The Summer Before the Dark - Doris Lessing (Knopf, 1973)
Huh. As a non-yet-married third wave feminist without children, I found this book totally foreign. Maybe forty years is a surprisingly long time, or maybe I just haven't made it to the place where I can fully understand how a middle aged woman can have such trouble figuring out her "self" as an identity separate from how she is seen by others.
Kate's husband and children all go off for a long summer. She gets a job as a translator for some NGO that throws conferences and channels all the energies she spent running a household into that. And then with her free months she falls into an affair with a younger man and travels. Except one after another they are afflicted with some sort of illness that is explicitly considered existential as well as physical.
Throughout the course of the novel, Kate has a recurring dream, in which she is trying to rescue a seal. It's crucial that she let the dream run its course, and it has that metaphorical quality dreams do. But whole swaths of the novel felt the same way to me -- I'd be reaching out, trying to grasp the meaning behind what was going on in the moment, but it kept slipping through my fingers. And I was hugely annoyed to not be able to tell whether or not this was Lessing's intention, or if I was just too far away from Kate's existence to be able to understand it.
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2014
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Wait, what?
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Dell, 1973)
Last night, the Stanford Prison Experiment came up in conversation, which led me to the Milgram experiment, the Third Wave, and the blue eyed/brown eyed exercise. These all dated to the 1960s and early 1970s, which led me to wonder what exactly was going on in the air those days.
(I mean, I sort of know the answer, but seriously...)
Which leads me to Vonnegut. It's been a long time since I've read him, and I guess maybe I had forgotten how eccentric his writing could be.
The novel is the lead up to a momentous meeting between a crazy old science fiction writer and a prosperous businessman that ends with the businessman going postal and eventually (after the action of the novel) the author achieving acclaim and winning a Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Oh, and a huge supporting cast. Including Vonnegut himself, in town to watch his creations on their collision course.
The important part: every character matters and has a real story. No minor character should be treated as minor. In fact, "so many Americans [were] treated by their government as though their lives were disposable [...] because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales." None of this for Vonnegut. Which makes for a whole lot of story. And also illustrations, and commentary, and a matter-of-fact telling of some of the less attractive parts of American culture and history, the way someone in hundreds of years might explain it to a child, or to an alien visitor.
Seems a reasonable way to ring out 2013, I suppose.
Last night, the Stanford Prison Experiment came up in conversation, which led me to the Milgram experiment, the Third Wave, and the blue eyed/brown eyed exercise. These all dated to the 1960s and early 1970s, which led me to wonder what exactly was going on in the air those days.
(I mean, I sort of know the answer, but seriously...)
Which leads me to Vonnegut. It's been a long time since I've read him, and I guess maybe I had forgotten how eccentric his writing could be.
The novel is the lead up to a momentous meeting between a crazy old science fiction writer and a prosperous businessman that ends with the businessman going postal and eventually (after the action of the novel) the author achieving acclaim and winning a Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Oh, and a huge supporting cast. Including Vonnegut himself, in town to watch his creations on their collision course.
The important part: every character matters and has a real story. No minor character should be treated as minor. In fact, "so many Americans [were] treated by their government as though their lives were disposable [...] because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales." None of this for Vonnegut. Which makes for a whole lot of story. And also illustrations, and commentary, and a matter-of-fact telling of some of the less attractive parts of American culture and history, the way someone in hundreds of years might explain it to a child, or to an alien visitor.
Seems a reasonable way to ring out 2013, I suppose.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Glittering Despair
Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion (Pocket Books, 1970, 1978)
Things I learned from this novel: the late 1960s and early 1970s kinda sucked. I mean, we glamorize them now, with all the free love and flowers and Woodstock and consciousness-altering drugs and activism and stuff. But there was also a lot of using drugs and sex to mask all sorts of pain, and hiding things away, and being corrupt in Hollywood.
I think I am too far outside the time to really understand this novel, because it seemed like Maria had a shitty childhood, made it to NYC where things were shady, fell for the director who cast her in a film where she was gangbanged, and then he made it big and she really didn't, mainly because her husband insisted on institutionalizing their daughter, and then there were affairs and affairs and affairs and eventually someone gets killed. Or dies of his own hand. Or something.
I can't say that Didion's prose isn't evocative, because it was bitterly painful to read, to go into Maria's desperation. So she accomplished what I believe was her vision. It's a successful book. But 40 years later... I find myself lost.
Things I learned from this novel: the late 1960s and early 1970s kinda sucked. I mean, we glamorize them now, with all the free love and flowers and Woodstock and consciousness-altering drugs and activism and stuff. But there was also a lot of using drugs and sex to mask all sorts of pain, and hiding things away, and being corrupt in Hollywood.
I think I am too far outside the time to really understand this novel, because it seemed like Maria had a shitty childhood, made it to NYC where things were shady, fell for the director who cast her in a film where she was gangbanged, and then he made it big and she really didn't, mainly because her husband insisted on institutionalizing their daughter, and then there were affairs and affairs and affairs and eventually someone gets killed. Or dies of his own hand. Or something.
I can't say that Didion's prose isn't evocative, because it was bitterly painful to read, to go into Maria's desperation. So she accomplished what I believe was her vision. It's a successful book. But 40 years later... I find myself lost.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Could this be love?
I Think I Love You - Allison Pearson (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, advance reader's edition)
I had quite the crush on NPH (I mean, obviously) in his Doogie Howser days. And I seem to remember several months of adoration for Christian Slater. But my teen passion was for an athlete, which somehow felt much different (to me) than loving a teen heartthrob. I jealously guarded my love for Paul Kariya, and didn't have to share him with the other hoards of teen girls.
But then, I could still identify with Petra and her girlfriends, and the way they felt about David Cassidy. That feeling that somehow he was reaching out directly to you, even as - in their case, at least - it was about the connections you make with the girls around you as well.
Anyway, so Petra has a new best friend, and they hover on the orbit of one of those stereotypical queen bees, who existed even in Wales of the 1970s, it turns out. Their bond: Cassidy, who helps them weather the storms of adolescence. The greatest storm though, arises from their misadventures trying to see him in concert. At the same time, young college grad Bill turns out to *be* David Cassidy, or rather to channel his voice for one of those teeny-bopper magazines. This is hugely embarrassing, and yet it's his life.
Fast forward a quarter-century. Petra is mourning her mother, her failed marriage, and her inability to protect her teen daughter from the hurts that plagued her. But then she finds a lost letter, and a chance to go back in time, and maybe let her teenage self have the experience of a lifetime.
It's not just a love story between a man and a woman, or a man and millions of girls. It's also about love between friends, the complications of familial love, and the ways we tie ourselves in knots trying to be the "right" thing for the ones we love. I didn't know what to expect when I picked this up, but it was warm and comforting. A good find.
I had quite the crush on NPH (I mean, obviously) in his Doogie Howser days. And I seem to remember several months of adoration for Christian Slater. But my teen passion was for an athlete, which somehow felt much different (to me) than loving a teen heartthrob. I jealously guarded my love for Paul Kariya, and didn't have to share him with the other hoards of teen girls.
But then, I could still identify with Petra and her girlfriends, and the way they felt about David Cassidy. That feeling that somehow he was reaching out directly to you, even as - in their case, at least - it was about the connections you make with the girls around you as well.
Anyway, so Petra has a new best friend, and they hover on the orbit of one of those stereotypical queen bees, who existed even in Wales of the 1970s, it turns out. Their bond: Cassidy, who helps them weather the storms of adolescence. The greatest storm though, arises from their misadventures trying to see him in concert. At the same time, young college grad Bill turns out to *be* David Cassidy, or rather to channel his voice for one of those teeny-bopper magazines. This is hugely embarrassing, and yet it's his life.
Fast forward a quarter-century. Petra is mourning her mother, her failed marriage, and her inability to protect her teen daughter from the hurts that plagued her. But then she finds a lost letter, and a chance to go back in time, and maybe let her teenage self have the experience of a lifetime.
It's not just a love story between a man and a woman, or a man and millions of girls. It's also about love between friends, the complications of familial love, and the ways we tie ourselves in knots trying to be the "right" thing for the ones we love. I didn't know what to expect when I picked this up, but it was warm and comforting. A good find.
Monday, November 14, 2011
A different look at Egypt
In the Eye of the Sun - Ahdaf Soueif (Anchor Books, 1992, 2000)
Several years ago, I received a notebook titled "Books to Check Out" and ever since, I've made a valiant effort to keep my list of books to read in one place. (With mixed results.) Anyway, from time to time, I go back to the early entries that are yet to be crossed off, and wonder why I haven't gotten to them yet. Usually, it's because I can't find them in a local library. But now I have access to oodles of libraries in California, so I'm going back through.
My friend Mariam recommended Soueif to me early early on. This must have been shortly after we graduated, or maybe soon after she arrived in Cairo. And now, years and years later, I have finally read it. This was a challenge, with my work and life schedule being what it is. 785 pages.... thank goodness for a one-day business trip that gave me uninterrupted hours and hours to read. (I probably read 1/3 of the book that day.) But this is in some ways actually quite a quick read; the pages generally turn in a hurry.
Asya is a young member of the Cairene middle-class, I guess you'd call it. The daughter of two professors, her future in academia was never in doubt. She is romantic and headstrong, and eagerly falls in love at 17, and less eagerly waits until graduation before marrying Saif.
Thanks to the structure of the novel, which starts with 39 pages at the end of the 1970s and then doubles back to the beginning... to 1967, we know that things go wrong. And in some ways, the novel is just the path of how they get there. Asya and Saif made me a little crazy -- it's one of those love stories open to all sorts of interpretation. They met too young, perhaps. They never really knew one another, not really, and they just grew apart. A skeptic could quickly point out all the warning signs before their marriage. And yet, in another light, their love shines more brightly, and their troubles stem more from their failure to communicate. They misread one another again and again. And I longed for them to bridge that gap.
It comes out early on that Asya has an affair, so I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything. But to say too much more may bring on spoilers. Suffice it to say that at one point I grew sufficiently frustrated that I told my boyfriend that I wanted to punch the book. Some characters...... argh.
Oh, and the first half of the book laces Asya's life with the historical events unfolding around her, these latter reported in terse, journalistic style. Once she leaves for England, though, her internal world grows larger and larger, and we learn less about not only outside events, but even the lives of those she loves.
And lastly, a quote: "This [poetry] has to be what matters. Or a large part of what matters. How can people read it and just go on as though they'd been reading the newspaper or some geography lesson[...]?"
Several years ago, I received a notebook titled "Books to Check Out" and ever since, I've made a valiant effort to keep my list of books to read in one place. (With mixed results.) Anyway, from time to time, I go back to the early entries that are yet to be crossed off, and wonder why I haven't gotten to them yet. Usually, it's because I can't find them in a local library. But now I have access to oodles of libraries in California, so I'm going back through.
My friend Mariam recommended Soueif to me early early on. This must have been shortly after we graduated, or maybe soon after she arrived in Cairo. And now, years and years later, I have finally read it. This was a challenge, with my work and life schedule being what it is. 785 pages.... thank goodness for a one-day business trip that gave me uninterrupted hours and hours to read. (I probably read 1/3 of the book that day.) But this is in some ways actually quite a quick read; the pages generally turn in a hurry.
Asya is a young member of the Cairene middle-class, I guess you'd call it. The daughter of two professors, her future in academia was never in doubt. She is romantic and headstrong, and eagerly falls in love at 17, and less eagerly waits until graduation before marrying Saif.
Thanks to the structure of the novel, which starts with 39 pages at the end of the 1970s and then doubles back to the beginning... to 1967, we know that things go wrong. And in some ways, the novel is just the path of how they get there. Asya and Saif made me a little crazy -- it's one of those love stories open to all sorts of interpretation. They met too young, perhaps. They never really knew one another, not really, and they just grew apart. A skeptic could quickly point out all the warning signs before their marriage. And yet, in another light, their love shines more brightly, and their troubles stem more from their failure to communicate. They misread one another again and again. And I longed for them to bridge that gap.
It comes out early on that Asya has an affair, so I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything. But to say too much more may bring on spoilers. Suffice it to say that at one point I grew sufficiently frustrated that I told my boyfriend that I wanted to punch the book. Some characters...... argh.
Oh, and the first half of the book laces Asya's life with the historical events unfolding around her, these latter reported in terse, journalistic style. Once she leaves for England, though, her internal world grows larger and larger, and we learn less about not only outside events, but even the lives of those she loves.
And lastly, a quote: "This [poetry] has to be what matters. Or a large part of what matters. How can people read it and just go on as though they'd been reading the newspaper or some geography lesson[...]?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
