Saturday, April 16, 2022
Dracula by, Bram Stoker was one enjoyable, wild ride that (tag) buddy read. Johnathan Harker goes to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula with purchasing a home in London. However, Harper quickly discerns that something is very “off” with the Count. Told through a series of journal/diary entries, telegrams, letters, and newspaper excerpts, Stoker pieces together the truth of who and what Count Dracula is and a slew of colorful protagonists band together to kill the Count.
What Rebekah and I found really interesting and surprising about Dracula are the religious overtones (not undertones because it’s pretty blatant) that are throughout out the novel. When we were discussing this book over two incredibly delicious pizzas (pizza is out favorite food on the planet…) we got into a conversation about how when people tend to encounter the unknown, they begin to rely on the spiritual realm for solace.
this quote is from a passage in which Harker has been provided with a crucifix, which provided comfort when things started to get pretty shady, pretty early on in the plot. Throughout the novel, many of the characters seek out passages of Scripture and prayer to strengthen their resolve as events gets darker and scarier.
Characters like Van Helsing and Doctor Seward are scientific men and an interesting conversation can be had here about what what happens when science fails to explain what has no logical or scientific explanation.
“Now that you’re wiling to understand, you have taken the first step to understand.”
“…for this enlightenment age when men believe not even what they see, what doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.”
As society becomes more logical and scientifically centered, there are still phenomena that occur that can’t be explained. What happens when scientists don’t have the answers? Or rather, is there a balance and marriage that needs to happen between the scientific and spiritual worlds? Sometimes, in order to seek truth, one has to push oneself outside of one’s comfort zone and explore schools of thought that would have otherwise been ignored. Even though that have been deemed within a field for being considered “wise” should be questioned when what is coming out of their mouth doesn’t line up with lived experience.
If you read my review of Mythos by, Stephen Fry, I mentioned the book of Enoch that is in some Bibles, but overall it’s been excluded from the Biblical canon. Interestingly enough, Enoch is mentioned in Dracula. I love it when recent reads relate to each other. The book of Enoch talks about human-demon hybrids that roamed the earth due to fallen angels getting it on with humans. In the Bible they are referred to as the Nephilim. In Greek the term is Nephele. In a way, this is exactly what Dracula is - the vampire is some type of human/demon hybrid. Again, we see the characters referring to spiritual texts to understand this other worldly creature in their midst.
Lastly, many view Dracula as a commentary on Victorian sexuality. This is a society in which order/structure/decorum and propriety reign supreme. In Dracula we are presented with characters, especially a few female characters that are sensual; carnality has taken over as rebellion against a society in which one, especially women in particular expressing sexual desires.
Overall, Rebekah and I found Dracula to be an extremely enjoyable read - it’s beautifully written, engaging, atmospheric and just has the right amount of creepy. There are also some passages in this novel were really funny! We did find it to be repetitive at times, as many of the same events are recounted multiple times, just from different characters perspectives, and in that way, bits of the narrative could have been condensed. This is just “good fun” and where as Frankenstein is a novel that is a lot more philosophical, Dracula is has more going for it when it comes to pure entertainment. The vampire craze still has it’s hold on opt culture and we say do yourself a favor - go to the original Twilight and enjoy ride!
Rating: 4/5
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I always tell myself I’m going to buy less books, and yet here I am… again… with more books. (There are more coming, people…).
Also, is anyone else planning out their 2023 reading lists already?
I plan to tackle these Japanese novels at some point:
- 1Q84 - I’ve heard this book is all types of crazy and I think I'll get a kick out of this so, here we are.
- The Memory Police - Ah. Dystopia. And after the past couple of years, dystopia feels a bit like home...
- Out - After reading The Turnout by Megan Abbot, I’m more intrigued by thrillers and this is a thriller about a women who kills her husband and then some other women help her hide the body. *chef’s kiss*
- The Makioka Sisters - I’m a fan of narratives that focus on the inner workings of family life and I’ve heard that this a great novel about a family attempting to hold to their traditional Japanese culture, as the the traditions are beginning to fade away.
Have you read any of these books? Have you bene naughty and purchased new books recently?
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You know what I love? When I pick up a book that I’m expecting to feel, at most, neutral about, and then it becomes an extremely enjoyable reading experience.
I was not expecting to be enamored by Elif Batsman’s The Idiot, but at the halfway point, I’m completely hooked!
Ah, this is such a fun and interesting novel - I can’t wait to write up my notes/annotations and compile the final review because there is SO much to discuss here.
Batuman provides so much commentary on languages and and how different languages have an effect on perception. For example, you can say the same thing in two different languages, but based on the grammatical rules and structures of those languages, the interpretation of meaning becomes fluid. How do we know we are accurately articulating what we mean, in a way that can be comprehended by others? So much gets “lost in translation.”
While at Harvard, the main character, Selin, is really struggling to understand and be understood. She feels adrift in the world around her and one can really draw comparisons with Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment. Where we may ask if Raskolnikov is really the “crazy” one, or is everyone else around him “crazy,” we can asked the same about Selin. Is she really “the idiot” (also paying homage to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot) or is she really seeing things from a higher plane than everyone else, and that internal tension between seeing and feeling things more deeply compared to those around her is pushing her further and further into isolation and towards an existential crisis?
And then there is Ivan, the Hungarian senior majoring in mathematics, who Selin is hopelessly infatuated with. Their primarily e-mail based relationship is frustrating, but I actually think it’s realistic in a lot of ways.
I also find this novel to be incredibly funny. I mean … the blatant 90s references are really entertaining. Batuman is shouting out things I’d completely forgotten about, like how Chili’s, the American restaurant chain, took the fried onion flower appetizer off their menu, once Men’s Health magazine said it was 3000 calories and totally unhealthy. (Does anyone else remember this?). It’s also not everyday that the dinky little town you were born in, in western Massachusetts gets a shoutout!
Batuman titling this book The Idiot really has a triple meaning, but I’ll discuss that in my final review. The sequel to The Idiot will be released this May and before starting this book, it wasn’t on my radar. Well, I’ve changed my mind and I’m totally invested. The day Either/Or drops, I’m snatching it up.
I know people tend to either like this book or it just doesn’t click (which I find ironically humorous because the entire novel is really based on this premise of the subjective understanding of language and the creative arts). Have you read this and what were your thoughts?
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Friday, April 15, 2022
I’m back again withl a few more books that I’ve recently picked up because I just can’t help myself...
- Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - This book wasn’t on my radar at all until recently, after I came across a couple of reviews that made me interested. A historical fiction fantasy taking place in Victorian England. Yes, please!
- Lorna Doone - Speaking of Victorian England, this is a Victorian novel I don’t see many people talking about. I’m familiar with the 2000 BBC adaptation of this novel and I want to read the original source material.
- Within a Budding Grove - I’ll continue reading the six volume In Search of Lost Time and this one is already on my 2023 reading list.
Have you read any of these novels?
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“When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly bodies.”
Reviewing Swann’s Way by, Marcel Proust has felt a bit daunting. It’s the first volume of a six volume piece of work - In Search of Lost time. This is a piece of work that, once read in its entirety, spans thousands of pages. Many people start Proust and then abandon it. Perhaps this won’t be as a review as much as it will be my thoughts on the first volume because, I think, that approached in the right manner, Proust is extremely doable. The reader just has to have right mindset. This is a piece of literature that requires one to nibble, rather than to bite massive chunks at a time.
So, Swann’s Way… what exactly is this novel about? It does have a plot, though one could argue the the plot itself is rather loose or simple. The unnamed narrator spends significant time recounting his childhood memories from Paris and Combray. The narrator is involve with Swann’s daughter, Gilberte, which then leads the narrator to recount Swann’s love for a woman named Odette (not going to lie, I got Swan Lake vibes from this…) and then the narrator circles back around to how the ties into Gilberte.
Whilst reading Swann’s Way, I can see how readers may get frustrated because the narrator goes into so much detail about other things around the basic plot - there are so many descriptive, often meandering passages about the narrator’s desire for his mother to kiss him good night, family gatherings, scenery, buildings, etc. However, these “detours” are really harkening to central themes that are all relevant to the central focus of Swann, Odette, the narrator and Gilberte.
I buddy read this with mr friend Julia y f and as there are many topics/themes that one can focus on, we decided to hone in on the concept of memory, the distortion of reality, love and obsession in love.
Swann’s Way spends a significant amount of time discussing memory - how memories are shaped, how we memorialize others and how our memories are often shaped by perception, rather than reality.
Julia and I were both blatantly reminded of our buddy read from last year, A Legacy by, Sybille Bedford. This is a narrative that also discusses how our memories are really just a compilation of other people making impressions on us with their own recollections.
“What I learnt came to me, like everything else in this story, at second, third hand, in chunks and puzzles, degrees and flashes, by heresy and talebearing and being told, by one or two descriptions that meant everything to those who gave them.” - A Legacy by, Sybille Bedford
“…even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people.”
Both the Narrator and Swann place Gilberte and Odette on pedestals and this distorts how they view them. They are seeing these women through rose-colored glasses and are completely willing to overlook their shortcomings and enhance, in their memories, the idealized versions of these ladies.
“We try to discover in things, which become precious to us on that account; the reflection of what our soul has projected on to them; we are disillusioned when we find that they are in reality devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas…”
This segways nicely into how Swann’s Way also spends a lot of time discussing love and the obsession that often accompanies being in love. One is also overwhelmed with the sense that the object of one’s love should conform to our whims in desires, as we project our idealistic versions of that person onto them, often without the other party being aware of this. This constructs a bit of tension between the person we’ve fabricated in our minds and then being that is actually physically in front of us.
The way that the Narrator idealizes Gilberte is parallels the way Swann idealizes Odette - they both become a bit obsessive and it distorts who Gilberte and Odette are as characters and how they treat these men.
“All the time I was away from Gilberte, I felt the need to see her, because, constantly trying to picture her in my mind, I ended up being unable to do so, and by no longer knowing precisely what my love represented. Besides, she had never told me that she loved me.”
While reading Swann’s Way, I couldn’t help but notice how frequently Proust writes about flowers and why he may have done this. I shared my hypothesis with Julia and she said I may be on to something (or I could be reading to much into the flower imagery and perhaps Proust just loves flowers…). In a way, flowers, especially flower heads that have a shorter life span than the roots and stems of a plant, are fleeting, much like our memories and thoughts. Yet, there is something about a flower that lingers in our memories - their scents, colors, etc. Also, depending on the type of flower, it may bloom again, reawakening what it was we loved about that particular flower in the first place, so really, this imagery lines up nicely with what Proust is saying about memories and recollections.
So why read Swann’s Way and venture into Proust’s six volume work? Well for starters, it’s one massive piece of gorgeously written literature; it feels like lucid dreaming, the way the prose flows. Proust’ writing definitely has a cadence to it, and once you get into it’s rhythm, the pages fly by. Reading something like Swann’s Way does require patience; there may be days when you can only read a few pages and there are days where you can’t seem to put the book down. That’s the point. Swann’s Way is to be enjoyed, dissected, analyzed piece by piece. There were many times throughout this reading experience where I have to reread a passage multiple times, flag it, and then go back and reread it again. It’s possible that by the completion of this novel, the reader has actually already read it twice. It’s impossible to understand everything Proust is eluding to the first time around, and that’s ok - each reader will get something unique from Proust because it’s a piece of literature that harkens back to things that conjure up personal memories and feelings of nostalgia. You may recall your own youthful memories of love, infatuation, family, places and things.
Swann’s Way was an extremely enjoyable reading experience and it up being way more approachable than I initially gave it credit for. I look forward to reading Volume II next year. I’m giving Proust some breathing room. And of course it’s always a pleasure reading with my friend Julia!
Rating: 4/5
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“So while they may have been far from perfect, the ancient Greeks seem to have developed the art of seeing life, the world and themselves with greater candor and unclouded clarity that is managed by most civilizations, including perhaps our own.”
Mythos by, Stephen Fry is a comprehensive and entertaining retelling of the Ancient Greek myths. Fry manages to retell these myths in a modern style, without diluting them. This is a great collection for those who are new to Greek mythology and don’t quite know where to start. Fry does such fantastic job setting up the foundation for these myths and organizing them in such a way that is not confusing or overwhelming. This is also engaging enough for those who are familiar with these stories and want to revisit them.
What I like about what Fry does in Mythos, is how he breaks down how much Ancient Greek (and Roman) is used in our everyday lives, especially in the western world. He particularly explains the origins of many of our words (my linguistics people, you’ll appreciate this book).
“First came Apate, Deceit, whom the Romans called Fraud (from whom we derive the words ‘fraud,’ ‘fraudulent,’ and ‘fraudster’).”
Also check this excerpt out from the mythological story explaining the origins of medicine.
“Enraged, Apollo asked his sister Artemis to take revenge. Only too willingly, she attacked the palace at Phlegyantis with plague arrows - poisoned darts that spread a terrible disease throughout the compound. Many besides Coronis were infected.”
Coronis sounds a whole lot like … 😅
What I particularly found most interesting about these myths is how many of them mirror Biblical stories, and one could argue that they are telling some of these stories from another prospective. I think Theologians and historians could have a field day with this. Here are some parallels I drew:
One could claim that Zeus and Lucifer are actually the same being. Lucifer fell from heaven “like lightening” in the Bible after being kicked out of heaven by God and thus Earth became his dominion. In the Greek myth, Zeus won his battle against the Titans and “assumed overall command are supreme leader and emperor, lord of the firmament, master of weather and storms: King of the Gods, Sky Father, Cloud-Gatherer. Thunder and lightning were his to command.”
The creation of man also have some similarities - being made out of clay by Prometheus, the breath of Zeus and some essence from Athena (there’s a trinity here…) and one doesn’t have to read far in the book of Genesis to see the parallels.
There’s a flood story and Fry has a footnote about how historians have been able to prove that a massive flood did occur and this particular mythological story lines up with the story of Noah.
We’ve got a story about wine being turned into better wine (Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding as the display of his first miracle) and a story about an elderly couple being given the opportunity to flee their hometown because it was beyond saving (the story of Lot and his wife).
This is the most interesting to me: how the book of Enoch (which has been taken out of most Bibles, but some do include, and it’s possible to obtain it on it own) talks about creatures called the Nephilim. These are half demon, half human hybrids. The angels that were kicked out of heaven with Lucifer/Satan found humans attractive and procreated with them.There were so many hybrids running around rampant and polluting the human bloodline that God was like “Um no. Let me get a flood going and wipe out this nonsense.” Many of the Greek gods had tangs (yes, tangs) going on with humans and there is even a hybrid called Nephele. Centaurs are a common creature that represents this union of divine/spiritual/animalic beings and humans. As Fry writes “The unnameable and savage progeny of this unnatural union between man and horse were named, after him [Centauros], centaurs.”
The mini theology lesson aside, why read ancient myths? What do these stories reveal about human nature and how many often perceive the divine? And why do so many civilizations and cultures have similar stories during times in which they had almost no contact with each other?
Aside, from ancient societies using myth to describe the way things come into existence, we have this desire to explain the world around us, whether we have a faith/religion we believe in or not and when elements of the world around us can no longer be explained through tangible means, we tend to dig deeper and embrace the spiritual. There is a deeper yearning within the soul to lean on something greater than ourselves in trying times. This is why we often see people turning to faith in larger numbers during times of crisis.
To me myths, whether they are Greek, Norse, Celtic, etc. etc. reveal so much about human nature and I find them so interesting. Mythos is a worthwhile, intelligent and entertaining read. It’s also FUNNY! What you do or do not believe is irrelevant here, this is just good fun. And for those of you who are interested in the deeper questions of theology, you’re still in for a good treat. I also think this is a fantastic companion read for Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way; combine these two and you’ve got a great introduction to the Ancient Greeks, for those who need an entry point and didn’t know where to start. I look forward to reading Heros and Troy this year by Fry, and I will also accompany them with the audiobooks because Fry narrates them himself and he’s such a joy to listen to.
Rating: 4/5.
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In The Turnout by, Megan Abbott, the Durant sisters, Dara and Marie, run their mother’s ballet school with the assistance of Dara’s husband Charlie. An “accident” occurs at the studio, which opens the door for Derek, a contractor, to puncture Dara, Marie and Charlie’s insular life. Thus, tension builds up between the sisters and Derek, events spiral out of control, and all right before the school’s annual Nutcracker performance.
There is only so much I can say about the plot, as this is classified as a thriller and even small details will spoil major plot points. So, I’ll focus on themes that interested me while being spoiler-free.
I mentioned this in my halfway review of this book and I think it needs to be reiterated - This. Book. Is. Weird! And you know what, I’m here for it! The Turnout is grimy, claustrophobic, animalic, intense, carnal, and ripe with sexual tension (the innuendos are limitless…), which is not something that typically comes to mind when one thinks of ballet. When people think of ballet, they think of long, lean, graceful dancers who seem to float effortlessly in their intricate tutus and satin shoes. Abbott did this on purpose because many non-dancers don’t understand how difficult ballet really is.
Side bar: True story, a guy came up to me in the gym recently after my ballet class and asked if ballet improves flexibility. (My guy… yes.) I then went on to tell him that ballet is the most difficult thing I’ve physically done with and to my body. Lifting weights in the gym with my physical therapist a few years ago while I was recovering from a knee injury, was easier than what my instructor sometimes asks us to do. The look of incredulity was apparent on his face. I told him if he wants to push himself physically, take ballet. (He took a flyer and is contemplating signing up for the beginner’s class…). Also, I’m still waiting for the toenail on my left big toe to fall off. It’s just taking it’s sweet time...
In The Turnout, Abbott creates a world of dualities - Innocence vs. Carnality; youth vs. adulthood; femininity vs. masculinity; pain vs. pleasure; beauty vs. ugliness and so on.
“To her, all dancers’ feet were beautiful, beautiful not in spite of but because of their hardness, their contortions, their battle against nature, against the body itself. ‘What could be more beautiful,’ she used to say, ‘than a will like that?’”
From the first page of this book, I was on the look out to see why Abbott titled this book The Turnout. Turnout is crucial in ballet - it refers to how flexible a dancer is at the hips; the goal is to have the thigh get as parallel as possible from that joint that connects it to the hip. This helps produce those long, graceful lines and extensions that ballet dancers are known for. “Turnout” is mentioned several times throughout the novel. Dancers seek to achieve a perfect turnout, and when it is achieved, it’s admired and considered a milestone. Abbott is using turnout here as a sexual metaphor, as the turnout requires an opening up from the hips. There is pre-turnout (virginal) and post-turnout (a right-of-passage).
“… or the first time they achieved turnout, rotating their legs from their hip sockets, bodies pushed to contortion. Pushed so far, the feel ecstatic. Her first time, Dara felt split open, laid bare.”
(Disclaimer: please don’t force your turnout. There are even professional dancers who don’t have a perfect turnout because some of it is based on each individual’s anatomy. You can really injure yourself and mess up your hips.)
Using turnout as a sexual metaphor falls right in line with why Abbott selected The Nutcrack to run in the background of this book. The Nutcracker is often the gateway into ballet for many people - dancers and non-dancers alike. It symbolizes innocence, as the main character Clara ventures into a fantastical world with the Nutcracker Prince. All of this also ties in with Derek…
“She becomes fixated with her little Nutcracker. So fixated she sneaks back out to find him after the family goes to bed. She falls asleep with it in her arms, lost in fantasy until the doll becomes alive as a full-size man. It’s a parable, no?”
Overall, this was a strange novel and I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s dark, twisted, straddles some lines and definitely gave me slight Lolita vibes (this coming from a person who read Lolita and was grossed out but mind-blown at the same time). It’s also obvious that Abbott did her research about ballet. Many of the references and terms made me chuckle. I really enjoyed Abbott’s writing style - it’s direct, sharp, a bit acerbic, but not too bare. It’s definitely not flowery. This writing style really suited a novel like this, because it’s all abut the claustrophobic tension - the writing style does not get in the way at all and in fact, as I was reading I actually forgot about the writing, which is a weird thing to say, but it works and this is not easy for a writer to do. This was a page turner and I really enjoyed The Turnout. I may have to look into some of Abbott’s other novels.
Rating: 3.5/5
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