// rohitsrealm.com / archive / category / literature
I'm going back to school on Monday. I've been dreading this day and thought all week. The knowledge of having to go back to school: back to the lack of sleep, to the horrible cooking, eating out everyday BECAUSE of horrible cooking, the hate for life, the loss of weight, the...too much to talk about.
Below are my first impressions for my classes this semester.
I was reading Eugene Onegin
by Alexander Pushkin for my English class today, and first of all, I would like to say that this is truly an awesome undertaking by the author. The entire novel is in verse, that actually rhymes and stuff! Thinking about it further, I realized that it rhymes when I'm reading it in English and has a flow, much like other poems. But it wasn't written in English! Thus, whoever translated it from Russian even emulated Pushkin's rhyming verse. Pretty awesome. I haven't been this impressed with a novel since reading The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner. Anyway, check out a this excerpt:
I just started reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert for my Slavic 133 class, and I thought I'd share what I got from reading the first part, because it seems as though something that one would post in an (online) journal.
In what may be deemed a rather curious coincidence, I finished up William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying yesterday morning prior to work, just in time for Valentine's Day. A disconcerting novel from start to finish, As I Lay Dying vacillates almost imperceptibly between dark comedy and even darker tragedy, and as I was reading, I was often hard-pressed to know whether to laugh or cry.
Nearly one year after first diving into Fyodor Dostoevsky's last, longest, and perhaps greatest novel—The Brothers Karamazov—I finally finished it today. Though an unquestionably long read that takes quite a lot of motivation to get into (then again, what Russian novel does not?), I would venture that it is simultaneously one of the most prolific that I have had the opportunity to complete.
This might very well be the final evidence one needs to confirm that I have, in fact, totally lost my mind, but last weekend I had a long nightmare about Gulliver's Travels that actually caused me to wake up sweating. The catch: I've never even read Gulliver's Travels.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Though Dickens may have been writing about the French Revolution when he opened his much-exalted A Tale of Two Cities, his proverbial words could just as easily apply to a very different revolution: the RSS revolution, and its still nascent descendant, Atom.
Though I did almost meet my soulmate last night coming home from Omaha, I would argue that my greatest accomplishment of the trip had to be finding the time to finish up a book that had been on my reading list since March: L'Âge de Raison (The Age of Reason, in American), the first novel in Jean-Paul Sartre's famed trilogy Les Chemins de la Liberté (The Roads to Freedom). Though often extremely weighty (sometimes unbearably so), the book went by for me rather quickly (I finished half of it on the flight to Omaha, and the other half waiting at the airport to return), and moreover, left me disquieted in a way that only truly despondent novels (and authors) can.
Considering my predilection for reading (and writing) about such dour and oppressive subjects as Russian literature, William Faulkner, and existentialism, it may come as no uncertain surprise to many readers that I simultaneously possess a consummate, almost inexplicable affinity towards Magic Realism. And yet, since my earliest exposure to the genre with El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba in high school—incidentally in the original Spanish—and later, Cien Años de Soledad in college (this was in English translation), both by famed Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, I have been fascinated by the manner in which stories in this genre combine both the intensely real and the utterly fantastic to weave a truly hypnotic tale of human existence. As such, one can imagine the excitement with which I picked up Haruki Murakami's (one of the few contemporary authors I read—thanks nrt for the introduction) latest book, After Dark, after reading a review in the Economist, and only a few weeks after its U.S. release.
About a month ago, I wrote an entry about Schrödinger's Cat (among other things) in which I argued that the people who do end up making especially prescient observations distinguish themselves in a way that we should allow people to be distinguished.
No where is that statement more relevant than in discussing George Orwell's (the nom de plume of Eric Blair) prophetic dystopian vision of totalitarianism: 1984.
As the long and largely gloomy list of books I have reviewed on this site over the past seven odd years should make clear, I am not a person particularly enamored with contemporary literature, and certainly not short stories. Indeed, the last short story collection I read was probably Anton Chekhov's Stories for an English class at Cal back in 2003. Less justifiably, I think, I am also not a person who frequently reads works by female authors, though I had never given it much thought until it was pointed out to me by a friend who noticed a dearth of such works on my bookshelves. It was that same latter observation that prompted my friend to gift me Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, among others, which I completed today.
I was of course familiar with Lahiri from The Namesake, a book which I had long been meaning to pick up but to which I had never gotten around. After completing the Interpreter of Maladies, I think it will be one I will be picking up sooner rather than later (though the question of whether to purchase a paperback or Kindle version continues to vex).
One need not know me well to know that I am rather fond of Russian literature. The frequency with which I reference it, both on this wretched site and in a real life
that is far more wretched still, is exceeded perhaps only by the seemingly unending obscure allusions to The X-Files (like this, for instance). That I would choose to pick up The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky back in summer of 2008 so soon after finishing Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in 2007 (review here), therefore, should come as no surprise. Nor should it shock anyone that, like most things in my life, The Idiot too would fall victim to law school's vice-like grip on my time, becoming yet another law school casualty.
Although I had been more than 150 pages in when I left New York that summer, I was forced to start all over when I picked up the book again this spring, finally determined to finish it. Today I accomplished that task, bringing to a close another half-completed remnant of my law school years.
It has been a long time since I posted twice on this loathsome site in as many days—almost two years—and far longer since I sat down and read a book in a day. And for that matter, I don't think I have ever published two book reviews in a row. Inspired, however, by completing a major Russian work that had long been lingering on my bookshelf, I went on what I yesterday deemed an ill-advised book buying binge.
(Ill-advised because I have a long backlog of purchased but unread books to work through at the moment, and certainly none more are needed.) Of the four novels I picked up, JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey was the shortest, which made it an excellent candidate for my next book, seeing as how I had been suffering under the dense endless prose that accompanies most Russian novels for many months. I was expecting to kill it over the coming week and had only intended to start it when I picked it up late last night; it went by a lot quicker than even I expected.
You may be forgiven, dear readers, if you were slightly aghast upon examining this latest blog post's title, for it is not often that I, purveyor of all that is somber or melancholy, deign to engage anything—let alone literature—that may be considered happy,
much less romantic.
Rest assured, however, that my decision to read (not to mention review) Jane Austen's 1815 romance and comedy of manners, Emma, was not taken in a fit of lovesick idiocy which I decried as recently as this past weekend. On the contrary, my reasons for choosing this book (part of my binge a couple weeks back) were quite deliberate. First, after a year-to-date of mostly melancholy or downright depressing tales, it was time for a change. Even I have my limits when it comes to despair. Second, and perhaps equally as important, I needed to introduce some variation into my reading repertoire; one cannot simply alternate between Russian and (God forbid) American literature forever, after all.
Emma satisfied both these conditions quite well. For one, Pride and Prejudice is a favorite and it remains one of the few books I have ever read that made me laugh out loud, a feat for which I have much respect for its author. For another, I knew what to expect from Emma, if for no other reason than having watched Clueless (more than once, I am not afraid to admit); there would be no soul-crushing ending here. Lastly, I was told by a reputable source that this was the better novel vis-à-vis the other Austen I might have considered, Sense and Sensibility.
My summer binge of books continues unabated, it would seem. Today, I got through Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or more precisely, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, the first of three stories published in the Norton Critical Edition I purchased in my ill-advised book-buying binge some weeks ago. The other two—Through the Looking Glass and The Hunting of the Snark—will have to wait another day, however, as the 99 pages of nonsense provided courtesy of Alice was quite enough for me for one summer.
I chose to pick up Alice in Wonderland last month for several reasons, but none of them were because I was particularly excited to read the book. Children's literature, as you might guess dear readers, is not and was never really my cup of tea. I did, of course, once upon a time read children's literature, given that I had little choice in the matter in my early years; and to this day have fond, if hazy, memories of the Berenstain Bears, Boxcar Children, Hardy Boys, and of course, most stories authored by the prolific Roald Dahl. But before I was ten, I had moved onto Crichton, Grisham, and Clancy—popular and contemporary stories, without doubt, but hardly children's stories. And in high school, college, and beyond, I would abandon contemporary fiction entirely for the classics—a trend from which I have yet to deviate even today.
What compelled me to pick up Alice, then, was a combination of feeling that this was a book I should read given its literary and cultural significance and wanting a change of pace from the melancholy of recent titles such as Interpreter of Maladies and The Idiot. And on those fronts, it did not disappoint—I can now say I have read it, and it certainly was not melancholy. I must admit, however, that ultimately I don't think I really got
the book.
After an inspired spell of reading over the summer, the autumn again brought the twin (self-imposed) malignancies of overwork and ill-conceived travel that have long plagued me (and this site). Naturally, as a consequence, the feverish pace at which I had been consuming books ground to an unseemly halt. But as I had quietly committed to finishing the four books I bought in an ill-advised book-buying binge
in July before the end of the year, I spent the last few weeks in a mad dash to finish the last—and by far, the longest and most difficult—of the lot: Salman Rushdie's 1981 Booker Prize winner, Midnight's Children. We are nothing, after all, without our entirely arbitrary commitments to ourselves. (I might be nothing regardless of my entirely arbitrary commitments to myself, but that's a story for another day.)
Only a few days ago, I lamented the slowing of my reading pace caused by what I deemed the twin malignancies of overwork and ill-conceived travel. The holidays, however, have brought some spare time and today I wrapped up the first of four new books purchased in yet another ill-advised book-buying binge
last week in Brooklyn. Compared to Midnight's Children, F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise was a breeze of a read that I could most likely have finished in a day had it not been for other commitments. Having read and enjoyed The Great Gatsby a couple times (once in high school and again in college), I had rather high expectations for Fitzgerald's 1920 foray into the literary world at the tender age of twenty-three. Unfortunately, the novel ended up being somewhat of a disappointment.
I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts.
With those opening sentences, Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1864 novella Notes from Underground joins the pantheon of books with awesome opening lines,
alongside such masterpieces as Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities (review here), Pride and Prejudice, and Huckleberry Finn. And like its compatriots just mentioned, Notes did not disappoint beyond its opening lines.
Considering that Notes is often regarded as the first existential novel, it has, unsurprisingly, long been on my list of books to read. But for whatever reason, it never was a priority, and given the length and density of other works of Russian literature (including a few by Dostoevsky himself), the almost absurdly short Notes, which clocks in at only 131 pages, always seemed to fall by the wayside. That is, until my second ill-advised book-buying binge
of 2011. But length can be deceiving: despite its rather skimpy appearance, the novel still packs a rather impressive intellectual punch—and this time, without the 200 pages or so of exposition usually endemic to Russian novels.
Having committed most spare moments of the past month to making progress in Leo Tolstoy's massive 1869 tome, War and Peace, it seems only fitting to pause as I pass the approximate halfway point (end of Volume II, page 600 of 1224) and consider the vexing question of book format that has tormented me since the start of the e-ink revolution in late 2007. Although I bought a second generation Kindle shortly after its release in April 2009, and have since then occasionally used the thing to read books (as opposed to law articles), it has never replaced the physical format for me (as it has for many fellow techies I know). Indeed, both of my last two ill-advised book-buying binges
have involved brick and mortar bookstores, and my version of War and Peace is the 2008 Vintage translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (easily my favorite Russian translators, incidentally).
As with most things in my sorry excuse for an existence, the question of why
bothers me. Why haven't I abandoned the physical format yet (as I long did in music, TV, and movies)? E-books mean less clutter and less expense—what's not to love? Perhaps nothing. But I can think of at least three possible explanations as to why I—and many of my fellow bibliophiles—might not have made the leap to e-ink wholeheartedly: (1) books are intrinsically different than other media such that (a) format matters and (b) the physical format can be superior; (2) the utility people derive from pretension (i.e., others seeing your library) exceeds the cost of the clutter; or (3) we are relics of a soon to be bygone era on our way to waxing nostalgic about bookstores and paperback books much the way our parents' generation goes on about record stores and LPs.1 Bear with me as I tackle each of these thoughts in turn. Or don't: it wouldn't be the first time I (or this third-rate site) have been abandoned, and it certainly won't be the last.
For the benefit of those who have not had the insurmountable displeasure of interacting with me in person of late, I must admit that I have become somewhat fixated in recent months upon the so-called Mayan apocalypse and the prospect of world coming to an (unlamented) end on or about December 21, 2012 (the winter solstice). That's not to say I believe the world is coming to an end in nine months, because only lunatics and buffoons believe in such rubbish, but only that this prospect has caused me to contemplate the meaninglessness of life (alone and in the dark, of course) and consider the extent to which I have accomplished nothing more than I normally might. One natural question that follows from this line of thought is as follows: what would I regret not having accomplished if when I perished along with the rest of the wretched mass of humanity that torments this miserable planet like a biblical plague? The answer shouldn't be too hard to guess: I would regret having not gotten to Leo Tolstoy's 1869 epic, War and Peace.
And so, with heady thoughts of the world's end consuming me, I set out on January 1st of this year to accomplish at least this one goal in a life otherwise riddled with and downright failures. Last night, I accomplished this goal, some nine weeks after I began, and below I briefly summarize some of my impressions on this vast, towering novel.
Well, dear readers, it's been a while. I hope you didn't miss me too much over the past few months. (It's hard to imagine the scenario in which anyone might miss me or this dreadful blog, but hey—the world is full of strange and dreadful phenomena. Who am I to judge?) In any case, I wish I could tell you that I emerge today full of spirit and motivation to begin writing again, but that's simply not the case. I have, however, gotten through several books since I last wrote here, and will hopefully be reviewing a few of them over the next couple week. The first of the set is Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, which I finished on a plane from Los Angeles to New York last Christmas. To put it mildly, it was definitely not a merry read.
Sartre's first novel, and purportedly his best, Nausea takes the form of the diary of Antoine Roquentin, a listless French writer who has moved to the small (and fictional) town of Bouville to research the subject of a biography he is writing. Fixated on and horrified by his existence, however, Roquentin spends much of the novel documenting his feelings and sensations as he goes through his daily routine and interacts with both animate and inanimate objects. And while certain other characters do make appearances, including an ex-lover (Anny) and a local acquaintance (the Self-Taught Man), the novel is largely a collection of Roquentin's (actually, Sartre's) thoughts on consciousness and the meaning of life (or the lack thereof).
I would say something about my long absence from this loathsome affair, but is there even a point any more? You, dear readers, should know not to expect anything of me—I told you as much last year.
I return today to this miserable site to review Demons, Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1872 novel about political intrigue and revolutionary conspiracies in nineteenth century Russia, which I finished while traveling through India earlier this year. This being the last of Dostoevsky's major works on my reading list after Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamozov (review here), The Idiot (review here), and Notes from Underground (review here), I was expecting to be somewhat disappointed—how could this novel possibly match up to those awesome works of literature? Instead, I was rather pleasantly surprised.
As I briefly observed in my review of Demons some years back, the order in which one approaches a particular author's catalog (oeuvre, for the pretentious among you) often influences one's perception of his or her individual works. And so was the case when I read William Faulkner's 1932 novel Light in August.
I was first exposed to Faulkner in high school (The Sound and the Fury), and since then, have made my way through two of his other major works—Absalom, Absalom! (for an English class in college) and As I Lay Dying (review here). In each of those instances, I recall enjoying the read but also struggling to make my way through it. The distortion of time, the dense, unpunctuated prose, and varying narratives all required tremendous focus to follow. Light in August was different.
