Time 100 | this nerding life

Video Accompaniment: Linda Ronstadt, “What’ll I Do?”

The Resolution Project Season Two: For my New Year’s resolution last year (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 got almost halfway through. I’ve decided to bull-headedly push on through and try and finish the challenge, continuing with the same caveat as before: I’ve exempted myself from reading books I’ve already read, leaving eighty-six or so left to go. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that. It’s not really worth getting that angry about though.

“I’m not saying we necessarily went around the whole time at that age worrying about the woods. I for one could go weeks hardly thinking about them, and there were even days when a defiant surge of courage would make me think ‘How could we believe rubbish like that?’ But then all it took would be one little thing — someone retelling one of those stories, a scary passage in a book, even just a chance remark reminding you of the woods — and that would mean another period of being under that shadow.” (p.51)

The Elevator Pitch: In the late 1990s, a woman named Kathy is a “carer”, a person whose job it is to drive all over England and help people out in convalescent homes. When she was young, Kath lived at a special school in the countryside called Hailsham, which I don’t want to tell you too much about right here. Suffice it to say, Kath and her young friends, who we meet over the course of her reminiscings, are very special children who were educated at Hailsham for a very interesting purpose… (Hint: bring a tissue while reading this one)

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: While I was being coy about the big secret that surrounds this book up in the Pitch, I knew about it going in due to the fact that this book had a pretty well-regarded film adaptation two years ago. I think I’m going to try and check it out soon, potentially once I cheer up some. I’d heard of Kazuo Ishigiro before, with regards to The Remains of the Day, but I hadn’t read anything by him before this one.

Thoughts: Hi there. It’s been a while, now hasn’t it? As you will no doubt remember, being rabid fans of The Spoiler Show as you no doubt are, I’ve mentioned once or twice the fact that I’ve changed jobs. I’m not using this to excuse myself from my sacred duty of reading these books (so you don’t have to in many cases), but as a matter of fact I’ve been busier now than in the past. Doing a weekly podcast is potentially one of the factors in this. Sure, I’ve read a bunch of books since finishing The Kindly Ones back in summertime, but I haven’t really thought about the less entertaining ones on the Time 100 list. I’m trying to get back in the swing of things though.

Anyway, Never Let Me Go. This is a pretty excellent read, and one that I wish I hadn’t been spoiled on early on. Yes, I do realize the irony in that statement considering the blurb above this review, as well as the name of my podcast, etc. I do wish, though, that I could have been in on the ground floor seven years ago when this book came out. The real emotional power Ishigiro wields throughout this narrative comes from the amazing, frail, gormless, beautiful innocence of his protagonists. When I first started reading, the fact that Kath’s job allows her to traverse the countryside almost at will, without, say, gene-police or something out of Cloud Atlas hunting her clone ass down was kind of confusing. Why wouldn’t you try to escape the spectacularly shitty hand that “life” has dealt you? This is of course the plot of both The Island and the far superior Parts: The Clonus Horror, which are all basically the same story as this one.

It dawned on me pretty quick though that the Hailsham School is basically one giant pot of classical and operant conditioning, with a dash of isolation. The quote above, about the woods, is a marvelous example of form and theme and plot all rolled into one deliciously depressing burrito. As much as you’d want to empathize with the kids in the book, on a certain level their upbringing is so alien to most that you just have to accept the fatalism and fear that they operate under at all times. I guess the basic premise of the book is sci-fi, but it’s pretty lo-fi and awful to have to care for and raise all of these poor children rather than using bacta tanks or something. It’s heartbreaking. Add to the fact that the Hailsham School has as its sole emphasis development of artistic creativity in its charges, and you basically had a one-way ticket to Sadnesstown for this reviewer.

I’d be interested to know just how Ishigiro researched this novel. The interactions he describes between the children at various stages in their upbringing felt incredibly real to me. The children were not little Cuckoos or anything like that, they got into the same little spats and crushes that I remember from that time. It’s absolutely marvelous, and makes me want to seek out The Remains of the Day.

“None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you.” (p. 81)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: The cynical jerk half of me wants to recommend Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret for fans of Never Let Me Go because it’s kind of a funny comparison, but I do honestly feel that the voices of Margaret and Kath have the same ring of authenticity about them. Aspiring grad students could potentially base a thesis on the suffocating feel of the nightmare England present in both Never and The Golden Notebook?

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 16530 pp. (2071 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 58/113, or 51% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: Money (1984) by Martin Amis. Maybe.

Tagged 1990s, bad parenting, England, movies, movies that suck, review, Time 100

Jul 10 2012

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the resolution project

The Resolution Project Season Two: A Dance to the Music of Time Book Six – The Kindly Ones (1962)

“My mother – together with her sisters in their unmarried days – had always indulged a taste for investigation in the Unseen World, which even the threatened inconveniences of the Stonehurst ‘ghosts’ could not entirely quench. My father, not equally on terms with such hidden forces, was at the same time no less imbued with belief. In short, the ‘ghosts’ were an integral, an essential part of the house; indeed, its salient feature.” (p. 5)

The Elevator Pitch and What I knew going in: Second (sixth, actually) verse, same as the first. If you’ve been following along with my missives from the land of Widmerpool, Jenkins, et al., you’ll know what you’re getting into here. If not, Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve-volume novel about various middle- and upper-class English people, with a time frame spanning from the 1920s all the way up to the beginning of the Second World War (so far). Nick Jenkins, a writer of … something, is ostensibly the main character, and each book chronicles his interactions with various sets of friends and acquaintances, usually with some overarching theme.

Thoughts: Where the last book, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, dealt a lot with the world of feuding musicians and composers, this volume had the feeling of clearing the decks somewhat before WWII kicks off. The Kindly Ones, aka. the Furies of Roman mythology, were cthonic vengeance goddesses, who would pursue oathbreakers and the like. A few characters reach the end of their mortal coil in this volume, but the relatively light-hearted world of the Dance does not allow for sinners to suffer too much. I have a feeling that as the war progresses, this’ll change a lot. There’s definitely a feeling of the old guard getting tossed out in favour of the new this time out.

It was interesting to see Jenkins kind of take some initiative this time out, but as far as I can tell it’s only to save his own skin; he spends most of the book trying to secure a commission in the Army, which I feel is probably his way of avoiding the draft and attempting to get posted somewhere less dangerous? I don’t feel a lot of patriotic fervour coming from Jenkins, so I’m assuming he doesn’t want to haul ass and fight the Hun face to face. I guess I’ll find out next book what position he finds for himself.

While reading this latest entry, I began to long for a chart, or a set of family trees, something like that, to keep straight the sheer volume of characters in the saga. I don’t really know why it took me so long to break down and admit I need help keeping everyone straight, but a chart in the style of the ones you find while reading Love and Rockets would be really handy.

Love and Rockets Issue 31 cover, by Jaime Hernandez

Actually, working my way through the L+R I had available to me when I worked at a comic store is probably one of the closest experiences I’ve had to reading A Dance to the Music of Time, except for the fact that I liked it much better. Its scope is as far-reaching, if not more so, and the characters found within are sketched out much better. I guess if I go with this hypothesis, this makes Widmerpool the Penny Century of the Dance world? Wealthy London industrialist Sir Magnus Donners is obviously H.R. Costigan in this scenario, and… No. This way lies madness.

“‘Why should we wish to ruminate on your most secret orgies?’ said Dr. Trelawney. ‘What profit for us to muse on your nights in the lupanar, your diabolical couplings with the brides of debauch, more culpable than those phantasms of the incubi that rack the dreams of young girls, or the libidinous gymnastics of the goat-god whose ice-cold sperm fathers monsters on writhing witches in coven?’” (p.194)

I liked the introduction of Doc Trelawney, a self-styled hedge wizard and cult leader in the style of an Aleister Crawley. There’s always been a bit of flirting around with mysticism in these books, but it was kind of nice to see someone go balls-out in its pursuance this time. There was a big section I skimmed over, though, where Jenkins reads his and his Uncle Giles’ horoscopes and then is amazed by how much they coincide with his own self-image. Dude, they’re written in a vague, yet reassuring, way for that very reason.

Anyway, this marks the halfway point in my reading of the Dance saga, and so far my rating is meh? It is a pretty impressive project, and it’s pretty amazing how Powell’s writing style evolves over the course of the books, but remains similar enough to the others that it’s never too jarring. Over all, I can’t really recommend this book on its own, but wouldn’t exactly warn you off attempting to read the series if it sounds like something you’re into.

“Just as most of the world find it on the whole unusual that anyone should be professionally occupied with the arts, Moreland could never get used to the fact that most people – in this particular case, Templer – lead lives in which the arts play no part whatsoever.” (p.103)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: Well, the other five books, A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer’s Market, The Acceptance World (combined review of the first three here), At Lady Molly’s and Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant are pretty similar considering they’re all the same book. This volume reminded me a little bit of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, with a similar setting at the seaside for some of it, and similar attitude towards women in love.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 16964 pp. (2505 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 60/113, or 53% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: A House for Mr. Biswas, (1961) by V.S. Naipaul. Maybe even more for real this time.

Tagged 1930s, A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell, England, non-protagonists, Time 100, World War II

Jul 01 2012

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if I made the list, resolution project detours

If I Made the List – Book One: Dune (1965)

Video Accompaniment:

So throughout my 1.5 years (and counting) adventure on The Resolution Project, I’ve encountered quite a few books that I thought were absolutely awful. Some of them, Blood Meridian being perhaps the best example, I was able to recognize the genius in, even though it may not have been something I particularly wanted to read in my off hours. Others, like An American Tragedy or The Man Who Loved Children, I didn’t really see why they deserved to be on this list; the social issues, stylistic choices and time periods they represent have been filled elsewhere, and in my mind to greater effect.

So, in an ongoing effort to encourage literacy among the peoples of the world, I give you a new segment, “If I Made the List”, which seeks to rectify what I feel is the Time 100 List’s lack of certain genres and writers, and what book I’d remove to give it a spot. If you’ve been following along with the site so far, you’ll most likely have a pretty good idea as to what sorts of books I’m going to recommend. So here’s Book One: Frank Herbert’s Dune.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

The Elevator Pitch: This is always a tough book to try and summarize, but here goes. Paul Atreides is the scion of his noble family, one of many great houses which battle for position and pride in the far-flung future. Travel between worlds in the human imperium is controlled by a group called the Spacing Guild, whose Navigators ply the starways under the influence of the spice Melange, a substance which allows one’s consciousness to extend to such a point that amazing distances can be understood and traversed.

In a bid to rid himself of the goody two-shoes Atreides clan, Emperor Shaddam IV bequeaths them control of the planet Dune, aka. Arrakis, home of spice production but also of the nomadic Fremen, a group that are engaged in guerrilla warfare against the planet’s current caretakers, the malevolent Harkonnens. Once the Emperor’s trap is set, and Paul’s father Leto is killed by base Harkonnen trickery, the young man must find his destiny on the deadly desert planet. He does this by riding on the back of Arrakis’ coolest native fauna, the sandworm, or “Shai’Hulud”.

Yes, it can be read as a penis substitute, get over it.

Thoughts: There are quite a few reasons why I think Dune is worthy of the List. For one, it’s commonly been referred to as the world’s best selling science fiction novel. While commercial success is not always a great indicator of literary strength, see 50 Shades, Twilight, etc., I feel as if the longevity that the book has possessed, in addition to the effects it has had on pop culture since its publication in 1965 mark it out as a true literary classic that just had the fortune to also be a best-seller. It’s definitely struck a chord among readers for the last 50 years or so.

Dune has an unorthodox literary structure from “typical” science fiction fare. While the events of the novel are relayed to us in real-time, the quotations that mark every chapter are from works that have been published long after the story’s end. The Princess Irulan, daughter of Emperor Shaddam, is usually the author of these passages, which are culled from such works as Manual of Muad’Dib and A Child’s History of Muad’Dib (Muad’Dib being the name that Paul Atreides takes upon becoming a member of the Fremen; it means “kangaroo mouse”, and is also associated with a constellation as viewed from Arrakis, as well as a shape seen upon its moon). This structure lends the tale the feeling of myth, of state propaganda, of secret history. While we know that Paul’s jihad against the corrupt imperium is to be a successful one, the human cost of the war and his subsequent deification is explored within the narrative.

Dune touches on a multitude of other issues as well: the divide between Islam and Christianity; ecological change; the decline of empire; cults of personality; the dangers of heroism, and I could go on. If none of these things feel important to you in this day and age, you must not watch a lot of news programs, or maybe just FOX/Sun News I guess. The book has become ever more relevant as time has passed, and that’s a rare achievement for any work of literature, especially that found in the “ghetto” of science fiction.

The approach that Dune takes to sci-fi’s biggest hobby horse, technology, is particularly fascinating to me. While things like spaceships, portable force fields and atomic weaponry are commonplace in this future, something called the Butlerian Jihad abolished the use of computers long before the start of the narrative. This is the reason that the Guild Navigators have a stranglehold on galactic trade, and why special people named “mentats” serve the role of advisor/knowledge base to large houses; the universe of Dune has already dealt with an idea that’s starting to take hold in our society, that of the Singularity, the point at which computers become smarter than people. Sometimes even now I feel as if computers and technology are becoming too prevalent in the modern day world (he said, while blogging). The Atlantic had a decent piece four years ago entitled Is Google Making Us Stupid?, bemoaning the fact that people don’t feel the need to remember facts anymore as every bit of human knowledge thus accumulated is easily accessed with a touch of the finger to screen. Dune presents us with a deeply disturbing, yet entirely plausible way that this societal shift could end up playing out, with the destruction of “thinking” technology and the inauguration of human castes to fill this role.

Dune means a lot to people. Passages like the Bene Gesserit “Litany Against Fear” (as seen above) have entered into the popular culture due to the book’s popularity, as well as by means of David Lynch’s film adaptation and the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries in the 2000s. I enjoyed both of these filmic versions of the book, but I’d recommend against watching the Lynch version until you’ve read it first. In researching for Metro Cinema’s presentation of Dune a few months ago, I learned just how important this adaptation was to modern Hollywood: long story short is that Alejandro Jorodowsky, auteur director of such films as El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre, was attached to direct the film in the ’70s. He assembled an all star cast which included Orson Welles, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Alain Delon, it was to have music by Pink Floyd, it was written by Dan O’Bannion and had designs from H.R. Giger and Jean “Moebius” Giraud.

While this project fell through, those involved went on to create the Alien franchise, which has culminated in Prometheus, which we talked about on the Spoiler Show this week. Doing Dune was what allowed eventual director David Lynch to make Blue Velvet, which kickstarted his career as a beloved cultivator of the strange and wonderful. There’s a documentary coming out about Jorodowsky’s grand plans, I desperately want to see it. Here’s the trailer.

In closing, the effect that Dune and its associated projects has had on the world is pretty substantial, and by any definition of a list of 100 Greatest English Language Novels should take that into account. I realize that the amount of sci-fi we have on the list already is most likely due to the influence of Lev Grossman, but I feel as if there’s room for one more in the pantheon. As for who goes, I’d have to say An American Tragedy is the most likely one gone. It does not introduce us to its milieu to the same extent as Gatsby, or Blind Assassin, or something like The Grapes of Wrath does. It does not delve into the psychology and horror of murder and death with the skill and refinement of Blood Meridian, The Confessions of Nat Turner or A Death in the Family. Its language is workmanlike at best, and does not come close to the poetry and beauty of Death Comes For the Archbishop, or Pale Fire. It is in short, not worthy in my opinion.

Long live the fighters, I say.

Tagged Alien, An American Tragedy, Dune, Frank Herbert, If I Made The List, Metro Cinema, Prometheus, review, Time 100

Jun 04 2012

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the resolution project

The Resolution Project Season Two: A Dance to the Music of Time Book Four – At Lady Molly’s (1957)

“There is something overpowering, even a trifle sinister about very large families, the individual members of which often possess in excess the characteristics commonly attributed to ‘only’ children: misanthropy: neurasthenia: an ability to adapt themselves: all the traits held to be the result of a lonely upbringing. The corporate life of large families can be lived with severity, even barbarity, of a kind unknown in smaller related communities: these savageries and distillations of egoism often rendered even less tolerable if sentimentalised outside the family circle.” (p. 31)

The Elevator Pitch: Hooboy, here’s another one that’s simultaneously really easy and really difficult to summarize. A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve-volume megabook by Anthony Powell that looks at the way the lives of four men and their respective worlds revolve around one another over the course of the first few decades of the Twentieth Century. The main character, Nick Jenkins, is a bit of a cypher, in the grand English tradition of non-protagonist protagonists; he’s more of the lens by which we view the world than any real sort of character (I’ll discuss this more below). In this episode, Nick makes friends with Lady Molly Jeavons, a minor aristocrat who is known for having elaborate and strange dinner parties at her house. Also, the perennial font of ridiculousness Kenneth Widmerpool gets engaged and also contracts jaundice.

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: This isn’t my first time at the Dance rodeo. I read the first three novels of the cycle last year, so I was fairly well acquainted with the subject matter. The book’s in the running for one of the longest ever to be written, giving this list project an added masochistic thrill of conquering it in addition to 99 other books. Based on my experience with the first three, I expected this one would have lots of aristocratic types in it, a frisson of 1930s Socialism, a hint of Hitler’s rise in Germany, and a lot of people falling in and out of love with each other. I was not disappointed.

Thoughts: There’s only so much you can say about these books, it’s basically the same thing as reviewing a big book like Infinite Jest chapter by chapter except with less formal experimentalism and tennis jargon. So far, 1/3 of the way done the book, I think it’s … pretty good? At Lady Molly’s is definitely better than the second book, A Buyer’s Market, but not by much.

This one did continue the annoying (to me) trend of having large events happen in Jenkins’ life basically get backgrounded into irrelevance. Seriously, the main character of the book cycle decides to get married, to Isobel Tolland. While you’d think that this is a pretty important character development, it isn’t really, it doesn’t even get a full page of recognition! Here’s one of the two (!) real mentions of this turn of events, wherein a line makes Jenkins irrelevant again!:

“A background of other events largely obscured the steps leading up to my engagement to Isobel Tolland. Of this crisis in my life, I remember chiefly a sense of tremendous inevitability, a feeling that fate was settling its own problems, and too much reflection would be out of place.” (p.203)

Too much reflection? You’re getting married, man! You’re allowed to reflect on your life for more than one paragraph here, it’s perfectly alright!

For those of you who remember my review of Kinglsey Amis’ Lucky Jim, you’ll recall that I compared Dixon, the hero of the piece, to the Canadian comics slacker icon Scott Pilgrim. If I were to pick a character from that universe that would recall Dance‘s Nick Jenkins, it’d be Joey Comeau, the guy who knows everybody and tells Scott about Ramona Flowers. I’m sure he’s a great guy, he certainly knows a lot of cool people, but he’s not the main character of the book. It’s really frustrating for Jenkins to throw you a little bit of info about himself, then go right back into hearing about how other peoples’ lives are dramatic.

This book continues the apparent English tradition of not being able to deal with veterans of the Great War. Just like in The Death of the Heart, At Lady Molly’s features a WWI vet who articulates the huge differences between the generation who fought in the war and those who came after, Lady Molly’s husband Jeavons:

“‘People don’t think the same way any longer,’ he bawled across the table. ‘The war blew the whole bloody thing up, like tossing a Mills bomb into a dug-out. Everything’s changed about all that. Always rather feel sorry for your generation as a matter of fact, not but what we haven’t all lost our- what do you call ‘em- you know- somebody used the word in our house the other night-saying much what I’m saying now? Struck me very forcibly. You know- when you’re soft enough to think things are going to be a damned sight better than they turn out to be. What’s the word?’

‘Illusions?’

“Illusions! That’s the one.’” (p. 178)

So in short, I can’t recommend this book unless you’ve read the three before it, as you’ll be incredibly lost. If you want to read the prior books, this one’s pretty solid though. Here’s a bit I thought was funny about monkeys and people who don’t like them.

“He spoke in a preoccupied, confidential tone, as if Miss Weedon’s reply might make all the difference by its orientation to plans on foot for Maisky’s education (he’s a monkey named after the Soviet Ambassador to England).

‘I don’t care for monkeys,’ said Miss Weedon.

‘Oh, don’t you?’ said Jeavons.

He stood pondering this flat, forthright declaration of anti-simianism on Miss Weedon’s part. The notion that some people might not like monkeys was evidently entirely new to him; surprising, perhaps a trifle displeasing, but at the same time one of those general ideas of which one can easily grasp the general import without being necessarily in agreement. It was a theory that startled by its stark simplicity.’ (p. 168)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: Well obviously the three Dance books that came before this one have some similarities, but I feel as well that The Death of the Heart portrays the same time, social sphere and place in a similarly interesting fashion.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 16481 pp. (2022 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 58/113, or 51% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: A House for Mr. Biswas, (1961) by V.S. Naipaul.

Tagged 1930s, A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's, England, non-protagonists, socialism, The Great War, Time 100

Jun 01 2012

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the spoiler show

The Spoiler Show Episode One

Really exciting day for me as one of the projects I’ve been planning for the last few months has finally come to fruition. My friend Marcus and I have begun a podcast, which will cover a wide range of topics, like the ENTIRETY OF LITERATURE up to this point in time, or, in this episode, FANTASY BOOKS! It’s called THE SPOILER SHOW, and you can listen to it here.

The Spoiler Show Episode One: Books!

Download the episode here!

For our inaugural outing, Marcus and I decided to talk about some of the fantasy books we’ve been enjoying as of late, including Time 100 list originator Lev Grossman’s Magicians series, as well as the Bas-Lag books of China Miéville. Keep in mind the name of the podcast, though, as we do not hesitate to bring up climactic events that spoilerbabies might get upset about. If that sounds like something that will bother you, I suggest maybe sitting down and thinking about people in the world who have real problems to deal with. Also, I guess there’s “mature” language throughout, so don’t play this in the car on the way to daycare or whatever.

One recurring segment we’ve put together is called SELL ME ON IT, where both Marcus and I attempt to sell the other (and the audience) on something we really enjoy. The intent here is for the passion we have for that thing, be it a book, movie, activity, whatever, comes through and inspires you to go out and experience something new.

If you have any burning questions for The Spoiler Show, our email address is spoilershow@gmail.com. The feedburner link for the show is here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/spoilershowpodcast

We hope to put out a new episode every Friday, so stay tuned to keep up to date on things I find entertaining. Thanks so much for listening!

Tagged China Mieville, comics, Lev Grossman, podcast, review, role-playing games, spoiler show, The Magicians, Time 100

May 12 2012

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the resolution project

The Resolution Project Season Two: The Man Who Loved Children (Part Two)

“Henny, never speaking to him, heard him with fright; but she had given herself up entirely to despair; she said nothing, and it seemed to her that (now that the clouds had rolled away) she saw her husband for the first time: she had married a child whose only talent was an air of engaging helplessness by which he got the protection of certain goodhearted people – Saul Pilgrim, who was penniless, various old Socialists, of small property, and in the dim past, by the same means, her own father.” (p. 325)

Thoughts: So I finally finished this beast. As I mentioned before, I really did not care for this book at all. I will say though, that it got a little bit better, but that is really not saying much. Maybe it’s the Stockholm Syndrome talking, but once the Pollit clan moved out of Washington to “Spa House” in Annapolis, halfway through the book, it started to get marginally better. This is a book that was desperately in need of editing. Look at the quote I pulled above. That is one long sentence there, folks, Frankensteined together with count ‘em, seven commas, two semi-colons, a regular colon, a dash and a pair of brackets. And the whole book is written like this! It’s a nightmare.

I kind of started to compare this book to a movie like Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father in my head, as that too deals with a similarly rising dread throughout. The problem is though, the film takes 95 minutes to tell its terrible story, whereas The Man Who Loved Children is an agonizing 527 pages of overwritten handwringing, philosophizing, babytalking and insulting, delivered to us through a cast of characters who are all completely and totally unbelievable. Had the book been cut down substantially, we wouldn’t have to spend hundreds of pages detailing just how and why mother Henny and father Sam are so goddamn terrible. One or two instances would have been more than enough, as opposed to the relentless cavalcade of misery that is heaped upon the children, and by extension, whatever poor bastard decided he should read this book in a feat of literary masochism.

Jonathan Franzen, who I believe alongside Time 100 list creator Richard Lacayo is the only reason this book has any critical sway right now, tells us in 2010 that the character of Louisa is based on author Christina Stead. This must be the only reason that the character is an accomplished poet/martyr figure, because nothing in Louisa’s background and upbringing would suggest that. She’s a total Mary Sue-type character, an author stand-in and wish fulfillment fantasy. You literally have no choice but to side with her, and by proxy, the author. Note though that she is given substantial physical defects though, so it’s not a classic Mary Sue move. It’s absolutely ludicrous, though, that a twelve year old would be as well-read as Louisa is in the novel. In addition to that, the school scenes, featuring Louisa’s only friend Clare, are absolutely nonsensical and a complete waste of space, and also prove that she’s not getting some sort of amazing schooling to make her this way. It’s pretty unbelievable to me that Louisa and her friends compose an epic poem cycle about their teacher, alongside numerous plays and other pieces. I realize that before TV and video games people were more inventive, but come on now .

So, I get it. Sam Pollit is an absolutely horrifying man. He’s a symbol of the evils of American-style paternalism and science gone unchecked. One of my “favorite” running themes concerns his attitude towards eugenics and social planning; at one point the phrase “if I were a Stalin or Hitler” is dropped, as Stead decides to go so far as to invoke Godwin’s Law on her main character about 50 years early. There must have been a more elegant way of relaying this information to me.

Franzen’s right about how this book should be included in the feminist discourse, though. If only for the fact that it makes The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series seem like a nice place for a little girl to grow up. It’s about as strident an attack on patriarchal society as you’re going to get, although I’d argue that Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook does this in a much more interesting form, with much, much better writing. I am so glad to be done this book, you have no idea.

Similar books on the Time 100 list: If I was to be a real bastard and recommend books like this one to someone, The Golden Notebook for sure. I’m also assuming that people who “enjoy” this one would get something out of Revolutionary Road, although this is me saying this without having read the book yet, just based on the movie. Also, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret would probably share some thematic similarities, but I kind of feel like a dick for grouping those two together.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 16452 pp. (1993 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 56/113, or 50% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: I am going to have to think about this one, it depends on what treasures the library makes available to me.

Tagged 1930s, bad parenting, Christina Stead, Great Depression, modernism, socialism, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Man Who Loved Children, Time 100

Apr 19 2012

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The Resolution Project Season Two: The Man Who Loved Children (Part One)

“Henny daily revealed the hypocrisy of Sam, and Sam found it his painful duty to say that Henny was a born liar. Each of them struggled to keep the children, not to deliver them into the hands of the enemy: but the children were not taking it in at all. Their real feelings were made up of the sensations received in the respective singsongs and treasure hunts.” (p. 33)

The Elevator Pitch: For me, living at the Pollit house would be akin to hell on earth. Sam and Henrietta “Henny” Pollit must rank among the worst couples of all time. They live in Washington D.C. where Sam works in some sort of governmental capacity while Henny attempts to look after his ever-increasing brood of children. She acts like a shrewish harridan, while Sam is a baby-talking buffoon. I hate this book.

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: Nothing at all. I am kind of jealous of those days now.

Thoughts: As I mentioned in my last post, this book is a real motherfucker. It is long, overwritten, and filled with characters I can’t even begin to identify with. The eponymous “Man”, Sam Pollit, is among the most annoying characters it has ever been my misfortune to read about. He shifts wildly between Roosevelt-era Socialist dreamer, to baby-talking manchild, to condescending educated douchebag, almost every other sentence. I get that we’re not supposed to like him as readers, but this is a bit much.

He also brings back another one of my pet peeves, the overuse of accents in fiction. Whereas in something like Call It Sleep, The Berlin Stories or some of the Boston parts of Infinite Jest, accents are used to demonstrate the differences between people, be they immigrants, tourists or members of the underworld, Sam Pollit busts out accents all the time, just because he’s a dick. He pretends that he’s a stereotypical old Jewish guy, or a “cornpone” Southern guy, or someone from Singapore, just to get cheap laughs out of his kids, who essentially worship the ground he walks on. That’s literally the only reason. I’m sure Stead knew that this would happen, that I would hate her main character, so bravo, Stead! You made me hate a guy by making him unbearable to read about. You deserve some sort of award. And so does Sam Pollit, who is able to impress children with “funny” voices. What a champ, you guys.

His wife Henny is probably the closest thing to someone we can empathise with, as her husband has essentially driven her crazy with his wacky antics. The children in the book are so far pretty unbelievable characters. Louie, Sam’s daughter from his previous wife, is prone to reciting bits of poetry and theology, which would be okay if she wasn’t something like 12 years old. How is she able to remember all this stuff? Could it be that she’s only a mouthpiece for the author to attempt to class up her story with? Much like Scarlett’s son in Gone With the Wind, the younger children are written as if Stead had never seen a real human child talk. It reminds me of nothing more than the “Superbaby” stories that would crop up in Action Comics in the ’50s and ’60s. Here he is packing up a super-bindle:

So yeah, so far I don’t really like this book very much. I’m hoping it ends in Grand Guignol-style with a huge bloodbath. To close up today, here’s Henny discussing which is the best way to kill yourself, which is not a great thing to put in a book that seriously makes you consider it:

“There are so many ways to kill yourself, they’re just old-fashioned with their permanganate: do you think I’d take permanganate? I wouldn’t want to burn my insides out and live to tell the tale as well; idiots! It’s simple. I’d drown myself. Why not put your head in a gas oven? They say it doesn’t smell so bad.” (p. 164, this goes on for a long time).

Tagged 1930s, bad parenting, Christina Stead, Great Depression, modernism, socialism, The Man Who Loved Children, Time 100

Mar 19 2012

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the resolution project

The Resolution Project Season Two: Lucky Jim (1954)

“Dixon felt that, on the contrary, he had a good idea of what his article was worth from several points of view. From one of these, the thing’s worth could be expressed in one short hyphenated indecency; from another, it was worth the amount of frenzied fact-grubbing and fanatical boredom that had gone into it; from yet another, it was worthy of its aim, the removal of the ‘bad impression’ he’d so far made in the college and in his Department.” (pp. 10)

The Resolution Project Season Two: For my New Year’s resolution last year (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 got almost halfway through. I’ve decided to bull-headedly push on through and try and finish the challenge, continuing with the same caveat as before: I’ve exempted myself from reading books I’ve already read, leaving some eighty-six or so left to go. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that. It’s not really worth getting that angry about though.

The Elevator Pitch: Jim Dixon is a young lecturer on the subject of Medieval History at a small college somewhere in the English Midlands. He’s not the best at his job, but keep in mind he also has to deal with a pedantic supervisor, students who are either sycophants or completely disinterested, a woman who engages in emotional terrorism against him and the creeping suspicion that he’s squandered his whole life away. When his supervisor’s artiste-wannabe son comes to town with his girlfriend in tow, Dixon finds himself rebelling against him and the social order of the school, as well as all the assholes that inhabit it.

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: Next to nothing. I’d heard it was pretty funny, and was pleased to find out this was the case. I also had a dim memory in my mind that Kingsley Amis was related to Martin Amis.

Thoughts: Sorry again about not posting very much lately. I could continue to trot out the excuses of work and life being busy, which continue to be the case, but the real culprit here is actually a woman named Christina Stead. To my infinite misfortune, the public library in my home town was not able to get Invisible Man to me when I needed it, and I was forced to grab the next book available on my holds list, Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. Let me tell you, this book is a slog. It is incredibly dull, lethally written and the name on the cover gets you strange looks if you read it in public places. By the point I’ve reached so far (around 100 pages in, or 1/5 of the way through), I definitely wish that it was indeed about a child molestor, as that would actually constitute a story worth maintaining any interest in whatsoever, as opposed to the warmed-over After School Special piece of crap that it actually is.

As I noted before in my vacation-shortened review of The Great Gatsby, Lev Grossman, half of the team who chose the books on the Time 100 list, specifically told me that he would never read this book again if he had his druthers. I’m beginning to understand why.

Anyway, I ended up ditching Stead’s crap opus as soon as my library came through on another hold. Lucky Jim was that book, and I ended up really enjoying it in the end. I’m going to space out reading The Man Who Loved Children between other, more palatable volumes, because I am one stubborn son of a bitch who’s not going to let a terrible author like CHRISTINA STEAD beat me. Bore me silly? Yes. But win? Not on your fucking life. She doesn’t deserve the pleasure. If I can make it through Blood Meridian, Infinite Jest and Gravity’s Rainbow relatively unscathed, no inexplicably lauded piece of crap like Children is going to stop me.

Lucky Jim reminded me of my student days, and reminded me that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed continuing on to grad school quite as much as I feel I would have sometimes. Say what you will about my current employment at the comic shop, it rarely sends me into paroxysms of doubt and self-loathing the way having to deal with academics and their individual peccadilloes would have most likely done. Dixon’s dread at delivering a lecture on “Merrie England” brought me back to things I had to do back then that I absolutely hated, like learn a language, or go to my Early Modern English History class, an interesting subject which was ruined by a prof who had an incredibly irritating way of speaking and gave us twice as many papers to write than he had any right to.

Kingsley Amis does a great job of getting you into Dixon’s head, possibly to a fault. We really understand him and his struggles, but learn less about his contemporaries. They’re not super important in the grand scheme of things though. What is important is Amis’ spot on descriptions of being apocalpytically, impossibly drunk, and the aftermath thereof:

“His face was heavy, as if little bags of sand had been painlessly sewn into various parts of it, dragging the features away from the bones, if he still had bones in his face. Suddenly feeling worse, he heaved a shuddering sigh. Someone seemed to have leapt nimbly up behind him and encased him in a kind of diving-suit made of invisible cotton-wool. He gave a quiet groan; he didn’t want to feel any worse than this.” (pp. 58)

I also really liked how Amis phrased Dixon’s competition with his supervisor’s son for the girl as a sort of war. Jim, being a not super attractive man with little in the way of finances or social standing, would essentially have gotten used to fighting tooth and nail for anything he could get, and a war of attrition for a woman’s love seems perfectly in character, and very flavorful.

Dixon by the end of it really reminded me of a literary hero from my own homeland, that man being of course Scott Pilgrim. Both are young guys who are in desperate need of a little growing up; both have a disconnected view of the real world and its trials, Scott escaping into video game metaphor while Dixon being in the 1950s has to settle on making faces behind peoples’ backs and drinking copiously. By the end, though, Scott actually grows up more than Dixon, who lives up to the title’s promise and basically gets out unscathed. I thought that was interesting, that an angry young man back then was essentially allowed to run riot, whereas by now he has to change or die.

All in all, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I will say though that it’s probably a “men’s” book, in that I don’t know how interesting a woman would find reading it. None of the women are important characters in their own right, and as mentioned above, the main romantic interest of the story is treated as spoils of war on one hand, and as an impossibly beautiful demi-goddess or something on the other. Still, if a sort of mean-spirited post graduation lark is something you’re interested in, it’s worth a try. Here’s a bit about a bus that I liked:

“As the traffic thickened slightly towards the town, the driver added to his hypertrophied caution a psychopathic devotion to the interests of other raod-users; the sight of anything between a removal-van and a junior bicycle halved his speed to four miles an hour and sent his hand, Dixon guessed, flapping in a slow-motion St Vitus’ dance of beckonings and wavings-on. Learners practised reversing across his path; gossiping knots of loungers parted leisurely at the touch of his reluctant bonnet; toddlers reeled to retrieve toys from under his just-revolving wheels.” (pp. 258)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time series eventually wheels its way around to this point in English history, while the schoolboy reminiscences of Brideshead Revisited look at university life from a gentler (student) point of view. The sense of humor on display in Lucky Jim also reminded me of A Handful of Dust to a certain extent, but your mileage may vary on that one.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 15925 pp. (1466 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 55/113, or 49% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: TBA, I’m going on vacation soon, so I might read “fun” books while I’m there. Haven’t quite decided all that yet.

Tagged 1950s, England, Kinglsey Amis, Lucky Jim, pastoral, review, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Time 100, university

Feb 28 2012

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The Resolution Project Season Two: Pale Fire (1962)

Musical Accompaniment: The White Stripes “Little Ghost” (“I’m Slowly Turning Into You” would also be a good one)

“I have no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous apparatus criticus into the monstrous semblance of a novel.” (pp. 86)

The Resolution Project Season Two: For my New Year’s resolution last year (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 got almost halfway through. I’ve decided to bull-headedly push on through and try and finish the challenge, continuing with the same caveat as before: I’ve exempted myself from reading books I’ve already read, leaving some eighty-six or so left to go. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that. It’s not really worth getting that angry about though.

The Elevator Pitch: Hoo boy, this’ll be a tough one. John Shade is a genial poet living in the town of New Wye, Appalachia, USA with his wife Sybil. Stay with me here. “Pale Fire” is a 999 line poem he’s written about the death of his daughter, various supernatural events that happen to him, and his general creative process. Pale Fire, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, is composed primarily of the footnotes to this poem, which are assembled and edited by Professor Charles Kinbote, a recent emigré from the Baltic (?) country of Zembla, which has recently had its government overthrown by Communist revolutionaries known as the Extremist party. The story progresses as Kinbote annotates Shade’s poem, reading into its lines not only Shade’s history, but also the history of Charles the Blessed, the former King of Zembla, and his flight from the pro-Soviet interim government. The story of Gradus (aka. Jack Grey, aka. Vinogradus), an assassin dispatched by a group of Zemblan anti-royalists known as the Shadows to kill King Charles is also one of the threads in Nabokov’s tightly woven tapestry.

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: What little I knew about Nabokov came from two sources. I knew that he was Thomas Pynchon’s teacher due to the fact that Pynchon is probably my favorite living writer and I’ve researched him for papers and the like. He’s also a fellow Time 100 list member, with both men pulling off an astounding two books on the list each. I think only them, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow have been accorded that honour? I guess if you count Anthony Powell’s twelve book cycle A Dance to the Music of Time they’re all chump change, but whatever. I also knew about Nabokov due to his Lolita having been filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, which, coincidentally, is when Pale Fire came out. Of course, I haven’t seen Lolita, although I’d like to, and I probably will once I read it. So I was vaguely cognizant of Nabokov, and his contrbutions to mid-century postmodernism.

“If two secret agents belonging to rival factions meet in a battle of wits, and if one has none, the effect may be droll; it is dull if both are dolts. I defy anybody to find in the annals of plot and counterplot anything more inept and boring than the scene that occupies the rest of this conscientious note.” (pp. 177)

I really enjoyed this book. As I’ve noted before in my reviews of At Swim-Two-Birds and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, I’m fairly fond of books that screw around with the concepts of narrative and cohesion. Pale Fire is exemplary even in this group of modernist and postmodernist weirdness; it has an unreliable narrator, fanciful (most likely) tales of a kingdom in Europe that is now irrevocably altered, a would-be assassin bumbling his way towards his destiny in the United States and being derided all the while for it, and a fairly nice poem to top it all off. It reaffirms my suspicion that most commentators and critics would rather be able to create art, but instead are reduced to being able to read it really well. This would be in line with my own feelings on the matter. Bitter? No….

Speaking of the poem, I bought this book for my kindle and felt pretty stupid right afterwards. The kindle version that I got does not hyperlink from the poem directly to Kinbote’s annotations; rather you have to page through all the way to get to them, making it much less useful than say, a dead-tree copy. I was pretty mad about this at first, and pondered out loud on Twitter whether or not the poem part is actually that important in the long run. So I ended up just reading the footnotes first, and was pleased to find out that that’s a perfectly valid way of reading the book! Charles Kinbote even tells you as much in his Forward to the poem, but it’s totally true. Pale Fire is potentially the best example ever of reading too much into things. Kinbote wants the poem to reflect his lost kingdom so much that the slightest semblance of an allusion is used as a springboard into more Zemblan history lessons. It’s kind of hilarious to read the poem afterwards, as it can easily be read as a sort of modern-day Frost thing, having nothing to do with the intrigue and adventure the footnotes would have you believe it does. I’m assuming it would be equally as entertaining to read the footnotes afterwards, or read them concurrently with the poem.

Pale Fire is also a great chronicle of unrequited love. Kinbote is obviously nursing a huge crush on Shade, and his sexuality is referred to in veiled allusions throughout the footnotes as he is continually inviting guys over to play table tennis in his basement, and he is full of disdain for “mammates”, which I assume means people with mammary glands, ie. women. If you buy into Kinbote’s supposed secret identity, as well, there’s even more evidence to support a reading of Pale Fire as a predominately homosocial narrative.

I can really see where Thomas Pynchon got his inspirations from Nabokov. Gradus the assassin’s inexorable progress towards Kinbote and Shade reminded me a lot of Tchitcherine’s quest for the Schwartzcommando in Gravity’s Rainbow, as well as Herbert Stencil’s search for the mysterious “V”. Both authors assume the trappings of adventure fiction in service of a higher ideal; there’s such pulpy fodder as deposed monarchs, secret formulas and passages, codes, assassins, etc. in both oeuvres. I can see why I liked Nabokov so much in retrospect, although I’m sure it’s this stuff that I like that is most derided by the Soft Intelligentsia who thrive on things that are serious above all.

I picked The White Stripes’ “Little Ghost” up there as I feel it matches the illusory, dream-like feel of the novel. The narrator in the song is never quite sure as to whether or not his ghost paramour exists or not, and this matches the feelings I had with regards to Kinbote and the country he came from, Zembla. It might be real, it might not be, it doesn’t really matter, what matters is the journey. As much as I’d like to believe in robot troops from the U.S.S.R. supporting the rebellious Extremists, it seems fairly unlikely. I wouldn’t, however, enjoy an alternate history rundown of how a United States with the states of Appalachia and Utana came to be, nor the story how Zembla came to become a monarchy or something like that. I’m perfectly fine with the story being strange and illusory, I don’t need to know any more than I already do. Nabokov does such a great job of filling out his world with textual detail, even a full index, that I’m satisfied with what’s in the text.

While I still have this book on my kindle, I’d like to buy it in paper form as well, that’s how much I enjoyed it. I’m also looking forward to reading Nabokov’s other list entry Lolita far more than I was before due to the strength of this book.

“I trust the reader appreciates the strangeness of this, because he does not, there is no sense in writing poems, or notes to poems, or anything at all.” (pp. 207)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: As noted above, At Swim-Two-Birds also screws around with the idea of a novel in a satisfactory fashion, while The French Lieutenant’s Woman is as great a look at Victorian mores as Pale Fire is of Zemblan ones. Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin also has a lot of fun with the concepts of “reality” and “fiction”, as well as pulpy adventure yarns. I would be remiss to also not mention the works of Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 would be the closest one in my opinion to this, more so than Gravity’s Rainbow.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 15660 pp. (1201 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 54/113, or 48% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison (hopefully this time).

Tagged 1950s, books within books, Pale Fire, post-modernism, review, Thomas Pynchon, Time 100, Vladimir Nabokov

Feb 23 2012

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The Resolution Project Season Two: I, Claudius (1934)

Musical Accompaniment: Kanye West – “POWER”

“I was a very sickly child – ‘a very battleground of diseases,’ the doctors said – and perhaps only lived because the diseases could not agree as to which should have the honour of carrying me off.”

(1018-20, Kindle version)

The Resolution Project Season Two: For my New Year’s resolution last year (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 got almost halfway through. I’ve decided to bull-headedly push on through and try and finish the challenge, continuing with a caveat: I exempted myself from reading ones I’ve already read, leaving some eighty-six or so left to read. Some spoilers may lie ahead, so be warned if you’re the type to be bothered by that. It’s not really worth getting that angry about though.

The Elevator Pitch: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (whose name is shortened to Claudius as all of those other names belong to other important characters in the story as well), is a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the First Family of the Roman Empire. Unlike most of his family members, Claudius never really wanted to seize power, perhaps owing to his malformed body and pronounced stutter marking him as a social pariah of sorts. He prefers instead the company of books and especially history. In this, his autobiography, he reveals to us almost first-hand what it was like to live in this extremely tumultuous moment in time, as the rules of rulership were being rewritten almost daily; as alliances and marriages are formed and dissolved as quickly as they are announced; and as the most powerful position in the world was up for grabs, that of the Emperor of the Romans, aka. Emperor of the known world.

What I knew about this book, its subject and its author going in: Not too much. Most of the Classics classes I took in university focused on the Greeks, I think we got to the Romans just briefly at the end a couple of times. Sadly, I’d say that most of my knowledge of the Roman Empire came from reading Asterix comics? They’re pretty great, but not exactly historically accurate. I watched about half of the HBO series Rome, the events of which take place just before the novel’s opening. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen the movie Caligula, which I probably seeked out more for its salacious content more than any other merit. I’ve read some of David Lapham’s recent comic book of the same name as well. I’d heard the name Robert Graves before, but had never read anything by him. If I, Claudius is any indication of his capabilities as a writer, I’d definitely be interested in reading more, especially the direct sequel Claudius the God.

“He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.”

(1134-35 Kindle version)

While Kanye West’s “POWER” music video/tableau project shares some superficial similarities with I, Claudius, specifically the Greco-Roman-Egyptian imagery, I feel like the main refrain of the song rings true in the book as well. The allure of absolute power is simply too much for mortal minds to wrap their heads around. If there’s any lesson I can take from reading Graves’ book, it’s that. Of course, Kanye spends most of the song talking about how great he is, but that’s pretty much par for the course. The idea of being the Emperor is so big, so powerful, that it completely blocks out any other appeals to human interest. It becomes and obsession, and once held, is defended at all costs. Kanye tells us that “no one MAN should have all that power,” but what’s interesting is that for most of the duration of the book, it’s actually a woman, Augustus Caesar’s wife Livia, who runs the show.

Livia’s an amazing character, completely manipulative, spiteful, bitchy, and mean on the one hand, but on the other hand, she was definitely the brains behind one of the most important governmental systems the world has ever known. I, Claudius, being from the point of view of a member of the Claudian clan, concerns itself primarily with the fortunes of the rich and famous, a social class Claudius belongs to, even if he never feels welcomed. For the most part, up until Caligula really started screwing things up, the poor and middle class folks in the Roman Empire seem to have had it pretty good, comparatively, it was just the rich and powerful who had to deal with coup attempts, poisonings, informers and the like. So a proletarian reading of the text would in my mind say “well, all those rich people only got what they deserved” The proles seem fairly well looked after, at least in comparison to say, the Germans, who Graves spends a lot of time detailing the Roman wars against. It’s pretty telling once the mad Emperor Caligula’s begun employing a German group as bodyguards:

” [t]his inexplicable sort of behaviour only made him the more worthy of their worship as a divine being. They used to nod wisely to each other and say. ‘Yes, the Gods are like that. You can’t tell what they are going to do next.” (7586-92, Kindle edition)

The fact that the Roman people as a whole are able to notice that Caligula’s ridiculous treatment of everyone around him is a bad thing, and not the capricious will of gods or nature indicates that they’re somewhat spoiled, comparatively anyway.

Claudius, though, as an ostensible member of the upper class does not deserve all of the abuse he’s put through, though. By misfortune of fate (or, rather, by fortune, any child that had his disabilities and was not a member of the ruling class would have been thrown off a cliff at birth), he’s at the epicenter of three different Emperors’ reigns, who all treat him fairly poorly, but in different ways: Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. He’s a great companion through this history he’s crafted for us, at turns catty, sarcastic, funny, and sort of maudlin at times. I was quite charmed by him, and his continued insistence to his family that he’s nothing but a common-variety dullard. This is what keeps him alive; while most of his family were perfectly fine with ignoring him and having him take his meals with the servants for fear of embarrassment, Caligula’s reign forces Claudius to openly act a fool, as keeping the Emperor entertained becomes the highest priority of the State in this period, for fear of death. Claudius at times reminded me of Polonius, from Hamlet, except for the fact that he was just playing dumb with the help of his disabilities where Polonius was just plain dumb.

In fact, I would be absolutely shocked to find out that George R.R. Martin, writer of the popular Song of Ice and Fire series of books, had not used I, Claudius as a reference point when constructing his immensely popular saga. Yes, I realize that those books are somewhat based on the English Wars of the Roses, but the signs are all there. Horribly deformed, but incredibly engaging and clever protagonist? That would be Claudius/Tyrion Lannister. Crazy boy-king? Caligula/Joffrey Baratheon. Manipulative queen bitch? Livia/Cersei Lannister. Guy who’s too damn honourable for his own good? Germanicus/Ned Stark. The list goes on and on.

I, Claudius is a great book. I found it dragged a little bit during the early years of Tiberius’ rule, as various strong men rise up (usually by warring against the Germans) and then are cut down for fear of them taking the throne, but on the whole it is very engaging. It’s a fascinating way to learn about the period, curated by a man you can’t help but love. I also found it interesting how it frames Roman history in Great Man Theory terms of one-on-one confilcts: Caesar vs. Antony, Marcellus vs. Agrippa, Gaius vs. Tiberius, Sejanus vs. Drusus and so on. While perhaps not the most truthful attempt at recounting events from the era, it is an easy way to get readers to understand quickly what’s going on, and what’s at stake. If I have one complaint it’s that pretty much everyone has a few of the same names and this gets confusing, but that’s not exactly the fault of the author, really.

“Sejanus was a liar but so fine a general of lies that he knew how to marshal them into an alert and disciplined formation – this was a clever remark of Gallus’, it is not mine – which would come off best in any skirmish with suspicions or any general engagement with truth.”

(3853-55 Kindle version)

Similar books on the Time 100 list: All The King’s Men is another good look at the world of politics, and how it can corrupt otherwise good people. The Berlin Stories present a Weimar Germany on the edge of collapse, the decadence of which compares nicely to that of Rome under Caligula. The same thing kind of goes with The Day of the Locust as well, a sort of Paradise falling apart-type situation.

Total pages read since January 1st 2011: 15345 pp. (886 this year)

Total books on the Time 100 list read: 53/113, or 47% complete.

Next up on the Resolution Project: Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison.

Tagged bad parenting, books within books, I Claudius, review, Robert Graves, Roman Empire, Rome, Time 100

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Tag Archives: Time 100

The Resolution Project Season Two: Never Let Me Go (2005)

The Resolution Project Season Two: A Dance to the Music of Time Book Six – The Kindly Ones (1962)

If I Made the List – Book One: Dune (1965)

The Resolution Project Season Two: A Dance to the Music of Time Book Four – At Lady Molly’s (1957)

The Spoiler Show Episode One

The Resolution Project Season Two: The Man Who Loved Children (Part Two)

The Resolution Project Season Two: The Man Who Loved Children (Part One)

The Resolution Project Season Two: Lucky Jim (1954)

The Resolution Project Season Two: Pale Fire (1962)

The Resolution Project Season Two: I, Claudius (1934)

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