Nikos Kazantzakis: Toda Raba

Nikos Kazantzakis
Toda Raba
Published 1931
English Translation, 1964
Amy Mims,  trans.

 


The focal point of this tale is the Soviet Union's celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution in 1928.  Nikos Kazantzakis received an invitation from the Soviet government to attend a general meeting being held at that time.  Although Kazantzakis never became a member of the Communist Party, he apparently saw them at that time as the best hope to improve the condition of   the mass of humanity and to fight the ever increasing threat of fascism.  Like many others during the 20s, he seemed, to me at least, to be more of an admirer of the Ideal Communism.   He attended the meeting and traveled once again extensively throughout the Soviet Union in 1928. Toda Raba was written in 1929 and first published in 1931.   According to what I have read, he later witnessed the rise of Stalin and became disillusioned by communism as practiced in Russia.

The narrative is split, for it follows the travels of six or seven people who were invited to attend that Tenth Anniversary meeting in Moscow.  The travelers are varied:  there is Rahel, a Polish-Jewish young woman who is a member of the Cheka (Soviet secret police): Azad, a ex-member of the Cheka and a murderer; Geranos, who, like Kazantzakis,  is from Crete; Sou-ki, a Chinese living in California; Amita, a Japanese writer;  Amanda, a monk from India; and Toda Raba, a black African.

The characters are forcefully drawn and come alive.  This is one of Kazantzakis' strengths--his ability to make his characters come off the page, even minor characters who only appear briefly for a page or two, and are never seen again.  For example:

Geranos turned around.  .  .  He saw a man dressed very soberly and elegantly, who moved with short, fiery movements.  His eyes were exalted and cold.  Only his smile, broad and controlled and showing beautiful carnivorous teeth, betrayed the hungry sensuality in this disciplined man. 

Some parts of the novel might be mistaken for a travelogue for Kazantzakis provides us with beautiful descriptions of the Russian countryside and the varied cities and towns and the many nationalities along with their native dress and customs as the travelers take different routes to reach Moscow.

But, above all, Kazantzakis gives us the varying political and ideological flavors of the travelers, from idealistic believers to those who see various problems arising within the system to those who see Communism as the wave of the future and wish to be part of it.  Azad, at one point, says:

"But are you blind?  Don't you see?  There's something not right in our Russia!  What it is I don't know . . . . There's a stream of mire . . . . of red mire . . . . Let's get together, we old fighters, we honest men, the ones with fire.  Let's create a different stream, even if we have to make it out of blood.  Let's climb the hill again.  Let's purge the earth once more! Can't this little band sign the death warrant any more . . ."

Azad sees what he considers flaws in the system.  He is not blinded by his faith in this way.  However, he believes that the flaws are the result of those in power and that the solution is to remove them and put in better people.  He doesn't realize that all human created systems are flawed, that there really is no such thing as the perfect system.   

As you can see, Kazantzakis' travelers are anything but a monolithic bloc of true believers as they debate and argue about the state of communism in the Soviet Union.  The flyleaf to the novel suggests that the characters all represent Kazantzakis' own deeply conflicting views of  the Revolution.  If so, it is easy to see why he never have joined the Communist Party.

I have read many of Kazantzakis' works over the years, but I had never heard of this work until last year, and  I was curious about it. I had to find out why it had been so neglected and ignored by the scholars and critics I had read over the years and I wanted, naturally to read it.  I haven't read much actually of the scholarship, to be honest, but I would have thought this one would have mentioned by at least one or two.  Perhaps it is Kazantzakis' communist leanings that scholars wished to ignore, to pretend it never happened.  But, to me anyway, the book shows Kazantzakis to be in no way a true believer, but a one who feels that communism, at least in 1929, is the best hope for humanity, even though very skeptical as to the direction it seemed to be taking.  And history has shown that his skepticism was justified.

Jane Austen's EMMA; a brief personal reaction

Jane Austen
Emma

This is probably my fourth? fifth? reading of Emma.  I am now in midst of my regular rereading of Austen's works, but I probably won't post extensively on them, mainly because I can't step back sufficiently to comment coherently.  But, occasionally a thought may strike me, as it has just recently while reading Pride and Prejudice.  This will be a much, much shorter post, just an odd thought.

In the spirit of the novel, here's a riddle (well, maybe not a riddle):


Mr. Knightly (George) got the wife he wanted, but she was not the best wife for him.

Frank Churchill got the wife he wanted, but she wasn't the wife he deserved.

Emma Woodhouse got the husband she wanted, but he wasn't the husband she deserved.

Jane Fairfax got the husband she wanted, but he was not the best husband for her.



Comments?

Jane Austen: Predator and Prey

Don't know why, but upon re-reading P and P for the x? time, I suddenly saw a new title for the novel: Predator and Prey.  The first sentence is what started me thinking:

 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

   
The second paragraph is even more specific actually:

"However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his

first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds

of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

The phrase "the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters" started me thinking: "rightful property" or prey?  This focus on one of the most famous openings in English literature caused me to see the book in a slightly different way, which resulted in a new title:  Predator and Prey.  Who are the predators and who are the prey.  This resulted in a new perspective as I then began to look at each of the characters to see which role they played.  Some even play both. 

I also paid a bit more attention to Caroline, the unmarried Bingley sister, this time.  Once she senses Darcy's interest in Liz, the claws come out.  Caroline's senses are sharp and sensitive, very necessary for a predator to know when a suspected competitor invades her territory.  However, this different view of the novel also had a surprising effect in that I now viewed Caroline in a much more sympathetic light.  More about that later.



Following is a cast of the main characters and a brief statement regarding my take on their roles in the novel.  Feel free to disagree.


Mr. Bennet: prey-- He was caught and trapped when young by a pretty face.

Mrs. Bennet:  predator--she caught Mr. Bennet and is now on the hunt for her daughters.


Jane:  prey,  not really on the hunt for a husband, potential predator.

Elizabeth: prey,  not really on the hunt for a husband, but could be a potential predator.

Lydia:  predator,  attracted by red coats of officers

Wickham:  predator, searching for a rich woman to marry

Col. FitzWilliam:  predator, see Wickham

Darcy:  prey

Bingley: prey, target of local mothers

Miss Caroline Bingley: predator, on the prowl for Darcy

Georgiana:  prey, with Wickham as a past predator

Mr. Collins:  predator and prey, looking for a wife, becomes Charlotte's target.  Or, as we used to say back in the Dark Ages, "He chased her until she caught him."


Some brief observations:

Lizzie is hard on Charlotte but excuses Wickham and FitzWilliam

Older sons are prey while younger sons are predators, who are forced into those roles because of the culture and the tradition of primogeniture--oldest sons inherit everything in order to keep the family estate intact. Therefore the oldest son is a great catch (prey) , while the younger sons are forced to find an occupation (military or the church) or marry a woman with a large dowry who can support them (predator).  The oldest son can also be a predator if familial pressures causes him to search for a wife who has wealth and perhaps a title, which would be ideal.  Either or both could enhance the family's position in society.

Some critics and readers have dismissed Austen's works as light-hearted romances with the same theme: a young woman out to get a husband, and in spite of the usual obstacles, manages to get her man and live happily ever after.
This may be true on a surface level, but underneath there is a very serious struggle taking place.

The right marriage is not just a road to everlasting bliss but a means of survival for many of Austen's heroines, and heroes also, as it was true for many in the 17th through the 19th centuries.  Many, especially in the middle class, would be doomed to a life of penury or maybe worse, a life dependent upon the good will and generosity of relatives and friends.  Limited as they were by the strictures of their society (as we also are today--even if we don't see it), jobs were unavailable or unthinkable for many.  Marriage to a suitably wealthy individual was the only solution.

And that poses the problem--making a choice, if one were lucky enough to have choices.  Who to choose to spend a lifetime with?  P. D. James, one of my favorite mystery writers in an interview said that Jane Austen was her favorite author, and that, if Austen were writing today, she would be writing mysteries.

Consider--what is the task of the detective in a mystery story--stripping away the public persona to get at the suspect's real character.  What is the task of the wise young woman or man in choosing a mate?  Isn't it the same?  In fact, that is the task of all of us, knowingly or not, of finding out just what are our acquaintances really like and how many would make good and trustworthy friends. 

As for that "living happily ever after" myth, Austen doesn't believe in it, and it shows at the conclusion of most of her novels.  It may be a good match, but unending  bliss is not in the cards.

Just a few thoughts about the far too few works by one of my all-time favorite authors.

Harper Lee: Go Set a Watchman, conclusion

Harper Lee:  Go Set a Watchman
 

Several days ago I finished Go Set a Watchman, and I can see why some would call it a mess, probably because it can't be resolved with To Kill a Mockingbird.  But, in my opinion, that's the reader's problem, not the novel's problem or failing.

Jean Louise has three confrontations: one with her Uncle Jack, one with her father, and one with Henry,  her possible/potential fiance.  It was not an easy process overall, for Jean Louise had grown up in the South, and she does share many of the political beliefs regarding States Rights and also the people's rights to live their lives as they wish, free from government interference (mostly Federal Government interference for nobody seems to be concerned about State Government interference which is just as intrusive, if not more so).  


I find the resolution to be very satisfying, because it's the resolution the novel has been pointing to from the beginning.  That is, the resolution is satisfying if one realizes that the novel is about Jean Louise and not about Atticus or Maycomb or civil rights or any of the great issues of the day.  They are there, they are important, they provide the texture to the times Jean Louis lives in and the demands made upon her as a person, but they are not what the novel is about.  I will repeat: the novel is about Jean Louise.

I have also come to the conclusion that To Kill a Mockingbird is a myth, a myth created by Jean Louise about her own childhood, the Myth of a Golden Age, long past.  Jean Louise believes in that myth, and so one day she discovers that she couldn't remain in that myth.  The real world is waiting and she must act. Perhaps the myth is related to that bit of conventional wisdom that one can't go "home" again because sometimes that "home" has changed and sometimes because that "home" never existed.

If you find my comments short, brief,  and less than satisfying--Good.  Go read Go Set a Watchman and then come back and argue with me. 


I stated earlier that I thought that Go Set a Watchman could turn out to be one of the ten best novels that I read in 2015, and now, after having finishing the novel, I still believe the same.   Moreover, it deserves to be read again. 

Harper Lee: Go Set a Watchman, Pt. 2

Harper Lee:  Go Set a Watchman

I have now finished approximately two-thirds of the book.  It covers the period of roughly twenty-four hours that began when Jean Louise first discovered that her father was reading racist material and that he and Henry belong to the Citizen's Council, of which her father was one of the directors.


The meeting is held in the courthouse, and Jean Louise climbs into the balcony where she remembers, long ago, watching her father defend a young black man from a false charge of rape. It is this reminiscence that is most likely the source for To Kill a Mockingbird.  In this version, though, Atticus Finch wins the case, setting the young black man free.

Now she hears a speaker spew forth the most vile racist nonsense and trash, not much different, unfortunately,  than what one can find on the Internet on many websites today.  She is shocked, both by what the man is saying and that her father is sitting up there, condoning what was being said.  And, Henry?, whom she was considering marrying, he is a staunch member of the council according to her aunt Alexandra.

Later, at home, she finds Alexandra in complete agreement about the ingratitude of the blacks, though she uses language that is far more gentle. The next day she visits Calpurnia, the black housekeeper who raised her and her brother Jem when her mother died.  There is a polite welcome only, for there is now a wall between blacks and whites.

The major "problem" is the NAACP which comes in, stirring up the blacks, making them dissatisfied and, worse, ungrateful for all the whites had done to help and protect blacks from themselves.  Blacks no longer know their place and are no longer happy with being second class citizens. 

At this point, Jean Louise has not yet confronted her father and Henry about their beliefs.  Part of this comes from her own confusion.  How could such a change take place in two people she thought she knew and loved?  Or was it that she had been blind all this time, and only now awakened to see the world of Maycomb as it really is?  She swears to herself that, in all the years she spent growing up, she had never heard anyone refer to blacks by the "N" word.  And now, she has heard it maybe a dozen times or more in the last 24 hours.  Everything she believed about her past life in Maycomb with her father and her friends and relatives has now been called into question in the past twenty-four hours. 

This is speculation, of course, but I expect that the last third of the novel will tell us about Jean Louise' confrontation with her father and with Henry. 

I am also beginning to get the feeling that I have been reading the novel with a preconceived idea of what the novel is about.  Again, I'm just guessing, of course, since I haven't finished the novel, and the last third may prove me wrong.  My initial focus has been on Atticus Finch, to try to understand what happened, to understand the disparity between the Atticus of  To Kill a Mockingbird and the Atticus of Go Set a Watchman. Perhaps I have missed the real core of the novel: it just may be that the novel is really about Jean Louise, and while what Atticus says and does is important, the novel is about her and her response to the destruction of her myth.  

While most, no doubt, have been aware of the  true focus of the novel, I'm a bit slow, but I occasionally get there, sometimes long after the train has pulled out. The real problem is that I have to read and evaluate Go Set a Watchman on its own terms and not try to fit it in with TKaM.  This is not easy for the novel and the film version of  TKaM  came out first, and I have read the novel and watched the film a number of times, most recently being last year.

If there's any "fitting in" to be done, it must be the other way around.  To Kill a Mockingbird must be reconciled, if possible, with Go Set a Watchman.    I know that's obvious, but I'm a bit slow.

Time to settle down and finish Go Set a Watchman.

Harper Lee: Go Set a Watchman, Pt. 1

Harper Lee:  Go Set a Watchman

I am now a bit over 1/3 of the way through the novel.  It is, as purported, an account of  Jean Louise' trip home.  I keep wanting to call her Scout.  Her father, Atticus Finch, is suffering from arthritis, and she wants to see for herself just how bad it is.

We meet her Aunt Alexandra; Henry, the man in love with her and who has asked her to marry him; Atticus, her father; and various other inhabitants of  Maycomb.  There are, as should be expected, many "remember when" and "that was the time" reminiscences, and much catching up on what has happened since her last visit.  We also learn about her relationship with Henry and about Dill, who is based on Harper Lee's friend, Truman Capote, and, of course, a bit of the history of Maycomb itself.

I am now at the point when Jean Louise discovers that Atticus reads derogatory material about blacks and that he and Henry are on their way to attend a Citizen's Council meeting (see note below).  Atticus is on the board of directors, and Henry is one of its "staunchest members," according to Alexandra.  "Not that we really need one.  Nothing's happened here in Maycomb yet, but it's always wise to be prepared," Alexandra reassures Jean Louise.  Jean Louise is shocked to hear this and is now on her way to the Citizen's Council meeting to see for herself what is going on.
 
I have read several derogatory reviews and heard about others, including one that called the novel "a mess."  I don't see it, at least so far.  Perhaps the "mess" comes later.  On the other hand, it just may be that I'm insensitive to those flaws in the novel which are obvious to more astute readers who are trained to analyze and dissect literary works.

Well, there's still almost 2/3 of the novel to go.




From the Wikipedia article

"The Citizens' Councils (also referred to as White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of  white supremacist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South. The first was formed on July 11, 1954.   After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members across the United States, mostly in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also supported segregation of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and occasionally violence against civil-rights activists.
By the 1970s, following passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s and enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government, the influence of the Councils had waned considerably. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Councils is the  Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens'_Councils

Christie's novel--The Murder on the Orient Express--and the BBC Version with David Suchet

Agatha Christie:  Murder on the Orient Express, the novel
 Murder on the Orient Express,  a BBC dramatization with David Suchet
Murder on the Orient Express (1974), see earlier post

A short time ago I watched the BBC dramatization with David Suchet, after having seen the 1974 film.   I don't remember reading the novel, and perhaps that's what I should do next.

The two do differ in certain respects.  One difference between the two film versions is that Suchet's Poirot suffers through much more of a moral/ethical/professional struggle at the end than does Finney in the 1974 version, or so it struck me. 
 
I've only watched a few of the Suchet versions, and it struck me that this was the darkest interpretation of Poirot that I had seen in the past, and it actually begins at the beginning. The two incidents prior to boarding the train certainly affects him very strongly and probably plays a significant role in his decision at the end.

Unlike the 1974 version, the music and soundtrack are very traditional, the music suggesting the turning of the wheels and danger ahead.  Another difference is the length of the films.  The 1974 version was 127 minutes long while the BBC version with David Suchet is only 89 minutes in length.  What was lost in those 40 minutes?   Several of the interviews never happened as Poirot supposedly relies on his memory of the kidnapping of Daisy Armstrong.


Several Weeks Later


I just finished reading the novel, probably for the first time as all of my memories of it come from the two films.  I could find little difference between the novel and the 1974 version of it, aside, of course, for the tone of the film.  The BBC version, of course, dropped some of the interviews, probably  because of  the length of the work.

Aside from the difference in  tone and the coverage of the novel, one other difference between the two films is Poirot's reaction at the end when he deceives the police as to his solution of the crime.  After having read the novel, I must conclude that the 1974 version is actually closer to the novel than is the BBC version, in which Poirot clearly is upset at his choice.  In the novel, he merely says which version he will give to the police and lets it go at that.  Perhaps other readers can find evidence that suggests he is very upset over his decision, and if so, I would appreciate being shown this in the novel.

This seldom happens, but I prefer the earlier 1974 version to the BBC adaptation.  

Dostoyevsky: Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Notes from Underground

I found that I had posted several entries about The Notes from Underground in association with other works, but I had never given this work its own posting.  So, I decided (being lazy) to gather together the various comments I had made to see if I could make something coherent about this very complex work.

The first part consists of an extended passage in which the underground man (UM) reveals himself. He is a civil servant who has come into a small inheritance and has retired. He is an outsider with no friends or relatives. He lives in isolation. He sneers at society, but at the same time longs to join them, to be one of them.  It is also a philosophical rant against those who think that human behavior will eventually be completely explainable and predictable by the immutable laws of science.  In addition the narrator contends that there are two types of people:  the doers and the thinkers or the intellectuals.   Everything that is accomplished is done by the doers, because the thinkers are paralyzed when they attempt to handle all the ramifications of acting.


The second part shows our reclusive narrator in action and supports both of the arguments put forth in the first part.  In the second part, the UM forces himself upon some former student acquaintances who are giving a going-away party for one of the students. The UM insists on attending the party, while mocking himself and eventually the others. He desires to be one with them, but actively works to make this impossible.

 The UM also meets a prostitute in the second part; the UM persuades Liza to escape from the life of a prostitute. However, when Liza appears at his apartment several days later, telling him that she wants to escape, he rejects her and sends her away.

This is one of Dostoyevsky's most unusual works.  It was while I was reading it, for the third or fourth time actually, that I began to see some similarities between Dostoyevsky's short novel and Poe's short story, "The Imp of the Perverse." "The Imp of the Perverse" is another of Poe's first person confessions--the individual attempts to explain why he committed his act from a jail cell, with a gallows outside awaiting him.

One of the similarities is the format: both begin with lectures on one or more topics which are of considerable length in comparison to the work which is then followed by an incident that exemplifies the topic(s) discussed in the first part. Poe's lecture is solely on the nature of perverseness in human behavior while Dostoyevsky's contains several themes, only one of which is perverseness.

One of Dostoyevsky's first examples of perverseness is that at times he is sick but doesn't go to the doctor out of spite. Who is he injuring--himself. He knows he should go because he is "only injuring [himself]...My liver is bad, well--- let it get worse." He is knowingly acting against his own best interests. Later he speaks of a "friend" of his:

"When he prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you, elegantly and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with the laws of reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you with excitement and passion of the true normal interests of man; with irony he will upbraid the shortsighted fools who do not understand their own interests, nor the true significance of virtue; and within a quarter of of an hour, without any sudden outside provocation, but simply through something inside him which is stronger than all his interests, he will go off on quite a different tack--that is, act in direct opposition to what he has just been saying about himself, in opposition to the laws of reason, in opposition to his own advantage, in fact in opposition to everything..."


Poe advances a similar argument about perversity: "Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say through its promptings we act, for the reason we should not."  In other words, we act  because we know we shouldn't.

Dostoyevsky here, like Poe, argues that humans will act at times in direct conflict with what they know to be their best interests.

Dostoyevsky postulates an advance in science which might provide accurate prediction of human behavior while Poe points out a combination of phrenology and metaphysics that attempts do the same. Both then attack the possibility of a completely accurate science of predicting human behavior.

Dostoyevsky says, "science itself will teach man that he never really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano key or the stop of an organ, and that there are , besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will not longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms..."

And then, when complete rational harmony and prosperity is established, someone will stand up and say that we should "'kick over the whole show here and scatter rationalism to the winds' ... [and] he would be sure to find followers--such is the nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning; that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated."

Again, we do things simply for the sake of  being perverse or because we know we shouldn't.



A Side Note:


There are some subtle comic comments buried within the text. The UM seems such a humorless person in much of the work, I wonder if he understands what he says here.   

". . . I began to feel an irresistible urge to plunge into society.  To me plunging into society meant paying a visit to my office chief, Anton Antonych Setochkin.  He's the only lasting acquaintance I've made during my lifetime;  I too now marvel at this circumstance.  But even then I would visit him only when my dreams had reached such a degree of happiness that it was absolutely essential for me to embrace people and all humanity at once; for that reason I needed to have at least one person on hand who actually existed.  However, one could only call upon Anton Antonych on Tuesday (his receiving day); consequently, I always had to adjust the urge to embrace all humanity so that it occurred on Tuesday. . . .The host usually sat in his study on a leather couch in front of a table together with some gray-haired guest, a civil servant either from our office or another one.  I never saw more than two or three guests there, and they were always the same ones.  They talked about excise taxes, debates in the Senate, salaries, promotions, His Excellency and how to please him,  and so on and so forth. I had the patience to sit here like a fool next to these people for four hours or so; I listened without daring to say a word to them or even knowing what to talk about.   I sat there in a stupor; several times I broke into a sweat; I felt numbed by paralysis; but it was good and useful.  Upon returning home I would postpone for some time my desire to embrace all humanity."


 Is he being ironic?

The Face of Another, the novel

Kobo Abe'
The Face of Another

 This is the novel that is the basis for the film of the same name which I commented on a short time ago.  While Kobo Abe' is also credited with being the screenwriter for the film, there are some differences between the film and the novel.  The anonymous narrator is a research scientist whose face has been disfigured in a laboratory accident.  When he leaves his house, he wears bandages that cover his entire head, much like the hero/villain in H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man.  He has been unable to reconcile himself to his condition and to a considerable extent takes his anger out on his wife.  He decides to create a life-like mask which will allow him to lead a more or less normal life.

The novel is a 1st person narrative, ostensibly coming from three notebooks the anonymous narrator has written for his wife in which he speaks throughout directly to her.    The three notebooks cover the time when he decides to create the mask, the period when he is involved in creating the mask, and the events that follow his creation of the mask.  In the film, the psychiatrist actually creates the mask and is a very significant character throughout, whereas in the novel, the psychiatrist plays a very minor role and the narrator is the one who creates the mask.

Since much of the novel is actually the narrator's thoughts about his situation as he considers, creates, and wears the mask, Abe' obviously decided the best way for the film to portray this would be through the interaction between the narrator and another person, the psychiatrist being the most obvious.  Another difference is that in the film, the relationship with his wife, while bad, does not seem to carry the same importance that it does in the novel.  In the novel, as I mentioned above, the three notebooks, which constitute the novel, are written for and directed to his wife.  In the notebooks, he addresses her throughout and seems totally unconcerned about any other person.  In the film it appears as though his most significant relationship is with the psychiatrist who plays only a very minor role in the novel. 

The dominant theme in the novel is the struggle within the narrator to maintain control of events and not turn it over to the mask.  He is obsessed by the thought that the mask is trying to take over his life, and this becomes especially clear in the third notebook or the last part of the novel when the mask is completed and he wears it.  At first he treats it as though it were a separate entity--when he wears the mask outside for the first time, he says he will take it for a walk, as if it's a dog.  However, this attitude changes over time until he becomes convinced that the mask is trying to control him and that he must struggle to maintain his freedom of action. 

The Face of Another is an intense psychological drama in which we see the internal struggle of a damaged human being, damaged both physically and psychologically. The endings of the novel and the film are quite different;  at least that is how it appears to me.  Others may differ.

I found that watching the film and reading the novel to be rather intense experiences, but I felt that I had to continue on to see where they were going. I'm not sure that I understand the ending, if there is one.  

Nikos Kazantzakis: The Greek Passion

Nikos Kazantzakis:  The Greek Passion
Simon and Schuster
Trans.  by Jonathan Griffen
 

Lycovrissi is a small Greek village that is under Turkish control.  Every seven years, the villagers put on the Passion Play, the story of the last days of Christ.  Six villagers are selected by the village  Elders to play the parts of Christ, Mary Magdalen,  the Apostles Peter, John, James, and Judas in next year's Play.  The story, then, depicts the changes undergone by these six villagers in the ensuing year,  as a result of being chosen for a part in the Passion Play.  And, they change in surprising, unpredictable, and disturbing ways.

The characters in the novel are numerous and come from all the various social and economic classes in the village.  They range from the Agha, the Turkish ruler of the small village, and his household,  to the village Elders to the small shopkeepers and farmers.  Also present, a thorn in the side of the Elders, are the Wanderers, the survivors of a small village destroyed in the ongoing conflict between the Turkish overlords and Greek freedom fighters.  They have been searching for some place to stay. But, led by Gregoris, the village priest, the Elders attempt to force the Wanderers to move on, in spite of their obvious physical weaknesses caused by months of wandering the countryside.

However, three of the villagers selected for the Passion Play--Manolios, Yannakos, and Kostandis, who play Christ, Peter, and James--defy  Grigoris and direct the wanderers to a place where they may at least rest for awhile, and perhaps attempt to rebuild their lives.  Other villagers give food and clothing.  This is the first of numerous incidents in which Manolios, Yannakos, and Kostandis openly challenge the village priest and the Elders as they attempt to act in accordance with the teachings of Christ.  In other words, they ask themselves, "What would Christ do in this situation?" 


The roles that the six villagers are to play in the Passion Play begin to affect them as they attempt to become worthy of the roles they were selected to play.  Unfortunately this also includes Panayotaros. who was chosen to be Judas because of his wild and uncontrolled behavior.   Irate, he decides that if they want a Judas, he will be one.  Actually he's closer to Satan as he goes about the village, spreading lies, creating dissension, and betraying confidences where and when it will do the most harm.

This novel may be disturbing to some readers.  At one point, one of the villagers chosen to be an Apostle, who is the son of one of the richest (and stingiest) men in the village, decides to take some of his father's surplus food and give it to the wanderers.  This suggests a frightening idea--those who have more than they need should share it with those who have less than they need.  The suggestion that Christ and the Apostles should think this way would seem to be heretical to many. 

Part way into the novel, it became clear that this was going to end tragically.  This is not a comfortable novel to read. 

 Overall Rating:  Highly recommended.

Thomas Mann's The Black Swan

Thomas Mann:  The Black Swan

This short novel by Thomas Mann is one of his more unusual works, which really isn't saying much for an author who writes novels about a lengthy stay in a TB sanitarium or a composer's pact with the devil or the disintegration of a bourgeois family or the slow deterioration of an honored and respected scholar on vacation in Venice or about two young men in India who commit suicide over their love for a young woman who restores them by praying to the goddess and but gets their heads on the wrong bodies.

The Black Swan is described on the back cover as "the feminine counterpart"  of Death in Venice.  One could see that since it is the tale of an older woman who falls in love with a much younger man, perhaps half her age.  But, the differences are much more striking than the rather obvious gender reversal.

Frau Rosalie von Tummler is fifty and "her health had been affected by certain critical organic phenomena of her time of life, the extinction of her physical womanhood, to whose spasmodic progress she responded with repeated psychological resistance."

Rosalie is a true romantic, a worshiper of Nature, in most of her forms.  Upon seeing a gorge covered with blossoms, she exclaims to her daughter, Anna,  "Child, child, how wonderful! It's the breath of Nature--it is!--her sweet, living breath, sun-warmed an drenched with moisture, deliciously wafted to us from her breast.  Let us enjoy it with reverence, for we too are her children."  Because of her intense attachment to and focus on the physical aspects of Nature, Rosalie decries the contemporary interest of artists in the abstract and the intellectual.  Anna, a painter, is one of the "new" painters and part of the work consists of a dialogue between Rosalie and Anna about the lack of interest Anna shows in the colors and shapes and sounds and odors of the natural world. 


And herein lies the paradox, for it is Nature, Rosalie's divinity, that has decreed the physiological changes that she is now undergoing.  And her view?  "When it has ceased to be with us after the manner of women, we are no longer women at all, but only the dried-up husk of a woman, worn out, useless, cast out of nature. My dear child, it is very bitter .  .  . But we, take it all in all, are given just thirty-five year to be women in our life and our blood, to be complete human beings, and when we are fifty, we are superannuated, our capacity to breed expires, and, in Nature's eyes, we are nothing but old rubbish!"

Anna paradoxically disagrees: "How you talk, Mama, and how you revile and see to want to reject the dignity that falls to the elderly woman when she has fulfilled her life, and Nature, which you love after all, transforms her to a new, mellow condition, an honorable and more lovable condition, in which she still can give and be so much, both to her family and to those less close to her."  Rosalie, the worshiper of Nature, bewails what Nature has done to her, while Anna, the more cerebral and intellectual who ignores Nature in its physical manifestations, celebrates what Nature does for women at the later stages of life.


It is in this state of mind that Rosalie meets Ken Keaton.  He is much younger than her, as Tadzio is much younger than Doktor Aschenbach in Death in Venice, but there the similarity ends.  While Tadzio is fourteen, still a child, Ken Keaton is in his early twenties.  He is, or was, in fact, an American soldier who had come over with the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI.  He had been wounded, and after his release, he decided to take his discharge in Europe.  He supported himself by teaching English.

It was in this capacity that Rosalie met him.  Eduard, Rosalie's son, is studying to be an engineer and feels he must learn English because he wanted "to go to England for further study or perhaps straight to the El Dorado of technology, the United States."  He persuades Rosalie to pay for English lessons with Keaton.

Keaton comes three times a week and eventually becomes almost part of the family.  His presence at dinner following the lessons becomes a normal part of the von Tummler routine, and Rosalie soon becomes infatuated with him.  She does nothing though because she feels that she is no longer a woman and therefore Keaton would reject any overtures on her part, even though she is fairly certain he is having an affair with one of the women in her circle.

It is at this point that the "miracle" happens.  Rosalie greets Anna with the news: "Congratulate me, darling, there is reason of it!  I am a woman again, a whole human being again, a functioning female, I can feel worth of the youthful manhood that has bewitched me, and no longer need lower my eyes before it with a feeling of impotence.  The rod of life with which it struck me has reached not only my soul alone but my body too and has made it a flowing fountain again. Kiss me, my darling child, call me blessed, as blessed I am, and, with me, praise the miraculous power of great, beneficent Nature!"

But,  she is mistaken.  Nature, her divinity, has played a cruel trick on her.   Ironically she unknowingly prefigures her own condition when she walks in the Palace Gardens with Anna one day in February when she speaks of the early blooming crocuses: "Isn't it remarkable.  .  . how much they resemble the autumn colchicum? It's practically the same flower!  End and beginning--one could mistake them for each other, they are so alike--one could think one was back in autumn in the presence of a crocus, and believe in spring when one saw the last flower of the year."

Rosalie believes that Nature has restored her womanhood, but the sign she greets so happily is really a death sentence.

G. K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday

I haven't read much by G. K. Chesterton, save for a number of his Father Brown mysteries.  Therefore, I was expecting an espionage tale with a rather traditional flavor.  The cover of the copy I read had a blurb by Kingsley Amis:  "The most thrilling book I have ever read."   Well, that wasn't exactly what I got when I began reading.

It's a farce, a satire, with a distinct flavor of  Monty Python.  I am also reminded of Joseph Conrad's satiric The Secret Agent, in which the anarchists are depicted as a fairly harmless and silly bunch of parlor terrorists, all except for the Professor, of course   What is curious is that Conrad's The Secret Agent was published in 1907, a year earlier than the publishing date of 1908 for Chesterton's novel.

A satire, even perhaps a farce, for how else could one characterize Chesterton's spy novel in which the head of the British Secret Police conducts his interviews in a darkened room so those who work for him don't know who he is?  In contrast, the evil anarchists are out in the open, holding their meetings out on a balcony where anyone can see and hear them.  Moreover,  the head of the anarchists,  Sunday ( the seven members of the Council identify themselves as days of the week) wears a white suit, and everybody knows who he is.   A Central Anarchist Council?   Organized anarchists? 

Gabriel Syme is recruited for the British Secret Police.  He is the perfect foil for what follows because he is serious about his new occupation and concerned about the harm the anarchists might do.  He's also very naive, foolishly naive, and a perfect picture of the stereotyped noble Englishman.   His task is to infiltrate the anarchists, discover their plans, and report his findings without revealing his true identity.  However, he carries his identification as a member of the secret police with him, just in case he has to identify himself.

In order to be admitted into an anarchist meeting, he has to promise to the anarchist he meets that he won't reveal anything he learns at the meeting to the police.  He manages to get himself elected to the Council and is known as  Thursday.  However, after the meeting he finds himself in a quandary.  He has infiltrated the Central Anarchist Council and is now aware of a plot to kill the Czar and the French President who will be meeting in a few days. But, since he has promised he won't reveal what he knows to the police, he decides that he can't warn the authorities for that would be going back on his word, and to a true Englishman,  his  word is a sacred bond. Consequently, he decides he must stop the assassination on his own.

What follows is farcical.  Those whom he believes are enemies turn out to be friends, while those he believed to support him, turn out to be enemies, for awhile anyway.  After a while, he doubts himself, as to which side he's on.

He and several fellow officers go to France in order to prevent the assassination.  It turns into a pursuit of  Sunday, the head of the anarchists,  for reasons I won't divulge here.  It would only spoil the fun. It is at this point that I wonder if Chesterton is an ancestor in some way of  Monty Python.  After a bewildering series of chases and escapes in which numerous factions change sides several times, everybody eventually returns to England for the ending, if one chooses to call it that.

The pursuit through France and England included boats, horses, buggies, automobiles, an elephant, and an hot air balloon.  Since the Wright Brothers made their first flight in 1903, travel by aircraft wasn't feasible yet, otherwise I'm sure Chesterton would have included that in the mix (mess?) also.

Highly recommended if you are looking for something to read that shouldn't be taken too seriously (or at least I think so).  On  the other hand, a second reading may cause me to change my mind about that. 

Read and enjoy.

Nikos Kazantzakis: The Fratricides

Nikos Kazantzakis' novel,  The Fratricides, is aptly named for it is set during the late 1940s when Greece was in the midst of a civil war.  "Fratricides"  are brother killers, the first crime that occurs in the Old Testament.  A civil war is also the bloodiest war imaginable, as those who are familiar with the US Civil War know so well.

The novel takes place in the small village of Castello, unfortunately placed between the rebels up in the hills and the government forces camped just outside the village.  Kazantzakis tells us very early in the novel of the horrors brought about by this conflict. He says this of the villagers:

"Their life is an unceasing battle with God, with the winds, with the snow, with death.  For this reason the Castellians were not surprised when the killing began, brother against brother.  There were not afraid; they did not change their way of life.  But what had been simmering slowly within them, mute and unrevealed, now burst out, insolent and free.  The primeval passion of man to kill poured from within them.  Each had a neighbor, or a friend, or a brother, whom he had hated for years, without reason, often without realizing it.  The hatred simmered there, unable to find an outlet.  And now, suddenly, they were given rifles and hand grenades; noble flags waved above their heads.  The clergy, the army, the press urged them on--to kill their neighbor, their friend, their brother. Only in this manner, they shouted to them, can faith and country be saved! Murder, that most ancient need of man, took on a high mystic meaning,.  And the chase began --brother hunting brother.


Some of the men put on red hoods and took to the hills.  Others barricaded themselves in the village, their eyes glued to the top of Mount Etoraki across the way, where the guerrillas were hiding.  With whooping cries the red-hooded ones would storm down the hill, or the black tops would attack from below.  And they would pounce on each other, flesh against flesh.  And the sweet fratricide would begin.  Women with tousled hair dashed form the courtyards and climbed onto the terraces, shouting, to goad the men on.  The dogs of the village howled; they ran panting behind their masters, their tongues hanging out as they joined in the hunt; until night came and swallowed up the people."

Some historians consider the Greek civil war to be the first "battle" of the Cold War, with neighboring Communist governments supplying the rebels and the British and US assisting  the government forces.  Kazantzakis, however, does not bring this element in the novel.  He restricts it to the government "fascist" forces and the communist guerrillas. Since Kazantzakis was on the left side of the political divide, one might see this designation of the.government as being a bit biased.  However, as you can see from the two paragraphs quoted above, the novel is not a portrayal of the noble aspirations and dreams of the guerrillas or the government forces.  Both are shown to be equally brutal. 

Yet, there are incidents in which those on both sides and the villagers themselves show mercy and compassion for the fighters on the other side, but this happens only when the individual is alone.  It never happens when others are about. Is it that  compassion and mercy are possible only  in the individual but seemingly never found in groups? 
  
The village of Castello has suffered from both sides, primarily because it hasn't declared which side it supports. Therefore, it is trusted by neither the government troops nor the guerrillas.  Father Yarnaros is the village priest,  and so far he has been able to keep the village from choosing sides.  But he is under considerable pressure to come out for one side or the other.  Because he has not chosen,  he is distrusted by both sides, even though the leader of the guerrillas is his son.

Father Yanaros is a God-obsessed man, and his relationship to God is not that of pious humility.  At times he scolds God for allowing the killing to continue.  He waits for God to give him a sign as to which side he should choose, but God is silent, which is an answer, though not the one Father Yanaros looks for.  I think Kazantzakis got the pattern for Father Yanaros from the Old Testament, for he sounds much like a  prophet to me--telling unpleasant truths that no one wants to hear, even though it is dangerous, as well as unwanted.  A brutal ideological civil war is not a healthy situation for an outspoken, honest individual to be in.  And Father Yanaros is outspoken, and he will be heard, something both sides realize and fear.

Father Yanaros struggles throughout to minimize the killing and to bring an unwanted (by both sides) truce.  At the end, he makes his decision, but promises are not kept.  It makes no difference which side he chose, for he would have been betrayed by either.

One last point:  Kazantzakis gives us some insight into the psyches of the leaders of the government forces and of the guerrillas.  Both are driven and both are trapped by their situation.  Kazantzakis plays no favorites here. 
 
Overall Reaction:  a very strong powerful novel of a time of conflict and the effects it has on the people involved, whether they take an active role in the fighting or try to remain neutral. 

Highly Recommended

Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, novel

Carson McCullers' novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is a remarkable work in itself.  That it was published when McCullers was only twenty-three just makes it even more unique.  I may have read some short stories by McCullers in the past, but this is the first novel I've read by her.  I will definitely search out others by her.

The central figure is John Singer, an ironic name for he is a deaf mute.  He communicates mostly by short notes and nods and gestures.  He knows sign language, but the only person in that small town "in the middle of the deep South" who could understand him was his roommate, Spiros Antonapoulos, who also was a deaf mute.  Since Antonapoulos seldom responded at any length, it is hard to know just how much he really understood.  Singer worked as an engraver in the local jewelry shop, a perfect job for him since he did not have to communicate with the customers.

At the start of the novel, Antonapoulos's behavior became very erratic and bizarre, and he was committed to the state mental institution.  Spiros accepted that so calmly and placidly, as he accepted everything else that happened to him, that I wondered if he understood what was happening, or even cared.   He had food to eat, shelter, and a staff that cared for him: he was content.  Seemingly Singer was far more disturbed than Spiros.

Regardless of how little Antonapoulos communicated with him, Singer had felt that someone understood him, and now that person was gone.  Singer had lost his only friend and confidant.  He was now more alone than he had been since he met Spiros.  Their room was now empty, and Singer couldn't spend the lonely hours after work there.  He spent more time now at the New York Cafe where he had his three meals a day, and he spent the evening hours walking about the town.

Then something unexpected happened.  Because he now spent more time out of his room, he became more accessible to others, especially those who felt alone and who felt that nobody in that town really understood them.  It was gradual, but Singer began to be sought out by others who believed that he and only he really grasped what they were saying.

I think Walt Whitman expressed it best in the following excerpt from "A Noiseless Patient Spider"

"And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul."


Singer would listen to them with a smile on his face, nod quietly at times, and occasionally write a brief note.  He never contradicted them nor did he ever argue with them.  He listened and accepted everything.  Even though he actually understood very little of what they were saying, he could read lips to some extent, he was, therefore, the perfect listener.  They would come up to him at the Cafe, or  they would walk along with him for a few blocks as he walked the town in the evening.  And even stranger yet, some would even visit him in his room, three in particular.

One was Jake Blount, a footloose wanderer who alternated between drunken sprees and attempts to unionize the workers in this small town.  The time was just prior to World War II, and union organizers were viewed with antagonism and hostility, and worse, suspected of being communists.  His concern was for the working man and only John Singer would listen to him without anger or fear.

Another was Dr. Benedict Copeland, the only black doctor in town and possibly in the county, and perhaps even in the state.  Many of the white residents of that town refused to believe that a black man could become a doctor.  Dr. Copeland's dream was to erase the barriers raised by segregation that made "his people" second class citizens and poverty-stricken because of poor schooling and low-paying menial jobs.  He someday hoped to be able to lead a thousand or more blacks on a march to Washington, DC, to demand the government end segregation.


The third person was Mick Kelly, a young girl of about twelve years of age whose parents owned the rooming house that John Singer lived in.  She thought of little else except music.  She had music in her but she didn't know how to get it out and had just started music lessons.  She didn't know what her future would but she knew music would be there.


I see those three, Blount, Copeland, and Mick, as searching for someone who could understand and accept them and their dreams.  They believed, erroneously, that John Singer was that person.  If they gained strength and hope from talking to him because they thought that he and he alone understood them, they were mistaken.  He did not understand them, but was really more of a mirror in that he reflected back their hopes and dreams.  Ironically, he was in the same position as they were for he also had been searching, reaching out for understanding to Spiros, who understood Singer no more than Singer understood his listeners.  Singer's dream,  in which he saw himself on a staircase  looking up at Spiros and behind him lower on the staircase were his listeners, looking up at him, is symbolic of their relationship.  As they reached out  for Singer, Singer reached out to Spiros.

Two other characters, though not confidants of Singer, played important roles.  Portia, the black housekeeper and cook at the Kelly rooming house, was a link between the white and black communities, for she was the daughter of  Dr. Copeland.  The second was Biff  Brannon, the owner of the New York Cafe.  He was the silent observer who watched and probably understood more about the relationship  between Singer and the others than did anyone else.  Brannon functions much like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. 


This world, however, is not static.  Change is everywhere and inevitable.  And change comes to this small town in the middle of the deep South.  Some die.  Henry James once said, when questioned as to why death in his works was always offstage,  that death is not unique or unusual for it comes to all.  What is unique are the repercussions of that death, the effects of that death on others.  The ending is just that:  the outcome of those deaths on others.

I'll repeat what I said at the beginning:  this is a remarkable novel  by a remarkable author.  I shall have to read more by her.  

Joseph Conrad: An Outcast of the Islands

Joseph Conrad's An Outcast of the Islands is an excellent example of why we shouldn't  decide  to read a book based on the information given on the back cover.  We are told that "The theme of  An Outcast of the Islands is the enslavement and eventual destruction of a white man marooned by his own people on the shore of an Malayan island."  This reads as though Willems is a victim, rather than the cause of his own destruction.

When the novel opens, Willems is the confidential clerk at Hudig and Co. which was in the business of buying and selling, sometimes legitimate merchandise, and sometimes smuggling firearms, opium, and gunpowder.  He brags openly and frequently of his position for he is "boastfully and inordinately proud" of the confidence the owner of Hudig and C. had in him.  When we are told this in the first chapter, we should expect to see Willems headed for a fall  (as in "Pride goeth .  .  .)  Sadly, he has no idea of how quickly it will come.

"Willems walked on homeward weaving the splendid web of his future.  The road to greatness lay plainly before his eyes, straight and shining, without any obstacle the he could see.  He had stopped off the path of honesty, as he understood it, but he would soon regain it, never to leave it any more!  It was a very small matter.  He would soon put it right again.  Meantime his duty was not to be found out, and he trusted in his skill, in his luck, in his well-established reputation that would disarm suspicion if anybody dare to suspect.  But nobody would dare! True, he was conscious of a slight deterioration.  He had appropriated temporarily some of Hudig's money.  A deplorable necessity.  But he judged himself with the indulgence that should be extended to the weaknesses of genius.   He would make reparation and all would be as before;  nobody would be the loser for it, and he would go on unchecked toward the brilliant goal of his ambition.
Hudig's partner!"

However, a resentful subordinate at Hudig discovers Willems' embezzlement and loses no time in informing on him   Willems is fired and his wife and children immediately desert him.  He now has nothing--no fine position, no family, no glowing future, and no reputation, for who will hire a man who stole from his employer.  But Willems does have a guardian angel, one who saved him once long before.

Captain Tom Lindgard owner of a small trading vessel, once again comes to Willems' rescue.  Many years ago, Captain Lindgard had given the 17 year old Willems a job on his ship, the Flash.  Once aboard the Flash, Willems learned his trade from Captain Lindgard and became his most trusted subordinate.  Eventually he left and joined Hudig and Co., thus leading to his present disastrous situation.

Captain Lindgard takes Willems aboard once again and offers to take him to his secret trading post and let him work there.  Years ago, Lindgard had discovered a way to navigate a river on one of the islands, and once inland he established a trading post in a small community.  Since no one else knew the secret of maneuvering an ocean going vessel on that river,  he alone was able to deal with the inhabitants. Lindgard frequently found himself followed by his competitors, but he always managed to lose them before entering the river mouth.     

Once there, Willems finds that he can't get along with  Almayer, the trading post master.  He also becomes obsessed with Aissa, a young woman in the community.  She seems interested in him, but her interest is that he is a white man and therefore powerful.  In his present position, though, he is not very important.  Desperate,  he succumbs to the promises of one of Capt. Lindgard's competitors and betrays the secret of maneuvering a large ship up the river.  When Lindgard returns, he finds that he has lost control of the trading post and is, in fact, shut out completely.  He is naturally upset, but he is also a practical man.  It's time to move on, for this island and this trading post are not the entire world.

Willems, expecting a considerable financial reward and a place at the side of the competitor, gains neither the financial reward nor the coveted position.  After all, a man who betrayed his employer and also his benefactor and friend is not someone who can be trusted.  So, Willems comes to his end.  If he is a victim, he is the cause of his destruction.

An Outcast of the Islands  is Conrad's second novel and its success convinced him to go on writing.  His first novel, Almayer's Folly, actually takes place chronologically after Outcast, for Almayer is the major character in the first and an important though secondary character in Outcast. It is one of the novels in the "Lindgard trilogy" who, along with Marlow, is one of Conrad's significant recurring characters. Conrad describes Lindgard as follows:

Tom Lindgard was a master, a lover, a servant of the sea.  The sea took him young, fashioned him body and soul; gave him his fierce aspect, his loud voice, his fearless eyes, his stupidly guileless heart.  Generously it gave him his absurd faith in himself, his universal love of creation, his wide indulgence, his contemptuous severity, his straightforward simplicity of motive and honesty of aim.  .  .  .  Tom Lindgard grew rich on the sea and by the sea.  He loved it with the ardent affection of a lover, he made light of it with the assurance of perfect mastery, he feared it with the wise fear of a brave man, and he took liberties with it as a spoiled child might do with a paternal and good-natured ogre.  He was grateful to it,  with the gratitude of an honest heart.  His greatest pride lay in his profound conviction of its faithfulness--in the deep sense of his unerring knowledge of its treachery.

While The Rescue is Conrad's last novel, it is also the first in the Lingard series.  This is the story of Lingard's rescue of a yacht that is briefly mentioned in An Outcast of the Islands.  The chronological sequence of the three novels is, therefore,  The Rescue,  An Outcast of the Islands, and  Almayer's Folly.   An Outcast of the Islands is the only one of the three that I have read, so I've decided to read the series in the proper order.

I find Captain Lindgard an interesting character and also one who would be difficult to get along with daily, or at least I would, considering  his absurd faith in himself, his universal love of creation, his wide indulgence, his contemptuous severity, his straightforward simplicity of motive and honesty of aim.  He is a very paradoxical person. 

Along with the characters Willems and Lindgard and several others I haven't mentioned  (Aissa, who is Lindgard's obsession, and Babalatchi,  the obsequious and politically astute servant, counselor, and, above all, survivor) one of the strengths of the novel is Conrad's descriptions of the island itself--almost dreamlike in effect.  Conrad said in the introduction to one of his novels that  "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is above all, to make you see."  Conrad's skill in describing the island surely is an excellent example of  how successful he could be.

This is not one of his best novels, but it is an excellent read. There are several well-defined characters and a very strong sense of place.  It doesn't have to be read in conjunction with the other two novels, and  though there are hints of the events of the first chronological novel in the series, they do not play any role in the novel..

Recommended for those who enjoyed exotic settings and an interesting depiction of a man unknowingly on a self-destructive path.

Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford: The Inheritors

Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford: The Inheritors

Conrad and Ford: this has to be one of the strangest collaborations in literary history. Henry James, who knew both, is supposed to have said that the collaboration was like "a bad dream . . . their traditions and their gifts are so dissimilar." At one point, Conrad even rented a farm house owned by Ford. I remember reading somewhere (unfortunately my memory can't come up with specifics) that Conrad had asked someone, perhaps Edward Garnett (who was a close friend of both) to recommend one whom he might work with to improve his English. Conrad's native tongue was Polish, and he later learned French while in the French merchant marine. Ford was recommended; so occurred a strange collaboration that eventually produced two novels and one novella and considerable influence in the writings of both from that point on.

The Inheritors is the first of their collaborations that was published, although Ford had begun work on Romance, which became their second published work. However, Conrad at that time was too busy with Heart of Darkness, so Ford put it aside and began work on "a topical political fantasy" which was eventually called The Inheritors.

The tale is a first person narrative told by Arthur Granger, a struggling young writer who is determined to write literature. However, he struggles to get published and when he is offered a chance to do a number of short political propaganda portraits, he accepts the work, even though he feels it is beneath him. But, in the real world, one needs money. In addition, he, and most importantly, others will see him in print, perhaps making it easier for him to get his serious work in print. One can see his high principles beginning to slip a bit for he now sees himself as part of the real world, that of high stakes politics and business.

He is on his way to do his first "portrait" when he meets a strange young woman who insists she comes from the Fourth Dimension. She and others from the Fourth Dimension have appeared in England with the express purpose of taking control of England and eventually of the world. He goes along with her tale, primarily because he finds her very attractive and eventually falls in love with her.

As Granger travels about, interviewing various important people for his series, he encounters her more often as she begins to insinuate herself in the upper levels of the British ruling class. In fact, she eventually identifies herself as Granger's sister, and besotted as he is, he doesn't deny it. He professes his love for her, but she remains distant, only occasionally meeting him, in order to maintain her control over him. He will be, as she frequently reminds him, useful to her in furthering her plans for domination.

And she is right; she hasn't misjudged her control over him as, at the end, he betrays his friends when he goes along with her plans to bring down the present government. Circumstances had placed him temporarily in control of a politically powerful newspaper, and he does not print an article which would bring all her planning to naught.

[As was pointed out by Anonymous in a comment, I have suffered a mental spasm and reversed the sequence of events. While temporarily in control of the newspaper, Granger allowed an article to be printed which furthered her plans and brought down the government, and incidentally removed his friends from power. ]

Two themes are present in the novel: one is clearly Ford's, for it appears in several of his novels, while the other reminds me of a theme that Conrad brought into a number of his works, but most especially in Heart of Darkness.

In several of Ford's novels, one can easily distinguish the theme of replacement or perhaps displacement of the English ruling class by outsiders. In Ford's tetralogy, Parade's End, set during WWI, Christopher Tietjens, at one point, notes that the ruling classes are doomed and will be replace eventually be technocrats. In The Good Soldier, John Dowell, the American, replaces Edward Ashburnham, the good soldier, at the end, when he takes over Ashburnham's country estate and the care of Ashburnham's ward. This theme of replacement is spelled out very clearly in The Rash Act when an impoverished American takes the place of a wealthy Englishman who has been killed in an auto accident.

In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kurz is the head of a trading post. He is supposed to make a profit for the Company by bringing in ivory. But, Kurz also is expected, by many, to civilize the natives. This is the White Man's Burden--to bring the joys of civilization to the benighted and savage members of the human race. In various works, Conrad sarcastically brings up this issue and shows that it's really just an excuse to exploit them, that the whites are far more savage than those they are supposedly enlightening.

In The Inheritors, we learn of the Greenland Project, a project which will enlighten and civilize the Esquimaux. While some have called it exploitation, its founder, Duc de Mersch defends it by pointing out its obvious financial importance to the English, not to speak of "the moral aspect of the work--it was unnecessary. Progress, improvement, civilisation, a little less evil in the world--more light! It was our duty not to count the cost of humanising a lower race."

And later, we learn more about the progress of the Greenland Project: "They had taught the natives to use and to value sewing-machines and European costumes. So many hundred of English younger sons had gone to make their fortunes and, incidentally, to enlighten the Esquimaux--so many hundreds of French, of Germans, Greeks, Russians. All these lived and moved in harmony, employed, happy, free labourers, protected by the most rigid laws."

It is ironic that the failure of the supporters to gain backing by the English government that ultimately brings down the government and brings in those backed by Dimensionist faction, aided, of course, by Arthur Granger's betrayal. At the end, Granger is alone. He has betrayed his friends and she tells him that they must go their separate ways now: "you, yours, and I, mine." She no longer has any use for him.

I wouldn't call The Inheritors one of their best novels. It lacks the depth that I've become accustomed to from each of them. The issues are there, but they haven't been explored to any great degree. I suspect that the collaboration process is at fault here. However, I would recommend it for those interested in something different, something not quite Conrad and not quite Ford, but a little bit of both and a little bit of neither.

Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads

Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India

This is not only a short novel by Thomas Mann, it’s also a very unusual novel for him. It’s set in India, in mythic times, so, therefore, it must be true. I’ll let Mann introduce the novel, for he does it much better than I ever could.

The story of Sita of the beautiful hips, daughter of the cattle-breeder Sumantra of the wqrrior caste and of her two husbands (if one may put it like that) is so sanguinary, so amazing to the senses, that it makes the greatest demands on the hearer's strength of mind and his power to resist the gruesome guiles of Maya. it would be well for the listener to take pattern from the fortitude of the teller, for it requires, if anything, more courage to tell such a tale that to hear it. But here it is, from first to last, just as it fell out:

As you may have guessed, this is a tale of the eternal triangle and the way it worked itself out in India of mythic times—the tale of Sita, Shridaman and Nanda.

Young Shridaman was a merchant, and the son of a merchant; Nanda, on the other hand, both a smith and a cowherd, for his father Garga not only kept cattle on the meadow and in the byre, but also plied the hammer and fanned the fire with a bird’s wing.

Shridaman followed in his father’s footsteps after “having previously devoted some years to grammar and the elements of astronomy and ontology, under the supervision of a guru or spiritual preceptor.

Not so Nanda, son of Garga. His karma was otherwise; and never, by either tradition or inheritance, had he had to do with things of the mind . . . His work as a smith had made powerful his arms; that as a shepherd had been further an advantage, for he had a well set-up body, which he loved to rub with mustard oil adn drape with gold ornaments and chains of wild flowers.

Shridaman, on the other hand, had a thin aristocratic face and a soft body, not hardened by exercise. It was the perfect body for "a noble and knowledgeable head piece." Nanda's head to the contrary was merely a "pleasing appendage" for the body was "the main thing."

In spite of, or perhaps because of, these differences Shridaman and Nanda became good friends. All was well until they met Sita, she of the beautiful hips. Both became enamored of her, but it was Shridaman who spoke first. She accepted his proposal, but they did not live happily ever after. Shortly after the wedding, Sita began to wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake, especially after seeing Nanda, for he was a frequent visitor. Eventually both Nanda and Shridaman became aware of the situation.

Six months after the wedding, the three went to visit Sita’s parents. On the trip, they found a temple to Kali. Shridaman said he wished to pray a moment and entered the temple. There he prayed to Kali and then cut his head off (obviously with Kali’s help), thus freeing Sita to marry Nanda.

Eventually Nanda goes looking for Shridaman and finds his friend. He realizes instantly why Shridaman has done this and feeling guilty as the cause of his best friend’s suicide, he resolves he cannot do anything but to follow his friend into death.

After a while, Sita becomes concerned and enters the temple in search of them. She finds them and although confused as to how it happened, she understands very well why it happened. She decides also to commit suicide by hanging herself. While she stands there with the noose around her neck, Kali appears and tells her to take the noose off or she will get her “ears boxed.”

Kali tells her that all will be well, for all Sita has to do is put the heads carefully back on the bodies and she (Kali) will do the rest. Sita does but in her sorrow and grief makes one minor mistake—she puts the heads back on the wrong bodies.

At first Nanda and Shridaman are happy with the transposition, for both had been afflicted with “the grass is greener” longings—Shridaman for Nanda’s physique and Nanda for Shridaman’s intellectual bearing and appearance. But, you may be surprised to learn (or perhaps not surprised) that all still is not well with the threesome.

From this point on, three issues are worked out in the story: (1) to whom is Sita married?; (2) what happens to Shridaman’s fine aristocratic head and intellectual capacities on Nanda’s strong young body?; and (3) what happens to Nanda’s broad happy face and rather ordinary intellect on Shridaman’s intellectual and clerkly body?

The ultimate question addressed here, therefore, is which creates and rules the person—the mind or the body?

Overall Reaction: an unanswerable question that Mann handles with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Lots of fun if you are looking for a novel that plays with ideas.

Thomas Mann: June 6, 1875-- August 12, 1955

Thomas Mann is one of my favorite writers, and The Magic Mountain would be one of the ten desert island books that I would choose to take with me.


It begins quietly:

An unassuming young man was travelling, in midsummer, from his native city of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton of the Grisons, on a three weeks' visit.



The novel ends:

Farewell--and if thou livest or diest! Thy prospects are poor. The desperate dance, in which thy fortunes are caught up, will last yet many a sinful year; we should not care to set a high stake on thy life by the time it ends. We even confess that is is without great concern we leave the question open. Adventures of the flesh and in the spirit, while enhancing thy simplicity, granted thee to know in the spirit what in the flesh thou scarcely couldst have done. Moments there were, when out of death, and the rebellion of the flesh, there came to thee, as thou tookest stock of thyself, a dream of love. Out of this universal feast of death, out of this extremity of fever, kindling the rain-washed evening sky to a fiery glow, may it be that Love one day should mount.


Castorp plans to visit Joachim, his cousin, who is in a TB sanitarium in Switzerland, but the projected three week visit lasts seven years for Castorp is discovered to have a "moist spot" that could be dangerous. His journey, therefore, has one more stage: from visitor to patient. His visit ends only with the beginning of World War I, when Castorp feels he must answer his country's call. He leaves and enlists in the army.

But during those seven years, Hans Castorp, manages to experience the various ideas, philosophies, and attitudes, along with issues of life, death, and love, prevelant in Western Civilization and, still prevalent today. Much of this is possible through the presence of two of the most unique mentors found in literature: Prof Settembrini and Herr Naptha. Their long-ranging debates? monologues? arguments? cover every possible topic, from the existence of God to politics to art to history to . . . Sometimes I think that by the end of one of their impassioned debates, the two have switched positions and now argue vehemently against their former positions


Overall reaction: What happens between the two quoted paragraphs can be tedious and also frustrating at times, but still it is one of the most fascinating novels I've ever read and reread and reread . . . and I will take it up again. It's well worth the time spent.

Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf

Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the endings of various works.

It’s been several decades since I last read Hesse’s Steppenwolf, so I was curious as to how well it would hold up and how I would understand it now, a half century later. At the end, I thought it still a very interesting and intriguing work, but my understanding of it now is quite different from what I understood the first time I read it. When I first read it, I saw it as a novel in isolation, something unique. Now, I see that Steppenwolf has its relatives; it does not exist in isolation.

Steppenwolf has essentially a two-part structure. Part One consists of defining Harry Haller’s personality, his conflicts, and his relationship to post-war society in Germany. Haller reveals himself and learns even more from a remarkable “free pamphlet” he is given —Treatise on the Steppenwolf: Not for Everybody.

In the second part, Harry meets the classic prostitute with a heart of gold who makes it her goal to teach Harry how to live and enjoy himself. Her lessons involve sex, drugs, and the fox trot. At the end, in the Magic Theater, Harry embarks on a trip of self-discovery with a rather unique goal—he is to learn to laugh.

Harry Haller can be seen in several different ways. One is that of the respected academic who is torn by conflicting feelings about himself and his relationship to society--a sense of isolation or alienation. Another would be that of a seeker who is searching for enlightenment. Yet, another would be that of a man undergoing a severe depression. One more might be what is called a “mid-life crisis” in pop psychology. The work would support any of these views, but the ending seems to support the second theory—that of the seeker searching for enlightenment, in a Buddhist sense, that is. This would give it ties to another work of his, Siddhartha, about which I posted a short commentary a short time ago.

Harry, though, sees himself as two conflicted beings: the respected academic and the Steppenwolf, the outsider, the free creature who is outside civilization. Frankly, however, Haller comes across, to me anyway, more like an wolf/dog who has run away, but who also clings to the outskirts of human society, fearing to enter, but unable to leave.

While reading it the second time, I was reminded throughout of several works which seemed, to me at least, to share common themes: Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground (1863), Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy ( 1872), and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1911). Steppenwolf was the latest of the four, first published in 1927.

I think Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy serves as a unifier of all three works. Nietzsche’s definition of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies in human culture is exemplified by the three main characters: the German Gustave Aschenbach, the respected professor in Mann’s Death in Venice, the Russian underground man in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, and Harry Haller..

Nietzsche describes the Apollonian mind as possessing “that measured restraint, that freedom from the wilder emotions, that calm . . .” It is characterized by an intellectual, reasonable, temperate, and controlled life. The Dionysian is characterized as “chaos,” “a terror,” “blissful ecstasy,” or “intoxication,” “complete self-forgetfulness,” or ”union with nature.” It is the unpredictable, the irrational, the “uncivilized.” In other words, it is the two sides of human nature, antithetical but both necessary to art, to society and to culture—control and restraint civilization versus excess and extravagance and nature—the yin and yang of the Taoists.

The Notes from Underground has a structure that is similar to Steppenwolf. The first part consists of an extended passage in which the underground man (UM) reveals himself. He is a civil servant who has come into a small inheritance and has retired. He is an outsider with no friends or relatives. He lives in isolation. He sneers at society, but at the same time longs to join them, to be one of them, just as Harry mocks the bourgeoisie, but always lives among them and gains honor and respect as an academic.

In the second part, the UM forces himself upon some former student acquaintances who are giving a going-away party for one of the students. It is here we see, just as in Steppenwolf, the protagonist in action. The UM insists on attending the party, while mocking himself and eventually the others. He desires to be one with them, but actively works to make this impossible.

In the second part of Steppenwolf, Harry Haller meets Hermine who introduces him to a life of pleasure and sensuality drugs, music—especially dance music, alcohol, and sex—most of which Harry has sneered at in the past. Like the UM, Harry is immersed in society, but can’t really join them. Hermine is necessary to help him break out of his straitjacket, before he can move on.

The UM also meets a prostitute in the second part, but his encounter is quite the opposite of Harry’s. Where Harry is induced to join the pleasure seekers, the UM persuades Liza to escape from the life of a prostitute. However, when Liza appears at his apartment the next day, telling him that she wants to escape, he rejects her and sends her away.

Like Harry Haller, Thomas Mann’s Gustave Aschenbach is a respected academic. Unlike Haller, Aschenbach has dedicated his life to research and writing, with no contrary thoughts. Being a Steppenwolf is something Aschenbach has never considered throughout his life. However, at the beginning of Death in Venice, Aschenbach is tired, overworked, and sleeping badly. He decides to go for a walk, in hopes of reviving himself for another evening of productive work.

During the walk, he sees a traveler bearing a rucksack on his back, and this produces a most surprising emotional response: “the most surprising consciousness of a widening of inward barriers, a kind of vaulting unrest, a youthfully ardent thirst for distant scenes—a feeling so lively and so new, or at least so long ago outgrown and forgotten that he stood there rooted to the spot . . . a longing to travel. . . such suddenness and passion as to resemble a seizure . . .”

He ”imaged the marvels and terrors of the manifold earth. He saw. He beheld a landscape, a tropical marshland, beneath a reeking sky, steaming, monstrous, rank—a kind of primeval wilderness-world of islands, morasses, and alluvial channels. Hairy palm trunks rose near and far out of lush brakes of fern, out of bottoms of crass vegetation, fat, swollen, thick with incredible bloom. There were trees , misshapen as a dream . . .”

Nietzsche would recognize this as a Dionysian seizure, emerging from decades of a controlled life of mental activity. Unlike Haller though, Aschenbach has not led a tormented life of struggle between the two tendencies but had successfully suppressed that aspect of his personality. Now the desire to travel, actually more of an escape from his life of dedication to the intellect, has taken over and he flees to Venice. It is in Venice that he sees the Polish youth Tadzio and forgetting all restraint, becomes obsessed with him. Like Haller, he puts aside his Apollonian measured and controlled existence for the chaos and excesses of the Dionysian.

The three works conclude quite differently and, in fact, cover the possible spectrum of endings. The UM apparently is trapped in his self-induced isolation, with no exit seemingly possible. Aschenbach’s obsession ends in death. Haller really comes to no end in the work for he is now trapped in the Magic Theater.

“I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often the hell of my inner being.

One day I would be a better hand at this game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”

This has the flavor of the Buddhist belief that all are trapped within the endless cycle of birth and death until one becomes enlightened and now free to achieve the ultimate goal of existence—Nirvana. For Harry, the goal is to laugh the laugh of the immortals.

Is it coincidence that Harry Haller’s initials are HH, as are those of the author?

Overall Reaction: a remarkable book, which I now find richer and more thought-provoking than I found it the first time around, when it did not bring to mind the works of Nietzsche, Mann, and Dostoyevsky. No doubt there are other works that other readers can bring to mind while reading Steppenwolf.