Steppenwolf: Revisited 10 years later

I read Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf when I was 17 years old. I think it was the book that made me a “reader.” It was the first time that a book produced a feeling of kinship and spiritual awakening in me. I’ve since learned that many other adolescent readers have had a similar experience reading Hesse for the first time.

Over the holidays I received a book store gift card and with it purchased Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser. I had read a review of the Biography in Bookforum, and from what I read, Lispector’s strange personal history and writing both sounded fascinating.

I got up to page 79 of the biography, a chapter describing how the young Clarice decides to become a writer.  There is a whole section on how she read Steppenwolf as a young woman and it left her with a “real fever.” Along with Crime and Punishment, Steppenwolf was the book that sparked Clarice’s decision to write!

When I came to that section of the biography, I put it down and picked up Steppenwolf immediately.  It’s the same dingy old paperback I had when I was 17! I am enjoying rereading the book ten years later (I am now 27- that’s pretty easy math!). It is as if a window into the past has opened up and I can see how the experimental form and philosophy of that novel charmed my 17-year-old mind. I still walk through life looking for Haller’s magic theater. What an interesting convergence of ideas! I will resume reading the Lispector biography after I get through with Steppenwolf and write more about the biography itself.

Hey those stacks look familiar…

Uwishunu.com posted a photo of the Book Trader- where I recently started volunteering.

Henry James as Cool as Rick James?

The Portrait of a Lady

Author: Henry James

Notes: Ok. So the headline on this post is a bit of a teaser. I am not going to discuss Rick James and Henry James. Sorry.

I will say, that I can’t believe I’ve never read The Portrait of A Lady. I picked this book up at the Book Trader when I volunteered there. After completing “House of Wits,” the biography of James entire family, Portrait became a must-read. There are so many complex, somewhat autobiographical reasons why James wrote the character of Isabelle Archer. I will let you know more about how I find this novel as I get to it. It’s next in line.

NB* I also go the Norton Critical Edition, which offers contemporary reviews from 1882 issues of The Nation and Atlantic Monthly. I also saw an essay by William H. Gass in the back- whom John (my partner in crime) adores.

Update: Finished this book. There is too much to say about it. It’s always incredible to read one of James’ longer works because he is so skilled at weaving the characters, conversations, personal histories and settings together. I wonder if James allowed himself the space he truly needed to get this story down. If he were less obliged to fit an accepted, serialized novel form, I think he could have written Isabelle Archer’s story for the rest of his life.

That Novel With Post Its All Over The Cover Is Good.

Then We Came to the End

Author: Joshua Ferris

Notes: Just picked up this novel at the Book Trader on 2nd and Market, where I’ve recently started volunteering.

I am more than half way through it already. It is a quick read. The book is about the employees of a leading advertising agency in Chicago. They are in the creative department (copy writers and designers) and all of their quirks and foibles (bad business casual wardrobes, swearing and lounging around the office) are embraced because they are “creatives.” The cushy, corporate life breaks down though as one personal crisis after another, coupled with dozens of layoffs, hit the company.

The first part of the book starts off in this interesting “we” narration from the collective point of view of this small section of the ad agency. It jumps to a normal third person narration in the middle and then back to the “we” at the end. (hahah- Thus the fitting title, “Then We Came to the End).

So far it’s a funny, smart read with great “office” dialogue and body language that I think will really strike a chord with anyone who has ever bemoaned their fate as a square peg in a corporate round hole.

• Ok- just finished the book. It was a quick read. Something about it is still interesting- making me think.  I like how Ferris captures the strange, brittle connections between coworkers. I felt there was more room for exploration in all of those relationships- ah, but maybe that’s the point?

  It all comes full circle at the end- in a kind of a weird, MFA, writerly way. The truth is out there for each of the office personalities to grasp, but they are mostly too distracted by the hum of their subconscious ticker-tape brains to listen, as the truth is READ ALOUD to them (literally).

  Only the readers and writers are elevated in this story. The characters who turn out to be the good people, the ones who gain some kind of happiness or understanding, are the same people marginalized by the narrating “we” in the beginning. One of the strongest features is how as a reader, you become complicit in the “we” point of view. It’s a neat little package. Perhaps too neat? I don’t know- try reading it for yourself.

Finished House of Wits

Wow. It took me almost four months (Since mid-June) to read through this 600-page biography of Henry James’ family by Paul Fisher.

I am glad I read it, having learned a great deal about the author, his family, and Victorian culture. The James family witnessed the Civil War in New York and Boston and Henry lived to see the onset of World War I from England. The sweeping changes, as the world moved from the Victorian age toward the industrial revolution and beyond, had interesting effects on each member of the family. Most notably, Henry and his older brother William both produced works focused on the emerging art of psychology (Henry in his novels, and William in his more academic texts).

The women’s rights movement also gathers momentum in the background of the family’s history, shedding new light on the shadowy figure of Alice, the youngest and only female James sibling. Fisher also provides strange contemporary insights into the latent homosexuality exhibited by Henry and Alice and other thinkers and writers who lived during the late 1800s.

The book is a slow, slow read at times. The James family was so bogged down by ailments, neuroses, inclement weather, steamship schedules, inheritances, failure and repressed desires, that at times it becomes a chore to read. Fisher is brilliant and I can’t imagine how he sifted through all of the letters, existing biographies, fiction, and other available materials to craft such a full-spectrum view of this complicated family. If you already like James, or are wondering why he was so celebrated by his peers and continues to be lauded as one of the best novelists, definitely try this biography.

Found A Great Blog

I was excited to find this wordpress- As It Ought To Be- which lends credibility and substance to the idea of blogging. On the site, a group of varied professionals, intellectuals and artists, post heartfelt and thoughtful content about subjects they’ve devoted their careers and lives to.

This is one of the best uses of a blog. Real content and not self-interested, self-promotional prattle. With topics ranging from immigration reform to critical theory and poetry- there is something for every kind of thinker on the site.

• Interesting Note- The name of the blog is taken from the Thomas Paine quote below.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Need Help Mitigating Society’s Absurd Defeaning Noise? Me Too.

Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal

Author: Rob Riemen

Notes: An inquiry into our values and improving human society inspired by Thomas Mann’s work, “Nobility of Spirit: Sixteen Essays on the Problem of Humanity.

Draws on Mann and many other voices. I hope to find a sort of moral and spiritual compass in this book. A thought or idea that will help mitigate society’s absurd and deafening noise – and cut through to some truth.

Mark Sarvas wrote on his blog, The Elegant Variation,”This slim volume . . . stands as the most stirring redoubt against the ascendant forces of know-nothingness that we’ve come across in a long time.” Sarvas also refers to the book as, “a meditation on what is at stake when the pursuit of high ideals is elbowed aside by the pursuit of fleeting material gain.” 

A Book of Silence

A Book of Silence

Author: Sara Maitland

Some People DO Just Pick-up and Move to Montana…

Winter: Notes from Montana

Author: Rick Bass

Notes: John gave me this book to read. (thank you john). It’s a beautiful part journal, part nature-catalog/sketchbook telling the story of Bass and his girlfriend moving from the South Eastern U.S., along with their two dogs and wintering in Montana. They find a house where they can live as caretakers in a tiny outpost near the Canadian border with only thirty other folks nearby.

So far, it’s a lovely, engrossing and honest rendering of getting to know a new place, it’s inhabitants and a new way of life. The experience of immersing yourself completely in a foreign environment. It’s also the beginning of Bass’ lifetime journey. I believe this was the first milestone on the way to his becoming a permanent resident of Montana.

I am at the beginning of the book- and Bass is still optimistic and glorying in every little detail in this new place, but I am guessing that when Winter finally shows up, so will hardship, loneliness and self-doubt.

In Pursuit of Solitude

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place

Author: Susan Wittig Albert

Found an ad for this new memoir in Bookforum. It’s about a woman’s journey to become a writer and a wife. To have a marriage and the space and solitude to sustain an inner-life and to write. It looks wonderful- it’s on my list of books to buy.