Journal of a Novel by John Steinbeck

‘Great writing has been a staff to lean on, a mother to consult, a wisdom to pick up stumbling folly, a strength in weakness and a courage to support sick cowardice …. It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would milleniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth, and a few remnants of fossilized jaw bones, a few teeth in the strata of limestone, would be the only mark our species would have left on the earth. Now this I must say and say right here and so sharply and memorably that it will not be forgotten in the rather terrible and disheartening things which are to come in this book; so that although East of Eden is not Eden, it is not insuperably far away.’

Fact: East of Eden is one of my favourite books of all time. Of All Time. (Thanks Kanye.) I think Steinbeck is a stunning writer, the kind of writer that embarrassingly makes me mutter ‘wow’ under my breath every now and then while I’m reading him. Journal of a Novel, then, seemed kind of mandatory.

This is the collection of letters that the author wrote to his editor while working on the novel. On his working mornings, Steinbeck would sit down at his desk, with his long pencil (the short ones were given away to his sons because he couldn’t stand to write with a stumpy pencil), and warm up for the day’s work by writing briefly to his Viking Press editor and dear friend, Pascal “Pat” Covici. He wrote about the book, about the characters, about potential titles, about it’s possible critical reception; he wrote about his family, his friends, his emotions; the process of writing, the tools he used, the rooms and the houses that he wrote in.

Just on titles for a moment, there’s such a nice sub-plot, if you will, running through this journal as Steinbeck tries to hit on the perfect title for his big book; it goes through such horrors as The Salinas Valley, My Valley and (worst of all) Cain Sign. Ugh. A climactic moment worthy of the most dramatic fiction comes when Steinbeck finally hits on perfection in East of Eden. I cannot imagine it being called anything else.

The absolutely most wonderful thing about this book, though, is the inclusion of some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read, in such a casual medium. In this book that has not been edited or polished, that Steinbeck wrote only to limber up and to talk through his book with a good friend, a book that was never really intended to be read, there are some moments of beauty and perfection that are breathtaking. The quote that I’ve stuck up the top of this post is a good demonstration of this. Thoughtful and insightful, clear and beautiful – and lines like these sit nicely next to Steinbeck’s talk about fixing the slant of his desk or another sleepless night.

The only mistake I made with this book was to read it without a copy of East of Eden right at my side – in fact, I would’ve loved to have read this while simultaneously rereading the novel, to see the characters and the stories as they developed and as they finally were. Next time!

You know how some people say of an actor, “I would happily watch her read the phone book”? That’s how I feel about Steinbeck’s writing. Even reading about the type of paper that he liked or the carving he’d been doing or how he’d been cleaning up his writing room – the prose is good enough to pull you through and in.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Sometime between the scandals of Jonathan Franzen and James Frey, Oprah put her book club through a hardcore “Summer of Faulkner”. A slipcase of three Faulkner books – As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury and Light in August – was put together, with a little intro from the woman herself by way of a handhold. This is what I like about Oprah, and why Franzen’s crankiness about the book club was particularly douchey – she slips these Hard books under the radar and people, who otherwise never would, read them and some don’t like them but some really do. And I think that’s pretty exciting. And Franzen should get over himself and be grateful. Douche.

Anyway. The Sound and the Fury is a seemingly odd fit with Oprah et al is because it is notoriously difficult to read. In fact, to quote the blurb on my 1964 PMC edition, “Although it is difficult in the same way that Ulysses is difficult, it is rewarding.” A sentence that, I have to say, dampened my enthusiasm somewhat. “Difficult” – particular in the same way that the hardest book in the entire world is difficult – is not my idea of a cup of tea.

However, once again Oprah has not let me down. The stream of consciousness style in TS&tF, particularly in the first two sections, does demand intense concentration, so you can’t fade in and out. But once you get inside it, it washes over you – in fact, liquid metaphors work in several ways for this kind of writing. You just need to ride the wave, coast along, hold your breath and dive. Etc. 

But, you know, I felt nicely prepared. Because I’d heard all this trash talk about it being difficult, I didn’t expect to necessarily get all of it, and I didn’t think I would instantly understand who was who and what was going on. So I just enjoyed it greatly. The plot was a bit hazy, but the characters and atmosphere stood stark and strong. The depiction of Billy, the ‘idiot’ telling the tale in the first section, was so well done, so clever and empathetic and genuine – even though this was the hardest bit to follow, the trickiest in terms of timing and plotting, it was one of my favourite sections because of the strength of Billy’s voice.

Quentin’s section, too, was wonderful. It was devastating in the trajectory it followed; things got blurrier and faster and clearer and heavier. Mood, atmosphere and feeling all excellent. I think I knew (as in, actually knew, not just suspected or used my super reading powers to guess) where it was heading, but the tension still got to me and seized me up.

I think the final two sections, while still great, were probably not as powerful as the first two, probably didn’t affect me as much. Ironically, as the prose became simpler, I became slightly less engaged. But only slightly. Jason (what a rat!) was hideous, truly hideous, and girl Quentin was heartbreaking. As it ended, and all the way through really, I genuinely wished I could read it in a circular way, just go immediately back to the start and go through again. I felt as though I could easily read it again and it would be like a whole new book.

Actually, now that I think about it, I struggled more with The Corrections than this. So double eff you to Franzen. But that’s a blog for another day.

Recently Acquired

Cos what I needed was a big fat stack of new books.

Top to bottom:

• That Eye, The Sky by Tim Winton – loved Breath so badly and sharply recently that I decided I need to inject more Winton into my life.
• Stet by Diana Athill – an apparently fab memoir from a prominent UK publisher, recently raved about here. I’m a sucker for publishing stuff and this sounded pretty great.
• Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy – picked up from the Fed Square Saturday book sale, I’ve wanted to read this for a long time. I saw Helen Garner’s eyes light up once when talking about it, and it’s hard to resist books that make someone’s eyes light up.
• Raymond Chandler omnibus – Fed Square again, six books in one, I’d've been mad NOT to buy it!
• All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren – love a good quality politico thriller.
• The Odyssey by Homer – the next three are the new Penguin cased classics, pretty, pretty things. These three are from round two of this series and I think the second batch are better, more interesting designs. Unfortunately only available at Borders
• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle – see above. Love the moth design. Also a classic that I can probably convince myself is fun, yes?
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – see above above. Another Fun Classic maybe?

This must be how a bulimic feels after a binge but before a purge. For me actually getting around to reading these books, watch this space.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

I like to believe that the shadow falling across that photo is a testament to the spookiness of the novel, not my crap photography skills. I capital-L Loved this book in a way that is both good and bad – good because it was ace and I quite enjoy reading ace books, but bad because now I’ve got a conscious eye on the rest of the Murakami back catalogue. 

It’s set in a single night in Tokyo, from 11:56pm to 6:52am. Mari Asai is reading by herself in a Denny’s, waiting for the time to pass, when a guy she met once before comes in and interrupts her. It follows Mari and her soon-to-be suitor, Takahashi, through their nocturnal adventures, and also looks in on the staff of a love hotel, a violent IT worker, and Mari’s sleeping sister Eri. But it’s also about a million more high-falutin things as well – consciousness, point of view, relationships. It reads like a movie, in the best kind of way.

Not sure how I felt about the supernatural aspect of Eri’s storyline, since I don’t usually take kindly to that kind of thing (see: Beloved). But I was right inside it nonethless – even if I didn’t know exactly whether to buy it or not I still enjoyed it. And I loved all the other storylines, especially the creepy Shirakawa and the deliberately misplaced mobile phone. The writing is visceral and vibrant and alive and spooky. It hit rights at the weirdness of late night sobriety, the undertones of menace and mystery, in a big city. The use of time to split up the chapters works to both shape and contain it.

Basically: read it, it’s good stuff.

Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery

Not many authors have come through with me from childhood. Ann M Martin (and her ghostwriters) and I parted ways awhile ago, just like RL Stine, Enid Blyton and John Grisham. Lucy Maud Montgomery, on the other hand, is my comfort food of literature – I read her for reasons similar, I’m guessing, to why people read Twilight. They make me happy inside, the pages melt away, they’re easy but kind of nourishing. However, unlike Ms Meyer, Maud could write, which makes her books ten times more satisfying. 

She’s most famous for Anne of Green Gables but my favourites are the Emily books. And I’m slowly pacing through the rest of the back catalogue. So when my parents went to Canada earlier this year – including a brief stay in Montgomery’s home of Prince Edward Island – I asked them to pick up the few novels that I haven’t read yet. Including Jane of Lantern Hill.

Jane is a standard LMM story, unloved child searching for parental love (and finds it in the picturesque setting of PEI). And even though it’s not up to the standards of my favourites (the Emilys, The Blue Castle, Kilmeny of the Orchard) it’s still utterly charming. There’s so much passion in these books, so much love of life and wonder at the world, that they make me want to be a better person. Neater, nicer, etc. Unfortunately it’s a feeling that doesn’t last forever – but it’s nice while it does.

Everything I Knew by Peter Goldsworthy

So for the uninitiated of you, a place to head for some quality Australian literature these days is the Hamish Hamilton list of Penguin Australia. All Penguin’s high-end literature sits on this list – some recent treasure include Breath, The Tall Man and The Boat. Not too shabby, eh. And one other HHer is Peter Goldsworthy’s Everything I Knew.

Peter Goldsworthy and I did not get off to a good start when I was forced to read his harrowing, god-awful novella Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam when I was in college (and then again this year for work! CRUEL FATE!). I was kind of intrigued by the plot of Everything I Knew (boy falls in love with his hot high school teacher, it’s season 1 of Dawson’s Creek all over again, which is fine by me) and knew it would be good (since it’s a Hamish) and I like the B format cover. So that’s why it was on my shelf. But I didn’t know if I could get past the Jesus experience. 

Finally, though (and this is why I keep mentioning the damn list), I made a goal for myself to read all of the Australian HH books. A nice and achievable goal, by the way, since I’m pretty deep into it already and it’s no skin off my nose to read some more great contemporary literature. So to show my dedication to this end, I got stuck in to Everything I Knew. And I think Goldsworthy and I are on good terms at last.

Robbie Burns is a strange mix of nerd and bad boy at fourteen and his head is completely turned when the sassy, sexy Miss Peach rides into his high school on her exotic Vespa. Miss Peach is only twenty and idealistic and only twenty. Sheesh. That fact alone kept smacking me over the head while I was reading it. Anyway, Robbie’s crush gets more and more problematic, and he gets more and more creepy, and things don’t go down so well. For anyone. That’s the gist of it.

The unreliable narrator – you know, that hackneyed old thing – works well here, and you don’t quite realise how well until the last bit where Goldsworthy rips the literary rug right out from under you – or does he? Robbie is pretty loathsome, as far as I’m concerned, but from what I can remember most fourteen-year-old boys are, and the “After” section at the end shows that maybe he wasn’t as hideous as the impression that he gave. 

As an aside, there’s a disconcerting themal similarity here to Breath – and, to a lesser extent, Butterfly and “Halflead Bay”, Nam Le’s long story smack in the middle of The Boat. Is this what Australian literature wants me to believe is ahead of me when I hit my grown-up years? Trying to pinpoint the exact crossover moment between adulthood and childhood, a distinct fascination with “youth”, a looking back on a time so sharp and awful and wonderful and exciting? Or maybe this is just a literary coincidence on the HH list. I sure hope so, I’m quietly content with the relegation state of my high school years.

Anyway, I thought that it was by no means perfect. I could’ve done without the long, detailed sci fi stories, but I guess I can grudgingly accept that they were necessary. And I wasn’t sure about the Aboriginal stuff, it seemed an awkward and not-fully-realised subplot. But I ripped right through it nonetheless, and the tone was painfully perfect. And the denouement! That moment of grotesquerie that drew it all together. Good stuff.

So, Mr Goldsworthy, it seems that you’re almost forgiven for that pain you put me through with Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam.

Well played.

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark

 

‘I always hope the readers of my novels are of good quality. I wouldn’t like to think of anyone cheap reading my books.’

She’s a strange woman, that Muriel Spark. This is my second crack at her, the first being A Far Cry From Kensington which I bought earlier this year because a) I’d been meaning to read her for years and b) Virago brought out a new range of ace hardbacks that I couldn’t resist (I also got my hands on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and wouldn’t say no to the Angela Carter were it to be gifted to me). I hunted down Loitering with Intent on one of my shameful, dirty secondhand bookshop sessions because Ali Smith says, in the introduction she wrote for Kensington, that, “Loitering with Intent can be seen as a sister volume, the bright noon to this ‘wide-eyed midnight’ of a novel.” So, between Ali Smith and the fab City Basement Books, I was suckered in (for $4 according to the pencil mark on the inside cover).

LwI is set in post-war London where Fleur Talbot is trying to get her novel Warrender Chase published, and working for one Sir Quentin Oliver and his Autobiographical Association. Things start to go a bit pear-shaped as Fleur realises that Sir Quentin is either not a big fan of Warrender Chase, or such a fan that he’s trying to become the title character. Skulduggery is soon afoot as he attempts to destroy her novel and manipulate the lives of the Autobiographers.

Like its so-called sister, LwI is completely barking, plot- and character-wise. But I think I love this about Ms Spark, the barking. Sir Quentin’s delightfully grotesque old mum, Edwina, is Confederacy of Dunces-worthy, and the affairs and relationships that go down are wonderful. The other thing that I’m learning about Muriel Spark is that she is cheeky! She writes in a beautifully English style, butter-won’t-melt you know, but slips in these sly digs about sex and sexuality that are great fun. In fact, fun’s the word, they’re fun these books, good fun. I’m now sorely tempted to pick up The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in time to fully appreciate the next First Tuesday Book Club. (Is that sad? Or is it cool to be a literary geek these days?) Sadly, new book buying is off the menu (clearly (hence this blog)) but IF IT WEREN’T…

Anyway, $4 well spent, I’d say.

it begins…

So I have this little addiction that I feed and feed and feed, but need to diminish. Books, secondhand mostly, but also nicked-from-work books and sales-table-at-Readings books. They’re consuming my life and my tbr (to be read) pile is added to almost faster than it is taken from. This is my attempt to pull some books off that unread shelf – making room for more of course!