The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver): I received this book as a graduation gift from the post-doc who supervised my senior thesis. It’s been on my reading list for a while, especially after I read and enjoyed Foucault’s Pendulum. Eco won me over right away by drawing parallels between his protagonist, the Franciscan monk and ex-inquisitor, William of Baskerville, and Sherlock Holmes, what with the physical description, the style of deductive reasoning, and the tendency to slip into periods of lassitude while intaking certain herbs. And of course, Adso, the first-person narrator, sounds rather like Watson, not only in name but in their admiration of their respective detective companions. The solution to the crimes was a little disappointing, although I do think as a nemesis, Jorge is similar to Moriarty in that he only really dirties his own hands at the very end. That final confrontation with both William and Jorge loathing each other as much as they admired each other rather reminded me of the Holmes-Moriarty dynamic. I was surprised though because I had suspected Jorge at times through the novel and had discarded the possibility as being too obvious. In any case, The Name of the Rose isn’t a very satisfying mystery, but it’s still a brilliant book. I liked the intentional anachronistic moments—William’s justification of democracy through theological arguments, the “quotations” in Adso’s writing that would of course only be apparent to a modern reader—and I also thought Eco was very clever in the whole layout of the library. I managed to get through the untranslated Latin without too much trouble as well, although I hope I didn’t miss anything essential in some of the longer passages. I was surprised to discover how much it had in common with Foucault’s Pendulum: in fact, I would say that it is even more “metafictional” than Foucault’s Pendulum, being after all, about books. I could also identify with William, even in his less strictly Holmesian aspect: in the end, for me, the central question of the book was whether it was possible to be both a person of faith and a rationalist…and whether it was even possible to be just one without the other, as paradoxical as that seems. William’s belief in the importance of making knowledge accessible, his desperation to save the forbidden book and the rest of the library (to the point of allowing Jorge to die), and most of all, his crisis of faith after the library has burned down. The whole story tied together well, what with all the philosophical discussions about laughter and comedy, the masses versus the educated elite, heresy as the other side of holy mysticism, the theological question of poverty…I suppose I found the theological arguments in the book easier to read through because of my own Catholic background, although I still found some of the political in-fighting between the orders and the Pope a little difficult to get through.

A tangent: William Weaver seems to be responsible for translating both Eco and Calvino. I wonder if he’s some sort of master translator for contemporary Italian authors.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling: I don’t consider Rowling to be a great author, which may be why I was able to enjoy this last book so much without feeling any disappointment. People have been complaining about the epilogue, the treatment of Slytherins, and various “out-of-character” scenes, but I was actually surprised by how well-written the rest of the book was. I liked the quest for the Horcruxes, the temptation of the Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore’s backstory, and most of all, the way Harry ended up defeating Voldemort. I probably have a much higher tolerance for derivative adventure fantasy than I do for derivative boarding-school stories, but I think she’s also improved in her writing. The pacing was a little rushed sometimes, but at no point did it stall, which I thought was a relief. The only real complaint I have is that I completely missed the fact that Lupin and Tonks were dead until Harry saw Lupin’s spirit when using the Resurrection Stone. Surely it’s not asking too much to devote more than a sentence to a supporting character’s death. Also, Neville is awesome.

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace: Wallace is one of those authors who walk perilously close to the line of being a little too clever, which is probably why he gets slapped with the label of being pretentious from those who are fed up with postmodernist (post-postmodernist?) literature. Of course, since Wallace was the first postmodern author I’ve ever read, I think he’s quite brilliant, so I didn’t exactly bring an objective perspective to this novel: I went in prepared to like the book. I also rather like Wallace’s stylistic flourishes (excesses?)—his love of footnotes, his verbose and overly technical jargon, the way his narrative streams-of-consciousness skip and start and circle back (much the way minds actually think)—and authorial voice. But my bias aside, I really do think that Wallace shouldn’t be dismissed as pretentious because he (1) is clearly self-aware of exactly what he’s doing to a microscopic level, (2) has a brilliant and absurd sense of humor, and (3) writes emotion sincerely, despite knowing that it isn’t fashionable anymore to be genuinely emotional.

Infinite Jest is strangely epic in scope, although its subject matter is really (yet again) the spectrum of dysfunctional and neurotic individuals in modern America. It’s told chronologically out-of-order and jumps around from place to place and from character to character, although it seems to focus primarily on Hal Incandenza (junior tennis champion and lexical prodigy) and Don Gately (recovering narcotics addict). Both live in Enfield, which is located on the outskirts of Boston, and having just spent the last four years in Cambridge, the whole setting felt disturbingly familiar. The characters are often walking through neighborhoods that I’ve physically visited; I’m so used to simply imagining places in books that it felt almost surreal to be reading about places I actually knew. What’s interesting is that Wallace wrote the book ten years ago and set it in the post-millennial future, which means that the book is roughly taking place around now. The future he imagined is clearly meant to be unrealistic and ridiculous—what with NATO being dismantled and replaced with an Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.), whole U.S. Northeast being forcefully given to Canada to serve as a waste-dumping ground, cable and broadcast TV being replaced by a new system of customizable mass entertainment monopolized by a company called InterLace—but it’s a little disconcerting to realize that some parts ring surprisingly true, including anti-American terrorism and a rather idiotic president who may or may not be a lame duck. (Well at least Bush isn’t a former lounge singer.) Of course, there are some things that have changed in the past ten years that Wallace wasn’t able to predict, such as the degree to which the Internet has taken over our lives.

I’m a little disconcerted by the ending. We never find out what happens chronologically after the first scene of the novel, and Hal was the character I felt the most invested in reading about. Probably because I could relate to the whole experience of attending a high-pressure school. I keep wondering if the ending is supposed to leave you feeling at a loss—it really seems to just cut off, as if someone flipped a switch on the television—or if Wallace just ran out of steam after a thousand pages. Despite how fragmented the narrative is, the novel is incredibly coherent (even the most seemingly inconsequential details turn up again, if you are an attentive reader, which is why I recommend reading the novel in a continuous stretch if possible). And as silly as it sounds, I really did find the novel meaningful, what it said (or what I thought it said) about freedom and compulsion, pleasure versus happiness, addictions. There are accounts of abuse and dysfunctional family relations, not to mention a thousand ways in which people ruin their lives and reach new points of psychological and physical degradation, all of which I find to be repulsive and depressing in most other contemporary American novels but not this one. I never felt mired, so to speak, in the “filth” of the book, perhaps because Wallace treats all of his characters, even the unsympathetic ones, with a sort of honesty that is kinder than compassion. It’s not a cheerful book but still a funny one. I mean, who wouldn’t laugh at the idea of a militant Quebec separatist group called the Wheelchair Assassins?

Cut to the Quick, by Kate Ross: The first of the Julian Kestrel mysteries featuring a Regency dandy as the detective. When you hear such a premise, the sort of protagonist brought to mind is a flippant, well-dressed wit whose trivial façade hides a sharp intellect. In a word, rather like Peter Wimsey minus perhaps the appearance of foolishness—in any case, someone who puts on an act of superficiality as befitting a dandy. I am not the first to hold such incorrect assumptions before making the acquaintance of Mr. Kestrel, arbiter of fashion and amateur detective, but I soon revised my impressions. Julian, to put it simply, is the epitome of cool. His very way of life can be summed up as “It’s not what one wears but how one wears it.” (I’m certain a quote to that effect occurs in the book.) I was surprised to find him such a sober character, and the resulting mystery is hardly the humorous novel of manners I expected, but rather dark and unsettling. More Brontë than Austen, with all the suppressed passion, buried family secrets, and declining noble houses (as Gothic as one can get without resorting to supernaturalism). Julian remains calm, collected and rational throughout the story but nonetheless he is rattled and provoked by events (no Holmesian detachment here).

Four Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula K. Le Guin: Four interconnected novellas in the Hainish universe, describing the planet Werel and its former slave colony, Yeowe, which recently gained independence. Both planets hope to join the ranks of the Ekumen but are reluctant to accept the social and cultural changes sweeping both societies, in the wake of Yeowe declaring independence from Werel. After years of warfare attempting to keep control of its colony planet, Werel itself faces an internal emancipation movement and a breakdown in its internal caste system. Of course, Le Guin does not examine these societies from a bird’s-eye view; instead we are given a picture of these two planets piece by piece through the stories of the individuals living in this time of tumultuous change.

I confess, the reason why it’s taken me so long to update this blog is because I have been trying and trying for many months to write down my reaction to this book. That it made an impact is certain, although I can’t say that the book provoked any major change in my way of thinking. However, these four novellas are some of the most compelling stories I’ve read by Le Guin (I would rank it with The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness and the short story “Solitude”). Le Guin chooses outsiders for her perspective: outsiders because they are marginalized by society or outsiders because they are strangers. There are many social issues explored in new and thought-provoking ways, from the institution of slavery itself to the position of women in an oppressed society to the tension between tradition and progress. Slavery forms the major theme, and Le Guin creates an interesting twist on the issue of race and skin color. The Werelians all have blue-toned skin (a pigmentation developed in response to their sun’s spectrum), and the slaveowners have dark, blue-black skin while the slaves are pale, almost ashen. I appreciate these details of worldbuilding in Le Guin’s writing; she is as memorable to me for the cultures she constructs as she is for her characters. Indeed, an easy connection to draw is the slave-based societies of the Confederate South and the aftermath of the Civil War, but in fact Yeowe reminds me also of African countries, struggling to build a nation post-independence, and Werel’s caste system reminds me at times of Hindu India and at times of even more ancient civilizations. But I think drawing such comparisons is useless and reductionist. These novellas are not commenting on the history of one specific nation; they are describing something fundamentally human. Le Guin is describing the journey, both metaphorical and literal, of an individual in a changing society and culture: the struggle to define yourself as a person when others are so willing to reduce you to anything less. It is not a paean to individualism but rather a testament to human integrity. There, it took me far too long to figure out how to say that, but now that I have, it’s almost a relief.

A Broken Vessel, by Kate Ross: In retrospect, I think this mystery was my least favorite of the series. I liked Sally well enough but didn’t understand why she was so fascinating to Julian (I don’t know if he quite understood that himself). More to the point, the crime itself was dreadfully unpleasant, especially the abduction of young girls and women. That isn’t to say that crime is ever pleasant to read about, but the theme of degradation ran throughout the novel, from the reform house for “fallen” women to the horridness of the crime itself. So many of the incidental characters, not to mention the main culprit himself, repulsed me, and Julian didn’t play enough of a role to erase the bad flavor left in my mouth. But it does Kate Ross credit, since it’s a much more realistic depiction of Regency society than the drawing rooms of Almack’s alone.

Whom the Gods Love, by Kate Ross: Quite possibly the best constructed mystery in the series. Through Julian, we get to see the dead man from the perspectives of the people affected by him: first as the man he appeared to be, then more gradually, the man he really was underneath. We are left with vivid portraits not only of Alexander Falkland but of all the other characters as well, with their fears and passions, at both their best and their worst. I think this book is the only one in the series where Julian doesn’t fall in love with a woman. Of course, my favorite part of the book was Verity Clare, better than the most audacious of Shakespearean crossdressing heroines. The scene where Julian meets the Clares’ grandfather was also a rare insight into Julian’s past; he is such a self-contained, unreadable person that he makes it difficult for anyone, including the reader, to get a handle on him. Julian is someone who takes excruciating care not to expose his vulnerabilities in public or private. It was nice, I thought, to see him drop his defenses, even for a second.

Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver): I don’t understand at all how people can tolerate the insipid prose of The Da Vinci Code when they have a sheer masterpiece like Foucault’s Pendulum to fill all their occult conspiracy-theorizing needs. Actually, mentioning the two books in the same paragraph seems a sin, since the two operate on completely different levels. I once heard that reading Foucault’s Pendulum was a prerequisite for any would-be modern literate, but it was not so much the cleverness or the erudition that impressed me as the sheer epic impact of the book. The wittiness (I couldn’t stop laughing at the wry humor in some parts of the book, especially in the descriptions of some of the “Isis Unveiled” patrons), the growing uncertainty and suspense (the book begins on a foreboding note, that a joke gone too far would become sinister), the love, the tragedy, the mystery in the oldest sense of the word. The book covers an exhaustive spread of occult-related subjects, from the Templars and Rosicrucians to South American voodoo rituals. Not to mention speculation on nearly any other imaginable topic as well, like computer programming and pinball machines. I love literature when it thinks in such an exuberant fashion, drawing wild yet convincing connections, where everything is a metaphor, in both a meaningless and meaningful way. The book is not just about faith and skepticism, but about Europe in the post-war era, about falling in love and being in love, about dissatisfaction, about identity, about making sense of a nonsensical world. Foucault’s Pendulum was one of those books that washed over me like a tidal wave, such was its colossal force.

Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver): I finally settled down to reading Calvino, after seeing him referenced just about everywhere. I was about to choose If on a winter’s night a traveler but changed my mind at the last instant, because who could resist the poetry in this image: Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, one listening for the first time of the cities in his own empire that the other has traversed. I was reminded of Schrödinger’s Cat, multiplied manifold: an infinite range of possible cities…Are they one city? Many cities? Something of the tone reminded me of Kahlil Gibran—the imagery, the traveling, the distant setting. Indeed, a book to read over and over again, in excerpts and in whole, on insomniac nights or long subway rides.