My Experience Of Russian Prose Continues To Improve

(and my blog titles are starting to look like Panic! at the Disco song titles)

After struggling through my library books (The Screaming Staircase - Stroud; August and Then Some - Prete; Some Sing, Some Cry - Shange and Bayeza; The Magic of Saida - Vassanji; A Hundred Flowers - Tsukiyama) with a smattering of others (The Left Hand of Darkness - LeGuin; The Uncommon Reader - Bennett; two SciAms) I took on three books which I had borrowed from friends (Robot Visions - Asimov; Oryx and Crake - Atwood; Xenocide - Card) and subsequently returned (only to receive further books!!), and I am now partaking of the feast that is Doctor Zhivago.  I reached 50% this morning (Kindle, why can't you count page numbers?).

My favorite thing about Pasternak is that he was a poet and wrote his prose in a very lyrical way.  His similes are so inspiring that I am now irked at the lack of such in my own writings.  I wonder if simile usage can be learned like improvisation or harmonizing in music, like a sublanguage that adds flavor and in which one can become truly fluent, without much conscious translation.  Pasternak writes like it's the easiest thing, like leaving out simile would be like writing without adverbs.

Basically I would really have liked to meet him and he is definitely going on my list of Dead People I'd Invite To A Great Party.

Sons of Anarchy

Welcome to the wild American west that's still outside the law. This show follows a present-day motorcycle club called the Sons of Anarchy as they sell illegal weapons, fight turf wars with rival gangs, and try to stay one step ahead of the law and keep their small California town Charming just the way they like it.

The story driving the show is basically Hamlet. I hope it doesn't mean that everyone ends up dead, although right now the club is up to its ears in problems with the ATF, the Aryan Brotherhood, the IRA, and their own infighting as the balance of power tilts from the club's president to its VP.

Here is Jax (played by Charlie Hunnam), a.k.a. Hamlet, complete with skull so he can talk to his dad.

Is this show realistic? I hope real motorcycle clubs aren't like this. The show's violence is as sadistic as that in Game of Thrones; credibility and retaliation mean everything to these guys. It's almost more appalling because it's modern day and all too relatable. If the show were realistic it would also mean there's a huge underground network of guns, drugs, and sex in the U.S. Sadly, that much is probably true. I watch in fascination ("oh god, he's not going to...oh sh*t! that must hurt") but I have not the smallest desire to experience this world.

Ultimately the show is downright compelling for several reasons. The first is that I find myself rooting for people who are doing bad things and it's fascinating to see how messed up my moral compass gets. The second is that alliances and enemies shift almost every episode, which makes for a bevy of plot twists and dramatic reveals. The third is that the comedic relief is so intense and so incredibly funny. There is no humor in Game of Thrones; everything just always gets worse. The writers in Sons build the tension to a breaking point and when they throw in a gag sequence and you laugh as hard as you can to wash the pain away.

Books Make Me Bad at Things

November is going to be a constant struggle between my appetite for reading and my sensible need to complete graduate school applications.

Anyhow, I finished Girl With a Pearl Earring last week and it was beautiful and it was sad and I wonder how many people still paint with crushed bone and also I want to learn Dutch.

I'm almost done with Audrey which means I'll get to start my library books.  Possibly tomorrow.  As long as I do some apps ugh

It's been forever, but I'm back!

Hey ladies!
I'm alive! So, I've started my program again this semester, and so my readings are mostly about families, groups, and grief counseling. Very interesting, but not exactly blog-worthy. This summer, Jon and I worked our way through The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind. However, we only made our way through 2 of the books BECAUSE- I read them aloud. Since I think y'all have both read these books, I'll save the synopsis, but I will say that, like most long fantasy novels I read, I did NOT like the main character. Seriously, why are the male leads in those books always so annoying? Also, the main female character is super super whiny. Now- here is what I learned about reading long books aloud.
1. I should never attempt to do voices while reading aloud. I'd read the descriptions, like raspy, and give it a try the first couple of times a character was introduced. Each time, Jon went, "Oh no. Stop. That's... no." However, he did take the responsibility of making sound effects....
2. Chapters are longer than you think. Seriously.
3. There are lot of parts of books that I usually skim. Jon insisted that we not skip whole sections(!) so every word was considered! And might I say- I really enjoyed it! A lot of times when I listen to books on tapes, I am amazed by the ways that authors manage to say things so perfectly. Even so, listening to entire paragraphs about how the trees look bores me. However, reading it aloud made all the difference. I wasn't bored because I was focusing on reading it and still amazed at the wordings. I highly recommend doing this.
4. I am horrible with names. Absolutely terrible. To make it worse, usually the main character was Richard, then it would switch to sections where Rachel was the main character. Then Rachel and Richard met. I went nuts. I was switching names all the time. I always knew who I was talking about, but it seemed like every page at least, Jon would stop me and ask, "Wait- who?" And I'd re-read it and laugh. It made for some very interesting scenarios.
SO- I highly recommend reading books aloud. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It also provides a fun and relaxing way to end the day! And I recommend the first two books of the Sword of Truth novels! They are a fun read.

The Memory Chalet

or, Tony Judt's Wordcraft is Trumped Only, Perhaps, by That of Stephen Fry.

I received this book for free some years ago from an erudite source whose taste I am slowly learning to trust (I did like his Geography of Thought, and expect to struggle with the Dirac book he indirectly lent me for eternity but no doubt I will enjoy it too).  My love of The Memory Chalet surprised me as it was a gentle slope of increased affection; I hardly noticed I couldn't put the book down until it was the middle of a new Supernatural episode and I realized I was muting the commercials to inhale another couple of paragraphs.  (This is unheard-of.)

I think I found it more precious for the complete lack of knowledge I had about it before I opened it to the first page and began to read.  I had assumed it to be a novella, something Woolf-ish or modern, contemplative; but it's nonfiction.  Judt took me on a tour of his life with an expertise I have experienced (in The Color of Water) but have not come to expect of memoirs, especially those of stuffy English scholars.

I hesitate to say any more.  I highly recommend the book, and also that you read nothing about it or its author before starting, and let him tell you his life without outside influence.  (I wonder if I've said too much as it is.)

Next on the list: Girl with a Pearl Earring

The Incredible Brothers Karamazov

This summer Christina and I read The Brothers Karamazov in order to watch the 1958 film adaptation. We're going to discuss it here - there are spoilers aplenty but were you honestly going to read it anyway? You should just read our concise and interesting analysis!

Father Fyodor, Brothers Dmitri, Alyosha, and Ivan

Scratch paper proves Dostoevsky put some thought into this

A: I vacillate between loving this book and hating it. I adore all three of the brothers but the bad choices that everyone made and the trial outcome drive me nuts. Not to mention Ivan going crazy; that made me so sad. I bet reading books like this is what made Ayn Rand create Objectivism. How did you feel about it? Do you think the lessons in this book are applicable to modern life?

C: The book was sad.  It was well written up until the resolution; the narrator is sassy and self-deprecating and felt as real a character to me as anyone else in the story.  The movie became a fanart of the original, which was a good move, because we needed to see justice done and the brothers happy.  I would've liked Katya and Ivan to get on, and of course we can daydream about them all getting along happily in the American West, but for what little the movie did it went a long way to curing my dissatisfaction with the book.  I wonder what Dostoevsky was thinking, leaving us hanging with Dmitri's fate like that.  He kept such good track of the story up until that point!

I did not adore the brothers in the book.  I think the only character I grew to love was Grushenka.  She was hateful at first of course, and she was the cause of the entire mess (except for Smerdyakov), but she was bitter and cynical and became loving and willing to bind her life to a drowning man's...  I could never do that, but I admire her for it, and her transformation gives me hope for myself.

Plus, look at her!  Who can't love that face?

A: We're not just going to dream about their new life; we're going to write it. American Moors II, after we finish rewriting Jane Eyre! How could you not love sweet Alyosha who tied all the pieces together and was a good listener and believed in his brother no matter what, and who led the boys around Illyusha's bedside and helped them through such sad times? And Dmitri, who is never able to get a handle on money and who loves well but not wisely? (Thanks Shakespeare!) I may also love him because he and I are both fans of Last of the Mohicans. Awesome that Dostoevsky references that right?

I suppose my love of Ivan is a little more radical. I thought the Grand Inquisitor poem was smashing - I believe humans too often want to follow things greater than them and do what they are told to do, and don't want to choose freely. And his ideas about how Jesus would fare in the Inquisition - amazing! I'd never thought about it before. Ivan's thoughts made him one of my favorite characters early on -- like during the part of the book where Dmitri is doing some psycho-stalking that makes me dislike him. 

Exhibit A: hiding in bushes

The point is - Ivan was so smart and so troubled, and I wanted to comfort him. The murder was not his fault; he'd have to stop it every time and Smerdyakov would only have to succeed once. I thought Dostoevsky was taking the trial in a direction where Ivan--the smart one voicing many of Dostoevsky's own ideas--would figure out how to solve everything and exonerate Dmitri. Instead Dostoevsky makes Ivan descend into madness. Why why WHY?

I loved Grushenka too! I want to watch Maria Schell in other things - she was excellent in the movie. But Katya, she was terrible! I thought she was worse than Anna Karenina - did you?


C: It's cruel of me to say it, but Alyosha's the kind of person I can't understand or relate to at all.  He's very compassionate, which is great, but the amount of faith the guy has is a total turn-off.  I don't mean sexually, I mean in any respect.  He's not real.  Reality does not allow people like that to prevail.  Unfortunately that archetype -- the one who allows God to guide his every thought and action, and who therefore comes to no harm -- is rather common in classic lit.  It just annoys the hell out of me.  Where are my saintly scientists??  Ivan I thought at first might be my man, but he turns to God in the end, and he always believed he was seeing the Devil, which sucks and isn't his fault but precludes him from being the hero I'm looking for.  And for Dmitri, God is a nonentity.  He spends no time wondering about Him, or asking the big questions -- he thinks with his heart and his libido.  So again, kind of a turn-off.

To answer your question about Dostoevsky's motives toward Ivan's character: I think Ivan's transformation from cold atheist to believer could be something Dostoevsky himself experienced.  The madness thing might be explained by his motive to write this story at all, which I think was not to describe morals or do any of the things you look for in stories.  I think he started with a question: "Can the legal system logically make the wrong choice?/Is there a situation in which all the evidence points towards guilt when the man is truly innocent?"  And he demonstrates that it can.  Which might be an argument against man's justice system in favor of God's?

"Did y'all f*** it up again?  Don't make me come down there."

A: Classic literature is usually written by people aiming to preach morals of some sort, so yeah, characters with unshakeable belief in God are rather common. But I know people like that in real life too, in the 21st century no less. I don't see much in common between my life and the lives of the characters so I can't say I relate to them either, but I definitely sympathize with them since they're all caught in unfair situations and I want them to be happy. If I knew Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha in real life I daresay I would like them as they are. 

But though I liked the three leads I can't say I liked the plot. Parricide isn't new. Botched court cases aren't new. (Perhaps they were new when this was written.) There was no satisfying triumph, and I hate stories whose specific point is to tell you that things are bad without offering suggestions for how to fix them. Plus this story hinged on some disappointing turns of events, i.e., Katya betraying Dmitri (plausible, yes, but appropriate for what is supposedly one of the greatest books of all time?) and Ivan going crazy. 

That's one reason I liked the movie, it smoothed over all those rough edges while making the characters even more interesting.

If you couldn't relate to the main characters and they weren't the heroes you were looking for. What made you love it so much?

You'd be amazed how much fanart is out there about this book. This is a surprisingly accurate summary! From left to right: Grushenka, Fyodor, Dmitri, Katya, Ivan, Smerdyakov, Alyosha, Krasotkin, Zhuchka. ((C)spoonybards)

C: The greatest books of all time don't have to show us at our best; many of them are classics because they are the firsts to tell it like it is.  Classic lit is just historical real talk.

I appreciate stories that tell it like it is, even if the characters aren't heroes and the resolution sucks.  They give me a sense of history in a fun way, unlike what reading news articles or essays from the time would do.  I think the "greats" become such by virtue of their generally perceived accuracy.  Lots of people read them at the time or soon after because they could see the connections to their own lives.  I'm not a small-town Russian in 1870, nor am I trapped in a marriage I am dissatisfied with, nor do I have two lovers, nor do I enjoy debauchery... My life is just so different from these books that it's tough to connect on anything other than a scholarly level.

A: Interesting. Many classics are valued for their ability to capture an era for sure, but I tend to think of the best classics as the ones that transcend the time period and speak to some human element that most can relate to no matter where we are or when we read it. That's why I got bored during the discussions about peasant revolutions and whether or not the Russian church should embrace elders, but I loved the dynamics between the brothers. It's also why I was disappointed that nothing really seemed applicable to life now. Or perhaps I'm just not in the mood to receive the message that we should keep faith in the face of injustice and the absence of miracles.

27-year-old William Shatner could sell me on it though, especially with that firm jawline.

Recent Reads

Books I've read since finishing GEB:

Leonardo: The First Scientist 

Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide 

The Brothers Karamazov

The Color of Water 

Interworld 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane 

Norwegian Wood 

The Lake, the River, and the Other Lake 

The Last Runaway

Anthem: An American Road Story 

Turn Right at Machu Picchu 

Flatland 

Musicophilia

I'll talk to anyone about any of them, but summarizing even the best ones would be a struggle.  I would recommend all except Interworld (unless you like YA sci-fi) and The Lake, the River, and the Other Lake (unless you like very real depictions of small-town Michigan) (there is a dark underbelly to this book) (like I really didn't want to read about pervy old men, thanks).

The best ones were: The Color of Water, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Anthem, and Musicophilia.