The Fellowship of the Ring (Book One)

Let's face it, The Lord of the Rings is a big book full of lots of things, and those who have read it will have their own (and usually) passionate feelings about it.  I certainly cannot do it justice within the limited scope of this document; however, I am going to try to share some thoughts about it.

It seems to me that The Lord of the Rings boils down to three things. Firstly, it is about generational change: the passing of people and of situations.  Secondly, it is about letting go: giving up attachments to people, places and power.  Finally, it is about how we are to act in a dangerous world.

Tolkien chose to do this within the genre that he and C.S. Lewis called Heroic Romance.  Working within this genre, Tolkien created a fictional world that never existed, and one that is both very familiar and very alien.  The task before him was to take the reader from the familiar and slowly introduce them to the unfamiliar world of men and elves, and of war and magic.  This is what Book One of The Fellowship of the Ring is about.  Let's consider how he combines his themes and his task.

As was told in The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins made a remarkable journey into the Wilderness with thirteen dwarfs and the wizard Gandalf.  As a result of this adventure, Bilbo came into the possession of a one-fourteenth share of a vast treasure.  He also found a magic ring.  That was when he was fifty.  Bilbo is now eleventy-one, and he celebrates this birthday by holding a big party.  He has also decided to depart from the Shire, leaving his nephew Frodo as the owner of Bag End and of the magic ring.  Here we have both generational change and a letting go.

Seventeen years later, it becomes clear that the Shire is no longer a safe place.  Dark forces are searching for Frodo's ring, which is revealed to be the One Ring that controls all the other Rings of Power. Frodo, it is decided, must leave the Shire and journey to the haven of Rivendell.  Frodo is reluctant to let go of the Shire; he has not had his fill of it.

The journey will be a dangerous one.  At first Frodo is accompanied by Sam Gamgee and Pippin Took, and they are soon joined by another hobbit, Merry Brandybuck.  They encounter many dangers before reaching the village of Bree, where they are joined by a mysterious stranger: a man called Aragorn (and nicknamed Strider).  These five plunge into the true Wilderness as they head for Rivendell.  They face discomfort and danger together and, by looking after one another in times of peril, become true friends.  

It is not only in such friendship that we find clues about how we are to act in the world.  There is a deeper attitudinal component to the tale.  The words "hope" and "pity" are sprinkled throughout the text: "...hope came to him in the darkness..."  "It was pity that stayed his hand."    And these words are set in opposition to "despair" and "malice" and "revenge".  It is through hope and pity that Gandalf seeks to help a frightened Frodo begin his journey.  "Don't despair!" Strider tells a distraught Sam.

Tolkien takes us from the very familiar world of the Shire - with its mills and pubs, its gardens and farms - and across the landscape of Middle Earth; and as the travellers inch their way forward, the world becomes more wondrous and more perilous.  By degrees we are introduced to the strange, the beautiful and the deadly.  First, a brief encounter with a rider dressed in black provides some horror.  This is followed by a meeting with a band of elves, who give comfort to the hobbits.  Leaving the Shire, they meet with forces that are far older and more powerful than they can imagine: Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil are personifications of the wild forces of nature; the barrow-wight is a locus of the malign power in the world.

Tolkien also tells us of the history that underlies the story.  The second chapter of the book is almost totally devoted to Gandalf relating to Frodo the history of the One Ring.  It is a story that goes back to events several millennia in the past.  Later, on the Barrow Downs, we get glimpses of the history of a war that was fought centuries ago.  And later still, Aragorn tells the hobbits a tale of Beren and Luthien, who lived some seven or eight thousand years earlier. It is a deep history.  And so Tolkien's story is given breadth and depth by geography and history.

Tolkien's achievement is quite remarkable.  By the end of Book One, the reader is steeped in a world that is not real and only exists in their own mind; a world that can never be visited but can be experienced most vividly - this, perhaps, is one reason why The Lord of the Rings is a book that enjoys a widespread and enduring popularity -  and it sets the stage for the ever-widening action of the following five books.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

A few decades ago I read this book hot on the heels of reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  I did it a great disservice by comparing the two.  At the time Dracula seemed a bit cheap by comparison: the psychology was shallower, and the good guys were too good and all seemed stamped from the same mould.  I dismissed it as a lesser work; however, upon re-reading, I can see more clearly the merits of Stoker's novel.

The story of Dracula is presented to the reader in the form of extracts from various diaries, journals, letters, telegrams and newspaper clippings.  This allows us to see the story from multiple points of view, and Stoker does an admirable job of blending direct observation, internal dialogue and reported speech so that the narration remains fresh and lively throughout what is a long novel.

Of course, the genre is horror; and as willing participants in the game, we are going to allow Stoker to scare us.  But how does he go about his task?  He introduces us to one of the heroes, Jonathan Harker, and through him we soon meet the monster Count Dracula.   The Count is hospitable, thoughtful and erudite; however, the scenario "reeks of wrongness" (thank you, Diana Wynne Jones for giving the world that phrase).  By degrees, Harker's situation descends into a nightmare.  

It is notable that things are never so nightmarish than when the Count is absent and is only alluded to or is only seen from afar, and that is about all we get of him for most of the book after the first few chapters.  But it works, and it does intensify the horror.  Tolkien used the same device: Sauron is never seen (except as a distant, roving eye) and is never heard (except in one case of reported speech), and yet the horror of his threat is almost always present.

Stoker, it seems, is good at the bad guys and bad at the good guys.  The Count and the lunatic Renfield are memorable villains.  Mr & Mrs Harker, Dr Seward, et al. are quite unmemorable and hardly distinguishable in their thoughts and sentiments.  Only the quirky and indefatigable Van Helsing rises above the blandness of his companions (but only just).  The point, I think, is that we are to insert ourselves into the places of the good guys at each change of perspective so that we, too, can feel the full impact of the horror that besets them.  Too much eccentricity on the part of the character may mean a loss of empathy on our part.  Still, a bit more delineation would have been nice.

I am very glad to have read this book again.  Despite my familiarity with the story, Stoker was able to touch my sense of horror and set it humming.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sirens of Titan is an intriguing and thought-provoking novel.  If the world is a meaningless place, then how are we to act?  It is a challenging question that many of us will have to try to answer.

The Sirens of Titan (1959) is Kurt Vonnegut's second published novel.  It tells the story of the interlocking lives of the major characters Winston Niles Rumfoord and Malachi Constant.  In it we find many of the themes that featured in his subsequent novels.

While travelling between Earth and Mars with his dog Kazak, Rumfoord becomes trapped in a cosmological anomaly called a chrono-synclastic infundibulum.  As a result, he gains almost god-like powers of omniscience and omnipresence.  He uses these powers to shape the course of human history.  But is Rumfoord just a pawn in a much bigger cosmic game?

Malachi Constant inherits the greatest personal fortune in history but lives a reckless and hedonistic lifestyle.  His father had built this fortune by sheer dumb luck (or by Providence), and for a while it seems that Constant has inherited his father's preposterous luck.  Then things go wrong.  Constant loses his fortune and, after acting on some advice from his dead father, he lives a degraded and nightmarish life on Mars.  Has he got what it takes to change the trajectory of his life and redeem himself?

The first theme presented in The Sirens of Titan is that of meaning, or meaninglessness, in life.  Is there a purpose and a design to the Universe, or is it all just sheer, dumb luck?  "I guess someone up there likes me," says Malachi Constant as an explanation for his seeming good luck.  And, yes, Providence is one possible explanation; serendipity is another.

Of course, what Vonnegut is seeking is a viable humanistic response to a meaningless universe.  Rumfoord's use of total war to bring about universal peace on Earth raises the old question of the ends justifying the means.  We see Constant following his instincts, doing what he feels is right, to reunite himself with his lost family.  And there is the example of the sadistic Boaz having a revelation about living a meaningful life:

I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for [some creatures he found on Mercury] know I'm doing it, and they love me ... as best they can.  I found me a home.

 Another theme is that of free will.  This is a theme Vonnegut revisits in many of his subsequent novels.  In The Sirens of Titan, we see Rumfoord using alien technology to rob humans of their free will, their memories and their identities.  A later development in the book suggests that human free will has been an illusion for at least a few hundreds of millennia.

As is the case in his later novels, Vonnegut is capable of turning a cynical and memorable phrase about human behaviour.  Of an investment strategy presented to the elder Constant, the narrator says:

It was a marvelous engine for doing violence to the spirit of thousands of laws without actually running afoul of so much as a city ordinance ... Noel Constant was so impressed by this monument to hypocrisy and sharp practice that he wanted to buy stock in it without even referring to his Bible.

The Sirens of Titan contains many images and metaphors that may strike those readers from a Christian background.  There are analogues of Jonah, Job, Judas, Jesus, the second coming, Jacob's ladder and much more.  This makes the book all the more intriguing to read and decode.

I read the ebook version published by Rosetta Books.  Apart from one typo, it is very well presented.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

"There midnight's all a glimmer"

Recently, a friend and I were talking about Thoreau's Walden.  My friend surprised me by reciting The Lake Isle of Innisfree.  The poem was very pertinent to our conversation about solitude, nature and growing one's own food.  Afterwards, I thought that if the poem is important enough for my friend to learn by heart, then it is worth taking a close look at it.  

I have included the poem at the end of this document.  You may like to read it first.

The poet tells us that he is going to make a sea-change in his life and move to the countryside.  He intends to build his own dwelling and grow his own food there.  He believes he will have peace by living close to nature; and he tells us that no matter where he is in the urban landscape, he hears nature calling him from the depths of his being.

Looking at some of the verbs in the first stanza we find arise, go, build.  Apart from their plain meanings, these words give us a sense of growth and of ascending to a better mode of being - a spiritual flourishing rather than a material one, perhaps.  And although the poet intends to construct a dwelling and practice horticulture (both, in a sense, unnatural activities), he introduces us to the raw elements of clay and wattle, of bean-rows and hives.  The final line of the stanza gives us a vivid and evocative picture of the poet's vision: And live alone in the bee-loud glade.  Gee, Dylan Thomas could not have written it any better.

In the second stanza, the poet evokes more images of the natural world.  He uses the words morning, midnight, noon and evening.  His world, he says, will be filled with the sounds of crickets singing and of birds beating their wings, and the sky will glow by day and glimmer by night.  It is from this sensuous tapestry that the poet's sought-after peace will come.  He says peace comes dropping slow, and the reader can almost see it dropping, like morning dew on a green lawn or raindrops on the receiving flower.

In the final stanza, the poet repeats the opening phrase of the poem: I will arise and go now.  But this time he tells us about his motivation rather than his intentions.  The poet is driven by a feeling that comes from his deep heart's core.  He likens it to hearing lake water lapping, and he says he hears it for always day and night.  And to heighten the reader's appreciation of what has transpired earlier in the poem, the poet introduces  the contrasting image of roadways and pavements grey.  The image is  hard and bleak and lifeless. And so the poet ends the poem with what really matters: the deep heart's core.

I enjoyed this poem, and it does make me wonder what lies calling  to me from my deep heart's core.  Accumulate appreciating and income producing capital!  Nope, that's not it.  Leave it with me, I'll work on it.  Meanwhile, here's the poem ... 

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats 

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Heroes by Charles Kingsley

Once upon a time I decided to move overseas.  I was constrained by cost to whittle my possession down to as much as would fit into three tea-chests.  Oh! the decisions, and the agonising over the decisions.  What to take, and what to give away?  In the end I allocated half-a-chest to books and personal papers.  There were several books that needed no decision-making: of course I would taking them to my new home.

One of these books was The Heroes by Charles Kingsley.  It was one of the first  fiction books I read with with genuine delight.  (I started my reading life by reading science and history books exclusively, and my 5y.o. self loathed the standard kiddies classics, such as Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh - although I've warmed to these in my adult years).  Then, I found an old and battered book in a second-hand book store my mother and I used to frequent.  The Heroes.  I liked the sound of that.  So I asked Mum to buy it for me; and thus began my love affair with mythology.

Kingsley retells three tales from Greek Mythology: Perseus, The Argonauts, and Theseus.  My favorite tale in this book was (and still is) that of Perseus.  After an inauspicious childhood, Perseus becomes favoured by the Gods, and they bestowed upon him several magical items, including a pair of winged sandals which he immediately strapped on.

And Athené cried, "Now leap from the cliff and be gone" ... and [Perseus] leaped into the empty air.  And behold, instead of falling he floated, and stood, and ran along the sky ...  and the sandals led him on northward ever, like a crane who follows the spring toward the Ister fens.

I remember vividly how I felt when I first read that passage.  How I wished I too could run along the sky.  I still do.  And just as vividly, I recall the account of Cheiron the centaur schooling young Jason and the boys who would become the Argonauts, and Theseus slaying the supernatural bandits who infested the coast road from Troezen to Athens. 

It has been decades since I last read The Heroes; however, on re-reading, I found it as delightful as ever.  Kingsley's diction is very quaint and very Victorian.  He does use some high language, especially in the dialogue, but his choices are very judicious and he avoids strangling his tales with overblown and faux archaisms - unlike, say, Howard Pyle.  And for all the oddness of the subject matter of the stories, Kingsley makes it very easy for the reader to care for each hero.  Yes, it is all done with a deft touch.  Yes, it was all very enjoyable for me.  Yes, it may be for you too.

As a point of interest, my copy of The Heroes has the following printed on the information page:

REGISTERED AT THE G.P.O SYDNEY

FOR TRANSMISSION BY POST AS A BOOK

WHOLLY SET UP AND PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA BY

CONSOLIDATED PRESS LIMITED

166-174 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY

1948

If you are interested in mythology, you may like to look at these reviews: The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and Myths of Light.  Both these books are by the renowned mythology theorist Joseph Campbell.

Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland is a book about our perceptions of the world and the beliefs that arise from them.  Or is that the other way about?  It is also a satire about Victorian society and, possibly, an allegorical discussion about the merits of social improvement through evolution, plastic surgery or even eugenics.

The narrator of Flatland is a square that lives in a two-dimensional world.  The citizens of Flatland know two dimensions of movement only: northwards/southwards and side to side.  In their world rain falls from north to south, so they build their houses with the roof facing north.  

In the first part of the book, the narrator tells us about the social structure and social history of Flatland.  The inhabitants come in many shapes and sizes.  Most are regular polygons, such as triangles, squares and pentagons.  The more sides, the higher the social rank.  Climbing the social ladder is achieved on a generational basis: triangles father squares, squares father pentagons, and so on.  Circles occupy the highest social niche.  A minority of inhabitants are irregularly shaped, and they tend to have an abnormal psychology.  It is therefore necessary to constrain them either through incarceration or military service.  

War has played a prominent part in Flatland history.  Indeed, the most destructive war in their history came about when women became warriors.  Because women are considered irrational, and because they are by far the most lethal warriors, their social behaviour is severely curtailed in order to preserve an orderly society.

In the second part, the narrator relates a vision he had when he travelled to Lineland, where the inhabitants are one-dimensional and can only travel north/south.  He tries to explain to the monarch the concept of a second dimension and, consequently, side-to-side movement.  The king will have none of this kind of mad talk as it strikes against both his perceptions and his reason.  But the narrator persists and only succeeds in infuriating the Linelanders to the point of war.

Later, the narrator receives a visitor who claims to be from a three-dimensional world.  The narrator in his turn becomes angered by his guest's insistence about the possibility of moving upwards and downwards.  In the end, the visitor lifts the narrator out of Flatland and grants him a vision of three-dimensional space.  They speculate about the possibility of four dimensions.  This vision has disastrous consequences for the narrator.

In a short eighty page tract, Abbott has given us a lively and imaginative challenge to our assumptions about the world.  The narrator's visions are very reminiscent of Plato's parable of the cave - there may be another world which we can experience if only we could screw our perceptions through 180 degrees, metaphorically speaking.  What is very interesting is that the inhabitants of the various dimensional worlds become angry when their notions of reality are challenged.  It is an all too common phenomenon in our own world, and one which it is the philosopher's duty to transcend wherever possible.

Flatland is very worthwhile reading and, being mercifully short, can be tackled in an afternoon.  I read the Penguin ebook edition which is very well produced and is still text-to-speech enabled.

Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close and Janet McTeer

There are some movies where everything goes right, when all the elements that make for good storytelling are right there, at the right place and at the right time.  Albert Nobbs is not one of those movies.  Far from it.  The problem is that the script and the direction made it hard to believe in the main character or to care for the supporting cast.

Albert Nobbs is set in Ireland in Victorian times.  It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist who works as a waiter in a hotel that is struggling to keep its elite clients.  It turns out that Albert is really a woman who is trying to make something of herself in a man's world; but her secret is discovered by a stranger, and the unhappy Albert soon realises that happiness could be hers if only she could find ...

So much for the story.  As for the production, Glenn Close plays Albert; unfortunately, she does so by wearing a painful expression on her face for most of the movie.  Perhaps Albert suffered from wind but had no one to burp her?  Whatever it was, it made viewing the movie an uncomfortable experience.  In addition, there didn't seem to be adequate explanation or motivation for Albert's actions after her secret was revealed. 

In comparison, the character played by Janet McTeer is engaging, likeable and very believable, and this only serves to highlight the shortcomings of Glenn Close's portrayal of Albert and the direction that surrounded it.  I would go so far as to say that Janet McTeer's performance is the only note of distinction in the production.  Mia Wasikovska and Aaron Johnson give creditable performances as two ill-fated lovers, as does Pauline Collins in the role of the owner of the hotel.  

But none of this was enough to redeem the movie for me.  I got more fun and satisfaction from mocking-up a fake movie poster for this blog entry.  3/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

When I was a boy, I found an old book in a jumble sale at the local school fete.  It was a large, pre-loved thing, with its covers missing and the binding coming apart; but inside it contained a treasure trove of entertainment for a growing boy: adventure stories, puzzles, jokes and riddles, and trivia.  It even had a blueprint for making balsa gliders.  It's gone now, and who knows where?  I think it probably got jettisoned during one house move or another.  That's life!

One of the stories in the book was a Sherlock Holmes tale, 'The Case of the Speckled Band'.  Well, when I was casting about for something to read recently, I came across a book of Sherlock Holmes stories, and I was reminded of that old book of mine.  So I bought it, thinking that it would be nice to re-read 'The Speckled Band'.  Also, seeing that my only other acquaintance with Holmes was via the Basil Rathbone movies, I thought it would be good to read the primary source (at long last).

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes contains a dozen short stories.  I was surprised by the diversity of tone in these stories: some are quite serious while others, like 'The Blue Carbuncle' are light-hearted, even comical.  I was also surprised to discover that sometimes Holmes gets outwitted by the perp.  Throughout, the reader  gets an insight into the attitudes and lifestyles of Victorian England, as well as being reminded that human virtues and vices are as familiar to the modern reader as they would have been to Doyle's original audience.

I did not manage to solve a single one of the stories I had not read before.  This is due to my limitations as an armchair sleuth, not Doyle's as a storyteller.  In fact, Doyle is very good at telling short stories that engage the reader and hold their interest.  Dialogue and action come in pleasing proportions if one is prepared to accept Holmes' necessarily extended expositions of his deductive reasoning.  In these passages we gain an insight into a mind of a superior calibre.  Interestingly, this contrasts with the darker and more anti-social aspects of Holmes' character.  

I bought the Penguin Books edition that also contains The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and I am looking forward to a lazy, wet weekend in which to read another batch of Doyle's intriguing stories

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut taught me some "truths" when I first read this book. People will forgive you for dropping napalm bombs on civilians, but they will not forgive you for having halitosis. Secondly, the secret of life (as revealed by the aliens of the Planet Tralfamidore) is " to concentrate on the happy moments [in] life, and to ignore the unhappy ones - to stare only at the pretty things as eternity [fails] to go by."

Slaughterhouse Five is ostensibly narrated by Vonnegut, who was in Dresden as a POW when it was fire-bombed by the Allies. The story is about Billy Pilgrim who was also present in Dresden.  In Billy's case, "present" is an unusual word to use because Billy has become "unstuck in time". As we follow Billy's story we find him bouncing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards through time as he relives pivotal and innocuous episodes in his life. Few of them are happy, for Billy seems unable to capitalise on the advice of the Tralfamidorians. Even with all the time travel, the narrative keeps returning to Billy's experiences in Germany in 1944-45, culminating in the fire-bombing of Dresden and its immediate aftermath.

Narrator Vonnegut's open aim was to write an anti-war book. A friend remarks he may as well write an anti-glacier book. Vonnegut also explores the themes of free will and determinism, the nature of reality, the shortcomings of Christianity, and kindness (amongst others).

Vonnegut's humanism shines out from behind a text that is heavily laced with a hard irony. Every time someone dies in the book (which happens frequently), Vonnegut simply adds the words "So it goes". In the context, it seems to be both a description and a judgement. Slaughterhouse Five is filled (for the most part) with decent people, and yet one of its central motifs - the firebombing of Dresden - relates to perhaps one of the most indecent acts perpetrated by human beings in recorded history. Vonnegut is very much challenging us to consider the nature of evil.

Slaughterhouse Five was worth reading the first time around, and was even better the second time. "Farewell, hello. Farewell, hello."

I read the Rosetta Books ebook, which I thoroughly recommend.

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald

Joseph Campbell once said that if you find an author whose works you like, then try to read some of the books s/he likes.  It's no secret that I love Tolkien's work, and he was fond of the fairy tales of Scottish author George MacDonald (1824 - 1905), therefore ...

MacDonald was a prolific writer and there are so many works of his from which to choose; however, the title At the Back of the North Wind really piqued my curiosity - what could such a title mean?

This book is about the story of a boy called Diamond who meets the personification of the North Wind and is taken by her to the faerie realm.  Here he acquires a different vision of life; and when he is returned to our world (well, Victorian England), Diamond becomes an ideal child: he helps his mother care for his newborn brother to whom he sings joyous nursery rhymes of his own devising, he drives his father's cab when his father becomes too ill to work, and he brings peace and good fortune to the families of his neighbours. 

I suspect this tale contains Christian allegory, but I didn't look too closely for it.  I just enjoyed the story at its face-value wherever I could.  And I did enjoy it.  There is a part of me that would like to be whisked off by the North Wind to somewhere beautiful and perilous; I would love to eavesdrop on a conversation held by saints in stained glass windows after the church is locked; I would really love to understand the speech of animals.  All these things happen to Diamond, and more.

The book was first published in 1871, and the prose style is a wee bit dated.  However, MacDonald does show a talent for poetry.  Besides some original poems, he also reworked Hey Diddle Diddle and Little Bo Peep.  They are quite good, energetic and very entertaining.  Interestingly, Tolkien also reworked Hey Diddle Diddle (and put it in the famous scene in the pub at Bree) and it appears that he 'borrowed' some elements from MacDonald's work.

Well, if you want to take your inner child out for a run in the park, then At the Back of the North Wind may be what you are looking for. 

Strange News from Another Star by Hermann Hesse

Strange News From Another Star is a  collection of eight short stories.  They take place in a world that is very familiar to us but, unlike our own, has lost none of its enchantment.  There are forces at work here above and beyond those of physics, and the tales are as much about learning to love the mysteries of nature or of one's aesthetic self as it is to uncover or conquer them.  Denver Lindley has provided us with a translation that allows the gentleness of Hesse's themes to shine through in abundance.

Hermann Hesse was a staple in my early twenties. His writings are particularly attractive to me because they explore the dichotomy between the rationalist world-view of the Enlightenment and the emotion based paradigm of the Romantics. 

Being, philosophically, an inheritor of the Enlightenment tradition, I welcome Hesse's challenge. Should we live a life ruled by reason or passion? Is there a happy medium?

Hesse's work definitely addresses the question of Truth in human affairs, while the work of other writers, such as Tolkien, addresses the question of Good and Evil. Interestingly, while Hesse was awarded a Nobel Prize for literature in 1946, Tolkien has been derided by the literati; yet neither author was reluctant to set their stories in a non-realist world. Make of that what you will.  Enjoy.

I read the Penguin Modern Classic edition published in 1985.

 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Another lasso thrown, another one reeled in.  My misspent youth included Huckleberry Finn but it did not include Tom Sawyer.  Oh, I had heard of him, knew he was a proverbial trickster; however, I never actually got around to experiencing him first hand.  That's changed now.

I don't think Mark Twain would have got away with this book today: a story about a truanting child who tells brazen-faced lies, learns how to smoke, gets caught up with thieves and murderers, and  ends up independently wealthy as a result.  Can you imagine a commissioning editor coming at that one?

Still, Tom Sawyer has been a cherished children's book for over a century.  There is a very good reason for that: Mark Twain knows how to tell a tale, and he gives us one about a naughty but resourceful and imaginative boy who "slays the dragon and gets the treasure".  Kids can read this tale and be thrilled without being in any real danger.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an entertaining story, told by a personable narrator. Tom himself is a memorable and lovable rogue.  The action rolls along with a few brief pauses so the reader can catch breath before it takes off again.  And, of course, the modern reader and can compare and contrast the lifestyles and attitudes of the characters with their own.

I bought the Penguin edition which contains an informative introductory essay.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Two goats were grazing on a rubbish dump.  One goat came across an open can of motion picture film and started chewing on the film that had spilled out.  After a while, the second goat asked the first 'How is it?'  The first goat replied 'I enjoyed the book better.'

It's like that, isn't it?  Sometimes the book is better, sometimes the film is better.

I have very fond memories of the 1960 film of The Time Machine starring Rod Taylor as the Time Traveller and Yvette Mimieux as Weena, which I first saw when I was quite young.  I remember being struck by the exotic set designs and by the design of the time machine.  Also, while the scary bits of the film didn't scare me, it did have me sitting on the edge of my seat with curiosity as the Time Traveller edged his way into the near future through a number of vignettes showing us the unfolding 20th Century that we knew and an apocalyptic vision of a nuclear war that was to come (remember, it was the 1960s and there was a Cold War brewing).  The Time Traveller then jumps into the far future to the year 802,701 CE.  Here we are shown a utopian society and the awful truth that underlies it.  There is some derring-do, and then the Time Traveller escapes back to the present day and to his friends.

How different the book is.  There is no vision of the future other than the awful year 802,701, and beyond that the vision of a dying earth under a bloated red and giant sun.  It is a dystopian vision.  The Time Traveller tells his circle of friends: 

I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been.  It had committed suicide.  It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes - to come to this at last.

The Time Traveller argues that change, danger and uncertainty are necessary to keep us recognisably human.  It is an argument that Robert Graves echoes in Seven Days in New Crete.  Also, that there is a ferocious animal side to human nature is a theme Wells revisited in The First Men in the Moon.

The Time Machine is a well-written story.  The narrative moves along briskly, the description and exposition are vivid without being either purple or boring.  The argument in the book is disappointingly brief, and it is a pity the body of the book is so monopolised by threat and violence, when it could have been so much more.  Wells himself admits that the body of the story is perhaps less substantial than the opening chapters.  Still, as a story that was whipped up in a brief period when the author was between jobs, it is not too bad (and being short it can be read in an afternoon).

Would I read it again?  No.  Am I glad that I read it?  Yes, and it has made me long to see the movie again.

I read the Penguin edition which contained a thoughtful and interesting introduction by Marina Warner.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Inspiration is a funny thing: I find that my motivation for reading Joseph Conrad came more from the Alien series of movies (Ridley Scott named his spacecrafts after ships in Conrad's novels) than it did from the more conspicuous Apocalypse Now (a modernised vision of Heart of Darkness).  And I chose to read Lord Jim after I saw a cartoon drawing of some castaways floating on a raft.  Yes, sometimes my choices are as capricious as that!

Lord Jim is a story of redemption.  The eponymous protagonist of this story (we never do learn his last name) is confronted with a crisis and then has a serious lapse in judgement.  The consequences of Jim's actions are twofold: firstly,  he is publicly humiliated and branded a coward; secondly, he has to try to reconcile the person he knows himself to truly be with the man who panicked in a crisis, and this eventually leads to his death and to his redemption.

Conrad's narrator Marlow ( who appeared in Heart of Darkness) spends the greater part of the novel dissecting and re-dissecting Jim's action, character and mental state.  It is as though he is in pursuit of the true and tangible core of any human being; however, he finds nothing but doubt and mystery.  Marlow's motivation for doing this is simple: in Jim he recognises himself and his audience.  On at least six occasions he says of Jim: "he was one of us".  Sailor? Whiteman? Human?

While the unrelenting analysis of Jim's character and situation did get a touch wearisome, Conrad was able at times to produce intense prose capable of lifting the reader out of the narrative and onto new planes of thought.  Here are two examples:

To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism ... and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly ...  He was indeed unfortunate, for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow.  There was always a doubt of his courage ... but what I could never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him.  (Page 147)

 Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds.  I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies.  I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions -- and safe -- and profitable -- and dull.  Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone -- and as short-lived, alas! (p.166)

I am very glad to have read this book by Joseph Conrad.  I found it challenging and thought-provoking, and the prose was a joy to read.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday is a very interesting novella.  I have not read one that is quite like it.  Here is the rub: if I say too much, I spoil the strategy and novelty that Chesterton has employed to make for an interesting and thought-provoking story.

I suppose it is safe enough to say that Gabriel Syme, a poet, is introduced to a dangerous and clandestine organisation operating in London and Europe.  The more he becomes entangled with the members of this group, the weirder and more dangerous become the events that entangle his life.

Chesterton moves the action rapidly from basements to backstreets, from coffee shops to vacant fields, with a deft hand.  The action rises surely and steadily, culminating in a hectic climax.  This is followed by an unsettling denouement in which Chesterton's devices are fully revealed.

I am glad I read this story.  Of course, the ending won't appeal to everyone; but if you are looking for a short, fast-paced thriller with a difference, here it is.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Of all his novels, Charles Dickens was fondest of David Copperfield.  It has been almost forty years since I last read a Dickens novel.  On that occasion, the book was Oliver Twist and since then I have seen innumerable adaptations of  that book; however, I have never seen even one adaptation of David Copperfield, so I have come to it relatively unsullied by prior knowledge.  I hope I found it as Dickens would have wanted me to find it.

I liked this book.  It has its flaws: it is very long, many of Dickens characters come dangerously close to being stock characters (if they aren't already full-blown ones) and he can be downright wordy (seeing that he got paid by the word).  On the other hand, Dickens can tell an engaging story, he can make you feel for his characters (and they are very memorable and very diverse, if not always believable) and he can easily shift from the very comic to the very pensive.  Frinstance:

"... at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The Astonishment, than anything else I can think of." (Chapter 45)

"I know [the Thames is] like me ... It comes from country places where there was once no harm in it - and it creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable - and it goes away, like my life, to a great sea that is always troubled - and I feel that I must go with it." (Chapter 47)

 Yes, I did enjoy this book very much.  I was prepared to forgive its mawkish tendencies in light of its vivacity.  Although David Copperfield is certainly a creation of its own era, there is enough in it that is universal to the human condition; so much so, the modern reader can easily accommodate the unknown and unfamiliar without too much diminishment of either identification or enjoyment.

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

Here is another book I abandoned in my twenties.  I came back to it because I thought I was 'ready' for it.  I am glad that I did, mainly because I have not duplicated the mistakes of the protagonist of the story.

George Bowling is an overweight man.  At the age of forty-five, he discovers he is married with two children.  He is in a safe and respectable job that he performs well.  Life is comfortable but unchallenging for George, and he becomes disquieted by it all.

A little piece of luck comes George's way; but instead of sharing it with his family, he decides to use it for his own selfish purposes.  He tells his wife he is going to Birmingham on business for a few days.  In reality, George goes back to his childhood village to do a spot of fishing and to take a walk down memory lane.  What he finds unsettles him even more.

Coming Up for Air is a book about the anxiety of a mid-life crisis and the folly of seeking a cure in the past. It is a pessimistic book.  Through George Bowling, we feel the oppression of the prospect an imminent war, we witness both the harmless and the hateful lunacies to which human fall prey in their lives: lives that are portrayed as long, barren and pointless.  George Bowling thinks his present-day life is in the 'bottom of a dustbin', and he yearns to surface, to come up to the fresh air, by going home to Lower Binfield, where life had been simpler and sweeter.  In the end, he finds himself deeper in the dustbin with the realisation that the past is neither a cure nor an anodyne for the pain of the present. 

Far more rewarding than George Bowling's story of self-pity, frustration and nihilism - he could have found his cure in any book on Buddhism and Mindfulness - is the way the story is told.  Orwell has George tell his tale in the first-person.  For all his pessimism and jaundiced outlook on life, George Bowling is a great storyteller.  His evocation of his childhood, with all its excursions down the lanes and side-streets of family history, schooling and young love, is quite exquisite.  George lays it out in a pretty pattern for the reader, and in such sharp-relief with the dissatisfaction of his present life that we truly feel his existential pain.  

We can never go back, no matter much how we try.  The world changes, and not always for the better.  That's life.  The theme is universal.  You have been warned!

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

This one has been on my reading list for a long time.  In fact, I have started it three times before now, only to have life intervene and make me put it down.  Fourth time's a charm.

Cold Comfort Farm is a parody on the English rural novels that were popular in the opening decades of the 20th century.  Like them, it is full of doom-laden characters who are tortured by their own glaring psychological problems.  However, into their midst comes Flora Poste, a modern girl with modern ideas, a penchant for organising others and a never-say-die attitude.  

Cold Comfort Farm itself is situated on the outskirts of the fictional town of Howling in Surrey.  It is populated by several generations of the Starkadder family.  Amos and Judith are the parents of Reuben, Seth and Elfine.  Amos spends his weekends delivering hell-fire sermons in Howling; Reuben wants to run the farm according to modern techniques but can't while his father is still around;  handsome and virile Seth is a notorious womaniser with a secret passion;  Elfine is an unrefined girl who needs an education; Judith has an unhealthy self-esteem problem and an even unhealthier obsession about her son Seth.  

And ruling the roost is Judith's mother Ada Doom, who 'saw something nasty in the woodshed' when she was a child.  Ada Doom uses this experience as a psychological weapon to stifle her family and to cause life at Cold Comfort Farm to stagnate for over twenty years.  The question is: Can Flora's youthful momentum overcome the decades of Ada Doom-induced inertia? Of course, the joy of reading Cold Comfort Farm is in finding out the answer to that question. 

Stella Gibbons tells her story with a disarmingly breezy prose style that gently pushes the reader from one scene to the next.  And like a breeze she blows into every psychological nook and cranny of her characters.  Gibbons builds the tension throughout the first two-thirds of the book, and this leads to the brilliant and totally satisfying relief of the denouement in the last third of the book.  Gibbons controls the plot and characterisation with such a deft touch that the parody never blows out into farce.  The result is that Cold Comfort Farm is a masterpiece of comic storytelling in the form of a novel.

I'm so glad I was given the opportunity of finally finishing this book.  I really enjoyed it.

Cold Comfort Farm was first published in 1932.

Letters from My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet

Alphonse Daudet?  I've never heard of him, either.  His Wikipedia article describes him as "one of a generation of French literary syphilitics".  Now there's a genre you don't hear much about these days.  Still, it was a real treat to come across such an evocatively titled book, and so intriguing that I decided to read it.

Letters from My Windmill is a collection of short stories written in the mid-nineteenth century.  Daudet, a long-time resident of Paris, bought a dilapidated windmill in Provence, decided to live in it and he wrote home to Paris with tales of what he found there. While most of the stories are about Provence and its people, Daudet does take us on excursions to Corsica and North Africa.

The tales vary greatly in tone, from the serious, psychologically orientated opening story, to an account of the aftermath of a shipwreck, to an endearing tale of how a good-natured donkey get sweet revenge on her promotion-seeking tormentor.

I liked this book.  It was very pleasant to read a story a day over the course of three weeks. It helps that I like tales of yesteryear, when there was no electricity, phones or mass-media, and when news was largely delivered by word-of-mouth.  It makes for a different kind of story-telling.

Stories from Letters from My Windmill were first published in 1866.  It was published as a collection of short stories in 1869.  I read an e-book version.  So much for no electricity, etc.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I wish I had read this book a lot earlier in my life.  Benjamin Franklin is a wonderful role model for anyone who has the ears to hear.  In fact, Franklin wrote this book for the benefit of his son William.

Franklin began writing the book when he was in his sixties and continued writing it over the course of the next 18 years until his death.  He starts his narrative with some family history of his ancestors before he begins relating details of his childhood.  After this, we get information about his life from his first apprenticeship, through his various travels and business ventures up to his service in public office.

Throughout the autobiography we see a man who was a shrewd judge of character, an industrious worker and a deep thinker.  Apart from describing incidents in his life, Franklin also shares his own philosophy of life with the reader, and it is wise, practical and earthy.

Benjamin Franklin was an business man, a politician, a practical scientist and an inventor.  He is credited with inventing the lightning rod and bi-focal lens glasses.  He also introduced the public lending library (which was a Scottish innovation) to America.  In addition to this, Franklin was President of Pennsylvania and an ambassador for the fledgling United States of America, serving in France and Sweden.

There is more to this man than he tells of himself in his autobiography, and I look forward to reading more about him in the future.  I highly recommend this book, especially to young people who are trying to become the person they will be.  Benjamin Franklin can help you on your journey.

God Bless You, Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

There are certain books I don't mind re-reading.  There are some books I read over and over again.  This is second time I have read God Bless You, Mr Rosewater.  I enjoyed it so much that I intend to read it again someday, if I live long enough, oxalá.

It is 1965, and Eliot Rosewater, the heir to the Rosewater family fortune, suddenly finds himself with an income of $10,000 per day, including Sundays. That's about $250,000 per day in today's money.  It's a lot of money.  

Faced with this enviable problem, Eliot hits the booze, abandons his childless marriage and goes on a road trip across America before winding up in the unremarkable mid-west town of Rosewater.  Here Eliot rents a moldy office-come-bed-sit with a telephone, and here he can sip booze all day while he answers the phone.  And who would want to phone Eliot Rosewater?  The poor of Rosewater, of course, because word has got out that Eliot is giving his money away to the least in the community.

And there has to be consequences to this kind of behaviour, but you will have to read the book to find our what they are. 

I really like this book.  I think it is my favourite Vonnegut novel (but I haven't read them all yet).  There is the trademark Vonnegut style of plain language telling rather than showing the story.  There is the irony, the grim humour and the deep insights into human nature, a nature that Vonnegut reveals as oh-so-flawed and yet deserving of dignity and respect.

And, of course, God Bless You Mr Rosewater marks the debut of Kilgore Trout, the down-at-heel sci-fi writer (who is possibly Vonnegut's alter ego.)  I like Kilgore Trout. A lot. As did Eliot Rosewater.

God Bless You, Mr Rosewater was first published in 1965.  I read the Rosetta Books e-book edition, which I thoroughly recommend. Review.

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

I abandoned this book about 25 years ago.  I just couldn't take Sir Walter Scott's prolix writing style, not the way I was then - too much time, not enough patience.  Nowadays, I find I have plenty of patience but not enough time.

Recently, a wise voice from my past reminded me that there was more to Scott than wordiness.  His novel were popular in the past, my friend said, because they contained entertaining and thrilling stories, and if you take the time, they will work their magic.

So I tried Ivanhoe again.  It's a long book, but this time I was ready.  I had to get some way into it, get accustomed to the author's style and pace, get immersed in the action before I found I was hooked.  I actually began to look forward to my daily fix of Ivanhoe.  I'm so glad that my friend encouraged me to practice patience and persistence.

Ivanhoe is set in England during the reign of Richard the Lionheart.  Five generations after the Norman invasion of Saxon England, Scott asks us to believe that there is still a fierce resentment on the part of the Saxon nobility towards the Norman conquerors (who are now technically Plantagenets). Wilfred of Ivanhoe loves the beautiful Rowena, the daughter of the best-placed Saxon claimant to the throne.  On returning from crusading in the Holy Land, Ivanhoe is seriously injured and is placed in the care of the beautiful Rebecca, a healer.  Lots of stuff happens involving Richard, Robin Hood, and a bunch of bigoted Knights.  There's peril galore!

A good deal of the story revolves around Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York.  Both Rebecca and her father are of the Jewish faith, and they are threatened by an almost ubiquitous anti-semitism.  It is odd that a book named after a Christian knight should be so centred around two Jewish people.  It may have something to do with the burgeoning movements to grant full civil rights to Jews and Catholics in Britain at the time Scott was writing it.

Actually, there are quite a few odd things about Ivanhoe, but I won't spoil the fun for anyone who wants to read it.  I enjoyed it very much.  I am glad my old friend encouraged me to persevere.  I encourage you to persevere too.  Yes, you!

Ivanhoe was first published in 1820.  I read an ebook version of it. Review.