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.

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?