Reading the Classics

I am now reading the classic Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I read this book in high school, but that was many moons ago and I don't remember more than the story outline. Dickens is of course masterful in his characterizations; every person in the novel, from Pip, the protagonist, to the least mentioned barkeeper is rich in detail and fully knowable. As readers we meet Pip as a poor, orphaned child being reared by a shrewish sister and her hapless husband, Joe. Pip is settled on his life, knowing he will apprentice to Joe. However, fate steps in in the form of Mrs. Havisham and Pip realizes there is a world outside his own narrow life. He begins to have expectations, though limited by the meaness of his existence. Then he is visited by a London lawyer who tells Pip that he has a benevolent benefactor and enough funds to train as a gentleman. Pip travels to London with "great expectations" and his life changes forever.

My main purpose is reading Great Expectations now is that I'm very interested in seeing David Lean's 1946 film which is judged by many film critics to be the best adaptation of a book in the history of film.

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Corman McCarthy

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, is Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel set in the American West in mid-1800's. If you love your romantic myths of the settling of the West, don't read this book. It knocks the wind out of all the glorious tales of Texas Rangers, pony express riders, Kit Carson types, buffalo hunters, gold diggers, Indian raids, cattle drives, stage coaches and every other delusion you've held about early American life in the West. Possibly McCarthy's novel is just as mythical, but his genius is substituting his myth for yours.

A homeless, fourteen year old, called the kid throughout the book, hooks up with a gang of men who contract with the local government in Chihuahua to drive the Indians out of their territory. The gang menaces Indians on both side of the Rio Grande, collecting scalps as proof for payment. As the hunt progresses, it seems any scalp will do, and the mercenaries kill anyone they come across. The gang is led by two men, Glanton and the judge. Glanton is the captain of the gang and a merciless, conscienceless killer. The judge is the devil incarnate.

Absolutely everything about this novel is remarkable. The writing style is rich, yet sparse. McCarthy details the country as the gang rides through, but keeps details of the ride itself to a minimum, hinting at the action then hitting the reader with it. McCarthy has a vocabulary for the setting which is extraordinary. As I read, I continuously wondered how one person could amass all the words he has to describe the land. Is he a botantist, a geologist, a zoologist, an astronomer, a geographer as well as a writer? Chosen randomly from the text, here's an example of his style:

All to the north the rain had dragged black tendrils down from the thunderclouds like tracings of lampblack fallen in a beaker and in the night they could hear the drum of rain miles away on the prairie. They ascended through a rocky pass and lightning shaped out the distant shivering mountains and lightning rang the stones about and tufts of blue fire clung to the horses like incandescent elementals that would not be driven off. Soft smelterlight advanced upon the metal of the harness, light ran blue and liquid on the barrels of the guns. Mad jackhares started and checked in the blue glare and high among those clanging crags joking roehawks crouched in their feathers or cracked a yellow eye at the thunder underfoot.

In summary, Cormac McCarthy has written a violent lyric masterpiece, a must-read book of American literature.

Reading the Classics

My next classic is Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. I have never read anything about the book or any other book by this author, so I have no preconceptions about the text. I know from the book jacket that the main character is Isabel Archer, an American, and that it's set mostly in England and Italy. Since I've traveled both England and Italy extensively, I'm hoping that I learn more about those locales as I learn Isabel's story.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Part 4

The story of the Count of Monte Cristo ends where it began...at the Port of Marseilles. The count repents for his motive of vengeance, seeing that he has no right to assume he's the agent of God, no one can be. He visits the home of his dead father and finds there his lost love whom he's able to comfort and forgive. He promises to help her young son whom his actions against the father had harmed. He brings together young lovers whom his actions had separated. He frees his young slave girl and restores her fortune. In the end the count finds peace, happiness, and the love he deserves. In the final scene he sails away from the port of Marseilles to a new life.

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3...prior installments at this blog

The Count of Monte Cristo, Part 3

Edmond Dantès as the Count of Monte Cristo sees himself as an agent of a vengeful God and sets out to destroy those who falsely imprisoned him. He sets his plan in motion in Paris and stays his course of revenge even though the lives of his three targets are complicated by relationships which did not exist when they had a hand in Dantès imprisonment so many years ago. The plot escalates, ruining each man, but also bringing harm to their innocent children, finally ending in the near-death of a daughter and the sure death of a son of one target. At this point Dantès questions his motives and understands that his revenge has consumed him to the determent of those innocently involved.

Look here and here for prior installments.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Part 2

Chateau d'If

Our hero Edmond Dantès many years imprisoned is on the edge of losing all hope when he happens to meet another prisoner Abbé Faria in Chateau d'If. This man changes Dantès' life by first providing human contact, then educating Dantès in the ways of the world and the ways of society as well, and then by telling him where a great treasure is hidden. Unfortunately, the abbé dies as the two are planning an escape from Chateau d'If. However, after the death Dantès escapes on his own, finds the fortune, and begins a grand scheme to get his revenge on the trio who had him falsely imprisoned.

So many years have passed and Dantès' prison experience was so devastating that upon his return to the outside world no one, not even those closest to him, recognize him. Aside from the physical transformation, he has advanced intellectually due to the abbé's teaching and also has a great fortune. However, the greatest change of all is in his psychology. Dantès is no longer trusting and naive. Now he is cynical and conniving, set on revenge. In fact, all these changes make it possible for Edmond Dantès to re-invent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo and set his plot in motion.

The first installment is in this prior post.

Tim Winton's Dirt Music

Tim Winton's wonderful book, Dirt Music, is in the works as a film. "In pre-production", they say in the biz. Evidently, Rachel Weisz is playing Georgie Jutland, but there's a lack of clarity about the part of Luther Fox. First, Heath Ledger was announced. Even before his death, Colin Farrell was announced, but Farrell says now "that project didn't work out for me". According to imDb, Russell Crowe is "rumored", but that site still lists Farrell for the part of Fox. Confusion!

I've no doubt that the film will find its stars. What interests me more is when will shooting begin and will shooting take place on the Western Australian coast where the book is set? I have nightmares that shooting will be moved to the east coast because Western Australian shoots present expenses and inconveniences that shoots in the Sydney or Melbourne do not.

If the film is not set in Western Australia, I don't see how its story can be told. It's not only a love story between two people; it's a story about love of place as well. And that place is the red dirt and the blue Indian Ocean and the cloudless skies of the west coast of Australia.

Novel: The Count of Monte Cristo

I am currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I've only met a few of the characters who will populate the text with Edmond Dante, being the central character. At this point in my reading he's young, honest, gallant, naive, loyal. He loves a beautiful woman and has been selected to captain a merchant ship. However, at his betrothal party he is arrested and subsequently thrown into the worst prison imaginable Chateau D'lf for a crime he did not commit, framed by a jealous trio and imprisoned by a crown prosecutor who advances his political career on the back on this innocent man.

Stay tuned for another installment of this wonderful tale.

My Top 20 Books

In order, 20-1...

20.Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
19.Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
18.The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
17.On the Road, Jack Kerouac
16.The World according to Garp, John Irving
15.Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson
14.Walden, Henry David Thoreau
13.The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
12.Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
11.The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
10.Sophie's Choice, William Styron
9.Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
8.All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
7.The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6.West with the Night, Beryl Markham
5.Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
4.Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
3.The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
2.To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
1.Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry


My favorite book of poetry is Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman.