Tag: The Classics Club

• Autumn Reading Events

  

  October is here, the month of things spooky, Gothic, and mysterious. There’s a couple of reading events I’m considering joining (either officially or unofficially):

  Victober 2021 – Read 1+ books from the Victorian era, with extra challenges suggested by the hosts. As we all know, a lot of great Victorian literature features the supernatural and bizarre. My personal recommendations (if you have the reading bandwidth) are Dracula (of course!) and The Woman in White. For something short, try some medical-inspired short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle in the collection, Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life—free on Gutenberg!

  Club DARE 2.0 – Hosted by the Classics Club, this is a challenge to read at least one book from your CC list that counts as Gothic. I actually have quite a few on my list… if I could find the time, I would go for The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott, the inspiration for one of my favorite tragic operas.

  Right now, I’m reading a novella called The Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood. I enjoyed The Willows back in June, so I thought I’d give Blackwood another read. His writing is painfully dated (e.g. racial language/stereotypes), but the plot itself—a moose hunting trip in the haunted wilderness of Canada—is very enjoyable so far. It was published in 1910, but it’s reminiscent of Doyle or Haggard from a decade or two previous.

  Drop a comment

  October 4, 2021

  Algernon Blackwood, The Classics Club

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• “O brave new world, that has such people in ’t!”

  

  As promised…Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is all kinds of cray-cray.

  Basically it starts out with an average guy named Bernard who is unhappy in the hedonistic, manufactured, drugged-up society he lives in. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, conformity in this world means a continual stream of carnal self-indulgence, and if you don’t fall in line, you get weird looks (or horrors, banished to Iceland to live with other nonconformists). Nobody has a family; instead, every baby has been designed in a lab to serve a particular purpose, resulting in a caste system where the “lower” humans are purposefully restricted in size, appearance, and intelligence, while the Alphas are designed to develop into “superior” beings. In spite of the science, however, discontentment still lingers in hearts like Bernard’s, so he sets out to find a way to break out of the mold.

  From there, the book takes a bizarre turn when it abandons Bernard as the protagonist and takes up the story of John. John is a so-called “Savage” who lives on a reservation in the southwestern U.S. An outcast in his tribe, he grew up memorizing a tattered copy of Shakespeare, which has instilled in him a sense of morality and order, as well as curiosity about the outside world. Bernard sees John as an opportunity to gain personal media attention and aplomb, so he brings him back to England as a kind of exhibit. The culture shock, however, turns out to be too much for John, and disaster ensues.

  I had rather mixed feelings about this book. Stylistically, it’s insanely clever—a facade of charming, Wodehousian Britain overlayed onto a sick totalitarian state where monstrosities and immorality are normalized and nobody really cares. Orwell did something of the same kind in 1984, with his very British “hullo, chaps” flavor of communism, but Huxley is better at dark humor and constructing a fictional culture that is disturbingly believable. On the other hand, at times his zesty writing comes off as kitsch, especially the scenes on the reservation and the bizarre ending. I will say, I wasn’t bored!

  Overall… creepy, weird book, somewhat better than 1984, in my opinion. I may do a more in-depth comparison video about the two novels, since there’s more that could be unpacked about their futuristic worlds.

  February 8, 2020

  aldous huxley, george orwell, Orwell, The Classics Club

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• Mid-Century Dystopia, Part 2: Nineteen Eighty-Four

  

  Nineteen Eight-Four marks the third famous classic to disappoint me in recent years.  Along with The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy, it would have been left unfinished early on, except for its mammoth legacy and the feeling that I ought to read it.  It’s possible I lack the maturity or life experience to appreciate these books – I leave that open as an explanation.  But for the time being, I’ll express my unpopular opinion, which isn’t without basis.  (For my personal dystopian literature criteria, see part 1.)

  England, Except Not England

  Winston Smith, our very Britishly named protagonist, resides in England of the 1980s.  Now called “Airstrip One,” England is a mere drop in the empire that is Oceania, and its once-vivid culture has likewise been largely eaten up by the propaganda of the ruling one-party state.  All citizens are expected to revere Big Brother, the vague yet menacing figurehead of the Party, and in so doing are closely monitored by their colleagues, spouses, and even their militarized children.  Regions suffer bombings and other hardships, people are carted away for crimes against the state, and history is rewritten or erased as suits the Party’s agenda.  Winston, as it turns out, is one of the MVPs in this latter business, which becomes very difficult when he starts having serious doubts about what is Truth, both in his personal life and in the life of the nation.

  Map by Peliministeri [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

  The influence of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany on this novel are hard to miss.  Beyond obvious references such as “comrade,” overalls, and bad food, the structure and stringencies wielded in this society resemble firsthand accounts of life in those two totalitarian states.  The turning of children against their parents made me think of Mao’s China, though that occurred after Orwell’s lifetime.  The trickle-down paranoia affects even the “happy” citizens who are most dedicated to the Party, so they begin to question everything and everyone, including themselves.

  There are still remnants of Britishness left, however.  We see it in a scene with a “prole” (proletariat) woman doing her laundry out in the street and singing with a Cockney accent.  It’s the thread of history running through Winston’s fascination with old nursery rhymes and the countryside.  Finally, there is also something distinctly British about O’Brien, the aristrocratic enigma who impresses and fascinates Winston.

  Just imagine a Soviet dictatorship in post-war England, and you have the world of 1984.  It’s an awful place.

  Anti-Heroes and Déjà Vu

  Winston is meant to be the “average guy” in this situation, thrown into a mess just like one of Franz Kafka’s characters.  I guess I have more faith in the average man, because I didn’t find him to be all that average.  He’s what would today be called a stereotypical incel, an unhappily married celibate who has rape fantasies about the first hot woman who catches his attention.  He’s strangely intuitive about certain things, such as knowing he has a past that the Party denies, but he’s also bizarrely stupid and takes risks which, at times, do not make sense, even for a dissenter.  This is the character we have to identify with, or at least to sympathize with on some level, and I found that to be more of a mental stretch than I could muster.

  Our other option is Julia, the young woman who passionately reciprocates Winston’s interest, in spite of him being an unattractive middle-aged loser with admittedly violent thoughts towards her.  Julia is a different kind of rebel, fairly reckless and mostly expressing her dissent in the form of black market dealing and sexual escapades (the Party is anti-sex, which Orwell explains but not very convincingly).  After meeting Julia, Winston becomes less risk-averse, to the point he decides to officially join the rebellion – which may or may not exist.

  This was all vaguely familiar, reminding me of the plot of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, an earlier Russian novel which Orwell had read.  (Would he have got away with such a similar plot these days?)  I felt Zamyatin did a better job making his characters sympathizable, especially “O,” the abandoned partner (Winston’s wife gets very little treatment here, and none too good).  For what it’s worth, the love affair was also better written in We – in 1984, it seemed quite implausible and awkward.

  From Bad to Worst, and Beyond

  My biggest issue with the book was the writing itself.  The first part was mostly world-building, which I don’t care for in general.  The second part focused on Winston and Julia’s unlikely relationship, plus Winston’s increasing doubts and acts of “treason.”  The last part was the stuff of bad dreams, detailing everything you did or didn’t want to know about the sadism of the Party.  In the middle, there was also a treatise about the history of the Party and the current political situation, which even I found surprisingly dull.

  I don’t care to go into the ending in detail, especially since it involves spoilers, and this is a spoiler-free blog.  For reference, though, this novel joins the list of books that I really, really despise:

  1. The Castle, Franz Kafka
  2. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
  3. The Kill, Emile Zola
  4. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

  As in, you could not pay me enough to re-read them.  Yes, I feel that strongly.

  To wrap it up and be fair, I did find some good quotes, which are worth reading on their own:

  It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. – Ch. 2
  
  There was something subtly wrong with Syme.  There was something he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity.  – Ch. 5
  
  Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system.  At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom. – Ch. 6
  
  Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. – Ch. 7
  
  The heresy of heresies was common sense.  And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right.  – Ch. 7

  What Next?

  My next dystopian reading will be Brave New World, which is on my physical to-read shelf.  I also plan to read Jack London’s The Iron Heel.

  So far, I’m finding I don’t dislike the genre per se, but am struggling to find a dystopian book that I like (except for Lord of the Flies, which isn’t totally comparable).  Lord of the World was interesting, but ultimately not very compelling.  We was well written but carries some of the same flaws as 1984.

  I would like to see a book where the protagonist is neither as perfect as Percy Franklin nor as imperfect as Winston Smith… maybe a Syme who lacks “saving stupidity.”  I want to see some light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s just a speck.  It would be great if the female character were likeable, too.  Make me care about the people at the end of the world.

  August 25, 2019

  dystopian, Orwell, The Classics Club

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• The Diary of a Young Girl

  

  …I seem to have everything, except my one true friend.  All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time.  I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things.  We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

  As I read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time, two things really struck me.  The first was that humans, ordinary humans, can turn cruel so quickly and completely.  The second was that, even as an adult, I could see pieces of my own life in Anne’s, because her writing, in so many ways, is ageless.

  It’s one of the most famous memoirs of all time, so many people know the story: a Jewish family in Holland is compelled to go into hiding after the Nazi takeover, and the youngest daughter records their experiences in her diary.  I had heard much about the book but put off reading it, due to my emotional experience with similar memoirs (The Hiding Place, Night, and From the Ashes of Sobibor).  Though different in scope and perspective from those other books, The Diary is every bit as emotional and, while difficult to put down, cannot be read lightly.
  
  Anne’s first entries show the Frank family before they went into hiding, making the best life they could under an increasingly oppressive police state.  When she was about twelve, Anne and her sister were forced to transfer to the Jewish Lyceum school due to segregation by Nazi mandate.  Always intent to be cheerful, she writes joyfully of her friends and admirers at the new school.  Of the discrimination against Jews – from harsh curfews to exclusion from public transportation – she writes very matter-of-factly, in a bluntness that carries through the rest of the diary.

  Even at thirteen, when she began writing, Anne seemed to have a sense for what was important to record; later, she told her imaginary friend “Kitty” that she wanted to become a writer or journalist when she grew up.  What results is a fascinating combination of personal (even intimate) anecdotes and journalistic writing about the family’s day-to-day activities and the progress of the war. 

  The Frank family was not alone; they shared the “Secret Annex” with the van Daan family and a middle-aged bachelor, Mr. Dussel.  For two years, the eight people were cooped up together in the tiny hidden rooms, fearful of making noise or being seen by the outside world.  Understandably, tempers often ran high.  Much of the book covers the conflict between Anne and everyone else, as it seems (at least from her perspective) she was frequently the target of the grown-ups’ frustrations.  In the Definitive Edition which I read, even the arguments between Anne and her mother are included.  The whole dynamic is extremely believable, and I would imagine the situation caused the majority of the friction between people who would otherwise have got along pretty well.

  What is most enduring to me about Anne’s diary is just that: its honesty.  There’s the day-to-day dramas, traumas, and bathroom jokes, which make the characterizations so real.  Then there’s the introspection, self-analysis, and over-analysis which ring true for a girl in her early teens.  Anne’s desire to be taken seriously and understood is something I could so well relate to at that age, and reading it now was like a flashback to my own diary.  Less relatable for me was her enthusiasm about puberty and “growing up,” but I think a lot of other readers would be able to relate to that.

  There were many great quotes, but I wanted to end with one that I found especially insightful, as well as chilling:

  I don’t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists.  Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago!  There’s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder, and kill.  And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!
  – May 3, 1944

  The Frank family, the van Daans, and Mr. Dussel were eventually captured on August 4, 1944. Anne and her sister Margot were separated from their parents and, within about six months, had been murdered through the terrible conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, was the only survivor.

  As I remember Anne Frank and her family, I also pray for those who are suffering persecution today, such as Pastor Wang Yi.  We shouldn’t forget that history is repeating itself, even today, all over the world.

  April 4, 2019

  Frank, history, memoir, nonfiction, The Classics Club

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