Elena

This is a book about scientists who are also kind people, or maybe kind people who happen to be scientists, living in an anarchist utopia written in the seventies, with all the political and emotional baggage that the context entails.

It is all written in a very earnest fashion, deadly serious even when it talks about “young people going away to copulate”, the phrasing of which made me chuckle. It might be because I'm just out of teenagerdom, or because using over-precision in sexual and eschatological questions as a sample of Anarrestis' healthier ways is really a tad ridiculous. Shevek lands on an beautiful planet from the moon -people, the moon- and instead of wondering about, say, gardening, ponders the final destiny of feces. I concede that it’s a central function of the human race, and I’m fairly certain that we could bond over the ages with our great sons and grand fathers through it, still I’m not sure it deserved all the love it gets in the Dispossessed.

Ursula has such an organised imagination. All that ridiculous precision, the careful pacing, the annoying asides about a made-up made-up (inception!) language, create a very solid, deliberate universe. The characters are theoricians, but they are not cold. Like in all of Ursula’s writing, there is a deep will to make the world all better. It’s so entirely endearing. I want to be Takver; I want to meet Shevek, I want to decorate an empty room with an Occupation of Unihabited Space, circles with a common center, going over one another in careful balance, like this novel.

The fuel of this book seems to be the question: “wouldn’t it be cool if [someone] said/did/went through [crazy random happenstance]?”
The answer often is, no, no it wouldn’t. What it would be is tiring to see the author trying to fit it retroactively into the narrative.
I found the beginning tremendous; the rest is sadly one long wince. I think that happens when there are interesting ideas in the premise, but then you have to see the author grossly miscast Rochester as, on the whole, a jolly good fellow. He's amorphous and annoying and un-Brontë.
This kind of sentence, when not perpetrated on purpose, needs to die -not a litteral quote-: "Thursday realised that she would never forgive him and then she went shopping for cashews".
I was specially put off by the noir parts. I kept waiting for someone to say “this isn’t a place for you, little girl”, and I was going to go “you know what? Maybe you’re right.”
The tragic thing is that I liked the bare facts of the plot. I’m all for Richard III as Rocky Horror, I love the time travelling business, I'm into name-dropping litterature to death, and it was wonderful to have everyone care about books like they didn't have to feel weird about it.

But the truth remains: this is all fit with shoehorns. Tool steel, 1,2 percent carbon ones.

My sister said once, talking about Ursula K. Le Guin's Ged from the Wizard of Earthsea, that even his screw-ups are extremely cool. I think that fantasies tend to delude us into thinking that the cool is an external factor... if you thrown in a dragon, a ring and an enchanted sword, the winning moment is bound to be awesome. But in happiness and misery, we're essentially the same person. In real life, someone's victory or defeat does not equate to his personal greatness or inadequacy.

Ged invoked some bichin' shadow from the otherworld and cursed himself and everyone around, but it still was a tour de force, despite its selfish reasons and disastrous consequences. I remember thoroughly embarrasing myself thanks to the bravest move of my adolescence. In fiction again, Frodo reached his goal and the peak of his simpering wuss-ness at the same exact time. That's what feels right- I'm clumsily trying to attack the ridiculous, Christian (protestant, actually) concept of succes as a recompense of moral worth.

This book gets that: its victories are as coated in shame and self-hate, achieved through the same underhanded methods and petty bargains with oneself and others as bitter defeats. And yet, what a satisfying, fantasy/romance worthy twist: to turn one's handicapping neurosis into a weapon! It's a clever idea: it does wonders for characterization and solves (elegantly) "the empowerment by bikini-wax" problematic of initially normal main characters.

At its core, this could be a choral super-heroes book, more in the Watchmen the-heroes-suck-at-life line than The Avengers. It even has a nemesis. I'm usually not much for pseudo psychology, but there is not any freudian bullshit in here. And it really holds its own in the indirect speech department. Don't misunderstand me- she's no Woolf- but she does blend obsessions from the inner life into the outer shell of thoughts, not just for the main character, but for all the others. Shelby tells Justine that she had no choice as a way to comfort her; it's also her desillusionnating (?) method.

The sex is intrusive (there's a "cucumbery cock". Hahaha. Ha. Ha.) It's worth noting that Justine feels attracted to just about anyone: Cubby, Carter, Aggie, Simon, Packard, Otto, but who's counting? I guess Otto and Packard are antagonistic relationship archetypes: Packard can make her fears and insecurities disappear (handy!), and he sees right through her, but he is a controlling Machiavel; he also says that Otto only wants the part of her that fits with him, not the whole, but isn't that just compromise? Normal, healthy compromise? Nevermind that, there's nothing healthy about this book.
I'm thinking that Otto would be the adult choice, but I like free, so I'm rooting for Packard. Plus, he's the first one to appear in the novel, and that usually makes him The One.

Special mention for the residing likable psyco, Simon. Viva losers! I'm rooting for him too.

What else? I am amazed at the moral relativism and the "we're all humans" thing she's got going. I have my doubts about the reset button of rapist, torturers, and even normal people, but I guess we're not really discussing reality.

Dear friend,
This book was very patronizing and I didn't like it very much. Also, everybody cried all the time.
Love always,
Helena

I read the House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence almost at the same time, and while The Age of Innocence is the better book -the title is less euphonic, mind- House of Mirth has meant something to me. I've declared in another review my undying love for fools, whatever their size or shape. Lily is one of gigantic proportions. That, given the title, is hardly a surprise, 'cause:

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth"
7:4 Ecclesiastius

My opinion is that the guy who wrote that part of the Bible put his foot (or at the very least his goose quill) in his mouth because that sentence is a bit of euphonic nonsense, but I guess he liked to put hearts in places:

"The heart of fools is in their mouth:
but the mouth of the wise is in their heart."
21:26 Ecclesiastius

If Lily's heart is in her mouth, it's not because of too much talking, but man does she chew through her fall from the highs of money and beauty to the slums of respiratory depression. I'm going with that as a causa mortis because it's prettier than "choking in her own vomit". She dies because benzodiazepines were yet to be invented. They used to get hung on chloral... She should just have smoked weed.

I disagree with two important parts of Lily’s characterisation: I don't see her either as a tragic figure or as a selfish one.

I can tell tragic when I see it: it’s Gerty. Tragedy = unavoidable misery, it’s the greek sense of inescapable fate, whatever you do, you’re fucked - their gods were such bitches. Gerty can never get a choice; nothing much will happen to her at all, ever. See Pascal: hell lies in boredom. Bad luck and bad choices are interesting, hence, not tragic.

Of course, there’s a case to be made in favour of Lily’s destiny being set in stone, but it requires, in order to be interesting, that we disregard parts of the novel to see it only as a mildly feminist critique of the upper New York society. And it is; Wharton is angry at a class that only offer parasitic lifestyles to women. But the feminist critique is the only way to have her doomed from the start; if not, what would be the point of the book? An ode to Bad Luck? Instead of that, we get a very clever portrayal not only of a social class, but also of the psychology of a woman who has to stand alone and fight, mainly against her own nature.

Yes, Lily is a purely decorative object, yes, she is wholly dependant on others to survive... but it’s ultimately not what makes her doom. She dies the way she does because she is a short-distance athlete. The same way she says to Selden “ perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down”, this woman can’t play chess: it takes too long. That’s why she fails with the Americana-guy; that’s why she can’t climb back, that’s why it means so much that she doesn’t use the letters- that would have been right up her alley; she could have pulled it off.

Even her death... she could have been a Nana. She would have lost herself. She dies and saves the last her self-respect; that’s a pretty heroic failure, and a very human one. Of course, it’s bad luck that Selden comes to his realisation the moment she’s dead, but, you know, shit happens. The thing is, she’s never been as worthy of love as in the moment when she dies. He can't be blamed for not having loved her before.

The question begs the answer: if Selden had come the night before, would they have had a happier ending? Or would she have ruined him, sickened him? As a mather of fact, Wharton goes out of her way to say that they would have been happy. In the last scene of the book, when she visits Nettie, it is said: “it is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be!” I think that the moment Wharton believes in that transformation, she would have given it to Lily and Selden too. It wasn't hopeless from the start.

Lily’s selfishness and entitlement, and the snobbism of the privileged, seem to make a deep impression on readers. Is she really so very selfish? It’s the only life she knows. She has nobody to stand up for; there’s noone in the world she loves, or owes anything to, and certainly not her friends except for Gerty. And Gerties are certainly worthy of love, sound of mind, admirable in every respect, but god are they boring to hang out with.

So she can’t make friends with low-class people, has a physical repulsion to shabbiness, and sees no attraction in the life of a manual worker. A review I've seen on this site (while very interesting) suggests that the reader feels personaly insulted by all three. I think she’s missing the point, because she’s essentially talking about being strong and therefore worthy of more respect that the one Lily shows, but she focuses on strength for the family, and that’s precisely what Lily can't have. Does she want me to feel sorry for Lily? I will. Will I think her weak? No.
Regarding shabbiness and manual work, I can never blame her for that. I don’t want to be a workshop worker either. Please believe it’s not particularly a dislike for effort. Of course, her taste for luxury doesn’t call for sympathy; but this is a woman alone. She needs to love something, and what she loves is beauty. It’s her only asset and the base of her self-esteem. The only qualitiy she knows she has is taste.

The bad: Wharton repeats the same concepts with different formulae over and over again. She does, in fact, write the words “poured out the wretchedness of his soul”. She dwells in melodrama. She tortures me with Gerty (could she have at least a fault, so I don’t feel so bad about her?). Some characters -Trenor- are utterly unappealing.

In the end, I know what I love in House of Mirth: Lily goes through her day, she’s planning ahead, she’s trying hard, she’s laughing at unfunny quips and smoothing rough situations and she’s bored. But sometimes, an impulse breaks through all that and wrecks her routine; she knows who she is and who she could be, she gets a glimpse of a life that is not stopped, in which the clock ticks evenly, and suddenly her intentions mean something else or nothing. And then she goes on a picnic. It’s the effect Selden has; he’s distracting.
I’m fascinated by the rays of light that break through routine. I think that’s why all her impulses bring her lower: it’s to prove Selden wrong when he’s unable to separate her intentions from her impulses. Even when she’s telling him she loves him, he thinks she’s planning. She’s not.

There’s a tremendous beauty in impulses, specially when they’re doomed and therefore are pure. That last plunge, when she goes up to see him just because she’s in his street. What she doesn’t do through courage, she’ll do through the power of a rush. It quickened my pulse too.

Como acababa de leerme an Ideal Husband, cuyo planteamiento no es que se parezca, sino que es prácticamente idéntico, me esperaba algo parecido sobre matrimonio, perdón, bajar de los pedestales, y blablabla. Tienen al principio una rama similar de sexismo vintage en el que se cachondean tanto que sospechas que la cuestión en realidad le trae por saco. Como siempre después de leer a Oscar Wilde uno se pregunta si debajo de tanta fascinación por el epígrafe hay algo interesante. Si se lo preguntase a un personaje suyo probablemente diría algo como: "Por supuesto que sí: champán." Oscar, me frustras.
No hay nada de malo en el mensaje de an Ideal Husband- que no porque tu marido sea un traidor a reina y corona deja de ser tu marido.



La perfección es muy aburrida, así que valga la moraleja tautológica. Pero supongamos que vas a ver a una mujer chapada a la antigua, pongamos, a tu abuela, la víspera de una huelga general y dice sabiendo que la vas a hacer: "Los huelguistas son una panda de vagos, maleantes, bolcheviques, impotentes, sarnosos, homosexuales, parásitos y ladrones; sin ellos no estaríamos como estamos."

Redoble de tambor.

Supongamos que a continuación dices un par de cosas sobre la sanidad pública y tu venerable abuela decreta lo siguiente: "Tienes toda la razón y si yo estuviera en tu lugar haría una barricada en el congreso".

Independientemente de la lamentable imagen de la abuela subida en un león de hierro (o de lo que sea) no es que esté convencida ni que esté mintiendo: lo que pasa es, que por encima de todas esas trivialidades como los bolcheviques y los parásitos ladrones, quiere estar de acuerdo contigo. Que poderosa atracción tiene estar de acuerdo con la gente. Sólo el primer discurso es válido, luego descubres lo que piensa el interlocutor y kaputt tus maravillosas ideas.

Nora no es una imbécil por haber pasado 8 años estando de acuerdo, ni siquiera por hablar de si misma en términos de "ardilla" y en tercera persona (bueno, quizá por eso sí. Ruiseñor pase, pero ¿¿ardilla??). Enfin, buena suerte descubriendo quien es. Probablemente es más difícil de lo que piensa en el momento de su portazo.

Por cierto que es un portazo muy épico.

Garcia Marquez is this kind of writer:


And I prefer this kind of writing:



Doesn't mean he's bad. Icky, sure. Not bad.

I’m a nervous wreck during exams. I can't deal with anything but snack-books by day, but that hellish period gives me insomnia and I wake up, stare at the ceiling, and fail to see the point in anything short of Shakespeare or maybe suicide.
That’s how I found myself reading a girly porn book with a half naked couple on the cover called “Private Arrangements” and Macbeth practically at the same time. They both having letters and all. Let's compare, broken down by themes:

Guilt and redemption
There actually is something to compare between those two worthy opus: they are driven by bad deeds committed by their main characters in order to climb steps in the social ladder. Macbeth kills his king. Regicide is a manyfold crime, and a lot more interesting that simply going ahead and killing your average person: Macbeth would have been charged with murder, high treason, perjure, etc. Regicide destroys the established order. It's a bit like stabbing the constitution. It's a very cool murder.

The romance girl tricks her would be husband into thinking that his previous engagement had been broken. It's a betrayal of a personal order, but here too she's perfectly aware of the deed. Perhaps she's not threatening society, but she is in fact threatening the foundations of Marriage, with an M... and there's nothing that a romance novel cares about like a Marriage.

There's no misunderstanding that exonerate everyone involved. In a romance novel, it’s very meaningful, but Shakespeare himself has some plots that would be considerably simpler if everyone would sit down and talk it out.

While Macbeth doesn’t find redemption, quarter-naked girl only barely has to say sorry: thus the focus in chick lit is put on second chances, not on angsty feelings like remorse. Macbeth doesn’t get a second chance: he’s trapped in escalating evil.

"I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that,
should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

Arguably, none is more or less true to life than the other, but that’s certainly why one is a tragedy and the other a romance.

The liar and his time
Quarter-naked girl was psychologically credibly made for fooling people her whole life, while Macbeth says he would have enjoyed, and I see no reason not to believe him, “The things that should go along with old age, like honor, love, obedience, and loyal friends”, and eventually settled down in non murdering habits, if society hadn’t had the bad taste of refusing to forgive him. It goes to great lengths not to forgive him. It turns itself into a wood. That's harsh.
“Instead, I have passionate but quietly whispered curses, people who honor me with their words but not in their hearts, and lingering life, which my heart would gladly end, though I can’t bring myself to do it.”
Macbeth is not much of a liar, after all... he would have bluffed his way out of the ghost's episode. Then again, ghosts do seem to be very impressive in Shakespeare.
Nobody seems to resent quarter-naked girl for a generally scandalous life and the weird habit of saying exactly what she thinks, which is not Macbeth-like at all, and is the basis for this theory: I think that the author is chinese (that’s not the theory, that’s true) and must have thought the west appallingly direct, and therefore has created characters who seem to lack the ability of the white lie and polite understatement. As a result she leads an exemplary life despite being a very selfish human being. It's exactly what we get away with in the west.
The moral that can be extracted from this is: humor the liars, they’ll get bored and start saying the truth ‘cause you don’t have to think as much. Seriously though. Society in a romance novel is rarely threatening, but in this one, it's particularly non judgmental.

Love and ambition
Ambition and love move both plots. To argue that love plays no part in Macbeth’s murder would be, sayeth I, to underestimate Lady Macbeth. She mocks him, she invokes masculinity, but we get no feeling of stung vanity; he overcomes his qualms through her. Their relationship is a very strong support for the action. That is a sort of redeeming factor for poor evil Macbeth and his disregarded “milk of human kindness”. Who’s the worst? Macbeth or his lady? in any case they’re both better when taken together. Macbeth gets his best, more “not-the-evil-guy” lines when she kicks the bucket.

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Quarter-naked girl really really wants to be a duchess, and with that in mind, tricking this guy is a prudent move. Paradoxically, her ambition is also a redeeming factor: she offered him her hand in all honesty and was repeatedly rejected. She never tried to hide that she had strived all her life to get close to a title. By forging that letter, she’s not really betraying him. She has never given him a reason to trust her; her methods were always openly less than pure. She played by another set of rules; she's from a class that doesn't value honour.

Men’s men
They do go on about masculinity in Macbeth. He doesn’t want to kill his king? Not a man! The murderers refuse to kill Banquo? No men either! His son dies in combat? He died a man’s death!
Who or what is a man? Macduff, that’s who. He is the only main character whose testosterone is beyond all question. Plus, he is not born of a woman, which is as bad a pun as the one in LOTR and also leads to some evil-people slaughter.
Macduff on being a man:

“MALCOLM:
Let’s look for some desolate shade and there
Cry our hearts out.
MACDUFF:
Let us rather
Stop the mortal sword quickly, and, like good men,
Climb over our down-fallen country.”

“MALCOLM:
Revenge it like a man.
MACDUFF:
I shall do so;
Only I must also feel it as a man.”

“MACDUFF:
O, I could cry like a woman with my eyes,
And brag with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all pauses in the action. Bring this fiend of Scotland
And myself face to face;
Put him within my sword's length; if he escapes,
Heaven might forgive him too!
MALCOLM:
This tune goes manly. “

The fact that he abandons his wife and children with clearly too little protection does not change the fact that he’s a man, he’s the man. I’m confused on the definition of man. I get the “put him within my sword’s length” manliness (niark) but i have trouble in the distinction between “cry like a woman” and “feel like a man”.
By opposition, quarter-naked guy’s manliness is clearly defined by his sword’s length (god am I not subtle), and his capacity of earning money by incoherently speaking of thermodynamics. I liked that bit, but my engineer of a sister refuses to abide my appreciation.

The Fool
I want to express my love for The Fool as a character. I loved him in King Lear, i love him in Cabin in the Woods, i love him in real life, and i love him in the slightly unintelligent new fiancé of quarter-naked-girl. I love all his various incarnations: the dumb but kind, the crazy but who-gets-it, the snarky-with a good heart.
Yeah, no fool in Macbeth. Other than the one who tells the tale of life.

The writing
I truly cannot find that Shakespeare has influenced the later novel, which is fine, because Romeo and Juliet remakes are the absolute worst. No class warfare whatsoever, except a joke on each other’s taste. The focus is on impressionists, Monet, Degas, cars, yatches, engines, Beethoven’s fifth. It’s an historical romance that wants to feel modern. There is in fact many a Shakespeare quote. “Parting is such sweet sorrow”. Is that the most quoted sentence ever? If not, it's probably close.

Macbeth’s writing is a masterpiece for the ages.

Not such thing as Destiny
Macbeth differs from the greek standard of tragedies in the fact that destiny, if any, comes from within. The will of the gods’ role is unclear. Blah blah blah.
Quarter naked guy could perfectly have spent his life in NY without ever seeing again naked girl. There's no fate involved whatsoever.

Morals
Don’t trick your husband. Don’t kill your king.
I think that both of them have a surprisingly similar message, if one is willing to crop Macbeth a lil' bit. Both say that the one thing you want, whatever the odds may be, will not happen unless you make it happen, but once your part is done the consequences are out of your hands. While the romance pushes you to go ahead and do it anyway, Macbeth requires reflection. Would he be happy if he hadn’t killed Duncan? It’s unlikely. Would quarter-naked girl be happy if she hadn’t forged that note? Who know? It’s a romance, the possibilities of plot contrivance are endless.

I wrote 4 pages on this subject. Pfff. At least I bet nobody has done this particular review of Macbeth before. There's probably a reason for that though.

This is a people-y book about people. It's full of people. Don't be fooled by all of them being called "people"; they're very different, idiosyncratic ladies. And gents. The jokes in it aren't funny, but that's fine because the characters are teenagers. Teanager's jokes aren't usually funny. The writing is not particularly flashy, but its endearingly asphixiating peopleness puts the light on how genuinely perceptive it is about quirks, traits and how teenagers treat everything like it matters oh-so-fucking-much.

I don't/try not to care much about teenagers and their problems, at least when no gore is involved (heathers. I still love you) because I have no wish for alternative realities about real life in real settings. Why this book then? Well, I was told Saving Francesca was good. It was in fact good. If I could turn back time to when I was twelve years old and always late to class because the school library's lady wouldn't stop talking, I would suggest buying it. It's not like she listened to me anyway.

Nigel Barley se fue a África y en un año tuvo hepatitis vírica, malaria, unos parásitos que ponen huevos bajo las uñas y que se tratan rebanando trozos de carne con una navaja, y todos los que pasaron sin diagnosticar. Perdió 18 kg y los dos dientes de delante.Además se aburrió muchísimo y pasó meses sin hablar con nadie en su lengua. Su vida sexual fue inexistente -de forma prudente porque sino seguramente habría vuelto con gonorrea, VIH y sífilis. No creo que hubiese sido capaz de resistirlo. Resistirlo yo, quiero decir, porque ya estaba consternada y protestando : los incisivos noooooooo! Y con flashbacks del único otro libro que recuerdo con extracción de incisivos, que es los Miserables. Fantine vive de la prostitución, pero lo que realmente parece trágico es que venda sus incisivos. Wtf?

Todo ello (las desgracias de Barley, no las de Fantine) fue para estudiar la tribu dowayo, una población de Camerún, a 15 km de la frontera Nigeriana. Entre ellos y nosotros hay un par de diferencias irreconciliables: 1) Nigel Barley describe unos hábitos higiénicos de aullar de asco (hay una festividad en la que se cogen las calaveras de los antepasados, se llenan de excrementos y se rocian de sangre de cabra, después se baila sobre el conjunto), 2) no hay manera humana de venir de Europa y no parecer la madrastra de "tu a boston y yo a california" haciendo su primera excursión a la montaña con sombrilla y guantes blancos. Por ejemplo, Barley descubre un nido de escorpiones en su choza y sale chillando y agitando los brazos en dowayo aproximativo "bestias de fuego, bestias de fuego!", que es la reacción que a mi me parece normal. Hay por allí un niño de seis años, que se mete en la choza y aplasta el escorpión con el pie.

Ser antropólogo haciendo trabajo de campo no es ser Indiana Jones, es ser el pesado que chapurrea el idioma, no se entera de nada y no deja de hacer preguntas estúpidas. Dice la contra de mi libro que Nigel Barley hace por la antropología lo mismo que Gerald Durrel por la zoología, volverlo "desopilante". Puede ser, pero Nigel Barley estaba trabajando y no tenía familia allí. Lo que cuenta es mucho más interesante -yo me saltaba las páginas sobre escarabajos de Mi familia, etc- pero yo me he "desopilado" mucho menos de lo que esperaba.

Four interconnected love stories between people from different and difficult backgrounds. All of them end up finding their way to -don't say forgiveness. don't...- to forgiveness, which clearly consists in an understanding partner and an useful occupation. It's settled in many planets, but it's mainly about one, Yeowe, that joins the narrative advantages of having just freed itself from a colonial, pro-slavery regime and being ruled by chauvinistic pigs. Luckily, none of the characters are native of wherever they end up finding their particular brand of happiness. It's manicheistic; all things Ekumen are very likely to be good, and all things patriot are probably bad. I don't mind. There probably is much to be gained of the contact of others, specially if they are older, academically better and have a working peaceful system of govern, but I'm a worried about how the ideology at work might translate in real life.

The stories are slow to pick up, and end on the satisfying natural conclusion wholly invented by fiction. Frankly, slavery and male chauvinism are rather tired themes, specially on this planet with no history. It has to rediscover all from scratch. On the good side:
Happy endings, no they never bore me

The first story's characters are old people, and the orthodoxally interesting part of their lives is over. Is that politically incorrect? The fact is that the only thing going on is the romance; and it's a fairly common one, contrived by the oldest, really really old, ancient, tricks in the book.
She nurses him back to health, he saves her cat from a fire. La mère Michelle invented that like, a thousand years ago.

I might have found it sweet, but it info dumped me to boredom. I might have liked the male protagonist, only I didn't, because I don't have pity to spare for corrupt politicians. And she was strong and independent, but only by omission, because we didn't know that much about her. On the whole, it's a shame, because I'm usually a sucker for willful old people.

I did care for the main character of the third one, but the story focused on his relationships with women and glossed over his involvement in the feminist movements of Yeowe. I find that I enjoy reading about a man who chooses to defend the rights of women. I am led to understand that black people are sick of being portrayed in fiction with a white person as a spokesman. As far as I'm concerned, men are welcome to defend us in fiction. Of course, I would object if he created the movement, but he's just willing to participate, and it's curiously moving.

The fourth one... happens... and its plot is very contrived and the main character is a bit too perfect and I should have skipped it, even though it's the longest.

The second story I liked. It was about two people made enemies by their upbringing, their experience, their beliefs, and most of all their temperament, locked up in one room, but who can think. It's about how difficult it is to understand one another, and it's a love story between flawed grown ups whose flaws are also their virtues. They dislike, then love each other for the same reasons.

There also seems so be some thinking about personal semi philosophical concepts and individual mottos, specially for the male characters: hold fast to the one noble thing, global and regional truths, and I can't remember the others (or even if there were any) but it's a great way to build a distinct character in a story so short and so focused in sci-fi's social problems.

Quoting Scott Pilgrim:
This is... this is... Booooring.

This has to be the most unfair review I've ever written.

Larry Durrell recita la cárcel de Reading a Leslie camino de que le juzguen por agresión, todo lo cual después de sobornar al juez con sellos de coleccionista. El nombre de la cárcel me parece muy chachi, por cierto.

El efecto cómico... Se debe a que Wilde está muy serio. Todavía está presa de la impresión que le causó el hombre aquél que mató a su mujer, y que explica la relativa falta de simpatía que me da el verso "Yet each man kills the thing he loves".

"And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing."

Es poesía muy resultona. That fellow's got to swing, boom! En solo dos estrofas hay más léxico de lo insoportable que en medio diccionario. Ejemplo al azar: vilest deeds, poison weeds, wastes, withers, Anguish, Despair, starve, frightened, weeps, scourge, flog, fool, y "And some grow mad, and all grow bad, And none a word may say."

People have tried to talk me out of liking this book since well before I read it. There's something less than subtly discouraging about opening your book on a quote by a George Sampson that says "an unpleasant book about unpleasant boys at an unpleasant school". But I don't know who George Sampson was and, after looking it up in google, only this guy shows up:



I am inclined to disregard his opinion. Of course, if I were to read the fifth line of the introduction I would find that Wells "condemns the heroes as self-righteous bullies", and I do know who Wells is, but let's be honest. I never make it that far in the introduction.

I love the book. Stalky, Beetle and M'Turk have so much fun being unpleasant that I'm completely on their side. They're bullies, but they're fun bullies, and brilliant ones, and they enjoy playing with language and messing with people just as much. I don't mind that they're mean. They usually only pick on the strong. Of course, there's this scene.

"He says he doesn't know anything about bullyin'. Haven't we taught you a lot?"
"Yes-yes!"
"He says we've taught him a lot. Aren't you grateful?"
"Yes!"
"He says he's grateful"

But I'm a vengeful little twat, and I think those guys had it coming. Beatings happened in that sort of school, and this one is unusually light-humoured. I remember the one in Saki ( in The Unbearable Bassington, I think), the one doing the flogging enjoyed, but these guys are not sadists. I like that they're ruthless, it's epic. Speaking about epic, what's there not to like about a whole story translating Horace? Nothing, that's what. It's not even about nostalgia, because honestly, it's hasn't been that many years since I stopped studying latin and I haven't got the time to be nostalgic just yet.

It's just that... When King complains about the smells that come from the other class, Paddy comments, because he remembers last term's Ode:

"Non hoc semper erit liminis aut aquae caelestis patiens latus."
"This side will not always be patient of rain and waiting on the threshold".

King, the teacher, retorts:

"And you remembered? The same head that minted probrosis as a verb! Vernon, you are an enigma."

When your whole class has been called names for similar reasons for many years, that cracks you up.

And there's french, too:

‘Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?’ Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats.
The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between closed forefinger and thumb.
‘Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?’ said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before them, and they followed his example. . . .
‘I told you,’ moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. ‘Oh, Stalky, you are a fool!’
‘Je cat, tu cat, il cat. Nous cattons!’ M‘Turk handed up his contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron.

I feel you, M'Turk. I too resort to frech in desperate situations.

And there's english:

"Come to my arms, my beamish boy!" carolled M'Turk, and they fell into each other's arms dancing. "Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!"

That's Through the Looking Glass. They're total fanboys, they adore or dispise.

I suppose that, being Kipling-the-evil-imperialist, it might be relevant to include this quote too:

He shook it before them- a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.
They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before- but [...]. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk.

You know the guy, and you hate his guts because you think he’s an unctuous whiner, surprisingly full of himself, uncool and generally a pain in the neck, plus he really, really, can’t punctuate, but one day you start listening to him instead of just nodding vaguely and he’s saying things you have thought but not really mustered the strength to care about, and he’s right but even if he was wrong you think he should be heard, and listened to, and people should care about it, and talk about it, and scream about it if need be, and viva this creep, may he talk for a long time, may he talk forever!