largely characterised by the naivete and childishness of the original novel. The suggestion that old Mr Pendleton, aged 70 or thereabouts, might marry her, seems very peculiar.

Both volume one, Pollyanna, and volume two, Pollyanna grows up, end in a low key. Towards the end of Pollyanna, the main character is hit by a car (probably still a novelty in 1913), and by the end of Pollyanna grows up, the character Jimmy Bean is troubled by his lowly class background.

As in the original novel, Eleanor Porter, makes the oblique suggestion that people should not think too much about money, and that losing all one's money, can never be the worst thing to happen in one's life (p. 376).

While the original Pollyanna was a bestseller and inspired many people, the word Pollyanna has slipped into the language with a negative connotation as an excessively or blindly optimistic person while pol•ly•an•na•ish has come to mean unreasonably or illogically optimistic.

These negative connotations may suggest that there is a limit to how much optimism the reader can stomach.

The original two novels Pollyanna and Pollyanna grows up were published in an omnibus edition by Shanghai: World Publishing in 2011 (上海: 世界图书出版公司).

Interesting review of Pollyanna grows up I think that those Pollyanna books should be required reading for all Young Adults.

>125 baswood:

Pollyanna grows up misses a great deal of the freshness of the original Pollyanna, and even that book was a rather a bit too repetitive for my taste. In Pollyanna grows up it is stated: "Pollyanna is not a medicine, but more like a tonic." However, in my view, the dosage is a bit too strong. (A single, little girls changes a whole community).

Throughout the twentieth century, other authors have written episodes using the same character, to expand the series into 16 "Glad books", which seems a typical American phenomenon, to me. While the original message is clear and useful, and the original Pollyanna has remained a classical (children's) book, and as such a bestseller, it seems the book requires a naive audience to remain attractive. Perhaps very young kids might like to read it, or have it read to them, but I suppose to children of the Internet generation, the book must seem too childish and repetitively boring.

022. The moon and sixpence
Finished reading: 6 February 2013



The moon and sixpence is a novel about artistic genius: it aims to show rather than tell what true genius is.

The novel is said to be loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin, but this is really rather immaterial and unimportant. There is no need to look into Gauguin's life. It is more likely that the novel contains a mixture of elements which Somerset Maugham was able to observe and absorb in the artistic milieu of the first quarter of the twentieth century, particularly in Paris. Gauguin lived there about a decade or two before Maugham, but surely Paris of the 1910s and 20s was a hotbed of artists, painters and writers, who were finding a way to express themselves, struggling to stay alive. Various other writers were influenced by Nietzsche's philosophy which suggested that among the herd of common men there were some individuals who were extraordinary, supermen, whose mindset and morals were entirely original and distinct from the ordinary plebs.

In The moon and sixpence the main character, Charles Strickland, abruptly deserts his family to pursue a career as an artist. He gives up a sheltered and financially secure life for the poverty and uncertainties of a career in a field he has neither a background, experience or even recognition. The moment Strickland abandons his old lifestyle, he still needs to learn painting, and throughout the story, none but one other artist recognizes the quality of his work.

Strickland's deserted wife asks the author to follow Strickland to Paris and report on his life there, an assignment the author takes up and extends into writing a full, albeit fragmented biography of Strickland's subsequent life, till his death in the Pacific islands region.

The most important chapters of the novel are chapters 41 through 43, which interpret and explore the contrasts between Strickland and the other characters. In the preceding chapters, Strickland is shown living a completely irrational and immoral life.

Dirk Stroeve is Dutch painter, financially secure and successful, painting conventional pieces, which are much in demand. He is portrayed as utterly sentimental, and a deeply decent and good man, the only person to recognize Strickland's talent. He saves Strickland's life and is rewarded by Strickland absconding with his wife Blanche. However, Strickland cares nothing for Blanche, who ends her life through suicide.

Charles Strickland bears strong resemblance with the main character of The fountainhead by Ayn Rand, a novel which, while published in 1943, spiritually belongs to the same period.

Strickland takes what he wants or needs and discards what he no longer fancies. His life is an example of the shredding of convention. His moral standards are on an entirely different plane, and cannot be understood by common, ordinary people. "I don't care a twopenny damn what you think about me" is what he says (p. 420).

The extraordinary genius of Strickland is illustrated by contrast with the other characters, who are displayed as humble and imperfect. The (unnamed) author (and narrator) is portrayed as a moderately successful author. ("He spoke to me as if I were a child that needed to be distracted" p. 420) Ironically, the wife Strickland leaves, is shown to pick up her life and set up independently running a business, but naturally, running a business, administrating and accounting is ultimately seen as unimaginative, grey and bland. Stroeve is shown to be immature, sentimental and artistically mediocre, while Blanche is portrayed as the ultimate looser, a stunningly beautiful wife who has wasted her life on an ugly man, is seduced by a strong and powerful man, and is subsequently too weak to shape her life, resorting to suicide. Strickland's morals would surely suggest that these people deserve no better.

Rejecting the herd mentality, Strickland has given up materialism and become like "a disembodied spirit" (p. 421), a great idealist (p. 430). He had a vision (ibid.)

Much of the author's admiration, and exaltation emerges post-facto. The last part of the book is of little import, it reports the motions the narrator went through to trace down and talk with witnesses, to complete the biography of Charles Strickland. These witnesses have very little useful information to tell him. The author / narrator regrets that he never bought any of Strickland's paintings, realizing that at the time he, also, was not able to recognize the revolutionary genius. In his assessment, "Strickland was an odious man, but I still think he was a great one. (p. 431)

{Note: Page numbers are to the edition of Shanghai: Yiwen Press (2012) 上海:译文出版社 (2012), which is preceded by the translation of the novel into Chinese. The English original version of the novel is printed on pp. 279 - 493}



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil
Up at the villa

Wonderful review of The moon and sixpence :) Makes me wonder why I had not read anything from Maugham lately...

023. The wonders of instinct
Finished reading: 8 February 2013



Each field of scientific investigation has its heroes, great men and women rooted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who laid the foundations of the discipline through observation and experimentation. To the field of entomology, that place is reserved for the French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre. Fabre led a long and productive life, born in 1823 and dying at the high age of 92 in 1915. He wrote numerous textbooks in the field of natural history and agriculture, including zoology and botany, but his passion was with insects. Especially during the later years of his life, which he spent in his home in the Harmas, in south-central France, he experimented with and observed a variety of insects and spiders, and published his observations in a series of essays, bundled into ten volumes of Souvenirs entomologiques, which appeared between 1879 and 1909. After 1910, selections from these essays were collected and translated into English by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

The wonders of instinct is a collection of essays from Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques. It consists of 14 chapters, most of which can be read independently. The first chapter, added by the translator, describes Jean-Henri Fabre's home and work in the Harmas, functions as an introduction. It is clear that the original work ended with chapter 12, and it must be deduced that the subsequent two chapters were added by the editor / translator.

The wonders of instinct contains chapters on a variety of insects--a number of wasp-like flies, the green grasshopper, burying-beetles, the bluebottle, the pine processionary caterpillar, the glow-worm and the cabbage-caterpillar, while chapters 9 and 10 are devoted to spiders, namely the black-bellied tarantula and the banded epeira.

Most of Fabre’s observations take place in an experimental set-up, as he observes how insects consume their food, lay their eggs or bury themselves in glass pots and test tubes in his laboratory in his home. One of Jean-Henri Fabre's most famous experiments is that in which he balanced a number of pine processionary caterpillars on the circular edge of a vase and showed that they walk head-to-tail for a virtually unlimited interval of time (the experiment was broken off after seven days).



024. The life of the fly
Finished reading: 19 February 2013



The life of the fly is a similar collection of essays, also based on Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques. It is quite a bit more varied than The wonders of instinct, containing 20 chapters, dealing with various kinds of insects, such as, the Anthrax, the Monodontomerus cupreus, greenbottles, grey flesh flies, the bumble-bee fly, and the bluebottle. The majority of the chapters are devoted to describing the life of various kinds of flies, and their grubs and maggots. The flies described in this collection of essays are the kind that most people think of at the word “flies”, namely the shiny green or blue big buzzers, that lay their eggs on meat. It is obvious that the title of this collection derives from the prominent place dedicated to describing these flies. However, The life of the fly also contains five autobiographical chapters which describe Jean-Henri Fabre's recollections of childhood, schooling, and early career in mathematics and chemistry. These chapters describe some of the hardship and hopes of the young Fabre as he grew up in a poor family in the countryside of France, chapters which remind the reader of chapters from Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet which was published at about the same time, when Jean-Henri Fabre was aged between 7 and 11 years old (in the early 1830s).
The chapters on the fly and its grubs in The life of the fly is not for the faint of heart, as it gives detailed descriptions of putrefaction and maggots crawling all over. Incidentally, as in chapter 7 of The wonders of instinct, which was dedicated to the bluebottle, Fabre shows his interest to apply his findings into the nature and behaviour of flies in practical tips for dealing with poultry, fowl and wild birds sold in farmer’s markets. So much decay could be prevented if birds were only sold in a simple paper envelope. Other practical observations in the field of agriculture can be found in the chapter about mushrooms (chapter 18).
In 1859, Jean-Henri Fabre was 36 when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species all of Fabre’s books were published after 1860, but his years of formation took place before the publication of Darwin’s revolutionary theory. Darwin knew Fabre and “bestowed upon me the title of “incomparable observer” (p. 260). Nonetheless, Jean-Henri Fabre seems to have been skeptic of Darwin’s theory of evolution, particularly doubting the role of heredity. In chapter 5 of The life of the fly Fabre takes the silent Beetle’s place in the witness box, cross-examining myself in all simplicity of soul, as I do the animal, and asking myself whence that one of my instincts which stands out above the others is derived. Grown up in a family of toilers of the earth, Fabre cannot explain where his intellectual capacity and interest for insects comes from, which he calls his instinct. This chapter on heredity should of course have been included in the essay collection entitled The wonders of instinct. Without it, the reader might wonder whether the word “instinct” in the title is a misspelling for “insect”. The essays illustrate that more than 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species Darwin’s ideas are so firmly rooted in the consciousness of the reader, that they cannot see the form and behaviour of insects other than as the result of evolutionary processes. However, Jean-Henri Fabre firmly believed that the appearance and instinctive behaviour of insects was fixed, and could not be traced to the insects’ ancestors.



The essays in both collections are very readable, although readers must put up with a number of Latin names and terminology, while non-native readers of English wonder what the common names of all these insects would be in their native languages. Where necessary, the translator has provided useful explanations and clarification.

The translator, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos desrves praise in his own right. Born in Amsterdam in 1865, his parents moved to England in 1874, where he grew up. However, in 1908 Teixeira de Mattos obtained Dutch citizenship. He was active as a translator, translating works of various French and Dutch authors, notable seven novels by Louis Couperus into English. Because of the outstanding quality of his translations, many of his translations have remained in print. The high readability of the essays of Jean-Henri Fabre testifies to that.

Page numbers refer to the omnibus edition by the Shanghai: World Publishing (2011) 上海: 世界图书出版公司. The first chapter in both The wonders of instinct and The life of the fly is identical. This is no error of the publisher. Both essay collections were selected and published separately. In each case, Teixeira de Mattos acted both as the editor and translator. In his role as the editor, Teixeira de Mattos deemed it appropriate that each volume should be preceded by an introductory chapter. Confusion might arise, as the Chinese publisher has, regretfully, omitted Teixeira de Mattos’ preface to each edition. The omnibus is a cheap reprint in a series of classics. It would have been appropriate if the omnibus edition were published with a critical introduction, which could possibly also smooth over the repeated, identical chapter.



025. The wonders of instinct / The life of the fly
Finished reading: 19 February 2013



.

Great review of The moon and sixpence and fascinating stuff on Jean-Henri Fabre

Thanks, Barry. I was trying to do another "batch", but had a power outage, and am off again.

I am about 25 books behind in reviewing, which I hope to catch up over the next two weeks. Although, it looks as if work is going to stay busy.

I read quite a lot of natural history, this Spring. Unfortunately, I could not concentrate on any of the group reads. I guess I don't want to discipline my free time too much.

Nice reviews, especially of the Fabres. Lovely to have an introduction to him.

Great review of The Moon and Sixpence, Edwin. Last month I came across a used copy of Somerset Maugham's Complete Short Stories (2 volumes) and I'm looking forward to spending some time with them.

026. My life and hard times
Finished reading: 23 February 2013



One might surmise that for writing Running with scissors Augusten Burroughs found inspiration in James Thurber's My life and hard times, thinking particularly of the last short story in this collection, namely "A box to hide in" which call to mind Burrough's (autobiographical) character with a carton box -- a box too small to hide in -- on is head.

There are other parallels between the two books, for instance, the suggestion that both are autobiographical, and both use the technique of the hyperbole to create hilarious situations. But where Thurber's stories are exceedingly funny, Burroughs are essentially sad; where Thurber's stories are incredibly funny and very recognizable, Burroughs are weird and disgusting.

James Thurber's short story collection My life and hard times consists of six, mostly very short stories, illustrated with Thurber's cartoons. The first story "The dog that bit people" describes in hilarious fashion the life of one of his family's dogs. The story is great for dog lovers. The second story, "University days" describes the protagonists' time at university. In three episodes it portrays more than anything else the despair of teachers to educate some truly resilient students, such as the immensely funny botany class and the protagonist's inability to see through the microscope, the portrait of the block-head student Bolenciecwcz, who excels at sports but is extremely dim. The attempt of the teacher to make Bolenciecwcz answer simple question is recognizable to any student, and painfully realistic to any teacher, and above all uproariously funny. These two longer stories are followed by three relatively short stories, which all describe hilariously funny situations, set in the family circle of the protagonist.

My life and hard times is a very short, and very light read, but very rewarding, and truly very funny. Part of the fun lies in the very recognizable situations, and part of it rests with the (imagined) mimick of the characters, and their highly authentic speech, in which Thurber has caught some typical American expressions. Although descriptions clearly betray that these stories were written in the early Twentieth century, and the stories are set in the 1910s, their humour is timeless.

Not to be missed.

027. The Thurber carnival
Finished reading: 25 February 2013



The Thurber carnival is another short story collection of timeless pieces by James Thurber. It is a parade of deviance. In each story one of the characters is either eccentric, weird or totally nuts. However, in each case there is sufficient suspense to let the reader gradually discover where the screw is loose.

In "The secret life of Walter Mitty" a war veteran "has not come home" so to speak. He sees the enemy hidden behind every tree, while out shopping with his wife. It is a classic story, with an almost endearing touch. "The catbird seat" tells the story of envy and backstabbing in the office, and how to get rid of troublesome colleagues. A very humourous, and cruel story. "In "The MacBeth murder mystery" a reader get Shakespeare all wrong, or all right, depending on your perspective.

Most stories are rather short, the volume as a whole being just over 60 pages. The stories are highly original, and hardly dated, so they can be enjoyed by contemporary readers. Great stuff.



Other books I have read by James Thurber:
My life and hard times

028. The last flower. A parable in pictures
Finished reading: 25 February 2013



James Thurber was foremost known as an author of (very) short witty stories, and cartoons. The last flower. A parable in pictures is booklet of serial cartoons which tell the human condition, and the near extinction and fate of the human race. Thurber shows that very few words are needed to express the ultimate truth about one of mankind's biggest problems.

Th book is a flimsy, 5-minute read. However, quite memorable if not unforgettable.



Other books I have read by James Thurber:
My life and hard times
The Thurber carnival

029. The selected writings and drawings of James Thurber
Finished reading: 25 February 2013



James Thurber may be very well-known to American readers for both his short stories and cartoons, his impact as a world-class author is rather limited. It is therefore very commendable that the Shanghai: Yiwen Press (2012) 上海:译文出版社 (2012) has brought out an omnibus edition which reprints two complete short story collections, and a complete “graphic novel” together with some selected short stories from Fables for Our Time. In this way, Chinese readers can become acquainted with the work of this American author.

In the omnibus edition the original English works by Thurber, collected under the title The selected writings and drawings of James Thurber are preceded by the Chinese translations of these works. The cartoons which originally appeared in My life and hard times and The Thurber carnival are reprinted alongside the Chinese translations. Readers of the English texts have to flip through the Chinese translations to view these images. The “graphic novel” The last flower. A parable in pictures is printed bilingually, with both English and Chinese text versions below the cartoons (texts are mainly very short, if any at all).

One might surmise that for writing Running with scissors Augusten Burroughs found inspiration in James Thurber's My life and hard times, thinking particularly of the last short story in this collection, namely "A box to hide in" which call to mind Burrough's (autobiographical) character with a carton box -- a box too small to hide in -- on is head.

There are other parallels between the two books, for instance, the suggestion that both are autobiographical, and both use the technique of the hyperbole to create hilarious situations. But where Thurber's stories are exceedingly funny, Burroughs are essentially sad; where Thurber's stories are incredibly funny and very recognizable, Burroughs are weird and disgusting.

James Thurber's short story collection My life and hard times consists of six, mostly very short stories, illustrated with Thurber's cartoons. The first story "The dog that bit people" describes in hilarious fashion the life of one of his family's dogs. The story is great for dog lovers. The second story, "University days" describes the protagonists' time at university. In three episodes it portrays more than anything else the despair of teachers to educate some truly resilient students, such as the immensely funny botany class and the protagonist's inability to see through the microscope, the portrait of the block-head student Bolenciecwcz, who excels at sports but is extremely dim. The attempt of the teacher to make Bolenciecwcz answer simple question is recognizable to any student, and painfully realistic to any teacher, and above all uproariously funny. These two longer stories are followed by three relatively short stories, which all describe hilariously funny situations, set in the family circle of the protagonist.

My life and hard times is a very short, and very light read, but very rewarding, and truly very funny. Part of the fun lies in the very recognizable situations, and part of it rests with the (imagined) mimick of the characters, and their highly authentic speech, in which Thurber has caught some typical American expressions. Although descriptions clearly betray that these stories were written in the early Twentieth century, and the stories are set in the 1910s, their humour is timeless.

The Thurber carnival is another short story collection of timeless pieces by James Thurber. It is a parade of deviance. In each story one of the characters is either eccentric, weird or totally nuts. However, in each case there is sufficient suspense to let the reader gradually discover where the screw is loose.

In "The secret life of Walter Mitty" a war veteran "has not come home" so to speak. He sees the enemy hidden behind every tree, while out shopping with his wife. It is a classic story, with an almost endearing touch. "The catbird seat" tells the story of envy and backstabbing in the office, and how to get rid of troublesome colleagues. A very humourous, and cruel story. "In "The MacBeth murder mystery" a reader get Shakespeare all wrong, or all right, depending on your perspective.

Most stories are rather short, the volume as a whole being just over 60 pages. The stories are highly original, and hardly dated, so they can be enjoyed by contemporary readers. Great stuff.

James Thurber was foremost known as an author of (very) short witty stories, and cartoons. The last flower. A parable in pictures is booklet of serial cartoons which tell the human condition, and the near extinction and fate of the human race. Thurber shows that very few words are needed to express the ultimate truth about one of mankind's biggest problems.

The book is a flimsy, 5-minute read. However, quite memorable if not unforgettable.

The Chinese omnibus edition is good quality paper, with an original and good quality cover design. It is an example of the increase in quality of publishing by Chinese publishers. The edition comes with a short preface (in Chinese only) and a table of contents. For Chinese readers a small number of words are explained in Chinese at the foot of pages below the English text.

Thanks for reminding me how much fun Thurber is!

Yeah, I used to like those Thurber books too.

Nice reviews of the Thurber works, Edwin.

030. Evanescent isles. From my city-village
Finished reading: 27 February 2013



Evanescent isles. From my city-village is a somewhat disparate collection of essays about the author's hometown, Hong Kong. It starts off with an autobiographical description of the author, Xu Xi growing up in Hong Kong, and is followed by various essays focusing on various aspects of Hong Kong, its history, and relation to mainland China, before and after the return to China's jurisdiction in 1997.

Xu Xi, born out of Indonesian and Chinese parents, now holding US American citizenship, grew up in Hong Kong. The essays in Evanescent isles. From my city-village represent an exploration of her multiple national identity, and the search for what constructs the identity of the people in Hong Kong.

As the author contends, most likely correctly, Hong Kong, as we know it now, would not have come into existence had the original fisherman's village of the southernmost coastal area of China's Guangdong Province, been captured as a spoil of war by the British. Like other overseas colonial-British communities, Hong Kong fosters a frail, and threatened cultural heritage of authors who write in English. Xu Xi has repeatedly shown interest in foregrounding this cultural heritage, by co-editing collections of poetry and prose written by native Hong Kong authors. One of the essays in Evanescent isles. From my city-village discusses the anthology City Voices: Hong Kong Writing in English Prose & Poetry from 1945 to the present.

Evanescent isles. From my city-village itself is part of this body of writing and pondering on the identity of writers from Hong Kong. It is an interesting read, but does not come across as a particularly strong collection.

I thought there had been a discussion on Club Read 2013 in January about writing by Hong Kong authors, but could not find back any references to that discussion.

031. Lucky Jim
Finished reading: 9 March 2013



Kingsley Amis' seminal novel Lucky Jim is often described as a landmark novel revolutionizing the British novel. While the style and approach of the novel may have been groundbreaking in the early 1950s, to modern-day readers none of this appeal shows, and the novel reads rather more like a weak story compared with more contemporary prose.

In my reading, I could not detects any of the humour that Lucky Jim is praised for. It is obvious, and can be imagined as influential, that the main character leads a rather banal life. The story is not interesting in any particular way (which is supposedly its strength, in historical perspective).

Lucky Jim was reissued in the Penguin Decades series as a novel representative for the 1950s in 2010, while in the US an edition appeared in the NYBR series, in 2012.

Canonized or not, Lucky Jim seems destined to lose its appeal to modern readers, probably quite soon.

032. The Owl Pen
Finished reading: 10 March 2013



Together with books about Natural History, there is a lasting appeal among an increasing number of readers in simple living and sustainable agriculture. Ever since Henry David Thoreau published Walden; or, Life in the Woods in 1854, his attempt at living closer to nature and being self-sufficient, has inspired many people around the world.

The Owl Pen describes the adventure and experience of Kenneth McNeill Wells and Lucille Oille to carve out a life for themselves, at a time long before the "back-to-the-land" movement. Shortly after their marriage, in the mid-1940s, they lived for a short while in a cabin in the Canadian backwoods, before finding an building The Owl Pen, which was to be their rural home for about 20 years. Up in Medonte, Ontario, they discovered an old pioneer's log cabin, which they purchased for just 15 dollars on the condition that they removed it. Eventually, they were able to reconstruct and rebuild it on a plot of land which they described as "four acres of Eden".

Here they started their farm. During the Second World War, while Kenneth went overseas, Lucille kept the farm going. After the war, Kenneth gave up a career as a journalist, to build up their farm. The book, The Owl Pen, is a collection of 48 articles which describe their progress throughout the seasons, setting up and expanding their operations on the farm, as they start breeding chickens, ducks, and goats, and holding bees and extracting honey. Learning from scratch, through trial-and-error, initially scorned by neighbouring farmers, they persist in (re-)building and expanding the farm, weathering and wintering, each and every mishap. While the progression of the articles suggests the turn of a year, it is clear that the experiences contained in them represent a much longer period of pioneering their new lifestyle.

Kenneth McNeill Wells wrote the episodes as a series of articles that were published in the Saturday editions of the Evening Telegram in Toronto, and were subsequently published in book form in 1947. Kenneth McNeill Wells' journalistic writing skills make the book very readable. The high quality of writing with a touch of irony, made that the book remained in print for many years after its original publication, through various editions.

Starting before her marriage to Kenneth, Lucille Oille had her own career as a sculptor, wood engraver and illustrator of books. Like many of the books they later published together, The Owl Pen is richly illustrated with her wood engravings, which lend the text a dreamlike quality, complemented by eight black-and-while photographs, at the end of the book.

A book that would deserve the status of a classic in the genre of "back-to-the-land" writing.

033. Extaze. Een boek van geluk
Finished reading: 14 March 2013

Published in English as

It must be the irony of history that Holland twice, with an interval of a hundred years, brought out Ecstacy, lastly known as XTC. However, in May 1892, the great Dutch author of decadence and turn-of-the-century writing, Louis Couperus, published the novella Extaze. Een boek van geluk, which appeared the same year in an English translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos and John Gray as Ecstasy. A Study of Happiness. The translator, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, a contemporary of Louis Couperus, was born in Amsterdam in 1865, and grew up in London, where his parents moved 1874. However, in 1908 Teixeira de Mattos obtained Dutch citizenship. He was active as a translator, translating works of various French, for instance Jean-Henri Fabre and Dutch authors, notably seven novels by Louis Couperus into English. Because of the outstanding quality of his translations, many of his translations have remained in print.

Extaze. Een boek van geluk describes how the young, wealthy widow Cecile van Erven who falls madly in love with the Taco Quaerts. While their relationship remains platonic, Quaerts apparently falsely impresses Cecile with the false hope that their relationship may develop to full bloom, hopes shattered as Quaerts withdraws himself towards the end of the novella. Throughout the book, the relation between Quaerts and his mother, Cecile, is watched with suspicion by the androgynous, oldest son of the Cecile, Jules. While Quaerts motives and feelings for Cecile are supposedly pure, as is suggested by his name, which is pronounced as "quartz", there is also an undertone of cool and hardiness. At the end of the book, there is also the suggestion, that it is not the first time Quaerts has thrown a spell over a woman like Cecile van Erven, with the slight suggestiveness that other considerations than pure love may have played a part.

The language in Extaze. Een boek van geluk is characterised by exaltation, and deep passion, a style which characterizes many of Louis Couperus major novels.



This was a reread.

Other books I have read by Louis Couperus:
De stille kracht
De komedianten
Xerxes, of De hoogmoed
Herakles
God en goden
De berg van licht
Het zwevende schaakbord

034. Strip the willow
Finished reading: 17 March 2013



Strip the willow is a dystopian novel by the Scottish author John Aberdein. The story is slightly reminiscent of The Business by another Scottish author, Iain Banks. However, in Strip the willow the story is bleaker and the premise of Banks' novel is worked out further.

In Strip the willow, globalization, has pushed so far that a huge company, called LeopCorp, has taken over the city of "Uberdeen" and imposes its commercial interests renaming the city, streets and facilities Uberstreet, and UberEye. The novel follows the lives of a number of characters, victims of globalization and global displacement.

The story is not very clear, and seems loosely based on a fixation of the author with the concept of globalization driven to extremes, which hinders the development of the story. The story is contrived and lacks originality. The best and most authentic parts are formed by those describing the experiences of some of the characters fishing at sea, which are probably inspired by the author's autobiographical background in his early career as herring and scallop fisherman.

Throughout the book, the text is peppered with obscene expletives.

142 Edwin, there was a Reading Globally theme read on China and Its Neighboring Countries, including Hong Kong, at the end of last year. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.

Interesting reviews, as always.

035. Seek my face
Finished reading: 23 march 2013



A recurring qualification of the writing of John Updike is that technically it is perfect, but rather uninspired. Likewise, Seek my face, is a very well-written, but rather long and ultimately boring novel.

The novel, originally published in 2002, could fit into the postmodern genre, albeit somewhat late, of biographies of insignificant and fictional people. Why, otherwise, would any reader be interested to read 276 pages of what appears to be the fictional biography of the widow of Jackson Pollock?

Part of the technical skill is that the time line within the novel describes events over the period of a day, a long interview which the widow of the painter has granted to a young female journalist. Touching on themes and events of the various decades of the Twentieth Century, the relation between the women changes from that of the journalist, at first perceived as intrusive and naive, to that of the widow enjoying the role of maternal initiator, in disclosing the story of her life. The novel could perhaps be read as an exploration of the question to what extent young people can bridge the generation gap and understand the life and motives of people from whose life experiences they are separated by more than one generation.

Seek my face is not recommended to readers who are new to the work of John Updike.



Other books I have read by John Updike:
The witches of Eastwick
Terrorist
The widows of Eastwick
Brazil
Rabbit, run

>147 rebeccanyc::

Thanks, Rebecca. Perhaps it was that thread, although it did not seem to be so far back in time, and I thought there was mention of a book, very close to the book reviewed by me, here.

I don't know what I enjoy most: your one star reviews or your 4 star reviews. A great batch posted this time.

The Owl Pen sounds like a very interesting find, Not many people seem to have copy of what appears to be a fascinating book. I read Lucky Jim ages ago and remember being mightily unimpressed by it. I think you are right in saying that it is one of those books that has not stood the test of time. I am always tempted to read anything by John Updike, but perhaps his best novels are now back in the 20th century.

Your review of Lucky Jim makes me think of the opposite: why some classic comedy books still remain powerful and humorous despite their age difference to ours.

A recurring qualification of the writing of John Updike is that technically it is perfect, but rather uninspired.

A very succinct way to put it.

Moving Lucky Jim down on the pile! Thanks. Life is too short.

036. The strange case of the composer and his judge
Finished reading: 24 March 2013



The strange case of the composer and his judge is a enigmatic novel, which can be read at different levels. Superficially, the novel is written as a detective story in which a judge, Dominique Carpentier, investigates a murder mystery, consisting of group murders of members belonging to a religious sect. Obviously, this level is not the main level of interpretation of this type of literary fiction. While the plot shares characteristics with the detective novel, most detective novels are better written than this.

However, the levels or layers of meaning below the surface level are obscure and opaque. While at the level of detection, Dominique's actions are governed my her superior intellect, a rational approach to whatever is hidden below the surface will not do.

The murder mystery, or who-dunnit, is but a relatively simple mystery. The true mysteries are those of religious belief and the mysteries of the heart. Here the rational mind is of little or no use, mystery is the realm of intuition.

The religious sect Dominique investigates is a quasi-rational mystery, which seems based on predestination. The fate of its members is written in the stars, which can be read and interpreted, but fate cannot be escaped. When the spiritual leader of the sect finds Dominique Carpentier on his path, he chooses to embrace her rather than resist, as if it is fate that she would be on (or in) his way.

The mysteries of the heart form another enigma which hovers throughout the novel. Dominique Carpentier appears to the reader as a single woman, of middle-age. Her colleague, Andre Schweigen, adores her, but never says so (his surname means "remain silent"). The leader of the religious sect, Friedrich Grosz, (his name means "the great") tries to embrace her, and pull her into his sphere. However, apparently, Dominique, seems much too rational to give into these feeling. She cannot let herself go with these men.

The religious sect is a closely-knit community. The group murders are each time performed in a circle, the symbol of community. By a turn of fate, the former leader of the sect, appears to be a woman from Dominique's hometown, from a family with whom Dominique spent many happy times in her youth. In fact, the closest Dominique has ever come to affection, are her, apparently lesbian feelings for the daughter of that family, with whom, and none other, she would dance in community gatherings. Thus, the circle being being nearly full round, Grosz sees his task on earth fulfilled and alights.

The novels rather enigmatic title, The strange case of the composer and his judge suggests a polarity, where in fact no opposition exists. Rather, than the choice of a definite article "the", the choice of the personal pronoun "his" suggests a close personal tie between the composer and the judge, a tie of two forces, shaped like a diabolo.

While a murder mystery can be solved, readers will have to accept that for matters of the heart, no such simple solutions exist. The novel, therefore, does not offer complete fulfillment.

037. A Sicilian romance
Finished reading: 27 March 2013



A Sicilian romance by Ann Radcliffe is a short and rather muddled story. A tourist visiting a ruined castle in Sicily, gets drawn into the story of the unhappy daughters' love romances. A huge, half-ruined castle, full of crags and corners, mysterious lights, tunnels, etc., the plot takes as many unexpected turns as the labyrinthine extravagances of the imagined architecture of the castle.

When Ann Radcliffe wrote A Sicilian romance she had never visited Italy. The imagined landscape and architecture are therefore a stock pile of cliches about Italy, and so are the turns and twists of the plot. There is no real development of a story; merely a tumbling from one outrage into another.

Very disappointing.

153 lovely review. I think I might like to try that one.

>155 mkboylan:

It's certainly worth a try, Merrikay. Several members of Club Read have read and reviewed the book. (I discovered later.). They are mostly positive about the book, as far as I can remember.

Quite remarkable about The strange case of the composer and his judge is that "only" 120 people own the book, but 36 felt encouraged to write a review about it, which is proportionally quite a lot.

The overall, average rating for the book is very low (2.9); reviewers seem to either love it or hate it.

It took me a long time to think and make up my mind. There is much to like and dislike about the book.

038. Travels in Alaska
Finished reading: 4 April 2013



For readers who enjoy reading in the genre of natural history and travel, John Muir is a classic. Muir was a pioneer in traveling the vast expanse of wild nature on the North American continent and write about it, and through his love and religious adoration of nature, he was also one of the first to take the initiative to try to protect nature, and encourage the government to create national parks and reserves.

John Muir had a life-long interest in the rugged wilderness of Alaska, with its large forests and huge glaciers. Through endless observation, Muir discovered and reconstructed many facts about glaciers, then unknown or ill-understood, such as the idea that glaciers once covered a much larger part of the world and helped create the North-American landscape.

Muir's travels were made in the true spirit of exploration, and he was a very couragious adventurer, often exposing himself to risks other travellers would faint dare. His aversion of tackle and equipment, and his preference for the simplest mode of travel, often without much more than a knapsack and a crust of bread, foraging edible fruit and wild-life, enabled him to reach areas other explorers would not go.

Travels in Alaska bring together the reports on three trips John Muir made to Alaska, in 1879, 1880, and a decade later in 1890. Muir who made a living of his travel writing, always carried a note-book, but notes were not as detailed as a diary. His writings, based on the note-books and his memory are written in a fresh and engaging style, making the reader an immediate witness of the spectacle and event. Only, Muir's last trip to Alaska, which disappointed him as, even then, erosion and destruction of the landscape took its visible toll, is much shorter, and was written on and off for many years, a large part in the final year of his life.

So, especially, Muir's description of the first two trips, in 1879 and the following year, 1880, are brimming with his enthusiasm for the wild in the north.

Muir's writing style is always easy to follow. Most plants and trees are described using their English names, and only for some rarer species of herbs and mosses are sometimes Latin names introduced, but sparsely. Muir's language is poetic, but never baroque, making his descriptions as rich and pure as the phenomena he observed. There are some moments of real excitement, as, for instance his encounters with bears.

In all three reports about Alaska, Muir writes about the tribes of Native Americans he met on his travels, describing their culture and customs, making Travels in Alaska also of special interest to anthropologists and readers with an interest in the Native American Indians.

Muir's reports not only describe how civilization encroached upon these last remnants of the wilderness, but also how they corrupted and changed the lifestyle of the Native Americans in those parts.

039. Point Omega
Finished reading: 5 April 2013



Reading Point Omega one unmistakably feels one is reading a fine work of literary fiction, but the question is how deep the reader wants to go to uncover deeper layers of meaning.

Literary criticism, such as on Wikipedia, reveals that Point Omega is a highly complex novel, offering alleys to very deep senses of meaning, as well as meaning found over a broad scope, involving various cultural references and hypertextuality. Uncovering those layers of meaning would take a very serious, and scholarly approach to reading, which shows us that Literature is a form of Art, capable of construing profound meaning, and recreating literature to take that position. Readers' and critics' unwillingness to follow the author into that labyrinth of meaning tells us more about the readers than about the author. No-one says a novel should be "user-friendly" or accessible to every type of reader, least of all the most complacent. With Point Omega DeLillo demonstrates that literature can still be great art, and for all we know, in a hundred years time Point Omega will be canonized as the ultimate novel to understand the early Twenty-First century.

To readers who do not want to fathom the deepest recesses of meaning, Point Omega can still be read as a thriller, although style and structure, would have it classified more with literary fiction, than the genre of ordinary thrillers.



Other books I have read by John DeLillo:
The body artist
Falling man

You have read some excellent books recently Edwin. The strange Case of the Composer and his Judge sounds intriguing and Travels in Alaska must be up there with the very best travel writing. Two more for the wish list.

Great reviews, Edwin. The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge, Travels in Alaska, and Point Omega are all going on my wishlist.

...one unmistakably feels one is reading a fine work of literary fiction, but the question is how deep the reader wants to go to uncover deeper layers of meaning

You've captured Delillo spot on with this, which could apply equally as well to most of his writing. He's a writer whose books still linger years later. You might enjoy The Names in which DeLillo address the very meaning of language itself.

Travels in Alaska sounds wonderful. I will look for it.

Great reviews. You always extend my list.

>161 SassyLassy:

You will like John Muir; essentially, he is a Victorian author.

I didn't even think about comparing number of owners of books with number of reviews - I will now!

>162 edwinbcn: Thanks edwin. After reading your review, I have this down for my mountains and sea vacation in the fall. I read A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf a few years ago and thought it was wonderful.
I think people from the Victorian era somehow had a closer eye for the outdoors and certainly a better vocabulary for writing about it. It seems to have been lost in the great urbanizations of the twentieth century.

John Muir had been on my radar for a long time; this spring I have been reading quite a lot of natural history, and one day I saw three volumes of works by Muir in a book shop, and bought all three.

A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf also looks very interesting.

I would certainly buy it if I came across it. (To protect myself from certain financial ruin, I do not order books.)

040. The fairy tales of Charles Perrault
Finished reading: 6 April 2013



Fairy tales originate in the oral tradition of short stories which were told and handed down from generation to generation. They have apparently existed in all cultures. While some fairy tales were included or incorporated into literary form in earlier centuries, fairy tales in Western culture were not established into a literary genre until the late Seventeenth century. By writing them down, the fairy tales became fixed.

Many of the most well-known fairy tales, such as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Puss in Boots", "The Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella" were thus first recorded in written form by the French author Charles Perrault (1628 - 1703).

As the fairy tales circulated in spoken form, they may have varied in content and form. Histoires ou contes du temps passé ou Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye (Stories or Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals or Mother Goose Tales (1697) are described as "works derived from pre-existing folk tales." Recent scholarship has shown that Perrault's fairy tales were not true recordings of folklore, but rather a type of aristocratic fairy tales mixing folklore elements with Perrault's imagination and including elements from French fashion and aristocratic life and style.

More than one hundred years later, between 1812 and 1857 the Brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, rewrote Perrault's fairy tales, suggesting that they had roots in the ancient oral folk tradition.

The fairy tales written by Perrault have been translated into hundreds of editions into more than a hundred languages. They are now almost considered indistinguishable from their sources, or in fact, the source of the tales themselves.

Angela Carter was not the first or only writer to translate Perrault's fairy tales, but her translation is notable, especially in view of the development of her own later work, particularly The Bloody Chamber.

The fairy tales of Charles Perrault is a translation of Perrault's Mother Goose Tales of 1697, including all tales from that original edition. Angela Carter's translations are short but spiced with a modern touch that is unusual to readers familiar with the style of the Brothers Grimm. This makes each of the stories a light read. For each story a moral and an alternative moral are proposed at the end of the story.

In the Modern Classics Penguin edition, Angela Carter's translation is preceded by an intestesting 32-pages long introduction and afterword by Jack Zipes, editor of the The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. This edition seems especially interesting to readers interested in the development of narrative technique in the work of Angela Carter.

041. Ways of escape
Finished reading: 7 April 2013



Ways of escape is a sequel to Graham Greene's earlier autobiography A sort of life. In fact, in the preface to Ways of escape, Greene apologizes to readers for overlap between the two works, a fact I would welcome rather than regret, since I read A sort of life more than 20 years ago.

I do not recall the style and tone of A sort of life, but what struck me reading Ways of escape is how incredibly impersonal an autobiography it is.

There is "very little of life" in this volume, and upon finishing the book, the readers may still wonder as much as before reading it, who Graham Greene is. There are none of the usual musings, descriptions of dwellings, friends and literary influences, which may transport the reader to the (imaginary) world of the past in which to observe the author and his or her development through history.

Instead, Ways of escape merely described Greene's travels and how they inspired the conception of his novels. Ways of escape was written as an amalgam of a series of introductions to the Collected Edition of Greene's books and "essays written occasionally on his life and troubled places in the world". In his own words, Greene compares his travels to his writing as "ways of escape," apparently, an escape from life. As this escape from life in the form of extensive travel and writing in itself also constitutes a form of living, one feels the author's regret that what would perhaps have been the most ideal title for this second volume, i.e. A sort of life, is no longer available.

As a result, the reader of Ways of escape will feel a sense of detachment. Ways of escape is not really what it purports to be, and readers who are looking for a biography or work of travel had better look elsewhere. Ways of escape would mostly interest readers wanting to read more about the background of Graham Greene's novels and the political conflicts which form the backdrop to many locations forming the setting of his fiction. There is too much hobnobbing with illustrious and often notorious heads of state.



Other books I have read by Graham Greene:
Dr. Fischer of Geneva or the bomb party
The Ministry of Fear. An entertainment
May we borrow your husband? and Other comedies of the sexual life
The quiet American
The end of the affair
A sort of life
A sense of reality
The tenth man
The honorary consul

042. The bloody chamber and other stories
Finished reading: 21 April 2013



In 1977, Angela Carter published a translation of The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault. Each of these translations consisted of short story, 3 - 6 pages, followed by a moral. The most that can be said of this translation is that stylistically it is rather modern, a somewhat unusual feature of fairy tales to readers used to the style of the Brothers Grimm.

It is likely that Angela Carter was inspired by Charles Perrault in the way of dealing with the stories. Contrary to what the Brothers Grimm tried to make people believe, namely that Perrault's fairy tales are authentic representations of European or French Folklore, Charles Perrault had picked up various fairy tales and used them as a basis for his own, quite unique tales which can best be characterised as "works derived from pre-existing folk tales." Perrault rewrote these stories to include elements of then-contemporary French life and fashion, to reshape the tales into stories which would appeal to French aristocratic readership.

Likewise, Angela Carter has rewritten the fairy tales, including elements of modern, late Twentieth Century life and fashion, to reshape Perrault's fairy tales into stories which appeal to contemporary readership. This has resulted in very elaborate, stylistically baroque works, stories which are clearly based on the fairy tales, but have none of the feel of juvenile literature that so many simple, short fairy tales have. They are, one could say, fairy tales "for adults", largely teaching readers the same lessons or morals, but in stories which can be enjoyed at a much higher level.

Particularly, the story of Bluebeard, in this collection renamed The bloody chamber has been reworked into a long (40 pages) artistic story, with elaborate descriptions of scenery, fabrics and couleur locale , in a very baroque, and verbose style of descriptions. Another story from the Perrault collection is Puss-in-Boots, which takes quite a different turn. The other stories, are derived from other well-known fairy tales such as "The Courtship of Mr Lyon", "The Tiger's Bride" and "The Erl-King."

It is hard to imagine any readers not familiar with at least half of the fairy tales which form the basis of these short stories. However, no reader will feel bored, more likely refreshed by Angela Carter's unique approach to these tales.



Other books I have read by Angela Carter:
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault

043. The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China
Finished reading: 24 April 2013



The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is an incredibly shoddy piece of historicism. The author, who claims to have read History, should really know better than to publish such an ill-researched and carelessly edited book. It is only by a small margin that the author, James Palmer, belongs to the so-called balinghou The Chinese equivalent of Generation X, which, as Palmer wrote elsewhere "They do not bother to check the details." This harsh criticism applies very much so to Mr Palmer's own book.

Living in Beijing since 2004, Mr Palmer is apparently unable to read Chinese. According to the acknowledgements, pp. 250 ff., Palmer gathered the materials for his book by asking Chinese people to interview Chinese eye witnesses, and had these interviews transcribed and translated, to be used as the basic material for his book. This work was supplemented by archival and photographic research by his assistant. While in itself, this research method is valid, and very interesting, perhaps even novel to China, the author should realize that it is a potential source of inaccuracies, and that many details need to be checked.

Apparently, this has not happened, or was not done carefully enough. Thus, The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is full of mistakes. The distance from Tangshan to Hebei is not 800 miles (p. 169), but 465 km (289 miles); Henan Province does not border on Beijing, but Hebei does. The system of Foreign Exchange Certificates was not abolished in 1998, but on January 1, 1995. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake struck at 2:28 PM, not 2:48 PM. These are just some of the many facts that jump into the readers eye, which suggest that careful checking of other facts may reveal many more inaccuracies. Many of these facts can easily be checked.

Furthermore, some facts are circumspect, with questionable accuracy or apparent irrelevance. In a chapter describing the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s - early 1960s it is rather difficult to tell what the relevance is of the fact that "bad families" in 1976 were entitled to 500 kg rice and 50 kg of cooking oil for a family unit of six people. Officially, in 1960, "office workers were entitled to 30 pounds of grain per person per month, labourers slightly more (...) and two ounces of cooking oil" (source: The Man on Mao's Right. From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square. My Life inside China's Foreign Ministry by Ji Chaozhu, published in 2008. In 1984, rice consuption in China stood at 104 kg per person per year.

Another problem with The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is that it lacks a clear focus. The book tries to deal with two historical events, which would each better be served separately. This indecisiveness, most likely pushed by the publisher, is reflected in the numerous titles by which the book was published in different editions, e.g. Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao's China, The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China and The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China. Obviously, the "Death of Mao" is not the same as "the Death of Mao's China". The use of the term "the New China" is quite inaccurate when writing about the modern history of China, as the "New China" is defined as the founding of the People's Republic of China. These confusing titles are the result of the faint traditional Chinese notion that earthquakes and other natural disasters are an indication that the ruling dynasty has lost "the mandate of heaven". Palmer very clearly want to force this link onto the readers' consciousness.

The structure of the book consists of six chapters, alternating dealing with the Tangshan Earthquake and the history of China under Chaiman Mao. In chapter 7, named "Aftershocks" the author describes China's history since 1976. This chapter consists of unashamed China-bashing, a compilation of facts, rumour and hearsay to demonstrate that "nothing changed fundamentally: The birth of the New China by Caesarian section in the Square of Heavenly Peace.

It is to be hoped that Mr Palmer spends a little bit more time on checking his facts when writing about China, and be more concerned with the quality of his work than sales.



Other books I have read by James Palmer:
The Bloody White Baron

All very interesting reviews. I read LOTS of fairy tales when I was about 9 and 10, so your reviews of the Perrault and the Carter intrigued me. Also enjoyed your critique of the Mao book. I have been wanting to read more about Mao (having read only a very opinionated book some years ago); are there bios or historical works that you would recommend? (I have Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter on the TBR -- are you familiar with this and do you have an opinion about it?)

044. Freeing the presses. The First Amendment in action
Finished reading: 24 April 2013



Freeing the presses. The First Amendment in action is a scholarly edition of papers presented at the third annually held John Breaux symposium, conducted in March 2003, at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. In three sections, representing the past, the present and the future, each time three essays are presented together, two, written by distinguished social scientists in the field who were commissioned to write these essays, and a third, acting as an introduction by the presenters / commentators at the symposium.

There is a lot of overlap in the essays by the scholars, discussing possible approaches of how freedom of the press might work in theory, in two opposing models, (1) the marketplace of ideas versus (2) the watchdog model. These two models are explored in view of the First Amendment, which makes the whole publication rather specifically pertaining the the American idea of freedom of speech.

Published in 2003, just over a decade ago, as with many such specialized scholarly editions, the tooth of time can be felt. This more so, because contributors specifically refer to the way freedom of speech applies to the media. In 2003, the full development of electronic and especially social media was still to appear on the scene. Therefore, those parts of interest to the general readership are already out of date.

To the specialist reader, the essays describing history, both the past and recent past ("present") still contain interesting descriptions. of the Eighteenth Century press and modern libel law in the USA.

Readable for a non-specialist audience, but with limited application.

>170 rebeccanyc:

Rebecca, when I was 9 or 10, I think I read all the fairy tales in the world, or so it felt (and hardly ever, since). I think you will love Angela Carter's work.

I suggest you skip her translations; I must confess to the attentive readers here that I bought The fairy tales of Charles Perrault in a rather unfocused shopping spree, mainly on the cover, having never heard of Charles Perrault, expecting it rather more to be a kind of kinky short novel along the lines of William Burroughs or James Baldwin.



I mean, political correctness aside, those heels could have belonged to any queer, transgender, male, female, fairy, etc.

I know you guys buy a lot online, but just realize how first impressions count when you are more or less randomly piling physical books into your physical basket in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.

Anyway, Angela Carter's tales in The bloody chamber and other stories do in many cases convey just that sort of sensuousness, and erotic "adult" sense, that Bruno Bettelheim tells us is hidden deep in every fairy tale.

I have heard a lot about, and would like to read Frank Dikötter's book Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962, but I haven't seen it around yet. I have it wish-listed. I have read, but not reviewed, Hungry ghosts. Mao's secret famine by Jasper Becker, which was very impressive.

By the way, reading these books will enlighten any reading of for instance Martin Amis' Koba the Dread as the theoretical misconceptions, and by-and-large the devastating effects causing famine, such as the Great Famine in the Ukraine, are related. In Amis' book those dreadful photos of cannibalism are included, which is reported to have sporadically taken place in China, as well.

More books about Mao, well, I have been dipping in and out of what is now considered to be the standard work on the Cultural Revolution, namely Mao's last revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals.

For more than a decade I have postponed to bring Philip Short's biography Mao. A life into China, for fear of having it seized at the border. I was particularly impressed with Short's other work on the two Communist states The dragon and the bear. Inside China and Russia today, which I read halfway through, and then abandoned as I moved to China, one day to be read entirely. A propos, I mainly read the first part about Russia.

Thanks for all the tips on books about Mao!

Thanks for the info about fairy tales and Mao books. I've read a lot about the Ukrainian Terror-Famine and that's what made me interested in the Mao's Great Famine book. I realize that I do also have the Short biography which I bought several years ago now; thanks for the recommendation of Mao's Last Revolution.

045. The burning forest. Essays on Chinese culture and politics
Finished reading: 26 April 2013



Simon Leys, pseudonym for Pierre Ryckmans, persona non grata in the People's Republic of China, is a China hater. Generations of sinologists, like Ryckmans, who were taught in sinology departments of Western universities or in Taiwan throughout the 1950s till well into the 1990 were lectured by Chinese Professors and lecturers to whom the PRC formed the personification of evil, a sense they neatly impregnated into the minds of their students. These university lecturers grew up and were taught under the old, imperial system, and already lived in the West or fled China which was suffering from its Civil War, or the subsequent Chinese Revolution, which led to the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. To these sinologists, Communism in the first place, and with it the Umwertung aller Werte that took place over two decades, culminating in the Great Proletarian Revolution, was the absolute horror.

While the ulterior motive of the Cultural Revolution may have been a power struggle, there are also theorists, such as MacFarquhar & Schoenhals, who suggest that the cultural destruction, effected by the Cultural revolution, did also have a positive effect by removing cultural traditions which had become shackles, and ultimately break down cultural capital that may have created a sense of class differences in the minds of the Chinese people. In that sense, we should not only focus on the destruction of material culture, but also the destruction of immaterial culture such as the pride of the intelligentsia, ancestor veneration and various other immaterial forms of cultural differences.

True to the spirit of revolution, h
"high culture" was replaced by "low culture", and while the appreciation of Chinese folk art and primitivism has its parallels in Western art of the same period, the destruction of "upper class" cultural capital was particularly resented by representatives of that class who had evaded or escaped the Chinese Revolution.

Simon Leys was particularly active publishing about Chinese culture and politics during the two decades from the 1970s through 1990s. His later work, while still referring to Chinese culture, is more diversified, including literary criticism closer to home.

Leys critical work about China almost always consists of a toxic mixture of superb literary criticism of some (obscure) Chinese poet or cultural phenomenon, interspersed with essays about "Human rights in China" or other politically motivated essays. Thus, The burning forest. Essays on Chinese culture and politics contains wonderful essays on Chinese Classical Aesthetics, Matteo Ricci, Père Huc and Lu Xun, to represent the former, alongside essays about Human rights in China, the death of Lin Biao, the politics of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, and a section devoted to criticizing the so-called "fellow-travelers", in the form of an essay about Han Suyin and the so-called China experts.

Simon Leys is a persona non grata in the People's Republic of China, as in Chinese eyes he is against China. His criticism is too offensive. However, as I argued elsewhere, in his heart, Simon Leys is FOR China, perhaps not exactly this stage of China's history, but surely its cultural heritage of more than five thousand years, which Leys merely hopes to kindle.



Other books I have read by Simon Leys :
Chinese Shadows
De nieuwe kleren van voorzitter Mau. Kroniek van de culturele revolutie

Great reviews as usual edwin. Starting at the top, I did wonder about the cover for Perrault, although they are amazing heels... perhaps a tad too small. My copy of his fairy tales is much more demure with illustrations by Gustav Doré. The Bloody Chamber does sound intriguing though.
Too bad about the Graham Greene, but not surprising considering how guarded he supposedly was about his private life. Still, as you say, interesting for the backdrops.
I read the Palmer book as Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes last year and was somewhat surprised by the linkage with the death of Mao other than the fact of both occurring in the same year. I suspect you are correct about the publisher pushing the linkage.
I also read Mao's Great Famine last year (http://www.librarything.com/topic/140064 post 121) and was impressed with it. I would be interested to hear what you think once you read it. I had previously read the Becker book and agree it was excellent.
Thanks for posting that background on Leys. I didn't know it, but that explains somewhat why I have only made it through his Chinese Shadows.
MacFarquhar is on my TBR. I have made a small start, but need a chunk of time.

Looking forward to whatever you read next!

>176 SassyLassy:

Whatever his background, Simon Leys is a fantastic essayist on Chinese culture, and well worth reading. Therefore, I gave The burning forest four, and Chinese shadows five stars.

Simon Leys has also written an excellent book on the Cultural Revolution: The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, which I read in 1995. As far as I can remember, that is still the best book on the topic I have read (considering I haven't finished MacFarquhar & Schoenhals), in the sense that it gives a straight-forward chronology of the period. The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution was published as early as 1971, at a time when most journalists were mystified with what was going on in China. However, Simon Leys has pointed out elsewhere that, as far as the Chinese were concerned, there was nothing secret or mysterious about the Cultural Revolution. China was a closed country, but the book is by and large based on reading the newspapers, something most journalists at the time simply weren't able to do.

046. Italian neighbours. An Englishman in Verona
Finished reading: 26 April 2013



As the title of Tim Parks' book says very clearly, Italian neighbours. An Englishman in Verona is a book about people, particularly the experience of an Englishman and the Italians among whom he lives. Not about Italy, not about places and not about culture. The title also suggests a general level beyond that of the very personal, suggesting that these would be experiences any Englishman might have with all Italian neighbours in Italy.

Tim Parks has already been living in Italy, in the vicinity of Verona, since 1981, more than three decades. It is therefore a bit peculiar that for Italian neighbours. An Englishman in Verona, written in 1992, he chooses to focus on a single, unspecified year. This deliberate choice puts the book into the category of bewildered beginners to Italy, rather than old-hand, savy expat.

True, living overseas, within what is now the European Union, was more exotic thirty years ago, Mr Parks does not seem to realize that by setting his parameters too broadly, a random Englishman, among random Italians, in a random Italian suburb, basically the middle of nowhere, the resulting book might just turn out to be too bland and non-descript. In fact, the first-year expat experiences that Tim Parks describes are not so unique at all. Apart from Italy, the book could have been set in any other town around the Mediterranean and many of the expat experiences with tenants, neighbours and bureaucracy could well be set in any other part of the world.

There is nothing to spark the interest of the reader in Italy. Many other books of this type have been written since, which do include a more interesting angle on the Italian environment, i.e. culture and politics, which would have made the book much more interesting.



Other books I have read by Tim Parks:
Shear
Destiny
Europa

047. The selected humorous stories of Leacock
Finished reading: 28 April 2013



The question is often whether humour is of all times and of all places -- well, it isn't. Stephen Butler Leacock may have been one of the funniest authors in his time, to readers today his prose, particularly the humour in it, appears as old hat and humbug.

The short stories of Stephen Butler Leacock are all set during the first quarter of the Twentieth Century, around 1912, or thereabout. Automobiles were a novelty back then, and life ticked at a slower pace. Leacock's humour is wordy and bawdy. His prose relies heavily on dialogue, so the conversational parts of the stories are similar to the most stilted dialogues in the early cinema of the 1940s and 50s.

Chinese publishers regularly bring out series of books, particularly such which are now in the public domain. This particular series, by Shanghai Joint Publishing, consists of two volumes each: a volume consisting of the Chinese translation and a companion volume with the English original. These types of publications are often cash cows, and unfortunately Chinese publishers lack the expertise to prepare such publications carefully, and the unwillingness to invest just a little bit more money to get things done properly. This volume of The selected humorous stories of Leacock did not have many errors in the text, but various errors in the titles of the short stories.

Another feature of books by Chinese publishers is that they may have an introduction, but usually omit a critical text history. It is never very clear what you are reading, or where it comes from. The Chinese introduction, in the Chinese volume, mentions that the last five "stories" are in facts chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 from Leacock's novel Sunshine Sketches of a little town. In the index of the English companion volume this is not made clear.

Altogether in interesting sample of the prose of this near-forgotten author.

048. The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking
Finished reading: 30 April 2013



In China, history is often more a product of the mind and imagination that of material artefacts. Chinese architecture predominantly uses perishable building materials. Art objects, apparently, never existed in large quantities and were centred in the imperial household. These centres of culture were often the focus of destruction during the transition from one dynasty to another. New rulers had a tendency to start over on a clean slate, which meant they sought to destroy the art of their predecessors.

The latest clan of Chinese rulers is not very different. In as far as cultural objects were not outright destroyed, the new rulers have shown their disdain for both imperial art and the cultural heritage of imperialist intruders through neglect. Thus, for decades the former imperial palace, known to foreigners as the Forbidden City, was not much more than a compound within which citizens of the New China could gawk at the splendors of imperial decadence, while its woodwork rotted away, art was improperly stored and repair or restoration was clumsy.

Chinese people tend to view the historical interaction between the Chinese and foreigners merely as undesired intrusion by imperialist powers attempting to colonize China, or belonging to missionary efforts. Cultural and linguistic barriers hinder cultural dialogue, which remains limited because the Chinese view Chinese culture as superior to Western culture, for which they have thus little interest. On the other hand, it must be said that the volume of translated Western literature and the availability of, for instance, Western classical music in China surpasses the Western interest in Chinese culture by a very large margin, proportionally as well as in absolute terms.

Related to the idea that art and culture exist in the mind, more than in reality, in China has led to a greater focus on ideas and less on materialism. As a part of that, authenticity is also less important, and there seems to be a tendency to put the whole, overall picture, however inaccurate in parts, over the details. Thus, the preservation of cultural heritage in China is fundamentally different from the approach in the West, which tends to focus on analysis, meticulous description, restoration and preservation of authentic artefacts and monuments.

Besides these differences in dealing with historical artefacts and monuments, Chinese people are also more selective in what to preserve. Hence, Chinese historians do not only treat the cultural heritage of imperialist powers into China with disdain, they deliberately neglect the morally inferior sides of that Western culture, such as the decadence of foreign culture in brothels and opium dens near the Legation Quarter in Beijing.

Paul French small publication The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking tries to fill up that void.

In The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking, Paul French describes the history of a section of Peking located just to the east of the Legation Quarter, within the Tartar City. The year is 1937.

Paul French has done the admirable job of tracking down eye witnesses who have been able to tell him, and even supply photographs of the "Red Light District" of pre-revolutionary Peking. In this part of the historical centre of Beijing, several opium dens and Houses of Sing-Song girls were located within walking distance from the Foreign Embassies. But the foreigners who lived in this quarter were among the poorest of the poor, suffering from an alcohol or opium addiction. They would earn their money with song and dance or gambling.

The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking is a small monograph of a part of history which, it seems, the Chinese would rather prefer to forget or blot out. The paucity of source materials can be clearly felt, but Paul French has an engaging style of writing which tells the reader about life on the volcano, just before the Japanese invasion of Beijing which would tumble China into the Second World War and subsequent Civil War which for one and all closed that chapter of foreign history in China.

049. Just in Case
Finished reading: 1 May 2013



"He was strong. Invincible.
Bring on your worst, he said to fate."

"Indeed." (p.97)

David Case is this young adolescent who struggles with what all young adolescents struggle with. As he is grappling to come to terms with the human condition, of which fear and uncertainty is a substantial part, David reinvents an alternative reality, in which he exists as Justin Case (just-in case), hoping to evade or escape fate.

"Fate" appears as a smug commentator, dialogue printed in bold typeface, throwing in comments and observations, and even engages the main character in dialogue.

The most original twist, obviously, at the end of the book, that Fate has its eye on you, too!

I guess kids must be very young to enjoy a novel like this. Who likes not being taken seriously?

050. Transit
Finished reading: 1 May 2013



Hella S. Haasse (1918–2011) was the grand old lady of Dutch letters. Although for many years, literary critics ignored her work, which they characterized as belletristic, and therefore less literary, Haasse had no trouble finding readers for her work. In fact, her work was translated and read in other languages long before that of the critics' favourites, and in more than 60 years of her active live as an author Hella S. Haasse was able to entice various generations of readership. Unlike any other Dutch author, she was selected thrice to write the Boekenweekgeschenk a complimentary publication of approximately 96 pages, presented to book buyers during the annual "Week of the Book" in March, a Dutch tradition since 1930. Haasse wrote Oeroeg in 1948 (her literary debut), Dat weet ik zelf niet, an essay, in 1959, and Transit in 1994.

The strength of Haasse's work is probably that she can go with the time, while writing from a contemplative, melancholic mood, while touching on themes which are central to the Dutch imagination and culture. Haasse has written several historical novels, many of which set in the former Dutch Indies (now Indonesia), where she was born. Oeroeg (filmed in 1993) is about the Dutch Colonial war in which friends who grew up together, Dutch and Indonesian, find each other on opposite sides in the Indonesian war of Independence.

The short novel Transit is about a different conflict, namely that of generations. Arnold Cluysman, the name suggests a life of solitude, kluizenaar, related to English "cloister", is a demented old man, who is piecing together his life and intellectual legacy. Fragments of his writing suggest he belongs to the generation that rebelled in the late 1960s, striving for new ideals in 1968 in Paris, which became known in Dutch culture as "De verbeelding aan de macht", by the Dutch journalist Bob Groen. It reflects the ideal of the hippies that society can be reshaped in any possible way, that reality follows the imagination. By portraying Cluysman as a decrepit old man, Haasse shows how far and forgotten the ideals of the 1960s and 70s now are. In the early 1990s, Haasse was early to see where things are going. The idealism of the young generation, to drop out from school, to go to Paris, has brought ruin. Her school friend Daan, a junky, left on the street to freeze to death, her other school friend, Alma, who cannot be found, rumoured to be a prostitute. The novel follows Iks Westervliet, her life, upon her return to Amsterdam: no friends, no money, no job, no future, not welcome. The only jobs she can get are taking care of old people (Dutch: Thuiszorg) and garbage collector, the worst. That is the life of Iks, which can alternatively be spelled as "X" and her generation. Generation X.

Transit is a very bleak novella, which is also a time document. The most optimistic part is perhaps the title, which suggests that nothing remains the same. Generation X may be in transit on the way to a (better) future. As the heydays of Cluysman's generation were forgotten in just under 25 years, likewise, hopefully, Generation X may find itself better situated 25 years on.



Other books I have read by Hella S. Haasse:
Een gevaarlijke verhouding, of Daal-en-Bergse brieven
Een doolhof van relaties
De Meester van de Neerdaling
Een nieuwer testament
Berichten van het Blauwe Huis
De tuinen van Bomarzo
Oeroeg
De verborgen bron
Zwanen schieten

Varied reading and so interesting to catch up with!

I've had Leacock's Nonsense Novels on the TBR for many years, but I can't say your review makes me want to take it off any time soon! Fascinating thoughts about the Chinese approach to history. And finally, I was happy to read about Transit, since every time I try to touchstone Anna Seghers' novel, the Haase one comes up and I have to change it!

Thanks, Rebecca. I have a lot of catching up to do. Or as Barry would say, review in batches.

I may not be able to do all before my holiday on Friday, but it looks as if August is going to be a quiet months with a lot of time to read and write.

Your reviews are always fun to browse because there is such variety. I ran across Point Omega last week and bought it after having read your review.

Angela Carter is one of the authors whose complete works I have been collecting, but I haven't yet looked into her translations. I've wanted to read classic fairy tales for some time (I guess ever since seeing the symbolic links between Parzival and Snow White), but it's a question of finding the most "authentic" edition, if there even is such a thing. Most are probably abridged, modernized or simplified for juvenile readers.

Leacock lives on in Canada in the Leacock Medal for Humour, awarded yearly for the best Canadian humour {not an oxymoron!} writing. The little town in the title is Orillia Ontario, where Leacock built a retreat on the lake and invited his professorial colleagues from McGill, various cabinet ministers and others of that ilk for summer shenanigans. The house is full of armchairs, reading tables and lamps, and has its own library... a perfect summer getaway. His humour does appear dated today, but his satire on politics still works if early twentieth century Canadian politics is your thing. Somehow I don't expect to find many of those people here!

Great review of The Badlands Decadent Playground of Old Peking. I also want to read his Midnight in Peking.

>>

Thanks Steven. I will look forward to your review of Point Omega, firstly because you write very good reviews, and secondly, because as an American, you can probably get more out of the deeper layers within the novel. By the way, I got the film reference all wrong, thinking of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis instead of Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock.

Reading Angela Carter's translations I would actually wonder what is so special about Charles Perrault's French, but it does not interest me enough to pursue right now. I am not sure about your observation that most fairy tales are abridged. Fairy tales, some people prefer the German Maerchen, a word in which the last syllable is a suffix to denote the diminutive form or Maer which means "little stories". Probably, originally they were all very little short stories, which, with great variation, circulated in an oral folklore tradition. The introduction to Angela Carter's The fairy tales of Charles Perrault suggests that Charles Perrault embellished the fairy tales with details. Two years ago I bought a copy of Jean de La Fontaine's Fables and was surprised to see how short most of them are. The fairy tales of Charles Perrault are all just very short stories. My guess is that the Brothers Grimm actually expanded most fairy tales. I do not think modern editions present abridged versions.

Interesting stuff about Leacock, Sassy. As you know, I enjoy reading Victorian and Edwardian literature, so if the short stories of Leacock had but the least appeal, I would have enjoyed that. For that matter, it is interesting to compare the work of Leacock with, for instance, short stories in My life and hard times by James Thurber. While Leacock's stories feel very dated, Thurber's work sparkles with wit, and feels very modern. Remarkably, both authors were active at about the same time, and the stories were written around 1912 / 13, etc. In the work of both authors (as in Pollyanna) the automobile appears as a novelty.

I guess, I do not need to cross-post these observations to the Literary Centennials group ;-)

>

Oy yes, indeed, Sassy. The author refers to The Badlands. Decadent Playground of Old Peking as an off-shoot from Midnight in Peking, which is closely related: same time, same place, the murder I believe even took place in the same part of the city. I recall that the author was contacted after publication of Midnight in Peking which led to the writing of The Badlands.

Edwin - I'm not sure how I've missed your Club Read thread until now. Very interesting catch-up, especially your recent reads about China. I am moving to Beijing shortly and so have started to work my way slowly through my accumulated piles of books about China - currently reading The Party: the secret world of China's Communist rulers which is pretty good (despite the subtitle). Somewhere in the piles I have the Simon Leys - after your review, I may start with the essays on Matteo Ricci and Père Huc. I had a go at The Badlands but I think the thinness of the source material bothered me more than it did you.

Wonderful reviews to read, as usual. I found the Leys review especially enlightening.

Enjoying your latest batch Edwin and the discussion which followed about the Fairy Tales.

Just bought the Angela Carter today, based on your recommendation.

Fabulous reviews as always, Edwin. The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking sounds particularly interesting.

Just catching up. Some great reviews of wonderful books, edwin. The illustrations back in post 61 are exquisite...

Indeed.

Does my thread load with reasonable speed, or should i start a new one?

The load speed is just fine on my PC: about 2 or 3 seconds.

051. My first summer in the Sierra
Finished reading: 3 May 2013



John Muir came to live in the United States in 1849, when he was nine years old and his parents moved there. In his twenties he spent several years studying various subjects at university, including botany and geology, in an entirely eclectic fashion and without ever taking a degree. To avoid conscription he moved to Canada, where he spent time trekking through the wilderness. He spent the following several years wandering the woods in the good season and working to make money as it ran out, usually in the winter season, when collecting plants would be difficult.

Between 1868 and 1871, Muir visited Yosemite several times, spending most of his time there. My first summer in the Sierra, although written and published many years later, in 1911, describes this period of his life.

The descriptions in the book bespeak Muir's adoration of the wild nature he observed in the Yosemite. Muir's youthful vigor emblazons the his writing about the paradisaical nature he encountered in this place, including rich descriptions of the landscape, flora and fauna.

My first summer in the Sierra is written in the form of a diary, describing the wanderings and daily occupations of Muir as a shepherd, and although Muir did spend a season in the Yosemite as a shepherd, My first summer in the Sierra is inspired by the many more years he spend there. However, the chosen structure and story tie the book together into an enticing story.

The edition of Mariner Books is illustrated with prints of original photos, etchings and drawings by Muir.

Indispensable reading for anyone with an interest in Natural History, botany and the ecological movement, particularly in the United States.



Other books I have read by John Muir:
Travels in Alaska


Yosemite Creek

I'm intrigued. What got you interested in John Muir?

>198 rebeccanyc:

A long-standing interest in Natural History, Rebecca. Between 13-years old and 26, I was a member of a youth group with special interest in Natural History. The group organized weekly excursions and trips during each holiday to study nature or participate in activities to protect the environment. My first year at University, I studied Biology. I discontinued because my interest was solely with Natural History, in particular Botany, but after the first year, the university study of Biology would mainly focus on human anatomy for about two years. I was not interested in that, so I switched to studying English and Education.

I have kept a life-long interest in nature, and still very much enjoy "wandering in the woods", just like John Muir did, but nowadays only as a day-trip or weekend visit at most. I no longer carry my botanizing equipment. Besides, here in China, that would all be very difficult. However, I do still stoop to observe tiny flowers, spot owls and woodpeckers in groves around temples, and am amazed by the wealth of nature in parts of China.

I regularly read, or try to read, books relating to Natural History. Many works by John Muir are available from Project Gutenberg, but I still seem to prefer reading real books, and was lucky to buy three in October last year.

John Muir writes extremely well, and about very interesting places, as well. A few years ago, I read a biography about Muir, Winds in the woods. The story of John Muir, which high-lighted his divinely inspired love for nature, and described how he took President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip into the Yosemite in 1903, to persuade and convince the President to protect the Yosemite and create a National Park. This episode is also described in Roosevelt's letters, Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his children, which I read last year.

Hence my interest in Dersu the Trapper.

That's so interesting, Edwin. I was fortunate to be able to spend a large part of each summer growing up at a family house in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and that's how I developed a love of natural history. I did study biology in college (and managed to avoid the anatomy and other premed-oriented classes by taking animal behavior and ecology classes). Sadly, I never learned much botany (other than our local trees), which was why Dersu sent me running to Wikipedia. On the whole, though, I don't read much about natural history, although I have quite a collections of books I'd like to read if I had time! Muir seems so American; that's why I was interested in your interest in him.

My First Summer in the Sierra would seem to be a book that you must hold and cherish, reading it on a kindle would not be the same experience. Excellent review.

052. Volg het spoor terug
Finished reading: 10 May 2013



Volg het spoor terug is a book that is no longer of this time. The sentiment it describes is alien to modern readers. A bestseller in the 1950s, Volg het spoor terug accurately portrays how the author's generation felt about the Second World War, but that feeling can no longer be traced by readers belonging to a younger generation, nor are anger and suspicion the type of sentiment that modern historians would foster in relation to a modern reception and view of the past, and the then-enemy, Germany.

Volg het spoor terug was written by J.B. Charles, a pseudonym for Willem Hendrik Nagel. During the 1930s Nagel studied Law and was keenly aware of the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany. After the war, Nagel was appointed the chair to lecture Law and Criminology at Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Publications in the field of Law are published under his own name, while other work, prose and poetry, is published under the pseudonym, which was derived from the code name "Charles" which the author used during the war.

Volg het spoor terug was originally published in 1953. In 1976, it was revised and extended from 358 to 372 pages. This review refers to the last edition, the twelfth impression of 1994.

Although in reading Volg het spoor terug seems to be written as a memoir, the central catalog of the Dutch National Library lists Volg het spoor terug as a novels. Structurally, the book consists of 58 essays, each exploring aspects of the resistance.

Contemporary historicism shows that the occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War and the deportation of Dutch Jews were easy for the Nazis because of the high degree of collaboration on the part of many Dutch citizens. However, after the war it was obvious that all the many people who claimed ever to have been part of the resistance, could never have been. Volg het spoor terug describes the revulsion over this phenomenon. It exposes the type of people and their motives for collaboration. Volg het spoor terug also provides a legal justification for the resistance, referring to conventions under international law which were violated by the Nazis in their occupation of the Netherlands.

Overall, the tone of Volg het spoor terug is that of anger and disillusionment, in view of the war period, and suspicion during the postwar era.

The work of J. B. Charles is now no longer in print, and he is all but forgotten. Nonetheless, a biography was published in 2010, with the title Het spoor terug. J.B. Charles / W.H. Nagel 1910-1983 by Kees Schuyt. While, as the biography suggests, J. B. Charles may see a revival of interest in his work in the future, that interest will more likely be for his poetry, as Volg het spoor terug seems definitely outdated, and possibly only of interest to a specialist readership.

053. De buurman
Finished reading: 16 May 2013



The novelistic prose of J. J. Voskuil bears similarities to the minimalistic music of the Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, or, in turn, the music of the Indian ragas. The novels are very long, consisting of an endless repetition, with minor variations, of small events, and a very thin, or insignificant plot. In De buurman the main plot elements are arguments between Maarten and Nicolien, mutual visits to the neighbours, and observations of the neighbours, their actions or the results of their actions.

As in many other novels by Voskuil, the character Maarten Koning often appears as an objective, dispassionate and melancholic observer, while his wife, Nicolien, appears as a hysteric and choleric character.

De buurman describes the rise and fall in the relation between Maarten and Nicolien, and their new neighbours Pieter Stallinga and Peer. While Nicolien opens her arms and heart to embrace the two gay men regardless of any misgivings and without prejudice, Maarten cannot overcome his inbred suspicion and haughty disdain. As, eventually, the relation turns sour, the question is who is to blame?

De buurman is an exploration of character. It is an excellent read, but possibly not for everyone.



Other books I have read by J. J. Voskuil:
Jeugdherinneringen
Het Bureau
Het Bureau, Vol. 7. De dood van Maarten Koning
Het Bureau, Vol. 6. Afgang
Het Bureau, Vol. 5. En ook weemoedigheid
Het Bureau, Vol. 4. Het A. P. Beerta-Instituut
Het Bureau, Vol. 3. Plankton
Het Bureau, Vol. 2. Vuile handen
Het Bureau, Vol. 1. Meneer Beerta

054. My China Daily
Finished reading: 21 May 2010



Within China, there is a good market for books in which foreigners describe their experiences of coming to live in China. Especially, foreigners working in the Chinese media, are likely to come out with a publication like that, such as the various volumes of such works written by Lisa Carducci. Thus, in 2007, Edwin Maher published My China Daily with the publisher Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Edwin Maher, originally from New Zealand, has been working in China since 2003 as a news anchor for the English channel of China's central national broadcaster, China Central TV (CCTV).

My China Daily is a hefty volume in which Edwin Maher describes his experiences and adventures of living and working in Beijing, and travelling around China. The book is written in slap-stick style, relating of Maher's exploits with humour and special detail for funny anecdotes. The style, is therefore, light and very easy to read. Frequent surprize and amazement, and an overall outlook of pleasant little stories, without any form of criticism or negative experiences, betray the editorial guidance and self-censorship typical for publishing in China.

Maher's experiences in China are rather run-of-the mill, lacking originality. It is all very predictable, and thus, ultimately, quite boring.

My China Daily appears as a bilingual edition, English and Chinese, and is richly illustrated with cartoons.

Interesting to read about the Dutch books.

I agree with Rebecca. Very interesting reviews.

055. A mother's disgrace
Finished reading: 22 May 2013



With A mother's disgrace, Robert Dessaix turned to autobiographical writing in 1994. The laden, heavy title of this collection of autobiographical essays could divert readers from picking up this book, which is in fact rather pessimistic and heavy in its handling.

Groppi's Midan Talaat Harb, El Mosky. Amidst the heat, noise & bustle of a Cairo day, there exists an oasis of calm. Groppi Gardens is notable for its garden terrace and deli. During the Second World War, the patio was a popular retreat where British officers enjoyed their afternoon tea; Egyptians and lower-ranking officers were not allowed in. The paneled interior looks much as it must have done in the 1940s. Elderly couples frequent the dining area while a mixed crowd relax in the shaded garden. The seats are uncomfortable and the service slow, but it is easy to imagine how it once was. Tea, coffee and juices can be ordered along with desserts; the baklava is superb. The deli sells cold cuts, pastas and jams. The most extraordinary cakes, torts & pastries are displayed in chilled splendour within the shop area. Pick a cake and a waiter will serve it with a freshly infused pot of Earl Grey tea. Seated on the terrace under an awning, its easy to think yourself back in time to the early 20th century. (source: Yahoo Travel).

In the first essay, Robert Dessaix describes how, after leaving Groppi's he is picked up by three young Egyptions. In for a flirtatious adventure, he barely escapes from rape or murder. It is a classic nightmare story of the adventurous, thoughtless gay traveller. The story is shocking, relating some gruesome, disgusting details, upsetting and alienating readers from the snug view of the quiet, monogamous of non-practising homosexual. Altogether a truly disgraceful episode. In an interview, Dessaix has suggested that this episode is fictional, referring to the books epigraph from Jeanette Winterson, taken from The Passion: "I'm telling you stories. Trust me."

In the next episode, Dessaix relates how he was born in wedlock. It tells the story of looking for his mother in Australia, eventually, finding a woman who turns out not to be his mother. The first episode being a story of shame, the second is a story of embarrassment.

The third chapter has the title Mother Russia. In this episode, Dessaix describes how in his youth, long before he discovered that he is homosexual, he was already prone to look for alienating experiences, such as his choice to study Russian at Moscow State University at the height of the Cold War. While we can now read this episode with a smiling face, laughing about the absurdities of Soviet Russian Communism with all its theatrical hypocrisy, at the time Dessaix' choice for Russia must have been frowned upon. However, to modern readers this episode is one of the most interesting, and also the lightest read in this rather gloom autobiography.

Subsequent episodes deal with the author's quest for his mother, and search for his roots, tracing the origins of his family name.

Although the author has (had) an interesting life, and has an interesting story to tell, many episodes are too close to the skin, too personal. The reader feels voyeuristic in gleaning some details and parts of the story which are too confiding.



Other books I have read by Robert Dessaix:
Arabesques. A tale of double lives
Corfu

056. Where the stress falls
Finished reading: 25 May 2013



Both reading and writing essays requires a broad general knowledge. Well-educated readers often profess enjoyment reading essays, although they may agree that well-written essays are hard to find. I often explain to my students that novels and short stories are a joy to read because they have been written by professional writers, who know how to write well, whereas academic essays are often written by scholars who have a deep knowledge of their subject, but may not be able to write that well.

To the reader of general interest, perhaps the most enjoyable pieces of essay writing are pieces which they do not immediately think of as essays, namely reviews and articles in quality newspapers and cultural or literary magazines such as The New York Review of Books, The Times Supplement or The Spectator, to name a few. Such articles and essays are often the main stay of authors' regular income from writing.

However, when such occasional pieces of writing are collected, the subsequent books are often qualitatively unbalanced, or otherwise unattractive to readers.

Susan Sontag is mainly known for her essay writing, and in 2001 all her essay writing was included in the prestigious series of Penguin Modern Classics. This choice underwrites the outstanding quality of her essays.

Where the stress falls is a collection of a rather broad scope including essays about the arts, about 115 pages of essays about literature, 130 pages of essays about the cinema and theatre and a remaining 100 pages about translation and theatre. The essays span a very broad range of interests.

In these essays, Susan Sontag displays her broad knowledge. Sontag is an American writer with a very broad international perspective, and, as many intellectual writers her focus may sometimes be with large, mainstream authors and movements, while at other times point the spotlight on unknown writers or phenomena. As a writer, film maker and critic, Sontag herself was criticised, particularly for her involvement in a theatre project in occupied Sarajevo.

Where the stress falls is divided into three parts: Reading, Seeing and There and Here. "Reading" consists of twelve essays about literature. The most surprising is perhaps Sontag's interest in the American novel The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story (1940) by Glenway Wescott which she describes as belonging to the treasures of twentieth-century American literature in the essay Where the stress falls (2001). Any other essayist would be laughed at and scorned for making such a pronouncement about a short novella which currently is not even included in the canon. The suggestion is that Susan Sontag thinks it will be, in the future.

Incidentally, The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story is a novel which provides a shortcut to Sontag's own life an interests. Like Wescott Susan Sontag spent time as an expat writer in Paris, moving in an expat writers' community, though perhaps not as illustrious as that of Gertrude Stein in Wescott's day, in the 1920s. Sontag has written that her time in Paris was the most important part of her life. As this was in the late 1950s, Sontag, who took dual degrees in Literature and Philosophy from Harvard, often writes about French authors and philosophers, such as the essay about Roland Barthes.

Sontag's international outlook is further emphasized by essays about Latin-American authors, such as Machado de Assis, Juan Rulfo's novella Pedro Paramo and the work of Nobel Prize winner Jorge Luis Borges. There are further essays about European writers such as Danilo Kiš and Witold Gombrowicz, while one essay is devoted to German literature, a language which Sontag reads in the original, and which therefore gives her access to minor poets and authors such as Robert Walser.

Published in 2001, Where the stress falls combines essays and interests from all periods of Susan Sontag's life. From the 1970s she started writing about photography and film. Thus, in the second part, called "Seeing" this volume contains several essays devoted to the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and a very positive contribution about the controversial German film maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. However, there are also several fascinating essays about modern dance, theatre and the operas of Wagner, which Sontag analyzes from an entirely original point of view.

The last part of Where the stress falls consists of twelve essays, relating to a theatre project which she realized and directed Siege of Sarajevo, staging a performance of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The personal involvement and biographic descriptions, make this part of the book somewhat less interesting. It shows how high-blown intellectualism can become disconnected from reality, promoting a symbolic action, which critics rightfully pronounced as "hideously self-indulgent".

Reading a book of essays probably means the reader must be satisfied with a pick-and-choose mode of reading. While some essays may be deeply loved and cherished as they discuss topics dear to the reader, other essays may be of less interest, just as in a quality newspaper, a readers may decide not to read all pieces. Perhaps, this eclectic mode of reading is still difficult to accept when it comes to books one has bought. However, just as with a reading of essays in a newspaper or magazine, there are many contributions the reader may be persuaded to sample. For such type of reading, Where the stress falls will prove to be a rich treasure trove.



Other books I have read by Susan Sontag:
AIDS and its metaphors
Illness as metaphor

057. The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief
Finished reading: 30 May 2013



With regard to non-fictional writing about religion, V. S. Naipaul is mostly known for his two travelogues exploring an mapping the practice of Islam in two books, viz. Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, published in 1981, followed by Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples, which appeared in 1994. In both books Naipaul describes Arab countries and other asian countries where Islam was an adopted religion, following conversion, which are the main focus of Naipaul's interest. Both books have been criticised for being superficial and erronous.

In 2010, V. S. Naipaul published The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief. The book consists of six extended pieces of writing about his experience in different African countries. Whereas the two books about Islam were focused on converted people who professed to the religion of the Islam, and those books were the result of respectively five and six months of travel, The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief is a much more eclectic book, consisting of travels undertaken at various, unrelated moments in time, and with a quite different unrelated purpose. It is therefore surprising that the first and longest piece takes the reader back to 1966 when Naipaul when Naipaul spent "eight to nine months" in East Africa, of which six weeks were spent in Kenya, a month in Tanzania, and the remaining half year in Uganda. "Forty-two years after that first visit I went back to Uganda (...) hoping to get started there on this book about the nature of African belief, and I thought it would be better to ease myself into my subject in a country I knew or half knew. But I found the place eluding me." (p. 1)

V. S. Naipaul does not make clear which place eluded him, Uganda he half knew, or the African continent as a whole. The introductory passage also shows the author's half-hearted interest in his subject, or possibly no interest in it at all. Perhaps The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief is just a suggestion of the publisher, an attempt to cash in on Naipaul's fame as a Nobel Prize winning author with a reputation for writing non-fictional travelogue about religion.

The first, long essay (80 pages) informs the reader much about Naipaul's stay in Uganda in 1966, but provides only the merest suggestion of religious practice.

Nations on the African continent, whether their current boundaries are temporary or permanent, have existed for hundreds of years, and some countries have an abundantly rich cultural variety, for which Naipaul does not seem prepared. Thus, his journey takes him through Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and South Africa, making some general observations about religion, besides many touristic travellers' views.

The second essay is called Sacred places. After an introduction to the history of Nigeria, Naipaul is introduced to his guide who supposedly knows about Yoruba culture, and leads Naipaul to meet an Oba in the Yoruba homeland. However, Naipaul's subsequent description about Mumbo Jumbo is more likely taken from the author's reading of Mungo Park's travel journals Travels in the Interior of Africa (1795), to which he already made reference in the introductory section of the essay (but does not refer to here). Naipaul does not learn anything knew about Yoruba religion from his informers. The next section of "Sacred places" deals with a ling biographical descriptions of another informer, who takes Naipaul to see a soothsayer. Further sections return to Yoruba religion and Islam in Nigeria. Only a few fleeting remarks are made about the "orthodox Christian Cherubim and Seraphim Church Movement," but Naipaul does not write anything about Christianity in Nigeria.

"Men Possessed" described the Ashanti religion of Ghana, with a visit to another soothsayer. Naipaul tells us that both the soothsayer of the Yoruba religion in Nigeria and the one here in Ghana required a bottle of liquor as a tribute, before their session. In between some references to Moslem and Christian religions, which Naipaul does not pursue, he is taken to see the high priest of the Gaa cult in Ghana. The following description is a mockery of Naipaul's professed cultural sensitivity. The high priest is not there but sends them a message on his mobile phone. They are received by a dignified old chief, dressed in a purple silk gown, wearing silver bangles and golden earrings, and tattoos or markings on his skin. "He could certainly have been expecting some schnapps, and perhaps a gift of money." Everyone ends up being irritated: Naipaul because "in my dealings with magicians, I had understood that beyond a certain stage there was no place for simple inquirers", and the old chief "who might have been misled about the visitor, (...) involved him in this waste of time, without even the likelihood of a bottle of schnapps at the end. (p. 185). The repeated references to bottles of liquor rather jeopardize Naipaul's sincerity in these transactions.

References on page 185, suggest that Naipaul's visit to Ivory Coast in the following chapter, "The Forest King" were actually made twenty years earlier, or, as with the visit to Uganda, a visit long ago, followed by a renewed visit for the purpose of writing this book. With just 18 pages, this essay is oddly short.

"The Children of the Old Forest" describes the religion of the pygmies (consistently misspelled "pigmies" by Naipaul) in Gabon. Here, Naipaul has several informers and guides who lead him to meet the rather primitive tribes in the forests. The last essay, "Private Monuments, Private Wastelands" presents a very general introduction to South Africa, including a description of the religious beliefs of a Zulu traditionalist.

The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief is presented as a travelogue focusing on religious belief in Africa. While the book does introduce some aspects of religion, choice and focus are superficial, and of no particular interest but to the most general reader. A topic which should be introduced by an experienced anthropologist, is trampled by a rather vulgar tourist, whose memories of 20 - 40+ years past, travels and observations made with a completely different interest, now inform a very superficial travelogue through Africa.



Other books I have read by V. S. Naipaul:
Literary occasions
The night watchman's occurrence book. And other comic inventions
A flag on the island
Mr Stone and the Knights Companion
The suffrage of Elvira
India. A wounded civilization
The loss of El Dorado. A colonial history
The Middle Passage. Impressions of five colonial societies
Half a life

Excellent reviews as always and so interesting. I was still thinking of your comment that some of Dessaix stories are "too close to the skin" when I began reading the Sontag review. Which reminded me: I went to see an Annie Leibowitz show in Atlanta, of her personal rather than professional photos. It was wonderful. Then I got to the photo of her partner Sontag evidently having an enema as part of her cancer treatment. I thought that was a bit much and pretty yuk, was so shocked to see it included. Leibowitz statement on the accompanying note was well this is reality. This is what cancer looks like and we need to see that and know that. It also reminds me of Jeff Jarvis book Public Parts: How sharing in the digital age improves the way we work and live where he talks about all of the personal info being put online, and the lack of privacy. He thinks maybe the result of that will be more acceptance of ourselves as humans rather than being ashamed of our imperfections. Interesting. I just think what works for some doesn't necessarily work for all.

Doesn't sounds as if you liked S. V. Naipaul and your comments remind me of my own reaction to his brother in Journey to Nowhere. I especially appreciate your comments regarding the need for an anthropological perspective. Why did you give the book four stars?

Thanks for your reactions, Merrikay.

Living in China, I do not see so many (post)modernist art exhibitions, but it would be a logical progression in postmodernism to break down traditional views and inhibitions, which upon reflection really seem to belong to a different age. Largely part of Mao's communalism and efforts to break down traditional values, Chinese people have a very limited sense of privacy, which means, for instance, they have absolutely no inhibitions to crap in view of (many) others on toilets without doors and without side-partitions, in plain view for all to see (although these days such toilets are on the go, putting partitions and doors back in: you have no idea how stressful the old situation was when you are looking to relieve yourself). I can imagine that in Western media, particularly the visual and social media traditional inhibitions are left behind.

Robert Dessaix does not belong to that generation, but reflecting on your comments, Merrikay, I would compare Dessaix with the French author Hervé Guibert. Unlike Guibert, who died in 1991, Robert Dessaix is a long-time survivor of AIDS. The symptoms of full-blown AIDS have brought some afflicted authors to lose all shame vis-à-vis their doctors and others, and shed traditional inhibitions to write about their illness in their work. The work of Hervé Guibert is very shocking, very direct and very explicit about the stages of full-blown AIDS and the progressive stages of that illness, for example in his novel À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie.

However, the work of Hervé Guibert is fictional. Naturally, the novels are, but a work such as Le mausolée des amants. Journal 1976 - 1991 is written in the form of a diary, but is nonetheless presented as fiction. It is a fictional diary, which looks very authentic. Readers should apparently accept that the journal merely presents a version of the truth. That's why the epigraph in A mother's disgrace is so significant: "I'm telling you stories. Trust me." (from The Passion by Jeanette Winterson.) Some of the details in A mother's disgrace appear shockingly real, but they may in fact just be a version of the truth.

In most cases in is quite easy to evaluate a book with a number of stars, and in some cases it is more complicated. My expectations about the book were not met, but in spite of that, The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief is still a very readable book.

The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief is published without an introduction, so Naipaul's intentions with the book are not made explicit. The author is not an anthropologist, and therefore, the book should perhaps simply be appreciated for what it offers: Glimpses of African belief. Lacking an introduction, the reader should perhaps be guided by the blurb text which introduces the intention as follows: "Focusing upon the theme of belief - though sometimes the political or economical realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account - Naipaul examines the fragile but enduring quality of the old world of magic." That is more or less exactly what the book does. The title itself: "The masque of Africa." shows that much remains hidden.

Averaging 70 pages, the five long plus one short essays are all very well-written. While the descriptions of each religion is but scanty, the total picture of each African country is fairly comprehensive. This is a major plus point, since generally, so little is written and known about African countries in the first place.

There is section for acknowledgements, and on the last page is written: March 2008 - September 2009, which means the essays were especially written for the publication of this book. While some older memories may have gone into the book, the essays were written for this occasion, and not scrambled, as so often happens in other publications, where old essays are brought together to describe a new story.

Therefore, I would still recommend The masque of Africa. Glimpses of African belief as an introduction to these African countries and some of the traditional beliefs held by their people, awarding the book four stars.

I also thought you might have made a mistake with your star rating of The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African belief so thanks for your explanation Edwin. Thanks also for the review of the Susan Sontag essays, that is certainly a collection that I will look out for. I enjoyed reading your comments about reading essays and thoroughly agree with them.

The essays of Susan Sontag are absolutely great, Baswood! I was not too impressed with Illness as metaphor & AIDS and its metaphors because the handwork showed through too much, but the essays in Where the stress falls are pure erudition. I am currently reading Under the sign of Saturn. Essays which, I would say, contains some essays, notably about Walter Benjamin which I would consider among the best essays I have ever read. Absolutely tops!

Enjoyed your July and August posts. You have left me really wanting to read Muir and Sontag.

058. Saint Julian
Finished reading: 31 May 2013



“Chanterai por mon coraige
Que je vuil reconforter,
Qu'avecques mon grant domaige
Ne quier morir n'afoler;
Quant de la terre sauvage
Ne voi nului retorner
Ou cil est qui rassoage
Mes maus quant j’en oi parler…”

Saint Julian by Walter Wangerin is a historical novel loosely based on the legend of Julian the Hospitaller, with various embellishments and additions to the plot. The novel describes the life of Julian, beginning with descriptions of his father and mother, and his youth growing up at the castle of his parents. The time is the Middle Ages, the time of the Crusades and the fights against the marauding Saracens. As Julian grows up into young manhood, he is shown to be a cruel killer, killing as amany animals as he can for fun. Then one day, a stag appears before him, speaking, and telling him that his fate is to kill both his parents. The following morning Julian is found, prostrate, in cross position, stretched out on the flagstones in the chapel. Things return to normal for a while, until one day, attempting to impress his father with his strength he tries to lift the great battle axe from its place over the hearth and, accidentally, nearly decapitates his father. Shocked into remembering the prediction by the stag, Julian decides to leave the ancestral castle to live as far away from his parents as possible.

During his wanderings, marriage and life Julian comes to be identified with the Red Knight. After many years, his parents set out to search for him, and as it happens they come upon Julian homestead while he is out hunting. His wife accommodates Julian parents by offering them to sleep in their bed. Upon his return, Julian believes to have found his wife in bed with another man, and kills both, only to discover that he has killed his parents, as was foretold by the curse of the stag.

From then on, the Red Knight is no longer seen. Julian wanders the countryside as an almoner, but wherever he goes, in the faces of commoners he is bound to recognize his mother or his father. He seizes his wanderings, and instead build a humble dwelling of willow twigs, serving travellers as a ferryman. One day, a leprous Moor appears who calls out to him to be rowed across the river, and who then asks Julian to put him up for the night in his small hut, feed him and quench his thirst. Julian has been humbled thus much, he does all he is asked, without hatred for the old enemy of the Saracens or fear of leprosy. The leper is Christ in disguise, come to test Julian faith, and his benevolence earns him sainthood.

Saint Julian is a compelling and strong novel. The story incorporates many elements from the legend of Julian the Hospitaller, which exists in various versions, from which the author has made choices. Time and setting of the story have been carefully chosen, but are never explicitly mentioned, rather, construed by careful cues such as the inclusion of lyrics of a troubadour, Latin conversation and oblique references to medieval history and the crusades. In addition, there are additions to the story, such as the suggestion to identify Julian with the Red Knight, tying the story further in with Malory and Arthurian legend, to create a fuller picture of the background and setting of the story. However, some of these elements, for example, extensive use of Latin, also makes the novel somewhat less accessible to certain readers.

In the United States,Walter Wangerin is mainly known as an author of Christian fiction. To some readers in Europe, this epithet is considered negative, and the modern American Christian novel is seen as a specific genre of its own, written explicitly by and for Christians of a particular conservative Christian subculture. However, Saint Julian is not included with Wangerin other novels as religious works, but presented separately as a historical novel.

Saint Julian by Walter Wangerin is a historical novel in the best tradition of English historical fiction, great fiction, and free from religious overtones.The novel Saint Julian and its author are probably tagged "Christian Literature" based on previous experience with this author. Saint Julian definitely deserves a wider readership.