Review: Edith Wharton's The Writing of Fiction

Of novels written by Wharton I have read only The House of Mirth, which I read for an undergraduate class, and it was one of the more pleasurable books I read for a class. I have recommended it more than twice. Though the book was published in 1905, it had for me a feel of the coming of literary modernism, and I was surprised later to hear it called grounded in realism. Perhaps I should not have been. The fifth and last chapter of The Writing of Fiction is a study of Marcel Proust (Swann's Way was published in 1913), and her first and most important effort in that study is to mark him, despite all his novelty, as a traditional author.

In that, you can find the heart of The Writing of Fiction. It was published in 1924, on the cusp of literary modernism in the novel, and yet is wholly grounded in what came before. Each of the four chapters on craft is begun with a short literary history of the themes she plans to present, and that history – which is far more English and French than it is U.S., and often of authors and works I have no knowledge of – puts her intent solidly in the post-Bovary, nineteenth-century novel. Such is the thought and philosophy that colors The Writing of Fiction. That must be kept in mind.

"Verisimilitude is the truth of art," she writes, "and any convention which hinders the illusion is obviously in the wrong place" (56). That is a very conservative idea, and not everyone post modernism agrees with it. Indeed, there are successful texts that speak against it.

Which is not to say the book is without value. This is a book written by a woman with a solid grasp – and solid historical grasp – on the theoretical elements of her craft. And perhaps the book is a little more about theory than about craft, but that is to its credit. But it is nineteenth-century theory. When she occasionally speaks, if glancingly, against what would be the trends of modernism, for example when she puts down contemporary stream of consciousness, you can sense in it an unwillingness – if not refusal – to recognize that modernism is creating new theory.

The four chapters on craft are: general topics, a chapter on the short story, a chapter on the novel, and then one on "character and situation." Again, this is a short book; take out the chapter on Proust and it is but ninety pages long, so she wanders neither broadly nor deeply. But the few ideas she touches on are important considerations in writing, often themes that run through her topics, things like maintaining the confidence of the reader, the importance of technique, that a novel has its natural length, and, of great importance, that the basis of all writing is selection: deciding what to put in, what to leave out. My favorite chapter was that on the short story, particularly the discussion about that a plot fitting to be told as a short story can only be successfully told as a short story, that a short story is not a novel condensed. A simple idea well stated.

I will admit, the language of the text gets difficult at times. She does not make efforts to ensure the reader understands. That counts against the book. And it may be that a person who has never thought about the subjects she broaches might find them difficult to parse, both because of the language and, as said, because she does not make efforts. She is not, to wit, a very good teacher. This is an interesting book, though, particularly in those elements that transcend the grounding in the nineteenth-century novel. Perhaps, though, this is more an advanced class than something for beginners. Nonetheless, the ideas presented are things that a person serious about writing should consider.

In sum, I would not recommend The Writing of Fiction to someone early in the learning curve. And even if saying give it a read I would still warn that it is at times difficult and she has an annoying habit of dropping lines without context, assuming the reader understands. As said, though, the ideas presented are worth talking about, worth thinking about, and there is something to be said for a more theoretic discussion of writing as opposed to straight craft.

Convention and Writing

"Convention is the first necessity of all art[.]"

This said by Edith Wharton in The Writing of Fiction. And just to be sure we are all on the same page, a convention is "a rule, method, or practice established by usage" (Dictionary.com). There are other definitions similar but different, but this one will stand as the general idea: people – or a person – have figured out a way to do things, and others, in following their example, have established it as a convention. And it is undeniable that art history (including literary history) can be traced through the run of conventions.

It is important to note that Wharton does not believe that simply because something is a convention it is necessarily a good convention. But even recognizing that, Wharton still says convention is the first necessity of art. She is saying that the writing of fiction necessitates writing it by and through convention; that the problems encountered in writing fiction are solved through convention; that a writer should learn to write not just by imitating but by copying that which came before.

And there is something to be said for that last. We learn, greatly, through imitation. One of Wharton's discussions is with the difficulty in a novel of how to present information that is beyond the viewpoint of the main character when the novel is told through that character's mind. She discusses the conventions by which it was solved in the past, their benefits and their flaws. But even rejecting them, she would still say the correct way to solve the problem will be found in what has come before.

But there are three related problems. First, conventions begin to be self-justifying. As time passes, it tends that the reason conventions are followed are because they are conventions, not because of once perceived value, if there ever was such value. Some conventions are born simply because people started, as a group, doing things a certain way; they replicate a technique because that technique gets them to an end that is valued because it is an end; they copy the method of a famous person simply because of their fame, irrespective of whether that way is the best way, or even a better way, or the best way for them. It is the way that person does it, so it becomes, through imitation, the way it is done.

Second, following the first, conventions tend to stagnate. The more a convention is established, the more it concretizes, until the art in question is no longer vibrant or living, but mere copies of copies. The art can look like a background established for the presentation of convention, not a creative – created – subject. (Recognize here genre.)

So, third, it must be recognized that just as the history of art can be written through the presence of convention, many would argue the history of True art lies not in the use of convention but where people break from it; that is, where the solutions to the problems of creation lie in the thing being created, not in outside conventions. Curiously, this idea can be found hiding in Wharton's book, and yet, convention as a necessity.

Which is where it applies to us. When you see how other texts handle events, do you see the why of it, or only the what? When you consider advice from other writers, or from people following other writers, or from people following teachers of writers, are you forcing solutions on your text, or is it something that is revealing the solutions that your own text suggest? When following advice, or a method, or a practice, are you forsaking creativity for writing by cookie-cutter?

Review: The Anatomy of Story by John Truby.

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller is a method book for writing stories. Truby teaches screenplay writing, and you can smell that in the text, but the book is meant to apply to any medium. (And he uses films, novels, and plays as examples.) However, Truby makes a distinction: he is not going to talk about what constitutes a story in general, he is going to talk about what constitutes a "great" story (3). That is his aim: to show what makes for a "great" story, and how to get there.

How he does this, how he gives a method to making "great" stories, what makes his book interesting, is he is trying to generate a method to write organic stories as opposed to mechanical stories. Mechanical stories, stories created by mechanical means, and most stories are mechanical stories; mechanical stories, because of their nature, tend to be "episodic," "hopelessly generic, formulaic," and "devoid of originality." Organic stories, however, are "not a machine but a living body that develops," with "characters and plot that grow naturally out of your original story idea" (4-5). They are internally as opposed to externally logical (84). In part, with mechanical stories he is talking about ideas like writing out of three- and five-act structure, and such methods as (though he does not say it directly) Save the Cat. (Or so I presume. I have not read Save the Cat, but what I have seen about it makes it sound mechanical and formulaic, not to mention a lot easier. And it must be recognized that his method predates that book.)

How Truby works his organic method is by starting small, from the inside, and working out. He begins with writing a premise then moves out through ten steps that include finding a design principle for the story, finding what challenges and problems exist at the start, what moral argument is being made, and finding who would be the logical main character. He did not start at the beginning of a plot structure, but with general ideas about the future text. He is trying to get you to grow the story, not mechanically lay it out like so many lengths of railroad track. Creating characters is not merely creating a list, it is creating a character web, where characters relate to each other and have influence on each other. When you generate the story world you are creating it out of the premise and what comes from the premise, not merely inserting characters into a pre-fab world. The approach is very interesting in what it is trying to accomplish.

10 Albums I Listen to the Most

So the Vinyl Community on YouTube has a thread running — started by Chris on the Long Cut — that is the ten albums that they listen to the most. Not the ten favorite, not the ten best, and many comment on how they found it interesting that once they had a list it was not entirely their favorites or what they consider the best. I find these videos fascinating, have watched a number, and have already bought four albums based on the videos I have seen. (A little coincidence, as I found three of them at my favorite used store, but still.) I wanted to play along, but I do not have a YouTube channel so it's to the website. Nor do I have a vinyl collection, these are all CDs. I'm not sure if, in the end, that makes a difference as some people in the videos do fall back on CDs. Not everything can be had on vinyl, and the spirit of the game is really in what you listen to, not what you listen to it on. The only difference it will make is I will not much talk about the albums in terms of sides.

At first I held back because I thought it would be far too difficult an exercise. My CDs are in books (long ago I ran out of room to keep them in their cases), and, generally, if I open a book, I'll browse back and forth through it before I open another. So my listening habits are not jumping from book to book looking for specific albums. Plus, there is no way my poor memory would permit an exercise that went back too many years. But once I had a workable set of parameters, things suddenly became easy. Those parameters:

The albums listed will be:
 
(1) albums that, in browsing back and I forth, I always hit;
(2) albums that tend to get stuck in the CD player;
(3) limiting myself to the last three to five years.
 
People in the thread have to decide for themselves whether they will list ten most all time, or ten most in the last few years. I went with the latter.

With those parameters in hand I sat back and in no time had a list of six that I knew fit the mold. Then a sit down with my CDs and the list swelled to twenty-one; though, I knew I was intentionally being loose. It didn't take very much thought after that to have it ten. And once had, five — maybe six — of them I knew would probably be in the list were I to survey all of the last thirty years. I go back to them over and again. The other five — maybe four — are more time sensitive, either because I have only owned them the last couple of years, or if I go back in time there would be a different one by the same artist that would have been hogging the player.

An Engagement with Strunk and White's "Approach to Style"

So, style.

Strunk and White passed by me a couple of times recently, the second time in a situation that prompted me to re-read the thing with the want to again be familiar enough with it to give comment upon it. It is a book that probably gained its fame for there being nothing like it when it was first published (I do not know, but I would bet). And, there are things in it that are worth hearing for a writer if they had never heard them before. Lists like the "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused" are always worth going through, wherever you find them. If I have one comment on Strunk and White's list, it is that you should notice that when they give examples, sometimes their improvement/correction changes the meaning of the sentence. Actually, this throughout the book. To the other side, though, as a grammar book, it is wholly inadequate, and there is no excuse with someone who has reason to care for not owning a Chicago Manual of Style or an MLA Handbook, one or the other.

My biggest issue – even more than with the grammar – is with the final section, "An Approach to Style," written entirely by White. I disagree with him on the majority of his pieces of advice, either specifically to the point or with how he approaches it. I think the value of what he presents is limited to practical writing (and even then, at times, I have questions). When you move to creative writing, to making things out of words, suddenly his "Approach to Style" is, like the grammar section, greatly inadequate, if not at times out and out bad advice. Enough so I thought I would give my hand at writing a response. In a great part, my want to write this was to see if I could, and if I were being paid I might do some things differently. Though, there is also hope that I am presenting things worth thinking about, particularly in that I am approaching this entirely through the subject of creative writing, which feels at times almost secondary to White's aims. In that, his "advice" seems worth the revisiting. (To note, if you want to just have a browse, the most important entries are probably 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, and 16.)

To make it easy on me, White begins with nonsense, straight up:

Analytical Thought and Myth: An Exploration of the Eternal Masculine and Eternal Feminine

This is a redacted version of a conversation on Facebook that I decided to pull out and make a post of. Much of the editing is to take out the other persons leaving only simple prompts, and, of course, to make it sound like a post rather than a Facebook conversation. Though, I have edited and expanded the main body as well.

 
 

As regards the idea of the eternal masculine and eternal feminine:

 

My reading about alchemy, which cannot be separated from Jung, so my readings in Jung, and philosophers like Cassirer either influenced by Jung or of the same mind; and though maybe not explicitly but inherently in Nietzsche and Derrida and the like . . . . . . for my education, as it were, every time I contemplate the idea of "God" to any serious degree I am confronted with the thought "it only makes sense if there are two: the eternal masculine and the eternal feminine," and it doesn't really make sense to try to combine them in a way that eliminates the idea of the difference. Although, then, as the Greeks pointed out in the protogenoi, you really need three: Ananke, Chronos, and Eros between them. That idea also central to alchemy. Any private debate or contemplation on the idea of a god leads me there: the feminine, the masculine, and desire that unifies them and is the means through which they "create," to choose a word.

 

So you are saying God is a duality not a "unity"?

 

Hmm. Is that what I am saying (he asks both the asker and himself)?

In answering I first want to take a step backwards. We can look at the universe two ways. The first way is the scientific way, the logical, rational way, and that I call the "universe." But humans are not solely rational creatures, they also have an unconscious. (Indeed, the rational conscious is a part of the irrational unconscious, but that's another discussion.) Thus, we can also look at the universe in a way that includes the unconscious. I am not saying that the universe has an unconscious – that is a mystical statement that might serve a purpose in a given context but not particularly here – but saying, simply, a person has an unconscious, and a person can engage the world in a way that includes the unconscious. The universe seen through the mind including the unconscious I call the "cosmos." (I am neither unique nor clever in making these terminological choices.) As the irrational unconscious + (its included) rational conscious is the totality of the mind, so also then is the "cosmos" the totality of being. Again, the important point is not to say the cosmos has an unconscious, it is to say that people have an unconscious, and to look at the universe through the full self must include that unconscious, in turn creating the idea of and engagement with the cosmos.

Review: The Sandman

So, on Netflix, The Sandman, a ten episode series based on the comic series written by Neil Gaiman, now published in twelve volumes. I have read the first of them, which may not be the best sampling as I have seen more than once the judgment that the first volume is just a prelude that is not as good as the following eleven. I have volume 2, but have not read it yet.

The story is about Morpheus, or Dream, ruler of the realm of dreams, one of the Endless; in the series played by Tom Sturridge, who does a commendable job playing a character that must somehow appear ever otherworldly, ever of the realm of Dreams, and ever of the tenor of the character in the books. I will admit there are moments where I could not help but think, "You nailed that line." Though, there are also moments of "Who picked that camera angle?" caused by a sudden banality. The first volume of the comic covers his eighty-year-long imprisonment (over a century in the tv series) by a magus and his son, then his escape, and finally the recovery of his three items of power.

The first five-and-a-half episodes of the series follows volume 1, greatly re-written, as would need be. Certain plot lines are wholly changed, and more than one major character added — particularly one that serves as an enemy of Dream. His presence, though, seems rather superfluous. I am sure his being written in was to give some connection between that five-and-a-half episode prelude and what follows. Indeed, as is warned about the comics, after that prelude it is as though the story resets. What came before can wholly be ignored. The show offers some star power: Jenna Coleman plays Joanna Constantine, a female edition of the comic character, and holds her episode well (if an episode that might show a little of the problems of translation from comic to screen). Moreso, David Thewlis shows up as a character given much more screen time than book time. He carries the episode centered on him, but would you expect otherwise?

Critique: Malick's The Tree of Life

I finally got around to watching The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick. It has been sitting on my tv cabinet for a number of years now. In a great part it had slipped from my mind, and when it did come back to my attention every so now and then I was never in the mood for it. I generally will not watch a film for the first time if I fear my mood will get in the way. And knowing the way of Malick films, I was all the more wary. (And, to be honest, I was often put off by the idea of a Malick film centered on an abusive father.)

Now, I consider The Thin Red Line one of the greatest movies I have seen. It is for me an achievement of cinema as art. So I have a high estimation of what Malick can do, and an appreciation of his methods. Though, I was put off by To the Wonder, if simply in that the infidelity seems to occur for no reason whatsoever: it is an ungrounded moment in the film and yet the film hinges on it, so it hinges on an emptiness. At that moment the film loses its structural integrity. In truth, I was rather pissed off at it. I also have The New World, though I will have to watch it again. It has been a while.

But The Tree of Life. It is about the overtly stated question of living either in the spirit of nature (in essence, that of competition) or the spirit of grace (that of love). Its frame is a family in the 1950s, the O'Briens: father and mother (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) and their three sons. It seems clear the father, who is an abusive disciplinarian who believes success only comes by conquering and strives to train his sons to that belief, stands for the spirit of nature, while the more loving mother, within whose presence the three boys are the most joyous, for the spirit of grace. And that theme of two opposites does run through the main body of the film. But the issues are more structural than thematic.

The film opens on Chastain and jumps quickly to what are presumably brief moments of her childhood on a farm. Though, if they are meant to establish a character they are too brief and shots of petting a cow does not character establish. Indeed, I thought at the fore there was a daughter in the film. It speaks that perhaps Malick was letting his impressionistic technique take the best of him. Within the first minute there is created a confusion. Then come some moments of Chastain with the boys at play – prelude to the joy of the spirit of grace. Then a scene of Chastain receiving a telegram, telling her one of her sons is dead. The time of that is some ten-odd years in the future. Though, there is nothing to cue that. On second viewing you will notice that the house is different than the house with the boys as seen in those moments of the film, but in the first viewing it is unestablished. For me it was not until the Sean Penn voiceover, he playing the character of the eldest son as an adult, where he says his brother died at the age of nineteen, that it became clear. Though, it took longer yet for me to figure out which son was dead and which son Penn was playing. Yes, on second viewing the cues are there, and I cannot say that a film has to be wholly understandable on the first viewing. The Thin Red Line has a flaw in that the two main characters have voices very close to each other. It took me the second viewing to fully distinguish them. (The error may have been in my not realizing it was two voices to begin with.) And, as has been said by more than one, literature can only be re-read. And, push comes to shove, The Thin Red Line is not an easy reader text.

Critique: Scorcese's Silence

Look back a few posts and you will find on this blog a review of Shusaku Endo's Silence, a book I enjoyed very much and which, on its philosophical presentation, I have thought about many times since reading it. I am always reticent to comment on the literary qualities of a book in translation because of how easy it is to destroy those qualities within even an adequate translation. As is said, poetry is that which is lost in translation. (Though, perhaps Pound would say only if you do not know what you are doing.) Which is not to mean I am saying all translations are non-literary. We need only point to Moncrieff's translations of Proust, and, in the Japanese, Seidensticker's translation of Kawabata's The Master of Go, which is a wonderful read. Much of that is because of the structure of The Master of Go, and Silence can be thought of in the same way: the literary qualities are demonstrated simply in that the book pulls off the complex arguments-in-a-story it is trying to present.

I have now been able to watch Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of the book. (It is at the time of this writing on Prime. Also, to note, this is criticism, not a review. I will discuss the events in the film.) I am a fan of Scorsese, and own many of his films on disc; though, I do make a half hearted argument that his films are best the more they are willing to break away from realism. And it might be said that Silence is at its aesthetic best when it permits the setting of the shots to participate in the story – often in what feels unreal ways (however natural the scene). Mist and fog make their appearance, always to striking effect. (It is hard not to say he is taking from Kurosawa, there, but, then it is hard not to say any such use of mist and fog is taking from Kurosawa, he did atmosphere so well.) And the geography is well used. There are striking scenes. Silence can be quite the beautiful movie when it so desires. Even a shot of three, empty chairs in a courtyard. Though, for me it also had its moments where the aesthetic qualities were pushed aside for the storytelling. Perhaps unavoidably.

A Twisty Look at Ensoulment

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matt 7:13-14 (NIV)

So, ensoulment, when a person gains a soul, though that idea is tied in also with (if not confused with) when a person becomes a "person" (not at all necessarily the same thing). The Wikipedia article on the matter gives a quick little journey through the traditions, though not all the possibilities. Still, looking about the web: conception, fourty days, ninety days, one hundred and twenty days, birth, a week after, two weeks after, as found in the wikipedia article, "The first amen."[FN]

************************ [FN]To note, that Wikipedia article is rather tainted by its emphasis on the question of abortion, and its seeming desire to to take every opportunity to speak against it. ************************

Lots of choices, and that's not nearly all of them. But, through them all there is a truth: at some point somebody simply decided on an answer. Even when it seems that answer is Biblically based – or by the Quran, or what other religious text or philosophical train of thought – the arguments always follow the conclusion. If it were not so there would not be debate. They are all, in the end, merely traditions. Arbitrarily chosen dates given substance by philosophical and dogmatic accretion.

And if you want to know what I think about the validity of religious – particularly (for geography) Christian – traditions, keep in mind that the Inquisition (to choose one example from many) was Biblically based, despite the on-its-face obviousness of that Jesus would openly and vehemently condemn it. Not easy to find torture in the Beatitudes. And don't you think that because you are Protestant you escape that condemnation. Just take a look at your own history of abuses. Find out about the atrocities of early U.S. Christianity. Read The Scarlet Letter already.[FN]

Review: Catherynne M. Valente, Radiance

So, I came upon Catherynne M. Valente through her debut, "Fairyland," series, which starts with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Though, for the life of me, I cannot remember how I came upon those books. But I read the first however many pages (I am pretty sure on Amazon) and had to know more. Not being so much interested in reading something meant for children, and mostly at random, I bought Radiance.

The axle around which Radiance turns is Severin Unck, daughter of the famed film director Percival Unck, herself also a renowned director, though of the documentary bend. While she is the axle, the story is mostly told through and by other people connected to Severin: her father (or, her father's camera), one her seven step-mothers, and persons connected to her in the world of film. the most important being her crew on her last film, that documenting the Venusian town of Adonis, which was mysteriously wiped out in one swoop, its entire population disappearing without cause or trace. It is her last production because during its tragic and chaotic filming — and this is the centerline of that axle — Severin, herself, vanishes.

A town on Venus: because the world of Radiance — and, really, it should be said the worlds — are of a solar system where the planets are much closer together (though still months' journeys apart), all habitable, with their own flora and fauna. Indeed, not only habitable, but all inhabited, "colonized," if you will, by the ruling nation-states on earth: Mars is Chinese, Pluto, American. Though, that mostly in terms of rather fluid citizenships than of racial identity. And all except for the moon, which is divided up by film studios.

Thoughts on Fantastic Beasts

Comments on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

So, in general, they were fun films what I watched on HBO Max. The first one seemed to ebb and flow in tempo for me, and the second one has a lot of exposition. But they are enjoyable for what they are. The main character Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is quite entertaining in his varieties and very likeable, and in the second film Jude Law makes for an excellent younger Dumbledore. Most interstingly is to notice how the creatures in Fantastic Beasts look like fantastic beasts, while, in comparison, the creatures in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings looked like Pokemon. Which, I think speaks more about Marvel, but it does absolutely speak.

But I want to focus on two elements, one in each film. First, in Fantastic Beasts, I want to point to the end, to the wizards walking around New York fixing all the damage done to the buildings and structures while the people stand around 'obliviated' — their memories of the events removed. Never mind the morality of such an act, let us just look at the damage being undone. And in the final sequences a massive amount of damage was done. But whippity-snick, a wave of the wand and all the bricks are back in place. (To note, it is a surreptitiously dropped issue how the wizarding world in the U.S. is portrayed as being cruel and oppressive, but without commentary, not even by a more enlightened European culture. Perhaps Rowling only dared go so far.)

Review: Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

I first read Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) for class. I cannot trace when in my notes so perhaps it was as an undergrad. I have always carried with me a fondness for the book, remembering it as both emotional and literarily interesting. Yes, it is an emotional book, mostly in the latter half as reality comes calling on the cast of characters, but it is not as literary as I remembered it. Though, this is yet an excellently written novel, written when McCullers was but twenty-three.

The book tells the story of four persons in a moderately sized, southern town during a year right before WWII: an all-night restaurant owner, a black doctor, a Communist dwarf, and Mick, a twelve year old girl, who most would consider the main character. Time is shared with each chapter focusing on one of the four, or on the one man who links them all, Mr. Singer, a deaf-mute with a private life no one knows about who lives in the upstairs room in Mick's family's boarding house, and who becomes something of a father confessor to all four. It is a story that is equally the story of people living their lives each in their own situation, but it is also a story about people in general: the Negro race, through the eyes of Doctor Copeland, the oppressed poor, through the eyes of Mr. Blount, the dwarf, and life on the border of poverty, through the eyes of Mick. Indeed, with Blount and Copeland, long passages are devoted to their political/social beliefs: passages that are not preaching to the reader but are both commentary on the world and development of character — something seen quite clearly when Blount and Copeland meet up, and find they cannot get their own beliefs to meld.

Review: Shusaku Endo, Silence

A review — a brief critical review — of Shusaku Endo's Silence (1966). A review perhaps coming close to having spoilers, as it were, but really nothing here is not presented by the time the action is fully underway. Indeed, it is all present in the quips on the back of the book if you look hard enough. It might be worth saying that Endo is compared to Graham Greene, and people knowing that might have expectations. I know nothing of Greene; he has never breached my interest; so, I cannot speak to any comparison except to that _Silence_ is a book about Roman Catholicism, though it is also about Christianity in general, and, it can be argued, religion across the board.

The story is that of a Portuguese priest, Father Rodrigues, who (in 1637), accompanied by two other priests (who are really minor characters), decides to be smuggled into a historically acurate Japan that has outlawed Christianity, and that has brutally eliminated all surface evidence of it, and pushed what remains of the religion underground. Their purpose is to find out what happened to their once teacher, Father Ferreira, who is said to have apostatized, to have wholly renounced Catholicism — something the three cannot believe.

Only two complete the sea journey and make it on land in Japan, there to find themselves taken in by a small village of peasants who are themselves Catholic and happy to once again have a priest in their number. But their time there is short, and the inevitable happens — inevitable not only that the plot must progress but also because their mission is from the start a fool's errand — and their presence is discovered and, after the two priests decide to split up, Rodrigues is captured. Which leads, ultimately, as one of the quips on the back cover says, to "the Calvary of Father Rodruigues."

(To note, the whole of that quip, from the Jesuit magazine America, makes me question if the reviewer fully understood the book.)

Review: Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

Imagine a world populated by men who can parse the designers of each other's clothing down to the pocket squares, but, outside of their immediate circle, are unable to recognize each other's faces; who know the up-market brands and statistics thereof of stereo equipment, tv's, cars, and any other imaginable luxury items; men whose description of personal experience — their restaraunt adventures, their overseas vacations — are described in canned language taken from guidebooks; men who compare their business cards as though comparing the beauty of their very souls, and whose defeat in such comparisons are felt deep there within. It is a world where Les Miserable is ubiquitous, and within which debates over the cast recordings are held with the highest sincerity. This is the world of American Psycho, a story that exists mostly in a New York that is markedly divided between the haves — the high salary businessmen and their shallow, almost interchangeable girlfriends — and the have-nots, consisting mostly of beggars in the streets. (Only infrequently is there shown something of the inbetween).

And it is a hilarious world. Ellis sets up his unwitting clowns with care and precision, and takes them down as though weilding a stilletto, which such sudden and unexpected sentences as: "There's a black-tie party at the Puck Building tonight for a new brand of computerized professional rowing machine . . . .", or such wonderful moments of unveiling such as the laugh-out-loud "What's 'broiled,' Luis." That world is a world of brilliantly written comedy. But it is not the only world in American Psycho.

Review: Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind

© 2007

 

So I tried The Name of the Wind. I picked it up because it is said -- or I have heard it claimed -- as being "literary" fantasy, and I gave a copy in a store a test read and liked the language. (Though, I bought my copy online, a nice hardback for next to nothing.) Great first page, but that is usually an illusion, as it is here. And the book does bear the stain of that phenomenon of the first page seemingly having been given more attention, in terms of language, that any other twenty pages combined. But I will give Rothfuss a little credit in that his writing never becomes wholly pedestrian. Not that I would call it terribly artistic, but he can turn a phrase, and it is far better than the likes of Sanderson. (Well, on page 79 he whips out an "insatiable lust for knowledge," which is so trite a phrase it might on its own disqualify a book from being "literary.")

Unfortunately, the plot does often become pedestrian. I quit reading at page 225, when Kvothe reached Inma, after the rather poor chapters of the journey thereto and his momentary infatuation with Denna. Which I found pointless fluff used only to fill out the journey. But, then, it seemed that much of the last many pages were just filled out with fluff -- which is to say the whole of his time in Tarbean. Yes, granted, this is the nature of the book, a long biographical narrative, but that does not preclude the author from having a reason for including whatever parts of the biography -- that is, a reason beyond "this is what happened next." Indeed, that is greatly the difference between a poor biography and a good biography: the latter is building up a picture of something, usually (but not always) the person who is the subject of the biography. A poor biography merely proceeds from time period to place to time period to place simply because "that is what happened next." And that is how The Name of the Wind reads.

Review: Claude Simon's The Flanders Road

© 1960; trans. Richard Howard © 1961, 1985

 

The central incident of The Flanders Road is that of four horseman retreating from the rout of the first days of the German invasion of France in WWII: the captain of the unit, his lieutenant, his lackey, and a forth cavalryman, the last the central voice of the book. They are all that remains of their unit, who were decimated in the first moments of battle, as would be expected when horsemen are sent forward against Panzers. Indeed, that absurdity is brought forward again and again, as with this passage:

Apparently they use those tanks as. . . then he was too far away I had forgotten that such things are merely called a 'business' the way you say 'that business' when you mean 'fighting a duel' a delicate euphemism a more discreet more elegant formula well so much the better not all was lost since we were still among well-bred people say don't say, example don't say 'the squadron has been massacred in an ambush', but 'we had a bad business outside the village of [. . .] (101)

But the incident is not merely the four of them trotting down Flanders Road, both them and their horses completely exhausted, most likely already behind the German advance if not, because of the age of their orders of retreat, on their way right to German forces, yet trotting nonetheless, the captain and his lieutenant talking about what the other two cannot hear, the captain leading the way, just trotting, head on into the sights of a german sniper, who kills the commander.

But then that is by extension the central incident of the squadron, riding head on, lead by a captain with sabre drawn, into the sights of advancing German armor. And yet again, it is the central incident of the "well-bred" French who "had a bad business" along the whole of the Eastern front. And there are plenty of moments in The Flanders Road that makes that extension clear.

Review: Neil Gaiman's American Gods

I will be honest. I want so very much to like Neil Gaiman's books. I do. Perhaps that is because I so enjoy the movies: Stardust, Coraline. (O.K., the tv show American Gods mostly bores me.) But, so far it just has not come to be to any great degree. The first one I read was Neverwhere, which I enjoyed enough but did not think much of. It was rather for me just this string of events happening one after the other, with only minimal connection between them (outside of what holds them onto that string). And, to be honest, if I am going to spend time entertaining myself with that kind of thing I would rather watch a shoot-em-up movie because it only takes two hours. But, I guess it was enjoyable enough. It did not wow me, but I did finish it. (And I will not finish something I am not enjoying.)

Now, I was teaching at the time and my class kind of agreed with me: Neverwhere was enjoyable enough, but nothing special. What I really needed to read, though, they all agreed, was American Gods. Which I finally got to, a few months ago. Between those two I have looked between the covers of others of his books. I eavesdropped on a conversation that said good things about The Graveyard Book, but when I looked for myself — and I read more than a few pages — I was not wowed enough to buy it. (Indeed, if I remember correctly, the writing put me off. Maybe I misremember, though.) And, perhaps, if I found cheap copies in the used (budget, you know) I might pick that up yet, or Coraline, or Stardust. Like I said, I do want to like Neil Gaiman.

Three Short Reviews: Mistborn, The Fifth Season, Dune

I have wanted to get back into reading fantasy and science fiction, and have been making slight effort to for a while. But now a little more effort to looking at contemporary fantasy. To be honest, most of it I look at in the stores and pass on. But I do give one here and there a chance. And then there is the going back to read the classics.

 

Mistborn. Brandon Sanderson (2006)

 

I bought a trade copy of this through the mail for two bits because it seemed well known and Sanderson seems everywhere.

I made it to page 70 and stopped with no desire to go forward. It was about as genre fantasy as genre fantasy can get. Which means it was not literary as not literary can get. And I rather found the premise daft, its execution unoriginal, and the writing mediocre at best.

Glass-bottomed Bridges

For this is usually how religions die. It happens when the mythical presuppositions of a religion become systematized as a finished sum of historical events under the severe, intellectual gaze of orthodox dogmatism, and people begin to defend anxiously the credibility of the myths while resisting every natural tendency within them to go on living and to throw out new shoots -- in other words, when the feeling for myth dies and is replaced by the claim of religion to have historical foundations.

Nietzsche. The Birth of Tragedy. (Trans. Ronald Speirs)

 

An essay in brief, a mere outline of thoughts I've been carrying about in my pocket the last year plus.

Let's see if this works:

On December 23 a year ago China broke its own record for the longest glass-bottomed bridge. A casual stroll around the web gives the idea that China has become somewhat obsessed with building glass-bottomed bridges, walkways, and observation posts. Which is a curious thing, to me. This particular bridge crosses the Hongyagu Scenic Area in Pingshan county, is 1,600 feet long (that's shy a third of a mile, people) and is suspended 700 feet above the ground, which is a long way down. It is, says the article I link to below, designed to swing as people cross it, I am sure for engineering purposes. That in itself would be enough to keep me off it, glass-bottomed or not.

But it is glass-bottomed. And if you watch any of the videos on the web of these places you see that stepping on such a surface, over such a height, is not an easy thing. For some people a nearly impossible thing. And no wonder: humans are born with only two innate fears: loud noises and heights. We are hardwired to be afraid of heights. We are hardwired not to step on glass-bottomed bridges. To do so of your own free will requires an act of overcoming.

This seems to me a demonstration of the idea of faith. A person who fights through the fear and anxiety of walking across a glass-bottomed bridge is demonstrating faith: faith in the engineers who designed it, in the construction workers who built it, or in the park rangers (or whatever the attendants are called) who have themselves overcome the fear and assure everyone in their own act of walking, jumping, skipping upon the bridge that it is quite safe. A visitor steps on and walks across the bridge having faith in its safety despite their own minds screaming to them that it is absolutely not so. Indeed, the faith exists only because their minds are speaking so.

Because when you have achieved the point reached by those park rangers, where there is no fear whatsoever, there is no longer faith. To put it technically, the safety of the bridge has become for them a fact. And a person cannot have faith in something that it has been accepted as a fact. One does not have faith that two plus two equals four. One does not have faith that the distance to the moon at perigee is about 221,500 miles. One does not have faith that the sky is blue or that the sun will rise tomorrow. Those are things the mind accepts as facts, and facts neither require faith nor generate it.

Let me pull four points out of this, the first three of which are already present in the above.

First: I'll repeat myself, there is no such things as faith in facts. When walking upon a glass-bottomed bridge is no different than walking upon terra firma, then there is in the act no faith whatsoever. This can be said another way: facts, and acting upon facts, is spiritually a null event. Facts have zero faith value, zero spiritual value. When something becomes a fact, it no longer involves faith. Which is an interesting – and potentially profound – thought when you come to ideas of religious dogma.

Second: That faith exists for those walkers on glass-bottomed bridges overcoming their fear, opens up the curious recognition that faith only exists when there also exists its opposite: doubt. Faith is the overcoming of doubt. Without the latter, there cannot be the former. This to me is a big thing that I am saying very quickly. But we do see in it how, again, facts evince no faith.

Third: And again we also see something else inherent to faith: the overcoming. Faith requires action. A person does not demonstrate faith in a glass-bottomed bridge by waving to people on it from secure ground. You have to go out and walk on it yourself.

Finally, something that needs to be said just to be sure no false ideas arise: Faith is not in itself a 'good' thing. That is, just because a person has faith in something, does not mean either the faith itself or that something in which the faith is placed is spiritually positive. One might have 'faith' that the story of Noah's ark actually occurred despite the doubt created by the, shall we say, overwhelming obviousness that it did not. But that does not make you or your faith a spiritual positive. Though, to be honest, I am hesitant to call it spiritually negative. Perhaps, at times, it is merely spiritually immature. But, then, to the other side, if you accept Noah's ark as a fact, there is no faith to be found, is there? Ferventness in such a belief would really only be zealotry, which is never a good thing. (Which also raises interesting questions as concerns religious dogma.)