Week 19: Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka

This edition of the Kafka’s short works is comprised of five stories: The Metamorphosis, The Great Wall of China, Investigations of a Dog, In the Penal Colony, The Giant Mole, and The Burrow. This was the first time I had ever read Kafka. Prior to reading this, my understanding of Kafka was limited to a portrait of a sickly man who succumbed at an early age to consumption (I had formerly regarded death by consumption as a sort of early 20^th century urban myth). Unfortunately, this initial impression of Kafka, (bolstered by black and white photos I had seen of him looking serious, hair center-parted), permeated my opinion of his stories. For some reason, I couldn’t shake my sense that Kafka was an epic whiner. Kind of like the nerdy kid in school that is always sick and writes stories about how awful life is. This book really just rubbed me the wrong way. It starts with The Metamorphosis, which is one of the most depressing stories I have ever read. For those unfamiliar with the premise, it is the tale of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find that he has been inexplicably transformed into a giant insect. The story chronicles the reaction of his family; their disgust intermingles with a desire to take care of Gregor. As time progresses, though, the benevolence dissipates and Gregor’s family regards him merely as a problem. Gregor is aware of all that is going on around him, but he is unable to communicate with his family. The reader starts to ponder the story as a metaphor for the aging or the sick, and the effect that their condition has on their caretakers. It’s brutally sad and it really bothered me. I found it difficult to get through because I felt so badly for Gregor. The rest of the stories are not quite as melancholy: The Great Wall of China is a somewhat boring account of (not surprisingly) The Great Wall of China; Investigations of a Dog is a story told from the perspective of a dog; In the Penal Colony concerns itself with an interesting torture device that carves the skin of inmates; The Giant Mole, about a schoolmaster who tries to expose (again, not surprisingly) a giant mole that lives in a nearby village; and The Burrow, which is told from the perspective of a mole-like creature (perhaps the same mole!?) that digs tunnels. It is interesting to me that many of these stories are narrated by animals, or animals figure prominently in the cast of characters. But that point of interest was not enough to fully engage me in the book, and I found myself wishing it was over. I know that there is a devoted legion of Kafka fans, and I wondered what I was missing. Perhaps I just felt that the stories were too bleak, but only for the sake of being bleak – as if they represented a stilted vision of life. I’m not sure. What I do know is that it’s going to take me a while to pick up another Kafka book.

Week 18: The Stranger, by Albert Camus

The Stranger is one of those books where you realize, about halfway in, how brilliantly awesome it is. It was loaned to me by my friend Roberto, a philosophy major. I was not a philosophy major, so I’m sure that my thoughts on The Stranger are not nearly as insightful as those of others who have studied the book, but, here goes. The Stranger takes place in Algeria. The book’s narrator, Meursault, is a young man who has just lost his aged mother. She died at a home for the elderly that Meursault had placed her at. The story opens with his experiences as he goes through the motions of her funeral. The account is told with stark, direct sentences that seemingly mirror Meursault’s general affectation. Strangely, Meursault shows no emotion throughout the event, refusing to even see his mother’s body. Initially it is unclear whether his emotions are muted by grief or if this is simply his nature. After the funeral, we follow his interactions with various people in his life. The day after his mother’s funeral, he meets up with Marie, a woman that he once worked with, and strikes up a romantic affair with her. Throughout their affair he displays the same indifference exhibited at his mother’s funeral. Marie at one point asks him if he loves her, and Meursault simply replies that he didn’t think so. Raymond, another neighbor, befriends Meursault and pulls him into a drama concerning his ex-girlfriend. Raymond soon incurs the wrath of a few thugs, only described as “Arabs”, who seek revenge on Raymond for beating his ex-girlfriend. Raymond, Marie and Meursault are enjoying an outing at a friend’s beach house when they encounter the Arabs, and it results in an altercation. Subsequent to that, Meursault wanders the beach by himself, as Raymond is injured and being tended to. He stumbles upon one of the Arabs, who flashes a knife, and Meursault shoots him dead. The murder comes across as unnecessary, even gratuitous (highlighted by Meursault repeatedly shooting the Arab’s dead body). Meursault alludes to the intense sun and heat as being factors in the crime, emphasizing his lack of empathy. Meursault is apprehended and all of his ambivalent personality traits are stacked against him as evidence of his guilt. The fact that he is apparently devoid of any sort of basic emotional understanding portrays him as an abhorrent human being. It is brought up that he had his mother committed to the elderly home and failed to grieve after her death; that he callously became romantically involved with Marie the very next day. These details, brought up by the prosecution, paint an unflattering picture of Meursault and persuade the jury to convict him. A priest visits him in prison to offer religious comfort, but Meursault turns him away, his atheism bringing the priest to tears. I found it interesting that the original French title of the book is L’Etranger, a term that can be translated as “the stranger”, or also, “the outsider”. In a sense, The Outsider is a more appropriate title, as Meursault’s persistent inability to show any sort of emotion renders him as an outsider amongst society. The book strikes up questions as to what the value of life really is, whether there is meaning in anything we do and whether it’s even worth it to experience emotion. The priest finds Meursault’s atheism sad, but Meursault does not understand this. He simply finds God a waste of time. The closest we get to seeing Meursault long for anything is when he is in prison, recalling the summer weather and the evening skies. As the book concludes, the reader starts to wonder whether Meursault is really the outsider, or whether society’s norms and religions are merely frivolities. I really enjoyed this book, and I find myself still thinking about it, unpeeling its layers one by one. The Stranger is an accessible pathway into complex topics that are worth pondering.

Week 17: Henry’s Demons, by Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn

Henry’s Demons is the latest selection from my book club, picked by my friend Lisa. This is the non-fictional account of Patrick Cockburn’s son, Henry, and his struggle with schizophrenia. More accurately, it is the entire Cockburn family’s struggle, not just Henry’s, as the diagnosis and subsequent care of Henry devastates the lives of Henry himself, his younger brother, and his mother and father. The book’s chapters roughly alternate between Patrick’s narration and Henry’s narration. This technique is integral to the book’s appeal, because it allows the reader to delve into the mind of a schizophrenic. The story begins with Henry brush with death after swimming in near-freezing water and being rescued by strangers. This incident eventually led to his diagnosis of mental illness. His behavior becomes increasingly erratic and Patrick chronicles Henry’s breakdown as he starts to separate himself from reality. Henry begins a cycle of running away from his family and finding himself in socially unacceptable situations that usually involve nudity and end with him being apprehended by authorities. He transforms into a wholly different person, eschewing hygiene and claiming that nature is sending him commands. Henry is soon committed to a mental hospital, from which he continues to escape at any opportunity he can find. The family is thrust into a new reality of worrying about Henry, dreading every phone call for fear it is news that Henry has disappeared, and wondering how Henry will ever live a normal life. Meanwhile, Henry’s chapters shed some insight into his mindset during these times.  Early in the book, Henry (who, presently, is in no way “cured”) explains that he never felt that he was mentally ill. He simply thought that he was able to see and understand the world in a way that other people couldn’t. For example, he purported to have heard voices from trees. For Henry, this was a spiritual revelation and a source of great wonder – not mental illness. Therefore, to comply with doctors and take medication to quell these voices would be akin to crippling himself. So Henry refuses to take his medication, despite his family’s pleas to do so. He describes “polka-dot days”, days in which he would see polka-dots or rings everywhere, and that was a signal that a breakdown was looming. The book strikes a compelling balance between what Henry’s family is experiencing on the outside, and how Henry’s mind is functioning on the inside.  Readers will easily sympathize with Henry’s parents’ frustration at the sense that Henry’s life is irrevocably changed, and not for the better. It is a touching, interesting book, with concludes with no happy ending but leaves the reader with a sense of appreciation for the trials that this family has endured.

Week 16: Serena: A Novel, by Ron Rash

I was prompted to read this book when a Facebook friend of mine posted a news article stating that Darren Aronofsky was in talks with Angelina Jolie to create a film adaptation of Serena with Jolie as the title character. Being an avid fan of both Aronofsky and Jolie, this piqued my interest and I added Serena to my “to-read” list. (Of course, because of this article, it was impossible for me to not visualize Jolie as Serena after starting the book.) The book’s tense, compelling tone is set immediately in its first few pages. It opens with the dramatic encounter between George Pemberton, timber tycoon, and the father of the girl carrying his illegitimate child. Pemberton arrives at a train station in North Carolina in 1929 after spending three months away in Boston. He is joined by his new wife, Serena. The mother of his child, Rachel Harmon, is merely 16 years old and watches haplessly as her father challenges Pemberton to a knife fight to defend his daughter’s honor. What ensues is the first of many bloody, merciless scenes that will take place in this story. Pemberton and his wife, in their quest to acquire as much timber as possible to expand their empire, exemplify a greed and disregard for nature that typifies big business even today. The newlyweds settle into the logging camp, where the reader learns more about the dangerous, and often deadly, conditions that befall the workers. Pemberton and Serena attempt to purchase more land and fend off conservationists attempting to establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Simultaneously, Serena is revealing herself as a force to be reckoned with. She quickly earns the respect of the workers by winning a wager based on eyeballing the amount of timber in a particular tree. Her business acumen is equal to, if not surpassing, her husband’s. She is cold and calculating, physically strong and intimidating. She verbally destroys anyone who dares to contradict her; she tames and trains an eagle; she saves her husband by shooting down a bear that has attacked him. She transcends gender and cuts down anyone who does not recognize this. However, Serena begins to unravel when she is faced with the reality that she is unable to bear children. This misfortune is exacerbated by Pemberton’s lingering interest in his young son with Rachel. Serena’s burgeoning ambition becomes uncontrollable – she has already begun to dispose of anyone in her way, and she begins to focus her attention on Rachel (in many ways, Serena’s polar opposite) and the baby. Comparisons have been made between Serena’s character and Lady Macbeth, and one reviewer even asserts that Serena speaks in a loose iambic pentameter. She’s rather frightening, and the sense of dread she creates builds throughout the novel. Rash portrays both Serena and the less-educated timber workers with elegance, and the reader comes to appreciate all of the characters in this dark tale. I really enjoyed this novel, which I classify as a “stay up late reading” type of book, because I didn’t want to put it down. Epic in scope, it’s brutal, but also subtly beautiful in its examination of good and evil.

Week 15: Deliverance, by James Dickey

Deliverance is the story of four city men who embark on a camping trip to the backwoods of rural Georgia. It is a book that I have eloquently classified to my friends as "wicked scary". It is told from the perspective of Ed Gentry, a middle-aged commercial artist. His three friends, similarly, are middle-aged, married, and work in offices. One of the men, Lewis, is more athletic and adept in the outdoors. It is Lewis’s idea to get away for a weekend, to rough it and get in touch with nature once more via camping and canoeing. It is a sentiment that many can relate to and a fairly innocuous idea. Once they arrive in the country, however, they quickly find that they are not welcome amongst the locals. They are looked upon as outsiders from the city and their actions are interpreted as condescending. It is perhaps the men’s poor behavior that sets them up to be victims of all that follows. The group becomes wrapped up in a series of horrible events (which, thanks to the successful movie based on this book, have become well-known nuggets of pop culture) that I will not recount here in the spirit of not revealing too much. The alacrity with which the book moves from a simple camping trip to a terrifying disaster is stunning. The reader observes a Lord of the Flies-esque evolution of events that creates a pecking order among the men, designating some as leaders and others as followers. Ed in particular, described as “bald-headed and fat”, undergoes a transformation. His bland, urbane persona is cast aside like a chrysalis and he emerges as a strong, assertive outdoorsman. It’s fascinating to watch his instincts guide him, when at times, he himself is marveling over these newfound instincts. He seems to appreciate this new side of himself, this new outlook on the world, even as his life is on the line. His character serves as a challenge to the societal conventions that we all set up for ourselves, and makes us ask ourselves if there is more to our own personalities that we have yet to realize. That was the essence of Deliverance for me – the concept of unearthing hidden aspects in one’s self and reverting to that primal nature to survive, despite any refined culture that one might hail from. The story is frightening and thrilling, but I can’t help think that the fear I felt while reading was a tiny taste of the thrill Ed must have experienced when fighting for his life. Great book.

Week 14: Alias Olympia, by Eunice Lipton

As often happens, I had stopped by Lorem Ipsum (the used bookstore near my apartment) after work one day when I saw this book. Immediately I recognized the woman on its cover. She is the star of Edouard Manet’s masterpiece Olympia. I love Manet and consider him one of my all-time favorite artists. I remember being an art student and first learning about Olympia; I was fascinated by the piece. It was considered incredibly controversial. In fact, when it first debuted in the Parisian Salon in the late 19^th century, an angry mob armed with umbrellas and walking sticks attempted to destroy it, and it had to be cordoned off. Why? Because details of the painting indicate that Olympia is a courtesan or prostitute. Equally notable and perhaps even more striking is Olympia’s confrontational, almost glaring look back at the viewer.  Olympia is not a passive, idealized figure of a woman to be fawned over. She flips the male gaze on its ear with her proud, blunt stare. Back in the day, this was unheard of and considered extremely vulgar. For Manet to choose such unseemly content for his painting was very provocative; one could say that it was revolutionary that Manet deemed the reality of street life to be worthy of any depiction at all. Manet’s model for Olympia was a redheaded beauty named Victorine Meurent. He used her as the model for several of his major works (including another controversial painting, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe). In each of the paintings that she is featured in, she showcases the same bold presence. Eunice Lipton’s book, Alias Olympia, chronicles her quest to learn more about the intriguing and enigmatic Meurent. A feminist art historian, Lipton travels to Paris to find out what became of the model, and in the meantime, she learns more about herself and becomes inspired by Meurent. One major detail that she unearths is that Meurent was not just simply a lower-class street girl, she was also an accomplished painter herself. As Lipton hunts down the facts, the book almost takes on the feeling of a mystery novel and the reader becomes swept up in her search. It’s not just an art history book, it’s filled with engaging personal accounts and stories. Add in the beautiful backdrop of Paris, and the tale truly becomes enchanting. Lipton is the type of woman that I would love to meet. She is a bold feminist, sharply intelligent, and someone who adores art. I became emotionally invested in her story and was rooting for her the entire time. I finished the book smiling, even more in love than before with Meurent, Manet, Paris and art in general.

Week 13: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

This might be the most fucked-up book I have ever read. I suspect that the entire time that I was reading, my face was scrunched up in a painful grimace. Even now as I type, my face is making the expression that one might take on when stumbling across open-heart surgery on the Discovery Channel. Most people know the premise of this classic story: Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man, falls in love with Dolores “Lolita” Haze, a twelve-year-old girl. What is stuck in my mind is a spoof cover of Lolita that appears on the website Better Book Titles – the spoof is entitled “Likable Rapists”.  It’s perfect, because Humbert is truly a likable character. He’s self-effacingly hilarious, and saturates the book with black comedy. He has a long-standing predilection towards pre-pubescent girls, or “nymphets”, as he likes to call them. The reader gets the sense that he genuinely loves Lolita, although to classify his emotions towards her as love is another can of worms. The story follows Humbert and Lolita’s relationship as they begin as housemates. Not long after, Humbert is marrying Lolita’s mother in order to have unrestrained access to the girl. When Lolita’s mother dies suddenly, Humbert is left in full control of her. You can imagine where this leads. It becomes apparent that Lolita is more…“advanced”, shall we say, than most girls her age, but is still a child. Humbert soon takes Lolita on a road trip across the country and their relationship further deteriorates. The book is entertaining and beautifully written, but difficult to read at times simply due to the subject matter. It’s not so much the sex (all of the erotic moments are presented gently and elegantly) that is so jarring. It’s the intersection of Lolita’s childlike nature with her very adult relationship with Humbert. For example, Lolita has sex with Humbert but also runs into his room at night crying because she misses her deceased mother. Humbert manipulates her further by threatening to send her to an orphanage if she does not remain compliant. Their journey inevitably comes to a sad end, and we witness Humbert’s unraveling. Not more than halfway through the book I started wishing for it to end. Then I realized what a feat it is for a book to conjure up such visceral emotions and I realized I was selling the book short. With that in mind, I eventually came to really enjoy this great tale.