by Wallace Stegner
The only word for this 560-page slice of Americana is "saga." It's a rich, detailed, loving and amazingly authentic portrayal of an American family, the Masons, from the turn of the century to the '30s. In telling the story of this never satisfied, ever-scheming, gambling liquor-runner and his wife and two boys, Stegner recreates vividly and successfully everything that touches them. He describes with care and apparent ease the thrill and trouble of working the first cars with cranks; the vast prairies, troubling droughts, deadly blizzards; small towns with their plank sidewalks and dirt roads; the experiences of frontier children and their trapping, shooting and loves; and with keen insight, he captures all the unfair and selfish emotions that the various family members feel as life shunts them about on their voyage. The novel is about life, and death, and understanding, and carrying on the struggle. I'd never heard of Stegner before, although he won the Pulitzer Prize for a different work; but I rate him now up with Steinbeck as one of the truly great American writers.
five stars
Sunday, April 5, 1998
Tuesday, March 3, 1998
Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend
by Thomas Mann
1947
translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter
This 500-page tome is a dense, rich experience detailing the deterioration of Germany from a paragon of culture in the 19th century to a force-worshiping anathema by the ignominious end of WWII. The narrator, Serenus, is a staid, conservative Catholic bourgeois, who worships his subject, the composer Adrian. This latter is a Lutheran, possessed with musical genius and detached from the world after a sinful tryst. Adrian's genius and madness parallel Germany's genius, its symbolic deal with the devil to exchange power for culture, and its fall. Along the way, Mann expounds at length and at great detail about the state of religion, art, teaching, politics and class structure in modern Germany, explaining how men like Serenus could stand back and let the fatherland they worshiped become such an ugly beast. This is one of the most difficult novels I have ever read, and I think I have a few problems with the translation, which is nonsensical at points, but it was all worth it. The tale works on so many levels it's hard to connect them all; still, even as a tale, or even as commentary on the state of arts in war-torn Germany, it's fascinating.
four stars
1947
translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter
This 500-page tome is a dense, rich experience detailing the deterioration of Germany from a paragon of culture in the 19th century to a force-worshiping anathema by the ignominious end of WWII. The narrator, Serenus, is a staid, conservative Catholic bourgeois, who worships his subject, the composer Adrian. This latter is a Lutheran, possessed with musical genius and detached from the world after a sinful tryst. Adrian's genius and madness parallel Germany's genius, its symbolic deal with the devil to exchange power for culture, and its fall. Along the way, Mann expounds at length and at great detail about the state of religion, art, teaching, politics and class structure in modern Germany, explaining how men like Serenus could stand back and let the fatherland they worshiped become such an ugly beast. This is one of the most difficult novels I have ever read, and I think I have a few problems with the translation, which is nonsensical at points, but it was all worth it. The tale works on so many levels it's hard to connect them all; still, even as a tale, or even as commentary on the state of arts in war-torn Germany, it's fascinating.
four stars
Thursday, February 5, 1998
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
by Gustave LeBon
Translator not named; with an introduction by Robert A. Nye (my thesis advisor).
There are two ways to approach this polemical rant. The first is as an historical product: it's a conservative response to the vagaries of the masses, which in LeBon's day were leading to the dangers of socialism, indifference, and decadence. The primitive crowd mentality was destroying civilization, as LeBon saw it, and this work is meant to address why, and offers insights on how the statesman can control crowds better (not through reason but empty platitudes and obvious imagery).
The second way to look at the work is as a scholarly argument: in this it fails utterly. Self-contradictory, rambling and perfunctory when it comes to "proving" his notions, LeBon is certainly a shrewd observer of the crowd mentality, but his conclusions are illogical, misplaced, and false. This book is in fact itself a good example of crowd manipulation as LeBon sees it! That is, it is repetitive, avoids rational argument and invokes vague causes like race genius and civilizing sentiment.
three stars
Translator not named; with an introduction by Robert A. Nye (my thesis advisor).
There are two ways to approach this polemical rant. The first is as an historical product: it's a conservative response to the vagaries of the masses, which in LeBon's day were leading to the dangers of socialism, indifference, and decadence. The primitive crowd mentality was destroying civilization, as LeBon saw it, and this work is meant to address why, and offers insights on how the statesman can control crowds better (not through reason but empty platitudes and obvious imagery).
The second way to look at the work is as a scholarly argument: in this it fails utterly. Self-contradictory, rambling and perfunctory when it comes to "proving" his notions, LeBon is certainly a shrewd observer of the crowd mentality, but his conclusions are illogical, misplaced, and false. This book is in fact itself a good example of crowd manipulation as LeBon sees it! That is, it is repetitive, avoids rational argument and invokes vague causes like race genius and civilizing sentiment.
three stars
Monday, January 19, 1998
The Fellowship of the Ring
by J.R.R. Tolkien
1954
The "authorized" edition, with a brief foreword by Tolkien about the book's success. Everyone told me to read this classic fantasy, so I have, perhaps late in life. My feelings toward it are ambivalent: while I admire the detail and the craft of the vivid, exceptionally fantastic world and the history Tolkien created, the story didn't blow me away. I feel that the book (500 closely printed pages) gets bogged down at times by geography and obscure genealogy, and is at times a little too caught up in its own wonder at the breathtaking, aloof majesty of Elves and such. While enough happened in the story, and the dialogue was fine, I didn't get a great sense of drama from the book, odd considering the earth-shattering importance of Frodo's quest. When the action did get going, however, it was enthralling. The cliffhanger ending had a lot of drama, for example.
three stars
1954
The "authorized" edition, with a brief foreword by Tolkien about the book's success. Everyone told me to read this classic fantasy, so I have, perhaps late in life. My feelings toward it are ambivalent: while I admire the detail and the craft of the vivid, exceptionally fantastic world and the history Tolkien created, the story didn't blow me away. I feel that the book (500 closely printed pages) gets bogged down at times by geography and obscure genealogy, and is at times a little too caught up in its own wonder at the breathtaking, aloof majesty of Elves and such. While enough happened in the story, and the dialogue was fine, I didn't get a great sense of drama from the book, odd considering the earth-shattering importance of Frodo's quest. When the action did get going, however, it was enthralling. The cliffhanger ending had a lot of drama, for example.
three stars
Friday, October 10, 1997
Freedom Or Death
by Nikos Kazantzakis
1953
translated by Jonathan Griffin
This 500-page monster is another novel, set during the 1889 rebellion in Crete, soaked in the joy of living, rife with graphic fighting, killing, sex, feasting, drinking, and deep, calm spirituality. Kazantzakis' obsession with the duality of human nature is everywhere apparent, for example in the opposition of the wild Captain Michales to his blood brother and sworn enemy, the pleasure-loving Turk Nuri Bey; in some minor characters' attempt to reconcile sainthood and enjoyment of the earth; in the lusty old grandfather's final question concerning the meaning of life; the juxtaposition of the very old and the newly adult, the dead and the fortunately alive. Many scenes are quite memorable, showing a bloody knife fight or men who get drunk and jump for the joy of life over the corpse they are supposed to be watching. The final scene of death and sacrifice is the most powerful. It's a great book.
four stars
1953
translated by Jonathan Griffin
This 500-page monster is another novel, set during the 1889 rebellion in Crete, soaked in the joy of living, rife with graphic fighting, killing, sex, feasting, drinking, and deep, calm spirituality. Kazantzakis' obsession with the duality of human nature is everywhere apparent, for example in the opposition of the wild Captain Michales to his blood brother and sworn enemy, the pleasure-loving Turk Nuri Bey; in some minor characters' attempt to reconcile sainthood and enjoyment of the earth; in the lusty old grandfather's final question concerning the meaning of life; the juxtaposition of the very old and the newly adult, the dead and the fortunately alive. Many scenes are quite memorable, showing a bloody knife fight or men who get drunk and jump for the joy of life over the corpse they are supposed to be watching. The final scene of death and sacrifice is the most powerful. It's a great book.
four stars
Thursday, October 2, 1997
Another Country
by James Baldwin
Again, Baldwin has written a brilliant, impassioned, philosophical and brutal novel of life stripped down to its harsh realities: race, gender, lust, sex, love. To begin with, Baldwin breaks all the rules by introducing the reader to Rufus, makes the reader care about him, and then kills Rufus off. The next 280 pages describe the aftermath of this loss in Rufus' circle of friends; but he's not the center of the world, far from it, and other shattering and life-affirming events happen to the characters that have nothing to do with Rufus. Still, his presence is felt in all their stories. In some ways this novel was very hard to read. Some of Baldwin's observations on love, giving, taking and needing are so unbearably accurate that they can't help but evince strong emotion. A complex and immensely powerful novel.
Again, Baldwin has written a brilliant, impassioned, philosophical and brutal novel of life stripped down to its harsh realities: race, gender, lust, sex, love. To begin with, Baldwin breaks all the rules by introducing the reader to Rufus, makes the reader care about him, and then kills Rufus off. The next 280 pages describe the aftermath of this loss in Rufus' circle of friends; but he's not the center of the world, far from it, and other shattering and life-affirming events happen to the characters that have nothing to do with Rufus. Still, his presence is felt in all their stories. In some ways this novel was very hard to read. Some of Baldwin's observations on love, giving, taking and needing are so unbearably accurate that they can't help but evince strong emotion. A complex and immensely powerful novel.
Sunday, September 21, 1997
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
1726
This is a very sharp piece of satire, most of Swift's observations of the human condition remaining true over 250 years later. The section on the Houyhnhnms is laying it on a bit thick in places, or at least I like to think so. Still, Swift's remarks on the corruptness of governments and the evils of colonialism and so forth, all topped off with the worst sin of all, pride, really hit the spot.
five stars
1726
This is a very sharp piece of satire, most of Swift's observations of the human condition remaining true over 250 years later. The section on the Houyhnhnms is laying it on a bit thick in places, or at least I like to think so. Still, Swift's remarks on the corruptness of governments and the evils of colonialism and so forth, all topped off with the worst sin of all, pride, really hit the spot.
five stars
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