Blatham: what the hell is "value-ladeness?" My arrogant self-certainty crumbled when faced with this (to me) meaningless word. I assume it is meant as a put down, but it is not English. Perhaps English is your second language?
Larry,
Come on, relax, live a little, play with us a bit. Value-ladeness is like monkeybusinessness or sillyhoodness or overburdenedness.
Larry
To paraphrase my favorite Philadelphian..."All things considered, I'd rather not open a dictionary".
English it is. But let me go down three or four drawers, and see if I can find you.
How about if I were to say that your sentences I referred to reflect a lazy and unvaluable judgementalness? That they are petty? That they are without the grace of even some slightest humor?
Lit Crit is, as we all know, an unseemly activity for a gentleman. It's boors or bores almost as far as the eye can see.
Blatham, like all people who cannot deal with the substance of what I say, chooses to attack me personally. Ho hum. This is becoming routine on A2K. First plainoldme, now Blatham.
Lola, I wanted to give you a progress report on the Vargas Llosa novel. I am tromping through it but it is heavy going. I am starting to think that I may not stick with it to the end. For one thing, the typeface is very small, so the 535 page length--already long--actually disguises a much longer book. And if you lose your place in it, forget it, because he has about five major storylines working simultaneously. I think the correct comparison is not Tolstoy but somebody like Victor Hugo--because Vargas Llosa is less interested in getting inside his characters than in painting the whole sweep of the historical moment. Tolstoy is first and foremost a painter of human beings from within, even in WAR AND PEACE. Hugo stands outside his characters more.
I think, Larry, you have identified my difficulty with Vargas Llosa. And here, I'm speaking for myself. I recognize that plenty of people love his writing for the very reason I don't.
I prefer stories about people over stories which emphasize (and for me over-emphasize) the historical moment. I work with individual people and I do it because I love to know what they're about, how they are. So any novel which deprives me of an in depth knowledge of the characters and what's going on inside of them, but rather emphasizes the external realities, bores me. It seems to place the burden of who the person is in the wrong place for me. It's as if he's saying the character is who he is only or primarily because he has been influenced in this way. Rather than study and develop the methods any given character uses to manage the feelings they have about their personal history. History is hugely important, but I agree with you, in this book Vargas Llosa ignores or gives little attention to the internal person, while going on way too much about the environment.
But as I've said, I've twice given the book a chance, and have given up early. But I must say it was a valiant effort on my part to get as far as I did, I struggled for some time, and I have a guideline or rule about such things, whether good or bad. If the book doesn't engage me after a reasonable period of time or distance into the book, then I quit reading it. I've heard people say once they start a book they feel obligated or compelled to continue to the end. (I heard someone say this about Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. But I loved that book, so I read it to the end.)
But I have the point of view that it's the author's responsibility and in his best interest to involve me early. If I'm not engaged in the book, I have no reason to continue to read. There are too many books I enjoy out there.
I think the other reason I don't like the book, or actually anything Vargas Llosa has written (I haven't tried them all) is that I don't much like his characters. Not that I have to like every character in a book I read, or that I should like even the protagonist, but if I have no sympathy for them at all, none of them, I quit and read something with characters I can identify with.
As I recall, and it's been quite a few years since I last tried, the characters in the book are self sacrificing. The protagonist is a sort of Jesus figure. (This fits, I think with the author's style of emphasizing the external, environmental influences.) I'm going totally by memory here, so it may have been the way I read it at the time. But besides that, if I experienced his characters as too self sacrificing and the author as recommending such behavior, I not only want to quit reading, I want to throw the book out the window. It's one of my idiosyncratic quirks. It's my character and I've come to accept and enjoy this about myself.
Lola: not all the characters are self-sacrificing in the Vargas Llosa novel. But the religious fanatics of Canudos, who are the central figures, certainly are. BTW I quite agree with you about not finishing a book if it doesn't engage you. Why bother? Life is too short for such literary masochism.
I am continuing with "Middlesex" but I have added David Marr's "Dark Victory" which is an account of my current Federal Government's use of - and indeed lying about - people's hysteria about illegal immigration to win an election.
"Middlesex" and "Dark Victory" - what a combination.
Right now my main reading is Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Enemies, A Love Story." I'm also reading Christopher Hitchens "Why Orwell Matters."
Finally, Larry, on your recommendation, I'm well into" The End of the Affair."
I frequently find that I'm going several directions at once, but, nevertheless, I usually get there.
Hazlitt, ENEMIES A LOVE STORY is a terrific book! Singer is one of my favorite 20th century writers. I can recommend a lot of other books by him if you like that one. And you must tell me how you like THE END OF THE AFFAIR. That book makes me cry no matter how many times I read it...
I love Singer too. The only book of his I've read is Shosha. And it has now been many years since I read it. But I remember it well. Someday I'll pick up another.
Got my new Astronomy magazine, and am still reading Stephen King, "Eventually Everthing" - so some such!
Must be a really memorable book when you can't even remember the title, Bill.
Some of us remember things, ideas, events, books...with differing particularity.
Indeed, I will remember scenes or images for decades and not the storyline or the plotting, or even the title.
My way of doing that is particular to me, and I am no longer apologetic about my ways of memory. I am a painter and imagery may be more important to me than some other aspects of a book or books in general.
To each his own.
Dows anyone know who wrote A Mockingbird in the Rye? Heard it's pretty good!
Book of short stories Larry. Always have trouble remembering those names, but love the books.
ossobucco, I have the knack of forgetting endings. I sometimes find it troubling, then again - it sure makes the second time around just as good!
Mockingbird in the Rye, isn't that the sequel to To Kill a Catcher?
The ending of Mockingbird must've left room for a sequel...
BillW, I read that one - it's Everything's Eventual. The title story was my favorite.
I'm nearly done with Black House. It's a sequel (sort of) to The Talisman - both were written by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
