Bibliography
Sep. 3rd, 2007 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyAround The World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
I got very keen on Phileas Fogg because of the children's television cartoon series that dramatised his adventures in Around the World in Eighty Days, very popular when I was a child. It seemed only fitting to actually pick up the original novel, and incidentally dip my toe into the waters of Jules Verne properly. All my knowledge of his work has been adaptations, and I thought reading some of the real stuff was a good plan. I really should have been given this at a much younger age, as I would have devoured it with considerable pleasure. I still did so on this occasion, to be truthful, but it's one of those books that would have been ripping as a child. I was particularly struck by the isolated, punctual, detatched figure of Fogg, with an emotional isolation that I don't remember at all from the jovial, adventurous figure of the cartoon. Probably such a peculiar figure was too much for children's television. It is to Verne's credit that, having created such a strange and isolated figure, he manages to place his creation in all sorts of exciting situations without making Fogg's reaction to those incidents feel out of place. The final twist of the love story is, of course, baffling - one wonders what Lady Aouda sees in Mr. Fogg, but who are we to judge. Passepartout is wonderfully exuberant and comic, balancing Fogg's starkness well; poor old Mr. Fix really needs to retire to his allotment. Definitely worth visiting, as it is a surprisingly short read but exceptionally well crafted and thoroughly suitable for the Age of Steam.
The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories - Muriel Spark
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gurdonark once recommended that I read some of Spark's short stories after I had finally got round to reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and this was the volume that presented itself. It contains eleven tales of varying lengths, the centerpiece of which is The Go-Away Bird, a sad tale of a woman's search for her own cultural identity as she is pulled between England and South Africa intertwined with an eventually fatal feud her uncle has engaged in with one of his hired men. Spark conjours South Africa (both its society and its landscapes) quite beautifully, and unexpectedly so.
Spark's stories center on one particular moment or view quite beautifully, and unfold in rich, detailed text concerning this one aspect. This is the other approach to short story writing, apparently (the other being the sparse yet punchy use of language exemplified by Annie Proulx). They pick up on a variety of different social tensions, many of which are concerned with identities made difficult because of cultural differences, or the problems of finding the right place to pigeonhole oneself or others in one's conception of society. That, I would say, is the underlying problem that Spark's characters find themselves facing - how to make sense of their place in society and how to fit other people correctly into theirs. It's a very fruitful seam of fiction, and I'd second the recommendation to give her short fiction some time.
The Leaf and The Cloud - Mary Oliver
I was given this by my priest just before leaving for Europe. It's amazingly good. I haven't felt this sort of a connection with a poet since I was first exposed to Ted Hughes for A-level. Oliver captures nature that surrounds us in interesting, sparkling and easy to approach imagery, yet expresses some very deep anxieties at the same time. I need to read through this short book-length poem again, but in the meantime I recommend you to try and find a copy if you can. If you've never been able to understand poetry, this might help you start to.
I am having some thoughts about how sad it is that poetry as a creative medium appears to be in decline. G thinks a lot of the power that used to go into poetry is now being transmuted into song lyrics; I'm not so sure. That's another conversation for another time.
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Yay for the Russians - I was starting to feel a bit deprived. This is a novel all about generations and growing up, and the divisions between the elder and the younger phases of a society. The hero, Bazarov, is a student, a nihilist, who claims to think nothing of nature and beauty, and think all social conventions should be overturned, particularly the aristocracy. He's especially vehemently opposed to love. Naturally, he then undergoes the conversion experience of knowing what it feels like to be in love. Turgenev also takes great care to portray the beauty of the Russian countryside around Bazarov and his impressionable aristocratic friend Arkady as they travel about during a holiday season, visiting their relatives and the young lady who functions as a love interest, the emotionally barren Anna Sergeevna Odintsov. Arkady eventually falls in love with and marries her younger sister; Bazarov dies by getting an infected wound while dissecting a cadaver. A huge debate errupted in Russia over whether Turgenev was bashing the younger generation as a load of good for nothings, encouraging them to anarchy, or presenting them with an ideal character who was capable of reform; I think Bazarov was deeply misguided.
My favourite character was Arkady's uncle, Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, a man with a rakish past, a strong sense of honour, and generally Anglophile habits. He ends up challenging Bazarov to a duel, one of the most darkly comic passages of the novel. He takes it entirely seriously; Bazarov goes along with it disbelievingly, convinced they're not actually going to do this - right until he shoots Pavel Petrovich in the leg. For all his posturing, Bazarov quite clearly is still only a boy. Fascinating bit of kit, worth a read as it's short, probably not ideal if you want something cheery.
A Room With A View - E.M. Forster
I think I'm becoming quite a Forster fan. I wish I'd read this when I was 18 and struggling with the teenage female issues of, again, self identity, particularly the appealing thought of thinking for oneself and not necessarily being bound by social conventions as considered absolutely essential by others (embodied by Charlotte Bartlett). The sudden bounds in emotional state that Lucy makes, feeling queen of bohemia one minute then small, confused and not at all happy the next, rang such huge bells of recognition that I wonder what I would have made of this earlier in life. I seem to be saying that a lot at the moment.
I'm very irritated that Lucy accepted the proposal of the unutterably dreadful Cecil. She managed to hold out twice - why on earth not thrice? His deliberate and unfeigned desire to make her into something she's not is utterly repellant, and his own abilities to switch from opinion A to opinion B without even seeming aware of it show a thoroughly undesirable character. Ugh. How anyone managed to stand him for five minutes is beyond me.
The scene where Freddy, George and the clergyman get caught skinny dipping in the pond is utterly hilarious, and should be required reading to the generations.
I got very keen on Phileas Fogg because of the children's television cartoon series that dramatised his adventures in Around the World in Eighty Days, very popular when I was a child. It seemed only fitting to actually pick up the original novel, and incidentally dip my toe into the waters of Jules Verne properly. All my knowledge of his work has been adaptations, and I thought reading some of the real stuff was a good plan. I really should have been given this at a much younger age, as I would have devoured it with considerable pleasure. I still did so on this occasion, to be truthful, but it's one of those books that would have been ripping as a child. I was particularly struck by the isolated, punctual, detatched figure of Fogg, with an emotional isolation that I don't remember at all from the jovial, adventurous figure of the cartoon. Probably such a peculiar figure was too much for children's television. It is to Verne's credit that, having created such a strange and isolated figure, he manages to place his creation in all sorts of exciting situations without making Fogg's reaction to those incidents feel out of place. The final twist of the love story is, of course, baffling - one wonders what Lady Aouda sees in Mr. Fogg, but who are we to judge. Passepartout is wonderfully exuberant and comic, balancing Fogg's starkness well; poor old Mr. Fix really needs to retire to his allotment. Definitely worth visiting, as it is a surprisingly short read but exceptionally well crafted and thoroughly suitable for the Age of Steam.
The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories - Muriel Spark
gurdonark once recommended that I read some of Spark's short stories after I had finally got round to reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and this was the volume that presented itself. It contains eleven tales of varying lengths, the centerpiece of which is The Go-Away Bird, a sad tale of a woman's search for her own cultural identity as she is pulled between England and South Africa intertwined with an eventually fatal feud her uncle has engaged in with one of his hired men. Spark conjours South Africa (both its society and its landscapes) quite beautifully, and unexpectedly so. Spark's stories center on one particular moment or view quite beautifully, and unfold in rich, detailed text concerning this one aspect. This is the other approach to short story writing, apparently (the other being the sparse yet punchy use of language exemplified by Annie Proulx). They pick up on a variety of different social tensions, many of which are concerned with identities made difficult because of cultural differences, or the problems of finding the right place to pigeonhole oneself or others in one's conception of society. That, I would say, is the underlying problem that Spark's characters find themselves facing - how to make sense of their place in society and how to fit other people correctly into theirs. It's a very fruitful seam of fiction, and I'd second the recommendation to give her short fiction some time.
The Leaf and The Cloud - Mary Oliver
I was given this by my priest just before leaving for Europe. It's amazingly good. I haven't felt this sort of a connection with a poet since I was first exposed to Ted Hughes for A-level. Oliver captures nature that surrounds us in interesting, sparkling and easy to approach imagery, yet expresses some very deep anxieties at the same time. I need to read through this short book-length poem again, but in the meantime I recommend you to try and find a copy if you can. If you've never been able to understand poetry, this might help you start to.
I am having some thoughts about how sad it is that poetry as a creative medium appears to be in decline. G thinks a lot of the power that used to go into poetry is now being transmuted into song lyrics; I'm not so sure. That's another conversation for another time.
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Yay for the Russians - I was starting to feel a bit deprived. This is a novel all about generations and growing up, and the divisions between the elder and the younger phases of a society. The hero, Bazarov, is a student, a nihilist, who claims to think nothing of nature and beauty, and think all social conventions should be overturned, particularly the aristocracy. He's especially vehemently opposed to love. Naturally, he then undergoes the conversion experience of knowing what it feels like to be in love. Turgenev also takes great care to portray the beauty of the Russian countryside around Bazarov and his impressionable aristocratic friend Arkady as they travel about during a holiday season, visiting their relatives and the young lady who functions as a love interest, the emotionally barren Anna Sergeevna Odintsov. Arkady eventually falls in love with and marries her younger sister; Bazarov dies by getting an infected wound while dissecting a cadaver. A huge debate errupted in Russia over whether Turgenev was bashing the younger generation as a load of good for nothings, encouraging them to anarchy, or presenting them with an ideal character who was capable of reform; I think Bazarov was deeply misguided.
My favourite character was Arkady's uncle, Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, a man with a rakish past, a strong sense of honour, and generally Anglophile habits. He ends up challenging Bazarov to a duel, one of the most darkly comic passages of the novel. He takes it entirely seriously; Bazarov goes along with it disbelievingly, convinced they're not actually going to do this - right until he shoots Pavel Petrovich in the leg. For all his posturing, Bazarov quite clearly is still only a boy. Fascinating bit of kit, worth a read as it's short, probably not ideal if you want something cheery.
A Room With A View - E.M. Forster
I think I'm becoming quite a Forster fan. I wish I'd read this when I was 18 and struggling with the teenage female issues of, again, self identity, particularly the appealing thought of thinking for oneself and not necessarily being bound by social conventions as considered absolutely essential by others (embodied by Charlotte Bartlett). The sudden bounds in emotional state that Lucy makes, feeling queen of bohemia one minute then small, confused and not at all happy the next, rang such huge bells of recognition that I wonder what I would have made of this earlier in life. I seem to be saying that a lot at the moment.
I'm very irritated that Lucy accepted the proposal of the unutterably dreadful Cecil. She managed to hold out twice - why on earth not thrice? His deliberate and unfeigned desire to make her into something she's not is utterly repellant, and his own abilities to switch from opinion A to opinion B without even seeming aware of it show a thoroughly undesirable character. Ugh. How anyone managed to stand him for five minutes is beyond me.
The scene where Freddy, George and the clergyman get caught skinny dipping in the pond is utterly hilarious, and should be required reading to the generations.
