Half Years and Such

I'm behind again, aren't I. Three books. Honestly, it is not intentional - there has been so much to do over the past couple of weeks that I've not really had time to reflect on my reading experiences with you. But I can assure you that the adventures I've been having, the pages I've read, have left me thoroughly impressed. I'll do my best this week to get you caught up.

This post is not about anything of that nature though. Instead, it is a celebration of a year of reading - or rather, six months of reading. I've counted, and have had the pleasure of reading 19 books thus far. Not an overly impressive number, but seeing as one book (Atlas Shrugged) took me nearly two months to get through rather than my standard 4 or 5 days, I'll take what I can get.

This gives me a great opportunity to look back at what I've read, and the places I've been. And the places I've been.

I've crossed into Japan and back with a man named Jacob de Zoet, traveled to the Ukraine and altered the lives and deaths of entire towns, witnessed the split of Czechoslovakia in the midst of a political art crisis, traveled to the backwoods of Canadian Identity in lakes of Quebec, discovered a post-Civil War Southern United States where lawlessness is terrifying, traveled to St. John's from Labrador with a transgendered almost woman almost named Annabel, perused Norway's backwoods where the war still haunts the memories of man and woman, and built a railway with a female tycoon only to have it taken away and be transported to a utopia while the world falls to pieces.

I've done well for myself, considering I've not actually left my town since New Years, no?

So where do I stand so far? What are my favourite reads?

I'm going to keep the number to six, just under a third of what I've read. A challenge, because, as you'd know if you've been following me all year, I don't really think I've read anything particularly bad this year. Here goes nothing...

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - I'm sure this surprises nobody. After finishing this novel, I was in a reading funk; I could not convince myself that the books I was picking up to try and fill the void were doing it. The language and characters that fill the pages are truly special, and I look forward to reading it again.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - This is a haunting tale, and I'm sure that an academic could place it in a historical genre of magical realism if they were so inclined. I would listen, as I am sure that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is also rightfully placed in it (and it also, is rightfully placed among the classics). What impressed me most was Dorian Gray's character, and how Oscar Wilde took hold of a theme and illustrated with a painting. Terrifying.

Regeneration by Pat Barker - Part One of a trilogy, I was impressed with this novel's subtlety. You'll find out more about it later this week (I promise), but the characters and their attachments to each other thoroughly impressed me, and the delicacy with which Barker captured the flashbacks horrified. The second novel is waiting for me to pick up from the local library. Truly, this trilogy should be exalted into the highest echelons of anti-war literature.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - If you knew me, you'd be shocked by this selection. My entire family scoffed at me for reading it, and then slowly came out of their respective closets: my mother read it in University, my Grandma read it while she was pregnant with my aunt. This highly controversial novel, though not perfectly written, is phenomenally constructed. While not a masterpiece in literature, it is a masterpiece in the mixture of ideology and plot and character. I battled with Rand throughout the story, because it challenged so many of my ideals - and still does. A powerful and demanding read expertly constructed.

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel - Yann Martel wrote about Pears and Bananas and stole my heart. This story, this allegory, this symbolic portrayal of the destruction of an entire race of people - it proved to me that Martel can make me react to animals with more empathy than almost any other author can with human characters. Not only is the ending heartbreaking and confusing, but it asks for you to become involved. A short, disconcerting read.

Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy - Mr. McCarthy has something to say about the human condition, and he does by no means sing its praises. It does not trust, it does not see beauty. It destroys, and turns the world to darkness. There is no respite. And McCarthy's incredible painting of a landscape, both detailed and mysterious, and his populating of the world with people, both detailed and mysterious, astounds - he writes as though he has seen this, and though the world he portrays is the world he recognizes. And by the end of every novel he writes you are only more convinced. The characters and the plot of this story, neither elaborated beyond the bare necessity, feel like an exploration of the unknown, and the discovery of monsters turns this two-hundred page novella into an epic. Stunning.

Honourable Mention: The best parts of my judgement are telling me that I can't include The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell on this list. I just finished it tonight, but it impressed me immensely. I look forward to reflecting on it over the next week.

Everything is Illuminated.

This novel starts out like a fairy-tale, and never completely leaves that literary domain. Beginning in an unnamed town in an unnamed part of Eastern Europe, and starting out with a humorous though violent death that somehow manages to weave its way through two hundred years of history and act as the starting point of something completely original and absolutely moving, you don’t know what to think about it until well past the first hundred pages.

And by then you’re enamoured.

Everything is Illuminated is the story of the history of Trachimbrod - a town split in two in Eastern Europe. And then it is the story of a trip taken by a character named after the author to Eastern Europe to find a town named Trachimbrod. And then it is the story of the correspondence, by letter, between a character, named after the author, his tour guide during his trip to Trachimbrod. It is in fact all of three of these, told through a half dozen different narrators spanning two hundred years.

The story that it tells - of a thriving small town with a bustling Jewish population, of a bizarre friendship where a lost Eastern European young man finds himself in the wilderness of the Ukrainian Steppe, of that same man who argues for his right to leave his father as a result - is absolutely compelling. And somehow so tightly constructed, so imbued with humour, that it fits together just perfectly - like watching the pods of water collect in the vein of a leaf just before the weight gets to be too heavy and the water is released to the ground below. It is something special.

It is also told in a totally different kind of language. On the back of my edition is a quote from a review, suggesting that the English language had not been so radically used and changed since A Clockwork Orange. That is quite the statement. And though what is accomplished here in terms of language is not quite up to the standard set by Burgess in his masterpiece, it is totally disorienting at times - until you learn the language that is used. One of the narrators is speaking as an English as a Second Language User. Another is using truly language reflecting the Judaic community. And the English that is used is so frequently used to produce conceptual and emotional outrage and understanding that traditional sentence structure is occasionally foregone. This is largely done to the author’s credit - the result is the sense that what is interpreted could only have been presented as it had been.

Everything if Illuminated is also nothing that you expect. It is a fairy tale - somehow magical, and somehow entirely tragic. None of those chapters reserved for the history of Trachimbrod, particularly for the history of Brod (the maybe daughter of Trachim - who may be the first man in the story to die), seem plausible. They are legendary. And they never have to be proven true - indeed, they fit into the reality of myth just as well as they may fit into the reality of truth. Perhaps the history provided is that of Trachimbrod - most likely not. Nonetheless, you do become attached to the town without a name, then given a name, then given another, and then divided into two (and then three) partitions.

And then destroyed.

And then rediscovered. As nothing.

In some of the most heartbreaking language I have ever encountered.


I read the most heartbreaking section in the break room at work. I couldn’t finish it. I put the book down for a few minutes. Picked it up again. Put it down. Left it there and left it there. Picked it up - I needed to know. Couldn’t read any further. Needed to finish it - my break was getting close to being done. Didn’t finish it, and had to come back to it again after work. It bothered me.

What works for Everything is Illuminated is that it is nothing that you expect it to be. You only briefly encounter the Nazis and the threat they pose to the town of Trachimbrod. It isn’t a story of survival, or a story of the gas chambers. In fact - and this is what caught me most off-guard - it has pretty much nothing to do with the Nazis at all. Far more paper is dedicated to the history of the town. Far more paper is dedicated to the vacation to find the town again. Far more paper is dedicated to the letters sent across an ocean as a man in Eastern Europe battles for independence. Indeed, much of this paper is moving - the text that blackens it blooming like a flower of insight and humour and tragedy and joy.

I cannot highly enough recommend this novel. It is not without flaws - but while you are reading it, if you can accept the language and the structure, if you can hear the philosophy singing through the pages, then you will almost surely overlook them. Is it the best book I have ever read? No - not quite. But it is certainly the best I have read all year. Upon putting it down, I immediately wanted to pick it up again and figure out where the fairy tale becomes real and vice versa. Ever since, I have spent time reading some of my favourite passages over and over again.

Read. This. Book.

I wasn't lying when I said that Everything is Illuminated was going to change the way that I read literature - was going to raise my expectations substantially. Since finishing it, I have read one novel, started a series of short stories, started two other novels. Nothing has stuck (though the novel that I have most recently picked up may be worth putting the effort into reading). Nothing has inspired (though another novel that I started reading I could tell needed more time and dedication than I could offer it at the time). No author has had the same originality of voice - reading seems easy and simple.

I still don't know what to say about Everything is Illuminated though. While I was reading it and came across particularly impressive sections or chapters, I marked them. Folded the page in half, lying the outside of the page into the spine and putting a crease in the page. My book is littered with a half dozen of these desecrations. It is a practice that I have never done before - one that I have not felt the need to do again since.

I am slowly reading through these passages again. Just to give me the opportunity to really consider the novel before sharing my views with you.

The novel I have read in the interim, by Tom McCarthy, is deserving of a note or quasi-review. Expect that later this week.

Two things.

Firstly, I've given up on War and Peace.

It breaks my heart, believe it or not. But I got wrapped up in other books, and other parts of life (the joy of the season is that I can be working in my yard!). What I read I loved. And I want to read it again - or the parts that I have read so far. I really enjoyed it, just could not be dedicated to it and other books. It is far too complex.

Secondly, I've finished Everything is Illuminated.

Last night as I was nearing the end, I heard a voice in my head. Don't move on, it said. Read this book again. Right now. Figure out something else.

I did not listen. I've moved onto a new book. But I'll be damned if I am not distracted by thoughts of Everything is Illuminated.

What a fantastic novel. I'm going to be mulling over it for a long time. I do think, though, that it has altered my understanding of what is included in a quality novel. It puts other books that I have read this year into perspective, and makes me want to reread some of them - just to see if they are actually as good as I remember.

This novel makes me think that they are not. They are not half as tightly constructed. Or half as creative. Or half as fascinating to read - with so many voices, and so many lovely characters, and so much philosophy. Everywhere. Philosophy. Absolutely brilliant, and totally moving.

Important Books

I'm still one hundred pages away from finishing this book, Everything is Illuminated. I have been reading it very slowly. 10 days and I've not quite finished 200 pages. This is an unprecedented slowness for me. Particularly for fiction.

As stated, I have been reading it slowly. But this is both a product of circumstance and non-circumstance. Firstly, I've been working a lot in the yard over the past week, so most of my free time has been consumed by something other than reading. Secondly though, this book is not a fast read.

It is a challenging read, that is for sure. Two narrators, three or four audiences that the narrators address in three or four different styles. Each very, very distinctive.

The other reason that this book is inherently a slow read is because it is filled with philosophy. Brimming with it. The fact that so much is contained to the less-than-300 page novel is very impressive. But it is more than that.

This book is painful to read. In a good way. Today, I was eating a quick supper on the run, and, as I do my best not to waste time doing nothing, I was reading while I was eating in my solitary state. I read something and it broke my heart. Completely. I was half-way through a paragraph and I put the book down. And I was disturbed.

It cannot be read fast.

I can sense that, somehow unlike most of the books that I have read this year (all of which I have enjoyed to varying degrees), this book is an important one for me. It is bothering me, and making me uncomfortable, and making me laugh. It takes what it is doing so seriously that it includes humour - something I have for so long avoided in literature - and the humour is also heartbreaking.

This man, Jonathan Safran Foer, is a very, very talented writer.

Regarding Zeitoun. I finished it. I have been thinking about it - thinking of what to share with you. I'm torn about Dave Eggers, and about the book. Just as I was with What is the What?. But I'll let you know what I think about it... eventually.

Bright lights.

Everything is Illuminated.

By Jonathan Safran Foer. A brand new reading experience for me. I've managed to read only a hundred pages this week. Only a hundred pages in 7 days.

I've reread a lot of things. Entire chapters have befuddled my mind. I can't tell yet if the fairy tale that is being constructed by one of the narrators (as of now I think there are two) is going to lead into the second story just yet. But I've still almost 200 pages to find out.

And, though it is a challenging read (and I mean that wholeheartedly - I've not seen the English language treated in this manner since reading Burgess' Clockwork Orange), it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. The characters are likeable. Beyond likeable. And their language, once you get into the swing of it, is endearing.

Here is a hint of one of the writing styles (this author must be a somehow genius, or something like that):

From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.

In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.

The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leave son the eye after you turn away from it.

Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukah's eight nights. Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukrainian skies electric. We're here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive.

I've read this passage several times. Imagined it. And moved on several times more.

This author must be a genius, or something like it.