Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

The most significant objection I have to modernity and especially to modern literature is the refusal to devote oneself to principle, choosing instead arbitrary, dogmatic sentiment. Perhaps I am expecting too much of the literature of my decadent and effete era or maybe I am just too old-fashioned, too Greek or Medieval. Who knows.

Niffenegger's book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was an engaging read. It would have been as disappointing as The Sinner of Saint Ambrose had I been as invested in it, but I bought it (probably a poor choice, but it was really cheap, after all) on a friend's recommendation, and after he introduced me to The Stars My Destination I was prepared to believe him. Time Traveler is far more about telling a story than disclosing topical references or even allegory. Naturally, since a  committed modern wrote it, its intellectual foundations are laced in modernity; for example, whenever it discusses love I see late 20th Century thought at work. Perhaps the author recognized this tendency, or perhaps not, for it does not seem to be much of a self-aware book on that level.

That was the reason I wound up enjoying it; I was able to identify Proust and the new contemporary sentiment, and was quite surprised how far we have come since the Middle Ages, which were strong on reason and weak on sentiment; now we doubt reason's claim to truth and live for sentiment. Feeling is more important than insight, etc. Almost more than a rollicking good tale I love the exciting treatment of ideas, and this is where the book fell short. I bought it because Ty told me it was a magnificent tragedy and a wonderful love story. Since love is a mystery to me, I thought Time Traveler might teach me something. In the end, much of what I learned from the book was that the ideal is more real than the materially existing individual, and that what we love is an ideal we see in another, not the 'individual-itself'. Perhaps this is not quite right, but it almost sounds a bit like Plato, a distinction I shall retain when I return to Greece. So maybe I am completely wrong and Niffenegger is an ancient, not a modern. But I wouldn't hold my breath to find out.

"I'm a close approximation she is guiding surreptitiously toward a me that exists in her mind's eye. What would I be without her?"

Friday, July 22, 2011

Robert Raynolds, The Sinner of St. Ambrose

Seldom have I been so disappointed in a novel. On the one hand, The Sinner of St. Ambrose was a moving picture of the fall of Rome and a rather ordinary, (very) flawed 'hero' on his search for God. Stirring indeed was the account of pagan honor and virtue; I doubt I shall see Julian the Apostate in the same light again (though I hope Raynolds did his research well, for I did not attempt fact-checking of the letters, inscriptions, etc. reported in Sinner), and even the conflict between reason and revelation was hinted at in the opening chapters, and most wonderful of all, the question concerning the compatibility between faith and nobility. I was thus primed for an exciting time.

How very disappointed I was when not only were these serious questions not developed, but the novel devolved into a twin promulgation of the Pelagian heresy and what amounts to secular humanism (perhaps the close kinship of the two explains Raynolds' appreciation of the former). What little faith Gregory finds destroys his pagan honor and nobility (which I suppose would not have surprised Nietzsche at all, but I doubt this was Raynolds' intention), ripping the soul out of everything specifically Christian: what is left when you say, "a man can, by his exertion of will to good achieve grace, though of course God's help makes it easier"? or, "God is great enough to tolerate diversity", by which is meant "what you believe does not matter". Added to these is a disdain of asceticism, celibacy, and the institutional Church: Pelagius is the "human Christian", Augustine the "Catholic Caesar" - given the disdain of autocracy, one can imagine all the negative connotations Raynolds intended for this latter. All this I could tolerate (for heaven's sake I adore reading Nietzsche) if Gregory remained an honorable nobleman, but he does not, exchanging pagan virtue for modern secular humanism. This resulting destruction of heroism makes it easy to see why Nietzsche despised Christianity and why I ended up despising this book.

I opened the novel excited to read about the passionate conversion of a proud, noble pagan and all that entailed; bound in an exciting, wrenching tale of the fall of Rome. And indeed these portions are good. But the most important parts of the book are those least important to the author/Gregory, who prefers to remind us at every turn of the humanistic, comforting elements of his secular heresy. Flaws granted, it does provoke an uncomfortable, lingering question: is nobility possible for the Christian?

"All the gods are one God, and He breaks the human heart."

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

George Martin, A Dance With Dragons

The fifth volume in the seven-volume series A Song of Ice and Fire was released yesterday. It counted nine hundred and fifty nine pages, and I turned the last one minutes ago. A decent book. Few (I can only remember two) graphic sex scenes and no - that's right, zero - tweaking of nipples. How thrilling!

Dance is a fun book, I shall readily admit. Despite its almost inexcusable length, it is swiftly paced and quite a page turner. My complaints of A Song still, remain, though I will admit Martin has grown more accustomed to writing about religion, at least the paganism of the North. His work has the power to sweep you completely into Westeros and beyond in the same way that Tolkien was able to do. But Martin's work is simply not beautiful. The Lord of the Rings ached beauty from almost every page, and even in the victory of the Third Age tragedy showed itself. There is no such thing here. All is gritty, dark, and after calamitous misfortune strikes again and again endlessly, one comes only to expect the worst. Thus, when the virtuous and/or noble are overcome by the vicious, I cannot say I am surprised or shocked; for Martin and the writers of the television adaptation (which incidentally is better than the written saga in several important respects) seem quite convinced that cruelty, injustice, and deception are mightier than, and superior to, the virtues: courage, honor, and nobility especially. It's almost the starting position of Alcibiades in the first dialogue of his name, and I shall look into this problem more carefully. But there are two more books to go, and given how convinced of his position Martin seems to be, I cannot see how there possibly can be a noble ending, for the Stark family is all but extinct, Daenerys exchanges authority for weakness, and Jon Snow betrays his vow to the Wall. The best I can hope for is for Tyrion to survive, as Martin, given his preference for Odyssean cleverness over the honorable heroism that so formed Achilles and Diomedes, seems to indicate.

Every now and then, I find an exhilarating portrayal of power and the lengths men will go to obtain it. Every now and then, a moving section on honor. Very rarely, an honorable, valiant man, however doomed he might be (and usually is). I suppose that is all that I can expect. Who would we rather follow? Ned Stark or Tyrion? Honorable death or dishonorable life? On the one hand, what good is honor and nobility if it gets you killed? But on the other, what good is life if you become dishonorable?

I definitely shall not buy the books in hardcover; either in the cheapest paperbacks I can find or not at all, but I am glad I read them. After all, few have written so well about impending, unknown terror, and the frightening isolation that is the North.

"Not all men are meant to dance with dragons."

Friday, July 8, 2011

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Bloom's book is probably one of those who got provocative reviews in the New York Times, making it a bestseller which no one reads. At almost four hundred pages long, it is quite dense, and Bloom shares the Straussian love of long paragraphs. As such, probably most people who bought it cracked it open, read a few pages, and then consigned it to an indefinite prison sentence on the bookshelf.

Closing is a critique of the soul of the American university student; Bloom writes about choice, love, eros, music, and the history of thought (my favorite section), especially how words like "values", "ideology", and such words come to American popular thought and altered their original meaning; he writes how all these elements culminate in rather nihilist-unawares ways of thinking and being. Closing is often beautifully written (especially when he is discussing the merits of a particular book), and while its arguments were sometimes surprising, more often it voiced sentiments and concerns already at work within me. It fell upon fertile soil, you may believe that. This book and Crisis of European Sciences should be enough to convince anyone of the importance of liberal education, which of course for Mr. Bloom is the answer; the Great Books education. This has earned him hatred from other sectors, who accuse him of only teaching students what to read, not how to think for themselves, but any intelligent person can mock the pseudo-thinker who would be blinded enough to say such a thing.

One of its finest achievements is how Bloom is able to show us (for though I am a zealot for liberal education, I am also a Millennial and a modern, however much I may hate both of these things) ourselves. It is occasionally as frightening as peering into a mirror, for we often do dislike what we find.

"An American student knows only the word 'philosophy', and it does not seem to be any more of a serious life choice than yoga."

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Chaim Potok, The Chosen

The Chosen is simply a marvelous book. The father and son relationship, the education of children's souls, their emergence into the world - all this is treated in such a slim volume. Danny, the orthodox Jew, is bound by tradition and birthright to take his father's place as rabbi for his people, but yearns to study psychology. Far from the common "I-want-to-be-my-own-man" American pseudo-novel where the strict father is demonized and autonomous freedom celebrated, choice truly means something, and the corresponding sacrifice is great. Potok writes of a certain tragedy of choice, I think, and this tone of tragedy permeates the novel and lends it compelling character.

"When you have a son, will you raise him in silence?"
"Yes, if I can't find another way."

Monday, July 4, 2011

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I've been interested in the bildungsroman lately. Obviously this means more interest in that beautiful quartet "Republic-Comedia-Emile-Phenomenology", but I shall put those off till later and instead focused on a short, simple, (rather) girly book, Anne of Green Gables. In my defense, I thought the writer was a man, for the prose was reminiscent of Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. Besides, I had never read the book before, though I opened it about five, six years ago and plopped it down in disgust - Anne simply would not shut up.

Anyway I reopened the case, and devoured the book in one sitting. Of course you know how much I like a character who is Life personified. Joan is the exempla prima, but Anne is cut from the same cloth. Like Joan, she dominates the novel, and all other characters could be said to exist in reaction to her. Best of all, she becomes a scholar! I picked up on the Euclid and Virgil jokes and was ashamed of my own education when I compared it to hers. Thomas Jefferson's ideal alive and well in Canada at the time, I suppose.

The best part about being Life personified is the full commitment Anne shows for all things, for in the novel,  being lukewarm is as far from her as the east is from the west. This commitment impels her to passionately love life in everything; this is why she is such an adorable girl at eleven, and why she matures into a lovely, intelligent young woman at the novel's end. Some may find her constant extremes wearying, but I found them fully delightful. Her character is an inspiration, regardless of its extremity.

"Don't give up all your romance, Anne - keep a little of it."