The Berlin Stories

The Berlin Stories
by Christopher Isherwood
read: 2015
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

There's not really a plot to The Berlin Stories, which is a series of short semi-autobiographical tales set in Berlin in the 1930's: instead, the tales are more about the the setting of the city itself and the characters that expatriate Isherwood (and his alter ego William Bradshaw) encounters in his semi-idle adventures. The Nazis are taking over Germany, which directly affects some of the Isherwood's friends, but for most of the people it's just background for their affairs, crimes, scandals, and insecurities. His famous "I am a camera" line has mostly been interpreted as Isherwood serving as a silent, non-participating observer, but it also reflects his unbiased eye: even when the narrator is personally hurt by Arthur Norris' machinations and Sally Bowles' capriciousness, he still sees their good points as well as their faults.

Three Paradoxes

Three Paradoxes
by Paul Hornschemeier
read: 2015
Guardian 1000 Novels

My introduction to Paul Hornschemeier is through the Comedy Bang Bang title credits and accordingly I expected a humorous air to Three Paradoxes. It does have some funny parts - like the ancient philosophers making fun of Zeno's titular paradoxes - but mostly it plays things straight as a low-key, introspective, wistful, semi-autobiographical piece. Hornschemeier uses a variety of different artistic styles for different sections, from realistic to cartoon-strip, showing a real mastery of the form.

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
read: 2015
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #65, Guardian 1000 Novels

I've wanted to read A Clockwork Orange since college, or maybe even since high school, and in hindsight I probably should have read it earlier. The autonomy theme is similar to Brave New World, which was a favorite of mind, but as I get older the idea that we can create Pavlovian associations that make criminals not want to get commit crime sounds pretty good, and frankly more humane than prison.

I thought the slang would be annoying, but I caught on pretty quickly and it really added to the feel of the story. To the extent I don't understand Alex, I think that's part of the point.

Possession

Possession
by A.S. Byatt
read: 2015
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels, Man Booker Prize

Possession is full of layers of metafiction. The text is mostly present-day narrative, but also contains letters, diary entries, and poems. For the most part, we are confined to what the characters in present uncover when investigating the mysteries of the past, but there are a handful of occasions where Byatt introduces a narrative account of the past that cannot be known to the present-day characters.

Roland and many of the other characters are literary scholars and are conscious of how the elements in their lives mirror literary themes. "He was in a Romance, a vulgar and a high Romance simultaneously; a Romance was one of the systems that controlled him," Roland realizes.

The novel is deep enough to invite literary scrutiny, but at the same time it is a comment on the limitations of such scrutiny. Roland thinks he understands Ash, but when he finds Ash's love letters to Christabel he realizes he was missed an aspect of his personality. Similarly, the thrust of the scholarship around Christabel's work assumes lesbian themes, and when it's discovered she had an affair with Ash it changes the interpretations of her work. We are also limited to what is preserved for posterity, as items are never recorded or destroyed. The novel begins with Roland discovering a letter that was never sent, and ends with all the characters opening a letter that was never read.

I feel compelled to mention the final scene. It was uplifting that Ash knew of his child and kept a lock of her hair forever, but that meant that Christabel needlessly carried the guilt of not telling Ash for the rest of her life. The situation was bound to be hopeful in some measure and tragic in some measure, and it is little surprise that the woman suffers more.