Franny and Zooey

Blurb: Two wonderful stories about members of the Glass family by the author of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. The first story takes place in downtown New Haven during the weekend of ‘the Yale game’ and follows Franny Glass on a date with her collegiate boyfriend. The second focuses on Zooey Glass, a somewhat emotionally toughened genius. As his younger sister Franny hits an emotional crisis in her parents' Manhattan living room, Zooey comes to her aid, offering love, understanding, and words of sage advice.
Thoughts: In short, I fell in love with this book (or more technically, short story and novella). It manages to be incredibly profound while retaining a feeling of total inconsequentiality. It deals with religious philosophy, devotion and fanaticism, but so conversationally and uniquely and it doesn't feel at all didactic or overbearing. Salinger manages to talk about the meaning, or lack thereof, of life in a way that doesn't feel at all hackneyed or like it's been done before. 

I also, as I did with The Catcher in the Rye, fell in love with his characters. Something about them - the patterns in their speech, their movement and what they say - makes them feel very real, but at the same time utterly unique. For me at least, they are the kind of characters you want to know and understand everything about. 

I think in a way I preferred this book to The Catcher in the Rye. It may have much less of a plot, but for me the characters and the ideas were much more interesting. Either way, I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

a bit of a catch up

So it's been quite a while (again..)! I've been wrapped up the in wonderful land of revision! (Note sarcasm.)

But to be fair, it could be worse: I've also been in Normandy, and there are worse things than spending my breaks going for walks in an orchard and eating lots of cheese...

In fact, I suppose it's not been so bad - days reading Tom Stoppard plays, speaking Spanish and learning about the Vietnam War and Indian independence. Despite the impending threat of exams, there definitely are worse things to do in life.

But now the exams are over! Finally, I can read! Or so I thought...

I always find that after a period of time when I have spend hours dreaming about having nothing to do but curl up in bed with a good book, when I actually find myself with spare time - with no exams to feel guilty about not revising for - I just don't read. I suppose it's something to do with being out of the habit, or our wonderful propensity for procrastination, or just needing a break from doing anything - but for my two weeks off before going back to school, I only read one book!

Well, whatever the reason, now I've had my break. And I am feeling so enthusiastic and excited to jump back into my reading! Having decided to apply to do English at university next year, I have lists of novels and books on literary theory and literary criticism which honestly fill me with such excitement I find it hard to believe. (No sarcasm intended this time.) First off, Jean-Paul Sartre's What is Literature?

So hopefully, this blog will come alive again as I dive into mountains of books. And after my break from reading I couldn't be feeling more inspired and excited to jump into it.

A Country Doctor's Notebook

Blurb: With the ink still wet on his diploma, the twenty-five-year-old Dr Mikhail Bulgakov was flung into the depths of rural Russia which, in 1916-17, was still largely unaffected by such novelties as the motor car, the telephone or electric light. How his alter-ego copes (or fails to cope) with the new and often appalling responsibilities of a lone doctor in a vast country practice - on the eve of Revolution - is described in Bulgakov's delightful blend of candid realism and imaginative exuberance.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed these. They are very understated and quite shockingly realist, having read the Master and Margarita. The first seven short stories are - as the title would suggest - the anecdotes of a doctor. They are incredibly simple - but beautiful, funny and expertly written. There is a real sense of the harrowing isolation. In fact I think I preferred these simpler stories to the last two: Morphine and The Murderer which seem different to the anecdotal tone of the first seven, and more profound in subject. Indeed for me it was Bulkagov's skilful simplicity that really made these stories so enjoyable.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Blurb: Dorian is a good-natured young man until he discovers the power of his own exceptional beauty. As he gradually sinks deep into a frivolous, glamourous world of selfish luxury, he apparently remains physically unchanged by the stresses of his corrupt lifestyle and untouched by age. But up in his attic, hidden behind a curtain, his portrait tells a different story…

Thoughts: My thoughts changed quite a lot over the course of the novel. When I first started it, I loved it. It does feel like an indulgence on Oscar Wilde's part and he clearly relishes Lord Henry's paradoxical and sententious epigrams and his flamboyant descriptions. I really love when you can tell an author has enjoyed writing something and I think with this is very much the case in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Around the middle of the book I started not to enjoy it so much. I think it was partly because I knew the premise of the story beforehand, so it started to feel a little inevitable and predictable. For me the happier section of Dorian's life seemed to be a bit of a page filler; although it was necessary, it wasn't as exciting or enjoyable as the rest of the novel. I also wasn't quite sure I liked how the slightly magical aspect was working...

However by the end it really picked up again for me. I loved the whole of the end section when the fear starts to creep in. In fact here, where it is done more eerily, I really enjoyed the unnatural element (of the portrait). Wilde's writing truly is incredible, and there are passages that were so beautifully formed that I read them at least five times. I also think it is an incredibly interesting idea and is very well executed. Saying that, I'm still not decided on whether I enjoyed it as much as the short stories of his I read, with their more outright sarcastic commentary, but it was a very enjoyable read and one I think will stay with me.

The Castle

Blurb: The story of K, the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home, seems to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. In his Introduction, Idris Parry shows that duality - to Kafka a perpetual human condition - lies at the heart of this magnum opus: dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, reason and nonsense, harmony and disintegration. The Castle then, is an unfinished novel that feels strangely complete, in which a labyrinthine world is described in simple language and absurd fantasy reveals profound truth.

Thoughts: I am really growing to love Kafka. The way he writes is incredibly unique. The book has a very surreal dreamlike - or rather nightmarish - narrative and feeling to it. I think his style of writing has a lot to do with this; Kafka did not write with an idea of where the narrative was going, instead it seems to unravel itself. This experimentative way of writing and lack of real plot does create a rambling and sometimes laborious read, but it also gives rise to really very interesting conclusions about human nature.

There are many aspects of The Castle that reminded me of The Trial; the lone protagonist, endless bureaucracy, lack of reason or meaning despite endless interpretations. However, although in many ways it a harder read, I think on balance I actually found it to be more thought-provoking than The Trial.

The feeling that persists is a nightmarish sense of isolation. There are I'm sure copious interpretations, but my impression was that it is this aloneness in the world that The Castle speaks of, and the endless search for understanding and human connection.

The fact that the book is unfinished did not bother me. In fact it felt bizarrely apt that there was no conclusion to K.'s aims and struggles, with the implication of never-ending complications and misunderstanding. In truth this aptness did make me wonder about the reality of Kafka's intentions and whether or not its incompletion was intentional.

Oscar Wilde

Well I've started reading his short stories, and I think I'm in love.

I've only read a few (the four published in Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and Other Stories) but already he has me looking like an idiot grinning ear to ear on the bus. He's witty (and knowingly so), satirical, socially critical and truly entertaining. In short, I completely understand why Morrissey was obsessed by him.

The list is already piling high of his work I'd love to read: books, essays, letters (especially the one he wrote to Alfred Douglas from prison), plays, poetry...

Inspiration

To be honest, the end of last year was really lacking it. And my new years resolutions for that matter were just a bit tired. A bit weary. But inspiration has struck, finally.

It was carried down by a midnight run and blog post. And with it has come a desire for serenity, self-understanding and knowledge.

I don't like rules and strict resolutions. I like making them, but then they stop me from achieving my goals. I work better on a feeling, or an aim. A sense of how I want to feel or where I want to go.

And I've realised that I think I want to find my person. An author that intrigues me so much that I can't get enough. That I read their letters, their essays, their journals. It was Sylvia Plath, and to be honest it could still be, but there could be somebody else. So I'm on a new quest, and I'm going to read and read until I find them. And then I'm going to read and read some more.

I read an article about someone who read effectively a book a day. I'm not planning something so drastic - in fact I'm not planning anything at all - but what I took from it was how he did it, and it wasn't by giving up his work or time with his family. He said he replaced all his reading, and watching, with reading books. No facebook, no youtube, no re-watching old episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Just book upon book. And that sounds like bliss.

And I'm not saying we don't need down time, a little time to not be productive. But it's so easy to waste time. To see a week go by in a flash, without a second to let your head catch up with it. So I think it goes back to awareness. Just being aware of what I'm doing and where I'm going rather than letting it all carry me along with no real sense of direction.

So that's my non-plan-plan. And it may be a bit late, but for a second time - happy new year.