The After-Dinner Payback

If you happen to be too lazy, stupid, or busy to read the real thing, fear not: some of the greatest books in literature are being offered as “compact classics” running no more than four hundred pages. Tempted? I hope not; long novels (especially multi-volume novels) are long for a good reason.

Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, counsels Miss Prism in [Oscar Wilde's] The Importance of Being Earnest. Even at the turn of the century, novels that needed more than one set of hard covers to get to the point were considered a bit ridiculous, a relic of a leisured age when the daughters of the aristocracy had an awful lot of time to kill, and Miss Prism is of course a figure of fun. But when it comes to seriously long novels, I think I’m on her side.

Partly this is because there are artistic feats that only a real doorstopper can pull off: the impression of having seen a social world complete that one gets from the best of the nineteenth-century novels is something that just isn’t possible in a few hundred pages. The sense of an almost panoptic imagination that you get from [George Eliot's] Middlemarch, say, seeing into every heart, understanding every stratum of society and how they mesh together, is an endeavor that takes time, and quite a few pages.

I admit that I used to be put off by long novels (and, to some degree, I still am), but no one ever said reading should be instantly gratifying. That’s not to say that this doesn’t occur—the New York Times besteller list is full of fast-food novels. Sure, the monsters of literature are intimidating, but there’s a certain thrill to be had from reading a book that you don’t want to end. I’m all for speed-dating supermodels on occasion—I’m going to start Scott Smith’s The Ruins in a day or two—and I think balance is important; for me, a little dose of escapism does a lot to keep reading enjoyable. I’m not in college anymore, so I’m under no obligation to read what others think I should. But it’s fun to leave the comfort zone, to dive into something that’s intimidating, that may piss me off and test my patience before finally revealing itself. The most interesting part of any fulfilling relationship is learning about your partner and the great book is no different—she requires a bit of effort before you finally get her bra off, but the return is oh-so-lovely.

If I’d read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in high school, I doubt I would’ve loved it (and my disinterest in the book is what prompted me to skip it), nor would I have been able to appreciate the richness of Steinbeck’s setting and the themes that he touches on. It’s easy to see why the book would be assigned to high school students in the first place: Steinbeck’s writing is simple, befitting a ninth-grade reading level, and the book is very short, running at around one hundred pages.

Of Mice and Men is one of those rare novels that made me tune out the real world, that immersed me so completely in the setting that I almost felt as though I was really visiting a ranch in 1930s California. Steinbeck’s prose is unobtrusive and free of eye-popping similes (probably the result of his journalistic background), yet it’s also rich in detail and fits perfectly with the simplicity of the story.

The bunkhouse was a long, rectangular building. Inside, the walls were whitewashed and the floor unpainted. In three walls there were small, square windows, and in the fourth, a solid door with a square latch. Against the walls were eight bunks, five of them made up with blankets and the other three showing their burlap ticking. Over each bunk there was nailed an applebox with the opening forward so that it made two shelves for the personal belongings of the occupant of the bunk. And these shelves were loaded with little articles, soap and talcum powder, razors and those Western magazines men like to read and scoff at and secretly believe. …

On the surface, Of Mice and Men is about the uncommon (or maybe it’s all-too-common) friendship between two men, both of whom couldn’t live without each other. George is the perceptive and exasperated father figure, while Lennie is the gentle giant with a love for furry animals and a tendency to forget specific events (though he has no problem remembering everything George tells him). Together, they arrive at a ranch in Soledad, California during the Great Depression, with the intention of “pulling a stake,” then heading out to—well, they’ve never been quite sure where they’re going, but they’ll know it when they get there. And when they do, they’re going to “live off the fatta the lan’.”

Like Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men is an undeniably American novel, from its rustic setting to the character’s nicknames to the dialect of each character’s speech.

They sat by the fire and filled their mouths with beans and chewed mightily. A few beans slipped out of the side of Lennie’s mouth. George gestured with his spoon. “What you gonna say when the boss asks you questions?”

Lennie stopped chewing and swallowed. His face was concentrated. “I … I ain’t gonna … say a word.”

“Good boy! That’s fine, Lennie! Maybe you’re gettin’ better. When we get the coupla acres I can let you tend the rabbits all right. ‘Specially if you remember as good as that.”

Lennie choked with pride. “I can remember,” he said.

George motioned with his spoon again. “Look, Lennie. I want you to look around here. You can remember this place, can’t you? The ranch is about a quarter mile up that way. Just follow the river?”

“Sure,” said Lennie. “I can remember this. Di’n't I remember about not gonna say a word?”

“‘Course you did. Well, look. Lennie—if you jus’ happen to get in trouble like you always done before, I want you to come right here an’ hide in the brush.”

Like much of Steinbeck’s work in the 1930s, Of Mice and Men is about the working class—that poor, uneducated group who struggled to make ends meet during the Depression—but it’s also an intimate and moving examination of friendship, hope, commitment, and loneliness. George and Lennie have petty arguments and George knows his life would be much easier if he didn’t have to look after Lennie. They have a complex relationship: George stays with Lennie partly out of pity and partly out of obligation, but as this novel beautifully illustrates, the bonds of friendship aren’t easily broken.

Thursday marks the tenth anniversary of World Book Day, so hie thee to the website, then click here to submit your own list of the ten books you can’t live without.

This pretty much sums up my reaction to this.

Too girly for a man?

Doing English at university, my first ever seminar began with the tutor asking each of us in turn about the latest book we had read. I have no recollection what I said, but I do remember that, much to the horror of the rest of the group, one boy volunteered [Helen Fielding's] Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Not only was this a brave thing to have admitted, but the fact that he had opened a book aimed unashamedly at the female market was, as I now realize, a complete and utter miracle.

A male friend admitted to me over the weekend that although he has wanted to read Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, he has felt unable to buy it and couldn’t imagine reading it in public because the title is “too girly” (I might add that this man is over thirty). Or take another example, when my brother desperately turned to me in an airport bookshop for emergency reading matter, just as the loudspeaker announced our final flight call. I grabbed two that I thought he might enjoy, held them either side of my face and speedily summarized them to aid his choice. Instinctively, he was unconvinced by either. Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and [Alice Walker's] The Color Purple are both guilty of possessing names that are also deemed “too girly.”

I’ve never had a problem reading “girly” books—need I mention my obsession with Jane Austen?—nor have I ever worried about my masculinity being compromised simply for reading a book that might be deemed “feminine.” Perfume is actually on my wishlist, as is Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders and Jude Morgan’s Indiscretion. And I’ve never even been embarrassed to read a girly book in public—I can think of more embarrassing books a man could be caught reading.

A lot of people seem to be marriage-minded this week: Nonfiction Readers Anonymous has been writing about marriage memoirs and I, of course, wrote a review of Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, which is about marriage (or, to be a little bit more accurate, life after marriage). Then, when I give it a bit of thought, it seems to me that most of the bloggers I read regularly are married; I can only think of four people, myself included, who aren’t married. And now Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History, weighs in with an article that will either depress you or make you feel good about yourself—or maybe it’ll just confirm what married people have always known.

Pity the overschooled old maid and the lonely career woman. Highly educated or high-achieving women are less likely to marry and have children than other women. If they do marry, they are more likely to divorce. Even if they don’t divorce, their marriages will be less happy. And, oh, yes, they’ll be sexually frustrated, too.

These maxims, widely accepted for at least two centuries, are bad news for a state so focused on brainy pursuits. Thirty-five percent of Massachusetts women twenty-five and older have a bachelor’s degree or more, a level of educational attainment almost ten points higher than the national average. So perhaps it follows that twenty-eight percent of women in the state have never been married. Massachusetts’s proportion of never-married females is the third highest in the nation, topped only by the District of Columbia and the state of New York. But are these women really educating themselves out of the marriage market? If a woman reads Proust or computes calculus, is she unable to attract a mate?

Conventional wisdom says the answer to both questions is yes. But a close look at the historical transformation of marriage in America suggests that educated women now have a surprising advantage when it comes to matrimony.

[...]

… Educated men and women are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than others. And guess what? They have better sex lives, too. According to sociologist Virginia Rutter of Framingham State College, surveys show that educated couples engage in more variety in their sex lives. They are, for example, more likely to participate in oral sex and educated women are more likely to receive oral sex as well as perform it. “Education breaks down gender taboos that can be at the heart of a lot of sexual disappointments,” notes Rutter, “and education helps men in particular to loosen up sexually.” Educated husbands are also more likely to help with housework, which turns out to be a potent aphrodisiac. Psychologist John Gottman, professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle, found that when men do more housework, their wives are more likely to be “in the mood” for sex.

Interesting, yes?

Though it’s written in the style of countless pulp science fiction novels of the forties and fifties, Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is more impressive and thought-provoking than one might think. Forget about the movie adaptation of the same name; there are precious few battle scenes in the novel. Even the Bugs don’t figure heavily in the plot. Light on hard science and even lighter on characterization, Starship Troopers instead follows Johnnie Rico as he’s put through “the toughest boot camp in the universe.”

Readers familiar with Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game will recognize many of the themes presented in Starship Troopers. The book is very philosophical, examining why mankind fights, the value of human life, and why democracy is such a flawed enterprise. But, unlike Ender’s Game, the book stays fun and fast-paced throughout, largely due to Heinlein’s hard-boiled writing style. The book isn’t always timeless—it was originally published in 1959, so Heinlein’s critique of communism doesn’t seem as pressing as it may have been during the Cold War—but no matter: the story and its themes work wonderfully, and in Heinlein’s hands, everything is nicely balanced without becoming overbearing or preachy. Whether it’s read as a science fiction story, a satire on fascism, or a critique of democracy’s failings, Starship Troopers is a great introduction to Heinlein’s fiction.

When I was in high school, I would’ve proclaimed Stephen King as the greatest writer who ever lived. I devoured all his books (with the exception of The Talisman, which I never finished, and The Eyes of the Dragon, which I’ve never been interested in) in a few short years, often reading one after the other. King’s books were the first truly adult novels I ever read and they probably did more to keep me out of trouble than any high school D.A.R.E. program. I was more interested in finishing one of his books than smoking weed or—yes, it’s true—dating.

But Lisey’s Story, King’s latest novel, has convinced me that I’ve finally outgrown my first literary hero (though I remember my interest in him waning around the time I read From a Buick 8).

Sure, Lisey’s Story has been touted as highbrow and literary, but make no mistake: this is undeniably King, with his trademark prose style and supernatural touches. Highbrow? Hardly. Literary? Only if you measure it by King’s standards. Almost everyone knows that he’s never been an expert wordsmith. But King’s always been the first to admit that he’s not a great writer: in the “Author’s Statement” of Lisey’s Story, he writes, “[M]uch here is heartfelt, very little is clever.” In that respect, Lisey’s Story may be King’s most personal novel (though arguments could be made for The Shining and Bag of Bones). It’s not difficult to imagine Lisey’s Story as being a love letter to his wife.

My indifference towards the book comes from the fact that King, unlike past novels, doesn’t seem to be having much fun this time around, and worse, he seems to be trying too hard to write a serious novel. The end result is a book that’s so self-conscious it’s awkward. (I had to fight the temptation to start ripping pages from the book every time a character said bad gunky.)

I’ll admit that I’ve never been in love, nor have any of my relationships have lasted long enough to merit languages of their own, so I can’t relate to Scott and Lisey’s love language—from my perspective, their personal language was unimpressive and even distracting at times. (I’ve seen my mom and my stepfather speaking in a language known only to them, so I’m not completely ignorant of things like this.) And it’s difficult to discern the point of the book. King strings out several plotlines, none of which have anything to do with the overall story. Which begs the question: is there a story to this book, or is King just revealing a slice of married life that only married couples would understand?

Sure, all the characters in Lisey’s Story are well-developed (and character development, along with acute observation, are King’s best gifts as an author), but I couldn’t help feeling as though I was on the outside looking in. Lisey and Scott are two of King’s strongest characters in recent memory, but I can’t empathize with Lisey’s overall situation: I’ve never been married, much less to a bestselling, award-winning author. I’ve never bought into emotional manipulation too easily; Lisey’s Story tries to be a heartfelt book, but the awkwardness of Scott and Lisey’s language kills any emotion it may have had.

Let’s get back into the rhythym, shall we?

Having no computer since Valentine’s Day certainly does wonders for your reading life: I managed to finish Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story while getting good jumps on Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (the latter of which I hope to finish by tonight, if not tomorrow).

Of course, the irony of not having much to blog about, after three days of being cut off from the online world, hasn’t escaped me. But blogging was becoming more of a chore, especially since I was forcing myself to post everyday, even when I didn’t want to. But it was nice having some time away, even if it was unplanned. Maybe I’ll just follow Grumpy Old Bookman’s example and blog only when I feel like it.

The Guardian’s book blog gives a round-up of some fiction’s finest depictions of illness, both physical and mental.

There are those who purposefully push themselves past their limits, like silly Marianne of [Jane Austen's] Sense and Sensibility, beset with longing, racing through the rain until lovesickness becomes actual sickness. Then there are those for whom diseases come for no rhyme or reason—Tiny Tim’s beatific suffering in [Charles Dickens's] A Christmas Carol, or the slackening of body and mind through Alzheimer’s in Louise Dean’s splendid Becoming Strangers (nominated for the Guardian’s first book award).

It’s an interesting topic, but I can’t help but feel a little let down with some of the choices: readers’ comments on the best depictions of illness are more interesting than the post itself. I’d toss in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which showed serious mental illness as most people might imagine it to be: frightening, confusing, and distressing in its calm irrationality. As for physical illness, I don’t think you can get much sicker than Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone; Ebola is one of the scariest viruses ever and Preston’s nonfiction book depicts it in all its stomach-churning glory. I’m also tempted to mention Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but it’s been so long since I’ve read it that I can’t even remember much about it. Does having a god complex count as mental illness?