A Peaceful Progress...

Look at me go! With my rejuvenated zeal for this project, I'm already 20% finished #77, The Golden Notebook. I'm still not really sure what to think of the book yet. Some parts are interesting, some not so much. As a result, some parts seems to be moving a little faster than others. And the way the book is written, I think I have a good idea of which parts are going to be the quicker reads. Regardless, this shouldn't be one that gets me bogged down too much.

One thing of note is a reference to another list book, something that has always interested me. In The Golden Notebook, one character calls another couple "The Gatsbys", an obvious reference to Fitzgerald's novel, to remark on their social nature.

I recall the first time a list book referred to another, when Gary from The Corrections was reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to his children. At the time I found it very interesting, and I suppose quite surprising. Having read an additional 64 list books, it isn't as surprising anymore but it is still interesting. To me anyway.

The last book to reference another, was White Teeth, which easily holds the current record for most references to other list books, with six. A Passage to India is read, Judy Blume, EM Forester, and Vladimir Nabokov are quoted, The Catcher in the Rye is burned, and Salman Rushdie is protested.

I suppose I should summarize all these references sometime...another day perhaps.

#72 - "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret" by Judy Blume

It was predicted it would take me longer to write a review of this book than it did to read it. I'm guessing that'll be true as the book only took a little over an hour. Mind you those last two sentences only took ten seconds to write, so we'll see. My 72nd book from the Time list was Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume, and I'm hoping this quick read was just what I needed to get back on track.

This was definitely one of the strangest books on the list; not because the book itself was strange, but that it's strange to find it on a list such as this. Much the same way it is still strange to me that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, would be on the list; children's books simply don't have the complexity and the artistic flare of adult books. Of course they don't strive for those things either, because then they wouldn't be children's books.

And mark how well the sequel hangs together:

One of the most shameless money making ploys in the movie business is the sequel.  In most cases a sequel is not meant to continue the story or revisit the characters, but to offer the studio a chance to make more money, rehashing the same thing that appeared in the first movie.  There are of course exceptions, like 'The Godfather Part II' or The Lord of the Rings movies, but most sequels fall into the "Weekend at Bernie's II" category.

This isn't unique to movies however, as books have long used the sequel for the same reason; people who loved the first one will probably buy the second book, regardless of its quality or relevancy.  In fact it works so well in the literary world, we see certain genres rely almost exclusively on the sequel, knowing their audience will buy every book from a series, regardless of who wrote it or how well they wrote it.  Look at many fantasy books, which offer an endless list of titles, each so generic, it hardly merits mention.  Even hardcore fans are often unable to distinguish book three from book twenty-six in a series.  Yet they still buy each one.

It got me thinking about what books from The List have sequels.  Although the majority of these reads could be considered 'higher-brow', they're still in the business of making money, and both writers and publishers see the potential of doing just that, by revisiting their most famous earlier books.  A quick glance of The List tells me that books are much like the movies, where some sequels are legitimate novels seeking to continue the story or expand the character; but for every one of those, there are a couple just rehashing everything for a quick buck.

Perhaps the most famous sequels associated with The List would be the Chronicles of Narnia books.  The first, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe spawned not only five sequels, but also a prequel.  But none of them match the quality of the first book, and in fact seem to get worse and worse.  By the time we reach the fourth book, The Silver Chair, the story has distanced itself so far from the first book, they only have the land of Narnia in common, nothing more.  They're the perfect example of the fantasy genre continuing the story, as I mentioned above.  While I may consider The Lord of the Rings movies to be sequels, the books are, in fact, not.  Although released as three separate novels, they were actually written as one gigantic book.  This is the reason Lev Grossman has told me I am expected to read all three, not just the first one in order to complete my mission, and the reason they can't really be counted as sequels.

Perhaps the most horrifying sequel associated with The List, is Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley, 'sequel' to Gone with the Wind.  Having not read it (nor do I have plans to do so), I can't really comment on the quality, but the mere fact it exists is disturbing.  To begin, it wasn't written by Margaret Mitchell, in fact it was written 40 years after her death.  This alone makes it seem more like a new 'Star Wars' book, instead of a companion to one of the great books of all time.  Secondly, Mitchell said she wrote the end scene to Gone with the Wind first, and worked backward from there, creating a story to fit that scene.  She knew how she wanted the story to end, and had no plans of every continuing it.  Scarlett is a book that has cash grab written all over it.

Similar to Scarlett is Closing Time by Joseph Heller, meant as a sequel to another all-time great, Catch-22.  While this was at least written by the original author, it was released 35 years after the first novel, a book which doesn't really set up for a sequel.  It's a far cry from the first novel and probably could have been left on the shelf.

But not all literary sequels are created equally, and there a few that really stand out.  John Updike followed up his first big hit Rabbit, Run with three more 'Rabbit' novels, each released about ten years apart, each following Harry Angstrom through the decades.  These books allow the reader to follow one of the great literary characters of the 20th century through the years, from naive young man to his death.  The books stand out, as they do not simply re-hash the events of the first novel, nor do they merely put the same character in a different situation a few years later.  These are books that delve deeper and deeper into the character, giving the reader an intimate portrait of Harry Angstrom.  They are also not books Updike spit out one afternoon, while he had a free moment.  The third and fourth novels, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest were both awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  This is the same feat Richard Ford was able to accomplish, with his sequel to The Sportswriter, Independence Day, which won the Pulitzer in 1996, revisiting Frank Bascombe.  Perhaps its the snob in me, but I feel a book that wins the Pulitzer Prize can hardly be considered a mere sequel; these are literary heavyweights.

The above award-winning novels have me wondering if the fathers of The List purposely included the first novels from the respective series, instead of the award-winning sequels as a way of introducing readers to the stories from the beginning.  Or do they not believe a sequel can be so highly regarded as to warrant inclusion on a 'best of list?'  This would be my thought and I think if I were compiling a similar list I would be hesitant to include any sequel.  However, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is there; prequel to Jane Eyre.  I find this to be an odd book for The List, and am curious to see how it reads.  It surprises me that a prequel written 120 years after the original, obviously by a different author, could receive such lofty praise.  But I must reserve judgement for after I have read it, which will probably be sometime in 2013...


Now if you'll please excuse me, I need to put the finishing touches on my latest manuscript, following an alcoholic Holden Caufield in his mid-50's, tentatively titled Caught in the Rye.

#30 - "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder

The 30th book from The List is finished already, but that should come as no surprise, as The Bridge of San Luis Rey  has taken the title of shortest book so far, with only 107 pages.  The title was previously held by  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which weighed in at a meaty 171 pages.  But while this may have been quite a few pages shorter, I couldn't read it quite as quickly.  I'm guessing that's because it's a little deeper, I hadn't read it before, and there weren't any illustrations.  Of course that's only this edition, when the book was first published, it actually did contain illustrations, no less than eleven in fact.  The reason was, the publisher felt it needed more, for lack of a better word, girth, to warrant it's price of $2.50  In addition to the illustrations it was also printed on very heavy stock with "grotesquely wide margins."  I thought when I did this to my essays in University, I was the only one.

The book opens by telling the reader that "on Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke..." taking with it five people.  The book follows each of the five in the days or even years leading up that fateful day and how they ended up crossing the bridge at that exact moment.  In a way, the non-linear narrative used reminded me of "Reservoir Dogs," since the bridge collapses in the first line of the book and the rest of the novel explains how it all happened.  It's also reminiscent of an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Trilogy of Error," which features three separate story lines that all meet in the end.  Much like that, each character in this book's story culminates in the same event at the end.

I feel it made for an interesting reading experience; knowing what would happen, but unsure exactly how it would happen.  It was also interesting to learn how these different characters, each from different backgrounds, meet at the same place at the same time, seemingly for no reason.  Or, was it part of God's plan?  This is the question posed by Brother Juniper, a wandering man of the cloth who witnessed the event.  He investigates why this happened to these five people by researching their backgrounds.  His goal is to determine why God would have chosen these people to perish in this accident.  But when his conclusions question God's intention, his work is declared heresy and the book and its author are burned at the stake.  It was because of this slightly negative commentary on the Church, that the book received its' few scathing reviews, from newspapers in Catholic strongholds like Ireland.

For me, it was a well written book with a good story, interesting characters and a unique linear flow.  Add this to the pile of books I didn't know anything about but have enjoyed thoroughly, which as I've said before, shouldn't be any surprise; they're all books from a list of great books.

Read Time's original review from December 5, 1927 right here.

My next book will be The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.  Another one I know nothing about.  Go figure.  For those keeping track, I know I had said I would read Gone with the Wind 30th, but it has been put off indefinitely.  I simply don't have the time to read another 1,000 page behemoth right now.  I"ll try to get it in before I hit 50, but I make no promises.

#26 - "Play it as it Lays" by Joan Didion

If you're looking for a pick me up, I might recommend watching It's A Wodnerful Life.  What I would not do, is hand you a copy of Play it as it Lays, my 26th book from Time Magazine's list of 100 great English novels.  Simply put, this story was a downer.  The story was depressing, the characters were depressing, the settings were depressing; it was like watching a car wreck, in the rain, while being hungover.

The story follows Maria, a B-List actress whose life seems to be in tatters.  She's divorced, currently separated from her second husband, isn't working, drinks too much, has a child she can't see and hangs around with shallow Hollywood types.  The book alternates between a remote desert village where her estranged husband is shooting a movie and her LA home, where she lives alone and doesn't have any friends.  She spends her days killing time mostly, seeing people who would claim to be her friends, but who in reality would turn their back on her in a second if it would benefit them.  The story includes such heart warming moments are Maria getting an abortion in a hotel room (they were still illegal when this book was written) and holding one of her 'friends' hands as he kills himself with an injection. Oh, and she was also date raped and arrested for stealing a car.  Sounds like the sequel to "Love, Actually."  Merry Christmas!

Not only is it depressing, it's also a very odd book. By that, I don't mean the story, which despite being depressing isn't anything outlandish, but rather the way it was written. It was like The Da Vinci Code, as it was only 200 pages long, but had 85 chapters, the majority of which were only one or two pages. Some aren't even half a page, and a couple were only one or two sentences. But despite being a little odd, it was well written, the story was interesting and I suppose from a literary standpoint, I enjoyed the book; it was strangely hypnotic and I couldn't stop reading.  I'm not sure if I was pulled in by the story or the characters or simply because I thought something had to go right for Maria at some point, but I basically read this book straight through, save a break for turkey dinner.  When all was said and done, I read this book in a little over four hours, making it the second fastest book after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I wonder if part of the speed can be attributed to the short chapters, where I'd find myself saying, 'I'll read one more chapter, because it's only two pages long.'  Before I'd know it, I'd have read ten more chapters before claiming again, 'just one more chapter.'

My next book, which I'm about a third of the way through, is The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.  I'm not sure where the story is going, but it is set in inter-war Berlin, which should be right up my alley.  And so far it isn't in the style of Virginia Wolf or William Faulkner, so I should be safe there.

Make your full reference freely my lord

I've been able to do quite a bit of reading the past few days, working my way through my twelfth book on the list, The Corrections.  So far, so good, but that's what I've come to expect from the books on The List.

I encountered a first today from this literary mission however, when I cam across mention of another book from The List in The Corrections.  One of the children in the book is reading through the Chronicles of Narnia series, specifically the third installment, Prince Caspian.  Although not on The List, there is mention of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as a couple of the adult characters wax poetic about reading it when they were children.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is most likely the only time one book from The List is going to mention another.  I base this assumption on a couple of different factors.  There are several books that take place before any of books from The List would have been written, such as Beloved, and Gone With the Wind.  Others, such as The Lord of the Rings are set in fantasy world that wouldn't be familiar with any of these novels.  Lastly, I figure that since so many of the novels on The List were written before 1950 (34 of them to be exact), that a good chunk of the books were simply written too early for any other book to reach such prominence that it would warrant be mentioned in another.  I suppose from this rationale, it would make sense that The Corrections would be mentioning another novel, as it is one of the most recent entries on The List, and therefore so many other books have had time to reach such a level of fame as to be included in a story.

Having said all this, I look forward to seeing how many times I am proven wrong.

Second edition: he will print them, out of doubt

I was thinking today about my earlier idea of one day owning all 100 novels. So far, I've checked eight out from the library, borrowed two from a friend, and own a copy of one. I probably won't read 95 of them ever again, but it could serve as a sort of trophy case for having read through the list.

As I day dreamed about the possibilities of owning all 100, my vision became quite clear. A tall mahogany shelf, lined with leather-bound copies of each book, all being embraced by the beam of a single lamp overhead. I think of it as something you'd find in an Agatha Christie mystery, lining the room where the guests all meet to sip brandy and talk about the recent murder. As they discuss who done it, and lightning flashes through the floor-to-ceiling windows, while thunder rattles the lamps which light the room.

Of course I don't have a Victorian-era mansion, and most likely never will. The bookshelf however, still might be a possibility. In order to fill the shelf, I did some on-line research to check the availability of first editions of some of these books. Looking on The Manhattan Rare Book Company website, I was able to find over half the books I've read so far. Unfortunately, as easy as they were to find, it appears they will be equally as difficult to finance. I found a first edition of Beloved, signed by Toni Morrison, for only $600. A first edition copy of Light in August can be had for $6500 and The Great Gatsby for $6800. The most shocking however, was the price of a first edition copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which can be yours for the bargain price of $17,500!

I've decided to return to the goal of simply having a copy of each book on my shelf, be it the first edition or the 500th edition. They can be paperbacks for all I care.

I conjure thee but slowly;

The struggles I experienced reading Naked Lunch are haunting me again with Light in August. The story often moves at a snail's pace, and I find myself drifting into la-la land quite often. This makes progress on the book slow, but I keep plugging away.

I'm leaving on a trip to Egypt tomorrow evening to see the sights of a 5000 year old civilization. My progress is so slow on the list right now, I'm thinking it might take me the same amount of time to finish this list. I starting think I should have picked something else to read after Naked Lunch, as the rate I'm going, it's going to take me two months to finish two books, which if my math is correct, will mean it'll take me eight years to finish this. So, maybe not the 5000 year horizon, but still pretty slow!

My trip to Egypt will involve a lot of time on a boat, as we head down the Nile, visiting the sights. That should allow me some time do to do some reading, and maybe play a little catch up. I know I won't have that much time, what with the tour and all, but I'm sure there will be some down time.

Besides taking Light in August with me, I've also decided to take a couple of books with me that I've already read. Since I have The Great Gatsby checked out from the library right now, I'm taking that. As well, I'm going to take the only complete book I own from the list, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

#3 – "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs

Okay, I finished Naked Lunch today. I reached my goal of finishing it before New Year’s.

Where to start? I can confidently say Naked Lunch is unlike anything I have ever read, and probably ever will read. Written by 1950’s beat writer William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch explores the world of drugs and addiction, relying on the author’s own experiences as a heroin addict, so much so that at the time of its’ release , it was described as “mostly confessional, not literary.” by Time magazine. It is this that makes the book so unique; there is an absence of story or plot really, and the book is really just a series of vignettes about drug use; it isn’t a novel in the classic sense.

There is a vague storyline about an addict venturing from New York to Mexico to South American and finally to North Africa, just as Burroughs himself did in his life. However, much like the life of a junkie, the point is often lost in a sea of vulgarity and immorality, and the book ends up being difficult to follow and often hard to understand.

Burroughs uses obscene language to effectively communicate many things that a non-junkie just simply wouldn’t understand. He talks of things such as the ‘Algebra of Need’, to describe how junkies often find themselves in such bizarre and sinful situations. “A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope… (and this) need knows absolutely no limit or control.” This explains what is often unexplainable in this book, and why certain characters would find themselves doing some of the things they do. While it may seem inconceivable to the average person, the junkies in the book have no problem doing anything to get that next fix. “Wouldn’t you?” is a question posed by the author, describing what a junkie would do for his next hit. That question can be followed with anything because the answer will always be yes.

The language is one of the most striking aspects of the book, and not because of its vulgarity, but because of its vulgarity in 1959. Today, having been raised in a world of ‘R’ rated movies, cable TV and Internet pornography, Naked Lunch may seem rude, but it isn’t much worse than many other things seen on the Internet or in the movies. If I put my mind to it, I’m sure I could find worse on-line in about ten seconds. However, when this book was first released, the United States and Canada were in a world of ‘Leave it to Beaver’ and The Hardy Boys. Movies didn’t have nudity or graphic violence, and they certainly didn’t use the words that Burroughs uses so freely in Naked Lunch. While literature had more of an edge to it than movies or television, Naked Lunch uses “obscene” language continually from start to finish, describing scenes of sexual exploitation, drug use, illness and death. When first released, the United States postal service at first would not deliver the book to subscribers, arguing they were not obligated to deliver obscene material. In 1966, the state of Massachusetts banned the book, a matter that ended up in the State Supreme Court. There, it was ruled that the State had no right to decide what was moral and what was not. This would be the last obscenity trial against a literary work in the United States.

I will admit that I really struggled through the first half of this book, unsure if I was missing something or not paying close enough attention. It seemed to be page after page of rambling, obscene imagery, talking about things I didn’t know anything about. There aren’t any characters you get to know, and there is not a build up toward a dramatic conclusion; or any conclusion for that matter. After the “story” is finished, the 2nd half of the book consists of letters from Burroughs to various doctors, editors, and friends, offering his opinion on changes to the book and his thoughts on drug use and curing addiction. It is in this section of the book that Burroughs explains many of his motives for writing the book, and more clearly explains many of his experiences that led to its writing. It is here that the reader becomes more understanding of the events of the book.

In one letter to his editor, Burroughs describes exactly what makes Naked Lunch such a difficult read. “THIS IS NOT A NOVEL,” he writes emphatically, stating the book could really be started anywhere as it was never meant to have the chapters in a specific order. The same editor noted in a later interview, “the novel was not created according to a predetermined outline or plan, it is simply a collection of Bill’s experiences retold in the frankest of manners.”

While discussing his experience with every drug under the sun, Burroughs writes to one of the doctors that helped him end his heroin addiction (temporarily), going through a cornucopia of drugs and notes their effects and their habit forming ability. It was fascinating to read a 1950’s perspective on drugs and drug use, in an era when most people would rather have swept the issue under the rug in the hopes it would never be mentioned again. Yet Naked Lunch offers a first-hand perspective of a subject everybody was fascinated by, but nobody would discuss.

Despite some of its more interesting revelations and the shock value of the writing itself, it is not a book I’ll ever pick up again, but still one I’ll never forget. Or understand for that matter. I did not enjoy reading this book and can't really figure out how so many have enjoyed reading it.


Here is Time Magazine’s original review from November 30th, 1962:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,829594,00.html?internalid=atb100

I’m not sure what book I’ll be reading next, but I’m going to go to the library in the next couple of days to find one. Right now I’m thinking Animal Farm. Maybe I need to go lighter after this book. Maybe The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I need something simple, and something fast after spending almost the entire month of December reading this book.