Assessment of the Chronicles of Narnia

October was an especially fruitful month for my reading challenge. I finished thirteen books after completing only two in September. Among them were the seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia. I loved C.S. Lewis' works as a young child and decided to reread them as an adult and was not disappointed. I gave them all three stars on Goodreads other than Prince Caspian, which I gave four stars. Honestly, the best part of this series is that Lewis is such a great storyteller, you feel right in the middle of the story. I really enjoy how he weaves non-Christian myths into his allegorical telling of Christianity.

As far as ranking the books, currently from favorite to least I give this order:

Prince Caspian

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Magician's Nephew

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
The Last Battle
The Silver Chair

I think I enjoyed Prince Caspian the best because it was interesting to think of the four children, who had once been the Kings and Queens of Narnia, returning to the land they ruled in the golden age as children again, far into the Narnian future. I enjoyed the time differential in our world and in Narnia and how it was utilized. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader came next simply because it was such an interesting story on going to the edge of the world. The Magician's Nephew I enjoyed only slightly more than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe simply because I remembered the latter more clearly than the former and it was like reading The Magician's Nephew for the first time again. The Horse and His Boy is an excellent one too and I would consider the five I mentioned above as considerably more enjoyable to me than the last two. The Silver Chair I enjoyed the least simply because I found Eustace less interesting as a character than the other four children, and I felt that it was aimed at slightly younger readings and thus lost some of its universality. 

The Last Battle has some interesting theological points in the follower of Tash coming to the final Narnia. I won't go to far into it, but there is an interesting idea of grace that I get from it. Personally, I think that the way to Heaven is laid out scripturally, no one comes to the Father but through Jesus Christ the Son. I don't think doctrinally or theologically a Christian can stray too far from this to embrace any kind of universal salvation for mankind, but I do think there is something to be said of admitting that the grace of God is larger than our ability to understand it. It's not something I would want to build a system of theology on, but something I would offer about any theory of God I would offer. It's good to admit one's limitations when describing God without limiting Him. 

Assessment of The Kreutzer Sonata - Tolstoy

I finished The Kreutzer Sonata a few days ago and really enjoyed the book. It's a small, cheap edition of three of Tolstoy's stories: How Much Land Does a Man Need?, The Death of Ivan Ilych, & The Kreutzer Sonata. Firstly, I had never read any of these short stories and enjoyed them quite a bit. I especially liked How Much Land Does a Man Need? While, the ending might have been a bit predictable, the wording and the meaning is quite excellent. It's a very short tale that slams the greediness inherent to human beings and serves as a warning against the pains that greediness will bring.

The way Tolstoy writes about coming to grips with man's end in The Death of Ivan Ilych is among some of the best inner-monologue I think I've ever read. The pain and the suffering internally Ivan has in Tolstoy's work is so well written that I felt sweat beads coming down my brow as I experienced the pangs along with Ivan. Likewise, the jealousy that Pozdnyshev feels throughout The Kreutzer Sonata is so well articulated that I was reliving some old feelings that I thought I had divested myself of long ago. His rage was so palpable I felt myself tensing up and was nearly relieved when the climax came. That relief however was twofold and some modern circumstances aided Tolstoy's literary prowess.

I was coming to the conclusion of The Kreutzer Sonata as I was selling plasma. I don't think I've ever written about this experience, but I have apparently expressed my feelings well enough about this to Erin that she mocks my grief at subjecting myself to this torture. I feel embarrassed at selling plasma. I didn't so much feel it when I was younger and in college, but as a grown man I feel embarrassed by the entire situation. I think I should be able to make enough money at thirty-two so as not to be forced to degrade myself in such a manner, but at the same time it's good spending money and I'm basically paid to sit and read. It's a hassle and probably not really worth my time, but if I go twice a week it's a payment of $65 dollars for six hours, four of which are sitting in a waiting room and two of which are with a needle in my vein.

The embarrassment doesn't fully come from the fact that I'm selling part of my body that will replenish itself. The embarrassment comes from the company I keep while doing this veritable prostitution. While I was in college the mix of people selling plasma alongside me was about 80% college kids, 20% other. That other is, without trying to be elitist (although accomplishing it nonetheless) what I would term 'undesirables'. Sometimes the mix would have a larger proportion of that other and the 19 or 20 year-old iteration of me may have occasioned to use the phrase, "the dregs of societies" and that instance may have occurred enough to burn that elitist phrase into my personal lexicon. The 31 and 32 year-old iterations of me then may have described the undesirable caste in such derogatory language and my wife instantly seized upon the phraseology. Thus, some of my embarrassment may arise not only with being a part of that caste, but my own derogatory words being used to describe me in the mouth of another. My embarrassment is thus multi-pronged in that I'm embarrassed to need the money, embarrassed to be among the undesirables, and embarrassed that I have described them as such (because it sounds so awfully high-handed when she says it). Each of these prongs needles me as I'm being needled. But, I am not so embarrassed to spend the money. Plus, it gives me a good five to six hours to sit and read, relatively uninterrupted.

But, on my attempt to finish The Kreutzer Sonata was not uninterrupted, as it were. A certain member of the lowly caste, a person among the dregs would not let me finish the book in peace. Much of the final short story is an inner struggle with jealousy and a lot of psychological feeling and not much action. It is building to an action, namely Pozdnyshev killing his wife. I know that Pozdnyshev is going to kill his wife. I know why he is going to kill his wife - jealousy. But, I am unsure, intentionally led on, as to first, how if he is going to kill his wife and second, if the killing is justifiable (if only in Pozdnyshev's mind). The story is clear on the former and a bit opaque on the latter. But, there is a great deal of psychological turmoil leading up to the climatic scene and I was lying on the table, with a needle in my arm, desperately trying to race the plasma being pumped out of me to finish the story. The lady next to me however was screaming at the workers. Apparently, she did not look at the three hours or so as a time to sit back, relax and read. She took those three hours or more as a time to complain about whatever popped into her mind.

In the lobby while we were waiting she found someone to commiserate with. The two, then three, then four commiserated rather loudly and I changed places on three occasions to escape the commiserating, but it was omnipresent. This is a normal occurrence among this caste of society, but normally I can drown it out and focus on what I'm reading. It took some practice, but I was able to succeed in the end. But, in the back, she was placed on the table next to me as we were being hooked up to our blood machines. First, she complained about the temperature in the room. Being cold-natured, I tend to enjoy the chilliness of the room where we are actually drained of our fluids to be used as life-giving medicines (there is an altruism to this practice as well, though I am confident that neither she nor I really care most of the time about this altruistic reason for "donating" plasma). However, on this occasion, her complaint about the coldness of the room was not unfounded. Second, she complained about the television not being loud enough for her to hear the movie being played. I offer her no solace on this point as I had to concentrate hard to drown out the volume to concentrate on my book. Lastly, as the time neared for the last bus to leave her station she began to scream about being at the donation center for an inordinate amount of time. It takes entirely too long, each and every time plasma donation occurs. This particular time was no different, neither longer nor shorter than normal. But, just as I am coming to the dramatic action of the book, she was coming to dramatic action of her donation. She finished her donation; I did not finish my book.

I finished it later that evening, in the quiet of my own home.

There was much to be admired in the short little book, but this blurb has gone on to be lengthier than I had originally intended. However, this anecdote was funny (after the fact) and I felt it was worthy to be retold here. For this reason, I'll include only two quotes from The Kreutzer Sonata that really struck me. The first is, "What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness! A beautiful woman utters absurdities; we listen and we hear not the absurdities, but wise thoughts. She speaks, does odious things, and yet we are only conscious of something agreeable. If she refrains from absurd or hateful words and acts, and if she is beautiful to boot, we are straightway convinced that she is a paragon of wisdom and morality" (Tolstoy, 78). There are two things to unpack here. The first is the sentence, "What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness". I know that Tolstoy is speaking here about women in general, but it struck me from a philosophical level. Truly, it is strange that we equate beauty with goodness on an aesthetic level. Second, as a man who has undergone a rough relationship or two, I understand (though I try to suppress) the inner rage at the absurdity of the situation that a good looking woman can have on an otherwise relatively clear thinking man. Tolstoy certainly hits the nail on the head in better language than I could. But the formula is fairly simple: a good looking woman can get away with just about anything simply for the fact that she is good looking.

The second passage goes, "Woman has transformed herself into an object of pleasure of such terrible effect that a man cannot calmly approach her. No sooner does a man draw near a woman than he falls under the power of her spell, and his senses are forthwith paralyzed" (Tolstoy, 84). Again, Tolstoy hits the nail on the head. It's not as sexist as it seems in this cherry picked passage as Pozdnyshev lays much of the blame for women being treated as an object of pleasure on man's shoulders earlier and later in this section, but women once they have realized that they have been relegated to this position, have embraced it with such power that they turn the tables on the men objectifying them. There is an uncanny truth in this situation and the language Tolstoy uses expresses this truth perfectly.

Notes on Les Chants De Maldoror

Well. What can I say about Les Chants De Maldoror by Comte de Lautreamont? It is a book. It is a good book. It is a difficult book to read. And honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to be caught in flagrante delicato reading it. It's about as beautiful as a chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table. Honestly, it's a rough read. It's a celebration of evil and besides that it's way out there. Much of it is incredibly dark. But, I can understand why the surrealists held it up as the godfather of their artistic movement.

While I'd probably need to read it more thoroughly to fully grasp everything that was said in it, there were some points in it that really stuck out to me. In talking about man he writes, "As for me, I presume that he believes in his beauty only from pride, but that he is not really beautiful and that he suspects this, for why does he contemplate the countenance of his fellow man with so much scorn?" (Lautreamont, 18). It's a damning indictment and one that sticks well.

"Legislators of stupid institutions, inventors of narrow morality, keep your distance from me, for I have an impartial mind" (Lautreamont, 231). He celebrates the pride he has, but it is a wicked pride. Although it is truly reprehensible, he does it is an amazing and captivating style. He may be bad but he's perfectly good at it... Again he celebrates his pride. "Human justice has not yet surprised me in flagrante delicatu, despite the incontestable skill of its agents" (Lautreamont, 234).

"The theatre of war is nothing but a vast field of carnage when night reveals her presence and the silent moon appears between the rags of a cloud" (Lautreamont, 236). A pretty, but sad sentence.

"It is possible that in this manner you will succeed in rejoicing extremely the soul of the dead person who is about to take refuge from life in a grave" (Lautreamont, 237). A very pretty way to describe death - a refuge from life in the grave.

There are also fairly funny sentences that are truly surreal in nature. For example, "I began the preceding sentence, I calculate mentally that it would not be useless here to construct the complete avowal of my basic impotence, when it is especially a matter, as at present, of this imposing and unapproachable question" (Lautreamont, 239). "But there will be no more anathemas, possessing the specialty of provoking laughter; fictitious personalities who would have done better to remain in the author's brain" (Lautreamont, 256). And then he made me laugh, in public, caught in the act (in flagrante delicatu). "I no longer recall what I was intending to say, for I do not remember the beginning of the sentence" (Lautreamont, 261).

On a personal note I understood a short tale he told within the story. "He had contracted the habit of getting drunk; during the moments when he returned to the house after having visited the cabaret bars, his madness would become almost immeasurable, and he would strike out indiscriminately at any object that came in sight. But soon, under the protests of his friends, he reformed completely, and sank into a taciturn frame of mind. No one could come near him, not even our mother. He nursed a secret resentment against the idea of duty, which prevented him from having his own way" (Lautreamont, 282). I understand that resentment better than I wish I did.

In the Poésies he writes, "Judgments on poetry have more value than poetry. They are the philosophy of poetry. Philosophy, thus understood, comprises poetry. Poetry cannot do without philosophy. Philosophy can do without poetry." (Lautreamont, 330).

"We must not believe that what Nature has made friendly should be vicious. There has not been a century or a people that has not established imaginary virtues and vices" (Lautreamont, 340).

I think I'd like to reread this, but with a commentary. Or a couple of commentaries. But, as for why the surrealists and why they held it up as a precursor for them, I understand. Breton was amazed when he found the sentence, "as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table ". He held it up as the beginning of the surrealist aesthetic. Max Ernst used this imagery to define the structure of a surrealist painting. He said that it linked two realities that have nothing to link them in a setting that shouldn't be linked with either of them. That is the essence of surrealism.