Some good books impress you with thunder and lightning. They grab you by the nose, pull you through a whirlwind of impressions and new ideas, and leave your brain whirring with activity. Others are more subtle. You read them and enjoy them. You can't say exactly why. When you're done, you feel as if you have a new perspective, but you can't express exactly what it is. You know you enjoyed the author's style, but you can't put it in a category. The Guide is one of the latter.
This is the story of a very shallow man named Raju. Despite his shallowness, he is immediately likable. He is very much like many people you probably know: a self-centered opportunist with no plan who takes pains to make himself agreeable. Narayan begins in the middle of the story: Raju has been released from prison, and spends the night in a holy shrine. The local villagers mistake him for a holy man. He plays along.
Narayan hooks the reader with this conceit, because the questions is, naturally, how did Raju end up in jail? Raju is not a particularly good person, but nor does he seem a criminal. He's just careless and selfish. In exploring how Raju wound up in his predicament, the author explores, in a subtle and tender fashion, the slippery slope of a purposeless life.
Narayan occasionally flashes forward to the present and continues the narrative of Raju's life as faux guru. The payoff is predictable; it is no original insight that playing a role often has a real and lasting effect on a person's character. However, it is no less true for being unoriginal, and Narayan's writing is so straightforward and compelling that you may find fresh insight here. Some of the best ideas are old ones, and some of the best books explore timeless themes.
The Guide is unpretentious, charming, insightful, and instructive. This is a rare combination, and I highly recommend you read it.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Shikasta, by Doris Lessing
Related Recommendations
A meditation on human suffering: A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Mind-blowing conceptual sci-fi: Diaspora, Greg Egan
Shikasta is, I believe, what is called a "novel of ideas." Its full title is Shikasta : re, colonised planet 5 : personal, psychological, historical documents relating to visit by Johor (George Sherban) emissary (grade 9) 87th of the period of the last days. Doris Lessing is a very well-regarded author and a recent Nobel laureate. According to Wikipedia, her forays into science fiction, beginning with Shikasta, were considered somewhat daring.
The basic concept of Shikasta is this: a certain planet (I'll allow the reader to guess which one) was colonized long ago by benevolent aliens. They created a utopian society where everyone lived in perfect harmony. However, a problem with the cosmic alignment of certain stars, which Lessing never seems to tire of pointing out, is indeed a "dis-aster," cuts Earth (oops, I spilled the beans) off from its protectors. A rival alien society begins to influence the planet. This one is not so benevolent, and is instead bent on sucking everything good and wholesome out of the planet to feed its own sick growth.
Its an interesting conceit, with some potential. Lessing uses it to explore the inhumanity of man to man. Unfortunately, she does so in an almost entirely bloodless fashion. Her writing is fussy, repetitive, and overwrought. She never develops any characters worth caring about; the only coherent plot appears in the last quarter of the novel. The rest of the book (and most of the last quarter) is essentially a nag-fest. The book does not reflect any genuine sorrow about the human condition. It is the writing of a person who has brooded too long and is very, very bitter.
Shikasta is probably the most cynical book I have ever read. In one short section, Lessing, in the guise of her alien narrator, grudgingly admits the remarkable capacity for humans to make the best of what they have. The rest of the book is a guilt trip; an endless banging on about the awfulness of every person. It's an unsubtle, unsatisfying mess.
The best writing, like the best cooking, is subtle. Lessing seems to be one of those authors who has very little faith in her readers, and feels that everything must be explicitly stated. It is too bad; with a little less bitterness, and a little more credit to the reader, Shikasta could have been an excellent novel. Instead, I was glad to be done with it.
I admit, this is not the best review to start out a blog called The Best of the Library. Generally, I'll stick to books that I would recommend you read. But it's also worth knowing what not to read, especially when it's well-regarded. Shikasta is the sort of well-regarded writing that I believe will fade with time. Lessing may have captured the zeitgeist when she wrote it, and she surely got some deserved credit for writing serious fiction in an (unfairly) lightly regarded genre. Unfortunately, Shikasta does not, to me, have a great deal of intrinsic merit. Check out my recommendations above for some better options.
A meditation on human suffering: A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Mind-blowing conceptual sci-fi: Diaspora, Greg Egan
Shikasta is, I believe, what is called a "novel of ideas." Its full title is Shikasta : re, colonised planet 5 : personal, psychological, historical documents relating to visit by Johor (George Sherban) emissary (grade 9) 87th of the period of the last days. Doris Lessing is a very well-regarded author and a recent Nobel laureate. According to Wikipedia, her forays into science fiction, beginning with Shikasta, were considered somewhat daring.
The basic concept of Shikasta is this: a certain planet (I'll allow the reader to guess which one) was colonized long ago by benevolent aliens. They created a utopian society where everyone lived in perfect harmony. However, a problem with the cosmic alignment of certain stars, which Lessing never seems to tire of pointing out, is indeed a "dis-aster," cuts Earth (oops, I spilled the beans) off from its protectors. A rival alien society begins to influence the planet. This one is not so benevolent, and is instead bent on sucking everything good and wholesome out of the planet to feed its own sick growth.
Its an interesting conceit, with some potential. Lessing uses it to explore the inhumanity of man to man. Unfortunately, she does so in an almost entirely bloodless fashion. Her writing is fussy, repetitive, and overwrought. She never develops any characters worth caring about; the only coherent plot appears in the last quarter of the novel. The rest of the book (and most of the last quarter) is essentially a nag-fest. The book does not reflect any genuine sorrow about the human condition. It is the writing of a person who has brooded too long and is very, very bitter.
Shikasta is probably the most cynical book I have ever read. In one short section, Lessing, in the guise of her alien narrator, grudgingly admits the remarkable capacity for humans to make the best of what they have. The rest of the book is a guilt trip; an endless banging on about the awfulness of every person. It's an unsubtle, unsatisfying mess.
The best writing, like the best cooking, is subtle. Lessing seems to be one of those authors who has very little faith in her readers, and feels that everything must be explicitly stated. It is too bad; with a little less bitterness, and a little more credit to the reader, Shikasta could have been an excellent novel. Instead, I was glad to be done with it.
I admit, this is not the best review to start out a blog called The Best of the Library. Generally, I'll stick to books that I would recommend you read. But it's also worth knowing what not to read, especially when it's well-regarded. Shikasta is the sort of well-regarded writing that I believe will fade with time. Lessing may have captured the zeitgeist when she wrote it, and she surely got some deserved credit for writing serious fiction in an (unfairly) lightly regarded genre. Unfortunately, Shikasta does not, to me, have a great deal of intrinsic merit. Check out my recommendations above for some better options.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
This Blog
Once, to help put some troubles I was having into perspective, I decided to figure out what things I could not possibly live without. Then I could tell myself "if I lose everything, I still have these things which are really important to me." I ended up with a very short list: my wife and my library card.
It might sound crazy that my library card is one of the most important things in my life; to be honest, I probably could live without it. It makes the list anyway because, as long as you have a library card (and a library, naturally), you have a limitless source of entertainment and education, and it's free. Or, at least, the cost is cleverly hidden, hence the sub-title of this blog.
I am an absolutely voracious reader. For most of my life, I've read about a book a week. Childhood vacations always involved a stack of books; I'd usually take six or seven to the beach and get through them all in a week. One of my fondest memories was sitting in a corner on top of a heating duct in my parent's house reading The Hobbit. My father said I looked like a street urchin. I was just happy to be warm and reading.
There are a lot of satisfying pastimes in this life: travel, good food, and spending time with friends shouldn't be underrated, and I enjoy them all. But the one thing that makes me happiest is a good book. And the truly great thing is that you can read pretty much anything you want with a library card for free.
So I started this blog to share some of my old favorites and whatever I've picked up lately at the library. The public library is a great institution; truly a foundation of our nation's character and strength, and an undervalued component of any great community. I hope to help you appreciate it a little more and find something good to read as well.
It might sound crazy that my library card is one of the most important things in my life; to be honest, I probably could live without it. It makes the list anyway because, as long as you have a library card (and a library, naturally), you have a limitless source of entertainment and education, and it's free. Or, at least, the cost is cleverly hidden, hence the sub-title of this blog.
I am an absolutely voracious reader. For most of my life, I've read about a book a week. Childhood vacations always involved a stack of books; I'd usually take six or seven to the beach and get through them all in a week. One of my fondest memories was sitting in a corner on top of a heating duct in my parent's house reading The Hobbit. My father said I looked like a street urchin. I was just happy to be warm and reading.
There are a lot of satisfying pastimes in this life: travel, good food, and spending time with friends shouldn't be underrated, and I enjoy them all. But the one thing that makes me happiest is a good book. And the truly great thing is that you can read pretty much anything you want with a library card for free.
So I started this blog to share some of my old favorites and whatever I've picked up lately at the library. The public library is a great institution; truly a foundation of our nation's character and strength, and an undervalued component of any great community. I hope to help you appreciate it a little more and find something good to read as well.
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