Monday, February 10, 2014
Classics Club Spin: Zamyatin's We
The number was posted on the Classics Club website today: 20. That corresponds to Yevgeny Zamyatin's book, We on my spin list. I'm looking forward to it. I've read several utopian/dystopian novels, but this one I've neglected.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's Autobiography of a Corpse
I wanted to love this book, really. It's a collection of short stories written by a Kyiv-born author in the 1920s and 1930s, so the irrational side of me that wants to celebrate all things Ukrainian right now was prepared to drive this review. Unfortunately, the uneven quality of the stories leads me to write a different kind of review than I had intended.
Krzhizhanovsky offers a number of interesting scenarios and ideas in the stories, but in several stories he doesn't develop them in a way that grabs the reader and keeps him or her interested. The opening story "Autobiography of a Corpse" is a curious tale about a man who rents a small room and soon after receives a manuscript (left at his door anonymously) that is an autobiographical account of the life of the person who lived in the room before the current tenant. The story works, primarily because Krzhizhanovsky creates an interesting tension between the tenant and the narrator of the autobiography. Other stories in the collection don't work as well. The premises of "The Runaway Fingers" (the hand of a concert pianist escapes from his arm and flees down the street) and "Yellow Coal" (a man discovers that anger can be turned into an alternative energy source) are intriguing, but not, in the end, compelling.
Krzhizhanovsky offers a number of interesting scenarios and ideas in the stories, but in several stories he doesn't develop them in a way that grabs the reader and keeps him or her interested. The opening story "Autobiography of a Corpse" is a curious tale about a man who rents a small room and soon after receives a manuscript (left at his door anonymously) that is an autobiographical account of the life of the person who lived in the room before the current tenant. The story works, primarily because Krzhizhanovsky creates an interesting tension between the tenant and the narrator of the autobiography. Other stories in the collection don't work as well. The premises of "The Runaway Fingers" (the hand of a concert pianist escapes from his arm and flees down the street) and "Yellow Coal" (a man discovers that anger can be turned into an alternative energy source) are intriguing, but not, in the end, compelling.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Tova Mirvis' Visible City
Tova Mirvis' new novel shows the reader New York City from a different angle: we get glimpses into the unseen and hidden city. Through the eyes of the novel's main center of consciousness, Nina, we see the lives of apartment dwellers behind the personae they take on for their daily confrontations with a chaotic, hostile city. Nina spends much of the first half of the novel looking into the windows of her neighbors across the street and trying to imagine the lives they lead. As the novel progresses, Nina moves from spectator to actor, but others explore what's hidden beneath the city's, and their own, exteriors. Hidden and walled up spaces become the focus of attention, and Mirvis develops a picture of the city as a palimpsest. As the cityscape evolves, it covers over what has been there, but fragments of the past are occasionally visible.
Closed subway stations, for example, don't disappear, they are locked up and are transformed into time capsules. These moments in the novel remind me, strangely, of the way the abandoned city of Pripyat in Ukraine, which housed the families of those who worked at Chernobyl, was frozen in time at the moment when the residents were evacuated after the meltdown. To see the images of Pripyat is to see the outlines of Soviet life as it was in 1986. When Jeremy, Nina's husband, sees the closed City Hall station, he, too, sees a snapshot of New York in the early 20th century. These places may decay, but they continue to be part of the cityscape, however obstructed from view they might be.
Mirvis is a sharp-eyed observer of city life, but more than this, she understands what I think is a fundamental truth about cities: that there is not a unified idea of "The City," but rather 10 million ideas and definitions of the city. In a passage where Nina and Leon, her neighbor across the street, are walking along Broadway, Mirvis explains this succinctly:
“They walked quickly. Leon had no need to look at the signs to know which block they were on. The Victoria’s Secret on 85th Street jarred with his inner map, and for those who’d lived here long enough, the storefront with the pink-and-white-striped awning and lingerie-clad mannequins would always be Broadway Farm. All those who lived here crafted their own internal rendering of the city based on how long they’d been here. He too carried his own version of the neighborhood—he’d grown up on the West Side and remembered when it had boasted one of the city’s highest crime rates” (37-38).
I grew up in Manhattan, and went to high school on the upper West Side. Throughout my teenage years, I walked frequently through the spaces Mirvis describes. What I realized, as I got deeper into the novel, was that I was constantly comparing my own "internal rendering" of the city to the one Mirvis creates. The results of the comparison reminded me that I'm not a "New Yorker" (and I think the novel implicitly challenges the idea that that category even exists), but rather a New Yorker from the 1980s and early 1990s.
New York in 2014 is familiar, but much of it has been radically transformed and is unrecognizable. The most obvious example is Times Square. Someone who grew up in midtown Manhattan in the late 70s and early 80s, as I did, and returning to it for the first time in 2014, would see a space configured in a completely different way. The sight of Toys 'R Us on 44th and Broadway is surreal and disorienting--can this really be Times Square?
But back to the novel. Mirvis develops characters who are interesting and who we care about. She describes the feelings of the people who inhabit the novel, and their encounters with New York, in a convincing way. In this regard, the novel rings true. My one criticism of the novel is that the circle of acquaintances, and the way they tie neatly together, feels contrived at times. Individual New York streets and apartment buildings are indeed micro-communities, but I think the novel stretched this beyond what seems likely or possible.
On the whole, Mirvis does an exceptional job of capturing New York City from the inside out. It is a carefully crafted novel that is a delight to read.
Closed subway stations, for example, don't disappear, they are locked up and are transformed into time capsules. These moments in the novel remind me, strangely, of the way the abandoned city of Pripyat in Ukraine, which housed the families of those who worked at Chernobyl, was frozen in time at the moment when the residents were evacuated after the meltdown. To see the images of Pripyat is to see the outlines of Soviet life as it was in 1986. When Jeremy, Nina's husband, sees the closed City Hall station, he, too, sees a snapshot of New York in the early 20th century. These places may decay, but they continue to be part of the cityscape, however obstructed from view they might be.
Mirvis is a sharp-eyed observer of city life, but more than this, she understands what I think is a fundamental truth about cities: that there is not a unified idea of "The City," but rather 10 million ideas and definitions of the city. In a passage where Nina and Leon, her neighbor across the street, are walking along Broadway, Mirvis explains this succinctly:
“They walked quickly. Leon had no need to look at the signs to know which block they were on. The Victoria’s Secret on 85th Street jarred with his inner map, and for those who’d lived here long enough, the storefront with the pink-and-white-striped awning and lingerie-clad mannequins would always be Broadway Farm. All those who lived here crafted their own internal rendering of the city based on how long they’d been here. He too carried his own version of the neighborhood—he’d grown up on the West Side and remembered when it had boasted one of the city’s highest crime rates” (37-38).
I grew up in Manhattan, and went to high school on the upper West Side. Throughout my teenage years, I walked frequently through the spaces Mirvis describes. What I realized, as I got deeper into the novel, was that I was constantly comparing my own "internal rendering" of the city to the one Mirvis creates. The results of the comparison reminded me that I'm not a "New Yorker" (and I think the novel implicitly challenges the idea that that category even exists), but rather a New Yorker from the 1980s and early 1990s.
New York in 2014 is familiar, but much of it has been radically transformed and is unrecognizable. The most obvious example is Times Square. Someone who grew up in midtown Manhattan in the late 70s and early 80s, as I did, and returning to it for the first time in 2014, would see a space configured in a completely different way. The sight of Toys 'R Us on 44th and Broadway is surreal and disorienting--can this really be Times Square?
But back to the novel. Mirvis develops characters who are interesting and who we care about. She describes the feelings of the people who inhabit the novel, and their encounters with New York, in a convincing way. In this regard, the novel rings true. My one criticism of the novel is that the circle of acquaintances, and the way they tie neatly together, feels contrived at times. Individual New York streets and apartment buildings are indeed micro-communities, but I think the novel stretched this beyond what seems likely or possible.
On the whole, Mirvis does an exceptional job of capturing New York City from the inside out. It is a carefully crafted novel that is a delight to read.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Classics Club Spin List
This is my first time participating in the Classics Club "Spin," and below I've included my spin list. It's pretty straightforward: next week, the Club will pick a number between 1 and 20. We then have to read the book that corresponds to that number on our spin lists by April 2.
| 1 | Boswell, James | The Life of Samuel Johnson |
| 2 | Bunyan, John | Pilgrim's Progress |
| 3 | Dickens, Charles | Great Expectations |
| 4 | Dos Passos, John | Manhattan Transfer |
| 5 | Eliot, George | Romola |
| 6 | Faulkner, William | Absalom! Absalom! |
| 7 | Forster, E. M. | A Passage to India |
| 8 | Gissing, George | New Grub Street |
| 9 | Gogol, Nikolai | Dead Souls |
| 10 | Greene, Graham | The Quiet American |
| 11 | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | The Marble Faun |
| 12 | Heller, Joseph | Catch-22 |
| 13 | James, Henry | Sacred Fount |
| 14 | Lessing, Doris | The Golden Notebook |
| 15 | Mahfouz, Naguib | Palace Walk |
| 16 | Steinbeck, John | The Grapes of Wrath |
| 17 | Stendhal | Charterhouse of Parma |
| 18 | Stoker, Bram | Dracula |
| 19 | Trollope, Anthony | Barchester Towers |
| 20 | Zamiatin, Yevgeny | We |
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Anatoli Rybakov's Fear
Fear is the second
novel in the Anatoli Rybakov’s “Arbat” trilogy, and after reading more than
1,200 pages about these characters (Children
of the Arbat is the first), I’m eager to read the third.
What demonstrates Rybakov’s brilliance as a writer is the
way he creates a story that moves along briskly, compelling the reader to push
on, while simultaneously making us feel like the world is grinding to a halt
for every character. The reader feels
trapped and suffocated while reading Fear. At every turn, we feel the Soviet system
blocking off another avenue that might have enabled a character to start leading
a normal life. We also come to feel, as
we read, as if every conversation between every character is potentially the
one that will lead to an arrest and ultimately either a prison sentence or
death.
Rybakov creates characters that we come to know well, and who
we come to care about. We want them to
survive, to find a measure of freedom and relief from fear, and to have the
luxury of imagining a long life. But throughout,
we know that can’t happen in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and so part of the
experience of reading the novel is trying to figure out not if, but for what, the
characters will ultimately be arrested.
Rybakov adds Stalin as a character; it’s an interesting experiment that works. How can one imagine the workings of a mind like Stalin’s? Not easily, of course, but the effort is worth making. It brings out pointedly the utter lack of humanity in Stalin by showing him dealing with individuals—the manipulation, the complete lack of candor, and the clear sense that the slightest action or even movement can lead to one’s death. (At one point in the novel, Stalin orders the execution of one of his clerks because he thought the clerk was scorning the way Stalin was treating a document.)
Fear is a grim
novel, and there’s not much hope in the end.
Reading it in the 21st century, we know that WWII is coming, and that the
Soviet world will get worse before it gets better after 1953, when Stalin
dies. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling,
brilliant novel.
Winter's Respite read-a-athon final results
I finished strong this weekend, reading around 470 pages in Fear and a new ARC, Visible City. I'm very pleased generally with the results of the week:
Total pages read: 680
Number of books finished: 0
I didn't finish either of the two big books I was working on, but I did get through about 500 pages of Fear. I also read a 300-page chunk of Fear in one day (which is a lot of pages for me), and have had a very different reading experience with that novel. It's a big Russian novel from the Soviet period, and there are lots of narrative threads to follow. Reading so much of the novel in one day helped me piece together all the threads and their place in the larger narrative.
The experience of this read-a-thon was really positive. I was keenly aware late last week that I was not able to read much, and that the clock was ticking on the read-a-thon. I didn't feel the time pressure in a negative way, but rather as a gentle prod to keep reading. When the weekend came, I knew exactly what I was going to do: read as much as possible. Instead of getting distracted by watching live feeds from Kyiv, or watching a terrible Super Bowl, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday focused on reading. That's where the longer read-a-thon was a good thing for me. It gave me a clear sense of how to use my spare time this week, and as a result I wasted less of it.
I'm grateful to the truebookaddict for hosting this challenge. It was great fun, and I look forward to the next one. Actually, I would love to apply the same discipline of the read-a-thon week to every one of my reading week
Total pages read: 680
Number of books finished: 0
I didn't finish either of the two big books I was working on, but I did get through about 500 pages of Fear. I also read a 300-page chunk of Fear in one day (which is a lot of pages for me), and have had a very different reading experience with that novel. It's a big Russian novel from the Soviet period, and there are lots of narrative threads to follow. Reading so much of the novel in one day helped me piece together all the threads and their place in the larger narrative.
The experience of this read-a-thon was really positive. I was keenly aware late last week that I was not able to read much, and that the clock was ticking on the read-a-thon. I didn't feel the time pressure in a negative way, but rather as a gentle prod to keep reading. When the weekend came, I knew exactly what I was going to do: read as much as possible. Instead of getting distracted by watching live feeds from Kyiv, or watching a terrible Super Bowl, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday focused on reading. That's where the longer read-a-thon was a good thing for me. It gave me a clear sense of how to use my spare time this week, and as a result I wasted less of it.
I'm grateful to the truebookaddict for hosting this challenge. It was great fun, and I look forward to the next one. Actually, I would love to apply the same discipline of the read-a-thon week to every one of my reading week
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Last day of Winter Respite Read-a-thon
One day left!
Saturday was a great day of reading--I pushed through a lot of Fear, and also started an excellent new novel by Tova Mirvis, Visible City. I plan to write reviews of both in the next couple of days and post them here.
Here's the rundown for the read-a-thon so far:
Totals through Saturday night
Total Books Finished: 0
Total Pages Read: 520
Monday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 110
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update:
What I'm currently reading: Third Reich at War; Fear
Tuesday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 160
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 50
What I'm currently reading: Third Reich at War; Fear
Wednesday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 160
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 0
What I'm currently reading:
Thursday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 190
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 30
What I'm currently reading: Fear
Friday
Total Books Read:0
Total Pages Read: 210
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 20
What I'm currently reading: Fear
Saturday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 520
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 310
What I'm currently reading: Fear; Visible City
Sunday
Total Books Read:
Total Pages Read:
Books Read Since Last Update:
Pages Read since last update:
What I'm currently reading:
Saturday was a great day of reading--I pushed through a lot of Fear, and also started an excellent new novel by Tova Mirvis, Visible City. I plan to write reviews of both in the next couple of days and post them here.
Here's the rundown for the read-a-thon so far:
Totals through Saturday night
Total Books Finished: 0
Total Pages Read: 520
Monday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 110
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update:
What I'm currently reading: Third Reich at War; Fear
Tuesday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 160
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 50
What I'm currently reading: Third Reich at War; Fear
Wednesday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 160
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 0
What I'm currently reading:
Thursday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 190
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 30
What I'm currently reading: Fear
Friday
Total Books Read:0
Total Pages Read: 210
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 20
What I'm currently reading: Fear
Saturday
Total Books Read: 0
Total Pages Read: 520
Books Read Since Last Update: 0
Pages Read since last update: 310
What I'm currently reading: Fear; Visible City
Sunday
Total Books Read:
Total Pages Read:
Books Read Since Last Update:
Pages Read since last update:
What I'm currently reading:
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