The long hiatus is a symptom indicating that this blog isn't serving the purposes for which it was created. So I'm going to do something else for now. I'm blogging in a more social way over here, and when I have something to say about what I'm reading, I'll put it there. I'll also continue to track my reading at Goodreads. But I might be back.
The second story in our first Hoffmann discussion was "The Sandman" (1815), which is shorter and rather different from "The Golden Pot" - it still has elements of fantasy and horror, but can't really be called a fairy tale. Nathanael, another student, is visited by a peddler he's sure is a horrific figure from his childhood, his late father's friend Coppelius, who would cruelly tease and insult him and his siblings when they were young.
In a letter to his friend Lothar, Nathanael describes how, at the end of the evening, his mother would morosely announce that "the Sandman is coming," and it was time to go to bed. When young Nathanael asked, she explained that "the Sandman is coming" is just a way of saying, "you children are tired, so it's time to go to bed," but he didn't believe her - because, lying in bed, he could hear someone come into the house with heavy, dragging footsteps. When he finally gets up the nerve to explore, he discovers that the guest is Coppelius, come to engage in alchemical experiments with Nathanael's father. Nathanael suspects that Coppelius is responsible for his father's death in a strange accident, but at least the frightening old man was out of their lives.
Nathanael is deeply disturbed by the seeming reappearance of Coppelius at his door, but Lothar and his sister Clara (who, as it happens, is engaged to Nathanael) encourage him to be reasonable, not be consumed by the fright he's had, not to dwell undully on the sad childhood events recalled to mind. Clara's level-headed counsel:
If there is a dark power which malevolently and treacherously places a thread within us, with which to hold us and draw us down a perilous and pernicious path that we would never otherwise have set foot on - if there is such a power, then it must take the same form as we do, it must become our very self; for only inn this way can we believe in it and give it the scope it requires to accomplish its secret task. If our minds...are resolute enough to recognize alien and malevolent influences for what they are and to proceed tranquilly along the path to which our inclinations and our vocation have directed us, the uncanny power must surely perish in a vain struggle...The poetically-minded Nathanael tries to heed this advice, and when the peddler returns he lets him in and buys a little spy-glass from him. When he looks out his window through the spy-glass, he sees and immediately falls in love with the girl across the street, Olimpia. But there's something decidedly...unusual about Olimpia that the enchanted Nathanael just can't see. Has he fallen to the terror of Coppelius after all?
This year the library book group is all about the Germans, and our first readings are the stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a major figure in German romantic literature, though he was also a notable composer, artist and lawyer. His stories have characteristics of horror, fantasy, and fairy tale, and feature imagery of mirrors, eyes, lenses, and mechanical devices - he's credited with writing the first detective story (Mademoiselle de Scudéri), and was the author of "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," which, of course, provided the inspiration for Tchaikovsky's Christmas ballet.
"The Golden Pot" (1814) is a literary fairly tale. The clumsy (and whiny) student Anselmus of Dresden has a run-in with an apple-seller who happens to be the very picture of the fairy tale hag-witch. She curses him cryptically, and he walks away, tripping over things and complaining about his life, until, in the shade of an elder tree, he has a strange vision of a crystal voice and a blue-eyed snake.
As Anselmus begins to fall in love with the snake, he's drawn back to earth by his friend Sub-Rector Paulmann, who's urging him to take a job transcribing mysterious ancient manuscripts in the library of the eccentric Archivist Lindhorst. Apparently, for all his clumsiness, Anselmus is noted for his beautiful hand. Anselmus accepts the job, and strange things begin to happen at the Archivist's house - including the reappearance of his beloved green snake.
Meanwhile, Sub-Rector Paulmann's daughter, Veronica, has her sights set on Anselmus, having heard that he's destined to be an important civil servant some day. Veronica enlists the help of the old witch to ensure that Anselmus will be hers.
The story was kind of hard going for the first 50 pages or so - it grabbed my interest at the point in which one of the Archivist's daughters explains to Anselmus the magical back story, and it finally becomes clear that something definitive is happening. But even then, the lines between good and evil were unclear; it was uncertain whether the reader should be rooting for Veronica or the green snake to win Anselmus's affections, or whether the evil force was the Archivist or the old woman. This uncertainty stands out, because, of course, moral ambiguity is not normally a characteristic of fairly tales.
At the very least, Hoffmann retains the fairy tale happy ending, and all around, I was pleased with the first story.
The inimitable Rob, of RobAroundBooks, often talks about a habit he refers to as "Walk Reading," which is, well, reading while walking. I've known, or known of, people who could do this. There was a young woman - a student, I always assumed - who I always saw reading a book while walking along the road on my previous commute. I thought this was slightly insane, since this was a typical small-town Massachusetts road, devoid of sidewalks and accommodating far more traffic than it had been designed to handle. But if she'd ever been run over during rush hour, I definitely would have noticed the backup, so I guess she made it work.
This is something I was always interested in doing, but never realistically thought I could. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've tried a few times without much success. My powers of concentration don't often feel strong enough to pull it off. And then there are the practical issues - depending on your physical coordination and where you like to walk, it could be dangerous. Also, apparently, trying to read while walking gives some people motion sickness.
Fortunately, I now live in a place with sidewalks, possess some approximation of grace - when I lose my balance, I can almost always recover it (this is handy, living in icy places), and am nowhere near that sensitive to motion where there's no automobile involved. And, over the Labor Day weekend, I was feeling in the right frame of mind to concentrate, so I decided to try it.
It stands to reason that certain books would be more conducive to this sort of thing than others, so I picked The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett. I'm participating in a discussion of this book in October, and I wasn't planning to read it so early, but it seemed to possess the ideal qualities. It's short, with only 120 small-format pages of widely-spaced type, and reasonably lightweight. Thus, it's easy to hold, physically easy to read, and not demanding of so much intellectual attention to preclude multitasking.
It did turn out to be ideal, and I was able to fly through over several walks. If we call walk-reading an eccentric attempt to create extra reading time, it was also a somewhat ironic choice, since the book's protagonist (i.e., the Queen of England) spends most of the story doin
g exactly that sort of thing (I'll discuss it more after the discussion next month).
That worked so well, I was willing to tackle something a bit more challenging. The September and October selections of the library book group are stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann, so I tackled "The Golden Pot". That also worked surprisingly well, though obviously it was slower going. Our discussion was last Thursday, and I'll cover it shortly.
One thing I noticed was that walking at mid-day - with strong, direct, overhead sunlight on the page - was harder than later in the day, with more indirect light. But I'm sensitive to that sort of thing anyway, and almost always wear sunglasses outside unless it's actually dark.
Something that's annoyed me ever since childhood - when you're somewhere, reading a book, and someone asks you, "What are you reading?"
It's usually the sort of question that's asked out of curiosity, but not interest. What are you supposed to say in response? "A book"? That seems unnecessarily terse, even by my standards.
Do you just recite a title and author that your inquisitor has almost certainly never heard of? That's probably what you're supposed to do, but it's guaranteed to be a clumsy exchange. Though the people in the habit of asking, "What are you reading?" clearly have never noticed that, or else they'd stop.
I don't know what possessed me to pick up Downtown Owl for my most recent trip downstate. Though I haven't read Klosterman's nonfiction extensively - the cover of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs makes my skin crawl, even though I rather liked the limited selections I've read. And I instinctively cringe from tales of small town life. So often they end up "heartwarming," or else they try so hard not to be "heartwarming" that they turn positively apocalyptic. Also, I suppose my inner narcissist takes offense at the presentation of narrowness of experience as a near-virtue - does living in Europe as a teenager make me a bad person? And my inner introvert is terrified by the thought of knowing the same 800 people for 70 years.
Regardless, I did pick it up, and I'm glad I did. The story is set in 1983-1984 in very-small-town Owl, North Dakota (Klosterman grew up in ND in a town of 500-some residents). It consists of a description of ordinary life there through the eyes of three rather different residents: Mitch, the relentlessly normal 16-year-old high school quarterback; Julia, recently transplanted from Milwaukee to teach public school social studies; and Horace, 73-year-old widower and member of the local coffee klatch.
Naturally, it's full of other colorful characters, like the reluctant former football star working on his brother's buffalo farm, and the football coach/English teacher with the twin bad habits of giving male students embarrassing nicknames and getting female students pregnant.
The main theme on the minds of all the main characters is common knowledge - the fact that, in a small town, there's so much that "everyone" knows, so much that everyone has "always" known. But what do they know, really? What's the truth? And what does all that common ground really mean for the community? The three central characters look at these questions from the perspective of the kid who doesn't fit in, the newcomer, and the lifer, respectively. As the school principal said, "This is what being alive feels like."
Hilarious for reasons he probably didn't mean.
"Anyway," she said, "I've learned my lesson. From now on I shall look for a very different sort of man."-The World According to Bertie, Chapter 72
"One to whom you can talk?" Dominica regretted saying this the moment she spoke, but Antonia appeared not to have taken offense.
"You know that I'm writing a novel about the early Scottish saints," she said. "Well, I shall look for a man who is the modern equivalent of the hero of my book."
Dominica picked up her glass of green ginger wine and glanced at Antonia over the rim. "Are we being practical?" she asked. "Are there any saints out there?"
Antonia met her gaze. "I'm sure there are. It's only a question of finding them."
"And, it will have to be an unmarried saint."
Antonia nodded. "Naturally."
"But where exactly will you find a contemporary saint?" said Dominica. "It's hard enough to meet any half-decent man these days, let alone somebody saintly."
Antonia thought for a moment. Then she said, "Saintly men presumably go to church. I shall find one at St. Giles, perhaps. Or at the Episcopal cathedral over at Palmerston Place. I find episcopalian men rather interesting, don't you?"
Dominica stared at her neighbor. She wondered if she was perhaps not quite feeling herself, if she needed to see somebody. First, there had been the ridiculous affair with Marcus. And now there was this absurd notion that she would meet a man in church. It really was ridiculous, she thought, quite unrealistic. Risible, really.
Another Friday meme. Play if you want.
1.) What author do you own the most books by?
C.S. Lewis, I guess, because I own several collections in various genre. Also up there are Austen, Orwell and Robertson Davies - we aren't talking hundreds of volumes, obviously - under a dozen, each.
2.) What book do you own the most copies of?
I didn't think there was one, but then I remembered the Bible. But they're all in different (English) translations. I think there are about 8 of them.
3.) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not really, because that's a rule that doesn't actually exist. There are some sentences that shouldn't end in prepositions, and others that can.
4.) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
5.) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Possibly The Wind in the Willows. It's what I refer to as my "first favorite book," and though it's not my actual favorite now, I like to revisit it every once in a while.
6.) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I think, at that age, I was fond of the Grandma's Attic series, and the Noel Streatfield Shoes books and things like that. I don't know what the literally accurate answer to the question is.
7.) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Probably Special Topics in Calamity Physics, though I hesitate to say that because I didn't really dislike it - it's just the most obviously flawed book that I see on the list.
8.) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Objectively, probably The Master and Margarita. Subjectively, there's not one that stands out shining, though there were many strong contenders.
9.) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Since that's the sort of decision that can only be arbitrary, I wouldn't sweat getting it perfect, and would pick The Monsters of Templeton.
10.) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Definitely a question above my pay grade.
11.) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Eyre Affair. Unless it totally bombed, there's no way that would not be awesome.
12.) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Kind of a wide open question - I assume it's meant to get at the bibliophilic resentment of books being "ruined" by movie makers. Maybe it's that overly pragmatic streak again, but I'm not the sort of reader that's unilaterally biased against movies. In my experience, cries of, "the book was better!" are rarely well thought through. Comparing completely disparate types of art in a meaningful manner is hardly child's play. That's not to say one can't have legitimate opinions or preferences, but the knee-jerk-book-always-trumps - as though it's a moral issue or something - more often dominates.
Similarly, I don't sympathize with the outrage some readers have at any changes to the book made in the course of adaptation. What makes a good book isn't necessarily the same as what makes a good movie, and "Keep every single plot point, character feature, and line of dialogue precisely identical to the original text while keeping the film under 2.5 hours" is a non-standard for success. Not that there's no such thing as a bad adaptation, but that's a label best applied to a film that neglects to retain an element that's essential to the spirit or cohesion of the original - or that tries to, and fails. Last year's Masterpiece (formerly Masterpiece Theater) adaptation of Mansfield Park is a good example of how not to do it.
13.) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Only one I recall - the one where I was lunching in a cafe with Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth, and my friend Paula. I have no idea what the four of us found to talk about.
14.) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
Erm...Bridget Jones? And, conveniently, I can blame Paula for that. :)
15.) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
I want to say Grendel - that's going back to high school - but there might be something else.
16.) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Performed? Maybe...Much Ado About Nothing. And I know, that's not particularly obscure, as it's been made into a movie within the last 20 years.
17.) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Prefer? That's hard...I totally believe in Flaubert, but I think I've read more Russian.
18.) Roth or Updike?
I've enjoyed Updike more often than Roth.
19.) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Love Sedaris, though haven't read nearly as much Eggers.
20.) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Eh, Shakespeare, I guess. Then Milton, then Chaucer
21.) Austen or Eliot?
I've read all of Austen except some of the juvenelia; most of it I guess I prefer to the Eliot I've read.
22.) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Middlemarch? War and Peace? Neuromancer? I don't know, which one is biggest? :)
23.) What is your favorite novel?
Ok, these "all-time favorite" questions try my patience, because I can never come up with a pragmatic interpretation of what "favorite" or "best" means sufficient to allow me to answer in what I'd consider a meaningful way. So all of these I'll answer in terms of, "which made a lasting impression on your memory, one way or another," and name the one that comes most forcefully to mind.
1984.
24.) Play?
25.) Poem?
26.) Essay?
"Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg," by Malcolm Gladwell, about people who are gifted "connecters," who seem to act as social hubs between groups of acquaintance.
27.) Short story?
Jonathan Lethem's "Access Fantasy," from Men and Cartoons. It's about a world divided between people who have apartments, and people who live in their cars in a perpetual traffic jam in the streets below. A barrier separates the two, impenetrable by anyone except for people who work in advertising. No, really.28.) Work of non-fiction?
What sort of question is that? How about David Sedaris's "Six to Eight Black Men"? It's part of my Christmas Story Collection.
29.) Who is your favorite writer?
Robertson Davies is the most pleasurable, Orwell the most thrilling, Chesterton the most charming.
30.) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
This is where we're supposed to answer something like "Dan Brown" or "James Patterson," as though people seriously think that commercial success implies artistic regard, deserved or otherwise. There are better places to expend righteous indignation than in berating non-artists for creating commodity goods.
Interpreted in any way that makes actual sense, on the other hand, this question is more than a little pretentious.
31.) What is your desert island book?
32.) And … what are you reading right now?
Silence by Shusaku Endo, at the recommendation of the Really Remarkable Rob. It's as fabulous as he said.
Happy Friday. This was (and is) a little SciFi-centric, but I edited out the parts that would only apply to die-hard space heads. Play if you want. (Image courtesy the Carol Stream Public Library Reading Club, which I now wish I could join.)
Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror?
Science Fiction, though I don't read all that much. The other two do nothing for me.
Hardback or Trade Paperback or Mass Market Paperback?
Depends. Usually hardback or trade paperback - mass market are often harder to read due to size and don't look as good.
Heinlein or Asimov?
Everything considered together, Asimov is doubtless the better writer, but there are things I personally prefer about Heinlein.
Amazon or Brick and Mortar?
Both? Though often public library book sales and used bookstores.
Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Borders is closer, so I'm there more often. Accordingly, I can't tell whether the advantages I see at B&N are real, or if they're just more evident because I'm so much more used to Borders.
Hitchhiker or Discworld?
Ooh... that's hard. Discworld goes on forever, and it's been ages since I had any. On the other hand, I thought Hitchiker went way downhill after The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Bookmark or Dogear?
Bookmark - the other is for slobs.
Alphabetize by author Alphabetize by title or random?
Alphabetize by author's last name, except where topical organization makes more sense.
Keep, Throw Away or Sell?
Throw away? Keep, Sell, or Give Away, depending on what it is.
Keep dustjacket or toss it?
Keep. People do otherwise?
Read with dustjacket or remove it?
Keep it on - I usually use the flaps for bookmarks, unless the book is remarkably thick.
Short story or novel?
Novels far more often - though like many readers, I have a passive sort of desire to build my taste for the short story.
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Potter. I read one of the other, and it was just too frustrating!
Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
Often when tired, because I'm tired enough that I'm no longer comprehending. Ideally, though, at chapter breaks.
"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?
???
Buy or Borrow?
Er, yes?
Buying choice: Book Reviews, Recommendation or Browse?
All of the above! Book blogs, book stores, NPR reviews, print reviews, personal recommendations (though not from everyone...)
Lewis or Tolkien?
Lewis. Love the space trilogy.
Hard SF or Space Opera?
Eh, depends. Though "Space Opera" always makes me think of Scientology.
Collection (short stories by the same author) or Anthology (short stories by different authors)?
More often anthology, I think, though it's not necessarily intentional.
Depends - is the sequel out yet? (Again, thinking of L. Ron Hubbard...)
Morning reading, Afternoon reading or Nighttime reading?
Ideally, all of the above, but I work in the mornings and afternoons.
Standalone or Series?
Standalone, usually. I think this is a question for people who read a lot of genre stuff - I've certainly read plenty of "series" that are long since completed, but rarely anything ongoing unless you count McCall Smith.
New or used?
Often used - there's more adventure in the acquisition.
Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Tough one - maybe I should go looking for this book. The closest I think I can come is Agatha Christie's They Came to Baghdad.
Top X favorite books read last year? (Where X is 5 or less)
Let's limit this to fiction, in no particular order.
Top X favorite books of all time? (Where X is 5 or less)
Fairly impossible to answer with any meaningful degree of accuracy. If you can answer it, have at it.
With its vaguely absurdist title, this caught my eye when it was first published, but I just got around to listening to it on my recent business trip downstate.
Synopsis: Nadia, an English sociology professor of Ukranian descent, is beside herself when she finds out that her 84-year-old immigrant engineer father, Nikolai, is planning to remarry - especially when she discovers that the bride-to-be is the voluptuous and scheming 36-year-old Valentina, freshly arrived from Ukraine. To protect her eccentric father from Valentina's machinations and her maniacal pursuit of western luxuries and a British passport, Nadia must join forces with her estranged, class-conscious older sister, Vera. In the process, Nadia comes to understand better how the experiences of living under Stalin's rule and through World War II - experiences that English-born Nadia, the postwar child, didn't share with her parents and sister - have shaped her family and their relationships. Fortunately, her husband Mike is there to listen to her father, oblivious to the abuse he's receiving at the hands of the hateful Valentina, talk on and on about his latest project, a book about the role of Ukranian engineering in the history of tractor technology.
The book is full of reminders about how much pain can lie under the surface of a life, with the immigrant experience offered up as a case study. It's also painful to the reader, much of the time, to watch Nadia and Vera struggle to protect their father against his transparently trashy new wife. In the end, sympathy turns up in the strangest places.
I honestly derive more pure enjoyment from reading Robertson Davies than almost any other fiction-writer I know, so I've lately adopted a trilogy-per-summer campaign, akin to the Austin-in-January tradition I observed during the years I lived in Massachusetts. 2009, apparently, is time for Salterton.
My superficial reaction to Tempest-Tost is: I'm glad theater isn't my thing; the society would be dreadful.
But, of course, the delight of Davies is the cast. Here we have:
This week's Booking Through Thursday references Nina Katchadourian's brilliant Sorted Books project, with the challenge to create our own. I've loved these ever since I first saw them, so here are a few of mine.
This week's Booking Through Thursday meme asks:
There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)This may come as a surprise revelation, but I love to read antiquated etiquette books and have a small collection, seen below.
But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?
Booking Through Thursday offered an interesting prompt today: “Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”
These are the first fifteen that came to mind - and I was surprised by how near to 15 minutes it took - with a bit of commentary. I did notice that, in many cases, my connection or ongoing response to the book did have a lot to do with the circumstances under which I initially (or subsequently) encountered it. I'm not sure what that means, other than perhaps serving as a corollary the "no two people read the same book," principle.
I joined my library book club mid-term (in January), when they started reading Bulgakov (see here, here, and here) but in the fall they had read Gogol, of whom Bulgakov had been a great admirer. So it was through that channel that I heard about the performance of Disappearing Acts: Stories of Nikolai Gogol at the Piven Theater Workshop.
I'd read Gogol on several occasions, though none very recently, so I prepared by re-reading the two stories to be performed, "Overcoat" and "Nose." Gogol is far more readable than I generally think of him as being. (Do you ever unconsciously retain false impressions of a book, author or genre that somehow prove impervious to repeated contrary experience? For example, I always think I enjoy southern literature far more than I ever end up actually enjoying it when I read it, and I always forget how much I like science memoir until I read another one.)
The plays turned out to be exceptionally good. The performance was held in a tiny theater in a cultural center up near Northwestern University - the house probably seats around 50, with the seats and stage at grade with one another. Definitely one of the more intimate theater experiences I've enjoyed. The stories were dramatized in-house (I think), and were performed in a storytelling style, with the ensemble taking on the functions of both narration and portrayal, which the cast worked well.
"We all come out of Gogol's 'Overcoat'," Dostoevsky is often quoted as describing his own generation of Russian writers; the modern response is usually that this is more evidently true of the generation that included Beckett and Kafka. It's not hard to see the Kafka in Gogol (or, properly, the other way around), particularly when reading Gogol with Kafka-on-the-brain, as I've been. Noses don't just vanish and assume false identities any more than traveling salesmen wake up transformed into june bugs, for example; it's also not hard to imagine that G. and K. could have related well to each others' home bureaucracies. But the resemblance was especially vivid with Gogol on the stage - with the overcoat not just emotive, but actually anthropomorphic.
I'll definitely be going back to read more Gogol now - and, I hope, back to Piven next season.
I've been trying to figure out how to write about The Master and Margarita for a while now. It was the final title we read in the library book group this spring, and quite challenging. Fairly considered Bulgakov's unfinished masterwork, it's highly critical of Soviet society and thus wasn't published until 1966, 26 years after the author's death, and even then in a censored edition. Copies were circulated underground among members of the intellectual classes long before that.
Synopsis: One unseasonably warm April, a mysterious foreign magician, Wolland, arrives in Moscow. His retinue: a ghostly Master of Ceremonies with a cracked pince-nez; a vile, fanged demon-type; a large, talking black cat with a mean vodka habit; a naked witch. Hijinks ensue; then hysteria; then terror, as the foreigner turns out to be the very Devil, and a Moscow that has lost its ability to believe in either God or Satan must cope with a visitation by actual evil.
A leading literary figure is decapitated by a streetcar; a young poet is declared insane; a theater manager finds himself mysteriously transported to Yalta; Wolland's single magic performance rains chaos (and eventually fire) on the city. Meanwhile, in an autobiographical gesture on Bulgakov's part, a writer (The Master) whose finest work is an abandoned novel about Pontious Pilate, lives in ignominy, and his lover (Margarita) sells her soul to Wolland to assuage the Master's disgrace.
I have no hope of doing this justice - it's difficult to describe, and is something of a favorite among students of Russian literature, with its many layers of social commentary and political criticism and Christology and Faustian themes. The annotation provided in this 1995 translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor is exquisite and enlightening. It's a piece that will surely deserve to be revisited.
You cannot judge the importance of things by the noise they make. ... And these things that have mattered for thousands of years are not going to be snuffed out because some stink merchant in his laboratory invents a new kind of mischief.
Good-Bye Mr. Chips, James Hinton (1934)
I had a large coupon and store credit to spend at Borders back in December, so I decided to give myself the Christmas gift of purchasing entirely at whim. (For fun, I also had my self-present gift wrapped.) The sparkly that caught my eye that day was James Hawes's Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life. (And seriously, check out that cover. Can you blame me?)
Titled Excavating Kafka in Britain, this book is Hawes's attempt to debunk the "K-Myth," the author's name for the mystique that surrounds the idea of Kafka even in the minds of those who have never read him - that image of mysterious, bleak, tortured Orientalism, conveyed as much by piercing stare of the iconic 1905 portrait as by that Z-and-two-Ks virtually engineered to tantalize westerners.
A few aspects of the K-myth Hawes wishes to debunk:
Sam at Book Chase brought my attention to Alexander McCall Smith's latest concept work, Corduroy Mansions, which was published weekdays in serial format through February on the website of The Guardian. Serial publication isn't new to McCall Smith, who's been publishing the 44 Scotland Street series daily in The Scotsman for several years now - I'm not sure how long, exactly, but as of this year there will be 5 novel-length volumes compiled. I was interested, since I do like McCall Smith's work very much, and 44 Scotland Street is probably my favorite of his series, but also because I'm fascinated by his volume of output - counting the serials, I think he's producing 4-5 novels a year lately, plus children's books.
Corduroy Mansions bears a strong resemblance to 44 Scotland Street. Both tell the stories of the residents of the various flats in their eponymous addresses, but that's just the beginning. They also share plenty of themes - art, wine, grown children - and characters - narcissist, lovable eccentric, dog whose carni-centric thoughts the narrator can read.
One interesting feature: each installment was posted both in text and audio, the audio being read by British actor Andrew Sachs - remember the Spanish waiter from Faulty Towers? And he was good.
I enjoyed it, because it certainly carries that McCall Smith charm, that brainy coziness that makes his fans so fiercely loyal. In the final accounting, hard-core McCall Smith fans will appreciate this, while acknowledging it's a bit derivative; casual readers, particularly those of his other serialized work, will find it more of the same; and novices are advised to seek out his other, somewhat stronger, pieces first (and heaven knows there's enough of them).
