Category: literature

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Book Review: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student living in St. Petersburg, methodically sets out to kill a money-lender. As if that isn’t bad enough, the cold-blooded murder goes terribly wrong, and – being a man of principle – he endures a multitude of agonies associated with his crime. Erstwhile, his mother and sister are moving to the city in preparation for his sister’s just-announced engagement to an ambitious cad.

All in all, it’s not a good time to be Rodya Raskolnikov, or for that matter, to live in St. Petersburg during the late 1800’s.

Crime and Punishment, completed in 1866, is a brooder of a book. It looks unsparingly at the lives of the desperate and destitute – comprising most of its central characters – and sends them in circles around a very lonely and philosophically distraught young man who makes a terrible decision: murder. It isn’t made in haste, but meticulously planned and carried out until the act itself is within his grasp, at which point it explodes in his face. Rather than empowerment, to be “a man and not a louse” in Raskolnikov’s words, he comes face to face with reality: his less-empowered and certainly more human inadequacies.

The problem, however, is that the police aren’t after him…or are they? He tries several times early in the novel to expose his crime, but barely arouses suspicion – if anything, people around him grow more and more concerned for his health. The irony is that it’s after Raskolnikov’s crime when everyone around him starts paying him visits and taking care of him – even though half the time he’s flirting with madness and fever. It is during this purgatorial reprieve from justice – with the police as close as his friends – that he is drawn into the lives of those around him and takes pains to emancipate the weak from their burdens.

Characters sad and corrupt walk into his life, often literally, and draw him into their own. Vacillating between pity, outrage, and spiritual agony, Raskolnikov takes great pains to make amends with those around him, sensing that the payment for his earlier crime is hanging inevitably in front of him, whatever turn he takes. After all, if the noose is in the mind, there are no lands you can escape to.

Crime and Punishment has many strengths, chief among them some of the best dialogue in literature. Surprisingly, there are great swaths of humour too, most notably Raskolnikov’s friend, Razumikhin – who becomes smitten with Rodya’s sister, the ravishing Avdotya. Dostoevsky, who spent four years as a political prisoner prior to writing C&P, writes honestly about the souls of those who are defeated by the circumstances of life. The city to which the book is seemingly dedicated – albeit in a poison pen fashion – St. Petersburg, comes across as a Gothic cesspool of poverty and corruption.

If there are drawbacks to Crime and Punishment it is the bleak hues in which the story is rendered. Although it is ultimately a book about the greatest aspect of humanity – fiery perseverance – there a number of parts that move at a snail’s pace. In particular, I found the fourth chapter (of six) to be burdensome. I say this in case anyone would take me for a masochist.

Still, I recommend Crime and Punishment to those wanting to pick up the classics, particularly written from Eastern Europe. In Rodion Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky has created a template of the tortured idealist that stands as tall now as it did in 1866.

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (ISBN: 019 281549 0) is available at a friendly independent bookstore near you. Or online at any number of vendors

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The Steppenwolf Effect, pt.2: Books, Covers, and Judgement

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Achtung: it seems Comments were disabled on this and another post recently. This was not intentional. I will try to be more diligent in making sure that visitors can respond (when Blogger will allow).

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One thing I wanted to mention, way back when I was in Steppenwolf mode (see here), was that book covers have come a long way since I was a kid.

Let me put it this way, if you have a faint interest in reading, let’s say, Pride and Prejudice (figuring that you hadn’t seen any of the filmed adaptations, but simply heard good things), what would go through your head when you saw this:

Let me guess: the most boring book in the world? Tedium personified? 300 pages about drollness?

Of course that’s not true. Most people who’ve read P&P consider it a classic. People get into arguments about its film/TV adaptations, which is a good sign that the book rules over them all. But the cover! The cover stinks! Let’s face it, this is not a cover intended to sell a book, it’s a cover intended to put you to sleep (unless you are a Victorian fetishist).

Now, you say, look here chap – don’t you know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? Yes. I agree. But why bother having an illustration on the cover, or some semblance of design if it does nothing for what it represents? The only reason Jane Austen allows that cover on her book is that she’s dead and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Quite frankly, I prefer this as an alternative, if I had the choice:

Why?

Because it doesn’t fill me with preconceived notions about the subject matter.

If I wanted to read P&P, the above cover wouldn’t stop me from doing so. I’d be forced to read it in order to find out if I liked it or not, without the mediation of what is often for “classic literature” terrible book design.

This is why Steppenwolf figures into this story. Check out the cover that I grew up looking at:

While yes, technically it incorporates many of the elements of the book, it’s such a literal and terribly dated approach, it’s always turned me off. It’s a James Bond poster by way of Aldous Huxley. *Blech* – no thank you.

Now, when I finally picked up a copy last year, this is what I saw on the shelf:

It’s a book! It’s a book! Not a movie, not an illustrated story, but a book, with an author! I like this approach because it’s direct yet cryptic at the same time – it’s telling me nothing about the novel, yet ties in the title of the book with a visual artifact. That’s it. Nothing more. Aside from the synopsis on the back cover, you’re on your own.

To me – and I should tread carefully here because my wife happens to design books – this is what book design is about. Forget about “don’t judge a book by its cover” – that’s a nice aphorism as it applies to people, but to books – considering there are so many vying for our attention, the covers should support the material they…um…cover.

If you’ve got a moment, check out this f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c site which shows all of the major cover designs of HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds. That is, from 1898 to the present, from different countries and featuring a vast array of designs and interpretations. It gives you a fascinating look at how book design has evolved over the decades.

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The Steppenwolf Effect, pt.1: Synchronicity

As mentioned in my previous post, a couple of things occurred to me while I started reading Steppenwolf.

As mentioned in a previous previous post (here), I write fiction. I’ve written one novel and have since completed the rough draft of a second. When I started reading Steppenwolf I realised (at the point where Harry meets Hermine 1) that it shared a parallel storyline with my second novel.

I clearly remember starting to sweat, followed by some muffled swearing.

If there was anything that freaked me out at the time, it was the fear that I was going to open a book (whether it be a novel or a collection of short stories) to discover that something I’ve written had been, as they say, “done before”. In retrospect there isn’t much reason for this fear – unless one is directly influenced by something it would be a hell of a coincidence to write something that was so similar to a previously published work that you should have to worry – particularly if it’s something as complex and individualistic as a novel.

But I was concerned; I thought to myself: F*!king bastard Hermann Hesse and his f$~king storylines. But I digress…

I turned to my writing group 2. I asked them: has anyone opened a book to discover some freak-assed psychic parallel to something you’re currently working on? The answer, surprisingly, was yes – all the time, in fact. Synchronicity happens more often than we think, as it turns out.

Thinking about it, it makes sense; assuming we aren’t forced to read the books that we do (as in school) we end up reading those works which appeal to us – as readers and perhaps subconsciously as writers also. So it should come as no surprise to find narratives, plots, or characters that ring familiar.

1. Harry & Hermine sounds like the name of a Hollywood adaptation.

2. I’m blessed to have such a good writer’s group – most of us were students of DM Thomas at the Humber College School for Writers.

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Book Review: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, by Ludwig Wittgenstein

4.003    Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.
(They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.)
And so it is not to be wondered at that the deepest problems are really no problems.

 

I’ve been promising this review for some time. The problem has been – since this is a book not of philosophy but about philosophy – I’ve needed time for it to sink in. Furthermore, as much as I hate prefacing my opinion (or anyone else doing the same), due to the nature of this book I feel it fair to say a few words: I’m not an academic who specializes in philosophy. I do not have the names and concepts of all the world’s great thinkers at my fingertips. As such, I tackled this book as a reasonably intelligent layman. What I have to say about it should be seen through this particular lens. This is not a dissertation and most certainly this is not an academic exercise. So there.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus though only clocking-in at a svelte 108 pages, is a monster of a book. It is a perception-altering, densely laid treatise that attempts to clarify not a particular theory per se, but rather, pulls its focus back to comment upon the very scaffolding of philosophical understanding itself.

The way Wittgenstein sees it, there are too many fundamental errors and/or assumptions that sabotage philosophical propositions before they’re even written down on paper. The key is to first lay down exactly what a sound proposition is and to understand it in its elemental form. Technically, linguistically, even mathematically Wittgenstein has taken his understanding of what makes a philosophical proposition sound and distilled into a dense uber-logical lexicon.

It’s a fascinating (if insufferably semantic) approach: each point and sub-point are laid down like a revolutionary manifesto:

 

4.023    The proposition determines reality to this extent, that one only needs to say “Yes” or “No” to it to make it agree with reality.
Reality must therefore be completely described by the proposition.
A proposition is the description of a fact.
As the description of an object describes it by its external properties so propositions describe reality by its internal properties.
The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding, and therefore one can actually see in the proposition all the logical features possessed by reality if it is true. One can draw conclusions from a false proposition

 

Wittgenstein is intent on defining the way in which we attempt to interpret the world rather than the specifics of content. Wittgenstein’s reverence for the power and importance of how language is utilized in articulating the world is infectious. His approach, however, requires careful reading. I will be honest in saying that it’s difficult to review such a book without having spent a number of weeks re-reading it, making notes, checking out other people’s feelings about it, etc.. I have not had the time to do this, and have only managed to read Tractatus twice – however, I will say that while the first reading was a slog in the mud, during the second reading things became suddenly more clear and fascinating.

Who should read this book? Anyone interested in expanding their practical and theoretical understanding of language and logic. While Tractatus is dense and unsparing to the casual reader, those who give Wittgenstein’s treatise the time and effort it deserves will undoubtedly walk away richer for the experience (if not wiser). If Aristotle wrote the book on metaphysics, then Wittgenstein has written the book on metaphilosophy.

Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (ISBN 0-486-40445-5) is available at a fine independent bookstore near you. Also available online at various merchants. Note: this review is based upon the 1999 Dover republication (using the translation by C.K. Ogden, which is thought to be the definitive text).

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Book Review: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

You may be asking yourself: “Moby Dick, eh? Not exactly current fiction, Mr. Blogger.”

No, it’s not. But if it’s good, it should be read. This is a good book. It’s a classic 1.

Published in 1851 (happy 155th anniversary!), Moby Dick is an originally rendered tale told by Ishmael (whose last name we never know…in fact, we never learn the full names of any of the characters), a young veteran of the merchant marines who longs to find work (and a new life) on a whaling vessel. Naturally, his interests take him to Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he finds a ship waiting to sail – the Pequod. With the help of an exotic tattooed harpooner, Queequeg, he hops aboard willingly, despite the warnings of a street prophet regarding the Pequod’s captain – Ahab.

Once aboard and sailing, the narrative eventually inverts from the wide-eyed first-person accounts of the opening to third-person, peppered with Ishmael’s astute observations – it’s clear from this narrative transformation that Ishmael himself becomes subsumed by his experiences at sea aboard the Pequod, obsessed with the details of her crew and captain, and with the object of their profession: whaling.

The problem begins soon after setting sail; Ahab, a remarkably bleak and forceful figure, announces that – contrary to their practical purpose – they have an ultimate quest ahead: to find and kill the White Whale, Moby Dick. This single whale, we learn, is the burning flame which drives the Pequod’s captain to “monomaniacal” ends, Moby Dick having claimed Ahab’s leg (and perhaps a part of his soul) on a previous voyage.

As the novel proceeds, the reader is consumed by the everyday life of a whaler at sea: the sometimes savage danger, the simple yet sublime pleasures, and the technologies of the day. Everyone from the sail-mast lookout to the blacksmith, from the cook to the boatsmen who trawl for prey – whales, and most importantly, their precious oil – are drawn in colourful detail. Readers expecting a fast-moving plot line should note that Moby Dick takes great pains to paint the seafarer’s life, specifically the dying years of the whaling industry (at least as it existed in its heyday); as such the novel has its peaks and valleys as regards pacing. I refuse to take the “this is an old book so you have to disregard its old style” stance – though it’s a masterpiece, its strengths will only be rewarding to those with a little patience.

Moby Dick is probably one of the best-written novels I’ve read. Melville is a writer’s writer; he loves language and is very particular about how he describes the life of his characters without it becoming an academic exercise, nor are the allegorical elements cryptically depicted so as to make reading it in a non-allegorical frame of mind impossible. Take any of Ahab’s monologues and read it aloud: you will instantly notice the cadence and perfect shape of the sentences – it’s like hearing Shakespeare. The book is rife with symbolism: the ship is the world, the crew its people. Moby Dick itself becomes a symbol of the capricious result of the burgeoning 20th-century-man’s fateful need to conquer nature.

I would like to point out that I read the paperback edition, published by Oxford University Press (pictured above). I mention this in particular for two reasons: it’s cheap (500+ pages = $10!), and it comes with a handy reference guide at the back to clarify any directly symbolic (Biblical or simply antiquarian) references in the text. Also, there is an Introduction (written by Tony Tanner) which, after you’ve read the novel 2, will give you some insight into some of the mainstream analyses of the book. There is also a set of letters Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne (to whom the novel was dedicated) at the back of this edition – can’t say there’s anything relevatory there, other than the fact that Melville clearly idolised Hawthorne.

Moby Dick is available for sale at a fine independent bookstore near you and online at…Powell’s, Amazon, Chapters, and others. Published by Oxford University Press (ISBN: 0192833855)

1. I don’t mean “It’s a classic.” in the sense that, because everyone calls certain books “classics” that they must always be superior. Some “classics” do not age well. This is not one of those.

2. This is my guide to reading “classic” books: by all means avoid anything written by someone other than the original author until after you’ve read the book, whether it be an introduction, a foreword, a preface, what have you. Most introductions are academic in nature and worse, full of spoilers. Stanislaw Lem wrote a book, inspired by his distaste for these after-the-fact literary addons. It’s called Imaginary Magnitude.

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Profile: Yukio Mishima

It’s hard to discuss mercurial writer, playwright Yukio Mishima (January 14, 1925 -— November 25, 1970) without the spectre of his demise casting a pall on the dialogue.

From Wikipedia (edited for conciseness):

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four cohorts visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp – the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Once inside, they proceeded to barricade the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the gathered soldiers below. His speech was intended to inspire them to stage a coup d’etat and restore the Emperor to his rightful place. He succeeded only in irritating them and was mocked and jeered. As he was unable to make himself heard, he finished his planned speech after only a few minutes. He stepped back into the commandant’s office and committed seppuku (ritual suicide).

Now that’s an exit.

The full story on Mishima is complex and troubling: a sheltered child raised by a temperamental and artistocratic grandmother (who came from a samurai bloodline), only to return at the age of 12 to his parents. His father was a strict disciplinarian and it is suggested that his relationship with his mother bordered on incestuous.

Writing in secret (so that his father wouldn’t find out), Mishima’s stories focused on recurring themes of death, obsession, dishonour, and the consequences of unexamined emotions.

Mishima was gay, yet paradoxically (considering the society he inhabited) became obsessed with martial arts and militaristic self-discipline.

Of his more popular works is The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea.The novel takes place in post-WWII Japan and concerns the blooming love between a sailor on-leave and a wealthy industrialist whose son is part of a devilishly manipulative cabal of disaffected local children.

His critically-praised work includes the semi-autobiographical Confessions of a Mask and the fiction tetralogy Sea of Fertility. Mishima submitted the final draft of the fourth novel in the series, The Decay of the Angel, to his publisher on the same fateful day he and his colleagues would drive to the military school.

Having read a selection of his work (Confessions, Sailor, and the short story collection Acts of Wisdom), it’s clear that Mishima was an individual tortured by his own demons. One may argue he was born into a society which could never support his dynamic shape. His narrative style is poetic and sensual, though often critical of society and soaked with the tragedy of characters misdirected by love and self-discipline. Beautiful though they are, Mishima’s stories are often dark and painful. It’s for this reason I would be lying if I said I read his work regularly – though I wouldn’t hesitate to describe them as rewarding (if not seminal) works for the fiction reader.

If you’re curious about Yukio Mishima – and while I would not call it a definitive example – you may want to check out Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, a film by Paul Schrader (who wrote Taxi Driver). It blends the story of his untimely death with lusciously visual renderings of some of his short stories.

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