The Magus

The Magus
by John Fowles
read: 2019
Modern Library #93, Guardian 1000 Novels

I haven't been blogging much over the last year-plus because I haven't been reading much. I had a lot of space in my life a few years ago to read, between not having kids, long train rides, etc. That's not to make excuses; I just need to do a better job carving out time to read, and I haven't done it. And there haven't been too many books that grabbed me and insisted I not put them down.

Until The Magus, that is. Some of it was circumstance, having time off around the holiday, but some of it was a just ludicrous insane plot that kept me wondering and guessing through the end of the novel and beyond.

At some level, I was aware I was being manipulated, not unlike protagonist Nicholas Urfe. The older, mysterious Maurice Conchis, the titular "Magus," embroils Nicholas in a series of situations where it's unclear who people are, what they want, who is in league with whom, etc. It became nearly impossible to track the lies, double-crosses, alliances, and identity switches that comprised the bulk of the novel. This manipulation wreaks havoc with Nicholas. At some point, I realized that author John Fowles was manipulating me, the reader, in the same fashion. If Nicholas had any self-respect, I thought, he would end this insane pursuit. But then, I wasn't stopping reading, was I?

When I wrote about The French Lieutenant's Woman, the other Fowles novel I've read, I criticized the ambiguous ending as a cop-out. In The Magus, Fowles explains his preference for ambiguous endings, and it makes a lot of sense:

An ending is no more than a point in sequence, a snip of the cutting shears. Benedrick kissed Beatrice at least; but ten years later? And Elsinore, the following spring?

White Noise

White Noise
by Don DeLillo
read: 2019
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels, National Book Award

White Noise is fundamentally concerned with the human fear of death. Jack Gladney is obsessed with it, and he finds his wife Babette—whom he had assumed was too full of everyday concerns to similarly obsess about it—feels the same. Despite Gladney's career success and the variety of situations with his blended family and many children, death is never far from his mind.

I kept waiting for Gladney's friend Murray Jay Siskind to emerge as some sort of passive-aggressive villain, but he never really did—or did he? He does advise Gladney that to kill is to act counter to death, which isn't really great advice.

A Handful of Dust

A Handful of Dust
by Evelyn Waugh
read: 2019
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #34, Guardian 1000 Novels

I'll probably never think of the phrase "hard cheese" the same way again.

The tonal shifts in A Handful of Dust are pretty jarring; there's a lot of comedy, and also some very, very tragic events that are presented with the blackest of humor.

A Rage in Harlem

A Rage in Harlem
by Chester Himes
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels

A Rage in Harlem hits the ground running and never really lets up. I found myself thinking, "this would make a great movie." Then I realized that it was made into a movie in 1991; the novel was originally named For the Love of Imabelle and then re-marketed under the current title to match the film. I'll have to check it out.

Hellboy

Hellboy
by Mike Mignola
read: 2018

I worked my way through the complete Hellboy story arc on Comixology last year and loved the blend of X-Files meets classic mythology meets Indiana Jones. I also thought of H.P. Lovecraft and how his heroes all descended into madness when confronted with the evil alien world that exists in parallel to our own. Who could withstand such knowledge without succumbing to insanity? Mike Mignola's answer is a demon with a heart of gold and a fist of stone, a fist that is prophesied to bring on armageddon. He smokes, he cracks wise, he does dumb stuff sometimes, but he is as heroic as any character in fiction.

The Courtyard; Neonomicon; Providence

The Courtyard
Neonomicon
Providence
by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows
read: 2018

The Courtyard, Neonomicon, and Providence are three series that stand on their own but also tell a connected story (with the first 10 issues of Providence a prequel to the events of Courtyard / Neonomicon and the final two the story's conclusion). Moore has written some of the most brilliant comics (or writing in any medium, really) I've read, and he weaves together H.P. Lovecraft's work with other dark occult fiction. It was fun to read through and spot allusions to various stories and works.

There are some problematic elements. Lovecraft's stories often had racist undertones and Moore integrates that aspect in some of his characters. There is a fair amount of sex in Neonomicon and Providence, which is partly a reaction to the conspicuous lack of sex in Lovecraft's work, but the amount of rape and the treatment of rape are troubling. It's a work of horror, so there are going to be a lot of disturbing elements, but both the representation of sexual assault and the characters' reactions to it bothered me. That didn't stop me from enjoying the rest of the story, but I would have reservations recommending these works on those grounds.

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize

I read this partially while in New Orleans, and it was fun to spot the novel's places as I went, particularly when Ignatius was hawking hot dogs in the French Quarter. It's a silly novel with a nonsense plot that somehow all ties together. Some of the scenarios were laugh-out-loud funny. But the unusual circumstances of the book's publishing history - Toole committed suicide some years before it saw the light of day - also bring emphasis to a sad undercurrent in the novel. The book ends on something of a high note, but it's easy to imagine Ignatius squandering his good fortune in short order.

The Awakening

The Awakening
by Kate Chopin
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels

I read this in preparation for a trip to New Orleans. The novel caught a little of that city's flavor but was mostly set in the vacation area Grand Isle. I'm sympathetic to the idea Edna Pontellier felt that she couldn't be her authentic self, but her circumstances and actions are hard to relate to more than a hundred years after the novel was first published. It probably doesn't help that I'm a man, either.

The Painted Bird

The Painted Bird
by Jerzy Kosinski
read: 2018
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

One of my friends opines that novels considered literature are invariably depressing. That is definitely the case with The Painted Bird, whose protagonist is a young boy sent away by his parents during the spread of Nazi Germany's power. He throws himself on the mercy of various peasant villages he finds, invariably suffering abuse, indignities, and misery as he goes. Eventually, only at the age of 10 or so, he learns that the world is governed by a heartless code:

From the moment of signing a pact with the Devil, the more harm, misery, injury, and bitterness a man could inflict on those around him, the more help he could expect. If he shrank from inflicting harm on others, if he succumbed to emotions of love, friendship, and compassion, he would immediately become weaker and his own life would have to absorb the suffering and defeats that he spared others.

Much of his journey involves attempting to make sense of the world through this kind of pattern recognition. Ultimately, he finds little purpose or meaning. The encounters he has harden him into a cold, terrifying youth of the streets. On paper, the story has a happy ending, but it feels as bleak and pessimistic as any novel I've read.

The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels

I live in an old house, so some of the descriptions in The Haunting of Hill House hit close to home. Inexplicable doors, rooms that aren't quite square leading to a disoriented mental map, bizarre decorating decisions - none of these are foreign to someone who loves old houses, just a bit exaggerated.

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

The psychology of the ending, too, rings true. The reader is left a little unclear how many of the events are actually happening and how much is in Eleanor's head; it's no wonder the main characters are also left with this question. That Mrs. Montague and Arthur experience no phenomena after arriving later suggests to the other three characters that everything might be in their imagination. And clearly, Eleanor was a little disturbed to begin with and her experiences at Hill House cause her to lose what grasp on reality she had. Careful recollection and examination would reveal that Luke, Dr. Montague, and Theodora had experiences that Eleanor cannot be blamed for ... but it is understandable that they do not want to recall and examine too closely, preferring to blame the crazy lady.