So in honour of our presentation of V For Vendetta tonight, the Lady E. and myself were guest hosts on the Jay n’ J show, a local film podcast! We talked about the project, but mostly about our feelings on the new Muppets movie, which was pretty good in my opinion. Check it out!
http://jaynj.tumblr.com/post/13116718443/muppets-w-erin-matt
“But with the exception of her sister’s, opinion was greatly in favour of Brenda’s adventure … It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed over the telephone.” (p. 54)
The Resolution Project: For my New Year’s resolution this year (that being 2011), I decided to try and read all one hundred of the novels picked by Time Magazine as the best since their inception in 1923 to the list’s publication in 2005. I exempted myself from reading ones I’ve already read, leaving some eighty-six or so to read before the end of this year. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that.
Tony and Brenda Last are members of the increasingly irrelevant landed aristocracy in 1930s England. Tony is somewhat obsessed with the upkeep of his estate, Hetton House, which he insists must keep its Gothic architecture even in the face of fashion and his own wife’s desires. When John Beaver (a worthless layabout who lives with his mother) is mistakenly invited over for a weekend, events are set into motion that will destroy the marriage of the Lasts and pretty much wreck Tony’s entire existence as he knows it.
First off, sorry about the late post here. In addition to the birthdays of four or five people, -30 degree temperatures making it a pain in the ass to go to the library, Christmas ramping-up at the store and getting ready for Graphic Content’s third outing (also the subject of my next post wouldn’t you know?), I also thought it would be a good idea to buy Skyrim. After all, I made it through Arkham City without missing too much reading time, so what could be the problem?
Frost Trolls. Frost Trolls are very much a problem.
Anyway, I powered through all of these temptations/complications and finished. My technique for Skyrim, by the way, was to not go into the room my Xbox is in, just to entirely disregard its existence for a couple of days. Success! It’s not even like A Handful of Dust is a long book, or tiresome to get through, it’s actually a fantastic read, which made this situation even more unpleasant for me. In fact, I’d be willing to say that I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed the previous entry by Waugh in the list, Brideshead Revisited.
Dust presents us an interpretation of the sanctity of marriage that is only matched on the list so far by Doris Lessing’s apocalyptic The Golden Notebook. When Brenda Last begins her affair with the non-entity known as John Beaver, as the above quote indicates, the situation becomes one of great fun and enjoyment for everyone in civilized society, and no one care a whit about the feelings of her husband, or the well being of their child. Brenda even attempts to set Tony up with a mistress to give him something to do, resulting in hilarious scenes where “Princess” Abdul Akbar attempts to seduce a man who has no idea why she’s even there, much less any interest in her.
This all ends up in Tony having to do the gentlemanly thing and give Brenda a divorce. The only way this can be accomplished, however, is for Tony to be the adulterer, which results in him taking a dance-hall girl (and her eight-year old daughter) to Brighton for scandalous photos to be taken (with the dance-hall girl, I mean, not the kid). I will admit to being a little confused as to why Tony had to be seen as the bad guy for the divorce proceedings, it must have something to do with keeping Brenda’s reputation intact so that she can marry Beaver? The scenes where Tony mingles with the detectives he’s hired to follow himself are pretty funny though.
There were a lot of great pieces to this novel. I really liked the parish priest in Hetton who recites sermons he wrote while stationed off in India and Afghanistan, hoping that no one calls him on this fact. I also liked how everyone knew about this, but didn’t have the heart to tell him, and how the mention of exotic flora and fauna in the priest’s sermons presage Tony’s ultimate retreat from the civilized world. Dust also reaffirms my belief that horses in works of great literature are evil, and will kill children at almost a moment’s notice (see: Gone With the Wind, and I’m sure there’s more coming). I loved the last names everyone had, and I liked John Beaver’s mother a lot. She had the hustle and ambition of a Scarlett O’Hara, and was one of the few characters in the novel who weren’t completely ridiculous. I liked Jock Grant-Menzies, and the brief look at English politics he gives us (it’s completely ineffectual, dull and boring, not to mention incomprehensible).
While I don’t think Dust is quite as good as Brideshead Revisited, it does have a better title, for one, and it feels real with regards to the betrayal of a loved one. I’m continuing my tradition here of not really researching the novels much more than a quick wiki search while reading (apparently there’s a movie of this book?), but you can definitely tell from reading this book that someone hurt Evelyn Waugh very deeply, and he decided to immortalize them in the characters of Brenda Last and John Beaver, possibly as a revenge that would far outlast any of the participants.
Who would I recommend this book to?: People who like seeing the foibles and frailties of the upper crust laid bare. People who liked other entertainments featuring large manor houses, like Gosford Park, and Downton Abbey. People who won’t be crushed by the unflinchingly harsh portrayals of love, marriage and women found in the book.
Total pages read since January 1st: 13829 pp.
Total books on the Time 100 list read: 49/113, or 43% complete.
Next up on the Resolution Project: The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene.
“Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons – throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to.” (p. 32-33)
The Resolution Project: For my New Year’s resolution this year (that being 2011), I decided to try and read all one hundred of the novels picked by Time Magazine as the best since their inception in 1923 to the list’s publication in 2005. I exempted myself from reading ones I’ve already read, leaving some eighty-six or so to read before the end of this year. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that.
John Singer is a deaf-mute man living in a mill town in the American South during the Great Depression. After his friend, a fellow deaf-mute named Antonapoulos is committed to an asylum, Singer somehow becomes the focal point for people in the town to tell all of their sorrows to. They include; Biff Brannon, owner of the New York Cafe and married to a sickly woman; Mick Kelly, a girl from a poor family who is obsessed with one day composing a great symphony; Jake Blount, an alcoholic would-be Communist turned carnival attendant; and Doctor Copeland, an African-American doctor who bemoans the plight of his impoverished people.
This was a pretty solid book, which illustrates the dangers of turning someone you know (or at least think you know) into a sort of Christ-figure who you feel could absolve you of all of your sins. Like many of you, I’d first heard the phrase “the heart is a lonely hunter” from the song by Reba McEntire, who, with the rest of her pop-country ilk, was on the radio any time my father drove somewhere when I was younger. After listening to it again, there isn’t much that the two have in common, other than acknowledging a desperate longing that dwells deep within the bowels of the human soul. For McEntire, this takes the form of a woman seeking out a one-night stand; for McCullers the hunger is more complex.
All of “the people” who talk at Singer (I say at, because you’re never really too sure how much he’s listening, but at least he looks like he is, right?) are basically using him like a psychotherapist performing Freud’s talking cure. Unfortunately, all of their problems are way too big to be solved in this manner, they’ve all got to do with the abject poverty and predation that were omnipresent in the South at this time. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a good companion piece to The Grapes of Wrath in this way, approaching the grand themes of that novel, but in a somehow gentler way. I must say that the Time 100 list is definitely well stocked with tales of Southern tragedy; in fact that’s probably the biggest theme to be found on the list in my reading so far. If the intention of the list’s creators is to make me feel sympathy for Southern people down on their luck, consider that accomplished, I guess, but it’s starting to get a little old to me.
McCullers also has a lot to say about how human beings perceive people, as well as how time erodes the rough edges off of the things we like. Hunter shows us how we put a lot of stock in other people, and how when they don’t meet up to our expectations the results can be devastating. The mute is no exception to this, as we the reader are privy to his own need to expound on the thing he loves, namely the mentally unsound Greek man who was his best friend:
“This was the friend to whom he told all that was in his heart. This was the Antonapoulos who no one knew was wise but him. As the year passed his friend seemed to grow larger in mind, and his face looked out in a very grave and subtle way from the darkness at night.” (p. 204)
That’s all I’ve got to say about this one, really. It was good, but parts of it were a little familiar at this point in the game. Down below, you’ll notice I’ve changed the numbering scheme I’m using for the list. I’ve decided to tackle the entirety of Anthony Powell’s epic A Dance to the Music of Time “dodecahedral masterpiece”, and so the number below reflects that, as well as my having finished the Lord of the Rings books when I was younger. They were okay, but I really have no desire to ever go back to Tolkien ever again. I’ll gladly up my number though 
“That is the way they talk when they come to my room. Those words in their heart do not let them rest, so they are always very busy.” (p. 216)
Who would I recommend this book to?: People who want to explore how human beings interact with each other in reality and in our own heads. People who are not sick of reading books about Southerners who are sad.
Total pages read since January 1st: 13604 pp.
Total books on the Time 100 list read: 48/113, or 42% complete.
Next up on the Resolution Project: A Handful of Dust (1934) by Evelyn Waugh
Just saw the last episode of Downton Abbey‘s second series, and it was excellent. If you haven’t seen this great show, it’s about the wealthy owners of an English manor house in the 1910s, as well as the servants who live in the “downstairs” world. If you liked the movie Gosford Park from a few years back, or are a fan of good English drama series like Pride and Prejudice or especially Brideshead Revisited, you owe it to yourself to check this show out. If you’re not into English historical drama, imagine if the attention to story detail and character development you see in something like The Wire was translated to a different time period and you’d be close to what Downton Abbey offers. Anyway, here’s the chart. Notes below may contain SPOILERS, so fair warning. Feel free to bitch about my choices in the comment section.
Notes:
- Bates (LAWFUL GOOD) is a total bro, willing to put everything he cares about at risk for his employer and the woman he loves. He could probably stand to let his boss in on what’s going on sometimes, though, for his own sake.
- While there were many, many, many excellent quotes for Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (CHAOTIC NEUTRALLY played by the inimitable Maggie Smith, whom most of you’ll remember from Harry Potter), there’s relatively few out there for Lady Sybil (CHAOTIC GOOD) and Carson (LAWFUL NEUTRAL). I had to take what I could get, basically.
- Cora, Countess of Grantham being TRUE NEUTRAL might be the most controversial choice on this chart, but her absolute nonchalance with regards to dicking around in Downton heir Matthew Crawley’s love life made me edge her towards the middle. The woman can be very cold when it suits her purposes.
- As for the rest I couldn’t fit on there, most of the staff would probably hover around NEUTRAL GOOD with the obvious exception of O’Brien, who’d sit at NEUTRAL EVIL . Matthew Crawley would probably be LAWFUL GOOD, Lady Mary’d flit daintily between TRUE NEUTRAL and CHAOTIC NEUTRAL, and Anna’d be either NEUTRAL GOOD or CHAOTIC GOOD depending on how badly Bates has fucked himself over lately. It’s hard to pigeonhole some of the more rounded characters, but that is of course where all the entertaining debate on this subject comes from. Leave your diatribes, rants and screeds down in the comment section.
