I picked up Isak Dinesen's "Winter's Tales" forgetting that Dinesen was actually Baroness Karen Blixen and that originally I had wanted to read "Out of Africa", so what I thought this book was and what it ended up being were completely different things.
Her stories have a nostalgic/mythological ring to them (think: "that's so Nordic") that probably could have come off as heavy and pretentious if written poorly. Unlike other short story collections I've read, I found myself having to take a day's break or more between stories, mostly from lack of time, but also because there was such a satisfied complete feeling after each gem of a tale that it felt wrong to move on too quickly. Sometimes you just want to savor the aftertaste. Simple writing, simple stories, so many feels -- it's rare that a book makes me tear up, but it happened.
Personal faves: "Sorrow-Acre," "The Sailor-Boy's Tale," and "Peter and Rosa"
No quotes or dissection for this one. Best experienced with a cup of hot chocolate on a cold night.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Nausea and Sartre's Pep Talk
I've had Jean-Paul Sartre's "Nausea" on my reading list for years and at last acquired a loaned copy. Honestly, this read was a struggle at points, and to find any good discussion of the book in layman's terms a near impossibility -- I barely recall Descartes and Marx, and haven't read Nietzsche, Hegel, Kierkegaard, or Heidegger. Let's be real, I'm not a philosophy major, so I apologize in advance for any over-simplifications and misconstructions that result from these earnest efforts. In my opinion, the best description of Sartre's philosophy comes from the man himself ("Existentialism is a Humanism": full or condensed) and general biography/context via the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here.
"Nausea" was the blueprint for Sartre's bigger project, "Being and Nothingness", and so tries to lay out his philosophy through the fictional character Antoine Roquentin. Throughout the short novel, Roquentin goes through a kind of existential midlife crisis of despair but rather than end on a "what's the point of it all" note, I thought the book actually had quite an uplifting and hopeful conclusion.
So, the nuts-and-bolts basics:
1) Existence precedes essence.
2) Being in-itself, or non-conscious: it "IS", it just EXISTS, like a rock or a tree root
3) Being for-itself, or consciousness: create yourself from nothingness; there is no predetermined essence
In the course of laying this out and Roquentin trying to articulate it in his diary, there's a secondary theme on the absurdity of language and attempting to communicate, particularly with the tree root and Anny episodes. The sensation that a tree root just simply exists and IS and thus unable/non-conscious of changing itself, is pretty difficult to put into coherent words (and probably why portions were so hard to follow!).
One of the parts I really enjoyed and had a "yes!" moment with was Sartre/Roquentin's discourse on feeling adventure (see also one of my favorite quotes from "To the Lighthouse"):
"Perhaps there is nothing in the world I cling to as much as this feeling of adventure. [...] You suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated ... and then you attribute this property to events which appear to you in the instants." (p.56)
"The feeling of adventure would simply be that of the irreversibility of time. But why don't we always have it? Is it that time is not always irreversible? There are moments when you have the impression that you can do what you want, go forward or backward, that it has no importance; and then other times when you might say that the links have been tightened and, in that case, it's not a question of missing your turn because you could never start again." (p.57)
The book concludes with Roquentin listening to his favorite jazz record and realizing he too could create/contribute something during his existence; "Can you justify your existence then?" (p.177) -- YES! No more pity partying, Roquentin, get out there and get writing! Writing for Roquentin is ACTION and a social responsibility that then can help him justify his existence, sort of a variation of 'be the change you wish to see in the world'. And this is Sartre's pep talk: "You can always make something out of what you've been made into" (Situations 9:101).
To expand on that: "Quietism is the attitude of people who say: 'let others do what I cannot do'. The doctrine that I present is precisely the opposite: ... there is no reality except in action ... man is nothing else but what he purposes ... nothing else but what his life is." (Existentialism is a Humanism) And Sartre isn't taking any excuses either; Roquentin can think about writing his novel all he wants but what's going to count is if he actually DOES write the novel. Not 'oh, I coulda done it if I just had the time' -- I am what I do with my life, not my wishes/dreams/hopes! So, we've gone from 'what does it matter' boo-hooing to 'seize the day' optimism.
Side note: compare Sartre's focus on the self/individual versus Foucault's power/society (and no 'individual'). I would love to go more in-depth on that, but the essays I found were 20,000 leagues over my head.
Side note 2: Nabokov's hilarious review of "Nausea"
Bottom line: Adventure is time passing, life is what you make of it, Sartre's essay is better than his novel.
"Nausea" was the blueprint for Sartre's bigger project, "Being and Nothingness", and so tries to lay out his philosophy through the fictional character Antoine Roquentin. Throughout the short novel, Roquentin goes through a kind of existential midlife crisis of despair but rather than end on a "what's the point of it all" note, I thought the book actually had quite an uplifting and hopeful conclusion.
So, the nuts-and-bolts basics:
1) Existence precedes essence.
2) Being in-itself, or non-conscious: it "IS", it just EXISTS, like a rock or a tree root
3) Being for-itself, or consciousness: create yourself from nothingness; there is no predetermined essence
In the course of laying this out and Roquentin trying to articulate it in his diary, there's a secondary theme on the absurdity of language and attempting to communicate, particularly with the tree root and Anny episodes. The sensation that a tree root just simply exists and IS and thus unable/non-conscious of changing itself, is pretty difficult to put into coherent words (and probably why portions were so hard to follow!).
One of the parts I really enjoyed and had a "yes!" moment with was Sartre/Roquentin's discourse on feeling adventure (see also one of my favorite quotes from "To the Lighthouse"):
"Perhaps there is nothing in the world I cling to as much as this feeling of adventure. [...] You suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated ... and then you attribute this property to events which appear to you in the instants." (p.56)
"The feeling of adventure would simply be that of the irreversibility of time. But why don't we always have it? Is it that time is not always irreversible? There are moments when you have the impression that you can do what you want, go forward or backward, that it has no importance; and then other times when you might say that the links have been tightened and, in that case, it's not a question of missing your turn because you could never start again." (p.57)
The book concludes with Roquentin listening to his favorite jazz record and realizing he too could create/contribute something during his existence; "Can you justify your existence then?" (p.177) -- YES! No more pity partying, Roquentin, get out there and get writing! Writing for Roquentin is ACTION and a social responsibility that then can help him justify his existence, sort of a variation of 'be the change you wish to see in the world'. And this is Sartre's pep talk: "You can always make something out of what you've been made into" (Situations 9:101).
To expand on that: "Quietism is the attitude of people who say: 'let others do what I cannot do'. The doctrine that I present is precisely the opposite: ... there is no reality except in action ... man is nothing else but what he purposes ... nothing else but what his life is." (Existentialism is a Humanism) And Sartre isn't taking any excuses either; Roquentin can think about writing his novel all he wants but what's going to count is if he actually DOES write the novel. Not 'oh, I coulda done it if I just had the time' -- I am what I do with my life, not my wishes/dreams/hopes! So, we've gone from 'what does it matter' boo-hooing to 'seize the day' optimism.
Side note: compare Sartre's focus on the self/individual versus Foucault's power/society (and no 'individual'). I would love to go more in-depth on that, but the essays I found were 20,000 leagues over my head.
Side note 2: Nabokov's hilarious review of "Nausea"
Bottom line: Adventure is time passing, life is what you make of it, Sartre's essay is better than his novel.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Post-Hiatus
First, this: Can great literature really change your life?
(I don't care for the article, but I do agree with the comments.)
Which I counter with this: For better social skills, scientists recommend Chekhov
(Full text here: Reading Fiction Improves Theory of Mind)
"... we selected literary works of fiction by award-winning or canonical writers and compared their effects on [Theory of Mind] with reading nonfiction, popular fiction, or nothing at all."
(I don't care for the article, but I do agree with the comments.)
Which I counter with this: For better social skills, scientists recommend Chekhov
(Full text here: Reading Fiction Improves Theory of Mind)
"... we selected literary works of fiction by award-winning or canonical writers and compared their effects on [Theory of Mind] with reading nonfiction, popular fiction, or nothing at all."
Friday, June 7, 2013
The Sense of a Memory
Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending wins Most Confusing Last-Minute Plot Twist, hands down. Is that the point of the title? To have the feeling of an ending but not understand it, and/or to suggest the lack of sense in the ending? Strangely, the plot twist itself is inconsequential to the meat of the book. This was my first experience with Julian Barnes and I'm pegging him as an author to revisit; I had plenty of "YES" moments during this book, though most of them were depressing or actually alarming. If I would've read this book for the first time about 20 years from now, I'd be having a major case of the blues, so clearly does he crystallize regret of wasted youth. On a lighter note, I also encountered a new word (susurrus; mumuring -- fun!).
Nutshell summary, the narrator is an older man, Tony, who is suddenly thrust into a situation involving an ex-girlfriend from his teen years and a long-dead friend. The book begins by the narrator retelling his teen years, the fling with the girlfriend, his friend's suicide. This is the kind of book where, once you know the ending, you need to return and read this first part again because foreshadowing is everywhere. Underlying all of this is that the narrator is unreliable; if this isn't immediately apparent, it's okay because Barnes then beats you over the head with it:
"... the world existed in a state of perpetual chaos, and only some primitive storytelling instinct, itself doubtless a hangover from religion, retrospectively imposed meaning on what might or might not have happened." (p.12) [** side note: consider Eros vs Thanatos as 'primitive storytelling', imposing meaning on the affair and pregnancy (Eros; life instinct) followed by the suicide (Thanatos; death instinct)]
"We need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us." (p.13)
(A great movie with the same memory gist is Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" -- a story told retrospectively by a man who exaggerates and caricatures the past.) Towards the end of his narrative, Tony actually edits his memories, inserting people or situations that had previously been forgotten (or maybe really not there at all?). How much do you trust your own memory, let alone Tony's? These days it's probably easier to track the past just by scrolling through your Facebook feed, though even that you can delete and select memories for editing.
The two passages that really stuck with me long after I finished the book:
"But time ... how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them." (p.102)
"Had my life increased, or merely added to itself?" (p.97)
That's some heavy reflection right there. For both Tony and I.
Bottom line? Highly recommend. Like I said at the top, I'm glad I read this book young; there's still time to not be so safe and cowardly. Julian Barnes: endorser of YOLO.
 |
| Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory (1931) |
"... the world existed in a state of perpetual chaos, and only some primitive storytelling instinct, itself doubtless a hangover from religion, retrospectively imposed meaning on what might or might not have happened." (p.12) [** side note: consider Eros vs Thanatos as 'primitive storytelling', imposing meaning on the affair and pregnancy (Eros; life instinct) followed by the suicide (Thanatos; death instinct)]
"We need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us." (p.13)
(A great movie with the same memory gist is Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" -- a story told retrospectively by a man who exaggerates and caricatures the past.) Towards the end of his narrative, Tony actually edits his memories, inserting people or situations that had previously been forgotten (or maybe really not there at all?). How much do you trust your own memory, let alone Tony's? These days it's probably easier to track the past just by scrolling through your Facebook feed, though even that you can delete and select memories for editing.
The two passages that really stuck with me long after I finished the book:
"But time ... how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them." (p.102)
"Had my life increased, or merely added to itself?" (p.97)
That's some heavy reflection right there. For both Tony and I.
Bottom line? Highly recommend. Like I said at the top, I'm glad I read this book young; there's still time to not be so safe and cowardly. Julian Barnes: endorser of YOLO.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
DFW Random Bandwagon? On it.
David Foster Wallace's commencement speech to Kenyon back in 2005 is getting somewhat of a renaissance on the web this week thanks to The Glossary, and, being all about spreading/preserving the word of Wallace, here's the full transcript:
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words
"The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water."
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words
"The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water."
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