Camus' Notebooks & More Greece

I picked up Albert Camus' Notebooks: 1951-59 at the sad closing sale of my local Borders, and thought it would be like the Kerouac-Ginsberg letters that I read last summer. Not so. The letters were much more interesting, and while Camus has some excellent moments ("The Hague") it's more of a collection of notes and ideas than an insightful diary.

Before I read the Notebooks, I had also happened to read Susan Sontag's critical essay on the first collection of his notebooks (think these were from the late 30s?), so I went back to see if anything rang true for me. She notes that it's very "anti-autobiographical"; not really any mention of events or other people -- SO TRUE. And of course in true Sontag fashion she points out that, "solitariness is the indispensable metaphor of the modern writer's consciousness." In other words, the writer is always alone.

From Camus, p.65:

It is alone that one must decide if he loves, and it is all alone that one must respond to the incalculable consequences of true love ... He is afraid of himself and for himself. He wants to spare himself, refusing then his condition.

For the most part in the diaries, it seems like he's trying to escape things -- his work, possibly the boredom of his marriage, politicians ... p.47:

The tragedy is not that we are alone, but that we cannot be. At times I would give anything in the world to no longer be connected by anything to this universe of men. But I am a part of this universe, and the most courageous thing to do is to accept it and the tragedy at the same time.

I think that quote relates to what Sontag describes as Camus' "leaping of the abyss of nihilism." To be honest, I really need to brush up on this whole nihilism thing and especially the ol' oft-mentioned Nietzsche. Like Zorba, Camus mentions this a bunch of time. Along with Greece. What the heck is it with optimistic quasi-nihilists writing about Greece?! ("For the first time I watch a land that I love disappearing with the painful feeling that perhaps I will never see it again before dying," p.155)

Other tidbits of interest that I starred & picked out:

- Joanna of Castile
- Sontag told me to go read Camus' "Reflections on the Guillotine," so there's a detour
- wrote more about Countess Tolstoy than Leo (should I put her diary on my reading list?)
- had a lifelong desire to write a combo of Faust and Don Juan, on the nature of love I guess

Bottom line: Mildly interesting but not impressive.

Next up: "Pillars of the Earth" ... I should also note that I read "A Decade of Hope" in the interim and was pleased with its tastefulness and wide representation. In addition, I was trying to nab "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen from the public library and the online catalogue told me it was finally available after months and months of all copies checked out. I walk over to the library, wander around in squeaky sneakers for half an hour because the fiction section is under construction and I CANNOT FIND THE BOOKS. I finally find a small segment of new fiction moved out in the hallway and there is a book-sized gap where 'Franzen' should be. Really? Really. I got "A Decade of Hope" instead and felt self-conscious about just getting a book about 9/11, so I almost got "Pillars of the Earth" before realizing that I was not realistically going to read a 900+ page book in two weeks. My coworker kindly lent me a battered copy.

Going Greek

Last weekend I finished with "Zorba the Greek" by Nikos Kazantzakis and I've been waiting for a good air-conditioned moment to finally post. So first, my initial thoughts: well-written, thought-provoking, but Zorba is kind of maniacal and it got really irritating that the narrator was always running around shouting "Zorba! Zorba!". I wonder if my particular translated edition wasn't the best.

Philosophically, Zorba's another modernist novel and focuses especially on existentialism -- your existence precedes your "essence," which you create for yourself (i.e. make your own life). A great essay on this is Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism." While this whole concept can be construed as an atheistic and pessimistic worldview, I think it's pretty optimistic. Sartre says:

Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.

Thus, it follows that the hero of an existentialist work should be a brave non-conformist that makes the most of his life ... "Zorba!" This is one (and IMHO the best) solution to the modernist quandary of How Do I Deal With My Life. Kazantzakis' views are summed up nicely in Peter Bien's Why Read Kazantzakis in the Twenty-first Century. Apparently they show the influence of Nietzsche and Bergson -- neither of whom I've read, so I'll just stop there and come back when I'm more informed.

Kazantzakis is decidedly not an atheist but neither is he overly religious. As reflected in "Zorba" he "believed in a not all-powerful deity that struggles together with humanity and that needs humanity in order to stay alive" (Anti-Nihilism in the Thought of Nikos Kazantzakis, Galanopoulos). Somewhat related side note: I had no idea this was the same guy who wrote "The Last Temptation of Christ."

As to the actual book, this is my favorite description: "popular with educated readers of discriminating literary taste ... terrifyingly intellectual" (Life Span Development in Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek, Elsman). I wouldn't call it terrifying or intellectual, or even that you need to have some sort of trained bookworm palate to enjoy the book. Can I better appreciate the novel now that I realize the underlying philosophy? Yup. Would I have also enjoyed it on surface-value alone? Probably.

The same article above points out that "Zorba" is fairly autobiographical; Kazantzakis operated a lignite mine with George Zorba, a friend of 27 years, before parting ways with him. Interesting.

Quotes that I want to comment on or just generally connected with:

"Woe betide the woman who could sleep with a man and who did not do so!" (p.106)
... Oh Zorba, thanks for making me feel better about my weekends.

"If you take a magnifying-glass and look at your drinking water ... You'll see the worms and you won't drink. You won't drink and you'll curl up with thirst." (p.117)

"I have always been consumed with one desire: to touch and see as much as possible of the earth and the sea before I die." (p.139)
... I feel the same way. Because really, going back to Sartre, then in a way you've made your life as much as you possibly could.

"I let the brakes off when I get to the most dangerous slopes. The life of man is a road with steep rises and dips. All sensible people use their brakes." (p.146)
... Basically this is why sometimes Zorba came across as being psychotic.

And, in light of my current endeavors, one of the most important lines from the narrator:

"All the problems I was trying to solve point by point in my solitude and glued to my chair, this man had solved up in the pure air of the mountains with his sword." (p.127)

Bottom line: Not to say that reading is useless, but sometimes you just gotta live it to understand.

Most memorable moment:

When I am dead write to him and tell him that right until the very last minute I was in full possession of my senses and was thinking of him. And tell him that whatever I have done, I have no regrets. Tell him I hope he is well and that it's about time he showed a bit of sense.

"My Antonia": Little House on the Prairie?

I read every single book from the "Little House on the Prairie" series when I was a kid, to the point where I must've been sick of pioneer adventures. Opening "My Antonia" by Willa Cather, my reaction was something along the lines of: oh great, this is where the prairie cliches started. I was also biased by a friend who recalled studying the book in high school. One of those books.

Two things kept this book going for me. 1) I knew nothing of Willa Cather and I wanted to get an idea of what she was about, and 2) I never knew the Midwest had such a multicultural heritage (Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Bohemian). Shame on my American history teachers.

Upon finishing the novel, I was able to give it an amiable shrug and return it to the bookcase in the "to be donated/sold" section. A nice, nostalgic book about life on the frontier and the identity of America. Harsh but still romantic. I felt kind of jilted-- shouldn't there be more to it? So, I did some surfing around and dug up a couple of unexpected, interesting nuggets.

The book was written in 1918 and, taken in context, is a strong voice for women's rights. Antonia works as hard as any man, with pride in her strength and fertility; the main women of the novel survive the frontier and go on to be successful wives/businesswomen. Cather herself had quite the interesting life, leaving Virginia for Nebraska and then beginning a writing career in Pittsburgh and New York. There's quite a bit of speculation as to whether or not she was a lesbian (an actual article: "My Gay Antonia: The Politics of Willa Cather's Lesbianism"). Her works, like those of Edith Wharton, seem to be in the midst of a revival -- the female counterparts to Fitzgerald & company. I'd put her on par with "The Great Gatsby" ... but the fact remains that I knew who Fitzgerald was by the 7th grade and I didn't know who Cather was until a week ago.

As for the structure of the novel, I hadn't given it much thought but then stumbled across an article by Richard Millington, "Willa Cather and 'The Storyteller': Hostility to the Novel in 'My Antonia.'" EGADS! I referenced Walter Benjamin's essay earlier, via Sontag. The point here is that "My Antonia" is more in the tradition of stories and telling from experience than the restrictive "form" of the novel; in this sense, it's a mildly modernist work. In fact, more than just the loose structure is modernist. Jim is a subjective narrator for describing the women foreigners and their social interactions (Lena vs. Antonia, for example), but not to the point where the reader questions his reliability. And, importantly, this Georg Simmel quote from my post on Lord Jim, regarding the theme:

"to preserve the autonomy and individuality of [the character's] existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life"

The immigrant residents of Black Hawk, Nebraska facing Mother Nature and American society (to grotesquely simplify things).

Bottom line: An interesting read after the actual read. Now I know who Willa Cather is, and I'm curious to see if I'll enjoy her writing in a setting other than a prairie.

Side notes: There's a PA beer called My Antonia. Thanks to a scene in this book, I discovered that the movie "Moulin Rouge" is based on the opera "La Traviata."

I also did a quick read of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" and thoroughly enjoyed it. In stark comparison of writing styles, Marquez wins over Cather for sure.

Next up: "Zorba the Greek"

Mansfield Park: Frown of Disapproval

Which may describe my reaction to the end of the novel and Fanny Price, or may also describe the general tone of the book with regard to cosmopolitan society.

I admit that I was disappointed with Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" -- and it turns out it wasn't even on my canon booklist. While not altogether a waste of time, I found myself ready to tear out pages in annoyance with Fanny, allegedly the "heroine." Rather than flounder around in adjectives to describe my despise, I'll just say that she strongly reminded me of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (kiss. of. death.). Bottom line: Mary should have ended up with Edmund and Fanny with Henry; everyone involved would've been the better for it, but instead there was no mixing of the pot and things ended similarly to how they had begun, conveniently minus the three most irritating characters. Austen does make it clear that no one character is without flaws, but I'd rather sympathize with the vivacious socialite Mary Crawford than the morally stuck-up sensitive Fanny. There really wasn't any particular point in the novel where I admired Fanny or thought of her as the heroine (see: Lionel Trilling's essay).

UPDATED: Lo and behold, this commentary from The New Inquiry: Mansfield Park is melting in the dark

I think this actually put me in a mildly grumpy mood. On to better things. Picked up some Camus, Cather, and "Zorba the Greek" at the local Border's closing sale. Probably returning to Sontag shortly, so I don't have another ridiculous two-month gap in posting here ... Gotta keep up the momentum!

Being "Well-Read"

Fantastic piece by Roger Ebert: Does anyone want to be "well-read?"