Several updates for my friends and family (unless I'm mistaken about the readership of this blog, mostly just family):
Pain In My Butt
I got some stitches out from my pilonidal cyst surgery. Not all of them. Just the sutures that were holding a giant wad of gauze to the wound. I thought all of them were coming out, but I'm supposed to keep the little stitches from the surgery on for another week and a half. Unfortunately, my surgeon is going to be out all next week, so I have to have my stitches on for an additional half a week (apparently this is not something a nurse can do because he must see me). They're coming off on the 21st. My birthday. Yay. I found myself vaguely annoyed, as if whatever my doctor is doing next week could not possibly be more important than having my stitches out sooner, but then I felt selfish. Things are looking up, though. I can lay on my back with only some discomfort, and I can sit with my shiny new Tush Cush. Also, I'm glad this procedure was around the tailbone. I can talk to a casual acquaintance at work about surgery on my tailbone, but there is no non-awkward way to talk about butt surgery.
Southern Gothic
As a brief interlude between two behemoth-sized novels, I read some Flannery O'Connor short stories. Previously, I'd only read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and thoroughly enjoyed it. Of the ones I read, "The River" is a clear favorite. Like all of her stories, it involves damaged (physically or mentally) characters in search of some type of salvation and a downbeat ending. This one is about a neglected boy whose babysitter exposes him for the first time to Christianity in the form of a traveling preacher who stands in a river healing people. While I could certainly relate to the whole small-town religion aspect, what really stood out in "The River" is the humor. O'Connor's stories are often filled with little snippets of dark humor, but this one made me laugh out loud several times. The young boy protagonist is startled that real pigs don't look like Porky Pig, assumes that religious people are swearing when saying "Jesus Christ" because it's the only context in which he's heard it used, and asks the preacher to cure his mother of her hangover. Hilarious.
My First Trip to Russia(n Literature)
I've decided to finally see what all of the hoopla is about Russian literature. After being recommended it by many people, I've started with the classic Brothers Karamazov. So far, I'm in love. I'm not sure what it is about Dostoevsky's prose and his characters that I already find so inviting after only fifty pages. I think it largely has to do with the almost conversational tone of the narrator. Whatever it is, the book has me hooked, even after pages upon pages of philosophical musings about whether or not religion should completely take over the governments of the world. Very interesting stuff. One section I found particularly appealing was in the introduction. In the introduction to my edition, Richard Pevear includes an excerpt from a letter Dostoevsky wrote to his brother after narrowly escaping execution (he luckily got away with exile to Siberia. Crazy Russians...). Dostoevsky writes about his new outlook on life after this near-death experience: "Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, not to falter- this is what life is, herein lies the task." Inspiring words that I can totally connect to, especially as someone whose mood is soured because his doctor is taking a vacation and he has to put up with stitches for a couple of extra days. It's not like I'm facing exile or anything. Things could be worse. His words pretty much sum up how I feel about staying positive when the everyday gets me down. Reading this book makes me excited about the Russian Festival happening with the SLSO next season. жизнь хороша!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Whales
I finished Moby-Dick. It only took me a month, which is pretty good. It was helping me keep my mind off of my surgery recovery, so it was certainly a helpful book for me. Was it the Greatest American Novel that it has often been called? While I found parts of it to be a whale of a good time, it was, on the whole, rather taxing. I just completed my reading yesterday, so I've certainly not studied the book or written extensively about it. These are just my initial opinions as a reader.
What works for me in the book? The actual story of the novel is pretty great. It's a fairly simple story, really: Ahab wants to kill the White Whale for revenge. That's about it. What makes it so engaging is Melville's characterization and style. Ahab, Stubb, Queequeg, and Starbuck are all very different and complex characters, and Melville takes his time allowing us to get into their heads (you have time for this sort of thing with such a long novel). For the most part, the characterization is developed through extended scenes of dialogue (except for Queequeg, a savage who doesn't really say much). It's often really more like Shakespearian monologues, where the characters talk to themselves at length, moving along the plot and revealing their inner motivations and thoughts. My favorite example of this is a scene towards the end in which Starbuck, the moral first mate, contemplates killing Ahab to save the crew from the monomaniacal captain's destructive mission. It's as dramatic as Hamlet's great soliloquies. Another favorite speech comes in the beginning of the book, before the Pequod even ships out. A preacher named Father Mapple delivers a sermon tying whaling and seafaring to the Bible in a church where his pulpit is designed to look like the forecastle of a ship. I suppose that this is what I liked best about Moby-Dick; it's really a Shakespearian tragedy. Ahab is clearly the tragic hero, whose hell-bent thirst for revenge brings about his own demise. The story tucked away in Melville's massive text really is a classic tale of obsession and adventure.
What didn't work for me? Well, that story and characterization that was so rich only took up about 40% of the book. The rest was, essentially, factual information about whales and the business of whaling. That's about 350 pages of reference material and Melville's editorializing. At first, it was interesting. I was intrigued by the history of whaling and Melville's musings on why whaling should be considered a noble enterprise. However, after days and days of reading without any mention of Ahab or his crew, I cared less and less about entire chapters about the dimensions of a whale's skeleton. Chapters about how blubber is harvested from whale carcasses. Chapters about the laws governing who legally possesses a whale if one ship kills it and another finds the body. It's seems that Melville did a ton of research to write this book and decided to include EVERYTHING he found. Our narrator "Ishmael" disappears as a character, as the common sailor is replaced by a gifted writer far too obsessed with whales. That's not to say these chapters are all a lost cause. Even when writing about blubber, Melville manages to write symbolically and with poetic insight. Still, he just about killed my longing for the sea.
I can appreciate novels that include information that is not exactly relevant to the plot (these sections are some of my favorite bits in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, for instance), but this was a bit much for me. There's a classic tale of nautical adventure and Shakespearian tragedy in this 600+ page novel. However, that tale is only about 300 pages long. I know that this is a common criticism of Moby-Dick by people who "don't get it." I don't think I'm missing anything here, I just think that Melville is asking a bit too much of his readers. Reading it became a chore in the middle, and this soiled my focus on and enjoyment of the final riveting chapters. I was on board at the beginning, Melville. You had me in your nets, but you lost me.
Lots of other things have happened this month as well, of course. School is out. I had surgery. The first season of Lost has been devoured. There are tomatoes and zucchini at the market. It's summer.
Still deciding about the next book. Either Dostoevsky or Faulkner, probably.
What works for me in the book? The actual story of the novel is pretty great. It's a fairly simple story, really: Ahab wants to kill the White Whale for revenge. That's about it. What makes it so engaging is Melville's characterization and style. Ahab, Stubb, Queequeg, and Starbuck are all very different and complex characters, and Melville takes his time allowing us to get into their heads (you have time for this sort of thing with such a long novel). For the most part, the characterization is developed through extended scenes of dialogue (except for Queequeg, a savage who doesn't really say much). It's often really more like Shakespearian monologues, where the characters talk to themselves at length, moving along the plot and revealing their inner motivations and thoughts. My favorite example of this is a scene towards the end in which Starbuck, the moral first mate, contemplates killing Ahab to save the crew from the monomaniacal captain's destructive mission. It's as dramatic as Hamlet's great soliloquies. Another favorite speech comes in the beginning of the book, before the Pequod even ships out. A preacher named Father Mapple delivers a sermon tying whaling and seafaring to the Bible in a church where his pulpit is designed to look like the forecastle of a ship. I suppose that this is what I liked best about Moby-Dick; it's really a Shakespearian tragedy. Ahab is clearly the tragic hero, whose hell-bent thirst for revenge brings about his own demise. The story tucked away in Melville's massive text really is a classic tale of obsession and adventure.
What didn't work for me? Well, that story and characterization that was so rich only took up about 40% of the book. The rest was, essentially, factual information about whales and the business of whaling. That's about 350 pages of reference material and Melville's editorializing. At first, it was interesting. I was intrigued by the history of whaling and Melville's musings on why whaling should be considered a noble enterprise. However, after days and days of reading without any mention of Ahab or his crew, I cared less and less about entire chapters about the dimensions of a whale's skeleton. Chapters about how blubber is harvested from whale carcasses. Chapters about the laws governing who legally possesses a whale if one ship kills it and another finds the body. It's seems that Melville did a ton of research to write this book and decided to include EVERYTHING he found. Our narrator "Ishmael" disappears as a character, as the common sailor is replaced by a gifted writer far too obsessed with whales. That's not to say these chapters are all a lost cause. Even when writing about blubber, Melville manages to write symbolically and with poetic insight. Still, he just about killed my longing for the sea.
I can appreciate novels that include information that is not exactly relevant to the plot (these sections are some of my favorite bits in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, for instance), but this was a bit much for me. There's a classic tale of nautical adventure and Shakespearian tragedy in this 600+ page novel. However, that tale is only about 300 pages long. I know that this is a common criticism of Moby-Dick by people who "don't get it." I don't think I'm missing anything here, I just think that Melville is asking a bit too much of his readers. Reading it became a chore in the middle, and this soiled my focus on and enjoyment of the final riveting chapters. I was on board at the beginning, Melville. You had me in your nets, but you lost me.
Lots of other things have happened this month as well, of course. School is out. I had surgery. The first season of Lost has been devoured. There are tomatoes and zucchini at the market. It's summer.
Still deciding about the next book. Either Dostoevsky or Faulkner, probably.
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