This time I read the novel solely for the pleasure of arriving once more at its perfect ending, and since I don't know whether it would be insulting tThis time I read the novel solely for the pleasure of arriving once more at its perfect ending, and since I don't know whether it would be insulting to you if I put a description of that ending behind a spoiler tag (because maybe it's insulting to assume you've not already read it), or rude to not put it behind a spoiler tag (because maybe it's an old book that no one reads anymore), I will just say, it is still a perfect ending.
This is a story in which the characters are on a vertical path downward, from bad, to very bad, to very terrible, to the worst outcome imaginable for their lives, and yet, somehow, here in its last 800 words, Steinbeck manages to end his story in a way that honors all that terribleness and then, magnificently, finds a way to leave me with a breath of hope, and a belief that all is not lost, and that the life of each one of us is precious.
I love the entire book for its mix of social realism and epic, but it's these last few paragraphs that make it a masterpiece for the ages....more
This is such a perplexing read to me. It has such an assured sense of place. Really great scenes. Vivid characters. Great evocation of an era. But theThis is such a perplexing read to me. It has such an assured sense of place. Really great scenes. Vivid characters. Great evocation of an era. But the plot is very hard to buy. There is so much reliance on 1) coincidence, and 2) secrets that didn't need to be kept. A near-kidnapping in the beginning fades to the background and re-emerges with unexpected violent unbelievable melodrama near the end. Plot points trail off and disappear. It feels very episodic and some episodes feel unnecessary. The most important characters in the beginning are barely followed through on later. BUT the coda is beautiful and human and just right, and made me cry. So this is a grudging four stars. If it had been marketed as a YA novel it would be five stars. I can't believe this novel isn't a limited streaming series yet, because it has depth, and it has exactly the right level of lurch-y plot twists that would make it work well in the midst of other small-town shows like "Mare of Easttown" and "I Am Not Okay with This" and "Firefly Lane."...more
Ok, I really hated this book, but I give it five stars. Let me explain. I had to put it down a lot--sort of the equivalent of covering my eyes at the Ok, I really hated this book, but I give it five stars. Let me explain. I had to put it down a lot--sort of the equivalent of covering my eyes at the movies. Reading it did strange, bad things to my heart rate. The book is a masterpiece of oblique anxiety and despair. Events are much more unhinged than in Kafka, with whom Hawkes is sometimes compared. Disturbing and unique....more
I received a comb today. What a luxurious and civilized feeling it is, to be able to use one again.
Feldafing is Schochet's brief memoir of his life inI received a comb today. What a luxurious and civilized feeling it is, to be able to use one again.
Feldafing is Schochet's brief memoir of his life in one of the largest post-WWII "displaced persons camps," where survivors of the concentration camps lived, sometimes for years, after they were liberated by the Allies at the end of the war. It's a meticulously remembered account of the chaos immediately following the war, when so many survivors had nowhere left to go home to. It's full of small details and human happenings. It lovingly documents a part of the war that is frequently overlooked in histories, as well as in our collective imaginations about the war and its aftermath.
There were so many reasons camp survivors couldn't go home. How the people Schochet lived through these times, until they found a place to make their home following the war, makes for a sometimes uplifting but mostly unnerving read.
I happened to pick this memoir up at a quarter-a-bag library sale because the cover captivated me. Here it is on GR without a cover picture at all, it's so obscure a book by now. I learned a great deal from this memoir, not only of the post-war European experience but also about the resilience and frailties of human beings in times of great upheaval. A true shame that it's out of print and hard to find....more
Tyll is so entertaining that I struggled at first to understand just how deep it is. I'm not sure what it says about contemporary literature, or aboutTyll is so entertaining that I struggled at first to understand just how deep it is. I'm not sure what it says about contemporary literature, or about me, that I needed to consciously banish my cynical mistrust of any book that is so delightful to read.
As I read the novel I thought of Falstaff, Shakespeare's comic-yet-deep repeating character. The character who most reminded me of Falstaff is played by a donkey, a character who appears in many scenes, sometimes for comic value and sometimes for something else entirely.
And now that I've brought it up, I realize that I could write several paragraphs just about the donkey in this novel--how funny the donkey is in a given scene, and then how horrifically the donkey's fate plays out in another scene. Sometimes this donkey has a name, and its name is Origenes. And like so much in Tyll, Kehlmann invites me to think of the donkey's name as just a name, and to read on, or alternatively, to ponder what shimmering potentials are added to my reading if I take time to realize "Origenes" is also the name of an itinerant third-century Christian ascetic whose life and fate were caught up in religious disputes not unlike those raging in this novel.
The donkey's story is threaded throughout this broken, nonlinear novel, and always brings with it some new wonder or terror or sadness or revelation, even though it's a minor character, like Falstaff. And the thing is, it's not just the donkey. Every character in the novel is a kind of itinerant bit player, and every one of them--the miller Claus, the Winter King, the expert in dragonology, the little girl named Martha, Tyll himself--has a marvelous and mysterious story to tell, when it's their time on stage. Kehlmann made them all real for me, sometimes in just a few sentences.
References to Shakespeare plays appear throughout this novel with both historical and thematic resonances. A recurring side-theme is how literature was changing in this period of history that we now call "early-modern." The play Macbeth makes its way into a scene as a way to reference James I's rise to power, and Macbeth's last soliloquy is a good description of how this novel unfurls as you read it:
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
So here we are. Apparently my second stab at coming to grips with Tyll here on Goodreads is going to consist of a little bit of Shakespeare, a little bit of donkey.
Okay. I should also add that I found a lot of Lutheran-like philosophy playing out in profound ways--over and over again the character Tyll projects a belief that suffering and uncertainty is worth enduring for the hope of living through it, and that evil is worth fighting, for the hope of the good to come. This philosophy is most starkly portrayed in the late chapter "In the Shaft."
Well, I'm just gob-smacked by this novel. Read it....more
Night Theater exposes everything we humans tell ourselves, about what it means to lead a good life, as meaningless.
And after that, the novel takes evNight Theater exposes everything we humans tell ourselves, about what it means to lead a good life, as meaningless.
And after that, the novel takes every article of faith that we humans like to believe, about the dignity of humanity, and the possibility of redemption, and smashes it to bits.
And then, miraculously, after every virtue is exposed as meaningless, and every hope is smashed to bits, the novel rises up from the ashes, phoenix-like, and becomes a story that's mythic, and true, and powerful. It is honestly one of the most uplifting and life-affirming books I've ever read. ...more
From the first page, I was immediately and intensely endeared to the narrator of Optic Nerve. I would follow this narrator on any reading journey, wheFrom the first page, I was immediately and intensely endeared to the narrator of Optic Nerve. I would follow this narrator on any reading journey, wherever she would lead me, because the places she leads me, sentence by sentence and chapter by chapter, are unexpected, wonderful, startling, and humane.
The chapters hang together loosely. There is no plot to speak of. And yet the pieces and digressions come together again and again to become something whole and true.
The novel situates you in the mind of an insightful person, and makes you wiser as she herself becomes wiser. Her epiphanies come to her through the experience of viewing art, and thinking about art deeply. She lets her experience of art reverberate through her life experience.
So, of course I love this novel, because at its core it is championing the idea that contemplation of the arts can be life-changing, enriching, devastating, and above all, an essential part of what makes us human.
To have an entire novel make this case, at a time in the world where there is so much ugliness, and so much attention given to economic utility over aesthetic utility, is a gift.
If I get just one person to read this novel who wouldn't otherwise have heard of it, I will feel I've done my job here on Goodreads. I'm still quite oIf I get just one person to read this novel who wouldn't otherwise have heard of it, I will feel I've done my job here on Goodreads. I'm still quite overwhelmed by what I just read, but let me try to give you a sense of the novel.
Léonora Miano has written with a singular purpose: to document what it must have been like, at the start of the Atlantic slave trade, to live in a village within easy reach of the coastline. What it must have been like to be living in exactly the way you and your people have always lived, and then to have this terror, this violence, this unthinkable and incomprehensible disruption of your reality, come into your lives.
Miano begins in medias res just after several young men disappear from a village. We readers know they have been kidnapped to be taken to the coast and sold. But to their people, they are just gone. And the people don't know how such a thing could have happened. People can die, or be born, or commit crimes, or marry, and these happenings are part of the rhythms of village life, and are well understood, and everyone knows what is to be done in each case. But when men disappear? In this case no one knows how to react. Are the men dead? Then where are the bodies? If there were bodies then the people would know to mourn. But there are no bodies. No one knows what to do. A hasty plan is made to isolate the men's mothers from the rest of the village--because maybe it has something to do with the mothers. But no one really believes that. And when one woman drifts back to her home, no one is sure what to do next. It takes days for the village leaders to decide to ask a neighboring village if they know anything about the men's disappearance. It takes far longer--not until it is too late--for anyone in the village to suspect the truth.
I can't capture for you the perfection of how Miano paints this village and its inhabitants; its rituals and its hierarchies. The way she reaches through history to recreate a pre-literate, pre-colonial culture that is on the brink of losing everything that they trust is true about the world. We know it happened. We know this history in a theoretical way. But we don't have access to the voices of the people that faced this terror. Miano gives them voices. I'm in awe of how deeply she imagines these people, even to the point of making their utter lack of guile, in the beginning of their story, completely believable and heart-rending....more
These 88 short pages are so intensely packed with image and feeling that reading it can’t help but be both wrenching and cathartic.
This is the story oThese 88 short pages are so intensely packed with image and feeling that reading it can’t help but be both wrenching and cathartic.
This is the story of a man trying to survive to the end of the last, senselessly destructive days of the Second World War, when chaos has overcome any sense of order or meaning in the conflict, and armies are scattered into roving bands of looters who feel no loyalty or purpose beyond terror and retribution, and when the best side with which to align yourself, to keep on living, can switch in an instant.
The narrator is a master of survival: good at knowing when to fight, or to run, or to hide. He has a pure kind of ruthlessness when his life is at stake. And yet whenever he has the chance—whenever his survival isn’t threatened—he reaches for human, genuine connection with those who cross his path. He feels pity. He feels a sense of wanting to protect what is most fragile and beautiful in the world, even if it won’t help him survive. He records the events he witnesses with such meticulous detail that even the most destructive and cruel acts are given a kind of dignity. The attention he devotes to describing undeserved acts of barbarism done to innocent others—some of which he witnesses, some of which he perpetrates himself—lifts this story from nihilism into a realm of hope for something better to come.
A beautifully told story of an ugly and destructive time. ...more
I resisted everything about this novel in the beginning. I honestly thought it was impossible to believe in. I wrote highly critical marginalia as I rI resisted everything about this novel in the beginning. I honestly thought it was impossible to believe in. I wrote highly critical marginalia as I read--normally I don't write any marginalia. And then something happened. I gave up, maybe, trying to make the book conform to my expectation. This is the story of a man for whom everything in life goes terribly wrong. He lives out his life in nearly complete isolation from others. He wanders around North America with no sense of where he is, no education, and barely any ability to communicate with others. His luck is very bad. He spends most of his life, and most of the book, utterly alone. Hernan Diaz needed extraordinary imagination and empathy for this odd man he created; Diaz pulls off one scene after another where his character encounters an insoluble problem that threatens his survival, and overcomes it....more
Along with The Doll's House by Rumer Godden, this child's picture book demonstrates the aristotelian concept of "catharsis" as well as any other work Along with The Doll's House by Rumer Godden, this child's picture book demonstrates the aristotelian concept of "catharsis" as well as any other work of drama/fiction I've encountered, and shows exactly how powerful children's literature can be.
apr 14 2021 i'm upvoting this book, my friends, because it's time we all had a good cry......more
But: I have no idea what this novel is supposed to mean. I could read up about it, I suppose. But even with When I finished this novel I began to cry.
But: I have no idea what this novel is supposed to mean. I could read up about it, I suppose. But even with more knowledge, I'm not sure there would be a way for me to have loved it more, or to have been touched by it more, or to have been made to think more, than the choice I made, which was to read this very complicated and mysterious novel as a dialogue, a 1-1 relationship between me and the words on the page.
So how to describe this complicated knot of feeling, now that I've reached the end?
What I'm feeling has to do with a sense that this novel stands for the permanence of human relationships--that our thoughts and feelings and actions as thinking creatures can create a reality that endures every kind of assault.
Described here is a horrific world. And yet the characters trapped in this horrific world never fully despair. And the story itself, however violent and seemingly hopeless, always holds out in the end a thread of fragile hope that humanity (not just people, but their best selves) will endure....more
I just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the oI just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the one who used to be my favorite when I was younger, but as the years passed I changed and he didn't, and now I've discovered that he's slid irrevocably into maudlin self-pity, egoism, and blinding privilege. I've tried so hard to keep on loving him, but just now I can't forgive him.
I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below.
prior review-- I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination....more
When it was published critics called it one of Bellow's "minor" books. I disagree. It's softer and subtler than Augie March or Henderson the Rain KingWhen it was published critics called it one of Bellow's "minor" books. I disagree. It's softer and subtler than Augie March or Henderson the Rain King, but the narrative exuberance here is unsurpassed even by Bellow himself in earlier decades. Because the book is at its heart the story of friendship between two men who loved one another, Bellow's inability to write about women except in a misogynistic way is a minor flaw in this particular book, one that barely registered for me here, even though the same flaw made Herzog impossible going for me. Ok, I can do without women flaunting their pudenda in their ex-husband's faces as a mean way of saying goodbye, a scene that happens in Ravelstein, and in at least one other Bellow book. Augie March, I think. But even so. While reading Ravelstein I could forgive these trespasses, because I was swept along by the life force of these two main characters, Chick and Ravelstein. I was captivated by the depth of their friendship, and I was moved by this clear-headed, thoughtful, beautiful exploration of their own mortality as it played out in these pages. Only Henderson the Rain King came close for me to Ravelstein's moving and deep portrayal of friendship and mortality....more
I just finished reading the 2018 translation by Margot Bettauer Dembo of The Seventh Cross. What was already a good novel in the old translation has bI just finished reading the 2018 translation by Margot Bettauer Dembo of The Seventh Cross. What was already a good novel in the old translation has become an extraordinary novel in the new translation.
The author describes with exquisite and humane detail the insidious beginnings of Hitler's rise in Germany, from the point of view of ordinary Germans. It's difficult to describe just how different this novel is from most contemporary literature. It is an ensemble novel with dozens of characters, many of which are present for just a scene, or a paragraph. And yet each has a unique humanity.
The novel does have a hero--an escaped political prisoner by the name of George Heisler--but rather than being the focal point of the story, George, and the escape path he travels through this novel, are like the loom that the real story weaves itself around. The real story here is told in the countless vignettes of ordinary human beings who are just waking up to the threat of National Socialism. They are good people, but they are "good" in ordinary and unremarkable ways. They aren't heroes as much as they are people reacting to circumstances, moment to moment, almost always surprising themselves, either with their own cowardice or with their own selflessness.
The small choices people make in this time of relative peace, whether to aid an escaped political prisoner or not, whether to ignore the growing terror all around them or acknowledge it, whether to put self-interest before all else or choose some other path--all play out in myriad ways. By the end I had had many chances to ask myself the question "what would you do in that situation?"
Author Seghers was a Jew and a Communist who escaped Hitler's Germany, and published this novel in Mexico where she was in exile. One of the most interesting characters to me was the only Jewish character in the novel, Dr. Loewenstein, a character who still practices medicine freely in this time in Germany's history, the mid-30's, although he is clearly an outcast; he is the doctor patients see only when the other doctors in town can't help. George Heisler comes to Loewenstein for help with a septic wound, and what is not said between the two men speaks volumes.
First review, 2012:
What I love most about The Seventh Cross is that it documents the insidious beginnings of unjust imprisonment and paranoia in pre-WWII Germany. Jews in the book are still relatively free but required to wear a yellow star, and the death camps have not yet been built; the victims in this book are the political prisoners, and the camps they are held in are make-shift affairs at the edge of town. Anna Seghers was Jewish and a Communist, an author who returned to East Germany after the war, and although this book was hugely popular in the U.S. just after publication and was even made into a movie starring Spencer Tracy, it fell out of print in English with the advent of the Cold War. Thank you David Godine for bringing it back....more
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