Double Indemnity. Cain, James M. 1935. New York: Vintage, 1989.
Reading this novel is like striking a match and becoming entranced by the intricacy and aesthetic beauty of the flame until it dissolves and you close the book and never want to write another word because you will never be as clean a stylist as James M. Cain is. Of course, if you've no aspirations about writing then you won't have have to stomach that dose of pessimism upon finishing Double Indemnity. This book is like 99% fat free ground chuck...there is literally nothing in it that is unnecessary. No florid pretentiousness. No "bet you can't understand this" anatomies of a murder. No stilted cliches. One wonders how much Cain had to edit out of his earlier draft(s). It is a fucking shame that most people will probably think that it was only a movie screenwritten by Raymond Chandler, and not an absolutely great novel written by someone else less famous. As good old Horace says, I don't like slobbering plebeian entertainment fiend idiots, and I stay away from their shit. Or something like that. By the way, this book is so damned readable that it will probably only take twice as much time to read as it would take to watch the film. Have I made myself clear, class? Stop bitching about how Wilder's adaptation didn't win any Oscars and start bitching about why Cain isn't a household name.
Double Indemnity is about Walter Huff, an insurance salesman in seedy LA who meets the seductive Phyllis Nirdlinger who is unsatisfied with her married life and drops a hint about purchasing accident insurance for her husband without telling him. The narrator, experienced in insurance sleaze in a noirish kind of way, picks up on her hint and becomes her partner in crime because he falls in love with her. The narration is done in a first person, confessional manner by the seemingly ordinary Walter, who meticulously maps out not only how to kill, but how to get away with killing. Inevitably though, complications hinder the lovers' plan, in the form Walter's suspecting coworker Keyes and with Phyllis's daughter Lola, along with her supposedly ne'er-do-well boyfriend Sachetti. I'm not saying another word about the plot of this novel because it's only 115 pages long and if you start it, you will be psychologically obliged to finish it (unless you happen to start it when you are bleeding to death or in some other kind of grave danger).
The only problem I have with this wonderfully dark story, the teensiest little speck on an otherwise gleaming, flawless canvas, the mole on the Mona Lisa if you will, is that I found the attraction between the lovers and co-murderers a tad unbelievable. What I mean by this is that after Walter executes the murder, for obvious reasons he cannot be seen with Phyllis because he sold her the insurance policy. This distance causes Walter to kind of fall out of love with her but simultaneously fall in love with Lola (with a little pity toward her thrown in for good measure). Perhaps the sparseness of the narrative here does not work to its advantage, as a more wordy style would make the attraction seem more plausible. Indeed, in novels of this type, call it noir or hardboiled or whatever, it is usually the crime that seems more believable than whatever romance springs up from the well of the plot. But look, if you want a book that describes romance in a more realistic way, there are only millions of others to choose from. So quit complaining. Besides, how can you hate on a style that is this controlled?
I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death that you've been reading about in the papers. It didn't look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. (3)
...
Her brow wrinkled up, and I saw there was nothing washed-up about her. What gave her that look was a spray of freckles across her forehead. She saw me looking at them. "I believe you're looking at my freckles."
"Yes, I was. I like them."
"I don't."
"I do." (11)
SSSNNNIIIIP...SNIP...SNIP...SNIP...SSSSSNIP. You hear that? It's Cain cutting the bullshit out of description and dialogue in a way that would make Hemingway blush. This novel is minced onion while most others contain far too many semi-sliced chunks. It's lean but mean. Clean but sordid. Stylistically straightforward but emotionally conflicted...and why shouldn't it be this way, since it's about a man who kills for love and regrets it?
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
The Thin Man
The Thin Man. Hammett, Dashiell. 1933. New York: Vintage, 1992.
With more red herrings than a fish market, The Thin Man is the perfect example of an important work that it is easy to respect but hard to love. It is important in that Dashiell Hammett was really the first writer of noir fiction, a genre that has never lacked devoted readers and writers. The story concerns Nick Charles, a former San Francisco gumshoe who is on vacation in New York with his wife Nora when he suddenly learns of the murder of Julia Wolf, former secretary (and mistress) to Clyde Wynant, an eccentric inventor who previously employed Nick to tail a jealous rival inventor who claims Wynant ripped him off. Nick starts getting messages from Wynant, asking for his help in finding Julia's murderer through the latter's attorney Herbert Macaulay, who served with Nick during the war. Despite his better judgment, Nick gradually becomes involved with the case as well as with Wynant's family: his controlling and dangerous ex wife, strangely bookish son and beautiful but naive daughter. Double crossings and acts of violence ensue as Nick becomes more involved in solving the crime.
Ultimately, the novel is a disappointment given that it starts so strongly. The reader is immediately drawn to the cool world weary charisma of Nick Charles, the archetypical PI who has seen evil in its many incarnations. The main problem with the book is that the concepts it relies upon eventually grow stale. The jokes certainly have not aged well. Reading this book in and of itself is almost a kind of detective work in that one must determine not what is, but what isn't a lie. There are simply too many characters, many of which end up contributing nothing to the plot besides artificial drama. Unnecessary characters aside, one wonders whether this story could have worked as a piece of short fiction instead.
This novel is less a work of noir fiction than a progenitor of the whodunit. One should not dismiss Hammett solely on grounds of this novel; his short stories are excellent in that they are imagistic, with hardly any of the narrator's or other character's thoughts expressed. Stylistically, Hammett is almost surgical in his economy. One cannot deny his ability to write clearly and distinctively. But the story is simply too complicated for the reader to follow along, and there is remarkably less action and bloodshed than the reader would expect. Much of the narrative consists of Nick relaying new information from one character to another; information that he gets from unreliable sources. The contrived nature of the plot alienates the reader. One of Hammett's earlier short stories "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" is the epitome of simplicity: a man breaks out of jail and hides out in a remote house, taking the woman and boy who live there hostage. He reveals his identity to them, and this leads to his downfall as the they are the family of the man that the protagonist killed (which got him thrown in jail in the first place). What is remarkable about that story is that it is so pared down that there is nothing unnecessary. So focused is the author that every little detail serves some purpose. The images tell the story—in true noir style the thoughts of the characters rarely break into the narrative.
There is little of that precise focus in The Thin Man, even though as far as novels go, it is rather short. If anything, this book tends more toward hardboiled fiction, but it is nowhere near as effective a piece of writing as say, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. One gets the feeling that this work is less a story than a kind of gigantic math problem with the final chapter (in which Nick explains to Nora how ——— murdered Julia Wolf et al.) serving as a QED flourish.
With more red herrings than a fish market, The Thin Man is the perfect example of an important work that it is easy to respect but hard to love. It is important in that Dashiell Hammett was really the first writer of noir fiction, a genre that has never lacked devoted readers and writers. The story concerns Nick Charles, a former San Francisco gumshoe who is on vacation in New York with his wife Nora when he suddenly learns of the murder of Julia Wolf, former secretary (and mistress) to Clyde Wynant, an eccentric inventor who previously employed Nick to tail a jealous rival inventor who claims Wynant ripped him off. Nick starts getting messages from Wynant, asking for his help in finding Julia's murderer through the latter's attorney Herbert Macaulay, who served with Nick during the war. Despite his better judgment, Nick gradually becomes involved with the case as well as with Wynant's family: his controlling and dangerous ex wife, strangely bookish son and beautiful but naive daughter. Double crossings and acts of violence ensue as Nick becomes more involved in solving the crime.
Ultimately, the novel is a disappointment given that it starts so strongly. The reader is immediately drawn to the cool world weary charisma of Nick Charles, the archetypical PI who has seen evil in its many incarnations. The main problem with the book is that the concepts it relies upon eventually grow stale. The jokes certainly have not aged well. Reading this book in and of itself is almost a kind of detective work in that one must determine not what is, but what isn't a lie. There are simply too many characters, many of which end up contributing nothing to the plot besides artificial drama. Unnecessary characters aside, one wonders whether this story could have worked as a piece of short fiction instead.
This novel is less a work of noir fiction than a progenitor of the whodunit. One should not dismiss Hammett solely on grounds of this novel; his short stories are excellent in that they are imagistic, with hardly any of the narrator's or other character's thoughts expressed. Stylistically, Hammett is almost surgical in his economy. One cannot deny his ability to write clearly and distinctively. But the story is simply too complicated for the reader to follow along, and there is remarkably less action and bloodshed than the reader would expect. Much of the narrative consists of Nick relaying new information from one character to another; information that he gets from unreliable sources. The contrived nature of the plot alienates the reader. One of Hammett's earlier short stories "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" is the epitome of simplicity: a man breaks out of jail and hides out in a remote house, taking the woman and boy who live there hostage. He reveals his identity to them, and this leads to his downfall as the they are the family of the man that the protagonist killed (which got him thrown in jail in the first place). What is remarkable about that story is that it is so pared down that there is nothing unnecessary. So focused is the author that every little detail serves some purpose. The images tell the story—in true noir style the thoughts of the characters rarely break into the narrative.
There is little of that precise focus in The Thin Man, even though as far as novels go, it is rather short. If anything, this book tends more toward hardboiled fiction, but it is nowhere near as effective a piece of writing as say, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. One gets the feeling that this work is less a story than a kind of gigantic math problem with the final chapter (in which Nick explains to Nora how ——— murdered Julia Wolf et al.) serving as a QED flourish.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Far From the Madding Crowd
Far From the Madding Crowd. Hardy, Thomas. 1876. Naples, FL: Trident Press International, 2001.
Cuter than a Wes Anderson set, this is the tale of a Victorian hottie who has to choose between three horndogs til she finds the right one—like Goldilocks and the porridge. Bathsheba Everdene has recently inherited her family farm, which in modern terms is like saying her STACKS of GREEN are so high that she can't see the HATERS. Naturally Bathsheba becomes Weatherbury's hottest commodity and the servants start gossiping about who is to take her hand (and farm and something else ifyaknowwhaimsayin). In an interesting feminist twist, Bathsheba decides to try to run the farm herself which is entirely inappropriate for a young hardbody. Y'all saw that reality show with Paris Hilton and her friend having to work on a farm right? Farming ain't the province of beautiful ladiezzz. Bathsheba attempts to master buying and selling crops at market but realizes that she ain't cut out for that shit. What she needs is a man to manage the boring stuff while she chills in her mansion and gossips with her BFF Liddy.
At this point she has already turned down one of her suitors, the indefatigably honest shepherd Gabriel Oak, who is still getting over it. Oak ain't the most socially adept bloke in Wessex because he proposes to Bathsheba like the second time that he meets her (and before she becomes Bath$heba). Girl is freaked out for reals. But Oak is a morally upright character who, as is typical of Hardy, gets tragically fucked over by the forces of fate. His mutt goes berserk and drives his flock over a cliff leaving Oak to have to pay back the deposit on the animals. Just like credit card debt...sooner or later you gotta pay up for all those borrowed dollars/sheep, naimsayin? Oak settles with his creditors but has no green leftover for himself. But his good nature ends up getting him a job, as he proves to be adept at saving a corn harvest from a sudden fire. The locals put in a good word and Bathsheba decides to hire him even though she kinda knows that he is sooo not over her. Also Oak is a master shepherd and there's this one scene where the sheep start dying of this rapidly accelerating disease and the farmhands are powerless to stop it and Gabriel is all like EVERYBODY CHILL THE FUCK OUT I GOT THIS. Except he didn't curse like that but he has that kind of confidence about matters of sheep.
Bachelor no. 2 is Boldwood, and the first part of that portmanteau is a misnomer. Boldwood is a stick-up-his-ass...I mean stick-in-the-mud sort of fellow who has a good reputation in the community, but like Oak he isn't the type to spend his vacay in Ibiza. Boldwood takes a fancy to Bathsheba after the latter, in a totally girly move straight out of seventh grade, conspires with Liddy to send a letter to Boldwood that says "MARRY ME AND MAKE ME GO UNNNNH UNNNNH UNNNNH" (OK I made that last part of it up). Teehee. Girls can be so capricious and conniving, amirite? Bathsheba doesn't really fancy him but TOO LATE SINCE BOLDY AIN'T NEVER GONNA FORGET THAT. Girl, you don't tempt a lonely, reserved farmer like that and expect he's not gonna take it seriously! So Boldy now fancies Bathy and she's like "jk lol sry about that" and he's like "you cruel bitch...I mean you delightfully angelic creature who has acted cruelly toward me!" See, Boldy is one of those idealistic lover types and since he has fallen in love with Bathy nothing shakes him out of it. I'm talkin' Heathcliff style bitches, 'cept his love is unrequited.
But look, a challenger approaches! It's Sergeant Troy: rogueish, fit, Anglo-French, Byronic badboy with a sword. Troy is all about breakin' rules and breakin' hos. His idea of a good time is a Casterbridge pussyquest during a furlough and while this lad has class, he's a right proper socialist, baby, when it comes to the ladiezzz. Meaning he likes the servant girls as well as the rich bitches. Meaning he has sex with runaway servant babe Fanny Robin (you expected a fanny joke there didn't yer?). Prolly the best scene of the novel is where Troy tries to seduce Bathsheba using his sword trick. He blindfolds her and wields his peen-blade marvelously all around poor Bathy but he promises that it never touched/penetrated her. Wooing...you're doing it right.
Bathy is totally into him even though Oak warns her that Troy seems to be a...how you say...WANKER. Oak suggests she marry Boldy instead, but rich bitches get what they want (even in Victorian times, reader) so the two hotties marry each other. Oak's crit of Troy ends up being spot on since he dunno a thing about farming and the like and attempts to ingratiate himself to the servants by getting them plastered. Unfortunately this happens right before a storm is about to brew so everyone is too drunk to remember to cover the corn harvest. See, in this book corn is like the same thing as money so it is even more shocking to find out that poor Boldy has been neglecting his crop ever since Bathsheba turned him down. Oak comes to the rescue, as per usual, and manages to limit the damage, but Bathy won't have a servant instruct her on her love affairs so she has little patience for Oak stating the obvious fact that Troy is a...how you say...douche. However she seems to allow Liddy to give her love advice, which must fall under the "girl talk exemption clause." Troy also has a taste for gambling and since he's married to Bath$heba "Cha-Ching" Everdene, he's always like "canna yer lend me five quid for the races—I mean investments—that I am looking into?" At the same time Troy is carrying on a sexy affair with Fanny, but Bathy never fully catches on (though Oak does).
This is a Hardy novel so TRAGEDY STRIKES. Fanny, exiled in shame in a Victorian workhouse, dies from unknown causes (broken heart? VD?). Troy and Bathsheba are absolutely shaken and they handle the funeral which (conveniently) allows Fanny's body to rest at the house before burial. Oak covers the casket because he does not want Bathsheba to know the truth about Troy's phallic escapades. But alas, in her grief Bathy opens the casket to find that poor Fanny was with child. Troy's evasiveness toward her about Fanny and the fact that he carries a lock of her hair in his watch allow Bathy to piece together that her douchebag husband is unfaithful. The marriage falls apart and Troy wanders about, only to go for a swim and (conveniently, for later purposes of the plot) leave all his shit on the shore. He is carried out by a strong current and a bystander reports that he has surely drowned.
News reaches Bathsheba that she is newly single and ready to mingle but she's in no mood for fun. Poor girl still blames herself for Troy's treachery. But the news excites someone in Weatherbury...dear old Boldy, still nursing his lust for Bathsheba. He's like "Hey girl, now that your husband is out of the picture, how about we elope lol" and she's like "um...I could only marry for love and I don't love you" and he's like "s'cool I'll just bother you about it all the time and remind you about how you fucking played with my emotions with that letter so much that I wished I were dead. You owe it to me bitch." While it is true that Bathsheba wants to marry for love she also believes that Troy is not dead since they never found his body. And wouldn't you know it, but her wifely instincts are right! Troy survived and was picked up by a ship and by some naked, cray cray method makes it to America where he becomes, and I quote, "Professor of Gymnastics, Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism." Then he remembers that he has a hott wife waiting back in Engerland so he returns and takes the perfect job for a disgraced-husband-seeking-to-win-back-his-wife-and-her-estate: he joins the bloody circus. His object is to get a sense of what Bathy is up to and how disgraced his reputation is with her and the town folk.
Everybody who's anybody (livestock included) show up at the Sheep Fair at Greenhill, where Troy plays the performing role of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin. In order to conceal himself he has to rely on disguising his face and limiting the speaking of his part and he seems to pull it off as Bathsheba does not notice...but the narsty baliff Pennyways does. This Pennyways was sacked by Bathsheba earlier on for stealing grain so he's desperate to curry her favour by informing her that her hubby is alive and well. But Troy has other plans; he follows Pennyways to the tea tent where Boldy and Bathy are having a quaff and after Pennyways gives her the note which says that her husband is alive, he furtively reaches from behind the curtain and snatches it from her before she has a chance to read it.
Meanwhile Boldy guilt-trips Bathy into considering the prospect of marrying him in six years, because at that point Troy would be considered dead and she could then legally remarry. They agree Bathsheba will give her answer at the upcoming Christmas Eve bash at Boldwood's crib. Troy consults with Pennyways' and with his help constructs a costumed disguise (of the type that work in novels and not in real life), intending to gatecrash and wifegrab with one swift stroke. But news of Pennyways' discovery of Troy spreads throughout Oak and the farmhands. They decide to tell Bathy the truth before she foolishly commits to Boldwood but (conveniently) they haven't the heart to break up the absolutely bonkers partay. Boldy's plan to strong-arm Bathy into being his betrothed works and she agrees that she will marry no one else until the time period elapses and she will be his. Boldwood, raging with a boner of joy, gets hammered and welcomes a new stranger into the house who just so happens to be Troy. He orders Bathy to leave with him and Boldy snaps and shoots the adulterer. Bathy feints. Troy dies. Boldy turns himself in (but is spared the noose).
TIME PASSES and the town folk start treating Bathsheba like she's got a case of the crabs. I'm talking glacier cold, and the worst of it is that Oak avoids our poor hottie as well. Bathsheba no doubt thinks that Oak has saved her ass like three times and has had enough and that is why he wants to leave England for Cali. But she's wrong, my friends, because if there is one true theme in this tale of cattle and cads, horse dung and horndogs, it is FRIENDSHIP. Oak and Bathsheba's relationship oscillates from Death Valley to the bloody Matterhorn but they never give up on each other and so it is only natural that this wonderful novel ends in their marriage.
Is this book too dated for modern readers? (It isn't...BYDHTTMWFI). Read it and decide for yourself.
Keep turning those pages, readers.
Cuter than a Wes Anderson set, this is the tale of a Victorian hottie who has to choose between three horndogs til she finds the right one—like Goldilocks and the porridge. Bathsheba Everdene has recently inherited her family farm, which in modern terms is like saying her STACKS of GREEN are so high that she can't see the HATERS. Naturally Bathsheba becomes Weatherbury's hottest commodity and the servants start gossiping about who is to take her hand (and farm and something else ifyaknowwhaimsayin). In an interesting feminist twist, Bathsheba decides to try to run the farm herself which is entirely inappropriate for a young hardbody. Y'all saw that reality show with Paris Hilton and her friend having to work on a farm right? Farming ain't the province of beautiful ladiezzz. Bathsheba attempts to master buying and selling crops at market but realizes that she ain't cut out for that shit. What she needs is a man to manage the boring stuff while she chills in her mansion and gossips with her BFF Liddy.
At this point she has already turned down one of her suitors, the indefatigably honest shepherd Gabriel Oak, who is still getting over it. Oak ain't the most socially adept bloke in Wessex because he proposes to Bathsheba like the second time that he meets her (and before she becomes Bath$heba). Girl is freaked out for reals. But Oak is a morally upright character who, as is typical of Hardy, gets tragically fucked over by the forces of fate. His mutt goes berserk and drives his flock over a cliff leaving Oak to have to pay back the deposit on the animals. Just like credit card debt...sooner or later you gotta pay up for all those borrowed dollars/sheep, naimsayin? Oak settles with his creditors but has no green leftover for himself. But his good nature ends up getting him a job, as he proves to be adept at saving a corn harvest from a sudden fire. The locals put in a good word and Bathsheba decides to hire him even though she kinda knows that he is sooo not over her. Also Oak is a master shepherd and there's this one scene where the sheep start dying of this rapidly accelerating disease and the farmhands are powerless to stop it and Gabriel is all like EVERYBODY CHILL THE FUCK OUT I GOT THIS. Except he didn't curse like that but he has that kind of confidence about matters of sheep.
Bachelor no. 2 is Boldwood, and the first part of that portmanteau is a misnomer. Boldwood is a stick-up-his-ass...I mean stick-in-the-mud sort of fellow who has a good reputation in the community, but like Oak he isn't the type to spend his vacay in Ibiza. Boldwood takes a fancy to Bathsheba after the latter, in a totally girly move straight out of seventh grade, conspires with Liddy to send a letter to Boldwood that says "MARRY ME AND MAKE ME GO UNNNNH UNNNNH UNNNNH" (OK I made that last part of it up). Teehee. Girls can be so capricious and conniving, amirite? Bathsheba doesn't really fancy him but TOO LATE SINCE BOLDY AIN'T NEVER GONNA FORGET THAT. Girl, you don't tempt a lonely, reserved farmer like that and expect he's not gonna take it seriously! So Boldy now fancies Bathy and she's like "jk lol sry about that" and he's like "you cruel bitch...I mean you delightfully angelic creature who has acted cruelly toward me!" See, Boldy is one of those idealistic lover types and since he has fallen in love with Bathy nothing shakes him out of it. I'm talkin' Heathcliff style bitches, 'cept his love is unrequited.
But look, a challenger approaches! It's Sergeant Troy: rogueish, fit, Anglo-French, Byronic badboy with a sword. Troy is all about breakin' rules and breakin' hos. His idea of a good time is a Casterbridge pussyquest during a furlough and while this lad has class, he's a right proper socialist, baby, when it comes to the ladiezzz. Meaning he likes the servant girls as well as the rich bitches. Meaning he has sex with runaway servant babe Fanny Robin (you expected a fanny joke there didn't yer?). Prolly the best scene of the novel is where Troy tries to seduce Bathsheba using his sword trick. He blindfolds her and wields his peen-blade marvelously all around poor Bathy but he promises that it never touched/penetrated her. Wooing...you're doing it right.
Bathy is totally into him even though Oak warns her that Troy seems to be a...how you say...WANKER. Oak suggests she marry Boldy instead, but rich bitches get what they want (even in Victorian times, reader) so the two hotties marry each other. Oak's crit of Troy ends up being spot on since he dunno a thing about farming and the like and attempts to ingratiate himself to the servants by getting them plastered. Unfortunately this happens right before a storm is about to brew so everyone is too drunk to remember to cover the corn harvest. See, in this book corn is like the same thing as money so it is even more shocking to find out that poor Boldy has been neglecting his crop ever since Bathsheba turned him down. Oak comes to the rescue, as per usual, and manages to limit the damage, but Bathy won't have a servant instruct her on her love affairs so she has little patience for Oak stating the obvious fact that Troy is a...how you say...douche. However she seems to allow Liddy to give her love advice, which must fall under the "girl talk exemption clause." Troy also has a taste for gambling and since he's married to Bath$heba "Cha-Ching" Everdene, he's always like "canna yer lend me five quid for the races—I mean investments—that I am looking into?" At the same time Troy is carrying on a sexy affair with Fanny, but Bathy never fully catches on (though Oak does).
This is a Hardy novel so TRAGEDY STRIKES. Fanny, exiled in shame in a Victorian workhouse, dies from unknown causes (broken heart? VD?). Troy and Bathsheba are absolutely shaken and they handle the funeral which (conveniently) allows Fanny's body to rest at the house before burial. Oak covers the casket because he does not want Bathsheba to know the truth about Troy's phallic escapades. But alas, in her grief Bathy opens the casket to find that poor Fanny was with child. Troy's evasiveness toward her about Fanny and the fact that he carries a lock of her hair in his watch allow Bathy to piece together that her douchebag husband is unfaithful. The marriage falls apart and Troy wanders about, only to go for a swim and (conveniently, for later purposes of the plot) leave all his shit on the shore. He is carried out by a strong current and a bystander reports that he has surely drowned.
News reaches Bathsheba that she is newly single and ready to mingle but she's in no mood for fun. Poor girl still blames herself for Troy's treachery. But the news excites someone in Weatherbury...dear old Boldy, still nursing his lust for Bathsheba. He's like "Hey girl, now that your husband is out of the picture, how about we elope lol" and she's like "um...I could only marry for love and I don't love you" and he's like "s'cool I'll just bother you about it all the time and remind you about how you fucking played with my emotions with that letter so much that I wished I were dead. You owe it to me bitch." While it is true that Bathsheba wants to marry for love she also believes that Troy is not dead since they never found his body. And wouldn't you know it, but her wifely instincts are right! Troy survived and was picked up by a ship and by some naked, cray cray method makes it to America where he becomes, and I quote, "Professor of Gymnastics, Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism." Then he remembers that he has a hott wife waiting back in Engerland so he returns and takes the perfect job for a disgraced-husband-seeking-to-win-back-his-wife-and-her-estate: he joins the bloody circus. His object is to get a sense of what Bathy is up to and how disgraced his reputation is with her and the town folk.
Everybody who's anybody (livestock included) show up at the Sheep Fair at Greenhill, where Troy plays the performing role of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin. In order to conceal himself he has to rely on disguising his face and limiting the speaking of his part and he seems to pull it off as Bathsheba does not notice...but the narsty baliff Pennyways does. This Pennyways was sacked by Bathsheba earlier on for stealing grain so he's desperate to curry her favour by informing her that her hubby is alive and well. But Troy has other plans; he follows Pennyways to the tea tent where Boldy and Bathy are having a quaff and after Pennyways gives her the note which says that her husband is alive, he furtively reaches from behind the curtain and snatches it from her before she has a chance to read it.
Meanwhile Boldy guilt-trips Bathy into considering the prospect of marrying him in six years, because at that point Troy would be considered dead and she could then legally remarry. They agree Bathsheba will give her answer at the upcoming Christmas Eve bash at Boldwood's crib. Troy consults with Pennyways' and with his help constructs a costumed disguise (of the type that work in novels and not in real life), intending to gatecrash and wifegrab with one swift stroke. But news of Pennyways' discovery of Troy spreads throughout Oak and the farmhands. They decide to tell Bathy the truth before she foolishly commits to Boldwood but (conveniently) they haven't the heart to break up the absolutely bonkers partay. Boldy's plan to strong-arm Bathy into being his betrothed works and she agrees that she will marry no one else until the time period elapses and she will be his. Boldwood, raging with a boner of joy, gets hammered and welcomes a new stranger into the house who just so happens to be Troy. He orders Bathy to leave with him and Boldy snaps and shoots the adulterer. Bathy feints. Troy dies. Boldy turns himself in (but is spared the noose).
TIME PASSES and the town folk start treating Bathsheba like she's got a case of the crabs. I'm talking glacier cold, and the worst of it is that Oak avoids our poor hottie as well. Bathsheba no doubt thinks that Oak has saved her ass like three times and has had enough and that is why he wants to leave England for Cali. But she's wrong, my friends, because if there is one true theme in this tale of cattle and cads, horse dung and horndogs, it is FRIENDSHIP. Oak and Bathsheba's relationship oscillates from Death Valley to the bloody Matterhorn but they never give up on each other and so it is only natural that this wonderful novel ends in their marriage.
Is this book too dated for modern readers? (It isn't...BYDHTTMWFI). Read it and decide for yourself.
Keep turning those pages, readers.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Glamorama
Glamorama. Ellis, Bret Easton. New York: Vintage, 1998.
This is my favorite book of all time. I'm often at a loss as to how to explain why I love it so much, since I generally don't care for American fiction. I think the reason why is that it offers an invigorating reading experience. You will get the full gamut of emotions from this novel. It is as likely to make you laugh as it is to make you cry as it is to make you wince as it is to make you hurl as it is to turn you on. If you can make it past the first third of the narrative then you will likely finish it, as at that point it takes a three hundred sixty degree turn. Not a full turn, since the protagonist Victor Ward's character never really changes even if the plot does.
Glamorama is an achievement because the world of vapid supermodels does not seem well fitted to literature. After all, in a profession where one look says everything who cares what anyone says? And indeed, this book is filled with trite and ridiculously banal dialogue. Victor Ward has the philosophical depth of a paper plate. It is only when his life and everyone in it are endangered that he even begins to act introspective, to comprehend the magnitude of fashion in bed with terrorism. As the book goes on there is less of the label conscious itemization that has been attacked by so many critics and retched at by so many readers. Vicariously we want to be Victor Ward because of who he sleeps with and who he hangs out with. We are superficially in love with what he is capable of, even if he himself stands for nothing. He is an imbecile, but some of us would willingly give up their intelligence in exchange for that body and what comes with it. As it is with Ellis, surface is what matters.
What many fail to pick up on is that this book is a satire. Ellis does not praise the fashion industry in Glamorama. Instead he viciously attacks it. None of his characters are happy because they are too busy being hip; they prefer pouts to grins. The smell of shit is a repeating trope in this book, jockeying for position with the Chanel infused molecules of the hippest of parties. The claim that models can become terrorists is reasonably sound given that their lives are all about access: what exclusive clubs they can get into and what material pleasures (drugs, sex) come with that. Perhaps it is simplistic to say that models are docile, unquestioning (but good looking) pieces of meat, oblivious to questions of morality or sexual decency. But you have to admire the courage of this author because he absolutely does not back down from making that claim. Ellis is the type of writer who is not afraid to scare and offend you. It is these types of writers who come to define an age, not the mildly shocking drivel of the "pick your genre" crowd. Where others feint a strike, Ellis delivers a knockout punch. Read it to understand what the 90s were about and prepare to be shocked and amazed.
This is my favorite book of all time. I'm often at a loss as to how to explain why I love it so much, since I generally don't care for American fiction. I think the reason why is that it offers an invigorating reading experience. You will get the full gamut of emotions from this novel. It is as likely to make you laugh as it is to make you cry as it is to make you wince as it is to make you hurl as it is to turn you on. If you can make it past the first third of the narrative then you will likely finish it, as at that point it takes a three hundred sixty degree turn. Not a full turn, since the protagonist Victor Ward's character never really changes even if the plot does.
Glamorama is an achievement because the world of vapid supermodels does not seem well fitted to literature. After all, in a profession where one look says everything who cares what anyone says? And indeed, this book is filled with trite and ridiculously banal dialogue. Victor Ward has the philosophical depth of a paper plate. It is only when his life and everyone in it are endangered that he even begins to act introspective, to comprehend the magnitude of fashion in bed with terrorism. As the book goes on there is less of the label conscious itemization that has been attacked by so many critics and retched at by so many readers. Vicariously we want to be Victor Ward because of who he sleeps with and who he hangs out with. We are superficially in love with what he is capable of, even if he himself stands for nothing. He is an imbecile, but some of us would willingly give up their intelligence in exchange for that body and what comes with it. As it is with Ellis, surface is what matters.
What many fail to pick up on is that this book is a satire. Ellis does not praise the fashion industry in Glamorama. Instead he viciously attacks it. None of his characters are happy because they are too busy being hip; they prefer pouts to grins. The smell of shit is a repeating trope in this book, jockeying for position with the Chanel infused molecules of the hippest of parties. The claim that models can become terrorists is reasonably sound given that their lives are all about access: what exclusive clubs they can get into and what material pleasures (drugs, sex) come with that. Perhaps it is simplistic to say that models are docile, unquestioning (but good looking) pieces of meat, oblivious to questions of morality or sexual decency. But you have to admire the courage of this author because he absolutely does not back down from making that claim. Ellis is the type of writer who is not afraid to scare and offend you. It is these types of writers who come to define an age, not the mildly shocking drivel of the "pick your genre" crowd. Where others feint a strike, Ellis delivers a knockout punch. Read it to understand what the 90s were about and prepare to be shocked and amazed.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Brighton Rock
Brighton Rock. Greene, Graham. 1938. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970.
Graham Greene achieved the seemingly impossible: he was popular with the common reader as well as the critic. But once you read his works you can see why. If there is one thing that people who read literature love it is commiseration. His books are a celebration of commiseration. Not emo depressing commiseration. I mean commiseration as in the constant reminder of how many emotional wounds the business of living requires. It is commiseration combined with tolerance that defines Greene's writing. He is so very aware of the difficulties that his protagonists face. He does not dismiss them in a nihilistic way. He expounds on their suffering but without being overly melancholy. It also helps that he has extraordinary powers of imagery. So one can see why his books are so relevant and readable.
To write about the rich, the all-powerful and the intellectually charming is the easy road. That does not mean that writers that focus on these matters should be dismissed. But to limit the intelligence, freedom and power of your characters requires more skill. This is especially true with matters of intelligence since it can be assumed (but maybe not proven) that all writers of literature are intelligent. It is easy to write about intelligent people who love conversation but harder to write about those that use language in a stoic, utilitarian manner. Introspective people make wonderful characters but not everyone is introspective. Sometimes the decision to not speak does not mean that the person has some hidden thought that justifies the choice. To write about the ignorant and feeble-minded truthfully requires a great use of imagination since it requires the writer to lower himself. It is for this reason that we admire books that deal with the sordid. As I Lay Dying (birthplace of this blog's title). Wuthering Heights. Sons and Lovers. There are many examples. We enjoy these stories about the poor even as we cling to our Austens, our Waughs, our Fitzgeralds.
Brighton Rock is an achievement because it concerns sordid people grounded in a provincial mindset. Pinkie's gang are laughable excuses for gangsters. They seem on the verge of destitution yet they continue to risk being caught and hung for the transgressions. Perhaps this is typical of prewar gangs but the promise of wealth seems to be the main reason why people break the law for a living. Yet Pinkie's gang never seem close to a windfall. Furthermore they are constantly reminded that Brighton is the turf of the slick Colleoni (who fits the gangster archetype a little better). One gets the feeling that Pinkie and his cohorts are gangsters because they are ignorant and don't know any better. Rose is stupid. Her limited intelligence does not deserve a more exhaustive adjective...though one feels for her poor upbringing. She is an example of someone that is given absolutely nothing bar the fact that her parents are alive (even though they are depicted as cretins). Even the heroine Ida Arnold is a working-class girl fueled by good sense grounded in pleasant but limited maxims. Her relationship with men borders on prostitution, or at least it probably did in the 1930s.
There is a certain degree of duality in this novel. It is a tightly drawn, intricately plotted mystery stemming from the ramifications of the death of a newspaper salesman. But it is not mere noir. Like others works of Greene, there is a distinctive Catholic element at play as Pinkie and Rose are both "Romans." Part of their Catholic identity is shaped by how Catholicism is defined in opposition to Protestantism (a betrothal instead of an engagement, the rigor of Catholic schools, how attending Mass on Sundays is the path to heaven). But the other aspect of it is purely sexual. A reader would be hard-pressed to find a book that approaches sex with such a degree of repulsiveness. Of course the repulsiveness is not universal (what is fun to Ida is sickening to Pinkie). But Brighton Rock reminds one of the story of the child who sees his parents have sex and is spiritually (and psychologically) cursed afterwards. This is what happens to Pinkie and it shapes him into a teenager who is utterly disgusted with his burgeoning sexual yearnings. Pinkie is not really a psychopath since he holds out on a rather forgiving view of the faith; that confession at some point before death equals absolution. One could argue that he has transferred his sexual urge into an urge for blood (and that is certainly less healthy than the other way around). Yet Graham Greene is too smart, too human a writer to present only one side of Catholicism. He does not dismiss it as self-flagellating and overly tense because of its sexual close-mindedness. Rose trusts the murderous Pinkie and can only absolve herself by means of confession in the final scene of the novel. And even though the record of Pinkie's wrongs is clear, the priest sees his love for her as evidence of his innate, God-given goodness...even if only scraps of it.
Graham Greene achieved the seemingly impossible: he was popular with the common reader as well as the critic. But once you read his works you can see why. If there is one thing that people who read literature love it is commiseration. His books are a celebration of commiseration. Not emo depressing commiseration. I mean commiseration as in the constant reminder of how many emotional wounds the business of living requires. It is commiseration combined with tolerance that defines Greene's writing. He is so very aware of the difficulties that his protagonists face. He does not dismiss them in a nihilistic way. He expounds on their suffering but without being overly melancholy. It also helps that he has extraordinary powers of imagery. So one can see why his books are so relevant and readable.
To write about the rich, the all-powerful and the intellectually charming is the easy road. That does not mean that writers that focus on these matters should be dismissed. But to limit the intelligence, freedom and power of your characters requires more skill. This is especially true with matters of intelligence since it can be assumed (but maybe not proven) that all writers of literature are intelligent. It is easy to write about intelligent people who love conversation but harder to write about those that use language in a stoic, utilitarian manner. Introspective people make wonderful characters but not everyone is introspective. Sometimes the decision to not speak does not mean that the person has some hidden thought that justifies the choice. To write about the ignorant and feeble-minded truthfully requires a great use of imagination since it requires the writer to lower himself. It is for this reason that we admire books that deal with the sordid. As I Lay Dying (birthplace of this blog's title). Wuthering Heights. Sons and Lovers. There are many examples. We enjoy these stories about the poor even as we cling to our Austens, our Waughs, our Fitzgeralds.
Brighton Rock is an achievement because it concerns sordid people grounded in a provincial mindset. Pinkie's gang are laughable excuses for gangsters. They seem on the verge of destitution yet they continue to risk being caught and hung for the transgressions. Perhaps this is typical of prewar gangs but the promise of wealth seems to be the main reason why people break the law for a living. Yet Pinkie's gang never seem close to a windfall. Furthermore they are constantly reminded that Brighton is the turf of the slick Colleoni (who fits the gangster archetype a little better). One gets the feeling that Pinkie and his cohorts are gangsters because they are ignorant and don't know any better. Rose is stupid. Her limited intelligence does not deserve a more exhaustive adjective...though one feels for her poor upbringing. She is an example of someone that is given absolutely nothing bar the fact that her parents are alive (even though they are depicted as cretins). Even the heroine Ida Arnold is a working-class girl fueled by good sense grounded in pleasant but limited maxims. Her relationship with men borders on prostitution, or at least it probably did in the 1930s.
There is a certain degree of duality in this novel. It is a tightly drawn, intricately plotted mystery stemming from the ramifications of the death of a newspaper salesman. But it is not mere noir. Like others works of Greene, there is a distinctive Catholic element at play as Pinkie and Rose are both "Romans." Part of their Catholic identity is shaped by how Catholicism is defined in opposition to Protestantism (a betrothal instead of an engagement, the rigor of Catholic schools, how attending Mass on Sundays is the path to heaven). But the other aspect of it is purely sexual. A reader would be hard-pressed to find a book that approaches sex with such a degree of repulsiveness. Of course the repulsiveness is not universal (what is fun to Ida is sickening to Pinkie). But Brighton Rock reminds one of the story of the child who sees his parents have sex and is spiritually (and psychologically) cursed afterwards. This is what happens to Pinkie and it shapes him into a teenager who is utterly disgusted with his burgeoning sexual yearnings. Pinkie is not really a psychopath since he holds out on a rather forgiving view of the faith; that confession at some point before death equals absolution. One could argue that he has transferred his sexual urge into an urge for blood (and that is certainly less healthy than the other way around). Yet Graham Greene is too smart, too human a writer to present only one side of Catholicism. He does not dismiss it as self-flagellating and overly tense because of its sexual close-mindedness. Rose trusts the murderous Pinkie and can only absolve herself by means of confession in the final scene of the novel. And even though the record of Pinkie's wrongs is clear, the priest sees his love for her as evidence of his innate, God-given goodness...even if only scraps of it.
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