"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! 

"Blind, That's What I Am. I Never Opened My Eyes. I Never Thought To Look Into People's Hearts, I Looked Only In Their Faces. Stone Blind..."

 So, a little context on Go Set a Watchman. Harper Lee notoriously never published another novel after To Kill a Mockingbird and was very adamant about this throughout her lifetime. Her sister Alice was her caregiver and managed her accounts throughout her life. Her sister was her advocate and pushed back on many of the requests made of Harper Lee that she did not wish to fill. So many found it to be quite suspicious that the announcement of the publication of this book was made only two months after her sister died. At this point, Harper Lee was in her late 80s and hard of hearing and had largely lost her sight. Many felt that Lee was manipulated into agreeing to publish Go Set a Watchman without having full comprehension as to what she was agreeing to, even including investigations into elder abuse. It is alleged that the existence of the manuscript was known for many many years, and the agency was simply waiting until her sister died so they could fast track it for publishing.

And while Go Set a Watchman was initially touted as a "sequel" to To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee had provided an explanation that the novel was actually a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird that she had provided to her editor. The editor had considered it a good effort, but not publishable and encouraged Lee to write the story from the perspective of Jean Louise (Scout) as a child, as she felt the flashbacks in Go Set a Watchman were the most compelling part of the story. Hence, To Kill a Mockingbird. (There are separate controversies about how the perceived-by-some, low quality of Go Set a Watchman somehow manifested into this amazing polished work of To Kill a Mockingbird in such a short timeframe, but I'll leave that argument for others to tease apart). There are differing opinions about whether Lee was happy about Go Set a Watchman being published. It sounds as though she was happy to learn that the manuscript still existed and her new attorney stated that Lee was happy about the book being published. But those who knew Lee disagree with this assessment - that she never would have agreed to it, consistent with the stance she had held her entire life. 

So with that background laid, all I have to say is this: THIS BOOK SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED. 

No writer would ever have consented to have an early draft of a novel published, especially without any opportunity to revisit the work and improve it. And given that this was an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, hey guess what?? Harper Lee did revise and improve it...it's called To Kill a Mockingbird. 

So all of that controversy aside, I tried to read the book at face value, and boy oh boy, it's been a long time since reading something made me really angry. I acknowledge the problematic issues around To Kill a Mockingbird - the racist experience in 1940s/1950s Alabama being told by white characters and a white author instead of through the black experience. But this book made that seem like child's play. 

The book takes place ~20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, with Jean Louise returning to Maycomb from New York to visit her family and her sort of boyfriend, Henry, during the time of civil rights and desegregation. While Jean Louise seems to be the moral compass in the novel (and again, even she is problematic), and the one who is the least racist, she's kind of an insufferable, annoying character. So if she's supposed to be the "heroine" here, she's not a very convincing one. 

But I'm not actually convinced she's supposed to be the voice of good in this novel. Jean Louise inadvertently sits in on a town meeting, including her father Atticus and Henry, where everyone is very strongly opposing desegregation in their town. The invited speaker drops the n-word many times, and Jean Louise's whole world is ripped apart seeing that her father, who she (and every reader ever!) has put on a pedestal as the embodiment of righteousness and honor and respect for all human beings, might actually be a racist. After seeing this, the novel moves to face-offs with all the people she cares about (Henry, her aunt, her uncle, and ultimately, her father) where they all try to convince her that she is completely wrong and segregation is what's best and that black people don't deserve the equality they're seeking. I mean, for fucks sake, her uncle slaps her across the face because she's so one-minded about the situation. 

But the final interaction with Atticus is what left me fuming. Like I was actually verbally expressing my anger at the story to anyone nearby who would listen. For example (dialogue from Atticus): 

 "This is merely for your own information, that's all: so far in my experience, white is white and black's black. So far, I've not yet heard and argument that has convinced me    otherwise....

Now think about this. What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I'll tell you. There'd be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don't know how to run 'em? Do you want this town run by - now wait a minute - Willoughby's a crook we know that, but do you know any Negro who knows as much as Willoughby? Zeebo'd probably be the mayor of Maycomb. Would you want someone of Zeebo's capability to handle the town's money? We're outnumbered you know.

Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people. You should know it, you've seen it all your life. They've made terrific progress in adapting themselves to white ways, but they're far from it yet..."

So yeah, in case you still had any redeeming views of Atticus as an honorable man who fights for justice for all, lemme just spare you any more uncertainty and let you know that apparently this book rebrands Atticus as a big ol' racist. And the entire perspective of Scout's family that she's vehemently fighting against is that blacks don't need to be treated badly, but they shouldn't be treated equally. And even though, as I mentioned, Jean Louise seems to be the voice of reason here, even she is problematic, acknowledging how much she dislikes the NAACP, how furious she was at the decision of Brown vs Board of Education, and how she would never marry a black man. 

Everything about this book sits wrong with me...there's so much racist garbage in it that, like I said, it made me angry. I realize that this was written back in the 1950s, but that does not give any of it a pass; one review I read said it perfectly: that this novel is on the wrong side of history. It just makes me dislike Harper Lee for these, her politics, written in an unfiltered, unedited way. As I mentioned earlier, I realize that To Kill a Mockingbird is problematic for some of its racist issues, Go Set a Watchman one-ups it with so much racism abound. 

So the only place I can land, again, is that this book never should have been published. Clearly as a money grab by her publisher, I don't suspect they anticipated the negative impact it would have on the legacy of the author and on the re-interpretation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Not to say that she in any way should have been protected from having this expose her, but again, it just should never have happened. 

Don't read this book. Even in spite of all of what I've said above, it isn't even a very well-written book. The narrative jumps all over the place (hey, I don't mind a good flashback now and then) and there just isn't much likeable about it. So yeah, hard pass on this one. 

Now that that vent is through, I've moved on to The Ambassadors by Henry James. When I read The Talented Mr. Ripley (which I loved), I learned that it was based on The Ambassadors. So I'm looking forward to seeing in which ways this story mirrors that one. Progressing onward.  

"In Advising His Young Patients To Abandon The Attempt At Repression And To Let Themselves Feel The Pity And Terror Their War Experience Inevitably Evoked, He Was Excavating The Ground He Stood On"

Regeneration by Pat Barker was fantastic. Just putting it out there straight up. The story of a decorated British officer serving in World War I who refuses to continue fighting, not because the war can't be won or because of pacifism, but because he feels the war could be over but the powers that be derive benefit from it continuing, in spite of the horrors experienced by the soldiers and the continuing mounting deaths. As a way around his being court martialed, he is considered mentally unstable and committed to a mental institution. 

And here in the mental institution is where we learn about all of the horrible traumas the soldiers are enduring, completely aside from physical injuries: the soldier who was launched into the air by an exploding shell and landed on a decaying body with a bloated gut that ruptured in his face, swallowing some of the decaying flesh, who now vomits continuously at any smell or mention of food. Those who have inexplicably gone mute. So many with nightmares. And Dr. Rivers is the military psychiatrist assigned to assessing and restoring the mental health of these soldiers in order to send them back to the front lines. 

While sometimes, it was hard not to feel some absurdity of a group of patients with differing types of mental illness all interacting in different ways, I assure you, there was no intention of humor here. The book was certainly a reminder of what World War I was: the war that ushered in a new era of brutality in warfare and how horribly it messed up millions of young men who fought and managed to "survive". While the book doesn't technically take place on the front lines in the trenches, the impact of what the soldiers experienced is just as terrible and impactful. I was surprised to learn that the two main characters, Siegfried Sassoon (the dissenting officer) and Dr. Rivers were based on real-life individuals.  

The book also had some very interesting themes around masculinity and overshadowing to homosexuality. Talking about how men of the time (and really, not too much different now) were raised to believe that any show of emotion was considered weakness so they all bottled up the traumas they experienced during the war. And instead, the repressed fear manifests in all of these different and terrible ways and the men feel such shame for even having these feelings. And similarly, during wartime, the soldiers are bound to each other by duty and experience the most intense moments together as possible, and are taught to protect each other like brothers. So a certain type of love develops there. But where is the line in how acceptable that love is? It's ok in the moment, but is then considered unacceptable once they return to civilian life. How are these two very different manifestations of love reconciled? 

Pat Barker went on to write two additional books on World War I, the third of which, The Ghost Road, went on to win the Booker Prize in 1995. Even though I haven't read the second two books yet, just based on my experience with Regeneration, I could definitely see how this was possible. I wish that this book (and the rest of hers) got more notoriety in today's time because it was quite brilliant in it's storytelling and writing. 

So, I'm actually back dating this post by a couple weeks, because I finished Regeneration about a month ago and moved on to Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, which I also finished a week or so ago. And booooyyyy, do I have a LOT to say about that one. Stay tuned. Oh, and completing Regeneration put me at exactly 200 books left to go. Holla!   

"...But All Their Intercourse Had Been Made Up Of Just Such Inarticulate Flashes, When They Seemed To Come Suddenly Upon Happiness As If They Had Surprised A Butterfly In The Winter Woods..."

I'm sure this has been said many times before by many different individuals who have read works by Edith Wharton, whether it be a casual reader or a more seasoned literary expert, but damn ya'll, girlfriend has a gdamn way with words.

Ethan Frome felt more like a really long short story to me because it had that feeling of every single word being filled with intent, to convey a specific meaning and evoke an exact emotion. There wasn't anything superfluous. The story begins with a narrator telling of his discovery of and interaction with Ethan Frome and how he puts together the story or Ethan's past that has made him the way he is. The storytelling then shifts to the actual events of Ethan's life, of his "sickly" (and kind of awful) wife Zeena and her young cousin, Mattie, who has come to take care of Zeena, having no other family to turn to. Mattie becomes the shining light of Ethan's otherwise dreary life and he aches with the uncertainty of her feelings for him and it only accentuates the dismal circumstances of his own marriage to see the beauty and joy in Mattie, in spite of her own challenging upbringing. 

The longing in these two characters and trepidation in bridging a gap that could ruin them both is so well-written. You feel their heartache, most acutely, Ethan's. And you want to root for them, but there are enough foreshadows early on to alert the reader that no happy ending is going to be possible. The end was a bit of an unexpected surprise, which I very much appreciated (again, it felt like you knew exactly how things were going to end based on the portrait given of Ethan in the beginning, but Ms. Wharton had just one last surprise up her sleeve). 

There really isn't anything I can fault about this book. It's so carefully well-crafted, it makes me appreciate Edith Wharton even more than I already did (cos I sure did love me some Age of Innocence). She is certainly an author I would want to read more of after I finish her one remaining title on my list. 

Next up is Regeneration by Pat Barker. A British officer refusing to continue in World War I being treated as psychologically insane? Sounds like something I'm going to enjoy. 

201 to go! (Almost going to break under that 200 barrier!!).    

"The White Man Is Very Clever. He Came Quietly And Peaceably With His Religion. We Were Amused With His Foolishness And Allowed Him To Stay. Now He Has Won Our Brothers, And Our Clan Can No Longer Act Like One. He Has Put a Knife On The Things That Held Us Together And We Have Fallen Apart."

The title quote for this post, to me, was the most important and impactful couple sentences in the entire book of Things Fall Apart. And was exactly what I was thinking about when I came to it in the novel. And I'm sure it is representative of the entire experience of white colonization of Africa. That on the surface there seemed to be this need on the part of white Christian Europeans to convert the "godless" natives of Africa, and that was how they initially made their inroads to the continent, but forced government was not far behind, and by then it was too late for the African tribes. 

The story is about Okonkwo, a strong and powerful leader of the Umuofia tribe in Nigeria, who is known as a fearless warrior. Okonkwo respects all of the traditions of his tribe and honors the spirits and gods that his tribe believes in. Suffice it to say that Okonkwo is a hyper-masculine individual and views any deviation from this as a sign of weakness, which, in his eyes, is not acceptable. He beats his wives and children, he works tirelessly to accumulate more wealth, and to rise to the highest possible rank within his tribe. After an unfortunate incident where Okonkwo's gun, fired during an animated tribal ritual, accidentally kills the son of one of his fellow tribal leaders, Okonkwo and his entire family are banished from the tribe for a duration of 7 years. They go to reside with his mother's tribe, the Mbanta. During this time, white missionaries arrive and set up a church on the outskirts of Mbanta. Little by little, they recruit more members from the tribe to believe in the one Christian god (a lot of those converting do so because they see things about their own gods that they don't like and don't agree with, and so prefer this new option). By the time Okonkwo returns to Umuofia, his oldest son has converted and his former tribe has also become significantly transformed by the presence of the white missionaries and government officials - the progress in Umuofia is even more advanced than it was in Mbanta. Things don't go well for Okonkwo, as he still has the heart of a warrior and is not willing to follow the new laws imposed on him by the white colonists. 

I found it interesting that the white colonists didn't show up until about pg 140 of 209 pages of the book. So the first two-thirds of the book detailed the life of Okonkwo, his tribe, and their customs and beliefs. It felt like once the white missionaries arrived, the rest of the book moved along very quickly, with less time devoted to presenting the dynamics of the white men with the tribesmen. But I guess it didn't bother me that much, because in the overall context of the story, it worked. 

Okonkwo was not a very sympathetic character. I felt like you could see how he was the embodiment of where things went wrong and he was, in some ways, a contrast to the white missionaries. For example, he had a ward in his care for 3 years as a punishment to another tribe after a wife is killed and came to care and respect the kid. But once the clan determined that the retribution should be the death of the ward, Okonkwo sets his feelings aside and kills the kid himself. He beats his wives and children, and then is surprised when his son turns his back on him and converts to Christianity. His tribe isn't all that different either. For example, whenever a woman in the tribe gives birth to twins, they throw the children away into the forest to die. And instead of wondering if it could be something that he/they did to have wrought such bad fortune upon him/them, he/they keeps his/their hyper-masculine warrior attitude. And I'm not criticizing this. This was the way of African tribes and who am I to criticize their way of life and how they believed the gods guided their good or bad fortune?

And the slow-takeover by the white colonists was presented in the most honest and seemingly accurate way I've ever read. That it wasn't necessarily tanks and guns and forced indoctrination straight out of the gate, but coming in peace and offering a new option and there were enough clansmen who were doubting their own way of life and their own gods to embrace this new approach. And by the time they realized that they didn't want white men controlling their lives in every facet, it was far to late to make a stand. 

I would highly recommend this book. It has been an interesting contrast to have read Things Fall Apart and Out of Africa so close together - one written from the perspective of a white woman living in Africa and one from the perspective of a black African. There were some perspectives about native Africans that were very similar, but Out of Africa feels very glamorized now, compared to the life the people led in Things Fall Apart. And of course no space was given to the wrongful colonization and enslavement in Out of Africa. 

Up next is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I expect this to be a quick read, clocking in a 157 pages. I loved The Age of Innocence so I'm sure I'll get sucked into this one too. 

202 to go!   

       

"When You Dig Just The Tiniest Bit Beneath The Surface, Everyone's Love Life Is Original And Interesting And Nuanced And Defies Any Easy Explanation"

Boy do I love a good, quick summer read. And fortunately, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo fit that bill perfectly, cos I motored through her in 4 days while lounging in northern Michigan (ok, so I was technically still working too, but as soon as I could, I picked it up and enjoyed a nice summer breeze outside and read to my heart's content).

The book tells of Monique Grant, an underling writer at a magazine in New York who is suddenly given the opportunity to interview Evelyn Hugo, a legendary screen siren, now in her late 70s. Evelyn has been largely reclusive and out of the public eye, but from the 1960s through the 1980s, she was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, even winning an Oscar. But she seems to be most notorious for her 7 marriages (I know the immediate thought is to assume the character is based on Elizabeth Taylor, but it is definitely not). Evelyn ends up providing Monique with the full account of her life to be published as a posthumous biography, but Monique questions, why her? When it could have been any writer on earth to be the lucky recipient of one of Hollywood's most fascinating and sought after subjects, why did Evelyn select her? 

This does become an important element to the story late in the novel but the story really belongs to Evelyn. The book is divided into chapters/sections based on the story of each husband and while each husband is important to her life and each brings something different to her and her career, more importantly is the person who was the true love of Evelyn's life. And the reader discovers what Evelyn was willing to sacrifice to further her career. Evelyn was a complicated character for me...I both liked and disliked her. She was ruthless and prioritized her social climbing above all else, particularly when she was younger, but she was also so full of love and didn't take the people who she truly loved for granted. She was smug but devoted. Stubborn but persevered over adversity. Self-centered but loyal. 

The ending I did see coming (I may not have 100% put the exact piece together, but I sussed out the key "surprises"), but it was still satisfying nonetheless. I would say I would have liked the character of Monique to have been developed a bit more...she was given some basic characteristics (mother was white, father was black, was going through a separation/divorce) that I felt were intended to carry a lot about who she was as a person without developing those parts of her more. But as I mentioned, this was really Evelyn's story, so I can live with Monique not being as full of a portrait as Evelyn was. I'd definitely recommend this book for a quick, enjoyable read! 

And now I'm up to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I think this is actually the first of a 3 part series, but it's the only one that appears on my book lists. I suspect by the time I get to the end (I'm already more than halfway through), I will probably feel like there is a lot more that needs to happen and/or be explained. Because right now, the novel feels a little like Out of Africa did...with many of the chapters providing short vignettes of one man's/family's tribal life in Africa. So I'm curious how it will eventually proceed...if there will be one distinct event that will occur that the rest of the book will center around or if it will continue in the same trend. We shall see! 

Happy reading!