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Oct. 30th, 2007 02:30 pmI had a somewhat lighter reading load last week due to the fact that my Indian fiction class spent the whole week on class presentations (apparently presentations are quite the done thing around here—I’ve done one on Italo Calvino, one on R.K. Narayan and the history of India, one on Henry Spencer Ashbee, the great cataloguer of Victorian pornography, and one on Henry James’s ambiguous relationships with men. I don’t know whether this is a Penn State thing or whether presentations are some sort of academic fad that has caught on since I was last in school, but to the best of my recollection, I have now done as many presentations in one semester as I did in my entire undergraduate career.)
One of the things that I did read last week was The Master, Colm Tóibín’s novel about the life of Henry James. This was a re-read for me, and some of you may remember how much I loved it the first time around. Sadly, it suffered in the rereading, not because it no longer seems to be as good a book as it did at first, but because I was forced to read it quickly. The first time I read The Master, I spread it out over two or three weeks; that is the kind of treatment that this book needs. One of the things I like most about the book is the way Tóibín’s story is unpinned from chronology, the way you can float back and forth through the events of Henry’s life as if being gently rocked by a warm sea. Hasty reading and pressure to finish prevented this lovely effect from developing. Sad. But even when read hurriedly, it’s evident that this book is a masterpiece. The beauty of Tóibín’s sentences, the utter complexity of his characterization of Henry James—these are the kind of accomplishments that shine through any set of circumstances. I haven’t read anything else of Tóibín’s, although I keep meaning to. I think perhaps I’m putting it off because I’m afraid that none of his other work will live up to this book. The Master seems like the kind of novel that only comes once in a career.
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that prior to reading The Master, I read some of Henry James’s own work: “Daisy Miller,” “The Aspern Papers,” and “The Real Thing.” My only previous exposure to James was The Ambassadors, which I found ponderous, needlessly convoluted, and aggravating. These shorter works from earlier in his career were a revelation. The prose was so light, the plots so sprightly! I liked “The Aspern Papers” best (not least because of the way it resonated with The Master and the issues of privacy, legacy, the destruction of correspondence, etc), and was impressed by the way James built the story from the simplest of all narrative principles: someone wanting something that he doesn’t have. I doubt that James will ever become my favorite writer, but I’m interested in reading more of his work now, something I decidedly did not want to do after The Ambassadors.
Not all of my recent reading has revolved around Henry James, however. I also read After the Quake, a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami. The book contains six stories, all loosely connected to the earthquake in Kobe in 1995. My only prior experiences with Murakami were with isolated stories in the New Yorker which never managed to add up to a meaningful impression of Murakami as a writer. After reading this collection, I’m still not sure that I’ve got any sense of him as a writer. The collection is very uneven as a whole, with two real knockout stories, a few middling stories that I suspect I’ll forget in a matter of days, and couple of absolute clunkers. The worse of the stories was “All God’s Children Can Dance”: boring, misogynistic, and essentially empty. The best was “Thailand,” a quietly unsettling story that displays a careful control of tone and wonderfully strategic use of image. I feel like I should read more of Murakami, but I don’t know where to go next. Anybody have any suggestions?
One of the things that I did read last week was The Master, Colm Tóibín’s novel about the life of Henry James. This was a re-read for me, and some of you may remember how much I loved it the first time around. Sadly, it suffered in the rereading, not because it no longer seems to be as good a book as it did at first, but because I was forced to read it quickly. The first time I read The Master, I spread it out over two or three weeks; that is the kind of treatment that this book needs. One of the things I like most about the book is the way Tóibín’s story is unpinned from chronology, the way you can float back and forth through the events of Henry’s life as if being gently rocked by a warm sea. Hasty reading and pressure to finish prevented this lovely effect from developing. Sad. But even when read hurriedly, it’s evident that this book is a masterpiece. The beauty of Tóibín’s sentences, the utter complexity of his characterization of Henry James—these are the kind of accomplishments that shine through any set of circumstances. I haven’t read anything else of Tóibín’s, although I keep meaning to. I think perhaps I’m putting it off because I’m afraid that none of his other work will live up to this book. The Master seems like the kind of novel that only comes once in a career.
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that prior to reading The Master, I read some of Henry James’s own work: “Daisy Miller,” “The Aspern Papers,” and “The Real Thing.” My only previous exposure to James was The Ambassadors, which I found ponderous, needlessly convoluted, and aggravating. These shorter works from earlier in his career were a revelation. The prose was so light, the plots so sprightly! I liked “The Aspern Papers” best (not least because of the way it resonated with The Master and the issues of privacy, legacy, the destruction of correspondence, etc), and was impressed by the way James built the story from the simplest of all narrative principles: someone wanting something that he doesn’t have. I doubt that James will ever become my favorite writer, but I’m interested in reading more of his work now, something I decidedly did not want to do after The Ambassadors.
Not all of my recent reading has revolved around Henry James, however. I also read After the Quake, a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami. The book contains six stories, all loosely connected to the earthquake in Kobe in 1995. My only prior experiences with Murakami were with isolated stories in the New Yorker which never managed to add up to a meaningful impression of Murakami as a writer. After reading this collection, I’m still not sure that I’ve got any sense of him as a writer. The collection is very uneven as a whole, with two real knockout stories, a few middling stories that I suspect I’ll forget in a matter of days, and couple of absolute clunkers. The worse of the stories was “All God’s Children Can Dance”: boring, misogynistic, and essentially empty. The best was “Thailand,” a quietly unsettling story that displays a careful control of tone and wonderfully strategic use of image. I feel like I should read more of Murakami, but I don’t know where to go next. Anybody have any suggestions?
