So much for my diligent quest. How do these picaros do it? I have been reading but "off list." Even brought four of the picaresque books back to the library unfinished: Sentimental Education, Witches of Karres, Augie March and Hotline Healers. I bought Diary of a Humiliated Man and am "diligently" reading it but it has lead me to conclude that a true picaro is more than naive: he is oblivious to the quest and not self-analyzing or interpretive. He becomes memorable to the reader simply because he is not self-promoting.
But on to how I'm spending my summer. Prolific JD Robb published two more "In Death" books while I was reading list books. So I devoured Kindred and Fantasy. While finishing Fantasy yesterday afternoon, I realized this recent diversion is solidly in the world of the fantastical. Besides these futuristic mysteries, I've read three Jasper Fforde's: two from the the nursery rhyme crimes -- The Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear -- and the Eyre Affair introducing Thursday Next. Fforde's books through me back to the summer of (well let's not give the exact year) when I was about 11, knocking off a Nancy Drew a day.
Both Robb and Fforde expect the reader to eagerly enter their make-believe worlds and suspend all other logical checks on reality. Both prevent reader-vertigo by anchoring the plot with oblique reference to things that are real. Robb has the stories in NYC, post Urban Wars in the 2050s and beyond, but with enough vestiges of the City's geography and exaggeration of New Yawker characteristics to make the hypothetical plausible. Fforde works a complicated conceit of detectives devoted to literary crime, some forgery but more animation of classic fictional protagonists. Because the original novels' heroes and heroines were depicted so accurately and passionately, they almost seemed real, the first time around, so the reader willing suspends belief to see them active again in a new setting. Fforde's books are punctuated with quotes and references to an English major's delight, but "fun" enough to lure new pre-teen adventurers.
My final fantasy from the past couple of months is another genre I default to when all temptations are yielded to; namely vampires, reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Like Fforde working over Jane Eyre, Grahame-Smith reworks Abe's rise within politics, the debates, the War, and his assassination, all this primary Americana, with a sinister overlay of a penultimate motive of vampires control, all with photo-shopped pictures.
And I finished the Millennium trilogy reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, paying more attention to the latest hunt to see if there really is any page in the tome where Larsson doesn't mention coffee. Of the three, Dragon Tattoo I rank first, with this one second.
So, besides my eavesdropping into the humiliated man's mind, I have only "off list" books piled up to delve into. I think this year's choices have been a bust and am already toying with themes for 2011. How about books with a one word title? Or books exclusively from one city or country? What's your ideas, Slackers?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Formulaic: Dreaming the Impossible Dream
Andre Brink knows what has to go into a picaresque novel: he has the naive protagonist who is "enlightened" at the end, if also dead; he has sex, even though it is more of a list of names than peeking through a key hole; he has a corrupt political system. He cleverly has the protagonist's traveling companion be an imaginary "friend," St. Joan of Arc. His love interest is a native black slave whose leg iron he removes, never to see her again; she becomes all of South Africa, and Etienne atones for all of the Dutch East India Company's sins in his quest to find her.
What is sorely lacking is any hit of humor, ribald or not. Without that tongue-in-cheek perspective, I cannot say this is a top rung picaresque novel. "Hamagrael" was home this week and she has read a lot of Brink's contemporary stories about apartheid and likes him a lot. On the Contrary does not intrigue me enough to want to read anything else he has written, although there were several paragraphs I dog-eared as either classic picaro or powerfully written.
St. Joan articulates the need to fight against petty political corruption: "... This is the sin of all of them, all the men who turn to politics as a game to be played, a game of the possible. They become powerful because they fetter the imagination. That is the very source of their power. They forbid us to remember what is truly possible. And by concentrating only on the possible, ... they have made the world an impossible place to live in."
At another point in Etienne's discourses with Joan, she personifies Brink's view of style and content: "I could literally invent myself through what I chose to tell. I could cancel myself by remaining silent. Or I could create whole multitudes of me through different stories. From that moment I had control over my destiny." This section also foretells Rosette, whose entire portrait is that of a native story teller, one who escapes torture and death like Scheherazade by enthralling her audiences in myths.
For its depiction of darkest Africa being explored by a white man, On the Contrary can be set against TC Boyle's Mungo Park. Etienne late in Part 2 concludes: "I understood at last something of what I'd been living with those past months: this violence, this energy, this seemingly exuberant cruelty, this need to subdue all adversaries real and imagined by brute force, this passion to destroy. All of it sprang not from exaggerated confidence, not even from hate, but from terror: the fear of this vast land, of its spaces, of its unmerciful light, of what lay lurking in this light, of its dark people."
The book is meaty and informative, but not engaging, the propaganda bleeds through too obviously. While I was reading this, I was also reading Toqueville Discovering America. Brink, at least in this novel, does not have the intellectual perspective or distance to look disinterestedly at his country's infancy. He skillfully uses the picaresque genre to continue his anti-apartheid crusade, but Etienne does not emerge as vividly has his hidalgo hero.
What is sorely lacking is any hit of humor, ribald or not. Without that tongue-in-cheek perspective, I cannot say this is a top rung picaresque novel. "Hamagrael" was home this week and she has read a lot of Brink's contemporary stories about apartheid and likes him a lot. On the Contrary does not intrigue me enough to want to read anything else he has written, although there were several paragraphs I dog-eared as either classic picaro or powerfully written.
St. Joan articulates the need to fight against petty political corruption: "... This is the sin of all of them, all the men who turn to politics as a game to be played, a game of the possible. They become powerful because they fetter the imagination. That is the very source of their power. They forbid us to remember what is truly possible. And by concentrating only on the possible, ... they have made the world an impossible place to live in."
At another point in Etienne's discourses with Joan, she personifies Brink's view of style and content: "I could literally invent myself through what I chose to tell. I could cancel myself by remaining silent. Or I could create whole multitudes of me through different stories. From that moment I had control over my destiny." This section also foretells Rosette, whose entire portrait is that of a native story teller, one who escapes torture and death like Scheherazade by enthralling her audiences in myths.
For its depiction of darkest Africa being explored by a white man, On the Contrary can be set against TC Boyle's Mungo Park. Etienne late in Part 2 concludes: "I understood at last something of what I'd been living with those past months: this violence, this energy, this seemingly exuberant cruelty, this need to subdue all adversaries real and imagined by brute force, this passion to destroy. All of it sprang not from exaggerated confidence, not even from hate, but from terror: the fear of this vast land, of its spaces, of its unmerciful light, of what lay lurking in this light, of its dark people."
The book is meaty and informative, but not engaging, the propaganda bleeds through too obviously. While I was reading this, I was also reading Toqueville Discovering America. Brink, at least in this novel, does not have the intellectual perspective or distance to look disinterestedly at his country's infancy. He skillfully uses the picaresque genre to continue his anti-apartheid crusade, but Etienne does not emerge as vividly has his hidalgo hero.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Dirty, But Somebody Has to Do It
Finally found the "right" Dirty Weekend after reading some murder mystery that I reserved at the library, forgetting to double check the author. This Dirty Weekend is by Helen Zahavi. It is also set in England and dead bodies pile up. Bella is not a picara. She is neither a heroine nor a victim; however, at risk of sounding like a male chauvinist, she seems to encourage the sexual attacks that barrage her. She is very reminiscent of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although she is nowhere as clever, but the same sense of tension, revenge and determination.
Also some shades of Gonzo in the book, given the abbreviated time frame and the pace at which the deviants keep coming. But no drugs contribute to Bella's reality. It is warped nonetheless.
Despite lyric prose, the characterization is cartoonish. Dialogue is Cole Porter repartee, motivation and depth missing.
In 2010, I cannot look at every book on the list to force-fit picaresque elements. Surely this is not one. Bella's quest is for revenge. The humor is so dark, only few will laugh. The sexual adventures are more power plays than lust. She has no guide, no enlightenment. In fact, there is no denouement: the cops don't come (hence no close escapes) and the weekend simply runs out of hours and weapons of choice. I would recommend the book, but only to a select few of the blog readers, those whose tastes run to the eccentric, the absinthe drinkers.
Also some shades of Gonzo in the book, given the abbreviated time frame and the pace at which the deviants keep coming. But no drugs contribute to Bella's reality. It is warped nonetheless.
Despite lyric prose, the characterization is cartoonish. Dialogue is Cole Porter repartee, motivation and depth missing.
In 2010, I cannot look at every book on the list to force-fit picaresque elements. Surely this is not one. Bella's quest is for revenge. The humor is so dark, only few will laugh. The sexual adventures are more power plays than lust. She has no guide, no enlightenment. In fact, there is no denouement: the cops don't come (hence no close escapes) and the weekend simply runs out of hours and weapons of choice. I would recommend the book, but only to a select few of the blog readers, those whose tastes run to the eccentric, the absinthe drinkers.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Six out of Ten Beginning to Think Isn't Bad
I liked Meely LaBauve by Ken Wells. The obvious comparison is the one made on the back of the book calling Meely (Emile) the Cajun Huck Finn. And there are numerous parallels that make the story evocatively comforting: adventures on water, scraps with local constabularies, a first crush, truancy and absent parents. Wells also updates the story while showing things in the South are still festering with the same problems Twain depicted: racial tensions, poverty, dependency on the land.
Meely is small for his age and naive socially although quite grown-up in terms of being self-sufficient and moral. Wells portrays Meely's friends and neighbors a bit stereotypically, even the school room bullies are predictable. His depiction of the bayous and living off the food they provide are also standard. His best scenes are Meely's father going after the biggest alligator they have ever seen and Meely at the morgue.
I probably should read Huck Finn next to put Meely up against it picaresque element to element. Meely's story lacks a focused quest and therefore ultimate enlightenment. Normal or slightly dangerous boyhood growing up experiences are not enough for me to tag a novel picaresque.
Meely is small for his age and naive socially although quite grown-up in terms of being self-sufficient and moral. Wells portrays Meely's friends and neighbors a bit stereotypically, even the school room bullies are predictable. His depiction of the bayous and living off the food they provide are also standard. His best scenes are Meely's father going after the biggest alligator they have ever seen and Meely at the morgue.
I probably should read Huck Finn next to put Meely up against it picaresque element to element. Meely's story lacks a focused quest and therefore ultimate enlightenment. Normal or slightly dangerous boyhood growing up experiences are not enough for me to tag a novel picaresque.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Not so Chichi
If last year’s theme was about place, 2010 is provoking me to think I am reading time-dependent novels. It is making me think about another one of my long-held beliefs; namely, that great literature is timeless and the stories therein speak to future generations. My son recently emailed me an article written by a poli sci professor who requires his students to read the Classics and cull from them universals about conflict and human nature. I am reading to “hear something ring true.”
That didn’t happen with Gogol’s Dead Souls. Instead, it made me question whether my love for Dickens wasn’t preordained by the way I was taught English Lit in college: strict chronology, over five semesters. Maybe he just seemed the best when compared with all who wrote before him. So seems Gogol. Placing this banned book after Miller’s Tropic of Cancer – which itself now shocks much less – Dead Souls must have been censored because it debunked corrupt local dignitaries as well as satirically over-caricaturizing stock Russian landowners. Gogol as author enters the story to explain his choice of an anti-hero in Chichikov. In fact, Gogol often editorializes within the tale to explain his style and intent. The only pages that I dog-eared where those where he intrudes.
Rather than detailing my lack of knowledge about the history of Russian literature, I will only comment on Dead Souls as picaresque. If Gogol wanted this volume to be the first part of a larger story modeled on The Divine Comedy, it is expected that Chichikov experiences no enlightenment after his years of skirting the law. Certainly, the novel hits hard on parodying contemporary politics. His servants are not strong fellow travelers; his near escapes are accomplished by officials more rascal than he is. Chichikov’s quest is not noble or based on a simple misunderstanding of value – it is for the almighty kopek. The humor is buffoonish; where it might be subtle, too much time and upheaval has intervened.
I am feeling like Goldilocks: late 20th Century selections on the list don’t seem to be universal enough; older novels are coming across as dated. Where is my perfect picaresque book?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Fear of Flying: Mr. Vertigo
OK, I cheated. I checked out a couple of reviews on Amazon to see if I was the only one who encountered a massive depressurization after the midpoint of flying through this story. Paul Auster has a wonderfully clever premise on a coming of age tale of a ragamuffin boy from St Louis who is sold by his uncle to a "promoter" who sees the potential in Walt for human flight. Set in Wichita, I was settling in to a comfortable reminiscences of The Charlatan from the 2009 States' list, wondering what it is about otherwise dreadful Kansas that makes it such a perfect setting for hucksters and con artists. Wonderfully drawn, if slightly stock characters populate Walt's pre-flight years: his mentor, Master Yehudi, Mother Sioux, and Aesop the mentally brilliant/physically deformed Black orphan he grows up with.
Walt and the story get off the ground more through his own efforts than through any real instruction from the Master. They begin a successful, financially profitable tour until hormones kick in and adolescence brings Walt painfully back to Earth, a would-be Icarcus who never even gets close to the lights on Broadway and big time of New York City. Once Walt stops levitating, the book falls flat as well. The most bizarre and dissonant section comes in Part III when as a young adult club owner on the fringes of criminal Chicago mobs, Walt decides to kill Dizzy Dean. There are early hints of Walt's love of the St. Louis Cardinals, but this tangent is completely out in left field.
The reader experiences vertigo: the story free falls into a mundane, earth-bound conclusion. Walt's review of his life has so many things in its ledger that human flight merits equal mention with mediocre military service, drudge work in a New Jersey bakery, and managing laundromats back in Kansas. Auster undergoes his own descent when he cannot sustain a soaring story. The clever simile becomes a gimmick.
Walt and the story get off the ground more through his own efforts than through any real instruction from the Master. They begin a successful, financially profitable tour until hormones kick in and adolescence brings Walt painfully back to Earth, a would-be Icarcus who never even gets close to the lights on Broadway and big time of New York City. Once Walt stops levitating, the book falls flat as well. The most bizarre and dissonant section comes in Part III when as a young adult club owner on the fringes of criminal Chicago mobs, Walt decides to kill Dizzy Dean. There are early hints of Walt's love of the St. Louis Cardinals, but this tangent is completely out in left field.
The reader experiences vertigo: the story free falls into a mundane, earth-bound conclusion. Walt's review of his life has so many things in its ledger that human flight merits equal mention with mediocre military service, drudge work in a New Jersey bakery, and managing laundromats back in Kansas. Auster undergoes his own descent when he cannot sustain a soaring story. The clever simile becomes a gimmick.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Can It Be Picaresque If All's Well That Ends Well?
Hurray! Another book to race through: Nightwork by Irwin Shaw. Shaw's entry in Wikipedia only lists Nightwork under his array of works; it is not reviewed like his better known Rich Man, Poor Man and Evening in Byzantium. Not having read those two, I cannot say how Nightwork stacks up against them. (Comparing it to my last review, it pales against Tropic of Cancer, but it still is a better picaresque.)
The protagonist Douglas Grimes (hearken to crimes) is a night clerk in a seedy hotel in New York City in the early 1970s when a guest dies in front of room 602 and Grimes discovers a cardboard roll of $100 bills. He keeps the money and flies off to Europe with a ski club that is regularly waived through Swiss customs. After a mix-up of luggage, Grimes discovers his ill-gotten wealth is with another one of the people from the plane. He eventually traces the bag to Miles Fabian, an archetype resort gigolo/adventurer. He ends up "partnering" with Fabian and the quest to multiple the money begins: buying a lame thoroughbred in Paris, speculating in gold and land in the Alps; investing in Chianti in Italy; and eventually, opening up an art gallery on Long Island. All the while expecting the original owners of the found money to come after him seeking revenge and repayment.
Fabian's monologue midway through their escapades explains their motivations and the milieu in which they conspire to profit: "A long time ago I decided that the world was a place of infinite injustice. What have I seen and lived through? Wars in which millions of innocent perished, holocausts, droughts, failures of all kinds, corruption in high places, the enrichment of thieves, the geometric multiplication of victims. And nothing I could possibly do to alter or alleviate any of it. I am not a pain seeker or reformer, and even if I were, no conceivable good would come out of my suffering or preaching. So - my intention has always been to avoid joining the ranks of the victims. As far as I could ever see, the people who avoided being victims had at least one thing in common. Money." (A bit of Shaw leaking through here, after his run-in with the HUAC and his exile to Davos.)
There are plenty of adventures, unique but not parodied characters encountered across their travels, interesting female diversions -- but both men are charmed and the investments never fail and wealth accrues. At the story's end, the partnership is broken, Grimes is married and reconciled with one of his brothers, and financially set so that when the "bad guys" show up, it is anticlimactic to pay them off. Where is the enlightenment?
The protagonist Douglas Grimes (hearken to crimes) is a night clerk in a seedy hotel in New York City in the early 1970s when a guest dies in front of room 602 and Grimes discovers a cardboard roll of $100 bills. He keeps the money and flies off to Europe with a ski club that is regularly waived through Swiss customs. After a mix-up of luggage, Grimes discovers his ill-gotten wealth is with another one of the people from the plane. He eventually traces the bag to Miles Fabian, an archetype resort gigolo/adventurer. He ends up "partnering" with Fabian and the quest to multiple the money begins: buying a lame thoroughbred in Paris, speculating in gold and land in the Alps; investing in Chianti in Italy; and eventually, opening up an art gallery on Long Island. All the while expecting the original owners of the found money to come after him seeking revenge and repayment.
Fabian's monologue midway through their escapades explains their motivations and the milieu in which they conspire to profit: "A long time ago I decided that the world was a place of infinite injustice. What have I seen and lived through? Wars in which millions of innocent perished, holocausts, droughts, failures of all kinds, corruption in high places, the enrichment of thieves, the geometric multiplication of victims. And nothing I could possibly do to alter or alleviate any of it. I am not a pain seeker or reformer, and even if I were, no conceivable good would come out of my suffering or preaching. So - my intention has always been to avoid joining the ranks of the victims. As far as I could ever see, the people who avoided being victims had at least one thing in common. Money." (A bit of Shaw leaking through here, after his run-in with the HUAC and his exile to Davos.)
There are plenty of adventures, unique but not parodied characters encountered across their travels, interesting female diversions -- but both men are charmed and the investments never fail and wealth accrues. At the story's end, the partnership is broken, Grimes is married and reconciled with one of his brothers, and financially set so that when the "bad guys" show up, it is anticlimactic to pay them off. Where is the enlightenment?
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