The Books of My Numberless Dreams

What have I been reading lately? As the end of my MA studies drew near and my thesis showed no signs of shrinking (or finishing itself) one could observe (lamentable) trends. I withdrew from almost all literary conversation — I did not blog or read any that weren’t in my RSS reader and lost desire for all lit mags, except one. The Paris Review managed to retain my affections partly because it’s a quarterly (so I felt I could read it at leisure), partly because I regard it as a curio among my lit mag/journal interests, and partly because it’s not very demanding in comparison to them (sorry PR staff). I always have reasonable excuses when the poetry befuddles me. (Btw, where the heck is my Fall issue? I miss being befuddled.)

As for books that jumped around a bit. My fantasy interested regressed. I reread The Hobbit and the entire Harry Potter series (like Jennysbooks is doing now). That was my third time with Tolkien’s first tale. The first time I was a tween and I left it with confused memories of the novel and the Rankin & Bass animated adaptation. The second time I closed it quite disgusted with Tolkien’s “children’s author” tone — a stylistic choice he later regretted. IIt’s an overly cute, somewhat artificial, self-conscious tone used by the world’s Enid Blytons. It works well enough for the right age group and then immediately loses favour. Even before I was ten I remember being exasperated with her style. For gratification I counted how many stories in a particular collection she ended with a question mark, mocking her silently.

This third time I made peace with that peeve and was able to appreciate Tolkien’s humour and the story’s rolicking air. I am now now even more worried about its fate as a film: it is fundamentally different from The Lord of the Rings but I fear that the trilogy’s success will convince those in charge that The Hobbit film must be made in its image. The “two movie” plan is very much the doubtful “epic” approach I feared they’d take. We shall see.

J.K. Rowling isn’t that skilfull of a writer, is she? I’ve mentioned many times that when I read the first two Harry Potter books I could not fathom what made it so popular with adults. (I came to the series through the fourth.) Now I think that their length and complexity are better suited to her strengths than a sprawling 700+ pages excursion. (Her best is the third in which she combines meatier content without needing endless words.) As the books got longer she had to do more dialogue…and she’s not very good at it. She overuses adverbs and seems limited to describing her characters as saying something “slowly” whenever they’re not running away from anyone. The plot heaves and gets kind of soap opera-y ie complications happen for the sake of it. She often fails at making her characters convincingly complex. Harry Potter’s teen angst phase came off as PSA-caricature to me but England does purportedly have a youth problem these days.

All the same…I did re-read the entire series, a compliment I have not bestowed on technically better writers whose books I’ve long since bartered. (Granted, I only own three of the HP series.) Rowlings quirky world creations and sympathetic characters combined with the pleasure of communal reading — it is wonderful to know one is enjoying a book with so many others and have endless opportunities to discuss it with them — are very potent. She could be an excellent author with a good editor. It is a bit grievous, though, to know that there are authors whose stories are both captivating and accomplished and yet are not half so spectacularly successful.

I like my mini-quests. My current one is to read all of Diana Wynne Jone’s backlist. Before this year I had read Howl’s Moving Castle, Conrad’s Fate, Power of Three and The Merlin Conspiracy. Since August I completed Chrestomanci Volumes I & II, The Dalemark Quartet and The Pinhoe Egg. I owned Charmed Life, the first in the Chrestomanci Vol. I, for a long time but was repeatedly put off by the first paragraph. I believe it’s one of her earlier novels, published in the 70s, and it stumbled with very abrupt, ugly sentences that did not promise the wry, elegant, tongue-in-cheek Diana I knew well.

Cat Chant admired his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch. He admired her and he clung to her. Great changes came about in their lives and left him no one else to cling to.

Mayhaps I’m overreacting but they read so serviceable, plain, without art or promise. The kind of book you get in grade on when you’re learning to read. Compare it to say, the opening in The Merlin Conspiracy, a favourite.

I have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the King’s Progress.

It’s even shorter than the first example but it scans well. It gives a tantalising bit of information while making you want to know more. That the narrator is writing this down also hints his/her situation is changing which also snags my curiousity. It works, you know? Jones also write it nearly 30 years later so of course she has a better handle of how to get things going. In any case, I did manage to get over Charmed Life’s awkward start, thanks to the quest and the knowledge that the Chrestomanci series is Jones’ most popular, and became one of her many readers to fall head over heels for Christopher Chant and his flamboyant dress robes.

One of the real charms Jones’ books holds for me is how her various urban and rural settings are not modeled too far from real life. In other stories you may have the familiar setting with the fantastical world intruding or its an extreme version of reality (like in Harry Potter with the Firebolts and wizard cards and such — which I adore btw). She explores and pokes at the strange British class system and, to a lesser extent, civil service. Her Conrad’s Fate struck me as being awfully similar to Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (don’t guffaw!) in it humorous, sharp study of an upper class home’s ecosystem, from the master and mistress down to the shoe shine boy. It’s not done to make any point in particular. And…although the magic *is* necessary to the plot , there is so little effort to jazz it up that I’d recommend it to non-fantasy fans who are Anglophiles and like mysteries.

I do not love all of her books equally. The reasons escape me but I found The Magicians of Caprona less than satisfactory. I’ve noticed DWJ’s preference for male over female heroines, the latter oft regulated to the prominent sidekick role. (Unfortunately, when she does have a book with a prominent female heroine, like the third book in The Dalemark Quartet, I pretty much can’t stand it and long for all my favourite boys from the previous two.) She does have an excellent grasp of what sets a young female reading going and that made up some of my favourite moments. In The Lives of Christopher Chant there’s a young goddess named Millie who is starved for reading material. Christopher, on the advice of a male friend with experience in the ladies’ reading tastes, buys her a series that I’m sure is modelled on Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl books. Mille immediately becomes quite desperate to have girl crushes, tea time, Midnight Feasts, become a prefect and so on which mirrored my reaction exactly, except that I also wanted to wake up at ungodly hours to swim in a lake. (I still remember the illustration of the girls running towards it.) In Pinhoe’s Egg there’s a similar moment when two girls despair for a horse, plan to buy riding gear and speak knowingly of gymkhanas after taking in one of those girl + pony books. But this one felt contrived, as if DWJ was trying to recapture a moment better done before.

I’m now in the middle of Hexwood which happily has a prominent heroine (who I like) and seems to be a mix of both fantasy and science fiction, which is always nice, as long as Jones is the author. I shan’t make any promises but I also read, among others, John Banville’s Doctor Copernicus and, in order to remain a critblog in Dan Green’s standings, I shall offer you more critical fare on both that and Mill on the Floss, of course. I read a strange mid-20th century Japanese novel entitled The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Mishima Yukio. It was such a hothouse novel and stamped with Freud’s seal of approval…lots of phallic poles, edifices, ship masts, womanly flowers opening up and what have you…and so riddled with imagery…I still don’t know what to make of it. (Japanese writers rule.)

Hope it hasn’t been mentioned and my old eyes have deceived me, but have you seen the PBS version of Persuasion? I really enjoyed the whole PBS Jane Austen series. – Tasses

No, I’m afraid not. I tend to avoid Austen adaptations unless there’s something in the advertising that indicates the director produced something beyond the ordinary. More importantly, I’m not even sure if I have PBS. But I remember reading reviews of it online and viewers feeling much the same as you did.

With all the Wyndham you’ve been reading, can you tell us which one appealed to you most? What about him made you want to read multiple titles?

Also, re: Wide Sargasso Sea — do you have an opinion in general on the writing of “sequels” using another author’s characters? – Melanie

The Chrysalids retains its top spot because my reread revealed why images of it had stayed with me from boarding school (even if I couldn’t remember specific details). It’s also the best developed one in terms of plot and theme.

Generally when I find an author I like I seek out his other titles immediately. Penguin’s re-release of much of his backlist and the novels’ short length made it all too easy for me to gorge.

In general I lay a pox on authors who go about messing with other books in order to write pre- or sequels. I’m a huge Austen fan but I’ll never read those Darcy’s Diary claptrap. I made an exception for Wide Sargasso Sea because it’s a) considered a classic and b) Rhys wrote other novels that are also well-regarded.

On Literature and Knowledge: Is this more a theoretical book or more an op-ed from the author? Do you disagree with any of the author’s arguments? – bookchronicle

Ahhh, it’s a bit of both with the op-ed strain being a bit more dominant. She goes to some lengths to define and elucidate an understanding of “knowledge” different from the scientific and, ergo, arguing for literature’s importance as is rather than trying to torture it into the objective paradigm.

I’ve read it months ago but I do remember being sceptical about her support for the idea that literature nurtures empathetic knowledge in readers. It’s a library book though, so I don’t have a copy here to go into more details. Hope I was clear enough!

How do you think Persuasion compares to other Austen novels? Would you recommend it to someone new to the author, or would you tell them to try something else first? – Christine

Oh, I love it. Here’s my ranking, leaving out P&P because I’ve forgotten how much I like it and so must re-read to make things clear. Emma‘s first, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion are all tied in for 2nd place because I can’t decide which I like better, while Sense and Sensibility languishes at the bottom because it’s good Austen but I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

You know, it all depends on what kind of reader the newbie is. All of Austen’s major novels are of a certain quality that renders that issue irrelevant. NA may not have MP’s complex architecture but it has a persuasive, enchanting element coupled with Austen’s judicious eye that wins readers over, for example. It’s more about what that new reader is likely to connect with first because, despite similar themes, Austen’s novels vary in style and focus, she brings different things to the fore in her works. I suppose most would go with P&P because it’s considered THE book but that’s a boring tactic, don’t you think? Sometimes it’s neater to take a divergent path even if you end up at the same finishing point.

Thanks to everyone for the great questions!

The Weekly Geek activity

What was your favorite (or least favorite) part of Persuasion? Did you think Captain Wentworth wrote the best, most romantic love letter of all time??? Have you seen any movie versions of Persuasion? Which one is your favorite if you have? – Becky

As I look back now I can’t say that I have a particular favourite section. The novel as a whole stands out to me very brightly in being the opposite of what I expected — the boring Austen novel. It’s the last major one I read after contemplating a reread of Pride & Prejudice because I thought it would be slow — everyone mentions it’s about “patience” which is an upstanding theme but doesn’t sound exciting unless you’re going to make it allegorical and over-the-top like Pilgrim’s Progress (as I remember it anyway). Instead it was filled with near unbearable tension and I found myself entirely taken with Anne and her troubles.

I’ve never seen any of the film adaptations and tend to avoid them as a rule. Parts of the film industry appear to see Austen as a dependable money cranker, fans ever ready to take in another run-of-the-mill boots and petticoats in the country romance rather than making much of anything. Three exceptions to his is Ang Lee & Emma Thompson’s “Sense & Sensibility” (which I like more than the book (!)), the BBC’s faithful P&P 1995 tv series and (somewhat controversially) the latest P&P adaptation starring Keira Knightley. It wasn’t the most faithful and there are some corny lines (help us) but it’s the most cinematic one I’ve ever seen over all others (including the BBC).

How would you describe Andre Dubus’ literary style? – Bybee

In the school of Hemingway, perhaps? That seems to be a catch-all phrase for male writers who write plain, efficient sentences. He’s very much a realist as it’s generally understood and focused on character. They’re usually working class — the men are often military and the women are their mothers, wives, girlfriends or widows — and troubled. He writes with a singular sympathy — I’m not exaggerating here. I write this about other authors but if I were to name a prototype Dubus’ stories would be it — and a measured perspective to all whether it’s a New England waitress with an abusive boyfriend or a misogynistic Marine for whom women are simply things to stick his willy in. He gives them all some grace.

His stories’ success is wholly based on how compelling they are regardless of how mundane and typical the situations may be. Without that there isn’t really anything else for you to rest your eye on and get much nourishment from. But at his best — watch out! He’s the only writer who has ever made me soak my pillow with tears. (I’m an easy crier and tears can trickle down but at the end of “Rose” which I think is at the end of his The Last Worthless Evening I was sobbing, hiccuping, the works.) For anyone who thinks short stories are lesser than novels, Dubus is the man to read.

The Wide Sargasso Sea questions

Tell me more about Wide Sargasso Sea! Most of the reviews I’ve seen of it have been on the fence. Personally, I didn’t like the way either Rochester and Annette were protrayed. Also, Rhys changed a lot about her main character (including her name), which disturbed me. What do you think of Rhys’s writing style? Do you think she did Jane Eyre a service or disservice by writing a “sequel?” – Katherine

I’ve been wanting to read Wide Sargasso Sea for ages. How did you like it in comparison to Jane Eyre? – Alessandra

I started Wide Sargasso Sea once… it seemed to weird so I never finished it. Did you like it? Find it weird? Did it mess up the Jane Eyre story for you or add to it? – Suey

I wrote a bit on this novel before with a promise to write more, which I fully intended to do, until I lost all my damn notes. *ahem*

I turned the last page, my centre of mass shifted, something that always happens when a work has more than justified its existence — in one sense, it justified and confirmed mine as well. That should have been an euphoric feeling but I was also sorrowful. The best thing happened — I’d read another great, great work that confirms why I read fiction, specifically novels. And the worst thing happened — my perspective on Jane Eyre had changed forever. Each book by a different author inhabits its own world of course. It’s only that I’ll never be able to read about Brontë’s poor, monstrous Bertha Mason without wondering what, to Brontë’s mind, brought her there to that Thornfield attic. Rhys showed one possibility and it moved me, almost unbearably.

No fence sitting here, I’m a full on fan. I’m not the person to go to when assessing a novel’s “weirdness” because I love nothing so much as crazy, over-the-top French authors, heated imagery, spaced out sentences etc. So Rhys’ hot house, Eden-after-the-fall with the off-kilter, slightly menacing characters were a plus for me rather than a minus. It didn’t mess up Jane Eyre for me although it did open me a little wider to Brontë’s stereotypical treatment of Bertha. Funnily enough it’s Vilette that gives my Jane Eyre enthusiasm a more tarnished quality. I suppose it’s because it’s one thing for an author to lay a j’accuse at another but a whole different thing when the original turns the gun on herself, as it were.

I love both Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre in completely different ways. The authors are so different: hailing from different times, countries, class…just such different worlds and produced such different books that, despite the obvious links, I can’t put them side by side and say which one I prefer.

Katherine, your question is trickier. I’m not sure what big changes Rhys made to the Antoinette character besides the name change since Brontë didn’t give much beyond vague details on Bertha’s background as best as I can remember. (But I don’t have the best memory so please expound in comments if you care to!) For a novel to be based on Bertha I’d think a novelist would have to go beyond what Brontë mentioned to get much of a story. Neither did I take issue with how Antoinette and Rochester were portrayed. Especially in Rochester’s case his behaviour was very plausible. In Jane Eyre he was never a saint or even a very good character for much of the story and in light of how English male gentry were raised and Europe’s scientific view of Creoles — where everything from the tropical climate to miscegenation made them suspect — and add that to his young age…I may not have approved of but story-wise it worked.

The name change disturbed me but only in the way I figure Rhys meant it to. Rochester is denying Antoinette her personhood and that plays pretty well as one explanation as to how things played out in Jane Eyre.

I am not one for classic prequels or sequels. It’s why it took me so long to get to Wide Sargasso Sea even though I’d heard of it since I was 12/13; and heard it described as a sort of post-colonial, West Indian answer to the imperial British classic, something which its proponents no doubt expected to appeal to young Jamaican students. Not to me since even then I instinctively disliked that kind of overtly political, messagey stuff when it came to literature. Also it was contradictory since until that point I had learned implicitly that British classics were THE books of the English-speaking world and then all of a sudden I was expected to do a 180 and want to knock it down. (I was a reader before high school and so it may have been easier for those who only read school assigned texts which included West Indian lit. Most bookstores on the island, though, gave a different message.)

I only came to it when I made the decision to read more West Indian literature. I think it’s an excellent novel in which the author didn’t write it as a kind of cheap Jane Eyre vs. Wide Sargasso Sea smack down so I don’t think it besmirches Brontë’s literary legacy.