Dust on the Bookshelf

does Frank Norris speak of cities?

I am giddy to begin a new book today. It was referenced in my class on the American Gilded Age (1870-1900) and nestled in the used book basement of the Harvard Book Store for a whopping $2.50.

The Octopus by Frank Norris, (full title: The Epic of Wheat: The Octopus, a Story of California) was published in 1901 as part of an intended three part series about wheat. Norris sadly died after completing the second volume. But Norris, who the inside cover of this book describes as "strikingly handsome" wrote about more than just wheat. He wanted to capture, in style of the newly popular european realists, the destructive push and pull between wheat farmers and railroad monopolies in the West. He essayed to show how these big businesses, a popular depiction of them at this time was in the form of an octopus, hurt American families and small businesses while poisoning the whole industry with their black gold ink. Unclear if Norris will at any point talk about "big government" but I look forward to the likely parallels in his contemporary nostalgia for a wild, more independent if not personal, America and some opinions expressed today at a changing american market and economy.

For now a passage, in which I feel Norris may not only be talking about sheep. His dreary account of this pack resonates with some the turn-of-the-century fears of big American cities becoming urban wastelands of lost anonymous souls. 

The sheep were spread out roughly in the shape of a figure eight, two larger herds connected by a smaller, and were headed to the southward, moving slowly, grazing on the wheat stubble as they proceeded. But the number seemed incalculable. Hundreds upon hundreds of gray, rounded backs, all exactly alike, huddled, close-packed, alive, hid the earth from sight. It was no longer an aggregate of individuals. It was a mass-- a compact, solid, slowly moving mass, huge, without form, like a tick pressed growth of mushrooms, spreading out in all directions over the earth. From it there arose a vague murmur, confused, inarticulate, like the sound of very distant surf, while all the air in the vicinity was heavy with the warm, ammoniacal odor of the thousands of crowding bodies (28).

Standard Oil as the Octopus

 
"The curse of California" Railroad monopoly as the octopus

Hiroshima mon amour

I just finished reading the screenplay Hiroshima mon amour. The French is quite pretty in its simplicity. With short clips of dialogue such as:
Lui: Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima. Rien.
Elle: J'ai tout vu. Tout... Ainsi l'hopital je l'ai vu. J'en suis sure. L'hopital existe a Hiroshima. Comment aurais-je pu eviter de le voir?
Lui: Tu n'as pas vu d'hopital a Hiroshima. Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima...
Elle: Je n'ai rien invente.
Lui: Tu as tout invente.

my copy: Gallimard (1960)

I haven not yet seen the movie, though I was shown the first three minutes or so in Jason Stevens' Faulkner class. He wanted us to see the use of montage and disordered scenes, suggesting the large influence Faulkner had on Japanese authors and screenwriters. He argued that many Japanese people related Japan's history to that of the rise and fall of the Old and New South. I do not know enough about Japanese history to write any more on this comparison. However, Faulkner's celebrity in Japan is undeniable. In Houghton Library our class was able were able to look at the transcript and photos of one of Faulkner's visit to a Japanese university. Indeed, his reception there was much warmer and more immediate than here in the states.

but the book. it ends: She says to him, "Hi-ro-shi-ma. C'est ton nom." and he calls her "Ne-vers-en-Fran-ce." What is the significance of these appellations? Does Duras suggest that for these two characters their identity is almost completely a result of where they are from? Are these locations, where they were both tremendously scarred, all they amount to, boil down to, as people? "vers" can mean "towards" in French. Is there a play on words, un jeu de mots, going on here-- the Japanese man saying "not towards France?" something like that? Maybe not. but Ne-vers is a great name for a city as the man says at least once in the script. And what a happy correspondence in English: nevers. multiple never. more than one never? what is the plural of an ultimatum like that? It somehow does not have the happy ring of "Never Never Land."

The land of Never, where she (she who is never named in the film, but through the screen play we come to learn is called Riva) was trapped in a cave, shorn like a sheep with bloody fingers from their attempts to climb the walls. she is left in the cave because she has shamed her family, for sleeping with the German enemy.

Nevers. c'est superbe comme mot. je l'aime bien.

My next task, watch this movie in full. From the snippet i've seen it's beautiful. I would love to know anyone's thoughts on the screenplay or film if you've encountered them. I'd wanted to read it for a long time. Now I will never say that I never read it. voila-- some nevers.

pages before the end, the skies opened up and the fire trucks came

Today I finished Sanctuary by William Faulkner (yes, I am still on this kick).
Actually, no, it's not a kick it's just something I cannot stop doing. Reading Faulkner that is.

But Sanctuary. It is unlike many of the other Faulkner novels I have read. It is salacious, it is racy, it is in your face alcohol, rape, prostitution, murder, bloody corncobs..

That being said, I still recommend it. It is easier to read than a lot of Faulkner's stuff (I started reading the Sound and the Fury three times over three years) and he is slightly less subtle about what actually takes place in this story than his usual cryptic what-just-happened-i'm-totally-lost style. So in Sanctuary, you'll probably follow about 80 percent of what is actually happening to the characters.

I don't want to give away the story so I'll sell you on it with the name of one of the main characters: Temple Drake.
Temple.
Drake.
    Reading Faulkner, as one should, with Christianity in the back of my mind, I am brought here:
    If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which [temple] ye are. 1 Corinthians 3:17.
Jesus' sole noted use of violent force in the bible is when he cleared the temple of vendors and salesman calling it a "den of thieves." Its violation makes him very angry and aggressive.
Drake to me sounds like how one might say "drank" with a certain more southern accent, and in a way Like the collision of events and bad timing that surrounds Temple Drake expels her from what was a privileged sheltered life at university. Her own violation evokes Jesus' reaction as it was described in the gospels and might cause you to put down the book a few times.

We remeet Horace Benbow from Flags in the Dust-- who gosh darned really means well, but is too ignorant of the tone and ilk of his own home town to see the obvious, inevitable events to follow the doomed court case he plays lawyer in, defending a penniless black bootlegger accused of murder and more.

If summer does not already have you sweating, this book will light a fire under you. Crime fiction and summer-- a natural pairing that I recommend. I was barely able to finish this book, sitting by the Charles river on page 305 of 309 (Vintage edition, 1958) before a force of nature overtook my hurried reading and a menacing downpour sent me fleeing for shelter at the Dunster/Mather shuttle stop. A fire alarm had gone off at the apartments across the street and soon three firetrucks blared in front of me. The rain picked up and I knew this was not the place or time to finish Sanctuary.

Later on I did get to page 309. And it felt... I don't know. I was not relieved, nor was I sad. There is little resolved at the end for most of the characters I grew attached to. That which about them that was screwed up remained so and I have to be satisfied with that. Typical Faulkner.

"mmmm yeah, so what's your point?"

How to Eat Fried Blogs

I've been inspired by Becky* to start a blog. Really I just want to make something colorful, and mine will not be nearly as funny as hers is.

This isn't a blog primarily about books, as the title might suggest, hopefully just a space to dust off my own thoughts and start conversation. James is another person in my life who has been blogging lately and I would like to shamelessly link to it here, for those of you who might be reading The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (I am not). http://tpkteam.wordpress.com/

For some reason, books have me thinking about worms. They are funny creatures. It always strikes me as a small tragedy to see them fried up on the sidewalk in the morning. Shouldn't they have evolved by now to know that the sidewalk will be super hot in morning if they don't try to cross it before the sun comes up? (Darwin studied them for almost forty years, seems they are slow changers) I'm not sure if I have a favorite type of worm... there are earthworms, tapeworms, glowworms, bookworms, gummyworms.. all kinds really.

If you were a worm, what kind would you be? Are you the worm who eats its weight in food each day? the worm that is both male and female? Are you cold-blooded? Are you blind? Are you slimy? Do you have a deep-seated fear of birds? Did you ever read Thomas Rockwell's How to Eat Fried Worms? Or are you militant, perhaps, like these worms?



And thus ends my brilliant, I woke up at 5am to drive to the airport today, first blog post.

* shameless use of Becky's asterisk style and her blog: http://rebecamendizabal.typepad.com/blog/