Moving On

Well Twin,

  I officially finished Brave New World.  It was about 7:35 yesterday morning on my morning bus commute.  I was simultaneously happy to see this book end and saddened at the way the story unfolded.  And if there’s one thing that makes going back to work after a three day weekend hard, it’s paradoxically conflicting emotions.

  Did I mention I had a three day weekend last weekend?  It was wonderful.  I have another one this weekend (I can hardly wait!)

  Is it me or was this perhaps one of the weirdest books you’ve ever read?  It was for me.  And I don’t me weird like “Oooh in the future full meals come in pellets.”  Or “Zowie…in the future talking robots will be our maids.” (PS: The Jetsons is weird like that.  Freaky weird.).  I mean weird in the way the protagonist shifted, and the plot puttered and zoomed.  I’m genuinely curious to find someone who likes this book and find out what attracts them to it.  What am I missing?

  Anyway…If you look to the right you’ll see in the “What We’re Reading” box I’ve switched the title to Dead Souls.  I’m ready to start it if you are (maybe I’ll read it during my long weekend…did I mention that I have another long weekend this weekend already?).

  Au Revoir Soma.  Arrivedercci Alpha-Pluses.  Hello Tsarist Russia!

  Jon

I’m Really Almost Finished

Dear Twin,

  I have been reading and I’m closing in on the last ten pages of this book…but I think that if I do finish tonight (not likely…I have laundry to fold and sleep to sleep) it will be too late for me to post anything that makes sense.  So I thought I’d write these quick thoughts before Fold-a-palooza 2009 starts.

  As I sat in Starbucks this afternoon enjoying the savory Pike Place blend and thinking futuristic thoughts I was unsettled as my mental meanderings took a turn towards believing that maybe Mustapha Mond is right and John is wrong.  We’re conditioned to think the dystopic utopias of futuristic fiction are in some way wrong…but if I was making judgments solely on the persuasive speeches given in Chapter 17, I think the victory goes to Mond.  (Because, it’s true “You can’t play Electro-magnetic Golf according to the rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.”  Aside:  I really want to play Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.).  So as I finished that thought process I found myself radically decentered.  And if there’s one place in which it’s radically decentering to be radically decentered, its Starbucks.  So I came home and watched Perry Mason.  Perry Mason is radically centering–you always know what you’re going to get.  Although this episode (“The Case of the Prudent Prosecutor”) did have a bit of a surprise when Hamilton Burger (!) called Perry Mason to be his friend’s lawyer (!!!).

  So I should be finished tomorrow and then full steam ahead to Dead Souls.  I don’t know if this book was soul deadening, but it certainly was boring at points.  Here’s to hoping Gogol will pick up the pace.

  Sweet dreams,

  Jon

The Many Things Aldous Huxley Is

Dear Twin,

Agreed..definitely an idea man.  Some interesting notions, but so far weird plotting and flat characters have moved my feelings about this book more to the negative end of the spectrum.  But this “idea man” is just one of the many facets of the shining crystal that is  Aldous Huxley.  We know that he was also a proponent of psychedelics (at least according to Wikipedia –which I think may explain large portions of this book).  From what I read in Chapter Eleven I deduce he also had a little pop star inside of him–a little Christina Aguilera or Kylie Minogue just trying to burst out.  (Lenina sings the oh so catchy, “Hug me till you drug me, honey/Kiss me till I’m in a coma/Hug me honey, snuggly bunny/Love’s as good as soma”–one can only guess how pop music would be different today had he followed that dream.)

But most surprising of all to this reader is that Aldous Huxley appears to be a softy.  Sure this book is all dystopia this, fascism that.  But I detect the emergence of a “love conquers all theme” emerging in the budding love affair between Lenina and “The Savage” (why did they decide to stop referring to him as John?).

…Unless of course the constant references to Romeo and Juliet are supposed to act as harbingers of a woe as yet untold.

But Huxley is too subtle for that.  Right? . . .

. . .

…I think John and Lenina may be in trouble.

I’m plowing through the last fifty pages.  I’m ready for this book to be over.  Anytime you want to announce the next title in our literary sojourn I’d be interested to hear it.  Give me a goal to move towards.  (But warning if it includes talking animals I may actually slow down my reading).

Best,

Jon

Return of the King

And by “king” I mean me, Jon.  Hi.

And by “return” I mean I’ve dove head first into the Huxley’s world once again.  I have a lot to cover so I’m going to break this us into easy to scan sections.

Subliminal Messagings

Freaks me out!  So don’t do it.

Not really about Brave New World…but since you brought it up in your post [don’t use subliminal messaging it freaks me out!] I figure it’s fair game.

Pacing

So granted my pacing in reading this book hasn’t been stellar, but I think one reason for that is because the pace of this narrative is a sloppy, sloppy mess.  We had about one hundred pages of pure exposition where nothing happened and then all of sudden the plots points come hurtling at us like barrels in Donkey Kong.  You think you’re in for a marathon and then Huxley has you running wind sprints.

Linda

And speaking of sloppy, sloppy messes–J/K!  But do you get the feeling that Huxley has some serious disdain for this character.  Here’s his description of her as Bernard reintroduces her into the Brave New World

Bloated, sagging, and among those firm youthful bodies, those undistorted faces, a strange and terrifying monster of middle-agedness, Linda advanced into the room, coquettishly smiling her broken and discoloured smile, and rolling as she walked, with what was meant to be a voluptuous undulation, her enormous haunches.

She was abandoned in the wilderness by her boyfriend…I think I’m going to cut her some slack.

The Two Faces of Bernard Marx

I was kind of troubled by the way that Bernard introduces John to his birth father.  First Bernard and John share this very Horton-Who Child-Suessical-“Alone in the Universe” kind of moment and then the next thing you know Bernard’s like “Oh I’m fired am I, Mustafa?!  Well you have a long lost son who was actually born..and here he is!”  Thusly Jerry Springering John into Mustafa’s life.

Using your  newfound friend to thumb your nose at your ex-employer (who happens to be the father who abandoned his mother in the wilderness)–not cool!

So those are my thoughts as I move into Chapter 11 (Isn’t that bankruptcy?  Funny.)  I hope you’ve picked back up too…I’m ready for a new read!

Best regards,

Jon

I’m Not Reading Brave New World

Dear Twin,

A happy belated birthday to you as well.  My belated gift to you is a confession…a mea culpa…a breast cleaning.   Here goes:  I’m not reading Brave New World.

I realize this confession is probably a little anti-climactic after seeing this post’s subject heading, but there you have it.  I’m not reading this book right now.  And I haven’t been for a while.

Oh I’d like to make up excuses…like I’m still haunted by the plaintive cry of  “Soooooommmmmmaaaa!   Sooooooooommmmmaaaaa!” from Sally Kirkland’s portrayal of Linda in the clip that I linked to in my last post.  But its not that simple.

Sometimes life just has a way of happening…hold onto your hat I’m going to wax philosophical a bit here.  I won’t go too Derrida on you, but consider yourself warned.  In fact I think I’m going to wax philosophical in a numbered list format.  A numbered list I’ll entitle

Life Happening That Has Kept Me From Reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (A Numbered List):

1. I lost the book for like 8 days It, not surprisingly, was under more books.  I need to de-bookify a bit.
2. The Oscars.  A long show right?  But worth it for the musical medley featuring a sparkly Beyonce and Zac Efron (who’d have guessed one stage could hold so much star power!)
3. 2666.  It is like a 1600 page 900 page book.  It has taken over my life.  I’m trying to finish it like a no one’s business but it’s taking up all of my free reading time.
4. Except for the time I devote to my new blog discoveries Brendan Emmet Quigley and Jane Fonda (it’s amazing!–she watches Brothers and Sisters and tweets–just like me!)
5. And, of course, my unending quest to get caught up with New Yorkers–I’m currently trying to read the current issues as they come and read the back issues spanning from September 2008-January 2009 (I’m almost to October…I can definitely see it on the horizon!).

So that’s some stuff that’s been keeping me from reading.  That and I’m not super-engaged with this book…although I think I will be more engaged now that I’m picturing Bernard Marx as Peter Gallagher.

So you’ll hear from me soon…we’re coming quickly to our blog-iversary (about a week, I think) and I think nothing would be more appropriate of a celebration than starting a new book.  And just as you started us with Tristram Shandy oh so long ago I charge you to find us a new winner of a read to discuss.

Well I’m going to try and finish 2666–wish me luck!

Adieu,

Jon

Close Reading and Crossover Possibilities

Hello Twin,

  Sorry for the lag time in response…it’s been crazy busy at the library and by the time I get home I’m just beat.  (Shh…do you hear the violins playing a sombre melody filled with pathos in the background of my tale of woe).  But woe begone!  I’m back…and I have a bone to pick with you (does that saying stem from paleontology…because when I just thought it I pictured the both of us in pith helmets at some desert site marked off with pegs and string). 

  But back to the bone (focus, Jon, focus):  Rocket ships?  I pictured them as helicopters.  And to back me up I’d like to include the following clip from the 1998 made-for-TV movie (starring Peter Gallagher!) that I just found excerpted on YouTube:

  Yep definitely helicopters.  And notice the ominous minivans of the future!

  But back to the meat of your post…your television ideas are brilliant.  In In Full Bloom I can picture Gilbert Gottfried as Roger Avery and his catchphrase can be a plaintive, “I’m trying to paint here!”  But what I really love about these television shows is the cross over possibilities.  Do you remember NBC’s classic Saturday night lineup of Golden Girls, Nurses, and Empty Nest and how sometimes they’d have thematically linked shows because all three were produced by the same people and all took place in Miami.  So like one Saturday night a hurricane hit and all the shows featured the hurricane.

  Do you remember?  Do you?

  Well instead of a natural disaster your two programs could be linked by that hurricane of an economist John Maynard Keynes.  In Bloomsbury he’s in some torrid love affair with an Oxfordian and in FDR’s administration he’s talking big government spending with that cat puppet. Really the possibilities are endless.

  I just wanted to put that idea out there.

  AND every once in a while in In Full Bloom there could be the appearance of…Aldous Huxley.  Maybe he’s working on a little futuristic tale of conformity and sexual gluttony.  Genius!

  Well back to the book…

   Jon

Snuffleupugus and Cultural Understanding

Is that really what you dream about?  Virginia Woolf and/or New Dealers.  My dreams tend to involve me flying (I never feel as free as I do in the air–sigh) or me trying to wake up but my eyelids being too heavy.  Not very literary at all.  Although once I did have a dream where Snuffy (the Snuffleupugus) sat on a bar stool singing “The Rainbow Connection” while I tap danced in nothing but my y-fronts.

Questions I have after typing that last paragraph:  Does Snuffy count as a literary character?  Did I just overshare?  And why are there so many songs about rainbows?

Actually I’d like Snuffy (or Kermit) to list the all of these songs about rainbows that he’s heard.  I’ve heard one…”Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.  Name another guys…c’mon…whenever you’re ready.

But back to things Brave.  Although I’m not loving the distopia-part of the story (I feel like I’ve read that before)…I do enjoy the lessons in cultural understanding that occur as Bernard and Lenina vacay in the wilds of New Mexico.  This whole time we’ve been like “Weird they torture babies, weird everyone seems to do some pretty hardcore recreational drugs.”  But the tables get turned on us when these two travelers find themselves looking the representative of our society when they meet John and Linda and they live somewhat like we do today and what we consider commonplace is met with revulsion (“Oh she’s fat!”  “The baby came from where!?!”).  Maybe we should give this brave new world a bit of a break and stop applying our norms and mores to their lives.

I should note here that I’m not 100% on what a more is, but it seemed to fit, right?

And I found you referencing of Virginia Woolf to be very prescient…because the book goes a little stream o’ conscious in Chapter 8 when John recounts his boyhood.  

What a coincidence.  

Well it’s been a slice…I look forward to hearing what you think of the book when you actually read it again.  But until then keep me updated on those dreams…they’re something else!

Adieu,

Jon

Last Night I Dreamt About the Blog

Okay, so technically, it wasn’t last night that I dreamt about the blog. It was two nights ago.

(I intended to write this post yesterday, but was sidetracked by my very demanding schedule of napping, watching movies I got from Netflix, and reading books about the New Deal. In actuality, last night I dreamt that I was member of FDR’s progressive New Deal cabinet, and we were all needed simultaneously in downtown Washington D.C. so we loaded up in a single car a la the Beverly Hillbillies and headed cityward with FDR behind the wheel, Harry Hopkins at his side, and Frances Perkins reluctantly riding atop the jalopy in tied down rocking chair.–but that really has nothing to do with the blog, so I didn’t think it worth mentioning.)

So, two nights ago, I dreamt about the blog. It started as most of my dreams start, I am living in a small apartment that I share (platonically) with Virginia Woolf. We live Felix and Oscar style constantly butting heads. She being a stream-of-consciousness-neat freak-bohemian. Me being a cluttered-postmodern-loving-square.

We’ve just finished a round of verbal sparring, and we sit down to our day’s writing. She with her pens and ink, me with my iBook. I power-up my computer and  log onto our blog with a deeply insightful, almost divinely-inspired entry to post.

I pull up a new post, I set my fingers on the home row at the ready to type dextrously as the aforementioned deeply insightful thoughts poor out of my mind. 

There’s only one problem:

As soon as I see the blank screen waiting to be filled all of my words leave me. I am completely blocked. I stare at the screen. I stare at the keyboard. I stare at my hands (which have inexplicably transformed into penguin flippers). I stare at Virginia Woolf (who by the way is writing at an unbelievable pace, to the point where there is smoke coming from her pen, and she frequently giggles at what she’s just put on the page while muttering..”Genius…Pure Genius!).

I turn back to the screen. And as I stare blankly, searching in vain for my thoughts the screen starts filling up:

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

That’s right the blog is laughing at me. (Which is exactly the opposite of how our interactions usually transpire.)

And then I woke up.

All that to say, I haven’t really read any further in Brave New World, but I plan on reading some more soon. Maybe after a nap…

Justin

Fasten Your Seat Belt

Because things start happening right around Chapter Seven!

But before I go into the action of the book I feel like we need to delve into your aphorism illiteracy.  I know this isn’t an easy thing to talk about, but there are a lot of people out there who probably share you ignorance of common, everyday sayings.  You could be the poster person for this issue…kind like Bob Dole was for Erectile Disfunction (notice how I subtly joined your name to Erectile Disfunction).  The saying that I’ve always used, heard used, know of existing is “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” (or some minor variation).  But never, never have I heard “That’s coal calling the kettle black.”  Make a clean breast of it Justin and do it quickly because “A stitch in time saves nine.” (Poor dear that’s probably just gibberish to you.)

And now back to Brave New World…in chapter seven the story goes all Wisteria Lane as things get positively sudsy.  I don’t want to give plot points away (I believe, per usual, that I’m slightly ahead in reading), but if you notice that a secondary character seems to be giving a rather unexpected and detailed account of his past (a past vacation, say) for no real discernible reason…it’s because Huxley is laying the groundwork for future surprises!  

To move safely away from accidentally giving away a plot twist…let’s move to an appreciation of one of Huxley’s less trumpeted talents: Nature Writing.

Here’s an excerpt:

They walked along for some way in the shadow of the mesa, rounded a projection, and there, in a water-worn ravine, was the way up the companion ladder.  They climbed.  It was a very steep path that zigzagged from side to side of the gully. (72).

What a word picture!  Watch out Rachel Carson.  I can almost feel that projection.

Savoring Nature,

Jon

Here’s The Story…

Ok, I hate to go back to the whole “pot and kettle” thing that has been haunting this blog not unlike the ghost of Tiger haunted the Brady household for the final 4 1/2 seasons of The Brady Bunch. (Remember when Jan hilariously thought she was allergic to Mr. Brady only to find out that it was in actuality Tiger’s flea powder? Sitcom genius!)

But what kind of conversation did a pot every have with a kettle? I’ve heard of coal calling a kettle black, but I’ve never heard of a pot calling a kettle…well…anything. (Except maybe shiny, but traditionally pots and kettles don’t get along. So typically they just share awkward, stony silences, broken only by the occasional whistle when the kettle starts to boil…from anger.)

But I think it’s time we leave the pot and the kettle, and yes, even the coal and get back to Braver topics.

That was some very thoughtful analysis tying The Brave New world to the  Brady Bunch/counterculture era. As I was reading said thoughtful analysis two questions kept coming to my mind again and again:

1.) Why are you reading Maureen McCormick’s biography?

2.) Why are you watching the movie version of Hair?

I guess both of these questions will have to remain unanswered, but speaking of questions here is my question for this book on the whole:

When is anything going to happen?

I understand this is really more a novel of ideas. (Think what life would be like if we were programmed from birth, swore off monogamy, were all named after industrialists and communists?) But it seems that while trying to continually raise questions and play a topsy turvy game with the morals of his day Aldous Huxley left one very important element out of his book:

A plot

Oh, and:

Character development.

I mean really what has happened in the first 70 pages of this book? And then there are amazingly rounded characters of punctual Henry Foster and closeted monogamist, Lenina Crowne. (These aren’t characters, these are traits.)

You know what this book could use. A really well drawn, defined, character. You know, like Alice. Alice…uhh…Alice…did Alice have a last name?…the Brady’s Housekeeper Alice.

Ok, I guess maybe that wasn’t the best example, but you know what I mean.

Justin