A love story devoid of melodrama, full of psychological realism (except the simplicity of the ending), beautiful prose, observations about inter-gendeA love story devoid of melodrama, full of psychological realism (except the simplicity of the ending), beautiful prose, observations about inter-gender and inter-class communications; the book reminded me of 'Age of Innocence'. I don't know why it doesn't have more ratings....more
“In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty ch
“In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one”
- The Waste Land by T. S. ELIOT
Eliot’s poem provides both the title and the central theme - that of destructive forces overtaking productive ones. The book moves around two characters - Mary and her husband with whom one can sympathises despite their ugly racism, as they suffer in poverty and a failed and childless marriage. Her husband is somewhat less racist than others. The couple is the poorest of white farmers of South Africa.
At one point, the author suggests that there are no economic classes in South Africa and only races. Even these poorest of poor farmers who have no ceiling in their house are able to afford several black labourers. The books beautifully shows how the white privileged class maintain a distance from natives to conserve their notion of superiority both consciously and subconsciously –prejudice must always preserve itself, anything that goes against prejudice must be ignored, suppressed or thought of as an exception And so in the very first chapter, we see how the news of sexual relationship between a black man and white woman is suppressed. It is in this way they maintain the idea of their racial superiority – Mary, the biggest racist in the book, falls in love with a servant, whom she had once whipped, once she is forced to see him for a period and is unable to ignore his humanity.
Quotes
‘It is by the failures and misfits of a civilization that one can best judge its weaknesses.’ (epigraph by an unknown author)
“It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. How can one know he will be able to create another to enable him to go on living?”
“he had become accustomed to the double solitude that any marriage, even a bad one, becomes.” ...more
Sex, violence, rape and death. This is stuff poems are made of. It is supposed to be deeply routed in Spanish culture. Lorca used to sing them when heSex, violence, rape and death. This is stuff poems are made of. It is supposed to be deeply routed in Spanish culture. Lorca used to sing them when he was still in process of writing them in front of audience, and they left such a deep impact on people that they were quoted by other writers and inspired other works even before they were published. I guess they wells on the habbit people had world over (before Guttenberg) of making songs on the events that leave deep impact on imagination of people to help remembering events in future. Except in this case they are fictional events.
These poems are often about battle between opposities - desire and purity, life and death. Some of them take form of conversations between characters - and some of the characters are gods (creating new mythic tales) There is lots of symbolism too - which you start being able to understand as you read on. A third reason to want to learn Spanish after Neruda and Marquez....more
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