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March 10, 2008
Duma Key
Stephen King's latest book shows to good effect many of his strengths and some of his weaknesses. Let's start with the weaknesses. After putting the book down, I reflected on the fact that I don't know the people Stephen King portrays--people whose language tends, shall we say, to the salty side. More bluntly, the book is liberally laced with unnecessary and distracting vulgarities that neither give me a sense of character nor enhance my reading experience. They are so common that one finds oneself in the the position of beginning to filter them out. Another less-than-attractive aspect of Mr. King's work is his tendency to give us his opinions in the guise of a character's thoughts. I don't much care what Mr. King thinks of Mr. Bush, the war in Iraq, or the taste of ranch dressing. Moreover, these details are distracting enough to be remember because, once again, they neither advance plot not contribute anything to character.
All of that said, Duma Key is one of the best things Mr. King has written in some time. (Although to be honest, I can't compare it to Lisey's Story so I could be wrong in that evaluation.) The story centers around a man who suffers a traumatic head injury, the loss of an arm, and other injuries in the course of his work. (I was provoked to wonder about how much of what he relates in the book is autobiographical reflection given his own traumatic experience and recovery. No matter, it doesn't intrude or harm the story line--just reader speculation.)
He moves to a house on Duma Key, and the fun begins. Just as a point of information--Duma Key does not exist. When I first started to read, I associated the key with the Southern Keys; however, Duma Key is in a chain off the west coast of Florida near Sarasota and St. Petersburg. Once I got the geography straight, much else fell into place.
The story is a long meditation on the creative impetus and its ability to both heal and destroy the artist. The supernatural intrudes in the way expected in a Stephen King novel, and yet, it is much more subdued, much more subtle and only comes into strong play about two-thirds of the way through the novel. This is NOT a criticism--it shows a markedly altered and, I think, correct sensibility with regard to the use of the supernatural. This full length novel is much closer in spirit to some of the exquisite short works that Stephen King has given us. Reading it, I was reminded of the sheer joy and power of The Colorado Kid, probably a lesser-known but very nicely done King opus in the Hard Case Crime series.
The horror in this book is suggested to be Lovecraftian in nature, although such hints are very subtle, very light touches. The real horror is the horror all of us can understand--the loss of a child or the irrevocable and unspeakable alteration of a child through the growth and maturity process. We adjust to this naturally as time progresses, but King's living metaphor of the shifting sand-and-shell simulcrum at the end of the novel is telling.
I asked in an earlier note on the book whether or not he was taking some lessons or hints from his son Joe Hill. Given the prominence of place and the story-line importance of a certain heart-shaped box in this story, I would say that there are certainly mutual influences. Interestingly, King flips the metaphor on its head and the heart-shaped box in this novel contains the means of redemption and salvation.
The book is atmospheric, well-wrought, powerfully imagined, and written by a King at the height of his powers and sensibility. It's a shame that I find certain aspects of that sensibility appalling, but so it is. Nevertheless, for people who enjoy supernatural fiction, and for fans of Mr. King who were wondering if he would ever return to the heights of the early days, I would say that the chain of the last three books suggest that the answer is "Yes." He has returned to a height that he never occupied--one far superior to that of the early days--potentially that of a true literary master. Now, if only he could bring himself to not so liberally lace his prose with unfortunate vulgarities and unneeded opinions.
Highly recommended for a select audience.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Shopping Anecdote
Yesterday I went out shopping for clothes--a chore that I consider far more onerous than cleaning out gutters, but hélas, I cannot ask my wife to do so because my entire wardrobe would be red. (I'm told that I look good in red--which would be remarkable considering I don't look good in anything at all--I don't know why red would improve on nature.)
Anyway, we went into this trendy urban department store place. You know the kind, patchwork shorts and oodles of orange or fuschia or this season's color, whatever it may be. Walking in past the cosmetics counter we were greeted by this woman whose hair reminded me of the Gary Oldham do in The Fifth Element but was shaggier. The bangs were like a shiny black paint and the hair on the sides looked kind of matte black. The overall effect was such that I thought, "Woman, you really need to do somehting with that hair." Then I realized, much to my horror, that she had already done something with it and this was the result!
Ah fashion, I'll never get it.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 12, 2008
Light in August--William Faulkner
I'm sure you all must be sick-to-death of reporting on William Faulkner, and yet, I am not sick-to-death of reading and enjoying him. Indeed, as a result of finishing Light in August yesterday, I went out to the library and got Sound and the Fury. (I think I have at least one copy in the house, but it wasn't in the LOA series that I've collected and the shelves are a mess right now.)
What to say about Light in August? Well, let's say that it is one of the most accessible of all of Faulkner's works with some of the most powerful portraits of some of the most unpleasant people you're ever likely to encounter. It plays with time in the way that almost all Faulkner books do, taking place over the period of perhaps 1 week to 1 month, from the arrival of Lena Grove who observes a house burning when she arrives in the small town of Jefferson Mississippi to the end when Lena, escorted by her husband wannabe goes in search of the father of her child. The time encopassed in the book is something like 60-100 years--stretching back to the time of Colonel Sartoris, and perhaps before and moving into the present (late 1920s Mississippi.)
The story centers on Joe Christmas a person who may or may not be of mixed race descent. If so, his skin tone does not betray it and he needs to tell those around him that he is "half-black." He is the ultimately conflicted character, laying his conflict on everyone he meets and it is his actions that precipitate all the main events of the novel.
In fact, that's part of what makes the book so facinating. When it starts, you get the impression that you're going to spend a good deal of time with Lena Burden who is out looking for the man who is the father of her child, who left Alabama (probably when he realized that she was pregnant) with the promise of sending for her. After following her path a little way, we find it convergent with the story of Joe Christmas and the rest of the novel follows him.
There is no point in going into too many plot details. Suffice to say that the events of the book result in an indictment of racism that is as harrowing and as biting as that in Absalom, Absalom!. All of Joe's conflict comes from his own self-indictment for what in today's terms is utterly without stigma (Praise God!) and (1) may not even be true, and (2) even if true was nothing he had any control over. Being part black was nothing he could control and yet the virulanet internalized racism and misogyny that he develops turns what should be not-even-worthy of note (in today's world) into a crisis for Joe and the community.
What is fascinating in Faulkner is his obsession with and dexterity with weaving the past into the present. One example that struck me in this book is that one of the main characters--Joanna is a direct descendant of two people that Colonel Sartoris rides to town to shoot in The Unvanquished. These two were responsible for holding the polls open and encouraging or trying to encourage the blacks in the area to vote. They were buried far away from prying eyes because the son/father of the two though that they might otherwise be disinterred.
The intrusion of the past into the present is one of the themes that makes such rick reading in Faulkner because one gets the sense that he has his fingers clearly on the pulse of something that we have lost any real sense of--even though the truth of it holds today in the same way that it held in Faulkner's day. The present is the living extension of the past: shaped by it, informed by it, and ultimately pervaded by it, if looked at properly.
Faulkner's gothic obsessions get full play in this magnificent work. And it is, for Faulkner, relatively undemanding on the reader--requiring merely the attention of an ordinary novel to keep most of the threads straight. However, it is, as Frost would have it, "lovely, dark, and deep." And it is, as a result, most worthy of nearly any reader's time.
Later: I realize that I've put together a lot of words about Faulkner but have ended by saying very little of import. The problem is that anything I might say would deprive the prospective reader of some of the joy of discovery. Another problem is that I am not a particularly deep reader, pulling out symbols, signs, and meanings at every turn. Indeed, I prefer to enjoy what I'm reading and allow it to mean as it will at the time. Most authors simply don't spend that much time planning and putting these things into motion. And those that do (Rowling and her ilk) often don't produce work that stands up to any kind of scrutiny. It seems that more than 90% of great art is unconscious art--you feel your way around it and end up with a miracle. Authors who pontificate on their purpose either (a) miss the point that their purpose is often subjugated to a greater one if the work is good or (b) haven't written a work that supports the kind of scrutiny it would take to divine the author's purpose.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reading List
As noted before, I went out to get and reread for the umpteenth time The Sound and the Fury. For some reason, perhaps the difficulty of following some of the narrtive threads, this does not stick in my head as well as some other Faulkner books (for example, As I Lay Dying).
I'm also going to start Anne Rice's newest addition to the chronicles of the life of Christ: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. Tom at Disputations gave it what I would call a glowing review. As one of the few parishioners of St. Blogs who really enjoyed the first, I am looking forward to this continuation.
Having just finished a book recommended by the Big Boss of my company--The Science of Success by Charles Koch, I determined that I needed to finish Geoffrey Moore's Dealing with Darwin--largely about managing innovation in companies. To be honest with you, I get very little out of such books except for reinforcement of what seem to me to be obvious truths regarding the state of business and how to run it. But then, if they were so obvious, it would seem unnecessary for anyone to write about them.
And finally, I will continue to trudge my way through the most difficult of the three parts of The Divine Comedy. I remain resolutely opposed to most of the Medieval notion of God, mostly because each era dreams up their own misconceptions of God and refashions Him in their own image. I don't know that anyone has come close to getting it right--but if we cleave to the vision of those closest to Him, we find a continuous and luminous thread of the truth that can serve to guide us onward.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Odd Synchronicity
My reading of Faulkner brings me to The Sound and the Fury as Holy Week approaches. I don't see as mere coincidence the fact that the events of the novel (present day) occur during Holy Week of 1928. (Not that the present means all that much to Faulkner.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2008
An Evocative Passage--Anne Rice
Anne Rice has published the second book in her extended novelistic meditation on the Life of Christ. The first, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt was an unalloyed success at conveying some of the complexities of the childhood of a man who "was like us in all things but sin." The second promises to be more of the same. I haven't read much of it, wishing to savor it in between passages of Gothic Americana (The Sound and the Fury). But I wanted to share a short excerpt from very early on that exemplifies the style that Ms. Rice has chosen for these works.
from Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Anne RiceI looked at them, the two, lying there as if they were children asleep, amid the heap of stones, and not enough blood between them, really, not enough blood for the Angel of Death even to stop and turn and take notice of them.
Rolling, spare, simple, evocative, lush, and lovely. Trimmed down, to the point and carefully crafted. The story rolls on in sentence after sentence that exhibit this same quality.
I think one of the things that astounds me is this Anderson-like simplicity after the baroque excesses of the Witches novels, the Lestat sequence, and the Ramses book. Ms. Rice has taken care here to produce prose that seeks to evoke its inspiration--straightforward and still poetic, like many of the parables Jesus told.
While it isn't the Passion narrative (one is to hope that that is at least two books away) this will make for fine end-of-Lent reading.
I have said before, and will say again, undoubtedly, in a world full of Sam Harrises , Richard Dawkinses, and Philip Pullmans, it is a pleasure and a relief to come across a novelist who is trying to write something worthwhile and powerful for the reader seeking substance. This series is a departure from all of her previous material and as such, it represents a risk to her. Not much of one, as her other books remain in print and sell well and will support her for some time to come, but she risks her huge fan base and her continued profitability and ability to hand on to a publisher. Like Mel Gibson, she is fashioning a work that is demanded by heart and soul, and it is up to readers like us to support this work. I ardently pray that Ms. Rice's work affects the hearts and minds of some of the fans of the previous books and moves them to explore the beauty of Jesus Christ, Lord, Savior, Friend and Companion. If it is possible for you to do so, you might think of buying this book and sharing it with the next person you see reading Kim Harrison, Anne's previous novels, or other books which, while occasionally fun and entertaining, have as an end escape into unreality. What Ms. Rice is trying to create is an escape into ultimate reality.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack