I like Candy

Satire. I'm not always a fan. Reading it is hard work, and actually requires thinking. I'm not sure I always get it, and it's not always done very well. Jonathan Swift was pretty good at it, I guess, but maybe that's because I had professors explaining it to me at the time.

So, when a friend of mine (you should check out this blog, even though I won't tell you which of the great contributors is my friend) recommended the book "Candy" to me, and told me it is a satire of Voltaire's "Candide," I was a bit hesitant. First, I've never read "Candide," and I wasn't about to try to read it right now. I've always thought about it as one of those difficult books that requires a professor, lots of literary criticism and other background information to understand. I don't have the slightest idea what it's about, who the characters are, the plot, the importance, etc. Somehow I made it through a degree in Literature without any of this knowledge. So I was afraid I wouldn't really get the satirical remarks or nuances of Candy. Second, it's satire, and ...

But I was eventually sold on giving it a try because of one little word: sex. I'm human. And sometimes interested in the baser pleasures of life - my favorite of which is food. Sue me. So now my interest is piqued, but I'm still not sold. Then he actually gave me his copy of the book. This did it. It must be great if he wanted me to read it THAT much. Also, hey, a new free book!

So, after all my hesitation, did I like it? Short answer: Yes. Long Answer:

 Candy

by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg

Let me say that the story of "Candy" stands on its own. It's pretty good without knowing anything about "Candide" or Voltaire. I kept meaning to do a little research on Voltaire and his famous creation before reading Candy. But I always thought about it when I was not near a computer or when I didn't have time, etc. So the other night I just picked up Candy and started reading. Before I knew it, I was 100 pages in. I finished it two evenings later.

The simple story is this: a young girl with serious daddy issues encounters several different men, each with varying degrees of sexual perversions and needs. Each man does what he can to manipulate Candy into being with him, and each goes about it in a different way. She, of course, goes for it every time, not because she's completely stupid (although she's obviously not bright), but because she's overly accommodating. She wants to be nice, and she thinks really highly of herself for being so giving and generous with herself. However, she's still kind of proper and she knows that all of these sexual encounters are kind of wrong, but doing the wrong is forgivable if she's doing it for someone other than herself. Right?

One incident in particular shows Candy's willingness to give without taking. When she decides to lose her virginity to the gardener, he sneaks into her room in the middle of the night. They begin kissing and things begin to move forward. As soon as she starts to feel pleasure, though, she feels guilty. She has this moment where she realizes that she is willing to suffer pain for this man , but she does not want to suffer pleasure.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was the comedy. I know satire means a lot of ridicule, and examination of human folly. But that doesn't always mean comedy. Does it? I don't know. I'm going to have to read some more satire, I guess. In any event, every scene of this book is comical. Events unfold comically, the characters do and say comical things, and more than once I actually laughed. Well, the sort of soft, grunt of laughter one does while reading alone.

To tell you any more of the plot would do nothing other than tell the entire story, so I won't do that. It's really much better if you let the events unfold on their own. This is a fast, fun read. It seems silly and if you only read it for the story, it certainly is as empty and unsatisfying as some of the sex in the book - pure sweet, unnourishing candy. But it is also very adept, as a satire should be, at examining human nature, with all of its ignorance, innocence, embarrassments, shame, darkness, and the way strong desires of any kind - especially sexual - can bring out the worst in all of us.

Now that I've finished the book, I spent some time and looked up some information on "Candide" and Voltaire to see how things compare, and to see if it enriched my reading of "Candy." By which I mean I spent ten minutes on the Wikipedia page for "Candide." Imagine my surprise when the first sentence told me that "Candide" is also a satire! If I totally understood irony, I might be able to call this ironic. It is the story of a sheltered young man who is indoctrinated into the religion of optimism by a mentor. But he spends the bulk of the story experiencing bad things to the point he becomes disillusioned with the idea of optimism.

The description of Voltaire's novella on Wikipedia could also be an exact description of "Candy." The story is that of "a more serious bildungsroman;" it "parodies many adventure and romance clichés," and the events are "caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact." Also, like "Candy," "Candide" was banned when first published. Where will the similarities end?

Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg have apparently done a wonderful job of mimicking and modernizing "Candide." But they've also written a work that stands on its own and makes an impact. And beyond all of that, they've made me want to actually read Voltaire. Well done them. Although, just looking at him, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to his work. What a nice piece of man Candy he is. I'd like to trade notes with him on skin and hair care.

Busy-ness as Usual

I know I haven't posted in quite awhile, but I've had a couple things going on lately, OK? For one thing, I've been moving. Which is exhausting. Especially when I have to work 10 hours, then come home and try to unpack. I think I finally know where just about everything is right now. Except all of my books.

I mean, I know that all of my books are in a giant stack of boxes piled up in the loft of my new apartment. But if I wanted to find a specific book, I would have a tough time of it.  I will forever be grateful for the friends who helped us move all those heavy boxes of books up three flights of stairs into our apartment, and then up another set of stairs up into the loft!

There are a lot of other big things happening in the world of Brooke, including craziness at work and my six-month review coming up, as well as a trip to New York next week to visit family and attend the first year birthday party of the cutest little girl in the world - my niece. Look at this face, and tell me you disagree! 

In my reading world, things are going pretty well.  I'm smack dab in the middle of the most recent addition to the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde - "One of our Thursdays is Missing."  It's excellent, of course. He's so clever and funny and goofy. And British. What's not to like? 

I have a lot to gush about, so that post will be coming soon.  I waited awhile to read this one for a lot of reasons. I'm really glad I did, though, because coincidentally, the next book in that series will be out in October. Yay!  I don't care who you are, if you don't like the Thursday Next series, then you don't like books. I think I may have just come with the title of my next post. 

In addition, my book club picked The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for our August read, and I'm excited to jump into that. I've always wanted to read it, so this is as good a time as any.  There is some early buzz from some of the group and it's mostly positive, so it looks like it's shaping up to be a good book club meeting. 

And speaking of clubs, if you didn't know about it, you should check out The Classics Club. I'm in the process of compiling my list - I have been for months. But now that there is a separate, official blog for it, I've become motivated to finalize my list and add my name to the long list of bloggers who are participating. The moderators have worked really hard and made an excellent site. You should really check it out and consider participating. I think at the top of my list will be Sherlock Holmes. :)

The Unbearable Heaviness of Baking Cake

Sunday afternoon was my meeting with my book club.  I really need to remember to take pictures while we're all there.  Grrr.  Next time!  We read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera, and we had a little afternoon tea to go with it. There were cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad and both hot and iced tea.  In keeping with the spirit of the tea party, I made tea bag cookies and petit fours.  It was a LOT of work, but they were very yummy. 

I found out about the tea bag cookies from a post on Book Journey's blog, and they were so cute I had to make them.  I followed the link from her blog and found this blog, which describes how to make them.  In French.  I speak French, but not well enough to follow a recipe in it!  Google translate helped some, but not really.  In any event, the pictures were enough to give me an idea what to do, and I just used some sugar cookie dough I had in my freezer, and dipped the cookies in semi-sweet chocolate.  They turned out cute and tasty, so I'm pretty pleased. 

I also made petit fours.  They took the most time, and I actually burned one of the cakes I was making.  I don't think I've ever actually burned a cake before.  The frosting was sort of a fiasco and in the end they looked more like cake with candle wax dripped all over them than the pretty little petit fours I had envisioned, but they were really good.  That's lemon cake with raspberry filling.  I had to bring the leftovers to work so that I wouldn't eat all of them. 


Oh, did you say this is a book blog and not a baking blog? Ok.  Here are my thoughts after meeting with everyone - for once I really didn't change my mind a whole lot after talking with the group.   

It's difficult to create a synopsis for this book, because there's not a lot of plot.  Still, so much happens!  Oh sweet irony.  There is the central love story between Tereza and Tomas.  Then there's a sort of side love story - Sabina and Franz.  Sabina and Tomas were also lovers, by the way.  Tomas, obviously, is a womanizer.  He loves Tereza, and he is able to separate that love from the physical enjoyment he gets from his encounters with other women.  Unfortunately for Tereza, she is not able to separate it, and his philandering causes her a lot of distress and really strange nightmares.   


Meanwhile, the relationship between Sabina and Franz is sort of converse - with Franz having all the feelings and Sabina unable to fully give her heart to Franz (or anyone else for that matter).  Sabina is an artist, and Franz is an intellectual and a professor.  He's also married.  Eventually he screws up the courage to tell his socialite wife that he's been hooking up with a sexy artist, and he's going to go shack up with her.  When Sabina finds out he left his wife for her, she has wild, passionate sex with Franz one last time and then disappears and moves to the US.  Franz is crushed, but then moves in with some grad student who wears giant glasses. 

This book is more of a portrait of the lives of these people, rather than a story.  And those lives are basically there just as something over which Milan Kundera can drape his philosophy.  The philosophy is really the reason to read the book - it's so interesting and quotable.  And if I had to come up with a theme for the book, it's balance.  The couples are kind of extremes, and they sort of balance each other out.  There are all these contrasting ideas - strength/weakness, lightness/heaviness - and which one is better than the other just depends on your perspective.  Strength is not always better than weakness, and being weak doesn't always mean you're the victim.  Take those traditional ideas that have been put into your head and banish them from whence they came!!! 

The real star of this book is language.  Milan Kundera is Czech, but he has lived in France since 1975.  This novel was originally written in Czech, and then translated into French.  It was first published in French in 1984, and then in its original Czech a year later, when it was also translated into English.  The translation I read was so beautiful, though, I had to keep reminding myself that it was a translation.  The author uses language to explain and clarify, but it's also something more than a tool.  It's how we understand the world, and how we understand each other.  If we understand life in different ways, then we speak a different language - just like Sabina and Franz.  

I'm going to end this post with some of my favorite quotes from this book, which will do a whole lot more towards convincing you to read this book than I ever could.  But you should read it.  

"There is no particular merit in being nice to one's fellow man. ... Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals" 

"Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love." 

"If [God] had a mouth, He had to eat.  And if He ate, He had intestines.  But that thought always gave me a fright, because even though I come from a family that was not particularly religious, I felt the idea of a divine intestine to be sacrilegious.  ... Thus [I] came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely, that man was created in God's image.  Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and God has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like Him."  

"When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness.  We say that something has become a great burden to us. ... And Sabina - what had come over her?  Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him.  Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness.  What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being." 

I'm not entirely sure this qualifies as a classic, because it wasn't published until the mid 1980s.  BUT, I'm sort of behind on my challenges, and I had the impression this was a classic when I started it.  I'm not going to link this up to my classics challenge post yet, because if I read enough other stuff, I won't count it.  

It does count, however, for my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die Challenge. Yay!    

2012 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge
I got this book last year, and I like it. For one thing, I like lists. For another, I like that someone else took the time to tell me what books are important - otherwise I might never have known. I realize that it's sort of subjective, and it's impossible to narrow down the actual list of the most important books in the world. Also, it's impossible for me to read everything in this book. But that won't stop me from trying!

This challenge is hosted by Caitie at Pub Writes. The title link above takes you to her original post with all the rules and whatnot, but the general idea is this: Choose the level you want and read at least that many books from the List at some point throughout the year.

I choose to read at the "Made the Olympic Team" level, which means I have to read 6-10 books from this list. This seems like a lot, but I am confident that I'll be able to use books from this challenge for other challenges too - like the Back to the Classics Challenge and the Banned Books Challenge.

I will keep my list updated here, and I will link to each post I read for my books. Wish me luck!

1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
2.

2012 Back to the Classics Challenge

Continuing with my barrage of 2012 Reading Challenge posts, the second of three challenges I'll be participating in this year is THIS:

BACK TO THE CLASSICS CHALLENGE 2012


Sarah Reads Too Much is running this challenge, and the link above includes all the rules. I'm kind of excited about this one too (obviously - or else I wouldn't have picked it!). I love to read classics, and so this shouldn't be too difficult. There are 9 categories, and the challenge is to read a different book for each of the following categories:




1. Any 19th Century Classic;
2. Any 20th Century Classic;
3. Reread a Classic of Your Choice;
4. A Classic Play;
5. Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction;
6. Classic Romance;
7. Classic Translated from Another Language;
8. Classic Award Winner;
9. Classic Set in a Country I will Never Visit.

I still don't know which book I'll read for each category, but that's the beauty of this challenge - I don't have to decide right now. I can choose randomly throughout the year based on what I'm feeling.

I think the most difficult choice for me will be choosing a book translated from another language. I don't normally go out of the realm of books written in English, so I'll have to think about that one. As for the classic set in a country I will never visit, I'll probably choose something that takes place in either India or maybe somewhere in central Africa. There are a lot of places in the world that I'd like to visit, but those two are kind of low on the list. But again, I don't have to decide right now!

Again, I plan to edit this post after I read the book for each category, but I will also be writing separate posts for each book and link back to this post. Additionally, our challenge host will have a place on her blog for us to link our reviews, and I'll be linking up to that as well.

Here's to the classics!

2012 Banned/Challenged Book Reading Challenge

I am not one for making a lot of reading plans. I think reading should be a fluid thing - I like to pick books based on what I'm feeling, what I'm currently interested in, or just based on a cover I think is interesting at a book store (yes, I judge books by their covers - there's no use in denying it).

However, as an effort to become a bit more involved in the book blogging world, and as an effort to be more active on my blog in general, I've decided to join three book challenges for the year 2012. I picked these challenges, because they are generally in line with my reading tastes and because they allow for a lot of fluidity - many books will fit into these challenges, so I'll still be able to choose books based on my feelings and mood.

I am going to create a separate post for each of the challenges. Here is the first challenge, and the one about which I am most excited:

BANNED/CHALLENGED BOOK READING CHALLENGE

Who doesn't like a little bit of the naughty? I used several sources to make a list in my book spreadsheet (what, you don't have a spreadsheet listing all the books you want to read broken down into different categories?) of most of the books that have been banned or at least challenged in the past 20 years, as well as list of classics that have been most challenged or banned throughout history. These sources came from the creator of this challenge, The Eclectic Bookshelf.



Goodreads Lists:

The Most Frequently Challenged Books

Banned Books

Popular Challenged Books

American Library Association Links:

Banned & Challenged Classics

100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 1990 -1999

Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000 - 2009

The rules of the challenge are at the link above to The Eclectic Bookshelf's page. I am going to join at Level 1, which is a promise to read 12 banned books. That strikes me as a lot of books for level one, but since that's the lowest level, that's my plan.

I am planning to edit this post every time I finish a book for this challenge, but I will also create a separate post for each book as well, and link back to this and to The Eclectic Bookshelf's original post. Wish me luck!

The Bell Jar

Today is an awesome day because I got the new Bookmarks Magazine! It's also a sad day, because it's the last one of the year. It is convenient, though, because it comes early enough to pick goodies out of it for my Christmas list! I'm also excited to read the lists of books about Careers. All I can think about is waiting on bar results, so I'm interested to see what books they have listed under "Attorney." And in case I fail, I'll have to check other career option too. :)

On a more somber note, I'd like to talk a little bit about my most recent read, "The Bell Jar." I've read just enough about the life of Sylvia Plath to know that this is a very autobiographical novel. Which is what makes it so amazing and so heartbreaking.

The novel, of course, is the story of Esther Greenwood, a bright, beautiful and blooming talent, and her descent into mental illness and her attempt to live a productive life in spite of her obstacles. It opens with her in New York, working for a magazine - a position that she won by way of a brilliantly written application. In fact, Esther tells us, writing and winning scholarships is the one thing she's good at. But Esther feels lost and uncertain and alone. Once home, she continues slipping into a depression so consuming that she eventually attempts suicide. She is, however, miraculously discovered at the moment before death. Because she is a famous local author and poet, her suicide attempt and hospitalization is widely publicized. Through this embarrassing invasion, Esther gains the patronage and support of an understanding and compassionate rich woman who promises to fund Esther's recovery in return for Esther's promise to try to heal, and with the hope that Esther will return to school once she is recovered.

The language of this novel is beautiful and poetic, but not over the top. Plath knows how to create imagery and evoke emotion using minimal, but impactful language. What is most amazing about the language is that it retells the novel's events in a way that the reader takes the trip right along with Esther. This is not a story of what happened to some woman - it's not as distant as that. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I felt everything Esther felt, but I did empathize and I did understand what she felt like - at every step of the way.

Plath's brilliance isn't in writing a moving novel of an extraordinary woman's trip to the depths of despair and back up again, although that's what she did. Her brilliance is in making Esther not seem crazy. Esther did some crazy things - throwing all her clothes out of the window of her New York apartment, for example. But even those moments which, from a distance, seem irrational, seem and feel like the only rational choice - both to Esther and to the reader.

Everything Esther does seems and feels logical and smart. I was surprised when her mother wondered why Esther couldn't get out of bed or why Esther didn't want to take a stenography course. It seemed obvious to me. I totally sympathized with Esther when she wanted to explain how she felt to someone, but it just seemed like too much work - it was easier to let them come to their own conclusions, because even if she tried to explain, she probably couldn't articulate it anyway. I do this fairly often in my own life. Esther's fears about sex and the pressure she felt because of her immense talent were a terrible burden - why couldn't everyone else understand? I understood even though I do not have a great talent. I understood because Sylvia Plath made me understand.

As if all of this weren't amazing enough, if we think about Sylvia as Esther, the accomplishment of this novel stands out even more. This is not a novel written by a psychologist or a therapist; it isn't written by someone who is trying to explain something using clinical terms or common symptomology. This is a novel written by someone who struggled with depression her whole life, and it is written about a particularly difficult time in that bleak life. While in theory it is not surprising that a poet could write well about something with which she is well acquainted, the amazing part is how she was able to write so clearly and with such objectivity. She doesn't get mired down in self-pity or whining. Her ability to separate from herself, and to observe and explain that time of her life with such a strong voice is nothing short of miraculous.

I was afraid this novel would be really dark and gloomy, but it's not. It's perfectly readable, with language that is poetic, but not oppressive. Sometimes, because Esther's mind is so fuzzy - being so uncertain about everything - the novel gets a little fuzzy and dreamlike, but this is only evidence of the brilliance of a writer that uses language to mimic her protagonist's mindset. At other times, the scenes are so vivid and sharply written that they actually hurt to read.

Again, I only know enough about Sylvia Plath to know that "The Bell Jar" is basically a true story. Which makes me want to know more about her. I have begun reading "Her Husband" which is a biography of Ted Hughes that is centered around his marriage to and relationship with Plath. I've also added a couple of Sylvia Plath biographies to my TBR list.

I am not a fan of poetry (either because I'm not smart enough OR because I'm too lazy), so I doubt I'll spend much time reading Plath's poetry - her main claim to fame other than her eventual suicide. But I would like to read some books that talk about her poetry and what it meant to her and to Hughes. What a shame that so brilliant a mind is no longer producing great literature.

Shalimar The Clown and other January Reading

I received the novel, "Shalimar The Clown" by Salman Rushdie (Random House, 2005) for Christmas in 2006. Four years later I finally got around to reading it. Honestly, I tried to read it once before, but gave up about 20 pages in.

"Shalimar The Clown" is the story of two young lovers from a small village of actors and performers in Kashmir. Boonyi, a beautiful and semi-talented dancer sees her life as small, and wants to get out. Shalimar, sees his life as small yet valuable and wants to hold on to their way of life forever. Their story, along with that of Boonyi's future lover (an important diplomat and scholar) and his family, is tragic and the amount of people affected by her one decision is staggering. Meanwhile the political and social climate of Kashmir is one of upheaval, revolution and terrorism - the truth, but nonetheless a symbolic interpretation of the havoc and mixed emotions within each of the characters.

I want to start out by saying how much I really enjoyed and appreciated this novel. But I didn't love this story, and I think there are a number of reasons why.

First, I am in law school and my brain is exhausted by ten a.m. every day. I am somehow making it and I will graduate in May, but law school leaves very little room for intellectual stimulation of any other kind. It's kind of a jealous mistress in that way. So reading anything by Salman Rushdie was going to be a challenge.

Secondly, as noted above, I appreciated the art that is this novel. I appreciated the lyrical and poetic language. I appreciated the word paintings of Kashmir and India and Pakistan and all kinds of places I've never been or seen. It could not have been done better. The language, the phrasing, and even the punctuation was enough on its own to evoke emotion. There is one passage where the annihilation of a village is described with such sparse yet devastating language, and then suddenly there is no punctuation because the scene is moving too fast and it's impossible to focus on anything other than the terrible destruction. That passage left me breathless.

But ... I can appreciate art without fully understanding and feeling it. Some of the historical passages and descriptions were too long and too poetic for my overworked, tired brain to handle. I could tell I was dealing with something beautiful and wonderful, but I couldn't take everything in. Then I began to feel guilty that I was falling asleep after only ten minutes of reading. Then I began to resent feeling guilty - "why is it my fault that the author's words are making me fall asleep?" Like a petulant teenager, I was ready to give up altogether into the second part of the book.

Third, I'm not really the type that can give up on a book. Especially a novel like this - celebrated, obviously lyrical and poetic, and a story that is a strange combination of history and our current times. Having already given up once before, I would not be defeated by a novel - even if it is extremely cerebral! So I persevered, and I am so glad. The story began to move along and it's such a heartbreaking story. But because I felt like I HAD to finish, I was always thinking about just getting through it rather than enjoying myself while there.

Fourthly, the ending was so anti-climactic and disappointing. After all that work I put in, I wanted a big reward. In the end, I'm very happy I persevered. I know some of the images and characters will haunt me forever, but I really should have waited longer to read this. I should have waited until next year when I could have appreciated its beauty more.

It's like when I saw the artwork and architecture of Paris when I was in high school - I knew I was seeing greatness and that I was in a place where wonderful things have happened, but I didn't feel it. Instead I thought about my boyfriend back in the US the whole time. Reading "Shalimar The Clown," all I could think about was how much work I have to do for law school.

I did manage to get some other reading done in January. My school book group read "Gulliver's Travels," and we had a great discussion on that. That's a book I never read in school, amazingly enough. Several others had, and it was interesting to hear their new take on it. Also, I was surprised at how much law there was to discuss in the story - how different societies set up their legal systems, etc.


Also, I "read" (i.e. listened to an audio book of) "1984" by George Orwell. And I loved it. This is another book I never read in school, but always wanted to read. Although it could be the most depressing and soul-draining novel ever written, I still felt good after reading it. Maybe because no matter how bad things seem and even with Facebook making everyone's life public and banishing privacy, things can always be worse. I'm happy that I don't have a screen watching my every move.

There were a few things about the novel that disturbed me, though. I'm not a feminist really - I mean I'm glad women vote and we can choose basically any career we want, etc. - but I'm just not interested in thinking of everything on a man v. woman basis. Despite this, I was really upset about the portrayal of the one woman character in this novel. The one woman in the whole story is a lust-filled, greedy woman. She is not smart and doesn't want to talk about or think about anything intellectual or serious. I couldn't find one redeeming quality about her. How very disappointing.

Anyway, now it's February and I'll be moving on to my next few books. I will try to post more often, but I just can't make any promises. My life is nuts right now. Also, I realized something about myself yesterday that kind of upset me. I've gone from loving to read to loving the idea of reading. Let me explain.

I keep a spreadsheet of everything I want to read. I have a tab for me, for my husband, for my future children, etc. I have a tab for different types of books. I have tabs for each award offered for writing - Pulitzer, Man Booker, National Book Award, etc. I've got lists of books by authors I'm interested in, etc. I've become someone who makes all these great plans to read a lot, but I don't read near as much as I used to or want to. Part of this can be blamed on law school, but more of it is to be blamed on my OCD regarding list making.

I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but I'll try to think of something. If you have thoughts or advice, I'd love to hear it.