You see better then me the general idea of a book,
chapter, you make good connections. I see characters
easier then the general idea. The lines you draw are
more impressive
I got _The Power and the Glory_ and you are right, it is truly an amazing
book. It is both slow moving and gripping at the same time. I have taken
an unusually long time to read, pondering deeply about many passages. I
keep thinking about this idea about how the priest has been forced to change
and how these changes actually change the meaning of the religion. He has
had to give up all the external things which define Catholocism, the robes,
the chalice, the breviary, and he has been forced to be mercenary about it,
trading clothes and food and brandy for his good deeds. And the attitudes
of his flock seem to become doubtful without it. Anyway, I have tried to
discuss this with people here but it is not ringing any bells, I get blank
stares and short words
I've decided that while the power and the glory is a pretty amazing piece of
work and has great images and ideas, I don't really like the story very
much. It is of such a depressing world. Nobody is happy in any way, not
even the children, who feel they must also question the world around them. I
would have liked to have read about at least one rapturous moment. The
priest can not even feel any pleasure from remembering his sins.
I finished the book on the flight home. I think our editions are the same.
"It is astonsishing the sense of innocence that goes with sin -- only the
hard and careful men and the saing are free of it. ... Love is not wrong,
but love should be happy and open -- it is only wrong when it is secret,
unhappy...It can be more unhappy than anything but the loss of God. It is
the loss of God. ... Lust is not the worst thing. It is because any day,
any time, lust may turn into love that we have to avoid it. And when we
love our sin then we are damned indeed. " p 172
It is paradoxical human nature, innocence and sin, lust and love, when lust
turns to love we love the sin.
>This is what this book is about
>pg 169 God might forgive cowardice and passion but was it possible to
>forgive the habbit of piety ?
I keep thinking how the religious props are continually stripped away,
leaving the man and his flock; how the religion kind of loses meaning
without that stuff. And it begins to make more sense to live with respect to
what was given to you, e.g. cowardice and passion. In the end everyone is
looking out for their own interests, their own salvation, and he must turn
mercenary to survive.
Here is another quote that speaks about who the Whiskey Priest really is,
"What was the good of confession when you loved the result of your crime?"
p. 176.
The result being his daughter.
I don't remember what page it was on, but he made the remark that "hate is
the absence of imagination." It was when he was in the prison and the
catholic woman was telling him he could not be a priest because he was
identifying with the bad people in the prison.
>pg 113 All the hope of the world draining away
>That was during a common conversation. It becomes more powerful because of
>the contrast
Yes and he makes it quite explicit with the reference to him being a poet
and the poet being the soul of the country, which is a line I had really
liked.
>pg 142 Instinct is like a sense of duty - one can confuse it with loyality
>very easily
>There was a bitch fighting with the priest for a piece of food. It is a
>very confuse thought, so very subconscious. Nabokov would have said it is
>up to some irrational standards.
Indeed.
>Look at the confessions. Do you think such priests exist ? Love can be good
>if you find it beautiful enough to show with it at daylight
Do you think priests are so pure?
I kept reading The Power and the glory. There are no comments on the bad characters, the lieutenant becomes more cruel this way. All these descriptions of dirty, snake biten kids, they're horrible .. kids that should be God's messengers . How can he say about his daughter she has already lost the chance for redemption. It seems like he alone has some connection with God, he is the only character we love, who gives a meaning to everything. I got to the point where he gets rid of Iuda. If art is beauty plus pity ... there's a lot of compassion in this book and it's good taste.
I finished The Power and the Glory. The lieutenant is surreal and so is the return of the priest. There was no need for him to die -"what are you doing" is also the reader's question. I'll come back with some quotations.
You have the power and the knowledge and the glory !
I'm proud of you
Is Coetzee an easy read ? He's compared to Kafka. Kafka can
be hard to follow, his vocabulary becomes sometimes
very limited and quite meaningless, worse then Brave
New World where the ideas were more coherent. That
world was not absurd, it was just different. Both of
them are dry, yet Siddhartha was even dryer. Forest
was hot. Hawthorne was very gentle. The Power and the
glory was choked by the lack of purpose, or it was
like an old car eating too much oil. You give it oil
and it is never enough
I was surprised by Holgrave's sudden tenancy at the House of the Seven
Gables. It seemed Hawthorne could have given the circumstances of that
barter. Otherwise I am so lost in his narrative. I like the notion of the
omniscient human narrator that keeps interjecting his assessment of his own
work, but clearly sees all. It would be hard for the average writer to get
away with that.
I can read Hawthorne slowly, very deliberately, exhuming everything from his
words. To me he is one of the most pleasurable authors there is. Its almost
distracting how he can write so beautifully filling a whole page with what
would take a normal person one sentence. I am sure that there are many, many
who have this quality but which I have not had time to read.
Have you gotten to the passage about the street life? With the scissors
grinder and the organ and the monkey?
"The Italian turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these small
individuals started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought
upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron; the soldier waved his
glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly
toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book, with eager
thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to-and-fro along the page; the
milk-maid energetically drained her cow;and the miser counted gold into his
strong-box;-- all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and moved by the
self-same impulse; a lover saluted his mistress on her lips! Possibly, some
cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic
scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement-- however
serious, however trifling--all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of
our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most
remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music,
everybody was pertrified at once, from the most extrafagant life into a dead
torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the blacksmith's iron
shaped out; nor was there a drop less brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a
drop more of milk in the milk-maid's pail, nor one additional coin in the
miser's strong-box; nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were
precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so ridiculous
by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise.
Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the maiden's
granted kiss! But, rather then swallow this last too acrid ingredient, we
reject the whole moral of the show."
Can this be his sad, sad story?
>Every chapter is totally different from the previous one. I got to the
>chapter with the Judge. Until now everything happens in the house. But I
>don't see the house. Just the portrait and some silvery
>We don't know what happens in that town. It doesn't even have a name.
>what happens after everybody is petrified ??
You are right, like little books. I especially like the "Pyncheon Garden"
book.
Hawthorne is both elusive and
explicit at the same time. His imagery speaks directly about his themes,
the "spiral of life," where some things are permanent and some change, but
always in a cycle, but the characters are not developed quite in the same
way. I "see" Hepzibah and Clifford and Holgrave, but I would not recognize
them at a party, or, when on my way home, converse about them in a knowing
way... they are archtypes, not real...
I finally finished The House of the Seven Gables. Overall I enjoyed
the story, but mostly for his brilliant imagery and use of the
language. I get such a thrill out of it that I can imagine a crowd
around me with bullhorns and posters and stun guns jeering at the
ridiculousness of his power over me.
I certainly identify with Holgrave, how he snatches little Pheobe, how
he tends to change direction, how he holds such a righteous secret.
Hawthorne left out so many details of these characters in spite of so
much attention his words gave to them. I was somewhat disappointed
with the ending. Things got wrapped so tidily. I liked it, but I
wanted to find out more about what the characters felt. I wanted to
understand better that Clifford and Hepzibah felt vindication. I
wanted to really feel the reconciliation of the Maules and the
Pyncheons.
"Hence, too, might be drawn a weighty lesson from the little-regarded truth, that the act of the passing generation is the germ which may and must produce good or evil fruit in a far-distant time; that, together with the seed of the merely temporary crop, which mortals term expediency, they inevitably sow the acorns of a more enduring growth, which may darkly overshadow their posterity."
I read the first page...it is dripping with decadence already...people
are looking at me like I am reading pornography...
I finished the third chapter of Orlando...it really is a woman's
perspective. No enough blood, not enough getting what he wants. I
hope I can put behind me the whining and move our friendship on...
I have only read a few brief paragraphs about VW, but I understand
that she was lesbian and was very strong willed. Do you know the
movie "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?"? This is one of my favorites.
Though I still am not sure what exactly this fear could be...
I must admit I had to re-read chapter three a few times, some parts
more that twice.
Chapter three is of the utmost drama and fantasy. Threes appear all
over. Again, this profers biblical powers on him. Three states of
being for Orlando, as a man, a "dead" person for 7 days and 7 nights
(biblical again), and a woman. Three "austere Gods" of the
biographer, Truth, Candour, and Honesty. Three angels that consecrate
his new form: Purity, Chastity, and Modesty. They remake as a woman,
including, regaining her virginity, I suppose.
Another terribly interesting thing is that it appears a gipsy woman
actually put this spell on him and changed him with one, apparently
amazing night of love and sex and marriage....
I know there is a common name for Gipsies, which is Roma, presumably
from origins in Italy? I don't know, can you give some light to
this...
Just as he was becoming so legendary, even among those who had only
heard of him, he changes. Do you think he willed this change?
I wonder if VW had an awakening like that one day...
Now we must think of this woman as a person, because he/she, while
currently a woman, accomplished so much as a man. The label must be
thrown away in talk of Orlando's greatness...
The whole book changes in that chapter. It is an awakening. I
finished chapter 4 last night. I picked that quote from chapter 4,
"illusion is to the soul as atmosphere is to the earth" This speaks
to my feelings about you. Not that you are an illusion, but that our
being together creates something that doesn't exist by just having two
people together. Imagination plays a part, a big part. She talks
about this...she seems uncertain about it..like she is talking
uncertainly about her own literary product...it is fascinating...
I have a new perspective on an autobiography that I was dreaming about
in the car on the way to work (if I ever find time I will expose this
to you in its own words), its kind of an experiment, very much
inspired by Virginia Woolf. How she mixes utter fantasy with real
feelings. Chapter four is interesting, though I am only half way
through it. I can begin to see how she explores sexuality and gender
and what is true and what is imposed by society. These are
explorations that have crossed my mind as well (I should say, so you
are not confused in this way, I have absolutely no feeling of wanting
to be a woman).
I settled into bed and, with
the delight of a carnivorous little kid walking away from a penny
treat shop on Pyncheon street, I opened Orlando and started chapter
four. It was, for about four pages, a very interesting discussion. I
kept wanting to talk to you about it. I dog eared several pages so I
could go back to them. They say VW is a major figure in the
"modernist" movement of English literature, which moved away from the
straight descriptive and event based story telling toward what they
call "stream of consciousness," where she explicates her story
through the internal musings and feelings of her characters. You can
see this if you look for it. It is interesting to contrast her with
Hawthorne. I identify with Woolf's modus operendi much more and would
like to make my characters as human as hers.
> So far Orlando doesn't ask himself many questions and he> doesn't observe things. He just lives passionately. VW takes care of the
> setting not the character
You will see a change in chapter four...
This novel intrigues me...to think of a person's place and time and
body change but still be the same person. It is a fact of life, no?
Only you have more knowledge. It is like getting older. I am the
same person I was in high school, but I certainly look different.
I had this thought on the way to work this morning...
A woman tries to understand nature, while a man tries to understand
human nature.
That isn't said quite right. This comes from reading Woolf. A woman
has an instinctive knowledge of the emotional feelings and motives
work. A man has a more instinctive knowledge of how the physical
world works. A man spends his life, if he cares, trying to reverse
this, while a woman waits for him...
I Orlando willed his change to her, could she will it back? Could it
be done 10 times in a minute?
> The paradox might be that the 22 year old was seeing no future and the 50
> year old wants everything
Good. I should make him 60 though or 70, so his imprisonment is more complete.
> You said you're the same man as you were as a teenager. I can't imagine
> this. It's not only knowledge. Do you like the same things ?
You are right. What I meant was that my identity is the same, that
thing that is me and only me -- it was kind of a question when I wrote
it. I think this was in the context of Orlando and his shifting in
time.
> Sounds like a good plan. If you talk so much about a single character, to
> keep the reader focused you have to spend a lot of time finding all possible
> poetry. On the other hand you'll always find the idea interesting.
>
> Shepherds have seen an english lord praying to his God on the top of the
> mountain :)
> men and women began to adore him without ever seeing him. Just invoking his
> name in a romantic setting
>
> I like this eliptic style of the historian or narator. Is he a she now ?
The whole book changes in that chapter. It is an awakening. I
finished chapter 4 last night. I picked that quote from chapter 4,
"illusion is to the soul as atmosphere is to the earth". Imagination plays a part, a big part. She talks
about this...she seems uncertain about it..like she is talking
uncertainly about her own literary product...it is fascinating...
There is a passage in Orlando that I really like. She is riding from
one town to another in a carriage after making the absolute mistake of
going home with a poet. It is Pope, and their passage is marked by
traversing for a bit under gaslights and then for a bit in darkness.
There is so much about life that could be represented by an analogy like this...
I still have about 30 pages left in Orlando. I still want to continue
with VW. Though I don't think I can read a lot of this feminist
literature one after the other. This can't be the topic of most of
her books.
I still have 15 pages of Orlando. You are right. She is trying to
tie things together, questions of what life is, questions of gender
roles, questions of how time is perceived, questions of what, in
history, is perpetual versus transitory, she throws so much at you, in
a list, like I have here, plastering an image, like that thing she
created, what did she call it, that big ball of stuff, maybe
representing middle age and all that is acquired, and my natural
sleepiness finds easier thoughts...
I found that game of Loo (betting on which sugar cube a fly would
land) very entertaining, and I found the guilish way of her trickery
to be, pardon my stereotyping, feminine, I have been tricked thus, by
giggling nurses, no less...
I can read Anna Karenina -- I have it at home, waiting since I was 23
years old, my mom was the only person to read the copy I have -- but
it will take me a while. My friend Nick very much likes this book,
he majored in Russian in college. He can no doubt give me some insight
into this book. So far he has not read any of the books we have.
I have asked him for his input on each one.
> I started it, it is more traditional, it has a story and doesn't break
> rules. Transitions from one scene to another are nice. There are subtle,
> delicate things to notice. Our details :)
> So we'll have lots of help. Nabokov talks about this book for 100 pages.
> Consider he treats 7 authors in 300 pages, from which 100 are for Karenina.
I started reading Anna Karenina... I like the first sentence quite a lot...
It was one of those situations where I could not, because of people
distracting me, concentrate enough to register everything I read. It
is important to know the details early, so I will re-read the begining
again. I tend to do this with most books I read. I have to put
myself into the story. Its like getting warmed up before a contest.
> I just remembered an observation about Vronski's accident. He can't have a
> duel with Karenin. The philosophy of the duel is rather complicated. Suppose
> you've been insulted, if you shot your opponent you'd turn from a righeous
> one into a man guilty of murder. This is what Vronski does, he cleans his
> guilt away by turning himself into a victim.
The thing about suicide, you are both victim and assailant. There are
even laws in this country making suicide illegal. They are of course
never enforced. Suicide confuses even the most resolute minds..
I have read more of Anna, its getting toward the end. People are
seemingly more and more vulnerable. Its funny, Tolstoi even speaks of
the hunting dog's thoughts. Was he crazy when he wrote that?
I have some trouble with time in this novel. For example, Anna is
pregnant before she tells Karenin. Then she leaves with Vronski and
returns to secretly see her son. She claims that he was 4 when she
last saw him and is now 9. Yet the baby girl is still an infant with a
wet nurse. Maybe I mistook something.
> of the book is that lust is a destructive love and if
> you only rely on this, unlike Kitty and Levin who are
> mainly friends.
> Anna never knows what's going on to her and Vronski
> doesn't even care. They don't talk about happyness.
I can see she isn't making sense and he doesn't have a realistic view
of life at all..
to make Ana more misterious she never talks. When she
does a little when she is introduced, it seems you
were expecting something else. Words are a way to
express thinking and she doesn't think much. She
feels. She is described through people's reaction to
her. Only what she says is disapointing.
Her arguments with Vronski are out of my power of
understanding. And so are the problems of Kitty with
Levin. Maybe that is Tolstoi's life experience. Dolly
is grown up. Oblonski is balanced.
I'd die if I had a wife like Kitty or Ana, I'd do
better with Vronski, I'd have trouble with his
friends(he wouldn't like my will power. I'd never
forgive him for hiting the mare. It sounds unchristian
but it's true, I could not woship him after that). I'd
do best with Kitty's father, no way with her mother.
I'd survive with Karenin, perheaps I'd try to show him
how to enjoy. He adapts, he'd not be a partner, he'd
be a friend who needs help.
I think I could marry Oblonski too. It'd be a
challenge to give him as much entertainment as he
needs, I'd not make 7 kids with him. I'd look how many
is he able to accept. Oblonski needs someone to keep
him busy.
I think we're in the same point in Karenina.
Synchronising for the first time. Ana's description
while feeling guilty when she is with Vronski is
exquisite.
I read the part where Ana had so many conflicting thoughts about
Karenina. First happiness at having told him she was with Vronski,
then shame, then regret, then she decided to leave, then she felt
trapped. She doubted what she had with Vronski. She wanted to take
her admission back. It was so damned real.
"The darkness was writhing all round them, and above in the sky the
winds were driving hither and thither shoals of tearful clouds."
I like this book...
After the philosophic conversation between the German, Hungarian,
Romanian, Czech, at dinner, about duty to country versus to mankind.
Apostol finds out Klapka is his captain and offers to let him bunk in
his quarters. They are leaving. It is just before Klapka is startled
by the Russian searchlights, which "cleave the darkness." Close to
the end of IV.
I thought of forgiveness last night. I thought of how it should be
delt, if there are rules, and what these rules are. Unlike guilt or
innocence, we have no acceptence for standards in forgiveness. It is
left to each person, and no one considers passing any real judgement
on the rightness of a particular forgiving gesture. There could be
some universal rules of forgiveness, I'd think.
this writer has a similar
effect on me as Greene, he makes me want to stop and think about what
I am reading..but I also want to press on and find out what comes
next..
Forest turns like a coastal highway. As the mind of Apostal finds one
resolution after another. I think the translation must have been done
by a non-native English speaker, its uses odd phrases occassionally,
but in my mind they work. I am very much enjoying this book. It
makes me ponder in pleasurable ways. He has just described his
awakening from the battle injuries and the silence he enjoyed. He is
being transferred by train back to the front, hoping for "sick leave".
I love how he entwines human emotion into scenery, like describing
"the seething darkness". I also feel like I can relate to Apostal's
fits of belief and recantations.
I am
really, really enjoying Forest, I think more than any of the books
we've read yet. I may get pretty close to finishing today. There are
many, many passages with great evocations of emotion. I like
Apostol's living of life, his reactions to events in his life. Wether
you are right or not, decisiveness brings results. He just had his
latest epiphany, of feeling God in him. that chapter is particularly
amazing..chpater X in book 2.
I told Nick last night how I liked this kind of writing, poetic,
dramatic, philosophical...he suggested reading Thomas Mann. Have you
read him?
compared to Anna I have few times when I see the
obvious devices, the way the story will evolve..
I'm in chapter 17 where Mustafa Mond explains the
reasons civilisation had to sacrifice truth and beauty
At this point John is the author's voice, or better
author's ear. I still like him though less then when
he appeared, I don't know why.
> it becomes more and more polarised when Bernard gets
> control. No one dreams to give him advice. Perhaps
> Mustafa Mond will, after he had enough fun. I hope the
> civilised world will turn upside town, this keeps me reading
I finished Brave New World. The ending leaves some desires. It's a
bit too much on the lighthouse symbolism...
Overall I really like the book, though I think I'd rather read Liviu,
at this point. If you are still reading, concentrate on the savage
(named "John" which is like a generic name in America or England I
suppose), see if you can determine why he behaves as he does. I still
have questions about him. It almost seems that he is so opposite to
the "civilised" ones that he is equally unattractive. Oh well.
Brave New World gets harder to understand...I remember a little of it
from high school..the wild imagery of the savage reservation...it
might require a little understanding of native American Indian history
to follow some of this...there is so much focus on the negative
aspects of society..
I've read about half the book. While they have a family tree diagrammed in the book I am still finding it painful to keep the people straight. I will admit that I am not as focused as I should be. He has a gift for phrasing things in ways that bring profound or interesting thoughts. I've written down some quotes but have forgotten to bring them with me to work.
I was amused by the notion that mothers send their virgin girls to be impregnated by the condemned colonial, but then he survives, and bears many children. This book spans all emotions, that may be one of its strengths.
I wonder how the "liberals" are actually influenced by communism.
I'm not used to having so many characters die in the
middle of the book. I was feeling for them. The young
Jose Arcadio and Aureliano secondo grow up too fast.
Remedios is very beautiful and nobody falls in love
with her. She turns the wheel of the sewing machine
for Amaranta. Amar means bitter, maybe a coincidence.
I put Kafka down and read two books by Coetzee, The Master of Petersburgh and Disgrace (which I am almost finished with). I like Coetzee very much. His narative is engaging. His stories are interesting. His characters I can identify with. I think he depends too much on literary reference (excepting, of course, Petersburch, which as I mention later, is intended this way), a classic should stand utterly on its own in my mind. You might very much enjoy Petersburgh. It is set in 1860's Russia, where the main character is a fictionalized version of Dostoyevski. I know some of the facts in the story are true, but much of it is not. I do not know where the line is crossed. It is poetic, but gets into lots of dramatic philosophy as he suffers bouts with epilepsy. Was Dostoyevski epileptic? There is some specific references to Crime and Punishment, which may be one of the books I pick up soon.
Disgrace is actually a very plainly written book. It reads quickly, has very few unusual words, and does not move into complex philosophic meanderings like Petersburg does. The story is captivating, though disturbing.
I only read a little immortality. I like some of his philosophising, such as the notion that your face is like your name, it was given to you, and, though it represents you to all the world, it may not be anything close to the choice you would otherwise make as your representative.