February 4, 2011 · 2:22 pm

The Name of the Rose: Two books made one

                         I’m very excited about the “spies and detectives” category of my list. I haven’t read much in the way of mysteries in my life-time of reading, and I enjoy the plot driven excitement. So consider my delight in finding out that Umberto Eco’s The Name of The Rose (featured in my ‘first novels’ section) is meant to be a mystery. Alas, the murder mystery aspect of the novel gets far less attention than the sometimes interminable feeling conversations and meditations on the nature, transmission and preservation of knowledge. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate a good debate about interpretation or the availability of meaning, I just don’t appreciate that debate masquerading as narrative.

Am I complaining that a novel should not engage with philosophical questions? No. Rather, this novel bothered me because the philosophical ideas and questions read like separate sections of another text stitched into the middle of a murder mystery. To my mind the mystery added little to the debate about knowledge (except the most obvious point that the ‘detectives’ search for knowledge, and that search offers no nuance or complication to the discourses about knowledge, rather it just reflects at the most basic formal level the thematic questions). Further the questions about knowledge were consistently raised in dialogue between characters, a frustrating and tiresome dialogue wherein this reader kept waiting for the conversation to end and the plot to resume. I’d enjoy reading this same plot and these same questions but with a single narrative, where the plot adds to the complexity of the philosophy and the philosophy does not read as a diatribe or didactic exercise, but as subtle and nuanced (if you’ve read ‘Sophie’s World,’ you could comfortable compare narrative structure).

And perhaps my complaints arise only because I had such great expectations for this novel. Several friends suggested I’d like it a lot, and the murder mystery presented such potential for thrill, not to mention the 14th century setting. I’d still recommend it if you’re interested at all in questions of meaning making, the responsibility of academics to maintain, disperse and preserve knowledge, or whether or not Christ laughed (seriously).

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January 30, 2011 · 12:45 am

The God Delusion: The Dawkins Delusion

       Okay. A few things.

1) Usually I select a picture for each post that I feel resonates in some marginal way (e.g. whatever a basic Google image search will yield), and not the cover of the book or the author’s photo. But in the case of The God Delusion nothing seemed more appropriate. The whole. book. is. about. Dawkins.

I know, I know, you’re thinking, but wait, the book’s meant to be about God isn’t yet? Yes. I, too, expected that a book titled The God Delusion might have more to do with arguments against the existence of God and less to do with Dawkins’ petty retaliations against commercial media figures he feels have snubbed him in some way. Which brings me to…

2) At a certain point around page 150 (of 398) I thought to myself, “If I have to read one more embedded quote of some pundit who Dawkins pretends to be superior to, but insists on quoting in order to retaliate, thus demonstrating his total intellectual insecurity I’m going to set fire to this book stop reading.” And so I’ve stopped reading.

And not because I devotedly believe in (the supernatural) God and am grossly offended by his arguments. Quite the contrary, Dawkins arguments are good ones. The problem is all in presentation. I do not need a tone that alternates between condescending to me the (already atheist) reader and condescending to its supposed audience (the would-be atheists). I do not need the structure of an argument presented in map form at the beginning of the book, then each chapter, then each sub-section, then in each paragraph: I can handle both reading AND thinking at the same time.

3) Not sure if quitting Dawkins violates some 10-10-12 rule, but let me say it here: I cannot, and will not, finish the book. I don’t need to read the rest to know what happens, nor to participate in water cooler/coffee shop conversations about Dawkins + posse, nor to listen to CBC/NPR panel shows pro/con Dawkins. I get it. So I’m crossing it off, if only because if I don’t I might never read again rather than have to finish this piece of dribble.

4) Phew. I feel so much better.

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January 25, 2011 · 1:33 pm

The Quiet American: Some brilliant sentences

                                          Perhaps the title for this post is misleading: I don’t mean to suggest that Graham Greene’s The Quiet American is bad writing peppered with brilliant sentences; rather, the novel is well written on the whole, but there are some sentences that made me stop and gape: such brilliance with images, such tidy and punchy sentences. I made mental notes of them all so that I could include them here (reading in the tub is not conducive to underlining, nor, I think, is reading for ‘pleasure’), but (of course) I’ve forgotten them now and the book is packed away for its return to the library.

I realized about twenty pages in that I knew the plot. After consulting others I realized I’d seen the film (the Michael Cain version). Happily, my often failing memory served me well in this instance, as I couldn’t remember what was *going* to happen, but as events unfolded I experienced a rather uncanny recognition that I had known what would take place. I wonder if that is what my middling years will be like? A constant sense of displaced familiarity?

In any case. Fowler is terrific as the caustic, apparently disengaged and whole self-serving anti-hero. Pyle doesn’t come across as much of a character, just a symbol for American arrogance and American quasi-innocence in international policy. A perfect book to read against current global conflicts as the book brings into sharp relief assumptions made about foreign populations (not the least their docility, childishness and happiness at the arrival of the ‘liberators’) and crimes perpetrated under the claim of good will, or worse still, good intention.

I admit to being surprised by the turn of the ending. I suppose I’d accepted the reliability of Fowler as narrator, and hadn’t expected – though in retrospect the novel gives every reason for me to do so, an altogether too trusting reader – his betrayal not just of Pyle, but of the reader, too.

Finishing The Quiet American means I’ve read one book in each of the ten categories. Celebration! I’m having a very good time with 10-10-12. I’d never have read The Quiet American without it, and despite my misgivings about the reliability of Fowler, I enjoyed it a great deal.

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January 24, 2011 · 11:45 pm

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol 3: A Most Impressive Business

               I downloaded the audio book of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes from the very tech-friendly Hamilton Public Library and delighted in listening to some British accented fellow read me bite sized mysteries. I took the voice and the book first to the grocery store (but not *in* the grocery store; I detest listening to anything whilst shopping – far too distracting), then to cook a cake, and then about the library browsing books. I ended up relistening to the browsing books story, as it turns out I am not capable of attending to two things at once (somehow walking doesn’t count as a ‘thing’ – I seem capable of walking and listening. thankfully.). 

I enjoyed both the pace of the stories – neither too winding, nor too abrupt – the tantalizing clues that you just *know* are clues, but cannot work out, and the focalization of Watson. I was telling M. yesterday that I like Watson’s point of view because it somehow subjects Holmes to the same kind of scrutiny Holmes brings to mysteries, clues, witnesses and suspects. I dig the relationship between Watson and Holmes both because its represented as simultaneously intimate and utterly professional: a careful balance to strike and one which I admire in a narrative ostensibly about other matters.

Oh, and clearly from the tenor of this post (or perhaps only clearly to me) I enjoy the diction of the stories. I’d support the return of the countenance and the aspect and the most serious and grave business. Perhaps not the damsel in total distress. The representation of women is my chief complaint with the stories. Hapless and helpless women abound. All too often they are also waif like. I don’t go in for the waifs. I suppose this criticism could extend to include the non-British (villains appear from South America and India) and the physically impaired (“cripples” and “hysterics” populate two of the three stories), but I was most bothered by the women, perhaps because they were always the victims. Not that I expect one of them to spring up and solve the mystery – I fully accept that Holmes and Watson are a (homo-social) male partnership, but I could do with a story where a big brutish man falls victim to a hysterical bout or comes to the two cold with fear.

That said, I’ll be downloading another set of of Holmes/Watson for my walks about. Check of the HPL for your own out-and-about-town Adventures.

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