I was reading Pale Fire. In fact two weeks ago, I started it. But in reality, I only read three pages. Then I was out of town for a week. Normally, I find a lot of time to read when I'm away, but this was a trip to Disneyland. Disneyland does not afford me a lot of time to read. My days were occupied by trying to go on as many rides as possible, while my nights were spent recovering from having spent all day trying to go on as many rides as possible.
While Disneyland continues to be as fun as ever for me, if not more fun, I've found that the older I get, the harder a 12-hour shift at the Happiest Place on Earth becomes. What attempts I did make to read ended with me falling asleep, and having no recollection of the previous one or two pages.
I was surprised at how many people I would see reading at Disneyland. 100% of these people were ladies over the age of 70, who I'm guessing aren't the biggest fans of rides, but it was still odd. I've also seen, on more than one occasion, people reading at sporting events. I guess if you love to read, you bring a book with you wherever you go, as you never know when you might have a couple of spare minutes.
Upon my return to Calgary, I realized my copy of Pale Fire was due back to the library while I had been away, and since somebody else had placed a hold, I was unable to renew. I debated just holding it until I finished, but having only progressed another two or three pages, didn't feel I'd be able to get it done soon enough. So, for the second time, I have stopped reading a book on this list (Neuromancer was the other) and moved on to The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene.
This isn't a reflection of Pale Fire at all, in fact it was one I was really looking forward to, having enjoyed Lolita so much. The timing just didn't work out I guess. I have since placed a hold on it, and should be able to make it number 69 or 70.
My progress on The Heart of the Matter is going much better, and I am about a third of the way through it. And it's very enjoyable.
I have finished The French Lieutenant's Woman. And it was a great book in so many ways. In fact is was great in so many ways, that I'm having trouble putting them all down on paper. It was unique, that is for sure, and it was well written (as most of these 100 seem to be), but most importantly it had a really...enjoyable quality to it.
But alas, I need more time to put all my thoughts into something cohesive, and today is Labor Day. This means two things for me: I will not be doing any laboring, and I will be watching football. It's currently 26C and climbing out...a perfect day for reading, but an even better day for tailgating and watching the Stampeders destroy the Eskimos. I'll try and get my review of #67 up in a few days.
I've already decided what I'll be reading next too; Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita was one of my favorite so far, so I head into this one with lofty expectations, and great anticipation.
It's well documented that I've sort of been avoiding Thomas Pynchon. He has two books on The List, and one of them, Gravity's Rainbow has been borrowed from the library twice. Twice it has been renewed the maximum of four times, and twice it has been returned unread. When it sits on my desk, it stares at me, intimidating me with its 750 pages, and scaring me with its tales of woe from other readers. But his other book, The Crying of Lot 49, is only 152 pages. I refuse to be intimidated by something the size of a Reader's Digest.
Where to begin with my 42nd read... The Crying of Lot 49 could best be described as a cryptic and mysterious read filled with intrigue, confusion, and comedy. I'd classify it as postmodernist, but I only use that word because of Moe's description on "The Simpsons," where he describes 'po-mo' as "weird for the sake of weird." This book fits that definition perfectly.
Oedipa Mass has just been named co-executor to the estate of her late boyfriend, the mega-wealthy Pierce Inverarity. Through Oedipa's travels in Southern California, in her attempt to piece together some of his life, she first stumbles upon the acronym W.A.S.T.E on a restroom stall. In her attempt to find out more, she finds herself immersed into a bizarre world of underground post offices, and a world-wide conspiracy for domination of the mail system. Or at least I think that's what it was about. It might have been about rare stamps or LSD or pop music. I think part of the appeal of this book may be the reader's ability to interpret it so many different ways. Oedipa's travels, and the characters she meets, while loosely connected, really act as a series of vignettes; and at times don't seem connected. One begins to wonder if this whole 'conspiracy' is a set up. But if it is, the reasons for the set up are unknown and I had to wonder if it was Oedipa or me, the reader, being had.
The other appeal of this book is the style in which it was written. Pynchon seems to be a fan of word play, with every character, every setting, basically everything in this book seemingly named for some humorous purpose. It's as if the entire novel is one continuous string of puns and allusions. There's the Confederate Ship named the "Disgruntled," or Oedipa's contact at a bar named Mike Fallopian. There's the pop band 'The Paranoids,' the play within a play, 'The Courier's Tragedy', and the fictional town of San Narciso. It's a book I'd have to read again, or perhaps a few more times to even begin to grasp the many puzzles and riddles Pynchon uses.
My first impression was this book wasn't my style; I'm just not a fan 'weird for the sake of weird.' But as I contemplate it, I appreciate what I was able to take from it. The word play is clever, funny even, and allowed for me to enjoy the book, even when I was finding the story confusing and hard to follow. And I think in the end, that's the best part of this book.
Because it's on the short side, and because it has these witty aspects, it allows a heavy author like Thomas Pynchon to be accessible to most readers. Or at least more accessible then I'm sure his more daunting books, like Gravity's Rainbow, would be. In a way, The Crying of Lot 49 allows a broader audience to experience a novel of this type or style or complexity, without getting a headache. But while I could make my way through this book, and even enjoy it on some level, I fear for the much more in-depth, much more cryptic, and, let's face it, much longer, Gravity's Rainbow.
You can read the original TIME magazine review from May 6, 1966 right here. It seems they didn't really like this book in 1966, referring to it as a 'nosepicking contest.'
You can hear me discuss The Crying of Lot 49 on the Calgary Eyeopener, right here.
Notes: One of 'The Paranoids' songs in the book makes references to Humbert Humbert from Lolita and his quest for nymphets. It turns out, that Pynchon studied under Nabokov at Cornell in the late 50's.
The meaning of 'the crying of lot 49' isn't revealed until the last line of the book. But it doesn't really explain much!
I don't know what I plan to read next. I'll have to visit the library today as my supply of books has dwindled.
I think everybody knows what Lolita is about, or at least has a vague idea. The term 'Lolita' has entered the modern lexicon to refer to 'sexually procarious' young girls, so it's no surprise to learn this novel is the story of a man and his affair with his 12-year old step daughter.
Self-named 'Humbert Humbert' narrates his story from prison, where he awaits trial for murder, the story of his life as a pedophile and his courtship of the 12 year old Dolores Haze, whom he refers to as Lolita. Humbert first marries the girl's mother, in an effort to remain close to his true love, and it isn't until her untimely (or for Humbert, timely) death that the 'dirty old man' is able to make his move and prey on his Lolita. The two travel across the country, going from motel room to motel room, taking part in acts indescribable even by the narrator, the man who committed them.
As you can well imagine, the book caused a bit of a stir when it was first published in France in 1955. It was ordered to be seized and destroyed in the UK until 1957, and wasn't published in America until 1958 (it is interesting to note that an American firm offered to publish it in 1955 if Nabokov changed the Lolita character into a young boy). Of course that isn't much of a surprise, the subject matter remains controversial even today.
While the subject is so controversial and continues to be morally wrong in our society, Nabokov is able to weave it into a story without attempting to condemn or even comment on it. The author states in the afterword that "there is no moral to the story" and never at any point was he trying to deliver a message. He was simply telling a good story. And this is exactly why I enjoyed this book so much. It wasn't the controversial subject matter, or the shock value of the it, but rather the excellent writing, the wit, and the characters.
Lolita is very well written, almost like poetry, with the words flowing from one page to another so beautifully, the reader gets lost in the descriptions and the narrator's inner-monologue, instead of the dark underbelly of pedophilia. Looking back, I find it difficult to describe the feelings I experienced while reading Lolita. When Humbert's wife, Lolita's mother, discovers his true feelings by reading his diary, she runs out of the house with the intention of telling the world what kind of monster he really is. At this point, I found myself worried he would be exposed, instead of being relieved at the prospect. When she runs into the street and is struck by a bus moments later, Nabokov creates a sense of ease, leaving me relieved at Humbert's sudden liberation. It is hard to explain why I would feel relief that a pedophile's accuser has been killed, leaving him free to rape a 12-year old girl, but oddly, that is what I felt.
But this isn't to say Nabokov handles this subject as light-hearted or funny, nor do his descriptions ever suggest what Humbert is doing isn't wrong. Quite the opposite in fact, even Humbert realizes what he is doing and why it is wrong, he simply feels that he can't help himself. But despite the nature of the subject, Nabokov is able to inject a lot of humour into the story; often from Humbert's descriptions of the things around him, like his distaste for Lolita's obsessions with American pop culture and his distaste for what he sees as short comings of that society. And the inner battle Humbert often has with himself was also quite funny, but become less and less so as he slowly comes to grips with what a monster he had become.
It is Humbert's descent into this realization, his descent into his own personal hell, that the books takes a more serious turn. In the beginning I was curious as to what was going to happen, wondering how an affair would ever begin between a 12 year old and a grown man. In the end I had to keep reading to see how that affair would reach it's inevitable end and who would be left standing when it did.
You can read Time magazine's original review from September 1, 1958 right here.
Next up I plan on reading The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. I haven't read a book from the 20's for a while, To the Lighthouse was the last, and it doesn't look too lengthy. Again I find myself worried about the length of the books I read. In an effort to make up for time lost to Infinite Jest, I want to read some shorter books, but at the same time don't want to leave myself with only the really long ones at the end.
Notes: I returned Lolita three days late, and incurred $1.40 in fines. That puts my total at around twenty bucks.
After fifty days, I have finally finished Infinite Jest. It was a gargantuan read, and I truly did try to read it as fast as I could. However, the combination of small print, large pages, and over a thousand of them, there really wasn't anyway I was going to finish this one quickly. I guess if I was going to take a ride on the Ark, this would be the perfect book to take with me.
I've read a plethora of reviews on this book, and see that people either really like it or really hate it, there's no in between. My first instinct is to say I'm in the latter group, but I've been having second thoughts. At first glance, I didn't enjoy the story (or lack there of), I didn't really enjoy a lot of the humor, and for the most part found myself only reading out of a sense of obligation, not because I had any interest in continuing.
But now I'm starting to wonder how much of my distaste for the book was related to its' size. By just looking at it sitting on my desk, I felt defeated. It was heavy to carry around with me, it's uncomfortable to hold up to read, and I grew tired of people saying, "you're still reading that one..." Of course I'm still reading it, it's over a thousand goddamn pages!
But while the size was a major factor, really it just wasn't my kind of read. Following an array of different people at a Boston tennis academy and a nearby addiction recovery house, the book would float between the two story lines, often losing this reader in the process. Yes, I'm admitting I didn't really understand a lot of the book, but I don't put the blame entirely on myself. Part of it was the meandering-take-four-pages-to-describe-what-should-only-take-four-sentences approach to Wallace's prose, while part of it was the not-too-distant-future setting where society has taken a severe turn for the worst. I never like these 'the future sucks' type stories and when it's stretched out over a thousand pages, I found myself frequently bored. With boredom comes a wondering mind and soon I find myself not paying enough attention.
So maybe it wasn't so much that I didn't understand the book, but rather that I found it difficult to pay attention to it. And like a teacher or speaker, if you have trouble paying attention, it might speak to the quality of the work as much as it does to the attention span of the student or audience. While I wouldn't put this book as low as my current cellar-dweller, Naked Lunch, it isn't much higher up the list.
Now that I've taken so much time ro read Infinite Jest, I'm going to need to do some serious catch-up in order to continue my pace of two books per month. I'm starting with Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I'm vaguely familiar with the story and I have the feeling it shouldn't take too long to read. At only 330 pages, it seems like a mere pamphlet compared to #28.
You can read Time magazine's original review from February 19, 1996 right here.
I headed to the library today with a couple of things in mind. First off, I need to read a couple of books that I know nothing about. While I haven’t read the vast majority of the books on the list, I might have seen the movie (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) or I might be very familiar with the story (Lolita) despite not having read it or seen the movie. However, most of the books on the list don’t fit into either category. Let's face it, I haven’t even heard of most of these books. So instead of finding myself with thirty books to go, none of which I know anything about, I’ve decided to make a point of tackling some of these novels.
I came out with two selections from today’s trip; Beloved by Toni Morrison and Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I don’t know anything about Beloved or its author, and the only thing I know about Tropic of Cancer is that it’s supposed to be quite racy. And I only know this from that episode of ‘Seinfeld’ where Jerry has a 25-year overdue library book.
I think I’ll start with Beloved as it would come first alphabetically. Written in 1987, this will be by far the newest book I’ve read so far, the next one being The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, written in 1964.
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and his quest for nymphets. It turns out, that Pynchon studied under Nabokov at Cornell in the late 50's.
