An Athenian among Greeks

I saw a trailer of the upcoming Great Gatsby movie the other day, an adaptation of a book I particularly loved. It contained a great shot of New York during the 1920's. When I spent an extraordinary week in the city last year, I noticed how the Jazz age was all over the place (especially on 5th ave.).

No one described the Roaring 20's and the café society more elegant than F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the world of the Belles-lettres the author is (to put it in his own words)
"an Athenian among Greeks", no doubters there!

As luck would have it, I had just finished one of his novels before going to NYC: The Beautiful  & Damned

The novel is all about the relationship of Adam Patch and his wife Gloria. The classical themes of Fitzgerald are present: heavy drinking, the East coast jet set, World War I and the lost generation. 

The love story is a tempestuous and melancholical one, resembling the author's relationship with his wife Zelda (picture below). It's witty, elegant, moving and amply deserves a couple of hours of your life. 

Quote: 

Her eyes appeared to regard him out of many thousand years: all emotion she might have felt, all words she might have uttered, would have seemed inadequate beside the adequacy of her silence, ineloquent against the eloquence of her beauty - and of her body, close to him, slender and cool.

Cormack McCarthy

For most people, his name doesn’t ring a bell. However, McCarthy's work speaks for him, as both The Road and No Country for Old Men were turned into acclaimed motion pictures (thus gaining widespread attention). As far as I’m concerned, he’s one of the essential writers of our age. He's certainly my favourite!

 

 

 

His novels vary in genre: Southern Gothic (Child of God, Outer Dark), Western (Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men) or Post-Apocalyptic (The Road), the man masters it all.

The first book I ever read of McCarthy was All the Pretty Horses. Though labeled a Western, it is more a coming-of-age and love story with beautiful references to Mexican history. I believe this work to be an ideal introduction to the man's writings. It is less bleak and more romantic than his earlier works. At the same time it deals with typical McCarthy themes: the inevitability of suffering and violence and the flaws in human nature. The work was brilliant, prompting me to immediately read The Crossing and Cities of the Plain as well.

His works are philosophical and moving. Take The Road or No Country for Old Men for instance: In the former a father tries to teach his son morals in a post-apocalyptical setting of declining civilization (Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting), in the latter an old-time sheriff witnesses the inevitable decay of his count(r)y, personified by the sociopath Chigurh.

Admittedly, his novels are quite dark but they're allways relevant, thrilling and a great read!



P.S.: I almost forgot, the man is also a playwright. Here's a great quote from The Sunset Limited - a story of an deeply religious ex-con trying to prevent an atheistic professor from killing himself:

Even God gives up at some point. There's no ministry in hell that I ever heard of.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Set against the background of the Spanish Civil War, this novel focuses on Robert Jordan, an American fighter in the International Brigades. However, there isn’t a large amount of bloodshed is this book. This masterpiece mainly deals with the themes of camaraderie, death, love and the thin line between ideology and bigotry.  

Hemingway was a correspondent in Spain during the Civil War and witnessed its atrocity. One of the most moving scenes is the execution of Franco-supporters in a smalltime village.

The language seems archaic at times (e.g. the frequent usage of “thou”). However, Hemingway aimed to parallel the Spanish language and idioms. Some find this disturbing, but I quite enjoyed it. Hemingway really captured the Spanish temperament in this work.

Read this book! You are bound to fall in love with the idealistic Jordan, strong Pilar (the female leader of a guerilla-band) and Maria, the gypsy.

 
Quote: “I obscenity in the milk of thy mother.”

John Adams

Wouldn’t it be swell to have your own portrait taken? And I mean an oversized painting, not a picture to put on facebook.

If you have to be vain, go all the way!

I love portraits, especially those of  historical characters.

 

Take John Adams for instance:

 

 

The man was an American revolutionary, author of the Massachusetts constitution,  he assisted Thomas Jefferson in writing The Declaration of Independence and became Vice-President under George Washington before becoming the second President of the U.S.

If you’re interested in this Founding Father's adventures in Paris, London, Amsterdam and Washington, in his friendship (and animosity) with Thomas Jefferson, his views on Washington and Franklin, I suggest you read David McCullough’s John Adams. It is a wonderfully written account of the man and his age, his vices (he was quite vain and always felt underappreciated), virtues and achievements.

 
It is quite clear what Adams thought to be his greatest achievement, as he once wrote to his friend:
 

"I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800."

 

Check out 89 year-old Adams:

 

 

 

The portrait really captures his bright mind, his self-esteem, his (slightly) haughty personality and his joie de vivre (he never got weary of life).

It’s important to keep a twinkle in your wrinkle!

 

All for one!

Two authors convinced me that reading can be a thrill: J.R.R. Tolkien and Alexandre Dumas.
I shall devote this page to the latter as Tolkien is quite omnipresent these days.

Dumas however, is quite underestimated. I believe it has something to do with the boyish sharm of his work and his prolific writing.

No one writes adventures like Dumas does: his works are epic, charming, funny and full of life.
His stories take you to the most fascinating periods in French and European history. He wrote of Richelieu, Louis XIII & XIV, Charles I & II of England and gave us the three musketeers!

Personally, my favourite work of his is The Count of Monte Cristo. It's undeniably darker than the three musketeers, as it focusses on themes as hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness.

The author himself was of mixed race ancestry. Scorn and discrimination were his part.
However, one of his responses to an insult against his African ancestry became famous:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

How can one not love this chubby fellow?

Howard Zinn & The American Myth

Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economisc Sciences, said in an interview with Der Spiegel that the American Dream has become a myth. Apparently mr. Stiglitz believes that the American was once a reality.

As some of my followers know, I profoundly love the United States of America. However, I do believe that the basic presumption of the American Dream (equal opportunity for prosperity, success and upward social mobility) is a fallacy. Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was the man who convinced me with his wonderful work A People's History of The United States.

His book focusses on the lives and stories of native americans, slaves, women, laborers and draftees, most of whom never even got a shot at pursuing the American Dream.

The man was a brilliant historian, an idealist who believed in the responsibilities of the historian and the individual towards society.

Quote: "I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for  human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence which says that all of us have an equal right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality — and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that.^"

Welcome to my den!

Dear readers,

This blog is my way of inviting you all too my den. Doing so the virtual way  - I must confess - is also a way to keep you out of my off-line den. For the best reading experiences only require a master narrator and a humble reader, don't they?

None the less, I do believe that happiness is only real when shared. Therefore, every once in a while, I will devote a few mediocre lines to admirable books (be they fictional or not).

Please feel free to share your visions regarding the concerned novels or history books.

As I read that Romney is opposed to cutbacks in military spendings today, I decided to devote my first lines to a wonderful satire. Set against the background of World War II, this tragically fun novel exposes the absurdity of warfare and the moronic and bureaucratic ways of reasoning within the military:

Yossarian (the main character) is not the archetypal, fear-conquering soldier, as his aim is to "live forever or die in the attempt". However, this tragic character quickly became one of my fictional heroes!

Quote: "That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left."