Lolita

To follow up to Reading Lolita in Tehran, I read Lolita. I don't know that I would have picked it up otherwise, but I wanted to see for myself what could make this story a classic and a frequent topic of study.

This story is unsettling. There are so many things that turn the reader off from the main character,almost from the beginning. For many current readers, I think this actually starts before reading anything. Many of us know that the story is about the seduction/abduction of a twelve year old girl. A lot of people can't get past that, and to be honest I can't blame them. It's difficult to read, knowing that the reality is far away from what Humbert sees from his perspective.

From that standpoint, the story is about his obsession and his delusion. It's about completely losing control by trying to take the ultimate control of another person. That's what I think draws people back to this book. Nabokov provides so much depth and so many layers to the depravity that makes up Humbert. It's possible to be taken in by his delusions and see the seduction he imagines is taking place. 

I wonder if there's a part of all of us that has the capacity for living under delusion. Not that I think most people would make it to the level Humbert does, but we all have a tendency to think of ourselves as right in all circumstances. Self-awareness is scary, and sometimes it's easier just to blame other people for the bad decisions we make.  

Please do not take anything in this review as condoning sexual abuse, or abuse of any kind. It's not OK. If you or someone you know are being abused, please don't be afraid to seek help.
 

Orlando

I just finished reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I thought this was an appropriate book to follow up yesterday's post about judging a book by it's cover.

One of the aspects of Orlando's story that I enjoyed most was the way that Woolf tackles the perceived notions of right and wrong for the sexes.

For those of you that haven't read Orlando, one of the central events in the story is that midway through the life described by the writer the main character changes gender. Orlando begins life, and this story as a male and becomes female around the time of her thirtieth birthday. The story is a fanciful twist on a traditional biography for this reason as well as many others. For example, during the years we watch Orlando while she ages from childhood to the age of 36, close to 400 years pass.

So not only do we see the differences between the sexes highlighted, but also the differences of the ages. Among all this change and transition, we also see the ways in which many things remain the same. This introduction also goes into the relationship, ie the affair, between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. The character Orlando is based off Vita in temperament, travels, and Orlando's home is even modeled off Vita's. The book is in many ways a love letter to Vita.

We see Orlando win the favor of Queen Elizabeth and develop a love for writing through an early interaction with Shakespeare. We watch as Orlando chases a beautiful Russian princess and has his heart broken when he finds her to be unfaithful. We lose ourselves in his writing of the Oak Tree poem as he does. We feel his frustration with the Archduchess as he does not return her affections. We follow Orlando as he leaves England behind to become the King's Ambassador to Constantinople. We wake up with her when she finds herself suddenly, but not surprisingly a woman. We travel through the hills with her and the gypsies. We join her on her voyage home to England and watch as she begins life in a new era. We watch her run away from love and finally embrace it.

It's interesting to see the way even as her physical gender shifts, her psychology stays the same. The Lady Orlando frequently goes about in men's clothing and finds herself engaging in affairs with women. There's nothing that the Lord Orlando would want to do or experience that the Lady Orlando does not embrace with equal fervor and abandon.

I enjoyed the way the book tackled the behaviors that are expected for men and women and the way our attitudes can be shaped towards another person based solely on their gender. Even though the book was written close to a century ago, many of those notions remain with us, and are things some of us will struggle with even today.

Whether it's being teased for being an effeminate man or rebuked for being too strong willed as a woman, society still tries to put us each in a little box and tries to define us. What's appealing about Orlando's character then is her refusal to be defined and her acceptance only of her own definition of self.

The Nutcracker

The refrigerator is full of turkey and other leftovers. The decorations on the mantle have been changed up again. Lights are popping up all over the neighborhood. It feels like everything has shifted and the new focus is on Christmas. Like a lot of people, this is my favorite time of year.

One of my favorite Christmas memories is being little and getting all dressed up to go into Chicago. My mom and I took the train in from Geneva and met my dad at his office. He took the afternoon off and the four of us went around the city. The first stop on the list, and my favorite, was Marshall Fields. Their holiday window displays were pure magic. One of the best displays they did was the holiday classic The Nutcracker.

I think most of us are familiar with the story, but just in case here's my quick synopsis of this version. (Like so many classic stories, there area lot of small variations among them.) It's Christmas Eve and a little girl named Marie is given a nutcracker by her godfather. Her godfather is an eccentric man who makes all sorts of marvelous toys and clockwork things. During the night, the nutcracker comes to life and defeats the King of the Mice with Marie's help. After the King of the mice is defeated, the Nutcracker is transformed into a handsome prince. He takes Marie to his kingdom in the land of sweets and she and her nutcracker live happily ever after.

I love the magic in the story. I love the strange world that Marie and her prince visit, and the things that they see there. It's easy for me to get lost in the imagery and pulled into the beautiful world that is created by Marie's imagination, or perhaps in some fashion by her godfather.

Wuthering Heights

This book is not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it. There's also something about it that makes me want to curl up under a soft, cozy blanket with an actual steaming cup of tea. It's the description of the moors- it's like I can feel the winds. I have to admit I also feel a little cold because of the relationships in this book.

I know that a lot of people consider this to be a romance, and while I do see some aspects of a romance, it strikes me more as a power struggle. Heathcliff and Cathy are more interested in getting their way without compromising than actually finding a way to be together. They spend so much time and energy trying to win and then punish the other that they miss out on so much. They're mutual obsession becomes the source of so much unnecessary pain and torment not to only to themselves but to everyone around them. No one in this world is allowed to experience happiness.

Everyone is inextricably linked, and as much as they might want to break away from each other and from this place, they can't. Or they won't. I think that distinction is different for each character and is something that changes throughout the story.

Healthcliff goes from being welcomed into the Earnshaw household by Cathy's father, eventually being preferred by the older man to his own son, Hindley. It takes some time, but he wins Cathy over as well and sets himself up as the target for Hindley's rage when her returns home with a wife and son of his own. He remains close with Cathy, though their friendship is challenged from many directions. I think there's a time when they do truly love each other, but it doesn't last, or maybe it can't.

While she is staying at Thruscross Grange, the house closest to Wuthering Heights, recovering from a dog bite, some readers will say that she becomes infatuated with Edgar Linton. I think it's more likely that she becomes infatuated with the Linton's lifestyle. Cathy is materialistic. She wants to be surrounded by luxury and pretty things. Edgar is a means to an end; a very different end than one she could ever hope to have with Healthcliff.

Heathcliff can't take being second best to Cathy after spending so much of his life being so far below second best in everyone else's. He runs away, and stays away for three years. He returns after Cathy and Edgar are married, and embarks upon a series of actions that are motivated by revenge and a desire to prove that he's become the gentleman no one thought he could be.

He lends money to Hindley to cover the other man's debts and becomes the owner of Wuthering Heights, stealing it out from under the other man, who is far too drunk to realize what's actually going on. He marries Isabella, Edgar's sister, and treats her so horribly she takes their son, Linton, and leaves Heathcliff, spending her remaining days as far away from Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights as she dared to go. Upon her death, Linton returns to his father where he is unloved and forced into marriage with Cathy and Edgar's daughter, Catherine. Edgar dies without his daughter, as she's basically being held prisoner at Wuthering Heights, and shortly after Linton dies as well. Catherine stays at Wuthering Heights and slowly finds herself in love with Hindley's son Hareton, who has in many ways been brought up exactly as Heathcliff was.

It's interesting to consider how hard Heathcliff fights to gain control over Wuthering Heights, and in the process over Cathy and perhaps most importantly himself. While he ultimately achieves that control, it's fleeting. He won't be able to keep Wuthering Heights forever, memories of Cathy haunt his days, and he slowly reverts to the animal he tried so hard to prove that he no longer was.

All of this is driven from his need for revenge and his need to control everything and everyone around him. In the end all of that control was just an illusion. He fought for the legal right to both Wuthering Heights and Thruscross Grange, and both fall to Cathy's daughter and Hindley's son upon Heathcliff's death and their marriage.

In the end there is a small sense of hope that Catherine and Hareton will find some true happiness in their lives. There's so much loss and hurt in the story, it's hard to imagine anyone finding something that makes them happy, but there has to be some hope. The two of them are almost a second chance, they can see what might have been for Cathy and Heathcliff if they'd only given their love a chance.

Frankenstein

I read this book while we were on the plane. It's short, so very doable even on a flight that lasts less than nine hours. I'd never read it before, but was pretty familiar with the story through the many Hollywood adaptations. Even with some familiarity there were a few things that surprised me.

I didn't find Victor Frankenstein to be a very sympathetic character. He spent more time than I would have expected hiding from or whining about his creation rather than dealing with the problems he created head on. I had more sympathy for the monster, though even there not as much as I thought I would. That makes it sound as though I didn't enjoy the book when I did.

I was pleasantly surprised by the intelligence of the monster. I expected a slow, lumbering giant, but instead the monster is incredibly agile, fast, and smarter than I think even Frankenstein could have imagined while he was working in his lab.

There are a variety of things that I think are smartly addressed, though not with completely answered questions, that make this a good read. The first is the most obvious- bioethics. At what point should Frankenstein have stopped himself? At what point should he have stopped trying to figure out if he could complete the experiment and asked whether it should be attempted at all? What responsibility did he have to the monster after it's creation? Surely there had to be a better reaction to the monster than hiding from it and leaving it to find its own way through the world.

That brings me to the next topic addressed, and one that's been covered many times before. There are so many things that we see in the way the monster is treated and repeatedly rejected that tell us about the negative effects of isolation. It's human nature to want acceptance, to want to have a. Place in society. I'm not sure that you can call the monster human, but I think the same basic desires apply to his nature.

One of the things that strikes me in the story is how cowardly Frankenstein really. Is. He never tells anyone about his connection to and his role in so much senseless violence. I think the argument can be made that in some way he is the cause for everything that happens, but I don't think you can remove all the blame from the monster. Making Frankenstein the cause implies that the monster couldn't be accountable for his own actions, and I think he's too smart for that. It would be like absolving all of us for what we do and instead punishing our parents for our actions. It's unfair to them and offensive to us.

There are a lot of things not to like about the characters in this book, and a lot of questions that may or may not be answered to every readers satisfaction. With that in mind, I think it's worth the read, especially if there's an opportunity to discuss the ideas presented and the implications that something written nearly 200 years ago still has today.

The Crucible

It's Fall, which is my favorite time of year. The leaves are changing, it's time for cozy sweaters, football is back, and we're getting close to starting the holiday season. Other seasons are starting as well, including the season at the Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT). The Big Guy and I have season tickets again this year and we went to our first play this past weekend.

Since the IRT is starting off their season with The Crucible, I figured it was a good time for a re-read. Plus I hadn't read this since high school and I'm usually interested in how my opinions may have changed with time. I liked it then, and I still like it.

I'm fascinated at the way things completely spiral out of control as more people start listening to the girls and taking everything they're saying as fact. It's almost as if the lies begin to take on a life of their own and everyone is afraid to stop and tell the truth because of all the damage that's already occurred. That's pretty clear in the final scenes where the judge refuses to grant any additional time or leniency because others have already been hanged. No one can risk looking weak or uncertain so they all press on, full force to save face almost as much as to uphold justice.

It's well known that the play is a mirror of everything that was going on in the US around suspicion of communist activity. The McCarthy proceedings were very similar to the Salem witch trials with people turning on each other and making false confessions just to save themselves. It's sad, but I think it's something we're all capable of doing. Self-preservation can be a pretty powerful motivator.

That's not to say that we're all bad. Clearly at the end of the play John Proctor has found his strength of character and he and the others go to their deaths bravely knowing that the judgment that has been passed on them by the court is not the real judgment that will impact their eternal souls. They know the truth is on their side and have comfort in that.

I love the evolution of John Proctor throughout. We see all of his flaws early on, and yet he's still likable, it's still easy to see him as a good man; or at the very least as a man who is trying to be better than he was. He never puts the blame for his actions on anyone other than himself and is willing to accept the full consequences of what he's done.



Image Source