Tag Archives: American Literature

BOOK: “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk

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Fight ClubFight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – W.W. Norton

Through a weird and wild storyline, Palahniuk offers insight into two (intertwined) crises of identity that have only grown more prominent since the book (and the David Fincher film adapted from it) came out in the late 90’s. First and foremost, there is a craving for, yet confusion about the nature of, masculinity. As men raised by women struggle to ape masculine behavior only to over-emphasize conspicuous features such as violence and aggression while missing more subtle aspects such as the instinct to protect and a grasp of responsibility, self-empowerment, and fortitude. The second identity crisis is self as consumer, wherein people start linking who they are to their consumption, and this becomes demoralizing because it’s such a hallow way of seeing oneself. (I say the crises are “intertwined” because it’s a long and painful fall to go from “protector” to “consumer-” the latter having nothing at all to feel good about.)

This is one of those books that people either find illuminating or unreadable. There is a lot in the book that is stomach-turning. For many, this will be the violence, but — for me, and I suspect many others, — it’s the “mischievous” pranks that Tyler Durden and the unnamed lead “play” as they work as waiters. Upton Sinclair once said of The Jungle that he aimed for the reader’s heart (i.e. to bring awareness to labor issues in the meat packing industry) and hit them square in the stomach (i.e. people’s main takeaway was that how their food was made was gross and needed to be corrected.) This may be a similar situation. Palahniuk, I suspect, is trying to show how these full-grown men in some ways haven’t escaped the grossest era of boyhood as they attempt to find their power in the world, but it mostly reminded me to not eat at banquets or other gatherings of rich people.

I found this to be an insightful book and would highly recommend it for anyone trying to figure out some of the oddities of the world in which we find ourselves living.

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BOOKS: “Four Quartets” by T. S. Eliot

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Four QuartetsFour Quartets by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online

Four Quartets is a collection of four long poems by T.S. Eliot, written over several years before and during the Second World War. The poems are: “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding.” They share a theme of metaphysical inquiry, particularly regarding time and man’s relation therewith. The book came out about five years before Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and was the last of his major poetry collections, and so it reflects a mature phase of his poetry writing.

I loved this collection, which combines food for thought with beautiful turn of phrase. As far as I could see, most of the disgruntlement with the collection had to do with Eliot’s religious / spiritual references, which offended the sensibilities of some of the most stridently atheist / agnostic individuals in the poetic community. Besides reflecting his own Christian worldview, Eliot had clearly been moved by reading the Bhagavad Gita and makes a number of references to Krishna.

Four Quartets is a pleasant read and I’d highly recommend it for poetry readers.

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BOOK: “Collected Sonnets” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Collected SonnetsCollected Sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher site – HarperCollins

NOTE: The version that I read was the earlier edition containing 161 sonnets, it did not include the sonnets from Mine the Harvest.

My earliest remembered exposure to the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay was to a couple of her more anthologized sonnets (included herein:) “I, being born a woman and distressed” and “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.” I found those poems free of the sappy sentimentality that I’d often associated with the form, and that was what attracted to me to this collection, a collection which I’m happy to say shares the same tone, a tone that leans edgy and irreverent. (At least for its day.) One sees this from the opening poem, “Thou art not lovelier than lilacs, no,” which pays homage to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (i.e. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,”) the poem which began the war on hyperbole in love poetry.

Millay’s collection is not all love poetry (though it is largely so.) It does also deal in nature and includes a few epitaphs (including for the likes of mankind, [see: Sonnet cxliv.]) Millay does work in both the Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean sonnet forms.

I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers, particularly those who like sonnets.

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BOOK: “Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway” by Jeffrey Meyers

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Forty-Three Ways of Looking at HemingwayForty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Website – LSU Press

I enjoyed this approach to biography. Instead of telling Hemingway’s life story chronologically or even via some other form of overarching arc, Meyers gives us forty-three chapters that each shine a light on a different facet of Hemingway. In many cases, these facets are Hemingway’s relationships to other people: writers, artists, wives, and other personalities. In other cases, the facets are events or concepts, such as his suicide, war, achievements, etc.

This approach can, on occasion, lead to repetition, but I find repetition that is not overbearing to be useful in taking in key information.

If you are interested in what made Hemingway tick, I’d highly recommend that you read this book.

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BOOKS: “The Suppressed Poems of Ernest Hemingway”

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The suppressed poemsThe suppressed poems by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Available online – Public Domain

I read this book because my curiosity was piqued by a reference to poems Hemingway published in Der Querschnitt, a reference that was made in a biography of Hemingway I’ve been reading recently (Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyers.) Five of the seventeen poems in the book are from Der Querschnitt. (Ten of the poems were published in a book entitled Three Stories and Ten Poems and a couple are odds and ends.)

The Der Quershnitt pieces are bawdy by 1920’s standards, though not particularly for today. The other poems can be a bit intense, dealing in subjects like death in war (Champs D’Honneur,) suicide (Montparnasse, and a curse upon literary critics (Valentine,) but tend to be a bit more refined (excepting Valentine. which may be the least elevated of the collected poems.)

The poems include a mix of lyric, free verse, and prose poem, though all are fairly short (the longest, The Soul of Spain, fits in three pages.)

My favorite was a short lyric poem entitled The Age Demanded, which considers the paradox of the 1920’s as a progressive age, restrained. I also found T. Roosevelt to be fascinating because in the act of critiquing Teddy Roosevelt, Hemingway (wittingly or not) gives us a bit of autobiography. (i.e.“And all the legends that he started in his life // Live on and prosper, // Unhampered now by his existence.”)

I give Hemingway more credit for saying interesting things by virtue of being bold than for saying anything in a particularly interesting way, but it’s enough to make these poems worth reading.

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BOOK: “Islands in the Stream” by Ernest Hemingway

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Islands in the StreamIslands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Simon & Schuster

This novel was actually published almost a decade after Hemingway’s death. It was found among his papers, a complete — but rough — draft.

The book’s protagonist is Thomas Hudson, a divorced painter living alone in the Caribbean. The story is told in three parts. In the first, Hudson’s solitary existence is brightened by a visit from his three sons (one from one ex- and the other two from a second.) The second part is the story of a prolonged bender in Cuba. The final section follows Hudson and his crew as they track the survivors of a sunken German U-boat as said Germans try to island-hop their way to safety. The three sections are each quite different in tone. The last part reads like genre fiction (i.e. commercial fiction,) while the former two are character driven literary fiction (but of quite different tones.)

The book is mostly about loss and grief and the varied ways with which it is dealt, and the process through which the griever proceeds.

I enjoyed this book. While, like a life, it may be a bit messy, I found it compelling. I’d recommend it for those who enjoy Hemingway.

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PLAY: “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams

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A Streetcar Named DesireA Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online – Internet Archive

I’ve never seen the play, nor the movie. Of course, this is one of those works that has so scrawled itself across pop-culture that it’s impossible to go in without some reference from it kicking around in one’s brain, be it the pained shout of “STELLA!” or character names like “Blanche DuBois” or “Stanley Kowalski.” Even the name of the plantation on which the fallen socialite sisters grew up, Belle Reve, has been lent to a prison for supernatural villains in the world of DC Comics.

At the play’s heart are two sisters raised in a wealthy Southern family. One, Stella, has adapted well to the family’s fall from grace. Stella has married a fellow who is rough around the edges (to say the least,) Stanley, but Stella is satisfied that Stanley is a dependable provider — even if he does rough her up a bit now and again. The other sister, Blanche, hasn’t coped nearly so well. Blanche lies perpetually to try to shield herself from reality — and to present a more appealing reality to others. It is when Blanche, having nowhere else to go, moves into the small New Orleans apartment of Stanley and Stella that the tension is set to form the play’s story.

I enjoyed reading this play. It’s well-paced and effectively mixes comedy and drama. It’s in character building where the play shines. The main characters are well-defined and behave quite believably within the context of each one’s neuroses and vices. The constant conflict between Blanche and Stanley drives the story.

I’d highly recommend this for readers of plays and / or of American Literature.

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“Upon the Road of My Life” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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Upon the road of my life,
  Passed me many fair creatures,
  Clothed all in white, and radiant.
 To one, finally, I made speech:
   “Who art thou?”
 But she, like the others,
   Kept cowled her face,
   And answered in haste, anxiously,
   “I am good deed, forsooth;
   You have often seen me.”
 “Not uncowled,” I made reply.
   And with rash and strong hand,
   Though she resisted,
   I drew away the veil
   And gazed at the features of vanity.
 She, shamefaced, went on;
   And after I had mused a time,
 I said of myself,
   “Fool!”

“Changed” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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From the outskirts of the town
  Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
  Of the dark and haunted wood. 

Is it changed, or am I changed?
  Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
  By the years that intervene. 

Bright as ever flows the sea,
  Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
  Not the tides that used to run.

“A Decade” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

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When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
 And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
 Now you are like morning bread,
 Smooth and pleasant.
 I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
 But I am completely nourished.