Perhaps it was coincidence that it was the year after 1984 that Doris Lessing gave this series of lectures on the theme of how the individual is manipulated by mass psychology. In Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, Lessing discusses social research pertaining to how group thinking, particularly in a political context, stifles individuality of thought. Social psychology provides tools for encouraging the revitalization of society, however, the encouragement of individualistic thinking is anathema when the state seeks to maintain a general state of complacency and manageability through propaganda and "patriotic" groupthink.
As an example, Lessing insists that, in time of war, rationality goes out the window as "war fever" spreads through the citizenry. A study of history, which Lessing believes the young are disinclined toward, shows how time puts these mass enthusiasms in perspective. World War I, for instance, approached with a sense of foreboding, but during the war years, propaganda regarding the "enemy" galvanized societies into enthusiasm for the cause. Only from a longer perspective, after the war, did society at large come to recognize the futility of the conflict and the nature of the propaganda that stoked the citizenry into support of the war.
Given in 1985, these lectures surely have resonance today.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Two Westerns
I enjoy movies that stay with you, even if they put you in a dark mood for a few days. I'm one of those filmgoers for whom substance is important, and a film that is forgotten as soon as you walk out of the theater or hit the eject button is usually not worth the time it took to sit through. Luckily, I can usually find some scrap of meaning in a movie (even if I have to bring it myself), but even then it doesn't work if that meaningfulness is buried under truckloads of sentiment. I was thinking about this last night as I pondered two very different Westerns I viewed within the last couple of weeks.
Before watching the disc, I read Elmore Leonard's short story "3:10 to Yuma". Almost a kind of "Waiting for Godot" in spurs, it is the soul of simplicity. A poor simple rancher must get a killer on a train at an appointed time. The killer's gang is out there somewhere, determined to see that it doesn't happen. Within the confines of a hotel room, the killer is the voice of existential reason. Take a bribe, look the other way, and you will live and be so much the richer for your trouble. The rancher struggles between choice and necessity.
The recent remake of "3:10 to Yuma" buries this plot beneath so many layers of crud, sentiment and hardware that it almost made me want to cry. Of course now the killer is a sort of Ubermensch, in his little black outfit, spouting bible verses that he learned when his momma abandoned him in a railroad waiting room. The rancher, of course, is a wounded warrior, a Civil War veteran who ran when he should have fought and who now must redeem himself in his son's eyes. And of course the special effects department went into overdrive, supplying enough guns and squibs to re-stage an entire Civil War battle as the two men, now apparently buddies, beat cheeks for the train amidst a hail of gunfire that makes Butch and the Kid's last run look like a walk in a light sprinkle. Overdone and eminently forgettable.
"There Will Be Blood", apparently loosely based on an Upton Sinclair novel, suffers from no such excess. The language and diction is appropriately turn of the century, with that precision of speech that is beautiful to the ears, even though as we reach the end of the film, Daniel Day-Lewis' John Huston impersonation gets pretty heavy.
Daniel Plainview is a classic misanthrope, who brings new levels to the term "conflicted". He begins the film literally down in a hole, in a dank dusty silver mine pit underneath the New Mexico desert. We don't even hear a human voice for a good 10-15 minutes. He longs to get rich so that he can go far away, away from any human contact because, as he tells his (supposed) long-lost brother bluntly, "I hate people." His monologue in the dark, his ode to misanthropy late in the movie is a classic, like Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" telling Captain Willard of the piles of hacked-off childrens arms that brought a fundamental shift in his thinking.
You see the world from behind Plainview's increasingly jaded eyes as people come into his life, provide some glimmer of hope or recognition, and then fail miserably to conform to his expectations. There is a (supposed) son, a (supposed) brother, and a young desert Elmer Gantry with whom Plainview wrestles (literally and figuratively) in a humiliating battle of wills.
The acting is superb, the story builds slowly, with layers of complexity, the emotion is visceral, not sentimental. There was only one slight disappointment for me, which I won't speak of, as I am still puzzling out whether the action was, in the circumstances, appropriate. It is the kind of dark, uncompromising, kick-in-the-gut film that comes along very rarely. If you like cinematic novels, rather than light and forgettable filler, you should see this movie.
Before watching the disc, I read Elmore Leonard's short story "3:10 to Yuma". Almost a kind of "Waiting for Godot" in spurs, it is the soul of simplicity. A poor simple rancher must get a killer on a train at an appointed time. The killer's gang is out there somewhere, determined to see that it doesn't happen. Within the confines of a hotel room, the killer is the voice of existential reason. Take a bribe, look the other way, and you will live and be so much the richer for your trouble. The rancher struggles between choice and necessity.
The recent remake of "3:10 to Yuma" buries this plot beneath so many layers of crud, sentiment and hardware that it almost made me want to cry. Of course now the killer is a sort of Ubermensch, in his little black outfit, spouting bible verses that he learned when his momma abandoned him in a railroad waiting room. The rancher, of course, is a wounded warrior, a Civil War veteran who ran when he should have fought and who now must redeem himself in his son's eyes. And of course the special effects department went into overdrive, supplying enough guns and squibs to re-stage an entire Civil War battle as the two men, now apparently buddies, beat cheeks for the train amidst a hail of gunfire that makes Butch and the Kid's last run look like a walk in a light sprinkle. Overdone and eminently forgettable.
"There Will Be Blood", apparently loosely based on an Upton Sinclair novel, suffers from no such excess. The language and diction is appropriately turn of the century, with that precision of speech that is beautiful to the ears, even though as we reach the end of the film, Daniel Day-Lewis' John Huston impersonation gets pretty heavy.
Daniel Plainview is a classic misanthrope, who brings new levels to the term "conflicted". He begins the film literally down in a hole, in a dank dusty silver mine pit underneath the New Mexico desert. We don't even hear a human voice for a good 10-15 minutes. He longs to get rich so that he can go far away, away from any human contact because, as he tells his (supposed) long-lost brother bluntly, "I hate people." His monologue in the dark, his ode to misanthropy late in the movie is a classic, like Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" telling Captain Willard of the piles of hacked-off childrens arms that brought a fundamental shift in his thinking.
You see the world from behind Plainview's increasingly jaded eyes as people come into his life, provide some glimmer of hope or recognition, and then fail miserably to conform to his expectations. There is a (supposed) son, a (supposed) brother, and a young desert Elmer Gantry with whom Plainview wrestles (literally and figuratively) in a humiliating battle of wills.
The acting is superb, the story builds slowly, with layers of complexity, the emotion is visceral, not sentimental. There was only one slight disappointment for me, which I won't speak of, as I am still puzzling out whether the action was, in the circumstances, appropriate. It is the kind of dark, uncompromising, kick-in-the-gut film that comes along very rarely. If you like cinematic novels, rather than light and forgettable filler, you should see this movie.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A Memoir of Total War
Ernst Junger, who lived to a ripe old age of 103, was lucky to have gotten out of youthful manhood, judging from his memoir of the First World War, Storm of Steel. At the end of the book, he makes a tally and reveals that he was hit a total of fourteen times (leaving out "ricochets and grazes") in the course of the conflict, including 5 bullet wounds. He relates these injuries, as he relates most other information regarding the war, with a certain sang-froid, clinical in his assessment to an almost inhuman degree. Despite how one may feel about how Junger describes the conflict and the enthusiasm of men under fire (many see it as a glorification of war), Storm of Steel is a classic and harrowing first hand account of total war.
The German Junger was a controversial writer, politically to the right for most of his life, with a Spenglerian pessimism regarding the fate of man in the 20th century. Storm of Steel, his first published work (which he revised several times throughout his life) is an exhilarating, if curiously detached, view of trench warfare. The bloodlust which apparently characterized earlier editions has been largely expunged, still, for Junger, the 20th century was to have been an apocalyptic one, full of blood and violence, and in these he is in his element. The term "Homeric" comes up in the translator's introduction, and one does feel at times that we are with Achilles or Hector in the trenches. Walls of fire and thunderous shell-bursts transform the Belgian landscape into a vision of hell; warriors die valiantly, on their feet and never in retreat. A more apt comparison than Homer might be the Teutonic Valhalla, where warriors die a thousand deaths, to feast in the afterlife and return, reborn, to the fray.
In 1918, Junger received Germany's highest military honor, the honor pour le Merite (the Blue Max) for his leadership and heroism in battle. His honors were to provide some protection against the Nazis. After some anti-Hitler statements in the late 30's*, he was compelled to don the uniform again, serving as a kind of cultural attache or intelligence officer in occupied Paris. Bruce Chatwin's essay on Junger's life and work (see Chatwin's What Am I Doing Here) notes that as the Second World War wore on, Junger became disgusted at the perversion of the military ethic under the Nazis. It is noted that one of the rare instances when Junger seems to be truly ashamed to wear the uniform is when he sees three women walking down a Paris boulevard arm in arm, wearing the yellow star. Still, in his written work, the young gentleman who read Tristam Shandy in the muck and mud of the trenches, and who carefully picked through the finest wine cellars of occupied Paris in his middle-age comes across as fairly oblivious to the suffering of others.
Reading Chatwin's essay on Junger in the early 1990's compelled me to search out Storm of Steel. Once in the parking lot of a rare book shop in suburban Maryland, an austere and strange gentleman offered me his card after hearing me make inquiries about the book. Penguin finally issued a new translation of Storm of Steel in 2004. Ernst Junger was the author of more than 50 works, and was one of only a handful of German authors (Goethe included) who saw publication of his Collected Works while still among the living. He also enthusiastically pursued entomology (beetles to Nabokov's butterflies) and included hallucinogens amongst his enthusiasms. His novels On the Marble Cliffs, The Glass Bees, and Aladdin's Problem have all been translated into English. One day, I hope to find an English edition of his Parisian Diaries.
*Junger had also written On the Marble Cliffs, a grotesque fable reputed to have been anti-Hitler, but enjoyed Hitler's protection, even though he never became a member of the Nazi Party. Junger was also a peripheral (and unpunished) character in the unsuccessful "General's Plot" to assassinate Hitler.
The German Junger was a controversial writer, politically to the right for most of his life, with a Spenglerian pessimism regarding the fate of man in the 20th century. Storm of Steel, his first published work (which he revised several times throughout his life) is an exhilarating, if curiously detached, view of trench warfare. The bloodlust which apparently characterized earlier editions has been largely expunged, still, for Junger, the 20th century was to have been an apocalyptic one, full of blood and violence, and in these he is in his element. The term "Homeric" comes up in the translator's introduction, and one does feel at times that we are with Achilles or Hector in the trenches. Walls of fire and thunderous shell-bursts transform the Belgian landscape into a vision of hell; warriors die valiantly, on their feet and never in retreat. A more apt comparison than Homer might be the Teutonic Valhalla, where warriors die a thousand deaths, to feast in the afterlife and return, reborn, to the fray.
In 1918, Junger received Germany's highest military honor, the honor pour le Merite (the Blue Max) for his leadership and heroism in battle. His honors were to provide some protection against the Nazis. After some anti-Hitler statements in the late 30's*, he was compelled to don the uniform again, serving as a kind of cultural attache or intelligence officer in occupied Paris. Bruce Chatwin's essay on Junger's life and work (see Chatwin's What Am I Doing Here) notes that as the Second World War wore on, Junger became disgusted at the perversion of the military ethic under the Nazis. It is noted that one of the rare instances when Junger seems to be truly ashamed to wear the uniform is when he sees three women walking down a Paris boulevard arm in arm, wearing the yellow star. Still, in his written work, the young gentleman who read Tristam Shandy in the muck and mud of the trenches, and who carefully picked through the finest wine cellars of occupied Paris in his middle-age comes across as fairly oblivious to the suffering of others.
Reading Chatwin's essay on Junger in the early 1990's compelled me to search out Storm of Steel. Once in the parking lot of a rare book shop in suburban Maryland, an austere and strange gentleman offered me his card after hearing me make inquiries about the book. Penguin finally issued a new translation of Storm of Steel in 2004. Ernst Junger was the author of more than 50 works, and was one of only a handful of German authors (Goethe included) who saw publication of his Collected Works while still among the living. He also enthusiastically pursued entomology (beetles to Nabokov's butterflies) and included hallucinogens amongst his enthusiasms. His novels On the Marble Cliffs, The Glass Bees, and Aladdin's Problem have all been translated into English. One day, I hope to find an English edition of his Parisian Diaries.
*Junger had also written On the Marble Cliffs, a grotesque fable reputed to have been anti-Hitler, but enjoyed Hitler's protection, even though he never became a member of the Nazi Party. Junger was also a peripheral (and unpunished) character in the unsuccessful "General's Plot" to assassinate Hitler.
New Links
I've added a couple of interesting links to fellow LibraryThingers. They are either geniuses or madmen. Not that those are mutually exclusive categories....
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Christopher Robin
My boys, taking a break from the world of Pokemon, have discovered the simple pleasures of the old Disney "Winnie the Pooh" adventures. Perhaps I can entice them with some of the original stories? In the meantime, this piece, written by Czelaw Milosz, I offer with love for them.
I must think suddenly of matters too difficult for a bear of little brain. I have never asked myself what lies beyond the place where we live, I and Rabbit, Piglet and Eeyore, with our friend Christopher Robin. That is, we continue to live here, and nothing changed, and I just ate my little something. Only Christopher Robin left for a moment.
Owl says that immediately beyond our garden Time begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in it, you go down and down, very quickly, and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in, but he came back and then I asked him about the well. "Old bear," he answered. "I was in it and I was falling and I was changing as I fell. My legs became long, I was a big person, I grew old, hunched, and I walked with a cane, and then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear, and our shared fun. Now I won't go anywhere, even if I'm called in for an afternoon snack."
I must think suddenly of matters too difficult for a bear of little brain. I have never asked myself what lies beyond the place where we live, I and Rabbit, Piglet and Eeyore, with our friend Christopher Robin. That is, we continue to live here, and nothing changed, and I just ate my little something. Only Christopher Robin left for a moment.
Owl says that immediately beyond our garden Time begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in it, you go down and down, very quickly, and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in, but he came back and then I asked him about the well. "Old bear," he answered. "I was in it and I was falling and I was changing as I fell. My legs became long, I was a big person, I grew old, hunched, and I walked with a cane, and then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear, and our shared fun. Now I won't go anywhere, even if I'm called in for an afternoon snack."
Awaking with Blood in the Mouth
A pseudo-romantic satire on the "Arabian Nights", Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare is a fun and engaging read. Intricate plot devices mirror the famous 1001 Nights and The Manuscript Found at Saragossa, challenging perceptions of reality through the adventures of a young Englishman in late 15th century Cairo.
The subject is reality and its manipulation through suggestion and dreams. As a medievalist, Irwin knows his setting, and the David Roberts etchings of Mamluk Cairo are a nice touch. The plot gains convolutions page by page, and I confess that I may not have puzzled out all its intricacies - is the narrator the talking ape on Yoll's shoulder, or the ventriloquist? If the later, what is his relation to the rest of the narrative? The title refers to a dream/disease causing excruciating but unremembered pain in the afflicted - could this be anything but life itself?
A delightful and rich reading experience, and deserving of a place on that exclusive list of books to be read again.
The subject is reality and its manipulation through suggestion and dreams. As a medievalist, Irwin knows his setting, and the David Roberts etchings of Mamluk Cairo are a nice touch. The plot gains convolutions page by page, and I confess that I may not have puzzled out all its intricacies - is the narrator the talking ape on Yoll's shoulder, or the ventriloquist? If the later, what is his relation to the rest of the narrative? The title refers to a dream/disease causing excruciating but unremembered pain in the afflicted - could this be anything but life itself?
A delightful and rich reading experience, and deserving of a place on that exclusive list of books to be read again.
Monday, February 04, 2008
A Decadent Jewel
William Beckford's Vathek is a decadent jewel and a masterpiece of faux Orientalism. The Caliph Vathek seeks ultimate knowledge, using violence and sensory indulgence (precursor of Rimbaud!). He finds this knowledge, and eternal damnation, in the subterranean kingdom of Iblis, the Islamic Satan.
The archaic 18th century prose drips of a heady perfume, a reflection of the baroque pleasures of Vathek. There are dim echoes of Dante's Hell, and of the sorcery of the Pharsalia, as the Caliph's mother raises the dead for necromantic purposes. The halls of perdition reflect Piranesi's labyrinthine prisons, and the palaces of the five senses are a libertine's paradise, with fantastic abundance of sensual pleasures for a man with a truly gargantuan appetite.
Borges wrote an essay on the novel, noting that Vathek's reward and his punishment are one and the same. Lured by a mysterious sword with ever-changing characters, Vathek's odyssey is an inversion of the spiritual quest, as he descends from his station as a beloved, if arrogant, defender of the faith, through cruelty and blasphemy to find himself in possession of all the riches and knowledge he desires, at the price of eternal damnation and torment. A rich and brilliant fantasy, the Arabian Nights as seen through the lens of a decadent 18th century British aristocrat.
The archaic 18th century prose drips of a heady perfume, a reflection of the baroque pleasures of Vathek. There are dim echoes of Dante's Hell, and of the sorcery of the Pharsalia, as the Caliph's mother raises the dead for necromantic purposes. The halls of perdition reflect Piranesi's labyrinthine prisons, and the palaces of the five senses are a libertine's paradise, with fantastic abundance of sensual pleasures for a man with a truly gargantuan appetite.
Borges wrote an essay on the novel, noting that Vathek's reward and his punishment are one and the same. Lured by a mysterious sword with ever-changing characters, Vathek's odyssey is an inversion of the spiritual quest, as he descends from his station as a beloved, if arrogant, defender of the faith, through cruelty and blasphemy to find himself in possession of all the riches and knowledge he desires, at the price of eternal damnation and torment. A rich and brilliant fantasy, the Arabian Nights as seen through the lens of a decadent 18th century British aristocrat.
French Whine: The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Considered an early example of "warts and all" autobiography and long considered a classic of the western canon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions is a bizarre book.
The first portion, covering the philosopher's life up until 1741, is pleasant enough - a picaresque study of a wandering eccentric youth told, at times, with an alarming frankness.
The second part, chronicling his life as a writer with growing influence, gets stranger as the narrative progresses. Put simply, Rousseau had a full-blown persecution complex, and he relates in excruciating detail his perceptions of a growing cabal of opponents who have apparently (from his perspective, at least) committed themselves to making his life a veritable hell on earth. Prominent among Rousseau's tormentors are the encyclopediests Diderot and d'Alembert, as well as various members of the French aristocracy. The reasons for this persecution are never really explained by Rousseau, but the Confessions turns into one long protracted whine.
To himself, Rousseau was a noble, pure-hearted soul with never a mean or false word against anyone, unfairly attacked and hounded by those whose motives he claims never to have understood. Reading this, I longed for a good, objective biography of the writer - one that could explain just what the hell was really going on. Years ago, I read and enjoyed Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker, a series of writings which attempt to justify the author's character, with reference to his past indignities. The Confessions, which I believe predate that more melancholy work, doesn't clarify anything, other than Rousseau's paranoia and misanthropy. He protests that he is aloof from humanity, seeking nothing more than solitude and a life devoted to the contemplation of nature, while at the same time revealing his own penchant for gossip and intrigue. The Confessions strikes me as the writing of an entirely self-absorbed, deluded man.
The first portion, covering the philosopher's life up until 1741, is pleasant enough - a picaresque study of a wandering eccentric youth told, at times, with an alarming frankness.
The second part, chronicling his life as a writer with growing influence, gets stranger as the narrative progresses. Put simply, Rousseau had a full-blown persecution complex, and he relates in excruciating detail his perceptions of a growing cabal of opponents who have apparently (from his perspective, at least) committed themselves to making his life a veritable hell on earth. Prominent among Rousseau's tormentors are the encyclopediests Diderot and d'Alembert, as well as various members of the French aristocracy. The reasons for this persecution are never really explained by Rousseau, but the Confessions turns into one long protracted whine.
To himself, Rousseau was a noble, pure-hearted soul with never a mean or false word against anyone, unfairly attacked and hounded by those whose motives he claims never to have understood. Reading this, I longed for a good, objective biography of the writer - one that could explain just what the hell was really going on. Years ago, I read and enjoyed Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker, a series of writings which attempt to justify the author's character, with reference to his past indignities. The Confessions, which I believe predate that more melancholy work, doesn't clarify anything, other than Rousseau's paranoia and misanthropy. He protests that he is aloof from humanity, seeking nothing more than solitude and a life devoted to the contemplation of nature, while at the same time revealing his own penchant for gossip and intrigue. The Confessions strikes me as the writing of an entirely self-absorbed, deluded man.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
In the Land of the Blind
In Jose Saramago's Blindness, a sudden, inexplicable epidemic of blindness sweeps an unnamed city, plunging society into chaos. The squalor and violence that accompanies the blindness is vividly portrayed. One woman escapes the curse, and becomes responsible for guiding a small group, pilgrims in the land of the blind, to safety as an unchecked brutality descends upon the populace. The collective will and support of the group sustain them through unimaginable horrors.
Saramango shows how one vital change causes an expanding disruption of the social fabric, where human degradation and brutality rise quickly to the surface as opportunities for the abandonment of social norms arise. In the pilgrimage of the group, one thinks of the paintings of Breughel or Bosch, of the blind leading the blind through an apocalyptic landscape, through streets choked with corpses, wild dogs and the stench of human excrement. The basic necessities - food, shelter, and safety - become consuming obsessions as the comfortable trappings of modern life are stripped away.
The story is a descendant of Camus' The Plague, of the Decameron, and of the post-apocalyptic narratives of science fiction, most recently revived in Cormac McCarthy's harrowing The Road. In an Edwardian short story I read years ago, author forgotten, a blinding fog descends upon London, the consequence of environmental pollution, and society descends into violent chaos. Blindness is an expansion of that narrative, and in many ways a mirror of it. Saramago, writing in Portugese, is probably one of the few philosophical Marxists writing today. His Blindness is a remarkable and pessimistic exposition of the fragility of social order in the modern world.
Saramango shows how one vital change causes an expanding disruption of the social fabric, where human degradation and brutality rise quickly to the surface as opportunities for the abandonment of social norms arise. In the pilgrimage of the group, one thinks of the paintings of Breughel or Bosch, of the blind leading the blind through an apocalyptic landscape, through streets choked with corpses, wild dogs and the stench of human excrement. The basic necessities - food, shelter, and safety - become consuming obsessions as the comfortable trappings of modern life are stripped away.
The story is a descendant of Camus' The Plague, of the Decameron, and of the post-apocalyptic narratives of science fiction, most recently revived in Cormac McCarthy's harrowing The Road. In an Edwardian short story I read years ago, author forgotten, a blinding fog descends upon London, the consequence of environmental pollution, and society descends into violent chaos. Blindness is an expansion of that narrative, and in many ways a mirror of it. Saramago, writing in Portugese, is probably one of the few philosophical Marxists writing today. His Blindness is a remarkable and pessimistic exposition of the fragility of social order in the modern world.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Pynchon Clearinghouse
One of my favorite authors, and also one of the most frustrating, is Thomas Pynchon. Clearly a genius, but for every Gravity's Rainbow there is a Vineland, for every Mason & Dixon, there is an Against the Day. Actually, I shouldn't badmouth the latter, as I have yet to read it past the first 150 pages. One storyline is compelling, but another is so excruciating that I had to put the book down. Anyway, I now present for your enjoyment and argument a few short notes I have made over the years on some of Pynchon's work.
Slow Learner
Five early stories, with some of the same rambunctiousness of Pynchon's later novels. The only story that particularly feels out of place is "Under the Rose", a foray into John Buchan territory - a real yawner. "The Secret Integration" and "The Small Rain" are perhaps the most successful stories. The remainder seem to have something essentially Pynchonian missing, but of course they were written as the author was finding his voice. Pynchon's introduction attempts to put these stories from the late 50's - early 60's into perspective, and acts as a sort of apologia for the deficiencies of the stories. Necessary reading for the die-hard fan only.
The Crying of Lot 49
A short and readable novel by Pynchon, with a characteristic blend of paranoia, zany humor, and pathos. Oedipa Maas and a supporting cast try to decipher an underground postal network with roots in the Italian Renaissance. Entertaining but ambiguous: is Trystero a real conspiracy, or a practical joke being played on Oedipa by her ex-lover? Pynchon has spawned many imitators since this novel's 1966 publication, but seen as a product of its time, it is a lively and intriguing cultural document.
Gravity's Rainbow
Almost 900 pages of rocket equations, 1940's hepcat slang, surreal visions, druggie humor, occult arcana, homoerotic fantasy, orgies, tenderness, paranoia, coprophagia, chemical formulae, colonial American puritan theology, and a guest appearance by Mickey Rooney. Threads of meaning come through in a story that shifts time, voice, and focus. Catalogues of depravity and broad slapstick, like Rabelais on acid. Gravity's Rainbow, for me anyway, is a slow read - dreadfully slow in places - and one knows that much has been missed in a casual read. The story of priapic Tyrone Slothrop and his unique connection with the V-2 rockets that blitzed London in the Second World War is ultimately a dark cautionary tale of the dangers of power and technology. My next reading will be accompanied by Weisenburger's indispensable A Gravity's Rainbow Companion, an essential roadmap to this complex novel.
Mason & Dixon
I loved this rambling, rollicking, daffy funhouse mirror of an 18th century novel. Weird and anachronistic, it is also one of the sweetest and clearest of Pynchon's works. The general outline follows the work of the famed surveyors of the Maryland/Pennsylvania hinterlands, but the personalities and adventures recounted here are classic Pynchon. The duo smoke hemp with George Washington (as Martha bakes up cakes to satisfy the munchies and a slave does a fair imitation of a Catskills comic), receive recreational shock treatments from Ben Franklin, converse with a talking dog, dodge an apparently psychotic mechanical duck, and befriend a Chinese feng shui master as they clear the path between the Penn and Calvert estates. This path, it is revealed, serves as a conduit for a vast, ancient, and unnameable telluric force. There are Jesuit conspiracies, lost souls, giant cheeses, and tender loves lost and found. Mason and Dixon are drawn in comic contrast, but they are complementary in their humanity and ultimately quite sympathetic figures. A grand, fun, and, in the end, wistful novel.
P.S. One of my favorite Pynchon websites, Spermatikos Logos, is at http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/
Slow Learner
Five early stories, with some of the same rambunctiousness of Pynchon's later novels. The only story that particularly feels out of place is "Under the Rose", a foray into John Buchan territory - a real yawner. "The Secret Integration" and "The Small Rain" are perhaps the most successful stories. The remainder seem to have something essentially Pynchonian missing, but of course they were written as the author was finding his voice. Pynchon's introduction attempts to put these stories from the late 50's - early 60's into perspective, and acts as a sort of apologia for the deficiencies of the stories. Necessary reading for the die-hard fan only.
The Crying of Lot 49
A short and readable novel by Pynchon, with a characteristic blend of paranoia, zany humor, and pathos. Oedipa Maas and a supporting cast try to decipher an underground postal network with roots in the Italian Renaissance. Entertaining but ambiguous: is Trystero a real conspiracy, or a practical joke being played on Oedipa by her ex-lover? Pynchon has spawned many imitators since this novel's 1966 publication, but seen as a product of its time, it is a lively and intriguing cultural document.
Gravity's Rainbow
Almost 900 pages of rocket equations, 1940's hepcat slang, surreal visions, druggie humor, occult arcana, homoerotic fantasy, orgies, tenderness, paranoia, coprophagia, chemical formulae, colonial American puritan theology, and a guest appearance by Mickey Rooney. Threads of meaning come through in a story that shifts time, voice, and focus. Catalogues of depravity and broad slapstick, like Rabelais on acid. Gravity's Rainbow, for me anyway, is a slow read - dreadfully slow in places - and one knows that much has been missed in a casual read. The story of priapic Tyrone Slothrop and his unique connection with the V-2 rockets that blitzed London in the Second World War is ultimately a dark cautionary tale of the dangers of power and technology. My next reading will be accompanied by Weisenburger's indispensable A Gravity's Rainbow Companion, an essential roadmap to this complex novel.
Mason & Dixon
I loved this rambling, rollicking, daffy funhouse mirror of an 18th century novel. Weird and anachronistic, it is also one of the sweetest and clearest of Pynchon's works. The general outline follows the work of the famed surveyors of the Maryland/Pennsylvania hinterlands, but the personalities and adventures recounted here are classic Pynchon. The duo smoke hemp with George Washington (as Martha bakes up cakes to satisfy the munchies and a slave does a fair imitation of a Catskills comic), receive recreational shock treatments from Ben Franklin, converse with a talking dog, dodge an apparently psychotic mechanical duck, and befriend a Chinese feng shui master as they clear the path between the Penn and Calvert estates. This path, it is revealed, serves as a conduit for a vast, ancient, and unnameable telluric force. There are Jesuit conspiracies, lost souls, giant cheeses, and tender loves lost and found. Mason and Dixon are drawn in comic contrast, but they are complementary in their humanity and ultimately quite sympathetic figures. A grand, fun, and, in the end, wistful novel.
P.S. One of my favorite Pynchon websites, Spermatikos Logos, is at http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/
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