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October saw sudden burst of energy and productivity which was genuinely a relief.
In October, I finished or made a plan for:
James Joyce - Finnegan’s Wake
Sigrid Undset - Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
James Joyce – Finnegan’s Wake – Update.
I think this is an interesting example of how sometimes the weight of classic literature or the enterprise of reading itself can be thrown into flux at a moment’s notice. This has happened to me several times over the course of my life and I have regretted it each time. Sometimes the seasons in your life take an unexpected turn. Not often are these turns positive though some silver lining may present itself long after the fact. The current season my life is in now isn’t one of the worst of these sorts of turns in my history but it is significant and reading for a moment was no longer an appropriate escape for me. Or reading Finnegan’s Wake was not an appropriate escape.
I pulled Finnegan’s Wake just after Seamus Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist which is a tiny, little book that should probably not be on the Big Book List – not only for its size but I am not sure it is a book everyone should read sort of a thing. I read this little book (probably under 60 pages of some scant poetry) in a day or two. I think I took my time with it, it might have taken me a few days to really think about this work. Then I recorded a video and pulled the next book and if you haven’t seen the video you should see the look on my face when I pull Finnegan’s Wake. I would have thought the same thing about Ulysses probably but I was unfamiliar with Finnegan’s Wake other than the idea that is a historically difficult book to read.
The Wake or The Night Book as it is sometimes referred is Joyce’s version of writing out the language and logic of a dream, I think. I read a long reaction to the Wake from Chabon in the New York Review of Books for which I decided to subscribe to because of the quality of Chabon’s response. Anyways, Chabon seems to think it is a project worth endeavoring upon but that you should devote an appropriate amount of bandwidth to it. I decided at the time pulling the text that I would give it a whole hearted effort. Then I was met with an upset that has seemed to derail this process. There have been several works that I have picked up and tried to read and simply the weight of their quality or length or difficulty have led me to set them down at any given time.
The one that comes back to me time and again is Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I still intend on reading this book, but I have made it 100 pages into this text multiple times and have had to lay it aside because it was more stressful than I was able to give it at different times in my life.
As a younger man I tried to read Moby Dick several times and got similarly far into the text and set it down. I have read that first sermon a number of times and have enjoyed it each time but I think I drift off after that and never return. Some part of this project is to challenge myself to move beyond these momentary interruptions and hopefully actually finish a work that I would benefit from finishing more than half finishing. This is my goal with the Wake. I have decided that I will read this book as a parallel track over the course of the next year. I hope to be able to give it big bites of time in between books. At current, I am waiting for Letters from Russia to come in and have a little bit of wiggle time to read what I like and look forward to reading 5 or 10 pages of pure madness whenever I feel like it. I am about 50 pages into my edition which is 500 pages.
Sigrid Undset – Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife Book 2 in the Trilogy.
I decided that because I was struggling with Joyce’s night book I would dip back into Kristin Lavransdatter while I decided what I wanted to do. I decided earlier that I would break up Kristin into three entries because I think the text warrants it but also because it will be easier to document my individual reactions to each novel in the volume. I wasn’t sure how I would revisit each text whether I would wait to draw them again randomly or whether I would pick it up when I was able to. This time I thought I would pick it up as I am able and having to put Finnegan’s Wake on pause for the moment seemed to suggest that I should probably take up Kristin once more in order to make space for the next drawing and formulate a plan. I decided that I would pick at the night book over the course of a year and if at the month of October 2023 if I had not finished the Wake that I would not read anything else until it was finished. With this resolution, I decided to read The Wife. I loved it.
Like the first, there is this unbelievably deep, empathic vantage point that Undset is able to create that really takes up a rich, deep as the ocean interior life of multiple characters that is awe inspiring and unnerving in a way. If you were to read this book as a young writer, it might convince you to stop writing because you will never be able to achieve the keen and brilliant insight of Undset. I am surprised that these books are not more widely regarded because they are breath taking at times.
In the first text, there is a flash of a moment where Kristin is assaulted by Bentine and flees to Bentine’s mother’s side for assistance. When Kristin tells Bentine’s mother what happened, the woman upbraids Kristin (not only just victim blaming) but also it is a moment where Undset is pulling the carpet out from under the reader and reinterpreting the text that you are currently reading in a new way that would suggest to the reader that you have to be careful foisting onto this text your own modern conceptions of relationships because they will fail against this ancient culture. The other thing that this moment does is that it lets the reader know that the author is driving this boat and you have to take what she gives you and at her own pace. Another one of these moments happens in The Wife when near the end of the text Kristin and Erlond get into a verbal and physical fight. Kristin takes it upon herself to revisit Erlond’s past sins and investigates them in a way that is new and uncomfortable for Erlond but also for the reader. At times, you want to root for Erlond that he might some day figure it out. Here Kristin is in the heat of an argument but functionally for the reader Undset is asking you, is this the man that you are sympathetic to? But then there is this fascinating wrinkle in what she is doing. She is not telling the reader to re-evaluate Erlond, not necessarily, but to re-evaluate what it means to love a character or a person. It is clear that Kristin still loves Erlond but love is complicated. Erlond and Kristin are unbelievably complicated characters. Gunnal, Erlond’s brother, even turns against Erlond here at the end of The Wife, or seems to momentarily and Kristin rejects Gunnal’s advice which is a staggering move for the author to make. Here, Kristin is accusing Erlond of misunderstanding his own actions in her life and what those actions meant. Kristin reads his cards in a way that is haunting and piercingly true but at least to this reader a reorientation to the text that I had not anticipated and for which I was not ready. The Wife is an equal entry into the trilogy as that of The Wreath which is still my favorite.
Kate Chopin – The Awakening
Like Finnegan’s Wake, or Moby Dick, or House of Leaves – I have tried to read The Awakening several times in my life. It is not a long book and so I am not sure why I bounced off it before. I was probably assigned it at one point. In a previous book journal, I have recorded that I read it before but I doubt the integrity of that entry. I remembered almost nothing of the book as I read it this time.
This time I pulled this text after decided to slow track Finnegan’s Wake and so I was hoping for an exceptionally readable text and I was richly rewarded. I loved this little book. I devoured it quickly. Before I say anything else about its significance or quality, I would say that this book is what this list is for. I think this book is a must read and the way that it had come across my purview before now gives one the impression that it is an essential work. All through high school AP classes, undergraduate and grad school it appeared that this book was well thought of and thought to be important. Upon reading such books, sometimes the impression is made that the book is not as good as the legend tells. Or that the book itself was more important for having existed than the quality or enjoyment of actually having read it. There have been a few of this latter category in my project so far.
The Awakening is a moving but deeply enjoyable book to read. The summer sequence on Grand Isle is one of most memorable settings and occasions that I can remember in recent literature. I will never forget that place which is odd as it functions that way for Edna in the text as well. This is a masterful stroke for Chopin that this scene she sets, the characters, the heat of the summer, the long listless days Edna spends swimming and cavorting with Robert Lebrun is everything that you want as simply a reader from that scene but it is also functions as the awakening as if from a deep slumber and the afterglow or the moments cozy in a blanket not wanting to put on the clothes or prepare the face for the faces that you meet. This is that moment that stands for the moment itself, the idea of the moment you would want, and the almost allegorical understanding that this is a life lived asleep and the need for a jolt. The book starts with the jolt and the Awakening actually comes later.
There are several jolts throughout the text and the one that sticks out to me the most is the second interaction with Arobin where after the going away party which is something out of not quite a nightmare and not quite a dream, he stays to say good night and in the turn of the century parlance is persistent in his pursuit of sleeping with Edna again. There is some very subtle line here that I will insert later that reminds me of the line from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land that goes something like “well now that’s done and I’m glad its over.” Which leaves the reader with a palpable sense of disgust at the desperation of the characters involved. Edna here realizes that her life will be different out from under the protection of the respectable married woman. She doesn’t resent her choices here but reckons with what they will mean for her. The second turn and it is just as subtle is when Robert comes back and she questions him about his having thought to write. He is more beholden to the idea of respectability that she resents as well. All of these actions make complete sense in each character’s mind in a way that I found staggering. Each little trip around the merry-go round of patriarchy here is predictable, understandable really, but tragic. Robert finds the portrait of Arobin and now finds Edna repulsive to him. Both for what that means in his estimation of her character but also the sort of predictable and understandable idea of the breakage that comes from an affair. I will say of course that there is a mountain of layers of patriarchy that have to be unpacked here. The idea that Robert would feel any sense of ownership of Edna without ever having committed anything to her, leaving for Mexico, not writing, but then coming back and seeing evidence that she has had an active life without him is appalling probably the whole idea is what is being overturned here. But that is not all that is happening here, to read the text this way would be to understand as something like Herland where every choice in the text is dependent upon understanding the nature of the discourse at current and then what the author is meaning to show with each development. Chopin needs for each intersection with her characters to not lead to resentment that would debase or encumber with sentiment Edna’s final act. Robert’s actions are logical, reasonable, and maybe defensible in a certain light and Edna accepts this as true and makes her choice as it appears to her as well. It was a stirringly emotional moment that resonated with me in a powerful way. I would say to all living literate human adults to read this text.
Post Rock Jukebox
I don’t know what took me so long to really give Mogwai their due legitimate chance to impress me, but I am sorry that it took me this long. On each record, there are one or two tracks that have vocals that are straight up solid rock songs but the rest is a the epitome of chill based vibe music that I love very, very much. I listened to all of their records recently in a way that is ultra-me oriented. I wanted to get a sense of how many of the songs had vocals because they are sporadic in nature on the albums. I made a spreadsheet! I listed all the tracks out and then noted whether they had vocals or not and whether I thought they were worth listening to because sometimes things get noisy in their earlier work as well. The good far outweighed the distracting here and I loved every second of it. You can tell there is a real sense of personality behind this music which I really connected with. If you are going to start anywhere, I’d say start in the beginning but midway through their catalogue is really where I find my groove with Mr. Beast and Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. It looks like they just rereleased their early album Come On Die Young on Double Vinyl which might be a good time to peep some merch.
J.R.R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
I am not sure what can be said of this book. J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories have so permanently infused our culture with their legend and myth that it seems hard to divorce the cultural reception of these texts from the text themselves. I think that Tolkien proves the case of classic literature though they are not all that classic in relationship to their timeline. The Hobbit was published in 1937. It seems like this book would be a couple hundred years old how pervasively it has spread in our culture. Before writing this section, I reviewed the Wikipedia page for Tolkien to get a since of the timeline of his publications and saw that in 2017 a catholic church in Oxford had started the official procedure of beatification for Tolkien. This is an impossible task to understand that a person could write a book so good that they would offer him the sainthood. I am not sure what miracle they attribute to Tolkien and I am not sure what will come of that story. These are the stakes at play with The Hobbit. I have loved the Lord of the Rings movies since I was a teenager. I have probably watched the whole film series dozens of times at this point. I love those movies. I have never read the books. I am sure I will like the books more and their images will replace in my mind the expert films. I have been waiting for the right occasion to read them and fall in love with them again.
I read The Hobbit for the first time before the most recent films came out. I imported into the Big Book List quite a few books that I had already read before starting the project, The Great Gatsby, All Quiet on the Western Front, all of the Pulitzer winners (which I will not retain all of them by the end of this though I suspect many will stay), and The Hobbit. I decided to reread The Hobbit recently because I have a young child who I think could benefit from having read The Hobbit to. We have read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass Together which she loved. At that time, I didn’t think to make a video for those books so I will reread those on my own to get a reaction video. I finished The Hobbit with my daughter this month. She kept pushing off finishing the text together because I don’t think she wanted that experience to end. She loved it immensely and I loved reading it with her very much.
I tried to slow down at certain points and help her visualize what was happening. I have drawn on the wisdom of that book several times in helping her work through a situation in her issues in school like Bilbo waiting for the sun to go down, finding the snails at the keyhole and knowing where to find the opening of Durin’s Door. Sometimes you just have to wait.
I have also talked with her about the danger of dragon talk. I was able to surprise her and help her have the same experience I had when I first read The Hobbit when you realize that the dragon can talk and that you have to be very careful what you say to it.
The Hobbit has a great deal to do with the question of greed which I think is a refreshing theme for our culture and our times. It is easy to see in Thorin the pull to greed for greed’s sake and we talked about what it is like to get something and feel like you want more and why is it that one is good but two is better. It was a wonderful time that I will cherish in my heart for the rest of my life. If you have not, read this book – if you can share it with a child – please do so.
Currently Reading
I am currently reading:
Astolphe de Custine’s Letters from Russia. I am not reading this book cover’s version. This book cover comes from The New York Times Book Review’s edition which is 400 pages longer than the Penguin edition. I am reading the Penguin edition. I haven’t cracked it yet but I can’t wait.
I am also reading Edwidge Danticat’s Krik?Krak! - I pulled Danticat’s name from the Small Works List and had to decide what to read. Krik?Krak! was the only book of hers in my local-est of local libraries. My other university library had Breath, Eyes, Memory which I may also read if I feel like Krik?Krak! is not a sufficient work for this purpose.
As always, if you are reading until this point I am very grateful for your following along with me on this journey up until this point. I apologize for the delay in the posting of this newsletter, it feels like my life went into hyper drive recently and I am grateful for your continued patience and support.