Yet another of Sebald's nameless, over-educated and pharmacologically unstable editors wanders the dying English coast. He talks about his travels and everything else.
How kind I feel towards The Rings of Saturn depends solely on my mood. Under the influence of warm milk and sleepy classical music, The Rings of Saturn reads like an encyclopedia -- no! A funhouse! A demented and melancholy funhouse! -- of anecdotes about slow decay and rot. After listening to 50 rap about pleasuring women with his magic stick, The Rings of Saturn seems more like the Family Guy for the bleary-eyed English major.
The issue isn't the prose; Sebald's writing is as beautiful, as carefully restrained, and as meticulously crafted here as it was in Austerlitz. Every anecdote in The Rings of Saturn would be perfectly at home in any great, honored collection of literature. But that's partly the problem. Austerlitz had a basic framework -- as flimsy as it could be at times. It had a main plot, and there were digressions, but Sebald always weaved his meandering tales back into the heart of Austerlitz's narrative. Here, it just seems to be one string of anecdotes after the other. The stories are, at best, connected by a single sentence, if even that. So going chapter by chapter is about as rewarding as, well, reading a dictionary. Yes, all of the individual pieces are gorgeous, but it's difficult to see what they contribute as a whole.
Finishing the book, all you feel is the vague sense of an author obsessed with decay, and with a very, very articulate pen.
There were eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the commander of the English fleet, the Earl of Sandwich, who weighed almost twenty-four stone, gesticulating on the afterdeck as the flames encircled him. All we know for certain is that his bloated body was washed up on the beach near Harwich a few weaks later. The seams of his uniform had burst asunder, the buttonholes were torn open, yet the Order of the Garter still gleamed in undiminished splendor. [pg 77]
The huntsmen are up in America, writes Thomas Browne in The Garden of Cyrus, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. The shadow of night is drawn like a black veil across the earth, and since almost all creatures, from one meridian to the next, lie down after the sun has set, so, he continues, one might, in following the setting sun, see on our globe nothing but prone bodies, row upon row, as if levelled by the scythe of Saturn -- an endless graveyard for a humanity struck by falling sickness. [pg 78- 79]
Everything round about rots, decays and sinks into the ground. There are only two seasons: the white winter and the green winter. For nine months the ice cold air sweeps down from the Artic sea. The thermometer plunges to unbelievable depths and one is surrounded by a limitless darkness. During the green winter it rains week in week out. The mud creeps over the threshold, rigor mortis is temporarily lifted and a few signs of life, in the form of an all-pervasive marasmus, begin to manifest themselves. In the white winter everything is dead, during the green winter everything is dying. [pg. 105]
The mass suicide of the Taipingis is without historical parallel. When their enemies broke through the gates on the morning of the 19th of July, they found not a soul alive. But the city was filled with the humming of flies. The King of the Celestial Realm of Eternal Peace, according to a despatch sent to Peking, lay face-down in a gutter, his bloated body held together only by the silken robes of imperial yellow, adorned with the image of the dragon, which, with blasphemous presumption, he had always worn. [pg 141]
In August 1861, after months of irresolution, Emperor Hsien-feng lay in his Jehol exile approaching the end of his short and dissipated life. The waters had already risen from his abdomen to his heart, and the cells of his gradually dissolving flesh floated like fish in the sea in the salt fluid that leaked from his bloodstream into every available space in the body tissue. Through his flickering consciousness, Hsien-feng followed the invasion by foreign powers of the provinces of his empire by perfect proxy, as his own limbs died off and his organs flooded with toxins. [pg 146]
The window panes in the locked up rooms misted over with cobwebs, dry rot advanced, vermin bore spores of mould to every nook and cranny, and monstrous brownish-purple and black fungal growths appeared on the walls and ceilings, often the size of an ox-head. The floorboards began to give, the beams of the ceilings sagged, and the panelling and staircases, long since rotten within, crumbled to sulphurous yellow dust, at times overnight. [pg 217-218]
Sent away by his family to live in Wales to escape the ever-tightening grip of the Third Reich, young Jacques Austerlitz grows to excel in melancholy and architectural history. He becomes older, becomes richer, and plagued by a murky past, eventually trots around Europe in search of the phantoms of his father and mother. He meets our nameless narrator, and they proceed to talk about his journey. They also digress and are fabulously more articulate than we mere mortals can ever hope to be.
I read Austerlitz for a history class, and my reading experience had all the ups and downs of poring through a Required Book. On one hand, hurrah for exposure to a book I would have never, ever thought of reading! On the other hand, boo for having to rush through a dense, and extraordinarily subtle novel with tears streaming down my cheeks and an Essay, An Enormous Essay -- in Three Days! looming over my mind.
At first glance, Austerlitz is, well, not the most intimidating novel; it's relatively slim -- packing only a little more than 400 pages -- and also, it's got pictures! But, it's also deceptively unwelcoming. First off, the format? Prickly and difficult to digest, and even more difficult to get in to, Austerlitz is all dense text; no paragraphs, no chapters, no breaks. Just a sea of sentences, with an occasional murky diagram. The entire novel reads like a marathon for the first fifty pages or so. But cut through your initial revulsion and anger at Sebald, and let him lay waste to your soul.
Because Austerlitz is utterly devastating. It's difficult to pin down exactly which part of Sebald's writing picks your heart out of its teeth, but it's somewhere, between all of intricate, delicate prose, and the menagerie of photographs, diagrams, and xeroxed memos. Picking through Austerlitz is like picking through an old memoir; reading the novel feels vaguely voyeuristic and intrusive, but also, entirely engrossing. Sebald has made a living off of unsettled melancholy and mild-mannered depression; and here, he paints the perfect portrait of an unshakeable, unknowable sense of loss that has seeped into every secret crack. His care in choosing the exact word and the exact sentence shows; Austerlitz is many things, but above all it is beautifully written.
Now, I preferred the earlier section of the novel to the latter. The first half of the novel is all about stunted nostalgia, a sense of loss without knowing what has been lost. The second half is all about a search and a hunt that hasn't ditched nostalgia, hasn't lost the loss, but has acquired a sort of rabid, hyperventilating need to find. And the first half is much more meticulous; every detail of every year is listed with obsessive detail, while in the second half, time seems to sprawl across decades, and events seem to blur our years so that the narrative itself feels a little flimsy. Maybe it's not so much a weakness, as a change of pace that I couldn't really appreciate.
Sebald doesn't end with a bang, and doesn't really even reach a definitive conclusion; he leaves us with a sense of utter ambiguity and glum, unsatisfied yearning. Because there are really only so many synonyms you can use for 'melancholy.'
In which a crippled, stuttering Claudius of Rome watches his family systematically eviscerate themselves and Rome in the power struggle to end all power struggles. Much like an incestuous, murderous episode of Clueless! In Europe!
Now, I expected to like this book, and I did, which doesn't leave much room for agonized introspection, but does allow me to preen about my good taste. So! Now, to be completely honest, I have some... mixed feelings about I, CLAUDIUS. It didn't blow me away and leave me in a catatonic, emotionally drained state, but then again, I wasn't expecting it to. It's essentially a novel about scheming, and intrigue, and of course, Wretched Roman Excess! And that's essentially it; it doesn't claim to be anything larger, nor does it really attempt to do so.
I figure my main mistake was reading this right after We Wish to Inform You Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families which pretty much peeled apart my heart and spat out the seeds. I, Claudius seems to be a very solid, very well written book in its own right, and I figure any lack of undulating love is pretty much the left-over emotional and mental drain from We Wish to Inform You acting up.
That's not to say that I didn't enjoy I, Claudius; I liked it. I liked it a lot. Because, I'm a sucker for court intrigue and drama and political one-ups-manship, which explains why I liked Gore Vidal's Burr so much. And I, Claudius is pretty much a carbon copy of Burr, set in Ancient Rome. With an accompanying chorus of beautifully amoral female harpies wreaking havoc on family and Empire. I am convinced that when crotchety, heartless, realpolitik wizards go to die, they go to Livia's cavernous torso, in place of her heart.
Graves's tone does wander a bit, and at times, it becomes cloying since Claudius spends a tad too much space rambling to himself about himself, but hey! Optimistically, it's not filler, it's development! And overall, Claudius is a pretty sympathetic narrator. He's bright and kind, but he's hyper-aware of all his shortcomings and it's actually a little heartbreaking to see how eternally... unlucky he is. He's hated by his family, loathed by his peers, and systematically isolated from every friend that he has. Every person he reveres, and every person who supports him ends up getting poisoned or mauled or something awful. And Claudius is always helpless, because until the very end, he's always on the bottom rung and always outclassed.
He's helpless and eerily accepting. Claudius seems to internalize every minor criticism, without being in the least-bit aware that he should at least hope for pity at some point. He's almost cruel to himself; he bares all of his faults, and explains almost no shortcomings. He seems to have accepted his position as family freak, and approaches almost every event from that position. And, surprisingly, it makes for a great narrative voice!
So, in short, read this if you've got a hard-on for political backstabbing; not so much if you want to read about grinding Roman orgies because, well, Graves does mention them, but he always shies away from the gory details. Which breaks my heart, because I was hoping for just a dumb, raunch book about the MOST DEPRAVED ERA IN HUMAN HISTORY. SCREW YOU, YOU LITTLE PRUDE, ENOUGH WITH YOUR GOSSIPY, OLD-MAID RUMORS! I WANTED A REAL BODICE RIPPER!
But yes, Graves writes sex like a fifty year old lady with a sweater set. So come for the promise of debauched sex with all sorts of animals! Stay for the heartbreaking narration and brutal, uncompromosing Roman realpolitik!
In which David Sedaris waxes lyrical about his family, friends, and existential angst, all while keeping a snappy postmodern tone. Also known as: David Sedaris writes the college essays of your wet dreams.
THE GOOD: Don't let the hipster hype fool you. Sedaris actually has a pretty keen sense of humor, and even better he's got a great arsenal of stories. While some of the beginning shorts are pretty common, Sedaris is lucky because he has one of the most dysfunctional families in the U.S. And he mines them for gold! And he's surprisingly good at it! So yes! He's got, on the whole, a wonderful narrative voice - when it's not strained, something that I'll get to later - and a beautiful train-wreck pedigree, which meant that I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. That's not saying much, but hey! I didn't want to burn it! And it was still better than the Da Vinci Code!
THE BAD: Remember when I said Sedaris had a good voice when it wasn't strained? Well, it is strained. The tragedy is that except for a few exceptions, Sedaris doesn't think you'll really get, dig, understand his wild tales unless he wrings out every bit of heartwrenching emotion from them. Which makes what should be a great set of anecdotes read like... well... Chicken Soup for the Hipster Soul. Take for example, Exhibit A: Sedaris describes stuffing his gawp with disgusting Halloween Candy to avoid sharing said candy with creepy, possibly Mormon, neighbors. Now that in and of itself is good. It's solid. And it's funny! Gold stars for everyone!
Too bad Sedaris goes on to ruin the entire thing when he builds tiny, touching anecdote into a cosmic screed about the heart of darkness... and Hershey's. OH I WAS SELFISH, LIKE ALL HUMANS WERE SELFISH, AND THE CANDY WAS DELICIOUS YET IT BURNED BLOO BLOO BLOO. BACK ME UP ON THE VIOLIN, HOLMES.
So yes, Sedaris has a tendency to... overplay his stories. I wish that he'd have the confidence in his readers to let us read into his writing on our own. His over-narration is invasive and annoying, to use polite words. And too often, he takes a beautiful anecdote and cheapens it with his hipster trash emotional shit. It's like watching a beautiful butterfly of an essay turn into.... a college app.
SO HEY, SISTER. Stop the poignancy. Just give us the sweet stories and the sweet narrative voice.
Also known as how to write an enormous, 500 plus page behemoth of lost potential. This book killed me. Partly because it was so fucking pretentious, and partly because I could've seen myself really, really liking it if Franzen knew how to shut up once in a while.
I think my real beef was the fact that Franzen just doesn't know how to trim the fat. He's so in love with every word, every phrase, every anecdote that he just has to pour them all in. At some point, the description just becomes too much. We already know how rotten everyone feels, and how terrible society is, and how we should burn this mother down Pookie, so all of Franzen's self indulgent in-jokes pretty much become overkill. And also, literary masturbation! Just in case you don't know how indignant I am at this point.
Also, Franzen needs to learn when the surreal becomes just... ridiculous. Not black-comedy! Not absurdist! Not clever! Just plain idiotic. It's new, true; it's novel, too! But only because everyone else has had the sense -- or their editors had the balls -- to Cut. That. Shit. Out. I mean, for godssakes, Alfred spends approximately 20 pages talking to an imaginary turd. The turd develops character traits and a background story. At some point, when plied with an appropriate amount of coke and acid, this seems clever! And groudbreaking! Coming off from the high, you quickly realize that this is in fact self-indulgent. And retarded. Without any redeeming value whatsoever.
FRANZEN, A NOTE: There are so, so, so many other, less laughable ways to convey a mental breakdown.
And that's the book in a nutshell. Coming away from the book, you just feel an overall sense of relief over being done. There is that little man sitting in the back of your mind saying, "But what of the tragedy! What of the ironic farce!", but he's easily muffled out by the fact that you've spent the last hundred pages beating your chest and crying "OH GOD, I'M ALMOST THERE. HOLD ON GIRL." Every nice literary trick, every particular phrase that worked, and every moment of gold is drowned out by all the pure crap that surrounds it.
FRANZEN, ANOTHER NOTE: Cut to the quick. Read up on your Strunk and White, boy-o. Omit needless words.
But, I've got to admit, I fell in love with Gary and his black gloom of depression. Oh Gary! Your twisted, Boy-Scout sense of responsibility! Your weirdly masochistic relationship with your parents! Your overwhelming paranoia! Your terrifying relationship with your children! Your overwhelmingly bitchy and manipulative wife! It's beautiful! Beautiful! A+ WOULD READ AGAIN. DID YOU SEE MY EXCLAMATION POINTS? I MEAN, REALLY.
Franzen does imagery and does imagery well in Gary's passage. It may just be that I can relate more to someone stuck in limbo and paranoid and hateful than someone who is... banging his students and flying off to Lithuania or someone else who is an ace chef and a maybe-part-time lesbian. SO! It might just be personal preferance, or, as I like to think of it, I might be that Franzen has written a chapter of untouchable brilliance and astounding complexity!
SO IN SHORT, get Franzen to turn down his loud mouth and it just might all work!
AN AFTERTHOUGHT: Franzen's book isn't exactly... plot-driven, so it might be that all that slow plodding was actually character-development. Essential character-development! But, sweet Jesus, there had to have been a less painful way. THERE MUST BE.
Anthony Lane is a monster among men.
One day, when I become old, crusty, and articulate, I hope to become half the critic as a flake of Anthony Lane's dandruff.
I have found love, and HE WORKS FOR THE NEW YORKER. And he just bukkake'd all over George Lucus's face.
THE EPILOGUE: George Lucus no longer has a face. It was melted off by a potent combination of acid and man that was Lane's male-juice.
A+
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.
What You Know; TI
YES, MAMA RAISED A THUG. I'm so... so happy.
And... just.... don't ask about the cover. iTunes is RETARDED.
Waking Up
December 1963 (Oh What a Night); The Four Seasons
HOW IS THIS EVEN RELATED TO WAKING UP. IN THE DAY. ... AND BEING UNDER FORTY.
It's Good to Be King; Tom Petty
Wh-a. WORST FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL EVER. And why is this even in my library. Nooo.
Falling In Love
Stephanie Says; The Velvet Underground
It's so twee! It's so... appropriate! How did I go from morning thug to Wes Anderson Pussy in, like, four tracks. T_T
Danse Sur La Merde; Prototypes
IN WHICH I CRACK OPEN MY ENEMY'S SKULL WITH MY ENORMOUS COCK.
PROS: PLENTY OF SCREECHING ELECTRIC GUITAR; ELECTRIC GUITAR = HARDCORE, BAD MUDDA WHO WON'T TAKE NO CRAP OFFA NOBODY.
CONS: Has handclaps. More... upbeat and perky than... you know. Having entrails hanging out of your mouth. Dance fight? OVER MY DEAD BODY.
Kommienezuepadt; Tom Waits
In which my fragile, woman mind snaps under the stress of CARRYIN' ON WITHOUT MY MAN. This is... a pretty deranged bust up, iTunes.
Spanish Pipedream; John Prine
D: OH GOD. WHAT? PROPHETIC AND TERRIBLE. WORST PROM EVER. EXCEPT FOR THAT TIME WHERE SOME RAGGEDY BITCH WENT CRAZY AND KILLED EVERYONE WITH ELECTRICITY & FREAKISH TELEKINETIC POWR.
1.9.9.9.; Orishas
"In my professional opinion, it was the tequila, blow, and bloody juntas that did her in," the psychologist said.
I mean... it could work. If you wanted my life soundtrack to be RETARDED.
The Letter; OutKast
AH, HOW APPROPRIATE. LOOKING BACK AT A LIFETIME OF LOVE. SEX. WIMMIN. I think.
Linda Linda; The Blue Hearts
It's upbeat! Melodic! A little bit snotnosed and bratty! IT'S PERFECT. I'M SO PROUD
Set You Free; The Black Keys
It was the hardest wedding in the history of man. The bride was dressed in leather, and the groom had 10 foot penises for limbs. The End.
Sonata for Violin & Continuo in G minor, Op 1/6 "The Devil's Trill"; Gil Shaham
TOO CLASSY; GET OUT. In other news, so it's going to be that kind of birth is it. Item 3: 'Devil's Trill'? Should I be, uh, busy drowning my child in a lake for the good of the world or something?
Vittorio E; Spoon
I'd uh, like something more bloodthirsty. In which there is 3:39 of building tension and absolutely nothing afterwards!
I suppose we could sit and stare at each other with simmering menace until someone had to go to the bathroom or something.
Oyf'n Pripetshok/Nacht Aktion; Giora Feidman and LiRon Herseliya Children's Choir
WOAH. AN ACTUAL SONG. THAT MATCHES. ... PERFECTLY. Also, surprising since I apparantly bite the dust with some dignity!
Baby; J. Ralph
AND THEN MY FUNERAL TURNED INTO A DISCOTHEQUE. SEE IF I EVER INVITE YOU GUYS AGAIN.
U-Mass; The Pixies
I've lived a college-rock life and y'all can kiss my ass! Actually, not a shoddy song. ROLL CREDITS; EAT LOTS AND TURNING INTO A BLUBBERING, BALD FATSO. A+ movie.
