At the start of summer, I posted a list of books I wanted to read. I wrote about two of them that I finished, Chabon and Nabokov, and am happy to say I have since read three others of that list! They were all wonderful, and I regret I have to make such quick posts for them.
French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
It's hard to read a book by a beloved author, because you tend to rate one of his/her books against the other. In this case, I have to say that though The Magus is a book incomparable to any other, The French Lieutenant's Woman is by no means dwarfed by it. The French Lieutenant's Woman is a beautiful story that explores the Victorian age and its social conventions of duty, chastity, marriage. Charles is a gentleman too aware of the constructions that define the world he lives in, and he struggles to fit into it. After spending his young adulthood finding solace in travel and women, he settles for Ernestina, a good match for him in the eyes of society. She also catches Charcles' eye, in that she seems a little different than other women of her class, filled with a little more spark and with a bit of a will of her own. But "a bit of a will" does not compare to the fire and passion that Charles soon finds in Sarah Woodruff, a striking woman who has been outcast for her assumed participation in a recent love affair. The book's biggest charms lie not only in Charles' character, whom the reader really learns to know and sees change, but also in Fowles' inimitable style. Writing only for himself, Fowles does not mind breaking the rules. His presence in the novel is very strong, and he even transports himself into a couple of scenes. Fowles inserts his own opinions and techniques of writing, and there are a couple of chapters dedicated to some personal digressions. He exercises his power of creation by showing different paths the story could/does take, but without taking away from the believability of it all. I think Fowles' active participation and immersion in his novel are what, ultimately, make The French Lieutenant's Woman such an enlightening work.
Number9Dream, David Mitchell
Mitchell does it again. I find that his novels often read like a movie (which is maybe why "Cloud Atlas" turned out to be such a good adaptation), with great dialogue and action, and Number9Dream is no different. The novel, toted as a "quest" story, is really a look at the ways we search for meaning. The protagonist, Eiji Miyaki, has come to Tokyo to find his father, a man who decided to keep his two illegitimate twins a secret. Eiji has not had an easy life. Not only was his father never more than a blank name on a birth certificate, but his mother was distant and an alcoholic. On top of that, his twin sister, the best part of his life, suffered an early death. Not used to the big city, Eiji, instead of finding his father, finds himself in one hell of a mess. The book is a crazy mixture of Yakuza horror, of wartime journals, of imaginative day-dreams, of children's literature featuring a goat who wields Lady Shonagon's pen. If it wasn't Mitchell, perhaps this might not have worked so well. At various points, I was not even sure if the book was holding up, of what could be the glue, but Mitchell makes it quite clear by the end. What is the meaning of life? Meaning is not an end to be achieved, but a process. One of the most important phrases that stuck with me after finishing the book was that "when you win, the rules change, and you find you've lost."
Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami
After reading Number9Dream, which was heavily influenced by Murakami, this was a great book to read. I will not write too much about this book, but the plot is as zany as Murakami can be. The protagonist, unnamed throughout, is a quintessential Murakami protagonist: passive, beset with bizarre circumstances, irresponsible for the happenings around him. His wife leaves him in the very beginning, and he does nothing to stop her. When told by a powerful figure that he must go search for a mysterious sheep, figured in an ad the protagonist himself published, he goes on a journey to a deserted mountainside near Hokkaido. Perhaps not Murakami's best, but after six Murakami novels I'll be glad to read anything of his I can. It was interesting, though, that I had already read the sequel to this book. In fact, Dance, Dance, Dance was the first book of Murakami's I read, unaware at the time it was a sequel. I am glad to have come (almost) full-circle. I am considering re-reading Dance, Dance, Dance since I enjoyed that book so much, and who knows what I've forgotten of it by now.
Now, I do not know what to read! Back to Proust? My mom has been reading some great novels I am considering reading, such as The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman and And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini. At Barnes and Nobles yesterday I bought a book called Shadow Country, by Peter Matthessian, but I don't know if I'm really enjoying it.
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