"The Search Is What Anyone Would Undertake If He Were Not Sunk In The Everydayness Of His Own Life"

The Moviegoer was certainly not what I was expecting. For starters, it's really not about an individual who goes to see movies at all. I mean, there is partly that. The main character, Binx Bolling, does enjoy going to movie houses all over to see films (the novel is set in the late 1950s), but as part of a larger personal exploration. I guess I was expecting it to be the center feature of the book and that more of the character's life would have revolved around his fixation with movies. But that really wasn't the case. 

The idea of a "moviegoer" was more about someone who saw things in life in a certain way, like Binx did. I found him to be a very interesting character but one who I had a hard time necessarily liking or rooting for. He felt like a bit of a cross between Holden Caulfield and Meursault from The Stranger. He was very disenchanted and apathetic about most things in life (with the exception of making money; that seemed to bring him some amount of satisfaction). He had a lust for women (particularly the ones who were assigned to him as a secretary), but then as soon as he got what he wanted from them, he would lose interest and a general malaise would come over him. But when faced with difficult, uncomfortable moments, he found himself needing to be with a woman (and not necessarily sexually, just needed that presence and that conquest), which I found to be an interesting aspect of the book. 

Binx is a stock broker in New Orleans who was injured during the Korean War. His father was killed when he was younger and he ended up being largely raised by his aunt, who is from a traditional southern, wealthy family. He has a close relationship with his cousin Kate (who he eventually marries...I guess first cousins wasn't a deal-breaker in the south in the 1950s), who is suicidal with a myriad of mental health issues. She states that Binx is the only one who can tell her what to do and she'll do it and keep her from the brink, which sounds like a great foundation for a healthy relationship. 

But Binx just doesn't ascribe to everyday life (what he calls "everydayness"). He seems detached from every relationship he has (from his mother and his step-siblings, to his aunt, to his new fling Sharon, and even to Kate) and views them through a vague, uninterested lens. However, he is on the "search" for meaning, for God, for something to give his life reason. And while he never seems to be able to find what he's looking for, he also doesn't even really seem to know what he's looking for. He struggles to relate to just about everyone and while he tries to find comfort in movies, he still seems to be isolated by his unwillingness to succumb to the everydayness and the contrived expectations of how people are supposed to behave (which is exemplified in the character of his aunt). 

And I don't want to make it sound like I disliked the book. I actually liked it quite a bit. It was the kind of book that I wish I had read in a literature class to be able to discuss some of the scenes with a group of other people. The novel definitely felt different and "new". While existentialism and questioning ones purpose isn't necessarily revolutionary content, the modern context (movies and his immediate environment) and the very keen observations of the world around gave the novel a very specific place and moment. So yeah, a book that surprised me a bit. 

Up next is The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. 198 to go. Happy Thanksgiving!   

"He Was Building From Day To Day On The Possibility Of Disgust, But Each Day Brought Forth Meanwhile A New And More Engaging Bend Of The Road."

Well didn't The Ambassadors just take all the wind out of my sails? Here I was, engaged with reading all spring and summer, clocking book after book, more quickly than I have in years. And then this one just screeched me to a halt, taking nearly 2 months to finish. It didn't take much for me to understand why...I just could not have cared less about The Ambassadors. 

The novel tells the story of Strether, an older man sent on an errand by his fiancee, Mrs Newsome, to retrieve her son, Chad, from his galivanting in Paris to once and for all return to Wollett Massachusetts to run the family business. Simple enough right? Well once Strether arrives in Europe he becomes completely entranced with everything about it. About all of the magnificent people, their lovely gatherings, and of course, beautiful Paris. He also finds Chad so much more remarkable than he anticipated and truly admires the young lad. Chad has taken up acquaintance with a wonderful group of friends, in particular, Madame de Vionnet. She is an older, married woman with a beautiful charming daughter, and Strether all along thinks that Chad's relationship with Madame de Vionnet is not an amorous one. 

Throughout his time there, Strether becomes a different version of himself. He sees all of the wonderful things that he had missed out on during his youth by not exploring the world and seeking the kind of experiences that Chad is having. Sensing that Strether is not fulfilling his obligation of bringing Chad home, Mrs Newsome sends her daughter and her husband to finish the job. Her daughter is far more practical and determined and isn't even remotely impressed with Chad's life or with Paris. I won't disclose the ending, but suffice it to say that Stether may not have seen everything as it truly was and in the end believes that while he has changed so significantly, he doesn't deserve to benefit in any way from his time in Paris. 

My biggest issue with the book that I probably asked myself every time I picked it up was "Who the eff cares??" The book is almost 500 pages devoted to the hyper-over-analysis of every inner thought, motivation, impression, interpretation, every single minute everything that this one character experiences. I mean like, super duper overanalyzing every single thing. And who gives a rat's ass if the son comes home to work in the family business or not?? It's not like he was a fugitive or something. The topic was treated like it was the most important, significant thing in the world, and the whole time all I could thing was "Who cares?" I get that the novel was written in the early 1900s when it was of the most paramount importance that a son follow in his father's footsteps and carry on a successful business. But even then, who cares? The gravity of the situation as I saw it just didn't match up to how severe it was in the book to deserve the lengthiest prose ever to examine every ridiculous angle of everything. Similarly, the relationship between Chad and Madame de Vionnet ended up being such a big deal as to reputations and perceptions of society, and all the while, I was thinking, "So what? He's carrying on with a married woman. Does this really deserve such drama?" But apparently it did. I don't always feel that the time period of a book feels so grossly different than now such that it makes the book entirely irrelevant, but that was my main takeaway from this novel. 

One of my reasons for picking up this book (aside from the fact that I actually quite enjoyed Wings of the Dove) was that The Talented Mr Ripley was supposedly based on The Ambassadors. But it was really only the base premise of one man going to Europe to retrieve a son on behalf of the family that they had in common. The rest of the characters and certainly the plot line didn't fall in sync between the two. But I'm at least glad I got to see that. 

What I'm not glad about is that I still have 4 more books on my lists by Henry James. After the slog through this one, I'm not looking forward to the others (again, even though I have liked others of his). But hopefully I can right the ship of interest in reading again with The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. This one certainly intrigues me just based on the premise, so we'll see if the book itself matches up with expectations! 

I am officially under the 200 mark...199 to go!