From reading’s bygone days

Tags

Abandoned / Skimmed, Books About Books, Charles Van Doren, Excerpts, Mortimer J. Adler

There are books you read once and then put away on your shelf. You know that you will never have to read them again, although you may return to them to check certain points or to refresh your memory of certain ideas or episodes. (It is in the case of such books that the notes you make in the margin or elsewhere in the volume are particularly valuable.)

How do you know that you do not ever have to read such books again? You know it by your own mental reaction to the experience of reading them. Such a book stretches your mind and increases your understanding. But as your mind stretches and your understanding increases, you realize, by a process that is more or less mysterious, that you are not going to be changed any more in the future by this book. You realize you have grasped the book in its entirety. You have milked it dry. You are grateful for what it has given you, but you know it has no more to give.

I like it when books are self-referential, whether they mean to be or not. It does make a good chuckle. Above passage pretty much seems up my relationship to, my experience of, and my future with this book—quite helpfully titled How to Read a Book [deemed “the classic guide to intelligent reading], written/assembled by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. I’ve got the completely revised and updated version of the 1940s edition—well, updated to the 1970s, that is. I picked it up knowing full well it was going to be rules for a bygone era—where the great external distractions to reading are the television and the radio. Yep. I was curious.

It’s such a dinosaur. Cranky, snooty, stuffy, pedantic, often condescending. It’s a manual. For intelligent reading. Very textbook-y, very fundamental. Very practical. Like some invisible ruler cracked against my keyboard-clobbering knuckles, like a pesky voice in your head.

It’s like having tea with your cane-thumping retiree-professor of a great-grandfather. Him demanding why you aren’t wearing hose, and will you please stand up straight? You bide your time, you promised you’d keep him company. And then, hours later, you realize you’re growing fond of the old coot, you can’t help but enjoy the starchiness. And there are rewards, there are gems your heart could ping with, the occasional moments of, egad, tenderness. Just imagine Gramps lecturing you on all the misreading you’ve committed, giving you precise directions on how to analyze a given book’s title, teaching you how to skim the right way. And then him suddenly going quiet, when you’ve mustered the courage to ask about fiction—him quiet and then, and then: “We do not know, we cannot be sure, that the real world is good. But the world of a great story is somehow good. We want to live there as often and as long as we can.” And you both reach for your cups of tea.

“Life as we know it has ended, and yet no one is able to grasp what has taken its place.”

Tags

Abandoned / Skimmed, Excerpts, Fiction - Novel, Paul Auster

#36 of 2011 • In the Country of Last Things, by Paul Auster

And so Auster tries to figure it out by himself. Here, yet another Paul Auster. Not the Auster I’m used to, not the convoluted post-modern woozy, definitely not the breathtaking shmexy-tenderness of Invisible. This time, he’s tackling exploring a post-apocalyptic world:

Is that what we mean by life? Let everything fall away, and then let’s see what there is. Perhaps that is the most interesting question of all: to see what happens when there is nothing, and whether or not we will survive that too.

Patient world-building, and detailed—so much that my laziness won’t allow me to go in depth with them. An example, though. In this world of ash and grayness and desperation [a helping of The Road, anyone? (will The Road, from now on, be the short post-apocalyptic novel?)], people struggle to survive, and people pursue elaborate ceremonies of how to die. There are people who train to have their bodies at its strongest, that they may run and run and run to their deaths. There are people who leap from the tops of buildings. There are people who pay to be assassinated, not knowing when or how or by whom they’ll meet their death.

That’s such a watered-down example, and I do believe I’m not sufficiently giving Auster credit for these details. But, really, he can get so tedious. I mean, I respect the guy for all these little details, these facts of life—an allegorical alter-life, too obviously Moral for my tastes, really—but I can’t help but imagine that these are images idly written down by Auster. Images, and metaphors—What if we lived this way, figuratively? Oh, well.

I borrowed this book from Kael, but I don’t think he remembers.

Quick thoughts on Kung, Ishiguro, and Fish

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Abandoned / Skimmed, Erotica, Fiction - Novel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Reference, Stanley Fish, Tor Kung

It happens. Every once in a while, I read a book or two—or maybe four in sequence—that inspires in me reaction that’s zilch at worst and feeble at best. I began it with the tired rant of One Day—although, because I am dorktastic, the feedback I got and the Much Loved Status of the book has me thinking whether I could more sensibly “justify” my reaction. We’ll see. Anyhoo, here’s a batch, read a couple of days ago, that, in all, barely filled the notes of my reading notebook—for different reasons, yes, but here they are:

#25 of 2011 • My Mother Taught Me by Tor Kung. – I underestimated this one, although it came with high recommendations—basically, a friend gleefully pushing the book into my unsuspecting hands. It’s powerful, the “right” mix of sensuality—lyrical sensuality—and in-your-face crudity. An orphan adopted by a gleefully incestuous family, always disturbing, but my rare prudishness aside, goodness, the language is perfect. Jarringly so. And, oh yeah, poet-extraordinaire Jack Gilbert wrote this one.

#26 of 2011 • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. – I found myself strangely unmoved by this book. I’d probably be going on and one by this book’s careful plotting and world-building, and all those moral observations and conclusions and decisions the reader has to make; the narrative, too, the revelations, and how Ishiguro all unfolds it, and blah and blah and blah. But I don’t want to. I don’t care. Guh. I kept on reading the book because, well, I was curious. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on. Oh well.

#27 of 2011 • How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One by Stanley Fish. – I admit, the marketing got to me. Then again, I am always on the look-out for these kinds of On Literature / On Reading / On Writing books. Well, basically, it’s about reading a sentence, knowing what is, what it’s made of, what it can do, how to write it. It’s self-indulgently dorky. Dorkily self-indulgent? A professor belaboring a sentence. I loved that. I mean, I know how it feels to love sentences so much that when a book fails, I usually just scan and skim, spelunking for sentences, haha. Then again, I do wish Fish focused more on the literary side of things. So. The verdict? It’s not bad. I’m not head over heels about it, but it’s going to be on my shelf for books on craft. [For an awesome review of this book, go to Kelly Coyle at The Millions.]

Aherm. Well. That was liberating. Off to get my Diligent Blogger pantz on. Augh.

My friend Petra M. lent me My Mother Taught Me. I bought Never Let Me Go (PhP549) and How to Write a Sentence (PhP795) from the Katipunan branch of NBS, the latter just verra recently.

elsewhere || “A Failed Conceit: How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely,” at POC-Metakritiko

Tags

Abandoned / Skimmed, Fiction - Novel, Metakritiko, Steve Hely

My review of Steve Hely’s debut novel How I Became a Famous Novelist, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles, so go clicky, if you are so inclined. Be warned, though: Sasha is not a happy goat when it comes to this book. The review begins:

The narcissistic aspect of a debut novelist having his debut novel revolve around a debut novel is a debatable one; and narcissism itself could be over-intellectualizing what might just be lazy writing. At best, such books would be earnest, occasionally sentimental, reflections on the writing process. Mix it up a little and anchor the narrative with humor; in satire, theoretically, such books could be amusingly self-deprecating, self-aware in the very attempt. Attempt an amalgam of those aspects, and the risks are great, but the pay-off more so.

Fail, and it could be disastrous.

And I thought–violently felt–that this book failed. Oh well. A lot of people liked it. I thought I would. But, ya know. I didn’t. A friend of mine asked me if I was personally offended whenever a book didn’t meet my expectations. Well, yes, that. With Hely’s novel, well, I just really wish I’d bought something else. This was expensive, okay? I bought it months ago, while I was running amok in a bookstore, and that yellow just hypnotized me. Boo.

marginalia || The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey

Tags

Abandoned / Skimmed, Fiction - Novel, Monique Roffey

Abandoned for now: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey. This one was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction this year, and I know a lot of you really love the novel — and I know I could love this novel as much. But. We haven’t been getting along. I picked up this book the third week of July, and I am only at the 140th page of this 430-something-pager. I don’t like those numbers. I especially don’t like the fact that I avert my eyes whenever I happen to glance at the spot it takes on my bookshelves.

It’s been okay, sprinkled with meh. I’m having a problem with the author’s voice, as well as the language of the storytelling. The dialogue needed getting used to — I tend to not like so much books that spell out dialect [except, of course, if it features a man in a kilt, eherm]. I like the characters, love the relationships that Roffey details, and I’m growing complex feelings about Trinidad, where the book’s set [and isn't that the point?]. But I’ve been trying to fight the feeling that the actual story is taking place elsewhere. Yes, I’m aware of the form in which Roffey crafted this story — and this risk with the form actually makes me giddy. I guess I mean that the novel refuses to stay with me. Or, rather, it refuses to be with me at all. Augh, I don’t know.

I’m at that point in my life — snerk, the drama! Aherm. I don’t have as much free time as I once did, what with the new job and all, and I suppose it’s as good a point as any to learn to set aside some books when the going gets tough. [Yes, I am compulsive book-finisher. I don't like loose bibliophilic ends.] I can always return to those books later, when I feel like it. And I think I’ll feel like it with Roffey. But right now, no, it’s just not making me happy. I don’t want it to feel like a chore, that I’m just slogging through for the sake of it. Because a part of me still thinks that somewhere in all that Meh is a story, and I do want to get to that.

Just not now. So. Until later, Sabine.

marginalia || Cecilia, by Linda Ferri; translated by Ann Goldstein

Tags

Abandoned / Skimmed, Ann Goldstein, Europa Editions, Excerpts, Fiction - Novel, Linda Ferri, Translation

I. Reasons why I wanted to like Linda Ferri’s Cecilia [translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein]:

1. I liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Following that line of thought: I want all my Europa Editions reads to be awesome. [Does it make sense that liking one book from a publisher would lead to liking all the rest in that publisher's catalog? In my head, Aye.]
2. Because they are pretty books, plus they’re incredibly rare here in my country — this is only the third title I’ve seen in 3 giant bookstores. [I had to buy it, okay?]
3. And since I’ve bought it, because I had to because it’s so rare, it’s more expensive than usual. [Which does not bode well for the possibility that I not like it, since I'll end up with a pretty book that's basically a dud.]
4. I wanted to like Cecilia because it was imperative that I like it. [That's basically it.]

II. Beyond the justifications of a financial transaction, what other factors could’ve affected my reception of this book?

1. It’s not my usual fare. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel set in Imperial Rome. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to.
2. I don’t know who St. Cecilia is. I actually only knew this was St. Cecilia when I got home and, uh, read the jacket copy. [And so I Googled her. And I liked what I found.]
3. I read these reviews: Nina Sankovitch of Huffington Post called it, simply, “compelling“; The New Yorker described Cecilia’s voice as “simultaneously irritating and appealing,” — both deem the work as a fictional exploration of a proto-feminist. And pretended that Nicole didn’t write “it seems we know less of Cecilia than at the beginning” in hers. [I'd already bought the book when I read her review, augh.

III. Reasons why I ended up not liking Cecilia -- actually, lackluster-ly reading it through -- you saw that one coming, didn't ya? :

[1] Is it not telling enough that I had to enumerate the rather dubious circumstances surrounding the reading experience?

[2] Aherm. There was this noticeable distance between the story and I. Told in a series of diary entries [or, her sheafs of papyrus] that details the life of Cecilia’s life from 15 onwards, with your flashbacks here and there — details of family life, the heartaches of a young girl, the heartbreaks of other people. The problem was, [and I say this in retrospect], was Cecilia’s voice. Cecilia as she presented herself — as Ferri presented her — simply wasn’t a person I was interested in. Precocious, yes. Irritating, yes. A little too idyllic, yes. And that reticent, wilting flower feel to the voice, totally at odds to that “proto-feminist” thrust? Yes.

[3] It was a conscious decision of the author’s to not write this novel the way we know St. Cecilia. And this is how we know Cecilia. Now. I appreciate the author making the story her own, but it ultimately didn’t work for me because I found it poorly executed — that voice is my main complaint. Whether or not you diverge from the original material, in my book, what matters more is how you do it. Call me an old fogey, but imagination is well and good but the art of it, the crafting is absolutely vital. Fail there, and the book just pales in comparison. As it did in this book.

[4] Furthermore: This Cecilia was definitely more low-key. Such a contrast to the spectacular-ness of the Saint-mythos. And, well, attacking this subject matter with a decidedly low-key angle demands more from the author. I mean, it’s not so much that Ferri had to work overtime for the subtlety — subtlety is not the issue here. It just demands more because it’s so different. And I felt that Ferri just didn’t — maybe couldn’t — step it up and buh-ring it.

[5] I needed to skim, I tell you. I was just so bored.

__________

Writing this now, I’m thinking that maybe this book just isn’t for me. The whole Christianity bit, sorry. The Imperial Rome-ness of it all. That “proto-feminist” angle. So, who wants to trade Europas? For seriously, people.