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.

Uncle Silas

Uncle Silas
by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu
read: 2018
Guardian 1000 Novels

For some reason I thought Uncle Silas was going to be a horror novel, so I kept expecting some supernatural element to show up. It never did, but the machinations of Silas, his son Dudley, and Madame de la Rougierre kept me in suspense, with their intentions and the true stakes unclear until late in the game. The one piece I could not square was the esteem that narrator Maud holds her father in. He sheltered her in an unhealthy fashion, hired de la Rougierre as governess, and then stuck Maud with her Uncle Silas, a man she had never met. His judgment of character seems pretty wanting.

Ragtime

Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow
read: 2018
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #86

It takes nearly half the novel for Doctorow to get into the plot of Ragtime; a lot of time is spent setting up various coincidental encounters between the characters of the novel (an unnamed upperclass family, Jewish refugee Tateh and his daughter) and celebrities of the time: Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Houdini, Sigmund Freud, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, etc. Much of the setup - and the core theme of the novel - revolves around the classed society in the early 20th century. While the main family is rich, Tateh struggles to scrape by, moving city to city and living in hovels. While Morgan stands for the rich and Goldman preaches anarchy, we also see Nesbit, Houdini, and Henry Ford, all of whom were born lower class but propelled themselves into loftier circles, though not especially comfortably.

With the introduction of Coalhouse Walker, we discover that African Americans do not have this same power to transcend class. Walker has talent as a pianist, wealth, a fancy car, and tremendous dignity, but none of this insulates him from the contempt and abuse of white racists. Ultimately his refusal to accept an insult leads to his downfall, and most of the white characters have little sympathy or understanding.

The exception is Mother's Younger Brother, who essentially chooses to forsake his birth class, throwing in with Walker and later with Mexican revolutionaries. The yin to his yang is Tateh, a socialist at the beginning of the novel, who becomes an entrepreneur to provide for his daughter and later adopts the identity of a Baron to move in upper-class circles. Is there a (possibly perverse) moral here, in that he betrays his socialist roots and meets with a happy ending while the characters who stick to their principles suffer?

Money

Money
by Martin Amis
read: 2018
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

Much of Money is a hedonistic spiral like The Ginger Man, but Martin Amis also puts a metafictional spin on things. Amis himself (or a fictionalized version) appears in the novel. Towards the end, Amis (the character) relays a bit of wisdom:

... I'd like to return to the motivation question. It seems to me it's an idea taken from art, not from life, not from twentieth-century life. Nowadays motivation comes from inside the head, not from outside. It's neurotic, in other words. And remember that some people, these golden mythomaniacs, these handsome liars—they're like artists, some of them.

This mirrors a conversation protagonist John Self had with Doris Arthur, another writer, earlier in the novel, when he pooh-poohed her when she asked about the motivation of one of the characters. The characters in the movie Self is directing have uncertain motives, but the motivations of the characters in the novel Money are just as inscrutable. That stands out most in the case of producer Fielding Goodney, but Selina, Martina, Doris, Martin, and John himself act in capricious and random ways constantly. Is that how life is? Most of us would probably like to think not, but there's quite a bit of truth in the quotation above.

The Ginger Man

The Ginger Man
by J.P. Donleavy
read: 2018
Modern Library #99

The plot of The Ginger Man (as well as that of Money, which I read right after), isn't linear so much as a spiral. Sebastian Dangerfield's marriage, debts, drinking, and love life wheel further and further out of control as the novel progresses. He's not really a sympathetic figure; part of the reason things go so far is Sebastian doesn't really seem to care about anything, abandoning his law studies, not holding down employment, unconcerned about his wife and child, vandalizing the property he's renting, dodging creditors, and sleeping with everyone he can. Despite that, Dangerfield ends up oddly sympathetic, with something of an artist's soul:

And at times in my heart there is a music that plays for me. Tuneless threnody. They called me names. I was so afraid of them. And they could never look inside me and see a whole world of tenderness or leave me alone because I was so sad and suffering. Why did you do it. And hearts. And why was love so round.

Homegoing

Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
read: 2018

Reading Roots (OK, listening on Audiobook) was an eye-opening experience for me. Slavery was an abstract evil, but seeing how it destroyed Kunta Kinte's African culture - taking his name, music, and religion, and splitting him from his family - hammered home how dehumanizing it was. Part of Homegoing exists on a similar track, following a family generation-by-generation, through slavery and through the virtual slavery of the prison system.

Alternating chapters follow a parallel family branch that stayed in Africa. That struggle, I had little understanding of before. Slavery not only damaged African culture in the United States, but its tentacles crippled African society as well. European colonies pitted African tribes against each other, waging wars where the victors sold captives into the slave trade. Homegoing paints a picture of an Africa that whites have trampled on. Ultimately, it does suggest that there is something enduring about African culture that the evils of slavery and colonization could not kill. I hope that is true.