Death of the Heart

Death of the Heart
by Elizabeth Bowen
read: 2021
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #84, Guardian 1000 Novels

This one had a lot of British class stuff that I probably didn't pick up on fully. It was hard to sympathize with Portia's affection for Eddie, when he was so obviously a snake the whole time.

The Sportswriter

The Sportswriter
by Richard Ford
read: 2021
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

Ford sets The Sportswriter after a lot of the most critical events in the life of titular protagonist / narrator Frank Bascombe. Frank has gone from promising young writer to abandoning his fiction, from family man, to grieving father of a son struck down by untimely illness, to divorcée. The novel begins after all those events, with a protagonist who largely has come to terms with his tragedies and failures, and settled in comfortably to a life as a sportswriter in a New Jersey suburb.

Frank's maturity from life experience brings perspective as he navigates the events of the novel, as does the grounded reality of being a sportswriter. Late in the book, he sums things up with the observation "The only truth that can never be a lie, let me tell you, is life itself—the thing that happens."

The Forever War

 

  
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
read: 2021
Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award, Nebula Award

According to the Theory of Relativity, time moves differently for bodies traveling at different speeds. The difference is miniscule for bodies moving at planet-bound scales, but at faster-than-light speeds, this time dilation has a dramatic effect. That's the case for protagonist William Mandella, who returns centuries later to a very different earth after military tours of duty at far-flung planets. Sometimes the differences are good, usually they are bad, but always they are foreign and leave him feeling like a fish out of water.

This feeling pushes Mandella (and girlfriend Marygay) to re-enlist in the military, though he harbors no illusions about the morality of the army itself or the conflict he is embroiled in. Perhaps this is the only constant in Forever War: death is big business, and those who stand to profit off the war business have little consideration for the lives risked by those forced to wage those wars.

The Sot-Weed Factor

The Sot-Weed Factor
by John Barth
read: 2021
Time 100 Novels

This was a long, weird one. It was an entertaining read, and amusing at times with the distortions of historical events (like the "John Smith journals"). Some of the weird sex stuff, I dunno, I coulda done without.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

  
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Philip K. Dick
read: circa 2000
Guardian 1000 Novels

I read this back in college, but I had occasion to re-watch the movie adaptation (Blade Runner) again recently, as well as the belated sequel Blade Runner 2049. The latter movie got into the Dick-esque reality-bending mind-screwiness more than the former. 

Herzog

 

Herzog
by Saul Bellow
read: 2021
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

I got a sinking feeling about 2/3 of the way through that this was going to wind up being really dark. Instead it was sort of like The Corrections - more about a gradual realization than a big dramatic event. Would it have had deeper meaning for me if I had enough of a background in philosophy to appreciate a lot of the references that the titular Moses Herzog, an academic, makes? Maybe.

Rabbit, Run

  

Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

The canon of English-language literature is heavy on white dudes, and Rabbit, Run is one of the more white-dude-ier. Protagonist Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is married, with a good job, a son, and a baby on the way, but he's not happy, or something, so he just up and leaves. Is that compelling? Or is Rabbit just kind of an ass?

This Book Is Full of Spiders

 

This Book Is Full of Spiders
by David Wong
read: 2020

The sequel to John Dies at the End, This Book Is Full of Spiders has a more linear plot. There's still the combination of humor and horror present in the first book, but it loses a little bit of the madness of the original, where weird stuff came from everywhere unpredictably. But when I think about it, it's still pretty insane.

Brideshead Revisted

 

Brideshead Revisited
by Evelyn Waugh
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #80

I've read plenty of books with a protagonist of dubious moral quality: The Ginger Man, Money, and Under the Net come to mind. At first blush, Charles Ryder doesn't dabble in nearly the same level of depravity as the main characters of those works. Yes, he spends much of the novel's first half drunk and spending too much money, and the latter half of the book involves his adultery, but he's functional, prosperous, and well-liked.

The novel's ending makes clear that Charles has something missing, however. He's an avowed atheist and openly mocks the Catholic faith of the Flyte family. But the Flytes, who are on the surface even more flawed than Charles, find some redemption in their faith. Julia essentially commits the same sins as Charles (they have an affair) but she finds purpose in service through Catholicism. Sebastian, long lost abroad in alcoholism, finds some kind of symbiotic relationship with the church in North Africa. Even the physical chapel at Brideshead itself, long shuttered after the family matriarch's death, re-emerges in wartime. Charles will receive no such redemption, and by the novel's end, he knows it.

The Power and the Glory

 

The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

The Heart of the Matter was about Henry Scobie's gradual betrayal of nearly everything he holds dear, and Greene puts similar themes on display in The Power and the Glory. The novel follows a priest in Mexico on the run from a government suppressing the Catholic faith. He loses all the trappings of his office as he goes. A drunkard who once sired a daughter, the priest has crossed almost every line that exists. Despite that, he cannot give up his faith. He refuses to, like Padre Jose, take a wife and renounce the church, and he continues to put himself in danger by practicing his religion when he has the opportunity to flee to safer pastures. He's weak for his failings, but there's a kernel of resolve there too, or at least stubbornness.

Loving

Loving
by Henry Green
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #89

A couple of interesting things about Loving: While many novels, particularly British ones, during the class-divided era tend to focus more on the aristocracy, this one deals more with the servants of an Irish country house. The owners of the house remain aloof, even absconding to London for a significant stretch while the help runs things. Secondly, there are numerous plot threads that never really resolve: the missing ring, Mrs. Jack's affair, Albert joining the war, the dead peacock, etc. This seems deliberate rather than careless, but I'm not sure what it signifies.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
by Michael Chabon
read: 2004
Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize

I finished this one during an overnight layover at Heathrow Airport. Recommended for comic book fans.

Under the Net

Under the Net
by Iris Murdoch
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #95

There's a lot going on in Under the Net. Of the other novels I've read, I'd liken it most to The Ginger Man, also the work of an Irish author. Like Sebastian in that novel, Jake Donaghue stumbles from place-to-place and action-to-action with little intent and often seemingly without agency. Donaghue is pompous, self-centered, and lazy, but not as destructive as Sebastian. He starts the novel with no residence, no job, a decaying relationship, and very little motivation to improve his situation. On paper, things aren't a lot better at the end of the novel, but he's obtained a fresh outlook on things, with some promise for the future. And a dog.

John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End
by David Wong
read: 2020

Equal parts funny and disturbing. I didn't see the twist at the end coming despite the introduction foreshadowing it.

Candide

Candide
by Voltaire
read: ~1997
Guardian 1000 Novels

I read this back in high school and enjoyed it, though that was a while ago and I don't remember too much. "All that is very well, but let us cultivate our garden."

The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter
by Graham Greene
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #40

The story arc of The Heart of the Matter takes us through the betrayals, compromises, and infidelities of well-meaning Henry Scobie, as he betrays his job, his wife, his integrity, his religion, and his soul. Spoilers ahead.

Two themes stand out to me: one is the misery involved in the human condition. Scobie's daughter dies young. Scobie's wife Louise is unhappy, and when Scobie has an affair he finds his new mistress just as unhappy. Pemberton, a young soldier, commits suicide. A ship is sunk many die, including a young child who survives days of exposure at sea before finally succumbing. If there is a God, is He capriciously cruel?

Pointlessness is the other theme that stands out. Actions rarely have consequences. Wilson is investigating Scobie the whole time, but cannot pin anything on him even though Scobie eventually does help smugglers. Scobie fails to keep his affair secret, and his wife finds out, but it doesn't matter. Scobie is passed over for Commissioner, then gets the job, then doesn't wind up taking it. The one daring chance Scobie takes for Helen, writing her a letter, never reaches her. Scobie takes great pains to plan his suicide so it will be taken as a natural death, but Wilson finds him out. And even that suicide, which Scobie does with the understanding that it will damn his soul forever, may not condemn him in the end. On the book's final page, Louise talks to Father Rank, who tells her, "[D]on't imagine you—or I—know a thing about God's mercy ... The Church knows all the rules. But it doesn't know what goes on in a single human heart."

In light of these two themes, how do we judge Scobie? Does it matter that he tried to reduce the misery of others, at all turns, even at great cost? Does it matter that he failed? Does anything matter?

White Fang

White Fang
by Jack London
read: approximately 1996

See The Call of the Wild.

Giovanni's Room

Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin
read: 2020
Guardian 1000 Novels

During February, Black History Month, I usually try to read books by African-American authors. An interesting element of Giovanni's Room is that virtually all the characters are white, with Baldwin exploring sexuality, rather than race. Protagonist David struggles with his feelings for the titular Giovanni. Ultimately, it's debatable whether David is gay or bi-sexual, but the larger issue is that he's afraid of his feelings and denies himself happiness. He can't be happy with Giovanni, nor with his fiancee Hella.

The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules
by John Irving
read: circa 2002

The Cider House Rules was the first Irving novel I read. There's a lot I remember—child abuse, a spouse lost at war, infidelity (and keeping markers of it), "Good night you princes of Maine, you kings of New England," abortion, ether—but mostly I remember hair.

NW

NW
by Zadie Smith
read: 2020

NW contains three sections, each in a different voice corresponding to a major character, and each in a distinct style, similar to The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying. But I found that style difficult to get into with Faulkner, and I similarly found NW less approachable than Zadie Smith's other work.