The Game's Afoot!: Sherlock

Hello All,
Spurred on by my love of the new BBC series Sherlock (that I discussed here) I decided that this year I would delve into the world of the famous detective. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, as I often do, so I decided that I'd do two short stories a month. So for January I started off with "Scandal in Bohemia" & "The Red-Headed League". An excellent start I have to say.

Although I find myself plagued with one thing: I can't stop picturing the main characters as their film versions. (By the way I'm referring to Mr. RDJ, Mr. Law, and Ms. McAdams. Strangely it's not the wonderful gentleman from the recent BBC series. Perhaps it's because the BBC series performances and stories are so well adapted to the modern world.) It's clear that Holmes & Watson, initially are a bit of a blank slate. A reader's interpretation is built up over a series of stories, they do not jump immediately off the page. In a movie you only have 5-10 minutes to establish the main characters, so it's up to the actors, writers, directors, etc. to create a distinct character right off the bat. Whereas Doyle, as an author, is clearly more plot driven.

I am reminded of Wilkie Collins detective character Sergeant Cuff from The Moonstone, who was wonderfully distinct in a dickens-esque way. I guess since Doyle was writing for the serials, he didn't feel compelled to include character moments over fast-moving plots. I'll wait till I read a few more to see if this is true.

Highly enjoyable tales both of these, and easily readable in one sitting.
Have a great week! Book Slave.

Hemingway, Seriously? : The Notebook

Hey folks,
As I've teased in a little Prelude a few weeks ago, I was compelled by a horrific interview in USA Today to read Nicholas Sparks. Now let me make this very clear: I do this of my own volition. No one has put a gun to my head. I kid. I feel that I have the ability to give everyone a chance. I try very hard not to be a snob.

So here we go. Starting with The Notebook I've decided to focus on the central love story between Noah and Allie, in regards to Spark's own idolization of Hemingway. In that USA Today interview he considers himself to be comparable to Hemingway's love stories such as Farewell to Arms.

(By the way I am consciously ignoring the other 1/3 of the book that deals with the older versions of Noah and Allie. While considerably overwrought I was actually touched by the Alzheimer's subplot. However Spark's inability to write anything realistic does the horrible toll of that disease a disservice. Alzheimer's is a scary disease and should not just be used as a plot device. But I digress...)

So here's my first installment.

Hemingway, Seriously? : The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks knows the geography of the South. It's his home region. He knows the wilderness in a Thoreau-like way. Everything about nature is good, and any urbanity is bad. In The Notebook he spends long passages making the connection between our main hero Noah and his link with all things natural. He goes out on a lake every morning so he can watch the dawn. When he wants to impress true love Allie, he takes her out on a lake to float amongst swans. Evidentally Noah is good because he exemplifies the natural environment that surrounds him. This is why he is better than Allie's other suitor who is an urbane money rich attorney.

In reality Hemingway would laugh this away for the trite characterization that it is. Hemingway wrote about nature, but only in juxtaposition to what it said about the nature of man. Hemingway was not an environmentalist. He was a Darwinist in a sense that he felt that it was a man's obligation to fight for what he cares about. A weak man spends the night crying over the fact that his true love is engaged to another man. Hemingway would beat any sensitive man with a club, and tell him he deserved it. If Sparks believes he is akin to Hemingway well then he deserves a similiar beating.

On the other hand the female lead Allie is even weaker. She is caught up in a typical triangle between two men: the true love of her youth or the man her family approves of. What will she do? Of course she'll pick the true love of her youth. Now Noah is in fact the boy that she lost her virginity to and chooses to consummate their reunification in a similiar fashion. However she has not done the same with Lon Hammond Jr-her fiance. In a bizarre way Allie's cheating with Noah is justified because well they were meant to be together all along. The passion between them is so strong that Allie just has no choice. She has no control over her rational mind or physical body. It's sad and insulting how powerless Sparks makes Allie's characterization. She is simply a woman who is ruled by emotion in the great Bronte melodrama fashion.

Which brings me to the conclusion that while Sparks refuses to link himself to "romance" that is exactly where his characterizations can be found. The central romance in The Notebook is a tame version of Bronte all over again. Forget about Hemingway. These folks aren't human or real. They are fantasies from a man who can't admit that he idealizes love and relationships.

Oddly enough I have thought about reading The Notebook before now. The book reached my consciousness because of the movie adaptation a few years ago. I checked it out on cable and thought it was good, because of what the actors brought to the story. Noah and Allie are three-dimensional in a sense that I can understand their motivations. And there are multiple levels at work in their actions. Even though the story is still trapped in Sparks overt romanticism, the actors are in small ways rebelling against the sappiness inherent in the original text.

So in the end I think Sparks could learn a lesson or two on realism from re-reading his Hemingway or watching the movie version of his own book.

Erin Go Bragh: Seamus Heaney

Hey,
So I've been holding off reading Seamus Heaney for far too long. I originally first heard of Heaney when I read his version of Beowulf for my classics lit course. His work with that adaptation was epic but still capture the violence and bloodiness of old school mythological heroics. It's the standard now and should be read by everyone.

Here's some background on Seamus Heaney:
*Heaney was born in 1939 in Northern Ireland.
*He won a scholarship to a catholic boarding school. While he was away his 4 year old brother Christopher was killed in a roadside accident.
*He ended up studying and lecturing at Queen's University in Belfast.
*He started publishing poetry in 1962, with his first book being published in 1965.
*In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
*In 1996 Beowulf: A New Translation is published to great success.

Now really these are just facts. What I find interesting about Heaney is that although he grew up in Northern Ireland he sees himself as Irish rather than British. In fact he asked to be removed from the Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry by writing:

"Be advised, my passport's green / No glass of ours was ever raised / To toast the Queen."

The civil war in Northern Ireland was particularly contentious during the 1960s and 70s when bombs and death became commonplace. His poetry is not often overtly political or militant, and is far more concerned with profound observations of the small details of the everyday, far beyond contingent political concerns. He also focuses on history and tries to put the Irish heritage into a larger context of an agricultural society. He also focuses on the tension of the Ulster Industrial Revolution and the tension that it causes between these two dueling developing cultures.

I decided that this St. Pat's I would finally pull down my Seamus Heaney Selected Poems 1966-1987. I was captured by two poems early in this collection: "Digging" and "Mid-Term Break."

I particularly enjoyed "Digging" for how it linked his agricultural roots to his current work as a writer. He cannot match “men like them” with a spade, but he sees that the pen is (for him) mightier, and with it he will dig into his past and celebrate them. Heaney challenges the stereotype of the "paddy with the spade." He sees the dignity, work ethic, and expertise of the agricultural Irishmen. This poem also showcases Heaney's early use of onomatopoeia (where the sound resembles or suggests meaning) in “rasping”, “gravelly”, “sloppily”, “squelch” and “slap”.

Another stand out of Heaney's early work is "Mid-Term Break" which was published in 1966. This work is about the accidental death of his infant brother and the families reaction. He is embarassed and uncomfortable at first with his father's weakness in grieving. In a gender reversal it is his mother's anger that keeps her from crying. Neither parent acts in ways that young Heaney (who was in his teens at the time) expects them too. As a young man he's caught between what he expects and what actually occurs in tragic circumstance. Later he is alone with his brother's corpse and can act naturally. A transferred epithet changes a "bruise" to a poppy that the "sleeping" boy "wears" as if he could take it off. Heaney likens the bruise to the poppy, a flower linked with death and soothing of pain (opiates come from poppies). At the end of the poem Heaney is able to grieve honestly as he poignantly writes in the last line that the size of the coffin is the measure of the child's life.

This poem also has a clear formal structure which makes it a contrast to "Digging." In "Digging" Heaney uses an informal stanza structure where each line is only as long as it needs to be. There's no rhythm or iambic pentameter at work, whereas "Mid-Term Break" is in 3 line stanzas. "Break" has occasional rhymes with the last two lines forming a couplet. "Digging" has none, which seems to emphasize the more rural subject matter. The loose iambic rhymes of "Break" seem to bring out the sadness of the loss of a child. Heaney showcases his skill by being able to utilize all the aspects at his disposal in order to bring his themes home.

Happy B-day Jane Austen

Hello,
Today our dear Jane would be 234 years old. As I've discussed before, I think that many of us female readers consider Jane Austen to be "our Jane." I think the fact that she died so young, didn't marry, and never sold out, means that I will always see her through a positive prism. She never fell from grace or let me down. Because I like her smart aleck, witty, narrative voice I feel as if I know her. But in reality all I know is a picture of her that I've created in my head. If she was still around today I am convinced that she would still be unmarried. Perhaps she'd appreciate the wit of Wes Anderson and moon over George Clooney. She'd enjoy the social commentary of Mad Men but also the lustiness of True Blood. At this point we are almost 200 years after the publishing of Sense and Sensibility in 1811. I want to add one more adjective to the discussion of Miss Austen's influence: revolutionary.

Consider that in the early 19th century the idea of the novel was fairly new. Sure you had Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, and the gothic world of Radcliffe. Novels were largely written in epistolary or Journal form. Fiction was still an evolving art form. Being an avid reader Austen was able to read literature critically with a discerning eye. This is evident in her satirical critiques of books and reading. I think her finest sections in North Hanger Abbey involve her discussion of the effects of too much reading has had on the characters. Also remember that Emma decides to read more when she sets upon her own self improvement. (Of course the joke lies in the fact that it didn't do Emma much good. So clever.)

However her revolution goes even further. While it is obvious that she was not as interested in Romanticism as her peers were, she does not completely discount it. Austen showed an austere pragmatism in her realization of the world she inhabited. But rather than be as cynical as Voltaire or Wharton her stories wrap up in happily ever afters. Generally the lovers find suitable partners, villians get there comeuppance, and society goes on.

One has to ask: Where did this approach come from? It's not immediately evident in the literature of the time. Robinson Crusoe was too busy finding God. Radcliffe was more interested in creeping people out. Ivanhoe was fighting in the 12th century. So that leaves us with the clearest influence on "our Jane"-William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's comedies display in theatrical form all the aspects that Jane Austen would later bring to the novel form. Lovers long separated, misunderstandings, and even the obligatory marriage endings. She clearly saw that this is what the reading audience would want. That's some forward thinking, considering there wasn't even a massive literary distribution in place at that time. There was no promise of money or notoriety in being an author. In fact the profession was notorious, especially for women. So what motivated her? She just had to write. In her eyes there was no other option.

What a blow it must have been to have her first 3 novel attempts end up going nowhere. No wonder she stagnated for a few years while suffering in Bath. In the end her talent and foresight was so strong that eventually a publisher gave it a chance. It still took until 1811 that Sense and Sensibility got published. Austen had to wait for the literatti to catch up with her. By 1811 Gothic had played itself out. Audiences wanted a secularization of literature. And "our Jane" brought it.

Jane Austen found a new way to tell the stories that she wanted to tell. And didn't give up. That's a revolutionary act in and of itself.

Here's a fun Jane Austen entry from the past: Teach Me Jane I'm Willing to Learn...

Happy Birthday Jane!

Have a great day, Book Slave.

The Determination of Greatness.

Hello,
Today I was digging through my Reader. I came upon this essay by David Orr in the New York Times Book Review. Now I don't read every review, essay, etc. every month. I pretty much look for the ones that interest me. As a book seller/librarian/obsessive reader I feel compelled to do so, however I don't let it guide my choices like some.

Well I'll get to the point I think this essay is so ignorant. Writer Orr fears that American poetry is in decline. There are no "great" poets anymore such as Dickinson, Byron, or Williams. He pulls out a quote from Don Hall in 1983 where he fretted that poets no longer strived “to make words that live forever” and “to be as good as Dante.” Modern poets are ambivalent according to Mr. Orr.

I just want to remind Mr. Orr that "greatness" as he states is subjective. It's an opinion. Someone can be technically proficient but if their trochaic tetrameter has no soul then I ask what's the point. Art is not just "great" on it's own. Let's go back to our critical theory, more specifically Barthes. An artist does create, like God (or whatever creative deity you believe brings things into being), but then the artist willfully gives up his subjectivity to the reader/viewer. The viewer/reader then determines the ultimate meaning of the work to themselves. The author's intention is unknowable and inconsequential. The artist's intention is superseded by the interpretation of the viewer/reader.

Even then it is not the artist or viewer that determines "greatness." This is determined by the distance of time. Does a work hold up even a century after it's initial creation? Does a work stand out on its own or only as part of a group? I love the Beat poets, yet it's clear that Allen Ginsberg has work that sets him apart from that movement. On the other hand a poet such as Gregory Corso is firmly entrenched in Beat literature. "Greatness" is again completely subjective. What makes Ginsberg "great" and Corso not? Nothing, except my opinion.

And BTW Orr in his article completely ignores the up and coming American poets who are working today. These include:

Elizabeth Alexander
Rae Armantrout
Kay Ryan
Katharine Coles
Jesse Ball
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Billy Collins

I could go on but Orr needs to take a real look around away from his ivory tower. There is some "great" work being done and you Mr. Orr are missing it. But again that's just my opinion.

Have a great weekend! Book Slave.

Austen and Socrates

Hello blog-o-sphere,
I had an excellent memorial day weekend. It included an entire day when all I did was watch a series of historical docs that blew my mind and read. Highly recommend it to all.
Well let's get it on, baby (not like that you dirty birds!).

Reviews
A Fine Brush On Ivory
This was a sojourn into high-brow literary criticism that took me back to my English Lit student days. Jenkyn's literary analysis of the six novels of Jane Austen is not for the weak. It definitely exercised my intellectual muscles. It should be noted that Jenkyn subtitles this "an appreciation," this shows that he is clearly a fan of Austen's work. His enthusiasm is apparent in his writing, especially when discussing Pride and Prejudice. While I don't buy some of his assertions, I did find this an in-depth critical read for Austen fans.

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Having read his well-known novel Devil in a Blue Dress I decided to pick up another of his series. Devil and this book are about man's struggle with violence in a society that is against them. Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict, struggles daily against his base nature. Throughout these short vignettes Fortlow is shown trying to help people. But it never comes off as "The Fugitive" due to Mosley's stark realism. I enjoyed this work immensely and will look out for other books in the Fortlow series.

What's in My Bag
Graphic Novels
Essex County #1: Tales From the Farm
Batman: The Long Halloween

Comic
Wonder Woman #19

Magazine
Four Four Two

Check Out Count: Aaaahhh!

Have a great weekend all! Book Slave.