The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

I have never read a book so long that I hated so much.  The more I read, the more I hated it, and then I hated it because it would not end.

A lot of the ideas in it ought to appeal to me - the enmeshing of disease and love, the fleshly-spiritual cross currents, the discursive style - but I was totally unmoved.

I hated every last character in the book, and that didn't help; but many of Proust's characters are unlikable, and I love Proust.  I think the difference is that in the end, though Marcel can't respect people like the Verdurins, they nonetheless become heroic...they become larger than life.  I felt like all the people, all the events in the Magic Mountain, shrunk into dust bunnies, filth on the floor, something meaningless and a little repulsive.

I hated the endless descriptions of the natural environment.  I hated the endless philosophical debates between Settembrini and anyone.  I hated Hans Castorp.  I hated the endless repetition.  I do not know how many hundreds of times I read about the "excellent lounge chairs" or the "hearty meals" at the Sanatorium. I was reminded countless times how and when the patients wrapped themselves in blankets.  Eventually, every time I saw those details, I would be infuriated.

The only thing I liked about the whole book was Clavdia Chauchat.  She was magnificent.  I loved the way that Mann described her body, her movements, her hands, her eyes.  I loved her dialogue, her sly and suggestive slink.  I loved her name, and I love that she cruelly rejected Hans Castorp, because I would have, too.

NB: It's a few years now since I wrote this, and I have to say that there is at least one thing about The Magic Mountain that I recall with great pleasure.  Hans Castorp - a worthless sniveler if ever there was one - gets his clumsy mitts on an X-Ray of Clavdia Chauchat.  Of her chest I think?  He finds it profoundly erotic.

Nana, by Emile Zola

I ended up feeling pretty disgusted by Zola after finishing Nana.  The only other book of Zola's that I've read was La Curée - I read it during my semester abroad in Paris.  I don't remember the narrative arc exactly, but it's about an aristocratic woman who marries into the nouveau riche of real estate speculators during Haussmanization.  The woman - so went hte professor - stands in for the old Paris and so while developers mutilate the old city, the same thing happens to her.

Nana is a sort of opposite plot.  She is born a petite bourgeoise, becomes a prostitute, and slowly rises up through the theater to become a wealthy, coveted courtesan.  The book is amazing, fabulously written and rich and brutal..but nearly every character is corrupt, perverted, sick, and Zola describes Nana as the fly that passes the disease around.  She becomes a kind of Dorian Gray - a beautiful, desirable creature who absorbs all the filth around her and is ultimately destroyed by it.

At the beginning, I really liked Nana.  She was stupid but kind, unaffected, charming.  But she plays all of her cards wrong and burns her bridges - falling in love with a man who beats her, spending extravagantly and always beyond her means, embarrassing her patrons.  In the process she becomes crass, unkind, repulsive.  Of course she finally catches a horrible disease and dies, disfigured, her life of vice written all over her beautiful body.  An by that time there was some satisfaction in her death, some release.

But I hated Zola for writing these books where women, as symbols, suffer and die to pay for - or just embody - the sins of all.

W by Georges Perec

The chapters in W alternate between a fiction about an imaginary island called W., devoted entirely to sport, and chapters giving an autobiographical account of Perec's childhood during WWII.  Both stories are told in a very crisp, matter-of-fact tone, but the contrast between the two is striking.  Young Perec's shuffling about and hiding, the death of his parents, is described with an almost disturbing emotional distance.  All the emotion that's lacking in those chapters is poured into the ones about W, as it becomes increasingly evident that life on the island is a sort of filtered reflection of the concentration camps (it's a bit like Plato's Republic, too).  And because the actual details of life on W. are new, the horror and disgust they provoke is fresh.  The combination works like a chemical reaction - there is something unnerving and increasingly horrific that seems to hover between the stories.  It's very effective.

W is an experimental novel, but it's not cold or empty; the language is very simple and it was a pleasure to read, went very quickly.

Internet slang.

I was reading Le Monde online today, and I noticed in a sidebar for comments that a reader had been writing, "blah blah blah 2 blah blah blah 2" - and at first, I kept reading this '2' as I would an English '2,' i.e. as 'to'...but this was obviously wrong, so I stopped, sounded out "deux" in my head, and realized: 2 = de.

I know it's not rocket science but I felt a little proud of myself.

Gambling and revenge!

The title of this post is intended to frighten my mother. I never gamble but every time I play cards in her vicinity she'll fix me with a steely eye and ask me suspiciously if I think I might be addicted to gambling. I guess Gin Rummy is a gateway vice.

Also because I just finished reading Le Tour du monde en 80 jours by Jules Verne, a book about a very daring gamble. I'm not sure I would say it's profound, but it is hilarious and witty and great fun. I had no idea, but the protagonist - Phileas Fogg - hates to travel, and wants nothing other than peace and quiet and routine...that alone makes all of the madcap adventures he runs into, but wants so desperately to avoid, pretty funny. Whereas Verne writes about the world, and traveling, every mishap and opportunity, with great relish. It's a pleasure to read, and if you have any interest in brushing up on your French, it's not a difficult read.

I also went to see The Page Turner. It's a French movie by the same guy who did Merci pour le chocolat, which is fantastic, so I went in with high expectations. It's about a girl who once had dreams of being a concert pianist, but she's refused entry into a prestigious conservatory as a child and blames one judge in particular for having spoiled her audition. So she abandons her dreams and focuses on finding a way to get revenge on this judge. The movie starts as she sets her plan in motion.

I left the theater feeling a disappointed, but I like the movie in retrospect. It's clever - in little ways, like when a character playing the piano both pushes the plot forward and provides appropriate music to illustrate the importance of the scene - but in larger ones, too. The protagonist is a very smart, very patient girl, and she has cooked up a pretty devastating plot. I was never sure if the protagonist is actually crazy; and disturbingly enough, the victim is an incredibly sympathetic character.

The Elementary Particles

I'm on a roll here - my last post was about a play centered around a male prostitute, and now I've just finished a piece of filthy literature by Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles. Houellebecq is Big News in France - their current shining literary star and a subject of constant controversy. I'd wondered about reading him for a while, but so many people gave me dubious looks and said, "You know, Erin, he's great but I think you might hate his books," that I didn't pick one up...until recently, when Ariana assured me that he's a genius and Not To Be Missed.

Now, allow me to say the same to you, gentle reader: The Elementary Particles is great, but there's a good chance you will hate it. My one sentence review would be: Something along the lines of Borat, if you added more sex, a compelling voice, and lots of science. This is kind of inapt, but if you've seen Borat you probably remember thinking something along the lines of, "No matter how offensive this is, or how horrified I am, there's something true here..." That's the connection.

Here's an excerpt; not the most offensive, but not the least either:

For many women, adolescence is exciting - they're really interested in boys and sex. But gradually they lose interest; they're not so keen to open their legs or get on their knees and wiggle their ass. They're looking for a tender relationship they never will find, for a passion they're no longer capable of feeling. Thus they begin the difficult years. (193, Vintage edition, trans Frank Wynne)

I could go on and on about this book (it deserves discussion) but I'll finish off with two quick thoughts.

(1) More than with any other novel I've read recently, I found myself wondering what Michel Houellebecq himself is like and, in particular, what's wrong with him. Something is definitely wrong with him. Even if he is a genius.

(2) I now understand the reactions I got from Houellebecq readers. I appear to be doing a really bad job of recommending it myself - even though, in fact, I recommend it highly and hope somebody who reads this review will read the book, and talk about it with me.