A Hero of Our Time

First of all, I need to give a big shout out to Ingrid of The Blue Bookcase.  Way back near the beginning of my blog, I made a list of great Russian authors of the 19th Century.  Ingrid noticed that I did not mention Mikhail Lermontov, so I added him to my lengthy "To Read" list and picked up a copy of A Hero of Our Time at a used bookstore.  Little did I know that I had a magnificent Russian treasure sitting on my shelves, which I absolutely devoured once I opened its pages.  So Ingrid, thank you for the suggestion!  This is exactly why I love the book blogging world, and I hope any of you who may read my blog can likewise send recommendations my way!

To quickly summarize, A Hero of Our Time can be divided into two parts.  In the first part, the narrator listens to a third party, (Maxim), talk about his experience with the protagonist, Pechorin.  In short, Maxim tells the narrator how Pechorin kidnapped a young girl for a bit of fun, enjoyed the challenge of winning her affection, and then promptly lost interest in her.  Then, the narrator has a brief encounter with Pechorin himself and offers a direct description of him.  In the second half of the novel, the narrator has turned over Pechorin's personal journal, and we read about three of his experiences.  Now we get an inside perspective of Pechorin, which reveals a largely depressed man who is utterly listless about life.

A Hero of Our Time is delightfully Russian.  Lermontov writes in the typical Russian-style narration, in which the narrator frequently interjects in his story with humor, irony, and ample commentary.  Even as I sat in public, I couldn't help but chuckle at some of the narrator's comments as he directly addresses his readers.  Of course, this only occurs in the beginning of the novel before we reach Pechorin's journals.  (If you're curious, Gogol, Goncharov, and Turgenev all write in a similar fashion.)

Another prominently Russian feature of the text is the subject of the "superfluous" hero.  Pechorin is a young, handsome, and wealthy citizen who has tired of the various social engagements and romantic flings he encounters and succumbed to the dreaded ennui.  He's bored.  Repeatedly in his diary, Pechorin laments his lack of feelings and his inability to get excited about things in life.  Many Russian characters display similar problems, and it seems that Lermontov was the first author to create a protagonist like this.  However, I think that Pechorin has many more layers than this.  He frequently contradicts himself, particularly whenever he interacts with his former flame, Vera.  I think these various interactions are really important for understanding the character.  In another contradiction, Pechorin claims that he enjoys having enemies because it makes life more interesting.  However, when he overhears people talking about him negatively, he is shocked and hurt by their remarks.

I liked A Hero of Our Time because it's written well, with an intriguing design to the story and an interesting and multi-dimensional main character.  If this weren't enough, the novel's even more remarkable for its innovation.  Lermontov was one of the leaders of the flourishing 19th century in Russian literature, greatly influencing those who followed him.

As I Lay Dying

I find it a little hard to believe that I've come this far along and have yet to discuss William Faulkner.  I whole-heartedly include Faulkner in any list of brilliant authors, and he is often picked out as one of the best American authors of all time.  In fact, I had the opportunity to attend a short lecture series on American literature while I was in England, and the professor focused primarily on Faulkner.  And if you have a sense of my taste in literature so far, you will not be surprised to hear that I find his dark material irresistibly fascinating.

As I Lay Dying is the first Faulkner novel I ever read.  This was also my first exposure to stream of consciousness in writing, although I didn't know it by that term yet.  Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different character, and their myriad writing styles reflect the dramatic differences between them.  The story follows the eccentric and dysfunctional Bundren family as they carry their dead mother's body in a wagon pulled by mules across a number of towns in the south to bury her in Jefferson.  The story is bursting with dark humor and biting satire, as they experience a series of misadventures that hardly honor the dead.  Yet behind the quirkiness, Faulkner compels readers to reflect on the significance of death, the relativity of sanity, and the meaning of family.

Without question, my favorite thing about this novel is the diversity of characters.  I love the way he takes turns unveiling their perspectives, such as little Vardaman associating his mother's death with killing a fish.  There are fifteen different narrators in all, and even Addie, the dead mother, gets a chance to speak beyond the grave on a chapter.  The most frequent narrator is Darl, whom I find to be the most fascinating character.  For much of the novel, he appears to be the most sane and level-headed of the siblings.  It is easy to notice the father's faults, Cash's obstinateness, and Dewey's selfishness.  Darl, on the other hand, assumes a leadership position among his siblings.  At the same time, he demonstrates a level of sensitivity that the others seem to lack.  Moreover, because the rest of the family speaks with improper grammar and elementary descriptions, Darl's elegant prose and intellect convince readers of his superiority and reliability.  However, as the novel progresses, our perspective of Darl spirals out of control as we eventually realize that he may actually be the least sane of them all.

As I Lay Dying is stylistically innovative, insightfully astute, and generally entertaining.  Faulkner masterfully balances humor with social critique, making this both a fun and stimulating novel.  He also pioneers the stream of consciousness movement, inviting us into the radically diverse minds of fifteen different characters.  I highly recommend it to everyone and happily stick it in my "Classical Literature" shelf.

Blood, Guts, and War: The Iliad

Lately, I have allowed more time for reading and less time for blogging.  I found myself in a mess of a reading pile, trying to complete four completely diverse books at once without making any real progress.  So I put my nose to the grindstone and polished them off one by one.  I hope I did not lose any of you followers while I was doing this, but it needed to be done!

One of these books was Homer's epic poem, The Iliad.  This book was my inspiration for starting a "To-Read" list about seven years ago, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've only just completed it.  When I read The Odyssey, I promised myself I would read the other epic because I had enjoyed Odysseus's adventures so much.  Thus, I wooed it in bookstores, settled it on my own bookshelf, and stroked it longingly to no avail for these past seven years.  Somehow, it became this ominous text floating on my To-Read list that I never quite approached.  There's no logical reason for it; I've read much more challenging and lengthier books in place of it. I wonder if any of you have a book like that on your mental checklist, or maybe I'm just a little crazy.

Anyway, as I finally settled in Homer's meter, I realized that this epic poem was nothing like I anticipated.  The whole scope of the story takes place in the heat of battle.  When it begins, the war has already been raging, and when it ends, the war is not yet complete.  All of those famous stories about Paris seducing Helen and Odysseus creating the Trojan horse are not to be found in The Iliad itself.  Instead, the poem is devoted purely and unabashedly to gruesome battle and bloodshed.

I get the feeling that people in today's society believe that our sense of gore is much more heightened than ever before.  However, these people have clearly not encountered Homer, who wrote somewhere around the 8th century BCE.  His descriptions are so graphically full of gore and fighting that every film version I've ever seen of it now appears paltry in comparison.  So for fun, I thought I'd pick out some of the most wonderfully awful descriptions he uses.  Amazingly, I think Homer manages to kill people in a different and creatively gruesome way every time.  But I should warn you - you might not want to read them if you are faint of heart.

"When Meriones, giving chase, caught up with him, he lunged with his spear, and the point went in the right buttock, under the bone, and into the bladder beneath." (Bk V)

"Phyleus' son Meges, renowned as a spearman, drew near and hurled his sharp spear through the nape of this man's neck.  The point cut off his tongue at its root and lodged between his teeth, and Pedaeus fell in the dust and bit the cold bronze." (Bk V)

"Then bringing his huge sword down on the collarbone of the other, he sheared his shoulder clean off from the neck and back." (Bk V)

"Not without great effort could a man of our generation, no matter how young or strong, so much as lift it with both of his hands, but Ajax raised it up high and hurled it down, smashing the four-hornet helmet and crushing the skull of Epicles, who pitched from the wall like a diver, as spirit took leave of his bones." (Bk XII)

"But not in vain did Deiphobus let the lance fly from his powerful hand, for he struck Hippasus' son in the liver under the midriff, and immediately unstrung his knees." (Bk XIII)

"But Meriones came at him hotly and hurled his spear in between his privates and navel, where Ares is cruelest to suffering mortals.  Deeply he planted it there, and Adamas leaned toward the shaft, writhing about it like a stubborn bull that herdsmen rope in the hills and drag away resisting.  So Adamas twisted and writhed for a while, but not very long - just until the warring Meriones came and wrenched the spear from his gut.  Then darkness enveloped his eyes." (Bk XIII)

Well, I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.  And if you want to explore 400 pages of this, just check out the book.  :)

The Trial of God

I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, so I'm glad I'm finally taking the time to work on it.  The Trial of God by Elie Wiesel is an amazing piece of literature, one fully worth discussion.  Yet although my delay is partly due to the fact that I don't write on this as much as I'd like, there have also been a few other factors.  First of all, The Trial of God is a play, and I find that critically examining plays as literature can be more difficult than novels and short stories because the crucial element of performance is missing.  (I did write about a play once before, analyzing Brian Friel's Translations).  Secondly, the subject material is a bit sensitive and perhaps even controversial.  However, neither of these reasons are legitimate reasons at all, for they may in fact make this an even better source of discussion.

If you are familiar with Elie Wiesel, you probably know him as the author of Night.  Holocaust-survivor and Nobel Laureate, Wiesel is pretty well known in literary circles.  Part of a trilogy, Night is a remarkable book that I would also place in the Classic Literature canon, and I may come back to it later.  (I did!)  However, because The Trial of God is not as familiar, I'd like to bring some attention to it.  As the title suggests, a small group of tortured Jews put God on trial.  But in this case, the story is set in 1649 rather than the 1940s.  As Wiesel simply summarizes it: "In the first act the decision is made to hold a trial.  In the second act there is a problem; nobody wants to play the role of God's attorney.  In the third act we have the trial itself."

The Trial of God deals with many of the themes in Night and other Holocaust literature.  Primarily, where was God in suffering?  Why did he remain silent in horrific tragedy?  How can there be a good and just God in light of so many suffering people?  Understandably, many Jews who experienced this lost their faith or became angry with God.  One of the main characters in the play, Berish, demands that they put God on trial.  He is extremely angry with God and yet also afraid of him.  He has found that he ironically thinks of God far more through his anger after tragedy than before he witnessed human destruction.  He's fed up with feeling compelled to serve God and wants answers.  As he puts it: "Listen, either He is responsible or He is not.  If He is, let's judge Him; if He is not, let Him stop judging us."  When Berish aggressively prosecutes God's defender, he is able to unleash all of his frustration and anger.  Yet at the end of the novel, he firmly holds that he has not rejected his faith.

This entire play offers a fascinating look at one's interaction with God.  The trial itself is not meant to be heretical or sacrilegious; it's an exploration of God's relationship with humanity.  It should never be far from our minds that Wiesel experienced a much more horrific hell in Auschwitz than most of us could begin to imagine.  Thus, he does not approach the subject of suffering lightly or ignorantly.  He offers no solution or easy platitude; in fact, he throws in an extremely disconcerting twist at the end of the play.  Nevertheless, the struggle and emotion in this process is raw and compelling.  Regardless of religious beliefs, I think that many people could benefit from reading/watching this play.  There are no answers, but there are certainly a lot of questions worth pursuing.

The Three Musketeers

I noticed that Allie at A Literary Odyssey is doing a read-along with Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to throw in my two cents.  If anyone has "stood the test of time" in order to qualify as an author of Classic Literature, it's Dumas.  His stories are forever ingrained in society, even penetrating pop culture and common jargon.  In fact, the term "the three musketeers" has so successfully entered everyone's consciousness that we even have a candy bar named after it.  Moreover, The Count of Monte Cristo has come in a close second in our general awareness, inspiring many similar stories such as The Shawshank Redemption.  Yet rather than discussing this based purely on its popularity, I want to think about its literary merit.  I dare ask - Does it deserve the recognition?

Interestingly, the protagonist of The Three Musketeers is not a musketeer at all but a young man named D'Artagnan.  A true Romantic hero, D'Artagnan comes from a poor family and the only legacy he has from his father is a little bit of money, a very pathetic old horse, and a letter to the leader of the musketeers.  D'Artagnan thus leaves dear ol' mom and finds himself immediately overwhelmed in the big city.  His fiery temper quickly causes him to become enemies with the ominous "man from Meung," setting his destiny in motion.  Eventually, he arrives at the center for musketeers and meets our title characters - Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.  In a series of unfortunate events, D'Artagnan aggravates all three of them individually and accepts challenges to a duel from each of them.  Yet when he proves his bravery and loyalty in an impromptu battle, he wins their friendship.

Ok, I admit that there's a slight mocking tone in my head as I write this.  The beginning is so full of cliches that it's almost cheesy.  However, I wonder if this storyline was actually original with Dumas and is now cliche only because it has become so popular.  I have no research or conviction to support this theory, but it does make me relax about the creativity of the plot.  The truth is, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  It didn't feel overdone and silly because it's written so well.  The language is advanced and yet accessible, and the story - if cliche - is  nevertheless engaging.  Moreover, as the story develops, it takes a number of twists and turns I definitely did not anticipate.

So allow me to note the aspects of the novel that I enjoyed and didn't expect.  First of all, I love the diversity between Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.  They have very different personalities, and what really surprised me was their accompanying servants.  The three servants of the musketeers - Grimaud, Mousqueton, and Bazin - are just as critical to the story as the title characters.  They each represent integral components of their masters' personalities and carry significant influence in the story.  Fittingly, the three musketeers arrange for D'Artagnan to have a servant named Planchet, who is one of my favorite characters.  Before reading this, I had no idea that each of the main characters had a servant counterpart I would like so much.

I also loved the pure fun that fills the pages.  Like others in the read-along mentioned, I really flew through the novel and hardly noticed the pages turning.  I have to say that I love D'Artagnan's immaturity and short temper.  I think it gives him a unique character, and I find his flaws endearing.  I even like his foolish romantic obsession with Constance, who I believe has a lot of gumption for a Romantic-era damsel in distress.  I wasn't turned off by the "immorality" of the musketeers because they are the kind of adventure-seeking, high-flying action heroes that I love to love.  Granted, I am more invested in the characters who have moral depth and great integrity, (fellow Frenchie Jean Valjean comes to mind), but sometimes I revel in action-packed fun.  Early in my blogging, I confessed my guilty pleasure of "fluff literature," and I am tempted to label The Three Musketeers as high class fluff.

However, despite the appearance of cliches and simplicity, I do think The Three Musketeers can worthily join the ranks of Classic Literature.  I do not want to downplay the significance of its ability to connect with readers for almost two hundred years.  It's absolutely remarkable that the book has remained so popular throughout so many generations, which indicates that somewhere in the depths of the story, Dumas created a timeless connection with readers.  Perhaps this connection is not overtly emotional or intimate, but I believe there's a message about human nature within these characters.  The story might not be so effective if D'Artagnan had been more mature or if the musketeers had been more purely noble.  I can't pinpoint the reason for its success, but I loved the story and I think it deserves its worldwide recognition.

Blog Hop with Crazy for Books

Welcome Blog Hoppers!  I am joining the Crazy for Books blog hop for the first time today, and I am looking forward to reading your various entries.  This week's question is: "If I gave you $80 and sent you into a bookshop right now, what would be in your basket when you finally staggered to the till?"



I love this scenario!  I could spend hours in a bookstore, and I usually walk out with much less than I wish I could buy.  Used bookstores are particularly dangerous because I can never resist the good deals.  But if I had the money to spend, I would buy nicer editions than I currently have.  I would probably get a hardback copy of some of my favorite books, like Crime and Punishment.  But the books that are currently on my "to-read" list include: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Don Quixote by Cervantes, Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Mishima.

Because I like blogging to be interactive, I'll take this opportunity to get your opinion.  Which of these do you think I should read next?  Or if not one of these, do you have another suggestion for me?  If this is your first time on my blog, you can check out some of my past posts to get a taste of the kind of literature I enjoy.  Thanks for stopping by!

The Waste Land

I hardly feel adequate to discuss T.S. Eliot's masterpiece, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.  I haven't addressed poetry very much in my blog, and the truth is that I don't think I can always appreciate it.  When I first attempted The Waste Land by Eliot, I didn't understand it at all.  I read it quickly and finished simply with, "Huh??"  If you've read it, maybe you can understand the feeling.  But I later invested a lot of time and thought in the poem and grew to have a great respect for it.

When approaching this poem, I think it helps to view it from a Modern perspective.  Eliot was one of the founders of the Modernist movement in literature, and there are a number of features in The Waste Land which illustrate that. The poem famously opens with, "April is the cruelest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land." In much of poetry preceding this, the language was often filled with beauty and romance. Right at the start, Eliot takes the traditionally most romantic season and turns it into one of melancholy. He then drapes each line with an "ing" word at the end, creating a sense of hanging and incompletion. With the accompanying images of cruelty, death, and dullness, the theme of the poem seems to be a reaction against romanticized description.

Another thing that I find interesting in this poem is the repeated use of the word "nothing."  It pops up ten times and is always at the beginning or ending of the line, emphasizing its significance.  This concept of nothingness is crucial to the social despair he conveys throughout the poem.  Eliot doesn't allow any of his characters to form an impression on the readers.  He writes with an indefinite narrator and without any sense of an individual, which is often very confusing.  But the purpose of his poem was not to reveal the thoughts and emotions of one or two fictional characters; it was to create the sense of a disillusioned society in the modern world.  In one of my favorite scenes, Eliot describes a faceless crowd immersed in descriptions of death and despair passing over the London Bridge.  They all avoid eye contact, and the narrator is unable to break the group's anonymity.  This powerful lack of individualism creates a hovering isolation throughout the text.  In a way, it reminds me of some of the apocalyptic literature I talked about recently.

Adding to this effect, there is not a strict timeline in the poem, nor do the events appear to occur chronologically.  Moreover, at times it is difficult to even decipher whether the narrator’s thoughts and experiences are occurring in the present or the past. Eliot's frequent lack of specificity creates a new kind of emotion, one which is prominent in Modern literature. The sense of detachment and uncertainty becomes a writing aesthetic, one that is often known as stream of consciousness.  Many authors in the Modern period, such as Virginia Woolf, use this writing method in their work as well.

These are just a few of the things I picked up on in The Waste Land, and I am certain that there are many more levels of meaning I haven't discovered.  The poem is quite baffling and yet undeniably brilliant.  It amazes me that people can find so many different themes and techniques in this poem through careful examination.  Eliot included so much in such a small quantity of writing, and I believe that "genius" is just about the only word to describe it.