"A book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have." Alan Bennett, 1991
Today is Day 3 of reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Friday, September 14, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Sentimental Education: PS
“Do not read, as children read, to amuse yourself, nor as the ambitious read, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” Gustave Flaubert, 1857
Today is Day 2 of reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Today is Day 2 of reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Book 67: Sentimental Education
“I am afraid that my background will eat up my foreground: that is the trouble with the historical novel.” Gustave Flaubert
I read Sentimental Education without doing any preparation. The little I know of Flaubert comes from Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, a wonderful novel I’ve read several times, and Madame Bovary, a wonderful novel I read once (in 1991). I wanted to read this book because I felt it was about time I read some more Flaubert. I was expecting a historical novel. And I suspected I knew the ending because Barnes’ narrator discusses it in the course of Flaubert’s Parrot, though actually all I really remembered was a specific ending – I won’t spoil it – which could have come from any of Flaubert’s books. But I went into it in a positive frame of mind. I was expecting to enjoy it.
As it turned out, I did enjoy it but it struck me as an enigmatic, elusive book. Having read the brief introduction, I think I now understand why. The surface of Sentimental Education is an oddly disjointed, though not uninvolving, account of a young man’s infatuation with an older woman through a period of French political and social upheaval. There is clarity in Flaubert’s prose, and a merciless lack of sentiment, which feel contemporary. However, if you are only able to appreciate these elements of the book – like me – you are probably missing out. I constantly felt I was missing something. I was. The book has mighty personal and historical resonances. All the characters have their basis in real people, some famous, some obscure. And all the characters represent historical phenomena, philosophies etc., specific to France in the period 1840 – 1865. Moreover, in its realism, the book was adopted by the Naturalist movement, including our hero Huysmans.
In other words, the book has complex personal, historical, biographical and literary contexts. If one reads it without prior knowledge of these, is one’s reading of the novel necessarily incomplete / inferior? If I felt like I was missing something, is that because I was missing something or because the novel is insufficiently involving? I read, for instance, Beloved and War and Peace without feeling I needed a solid historical grounding in specific incidents of slavery or troop movements; in fact I finished both those novels feeling I had learnt about those incidents. I cannot say I felt the same about Sentimental Education. Many of the historical events take place off-stage and several of the characters seemed like ciphers for ideas which remained opaque throughout – or rather, specific to a time and place.
Do we conclude the novel is flawed, because a 21st century Englishman cannot grasp the finer points? Or do we allow the ingenuity of the book, and an acceptance of its contained 19th century resonance, to suffice for a “masterpiece”?
I chose Sentimental Education for our next book group meeting. Discussions of previous books have tended towards characters’ psychological motivation. If this represents the limit of our discussion of Sentimental Education, we’ll be in trouble.
Today is Day 1 of reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
I read Sentimental Education without doing any preparation. The little I know of Flaubert comes from Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, a wonderful novel I’ve read several times, and Madame Bovary, a wonderful novel I read once (in 1991). I wanted to read this book because I felt it was about time I read some more Flaubert. I was expecting a historical novel. And I suspected I knew the ending because Barnes’ narrator discusses it in the course of Flaubert’s Parrot, though actually all I really remembered was a specific ending – I won’t spoil it – which could have come from any of Flaubert’s books. But I went into it in a positive frame of mind. I was expecting to enjoy it.
As it turned out, I did enjoy it but it struck me as an enigmatic, elusive book. Having read the brief introduction, I think I now understand why. The surface of Sentimental Education is an oddly disjointed, though not uninvolving, account of a young man’s infatuation with an older woman through a period of French political and social upheaval. There is clarity in Flaubert’s prose, and a merciless lack of sentiment, which feel contemporary. However, if you are only able to appreciate these elements of the book – like me – you are probably missing out. I constantly felt I was missing something. I was. The book has mighty personal and historical resonances. All the characters have their basis in real people, some famous, some obscure. And all the characters represent historical phenomena, philosophies etc., specific to France in the period 1840 – 1865. Moreover, in its realism, the book was adopted by the Naturalist movement, including our hero Huysmans.
In other words, the book has complex personal, historical, biographical and literary contexts. If one reads it without prior knowledge of these, is one’s reading of the novel necessarily incomplete / inferior? If I felt like I was missing something, is that because I was missing something or because the novel is insufficiently involving? I read, for instance, Beloved and War and Peace without feeling I needed a solid historical grounding in specific incidents of slavery or troop movements; in fact I finished both those novels feeling I had learnt about those incidents. I cannot say I felt the same about Sentimental Education. Many of the historical events take place off-stage and several of the characters seemed like ciphers for ideas which remained opaque throughout – or rather, specific to a time and place.
Do we conclude the novel is flawed, because a 21st century Englishman cannot grasp the finer points? Or do we allow the ingenuity of the book, and an acceptance of its contained 19th century resonance, to suffice for a “masterpiece”?
I chose Sentimental Education for our next book group meeting. Discussions of previous books have tended towards characters’ psychological motivation. If this represents the limit of our discussion of Sentimental Education, we’ll be in trouble.
Today is Day 1 of reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Friday, August 31, 2007
Unhelpful
So here I am reading Sentimental Education, a novel which is slowly and steadily following its own path. I feel I am making good progress. Then I inadvertently read the following in the author biog at the front if the book:
"Sentimental Education (1869), intended as the moral history of his generation, was largely misunderstood by the critics."
"The moral history of his generation"? Sounds good but what the hell does it mean? Anyway, this small phrase made me feel I was entirely missing the point of the book - that the subtext was waaay beyond me and reading it was therefore a somewhat futile exercise. Thanks, anonymous Penguin blurb writer!
Later I was pleased to discover this quote from Flaubert:
"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation-- or, more accurately, the history of their feelings."
Very different thing from the Penguin paraphrase. I think I understand what he means; at least, it complements my reading of the book rather than undermining it. And clearly the blurber was cribbing from the same quote.
Lesson: you can't judge a book by the cover or the blurb, and you shouldn't judge yourself likewise.
Today is Day 3 of reading: Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
"Sentimental Education (1869), intended as the moral history of his generation, was largely misunderstood by the critics."
"The moral history of his generation"? Sounds good but what the hell does it mean? Anyway, this small phrase made me feel I was entirely missing the point of the book - that the subtext was waaay beyond me and reading it was therefore a somewhat futile exercise. Thanks, anonymous Penguin blurb writer!
Later I was pleased to discover this quote from Flaubert:
"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation-- or, more accurately, the history of their feelings."
Very different thing from the Penguin paraphrase. I think I understand what he means; at least, it complements my reading of the book rather than undermining it. And clearly the blurber was cribbing from the same quote.
Lesson: you can't judge a book by the cover or the blurb, and you shouldn't judge yourself likewise.
Today is Day 3 of reading: Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Week off
Too much work, family, Sunday at the Reading Festival and the fatal discovery of Battlestar Galactica on DVD meant a Betterment-free week. Since I stopped commuting in and out of London at the start of the year, three hours of the day with nothing to do but sit still and read have proven to be elusive. I find I get jittery if I don't press on with the List though. (As you'll have noticed, no jitters when it comes to not blogging.)
Today is Day 1 of reading: Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Today is Day 1 of reading: Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Book 66(6): American Psycho
“I’ve perfected my fake response to a degree where it’s so natural-sounding that no one notices.” Pg. 150
I am writing this while listening to the 10th anniversary concert recording of Les Misérables I mentioned yesterday.
When American Psycho was first published, I was working in a bookshop. It was my first full-time job. I was 23. There was a special staff meeting called by the manager to discuss what “we” should do about the book. It was already famously offensive. Should it be displayed prominently on a front table, where anyone could pick it up, leaf through it, and enjoy the blood-spattered descriptions of rapes, murders, mutilations etc.? Should it be up on a top shelf, with the erotica, where only adults could get at it? Or should it be kept behind the counter, available on request, like Little Black Sambo (a horrifically racist and very popular children’s book)? There may even have been some discussion of whether or not we should stock it, but I can’t believe the manager would seriously countenance not selling a novel which had already received so much free publicity – so if we did talk about this option, it must have been as a sop to the middle-aged Christian bookseller on the team. Anyway, I was 23 and a recent Eng Lit graduate, and so I no doubt held forth on the importance of free speech, artistic expression, all that. The upshot of our discussion: the book was prominently displayed on the new fiction table, along with 1991’s other Important Novels, whatever they were. No customers ever complained.
I half-remembered all this while working my way through some of the more disgusting passages of American Psycho. The 23 year-old me would, I suspect, have decided to tell people he found this stuff clever and hilarious; Bast, 39, on the other hand, read much of it through half-closed fingers/eyes. If we had that staff meeting again, I think I would vote for the top shelf.
There are two reasons for this. One: I am probably more squeamish now than I was then, and I have a child – violence seems rather less amusing. Two: I am not convinced that the artistic merits of American Psycho justify either the novel’s length or the explicitness of its horrors. The combined result seems rather less than the sum of its parts. It’s a fact that, over the last fifteen years, the book has proved perennially popular with those readers who are simply looking for some really good murders and many of whom skip all the “boring” stuff about Ralph Lauren, Huey Lewis etc. Having said that, much of the book is very funny, and it worms its way into the psyche. The repetition of certain phrases, the lists of brand names, the interchangeability of key characters, women, bums etc. – the satirical power of the book is intact and has not dated much (sadly – yuppie-ism now being a general and widespread state of mind rather than being restricted to one societal group.) Yet, although the length and relentlessness of the book has a kind of mesmerising effect, broken by the eruptions of the old ultraviolence*, once that card has been played it’s difficult to see any deeper purpose to these outbreaks of hacking, slashing and imaginative cruelty than to allow the author to display his (if you will) chops – the satire is almost entirely contained elsewhere. The book is framed in its first and last lines (“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” and “This Is Not An Exit” respectively) as a sealed chamber of horrors or an Inferno, but it sometimes feels static as a result. Or perhaps that’s the point. Either way, I often felt as weary and drained as Patrick Bateman, however energizing the latest dismemberment or killing spree.
* A Clockwork Orange, by contrast, did not provoke this reaction in me. The violent scenes and the over-all intent of the film seemed to be in proportion.
Third cult book in a row, and third portrait of rampant self-interest – not a coincidence. I am wearing black Levis 501s, black M&S socks, the same black M&S cardigan as yesterday, and a blue Mogwai t-shirt which reads: COME ON DIE YOUNG.
Last word to Patrick Bateman: ‘“I think his work … it has a kind of … wonderfully proportioned, purposefully mock-superficial quality.”’ pg. 95
I am writing this while listening to the 10th anniversary concert recording of Les Misérables I mentioned yesterday.
When American Psycho was first published, I was working in a bookshop. It was my first full-time job. I was 23. There was a special staff meeting called by the manager to discuss what “we” should do about the book. It was already famously offensive. Should it be displayed prominently on a front table, where anyone could pick it up, leaf through it, and enjoy the blood-spattered descriptions of rapes, murders, mutilations etc.? Should it be up on a top shelf, with the erotica, where only adults could get at it? Or should it be kept behind the counter, available on request, like Little Black Sambo (a horrifically racist and very popular children’s book)? There may even have been some discussion of whether or not we should stock it, but I can’t believe the manager would seriously countenance not selling a novel which had already received so much free publicity – so if we did talk about this option, it must have been as a sop to the middle-aged Christian bookseller on the team. Anyway, I was 23 and a recent Eng Lit graduate, and so I no doubt held forth on the importance of free speech, artistic expression, all that. The upshot of our discussion: the book was prominently displayed on the new fiction table, along with 1991’s other Important Novels, whatever they were. No customers ever complained.
I half-remembered all this while working my way through some of the more disgusting passages of American Psycho. The 23 year-old me would, I suspect, have decided to tell people he found this stuff clever and hilarious; Bast, 39, on the other hand, read much of it through half-closed fingers/eyes. If we had that staff meeting again, I think I would vote for the top shelf.
There are two reasons for this. One: I am probably more squeamish now than I was then, and I have a child – violence seems rather less amusing. Two: I am not convinced that the artistic merits of American Psycho justify either the novel’s length or the explicitness of its horrors. The combined result seems rather less than the sum of its parts. It’s a fact that, over the last fifteen years, the book has proved perennially popular with those readers who are simply looking for some really good murders and many of whom skip all the “boring” stuff about Ralph Lauren, Huey Lewis etc. Having said that, much of the book is very funny, and it worms its way into the psyche. The repetition of certain phrases, the lists of brand names, the interchangeability of key characters, women, bums etc. – the satirical power of the book is intact and has not dated much (sadly – yuppie-ism now being a general and widespread state of mind rather than being restricted to one societal group.) Yet, although the length and relentlessness of the book has a kind of mesmerising effect, broken by the eruptions of the old ultraviolence*, once that card has been played it’s difficult to see any deeper purpose to these outbreaks of hacking, slashing and imaginative cruelty than to allow the author to display his (if you will) chops – the satire is almost entirely contained elsewhere. The book is framed in its first and last lines (“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” and “This Is Not An Exit” respectively) as a sealed chamber of horrors or an Inferno, but it sometimes feels static as a result. Or perhaps that’s the point. Either way, I often felt as weary and drained as Patrick Bateman, however energizing the latest dismemberment or killing spree.
* A Clockwork Orange, by contrast, did not provoke this reaction in me. The violent scenes and the over-all intent of the film seemed to be in proportion.
Third cult book in a row, and third portrait of rampant self-interest – not a coincidence. I am wearing black Levis 501s, black M&S socks, the same black M&S cardigan as yesterday, and a blue Mogwai t-shirt which reads: COME ON DIE YOUNG.
Last word to Patrick Bateman: ‘“I think his work … it has a kind of … wonderfully proportioned, purposefully mock-superficial quality.”’ pg. 95
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The joy of repetition really is in me
I am wearing eight hole, ox blood Dr Martens boots, with blue 501 jeans from Levis, a red Golf Punk t-shirt, plus black socks and heavyweight black zip-up cardigan from Marks and Spencer. I have the original double LP of the London cast recording of Les Misérables and the 10th anniversary concert recording on CD. In town this morning, there was a copy of Invisible Touch by Genesis ("the group's undisputed masterpiece") in the window of a charity shop, which made me laugh. But not out loud.
‘"All I can think about is this poster I saw in the subway station the other night before I killed these two black kids – a photo of a baby calf, its head turned toward the camera, it eyes caught wide and staring by the flash, and its body seemed like it was boxed into some kind of crate, and in big, black letters below the photo it read, ‘Question: Why Can’t This Veal Calf Walk?’ Then, ‘Answer: Because It Only Has Two Legs.’ But then I saw another one, the same exact photo, the same exact calf, yet beneath it, this one read, ‘Stay Out Of Publishing.’"’ Pg. 116
Today is Day 7 of reading: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
‘"All I can think about is this poster I saw in the subway station the other night before I killed these two black kids – a photo of a baby calf, its head turned toward the camera, it eyes caught wide and staring by the flash, and its body seemed like it was boxed into some kind of crate, and in big, black letters below the photo it read, ‘Question: Why Can’t This Veal Calf Walk?’ Then, ‘Answer: Because It Only Has Two Legs.’ But then I saw another one, the same exact photo, the same exact calf, yet beneath it, this one read, ‘Stay Out Of Publishing.’"’ Pg. 116
Today is Day 7 of reading: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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