Hello Gentle Reader
To summarize my experience with Iris Murdoch with her novel “The Black Price,” it would be: disappointing. The main character Bradley Pearson was not a solid character. Neither was Arnold, Rachel or Julian Baffin – though Julian at least was able to get away with her emotional characteristics and dropping of them, for a whole ‘other persona. Francis Marloe never had much time to really change his own persona. He was always in some way or another, a snivelling character. A sponge to the extreme. The lost and homeless cat, which no one wants to take in, and yet reluctance to the homeowner somehow found himself, snuggled up by the hearth of the home – however he is stereotyped as a typical homosexual man. Then, enters the middle aged and broken sister of Bradley Pearson Priscilla whose emotional well-being has been destroyed. A homemaker, now middle-aged and who doubts she’ll ever be loved again only cares about her jewels, enamel picture, mink stole, and other odds and ends of superficial materialism. She leaves her husband a slimy creature Roger who has been having an affair with a younger woman by the name of Marigold and is no pregnant and together have found true happiness. Priscilla’s infectiveness as a character and her constant emotional state and melodrama make her the only character that makes sense in her issues to a degree – but for the most part when she turned up and till the end she was a bothersome creature. A big fat fruit fly buzzing around the seams. In and out in and out. Enter Christian the ex-wife of Bradley Pearson, self-described enlightened guru on eastern philosophies and religion and all around manipulative conniving, whose piousness and treacherous behaviour was just more salt added to an already over salted group of characters.
Ugly characters are rather easy to deal with. They are simply exaggerations of the horrible traits hidden within all of us. That was not the problem. The problem was, is that the novel was told in the first person narration. By an emotionally cold pretentious character (Bradley Pearson) who fancies himself a writer. All he does though his bore one with his long monologues on the nature of art, and how if one needs to do art, they must suffer in life and reap the glories in death. He despises his friend, and nemeses as well as more successful writer Arnold Baffin who writes terrible talentless dribble. Pumping it full of eastern mystic philosophies and self-discovering texts, and then shoveling it out once every year. He lives in a borough of London called Earling. There he appears to enjoy martial success, finical success, literary success, and is doing quite well. He is everything that Bradley is not. In many ways I theorize that he has everything that Bradley wants. Why on earth, had Bradley done what he had done? He had an affair with Arnolds wife, on her own insistence as well as falling madly in love with his daughter. Do I sense in some ways as well some homoeroticism between Arnold and Bradley. That’s where the novel became derailed.
If Bradley Pearson was supposed to be such a emotionally cut of person from everyone else, the reason being his desire to flee form the city and his rather treacherous friends and realities, as well as the surrounding people, then why on earth was he so emotionally manipulated and involved with two other characters. Why did he I continue in his contact with Christian, and allowing her in his life, why did he not leave when he should have left to complete his ‘masterpiece,’ as he told himself quite frequently. Instead Bradley was indecisive, mixed with Iris Murdoch’s horrible inability characterize any of the characters properly it was just a melodramatic waste of time of sensational plot twists and written in pretentious prose.
Others have shared the same opinion with me on this piece of work. Some readers have taken it with a grain of salt. Contemplating as a lunatic farce. The characters being a comedy of manners and errors. Personally it was a soap opera of horrible people, playing out their emotional problems and needs with each other and against each other. Rachel and Priscilla are the worst characters for this:
“I’ll never forgive you for this!” being one of Rachel’s favourite lines when she becomes in an emotional state. Among constant repetitions of the same old story over and over again. Pricilla constantly says that she must go back to Roger. How he needs her. How she needs to clean up the house and how Roger and her can fix everything. Of course that’s not going to happen. Roger was going to marry his impregnated mistress. Who is also a dentist; and once again the complete opposite of the supressed and now mentally unstable Priscilla. Who is unskilled and middle aged, and faces the fact and reality of her own age, and mortality.
The icing on the cake though, besides the discussion of art and about artist. Oh how Bradley and Arnold discuss art and artists. How they are such sensitive creatures, who cannot take criticism, and any criticism given is out of line and not necessary because they have already torn their own work to shreds before revealing it to anyone else. Then of course comes the psychological discussion that Francis Marloe and Bradley have, where the first discussion about Arnold and Bradley’s homoerotic relationship. To which Francis outs himself. Then there is a discussion of Bradley having a possible Oedipus complex. Freud references didn’t stop there though. The Post Office tower of London (now called the BT Tower) and its sexual reference to a man’s penis, and its fascination with the main character Bradley. None of this really worked thought. It all felt like a smash up, crash up, shoveled together, and tossed a side piece of work. I was greatly disappointed in it.
Maybe Iris Murdoch is a great novelist. Perhaps this was not the best work by her. Better yet Iris Murdoch and I may not be a pair. We may not be a reader and writer who can see eye to eye on the matter of novels. Well at least not hers anyway.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
The 2012 Booker Prize Long list
Hello Gentle Reader
Once again, it is the Booker Prize longlist. These twelve books will be reduced in September to a six shortlisted books. This year’s longlist appears interesting. The judges chose works on their literary merits alone. They chose their work on literary merits, with no regards to the reputation of the authors, themselves. One of the key reasons for the selected twelve books, is that the judges of this year’s panel wanted something that inspired and improved with each time it was read. Not many books achieve such a goal. Some others will. There was no real public outcry (yet) from the literary establishment, Established authors have been pushed aside for now with these books. Martin Amis and his new novel “Lionel Asbo: State of England,” has been long listed, nor was Zadie Smith’s new novel “NW,” was also not shortlisted. Also surprisingly “The Chemistry of Tears,” was also not long listed. This lead to room for breathing for sure. However curiously enough Will Self has blown onto this year’s longlist with his new novel: “Umbrella,” which takes place in an old grand Victorian Mental Asylum after the Great War, where a curious psychiatrist tries to cure the patients of “Encephalitis lethargica,” (a sleeping sickness) with disastrous results. Told in a stream-of consciousness style, Will Self may achieve the intended goal, even though his short stories in “The Grey Area,” left me lost bored and rather unamused by what felt like a person writing a story for their own sophistic enjoyment. A private affair in which the author alone was invited. Another known name on the list is Hilary Mantel the former Booker Prize winning writer and her novel “Bringing up the Bodies,” has also been long listed.
The other novels for the Booker long list are as follows:
“The Yips,” by Nicola Barker – a novel set in two-thousand and six before the entire concept of instant communication was taken by storm with twitter, and is a vicious rump of a comic novel, that has some extravagant characters.
“The Teleportation Acciden,” – by Ned Beauman is a novel about a man who needs to get laid. At least that’s what the publishers are saying. Concerning itself with historical fiction L.A. Noir (James Elroy the demon dog of American Letters) with a hint of science fiction, and a lot of satire, leads to a comical novel, about a man needing to get laid.
“Philida,” by André Brink – the renowned and controversial South African’s novel is best described as a slave narrative. Yet it is also personal for the author. Considering that the slave owners last name is shared with the author himself. A sense of family redemption.
“The Garden of Evening Mists,” by Tan Twan Eng – caught my interests far before the Booker Longlist. Concerning the time after World War II about a lawyer who is on the case of persecuting Japanese war criminals, as she is herself a survivor of a Japanese camp. Interestingly enough she begins an apprenticeship with a gardener who is Japanese of the said garden, breaks down the political turmoil of both characters and their friendship.
“Skios,” by Michael Frayn – is one of those intellectual comedies that are not really all that funny (at least not in my opinion). Reminiscent of Kingsley Amis and Howard Jacobson this novel concerns the mistaken identity of Doctor Norman Wilfred is set to lecture on the scientific organization of science.
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,” by Rachel Joyce – is a deeply personal one for the author. In nineteen-ninety six the work began as a radio play and eventually grew into the said novel. It concerns the adventure and journey of the said Harold Fry who receives a letter from a one-time colleague Queenie from a hospice. From there Harold writes a letter and sets out to deliver it – on foot.
“Swimming Home,” by Deborah Levy – About a young woman who stalks a poet during holidays with this family. She becomes friends with the writers daughter and spies on the wife who invites her to stay. It’s a interrogating novel about the secrets we all have and the ones keep even from ourselves.
“The Lighthouse,” by Allison Moore – is about a man trying to find himself, during a holiday in Germany where he is walking (a walking holiday). There it leads into deep introspection and melancholic realism the character becomes lost and adrift, and contemplates the realities of path not taken.
“Narcopolis,” by Jeet Thayli – concerns it’s with the opium dens of 70’s which lead to heroin addiction and a brutal rise in modernity. It’s a novel that is deeply personal with the author who spent twenty years drinking and getting drunk, battling with alcoholism and discussing writing and writers.
“Communion Town,” by Sam Thompson – Is the last and least of the novels long listed. One of the more interesting novels as well along with “The Lighthouse,.” “Narcopolis,” “The Garden of Evening Mists,” and “Philda.” It’s a novel about a dreamlike drifting city, and is written in ten interlinked tales of varying genres (reminding me of David Mitchell’s early work) it tips its hat off to Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.
There you have it Gentle Reader, the Long listed novels of two thousand twelve for the Booker Prize
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Once again, it is the Booker Prize longlist. These twelve books will be reduced in September to a six shortlisted books. This year’s longlist appears interesting. The judges chose works on their literary merits alone. They chose their work on literary merits, with no regards to the reputation of the authors, themselves. One of the key reasons for the selected twelve books, is that the judges of this year’s panel wanted something that inspired and improved with each time it was read. Not many books achieve such a goal. Some others will. There was no real public outcry (yet) from the literary establishment, Established authors have been pushed aside for now with these books. Martin Amis and his new novel “Lionel Asbo: State of England,” has been long listed, nor was Zadie Smith’s new novel “NW,” was also not shortlisted. Also surprisingly “The Chemistry of Tears,” was also not long listed. This lead to room for breathing for sure. However curiously enough Will Self has blown onto this year’s longlist with his new novel: “Umbrella,” which takes place in an old grand Victorian Mental Asylum after the Great War, where a curious psychiatrist tries to cure the patients of “Encephalitis lethargica,” (a sleeping sickness) with disastrous results. Told in a stream-of consciousness style, Will Self may achieve the intended goal, even though his short stories in “The Grey Area,” left me lost bored and rather unamused by what felt like a person writing a story for their own sophistic enjoyment. A private affair in which the author alone was invited. Another known name on the list is Hilary Mantel the former Booker Prize winning writer and her novel “Bringing up the Bodies,” has also been long listed.
The other novels for the Booker long list are as follows:
“The Yips,” by Nicola Barker – a novel set in two-thousand and six before the entire concept of instant communication was taken by storm with twitter, and is a vicious rump of a comic novel, that has some extravagant characters.
“The Teleportation Acciden,” – by Ned Beauman is a novel about a man who needs to get laid. At least that’s what the publishers are saying. Concerning itself with historical fiction L.A. Noir (James Elroy the demon dog of American Letters) with a hint of science fiction, and a lot of satire, leads to a comical novel, about a man needing to get laid.
“Philida,” by André Brink – the renowned and controversial South African’s novel is best described as a slave narrative. Yet it is also personal for the author. Considering that the slave owners last name is shared with the author himself. A sense of family redemption.
“The Garden of Evening Mists,” by Tan Twan Eng – caught my interests far before the Booker Longlist. Concerning the time after World War II about a lawyer who is on the case of persecuting Japanese war criminals, as she is herself a survivor of a Japanese camp. Interestingly enough she begins an apprenticeship with a gardener who is Japanese of the said garden, breaks down the political turmoil of both characters and their friendship.
“Skios,” by Michael Frayn – is one of those intellectual comedies that are not really all that funny (at least not in my opinion). Reminiscent of Kingsley Amis and Howard Jacobson this novel concerns the mistaken identity of Doctor Norman Wilfred is set to lecture on the scientific organization of science.
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,” by Rachel Joyce – is a deeply personal one for the author. In nineteen-ninety six the work began as a radio play and eventually grew into the said novel. It concerns the adventure and journey of the said Harold Fry who receives a letter from a one-time colleague Queenie from a hospice. From there Harold writes a letter and sets out to deliver it – on foot.
“Swimming Home,” by Deborah Levy – About a young woman who stalks a poet during holidays with this family. She becomes friends with the writers daughter and spies on the wife who invites her to stay. It’s a interrogating novel about the secrets we all have and the ones keep even from ourselves.
“The Lighthouse,” by Allison Moore – is about a man trying to find himself, during a holiday in Germany where he is walking (a walking holiday). There it leads into deep introspection and melancholic realism the character becomes lost and adrift, and contemplates the realities of path not taken.
“Narcopolis,” by Jeet Thayli – concerns it’s with the opium dens of 70’s which lead to heroin addiction and a brutal rise in modernity. It’s a novel that is deeply personal with the author who spent twenty years drinking and getting drunk, battling with alcoholism and discussing writing and writers.
“Communion Town,” by Sam Thompson – Is the last and least of the novels long listed. One of the more interesting novels as well along with “The Lighthouse,.” “Narcopolis,” “The Garden of Evening Mists,” and “Philda.” It’s a novel about a dreamlike drifting city, and is written in ten interlinked tales of varying genres (reminding me of David Mitchell’s early work) it tips its hat off to Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.
There you have it Gentle Reader, the Long listed novels of two thousand twelve for the Booker Prize
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Is Television Becoming Literary
Hello Gentle Reader
There will be no denying my own literary puritan stance, when it comes to literature segregation from film and televised serials; among other forms that try to breech the fortress. When some foreign person or form of art tries to enter the area in which I have sealed off, personally in my own mind, what is ‘literature,’ it certainly is not responded to with compassion and understanding. It is to be shot down immediately. Rejected and to be removed on site. No compromise. When a guest at Christmas a while back, had made the remark that rap and hip hop music was on the same literary level of poetry, my back was arched. In preparation for defense of the insular world of poetics and its own endangered and on the verge of extinction art, I shot down the thought of any vulgarity of music that glorifies violence, broken homes, drug abuse and alcohol abuse, gang affiliation, child abuse, and the sexual degradation of woman, by no means was something akin to poetics in any way shape or form; just like the comparison of a pop idol to Beethoven or Mozart or Chopin, would be considered appropriate as well. Bob Dylan is also on the Nobel Prize for Literature contender list, constantly – though his odds aren’t very good usually. Many besides myself also hiss at the concept of Bob Dylan wining Literature’s most prestigious prize, to be abhorrent. While others would proclaim a more progressive attitude in the blending and growth of Literature as an art form in which its idea of inclusion of other antigens is acceptable.
However that being said Home Box Office (HBO) is one of my favourite channels. “Game of Thrones,” is a show that was first watched, on a whim. My perception of a “Lord of the Rings,” flowery saga with Tolkien archetypes and knock offs, were soon thrown out the door. Such human characters, in their ambiguous moral stances, they tread the land of grey rather than being black and white. Though that little prick Joffrey certainly needs to be terminated. I grew to respect Sansa; admire Little Finger; become quite fond of Varys; feel pity for Cersei; all the characters were perfect in all their distinct personalities. Their own aims and goals were the same, and yet ambiguous in how it should be gone around in getting it. The storylines were personal, and there was a real human connection. There was no doubt in my own mind that this was a great television series. Based however on books. An adaptation certainly is not something literary in its own right. It is an adaptation, which takes what has already been written and said, and brings it to a wider audience. In doing so it allows for the literary value to also be adapted. It is no different than the countless films and television serials of Charles Dickens novels. Each one its own distinct visual style. However each one tells the same story that has become a famous classic. It is no different than when a Shakespeare play is taken on by a new director (theatre or film) and decides to revamp the work itself. Be it satirical or more contemporary. The story itself in the end remains the same regardless. The tragic love affair, between two young lovers from warring households and their fate is still the same, as were to be in its first performance.
Cinema and television today is in the need of a few teeth pulling. The whole “Lost,” phenomena was horrible. Terribly released, and without careful plot development, and the continuous force feeding of clues and riddles that amounted to nothing was just a real shake of the head in shame. However there have been some redeemable television serials and cinematic films as well. It could be said that it all started with the show “The Sopranos,” though dealing with organized crime, and rather morally dirty themes, showed a rather human side to the characters. With it, the television show had proved that careful planning of plot and story, along with realistic and believable characters that grew became something that kept people tuning into watch. It wasn’t the same old “Crime Scene Investigation,” with the same cardboard cut-out, characters who solved a new murder – and had very limited personal lives. They had very little character development as well as very little arching storyline that held such loose beads together. With “The Sopranos,” and those that have followed, all showed the capacity that television has to being more than just some boob tube.
The use of restrained dialogue. Carefully planned storylines. Emotional characters that engage with each other, in complex relationships. Why that has what novels and stories have done of a literary quality for such a long time. Why all of a sudden is television just starting to get the picture. Has society dumbed down that much? The reality shows that show a bunch of young frat boys partying and drinking, with their arm candy who have bigger attitudes than both their eighties stylized teased out hair and their implanted breasts. Then comes the other reality/game shows where people are placed on remote islands or countries and fight and play by the rules to survive or are placed in a house and locked in solitary confinement with each other. As if television could be some sociological/psychological experiment that says that this is what people will do for money; as well as the documentation of human behaviour in closed spaces.
Who could forget “Sex and The City,” (HBO you did me wrong there – but have redeemed yourself) which felt like watching a gay men’s fantasy of the high upend New York life. What is even scarier is that it had spawned two films!
However if one wants to look at the other end of the spectrum, “Girls,” another HBO television serial has also been compared to “Sex and the City,” in its feminine cast and its dealings with trials and tribulations of womanhood – though rather than middle age womanhood; it’ll deal with young womanhood. With “Girls,” however there’s more of an uncertainty in the air with these girls. They are quietly suffering with each other. The very first episode showed abortion and who could forget the main character Hannah’s motor mouth and constant worries about sexually transmitted diseases. Not to mention her degrading sex with a rather absent minded asshole of a boyfriend left me thinking about the vulnerabilities of youth. However its sorority friendship that keeps the girls held together certainly shows the test of time and the vulnerabilities with youth are not always dealt with alone. Though a bipolar period of uncertainties trials and tribulation; “Girls,” use a lot of comedy emotional impact and development of characters that make youth work it, and watching the show a new experience every time. Though I find Dunham’s characters, slightly arrogant in her youthful confidence but she is also greatly vulnerable. Yet she is quite a talker – continuously covering her bases when she talks. As if to contradict herself before anyone else does. Her sense of entitlement is also rather disturbing. Yet some Lena Dunham puts more rejuvenation in her character, allowing for an emotional kaleidoscope. She falls down a lot. But she picks herself up and moves on again and again.
Though television serials have made such progress with noted names such as “The Wire,” “Six Feet Under,” “Deadwood,” and “Boardwalk Empire,” the popularity of frat boys with fake and bake tans, drinking for the amusement of the camera is still in need of being shaken off. Action oriented films, where explosions fast paced minimal dialogue, car chasing scenes, and little relationship build, and no emotional invested characters – are all nothing more than block busters. They are nothing more than the equivalent to the low brow of the literary world. Best placed alongside the mediocre of the middle ground of the literary world. Never achieving the high and refined literary standards; this can be properly acquired if someone is willing to take the time and effort into it. It’s much like a fine wine. If one is patient and allows for it to ferment and age properly then the results would be worth it. However impatience and a desire to make money now, right now, will never achieve the proper success of a higher culture.
Too compare the poetry of Ko Un or Wisława Szymborska with the lyrical content of rappers is ludicrous. To call a television serial a new form of literature or to obtain the status of literature is certainly not going to happen in my opinion – at least it won’t be recognized by more sober and conservative seats where literature is one and one thing only. The written word, to which in its highest merit reflects and refracts the world into a larger spectrum of philosophies and experiences. This allows for a diverse world to explore. Full of introverted ponderings, extroverted and complex relationships, and a plane shifting like sand. From modernism to postmodernism; the experimental to the genre fiction. It is all explored and allows for an ever changing experience.
Televised serials, cinematic films, video game experiences will always attempt to reproduce that experience. To copy the formula of literature which has been defined and redefined and refined over and over again through the years, is always going to fail on fundamental levels. They are visual, but will never succeed in the elements that literature can exceeded in with its ability to shift perspective in a closed space of a characters mind, and allow for the experience to be dictated and viewed through their own mind. Such a more personalized form of narration usually requires flashbacks and commentary on the character. It doesn’t work as precisely or as well, as it does in a written format. Television, film, video games work so much better in a third person outlook. An observer peering in – not a character looking out.
I think the comparison of literature and television or film or video games is rather trite. The forms stand on their own merits alone. No comparison is needed in the long run. There is no need to melt the two together in a shady back alley lab, where the results could end up being some mutated disaster.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
For further reading please see:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/06/girls-mad-men-and-the-future-of-tv-as-literature/258469
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/magazine/riff-homeland-american-horror-story.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091500132.html
There will be no denying my own literary puritan stance, when it comes to literature segregation from film and televised serials; among other forms that try to breech the fortress. When some foreign person or form of art tries to enter the area in which I have sealed off, personally in my own mind, what is ‘literature,’ it certainly is not responded to with compassion and understanding. It is to be shot down immediately. Rejected and to be removed on site. No compromise. When a guest at Christmas a while back, had made the remark that rap and hip hop music was on the same literary level of poetry, my back was arched. In preparation for defense of the insular world of poetics and its own endangered and on the verge of extinction art, I shot down the thought of any vulgarity of music that glorifies violence, broken homes, drug abuse and alcohol abuse, gang affiliation, child abuse, and the sexual degradation of woman, by no means was something akin to poetics in any way shape or form; just like the comparison of a pop idol to Beethoven or Mozart or Chopin, would be considered appropriate as well. Bob Dylan is also on the Nobel Prize for Literature contender list, constantly – though his odds aren’t very good usually. Many besides myself also hiss at the concept of Bob Dylan wining Literature’s most prestigious prize, to be abhorrent. While others would proclaim a more progressive attitude in the blending and growth of Literature as an art form in which its idea of inclusion of other antigens is acceptable.
However that being said Home Box Office (HBO) is one of my favourite channels. “Game of Thrones,” is a show that was first watched, on a whim. My perception of a “Lord of the Rings,” flowery saga with Tolkien archetypes and knock offs, were soon thrown out the door. Such human characters, in their ambiguous moral stances, they tread the land of grey rather than being black and white. Though that little prick Joffrey certainly needs to be terminated. I grew to respect Sansa; admire Little Finger; become quite fond of Varys; feel pity for Cersei; all the characters were perfect in all their distinct personalities. Their own aims and goals were the same, and yet ambiguous in how it should be gone around in getting it. The storylines were personal, and there was a real human connection. There was no doubt in my own mind that this was a great television series. Based however on books. An adaptation certainly is not something literary in its own right. It is an adaptation, which takes what has already been written and said, and brings it to a wider audience. In doing so it allows for the literary value to also be adapted. It is no different than the countless films and television serials of Charles Dickens novels. Each one its own distinct visual style. However each one tells the same story that has become a famous classic. It is no different than when a Shakespeare play is taken on by a new director (theatre or film) and decides to revamp the work itself. Be it satirical or more contemporary. The story itself in the end remains the same regardless. The tragic love affair, between two young lovers from warring households and their fate is still the same, as were to be in its first performance.
Cinema and television today is in the need of a few teeth pulling. The whole “Lost,” phenomena was horrible. Terribly released, and without careful plot development, and the continuous force feeding of clues and riddles that amounted to nothing was just a real shake of the head in shame. However there have been some redeemable television serials and cinematic films as well. It could be said that it all started with the show “The Sopranos,” though dealing with organized crime, and rather morally dirty themes, showed a rather human side to the characters. With it, the television show had proved that careful planning of plot and story, along with realistic and believable characters that grew became something that kept people tuning into watch. It wasn’t the same old “Crime Scene Investigation,” with the same cardboard cut-out, characters who solved a new murder – and had very limited personal lives. They had very little character development as well as very little arching storyline that held such loose beads together. With “The Sopranos,” and those that have followed, all showed the capacity that television has to being more than just some boob tube.
The use of restrained dialogue. Carefully planned storylines. Emotional characters that engage with each other, in complex relationships. Why that has what novels and stories have done of a literary quality for such a long time. Why all of a sudden is television just starting to get the picture. Has society dumbed down that much? The reality shows that show a bunch of young frat boys partying and drinking, with their arm candy who have bigger attitudes than both their eighties stylized teased out hair and their implanted breasts. Then comes the other reality/game shows where people are placed on remote islands or countries and fight and play by the rules to survive or are placed in a house and locked in solitary confinement with each other. As if television could be some sociological/psychological experiment that says that this is what people will do for money; as well as the documentation of human behaviour in closed spaces.
Who could forget “Sex and The City,” (HBO you did me wrong there – but have redeemed yourself) which felt like watching a gay men’s fantasy of the high upend New York life. What is even scarier is that it had spawned two films!
However if one wants to look at the other end of the spectrum, “Girls,” another HBO television serial has also been compared to “Sex and the City,” in its feminine cast and its dealings with trials and tribulations of womanhood – though rather than middle age womanhood; it’ll deal with young womanhood. With “Girls,” however there’s more of an uncertainty in the air with these girls. They are quietly suffering with each other. The very first episode showed abortion and who could forget the main character Hannah’s motor mouth and constant worries about sexually transmitted diseases. Not to mention her degrading sex with a rather absent minded asshole of a boyfriend left me thinking about the vulnerabilities of youth. However its sorority friendship that keeps the girls held together certainly shows the test of time and the vulnerabilities with youth are not always dealt with alone. Though a bipolar period of uncertainties trials and tribulation; “Girls,” use a lot of comedy emotional impact and development of characters that make youth work it, and watching the show a new experience every time. Though I find Dunham’s characters, slightly arrogant in her youthful confidence but she is also greatly vulnerable. Yet she is quite a talker – continuously covering her bases when she talks. As if to contradict herself before anyone else does. Her sense of entitlement is also rather disturbing. Yet some Lena Dunham puts more rejuvenation in her character, allowing for an emotional kaleidoscope. She falls down a lot. But she picks herself up and moves on again and again.
Though television serials have made such progress with noted names such as “The Wire,” “Six Feet Under,” “Deadwood,” and “Boardwalk Empire,” the popularity of frat boys with fake and bake tans, drinking for the amusement of the camera is still in need of being shaken off. Action oriented films, where explosions fast paced minimal dialogue, car chasing scenes, and little relationship build, and no emotional invested characters – are all nothing more than block busters. They are nothing more than the equivalent to the low brow of the literary world. Best placed alongside the mediocre of the middle ground of the literary world. Never achieving the high and refined literary standards; this can be properly acquired if someone is willing to take the time and effort into it. It’s much like a fine wine. If one is patient and allows for it to ferment and age properly then the results would be worth it. However impatience and a desire to make money now, right now, will never achieve the proper success of a higher culture.
Too compare the poetry of Ko Un or Wisława Szymborska with the lyrical content of rappers is ludicrous. To call a television serial a new form of literature or to obtain the status of literature is certainly not going to happen in my opinion – at least it won’t be recognized by more sober and conservative seats where literature is one and one thing only. The written word, to which in its highest merit reflects and refracts the world into a larger spectrum of philosophies and experiences. This allows for a diverse world to explore. Full of introverted ponderings, extroverted and complex relationships, and a plane shifting like sand. From modernism to postmodernism; the experimental to the genre fiction. It is all explored and allows for an ever changing experience.
Televised serials, cinematic films, video game experiences will always attempt to reproduce that experience. To copy the formula of literature which has been defined and redefined and refined over and over again through the years, is always going to fail on fundamental levels. They are visual, but will never succeed in the elements that literature can exceeded in with its ability to shift perspective in a closed space of a characters mind, and allow for the experience to be dictated and viewed through their own mind. Such a more personalized form of narration usually requires flashbacks and commentary on the character. It doesn’t work as precisely or as well, as it does in a written format. Television, film, video games work so much better in a third person outlook. An observer peering in – not a character looking out.
I think the comparison of literature and television or film or video games is rather trite. The forms stand on their own merits alone. No comparison is needed in the long run. There is no need to melt the two together in a shady back alley lab, where the results could end up being some mutated disaster.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
For further reading please see:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/06/girls-mad-men-and-the-future-of-tv-as-literature/258469
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/magazine/riff-homeland-american-horror-story.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091500132.html
Thursday, 12 July 2012
The Virgin Suicides
Hello Gentle Reader
If you have been to any bookstore, you always notice that one section. The section maybe called “Well-being,” or “self-help,” maybe even a resource center. Each title is usually about what it says: parenting such ages as new born, the terrible twos/toddlers, children, pre-adolescence, adolescence, young adult, adulthood; how to deal with a dying parent, overcoming grief, taking care of senior(s) or aging parents; how to better yourself, making career changes, how to overcome obstacles, how to deal with your husband’s mid-life crisis, to how to deal with your wife’s menopause – what to know when you’re expecting a child. All of these books are usually (supposedly) written by doctors. Each one specializing in their field, and who cannot make appointments with you, have decided to give you a book, in which to help guide and explain to you how to deal with trying moments of life, and the experiences and wisdom that those experiences bring.
The Lisbon girls of this novel often strike me as the poor prisoners that happen to get caught up into these books traps. Written with the best of intentions but are taken to such a fundamental extreme that any hope of living a normal life for the girls, had been corrupted by the best intentions to hide them from the filth and the dangers of the outside world. The corrupted advertisements. Hormonal urges that would soon befall them or already have. The tears and broken hearts that would come from dating. Teenage social functions were a cesspool of drugs, sexual touching would eventually lead to sex, and alcohol. Mrs. Lisbon the mother of the Lisbon girls was well aware of this. She knew that the teachers and adult supervision was not enough, to prevent or counter act these measures. In her mind a parent such as herself, wishing to keep her children safe and pure from the outside world, she would isolate them from it. Which caused the Lisbon girls in their own right to become ethereal phantoms of feminine mystery that the neighbourhood boys were enticed with.
The neighbourhood boys stuck in the pristine and isolated world of middle class suburbia of Detroit, where the economic world of the auto industry is slowly passing down, and slowly falling, to what would become its current state. All the while though suburbia appeared untouched. The golden summer air provided a angelic halo to the girls blonde hair, and provided them the appearance of saints of beauty. The neighbourhood boys, now middle aged, and fully developed individuals both in character and physical appearance, as well as their understanding of the wider and greater world. With this new found knowledge the narrators of this novel the unidentified almost virtual hive minded narration, as each of them try to piece together the unfortunate mishap that had happened in those thirteen months when they were all just teenagers, and the Lisbon girls, had committed their acts of self-sacrifice. All of them like lemmings plunged to their deaths, like the youngest and oddest sister Cecilia had done before them.
The two groups of this novel, the narrator and the Lisbon sisters, are in both ways, hive minded. Homogenized in their connections to each other, yet each with their own quirks and yet in the end, much like the girls prom dresses, they are forced to conform, and become part of the larger group, where the individuality no longer is available to be seen. Yet their quirks can be seen at times throughout the novel. These separate them from become one entity. These traits allow them to become more and more emotional involved with the reader. It shows them as human beings.
Bonnie at fifteen is shy, and has a devout clerical passion for religion, honouring the shrine to her sister Cecilia. Lux Lisbon fourteen years old is the beauty and sexy sister. The creature that causes all the boys to fantasize about. Her demeanour is sexy, she is adventurous, and yet eventually despite the intentions of her parents becomes increasingly promiscuous. Mary is sixteen, is the prim, the proper and poised of the girls – and perhaps the vainest. In many ways Mary suffers the worst. Therese is the oldest at the age of seventeen is the studious and intellectual sister, fascinated by the world of science. Cecilia is the youngest, at thirteen; she is the mystical, shy and is rather precocious, known by many and even her older sisters as the weird one in the family. Yet her own death kick starts, the tragic events that unfold throughout this novel.
The neighbourhood boys in their adolescence are more objective. They are more difficult to understand. Yet the novel is not about them. They make great detectives though. Conducting interviews. With those involved in the Lisbon case. From teachers, neighbors, friends, doctors, teachers, nurses, the parents themselves. Yet their attempts to understand and comprehend the Lisbon girls, becomes increasingly futile and at best impossible. Their exhibits (1 – 97) become faded, like their memories, and the memories of the girls themselves. Yet their own desires to understand the girls, and their haunting hold on them and their lives, continuous to allow them to ponder the realities of the Lisbon girls, and the lives they once lived.
With his debut novel Jeffrey Eugenides, presents an interesting world of adolescences, one that does not reflect the present. When thinning hair becomes an occurrence or families themselves are started. Yet the past shows great insight into the characters that they themselves had grown into. Their realization how life was never normal at the Lisbon house. How the ‘community events,’ that surround the suburban community never include the Lisbon household. How in a sea of homes, and manicured lawns, snoopy housewives who have an opinion for everything, to mothers who know your own mother, and a greatly pious atmosphere of false virtues, and cardboard sympathies of cards, to the baked cakes that try to show the feeling that one cares; the Lisbon house itself stood out as a prison. A place ruled by the de facto leader Mrs. Lisbon who rules with an iron fist and a fundamental mind in my opinion, whose inability see or realize her own actions had destroyed the world of her own daughters, who in themselves, never were allowed to live lives of their own. Yet the communal activities of cleaning (raking the leaves, the fly-fish problem) all lead to a social event, with Mr. Lisbon as the ambassador to the outside community in which his wife, did not appear in.
With the first attempt underway, the Lisbon parents were forced to really consider the advice of a doctor. They held a social function. To which the neighbourhood boys, were invited. This first attempt at suicide by the ethereal Cecilia, also was the beginning of trying to understand the greatest question of all: why? The first of many theories were presented, after the discovery of Cecilia’s diary was found, to which she remarked on the foreign child, who was the first person on their street to wear sunglasses, fell in love with another. Going so far as to jump off the roof of his relatives home, in proclamation of his love for her. Yet Cecilia’s diary does not betray anything of the matter, simply giving a quick glance at it, before drifting off like a cloud somewhere else. Yet the party soon fell into tragedy as Cecilia final action was taken in a dramatic fashion. From there on the slow descent of the Lisbon household could be seen. Mr. Lisbon’s mind grew more and more estranged from reality. The neighbourhood grew more muted and shocked by the action itself. Yet each person played their part perfectly, and tried to help the Lisbon’s out. Women baked pies. The men went in and tried to dig up the spiked fence. Others gave their criticism behind their curtains.
Yet the prisons had lost its hold, and slowly began to deteriorate. The lives of the girls deteriorate eventually however a bad situation goes terribly wrong. Finally in desperate acts of freedom, the girl’s swan dive into death, and mortality themselves. Trying in any way shape or possible to escape the house. To escape their domineering parents. To run away from the house. Not just sit down in front of a climate mirror, and imagine the outside world. Not to travel in a car, on a road trip that could only in their imagination by looking through catalogues and brochures. Not to feel life or love in only fleeting brief moments that they themselves, had once experienced and now were deprived of.
Throughout the novel the girls had experienced moments of life. That others had experienced as well. Through their domineering mother (for the most part) the girls feared the (not Lux I suspect) concept of all aspects of life. Yet after the prom, even pious clerical Bonny wanted to have that phone call, rung back to her. That string of connection. That desire to be connected with someone else outside of the four walls. In the end however the girls, escaped the oppression of a life no longer worth living, when they could no longer stomach the isolation, deprivation, and inhuman characteristics of the house that they were expected to live under.
I watched the film before I read this book. I would encourage everyone who has read this book to watch the film, and those that have seen the film to read the book. While watching the film, I grew to understand how it all happened, on a slightly superficial level, but it gives a good concept of the dilemma that Lux had endured. The book is great to get the personalities of the other sisters. The film felt preoccupied with Lux and her own adventure, the book gives a great understanding of the personalities of all the girls, and shows them, not as mere shadows of Lux. It also gives a much more vicious look at the life of the girls, and how the house fell apart. But both complement each other nicely.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
If you have been to any bookstore, you always notice that one section. The section maybe called “Well-being,” or “self-help,” maybe even a resource center. Each title is usually about what it says: parenting such ages as new born, the terrible twos/toddlers, children, pre-adolescence, adolescence, young adult, adulthood; how to deal with a dying parent, overcoming grief, taking care of senior(s) or aging parents; how to better yourself, making career changes, how to overcome obstacles, how to deal with your husband’s mid-life crisis, to how to deal with your wife’s menopause – what to know when you’re expecting a child. All of these books are usually (supposedly) written by doctors. Each one specializing in their field, and who cannot make appointments with you, have decided to give you a book, in which to help guide and explain to you how to deal with trying moments of life, and the experiences and wisdom that those experiences bring.
The Lisbon girls of this novel often strike me as the poor prisoners that happen to get caught up into these books traps. Written with the best of intentions but are taken to such a fundamental extreme that any hope of living a normal life for the girls, had been corrupted by the best intentions to hide them from the filth and the dangers of the outside world. The corrupted advertisements. Hormonal urges that would soon befall them or already have. The tears and broken hearts that would come from dating. Teenage social functions were a cesspool of drugs, sexual touching would eventually lead to sex, and alcohol. Mrs. Lisbon the mother of the Lisbon girls was well aware of this. She knew that the teachers and adult supervision was not enough, to prevent or counter act these measures. In her mind a parent such as herself, wishing to keep her children safe and pure from the outside world, she would isolate them from it. Which caused the Lisbon girls in their own right to become ethereal phantoms of feminine mystery that the neighbourhood boys were enticed with.
The neighbourhood boys stuck in the pristine and isolated world of middle class suburbia of Detroit, where the economic world of the auto industry is slowly passing down, and slowly falling, to what would become its current state. All the while though suburbia appeared untouched. The golden summer air provided a angelic halo to the girls blonde hair, and provided them the appearance of saints of beauty. The neighbourhood boys, now middle aged, and fully developed individuals both in character and physical appearance, as well as their understanding of the wider and greater world. With this new found knowledge the narrators of this novel the unidentified almost virtual hive minded narration, as each of them try to piece together the unfortunate mishap that had happened in those thirteen months when they were all just teenagers, and the Lisbon girls, had committed their acts of self-sacrifice. All of them like lemmings plunged to their deaths, like the youngest and oddest sister Cecilia had done before them.
The two groups of this novel, the narrator and the Lisbon sisters, are in both ways, hive minded. Homogenized in their connections to each other, yet each with their own quirks and yet in the end, much like the girls prom dresses, they are forced to conform, and become part of the larger group, where the individuality no longer is available to be seen. Yet their quirks can be seen at times throughout the novel. These separate them from become one entity. These traits allow them to become more and more emotional involved with the reader. It shows them as human beings.
Bonnie at fifteen is shy, and has a devout clerical passion for religion, honouring the shrine to her sister Cecilia. Lux Lisbon fourteen years old is the beauty and sexy sister. The creature that causes all the boys to fantasize about. Her demeanour is sexy, she is adventurous, and yet eventually despite the intentions of her parents becomes increasingly promiscuous. Mary is sixteen, is the prim, the proper and poised of the girls – and perhaps the vainest. In many ways Mary suffers the worst. Therese is the oldest at the age of seventeen is the studious and intellectual sister, fascinated by the world of science. Cecilia is the youngest, at thirteen; she is the mystical, shy and is rather precocious, known by many and even her older sisters as the weird one in the family. Yet her own death kick starts, the tragic events that unfold throughout this novel.
The neighbourhood boys in their adolescence are more objective. They are more difficult to understand. Yet the novel is not about them. They make great detectives though. Conducting interviews. With those involved in the Lisbon case. From teachers, neighbors, friends, doctors, teachers, nurses, the parents themselves. Yet their attempts to understand and comprehend the Lisbon girls, becomes increasingly futile and at best impossible. Their exhibits (1 – 97) become faded, like their memories, and the memories of the girls themselves. Yet their own desires to understand the girls, and their haunting hold on them and their lives, continuous to allow them to ponder the realities of the Lisbon girls, and the lives they once lived.
With his debut novel Jeffrey Eugenides, presents an interesting world of adolescences, one that does not reflect the present. When thinning hair becomes an occurrence or families themselves are started. Yet the past shows great insight into the characters that they themselves had grown into. Their realization how life was never normal at the Lisbon house. How the ‘community events,’ that surround the suburban community never include the Lisbon household. How in a sea of homes, and manicured lawns, snoopy housewives who have an opinion for everything, to mothers who know your own mother, and a greatly pious atmosphere of false virtues, and cardboard sympathies of cards, to the baked cakes that try to show the feeling that one cares; the Lisbon house itself stood out as a prison. A place ruled by the de facto leader Mrs. Lisbon who rules with an iron fist and a fundamental mind in my opinion, whose inability see or realize her own actions had destroyed the world of her own daughters, who in themselves, never were allowed to live lives of their own. Yet the communal activities of cleaning (raking the leaves, the fly-fish problem) all lead to a social event, with Mr. Lisbon as the ambassador to the outside community in which his wife, did not appear in.
With the first attempt underway, the Lisbon parents were forced to really consider the advice of a doctor. They held a social function. To which the neighbourhood boys, were invited. This first attempt at suicide by the ethereal Cecilia, also was the beginning of trying to understand the greatest question of all: why? The first of many theories were presented, after the discovery of Cecilia’s diary was found, to which she remarked on the foreign child, who was the first person on their street to wear sunglasses, fell in love with another. Going so far as to jump off the roof of his relatives home, in proclamation of his love for her. Yet Cecilia’s diary does not betray anything of the matter, simply giving a quick glance at it, before drifting off like a cloud somewhere else. Yet the party soon fell into tragedy as Cecilia final action was taken in a dramatic fashion. From there on the slow descent of the Lisbon household could be seen. Mr. Lisbon’s mind grew more and more estranged from reality. The neighbourhood grew more muted and shocked by the action itself. Yet each person played their part perfectly, and tried to help the Lisbon’s out. Women baked pies. The men went in and tried to dig up the spiked fence. Others gave their criticism behind their curtains.
Yet the prisons had lost its hold, and slowly began to deteriorate. The lives of the girls deteriorate eventually however a bad situation goes terribly wrong. Finally in desperate acts of freedom, the girl’s swan dive into death, and mortality themselves. Trying in any way shape or possible to escape the house. To escape their domineering parents. To run away from the house. Not just sit down in front of a climate mirror, and imagine the outside world. Not to travel in a car, on a road trip that could only in their imagination by looking through catalogues and brochures. Not to feel life or love in only fleeting brief moments that they themselves, had once experienced and now were deprived of.
Throughout the novel the girls had experienced moments of life. That others had experienced as well. Through their domineering mother (for the most part) the girls feared the (not Lux I suspect) concept of all aspects of life. Yet after the prom, even pious clerical Bonny wanted to have that phone call, rung back to her. That string of connection. That desire to be connected with someone else outside of the four walls. In the end however the girls, escaped the oppression of a life no longer worth living, when they could no longer stomach the isolation, deprivation, and inhuman characteristics of the house that they were expected to live under.
I watched the film before I read this book. I would encourage everyone who has read this book to watch the film, and those that have seen the film to read the book. While watching the film, I grew to understand how it all happened, on a slightly superficial level, but it gives a good concept of the dilemma that Lux had endured. The book is great to get the personalities of the other sisters. The film felt preoccupied with Lux and her own adventure, the book gives a great understanding of the personalities of all the girls, and shows them, not as mere shadows of Lux. It also gives a much more vicious look at the life of the girls, and how the house fell apart. But both complement each other nicely.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Beauty and Sadness
Hello Gentle Reader
When the supermoon happened on May sixth, there was certainly an ambience of romance in the air. Personally I was wondering I was going to be able to see it. The weather had turned absolutely dreadful, with rain and snow a constant mix in early May. However in the end the moon prevailed, and there certainly was a sense of budding romance, and kisses around, in with the mixture of awe and wonder at the natural beauty that still surround us as people. Such moments of beautiful wistful expose becomes the psychological scenes that are painted in Yasunari Kawabata’s fiction. Of course with his pen, he splashes dashes of melancholy with an understated and gentle sleight of hand, trick. The ritual of drinking sake (or was it tea?) at a temple, while the moons reflection sat in the liquid, conjures up images in my mind, of a beautiful glowing white orb of the moon, caught in a cup. It is with these images, and metaphors of the traditional Japan, that Yasunari Kawabata is able to write about traditions and the constant battle of traditional life to the more modern and decadent lifestyle of a more western influenced Japan. Western clothes are put against the back drop of the traditional Kimono, and even the art of painting is placed under the magnifying glass and scrutiny of Yasunari Kawabata’s study and his lamentation of a traditional Japanese society, to a more unheard of a unknown Western influenced Japan. Yet the cultural exchange of the two, has become something that both have learned to respect and admirer. With this last published novel Yasunari Kawabata, probes the intricate complexities of human relationships. Passion, obsession, devotion, and the bitter sweet nostalgia of a time that has passed and abruptly come to an end, are all explored in this novel. However Yasunari Kawabata also explores with his understating prose, jealousy and the scorn of a woman, and the desire to take action and revenge. Written in the same vein, like his short and exquisite ‘Pam-of-The-Hand Stories,’ Yasunari Kawabata uses vignette’s and chapters to fully flesh out his characters, and dialogue can be sparse and minimal, with Yasunari Kawabata revealing more about the situation, not in their speech but by how they hold themselves, and the characters very body language. The natural world, and he scenes around them become, an inside look into the minds of the characters, making for an intense and psychologically riveting ride all the way into the end. However Yasunari Kawabata presents a very irrational character in this book who often appears more of an exaggerated form of a mentally ill woman at times, and made me wonder what she was after, leading to many moments of confusion even in the end, I was not certain what her goal had been, or if it had changed sometime down the road, as it had almost appeared to be.
It is an erotic novel at times. Sexual symbols abound. The delicate nature of a woman’s breast swollen with milk; or the comparison of a woman’s nipple like a budding flower, fragile and delicate and all that more wistful to gaze at, and caress. Ears become an erotic sensory of pleasure to touch and to tease. The slim pale neck of a woman resembles that of a swan, becomes something of a symbol for feminine beauty and the very thin line of life and death; and the erotic fixation that such thoughts can be bring on. Of course this is not some erotic novel, which could be described as pornographic. Graphic descriptions of sexual interaction that is not Yasunari Kawabata’s style, which is built upon more subtle and subdued imagery that reviles that of poetry in some cases, and with its heightened sense of lyricism and psychological probing makes the novel, which on the surface is a simple love story, and turns into a more complex meditation on beauty and the power that can come with it.
The novel opens long after the dreaded affair had begun, and the writer Oki is traveling to Kyoto on impulse to listen to the New Year’s Bells ringing in the old capital. However there is another reason to for Oki to travel to, Kyoto and it’s not just simply to hear the New Year’s Bells ring in the New Year. The other reason why Oki wishes to travel to Tokyo is to see an old lover Otoko Ueno, who has become a painter but also a recluse, and paints in the traditional style of Japanese art. Oki Toshio hopes that seeing his old lover, which the two will be able to reconnect. However it turns out to be a failure, for Toshio, as both time has taken its course, and though both have a secret longing for each other, it could never be acted upon. The affair itself had damaged both of their lives. Oki Toshio was able to turn the affair to a novel “A Girl of Sixteen,” that had brought him money and fame, as a writer. However the act of writing the novel itself had caused some incredible damage to his marriage with his wife. The affair itself had tortured her enough, causing great amounts of jealousy, however she still typed up the manuscript for Oki Toshio, which furthered her resentment towards the love affair between Oki and Otoko. Taichiro the son of Oki and his wife (whose name evades me) remarks that on the damage done to his mother by the love affair; emotional outbursts and the quiet emotional breakdown that had taken its hold of her. The novel that had supported her and her family through the years, had presented as a crazed and jealous wife, when it would appear in reality she was a heart broken woman, disillusioned with the idealistic thoughts of marriage, love and family – seeing as their sanctity had been soiled by the extramarital affair.
With his description of the fictional novel “A Girl of Sixteen,” Yasunari Kawabata almost pokes fun at himself with the following lines:
“It was the tragic love story of a very young girl and a man himself still young but with a wife and child: only the beauty of it had been heightened, to the point that it was unmarred by any moral questioning.”
His arrival in Kyoto and the less then heartwarming reunion that Oki had expected with his once young lover of fifteen, Otoko; leads to meeting with the masochistic and mentally unstable protégé of Otoko; whose paintings unlike her teacher, are more abstract, and full of emotional landscapes that reflect the emotional whirlpools of the artist herself. Enter then the Japanese Ophelia of this novel Keiko – who is out more for revenge then for the unrequited love.
Keiko is well aware of her beauty. She knows of the tragic love affair between her teacher, and Oki Toshio, whose novel publicized the affair, and turned the personal into a piece of art work. Keiko is well aware of the tragedy that continued long after the affair as well. The miscarried child and the heartbreak of both the lover’s heart and the maternal womb. Otoko after that point was no longer able to have children, and from that point on until the beginning of the novel at the age of thirty eight, had become a spinster and a painter – and somewhere along the line Keiko had become both her protégé and lover.
However the pain and the tragic affair and its consequential ending for her teacher and lover, leads her to become protective and seek revenge for her. Believing that the only one that had profited from the affair was Oki himself – though he also paid for the affair, in different circumstances.
Keiko is well aware of her beauty. She uses it as a source of power, and a way to use it to gain revenge against Oki by seducing him. Which goes according to plan, however while engaged in the act, of making love Keiko shouts out Otoko’s name and causes Oki to retreat from his actions. But Keiko is far from done with her plan of revenge – to which Otoko is well aware of and greatly disapproves of, as if in a way jealous of her protégé’s actions, or perhaps she would rather leave the past where it belongs in the past.
Yet with Yasunari Kawabata’s prose and his inability to keep everything black and white he presents Otoko as a selfish person herself:
“Even if she had been led into her infatuation with her pupil Keiko, so much younger and of her own sex, was that not another form of infatuation with herself?”
But perhaps the most revealing quote about Otoko’s feelings on the matter comes from the following passage, and the own revelation of her own hidden and conflicted desires:
“Had Otoko not wanted to create a pure, lovely image of herself? Apparently the girl of sixteen who loved Oki would always exist within her, never to grow up. Yet she had been unaware of it…”
When Oki retreats from the love and beauty – not to mention the jealousy of Keiko, her vengeful eyes are turned to his son Taichiro, but what may blossom underneath the two, who have lived in the shadows of the affair between their respected elders – one a father and the other a lover. Both had seen the effects, and both also share a sense of resentment towards the other about it. Keiko however, takes her revenge, and tells Taichiro’s mother that they are to marry, enraging his mother, and opening old sensitive wounds, as she demands that Taichiro renounce the prospect – and yet Taichiro says nothing and remains ambiguous. Not truly revealing where he stands. Keiko’s actions however also destroy her own life, as Otoko begins to get increasingly jealous upset at Keiko’s disregard for others, and eventually grows fed up, and informs her protégé that if she leaves, she needn’t bother to return.
The last passage or scene is the final ring of the bell. Shocking and ambiguous in its ending. Leaving one to wonder, the true fate of the characters, and the motivation of Keiko’s true feelings, if she had actually began to love Taichiro or had once again simply pretended.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
When the supermoon happened on May sixth, there was certainly an ambience of romance in the air. Personally I was wondering I was going to be able to see it. The weather had turned absolutely dreadful, with rain and snow a constant mix in early May. However in the end the moon prevailed, and there certainly was a sense of budding romance, and kisses around, in with the mixture of awe and wonder at the natural beauty that still surround us as people. Such moments of beautiful wistful expose becomes the psychological scenes that are painted in Yasunari Kawabata’s fiction. Of course with his pen, he splashes dashes of melancholy with an understated and gentle sleight of hand, trick. The ritual of drinking sake (or was it tea?) at a temple, while the moons reflection sat in the liquid, conjures up images in my mind, of a beautiful glowing white orb of the moon, caught in a cup. It is with these images, and metaphors of the traditional Japan, that Yasunari Kawabata is able to write about traditions and the constant battle of traditional life to the more modern and decadent lifestyle of a more western influenced Japan. Western clothes are put against the back drop of the traditional Kimono, and even the art of painting is placed under the magnifying glass and scrutiny of Yasunari Kawabata’s study and his lamentation of a traditional Japanese society, to a more unheard of a unknown Western influenced Japan. Yet the cultural exchange of the two, has become something that both have learned to respect and admirer. With this last published novel Yasunari Kawabata, probes the intricate complexities of human relationships. Passion, obsession, devotion, and the bitter sweet nostalgia of a time that has passed and abruptly come to an end, are all explored in this novel. However Yasunari Kawabata also explores with his understating prose, jealousy and the scorn of a woman, and the desire to take action and revenge. Written in the same vein, like his short and exquisite ‘Pam-of-The-Hand Stories,’ Yasunari Kawabata uses vignette’s and chapters to fully flesh out his characters, and dialogue can be sparse and minimal, with Yasunari Kawabata revealing more about the situation, not in their speech but by how they hold themselves, and the characters very body language. The natural world, and he scenes around them become, an inside look into the minds of the characters, making for an intense and psychologically riveting ride all the way into the end. However Yasunari Kawabata presents a very irrational character in this book who often appears more of an exaggerated form of a mentally ill woman at times, and made me wonder what she was after, leading to many moments of confusion even in the end, I was not certain what her goal had been, or if it had changed sometime down the road, as it had almost appeared to be.
It is an erotic novel at times. Sexual symbols abound. The delicate nature of a woman’s breast swollen with milk; or the comparison of a woman’s nipple like a budding flower, fragile and delicate and all that more wistful to gaze at, and caress. Ears become an erotic sensory of pleasure to touch and to tease. The slim pale neck of a woman resembles that of a swan, becomes something of a symbol for feminine beauty and the very thin line of life and death; and the erotic fixation that such thoughts can be bring on. Of course this is not some erotic novel, which could be described as pornographic. Graphic descriptions of sexual interaction that is not Yasunari Kawabata’s style, which is built upon more subtle and subdued imagery that reviles that of poetry in some cases, and with its heightened sense of lyricism and psychological probing makes the novel, which on the surface is a simple love story, and turns into a more complex meditation on beauty and the power that can come with it.
The novel opens long after the dreaded affair had begun, and the writer Oki is traveling to Kyoto on impulse to listen to the New Year’s Bells ringing in the old capital. However there is another reason to for Oki to travel to, Kyoto and it’s not just simply to hear the New Year’s Bells ring in the New Year. The other reason why Oki wishes to travel to Tokyo is to see an old lover Otoko Ueno, who has become a painter but also a recluse, and paints in the traditional style of Japanese art. Oki Toshio hopes that seeing his old lover, which the two will be able to reconnect. However it turns out to be a failure, for Toshio, as both time has taken its course, and though both have a secret longing for each other, it could never be acted upon. The affair itself had damaged both of their lives. Oki Toshio was able to turn the affair to a novel “A Girl of Sixteen,” that had brought him money and fame, as a writer. However the act of writing the novel itself had caused some incredible damage to his marriage with his wife. The affair itself had tortured her enough, causing great amounts of jealousy, however she still typed up the manuscript for Oki Toshio, which furthered her resentment towards the love affair between Oki and Otoko. Taichiro the son of Oki and his wife (whose name evades me) remarks that on the damage done to his mother by the love affair; emotional outbursts and the quiet emotional breakdown that had taken its hold of her. The novel that had supported her and her family through the years, had presented as a crazed and jealous wife, when it would appear in reality she was a heart broken woman, disillusioned with the idealistic thoughts of marriage, love and family – seeing as their sanctity had been soiled by the extramarital affair.
With his description of the fictional novel “A Girl of Sixteen,” Yasunari Kawabata almost pokes fun at himself with the following lines:
“It was the tragic love story of a very young girl and a man himself still young but with a wife and child: only the beauty of it had been heightened, to the point that it was unmarred by any moral questioning.”
His arrival in Kyoto and the less then heartwarming reunion that Oki had expected with his once young lover of fifteen, Otoko; leads to meeting with the masochistic and mentally unstable protégé of Otoko; whose paintings unlike her teacher, are more abstract, and full of emotional landscapes that reflect the emotional whirlpools of the artist herself. Enter then the Japanese Ophelia of this novel Keiko – who is out more for revenge then for the unrequited love.
Keiko is well aware of her beauty. She knows of the tragic love affair between her teacher, and Oki Toshio, whose novel publicized the affair, and turned the personal into a piece of art work. Keiko is well aware of the tragedy that continued long after the affair as well. The miscarried child and the heartbreak of both the lover’s heart and the maternal womb. Otoko after that point was no longer able to have children, and from that point on until the beginning of the novel at the age of thirty eight, had become a spinster and a painter – and somewhere along the line Keiko had become both her protégé and lover.
However the pain and the tragic affair and its consequential ending for her teacher and lover, leads her to become protective and seek revenge for her. Believing that the only one that had profited from the affair was Oki himself – though he also paid for the affair, in different circumstances.
Keiko is well aware of her beauty. She uses it as a source of power, and a way to use it to gain revenge against Oki by seducing him. Which goes according to plan, however while engaged in the act, of making love Keiko shouts out Otoko’s name and causes Oki to retreat from his actions. But Keiko is far from done with her plan of revenge – to which Otoko is well aware of and greatly disapproves of, as if in a way jealous of her protégé’s actions, or perhaps she would rather leave the past where it belongs in the past.
Yet with Yasunari Kawabata’s prose and his inability to keep everything black and white he presents Otoko as a selfish person herself:
“Even if she had been led into her infatuation with her pupil Keiko, so much younger and of her own sex, was that not another form of infatuation with herself?”
But perhaps the most revealing quote about Otoko’s feelings on the matter comes from the following passage, and the own revelation of her own hidden and conflicted desires:
“Had Otoko not wanted to create a pure, lovely image of herself? Apparently the girl of sixteen who loved Oki would always exist within her, never to grow up. Yet she had been unaware of it…”
When Oki retreats from the love and beauty – not to mention the jealousy of Keiko, her vengeful eyes are turned to his son Taichiro, but what may blossom underneath the two, who have lived in the shadows of the affair between their respected elders – one a father and the other a lover. Both had seen the effects, and both also share a sense of resentment towards the other about it. Keiko however, takes her revenge, and tells Taichiro’s mother that they are to marry, enraging his mother, and opening old sensitive wounds, as she demands that Taichiro renounce the prospect – and yet Taichiro says nothing and remains ambiguous. Not truly revealing where he stands. Keiko’s actions however also destroy her own life, as Otoko begins to get increasingly jealous upset at Keiko’s disregard for others, and eventually grows fed up, and informs her protégé that if she leaves, she needn’t bother to return.
The last passage or scene is the final ring of the bell. Shocking and ambiguous in its ending. Leaving one to wonder, the true fate of the characters, and the motivation of Keiko’s true feelings, if she had actually began to love Taichiro or had once again simply pretended.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
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