Literary Blog Hop: Sometimes a Pig is Just a Pig

As even a cursory glance at this blog would reveal, I am not an expert on literary theory.  My formal study of literature ended when I was 16 and I’m far more interested in reading books than in analysing them to death.  So, don’t expect any conceptual fireworks or literary revelations in my post for this week’s Literary Blog Hop from the Blue Bookcase.  You won’t be finding an explanation of hermeneutics or a description of mimesis.  Postmodernism makes me itch and textuality just makes me snigger in a juvenile kind of way.

There are, however, a couple of literary devices or ideas that I both understand and like.  None of them are particularly earth-shattering but I’m afraid it’s the best I can do this week.  So, I am going to talk a little about allegory.

Allegory is the technique of making a point or expressing an idea by talking about something totally different.  Or, if you prefer, it is the art of conveying a secondary, figurative meaning through a surface narrative.  I’ve heard it said that an allegory is a metaphor stretched to encompass the whole story.

Allegory has a long and varied history.  Aesop’s Fables, dating back to around 600 BCE, are, of course, allegories.  At the risk of alienating Christian fundamentalists or other believers of the literal truth of the Bible, the Bible is full of allegorical writing (Jonah and the Whale, for example).  The Faerie Queene, Pilgrim’s Progress and the Water Babies are all allegorical, as is The Wind in the Willows.  Medieval and Renaissance literature and art are studded with complex symbolism and allegory.  Moving to more modern times, Orwell’s Animal Farm is classic allegory.

Allegory demands thought from the reader.  To appreciate allegory, the reader must be able to hold at least two different ideas in his or her head throughout the reading.  On the surface level, Animal Farm is an entertaining tale about what happens when a group of animals overthrow the farmer and take control of their own farm.  However, it’s also a specific allegory about the Russian Revolution, the early days of the Soviet Union and the gradual corruption of its ideals.  Moreover, it’s also a general allegory about the tendency of power to corrupt.

The problem of allegory, however, is that it is tempting to read it into everything.  Reams have been written to discuss whether The Lord of the Rings is at least partly an allegory about the Second World War, an interpretation lent credibility by the fact that much of the book was written during that period, or more generally about the dangers of totalitarian government or even about the atom bomb (apparently, the One Ring).  There are elements of the book that can clearly be fitted into this kind of reading.  Not so, cried Tolkien, who maintained that it was not an allegory, either general or specific, but was open to interpretation by the reader.

But here’s a thought: maybe it is actually an allegory, despite Tolkien’s denials.  Maybe Tolkien sub-consciously created an allegory.  Silly?  Well, take the case of Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.  On the surface, it is a tale about a world being destroyed by a plague and a party thrown by its callous ruler, intending to see out the plague time in luxury.  There is a commonly-expressed view that it is actually an allegory about the futility of trying to stave off death.  Indeed, as John Sutherland says of the story, “Allegorical?  Surely yes, Edgar.”

Here’s the thing though.  Poe hated allegory and said so.  It is difficult to see that he would have actively written something allegorical.  So, is it possible that a writer can sub-consciously write allegorically?  Or can we, the reader, impose allegory on a suitable text?  Or are we so obsessed with hidden meaning that we stretch allegory, seeing its ghost in places where it was never meant to be?

Personally, I prefer to see it as something that the author must intend.  Otherwise, the whole idea of allegory is tainted and weakened.  It becomes less clever, less skilful.  If Orwell really intended just to write a fairytale about some pigs and horses, I suspect Animal Farm would be considered in a very different light these days.

Literary Blog Hop: What Influences My Reading?

This week’s Literary Blog Hop, from the Blue Bookcase asks:

“What other outside influences affect your reading experience? Do you think these influences enhance or detract from the experience?”

I believe that there are a whole range of factors that influence my choice of reading material.  Firstly, there are the wholly external and environmental factors.  As I’ve mentioned before, if I am travelling, I like to read something that relates to the place I am travelling to.  The weather can also affect my reading choices – I am far more likely to pick up a detective story or a “feel good” kind of book if it is a cold, dark and miserable day outside.  Conversely, I feel much more capable of dealing with emotional and dark reading material when the sun is out.

There is another set of influences that affect my choice of reading material.  I’ll term them “external” for this post, although, in reality, they are internal to me.  These are the things that are temporary but which have an impact on my choices.  For example, I am prone to bouts of gloom and doom.  It would be insulting to true sufferers to term them bouts of depression but they are spells where the black dog comes to visit and I have difficulty in seeing the positive side of life.  I am lucky to have wonderful people like Mrs Falaise and mini-Falaise around me so these moods don’t tend to last for long but, while I am in one, I will always choose to read familiar books and books that don’t demand too much emotional investment.  I often choose to read escapist books that can transport my mind and imagination to exciting and remote times and places so as to distract myself from real life.

I’m also the kind of person that dives deep into subjects when my interest is piqued or when I am reminded of subjects or topics that I enjoy.  As an illustration of this, around a month ago, Lifetime Reader posted a couple of posts discussing a book on Shakespeare that she had been reading.  I used to enjoy reading and watching Shakespeare when I was younger but haven’t really read any for years.  Having read her posts, I recalled that I had a copy of John Michell’s Who wrote Shakespeare? on my TBR pile.  This then lead me to a book buying session and further reading and I now have two more posts on Shakespeare themed books, three more books about Shakespeare at the top of the TBR pile and a new copy of Polanski’s version of Macbeth to watch.  I suppose this kind of influence is external but not environmental.  However I categorise it, it is a very powerful kind of influence for me.

The final set of influences that tend to affect my reading choices are those that are internal and more or less permanent.  These, if you like, are the influences of my character on my reading.  On the whole, these tend to be more permissive than limiting.  Since mini-Falaise’s birth, I have become much more sensitised to books which revolve around graphic descriptions of children suffering or whose plots revolve around child murder or abduction.

I don’t think that the influences that lead me to choose one book over another then either enhance or detract from my reading.  If I have chosen to read a book because it has been recommended or because everyone is raving about it, I tend to be able to approach it on its own terms and not to be over-expectant for it.  Equally, if my mood or the outside world has affected the book I choose to read, then it is the choice of book that is affected and not the enjoyment of the book I ultimately read.

I think it is impossible for anyone’s choices of reading matter not to be affected by a whole host of influences.  In part, this is what defines us as individual readers and helps us form our own sets of critical filters for the books we choose.

Literary Blog Hop: What should we read before the dying of the light?

This week, the Literary Blog Hop, brought to us by the Blue Bookcase, is asking:

”What one literary work must you read before you die?”

My immediate response is that the literary work that I must read before I die is whichever book I decide to postpone reading until I am sitting in my favourite chair, surrounded by my grandchildren (I am not going to live to meet my great-grandchildren unless both my daughter and her offspring become teen parents) at the age of 100!

I am pretty sure that’s not the answer that everyone is looking for so I’ll put on my thinking cap.  

Virgil, Ovid, Shakespeare, Trollope, Dickens, Waugh, Defoe, Swift, Nabokov, Twain, Austen, Brontë (C), Brontë (E), Whitman, Eliot, Auden, Shaw, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Orwell, Beckett, Poe, Dante, Cervantes, Wordsworth, Dumas, Borges, Forster, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Zola, Amis (K), Amis (M), Kafka, Woolf, Hugo, Maupassant, Wodehouse, Banks, Mishima, Eco, Saki, Fitzgerald, Homer, Kazantzakis, Mailer, Bulgakov, Updike, Pynchon.

There we go. Fifty writers off the top of my head and that is only scratching the tip of the iceberg.  There are simply too many books.  I don’t know what the “one” book is that I must read before I die.  Should it be a book I “should” read or a book I “want” to read?

Ultimately, I think it needs to be a book that, if I haven’t read it before I die, I will look back from my afterlife and give my decaying body a spiritual clip round the ear for not having done so.  On that basis, and acknowledging that it is impossible to narrow it down to a single book, I nominate Any Old Iron by Anthony Burgess.

Any Old Iron is Burgess’ updating of the legend of Excalibur, King Arthur’s mythical blade, and tells the story of a Welsh-Jewish family’s progress through the first half of the 20^th Century, leading up to the creation of Israel.  I have had a copy kicking around for most of the past 25 years and have started it several times but have never finished it.  This isn’t because it is dull or difficult.  For some strange reason, every time I have picked it up, there has been a distraction or a supervening need to read something else that has interrupted me.  So, if there is one book I am determined to finish before I pop my clogs, this is it.

As an alternative, I am currently trying to read Gravity’s Rainbow as part of my 1,001 Book challenge and it is, unquestionably, the most difficult novel I have ever read.  There is so much going on in it and it is so complex that I can only manage a hundred pages or so before I have to read something (anything!) else as mental relief.  Again, I will not let it defeat me -  I will finish it, if it is the last thing I ever do.  And it may well be.

But, hold on a minute.  What if the question isn’t about me but about you?  What if it is asking me to nominate a book that you must read before you keel over?

Again, I will mentally stamp my foot, pout and declare that it is a sheer impossibility to nominate but a single book as the only “must” read for anyone.  So, just because I nominate this one, don’t think that there aren’t a host of others I think you should read.  Oh, no!

Anyway, as I am only allowed one nomination, I would suggest that your literary life will not be complete unless you have read Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Why?  Because it is fab.  It has everything – a cool plotline, memorable characters, some classic quotes and the greatest villainess ever.  It is melodramatic, over the top and simply great fun.  It’s my favourite Shakespeare play and, if you haven’t already read it, I suggest you drop everything (unless you are holding your baby) and run out to buy a copy.  After all, who knows when the Grim Reaper will come a-knocking!

Hops: Two for the Price of One!

I’m going to try something a little different this Friday and am going to deal with both the Literary Book Blog Hop from the Blue Bookcase and the Book Blogger Hop from Crazy for Books in the same post.

Turning to the Literary Book Blog Hop first, this week’s question is:

“Can literature be funny?  What is your favourite humorous literary book?”

I was a little non-plussed when I read this question.  My immediate response was to slap my forehead and shout, “Well, yeah!  Of course!” at the computer screen.  A roll-call of names such as Saki, Wodehouse, Sharpe, Swift, Twain, Sedaris, Adams leap from brain to fingers to blog post draft without so much as a furrowed brow or a single hum or ha.

Then I jotted down the name of Terry Pratchett and it suddenly dawned on me that the question isn’t about humour after all.  It’s about what counts as literature.  Terry Pratchett has sold millions of copies of his books.  They have made millions of people laugh.  They are, without doubt, funny.  They are also cleverly funny, sometimes even just plain clever.  But are they “literary”?  Probably not, although I think they have literary merit.  I suspect, however, that most people would not term his books as “literature”.  Part of this may be genre snobbery.  Or just maybe, we like our “literature”, our “classics” to be serious.  To wear, metaphorically, spectacles and an academic gown.  To deal with BIG issues in a grown-up way.  Maybe we are a little bit too snobby to allow that humour can be literary.

If so, of course, the question makes absolute sense.  Can deep and meaningful literature really be funny?  Can it make us laugh?  On this basis, we have to discount all of the authors referred to above together with all authors who set out to be funny.  Evelyn Waugh?  Sorry, not literature.  Laurence Sterne?  Sorry, Penguin Classics shouldn’t have included Tristram Shandy in their list.  Shakespeare?  Should have stuck to histories and tragedies?  Oscar Wilde?  Pah!  Voltaire?  Shouldn’t have bothered with Candide, which even made my cynical and sullen 16-year old self laugh.  I could go on. And on.  And on.  All of these authors are, without doubt, “literary”.  And deliberately funny.  So I have to conclude that, as I thought, literature can be funny.

There is a point to the question, though.  I think that, because we associate being funny with being happy, with being light-hearted, we may find it more difficult to apply our judgment to the issue of whether humorous books are also “literary”.  To try and illustrate this and provoke some thought, I list below three authors that I find very funny.  I personally think they are “literary” but others may disagree:

1.         Jasper Fforde.  Both the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crimes series are funny.  They are also very clever.  To be fair, some of the plotting doesn’t stand up to a good prodding and some of the internal logic is weak but they are nicely written and they also deal with interesting issues of identity, time and space and the nature of literature.  But they are set in an alternative reality.  They verge on being genre fiction.  Are they “literary”?  I think so but many wouldn’t.  If you have read him, what do you think?

2.         Roald Dahl. Forget his children’s books.  They are funny and clever and classics but they don’t have a bearing on this discussion. Instead, I present you with My Uncle Oswald.  If you haven’t read this yet, for the love of God (or Richard Dawkins or whoever else you choose to revere) get hold of a copy quickly.  In this book, the title character discovers the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world and, with the aid of a female friend, makes his fortune by stealing the semen of Europe’s artistic and social elite and selling it to women.  Is it “literary”?  I’m not too sure but do think it is very well written.

3.         Kingsley Amis.  Lucky Jim, the story of provincial university lecturer Jim Dixon, is the book that made his name in the ‘60s.  It is very funny and biting.  Is it “literary”?  Definitely.  But is there really that much of a difference between this and the others?

Turning to the Book Blogger Hop, this week’s question is:

“Who’s your all-time favourite book villain?”

So many too choose from.  Sauron?  Voldemort? Bill Sykes? Cardinal Richelieu?  Iago?  Blofeld?  Moriarty?  Bertie’s Aunt Agatha?  Steerpike?

It’s an almost impossible task to select one prime nasty.  One of the hallmarks of much good writing is that the villains are usually not pure black archetypes of evil.  There is usually some grey about them, some hint that there badness is not absolute.  Often their counterpoint hero is not totally good either and, in some extreme cases, it can even be difficult to spot who wears the white hat and who wears the black.  I can’t help thinking that for this particular accolade, we are looking for someone really dreadful, a monstrous character who thoroughly deserves a good hissing.  And so, please give up some boos for:

Cthulhu from the Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft.  He’s the high priest of the Great Old Ones.  He’s a cosmic presence.  He’s the focus of doomsday cults.  A statue of him is described as having "represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind."

To top it all, he is coming to eat the world’s soul.  Not nice.  Not nice at all.  In fact, I bet Voldemort would pee his pants at the mere sight of Cthulhu.

Honorable mentions are due to Count Dracula, Milton’s Satan and the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Literary Book Blog Hop: A Book Before Dying

It’s Literary Book Blog Hop time again, hosted by The Blue Bookcase.  This week’s question is posed by Mel U from The Reading Life who asks:

“If you were going off to war (or some other similarly horrific situation) and could only take one book with you, which book would you take and why?”

These days, I suppose one could take an e-reader with a thousand different books but that is probably a bit of a cheat and slightly defeats the purpose of the question!

I have actually recently read a couple of books that do actually address the relationship of soldiers (or at least officers) to literature.  From an American perspective, Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth Samet is a fascinating account of her experience as an English teacher at West Point and her relationships with the young men and women whom she taught there.  A more English viewpoint is provided by Patrick Henessey in his account of Sandhurst, Afghanistan and Iraq in The Junior Officer’s Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars.  Both are definitely worth a read (although the latter is as much a war memoir as anything else) but neither is at hand to assist me in this post.

I started by thinking I might take something that I could turn to during the tough times to remind me of my reasons for fighting and for having joined up in the first place or to rekindle any feelings of honour or patriotism that had been extinguished in the field.  This might be David Selbourne’s The Principle of Duty, in which he restates a philosophical principle that appears to have largely been forgotten, namely that, as individuals, we owe duties and obligations to our fellow citizens and to our communities as much as we have individual rights.  Alternatively, I might go for something less dry and more emotional, such as a volume of poetry from the early days of the First World War when poets such as Rupert Brooke could still write un-self-consciously about sacrifice:

“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

On reflection, however, I may have become too heartsore or hardened in spirit for this kind of writing to speak to me.  I may be frightened and, in anticipation of death, may rediscover the faith I lost as a teenager in which event a copy of The Bible or The English Book of Common Prayer may be what I need.

I’m not convinced that this would actually happen though and, even if it did, I can still remember sufficient to be able to pray and console myself from memory.  I guess that, to answer this question properly, I have to face up to the fact that it would be entirely possible that the book I choose might well be the last book I would ever read.  What book would I want to be fresh in my mind when I go to meet my Maker?

Should it be a Great Classic, a volume from the canon of world literature?  Something of great merit and wisdom so that, should I cease upon the midnight (although I suspect with rather than without pain), my mind would be filled with deep thoughts?  Shakespeare, maybe, or Homer?  Dumas? Trollope? How about some Victor Hugo? Dickens might well work – possibly Oliver Twist or The Pickwick Papers.  Not too heavy but just heavy enough.  I’ve never read Don Quixote, Ulysses or War and Peace and I could die with a sense of satisfaction if one of these were my last read.

But, no.  I don’t think so.  I would want some comfort and relief with my final book.  I would have my mind fly away to a better, warmer place than a muddy foxhole.  There are so many to choose from, too many really.  The Lord of the Rings would be a strong contender.  I used to read it once a year and, as well as being a great story, it would bring back happy memories of my childhood.  Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers similarly has an entertaining plot, is set in my old university and brings back enjoyable memories.  What else?  Well, as anyone who has read any of my other posts will know, I am a P.G. Wodehouse nut and so one of his Blandings books would be a true mental flight to a sunnier world.  I’d like to be greedy and take one of the several omnibus editions but, if I am pinned to a single volume, it would be Summer Lightning, a classic tale, in which the Empress has disappeared, leaving Lord Emsworth devastated and Gally writing his memoirs which have the potential to embarrass almost the entire aristocracy.  This would definitely transport me away from the battlefield.  I could read this over and over again and not be bored.

Yes, that’s it.  In war, I would want humour and escapism so Wodehouse gets the nod.  But actually, were I on the front line and facing death, the final thing I would want to read would be a letter from Mrs Falaise and mini-Falaise, sending their love and thoughts, with a nice photo of the pair of them.  That would be more precious than any author’s writings could be.

Literary Book Blog Hop: A Place to Be

It’s time for another Literary Book Blog Hop, hosted by The Blue Bookcase.  This week's question has been posed by Robyn who asks:

“What setting (time or place) from a book or story would you most like to visit?  Eudora Welty said that, "Being shown how to locate, to place, any account is what does most toward making us believe it...," so in what location would you most like to hang out”?

As one of the great pleasures of reading is to be transported to far away places and different times, this is a truly difficult, even impossible, question to answer.  After all, where does one start?

There are so many places and times that spring to mind.  I’d quite happily spend time in Tolkien’s Shire, either in Hobbiton itself, especially if it was around the time of a wealthy hobbit’s birthday, or at Farmer Maggot’s house, eating copious amounts of mushrooms and butter and I’d rather enjoy propping up the bar in the Prancing Pony at Bree or relaxing at Rivendell.

If it isn’t to be Middle Earth, how about Jasper Fforde’s Well of Lost Plots?  For any lover of fiction, the place where novels are created must be an irresistible lure.  Alternatively, if you enjoy the odd alcoholic beverage, to sit in the corner of Simon Green’s Strangefellows bar, deep in the heart of the Nightside, would be an eye-opening experience, although I am not sure I have the constitution to spend much time there.  A more gentle drinking experience would be Callahan’s Place, created by Spider Robinson.

Still in the realm of fictional places, most of us would, I am sure, quite fancy going to school at Hogwarts and I’ve always wanted to try butterbeer and chocolate frogs.  Also, as a bit of a glutton, Harry Potter’s school dinners are a universe away from those served at my old school.

Moving back to our world, there is always something magical about Venice, with its faded palazzo, myriad canals and waterways and dream-like luminosity.  Spending time with Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti and his family would be very appealing.

Or what about 1980s New York, as described in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities?  Or the glory days of the Raj, featured in a wide range of novels, including Forster’s A Passage to India and Scott’s Raj Quartet.  New Orleans? Paris? China? Japan? Rome? Florence? Milan?  The Yorkshire moors? Lyme Regis in Dorset?  The Highlands of Scotland? Oxford? London? For the literary traveller, almost anywhere at any time is possible. Ancient Greece?  The Turkey of the Ottomans?  The Egypt of the Pharoahs? The walls of Troy?

So many places, both exotic and more familiar.  My chosen place would also depend on my mood and feelings when asked the question so today’s chosen location would, almost certainly not be tomorrow’s.  Today, I feel like rest and relaxation and so have plumped for a place of peace and sunshine.  In my chosen place, it is always tea-time on a sunny, summer day.  It is a place where God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.  I have decided that, for today, I would like to hang out at Blandings Castle, ancestral home of P.G. Wodehouse’s Lord Emsworth.  Evelyn Waugh wrote of Blandings, “The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled.  All those who know them long to return.”

I would have some stipulations, however.  The execrable Baxter must have been dismissed from his post as Lord Emsworth’s secretary and replaced by another of his former secretaries, Ronald Psmith.  Lady Constance Keeble must be in America with her husband.  The dastardly Duke of Dunstable must have been banned from the premises and, most importantly of all, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, Emsworth’s younger brother and member in good standing of the Pelican Club must be firmly ensconced in the castle, armed with a whiskey and soda and a copy of his scandalous unpublished memoirs.  To misquote Wordsworth, what bliss it would be in that dawn to be alive and at Blandings.

Literary Blog Hop: The Book I Hate

Over at the Literary Blog Hop this week, the discussion topic is:

“Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated when you were made to read it in school or university.  Why did you dislike it?”

And, immediately, my mind is cast back to the spring of 1985.  A younger, slimmer, spottier Falaise, sporting the hairstyle David Bowie would have been wearing had he been forced to have his hair cut in a small village by a gnarled old crone, is staring out of a classroom window over a windswept Essex landscape.  On his desk lies a copy of the book that will soon fill him with bile and rage and which, even today, can raise his blood pressure to a level of which his doctor would strongly disapprove.

Falaise opens the book and, at the instruction of his English teacher, begins to read:

“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo”

Falaise foolishly hopes that things can only get better.  He is wrong.  And I stand (well, sit) here today and am not ashamed to say: I hate A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

I know, I know.  James Joyce was a literary genius.  Time magazine included him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20^th Century and three of his novels (including Portrait of the Artist) appear in the Modern Library’s 100 best English-language novels of the 20^th Century.  I completely understand that many great writers such as Samuel Beckett and John Updike were influenced by him.  I just can’t abide his novels.  In fact, he is the only author to whose works I have a physical reaction of nausea.

I don’t like stream of consciousness writing. I don’t like interior monologues, which always come across to me as self-indulgent.  And I’m not a big fan of coming of age novels in general.  All of which probably gives a fairly big clue as to why I don’t like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Looking back from across the years, it may simply be the case that I wasn’t mature enough really to appreciate it.  I wonder what my reaction would be to it if I were to pick it up now, never having read it.  I don’t think it is simply due to it being a book I had to study – in general I enjoyed the books I had to study, including works by Shakespeare, Hughes, Sartre, Racine, Homer and Thucydides.  I just didn’t like this one (or Le Blé en Herbe by Colette for that matter – but that’s another story).