Review: Speak, Memory

"It is probably true, as some have argued, that sympathy for Leninism on the part of English and American liberal opinion in the twenties was swung by consideration of home politics. But it was also due to simple misinformation"

Title: Speak, Memory

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Year: 1967

Pages: 251

Speak, Memory is Nabokov’s memoir. I don’t like being negative about him, again, because I still feel he was a great author, but yet again, this book was not enjoyable for me. It was well written, that’s for sure, and most of the stories were interesting as well: you find out many themes which reoccur in his books, were drawn from his own life. But there was something that bothered me throughout the novel to the extent that I genuinely could not appreciate it. As a memoir at least.

As I’d been studying Nabokov for a while when I read this, I felt the need to distrust him. I felt that probably nothing was true anyway. An author, in most his novels, is mysterious, needs to be figured out, and is often a persona of Nabokov himself. While I know now, that I shouldn’t have approached this novel with such caution, it held me back constantly.

Just know that, if you’re going to read this book, it is actually quite trustworthy. Just read it as a memoir, but keep in mind that memoires are objective – perhaps more so when it’s one written by Nabokov.  

Review: Pale Fire

"Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed,

My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest

My Admirable butterfly! Explain

How could you, in the gloam of Lilac Lane,

Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade

Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade?"

Title: Pale Fire

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Genre: Modern Classic

Year: 1962

Pages: 315

I don’t like writing reviews about novels that disappointed me greatly. That’s why this review will be short.

The premise is interesting: There’s a poem, but the real novel actually consists of the commentary written by someone other than the poet.

Then you start reading the poem. It’s quite interesting and follows the author’s thoughts about his recently lost daughter. After a while, though, you start to wonder whether you should perhaps flip back and forth, between the notes and the poem. So you start again. Read the first four lines. Then the commentary on those lines. You realise the author of the notes starts to wander off to a story about himself. Not uninteresting, but irrelevant. You continue until you notice that in fact, the commentary has very little to nothing to do with the poem. So you start again. You read the poem. You read the commentary. You treat them as autonomous works of art.

While I was convinced this was, to me, the best solution to get something out of this book, it still didn’t do it for me. The poem was okay but perhaps too straight forward. At points, it was written as if the author was just putting his thoughts to paper, and then suddenly realised ‘wait, I’m writing a poem, I should use complicated words and constructions’.

As for the commentary, I was already too annoyed with the form to enjoy this. It’s a fantastic story about a king in Zembla. Honestly, I didn’t care for any of the characters, and I couldn’t be bothered to even try to understand what was going on half of the time.   

Review: Pnin

"I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelops us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay in side or you perish."

Title: Pnin

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Year: 1957

Pages: 191

We follow Pnin, a Russian émigré professor who works at an American college. His English is not perfect, he’s very clumsy, and he seems uncomfortable in his surroundings.

Pnin is not my favourite Nabokov I had to read for the course. Now, three stars is obviously not the worst rating in history, but I noticed that many of my fellow students absolutely loved this novel. What bothered me most was the fact that it was supposed to be a funny novel. His other works - admittedly, at this time I’d only read Lolita – feature many quirky remarks or events, but this is not the main focus. In Pnin, it is, and to me it was to ‘slapstick’-like, and too embarrassing to the point of annoyance.

What has to be said, though, is that to some extent, it is also a very sad novel. You can’t help but care for Pnin. His clumsiness is fed by misunderstandings resulting from language differences and gradually you’ll notice he is not at all as stupid as people think he is. When put in the right (Russian) environment, people think he’s smart and he does get friends. This somehow touched me.

There is also a very nice mystery evolving throughout the story, which I won’t talk about in great depth because I want this to be spoiler free, but it really had me engaged. Generally, when I read a detective-type of novel, I just read it and read what the solution is, rather than trying to figure it out for myself. Obviously, the main premise of this novel is not detective, but as soon as you notice there is something to be found out, you want to find the solution yourself – even I did!

One of the themes that reoccur in Nabokov’s novels is his disdain for the academic life. This is very obvious in Pnin, but I’m not sure how I feel about this. Gradually making my way through Nabokov I learned that he was possibly the most elevated author I’ve ever read. Him disliking academic life, highlights this even more and while in Pnin it is done quite exquisite, in retrospect I think it would have bothered me if I’d read it later on in the course.

All in all, there’s no denying that this, too, is a good novel. The writing is no less brilliant than in other Nabokov novels, and Pnin as a character was interesting as well. But it did not grab me, it even bored me at times. 

On why I'm not posting new stuff

As I feel guilty for not posting any new content, and I really do want to post new things, I thought just explaining the situation would have to do for now.

Clearly, I'm very busy with uni. But honestly, not so much that would not allow me time for writing reviews. However, all books I've been reading have been for school. Now still, that's no excuse. However, for most of these books, I have to write essays and reviews for the course itself, and the real issue here is self-plagiarism.  I did discuss this with my professor, and he said that whenever I post something on my blog and properly indicate that I wrote it it would probably not be a problem. I think you get my point here: the word probably. I really do not want to get into any trouble in my final year of uni. As soon as I've finished the course and gotten my grades, I will publish all the reviews (slightly edited), and I'll make up for the lack of content.

Thanks for understanding.

Review: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Title: Beloved

Author: Toni Morrison

Genre: Modern Classic

Year: 1987

Pages: 324

Beloved follows Sethe, an ex-slave who escaped the farm at which she worked, Sweet Home, eighteen years ago. During her life, she has lost many things, including her new born daughter who was yet to receive a name. The only word put on her gravestone was 'Beloved'. One day, a young woman who calls herself Beloved enters Sethe's life. Is she the daughter's reincarnation, or just a troubled girl? 

Above anything else, this novel is a slave-narrative. 
It is, however, also quite dependent on magical realism, or even the supernatural. As a novel about the effects of slavery, this is brilliant and thought-provoking. By the elements of magical realism, though, I was not impressed. The idea is that throughout the novel you are not sure who this character Beloved really is, although the majority of characters are convinced it is Sethe’s daughter. Now, I don’t believe in reincarnation, but generally for me, it doesn’t matter what I believe in in order to understand a novel. If, within the realms of the reality of the world created by the author, the amount of magic is plausible, I’ll be convinced easily. In Beloved, I wasn’t. I find it difficult to put into words why, but I’m going to try anyway. My most prominent confusion was that it is taken for granted that she is a reincarnation or a ghost. Characters aren’t surprised or scared upon finding out, even though it is set in a non-fantastical world. This is a result of the religion followed by these people, and perhaps it is disrespect from my side to pronounce that this felt unrealistic. I like to think that I am very open-minded, but I guess this may prove this is not the case.  What I’m trying to say here, is  that the religion may have gotten in the way of the plot. I don’t know whether this is really the reason why I didn’t like this part of the story in the first place, but I’ve had some time to think about it, and this is the only explanation I could come up with. Interestingly, Morrison does not exclusively advocate the reincarnation or ghost interpretation. Throughout the novel, we can find many hints that Beloved is a victim of some crime, a runaway who is completely deranged as a result of this. Maybe, for me, the novel would have been more interesting if there had been at least one character supporting this idea.

Before I’ll tell you why I did like the novel, I’ll talk about an element that confused me greatly. As a student of literature, I’m trained to find symbols or themes and discover their meaning. This novel is filled with these literary devices and many of them are clear and obvious. But some are not. The colour red, and other colours on the same spectrum, for example, occur many times. There is blood, a piece of cloth, gemstones in a grave, roses, somebody’s heart, and much more. The piece of cloth, red velvet, is something a side character is dreaming of finding, which would indicate hope for a better future. Paul D, Sethe’s old friend from back at Sweet Home, has a heart described as red, and he is filled with passion to pursue a better future. Also, the road towards a carnival Sethe and Paul D are attending is aligned with red roses, and this is the start of their life together. Obviously, thus, red means hope and prosperity. Wrong. Because the roses towards the carnival also smell of death as they are rotting. Sethe’s daughter’s blood overshadows Sethe’s thoughts, and the stones on the daughter’s gravestone are pink. What are we readers to make of this theme of red? The same is true for trees: they represent comfort and life at most occurrences in the novel, but they also serve as a veil: the scar on Sethe’s back looking like a tree, and the trees around Sweet Home both hide the horrors behind them. This duality had me confused but alert throughout the novel and in a sense, I loved this incoherence, but it also bothered me as I felt almost cheated.

Now, let’s talk about what I certainly enjoyed about this novel. Morrison emphasises the destructive power of slavery in terms of self-identification. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that slaves were taught they were subhuman, worth even less than an animal as “a dead nigger could not be skinned for profit and was not worth his own dead weight in coin” (174-5). Years of suppression lead to the slaves believing this, and even behaving accordingly. Beloved shows us that they have changed for life, as when they have escaped slavery the lack of self-identity keeps following them, and even the next generations are influenced heavily. Sethe, her mother-in-law Baby Suggs, and Paul D are filled with self-hatred, and the latter two even become depressed. Sethe’s husband Halle went insane not knowing how to cope with all the horror, and Sethe herself, too, (arguably) has episodes of insanity, trying to kill her own children. English professor Barbara Schapiro uses psychology to explain these characters’ struggles. According to object relations theory, people “are innately responsive and relational” (Schapiro 195), and in order to establish a self-identity, love relations are necessary as they would serve as mirrors. In Beloved, Schapiro says, any chance of relationships as such is taken away for those subject to slavery. Sethe, for example, does not know who her mother is and someone has to point her out to her, and tragically, for Beloved herself, “the intense desire for recognition evolves into enraged narcissistic omnipotence and a terrifying, tyrannical domination” (Schapiro 197). What is interesting, is that Morrison takes this issue one step further, touching upon the character change within the whites when Stamp Paid, the man who helped Sethe escape Sweet Home, describes the allegorical jungle in which blacks are put but eventually the whites have to hide (Morrison 134-5).

While I was of course aware of the horrors of slavery, this novel had me look at  it in a different light, and had me evaluate it more. The ex-slaves’ struggle to find self-respect was no doubt touching. With the aid of the way in which she used the symbolism, as mentioned before, Morrison showed us the world should not be looked at so black and white. However, in terms of the main plot, it did not have me hooked. The story dragged at points, and while I generally do not step away from magical realism, in this novel it felt incredulous. I understand figuring out who Beloved really is, is considered part of the novel’s strength, but to me any explanation of this woman’s existence felt too far-fetched. 

(Schapiro, Barbara. “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Contemporary Literature 32.2 (1991): 194-210)

© Suzan Voncken

Review: Eleanor and Park

Title: Eleanor and Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genre: YA Contemporary

Year: 2012

Pages: 325

Eleanor is the new girl at school, whose private life is anything but perfect. She doesn't quite fit in at school, and is hesitant to talk to the guy sitting next to her in the bus, Park.

Of course, this sounds like your average cliché young adult love story. Be warned, it's not. Yes, it's cute at many instants, absolutely adorable sixteen-year-olds falling in love for the first time. But it's also heart breaking. While reading it, I noticed it was well-written, but I didn't notice it was so realistically and emotionally done that it would hit me so hard. But it did. Although Eleanor was at times annoying, I understood why, and I loved her as a character. Park, as well, is just a beautiful character. Yet again another young adult contemporary I devoured.

February & March TBR

The reason why I'm merging the two months into one TBR (to be read) post, is that all of these books are for school. This term, I'm taking two courses, both of which require quite a bit of reading, so I'll probably have no time to read anything else. This, however, I do not regard as a bad thing, because I'm super excited to read all of these books.

So the first course I'm taking is on the author Vladimir Nabokov, and in the order in which we're reading these novels (which is also the order of  first publication), these are the books we're reading:
Lolita - I've actually already read this one in May of last year, and I loved it. It is the reason why I decided taking this course. Anyway, this is about a grown man who falls in love with the twelve-year-old Lolita.
Pnin - About a professor who struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings.
Pale Fire - I couldn't quite understand the synopses on the back of the book, but what I gathered from it is that it's a parody on detective fiction.
Speak Memory - This is Nabokov's autobiographical work
Ada or Ardor - This is the longest novel, but it also sounds super interesting - it's a love story troubled by incest, but also described as "a fairy tale, historical parody, an erotic satire, an exploration of the passing of time, and a supreme work of the imagination". 

The other course is a reading list. We could choose Dutch, French, German, Italian, English and international. I chose English. Then we got a huge list of books, of which we had to pick books adding up to a certain amount of pages. I chose:
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood -   Zenia, a beautiful villainess, a man's dream and a woman's nightmare, is dead. However, five years later, she returns.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo river and his meeting with a Mr Kurtz.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - The death and burial of a character told by members of her family.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - A sci-fi about a future in which World Controllers have created a supposedly ideal society.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -  This story is told through the eyes of Scout, a lawyer's daughter, while this lawyer is defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl (set in the 1930s). I read this about four or five years ago, so I'm interested to see whether I'll get more out of it now.
Beloved by Toni Morrison - About a woman who, eighteen years ago, escaped slavery.
1984 by George Orwell - Dystopian sci-fi novel about a future in which personal identity no longer exists.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - A doctor creates a misunderstood monster.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Murial Spark - About a teacher who has powerful influence on a group of 'special girls'.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - A family during the Great Depression traveling through America trying to find work.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - In seeking to discover his inner-self, Dr. Jekyll discovers a monster
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh - A novel about a mortician who gets dragged into a love triangle.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - A day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high-society woman in a post-World War one England.