Ethan reads 2013

[pontalba]

One of the great aspects for me of the e-book,  pontalba, is how accommodating the devices are for gargantuan novels. The Lumanaries checked in at 849pgs, my previous book, The Goldfinch, at 755 pgs. I just downloaded The Last Chronicle of Barset by Trollope to complete my readings of the Chronicles. The previous volumes were long but I just discovered the final volume checks in at 928 pgs! In the past these doorstops would intimate me every time I picked them up. Now I breeze through them.

 

Hah!  I definitely appreciate not having to lug around a 10 pound book.  

For a couple of the Neal Stephenson's I've bought the kindle copies (in addition to the HBs) in self defense of my wrists.

[Paul]

 

 

 Hi Ethan,

Many thanks for what sounds like a very interesting link.  I haven't read it yet, but that last line you quoted is certainly food for thought.

It would take more than my imagination (evidently) to write all the thoughts in the final paragraph you quote, but I guess I can think back and see the origin for the final thought in the book.  It seems like an awful lot of reading to get there, though, if that was the major point.  So I guess now that means I really I should read the entire review.  Sounds like a good one.

 

PS Pynchon's  9-11 was a vast disappointment.  There was no human dimension to speak of (eek!), just a peg on which to hang chitter-chatter about conspiracy theories.

 

 

Well Ethan,

That certainly was a very comprehensive review and interesting reading.  It was quite similar to The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon in many ways, in both its factual background fill-in and also its overflowing admiration for Pynchon's work.  In it own way it was quite a piece of creative writing -- and I mean that with a touch of faint praise.  In many ways it reminded me of reviews where I wondered whether the reviewer and I had read the same work, especially with his underlining of his own strong counter-cultural antipathies, as if Pynchon had not already covered the ground adequately (and elsewhere).  It was good to read and to realize the extent of the Pynchon fanbase. Also good to hear about a new category for fiction beyond post-modern -- system fiction, if I remember that correctly.  I'll be looking at some of the authors mentioned again, even if they didn't appeal on first glance.

But, for the moment, I feel that I have fulfilled my self-education with respect to Pynchon.  I have had a good sampling of his texture and have tasted his distinctive flavor.  So, now he is shelved, with Bleeding Edge slid in to lie flat on top of all the Pynchons, both sampled and read,

 

The upside, however, is that he is an extraordinarily imaginative writer, even if not one for me in his attitude.  There are sections that are equal to the best I have read anywhere (as if I have a right to judge!).  One scene that stands out vividly (in connection with the Stinger episode) is his description of looking westward across Manhattan rooftops toward the Hudson River and New Jersey.  He absolutely placed me there, in position, on a rooftop, and whispered to me, in my ear, in vivid authenticity, exactly what I was looking at.  Second, his description of Maxine Tarnow's first experience of wandering around in the virtual world of DeepArcher was mind-blowing for me -- the first time I have seen a convincingly real description of total immersion into a vivid alternate (sur)reality. My brain was inside her head. It is trite to say, but I was there with her and wished the experience could have lasted longer -- a Faustian moment, as I would call it.  Finally there was the suspenseful speedboat race down the Hudson river to find a safe haven up against the towering landfill pile of New York City's garbage (!) at Fresh Arthur Kill in Staten Island.  Not a tour many people would make!  If they were the kinds of writing he chose to maintain throughout an entire book, then he would be the genius of a century (for me) and I would not have words enough of admiration for him.  Unfortunately, I have not yet been converted to a fan of his and I now go back to seeking other authors for my reading enjoyment.

 

It has, however, been a worthwhile trip so far, and a pleasure comparing notes with you.

See you around,

Paul

Edited December 16, 2013 by Paul

[Marie H]

I agree, there are so many books that i've read as ebooks, that I wouldn't buy as tree-books, as they were huge and heavy.

Edit:To be completely honest, quite a lot of my ebooks are in a 'TBR phase'   , but they have the possibly  to be read  .  

Edited December 15, 2013 by Marie H

[ethan]

Well Ethan,

That certainly was a very comprehensive review and interesting reading. 

 

Finally there was the suspenseful speedboat race down the Hudson river to find a safe haven up against the towering landfill pile of New York City's garbage (!) at Fresh Arthur Kill in Staten Island. 

 

I'm glad you enjoyed Cohen's review, Paul. I find him a brilliant essayist although I couldn't stand his own gargantuan novel Wiz.

 

That speedboat ride brought back memories to me. I lived 15 miles from NYC as a kid, often took the bus to the Port Authority, travelling over the forbidding landscape of the  NJ Turnpike as it wends its way to the Lincoln Tunnel.The scariest structure I may have ever encountered rises out of the foggy stench of the Meadowlands, a black monolith that seems to ascend to nowhere - the ancient Pulaski Skyway - the eerieness of it rendered beautifully by Pynchon.

Edited December 17, 2013 by ethan

[ethan]

The Red and The Black - Stendahl

 

 

Published in 1830, it chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy—yet who ultimately allows his passions to betray him.

 

Stendahl was such a crazy writer, everything is at fever pitch, some of the romanticism is jawdroppingly intense. The highlight for me was the warlike courtship of Julian and Mathilde, a battlefield of desire, rendered in a long series of interior monologues of psychological perceptiveness. The translation I read, by Burton Raffel, was very readable and highly recommended.
 

[Paul]

the foggy stench of the Meadowlands,

ROTFALOL.  Pynchon couldn't have put it better.

Yes, indeed! I too remember it as a child, as we used to drive through on our way from Brooklyn up to the Catskills for weekends or vacations.  It challenged my ability to hold my breath.

Pynchon is certainly a master of his craft in capturing/evoking scenes, when he tries. He just seems so uneven to me.  Someday I'll probably do Gravity's Rainbow, from among the big ones, but that is definitely "someday" for now.

 

Edited December 19, 2013 by Paul

[ethan]

Due to unforseen circumstances I'll be spending Christmas Eve alone, and I thought I'd spend the day reading  holiday themed short stories by some of the classic writers. So far I've come up with-

 

A Christmas Party and a Wedding - Dostoevsky

A Luckless Santa Claus - Fitzgerald

The Burglar's Christmas - Cather

Papa Panov's Special Christmas - Tolstoy

At Christmas Time - Chekhov

 

Dickens wrote a bunch and I'm not sure which one I'll choose. If anyone has a recommendation on Dickens or has some favorite Christmas short stories, I'd love to hear about them.

Edited December 20, 2013 by ethan

[Athena]

I've read five stories by Dickens and liked A Christmas Carol the best. I found the other four not very Christmassy. The other four were: Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man. I haven't read anything else by Dickens so I can't say how it all compares, and I suppose A Christmas Carol is the obvious choice, but I liked that one much more than the other ones.

 

I hope you have a fun Christmas reading Christmassy stories. I haven't read any other Christmas short stories so I can't help you with that I'm afraid.

[Marie H]

I hope you enjoy your Christmas, with your short stories at least. A Christmas Party and a Wedding - Dostoevsky​ sounds interesting, I had a look at Wiki and it sounds just I was expecting for Fyodor, being an awkward guest at a party    . Hope you enjoy the stories    .

[ethan]

The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
Very satisfying conclusion to the series. Trollope brings back most of the major characters including the always entertaining Mrs Proudie and Archdeacon Grantley. On to The Pallisers in 2014.

A True Novel - Minae Mizumura
The page turner of the year for me, delivering quite an emotional wallop. Wuthering Heights updated to post-war Japan. Also interesting as family saga and social critique.

.

Edited December 24, 2013 by ethan

[ethan]

I had a great year of reading in 2013 both in quantity and quality. Looking over my list I could find only five books that I truly disliked. Hopefully I can keep the momentum flowing in 2014.

Top Ten favorites in order of preference....

Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
My only re-read of the year. Of James' novels I've read, this is his most emotionally direct, with the richest plot and most memorable characters.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon - Rebecca West
Culture clash in the Balkans in the late 1930's. Part travelogue and part personal testament, and all together great literature.

Fortunes of War: Balkan Trilogy/Levant Trilogy - Olivia Manning
Crisp, clear story telling of an amazing era (WWII) as a bunch of English ex-pats stay one perilous step ahead of the Nazi onslaught. Also, a complex portrait of an unconventional marriage (Manning's).
 
Cousin Bette - Balzac
No writer could be more ferocious than Balzac in the depiction of greed and selfishness, how they distort and destroy the human heart. This novel has a feverish pitch to it that I found completely compelling.

The Small House at Allington - Anthony Trollope
My favorite of the Barchester Chronicles. It has a sense of rural serenity to it, lacks Trollope's weakness, the Cinderella courtship, and ends more ambiguously than any of the other novels in the series. And then there is Lily Dale, quite a strong-willed and highly appealing heroine.

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
A man and a woman who had a brief yet deeply meaningful connection in childhood, now more than a decade later, both lost and lonely, hunt each other down in a dangerous alternate universe. Vivid scenes abound. One of the most haunting novels I'm ever likely to read.

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Ten years is way too long to wait for each Donna Tartt novel. Hopefully she will pick up the pace.

The Bay of Noon - Shirley Hazzard
This is set in post WWII Naples, an elegy of friendship and betrayal, illustrating how difficult it is to truly see that which is right in front of our eyes. In a year of reading gargantuan books, this was my favorite short novel. Hazzard's prose is often so very gorgeous.

The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro
The dream world conceit became mesmerizing, a world of shifting perspectives and relationships. Both the funniest and the saddest novel I read this year.

Romola - George Eliot
Eliot overloads the first half with a display of her prodigious research in 15th century Florence. Fortunately, in the second half, she pumps up the brilliance with scene after scene of cinematic power, long before there was a cinema.

Hon. mention: The Wings of the Dove, The House in Paris, Villette, The Transit of Venus, Bleeding Edge, The Infatuations, A Time of Gifts, A True Novel.

The five I disliked were The Prague Cemetery and Disgrace for excessive misanthropy, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Mortals, and Where Tigers Are at Home for narrative collapse.

Edited December 27, 2013 by ethan

[pontalba]

Great list and breakdown, ethan!

 

I'll definitely go back and try The Unconsoled again.  I started it several years ago, and put it down.  I can't even remember why now. 

 

I've read several of Javier Marias, and loved them all.  At first I didn't realize it, but All Souls seems to be a bit of a precursor to The Infatuations.  The main character in AS, is I believe, the husband in The Infatuations. 

 

I started The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and absolutely loved the first chapter.......but after it switched to the Dutchman's story, it faded completely for me, and I gave it up. 

[ethan]

Thanks, pontalba. I did not know that about All Souls, definitely on the agenda for next year. It took me at least 100 pages to buy into the dream world of The Unconsoled. But once I did, I couldn't put it down.

 

Vera - Elizabeth von Arnim

A precursor (1921) to Daphne de Maurier's Rebecca (1938). A young lady loses her devoted father and is consoled in her bereavement by a much older man who has lost his wive only a few months prior. The wive, Vera, had either fallen accidently from an upstairs window (the official verdict) or been driven to suicide (the servant's version).

The young lady marries the widower over the objections of friends and relatives. The newlyweds retire to the husbands country estate, The Willows, where the first wife met her demise and haunts the premises. The novel is less ghost story or even romance than it is a ghastly, darkly comic depiction of male domination. von Armin's second husband was Bertrand Russell's older brother, Lord Russell, and the husband in Vera is said to be a devastating representation of his narcissism.

The Vera/Rebecca and Manderlay/Willows similarities are striking. But to my surprise, de Maurier was actually accused of plagarism by a Brazilian novelist who showed that Rebecca was nearly a scene-by-scene copy of her earlier novel, that had received a French translation, one that de Maurier's biographer states she had certainly read.

Edited December 27, 2013 by ethan

[pontalba]

 

ethan wrote:  The Vera/Rebecca and Manderlay/Willows similarities are striking. But to my surprise, de Maurier was actually accused of plagarism by a Brazilian novelist who showed that Rebecca was nearly a scene-by-scene copy of her earlier novel, that had received a French translation, one that de Maurier's biographer states she had certainly read.

 

  I've never heard that before!  Very interesting.

[ethan]

No One Writes Back - Jang Eun-Jin

A young man sets out on travelling, to meet people, to hear and record their stories. If they give him their home address, the man assigns them a number. He spends his nights writing letters to his numbers, and vows not to return home until he receives a letter in reply. A friend back home checks the man's mailbox daily, but no one writes back. We join the man three years into his journey, as he encounters another traveler, a young woman who hawks her own novel on subway cars and street corners, often to harmonica accompaniment.

This is the familiar world of the quirky road novel, South Korean style. There isn't much humor, and the secrets of the man's life aren't revealed until the last few pages, too abruptly, but they do pack a punch. The best part is the love story, slow developing but endearing.
 

Edited December 28, 2013 by ethan

[frankie]

Great reviews, ethan, it's always a pleasure. You have a way with words (Have you ever considered writing a novel or something else yourself?)

 

I loved reading about The Unconsoled. An ironing board as a crutch? Haa I've only read two novels by Ishiguro so far (The Remains of the Day and A Pale View of Hills, both of which I liked in different ways), so I'm not all too familiar with his novels, but this one does sound interesting... I think I will keep an eye out for it

 

A Time to be Born - Dawn Powell

This is set in NYC as WWII is breaking out, and contains a thinly veiled, unflattering and very funny portrait of Clare Booth Luce, called Amanda here, a total narcissist worthy of comparison to Undine in Wharton's Custom of the Country. It has the same brittle, bitchy veneer and even charm of Luce's famous play and movie The Women, so in some way it ironically seems as much homage to Luce as castigation. Powell is mentioned by Rory in an episode of Gilmour Girls in which she bemoans how neglected Powells' novels are. Gore Vidal and Edmund Wilson championed Powell's work and she is definitely worth discovering if you enjoy sharp edged satire, or how it was for young women to make the grade in a big city in a far-off age.

I cannot thank you enough for mentioning the Gilmore Girls reference! For some months now, maybe a few years, I've been racking my brain, wondering if it was Eudora Welty or Dawn Powell Rory was talking about in this particular context. I'm rather happy it was Dawn Powell, because I read Welty's The Optimist's Daughter (as part of the Rory Gilmore reading challenge) and I thought the book was a waste of my time...

 

No One Writes Back - Jang Eun-Jin

 

A young man sets out on travelling, to meet people, to hear and record their stories. If they give him their home address, the man assigns them a number. He spends his nights writing letters to his numbers, and vows not to return home until he receives a letter in reply. A friend back home checks the man's mailbox daily, but no one writes back. We join the man three years into his journey, as he encounters another traveler, a young woman who hawks her own novel on subway cars and street corners, often to harmonica accompaniment.

This sounds awfully interesting, I think it will go on my wishlist. Thanks!

[ethan]

  (Have you ever considered writing a novel or something else yourself?)

 

 

 

I always wrote well enough, frankie, to get good grades, but after several torturous attempts at writing fiction, I eventually recognized that I lacked the necessary creative imagination. I've long since contented myself in trying to become a good reader, no easy task in itself, but a lot more fun.

[ethan]

The Professor's House - Willa Cather

 

For a short novel, this account of a professor's mid-life crisis is surprisingly unfocused and poorly structured. Just as the meandering plot starts to become interesting, Cather gums it up with a long first person narrative by the professors favorite pupil, concerning his youthful cowboy adventures in New Mexico discovering the remains of an ancient cliff dwelling society. Then back to the professor whose spiritual crisis has suddenly evolved into an abyss. There is a homo-erotic sub-text that Cather slyly works in as way of explanation, but even that doesn't liven up the proceedings much.

 

.
 

Edited December 29, 2013 by ethan

[ethan]

Pitch Dark - Renata Adler

For a fractured stream-of-consciousness novel, this is surprisingly easy reading. In between the cracks and barely noticeable there is a love story of a woman breaking off a seven year affair with a married man. But mostly it's a series of digressions full of lively prose and astute observation. I'm not sure the fractured mosaic yields much of a payoff. It seems to have been a dead end for Adler herself as she has not published any more fiction since this novel (1983). Ironically, for most readers, the best part is probably the chapter titled Pitch Dark, relatively straight forward in the telling, a small gem describing a trip to an Irish castle brimming with comic paranoia.
 

[ethan]

Two more short novels to wrap up the year.

Mr. Darwin's Gardener - Kristina Carlson
Set in the village where Darwin lived, an impressionistic mosaic, using the voices of the villagers in small snippets as they struggle with the God question, under attack by evolution, electricity and other new-fangled ideas. Darwin's gardener is an atheist and as such is shunned, but Darwin's fame and geniality gives him a free pass. Nothing much happens, but Carlsons' descriptions of flora, fauna and landscape are certainly poetic. Oh, and Darwin himself doesn't even make a cameo appearance, although he is said to be at home.

The Murder of Halland - Pia Juul
This is an intellectual crime novel so Juul predictably leaves it up to the reader to solve the crime, and she does leave some clues along the way. Easily read in one sitting, and although a bit of a cheat, as more conventional crime novels often are,  I was still, mostly, absorbed.

Edited December 31, 2013 by ethan

[frankie]

I always wrote well enough, frankie, to get good grades, but after several torturous attempts at writing fiction, I eventually recognized that I lacked the necessary creative imagination. I've long since contented myself in trying to become a good reader, no easy task in itself, but a lot more fun.

 

Ach! But you never know... Some people write their first novel later in life. You never know, you might get a fantastical idea in the future and feel it just flow through you, with all the imaginative bits intact

[ethan]

 Some people write their first novel later in life.

 

Penelope Fitzgerald was 58 when she was first published, 60 when she published her first novel (younger than me) and then went on to write eight more and win a Booker. Harriett Doerr was 74 (older than me) when she published her first novel which won the National Book Award. One of the sad parts of getting old is that it seems impossible to rekindle the dreams of youth, or to dream at all. Which is why I always say to follow your dreams wherever they lead when you're young, because life goes by pretty quick.

[ethan]

For my last post of the year I'm going to tout A True Novel by Minae Mizumura which I finished a few days ago and briefly commented on a few posts up. I was so immersed in its fictional landscape, really under the spell of a major league conjurer, that I've needed time to gain some distance. I'm thinking The Count of Monte Cristo and Kidnapped as a kid, and The French Lieutenant's Woman as a young adult for comparable experiences.

I loved the way Mizumura breathed new life, re-invented ancient cliches, playing with the melodrama of Wuthering Heights, the true-novel, and intertwining it into the i-novel, a series of long first person narratives, some told on proverbial dark and stormy nights, some perhaps un-reliable. A remarkable feat of classic story telling. Praise as well to translator Juliet Winters Carpenter for her contribution to the magic show.

Happy New Year to all!

Edited December 31, 2013 by ethan