I decided to re-read some Virginia Woolf on a whim because I haven't read her in years and I like her. I am blown away by Mrs Dalloway. This is an absI decided to re-read some Virginia Woolf on a whim because I haven't read her in years and I like her. I am blown away by Mrs Dalloway. This is an absolute masterpiece, one of the pinnacles of the novel as Art and one of the greatest examples of Modernism. It is absolutely beautiful. The stream of consciousness technique seems easier to appreciate here than perhaps it is with Joyce or Faulkner, which makes it comparitively easier to read. The narrative drifts between the consciousness of a small cast of characters as they enter the same vicinity in central London, mainly focusing upon the eponymous Mrs Dalloway and her friends and family, but we also enter the thoughts and feelings of a number of others, some with large roles to play and others who pass through quickly. I say this is a pinnacle of the novel as Art because there is very little of what people look for in most novels. It isn't about the plot, it isn't about the story. It is a novel that is in some respects closer in spirit to poetry or painting. Some people think that Woolf is satirising Mrs Dalloway or exposing her as being shallow. I don't agree. I think the point of this novel is to allow is to enter into other people's subjectivity and experience their thoughts and feelings, including moments of self doubt, exhilaration, judgement of others etc... It captures something about the essence and texture of life as it is lived, moment to moment. It does something that is one of the greatest achievements of the novel as an art form, which is to allow us to understand what it is like to see and experience someone elses life and enter into empathy with them. I think it would be hard to argue that anyone other than Virginia Woolf is the greatest English novelist of the 20th Century. The only other contender I can think of is DH Lawrence. Who else is there? Waugh? Forster? Ford? The Amis'? Orwell? None of them hold a candle to Woolf. JG Ballard would be close to the top but he doesn't have the range. ...more
A work of black humour, ranting against art, music, literature, critics, philosophers, the Proletariat, Vienna (including the state of its public toilA work of black humour, ranting against art, music, literature, critics, philosophers, the Proletariat, Vienna (including the state of its public toilets) and everything about Austrian society. It shares some similarity to the work of Samuel Beckett and Louis Ferdinand Celine. ...more
This took me rather a long time to read because I seem to have less time to read than I used to. Many people see it as Conrad's magnum opus. I think IThis took me rather a long time to read because I seem to have less time to read than I used to. Many people see it as Conrad's magnum opus. I think I lean towards Lord Jim or the Secret Agent. This is a deep and wide ranging novel with several themes. I don't quite understand why it is called Nostromo, because the character of Nostromo doesn't dominate the novel in the way that the central character in an eponymous novel usually does. Nostromo in fact focusses on a number of core characters over a period of several years. We open in Sulaco, a port town in the occidental province of an imaginary South American country called Costaguana, which is said to be based partly on Columbia, Venezuela and Panama. It is a sleepy port in a largely undeveloped country riven by corruption, poverty and civil war, somewhat protected from the disorder of the rest of the country by a massive mountain range. The Gould's, an English family who have been settled there for generations own a mining concession which has caused nothing but trouble up until now because of the rampant corruption of the ruling class. Charles Gould decides to take on the mine with a reforming zeal, fighting his way through the corruption and bureaucracy to make it into a functioning operation, transforming the economy of the region and the country at large. One of the major themes of the novel is of the mixed benefits and losses functioning capitalism brings. Costaguana has been a society operating upon the social and cultural model left to them by the Spanish conquests of the 16th Century. Capitalism has not taken root because it is a country in which an tiny elite plunder the rest of the country and live on the sweat and toil of a peasant class. Anyone with the energy, creativity and work ethic to try to launch a business will see their profits stripped by the governing elite. This has left Costaguana stuck centuries behind Europe and North America. Gould finally manages to kick start development in Costaguana but we see the costs and well as the rewards of this development. Class conflict becomes more acute. The living standards of the average person is going up, but the rewards are disproportionately taken by the elite. This mirrors history, as the French revolution began during a period of time when the lower orders of society were actually gradually improving their lot. When you are totally dominated by a ruling class the possibility of improving your lot seems impossible. It is only when gradual reforms begin that you can start to look around and wonder why the people at the top should have so much when you have so little.
Nostromo is a heroic man, worshipped by the poor and seen as indispensable by the governing class. He lives for glory and splendour, and isn't focussed upon money at all. However, as the years go by and the mine starts paying off he begins to wonder why he should have nothing whilst the rich have everything, when they depend upon him for so much. It is the progression from a courtly, knightly ethos and society to a bourgeois, capitalist ethos embodied in one man. He is of the people, not of the elite, and he has enjoyed his position as an indispensable, incorruptible man of action. But he starts to wonder why he allows himself to be used as a tool by the Conservative ruling class, fighting against the reformers and revolutionists who say they are fighting for the people. He has never actually examined his own political beliefs before.
Charles Gould marries an English woman named Emilia and brings her to Sulaco, where she becomes the darling of local society. She loves and admires her husband, especially in his forceful determination to succeed where his Father failed and create a successful mine, but she ends up having to accept that she is less important to him than the mine in his crusading zeal. This is another pretty clear description of the capitalist ethos. The monomaniacal businessman for whom nothing, including his wife or family, are as important as his business.
Martin Decoud is a princeling from Costaguanan society living a louche, decadent lifestyle in Paris and looking back with amused contempt upon the country he comes from, seeing himself as a civilised European. However, he returns to Costaguana, intending it to be a pitstop on route to the USA, but finds himself caught up in the possibility of reforming Costaguana into a functioning, progressive, democratic country. One of the themes of the book is the way that powerful American and European politicians, businessmen and financiers see distant, underdeveloped countries like Costaguana as opportunities to make money and extract wealth, and see them as petty, unserious places filled with petty, unserious people. The investments they make both help and hurt the countries involved. Decoud's character development from sneering toff to committed reformer puts me in mind of Kierkegaard's Either/Or, and Existentialism in general. His commitment ennobles him as he ceases to waste his life, though he remains plagued with doubts throughout.
The chaos, corruption, violence and political extremism and exploitation depicted in this book have been seen as typical of South America, and unfortunately the same patterns repeated themselves in the decades following publication, as has the behind the scenes maneuvering of Europe, and especially the USA. ...more
The book that introduces Nietzsche's famous ideas on eternal recurrence and the death of God. Nietzsche is one of the most stimulating, thought-provokThe book that introduces Nietzsche's famous ideas on eternal recurrence and the death of God. Nietzsche is one of the most stimulating, thought-provoking and original thinkers I know, and a great writer with an outstanding prose style. It's a shame that writers he inspired like Sartre, Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault chose to write such obscure prose that it's a nightmare trying to read and interpret them. ...more
Absolutely extraordinary. It amazes me that Gene Wolfe isn't better appreciated when is is so obviously one of the greatest writers of the last 50 yeaAbsolutely extraordinary. It amazes me that Gene Wolfe isn't better appreciated when is is so obviously one of the greatest writers of the last 50 years. He is head and shoulders above most of the critically acclaimed writers who are always reviewed and discussed in the literary section of the broadsheet newspapers and high-brow magazines. This book is published as part of the Fantasy Masterworks series, although whether this book is fantasy or not is up for debate. It is such an original work of art. To some extent it reminds me of Marquez, Faulkner and Bruno Schultz, but it doesn't owe anything to them. Wolfe's writing is so compressed and literary that it can be quite hard to read, and there are passages of this novel that I had to read two or three times. It should be a set text in Universities as it definitely rewards deep study and multiple readings. I feel sorry for Wolfe in that he hasn't been adopted by science fiction and fantasy readers because he is too literary and he hasn't been adapted by literary fiction readers because they assume that fantasy and science fiction aren't serious writing. The man deserves the Nobel prize for literature and should be boughed under with laurels and medals. Instead he is the ultimate writer's writer. ...more
An intense thriller about the Chinese revolution by Albert Camus' favourite writer. Malraux had a self promoted image as a renaissance man of action wAn intense thriller about the Chinese revolution by Albert Camus' favourite writer. Malraux had a self promoted image as a renaissance man of action which was later found to be wildly exagerated. He implied that this closely observed, gritty novel was written from the perspective of his close personal involvment in the revolution, and actually exagerated his involvement when he met Chairman Mao personally. This meeting lead him to be invited to advise Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon before they travelled to China to meet with Mao. Regardless of that, this is a very good novel. It is an intellectual and philosophical thriller which follows a cell of Communist revolutionaries as they prepare step by step for the overthrow of the Chinese government, only to find themselves in conflict with their comrades by necessity the Kuomintang. It goes some way to exaplain the personal and political motivation each of the characters has for being commited to this cause without over-explaining it. Malraux maintains an admirable sense of objectivity regarding the characters and ideologies. In spite of declaring his sympathy for the communist cause he shows them to be just as flawed and fucked up as the other side. The only novel I can think of that it resembles is The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. ...more
OK, but not up to my expectations. Bartleby is such a famous story that I was expecting it to be better than it was. It reads something like a Kafka oOK, but not up to my expectations. Bartleby is such a famous story that I was expecting it to be better than it was. It reads something like a Kafka or Gogol story, but a bit less strange. The introduction of my edition interprets Benito Cereno as being a statement about the iniquity of the slave trade. It didn't really strike me as being anything more than a story written to explore the dramatic effects of a tense situation in real time. I didn't see that the racial issues were the point of the story....more
I remember straining my brain in my American Literature class at university struggling to comprehend the meaning of Stevens poetry. I now think I mighI remember straining my brain in my American Literature class at university struggling to comprehend the meaning of Stevens poetry. I now think I might have been wasting my time because I no longer think that poetry needs to 'make sense' or have a clear and comprehensible theme. I think I may have had this revelation when I realised you don't need to understand what's going on in David Lynch's film Mullholland Drive. Wallace Stevens is a great Modernist poet. He poetry is ebuliant, sensual, intelligent and effervescent. His writing revels in the joy of language. This makes him stand in stark contrast to his contemporary TS Eliot, who was gloomy and dour. The only problem I have with Stevens is his writing is so obscure and irregular that it is difficult to get into the music of his work or for his lines to linger in your mind. This provides another stark contrast to TS Eliot because as difficult as Eliot is he was a master of making his poetry musical and rhythmic and his lines do linger in your mind....more
A magnificent novel. Certainly one of the greatest of the last 10 or 20 years. I wouldn't say it was a trilogy, though that was how it was published. A magnificent novel. Certainly one of the greatest of the last 10 or 20 years. I wouldn't say it was a trilogy, though that was how it was published. It's either one huge novel or a novel in 10 parts. It is flattering to a Brit to have someone of Marias's insight and intelligence set a novel of this scope largely in the UK with a largely British cast. Marias demands to be read, and I would agree that he deserves the Nobel prize. ...more
Quite interesting. Freud's interpretations and analyses are always unverifiable but always interesting and thought provoking. I usually think he is stQuite interesting. Freud's interpretations and analyses are always unverifiable but always interesting and thought provoking. I usually think he is striking somewhere at the heart of the matter but he oversteps the bounds of what is possible in science, as well as biography or literary criticism. His most important contribution to modern life is simply the notion that nothing is exactly as it appears to be superficially and that there are hidden depths behind everything....more
An outstanding novel. It's a fascinating exploration of what took place in Africa in the post-colonial era and an insight into the lives of the travelAn outstanding novel. It's a fascinating exploration of what took place in Africa in the post-colonial era and an insight into the lives of the travelling Indian merchant class. It is Conrad influenced but Naipul has his own distinctive style. Some of it is uncomfortable reading but that's what helps to make it a powerful and original work of art. ...more
Absolutely brilliant. I wouldn't normally say this but I agree with all of the blurbs.
"The Imaginative range, intellectual force and infectious generoAbsolutely brilliant. I wouldn't normally say this but I agree with all of the blurbs.
"The Imaginative range, intellectual force and infectious generosity of this book...place it incontestably in the gallery of canonical texts" Times Higher Educational Supplement
"A bubbling cauldron of ideas" New Statesman
"A Visionary Work" The Village Voice
"Berman lights up every text he examines" Newsweek
"A wonderful book...generous, exuberant and dazzling" New York Times
This is a thrilling book that makes me want to re-read all of the source texts he discusses, particularly Goethe's Faust. He presents a lot of the ideas I have had floating around my head in a much more articulate and well developed way than I can....more
I read this book because I've been on a Modernist Russian kick at the moment, and no less than Vladimir Nabokov called this novel one of the four greaI read this book because I've been on a Modernist Russian kick at the moment, and no less than Vladimir Nabokov called this novel one of the four greatest prose works of the 20th Century alongside Ulysses, Kafka's Metamorphosis and A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. That's a massive claim which this novel absolutely fails to live up to in my opinion. There must be a lot that is lost in translating this into English because I thought it wasn't just average, I thought it was bad. I don't know why this book would be untranslatable as I have recently read Memories of the Future and The Foundation Pit, both of which are spikey, unusual Moderernist books and both of which have been superbly translated. Any prose work is to be judged on it's form and it's content. I've read Kafka and Dostoyevsky in more than one translation and there is nothing a translator could do to screw up so badly that their immense quality and power isn't obvious to any reader. It's hard to understand how a reader as hard to please as Nabokov could have it got it so wrong so I guess my assesment of Bely must be entirely subjective. ...more
A strange, original and brilliant work. This conveys what the revolution and early stages of the Soviet Union were like for the ordinary people. I hadA strange, original and brilliant work. This conveys what the revolution and early stages of the Soviet Union were like for the ordinary people. I had never really thought about what it must have been like to change from a Feudal, agricultural society to an advanced industrial one before. Platonov combines spikey, surreal, existentialist writing with an evident commitment to realism. It's a sinister book and it fits into the tradition of dystopias like 1984, Brave New World and We but Platonov also presents the revolutionary believers and actions with some kind of admiration. The postscript explains that Platanov did believe that the Soviet revolution was going to lead to a glorious, egalitarian, advanced society and only became disillusioned later when he saw the impact it was having in the countryside personally. This helps to explain the ambivalence of this novel. The translator has done a great job, conveying the strangeness of Platonov's prose in awkward, beautiful, occasionally ungrammatical English....more
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