With ever-increasing sizes of bookshelves, it might be desirable to divide books into two categories - books that have a constant aesthetic pleasure tWith ever-increasing sizes of bookshelves, it might be desirable to divide books into two categories - books that have a constant aesthetic pleasure to offer (which of course is subjective) and books that you want to read because of their impact on culture but probably won't enjoy it. Books like The Silence of the lambs or the Game of Thrones seems to me to fall in the second category. 'Don Quixote' is probably the best example. I don't think a lot of people will enjoy reading it.
To begin with, you need to have a very cruel sense of humor to enjoy most of what goes in the book as the Knight and his squire fall prey to accidents or, worse still, pranks of people around them humoring themselves at the expense of the two. This kind of humor at the expense of poor and naive people seems to have something medieval in it. It is quite commonly visible in medieval books like Arabian Nights, Decameron, Don Quixote, Grimm's fairy tales, etc. You see jokes made at the expense of obese, ones not gifted with the traditional definition of looks, dwarves, hunchbacks, etc if not also naive, Innocent, simpleminded people. Even 'Game of Thrones' which has a medical times like setting is full of people having this ugly sense of humor but it (the TV series at least) redeems itself by making some of the strongest characters out of its underdogs - you side with underdogs which is not case with other books, especially with Don Quixote, in it you are supposed to be laughing at Don and his squire. These days literature in West is generally more compassionate - something you could not say about most of Bollywood or Tollywood moves where there are always some sidekicks or comedians (often fat and/or naive) suffering misfortunes (including at hands of supposed good two shoes lead heroes and heroines) for 'comic' relief. Kapil Sharma's whole career seems to be built on the back of such cheap humor.
Second, the novel doesn't exactly seem to hold together in kind of symmetry I love in well-written novels. It seems like the author wrote chapter after another on the go without worrying about the overall picture he is creating and as a result an overall picture is a group of only loosely connected objects.
I did try to love this book. I mean so many writers and critics have called it the greatest book ever. I even read Nabokov's lectures on it simply in order to find a way to love it (why else would one read lectures on literature anyway?) but nothing. Aside from the importance of titular character, which I was already aware of, Nabokov had no other good reasons for why we should read it (he did object to cruel humor in it though). And even the idea of titular character which, chances are you are already aware of, is no good reason for so long a book.
Quixote's attraction lies in his ideomania which is seasoned with a great amount of idealism. Ideomania by itself is nothing awesome - terrorists, fundamentalists, serial killers, mad lovers, etc are ideomaniacs too. It is a psychological disorder for a good reason. But Nabhokov is so fundamentalist as to be without doubt:
"Don Quixote, it should be borne in mind, is the maker of his own glory, the only begetter of these marvels; and within his soul he carries the most dread enemy of the visionary: the snake of doubt, the coiled consciousness that his quest is an illusion. " -Nabhokov
But you combine it with a bit of idealism, and you get knights running to save damsels in distress, people dying for an abstract ideal (Bhagat Singh to quote an example) and artists wasting their lives away in creating beautiful things. Such souls see themselves mirrored in Quioxite.
And this identity in Quioxite which artists find in him - Van Gogh becomes a painter knowing that he would never be successful, Flaubert takes great pains writing a book, screaming at top of his voice words until he gets that 'exactly one right word' (and the book he writes is about an ideamaniac woman too) and so on, it is this identity that makes this crude book (Nabhokov's word) likeable to them. Ideomaniac Idealists have their own romantic notions like Quixote and like him are capable of seeing monsters in wind Mills (this alternative conception of reality gives birth to art) and so it makes sense that they should love Quioxite. Even if you are not an artist or a human rights activist or one of those fancy people, but are an ideomaniac idealist you will love Quioxite's sacrifices for his idea - against all the better sense (like all Ideomaniacs, he show the great sense in spheres other than the one of his idea). Idealism is like ideomania, romantic and foolish often at odds against the wicked, wicked world. I am not an idealist and definitely not a very good artist, so his character holds little appeal to me. Btw, much like novelists and artists, readers and art lovers are that way too ..... Wasting their lives on books, ignoring people cracking jokes on them, when they could be .... Having sex.
"Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind."
Again, so many major characters are ideomaniacs - Shakespeare is full of them whether it be Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Shylock. And there are Emma Bovary, Anna Kareina, Joker, Harley Quinn (actually most of villians in Batman) etc.
Coming back to book, the famous windmill scene is not typical examples of all the adventures. While some involve him having hallucinations, there are other times when no such thing occurs. In the second part of the first book, the reality gives into Quixote's fantasy world of knights and damsels in distress for example ... Something later disclosed to be a dishonest intrusion by the supposed 'translator' of the book. Most of the 'adventures' Quixote has in the second part are results of cheap tricks played by people around him. Also, while most of the fantasy elements are given a so-called realistic justification by the narrator or translator or author in the course of book; there is at least one incidence, the one involving Don going down a dark pit where he had adventures lasting days while only a few minutes have passed for those waiting outside for him, in which we never learn for sure from narrator whether he was hallucinating, lying or really had that adventure.
A somewhat more curious character is Sancho Panza. I love characters behaving in a contradictory manner but only when I see some deeper justification in those superficial contradictions. You never quite learn what Sancho thinks of his Master - whether he actually believes him to a true Knight, or whether he thinks of him as a fool that he saves to justify whatever compensation he might get out of it. He is an epic example of everyman having more mundane passions such as for money. Unlike Don, he is married and it seems significant that his wisdom mostly comes in common proverbs.
The relationship between Quixote and Panza is probably the most attractive thing about this book as far as concerned. Though I don't think that it is intended that way. But Quixote and Panza are like (it's probably something j read somewhere) the heart and mind of the individual respectively - not in simplistic 'feelings' versus 'rational thoughts' manner. Even the heart can be wise and even mind can be irrational, but rather in where heart is the dreaming organ (you might argue that heart is not seated dreams but then it is not seat of feelings either, it is just a blood pumping organ) and mind is the one who follows it half-heartedly often against it's common sense judgment....more
Look it seems to be a favorite novel among so many great novelists - Nabokov, Faulkner, Kundra, Joyce even Dostoevsky but I happen to be more in agreeLook it seems to be a favorite novel among so many great novelists - Nabokov, Faulkner, Kundra, Joyce even Dostoevsky but I happen to be more in agreement with Rebecca West when she says, "And plainly Anna Karenina was written simply to convince Tolstoy that there was nothing in this expensive and troublesome business of adultery"
If you read novels to be somewhere and sometime else (and don't mind that place to be boring) this will work for you. It is a perfect chronicle of its times. The trouble is I happened to be a very sensual reader. You see I am a book-izer and date a lot of books at the same time, and take different books to dinner and bed on the same day. Whenever I see a book anywhere I start imagining myself in bed with it and can't help running my hand on its body. And above all, there must be very good reasons if the relationship is to last more than a few days. Unfortunately, this one happens to feel like a long, stale marriage.
Marriage! I guess that is the real theme of the book rather than adultery. The subject has occupied minds of people for so long that there aren't too many new jokes I can make about it, I mean the best ones like how in case of a murder, the victim's spouse is the foremost suspect are already taken. Moreover, I don't fully understand the concept of marriage - this once I was about to congratulate this newlywed couple but I was just trying to imagine their life after marriage before the chance to do so occurred and ended up saying "condolences". That because "May your souls rest in peace" seemed like hoping for too much. The reason being that I think of 'being alive' to mean to let you feel all sorts of things. Now once a person gets married, (S)he is expected not to feel attracted, fall in love, etc outside marriage. And so to that extent the person is dead. And of course, there are all the sacrifices you are supposed to make for your children, etc (a lot of people are into that too!) which won't let a person enjoy his/her life fully.
Now, it is just the kind of thing that if it wasn't for the sake of habit, people would have given up long ago. I still think they will do so someday. If you trust a person, you don't need to bound them, right? With love, my understanding is far worse - I mean if someone loves his/her spouse and wants the later to be happy, shouldn't they be more like "Go on, darling, have some fun!" instead of jealously guarding them? That, by the way, is Levin's (Anna's antagonist) method - to ask his wife not to meet men with whom she happened to laugh.
"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls... Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music." - Kahlil Gibran.
Still, because of some sort of barbaric instinct the heart wants to hold on to the person, it is invested in, to possess them like objects so as to be sure of their presence in one's life. It seeks promises, unbreakable oaths, until-death-or-divorce-do-us-aparts, more and more bounds - anything to save one from the fear of losing beloved. And where this need for security over each other's possession is mutual, a marriage takes place. Except, of course, all such promises are useless, no one can control his/her feelings by choice, and so no one should ask the other or promise such a thing. In fact, everything people do to gain security (or whatever form) only feeds the feeling of insecurity.
Only insecure and untrusting people seek promises and
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Where you presume on security is where you set yourself to fail. All things given in love are gifts and no prices should be asked in return. Karein, Anna's husband realizes this at some point in the story and is able to fight back the famous agony of a cheated husband at least for a while. (If only I was to have a cookie for each book with adultery and jealous spouses in it I have read, I would have .... you know, diabetes. There should be some kind of restriction on each, like the no-mention-of-Hitler-in-debates rule, like a book with adultery in it doesn't win Nobel prizes or something .... but then Marquez wouldn't have won his prize, you know what, scratch that.)
Anyways, Tolstoy's argument against infidelity doesn't seem true to me. Anna didn't suffer because she cheated on her husband. She suffered because of three different reasons at different points.
First, because she had a conscience which is always a burden. How can feeling guilty about anything that can ever serve a purpose is beyond me. Guilt is a monster that like that Greek vulture which constantly fed on the heart (of Prometheus) without ever improving the victim's lot, and conscience is nothing except a set up to create a feeling of guilt among people. And to think there are people who feed this concept to their children! Terrorists never felt guilty of their actions, pregnant teenagers often do. A better world could be created if people teach compassion to their children.
Secondly, people, she is surrounded by. Many would say those were wrong times, times are not wrong, people are. Vronsky wants her, other people think of her as fallen women, the stupid divorce law ... you get the picture.
Thirdly, in the last parts, when she feels jealous lover Vronsky. It is not a self-induced fear of being cheated as often seen in people who cheat themselves - like Macbeth's fear who being usurper himself constantly fears being usurped, but rather the same old insecurity we just talked about. She has given away her son for him. We tax our loved ones for sacrifices we make them for them. It was too great a sacrifice for Vronsky to redeem in any way except by becoming a homely for her which he couldn't.
The novel has a misnomer. It should have been better named Levin, the author stand-in gets more attention than Anna Karenina. We read several boring chapters in which he gives his theories for agriculture, peasant education, etc which, though it might make the book more realistic, also makes it much larger and boring than it need be (something similar to what deviations and jokes do to this review). There are several beautiful moments in this novel but they are lost in the sea of monotonous realism, a combination that doesn't work with a sensual reader like me. The third star is almost entirely due to the last chapters of Anna's life. If it wasn't for that, I would have thought that it is Stockholm syndrome associated with large books that make people love this one....more
The stupid goodreads description might make you imagine a stereotypical story of an infidel husband and his suffering wife – but that is mere tip of tThe stupid goodreads description might make you imagine a stereotypical story of an infidel husband and his suffering wife – but that is mere tip of the iceberg. The book goes far beyond covering socio-political observations and the way we experience life.
What is the weight of life? Sensitiveness, morality and responsibilities. Is it worth carrying the weight or should one live light – free of such burden? It is this question that troubles Tomar. He had long decided that he was sort of person tailor-made to live light – free, single without any burden of family. But then Teresa walks in his life and he starts feeling responsible for her. The heaviness of having a family presents one with difficulties but it still attracts with the warmth of security it offers.
On one hand, he couldn’t live without his amorous affairs either, even though it makes Teresa suffer miserably – something difficult for him to see. On other hand, he can’t let her go – he goes after her to a war-torn country and marries her. Unable to stop his affairs and see her suffer, he even toys with the idea of having her killed.
But which is better – lightness or heaviness? There is no right answer. Actually we don’t even have a choice. We are all born with certain temperaments (lightness / heaviness, introvertion / extrovertion etc) – and all our metaphors, philosophies and ideologies are ways to excuse the limitations presented by those temperaments which we discover in ourselves rather than chose:
“Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.”
The philosophy which Tomar uses to excuse his affairs is that by doing so he gets to know women in their private life, but when, at old age, he looks back, there is very little he remembers distinctly.
Similarly by wanting to separate sex from love and fidelity he reduces his life to a philosophical problem and thus saving himself from guilt he gets of seeing his wife suffer. The same Tomar would later realise that he wouldn’t have thought the idea of his wife cheating on him.
We might be attracted to or forced to lead a life of opposite temperament but, in the long run, we will only find happiness in living according to our natural tendencies. That is reason behind Tomar’s dilemma - fate had thrown o him a weight on him when his temperament was suited to live light.
Teresa, naturally sensitive, was always looking for warmth and security that weight of a family represents and gave herself up to a guy whose creditionals were that he was carrying a book. And she loved the idea of this heaviness so much that, though she suffers from knowledge of his affairs, she doesn’t leave him – the one time she did leave him, she was only too happy to be back together with him without asking for any promises of fidelity. It is a problem with sensitive souls, they always found it difficult to get out of a bad relationship. She failed miserably in her sole attempt to cheat on her husband because of her sensitiveness. She took to photography as if taking a patriotic responsibility but refused the offers of turning professional.
"the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?"
Guilt is another form of heaviness. It is in a way the weight of a past error. All political institutions like to go light in this regard. But Should one feel guilt for something one did when he didn’t knew it was wrong? Coould communists be blamed where they committed a wrong unknowingly. This was the question that ruined Tomar’s career. He was given an option to save his life by taking his words back, but in a flirtation with heaviness, he decided to carry weight of his own words which brought him down quickly to poverty.
Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?
This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted
We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cone next. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.
Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love
A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.
But when we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it
vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves
But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.
We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it.
She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.
There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence
the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies
"A concentration camp is a world in which people live crammed together constantly, night and day. Brutality and violence are merely secondary (and not in the least indispensable) characteristics. A concentration camp is the complete obliteration of privacy."
What is flirtation? One might say that it is behavior leading another to believe that sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty. In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee
In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted.
Everyone was trying to make him sign statements he had not written.
Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the Creator of man
There was pleasure in Paradise, but no excitement
The daily defecation session is daily proof of the unacceptability of Creation.
One of them even lifted his fist in the air because he knew Europeans liked to raise their fists in times of collective euphoria
An old thought came back to her: Her home was Karenin, not Tomas.
Her feeling was rather that, given the nature of the human couple, the love of man and woman is a priori inferior to that which can exist (at least in the best instances) in the love between man and dog, that oddity of human history probably unplanned by the Creator
It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did not ever ask him to love her back. Nor had she ever asked herself the questions that plague human couples: Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting itshort. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company
Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition
“A single metaphor can give birth to love.”
“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”
“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”
“she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.”
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
“The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ... Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.”
“Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”
“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.”
You are now reading a review by Sidharth Vardhan of book ‘If on a Winter Night a traveler’ by Italo Calvino. You had started your computer (or perhapsYou are now reading a review by Sidharth Vardhan of book ‘If on a Winter Night a traveler’ by Italo Calvino. You had started your computer (or perhaps you are using your computer, logged into your Goodreads account and were checking your dashboard when this review pop up. ‘Another parody review!’ you thought after reading the first line, ‘as if this book hadn’t enough of them’. But perhaps you found it on your mobile. You opened it in new tab and start reading it or may have bookmarked it, so that you can read it in a more convenient time.
Is ‘now’ the convenient time? Are you at your office, supposed to be working? You may want to keep looking over your screen in case your boss shows up. Remember you can’t afford to lose your job, there are all those books you still have to buy.
Or perhaps you are having a break from your reading. Or having a meal – in which case, it is okay. There are things more important than books - but you know that food is not one of them.
Or you might not be alone – you might be with your better or worse half, as case may be. In that case, if you are a guy; it is prudent to stop reading this review. But if you are a woman, it is okay all you got to do is put that lose hair behind your ear. Yes, just like that. Smooth. But, wait, you don’t want to smile too much or your partner might be jealous.
Now, if you have already read the book, you no longer trust the title since it has betrayed you once – you can’t be too sure with all those fake books going around these days. And yes, it is ‘If on a Winter Night’s a traveler’ - not ‘Without fear of wind’ or ‘Vertigo’ or ‘Leaning from the steep slope’ or ‘Outside the town of Malbork’ or ‘In a network of lines that enlace’ or ‘Looks down the gathering shadow’ or ‘In a network of lines that intersect’ or ‘On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon’ or ‘Around an empty grave’ or ‘What story down there awaits its end?’ or any other books.
Next you checked the rating the reviewer gave to the book – something which is of special importance if the book in case is a favorite for you. Because, admit it, you feel a kind of possessiveness for your favorite books – as if you own them, wrote them. You want them to do well, them to be liked by all - almost as if they were you children. And if someone doesn’t like them, you feel a bit hurt; sometimes you even think that this someone is still immature to realize the full value of the great work. However, in this case, five stars, so that is not a problem here.
Next, you scrolled down the screen to check whether the review is too long. Too long it is. Yet, you decided to go through it – that is because you haven’t read it and want to know about the book. Or you have already read it – but want to know what I have to say. Not that my opinion is that important – what am I to you but a vague person in some vague part of the world made real only by these reviews? No, rather you think of books you read as if they were places you go to and of reviews as snapshots from there – and therefore, when you see a review from someone else of a book you have already read; it is not her/his opinion that is more relevant but rather you want to check through these snaps - whether those places still look, smell, taste the same, excite the same emotions as they once did in you.
The title of this book, for example, reminds you of the frustration brought by the beginnings of novels that went nowhere; of being made to smile at an almost Nabokovian naughtiness, of being awed by Borges-ian cleverness in playing with realities, of being forced to walk in shoes of a ‘you’ that weren’t you – initially you may have felt used, may be a bit insulted at being reduced to a mere character, a puppet in author’s hands but then you started enjoying being that ‘you’ … and also don’t you remember how when being that ‘you’, you found your and 'your' soul-mate in a book shop? ‘As if there could be a better place’ you murmur.
And yet, so far nothing worth your while has been mentioned in this review; you are feeling a bit disappointed. ‘Very disappointed’ you correct me. And it becomes necessary that I, as the reviewer, should ensure you that I’ve happened to come across some previously undisclosed information about the author – some gossip you might say … but you prefer the word ‘trivia’, well, as you like it, some trivia which shall entirely change or, if I may be so bold to say, enhance your reading experience. And in case, you still doubt it – I give my word of honor that I’m going to share such a trivia. Now you feel some confidence in your decision to pursue this review, right?
You may feel like throwing at me a romantic idea you believe in, like ‘the author is merely incidental, and it is only the work you are interested in’. But still the fact is you are at least a little curious – you can’t help it, you are a Goodreader; the kind of person who can’t help opening a book he/she saw; steals a book you can’t own, who feels as poor in a bookshop as in company of your crush – and who will stare greedily and almost sensously run your lustful finger on books in shops even when knowing you have no intention of buying them (there are no pleasures like stolen pleasures, right?) Yes, you are curious – no matter what you say. In any case, just stop picking up your nose.
… And also as you remember sometimes, I do sometimes have something really good to say (Oh! Come on people, it won’t kill you to nod on that) which i always say in a no-nonsense fashion without beating around the bush, the idea just won't occur to me - it is just not my nature to keep dragging the subject, I will just come out and say it. And I am .... that .... that thing, what you call it, the word you use for someone really good with words .... eloquent, yes, thank you, I'm eloquent ..... or you remember my God-fearing good nature … or at least I am good at spotting the quotes which, I am always careful to provide double-quoted, italicized and blockquoted in my review like this:
Now you are laughing (if you are enjoying the review, do tell by commenting - adjectives like 'fabulous', 'fantastic and 'incredible' are recommended) … or, may be, today you are not in a mode of jest – it is not one of your best days, may be you were already angry at one of Goodreads’ habitual technical glitches and are further frustrated at childishness of this review; moreover you are one of those who can not be tricked with those jokes, you are too clever for them - even now you have quickly realised that I'm trying to flatter you to make you forget your anger and like me more. If that is the case, you are yourself to blame – I’ve Bart Simpson on my profile picture, remember!
By now, you might be considering whether or not to stop reading this review, but the fact that you have come so far and are thus invested, or the temptation of knowing that trivia I promised, is stopping you from doing it. In which case, you want me to stop second guessing your reactions and get on with …
Okay, I hear you, you don't have to yell. No more jokes. *smiles sinister-ly* You see, the thing is there already exists an incredible review here and I’m feeling a bit sleepy. But not any longer. Let me just give the information. It is …. . . . . . . Oops.I felt asleep. Apologies. I see my link too went nowhere. Apologies again. It is all that sleepiness you know. Anyways, I won’t keep you much longer. It is already the last paragraph and I can feel your frustration coming out of the screen. And so to keep my promise, I will just dispense with that vital information before I feel asleep again. The time has come, readjust your specs, move closer to screen, pay attention, here it is: The author of the postmodernist novel ‘If on a Winter Night’s a traveler’( which was published in 1979); an Italian journalist and writer of novels and short stories – and also a major contender of Nobel Prize during his life time; Italo Calvina was … . . . ....more
“It occurred to Sandy, there at the end of the Middle Meadow Walk, that the Brodie set was Miss Brodie's fascisti, not to the naked eye, marching a
“It occurred to Sandy, there at the end of the Middle Meadow Walk, that the Brodie set was Miss Brodie's fascisti, not to the naked eye, marching along, but all knit together for her need and in another way, marching along. That was all right, but it seemed, too, that Miss Brodie's disapproval of the Girl Guides had jealousy in it, there was an inconsistency, a fault. Perhaps the Guides were too much a rival fascisti, and Miss Brodie could not bear it.”
One commonly featuring theme with all the governments of last century that have gone wrong (whether they were fascists, ultra-nationalists, communalists, communist, anti-communists) is that they all paid special focus on education of children. And it is only to be expected, children are highly impressionable and, a simple application of Butterfly effect or any of psychological theories (except Humanism), shows what an effect a small change early on can have on one’s life – those early stages are the perfect opportunity for anyone wanting to play God:
“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”
And Fascism basically means allowing one man to play God. But this book is not about politics, not unless you see it as an allegory. It is about education.
And so, the questions arises, what should children be taught and who should teach them? Ideally, I dare say that they should be taught how to live a life before they are taught how to earn a living – which might include teaching them about self-discovery, sex-education and how to be good parents, how not to let yourself be influenced by propaganda, how to check if you are prejudiced against some section of society, a habit of putting oneself in other’s shoes etc. The list is too long and as you can see literature can help with several of them. A well-written novel with racism or sexual violence, for example, can be used to teach how these tendencies work in society; how to put oneself in victim’s shoes, clothes and skin; and how one must be guard oneself in being cause of and suffering from such things.
What we really do though, is we play defensive, and don’t want anything too 'dangerous’ for children's stupid heads to be a part of their education. And so anything even remotely out of Disney world is excised out of books.
And what about teachers? We can’t censor teachers but we have an ideal for them, which they must follow. Now, in my mind, the image of this ideal teacher is that of a sentinel of discipline and traditions, yearning for good old times - a strict and, if I may dare use the word, sexless old thing with no sense of humor … you remember prof McGonagall? Exactly. Now you can’t expect every teacher to be an old woman, and so, what we do is we socialize teachers to act in that way while their students are observing them.
And, so, you see in school/college corridors, young teachers pretending to be angry at a behavior in their students which they had enjoyed only a few years ago or might still enact back home (since most of them are terrible actors, I don’t know how come most students don’t see through them, I for one was never fooled. Thanks!), scorning at the very jokes they might themselves find funny, and asking students to follow rules they themselves see injustice in (In this one scene in the third book, McGonagall refuse to sign Harry’s permission to visit the Hogsmeade, though she felt sorry since he was the only in. whole class not allowed to, for no mistake of his).
Now Miss Jean Brodie is no fan of this McGonagallism school of play-acting, she is a rebel (the only good thing about her) and she does seem to believe in teaching children about lifestyle choices. Unfortunately, her syllabus is highly dependent on her whims and she happens to be in her prime.
“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.”
And since she isn’t wearing McGonagall masks, the personal life of this narcissist woman directly affects her students. She loses her initial idealism in a desperate effort to enjoy her life and ends up using her girls as pawns, causing a permanent damage in life of at least one, Sandy. You may make sure that the person teaching isn’t racist, communalist or have some undesirable political philosophy, but they will have much going in their personal life. And unless the teachers are maintaining so-called ‘respectable’ distances, you can’t save a student from their personal life. Now this might serve for the meek to want to argue in favor of sticking to safety of old-fashioned McGonagallism, but I don’t agree and my ex-career as class rebel and class-clown (obviously) has nothing to do with that.
One of the best and most humorous books I have read this year. ...more
At surface, it is a bit like another story of fallen woman like so many. And to be honest, Hardy is not best author when it comes to describing matterAt surface, it is a bit like another story of fallen woman like so many. And to be honest, Hardy is not best author when it comes to describing matters of heart. It is probably his drawing on rural life where his appeal lies.
This one is full of dualities that gather around titular character, Tess of the d' urbervellies. One side of dualities is represented by protagonist's first name, Tess (which appeentlt means 'harvest' - nature (she has a strong love for animals), innocence (Hardly repeatedly insists how innocent Tess is), pagan (Hardly eludes to pagan repeatedly including stonhenge, in fact you first see Tess in celebration of a pagan festival, she choses to bury her child in pagan fashion, if you must cry it aloud the great knight from which family descends is named Pagan), rural, poor, old and pure passion and intimacy (the love making or even pregnancy doesn't ruin a girl's innocence). on thehe other side are values represented by her last name, the exotic sounding 'd'urbervilles' - articficial/mechnical(Hardy doesn't like machines, Tess' rich Urbervilles aunt wants her to teach human music to birds thus wanting to force nature to bend to will of artificial), malicious, Christian (the questioning of Christian values got it censored), urban (At one point, a character argues that urban people can't digest pure milk anymore or something to effect), landed/rich, new (machines are evil) and the Christian marriage. The novel starts with Tess' father discovering that he has a last name of once influencial family - 'd'urbervilles'.
There is a reason why it is only Hardy novel named after protagonist. The arrival of this last name also marks the intrusion of later set of values and misery in Tess' life.
Uptill then her irriligious and even drunkard family is more or less well off - staying innocent (as Hardy explicitly insists) despite all that. The temptation to make a comfortable life out of this discovered last name becomes slow undoing of family- in beginng Tess' father still has pride and wants to live on his own hard work but slowly the family swallows this pride sending Tess to her rich aunt in expectation of first job/help or even marrige. By the end, he is just happy to beg to be maintained on charity like 'old ruins' that rich are so happy to maintain.
Another thing is Christian imagery that you see a lot in book. Tess is actually once compared directly to Eve by her cousin who is himself a Satan according to his own analogy. Despite his Christianity, Angel, who is Adam in this analogy decides not to 'fall' with his wife until very end and both are worse off for that. One annoying thing about this Adam and Eve thing is they are supposed to be ridiculously beautiful and their attraction to each other too seem to be based on nothing else but that.
The contrast between a marriage of pure love and a worldly Christian marriage is most clear - on one side is angel who is her husband only in name and still has her love and loyalty (if you ask me, Tess' loyalty to a husband who may never return seem to cause more sufferring to her than everytime else) and on the other hand is the cousin Alec who has had a child with her, with whom she shares her last name, who wants to financially keep her and live with her and later does too.
Tess, being inclined to first set of above mentioned dualities, is happy in just 'love making' (that is seriously a funny phrase) rather than actually marrying Angel and later seess little authority as his Christian wife just because he put his name on a marriage certificate or took oaths in church once. ...more
“Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury. It was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.”
Veblen in his
“Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury. It was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.”
Veblen in his 'Theory of Leisure Class' (written six years before this book) argues that one of the way leisure class show their wealth is by maintaining people who will sit idly for them. The chief example is of wives, where richest men do not want their wives to be doing paid jobs - do and own charities - yes, art exhibitions -yes, partying - yes, just not doing any sort of job. The tendency becomes less visible as we go down the ladder of social class, In India, one can still observe the trend. If they are rich enough, many men would rather have housewives and many women would prefer to be housewives. And if they are wealthier still, they would have servants so that their wives won't have to work. Among such people, a woman earning her living is scorned at and is liable to be cast away by society. Besides wives, the super rich might also maintain a class of 'friends' to keep company.
Lily Bart is such a 'friend' and has been raised to be such a wife of a rich man. The only thing she knows well and is good at is 'manners' of leisure class - and these manners won't earn her any money. Higher standards of living are addictive and she is addicted, but she doesn't have any wealth of her own. And since she can't earn, marrying a rich man is her only option - which seems difficult as she is aging (it is a society where an unmarried women nearing thirties is likely to attract suspicions and prejudice attached to the phrase 'old maiden', another thing still visible in India) and, moreover, she also wants to marry for love. To her misfortune, she happened to be a character in Wharton's realistic novel, instead of being a character in one of Austen's happily-ever-after tales.
“She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.”
One must bow low in respect to Wharton's craft. I mean there are lots of writers who have better stories or things to tell and writers who have awesome literary techniques at their disposal but, very few can beat her,IMO, when it comes to perfection of telling a realistic story in traditional manner (you know no stream-of-consciousness, no magical realism, no Gothic castles etc) And her cynicism (cynics are always sexy), and the way she brings out the helplessness of her character whether it is Lily Bart, Newland Archer or Ethan Frome. She also kept a dog in her lap when she wrote, if her new Goodreads avatar is to be believed....more
Despite being a devoted follower of Gandhi, Sriram understands very little of Gandhi's philosophy. And it seems to be true for everyone except Gandhi'Despite being a devoted follower of Gandhi, Sriram understands very little of Gandhi's philosophy. And it seems to be true for everyone except Gandhi's immediate circle. And there must have been little to interest a villager in national politics, leave alone abstracts concepts like independence or nonviolence. Sriram is in it mostly for his own selfish interest like most young volunteers - which in this case happens to be his love for Bharti, a young girl full of patriotism who waits on Gandhi. While everyone seems to like him, very few actually seem to understood his philosophy. His presence in novel is felt even in pages where he is absent. The very names of two main characters, Bharti and Sriram being Gandhi's two obsessions. ...more
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