Thursday, August 25, 2005
Review: The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Writing Style-7.4
Originality-8.0
Plot-7.2
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.2
Overall-7.2
I guess you would really call this a novella, coming in at about 75 pages. My edition came with White Fang, which I planned to read in succession and review together, but Call of the Wild was so emotionally draining that I had to put it down to revisit White Fang later.
It was a lot like American Psycho, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and A Portrait of the Artist where I had to take breaks during certain scenes to detach myself emotionally from the story to stop from being morbidly depressed or sickened. In the case of Call of the Wild it was the almost constant cruelty towards dogs, which I just can’t stomach.
But, it turns out to be well worth fighting through the rough parts because Buck, the central character, part St. Bernard and Scottish Shepard, kicks so much ass.
The story follows Buck’s travels and travails from domesticated life (in California, I think) northward into the wild of Alaska. During this journey he has several masters, most of which are not too nice.
Accordingly, Buck’s nature and personality digresses from one of being civilized and domesticated back to that of the wolf. This change is connected to the progressing roughness of his environment and mistreatment of his masters.
I think this plot derives from an interesting mix in London of an appreciation for the toughness that comes from a primitive, frontier life and a disdain for capitalism. As an aside, I think there’s an interesting paradox here that lovers of southern literature can understand. Capitalism favors survival of the fittest in the same way that frontier life does. We may admire a Faulknerian horse trader even as we criticize his dishonesty and cutt-throat business acumen.
So, I think Buck’s tale is clearly allegorical. It’s important to point out that Buck’s services are required as part of the Klondike gold rush. The following passage stands out:
“...the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration… …but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them.”
This is definitely worthwhile for anyone to read. I mean it’s practically a short story. Its action packed and moves swiftly with very memorable scenes. It’s sad, especially in the beginning, but it kind of kicks butt in the end. Buck certainly doesn’t triumph over the forces that cause his digression into the wild, but he does adapt.
So, if the journey into the wild in search of gold is analogous to capitalism, is Buck’s adaptation analogous to the myth of the self-made man (which gets us back to the paradox)? Or am I being too optimistic about the end of Buck’s story because I love him so much? Or did London start with the intention of creating a socialist, cautionary tale but then fell into the horse trader admiration trap? I’m at a loss. At any rate, it’s a great story.
Originality-8.0
Plot-7.2
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.2
Overall-7.2
I guess you would really call this a novella, coming in at about 75 pages. My edition came with White Fang, which I planned to read in succession and review together, but Call of the Wild was so emotionally draining that I had to put it down to revisit White Fang later.
It was a lot like American Psycho, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and A Portrait of the Artist where I had to take breaks during certain scenes to detach myself emotionally from the story to stop from being morbidly depressed or sickened. In the case of Call of the Wild it was the almost constant cruelty towards dogs, which I just can’t stomach.
But, it turns out to be well worth fighting through the rough parts because Buck, the central character, part St. Bernard and Scottish Shepard, kicks so much ass.
The story follows Buck’s travels and travails from domesticated life (in California, I think) northward into the wild of Alaska. During this journey he has several masters, most of which are not too nice.
Accordingly, Buck’s nature and personality digresses from one of being civilized and domesticated back to that of the wolf. This change is connected to the progressing roughness of his environment and mistreatment of his masters.
I think this plot derives from an interesting mix in London of an appreciation for the toughness that comes from a primitive, frontier life and a disdain for capitalism. As an aside, I think there’s an interesting paradox here that lovers of southern literature can understand. Capitalism favors survival of the fittest in the same way that frontier life does. We may admire a Faulknerian horse trader even as we criticize his dishonesty and cutt-throat business acumen.
So, I think Buck’s tale is clearly allegorical. It’s important to point out that Buck’s services are required as part of the Klondike gold rush. The following passage stands out:
“...the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration… …but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them.”
This is definitely worthwhile for anyone to read. I mean it’s practically a short story. Its action packed and moves swiftly with very memorable scenes. It’s sad, especially in the beginning, but it kind of kicks butt in the end. Buck certainly doesn’t triumph over the forces that cause his digression into the wild, but he does adapt.
So, if the journey into the wild in search of gold is analogous to capitalism, is Buck’s adaptation analogous to the myth of the self-made man (which gets us back to the paradox)? Or am I being too optimistic about the end of Buck’s story because I love him so much? Or did London start with the intention of creating a socialist, cautionary tale but then fell into the horse trader admiration trap? I’m at a loss. At any rate, it’s a great story.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Book News: Complete Collection of Penguin Classics
Check this out. You can buy on amazon for the bargain price of $7989.50 (that's 40% off the cover price) the entire collection of Penguin Classics. That's 1082 books that weigh a total of 700 pounds. And you get free shipping!
Amazon nicely provides a link to the list of titles. Pretty interesting. I've read approximately 45 of them. How depressing.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0147503078/qid=1124925482/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1283284-3427956?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Amazon nicely provides a link to the list of titles. Pretty interesting. I've read approximately 45 of them. How depressing.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0147503078/qid=1124925482/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1283284-3427956?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Googling Kingsport
This is a new townesvanfaulkner weekly feature where I google a fellow Kingsportian to see what they are up to. Enjoy.
http://ci.kingsport.tn.us/?CONTEXT=cat&cat=8&BISKIT=2552888515
http://ci.kingsport.tn.us/?CONTEXT=cat&cat=8&BISKIT=2552888515
Review: Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes
Writing Style-2.1
Originality-3.1
Plot-0.6
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-0.8
Overall-1.8
This book is a big stinky turd. I barely cared enough to finish it and it’s less than 200 pages. I feel bad about wasting your time reading a review of it. I’ll try to keep it brief.
There’s this dumbshit main character who starts out as a young girl who is amazed by her uncle who I guess she thinks is pretty cool and clever. Another major character in her life is an RAF fighter pilot during the war. He’s been grounded because he’s kind of out of his head and he is staying with her family. He tells her war stories and flying stories and whatnot and she’s pretty amazed by him. Then she grows up and gets married to a guy who’s kind of an a-hole. Through these parts, this girl is unbelievably naïve and stupid. I mean it’s not even realistic. I’m sure that the naïveté is part of the point but for Christ’s sake there’s no need to beat the reader over the head with it.
Then for the last third of this novel, the main character is an old lady. It seems she is somewhat at peace with the world as old people tend to be. And we learn more about her son Gregory who is mainly having a conversation with a super computer. Since it is now something like 2021, there is this supercomputer that knows pretty much everything. Their conversation gets pretty deep about suicide and the point of life and these type things.
So I’m looking back over this summary of the plot and it sounds like it should be really cool, right? But its not. The problem is that this basic outline is really all there is to the novel. The characters and plot never get fleshed out. And the writing is so drab and aimless you don’t really care.
I’m sure that there are all kinds of cool points one could make about this woman’s life. Her wonderment of the world as told by the airplane pilot and her uncle contrasted with her sons search for the meaning of life through asking questions of a supercomputer. The pilot and her son’s fixation with suicide. Her metamorphosis from a naïve young girl to a wise old lady. But there’s just not enough good writing and story to get a firm handhold on any of this. This book is just air, its not even hot air, its just lukewarm turd-smelly air.
Originality-3.1
Plot-0.6
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-0.8
Overall-1.8
This book is a big stinky turd. I barely cared enough to finish it and it’s less than 200 pages. I feel bad about wasting your time reading a review of it. I’ll try to keep it brief.
There’s this dumbshit main character who starts out as a young girl who is amazed by her uncle who I guess she thinks is pretty cool and clever. Another major character in her life is an RAF fighter pilot during the war. He’s been grounded because he’s kind of out of his head and he is staying with her family. He tells her war stories and flying stories and whatnot and she’s pretty amazed by him. Then she grows up and gets married to a guy who’s kind of an a-hole. Through these parts, this girl is unbelievably naïve and stupid. I mean it’s not even realistic. I’m sure that the naïveté is part of the point but for Christ’s sake there’s no need to beat the reader over the head with it.
Then for the last third of this novel, the main character is an old lady. It seems she is somewhat at peace with the world as old people tend to be. And we learn more about her son Gregory who is mainly having a conversation with a super computer. Since it is now something like 2021, there is this supercomputer that knows pretty much everything. Their conversation gets pretty deep about suicide and the point of life and these type things.
So I’m looking back over this summary of the plot and it sounds like it should be really cool, right? But its not. The problem is that this basic outline is really all there is to the novel. The characters and plot never get fleshed out. And the writing is so drab and aimless you don’t really care.
I’m sure that there are all kinds of cool points one could make about this woman’s life. Her wonderment of the world as told by the airplane pilot and her uncle contrasted with her sons search for the meaning of life through asking questions of a supercomputer. The pilot and her son’s fixation with suicide. Her metamorphosis from a naïve young girl to a wise old lady. But there’s just not enough good writing and story to get a firm handhold on any of this. This book is just air, its not even hot air, its just lukewarm turd-smelly air.
Review: War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
Writing Style-6.7
Originality-7.3
Plot-8.4
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.0
Overall-7.9
This is a beautiful book. It’s historical fiction that takes you through World War II. It is the sequel to the Winds of War and flows seamlessly with that novel. They are best read together in series, though probably not back-to-back because they are both over 1000 pages in length.
It follows the story of one family. Each of the main characters is cleverly placed in places where you get a total, global view of the war. The main character, the patriarch “Pug” Henry, even writes a translation of a post-war book written by a German general so that you get the German viewpoint.
Pug is a navy captain who rises to admiral by the book’s end. He has two sons, one is a submariner, and the other flies fighter planes off of a carrier. The submariner, Byron, has married a Jewish girl in Europe (in Winds of War). Her and her uncle get stuck in Europe at the outset of the war and have family members in concentration camps. So you get the European Jew viewpoint as well.
Though probably guilty of being overly romantic about war, I can forgive it because if there is one war to be romantic about its World War II.
There are many interesting historical details throughout the book. In the afterword, Wouk says that all of the events are true as he has described except for the made up Henry family and a couple of made up naval vessels that members of the Henry family captain.
One such interesting story is that of the “Paradise Ghetto”, a horrific concentration camp that the Germans make look like a utopia so that they can invite the Red Cross in and show the world that the stories that they have heard about the holocaust are not true.
The battle scenes are all naval; I guess it was simply a preference of the author. Most of the warfare action takes place in the pacific while the European theater is written about more from the Jewish viewpoint or at times when Pug serves in a diplomatic capacity.
The book steadily gets better as you go along simply because you are investing so much in the characters.
This is a must read for fans of historical fiction.
Originality-7.3
Plot-8.4
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.0
Overall-7.9
This is a beautiful book. It’s historical fiction that takes you through World War II. It is the sequel to the Winds of War and flows seamlessly with that novel. They are best read together in series, though probably not back-to-back because they are both over 1000 pages in length.
It follows the story of one family. Each of the main characters is cleverly placed in places where you get a total, global view of the war. The main character, the patriarch “Pug” Henry, even writes a translation of a post-war book written by a German general so that you get the German viewpoint.
Pug is a navy captain who rises to admiral by the book’s end. He has two sons, one is a submariner, and the other flies fighter planes off of a carrier. The submariner, Byron, has married a Jewish girl in Europe (in Winds of War). Her and her uncle get stuck in Europe at the outset of the war and have family members in concentration camps. So you get the European Jew viewpoint as well.
Though probably guilty of being overly romantic about war, I can forgive it because if there is one war to be romantic about its World War II.
There are many interesting historical details throughout the book. In the afterword, Wouk says that all of the events are true as he has described except for the made up Henry family and a couple of made up naval vessels that members of the Henry family captain.
One such interesting story is that of the “Paradise Ghetto”, a horrific concentration camp that the Germans make look like a utopia so that they can invite the Red Cross in and show the world that the stories that they have heard about the holocaust are not true.
The battle scenes are all naval; I guess it was simply a preference of the author. Most of the warfare action takes place in the pacific while the European theater is written about more from the Jewish viewpoint or at times when Pug serves in a diplomatic capacity.
The book steadily gets better as you go along simply because you are investing so much in the characters.
This is a must read for fans of historical fiction.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Writing Style-6.8
Originality-7.9
Plot-8.2
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.2
Overall-7.7
This book starts out pretty slow. I was annoyed with the way Wolfe would write an action sentence to start each paragraph and then digress into some background story of the character’s. I thought that this would continue throughout the ~700 page book and that it would be pretty slow slogging through it. But, around page 200 this seems to stop.
There the pace quickens dramatically. And it’s an extremely compelling plot with great characters. I suppose setting up the scene and giving depth to the characters and their world is the point of the first 200 pages. But still, I think you can build depth more subtly and less annoyingly than he does it.
The main point though is that this turns out to be a great book. It’s about classism and race relations in New York, New York in the mid to late eighties at the height of Reaganomics and the New York crime wave.
The story goes: a wealthy Wall Street bond trader, named Sherman McCoy, and his mistress get lost one night driving through downtown in his Mercedes. They wander into the seedy part of Brooklyn that is filled with the downtrodden and minorities and are desperate to find their way back to Manhattan. They get increasingly scared. They come upon a couple of tires blocking the road, the man gets out of the car to move the tires and a couple of young black men approach him either to help or attack him. He assumes they are attacking him, throws a tire at them, the mistress gets behind the wheel and runs over the other one. They run off as fast as they can.
From here it progresses into a bit of a crime/court room type drama at times. Are they guilty of hit and run? What about the background of the two black men? Were they being robbed?
The trial becomes a huge media circus when a black, activist reverend takes up the cause to show that the New York legal system is corrupt and racist.
What is interesting is that though this is a book about racism and classism, it doesn’t revolve around the tragedy of the young black man who gets run over. You really feel for Sherman and feel as though he is a victim of this racially-charged, greed-induced atmosphere.
Overall, this is a great read. There is so much depth to the New York setting. Highly recommended. Don’t be thrown off by descriptions of this book as being about the upper class in 1980’s New York, that sounds kind of boring. It’s really a crime/court drama at heart, but with so much richness and so many great characters and such smart satire that it is really much, much more.
Originality-7.9
Plot-8.2
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.2
Overall-7.7
This book starts out pretty slow. I was annoyed with the way Wolfe would write an action sentence to start each paragraph and then digress into some background story of the character’s. I thought that this would continue throughout the ~700 page book and that it would be pretty slow slogging through it. But, around page 200 this seems to stop.
There the pace quickens dramatically. And it’s an extremely compelling plot with great characters. I suppose setting up the scene and giving depth to the characters and their world is the point of the first 200 pages. But still, I think you can build depth more subtly and less annoyingly than he does it.
The main point though is that this turns out to be a great book. It’s about classism and race relations in New York, New York in the mid to late eighties at the height of Reaganomics and the New York crime wave.
The story goes: a wealthy Wall Street bond trader, named Sherman McCoy, and his mistress get lost one night driving through downtown in his Mercedes. They wander into the seedy part of Brooklyn that is filled with the downtrodden and minorities and are desperate to find their way back to Manhattan. They get increasingly scared. They come upon a couple of tires blocking the road, the man gets out of the car to move the tires and a couple of young black men approach him either to help or attack him. He assumes they are attacking him, throws a tire at them, the mistress gets behind the wheel and runs over the other one. They run off as fast as they can.
From here it progresses into a bit of a crime/court room type drama at times. Are they guilty of hit and run? What about the background of the two black men? Were they being robbed?
The trial becomes a huge media circus when a black, activist reverend takes up the cause to show that the New York legal system is corrupt and racist.
What is interesting is that though this is a book about racism and classism, it doesn’t revolve around the tragedy of the young black man who gets run over. You really feel for Sherman and feel as though he is a victim of this racially-charged, greed-induced atmosphere.
Overall, this is a great read. There is so much depth to the New York setting. Highly recommended. Don’t be thrown off by descriptions of this book as being about the upper class in 1980’s New York, that sounds kind of boring. It’s really a crime/court drama at heart, but with so much richness and so many great characters and such smart satire that it is really much, much more.
