Rank: A
No. Times Read: 2
Last Read: Spring, 2012

Author Name: Georgette Heyer

Review: I have just recently finished reading The Talisman Ring for the second time and feel the need to make a few comments. First off let me say this is a fantastically enjoyable book, filled with humor, adventure, and delight; it is certainly one of my top recommendations to try to hook people on Georgette Heyer. Despite this I tend to have trouble getting people enthused and always seem to have to first explain away the fact that this is classified as a romance. That’s right, if you look at my genre tags I have put down both “Romance” and “Historical Fiction”, but if you look at the spine of the book for the genre it says “Romance”, and for that reason I missed out on these wonderful books for years and years. Although several people whose taste in books tends to jive with mine recommended these, I was uninterested in reading “smut dressed up in bad historical costuming”, and so seeing the label on the spine I dismissed them out of hand.

The Talisman Ring, however, is a historically accurate romance set in the Georgian period, meaning that while there is passion and romance, there is no smut, in keeping with the courtship rules of the era. Nor is the “historical costuming” inaccurate as many (or even most) fiction pieces are; Heyer was an exhaustive researcher, to the point that her Napoleonic era novels are so accurate and give such a good view of the life of the period that they have been used as required reading at Oxford University in classes covering the Napoleonic wars. However because the modern Romance genre has become so synonymous with bodice-rippers and Fabio-style covers, there is a certain amount of embarrassment for many in heading into the shelves and pulling out a book so labeled. Let me assure you, however, that any of Heyer’s romances will amply reward you for your bravery amongst the genre shelves with stories of love skillfully interwoven with peril and humor.

One of the things frequently said about Heyer is that she is “The next best thing to reading Austen”. I disagree as this supposes that to like Heyer is to like Austen, and further also suggests an incorrect ranking of the two. Heyer writes historically accurate characters for a modern audience, while Austen ultimately had to please an audience which would have viewed many of Heyer’s characters as hoydens and shrews instead of girls filled with spunk and sass (two of my favorite characteristics in a lady!). One fine example is seen in The Talisman Ring, where our young French heroine decides that she is no longer interested in being betrothed to her forbidding, older, boring cousin and determines to run away in search of adventure. She sets off in the dead of night with no maid and only her band-boxes and a pistol stolen from the bedroom of her dashing cousin, absent from the country having fled a trifling charge of murder. Now this girl is unquestionably silly, but also possesses daring no Austen character would ever demonstrate. Austen heroines are often spirited, perhaps even pert, but never over-bold, never wanton—they never truly cross the line. It’s not a question of historical accuracy (Austen does have female characters who run away, elope, and take lovers), it’s a matter of how they are held up. In an Austen novel these ladies are never the heroine; always the embarrassment.

One need not be an Austen fan to love Heyer, though if you are fond of the comedy of manners and flying dialogue that you see in Austen, I encourage you to look closely at Heyer. The Talisman Ring like many of her works has strong elements of farce and mystery. The action is driven by the desire of the dying family patriarch to safely dispose of his young granddaughter by marrying her to one of her three cousins. One cousin, the heir to the patriarch, is eliminated from the running as he has fled the country after being accused of murder (something our young heroine finds both shocking and fascinating), leaving only two cousins available for matrimony: one who believes his cousin to be innocent and the other who does not. The question of the heir’s innocence comes to be of paramount importance to our young heroine as a rather large inheritance as well as her marital prospects all become entangled with the matter. Add to this midnight chases, freebooters, hidden cellars, bow street runners and a justice of the peace and his not-so-young but still adventure-minded sister, and to top it off, our young heroine’s desire to have adventure and romance even if it should end in tragedy (she is almost sad to have escaped the terror, as it would have made the crowd weep to see her taken to the guillotine dressed all in white, with, perhaps, just a simple ribbon around her throat…).

I laughed out loud in places, giggled quietly in others, and read the book in little more than one sitting. Try this one to start, or some of her other bests: The Grand Sophy, Faro’s Daughter, Frederica, The Convenient Marriage, The Nonesuch, Cotillion, False Colors, Arabella, and well…it’s hard to go wrong with any one of her romances!

Rank: B+
No. Times Read: 1
Last Read: Winter, 2012

Author Name: Robert Graves

Review: With I, Claudius, modern readers can enjoy a book that resembles classical literature without the tortuous pace of actual classical history. If 300 taught modern kids important events of the Second Persian Invasion of Ancient Greece (as well as what is Sparta), I, Claudius provides an insightful look into the political theater of early Imperial Rome. Sounds interesting, no?

I, Claudius is, simply, a fictional autobiography ostensibly written by the fourth emperor of Rome, though in actuality researched and imagined by English poet/classicist Robert Graves. In the book, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (“Claudius”) recounts his beginnings as a member of the Julio-Claudian family, perennially the outcast due to his epileptic seizures, stutter, ticks, and other afflictions. Though thought of as an idiot or fool by nearly all members of his family, particularly grandpa Augustus (the benevolent emperor) and grandma Livia (the murderously cunning brains behind the throne), Claudius grows up smart as a whip and pursues the life of a scholar since no one in the family permits him to attain any important political post. However, none of Claudius’s scholarly work, such as his Etruscan histories (fun fact: Claudius is understood to be the last known person able to read Etruscan, which remains unintelligible to historians today), is noticed by anyone, and Claudius is happy to live the life of an unappreciated scholar.

As the so-called idiot of the imperial family, Claudius learns to survive the many purges, murders, and intrigues that inevitably befall nearly every member of his family, all of whom are rivals to one another. Slowly, all the good people around him die out, none by natural causes, and Claudius, who is the paragon of an honest and honorable Roman Republican (at least, according to his own account), experiences life under the benevolent, yet dangerous, rule of grandpa Augustus and his grandma Livia; the paranoid and tyrannical reign of uncle Tiberius; and finally the madness of nephew Caligula. As Claudius bumbles, more or less unscathed, into each new imperial era, the principle villains all grow to understand the depths of Claudius’s simple genius.

Ultimately, after finally being given semi-important positions of power in Caligula’s ludicrous government (including a role as a bouncer at Caligula’s impromptu brothel), and after being subjected to the terrors of an insane autocrat, Claudius is paradoxically appointed emperor upon Caligula’s long-deserved assassination. Despite being a staunch believer in the Republic, Claudius is named emperor by the palace guards. As he is carried away on the shoulders of the palace guards, Claudius ashamedly admits to his excitement at the prospect of having an entire empire read his long-ignored scholarship, which is a strange way to end the story about the crowning of perhaps the most powerful person in the world (second only to the Han Emperor). But actually, given Claudius’s eccentricities and honest character, it’s probably the most appropriate way to end the book. So for now, Claudius meets a happy end as the most unlikely person to become ruler of a nation, like Jimmy Carter 1,936 years later.

Interestingly, Claudius, in his many visits to the libraries of Rome, discusses the importance of accurate historiography with two leading Roman historians. Eschewing the style utilized by Livy, who prefers writing out lengthy but undocumented speeches and dialogue for dramatic effect, Claudius states his idea that histories should be based on primary sources without recourse to made up quotes. Ironically, I, Claudius consists entirely of fabricated dialogue (particularly his discussion at the library), due in no small part to the fact that Claudius’s actual autobiography, which spanned eight volumes, did not survive. But without Graves’s fabrication, which is derived from popular rumor, conjecture, or Graves’s own imagination (e.g. the many assassinations attributed to Livia), there would be no book about Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus even a tenth as engrossing as I, Claudius.

Of course, if you don’t like historical fiction with an emphasis on history, go watch the BBC version of I, Claudius, which starred the great Derek Jacobi stuttering his way across a sound stage. And if you don’t like movies based on a work of historical fiction, the Hunger Games movie is coming out soon, yes indeed it is. Goodbye, world.

Jeeves, you really are a specific dream rabbit!

As spoken by Stiffy. My first thought when reading this was that I’ve never seen “specific” used in a superlative fashion—and I like it. I think we should all start using it. So, the next time your troublesome teen actually takes out the trash when asked, say to him, “You are a specific son!” (Really, though, how could I one be bothered to take out the trash?! I had One has so many other things to do…)

And “dream rabbit” is, of course, my Lakota name, so it doesn’t surprise me a bit to see it in print as a complimentary epithet.

John has plans to do six one hour lectures on Ulysses with Prof. Michael Davis from Le Moyne College some time next year. I wish him the very best, and wish I could be a fly on the wall during those lectures (maybe they’ll be recorded!). I hope this is just a bump in the road, and that he’ll have many healthy and productive years ahead of him.

The students of the art among the younger generation today appear sincerely to think that they are composing real poetry, while actually they know nothing about its proper style. They make a fetish of obscurity, changing what ought to be simple into something difficult, yoking together things that have no relation to one another—perhaps because it has become universal for people to choose the most inappropriate poems as models. For my part, I fully realize that I ought to have a thorough knowledge of poetry, whereas I have merely inherited the fame of two generations. At times I have been treated with honor, at times been spoken of with scorn, but lacking sufficient devotion to this art from the very beginning, I have learned nothing except how to put together a few odds and ends that people have refused to accept as poetry. Although my father’s only instructions to me were the simple words, “Poetry is not an art which can be learned by looking afield or hearing afar; it is something that proceeds from the heart and is understood in the self,” I never even groped my way far enough to experience the truth of what he said. How much the less can I do so now, having crossed the threshold of old age, and sunk to my present wretched condition with many illnesses and deep suffering. I have forgotten the color of the flowers of words; the well-springs of inspiration have run dry. I have not even been composing any poetry at all, so that more and more I have tended to give up thinking about it, and have forgotten what little I once knew.”

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Sōseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, “a physiological delight” he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kantō region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eves and trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic. Our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a place of unsurpassed elegance, replete, with fond associations with the beauties of nature. Compared to Westerners, who regard the toilet as utterly unclean and avoid even the mention of it in polite conversation, we are far more sensible and certainly in better taste. The Japanese toilet is, I must admit, a bit inconvenient to get to in the middle of the night, set apart from the main building as it is; and in winter there is always a danger that one might catch cold. But as the poet Saitō Ryokū has said, “elegance is frigid.” Better that the place be as chilly as the out-of-doors; the steamy heat of a Western-style toilet in a hotel is most unpleasant.

Anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection. Yet whatever its virtues in a place like a temple, where the dwelling is large, the inhabitants few, and everyone helps with the cleaning, in an ordinary household it is no easy task to keep it clean. No matter how fastidious one may be or how diligently one may scrub, dirt will show, particularly on a floor of wood or tatami matting. And so here too it turns out to be more hygienic and efficient to install modern sanitary facilities—tile and a flush toilet—though at the price of destroying all affinity with “good taste” and the “beauties of nature.” That burst of light from those four white walls hardly puts one in a mood to relish Sōseki’s “physiological delight.” There is no denying the cleanliness; every nook and corner is pure white. Yet what need is there to remind us so forcefully of the issue of our own bodies. A beautiful woman, no matter how lovely her skin, would be considered indecent were she to show her bare buttocks or feet in the presence of others; and how very crude and tasteless to expose the toilet to such excessive illumination. The cleanliness of what can be seen only calls up the more clearly thoughts of what cannot be seen. In such places the distinction between the clean and the unclena is best left obscure, shrouded in a dusky haze.

“The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.”
—Baron Couvier

Indeed it is, Herr Baron. Indeed it is.

Rank: B+
No. Times Read: 1
Last Read: Fall, 2011

Author Name: Sherwood Anderson

Review: Well, I thought myself quite clever when I dreamt up comparing Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio to Jean Toomer’s Cane. Turns out the comparison is so commonly made that it appears on the Wikipedia page for Winesburg, Ohio. So much for that.

Winesburg, Ohio is a (short!) collection of short stories which take place, for the most part, in the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio (not to be confused with the real town of Winesburg, Ohio, which is farther north than the fictional Winesburg). Most involve, in some way, George Willard, a young man who is, apparently, Winesburg’s only reporter, but otherwise, each tale focuses on a different resident of the town of Winesburg, Ohio. Structurally, there are no surprises, so you shouldn’t expect any if you pick this one up.

The surprise (for me) in reading Winesburg, Ohio came in the interiority of the characters Anderson describes. It rather reminded me of something written by Tove Jansson. Every single character—perhaps every resident of Winesburg—is filled with a terrible, quiet desperation. Each of them is near their breaking point, and quite a number of them reach it. It’s as if the town itself has driven all of them insane—not in any cheap Stephen King sort of way, mind you, but in a subdued William Faulkner sort of way. (One wonders, in fact, if Anderson had any influence on Faulkner, reading through these tales of repressed anxiety.)

Though the collection is short, the book could hardly have been longer without becoming a bit monotonous (or without breaking the mood). The standouts, as I see them, are “‘Queer’”, “Hands”, “Tandy”, “The Strength of God” and the “Godliness” stories. Given the length of this collection, I highly recommend it.

Something that’s been troubling me, though, is the place that Winesburg, Ohio occupies in the history of literature. It’s on the Modern Library’s top 100 at number 24, which is a good thing, because I don’t think I would ever have heard of it otherwise. If Winesburg, Ohio does anything that’s rather different, it “is franker about sex than most novels of the time”. Indeed, “[p]erhaps no novel since Uncle Tom’s Cabin struck so deep over so wide a surface of the national life”.

Oh, wait a minute. Those words were written about Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street—you know, the much celebrated novel that’s 44 places lower on the Modern Library list and was published one year later.

Having read both Main Street and Winesburg, Ohio now, I must ask: Why the hell does Main Street get so much attention?! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt was a high school favorite), but absolutely everything that Main Street is praised for is something that Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio did first—and better. I mean, come on: Frank discussion of sex? Winesburg, Ohio makes Main Street read like a church bulletin! And the town of Winesburg is the Everytown, U.S.A. that Lewis’s Gopher Prairie purports to be—it even has a main street called Main Street! And not only that, the reader gets the message (“small towns aren’t bastions of wholesome morality”) without the author having to shove it in your face. And the book is shorter, to boot!

Listen, I may talk a lot of malarky sometimes, but if there’s one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: There is no reason to read Main Street in a world where Winesburg, Ohio exists. The latter does what the former attempts to do, and does it better and in fewer pages—and it did it first. If I could, I’d grab the year 1920 and shake it vigorously by the shoulders and tell it to pay better attention to 1919—or, even better: I’d go back in time and tell Ben Huebsch to call the book Main Street, rather than Winesburg, Ohio. Let Sinclair Lewis try to publish a book called Gopher Prairie and see how successful it is!

In the last fifty years a vast change has taken place in the lives of our people. A revolution has in fact taken place. The coming of industrialism, attended by all the roar and rattle of affairs, the shrill cries of millions of new voices that have come among us from overseas, the going and coming of trains, the growth of cities, the building of the inter-urban car lines that weave in and out of towns and past farmhouses, and now in these later days the coming of the automobiles has worked a tremendous change in the lives and in the habits of thought of our people of Mid-America. Books, badly imagined and written though they may be in the hurry of our times, are in every household, magazines circulate by the millions of copies, newspapers are everywhere. In our day a farmer standing by the stove in the store in his village has his mind filled to overflowing with the words of other men. The newspapers and the magazines have pumped him full. Much of the old brutal ignorance that had in it also a kind of beautiful childlike innocence is gone forever. The farmer by the stove is brother to the men of the cities, and if you listen you will find him talking as glibly and as senselessly as the best city man of us all.

So this was close to the turn of the 20th century, and Anderson’s talking about how books and magazines had people’s minds “filled to overflowing”. I wonder what he’d think of the internet…? If he were alive, perhaps we could start the conversation thus: “So, the good news is that books, magazines and newspapers appear to be on the way out! The bad news…”

Then we introduce him to Twitter.

Taking the claim seriously, though (all that “information overload” noise), I think we, as a people, are doing fine. Granted, as a person living in the modern era I can’t possibly be unbiased, but there are plenty of moments of quiet still about—and plenty of opportunities to remain naïve. After all, though the information is out there, no one’s forcing it down our throats (despite what popular alarmists would have us believe). If you turn off the computer and the TV and the cell phone, it’s quite easy to take a break from the world. So far, we haven’t got anything that plugs directly into our brains, and we can still command those brains to do what we will.

So, pish-posh to those new age alarmists, I say! My mind is still my mind, and no pressure I feel from external sources is going to change that.