Review (Of Human Bondage) and reflections

Gah, I've just realised how long it's been since I last checked in here, and how slack I've been about both reading from my list and writing about what I've read. Crossing off my reads from the last couple of months just now, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd read a couple from my list by accident -- and then unpleasantly surprised to find that I couldn't remember anything about some of the books on my list or why, back in May, it seemed vital that I read them. I must have had my reasons, though; with luck it'll be more fun than not to rediscover them...

I've read a few books from my list since I last blogged here. The first was Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. It was a struggle. It was long. Under pressure, I might admit to having skimmed during the third quarter... Oh, look, I think I just have a prejudice against this kind of lengthy, physicaly detailed realism. It lacks the wry humour and absurdity of English Bildungsromans that came before (anything by Dickens, say), and the (similar?) playful absurdity of modernist novels. It's like there was a dry patch around the turn of the century -- meticulously described, carefully written, often autobiographical realism... it just doesn't do much for me. I'll speculate crazily and completely unqualified-ly and say that in my (limited) mental library, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has a foot in both camps -- it does a bit of what Maugham does, carefully documenting material details of his childhood memory -- but it's more mindful of strucutre and plot, and more willing to break away and experiment with language and humour.

And that's all I have to say about that. Mostly, this book made me think about other writers whose work I much prefer, even when it's perhaps less carefully, comprehensively done. I suspect this just isn't a period I "get", aesthetically speaking. Sorry, Somerset...

Casanova: The Story of My Life (Nom de Gare)

Well, do I really need to introduce this? The memoirs of Casanova, legendary lover, seducer, picaro, swashbuckler, man-about-Europe... this was all I'd hoped for, and more.

First, a qualification. I've read the Penguin Classics edition, which is a translation from the French by Stephen Sartarelli and Sophie Hawkes, and at 500-something pages much abridged from Casanova's original 12 volumes. Does this mean I've really read it? Not really; not properly. But if this was a kind of tasting plate, I highly recommend it. This was on my list because I ended up with a copy several years ago, when I was doing some post-graduate study in 18th-century English lit. I never got around to reading it, but it was one of those Albatrossy books on my shelves -- it was going to hang around my neck and torment me unless I at least attempted it.

And oh, would I have been the poorer if I hadn't. It's wonderful. Casanova is funny, self-deprecating, life-loving, sassy. He's writing as an oldish man looking back on his adventures; he gives us the whole story of his life, from his parenthood and young boyhood on. He's Venetian, but writes in French, having spent many years in Parisian high-society (French was the 'literary' language of his day, we learn; writing in it establishes his cultured credentials). As a young man with more wit and invention than money or connections, he follows his nose around Europe, taking the reader on an unpredictable, helter-skelter trip through many countries and many social circles. He might be hanging out with a dodgy travelling theatre company one month, mixing with ancien-regime French royalty the next, then joining the army, escaping from prison or living in Turkey discussing God and Islam a few weeks later.

As you might expect, sex and romance are central to Casanova's adventures. He starts with the lover stuff very young -- by his early teens, he's seducing young women and honing his technique. His impulsive interest in women, flirtation and seduction is a recurring theme -- but it's by no means the only one. I'd describe him as frank when it's called for, but not terribly bawdy or gratuitious or pornographic. There were a few moments when I felt very aware of my modern feminist convictions. When, as a teenager, he sleeps with a 12-year-old, I couldn't not be outraged. When a group of aggressive, drunken men "convince" a lone, cornered women to sleep with all of them, Casanova's light-hearted claim that she enjoyed it rang hollow. These moments are few, and didn't spoil the book for me -- but that doesn't mean they should be discounted. Aside from the pleasure of Casanova's company and its literary merits, this contrast between our approach to sex and his is part of the book's interest. I'd venture to say that we're more enlightened in many ways -- but not necessarliy in all ways. Casanova's views about single-parenthood, homosexuality, cross-dressing and women's enjoyment of their own sexuality all seem quite liberal, even over 200 years after he wrote. It's an interesting reminder that what we call "conservative" views about sex are often Victorian views about sex; go back another hundred years or so, and the sexual landscape was different again.

Anyhow, I highly recommend it. I dog-eared heaps of quotes, but these seem excessive after I've hogged so much space already. Just a couple of snippets for you, then:

"Economy in pleasure is not to my taste."

"They who do not love life do not deserve it."

"The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could."

Reading lists: Mr Knightley on Emma's

While we're compiling reading lists... here's Mr Knightley critiquing Emma's (I think Emma is on a few lists?). No spoilers involved, I promise!:

‘Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through – and very good lists they were – very well chosen, and very neatly arranged – sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen – I remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding…’

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Well, I'm quite blown away by this book, so much so that I think I might have to stray away from my list for a while to read more Coetzee, and maybe reread Disgrace itself.

At times it feels like a story of utter devestation and bereavement. Other times there are glimpses of enlightenment and redemption. The last scene made me weep, but I still don't know exactly what kind of tears they were -- despairing or cathartic or sentimental or...?? Coetzee does something masterful with point of view; I think I will have to reread it, if only to try to understand how he does it -- the mechanics of it.

Too many swirling thoughts to review it properly yet! But an astonishing book.

Update: Sons & Lovers and Life of Pi

Well, this is not a triumphant posting.

To start with, I've utterly failed to take on War and Peace, despite cockily declaring that I'd do so a couple of months ago. I have only shoddy excuses -- distractions leading me in other directions, etc. Since April, I've read just two books from my list: Life of Pi by Yann Martel and Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence.

But: I did love both of them. I've blogged about them here.

Next on my list? I want to tackle Moby Dick. Every time I pick up a newspaper or an apparently unrelated novel, I seem to encounter a reference to it. But maybe I'll tackle something shorter and/or lighter first...

Nom de Gare's List

Thanks, Emily and Moonrat and all, for the excellent, irresistible idea. The thought of a five-year plan is thrilling and inspiring and daunting all at once. Very much looking forward to it, and am loving reading others' lists! (I've blogged about it here, too.)

Here's my list...

1. Amis, Kingsley – Lucky Jim
2. Anderson, Jessica – Tirra Lirra By the River
3. Astley, Thea – Drylands
4. Atkinson, Kate – Behind the Scenes at the Museum
5. Atwood, Margaret – The Blind Assassin
6. Auster, Paul – The New York Trilogy
7. Bainbridge, Beryl – Every Man for Himself
8. Banville, John – The Sea
9. Barker, Pat – Regeneration
10. Barnes, Djuna – Nightwood
11. Beckett, Samuel – Malone Dies
12. Borges, Jorge Luis – Collected Stories
13. Bulgakov, Mikhail – The Master and Margarita
14. Burgess, Anthony – Earthly Powers
15. Burton, Robert – The Anatomy of Melancholy
16. Byatt, A.S. -- Possession
17. Camus, Albert – The Stranger
18. Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood
19. Carey, Peter – Illywhacker
20. Casanova, Giacomo – The Story of My Life[27 July 2009]
21. Cather, Willa – Death Comes for the Archbishop
22. Chatwin, Bruce – The Songlines
23. Coetzee, J.M. -- Disgrace [7 June 2009]
24. Conrad, Joseph – Lord Jim
25. Cummings, E.E. – The Enormous Room
26. Dante – The Inferno
27. De Lillo, Don – White Noise
28. Diaz, Junot – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
29. Dickens, Charles – Bleak House
30. Dostoevsky, Fyodor –The Brothers Karamazov
31. Ellison, Ralph – The Invisible Man
32. Faulkner, William -- The Sound and the Fury
33. Fitzgerald, Penelope – The Blue Flower
34. Flanagan, Richard – The Sound of One Hand Clapping
35. Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary
36. Forster, E.M. – Passage to India
37. Fowles, John – The French Lieutenant’s Woman
38. Gaita, Raimond – Romulus My Father
39. Garner, Helen – Monkey Grip
40. Gogol, Nikolai – Diary of a Madman
41. Grass, Gunter – The Tin Drum
42. Greene, Graham – The Power and the Glory
43. Hardy, Thomas – Far from the Madding Crowd
44. Hartnett, Sonya – Of a Boy
45. Hazzard, Shirley – The Transit of Venus
46. Herbert, Xavier – Poor Fellow My Country
47. Hugo, Victor – Les Miserables
48. Ibsen, Henrik – A Doll’s House
49. James, Henry – The Wings of the Dove
50. Jennings, Kate – Moral Hazard [5 Nov 2009]
51. Jerome, Jerome K. – Three Men in a Boat
52. Kafka, Franz – The Trial
53. Kerouac, Jack – On the Road
54. Kundera, Milan –The Unbearable Lightness of Being
55. Langley, Eve – The Pea-Pickers
56. Lawrence, D.H. – Kangaroo
57. Lawrence, D.H. – Sons and Lovers [20 May 2009]
58. Le Fanu, Sheridan – In a Glass Darkly
59. Lessing, Doris – The Golden Notebook
60. Lohrey, Amanda – The Morality of Gentlemen
61. Lowry, Malcolm – Under the Volcano
62. Malouf, David – The Complete Stories
63. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia – Love in the Time of Cholera
64. Martell, Yann – The Life of Pi [14 Apr 2009]
65. Maugham, W. Somerset – Of Human Bondage [Aug 2009]
66. McCarthy, Cormac – The Road [October 2009]
67. Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
68. Mistry, Rohinton – A Fine Balance
69. Morrison, Toni – Beloved
70. Murnane, Gerald – The Plains
71. Murray, Les – Fredy Neptune
72. Naipaul, V.S. – A Bend in the River
73. O’Brien, Flann – The Third Policeman
74. Ondaatje, Michael – The English Patient
75. Orwell, George – Down and Out in Paris and London
76. Patchett, Ann – Bel Canto
77. Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar
78. Proust, Marcel – Swann’s Way
79. Rhys, Jean – Wide Sargasso Sea
80. Roberts, Gregory – Shantaram
81. Roth, Phillip – American Pastoral
82. Rushdie, Salman – Midnight’s Children
83. Saramago, Jose – Blindness
84. Schlink, Bernard – The Reader
85. Singer, Isaac Bashevis – short stories
86. Smith, Stevie – Novel on Yellow Paper
87. St Augustine – The Confessions
88. Stead, Christina – The Man Who Loved Children
89. Steinbeck, John – Cannery Row
90. The Bible (King James Version – or at least some of the many key bits I’ve never read)
91. Tolkein, J.R.R. – The Lord of the Rings
92. Tolstoy, Leo – The Death of Ivan Ilyich
93. Vonnegut, Kurt – Slaughterhouse 5
94. Wallace, David Foster – Infinite Jest
95. West, Rebecca – The Fountain Overflows
96. White, Patrick – Riders in the Chariot
97. White, Patrick – The Tree of Man
98. Winterson, Janette – Sexing the Cherry
99. Wright, Richard – Native Son
100. Zola, Emile – Germinal