Sophie's Books

Dark Literature and Warriors of Light

2007-09-12T14:40:00.001-07:00

By now I'm about halfway through the Paulo Coelho opus. I recently finished Eleven Minutes and am in the midst of The Warrior of Light, which is in my mind a work of the purest philosophy and offers a lovely summary of his works in general. But back to Eleven Minutes, which, although it did not let me down in terms of its gentle, light, and well-filtered prose and engaging story, his take on Maria's story I felt at times to be dangerously romanticized and far more simplistic than necessary. This was quite disturbing and also disappointing, although while I wish to discuss this in depth, I want first to qualify what I write with my own heartfelt praise and gratitude for Coelho. I have, in the past, always appreciated his “simplicity.” He is so gracious to the reader as he spares them consistently from long-winded, pretentious and unnecessary sentences and descriptions. This, to me, is one of the most important tasks of the author outside of developing one's personal mind and life so as to have something relevant to say to the world. He undoubtedly spends hours, perhaps months to filter through his writing and leave us only with essential thoughts, moods, narrative, and ideas. In fact, I have become fairly well converted to Coelho's conception of literature that I no longer have the desire to allow any author to dominate my thoughts with 500 pages of heavy laden narrative. I could say that I love Coelho for his badly needed contribution to the world of literature which, apart from his output and that of a few others, appears to me to have branched off in two worrisome trends:

Problem Books I

2007-09-12T14:39:00.001-07:00

When I read the New Yorker, I am stunned by the accomplishments of their fiction writers. They have obviously amassed, synthesized, processed, analyzed, judged, considered (add to this many more descriptive verbs) what seems like the entire cannon of western literature, as well as every academic and philosophical trend that has seen the light in the last 4,000 years (from mimesis and catharsis to Freudian analysis as it shows up in the literature of the fantastic, as some diverse examples). But being stunned is not the same as being impressed, or more importantly, moved. Their short stories (I like short stories!!) often leave me feeling like a dried up well. The memory of tears, of release, of nourishment lingers, but nothing comes up, no matter how deeply I look inside the sterilized vignettes. They are so well schooled, so highly conscious, they know not to write a DaVinci Code at all costs, they know not to imitate Turgenev, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Proust, or anyone else. But they are so overpowered by the influence of culture, of academia, of the world outside, that I wonder, “but what of the author, but what of the reader?” What are we to make of these post-post modern tales of foreigners in New York eating spaghetti alone—in a bowl—because the authors could not clarify their own desires, their needs, or perhaps, because they forgot their own humanity, forgot to breathe, under the weight of the books, the history, of the whole world. This is the first example of a trend in literature that if not worrisome, is somehwhat tragic. I do not desire any sugar coating (see the next page when I move back to Coelho), but neither do I approve of being choked by the cyncism, ego, self-loathing, and failure to dream, to evolve, that characterizes so much of our “best” literature. I appreciate the style of these works, yes I do. I respond to the colors, the atmosphere, the cleverness, the ambientation, and the intelligence. But intelligence is left off when you stifle someone with your purportedly high and mighty thoughts, and remove your hand in precisely the moment when the reader has been convinced of their doom.

Problem Books II

2007-09-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Of the second variety of worrisome books, I have little to say. There is nothing wrong with an engaging, light, and fully entertaining read. I will admit that in many ways I enjoyed Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code (please don't loose your confidence in me for this admittance!). The philosophy that the work stands behind is quite fantastic and challenging, even if it is presented so seamlessly and sweetly that it all seems nearly unremarkable. In sum, I liked the book tremendously.........but for its overwhelming qualities of a screenplay. I almost wondered, what with all of the cliffhangers and mini-episodes, why the 'book' wasn't written as a movie script to begin with (or was it?). I do find this quality worrisome, because one does not so readily become a part of the author's world so much as they do the action and suspense. And I find action and suspense to be generic in most cases. Moving on to other works that occupy precious space on the shelves of libraries and bookstores and that often end up on some bestseller list (mind you this is not a bad thing, especially for the author!), it is what I sense as a lack of personal development on the parts of so many writers. When I read their works, an imaginary pen in my mind moves to draw red slash marks, circles, x's, and other editorial marks when I read their works. So many books ought not to be 350 pages, ought not to be even 3 pages. So many of these stories required much more living and far less writing. Which naturally brings me back to Coelho.

Paulo Coelho, our imperfect but beloved Warrior

2007-09-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Coelho is so deeply in touch with his humanity that he has admitted (in The Zahir)that he became a writer because it got him the ladies. Now this is truly profound. Not just because his writing can get him so many ladies (I blushingly include moi meme), not only because he can admit this to himself and to others, but because the ladies come not for muscles or money, but because they believe he can understand their minds, their bodies, their souls, perhaps more than their mothers, and certainly, more than their fathers and boyfriends. With Coelho, one reads a book and feels more clarity in their own lives, more responsibility for their own actions. Imagine that! Here our 'New York' novelists (or alternatively, our action-screenplay-tritely romantic writers) would have us believe there is nothing new under the sun to write about, and that we should all be depressed over it (or alternatively, that we should marry rich husbands, or alternatively, that we should spend our lives with guns in hand chasing losers rather than embracing ourselves). Instead, an author like Coelho teaches us that we are each, individually, new under the suns and stars of our own selection. We are worth taking the risks, experiencing the pain, and accepting the vast responsibility and gift (yes, he reminds us our lives are gifts, I think this is something beautiful if hard for the overeducated student of culture to accept or admit) that comes with a well-lived journey on earth. His books, some more clearly than others, are roadmaps for our existence. You might ask why Paulo Coelho, instead of a seer, a guru, a therapist, or a parent, has taken this position of guide. Quite simply, it is because he believes deeply in the power of literature to move people on a path, and to help them clarify which paths they would like to follow. Too, he helps them to see their 'mistakes' as part of a vital, growing process. And finally, he has made his life a self-conscious journey, a creative and magnificent journey, in search of the truth.

Luigi Pirandello and the Short Story

2007-09-12T14:36:00.002-07:00

Thus begins a new section in this blog which I'll subtitle “Books we Like, Sparsely Written”. We move away from Brazil to a few noteworthy authors from the United States and Italy. These books are also conscientiously rendered and do not exhaust the reader with too much pontification and prose. Lest you think this site is only about new or recent books, I present you “The Tight Jacket” (La Marsina Stretta) by Luigi Pirandello. A master of short stories, Pirandello was very active in writing just before and after the first World War. Even in these dire times, Pirandello manages to find humor amidst tremendous pessimism and the general incomprehensibility of life surrounding the Great War. Interestingly, it is precisely before the moments of all out war that Pirandello's style undergoes a change. Suddenly he became concerned with relativism (we'll try to stay away from ism's from here on out), where his world outlook moves from 'incomprehensible' to 'unknowable.' This may sound far more despairing an outlook than before, but in my mind, there is an optimistic change of style that follows this change.

The predictable wartime aesthetic shift from omniscient narrator to a more sparsely structured story is here broken down even further. His stories are increasingly cast in the form of monologues that use either first-person narrative that is addressed directly to the reader, are often framed within a 'reported' dialogue, or attributed to a secondary observer. Ee may have entered the confusing realm that can be called a sort of literary cubism with multiple and layered voices, or we can just say that the author, as much as he appears to dispel personal responsibility for the world around him, is nevertheless fighting to find his place in the world, his own true vantage point and perspective, all from within. Read one way, it could be said that these shorter and 'unnarrated' narratives evince a deeper pessimism than even his plays. But considered differently, this breakdown is an attempt at something new. Cast aside the cast, the long list of characters, and deal with the individual voices, the personal voice. The individual is, after all, a representation of the entire world and not just a mere fragment.

Pirandello: Mini Biography

2007-09-12T14:36:00.001-07:00

It might interest my readers to learn a but more about Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. He was born in Girgenti, Sicily and studied philology at Rome and at Bonn. His dissertation was on the dialect of his native town (1891). Shortly after graduation he became a professor of aesthetics and stylistics at the Real Istituto di Magistere Femminile at Rome, a position which he held for some 25 years. Pirandello authored a vast opus, beginning with his output of novellas which were collected under the title Novelle per un anno (15 vols., 1922-37). His greatest achievement, however, is said to be in his plays. He wrote a large number of dramas which were published between 1918 and 1935 under the collective title of Maschere nude (Naked Masks). A very active, questioning, searching life. Perhaps not overly happy, but nonetheless well lived.

Noah Oppenheim and David S. Kidder's “The Intellectual Devotional”

2007-09-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

This book I include as a second installment of 'books we like, sparsely written'. Noah Oppenheim and David Kidder's first joint publication is a clever take on the daily devotional pocketbooks that have been popular for centuries. Whereas once upon a time a typical daily devotion--those five or so minutes spent in prayer or meditation—came from one of the old or new testaments or the book of psalms, Oppenheim and Kidder have made the tacit argument that one can meditate just as productively on the wide world of History, Literature, the Visual Arts, Science, Music, Philosophy, and also, Religion. I have capitalized these subdivisions of the world of culture or intellectualism (otherwise known as 'human contributions to the world') because this is what the authors, themselves have done. Noah Oppenheim and Kidder have very sweetly chosen these categories as well as specified the day of the week that each type of entry is to be read. In case I have not yet been clear about the nature of this book, it is not a story but a charming bedside (or fireside, or coffee table-top) book of neat little entries that span this world and the ancient world over, many times. One can read about Byzantine art on one day and a Super Nova on the next. The concept is that one treats each topic and each entry as they would a meditative reading of a biblical verse or parable.

Noah Oppenheim and David Kidder II

2007-09-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

Oppenheim and Kidder spiritedly say that the book 'revives the mind and completes the education' so that one can 'roam confidently with the cultured class,' but I would argue that their premise moves even beyond this and is decidedly more important. It is certainly true that the book has neatly and beautifully framed 365 entries, one for each day of the year, and that an adult or a child stands much to learn from it. In the introduction to Oppenheim and Kidder's interview with Matt Lauer about The Intellectual Devotional, a news announcer can be seen on the street asking basic questions to passers by a la Jay Leno: “Do you know what the Taj Majal is?” “What are the Four Seasons” (answers: duh, a restaurant, I don't know, a hotel?). Certainly, this book fills a place in a culture where apparently even our teachers don't know what to teach. But in my mind, this is also a clever and peaceable effort to extract what is a natural spirituality out of the wonderful productions of humanity. It is simply not fair, and in this day it is increasingly dangerous, for one group to accuse another of a lack concern or a merely “secular” interest in the world. The sum total of this work suggests that the secular is often sacred, and offers up 365 examples of how this is so.