Author Interview Series: Larry Closs, Author of Beatitude, Discusses Men and Literature Among the Beats and Today

In the first of TLM's author interviews series, the Editors sat down with Larry Closs, author of Beatitude, a novel of friendship, love, and idolatry of the Beat Generation, to discuss themes of masculinity and literature, then and now.  A more detailed TLM review of Beatitude will appear in the coming weeks.  

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TLM: The prominent players among the Beats were all men. Is this a coincidence or is there something inherently masculine about the philosophy of the Beats?

Larry: You have to begin by viewing the Beats in the context of their times. The Beats were a product of—and a reaction to—the conformity, conservatism and materialism of the 1950s. In the wake of the abject austerity of the Great Depression, the relative prosperity of the fifties inspired a focus on suddenly affordable housing, cars and appliances and the development of a suburban lifestyle reflected in TV shows like Ozzie & Harriet and Leave It to Beaver. The new nuclear family was the ideal and every family member had very narrowly defined roles: Fathers were breadwinners, mothers raised the kids and took care of the house and kids did their homework, stayed out of trouble and aspired to be just like their parents.

The Beats tapped into a burgeoning feeling that there was something wrong with that picture. The Beat philosophy expressed itself in the rejection of repressive social norms and the embrace of an experience-for-experience-sake approach to life embodied by an open-minded attitude toward sex, drugs, relationships, religion, travel and the fellaheen—the outsiders.

Women were just as likely as men to feel stifled by the middle-class conventions of the 1950s. They were less likely to act on that impulse, however, because they risked far more severe repercussions. Also, despite the progressive attitude the Beats advocated across the board, they generally viewed the women in their world in much the same way as the world at large, confining them to girlfriends, housewives and mothers.

One could argue that Beat philosophy was inherently—even unabashedly—masculine, as evidenced by the fact that the great works of literature and poetry the movement produced were all produced by men. One could also argue that the Beat philosophy was inherently sexist, like the society itself, because the movement’s tenets were near impossible for women of the times to embrace.

There were Beat women (Brenda Knight’s Women of the Beat Generation profiles 40 of them) who injected a feminine element, but, with few exceptions—poets Diane di Prima, Hettie Jones, Ann Waldman—they are unknown even to Beat fans and best known for their relationships with Beat men rather than their creative contributions to the Beat canon. One of the best and most prolific, Joyce Johnson, wrote five novels that are no longer in print. However, her two memoirs—Minor Characters (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award) and Door Wide Open—both of which hinge on her brief romance with Kerouac, remain popular long after their release in paperback.

TLM: Kerouac's fiction and his life revolved around traditionally manly pursuits—football and railroading, the time spent as a lookout at Desolation Peak and even the freewheeling travels described in On the Road. Was this a part of his personality or part of a carefully crafted image?

Larry: The most famous photograph of Jack Kerouac is a broody black and white of him at 31, ruggedly handsome and pensively smoking a cigarette on a New York City fire escape in 1953. Jutting from Kerouac’s jacket pocket is the Brakeman’s Manual for the Southern Pacific Railroad, where Kerouac was working at the time. Allen Ginsberg snapped the shot, which he later aptly titled “Heroic Portrait”—aptly, because that photo more than any other evokes the image of Kerouac embedded in the collective consciousness. The “Heroic Portrait,” however, was taken before Kerouac ever had an image.

In 1953, Kerouac had only written two of the dozen or so books that would be his literary legacy and only one had been published—The Town and the City, in 1950, an indifferently reviewed homage to his hero, Thomas Wolfe. Kerouac had also completed what would become his most famous and revolutionary work, On the Road, in 1951, but it wouldn’t be published until 1957.

Until then, Kerouac went about his life like anyone else, unselfconsciously indulging in pursuits that interested and supported him. He wanted to be a writer since he was a kid. He was also naturally athletic. He played football in high school and went to Columbia in 1940 on a football scholarship, but when he broke his leg in the first season he refocused on his real passion, literature. He met Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, served in both the Merchant Marines and the Navy, married and divorced twice, crisscrossed the country with Neal Cassady, worked as a brakeman for the Southern Pacific Railroad and spent two months as a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout on Desolation Peak in Washington.

By the time On the Road was finally published—to instant acclaim—in 1957 and the Beat Generation emerged from the underground, Kerouac had already done everything that would contribute to his image, with no thought of doing so. The media would craft his image for him. While Kerouac called himself "a strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic,” the media called him King of the Beats, a reductive title he would reject and despise for the rest of his life.

TLM: What, in your opinion, was the nature of the relationship among Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg. How did they balance friendship and (unrequited?) love among them?

Larry: First and foremost, Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg were close friends—that was the basis of their relationship—friends who loved one another, who connected instantly on a subliminal level and admired and respected each other’s outlook, talents and heart. Beyond that, it was complicated, as recorded in their literary efforts and voluminous letters to one another, and as suggested by biographers reading between the lines of their lives.

In 1944, Ginsberg fell in love with Kerouac almost at first sight when Lucien Carr introduced them. Ginsberg was 18, Kerouac, 22. Both were attending Columbia and sleeping in the same dorm room one night when Ginsberg confessed his feelings, saying, “Jack, you know, I love you, and I want to sleep with you, and I really like men.” To which Kerouac said, “Oooooh, no.” Kerouac’s response was not a rejection of Ginsberg, but a comment on the complications he envisioned as a result of a one-sided love.

Two years later, when classmate Hal Chase introduced Ginsberg and Kerouac to Neal Cassady and his then-wife, LuAnne Henderson, just arrived from Denver, Colorado, Ginsberg fell head over heals with Cassady, who also promptly took to Ginsberg, “attacking him with a great amorous soul such as only a con-man can have,” as Kerouac writes in On the Road. “I didn’t see them for about two weeks, during which time they cemented their relationship to fiendish allday-allnight-talk proportions.”

In the end, their feelings weren’t mutual or equal. Ginsberg was infatuated with Cassady, and although they had a sexual relationship for many years, it was never a truly romantic one. Cassady was ultimately more interested in women, as indicated by his three wives (two of whom he married simultaneously). Still, Ginsberg was crushed by his unrequited love for Cassady, following him to Denver at one point and writing a collection of poems titled Denver Doldrums when he was once again rejected.

Kerouac was also infatuated with Cassady, but in another way: Kerouac viewed Cassady as a romantic, free-spirited masculine ideal who was everything Kerouac wished he could be. Likewise, Cassady loved Kerouac for his empathy, curiosity and discipline as a writer. They did what best friends do—they balanced each other, brought out the best in one another. What they shared was an enthusiasm for experience. As Dean yells out the window of a speeding car in On the Road, “Ah, God! Life!" Ultimately, they were brothers.

Whole books have been written about the complexities of Beat relationships—Ellis Amburn’s Subterranean Kerouac posits that Kerouac was torn between his attractions to men as well as women while Ginsberg claimed that he and Kerouac were intimate on several occasions. But no one can ever really know the nuances of Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg’s feelings. Who but them possibly could? What we do know is that they were an integral part of each other’s lives for much of their lives—despite the additional complications of other overlapping relationships—and that speaks volumes. They were each willing to sacrifice something of themselves for the sake of their love for one another and that’s about as pure as love gets.

Ginsberg wrote one of the most touching elegies in an Afterward to Kerouac’s Visions of Cody titled The Visions of the Great Rememberer: “Couldn’t ever hold on to that early Love, all bodies change & die, fall from life to life, but the sad heart now comes still expecting there was something more Neal & Jack could fulfill, or there was more love I wanted to give them than they would let me, and imagined delights in their presence they felt toward me, love & kisses they never laid on my timid body—except the sweet care they both offered me their little melancholy tender Allen….”

TLM: How are themes of masculinity and the relationships between men treated in Beatitude?

Larry: While I didn’t give any conscious thought to conveying ideas about masculinity in Beatitude, I did make a very deliberate decision about how I wanted characters to emerge—on their own, with no assistance from the author. I wanted readers to meet and come to know the characters by virtue of what they say and do, not by any editorializing. Several reviewers have described Beatitude as a dialogue-driven novel, and to some extent that’s true. I’ve always found that I learn more about someone in a few minutes of talking with them and just seeing how they move than any amount of description by a friend beforehand could ever convey.

Tied to that was a desire to explore how our experience and outlook can affect our interpretation of what we hear and see. In the same way that Harry doesn’t always perceive things as they are—doesn’t always want to perceive things as they are—I wanted readers to question their own assumptions. I wanted to smash stereotypes and reductive ideas, who’s likely to feel this way versus who’s likely to feel that way. The ultimate goal was to underline the importance of viewing the world through another’s eyes and heart. All three of the main characters ultimately come to that realization: Harry puts himself in Jay’s place, Jay puts himself in Harry’s place and Zahra puts herself in both Harry and Jay’s place. Each takes a step forward by doing so.

There’s a scene in Beatitude where I describe a television interview that Kerouac did with Steve Allen in 1959, after On the Road had catapulted Kerouac to fame and introduced the Beat Generation to America. Allen asks Kerouac how he would define beat. Kerouac pauses and says, “Sympathetic.” I think that single word expresses the essence of Beatitude.

Larry Closs is the author of Beatitude, a novel, and a New Yorker who often wanders far from home. Follow him on his website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram (larrycloss).

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Follow Larry Closs as his blog tour continues tomorrow, January 26, 2012, at The Picky Girl.

The Local Scene: The Other Side by E. Thomas Finan

The Other Side is a work of seven stories that comprise the debut collection from E. Thomas Finan, currently a lecturer at the University of Miami. Published by The Fieldnor Press in 2010, The Other Side treats various poignant moments in the lives of its characters. Finan experiments with a variety of voices and styles in bringing his characters to life and, because he is a strong writer with a talent for dialogue, he mostly succeeds.

My favorite story of the collection was, "Motley Black," which follows Jay, recently jilted and running from memory, as he leaves his home in San Francisco and travels by bus to Key West, where he hopes to begin the next chapter of his life. Anyone who has ever travelled by bus will appreciate the cast of well-drawn characters that Jay meets along the way, and it is obvious that Finan is writing from experience.

Others that scored points with me were the existentialist "Lucy di Sartoria," the obsessive "An Aria of Windrows," and the supernatural story, "The Other Side.". Overall, I found Finan's collection familiar and readable, with characters that elicit sympathy and make a connection with the reader. And I'm looking forward to more of Finan in the future.

The Dreamlike Beauty of an Expatriate Life: Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

There is a dreamlike beauty to the expatriate life that Simon Van Booy captures perfectly in his debut novel, Everything Beautiful Began After, released today by Harper Perennial.

Rebecca, George, and Henry, have each come to Athens for different reasons, but all are content to become lost in its dusty streets and the hazy memory of antiquity. And it is a sandblown sort of fate that brings them together in that haphazard, thousand-causal-connections manner that typifies the joining of strangers in a foreign land and the binding of them together by common experience. But come together they do, and they eventually share an affection that is both real and enduring.   

When tragedy strikes, it is through these well-formed and emotionally-complex characters that Van Booy demonstrates how the intimacy of casual acquaintance and the despair occasioned by last goodbyes can hijack an entire life. Everything Beautiful Began After paints a portrait of a world almost outside of existence where affairs may capture the heart forever and the loss of a future once-envisioned can become all-consuming.

More than simply a painter of beautiful scenes, however, Van Booy is also a skilled professional. His prose is thoughtful and poetic as he describes Athens so vividly that the reader feels the dry heat of a noonday sun at the foot of the Acropolis. He cleverly plays with language, not just English, but Greek, French, Italian, and even Arabic, as a sometime reminder of how difficult it can be to communicate with one another, especially where the subject consists of our own pain. And though it takes some getting used to, the periodic use of the second person and the present tense allows the reader to share in the aimless wandering of Henry as he seeks some path by which to reenter the world that he once knew but has since lost forever.

Though it is sure to be enjoyed by the general public, in my opinion Everything Beautiful Began After is a must-read for anyone living abroad or with fond memories of having done so.

We Have Met the Enemy: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much."

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is (unfortunately) best recognized in popular culture for providing the backstory for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now, which is a classic in its own right.  The novel is based, not in Cambodia, but in a part of the African Congo that was a private colony of King Leopold II of Belgium in the latter part of the nineteenth century.     

While waiting for the tide to turn at the mouth of the Thames, the protagonist, Charlie Marlow, notes to his fellow travelers that London and the Britons were once dark and untamed in the period just prior to Roman domination of the island.  Marlow proceeds to recount his experiences as a steamship captain in darkest colonial Africa and, specifically, the recovery of Kurtz, an ivory trader, journalist, and poet-philosopher, who is lost to the darkness of the jungle and his own mind.  The sometimes brutal treatment of the African natives plays a central role in the story, as does the chaos and lawlessness that results from unrestrained domination of one culture by another.  Themes of darkness and light are interwoven in both story and character to show that each of us and each of our enterprises, at some level, are infected by that tendency toward evil that is witnessed by Kurtz in the moments before he utters his final words: "The horror!  The horror!" 

Given the theme of European colonialism, the novel is broader than Apocalypse Now in the scope of its treatment.  And because it focused more specifically on the inherent duality within each human soul, the novel is also more terrifying.  Conrad is a master of prolonged tension and in the subtle treatment of difficult and controversial themes--including colonialism--and both the topic and the prose gradually work their way under the reader's skin until he's strung as tight as a bow.  But there's never a release, at least not one that completely diffuses the tension, and the reader is left with a feeling of unsettling anxiety long after the work is read.

Truth be told, Heart of Darkness is one of those few works that keep us up at night, not simply because of the story or its basis in colonial reality, but because of its undeniable application to human existence.  Does anyone share this reaction to the work?  What other works, if any, keep you up at night?   

Happy Bloomsday, Everyone.

It's been a good, long while since I've posted a word here at The Literate Man.  My thanks to Aaron for picking up the slack.  The break wasn't intentional, but evolved out of (1) my misguided First Reading Challenge: The Aubrey/Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian (I'm currently on book 13 of 21 and can read nothing else), and (2) final edits to on my own novel, The Last Will and Testament of Lemuel Higgins, which is in the final stages of editing and design prior to publication.

But I couldn't let Bloomsday pass without recycling TLM's reviews of Ulysses from late last year.  There were two: one relating reflections at the halfway point and one presenting a final review.  June 16, 1904, was the date that Joyce chose for Ulysses' protagonist, Leopold Bloom, to go rambling about Dublin and provide us with some of the most colorful scenes in all of English literature.  It also happens to be the day that James Joyce had his first date with his eventual wife, Nora Barnacle.  In any case, the date is celebrated worldwide (and particularly in Dublin) as Bloomsday in honor and recognition of Joyce's epic work and enduring genius. 

So raise a pint to Ulysses, number seven on TLM's Top Eight Novels for Men, and to James Joyce, one of the most honored (and divisive) authors in literary history.      

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (TLM's New Number Eight)

I've always found it unpredictable to re-read a work that I loved once upon a time.  At different points, I've come away both more certain than ever of my respect (Sometimes A Great Notion) and questioning what I could have so appreciated on the first reading (Moby Dick).  But when Jonathan Franzen wrote a piece in the New York Times championing The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, I decided that this was one favorite worth revisiting.  

I first read The Man Who Loved Children in college some twenty years ago as part of a course on Australian Literature.  That course, by the way, revealed to me some of the best work that I had read to that point (including The Man Who Loved Children), and I took away from it an abiding appreciation of Australian Literature thta survives to this day.  Upon my first reading, I was convinced that The Man Who Loved Children was among the three greatest works of literature that I had read to that point.  Twenty years later, I had only vague recollections of the Pollit family in a constant state of agitation with themselves and one another, along with a healthy respect for Christina Stead's powers of both characterization and creativity based on the relationship between Sam Pollit and his daughter, Louisa. 

My more recent second reading has convinced me that The Man Who Loved Children is one of the greatest tragedies ever written and it deserves a place among TLM's top novels for men.  Not that it is a book for or about men in particular, despite its title.  Rather, The Man Who Loved Children is a book for and about anyone that has ever felt manipulated, repressed, limited, or emotionally dominated by those individuals that are closest to them.  In other words, it is a book for and about everyone.  It reportedly draws heavily from Christina Stead's own life and her relationship with her father, which is undoubtedly part of its genius.

As for the plot, the blind and dysfunctional Sam is the patriarch of the Pollit family, which resides outside of Washington, DC.  At once a dictator and a narcissist, Sam has so alienated his wife, Henny, that they are no longer on speaking terms, communicating only through their children or in written form.  This, of course, leads to constant emotional hostage taking in a house comprised of six (and eventually seven) children.  Toward those children, Sam believes himself a god, demanding their awe and respect for his various projects and achievements, while also digging so deeply into their lives and their brains as to crowd out any notion of privacy or individuality.  Stead does a masterful job of showing each child's reaction to this dominating treatment, as they each struggle to support one another.  And it is largely this sense of mutual support in the face of overwhelming and sinister domination (and I am not being melodramatic here) that gives the book's conclusion its tragic force. 

Christina Stead creates a world--set wholly within the confines of the Pollit home--that is so emotionally deep and complex that the reader has the distinct feeling of having lived among its characters as a passive (though alternately incredulous and furious) observer throughout the time period covered by the book.  I suspect that it is that same gut wrenching emotional journey that has kept The Man Who Loved Children from obtaining the popular acceptance and acclaim that it most certainly deserves.  In any case, I have no problem whatsoever making The Man Who Loved Children TLM's new number eight.

Has anyone out there read The Man Who Loved Children?  More importantly, is there anyone out there that read it and did not absolutely marvel at Stead's skill at characterization?       

The Aubrey/Maturin Series, Books I through V (Reading Challenge Installment 1)

This is the first installment of four in TLM's First Reading Challenge: The Aubrey/Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian.  We will cover each of the first five novels in the 21-novel series, including Master and Commander,Post Captain, HMS Surprise, The Mauritius Command, and Desolation Island.  Since simply outlining the action in each book would defeat the purpose of the challenge, I will breakdown each book by most memorable scene, dominant theme, and most interesting character.  Of course, I encourage every one of you to share your thoughts by posting your comments below.   

Master and Commander:

Most memorable scene: The taking of the Cacafuego, a Spanish frigate, by Captain Aubrey and his brig, the Sophie.  This is O'Brian's first extended description of a battle at sea, wherein he proves that he is a master.  Jack Aubrey follows Lord Nelson's advice to "Never mind maneuvers, always go at them!"   

Dominant theme: Divided loyalties.  Both Stephen Maturin and James Dillon, the Sophie's first lieutenant, have dark histories fighting the British as members of the United Irishmen.  Maturin is both practical and philosophical in his outlook, while Dillon's raw internal struggles lead him to seek his own demise.

Most interesting character: Jack Aubrey.  An unapologetic rogue on land, Aubrey is an experienced sea officer and brilliant naval tactician just coming into his own during the action of M&C.

Post Captain:

Most memorable scene: Stephen Maturin leading Jack Aubrey across the French/Spanish border dressed in a bear costume.  The ruse was necessary when Stephen and Jack are caught in France at the time that the Peace of Amiens fails and war resumes with Britain. 

Dominant theme: The vagaries of life at sea.  Jack Aubrey spends half of the book running from creditors, who seek to have him thrown in debtors' prison after shifting political alliances rob him of prize money that he is due.  His fortunes revive when Stephen Maturin is able to use his own political influence to involve Jack in the capture of a Spanish convoy carrying treasure.

Most interesting character: Stephen Maturin.  It is in Post Captain that Stephen Maturin's role as a British intelligence agent becomes a prominent part of the series.  Maturin is half Irish and half Catalan, and it is his Catalan heritage that leads him to fight tooth and nail against Napoleon, even overriding his Irish republican distaste for British hegemony.

HMS Surprise:

Most memorable scene: Stephen Maturin operating on himself to remove a bullet lodged between his ribs during a duel.  The duel is precipitated by Stephen's love for Diana Villiers, who has become Richard Canning's mistress in India.

Dominant theme: Affairs of the heart.  Both Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin suffer from problems of the heart in HMS Surprise.  Aubrey is cheated out of his share of the captured Spanish treasure and this complicates his pending marriage to Sophie Williams.  Stephen, meanwhile, ineffectually declares his love to Diana Villiers, who will continue to torment him over the course of the series.

Most memorable character: Diana Villiers.  At once fickle and practical, Diana wraps both Aubrey and Maturin around her finger, though it is the learned and philosophical Maturin that receives the most deep and lasting wounds from their relationship.  The reader is never quite sure whether to consider her Maturin's proper mate or a sly female villain of the heart.

The Mauritius Command:

Most memorable scene: After Maturin returns to report to Commodore Aubrey the failure of an effort to take Mauritius from the French, Aubrey returns to the scene of the routing and methodically, captured ship by captured ship, turns the tide back in favor of the British, who eventually take the island, though Aubrey is robbed of credit for the enterprise.

Dominant theme: Measuring up.  Lord Clonfert was, at one time, superior in rank and reputation to Jack Aubrey; however, he finds himself under Commodore Aubrey's command at Mauritius.  Clonfert had demonstrated cowardice during an earlier campaign with Aubrey, and it is evident that Aubrey's continued success has him feeling both cowardly and unworthy so that he overcompensates in his command and becomes gravely injured.  Rather than suffer the success of Jack Aubrey at Mauritius, Clonfert commits suicide by removing his bandages.

Most memorable character:  Lord Clonfert, for all the reasons noted above.

Desolation Island:

Most memorable scene: The sinking of the Waakzaamheid, a 74-gun Dutch ship-of-the-line, in the extreme South Atlantic.  Aubrey's new ship, the Leopard, having been chased nearly to Anterctica by the much larger Waakzaamheid  over the course of many days, the ships exchange fire, and a lucky shot takes down the Dutch ship's foremast, causing her to sink with all hands.

Dominant Theme: Intelligence (and counter-intelligence).  For the first time in the series, the United States takes a prominent role as Aubrey is charged with hauling the American intelligence agent, Luisa Wogan, along with other convicts to Australia.  Maturin makes good use of Ms. Wogan, using her lover to feed her counter-intelligence and helping them both to escape aboard an American whaler while the Leopard is fitting for repairs.

Most memorable character: Stephen Maturin.  O'Brian deals directly and honestly with the evils of addiction by afflicting one of his two main characters with an addiction to laudanum.  His disappointments with Diana Villiers feed the beast that torments him and it is, in part, his deplorable state that leads Jack Aubrey to take to sea once again.

And so concludes the first installment of TLM's four-part series on the Aubrey/Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian.  Please feel free to share your thoughts, comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.  I'm personally in the middle of book seven, The Surgeon's Mate, so it may be a few weeks before we have another installment.  In the meantime, happy reading.  

        

Moby Dick, and Thoughts on Standing the Test of Time

So here's the story in brief (as if you needed it): one big angry white whale, one one-legged monomaniacal captain, and a mess of willing and unwilling seamen caught up in a suicide mission.  The book is largely symbolic, of course, treating numerous dark themes, including man versus god, man versus nature, and man versus his own creeping obsessions and internal demons. But in terms of plot, that's basically it--and, perhaps because of its simplicity, the tale has lived in the American consciousness for 150 years.   

In fact, the broad outlines of Moby Dick seem to have become as much a part of American culture as baseball and apple pie, and it is a testament to its utility for selling completely unrelated products longevity that it is used even today to promote, among other products, the Blackberry Torch.  Moby Dick and Melville also appear to be at least partially responsible for the popularity of Melville's great-great-great grand-nephew, techno-artist Richard Melville Hall (a/k/a Moby), who is not shy about repeatedly publicly stating the extremely tenuous family connection.  All of which is to say that Moby Dick remains relevant to the modern age as a cheap marketing tool, if not as the textbook on cetology and commercial whaling that Melville hoped it would become.       

[Cue video of a dusty but copiously-bearded Melville slowly spinning in his grave.]       

And yet, I felt strangely disconnected from the tale during this, my second, reading.  First, the entire backdrop of the story is an industry that no longer exists (except, I suppose, in Japan where it survives under the rubric of "scientific research").  Second, while I'm not a member of PETA or even a fan of Whale Wars, Moby Dick fairly rejoices in a systematic violence that is committed on what is essentially a peaceful creature of the deep.  That Moby Dick gets his revenge on all but Ishmael seems little recompense.  In many ways, it reminded me of reading Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, a treatise on Spanish bullfighting, which likewise left me more concerned about human nature than inspired or entertained.  And third, Melville's long (often chapter-length) passages on the proper classification of whales and the science of whaling are both out of date and seem to unnecessarily interrupt the little action that there is.  I understand that Melville hoped that the novel would be considered a treatise on whales and whaling, but I say pick a genre and stick with it if you want to maintain the reader's interest.

I'd really like your input on this.  Have you ever read or re-read a classic and felt disappointingly disconnected from the characters within?  In this case, I did--I felt quite outside the story of Moby Dick in a way that I do not with other Melville works (Typee, White Jacket, Billy Budd, etc.) or with Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, or even Jane Austen.  So what is it about those classic authors that continues to connect, while others, like Moby Dick for me, seem to fade in their significance over time?  Just wondering ...
  

Ulysses, a Masterpiece, and My New Sixth Favorite Novel for Men

So, I've done it. I've read Ulysses from beginning to end, finding parallels between the characters in Joyce's portrait of Dublin and Homer's epic of Ulysses' return to Ithaca after the Trojan War; slogging through the difficult chapters told in stream of consciousness; jumping from character to character as Leopold Bloom makes his way across Dublin at midday; patiently wading through Joyce's mockery of various affected styles of English prose; enduring the staccato-like catechism (which was apparently Joyce's favorite part of the novel); and winding up with Molly Bloom's internal soliloquy, which is without punctuation and so full of bodily functions and sexual fantasies that it would make even a sailor blush. I didn't do it alone, mind you--I had a Princeton professor to guide me--but it's done. And at the end of the day, I've emerged exhausted, but with a profound respect for Joyce as an artist, as a visionary, but most of all as a humanist.

There are too many dimensions to Ulysses to try to capture more than a handful in any reasonable review, so I won't even try. Joyce himself famously said that, with respect to Ulysses, he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant." I'm focused here on the three aspects of the novel that impressed me most. In no particular order, they are as follows:

1. Recognizing the epic in the everyday. Ulysses takes place over the course of one day--June 16, 1904--in which Joyce follows first Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter-ego and the protagonist of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and then Leopold Bloom (the protagonist of Ulysses) as they make their way separately from their respective homes, through the streets of Dublin on a variety of errands, toward an unanticipated reunion in the wee hours of the night. The story relies for its structure on Homer's epic, The Odyssey, which first follows Telemachus (Ulysses' son) as he leaves home to search for his absent father, and then Ulysses as he returns to his home in Ithaca after the Trojan War. Numerous episodes recounted in The Odyssey have their corollaries in Ulysses, including (among many others) a humorous take on Homer's sirens and an encounter with a (then) modern-day cyclops, myopic in his view of Irish identity and his own racial superiority.  Part of Joyce's genius is in showing that, viewed from the proper perspective, every life is an epic every bit as adventuresome as that of Ulysses.

2. Innovation in style. Though the original story was serialized and then published as a whole in only three parts, Joyce himself later accepted the addition of 18 Odyssey-derived episode headings. Nearly every episode exhibits a different literary style or character perspective, from stream of consciousness to newspaper headlines to mock Olde English to mythological description to question and answer (the catechism), from the head of Stephen Dedalus to Leopold Bloom to various characters in the Dublin street to an unnamed observer in a Dublin bar to young Gerty on the beach to Molly Bloom's final soliloquy. To anyone that has not read the work, this would appear to be an impossible, chaotic jumble of storytelling techniques and perspectives, sure to derail the main story. But Joyce makes it work, partly because the story that he tells is so simple and straightforward and human (see below) that the reader can easily follow along with a little patience and, if necessary (as in my case), some study. The mix of technique is shocking to modern readers--I can only imagine what it must have seemed to readers in the 1920's--but once you get the hang of it, Joyce's genius really shines through.

3. Daring to tell a story that is human in every respect. As mentioned briefly above, there are more references to bodily functions and sexual fantasy in Ulysses than perhaps in any other book that I have ever read. And while I generally view the overuse of sex or potty humor as a cheap device designed to pander to a lower readership, I think just the opposite is true in Ulysses.  Joyce used the embarrassments and oddities and fetishes of every day to create not only believeable characters, but characters that you would swear that you know personally, even thought they are removed from modern life by an ocean and a century.  The same is true of the misunderstandings, petty jealousies, lethargy, and persecutions that sap their and our strength day after day--theirs are yours and vice versa.  This is Joyce's greatest trick in my opinion: allowing the reader to see him or herself in not only a single character, but in all the main characters of the work, male and female alike.

As a modern reader of what has been often deemed the greatest novel ever written in the English language, the only criticism that I have of Ulysses is that it is too historically tied to the issue of Irish nationalism.  The references to English oppression and the roots of Sinn Fein make the work somewhat less relevant to the modern reader than it might otherwise be.  At the same time, given that one of Ulysses' main themes is usurpation, I am not sure that it could have been written any other way.  And it is for this reason alone that I place it sixth among my personal recommendations of novels for men--those that sit above it (and many that sit below it) are more enduring as expressions of universal human experience not tied to a particular time or place.  This takes nothing away from the work itself, of course--it is undeniably a masterpiece--but reflects only my own personal view.  I hope that in these lines I've persuaded more people to give Ulysses the old college try.  In any case, let me know what you think of Ulysses, whether you've read it or not.

As a result of my experience with Ulysses, I have ordered an old, well-thumbed library copy of Finnegans Wake, which I am resolved to pick up (and review) at some point in the near future.  If anyone has a recommendation for a critical review, please pass it along--I know that I'm going to need it.  In the meantime, I need a little break.           

A Review of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, or How Vladimir Nabokov Is Like a Paranoid, Junkyard Dog

Doctor Zhivago is a tale of love set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and Civil War of 1917-1921, as well as the institution of the Soviet Union, which followed it.  The novel is, in essence, a criticism of the Soviet system, which destroyed both culture and humanism in its single-minded pursuit of an ideology that was progressively twisted by those in power.  More grandly, it is the story of the inability of the individual to control even his own destiny among the strong currents of time, ideology, and power.  Publication was refused Pasternak in the Soviet Union in 1956.  A copy of the manuscript was then smuggled out of the country in 1957 and appeared in English the next year.  Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, which he was forced to refuse in order to forego a scandal in the USSR.  Unfortunately, he died only two years later.          

I've read a few reviews of Doctor Zhivago out there on the interwebs, and it's impossible not to notice a fairly uniform dislike for it.  Most reviews find it long and stale, with relatively cardboard characters that are thrown together in odd and contrived places and situations simply to move the story along or make a particular point about politics or ideology.  And it's not simply a case of cultural differences or a misunderstanding of the artist--the dislike runs wide and deep. Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov once said, "Doctor Zhivago is a sorry thing, clumsy, trite and melodramatic, with stock situations, voluptuous lawyers, unbelieveable girls, romantic robbers and trite coincidences."  Ouch!  So much for mutual support among Russian novelists. 

I personally disagree with Nabokov's overall negative assessment of the work, which is to say that I like Doctor Zhivago immensely.  I find it a fascinating account of life in the Soviet Union and an honest portrayal of mostly apolitical citizens whose primary concern is simply to survive the buffeting winds of change and idealism.  The writing is depressingly beautiful.  While Pasternak is not as fluid and artistic in his writing as John Steinbeck, Doctor Zhivago flavors strongly to me of East of Eden--an epic tale of love set against the backdrop of forces (natural or political) that are beyond the characters' control and which ultimately end up determining their lives.  At the same time, Doctor Zhivago is periodically disjointed and contrived, characteristics which (I like to think) Pasternak himself attributed to the Soviet state that had swallowed his people and his culture. 

And there are other (convincing) reasons for Nabokov's harsh opinion than the honest critique of a fellow writer.  In fact, Doctor Zhivago was released in the West at around the same time that Nabokov released Lolita, and his criticism smacks strongly of territoriality--a junkyard dog running off the stray that has wandered too close to his fence.  Moreover, Nabokov was convinced that Doctor Zhivago--despite its criticism of the Soviet system and the Soviets' refusal to publish the work--was a public relations plot by the Soviets to raise Soviet literature to new heights (i.e., above Nabokov himself) in the eyes of the world. 

At the same time, looking behind the (seemingly paranoid) green monster, I think Nabokov is on to something.  Doctor Zhivago has gained a fairly sizeable acceptance in its numerous film adaptations.  Even today, the story seems to run fairly consistently on the various classic movie channels.  In short, because Doctor Zhivago is sweeping in its setting, both historically and geographically, and because it attempts to construct a romantic relationship that is buffeted by the winds of history, it appears to tap into those notions of romanticism that we have deemed appropriate to the screen, but not the page.

Is there anyone out there, besides me, that likes Doctor Zhivago more than its film adaptations?  Is this unusual?  Are there other examples of works of literature that have received only a middling popular acceptance as literature, but have blossomed in film?        

Ulysses at the Halfway Point, or Who's Buying the Next Round of Guinness? (No Seriously, Who?)

I suspect that my prior view of the work of James Joyce was very similar to most people's conception.  I remember picking up a copy of Finnegan's Wake from the public library in Dubuque, Iowa, where I was studying for the LSATs at the time, thinking that it was the perfect opportunity to delve into a literary classic and, perhaps, to learn a bit about my own Irish heritage beyond the holy and hereditary trinity that is the love of the drink, the written word, and all things green.  I remember just as clearly returning that volume only a week later, confused, dejected, and certain that its "classic" status depended entirely upon its impenetrability, coupled with the very human tendency to judge as genius anything that we feel that we cannot fully understand.  In short, I judged it as a complete fraud somewhat-lyrical, stream of consciousness relic of an age long past that had little to no applicability to my life.  I viewed anything written by Joyce with the same colored lens.

Then, earlier this year, my wife and I planned a trip to Ireland (my first, though I dare say not my last).  I generally endeavor to read some classic piece of literature from or about the region while I'm there, if only to pass myself off as intelligent while I'm getting sauced at the bar get a flavor for the local literary history.  And so, I decided to take another crack at Joyce.  But I hedged my bet by choosing Dubliners, a series of completely non-stream-of-consciousness short stories that depict the lives of ordinary people in and around Dublin at the turn of the Twentieth Century.  While I generally do not enjoy reading short story collections, I loved Dubliners and reviewed it in glowing terms here.  More importantly, I felt like I understood every word.  And, though I stepped away from Joyce for a bit, I vowed to return to his more complex works and give them another shot.

And so, about two months ago, I began reading Ulysses, Joyce's classic tale of everyday life in Dublin as superimposed on the wandering plot of Homer's epic, The Odyssey, which Joyce himself held in the highest esteem.  I tried hard to focus on the lyrical value of Joyce's prose, though I was often lost in its meaning, and I managed to follow the action through several chapters before I began to feel the old frustration starting to build.  It was at that point that I began to drink heavily and it all made sense began looking for outside help.  Now, I really do not like to make a habit of this.  Like many of you, I suspect, I like a classic work of literature to stand on its own.  If I have to go searching for meaning and enjoyment, then I begin to suspect that neither are truly there to begin with.  But I also hate to put down a classic once I've begun, and Google is just so damned convenient, and so I began to look a bit further afield.  The Internet alone sustained me through several more chapters, and I felt like I had an understanding of the structure of the work and its characters, if nothing else; but it still was not enjoyable.

Then I stumbled on a downloadable, college-level course on Ulysses by Princeton Professor James A.W. Heffernan.  I have listened to a few of these courses now on topics as diverse as classical music to Buddhism to anthropological study of the modern Maya, all of which have been produced and distributed by The Teaching Company.  To be perfectly honest, I find them somewhat hit and miss (though, to be fair, they are more than hit than miss).  If you are truly interested in a particular subject matter, they can be, not only worthwhile, but very entertaining.  Be forewarned, however: there is no getting around the dork factor, and you have to be willing to be labeled as such if and when you are caught listening by your friends and family.

Anyhow, the Ulysses course has changed my perspective on the work entirely.  I now recognize that without a working knowledge of either Anglo-Irish history or Homer's Odyssey and preferably both, no one is likely to take much away from the work other than its quirky characters and its lyrical prose, which is truly only scratching the surface.  I won't bore you with what I've learned--suffice it to say that the characters and the story have come alive on both a human and a mythic level.  Only approximately a third of the way through the course materials, I now not only look forward to reading the balance of Ulysses, but I want to return to the beginning to reread the tremendous amount of material that passed through my mind wholly unappreciated.

My question for all of you is this: is this a legitimate practice in the appreciation of works of literature?  Does the fact that a particular work requires explication make it more or less of a great work in your eyes?  And, finally, who's buying that next round?  Seriously, I'm all tapped out ...