Aesop’s Fables

This blog post is called Aesop’s Fables, and it’s about Aesop, and the
fables, but Aesop’s Fables are not the name of the fables,
that’s just the name of the blog post, and that’s why I called the post Aesop’s Fables.

Now it all started two weeks ago, was on – two Thursdays ago,
when my friend (Dave) and I discussed which book to read next,
but I was absentminded, I live in my
own distracted world, with my thoughts and mistaken knowledge.
And I decided since Joss Whedon had released a little movie, just a little known play
named Much Ado about Nothing, filmed in a matter of days
during the filming of Avengers, using alumni from his most famous shows (you know, Buffy, Angel
Firefly and Dollhouse), that I simply must read the book. Havin’ all that desire,
seein’ as how I love Joss Whedon, I deduced that Midsummer’s Night Dream in our book Top Ten
simply must say “Much Ado About Nothing”.

I got to the library, and finally figured out where Dewey hid Shakespeare’s plays
I found a row of Shakespearian plays, and I decided that the play must simply be As You Like it. So
even though something in my mind nagged me, I went ahead and checked the book out. I carried it home.
And began to read it.

Well I got done and went to write my post on Thursday. Last minute, I know. I looked up As You Like It
a little play about mistaken identities and love, as well as a showcase for Shakespeare’s fondness for women dressed as men.
It wasn’t there. I quickly looked up Joss Whedon, on IMDB, a place I know slightly better than Dewey’s Decimal System.
Seeing that it was Much Ado About Nothing, I drove to the library to see if they were open. They were.

I found it. And I drove around. With errands, all over town, up hills and down hills
and no, not through the woods, but through many a stoplight. I paused a moment and began to read
Much Ado about Nothing. And decided that I should wait until home, as the temperature was high and reading in my car
gets a little sticky and uncomfortable. So, I braved the hills and the traffic lights and got home.

After making Amelia her dinner of toast and yogurt and banana (sometimes we have untraditional dinners here), I turned to my
trusty copy of The Top Ten and quickly flipped to Much Ado About Nothing. I had a curious urge to find out exactly which writers decided
Much Ado About Nothing was spectacular enough to love enough to put on a list of their top ten favorite books. And…I couldn’t find it either.
Panicked, I searched through the index. You know, in case they decided to hide it under D for Dream or K for “Kim’s insane”. They didn’t. Then my eyes fell on Midsummer’s Night Dream. I realized my error and proceeded to have Much Ado about Something. I was worked into a panicked frenzy of first world problems.

I flipped through the index, looking and hoping for something fast and easy to read. Because, you know, I promised you all
an entry on Saturday. And my eyes fell on Aesop’s Fables (Remember, it’s about Aesop and his fables, but not the name of the fables, it’s just why I called this blog post Aesop’s Fables). My text to Dave read something like “Omg. I am an idiot. I confused Much Ado About Nothing with Midsummer’s Night Dream. Can I do a post on Aesop’s Fables?” Dave, infinitely patient, since I had already messaged him on Thursday morning with “Omg! I read As You Like It. I meant to read Midsummer’s Night Dream. Do you want to post? Do you want me to put up a sign saying post on Saturday? Because you know, I totally could read it by Saturday”, responded that it was okay to do that.

So last night, I sat and read. I read about foxes and bears and men, oh my. I read about turtles and hares and ants, oh my. I read about grasshoppers and eagles and camels, oh my. I read about how I should prepare for the winter. I read about how I will be judged by the company I keep. And I remembered being young, around ten, and reading a huge book from the library (this would have been Lindsey AFB library in Weisbaden Germany, which has no bearing on this tale but I felt it necessary to add) of Aesop’s Fables (which isn’t the name of the fables, you know) with beautiful illustrations. And that’s all I could think of as I read through page after page on aesopfables.com
There is a simplicity to Aesop’s Fables.

Most people agree on the idea that Aesop was a slave, around 650 B.C. Now Aesop’s fables are all short. And last night as I lay in bed in an insomniac state, I realized, well duh, of course they’re all short. It’s not like it was exactly easy to write a lot back then. This is why Aesop’s Fables isn’t the name of the Fables, it’s just Aesop never titled them, as a comprehensive whole. Instead there are names for each individual one. I’m not sure if Aesop named them. While the fables are interesting, using animal personification to drive home morals, the titles lack a bit of flair. There are The Bull and the Goat, The Bull and The Calf, et cetera. But that’s okay. Maybe in 650 B.C. there was less importance attached to titles. Either way, I read most of them, and wondered sometimes if I was reading ones actually from Aesop. One can never trust the web anymore you know. Maybe the NSA person monitoring my web browsing hadn’t read Aesop’s Fables, which means I helped pass the time for some hapless drone sitting there clicking and following orders. No need to thank me, sorry that I tend to not surf much porn. Only so many times someone can watch you play Candy Crush saga after all.

So, in conclusion, I hope you understand my need to wait until Saturday to bring you a post.

The End.

Oh wait. This post inspired by Alice’s Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie and David S. Atkinson.

Now really.

The End.

No. Sorry. Wait again. James Salter listed this as one of his top ten books. Wonder if he read the same beautiful copy I did as a kid.

NOW REALLY. I PROMISE. THE END.

COMING SATURDAY! TUNE BACK IN!

  Please tune in on Saturday to find out more.

Thank-you!

Kim

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I feel that I should begin any review of Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by indicating that there is very little inside regarding the actual life of Tristram Shandy. At least percentage-wise, the vast majority of the book relates to happenings outside of Tristram Shandy’s direct life, though bearing some relationship to it. In fact, Tristram Shandy isn’t even born until a few hundred pages in. There is a bit more about his opinions, but still. Mind you, this isn’t a problem. However, I just thought that should be clear at the start.

(Note, for those following along in The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, this one was 10^th for Paul Auster, 2^nd for Peter Carey, 1^st for Percival Everett, 5^th for A. L. Kennedy, 9^th for Jonathan Lethem, 8^th for David Lodge, 2^nd for Thomas Mallon, 7^th for Jonathan Raban, 8^th for Louise D. Rubin Jr., and 4^th for George Saunders.)

I can at least confirm that Tristram Shandy is the narrator of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Beyond that, things get hazy.

As I mentioned, he starts out the book addressing his birth…something that does not actually occur for several hundred pages. In between that and the beginning is digression after digression, sometimes returning to the main action as a digression from a digression. His Uncle’s penchant for modeling battles, his father’s quirky approach to things based on ancient learning, direct examples of ancient learning, and so on; the digressions run the gamut. The main unifying force in all of this is Sterne’s wit, and he is witty.

Of course, we should not really be surprised. He addresses the digressions (on more than one occasion) himself. Since trying to provide an example of the digression structure would be too lengthy for this review, I’ll give you some of Shandy’s thoughts on his digressions direct:

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master- stroke of digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader,–not for want of penetration in him,—but because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression;—and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far and as often too as any writer in Great-Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so, that my main business does not stand still in my absence.

I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of my uncle Toby’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt Dinah and the coachman came a-cross us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this, you perceive that the drawing of my uncle Toby’s character went on gently all the time;— not the great contours of it,—that was impossible,—but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, were here and there touch’d in, as we went along, so that you are much better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before.

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.

This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;— though I own it suggested the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries have come from some such trifling hints.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sun-shine;——they are the life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,–you might as well take the book along with them;— one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—–he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress, in this matter, is truely pitiable: For, if he begins a digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock-still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—-then there is an end of his digression.

——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what’s more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

I realize that the digression I just provided is a long one, but that’s just in keeping with the spirit of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was a bit difficult to read. I admit that. However, I was downright astounded that it was written in the 1760′s. The characters and settings fit and all, but the structure is like nothing else I’ve seen from that time. I wouldn’t bat much of an eye at this and might even expect it modernly, but I’m floored that Sterne attempted this back then…even more that he got away with it.

I didn’t find The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman to be the most enjoyable read, but it’s a landmark in terms of the development of the novel. It’s certainly well worth the look for anyone willing to sit through it all.

Geek Love–Katherine Dunn

I have to admit.   I almost forgot.  I started a new job, so have been getting up at 5:45 a.m.  Which, for those of you that know, is about 2 or 3 hours after I normally go to bed…so my brain has been a little swiss cheesey lately.  I hauled myself out of bed just now to tell you about Geek Love.

Jennifer Weiner listed Geek Love in her top ten.

I loved Geek Love.  It was a deep book, but flew by.  On the surface, it seems a surreal story, almost absurd in its premise.  The owner of a circus looks around and sees that his circus is failing.  His wife and he develop a plan.  A plan to breed freaks.  Lily, the mother, ingests all sorts of different drugs.  They have 5 children that live or that they let live.  The oldest is an amphibian boy.  The next two are siamese twins, girls, with the same body from the waist down.  The narrator is the 4th child, and she’s an albino dwarf.  The last child?  Chick?  He _looks_ normal, but so isn’t.The oldest, Arty, develops a cult when he gets older where people amputate all their limbs over a two or three year period, in worship of him and Arturism.  The whole thing ends up blowing up in their faces, leaving only the narrator and her daughter (who only had a tail so was dropped off at a convent orphanage).  The story switches from current time to twenty years in the past, when all the events happened.

As I said, seems a little absurd on the face of things.  But, to me, the story ended up being about families.  All families, and the interdependent relationships they have.  And how when there are fissures that are under the surface, the whole family can implode.

You find yourself feeling the tension between knowing _something_ happened but not knowing what happened.  The switching narration and the hints given by the narrator through that, give you the sense of tension.  Also, you just can feel that something has to happen.  That there’s something big.  But Dunn keeps you thinking the wrong thing, until suddenly she doesn’t.

If you like Chuck Pahlaniuk, you’ll probably really enjoy this book.

 

East of Eden–John Steinbeck

I read East of Eden over the last week and a half.  I have to say, I usually don’t take this long with a book as good as East of Eden.  However, I felt like it was a book that I needed to prolong.  The richness of it would have overwhelmed had I attempted to rush the reading.  Part of the reason this is so late is that I was still finishing it up.

Melissa Bank and G.D. Gearino both listed East of Eden in their top ten books.  The surprising thing to me is why more people didn’t list it. 

I had to read Of Mice and Men in high school.  While it was a decent enough book, I wasn’t overly thrilled with it.  So, I never was really anxious to read his other work.  I am glad I did however.

There is so much to talk about with East of Eden, that I really don’t know where to begin.  Steinbeck parallels Genesis in a lot of places, mainly the Cain and Abel story.  (To recap for those of you unfamiliar:  Adam and Eve, upon being kicked out of the Garden, had two sons, Cain and Abel.  Cain was a raiser of vegetables and fruit, Abel a shepherd.  Both gave offerings to God, Abel of young, fresh good meat, and Cain of veggies and fruits.  The problem wasn’t (contrary to what anti vegetarians would want you to think) that Cain didn’t give meat.  The problem was that he did not give the best of his crops to God.  God looked more favorably on Abel.  Cain got mad and murdered his brother in a fit of jealous rage.  He was then cast into the wilderness by God. 

Steinbeck has two sets of brothers, Adam and Charles and Aron and Cal (Adam’s children or possibly Charles).  As you can see, he’s not shy about directly paralleling them to Abel and Cain.  Juxtaposing this family, is a huge sprawling Irish American family, the Hamiltons.  The lives intersect in more than one way and more than one generation.  Aron and Cal owe their names to the patriarch of the Hamilton clan. 

Secrets abound in East of Eden, secrets kept from others and secrets kept from ourselves.

I have a few things I wanted to quote from the book.

In one part Steinbeck is talking about older men crying out for the 1800s to end;

“History was secreted in the glands of a million historians.  We must get out of this banged-up century, some said, out of this cheating, murderous century of riot and secret death, of scrabbling for public lands and damn well getting them by any means at all”.  (Personally, this sounds like every century of human history to me).

The older men have this to say “Oh, strawberries don’t taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch”.  I just found that such an appropriate way to describe aging.  Not necessarily the thighs of women part, but just that everything starts to seem bland.  Strawberries don’t taste the same, the intoxication of sex goes away et cetera et cetera.

There is a section of the book, where Adam Trask, Samuel Hamilton and Lee, Adam’s Chinese servant, discuss the very Cain and Abel story that Steinbeck uses as a center point for East of Eden.  I can’t quote it here, as the whole conversation is about 5 or 6 pages long.  However, I did find it an effective way to frame the book in such a way that readers understand better, without disrupting the narrative flow.  Steinbeck does interject himself into the book (in the form of the narrator who is a grandchild of Samuel Hamilton, but you can sometimes hear it as Steinbeck), but not often and not with much interruption.  I contrast this with Les Miserables and Victor Hugo, where you could constantly feel the author’s presence in between bits of narrative, to the point where it could be distracting.

One of the areas where Steinbeck interjects himself is to say this, and I thought it was beautiful, a statement of what art is as well as what life is.

“We have only one story.  All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil.  And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal.  Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is”. 

It’s another way Steinbeck frames his story for you, as many of the characters do struggle with themselves.  Cal, Adam’s son especially.  Cal and Aron’s mother, she doesn’t struggle much, contrasted with Sam Hamilton’s wife who also doesn’t struggle much.  They’re on opposite ends of the spectrum though, with Cal and Aron’s mother being on the evil side and Liza Hamilton on the good end.  Those two characters are the most fixed and least struggling with themselves.

I checked this out from the library.  But I think I will be buying a copy of it.  And for those of you that know me well, you know that’s high marks of honor for a book.  For those of you that don’t me, well I don’t keep many books, partly due to room and partly due to I read a lot and most of it isn’t worth a 2nd read even if it entertained me immensely the first time around.

See you next week!

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Those of you who are paying attention may notice that I, Dave, am going two weeks in a row. Kim is still working on Steinbeck’s East of Eden and in the interests of giving her sufficient time to really give a good look at that one (because I think it really deserves full attention), I offered to go again this week. No worries, though, Kim will be on for the next two weeks.

Anyway, I’d heard good things about The Handmaid’s Tale, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of it. To be honest, I tend to prefer Atwood’s more realistic work. I loved Cat’s Eye, but was a little colder on The Year of the Flood. Still, The Handmaid’s Tale is Atwood, right? You can’t really go wrong. I knew I’d hit it eventually.

(Note, for those following along in The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, this one was 8^th for Chitra Divakaruni and 10^th for Jennifer Weiner.)

Of course, the book is good. Dystopianists everywhere surely have this book on their master lists. Just think about it, the United States has been violently taken over by a theocracy that has stripped women of most rights (property, work, even reading) and instituted a bizarre system when fertile but politically unconnected women are forced (by one means or another and by varying degrees of one kind of force or another) to bear children for the childless elite:

            Above me, towards the head of the bed, Serena Joy is arranged, outspread. Her legs are apart, I lie between them, my head on her stomach, her pubic bone under the base of my skull, her thighs on either side of me. She too is fully clothed.

            My arms are raised; she holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers. This is supposed to signify that we are one flesh, one being. What it really means is that she is in control, of the process and thus of the product. If any. The rings of her left hand cut into my fingers. It may or may not be revenge.

            My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for. There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.

Even worse for the narrator, Offred (not her real name, the name assigned to her as a handmaiden when her identity and everything else about her as a person was removed), she remembers when it wasn’t always this way. She once had a career, an independent life, even a husband and child. However, all that is gone. Stolen. She lives a hollow, bare existence. She either produces a child, if the Commander can even sire one, or she dies. Even if she has a child, it won’t be hers. If you are looking for dystopian literature, this is certainly it.

Granted, this world Atwood paints is far worse for women than men. However, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t disturb me. If you are a human being, this book should bother you. If it doesn’t bother you, then I might ask you not to stand too close to me.

This Republic of Gilead (the setting of this story) is dark and inconceivable, but like the best of dystopian literature…one can unfortunately see modern tendrils suggesting how we might end up there from here. I wouldn’t malign anyone existing now by saying that they would want a Gilead type world, but things rarely end up where they are aimed.

Dystopian literature needs this. It needs to frighten us and seem an impossible world, but it needs to contain that germ of a threat that our world could lead there if people aren’t careful. For me, The Handmaid’s Tale definitely contains that germ.

In the end, The Handmaid’s Tale still isn’t my favorite Atwood. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though. Atwood has simply written such marvelous things that, as good as this book is, it still isn’t my favorite.

After all, The Handmaid’s Tale is a captivating story. It is dark and threatening and I was definitely on the edge of my chair with worry for Offred. The world is horribly unpleasant, but I still had a good time reading. It may not be what I consider the best of Atwood, but I don’t think it is one that should be overlooked. The Handmaid’s Tale is definitely a book that needs to be read.

Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land

I had a number of reasons for wanting to take a crack at Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land here on the blog. First of all, it is an undisputed classic. It’s a favorite in sci fi circles, though, and I don’t spend as much time there as I should. This seemed like a good chance to correct that.

However, I really knew nothing about the book. What I thought I knew came from the Iron Maiden song of the same title:

Stranger in a strange land
Land of ice and snow
Trapped inside this prison
Lost and far from home

Of course, the above selected lyrics show that the song has nothing (as far as I can tell) to do with this book.

(Note, for those following along in The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, this one was 7^th for David Foster Wallace.)

So…what is Stranger in a Strange Land about? Well, we have Mike (Valentine Michael Smith). He is a human who was born on a flight to Mars and was marooned there to be raised by Martians when the crew of his voyage killed each other over some infidelities related to his birth. After a subsequent mission, he is brought back to Earth. Many on Earth hope to exploit him for both the wealth he inherited and a Mars land grab they hope to justify through him. The Martians, on the other hand, hope to use him to gather data on Earth.

“It’s a nasty story. I got that much before my informant sobered up. Dr. Ward Smith delivered his wife by Caesarean section–and she died on the table. What he did next shows that he knew the score; with the same scalpel cut Captain Brant’s throat–then his own. Sorry, hon.”

Jill shivered. “I’m a nurse. I’m immune to such things.”

“You’re a liar and I love you for it.”

Of course, this is just the beginning. Some decent humans get a hold of him and attempt to thwart those who would exploit him, though he soon doesn’t need much help.

Johnson did not hit Jill as hard as he used to hit his wife before she left him, not nearly as hard as he hit prisoners who were reluctant to talk. Until then Smith had shown no expression and had said nothing; he had simply let himself be forced along. He understood none of it and had tried to do nothing at all.

When he saw his water brother struck by this other, he twisted, got free–and reached toward Johnson–

–and Johnson was gone.

Only blades of grass, straightening up where his big feet had been, showed that he had ever been there. Jill stared at the spot and felt that she might faint.

Berquist closed his mouth, opened it, said hoarsely, “What did you do with him?” He looked at Jill.

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t give me that. You got a trap door or something?”

Where did he go?”

Berquist licked his lips. “I don’t know.” He took a gun from under his coat. “But don’t try your tricks on me. You stay here–I’m taking him.”

*****

The Old Ones had taught him well. He stepped toward Berquist; the gun was swung to cover him. He reached out–and Berquist was no longer there.

Jill screamed.

In a very summary way, and I hope in a non-spoiling one, this attempted exploitation is dealt with one way or another. Mike then attempts to understand humans and live in their world. Then, he tries to use what he knows to fix things for humans. Much happens along the way.

All in all, this was probably one of the more interesting sci fi and/or utopian novels (I say utopian because of the discussions centering around Mike attempting to fix things for people) I’ve ever read. I got into it and didn’t feel that I had to wade through a bunch of stuff to get to the story. As for the utopian dreams, it didn’t really descend to the level of mouthpiece, though it came close at times.

Mind you, the pacing was a bit different from what would have been my druthers. Sometimes it felt like Stranger in a Strange Land wandered a bit. It certainly didn’t seem logical to me how the book flowed from one thing to another at certain points. However, other than those things, I found the book to be damn good…and I think my criticisms are more my personal taste as opposed to real criticisms of the merits of the book.

Frankly, I’m not much of a sci fi buff, so I can’t judge Stranger in a Strange Land in that context. However, I don’t much care about that. I just judge it as a book, same as any other. It might not be my favorite thing out there, but it was a book I needed to read. I’m glad I finally got around to it.