I'm sure I've written about Beloved before. I'm reading it to finish it now, and it's gotten great. All these books do, or should, at some point, and Beloved just has. From the middle of the book we get a juicy section and I've just kept reading it.
It's made me think of two things. The use of language, new or redefined, and my initial impressions of the books on the list, based on just their names. I'll write about the latter first.
"Beloved" sounds like a love story, or certainly one about family, where I imagined some poor white woman has lost a child, and spent days moping about it, and eventually turned over a new leaf and got on with life. Then again, that's a boring and generic story, and would it really be allowed on the List if that was true? Nah, Beloved is quite the opposite, much more real, relevant (Historically and story writing wise) and certainly not generic.
I don't think I could be further from the truth when it's about a slave who's killed her own child, and a full and proper explanation of the reasons why, how it came about, and how it's effected all the people around her, black and white. It really doesn't tell you a gimpy little story, but rather looks at everything possibly relevant, including language.
The book has quite a few different points of view. There is the normal narrative voice, which is closed but omniscient. We know what's happening, but every odd chapter we're given just one characters point of view, and it's not a story. Then it becomes a retelling. It's in the characters words and thought, and in their mind, and very much like they're creating a mental diary for themselves to read over later.
This works quite well at creating a language all for the book itself. We're reading written words, but within the story we're just fortunate enough to hear a characters oral passing on of their story, their events, their experience. In this way we're given many characters different points of view, all of whom contribute to the story being told in the book, but none of which are giving the full and complete and utter story.
Once I get to the end I can see I'm going to have many different threads of experience, and retroactively I'll be able to tie them back together and see the full and splendid tapestry of the story for what it is. I haven't been told The Story, so much as Everyone has contributed their Part to the Event. Capital letters help so much, don't they?
So I'm liking Beloved a great deal more than when I just started it, and I really didn't get what I was expecting. That's a great thing!
I also turned 30 lately and my brother bought me both Gravity's Rainbow and Margaret Atwoods novel, The Blind Assassin.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Ubik? No, me bik.
Hello readers! As I write this, I have sat the final exam for Narrative Fiction A, and assuming I didn't completely screw it up I can apply for a Masters of Teaching next year. Didn't I catch you up on everything I've been doing lately? Alright, skip that, onto Ubik.
First and foremost, science fiction as a genre. It's a very good overlay for whatever story you want to write, and can accommodate everything else. There's dystopian future's like 1984, or there's clever horror sci-fi, like aliens. Well, I say clever, but I really just mean "they got it right, I was so scared by the idea of this monster looking this way and being THIS lethal." Regardless, you grow up on the stuff if you like it, and eventually it feels as if you have read everything, or know very well the kind of troupes to expect, from all the shows out there. To name a 'few':
Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Wars/Trek, Futurama, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest, The Stainless Steel Rat, 2001: a Space Oddysey, Barbarella, etc etc.
After you consider how long some of them have been going (Doctor Who famously turned 50 in 2013, Star Trek soon to join it) you can get an overload of scifi from which you take enjoyment just out of experiencing it At All, rather than new sci-fi. SO, with that established image of me having had my fill of sci-fi, and still being a great big fan, I was only too glad to have no idea what was going to happen in Ubik.
Not a thing. The story begins with a team of electro punk psychics, who're sent on a dangerous mission. Immediately the smart boss, Runciter, feels out that it's a possible trap, set up by their biggest counter company, and sure enough some trap is sprung.
But that's where it stops being guessable. I had no idea what was going on, and when I thought I'd just gotten to grips with things, it adds more on top, so you have to readjust, then integrate, then realise it was a waste of time because it's just going to happen again one page over, or next chapter, or even next sentence.
I'd never read any Philip K Dick recently either, my only real exposure being hollywood's recent bought of movies (A scanner Darkly and Minority report come to mind, movies I didn't realise were Dick's at the time) and I'd always heard the name when people spoke about sci-fi. Not wanting to jump on a band wagon I brushed most of it off, assuming if I ever read the stuff I'd make up my mind about it then.
My room mate had Do androids dream of electric sheep, and Blade runner, so it was exciting to have both texts handy and to compare the two. As great as a world that was built for Blade runner, it's not as great as the story that's in the book. Regardless reading 'Android' got me interested in more of Philip K Dicks writing, and Ubik happened to be on the list, and at my local library, so why not?
The truly amazing thing about Ubik was the total and utter misdirection, without being lack of direction or random craziness. This is a thick, triple layer sludge chocolate cake of a book, and simply for being sci-fi plenty of people would excuse it as 'nonsense/for kids/for geeky men', and fair enough, but here at this blog we strive to bring you the experience I had when I read the book, and I myself assumed it'd be like that.
I was only too glad to be proven wrong. A similar book on the list, Neuromancer, doesn't seem to have the same sway or strength of "bloody character" that Ubik does. For starters, what is Ubik? Sci-fi loves to ask questions and not answer them, or if it does, it makes the answer so significant that no one of our specie is a high enough lifeform to appreciate it (42, anyone?). There is an answer though, both bookwise and factually, which is surprising and fun.
This comparison is also an interesting opposite to a previous discussion I had with a mate, regarding 1984 and Brave New World. 1984 was published in 1949, 16 years after Brave New World in 1932. !984 is clearly the better book, building greatly upon the world of the dystopian future, and giving us such a personal experience through Winston Smith. I know, I know, I love that book to pieces and I can never skip an opportunity to mention it, but it's that good. Regardless, despite being the later book 1984 was great, almost making it feel as though Brave New World was made redundant. Perhaps as a sign, Brave New World isn't on the Time 100 Novels. Conversely, we see Neuromancer coming after Ubik, and not being as great a novel, and building up a different world, really. There are differences and similarities enough to say you couldn't compare the two, but in the scheme of 'sci-fi' in general they contrast quite a lot.
Back to my point. We have Chip, main character and cool guy extraordinare, who must figure out what exactly is going on. He's perhaps like Rorschach from The Watchmen, the cool, independent, smart thinker who's capable without a team but works just as well in one. There's Runciter, the boss (and I believe the name is a play on "site runner", someone who scopes out a place before a production team goes in to record in it), and Pat, who is a sexy psychic, who appears topless briefly but early, almost in a "can we get this out of the way" style. We're given some world building at the start, but if you read Do androids dream of electric sheep, then Ubik, I believe you've got the same and correct world in mind anyway.
So who is Pat, and why is she such a strong psychic, and why are things going crazy, and is Runciter really in trouble, or is Joe Chip just batty?
The fun of the book was also in it's size. A LOT goes into Dick's books, and it really benefits from being short. He doesn't have to describe anything beyond giving the reader an image, and from there they can stylise the characters how they like. Once we're in a satisfyingly futuristic setting, how much detail is actually needed? I'd argue it's just enough to help differentiate the world from all the other ones out there, then let the readers brain do the rest.
Back yes, the length. It's short so it doesn't drag on, but it's so quick you'll find yourself pulling towards the end before you've got a good mind about what's what yourself.
I had fun, I was greatly entertained, and I now have a puzzle that's a damn devil to figure out. It's almost ironic that in today's short-attention-spanned-idiot online reader's world the shorter length of the book will keep people reading that otherwise wouldn't. I mean, I've heard of so many people who feel they have to dedicate themselves to reading through epics like Lord of the Rings, and while it's long it doesn't require dedication at all. It's a huge leap for a non-reader to feel like reading the novel of the movie, sure, but it's nothing you can't do if you just keep reading, even a page a night, etc.
Easily 9/10. If I had to choose between Ubik and 1984, it wouldn't be an easy choice, but I'd probably end up very sorely missing Ubik, and wondering why I had to answer these silly hypotheticals I keep asking myself.
First and foremost, science fiction as a genre. It's a very good overlay for whatever story you want to write, and can accommodate everything else. There's dystopian future's like 1984, or there's clever horror sci-fi, like aliens. Well, I say clever, but I really just mean "they got it right, I was so scared by the idea of this monster looking this way and being THIS lethal." Regardless, you grow up on the stuff if you like it, and eventually it feels as if you have read everything, or know very well the kind of troupes to expect, from all the shows out there. To name a 'few':
Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Wars/Trek, Futurama, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest, The Stainless Steel Rat, 2001: a Space Oddysey, Barbarella, etc etc.
After you consider how long some of them have been going (Doctor Who famously turned 50 in 2013, Star Trek soon to join it) you can get an overload of scifi from which you take enjoyment just out of experiencing it At All, rather than new sci-fi. SO, with that established image of me having had my fill of sci-fi, and still being a great big fan, I was only too glad to have no idea what was going to happen in Ubik.
Not a thing. The story begins with a team of electro punk psychics, who're sent on a dangerous mission. Immediately the smart boss, Runciter, feels out that it's a possible trap, set up by their biggest counter company, and sure enough some trap is sprung.
But that's where it stops being guessable. I had no idea what was going on, and when I thought I'd just gotten to grips with things, it adds more on top, so you have to readjust, then integrate, then realise it was a waste of time because it's just going to happen again one page over, or next chapter, or even next sentence.
I'd never read any Philip K Dick recently either, my only real exposure being hollywood's recent bought of movies (A scanner Darkly and Minority report come to mind, movies I didn't realise were Dick's at the time) and I'd always heard the name when people spoke about sci-fi. Not wanting to jump on a band wagon I brushed most of it off, assuming if I ever read the stuff I'd make up my mind about it then.
My room mate had Do androids dream of electric sheep, and Blade runner, so it was exciting to have both texts handy and to compare the two. As great as a world that was built for Blade runner, it's not as great as the story that's in the book. Regardless reading 'Android' got me interested in more of Philip K Dicks writing, and Ubik happened to be on the list, and at my local library, so why not?
The truly amazing thing about Ubik was the total and utter misdirection, without being lack of direction or random craziness. This is a thick, triple layer sludge chocolate cake of a book, and simply for being sci-fi plenty of people would excuse it as 'nonsense/for kids/for geeky men', and fair enough, but here at this blog we strive to bring you the experience I had when I read the book, and I myself assumed it'd be like that.
I was only too glad to be proven wrong. A similar book on the list, Neuromancer, doesn't seem to have the same sway or strength of "bloody character" that Ubik does. For starters, what is Ubik? Sci-fi loves to ask questions and not answer them, or if it does, it makes the answer so significant that no one of our specie is a high enough lifeform to appreciate it (42, anyone?). There is an answer though, both bookwise and factually, which is surprising and fun.
This comparison is also an interesting opposite to a previous discussion I had with a mate, regarding 1984 and Brave New World. 1984 was published in 1949, 16 years after Brave New World in 1932. !984 is clearly the better book, building greatly upon the world of the dystopian future, and giving us such a personal experience through Winston Smith. I know, I know, I love that book to pieces and I can never skip an opportunity to mention it, but it's that good. Regardless, despite being the later book 1984 was great, almost making it feel as though Brave New World was made redundant. Perhaps as a sign, Brave New World isn't on the Time 100 Novels. Conversely, we see Neuromancer coming after Ubik, and not being as great a novel, and building up a different world, really. There are differences and similarities enough to say you couldn't compare the two, but in the scheme of 'sci-fi' in general they contrast quite a lot.
Back to my point. We have Chip, main character and cool guy extraordinare, who must figure out what exactly is going on. He's perhaps like Rorschach from The Watchmen, the cool, independent, smart thinker who's capable without a team but works just as well in one. There's Runciter, the boss (and I believe the name is a play on "site runner", someone who scopes out a place before a production team goes in to record in it), and Pat, who is a sexy psychic, who appears topless briefly but early, almost in a "can we get this out of the way" style. We're given some world building at the start, but if you read Do androids dream of electric sheep, then Ubik, I believe you've got the same and correct world in mind anyway.
So who is Pat, and why is she such a strong psychic, and why are things going crazy, and is Runciter really in trouble, or is Joe Chip just batty?
The fun of the book was also in it's size. A LOT goes into Dick's books, and it really benefits from being short. He doesn't have to describe anything beyond giving the reader an image, and from there they can stylise the characters how they like. Once we're in a satisfyingly futuristic setting, how much detail is actually needed? I'd argue it's just enough to help differentiate the world from all the other ones out there, then let the readers brain do the rest.
Back yes, the length. It's short so it doesn't drag on, but it's so quick you'll find yourself pulling towards the end before you've got a good mind about what's what yourself.
I had fun, I was greatly entertained, and I now have a puzzle that's a damn devil to figure out. It's almost ironic that in today's short-attention-spanned-idiot online reader's world the shorter length of the book will keep people reading that otherwise wouldn't. I mean, I've heard of so many people who feel they have to dedicate themselves to reading through epics like Lord of the Rings, and while it's long it doesn't require dedication at all. It's a huge leap for a non-reader to feel like reading the novel of the movie, sure, but it's nothing you can't do if you just keep reading, even a page a night, etc.
Easily 9/10. If I had to choose between Ubik and 1984, it wouldn't be an easy choice, but I'd probably end up very sorely missing Ubik, and wondering why I had to answer these silly hypotheticals I keep asking myself.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Caught-22
I finished Catch-22 last night, and I say it was a wonderful book. I'll restate my earlier comment that it read a lot like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and say that 42 chapters isn't a long read at all. There's just a lack of perseverance.
What I thought might happen didn't come true, although I was partly right. It got incredibly hilarious right where it also got incredibly sad and began it's own downpour. But within the space of a sentence you could be handed a very solemn, deep confirmation of the sad, unlucky parts of all of human existence, anger, heated rage, and then but brought into full blasts of sunshine with the unexpected, comedic, humour. I guess humour CAN'T not be comedic, but there's good jokes and great jokes. These jokes are slapstick (some of them) stick on a page in a book, but you can see the action perfectly. It's like an old writing trick: never tell the reader what X, Y or Z look like. You can give vague descriptions, and their meager knowledge of "weird thing in book", plus their imagination, will have to work together to draw up something far worse than you can describe. By simplifying the 'action' of the slapstick, the reader is free to draw the funniest picture they know, and Nately and co are hilarious.
I'd suggest the book to everyone, and suggest they keep it by their bed at night. Get them to dedicate reading the whole thing, because it's seldom the same old stuff. Some books are very samey, but this is on the list for being so original and for such a length!
Themes aside, what happens to Yossarian!?
+What? I'm not telling you that, READ THE BOOK!
But it's about boring army stuff?
+There's hardly any army in it. No guns, going over the wall into no mans land. Most people compare it instantly to MASH, and imagine the MASH theme is running through their head while they read.
What is the actual Catch-22 within the story world?
+Go read the book! If I told you, they'd shoot me, Catch-22 is approximately X.
While it'll take some time to gather everything that happened in the book into a real space within my head, I do feel like it's a real show being put on for the reader. Moments of humour and seriousness but otherwise, just funny characters being bastards.
Thematically Milo is most assuredly the devil, while the chaplain represents intelligence with emotion/religion, while Yossarian represents just intelligence, no devote religion, but intelligence enough to appreciate the other. He never says so directly, but the chaplain is one of his better friends, when all your friends are chumps.
The war begins to represent a business opportunity as far as the generals and such are concerned, where there is a strict line drawn between the men who're getting shot at, and being used to win the war, and men behind the danger line, thinking about how to better their position, and if men die they'll just have to send more out.
Women are treated in a very light, pleasant way, meaning that's how most of them respond to the soldiers on their time off in Italy. There's plenty of disrepute occurring, but also a hallowed reverence for anyone attractive enough to keep all the boys tongues wagging but never giving herself to any of them. Almost as if to say that giving them someone to dream about is a valued and true service, slightly edging out in front of the girls who do let them shake hands.
I'd definitely read it again, but not within a year. I actually feel like some more Clockwork Orange right now, seeing how much I enjoy reading with a totally new language. I imagine I've written about Clockwork Orange, it was one of the 9 original books I'd read, but it's another I've returned to multiple times. The movie ended vastly different, thanks to leaving out the lastest chapter of the book
Next from the list though? Probably "Beloved". I also have TWO copies of Ragtime, because it's getting to the point where I have plenty of books, and rebuys are going to occur.
Thanks!
FM.
What I thought might happen didn't come true, although I was partly right. It got incredibly hilarious right where it also got incredibly sad and began it's own downpour. But within the space of a sentence you could be handed a very solemn, deep confirmation of the sad, unlucky parts of all of human existence, anger, heated rage, and then but brought into full blasts of sunshine with the unexpected, comedic, humour. I guess humour CAN'T not be comedic, but there's good jokes and great jokes. These jokes are slapstick (some of them) stick on a page in a book, but you can see the action perfectly. It's like an old writing trick: never tell the reader what X, Y or Z look like. You can give vague descriptions, and their meager knowledge of "weird thing in book", plus their imagination, will have to work together to draw up something far worse than you can describe. By simplifying the 'action' of the slapstick, the reader is free to draw the funniest picture they know, and Nately and co are hilarious.
I'd suggest the book to everyone, and suggest they keep it by their bed at night. Get them to dedicate reading the whole thing, because it's seldom the same old stuff. Some books are very samey, but this is on the list for being so original and for such a length!
Themes aside, what happens to Yossarian!?
+What? I'm not telling you that, READ THE BOOK!
But it's about boring army stuff?
+There's hardly any army in it. No guns, going over the wall into no mans land. Most people compare it instantly to MASH, and imagine the MASH theme is running through their head while they read.
What is the actual Catch-22 within the story world?
+Go read the book! If I told you, they'd shoot me, Catch-22 is approximately X.
While it'll take some time to gather everything that happened in the book into a real space within my head, I do feel like it's a real show being put on for the reader. Moments of humour and seriousness but otherwise, just funny characters being bastards.
Thematically Milo is most assuredly the devil, while the chaplain represents intelligence with emotion/religion, while Yossarian represents just intelligence, no devote religion, but intelligence enough to appreciate the other. He never says so directly, but the chaplain is one of his better friends, when all your friends are chumps.
The war begins to represent a business opportunity as far as the generals and such are concerned, where there is a strict line drawn between the men who're getting shot at, and being used to win the war, and men behind the danger line, thinking about how to better their position, and if men die they'll just have to send more out.
Women are treated in a very light, pleasant way, meaning that's how most of them respond to the soldiers on their time off in Italy. There's plenty of disrepute occurring, but also a hallowed reverence for anyone attractive enough to keep all the boys tongues wagging but never giving herself to any of them. Almost as if to say that giving them someone to dream about is a valued and true service, slightly edging out in front of the girls who do let them shake hands.
I'd definitely read it again, but not within a year. I actually feel like some more Clockwork Orange right now, seeing how much I enjoy reading with a totally new language. I imagine I've written about Clockwork Orange, it was one of the 9 original books I'd read, but it's another I've returned to multiple times. The movie ended vastly different, thanks to leaving out the lastest chapter of the book
Next from the list though? Probably "Beloved". I also have TWO copies of Ragtime, because it's getting to the point where I have plenty of books, and rebuys are going to occur.
Thanks!
FM.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Re-ignitions
Hello followers, I have looked over this corner of the internet and found my blog quite forgotten lately. So I'm back, to write more and to maintain better than I have. This is still most certainly about my reading through the Time 100 novels list, and I'm going to post an update. I started back in 2012 abouts, so after 2 years how much has it changed? I had only read 9 books when I found the list, so what's the READ list look like?
Animal Farm
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The Assistant
At Swim-Two-Birds
Beloved
The Big Sleep
Brideshead Revisited
Call It Sleep
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
The Crying of Lot 49
The Day of the Locust
Falconer
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Gatsby
A Handful of Dust
I, Claudius
Invisible Man
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
Lucky Jim
Midnight’s Children
Money
Naked Lunch
Neuromancer
1984
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Pale Fire
A Passage to India
Play It As It Lays
Possession
The Power and the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
Revolutionary Road
Slaughterhouse Five
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird
To the Lighthouse
Tropic of Cancer
Under the Volcano
Watchmen
That's a bit of a cheat, the list includes the novels I have, but not particularly read. There's about 7 books I have to go through, and am currently stuck on CATCH-22. That means there's exactly 50 books I haven't read, so I'm fairly close to halfway.
I will also post a link to another, more dedicated reader who's doing the same thing: https://www.facebook.com/101BooksBlog. They write nicer and more regularly than I do!
For the rest of this returning post, I'll write quickly about Things Fall Apart and the ending of Catch-22 (ending meaning my reading to the end of the book, not it's actual conclusion).
People think of the Lion King when you talk about Africa these days, so good job Disney! In a more real sense, the names, the places, the traditions and everything is completely different in this book from everything I know (as a middle age white guy living is Australia), so it was absolutely that breath of fresh air I hope to get from books. It starts off detailing the African traditions and yam farming and how to be a powerful man, with Okonkwo our hero.
Of course as the story progresses, white man is slowly introduced, and changes the tone of the story as well as how quickly and carefully it's told. The opening, learning, sprawling first part of the book really gives you an experience of living in Africa, and what it was like. It's not quite a holiday but pretty close considering you're just reading words on a page. Plus I once again felt hot and sticky while just reading--that's something that good books will do, put your mind into their location, and it happened before with The Power and the Glory (very dirty, though dirt used as a natural/down to earth object in the book) and 1984 (how clean WAS the ministry of Love?). The opening is very deliberately kind on it's reader, and generous with itself.
This changes once the story sees Okonkwo needing to move out. As he is treated to a new way of life (the men aren't as manly where he lives) we see a changing of gears, so the story slows down a bit. We aren't learning as much, seeing we should now know what the author intended, and it instead becomes about events. This may be true of every book, but is particularly notable here. While Okonkwo is away (for 7 years) the white pilgrims come and begin trying to turn the "savages" toward salvation.
The final part of the story deals with rising tension, and Okonkwo's belief in the power of his people and their traditions, versus white Empirialism. It's not a clear cut case of "boo, go away!" or "Wait you want us to change? OK," but is rather an examination of the situation, with reasons on both sides.
The pilgrims turn some Africans, abandoning their own Gods but not all their traditions. They're still African even if they're not devote.
The pilgrims irritate plenty of Africans, including Okonkwo. The Africans rely on their Gods to deal with the intruders, but little comes of it. When this doesn't work, some are inspired to take matters into their own hands, what else can they do?
The pilgrims mostly annoyed me, for being my ancestral icon within the book, and showing us how rude the entire endeavor was. It's OK to have a comparison of faiths, but to outright tell someone else that theirs is wrong doesn't sit well with me. To push it to the point of "Actually, you've GOT to convert, or we'll kill you pretty much, and we're going to collect all your land anyway, so you don't have any choice, power, or say" really makes the savagery of the intrusion apparent, and in fantastically stark contrast to the idea that the pilgrims are civilising the Africans "savages". There's nothing savage about their society, it works and is good for the environment and has it's own systems of reward and punishment. It doesn't have concrete houses etc, but that's barely a reason to call it "savage", and decide it must come down.
Themes aside, the story is good, because you read through all the way to the train wreck that is coming. Okonkwo is made a symbol for Africa, once proud and unbeatable, and then reduced to humble pie as the story progresses. It's not their fault though, when you're truly invaded, under the guise of niceness, especially when to kill one off is to invite another 5, what can you do?
It's a good book that I'll suggest to anyone who wants a nice holiday read, seeing it feels like you're standing in Africa when you read it. I'll definitely read it again, because the wash of African Everything is so nice a change as well. In terms of "believability" it's up there with Grapes of Wrath. I should define what I mean by believability moreso in another post, but basically I mean how much I bought the story, the main character, and felt like I was reading an actual journal of someone's life story. For the MOST believable book, see 1984. (For a book not on the list, see 2001: a Space Oddysey. Surprisingly bloody brilliant!)
That's Things Fall Apart. Now Catch-22.
I'm reminded first of of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Episodic, very clever, filled with themed jokes (in this case literary, not mathematical) and quite capable of finishing at any point. Only it doesn't. I've seen people complain about the length of this novel, but I don't get why. We're told very early on about the notion of Catch 22. Yossarian, the lead pilot of a bombing flight coordination, wants to leave flying behind. So he asks the Doctor to send him home, he must be crazy. The Doctor says he's sane enough to know he's crazy, and can ask, so he's not crazy. A person would have to be crazy to get sent home, but at that point you're too crazy to realise it and ask.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Of course that's not the main message of the book, I still haven't finished it at this reading and wont make that decision until I actually have, so I can talk about the colouring of the book.
My comparison to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is actually quite apt--I've read that book about 10 times now and will always read it throughtout the rest of my life (I even started reading it to my gf, mostly because I knew the animals would hold her interest during the start). Although Catch-22 isn't such a quick and light read it's still as brilliant a piece of writing, and jokes. It feels more like a book written for writers, seeing they're the audience members most likely to be able to get the joke. You could liken that to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well, seeing quite a few of their jokes don't translate that well when spoken aloud.
The hierarchy of the army is examined in the book, and shows the absurdity of the rank of command quite prominently. There's a powerful member who's scared of someone lower down, so they avoid them at all costs. Milo, in particular, is made incharge of the mess hall and I'm quite absolutely 100% confident that he represents the Devil in this novel. He's quite funny at first, but then you learn about how much everyone loves him, and how he gets everyone naturally involved in his schemes and how they applaud his horrendous efforts (he really really does some hilarious, horrible things!). If Milo is the devil, I don't know who the angel/God figure is, possibly Orr, not the priest he represents the coward, but you could envision an entire moralistic theme here, and Yossarian is the best character in all that - the neutralist. No agendas, just brains, and trying not to get himself killed.
At the very moment everyone seems to be dying, so I'll write what I predict will become the books end. And I don't know that I can call this spoilers, seeing I'm not sure of anything, not having read it.
Everyone dies in horrible and/or embarassing ways, leaving Yossarian to consider life and everything, before the whole medical tent is bombed anyway, just as he hilariously comes to re-realise a concept he walked into the army with. "You're dead once you enter." He just finishes the book realising he was right.
Should I now finish the book, and confirm what I predicted, or let you know that I wasn't close/wasn't far off? I don't think so, I'll just leave it here, like it is.
And thank you for reading! What books do you suggest I read next? It's subject to availability, as well as the books that I already have. I should really finish the ones I've paid for, before buying a new one, right?
Right?
FM.
Animal Farm
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The Assistant
At Swim-Two-Birds
Beloved
The Big Sleep
Brideshead Revisited
Call It Sleep
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
The Crying of Lot 49
The Day of the Locust
Falconer
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Gatsby
A Handful of Dust
I, Claudius
Invisible Man
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
Lucky Jim
Midnight’s Children
Money
Naked Lunch
Neuromancer
1984
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Pale Fire
A Passage to India
Play It As It Lays
Possession
The Power and the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
Revolutionary Road
Slaughterhouse Five
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird
To the Lighthouse
Tropic of Cancer
Under the Volcano
Watchmen
That's a bit of a cheat, the list includes the novels I have, but not particularly read. There's about 7 books I have to go through, and am currently stuck on CATCH-22. That means there's exactly 50 books I haven't read, so I'm fairly close to halfway.
I will also post a link to another, more dedicated reader who's doing the same thing: https://www.facebook.com/101BooksBlog. They write nicer and more regularly than I do!
For the rest of this returning post, I'll write quickly about Things Fall Apart and the ending of Catch-22 (ending meaning my reading to the end of the book, not it's actual conclusion).
People think of the Lion King when you talk about Africa these days, so good job Disney! In a more real sense, the names, the places, the traditions and everything is completely different in this book from everything I know (as a middle age white guy living is Australia), so it was absolutely that breath of fresh air I hope to get from books. It starts off detailing the African traditions and yam farming and how to be a powerful man, with Okonkwo our hero.
Of course as the story progresses, white man is slowly introduced, and changes the tone of the story as well as how quickly and carefully it's told. The opening, learning, sprawling first part of the book really gives you an experience of living in Africa, and what it was like. It's not quite a holiday but pretty close considering you're just reading words on a page. Plus I once again felt hot and sticky while just reading--that's something that good books will do, put your mind into their location, and it happened before with The Power and the Glory (very dirty, though dirt used as a natural/down to earth object in the book) and 1984 (how clean WAS the ministry of Love?). The opening is very deliberately kind on it's reader, and generous with itself.
This changes once the story sees Okonkwo needing to move out. As he is treated to a new way of life (the men aren't as manly where he lives) we see a changing of gears, so the story slows down a bit. We aren't learning as much, seeing we should now know what the author intended, and it instead becomes about events. This may be true of every book, but is particularly notable here. While Okonkwo is away (for 7 years) the white pilgrims come and begin trying to turn the "savages" toward salvation.
The final part of the story deals with rising tension, and Okonkwo's belief in the power of his people and their traditions, versus white Empirialism. It's not a clear cut case of "boo, go away!" or "Wait you want us to change? OK," but is rather an examination of the situation, with reasons on both sides.
The pilgrims turn some Africans, abandoning their own Gods but not all their traditions. They're still African even if they're not devote.
The pilgrims irritate plenty of Africans, including Okonkwo. The Africans rely on their Gods to deal with the intruders, but little comes of it. When this doesn't work, some are inspired to take matters into their own hands, what else can they do?
The pilgrims mostly annoyed me, for being my ancestral icon within the book, and showing us how rude the entire endeavor was. It's OK to have a comparison of faiths, but to outright tell someone else that theirs is wrong doesn't sit well with me. To push it to the point of "Actually, you've GOT to convert, or we'll kill you pretty much, and we're going to collect all your land anyway, so you don't have any choice, power, or say" really makes the savagery of the intrusion apparent, and in fantastically stark contrast to the idea that the pilgrims are civilising the Africans "savages". There's nothing savage about their society, it works and is good for the environment and has it's own systems of reward and punishment. It doesn't have concrete houses etc, but that's barely a reason to call it "savage", and decide it must come down.
Themes aside, the story is good, because you read through all the way to the train wreck that is coming. Okonkwo is made a symbol for Africa, once proud and unbeatable, and then reduced to humble pie as the story progresses. It's not their fault though, when you're truly invaded, under the guise of niceness, especially when to kill one off is to invite another 5, what can you do?
It's a good book that I'll suggest to anyone who wants a nice holiday read, seeing it feels like you're standing in Africa when you read it. I'll definitely read it again, because the wash of African Everything is so nice a change as well. In terms of "believability" it's up there with Grapes of Wrath. I should define what I mean by believability moreso in another post, but basically I mean how much I bought the story, the main character, and felt like I was reading an actual journal of someone's life story. For the MOST believable book, see 1984. (For a book not on the list, see 2001: a Space Oddysey. Surprisingly bloody brilliant!)
That's Things Fall Apart. Now Catch-22.
I'm reminded first of of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Episodic, very clever, filled with themed jokes (in this case literary, not mathematical) and quite capable of finishing at any point. Only it doesn't. I've seen people complain about the length of this novel, but I don't get why. We're told very early on about the notion of Catch 22. Yossarian, the lead pilot of a bombing flight coordination, wants to leave flying behind. So he asks the Doctor to send him home, he must be crazy. The Doctor says he's sane enough to know he's crazy, and can ask, so he's not crazy. A person would have to be crazy to get sent home, but at that point you're too crazy to realise it and ask.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Of course that's not the main message of the book, I still haven't finished it at this reading and wont make that decision until I actually have, so I can talk about the colouring of the book.
My comparison to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is actually quite apt--I've read that book about 10 times now and will always read it throughtout the rest of my life (I even started reading it to my gf, mostly because I knew the animals would hold her interest during the start). Although Catch-22 isn't such a quick and light read it's still as brilliant a piece of writing, and jokes. It feels more like a book written for writers, seeing they're the audience members most likely to be able to get the joke. You could liken that to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well, seeing quite a few of their jokes don't translate that well when spoken aloud.
The hierarchy of the army is examined in the book, and shows the absurdity of the rank of command quite prominently. There's a powerful member who's scared of someone lower down, so they avoid them at all costs. Milo, in particular, is made incharge of the mess hall and I'm quite absolutely 100% confident that he represents the Devil in this novel. He's quite funny at first, but then you learn about how much everyone loves him, and how he gets everyone naturally involved in his schemes and how they applaud his horrendous efforts (he really really does some hilarious, horrible things!). If Milo is the devil, I don't know who the angel/God figure is, possibly Orr, not the priest he represents the coward, but you could envision an entire moralistic theme here, and Yossarian is the best character in all that - the neutralist. No agendas, just brains, and trying not to get himself killed.
At the very moment everyone seems to be dying, so I'll write what I predict will become the books end. And I don't know that I can call this spoilers, seeing I'm not sure of anything, not having read it.
Everyone dies in horrible and/or embarassing ways, leaving Yossarian to consider life and everything, before the whole medical tent is bombed anyway, just as he hilariously comes to re-realise a concept he walked into the army with. "You're dead once you enter." He just finishes the book realising he was right.
Should I now finish the book, and confirm what I predicted, or let you know that I wasn't close/wasn't far off? I don't think so, I'll just leave it here, like it is.
And thank you for reading! What books do you suggest I read next? It's subject to availability, as well as the books that I already have. I should really finish the ones I've paid for, before buying a new one, right?
Right?
FM.
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