The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

My introduction to this novel, novella, short story with a gland problem, came earlier this year. I read it three times this year, for reasons. This book more aligns with mood pieces and stream-of-consciousness, and less with plot and a thematic focus. If you need known in your reading, read another book. If you enjoy or find interest in post-modern books exploring reality, meaning, and culture, then this could be your book. I find this easy to say. I find it much harder to state what I think about this book. It brought up lots of thoughts.

First and foremost: this writing is spectacular. Pynchon’s ability to list goes over the top in all the right ways—right now I can’t think of a better lister, but some poets probably slip my mind. Let me just quote two lists here, out of this book:

She could, at this stage of things, recognize signals like that, as the epileptic is said to—an odor, color, pure piercing grace note announcing his seizure. Afterward it is only this signal, really dross, this secular announcement, and never what is revealed during the attack, that he remembers. Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back.

The Saint whose water can light lamps, the clairvoyant whose lapse in recall is the breath of God, the true paranoid for whom all is organized in spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the dreamer whose puns probe ancient fetid shafts and tunnels of truth all act in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is there, buffering, to protect us from. The act of metaphor than was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside, safe or outside, lost.

These fantastic lists come hot and heavy throughout the book. It’s often a sentence, then four paragraphs of exposition of that sentence, then another sentence, rinse and repeat. I mean, if I talk about who this writing reminds me of, it’s Vonnegut, Eco, and Nabokov. And that’s some heady space to be in for my personal pantheon of great writers.

Another thing the writing does well is showing instead of telling — Pynchon never says she’s pretty, but every man around her wants her.

(But the flipside of the writing is me: I am personally sick of books like this. This writing is what every writing program I’ve experienced or heard of tries to train students to ape. And by this stage of my life and this type of writing, I’m a bit sick of it. I know this one is foundational and this is one of the pioneers and this is part of the reason everybody wants to write like this, but now, 53 years later, it’s been done, and I find it more groundbreaking when somebody tells me something really well. That’s just me today though, and I’ll try to put myself in the mindset of this being groundbreaking because I believe it was.)

The storytelling seems based on detective fiction. In one sense this shows the lady in red doing her own investigation. In another sense, this could be more of a hero’s journey because she changes more than the typical private eye does. On another hand this clearly shows a woman whose men run her life, changing to a woman who runs her own life. Yet one other probably valid interpretation shows a series of absurd scenes with little tying them together except an investigation into a conspiracy or secret society. But this varied book full of examples where meaning fails could also be an extended metaphor of a life. She starts off alone and bored and dependent on others—if there isn’t a better description of a baby, I don’t know. Baby can’t communicate or understand, can’t entertain or sustain itself. Then the teenage years of a hot car, a band, and a fling with an older man land her in the most happening place ever, LA. Then the dark underbelly of LA rears its head in the crazies, and she has a choice: either continue to ignore what probably ain’t true, or investigate it for truth. (That seems to be mostly what drives her, truth-seeking, and where she ends up shows Pynchon questioning whether that should drive her.) Then the sunset of life as the connections surrounding her slowly fall away: her lover leaves her for a younger woman, her husband loses his mind, and everybody around her disappears or dies. It’s like she’s going through a whole life in this book, birth to death. And this god-like figure, this ex-lover, the book stops just before she learns whether he is still alive or is actually dead.

This storyline allows Pynchon plenty of space to talk about California culture in the 60s, America during the McCarthy era of the Cold War, death and the choices people make that lead to it, the weight of personal connections in the free-love era, conspiracies and secrecy, etc—more themes than Pynchon can really deal with in the space the book takes up. If there is a central theme, I’d be guessing to try and come up with it. Maybe it’s a question of what we spend our lives focused on and how those things arrive through accident, coincidence, and effort. In other words, Obsession. Every character in here is a study in obsession. Stamp collecting, kinky London stuff, the death of inventing, entropy of communication, having been a child actor, etc.

But the quarter of me with reservations starts to notice that this book may be too open-ended for me to want to reread it again and again. The writing astounds me, and the humor helps ease my way through the book, but it could also be exemplified by the obscure references of the title, it may be a touch clever for clever’s sake—in that way I’m like the director, pissed off at every grad student trying to wring too much meaning out of every little phrase. “Shall I project a world?” Pynchon questions. Ugh, I answer. Too much, bro. My personal experience with writing programs bores at somebody else trying every tactic ever used in writing, and coming up with a bit of an unfocused mess.

“You don’t understand,” getting mad. “You guys, you’re like Puritans are about the Bible. So hung up with words, words. You know where that play exists, not in that file cabinet, not in any paperback you’re looking for, but—” a hand emerged from the veil of shower-steam to indicate his suspended head—“in here.”

So, I’m torn. On the one hand I love this book. This is near the heights of the genre of writing I call “Literary”, especially in this post-modern era that questions the natures of truth and futility. Well worth the read. On the other hand, while I’m glad I read it a few times—re-reads certainly helped me appreciate the quality of the writing and the potential central metaphor of a life lived—I’m more glad I don’t have to read it again. I like the unknown in writing, I really do. But there may be just a little too much unknown here for what the authors seems like he was trying to do. Or maybe it’s too short to delve into the themes effectively. Or maybe that’s just me being too stupid to put this book on the top shelf, next to Vonnegut and Eco and Nabokov. It’s just too easy to pull any random quote out of this book and argue that it’s all about that quote, like the last one:

“I came," she said, "hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy."
“Cherish it!" cried Hilarious, fiercely. "What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by it's little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.”

I do want to mention that this seems in a similar vein to Kafka, Borges, Eco, Joseph Heller, DFW, Vonnegut, Nabokov, and others like that.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

(Please keep in mind that this is an unfinished novel published posthumously and seemingly against the wishes of the author. Though his asking his friend to burn all his unfinished works may have been a joke because he probably asked the one friend least likely to do it. But that's a debate I don't know enough about to have.)

I keep coming back to Kafka’s impenetrableness, in my mind, with a reflection that I spent the whole novel thinking, "What's this all about?", and, “No person would react that way!” I’m not thinking of any single way that a character reacts—except possibly for the Lawyer’s maid, though even she seems a caricature of people I know—but rather in two actions that characters complete, in a row. These actions do not line up to. For instance, K is meeting with the manufacturer at the bank, and suddenly his actions, mood, character changes so drastically that there seems no thread tying him and earlier him together. This, of course, could be due to a point Kafka is trying to make. But I couldn’t tell because I found too few clues in here as to what Kafka is on about. So, what clues did I find?

• Religion. Kafka’s religion is unstated, but he deals with religious themes and things that ape religion in ways that assure religion is never far from the page. The closing sacrificial scene, the priest’s scene, the penitent waiting rooms, the kissing of the lawyer’s hand—these things are so reminiscent of religious experiences, religious acts, that religion is ever on the tongue of this novel. And the clearest analogy to religion in the novel is the court system.


• Court. The main theme on-page is either Joe K’s psychology, or the court system, which adheres to no known court system—or so say the experts. Is Kafka taking the piss out of the court system?
  —Yes, probably. Yet at the same time, he is taking the piss out of justice, and laws, only as they are implemented by humans. Kafka's objections, except for one example in the conversation with the priest, seem to be about laws and court systems that reflect little of the Socratic sense of justice and personal rights. These impenetrable, uncommunicative, and unrealistic systems are what give the book its dystopian mood. This vast, nebulous, unknowable, and oppressive court system is unrealistic, but may ape aspects of legal systems that are tenable.
  —But maybe the courts are a metaphor for something. And if so, the merchant at the lawyer’s office seems to give a clue that it may be a metaphor for sociability, some egalitarianistic pun on courtly behavior. Society requires a sort of game, or performance, for one to not be considered crazy. So does this court system.

• Theater. And that performative aspect is huge here. By the time I got to the final scene in the quarry with the sacrificial altar stone, I thought we would at last get a scene with no audience. But somebody throws a window open to watch from a distance. Every scene has an audience, even if that audience is sometimes just K. And K consistently refers to theater terminology to try and interpret his perceptions. The theater of life, of living in a city, like in the fragment of him on the divan, provides an energetic undercurrent for the novel.


• Sex. The lawyer’s maid has a fine figure and is attracted to all of the defendants; Elsa is K’s unseen regular squeeze; Fräulein Bürstner and K seem to share something more than a kiss, at least some underlying sexual tension exists there; the woman whose husband is the court usher tells K he can do anything he wants to her. Yet K gets more good advice, instead of just promises of advice, from the painter, who is surrounded by girls.

• Business. K’s personal business is always getting in the way of his professional business as CFO of a bank. And on this aspect of the court, K’s arrest provides both opportunity and impediment. Opportunity comes in the form of contacts with the prosecutor and the painter, while he worries that his arrest and trial are taking too much time away from his professional life. He works late often, and is seen to be in the office early, and is praised for his organizational skills at work—this is clearly an important aspect of K’s being.

So, it seems that Kafka is accusing government of inherent evil, or a lack of conscientiousness. For example, in the court itself, the idea that the accused could even know the accusation against them is ridiculous. But not just the government, the whole of the society because both are indistinguishable in areas. Yet, it seems that Kafka is content as a writer to offer pithy phrases like, “They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.” He writes these wonderful phrases, and some truly memorable scenes, instead of sharpening his overall point or indictment. It seems that he might be full of himself: too sure that readers will pick up on what he’s after to actually put in enough clues. I feel that K’s psychology and impenetrable actions detract from the overall pointedness of the novel by confusing the issues being discussed and even how they are being discussed. How much of this is due to its unfinished nature, I don't know.

But I also appreciate the open-endedness of it all as much as I am annoyed by it. I don’t want to be spoon fed. Sure, maybe a little more given to the reader would have been profitable. I get the sense that the reader’s perception of events differs from the narrator’s, which differs from K’s. And this confusion reigns in the reading of this novel. But this confusion is probably the point of the novel! The court is after all affecting K in the same way. And what a mood and scene set by Kafka, where the reader is right there with K, feeling frustrated and annoyed, yet reading on because of the wonderful writing and scenes. Kafka creates and sustains such a poignant mood that, for all his impenetrableness, I found the book easy to finish and well worth reading. Sure, with something like the Metamorphosis, or In the Penal Colony, I come away with a much better idea of Kafka’s point, so I'm more likely to recommend those. But for fans of Kafka, this is a can't miss novel.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I came into this book knowing only that it was about WWII, and written by Tony Doerr. He used to visit my English department when I was in college at the University of Idaho. I liked The Shell Collector collection of short stories, so I was looking forward to my first novel of his.

He didn’t disappoint, but he also didn’t hit a home run. His writing is strong, evocative if not iconoclastic. Interesting if not engrossing. Easy, but sometimes beautiful too. I read part of it, and audiobooked part of it, and I think I preferred listening to it—a clear indicator for my personal metric that the book lacks a flair for description and dialogue, but doesn’t disappoint at the same time. This seems contradictory, I know. But the book is obviously edited well, as far as the words on the page go, but maybe a little too well. Not everybody can have a writing calling card that sets them apart from the rest, but not everybody needs one. I will not be trying to write like Doerr, but I didn’t feel like the book was a slog to read.

The novel jumps back and forth in time in interesting ways, but I do not plan to emulate his tactic. This narrative time traveling leaves cliff hangers all over the place, allowing the whole to feel much more pulpy than I anticipated. And that’s maybe a good way to put this: it’s a book aimed squarely at a broad base of the reading public. Some others of Doerr’s tactics help drive this point home for me, but the cliffhanger endings, quick chapters, and jumping back and forth point to a desire for readability that might not be my personal favorite cup of tea.

The novel tells the story of a couple of children during WWII, and the adults around them. One is a Nazi soldier, another a blind French girl. The characters engage the reader through their hopes and dreams and experiences, more than their dialogue or personality. They’re tour guides for the personality-filled characters around them. And that’s not a negative, but it’s also not a positive. The problem comes in with the Nazi boy. In an effort to make him sympathetic, he is drowned in tragic and iconoclastic situations: coal mining orphan, smaller than the other boys, picked on because he's almost albino, younger than the other boys, more sensitive than the other boys, a scientific genius, a natural leader of the other orphan children, never kills anybody, steps on a landmine at the end, and on, and on, and on. It’s heavy handed and the single place this book really annoyed. Instead of digging into the character, Doerr just piles more traits on. Instead of going in depth, he paints with a broader and broader brush. Instead of premising his book with, “Germans were people too in WWII,” Doerr trips over himself trying to allow this book to be widely palatable.

The theme revolves around dreams and reality. Both of the main characters are driven by their dreams, but reality keeps getting in the way through tragic means. This distinction never resolves into a clear statement, but the plot implies that reality wins, but dreams have value also. This is a popular sentiment that the book builds well.

So, a short set of notes for a book that lots of people will enjoy. When I finished it, I thought, “What beat this for the Pulitzer that year?” I looked it up: this did win the Pulitzer in 2015. And I think it’s a perfect fit for that prize: it’s tragic and heartwarming, widely readable, and doesn’t challenge too much. I’m happy I read it and have recommended it to friends.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

For Kelly.

1. The structure is the most unusual thing she does here. At all levels, the lens given to the reader looks like milk stirred into coffee. There are these eddies and whirls of time and characters apparent throughout.
—At the macro level, each chapter exists alone, as a short story; yet each contains characters that cross-pollinate the other stories. Most of these stories exist in different time periods—from the 1970s and 1980s to maybe the late 2020s. Egan’s non-chronological arrangement of the text means that at one level, the stories disconnect themselves from each other through being disconnected in time. To aid this tactic, Egan excludes main and supporting characters consistent through every single story, but allows enough cross-pollination that the time jumps drive the disconnection home. So, in general, her whirling tactic works at the macro level though I imagine it would be hard to pick this book up again in the middle, after a couple weeks break from reading it—I would be asking myself, "who is Jules again?" But I wonder why she arranged the chapters the way she did. Is there a thematic or philosophical argument being laid out by this sequence of reading? If so, I think I missed it. Though she does seem to back-end the the book with some of the most poignant stories (Basically, Selling the General through the end, except Goodbye My Love).
—At the micro level, each short story also includes moments outside the narrative, asides that explore the timeline of this or that character. For instance, an unnamed African musician playing music to the safari tourists:

“The warrior smiles at Charlie. He’s nineteen, only five years older than she is, and has lived away from his village since he was ten. But he’s sung for enough American tourists to recognize that in her world, Charlie is a child. Thirty-five years from now, in 2008, this warrior will be caught in the tribal violence between the Kikuyu and the Luo and will die in a fire. He’ll have had four wives and sixty-three grandchildren by then, one of whom, a boy named Joe, will inherit his lalema: the iron hunting dagger in a leather scabbard now hanging at his side. Joe will go to college at Columbia and study engineering, becoming an expert in visual robotic technology that detects the slightest hint of irregular movement (the legacy of a childhood spent scanning the grass for lions). He’ll marry an American named Lulu and remain in New York, where he’ll invent a scanning device that becomes standard issue for crowd security. He and Lulu will buy a loft in Tribeca, where his grandfather’s hunting dagger will be displayed inside a cube of Plexiglas, directly under a skylight.”

The text promptly forgets this musician. His grandson, Joe, comes back up later, but only in passing. Essentially, this diagram of two lives spun out of the story gives evidence of Egan’s overall tactic in a single paragraph. Her descriptions echo this specific, micro application: at times she spins off into glimpses into the future or the past instead of establishing physical appearances through pseudo-blazon. Does it work? This micro application toes a dangerous line of humor that wouldn’t fit into the feel of the novel, while stepping carefully between over-foreshadowing and being uninformingly tangential. I don’t believe she succeeds in every situation. To subvert a quote from the book, at times it feels like “we’re getting off the subject.” At the same time, I’m bored of blazon-like descriptions serving to set up all characters, and I appreciate her efforts here. (Also, my wife’s comments here were simply that she hates it when authors do these glimpses into characters' pasts or futures, but she doesn’t hate it when Jennifer Egan does it.)
—So, an ensemble novel composed of interlaced short stories arranged non-chronologically. I’m not sure this book would convince anybody new to the concept that a novel of related short stories is worthwhile, but it is a treat for this fan of these types of books (Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson). The trick with these books is that each story needs the strength to stand alone. I find four at least that look weak.

1. A to B seems a sort of connecting story more than its own thing—Forty Minute Lunch would’ve been odd to include without A to B.
2. Goodbye, My Love looks tangential in that I understood more about Sasha in Naples from Out of Body.
3. Ask Me if I Care sets up more than it interests in its own right.
4. X’s and O’s serves the other stories rather than taking control of its own destiny. (Although this is one of my wife’s favorites, so maybe I missed something there.)

So, not every single story works as well as the others, relying on interconnection to pull these four along: in other words, I was only interested in these four stories because of their effect on the others. Whereas a largely unconnected story, Great Rock and Roll Pauses by Alison Blake, is one of the more poignant moments in the book, but its strength as a stand-alone short story overshadows how it plays into the rest of the novel.

The elderly bird-watching ladies trade a sad smile. Lou is one of those men whose restless charm has generated a contrail of personal upheaval that is practically visible behind him.

2. The writing itself works wonderfully. From that perfectly tone-setting first sentence, “It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel,” through “Time’s a goon”, some fantastic phrases exist in this book.

“How could so much devastation have been silenced?”

“Life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape.”

“Suicide is a weapon; that we all know. But what about an art?”

These words are a joy to read.
—She shifts between perspectives in stories: first, second, and third person perspectives are all used, and I’m not sure why. A lot of complaints I read about this novel talk about how every post-modern writing trope presents itself here. It’s a fair complaint—people not interested in writing could easily skip this novel. Not all her tactics work as brilliantly as her short, declarative sentences, and her listing sentences. But at least the perspective shifts do help increase the disconnect between the stories and characters. Other than that though, I’m not sure why they’re there.
—My wife’s thoughts about the writing were, “Who wrote this book? Yeah, she’s a good writer.”

Structural Dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.

3. However, the writing itself is not the point. Optimistically, the question with these interconnected short story books is whether the characters are deep and complex enough to carry the whole as a novel. Pessimistically, these books function as garbage bins where all the writer’s characters, the ones cut from other works, the half-conceived ones, they gather to let a number of exciting plots carry them along.
—Egan’s characters typically wrinkle themselves through competing desires. Tom desires his wife, but he also fears the power she has over him, so he shuts her out of his life slowly over time. The tragic tale of Rob and Sasha affected me. Bennie puts gold flakes into his coffee to increase his physical sexual potency, but he’s conflicted:

“The world was unquestionably a more peaceful place without the half hard-on that had been his constant companion since the age of thirteen, but did Bennie want to live in such a world?”

In other words, he’s obsessed with sex, mentally, but can’t get it up and is kind of thankful he can’t.
—The flipside of this would be what critics complain about: many of these characters are wrinkled in cliche ways. Whether I believe these cliches exist in life may put down this critique, but the characters don’t all interest me as much as some do. Sasha’s interest lies more in her effect on others than in herself. Drew holds my attention less than Rob. Lou bores me, as does Bosco and Kitty and some of these other celebrity cliches. Jules overshadows his sister Stephanie by far. I have read Stephanie before. I’ve read her written well. Does Egan add anything to the "Stephanie" discussion? No, not really. But does she need to? No, because she uses Stephanie mainly as the foil to illuminate Jules, who is interesting. So, for two reasons I’m not terribly upset by how much these characters seem familiar from fiction: first because these cliches are common to life, second because Egan usually applies the boring ones usefully. But I still wish some of these characters were more interesting.

“I don’t get it, Jules,” Stephanie said. “I don’t get what happened to you.”
Jules stared at the glittering skyline of Lower Manhattan without recognition. “I’m like America,” he said.
Stephanie swung around to look at him, unnerved. “What are you talking about?” she said. “Are you off your meds?”
“Our hands are dirty,” Jules said.

4. The book’s themes speak to longing, desire, mistakes, and interpersonal perspectives—more so than interpersonal relationships. That distinction between interpersonal perspectives and interpersonal relationships is founded on the longings, desires, and mistakes of the characters, keeping a tight, consistent theme throughout. Yes, Egan touches on suicide, sexual violence, lust, love, death, childhood, loss of innocence, aging, war, and most of the other major writing themes, but the book focuses on that perspective-relationship distinction.
—Clearly, Egan states that relationships are better than perspectives. Lou has a perspective on all women and how they relate to him, and this keeps him from forming any meaningful relationships. Jules' frustrated search for a relationship leads to rationalizing sexual violence. Sasha’s potentially happy relationship with Rob is ruined by her perspective of her father and Rob becomes yet another missed opportunity for her. But Egan also uses positive examples to reinforce her value judgment. Lulu and Joe are shown as good characters full of promise, and they have what appears to be a solid relationship. Drew and Allison form a deep bond and their tale ends on a positive note, despite the world turning bad around them. When Stephanie gets past her perspective of her tennis partner, she finds an unexpectedly rewarding relationship. I found this distinction between perspective and relationship to be the main theme here—reinforced heavily by the last story in the book.

You make a clumsy leap, your body crashing onto the water, your knee hitting something hard under the surface. The cold locks in around you, knocking out your breath. You swim crazily to get away from the garbage, which you picture underneath, rusty hooks and claws reaching up to slash your genitals and feet. Your knee aches from whatever it hit.

5. In closing, the potential for a pretentious book exists here. But Egan pulls a lot of it off. I’m not watering at the mouth until I buy my next Egan book, but her writing is above average in quality, her characters are mostly used to their strengths, and the structure intrigues me.

Like all failed experiments, that one taught me something I didn’t expect: one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out. And I, like a scientist unwittingly inhaling toxic fumes from the beaker I was boiling in my lab, had, through sheer physical proximity, been infected by that same delusion and in my drugged state had come to believe I was Excluded: condemned to stand shivering outside the public library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street forever and always, imagining the splendors within.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

For Zac.

1. I think the structure of the novel stands out the most to me, so I’ll deal with that first. The structure of the narrative works for me, but it's also clear this it will be the biggest complaint people have, the reason some people will not read this novel. The structure ends up being fairly simple, but unexplained. As an unusual structure, not explaining it will alienate readers. That's not to say Saunders should or should not have explained it, just that he limits his potential audience. That’s again not a bad thing—every technique a storyteller uses limits potential audience, even writing it in English. I'm more interested in solidifying a statement about new tactics and structures in general, though I will begin by discussing his specific tactic here.
—I haven't read a book structured like this before. It took me a while to wrap my head around. I remember, around about page fifty, noticing a quote from a book about the period of Lincoln's presidency that I know about. That confirmed what I already thought about the structure. Namely, there are two types of chapters here:
⭘ Some chapters follow the characters Saunders creates or borrows from history. Saunders has them telling the reader what happens in their bardo, this purgatory-esque afterlife before reincarnation or judgment. This invented portion of fantasy literature bases itself upon the historical other chapters.
⭘ The other chapters show what are mostly found text quotes about this period of Lincoln's presidency, the American Civil War, and the death of Willie Lincoln. They are snipped from history books, newspapers, and letters. I say “mostly found text” because I read online that some of the quotes are Saunders’ inventions. They come off like newspaper clippings, constituting their own chapters, which intersperse with the characters’ chapters. It shows the great amount of research done by Saunders, and adds to the context and story.
—Both types of chapters here are very short: a couple of pages at most. And they’re written in short sections, usually a paragraph or two. It looks like a play on the page.
—This structure makes sense. Weird, but simple. However, I was confused for 50-90 pages before it really clicked. Because of the spacing that makes the page look like a play’s script, that's probably more like 20-50 pages of a normal novel. But I believe it will turn some people off. It requires the reader trust the author and keep reading—though all novels do to some extent. This required trust is mitigated by that brilliant opening, which drew me in like crazy. In the beginning, Saunders lets the characters introduce themselves by introducing themselves to Willie, and this as a character-building technique is cliche for a reason—when it works, like it does here, the reader can’t put the book down because there are already so many balls in the air right off the bat. I read this book in a little over twenty-four hours. The contradictions and conflicts are apparent at the start, and Saunders lays out that there are multiple narrators, and all are partially unreliable. The found text chapters are usually a nice rest from the craziness of the characters, pauses in the insanity of the fantasy plot, an anchor for the reader to touch that helps drive the plot and introduce new acts into the characters’ story; while the character chapters get crazier and crazier until a war in the afterlife essentially gets going.
—So, the question is, does this structure read like new for the sake of new? I ended up liking the novel a lot. But in order to recommend it to friends, I almost feel like it has to be paired with a warning about the structure. While somebody like me may be into experimental writing in general, and respond to this book positively, if it doesn't work for more people than just Literature Nerds, does it really work? The first to do something isn't always the genius, but the first to do something well is the person the world remembers. Or is a new idea inherently good, even if the execution doesn't quite work out? Is there a difference in the answer to this question between Literature Nerds and people who casually read things that sometimes include literary fiction?
—I think the answer lies in the specifics of the book: yes, it works; and because it works so well, I can't say it's new for the sake of new. Saunders pulls it off. He may be the first to do this, and his both feet in the deep end approach to this structure will alienate readers. But that's fine. It means that for some people, like my spouse, they will not even attempt to read this book. And it seems clear from the response that this novel will be in the jurisdiction of Literature Nerds. But that's no different than Naguib Mahfouz, no different than Dante today, no different than Denis Johnson. And that's some good company to be in, by my book.

Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.

2. And those characters are superb. They're humans as they really are, without masks. Which is slightly odd, coming from an author I already like who typically does such a great job showing how peoples’ masks interact in oddly funny ways. But here, he uses their own words to damn them. They are solely built through telling; and in telling us things, Saunders lets them talk. Rather than staying focused and moving along, the novel is full of eddies in the narrative current, backtracking up tributaries, and switching back and forth between the characters’ stream and the stream of the historical notes. It feels like an Erroll Morris interview, where the interviewed gets nervous at the silence and then just keeps talking.

He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. Only I did not think it would be so soon. Or that he would precede us. Two passing temporarinesses developed feelings for one another. Two puffs of smoke became mutually fond. I mistook him for a solidity, and now must pay. I am not stable and Mary not stable and the very buildings and monuments here not stable and the greater city not stable and the wide world not stable. All alter, are altering, in every instant. (Are you comforted?) No.

3. The world building is both told and shown. Both types of chapters contribute to the fantasy world that Saunders has built. And considering his chapters are split between showing and telling, the world is built with both, unlike the characters.

Strange, isn't it? To have dedicated one's life to a certain venture, neglecting other aspects of one's life, only to have that venture, in the end, amount to nothing at all, the products of one's labors ultimately forgotten?

4. The writing is something to praise, through and through. The found text never feels forced, or over-long—he clips the best bits out and presents them concisely, but with enough variety that they never grow overly repetitive. At the same time, the characters are a bunch of unique people who are well flushed out. Their dialogue is wonderful. It’s legible, but still retains enough idiosyncrasies that they are distinguishable from the words on the page. His word choices sometimes sing, but Saunders never forces poetry on a character’s voice, rather letting their speech patterns dictate his writing. That's a technique that I appreciate.

When a child is lost there is no end to the self-torment a parent may inflict. When we love, and the object of our love is small, weak, and vulnerable, and has looked to us and us alone for protection; and when such protection, for whatever reason, has failed, what consolation (what justification, what defense) may there possibly be?

5. In all, a spectacular book that may be relegated to the Literary Nerds Only pile. Though the characters and writing and structure all harmonize brilliantly, not much plot happens and it’s a weird structure and it looks like a play on the page. I was asked, "What is that you are reading?" instead of "What book are you reading?" And I think these three traits may mean the book does not see as many readers as it should. I love it, and I hope many, many people read it and share my love, but it may become a cult classic like Lolita before it, or The Circus of Dr. Lao. Great novels, but some explanation might help a potential reader get into them. This is a serious reader’s book, not a casual reader’s book. At the end of the day, the books that are both popular and respected by academics are the ones that will be remembered. I don't think that this book, this meditation on death, will be popular enough, though I think it will be respected enough.

First 50 Novels

In sixty-three posts, I have posted notes on fifty novels here, ten of which I had read before. I want to use a brief post to place these forty new ones in categories for myself, and write what I most remember about them now:

Great Books by date published:
Ancillary Mercy, 2015: Leckie perfected her pacing, voice, characters, and plotting—while the addition of the Translator provided much-appreciated comedic breathing spaces.
The Goblin Emperor, 2014: If you need violence and sex for excitement in a novel, this isn't for you. If you appreciate deep, applicable character study, this is your book. Before this, it had been at least a decade since I read a book so strong that not only did I put the author's other works on my to-buy list, but also other important and influential works within the sub-genre.
Lord of Light, 1967: Poetry and plot melded perfectly together. I could read this prose for days and days. This is writing!
The Player of Games, 1988: The pacing and applicability of the plot are astounding in their perfection. It's exciting but also deeply meditative in a way that informs the reader about themselves.
The Stars My Destination, 1956: Retelling The Count of Monte Cristo allowed Bester to get experimental with his writing, and that resulted in my favorite Bester novel yet. He deserves all the accolades he gets for his ability to combine exciting adventure and important insights.

Close on their heels are Good Books by date published:
The Dark Forest, 2015: Guided by its engaging eponymous central theme, this is so much better than The Three-Body Problem it's not even close.
Ancillary Justice, 2013: What a debut novel! Solid world building, writing, and pacing. She melds the writing and plot and characters so that everything supports everything else.
The Name of the Wind/The Wise Man's Fear, 2007/2011: This is how you tell a story! I'm not even sure where the story is going, or whether Rothfuss knows, but I don't care because I am so into it when I'm reading it.
Inversions, 1998: Perfects the split-narrative that didn't quite work in Use of Weapons. Would be one category up if it had a more interesting or applicable theme.
Excession, 1996: Great space opera. It's fun to watch everything unravel like this. The plot reminds me of the Doomtree line, "Okay. Plan B: just panic."
Startide Rising/Uplift War, 1983/1987: Character development and strong plot pacing in spades.
The Lathe of Heaven, 1971: This is a great philosophical debate between two interesting characters.
The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969: That back and forth between Ai and Estraven is not quite friendly, not quite antagonistic, not quite anything but a fascinating study of the alien-ness of any other and ourselves. But it's the mix of mysticism, science, and adventure that drew me in. This is so close to being a Great Book.
2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968: As it's own book, 2001 is a great read. It also wholly replaced Childhood's End as the much better book covering almost all of the same ground.
Damnation Alley, 1967: Zelazny can write pulp fiction with some beautifully tight prose, evoking Raymond Chandler and Alfred Bester.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966: Completely characteristic of Heinlein letting his characters run away with his novel.
The Day of the Triffids, 1951: That sardonic, conversational tone that Wyndham hits so well is such a joy to read.

Interesting Flawed Books, also known as Enjoyable Books, by date published:
Ancillary Sword, 2014: That slow start is brutal to get through, but the book shapes up wonderfully by the end.
A Song of Ice and Fire series, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2011: Fascinating structure and complexity, but to me it broke my suspension of disbelief by having too many resurrections and implied murders turn out to be not-murders. I keep thinking this series should be one category up because he does so much so well. The concluding two works could solidify the whole series here, or bump it up a tier permanently.
Use of Weapons, 1990: Interesting idea poorly executed because he held everything too close to his chest for too long.
Creatures of Light and Darkness, 1969: An interesting journey that I was bemused by at the end.
This Immortal (aka ...And Call Me Conrad), 1965: Somewhere between the confusing pace and shifting focus of Creatures and the straight adventure plot of Damnation Alley. It pulls off neither, but is an interesting first novel.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, 1960: Funny and fascinating, but ultimately too brutal to the pacing and the Catholic Monks to really be endearing.
Childhood's End, 1953: Interesting, but completely blown out of the water by 2001.
The Count of Monte Cristo, 1844, 1845: Fascinating and a wonderful plot. But overlong by far.
Northanger Abbey, 1817: A hilarious and wonderfully written satirical novel that fails because people don't understand what she's satirizing.

And Bad Books I wish I hadn't read, by date published, with quotes from my reviews:
The Three-Body Problem, 2014: "He starts with the beautiful telling-phrase, 'She spoke like a telegraph—'. This confirms what I already knew with a novel phrase—a great tactic. However, he goes on: 'and gave him the impression that she was always extremely cold.' Okay, now that's just redundant. But he doesn’t end there: he keeps hammering the point home through four more long sentences that feel like he’s belaboring the point unnecessarily because he doesn’t believe the reader understands yet. [...] I am still slightly bemused [about plot and pacing]. And I'm not sure it's in the good way."
Consider Phlebas, 1987: "The pacing in the story is inconsistent to me. There are portions that seem to drag, portions that seem to speed by, and a few portions that feel just right for the amount of action, ideas, and characterization involved. Specifically, he drew out the build-up to the ending too far. I understand drawing that buildup out somewhat helped him increase tension, but he drew it out too much: at the start, I was wondering where he was going because he started so far back; and by the end I grew a bit bored and had to reread a couple of paragraphs here and there because my mind started wandering."
Ubik, 1969: "I think at some level, these existential-questioning-of-reality novels are all interesting, but none really stand out too far from the rest for me. Some of Dostoevsky’s works are notable, for sure. [...] I think whichever of these novels a reader first reads that clicks with them will probably be their favorite."
The Caves of Steel, 1954: "Partly that failure is the fault of the implausibility of the investigation—basic police questions are ignored until the end, three days into the investigation. The detective does not even view the site of the crime until then. But mostly it is the main character not being well written or interesting. He comes off like a caricature of a detective, while continually assuring himself that his partner is the character, not him. He is a puppet and Asimov jerks the strings this way and that in a logical pattern, but not a human one—Elijah's never quite believable."
Foundation, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1951: "What a slow and uninteresting opening! This is exactly what I try to avoid in my writing—these couple of tedious chapters of pure world building. The intro info dump is awkward and slow and if I wasn't listening to it, I probably would've stopped reading it, I was that bored. The details of the world building are not even that different or interesting enough to allow this."
The Plague, 1947: "This is a failure. It failed to hold my attention, my interest, or my empathy. It is a convoluted mess, and it leaves me to think that Camus can't be bothered to tell a story, write a sentence, or communicate an idea. At the least he cannot here. His characters are flat and uninteresting and they all speak in the same voice - they are mostly indistinguishable throughout the novel. Even if the character similarities are intentional for some obscure point about "mankind", this is just bad writing. A lot of the pages seem like filler - like they do not illuminate characters, situations, the plot, or the underlying ideas. It also seems like a shallow description of a plague ravaged town that carries little weight or believability. Camus is forever telling his readers that he will explain something later, which I think is a bad writing tactic. But by the time I got to the end of the book, I wished he would've explained some of the book itself."
Brave New World, 1932: "The release of tension, John throwing soma out the window, is a bit of a letdown. I understand that some act is necessary to collide the controller and John, and that the controller would try and cut off any of this type of behavior before it got out of hand, but even with all the punching, it seems a little unlike John. I think he would understand the physical differences between classes and try and change some betas or Alpha minuses. His attempts to change some deltas seems stupid and hopeless. None of the rest of the novel communicated John as stupid to me."
Last and First Men, 1930: "This pacing struck me two ways: either Stapledon is not being as fair and evenhanded with his philosophical opponents in the second half as he was in the first, or he ran out of steam as a writer. Like when you try and fit a word onto a note card and you kinda run out of room so you mash all the letters together there at the edge and it's pretty obvious that you ran out of room. That's almost what this "acceleration of tempo" feels like. This disproportion between how much time is spent on the first men, and how much time is spent on the tenth through seventeenth men was a little frustrating as a reader. It felt like a little more planning or editing could have helped."

So you don't have to go through a process of elimination, I had already read:
Baudolino, 2000, 2002: Read at own risk, not for those who need a reliable narrator. Or author.
The Dune series, 1965, 1969, 1976, 1981, 1984, 1985: 1 & 4 were great, 3 & 5 were good, 2 & 6 were bad.
Starship Troopers, 1959: Every time I read it I'm sucked in again. But I never come out the other side liking it more or less. It's a neutral novel to my tastes.
Lord Jim, 1900: One of the best I've ever read.
The Time Machine, 1895: I re-read this every few years because I like it that much.

Now onto some more novels.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

For Gunn.

1. This book is uproariously funny! Full on belly laughs in every chapter all the way through. I seem to be having trouble getting people to believe me on this, especially those who have a rigid conception of Austen but have not read this book. Let me put it to you this way: Austen makes a penis joke in the third line of the novel. Here are the first three lines:

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard—and he had never been handsome.

See! Dick joke! And from there things just get more funny and more anti-sentimentalism and more antagonistic to Gothic novels. The whole thing is a hilarious satire of sentimentalism and Gothic novels. Catherine imagines many dark doings around her. Austen delights in saying that Catherine should arrive home in a train of unimaginable wealth and glory, per the Gothic sensibility, but she doesn’t. Every Gothic-esque situation she gets into turns to her shame and embarrassment because she lets her imagination run wild. Austen continually breaks the fourth wall to point out what other novels show she should be writing, illuminating the tropes of Gothic tropes, then subverts them clearly in order to show her disgust at those tactics. And this of course brings the theme of life not being a novel to the fore. It’s almost bitter, but continually hilarious throughout. The most notable part is the whole second half of chapter five, where she breaks the fourth wall to take novel writers and critics to task for decrying novels in their own works. Here is a small portion of that truly funny portion:

Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body.

2. The structure of the novel is a straight narrative in that the novel progresses linearly from start to finish, with only these funny asides to break the flow. This structure works for her story because it allows these asides to stick out like sore thumbs and ensure the reader that she’s satirizing the whole way through.

3. The writing is good: she has a wonderful way of writing the narrative, and her fourth-wall-breaking parts are uproariously funny and well paced. Austen does this thing where she often summarizes dialogue, and it works well:

She was looked at, however, and with some admiration; for, in her own hearing, two gentlemen pronounced her to be a pretty girl. Such words had their due effect; she immediately thought the evening pleasanter than she had found it before—her humble vanity was contented—she felt more obliged to the two young men for this simple praise than a true-quality heroine would have been for fifteen sonnets in celebration of her charms, and went to her chair in good humour with everybody, and perfectly satisfied with her share of public attention.

This tactic works by telling the reader exactly what’s important, instead of showing them the effect the dialogue had on Catherine. Austen tells very well.

4. Austen’s character creation is strong. Mr. Thorpe, Isabella, Henry, the General, and Catherine are all distinct characters who are different people. Austen does this through describing them immediately, but not with the usual blazon. Rather, she describes their character, what makes them tick. With Isabella, her tactic is a little different in that Austen shows her character very effectively through her actions and reactions. Like any Austen book that I’ve read, her characters all make sense and seem realistic for the situations and time period that they exist in.

5. In all, this is a good book. It’s hilarious and well written, structured simply but effectively, and contains good characters. But I fear it’s too referential to be a great book: if you aren’t familiar with Gothic novels and Rousseauian sensibilities, the jokes will fall flat and this will seem like a poor Austen novel. However, for somebody who has read some of those, or is at least familiar with them, this novel is a real treat: a wry, satirical look at the Gothic sensibilities with just a hint of bitterness.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

For Lu.

1. I am amazed by the structure of this novel: like a pulp novel, something happens in each of the 45 chapters. In the more introspective portions, that something may simply be a revelation or realization unique to the chapter. This effectively moves the story along and helps provide structure and legibility to Marlow's lengthy speech. The short chapters provide pauses throughout this section, allowing the reader a place to reflect and fit the chapter's revelation into the whole hazy portrait of Jim. The first portion of the book—chapters 1 through 4—the narrator narrates concerning Jim's first failure on the training ship, and the start of the Patna affair. This section is driven by facts and plot. The large middle portion—chapters 5 through 35—is Marlow's speech. This portion is introspective, ruminating on Jim and this era of western history. The final section—chapters 36 through 45—give the end of Jim's life as straight narrative through the letters of Marlow. I marvel at this three part structure. By loading most or all of the rumination into the middle section, the plot and facts of the last third of the book just fly by—the contrast between the slow second part and the action third part is why the third feels like it flies—but without losing the importance of the ruminations. For example, when Brown and Jim are talking across the creek, in chapter 41, Brown unknowingly touches on Jim's Patna case. Marlow's letter does not speculate on the effect this had on Jim, but because of the earlier ruminations in the middle part, it is clear here that Jim consciously tries to take the high road in an effort to further separate himself from his past and show he lives up to the world outside Patusan, fits in with the club, has become a better person. This reveals the second part casting its shadow on the pure action the third. Conrad uses this tripartite structure to inform the writing, and I think the rewards are great for the reader: the third part is wonderfully exciting. Interestingly, this structure is echoed in Starship Troopers: which opens with a bug raid, has a lengthy, introspective middle portion, then closes with another bug raid.

2. Jim is a pulp adventure hero in his own mind, but he fails three times and, well, three strikes and you're out. He has ego, dreams, and a keen sense of trying to find the decisive moment where greatness can be made. But, like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, he is a product of his culture, a byproduct perhaps, a side effect. He is the appearance of confidence, duty, and that all-important stiff upper lip, but he just isn't justified in his self assessment. He acts well in pre-scripted scenes like with Ali. But once the situation is more complex than his imagination has foreseen, he freezes. He's that friend who seems actually capable, but just cannot keep a job. He's a tragedy of social conditioning bound by his ideas, ideals, and their disconnect with reality. Through Marlow's puzzled ruminations, Jim's words and manner, and the actions of Jim, the novel communicates Jim's simple complexity while condemning the culture whose mold he doesn't actually fit, but is desperately trying to. He's the quintessential wanna be Byronic hero.

3. This cultural condemnation is the theme: the culture that created Jim is partially to blame for his failures. The over romanticization of the sea life, the ingrained moral superiority of the white skin color, the economic system that takes advantage of sailors, and the religion of greed receive the brunt of Conrad's attack. Where Heart of Darkness focuses on how whites were screwing up others' cultures and lives, this is about how they were screwing themselves up at the same time. The culture is blissfully unaware and blind to the fact that as much as they think the Malays and Bugis are savage, the Westerners are more destructive by far. In this, the last nine chapters are really an object lesson, plot exemplifying the theme: Jim starts out self assured, doing good for both himself and the natives; then this destructive element raises its ugly head in the form of Brown; because of the blinders of his social conditioning, Jim doesn't allow himself realize exactly what he's dealing with, so he treats with it as if it were a gentleman; and he gets rid of it, sure, but he loses his life and the life of his best friend in the process. Down to the changing view of Jim held by the Bugis population—initially that he is almost a divine, then that he is to blame for a great misfortune—Jim's life follows the pattern of colonization from this period perfectly. This is brilliant plot supporting the theme perfectly and condemning the culture that could create colonization.

4. Conrad foreshadows very well: not only hinting offhandedly at piracy before Brown appears, but also those last few paragraphs are phrases taken from earlier chapters in the book. The foreshadowing is sparse enough that it doesn't tell what's coming, rather makes what comes unsurprising and seemed to logically fit within the story and world. It's tip-of-the-tongue familiar when it arrives.

And his opportunity sat veiled by his side like an Eastern bride waiting to be uncovered by the hand of the master. He too was the heir of a shadowy and mighty tradition! —Chapter 24

He had to give in to my arguments, because all his conquests, the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love—all these things that made him master had made him a captive, too. —Chapter24

That's how it was—and the opportunity ran by his side, leaped over the gap, floundered in the mud . . . still veiled. —Chapter 25

He was white from head to foot, and remained persistently visible with the stronghold of the night at his back, the sea at his feet, the opportunity by his side—still veiled. What do you say? Was it still veiled? I don't know. For me that white figure in the stillness of coast and sea seemed to stand at the heart of a vast enigma. —Chapter 35

There is much truth—after all—in the common expression "under a cloud." It is impossible to see him clearly—especially as it is through the eyes of others that we take our last look at him. —Chapter 36

I seem to see him, returned at last, no longer a mere white speck at the heart of an immense mystery, but of full stature, standing disregarded amongst their untroubled shapes, with a stern and romantic aspect, but always mute, dark—under a cloud. You must admit that it is romantic beyond the wildest dreams of his boyhood. —Chapter 36

Many days elapsed before the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for the return of the white men with long beards and in rags, whose exact relation to their own white man they could never understand. Even for those simple minds poor Jim remains under a cloud. —Chapter 45

5. Aside from the above points praising Conrad's storytelling, his writing is also excellent. He makes each character distinct though unique voices and mannerisms which help explain them as people. He has beautiful descriptions that still feel fresh today. His sentence structures vary to fit the tale: when Marlow is confused about something Jim said or did, the sentences are convoluted, repetitive, pausing. His vocabulary is spectacular. The last few paragraphs are simply the best prose I've ever read in English. Period. They encapsulate the entire novel concisely and beautifully, while also closing it off effectively:

'The crowd, which had fallen apart behind Jim as soon as Doramin had raised his hand, rushed tumultuously forward after the shot. They say that the white man sent right and left at all those faces a proud and unflinching glance. Then with his hand over his lips he fell forward, dead.

'And that's the end. He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic. Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an extraordinary success! For it may very well be that in the short moment of his last proud and unflinching glance, he had beheld the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side.

'But we can see him, an obscure conqueror of fame, tearing himself out of the arms of a jealous love at the sign, at the call of his exalted egoism. He goes away from a living woman to celebrate his pitiless wedding with a shadowy ideal of conduct. Is he satisfied—quite, now, I wonder? We ought to know. He is one of us—and have I not stood up once, like an evoked ghost, to answer for his eternal constancy? Was I so very wrong after all? Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of his existence comes to me with an immense, with an overwhelming force; and yet upon my honour there are moments, too when he passes from my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own world of shades.

'Who knows? He is gone, inscrutable at heart, and the poor girl is leading a sort of soundless, inert life in Stein's house. Stein has aged greatly of late. He feels it himself, and says often that he is "preparing to leave all this; preparing to leave . . ." while he waves his hand sadly at his butterflies.' —Chapter 45, The End

6. Jim is also relatable, one of us: for who hasn't made a mistake at work or felt shame? So, to Marlow, who keeps saying that Jim is "one of us"—and I think he means that in a more changing and specific sense than an Englishman or seamen, more like Marlow and his presumably accomplished and able friends—he's both relatable and mysterious. This is the contradiction in Jim that forces Marlow's curiosity to this point of involvement, to where the surface description of the book could be, "Conrad's interpretation of Marlow's interpretation of the life of Lord Jim and the lessons that Marlow draws from it."

7. As a character, Marlow comes off as upstanding, capable, bright, curious, and persistent. Just from number of spoken lines alone, he is the most apparent character in the novel. I think the argument could be made that he is the most important character in the novel as well: he feels a cultural responsibility for Jim, and through his almost guilty words Conrad's theme most strongly comes through to condemn the social conditioning that led to Jim. Marlow stands in for the culture.

8. Most of the other white characters in the novel also reinforce Conrad's theme—but these through their actions. Stein is disillusioned with the culture, and only his rejection of that lifestyle gains him any measure of peace and fame—though maybe only fame in the field of geopolitics, butterflies, and exotic plants. Brown is the colonizer that colonizes other colonizers' colonies: he's sick and he's as much a product of this as Jim is. The three others who desert the Patna are shown to be uselessly selfish cowards when they run from the inquiry. Chester and Captain Robinson are an unrealistic schemer and a dupe respectively. Captain O'Brien with his drunk dogmatism and inflexibility cannot deal with reality at all. Captain Brierley suicides after the prosecution of Jim because he can't fit into the mold that he embodies and thinks he minted. Cornelius is a selfish, single minded, vindictive soul who blames all on bad luck. Even these little stories throughout the novel directly support Conrad's theme.

Now a couple of passages from the book, expanding the quotes above to give specific examples to the way Conrad foreshadows, in this case specifically dealing with the language of the last few paragraphs:

And his opportunity sat veiled by his side like an Eastern bride waiting to be uncovered by the hand of the master. He too was the heir of a shadowy and mighty tradition! —Chapter 24

He had to give in to my arguments, because all his conquests, the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love—all these things that made him master had made him a captive, too. —Chapter 24

This is where I leaped over on my third day in Patusan. They haven't put new stakes there yet. Good leap, eh?" A moment later we passed the mouth of a muddy creek. "This is my second leap. I had a bit of a run and took this one flying, but fell short. Thought I would leave my skin there. Lost my shoes struggling. And all the time I was thinking to myself how beastly it would be to get a jab with a bally long spear while sticking in the mud like this. I remember how sick I felt wriggling in that slime. I mean really sick—as if I had bitten something rotten." That's how it was—and the opportunity ran by his side, leaped over the gap, floundered in the mud . . . still veiled. —Chapter 25

The two half-naked fishermen had arisen as soon as I had gone; they were no doubt pouring the plaint of their trifling, miserable, oppressed lives into the ears of the white lord, and no doubt he was listening to it, making it his own, for was it not a part of his luck—the luck "from the word Go"—the luck to which he had assured me he was so completely equal? They, too, I should think, were in luck, and I was sure their pertinacity would be equal to it. Their dark-skinned bodies vanished on the dark background long before I had lost sight of their protector. He was white from head to foot, and remained persistently visible with the stronghold of the night at his back, the sea at his feet, the opportunity by his side—still veiled. What do you say? Was it still veiled? I don't know. For me that white figure in the stillness of coast and sea seemed to stand at the heart of a vast enigma. The twilight was ebbing fast from the sky above his head, the strip of sand had sunk already under his feet, he himself appeared no bigger than a child—then only a speck, a tiny white speck, that seemed to catch all the light left in a darkened world. . . . And, suddenly, I lost him. . . —Chapter 35

I affirm nothing. Perhaps you may pronounce—after you've read. There is much truth—after all—in the common expression "under a cloud." It is impossible to see him clearly—especially as it is through the eyes of others that we take our last look at him. I have no hesitation in imparting to you all I know of the last episode that, as he used to say, had "come to him." One wonders whether this was perhaps that supreme opportunity, that last and satisfying test for which I had always suspected him to be waiting, before he could frame a message to the impeccable world. You remember that when I was leaving him for the last time he had asked whether I would be going home soon, and suddenly cried after me, "Tell them . . ." I had waited—curious I'll own, and hopeful too—only to hear him shout, "No—nothing." That was all then—and there will be nothing more; there will be no message, unless such as each of us can interpret for himself from the language of facts, that are so often more enigmatic than the craftiest arrangement of words. —Chapter 36

No, there is nothing much in that yellow frayed letter fluttering out of his cherishing grasp after so many years. It was never answered, but who can say what converse he may have held with all these placid, colourless forms of men and women peopling that quiet corner of the world as free of danger or strife as a tomb, and breathing equably the air of undisturbed rectitude. It seems amazing that he should belong to it, he to whom so many things "had come." Nothing ever came to them; they would never be taken unawares, and never be called upon to grapple with fate. Here they all are, evoked by the mild gossip of the father, all these brothers and sisters, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, gazing with clear unconscious eyes, while I seem to see him, returned at last, no longer a mere white speck at the heart of an immense mystery, but of full stature, standing disregarded amongst their untroubled shapes, with a stern and romantic aspect, but always mute, dark—under a cloud. The story of the last events you will find in the few pages enclosed here. You must admit that it is romantic beyond the wildest dreams of his boyhood, and yet there is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelming destiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while you marvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it has happened—and there is no disputing its logic. —Chapter 36

'I do not know what this gathering really meant. Were these preparations for war, or for vengeance, or to repulse a threatened invasion? Many days elapsed before the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for the return of the white men with long beards and in rags, whose exact relation to their own white man they could never understand. Even for those simple minds poor Jim remains under a cloud. —Chapter 45

The Plague by Albert Camus

For Garrett

1. This is a failure. It failed to hold my attention, my interest, or my empathy. It is a convoluted mess, and it leaves me to think that Camus can't be bothered to tell a story, write a sentence, or communicate an idea. At the least he cannot here. His characters are flat and uninteresting and they all speak in the same voice - they are mostly indistinguishable throughout the novel. Even if the character similarities are intentional for some obscure point about "mankind", this is just bad writing. A lot of the pages seem like filler - like they do not illuminate characters, situations, the plot, or the underlying ideas. It also seems like a shallow description of a plague ravaged town that carries little weight or believability. Camus is forever telling his readers that he will explain something later, which I think is a bad writing tactic.  But by the time I got to the end of the book, I wished he would've explained some of the book itself.

2. What is it actually about? I could not argue effectively against a surface interpretation - it could be just a fictional story about a plague town. Where he does gain depth, it's all over the place - Christianity, communalness, love, individuality, revenge, and violence. But I also could not argue against any of those being "the plague". Perhaps violence is the strongest argument simply because Tarrou states explicitly that is the plague to him. But he's not the main character, so have a grain of salt. The third option is contextually based: a besieged city during either world war. The book is based in some unnamed Mediterranean city, and many of those went through similar experiences shortly before the book was written. I don't know, but if Camus did, he should've gotten to the point eventually.

3. It's moderately interesting that the main character is the plague, not a human. But, Charles Dickens did this better in A Tale of Two Cities. And that is the first time I have ever said that Dickens did anything better than anybody.

4. Maybe this was well written in French, but this translation makes it seem poorly written. The translator isn't even named on the cover or inside the book. I can't read the one character struggling to write a single sentence without believing that he is voicing Camus' own frustrations. There are some beautiful descriptions, some poetic metaphors, and an over-arcing mood of strangeness that are all well done. But they are rare enough to be notable.

5. Ultimately, his arguments are ineffective. His anti-Christianity is straw-mannish and overly bitter. His anti-death penalty is idealistic and naive. His saintliness is confusing, but interesting - though he may be actually talking about citizenship. His "love is egoism" argument is shallow and self evident, aside from being repeated so often that I'm sick of it by the end. His individuality arguments are undermined by the lack of same in all of his characters. His arguments about revenge can be summed up with: all people want revenge at times, and sometimes that is a bad thing. The broader argument that adversity draws people together and tears them apart is self evident and not explored in any interesting way that illuminates humans or humanity.

6. If he was satirizing something, I missed it. By writing a bad book he failed to satirize it effectively. If one writes a bad book intending to make fun of bad books, they've just added another bad book to the list. Nothing else. I don't think he was satirizing anything, but I certainly am having a hard time understanding this book. What did I miss here?

7. On reflection of a couple of weeks time, I do think that his main theme is saintliness without god. This explains much, but not everything. I still do not like this book, but realizing this as an ideal helps fit this novel into the oeuvre of Camus' work.