“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith

At the start of a project such as this — tackling a list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die — “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith (#837) is exactly the sort of book you hope to come across. It isn’t a heavy story in any sense of the word (which makes it a bit of an odd duck on a list that includes the Bible), but it has enough charm, wit, and humor to justify its place on anybody’s list of favorites.

I found the book when I was randomly browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble. What I sometimes do is pick a random number between 1 and 1,000, find the corresponding book and author on the list, and go see if that author has any works on the shelves. It’s essentially a little game of Deal or No Deal, except the result is usually me trudging through a bookstore mumbling something akin to, “How do you not have a copy of Slaughterhouse Five? What kind of SOCIETY are we living in?”

“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith was there, though, and a cursory glance through the first few pages told me it would probably be a book I enjoy.

It was, and during a very stressful week, if Cassandra Mortmain’s quirky little diary wasn’t exactly a balm to sooth my bitter soul, then it was certainly warming. Like soup, or a bath. Or soup in the bath. (Do you suppose anyone ever eats soup in the bath? It might be fun, but what if you spill?)

This is the Story of a Girl

The story of “I Capture the Castle” follows Cassandra and her family, who are poor and yet somehow live in a castle. (Go figure.) Her father had been a promising novelist before discovering that he maybe only had one good book in him, and yet, despite not having two pennies to rub together, nobody in the household bothers to get a day job. Why? Reasons.

So, they eat cheese and biscuits and other mousy finger foods while sitting in the sink and being quirky at one another. Cassandra watches everything that goes on and journals about it, being both intelligent and daft in equal measure, while their mother-in-law dances around naked and their father reads detective novels.

When the owner of the castle (Cassandra’s family just rents it) dies and it turns out that the heirs to the estate are a couple of young, single men, romance and drama ensue. Does Cassandra fall in love with one of these new guys, or does, perhaps, her sister Rose? What of Stephen, the handsome gardner, who not-so-subtly dotes on Cassandra at every opportunity (and is one of the only people who actually works for a living)? Will he fall in love with one of the girls?

I heard the book referred to as “Austen and Brontë fan fiction,” and it’s hard to disagree. It hits a lot of the same notes, but, having been published in 1948, with more a modern (sense and) sensibility. Young women going to parties, wondering who they’re going to marry, are they in love, yes maybe, but possibly not, and oh we’re so poor if we marry one of these young men we’ll finally have money, but is that right, is it okay to marry someone if you aren’t head-over-heels nuts for them, and what to do about Stephen, he’s like a brother, isn’t he, and what does “love” even mean? Won’t someone tell us? *Swoon*

And it works because, well, it works. Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters know how to spin a yarn, and if you use them as your jumping-off point, odds are you’re going to land somewhere close to the mark.

Telling Tales out of School

I feel similarly toward “I Capture the Castle” as I feel toward another book I recently read — “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” That might seem like a strange comparison, but my point is that both books scratch a particular itch: Instead of trying to plumb the depths of the human psyche, they’re just interesting stories that are supposed to be fun to read.

It’s a matter of reader engagement, or perhaps you might call it readability. You get the impression that Dodie Smith really liked a good story, thought Jane Austen was just the tops, and wanted to make a top story of her own. So, BAM, she wrote this. And while there are certainly themes in Castle that are worth exploring, it’s seems clear that her approach was to make something that was entertaining.

That’s not how everyone approaches fiction, as my recent forays into Dostoevsky and Woolf can verify. A lot of modernists are that way — story is secondary to style — but those modernists were reacting to authors that Dodie Smith tried to emulate.

Dodie Smith read “Pride and Prejudice” and went, “Neat!”

Virginia Woolf read it and went, “Eat SHIT Jane Austen that’s not how people really think!”

Both are valid responses.

Still, it’s always seemed a little…pointless to write a book that people aren’t going to enjoy the process of reading. Books that critics say are meant to “challenge readers’ perceptions” about various things, books with disjointed styles or syntax that’s difficult to parse or that are written in the second person.

(In a panic, I just went and checked if “The Naked Lunch” was on the list of 1,000 Books. It isn’t, thank God.)

I Capture Your Pawn

What people will remember and appreciate most about “I Capture the Castle” is probably its writing, which eloquently captures a mixture of melancholy and humor in way that makes you go, “Awwww,” at least once per chapter. You recognize how sad everything is, but at the same time Cassandra writes about it so well that you don’t mind all the gloom. That’s not an easy balance to strike.

The setting — the titular “castle” that is “captured” in Cassandra’s prose — is interesting, and the book does raise issues of class and gender, but the point is never to hit you over the head with it. The plot moves at a steady pace and there are enough turns that you never fully get a handle on what’s going to happen. Endings, in these sorts of stories, are a big deal.

For a work that tries to emulate the romance of an Austen novel, the ending is surprisingly satisfying. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t mind spoilers one bit — I usually read the end of a book first, just to see how things are going to “end up” — but I recognize that the rest of you yahoos give a hoot, so I won’t spoil it for you.) I’ll just say that’s it’s unlikely you’ll guess who ends up with whom.

I’ll also say that “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith is utterly worth your time, especially if you’ve read your classics and haven’t been able to get your 19th Century Romance fix in a while. It’ll certainly…capture your attention.

* * *

The 2003 movie adaptation isn’t terrible and is on YouTube right now.

And here’s Dodie Smith on Goodreads.

“Complete Stories” by Clarice Lispector

Brazil has apparently been sleeping on one hell of a writer and refusing to let the rest of the world know about her. Well, I’ve got some choice words for you, Brazil:

Share the wealth! There’s no reason for you to actively hide a writer from the rest of us for entire decades all while secretly giggling with each other in your beach-side bairros while sipping on Brahma.

In actuality, the United States is fairly notorious for excluding literature from other countries when it comes to “bestseller lists,” so it’s no wonder a writer like Clarice Lispector, whose career spanned 38 years, never really achieved mainstream success in North America. She wrote in Portuguese, not English.

However, and quite thankfully, “Complete Stories” by Clarice Lispector is #565 on the list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. I’ve had a chance to spend a few days with these stories, and I have been nothing but impressed.

Lost in Translation

It is exceedingly rare for a translated work to “make it” in America, but even so it is strange that Lispector’s work only ever caught on in literary circles. She started publishing at the age of 18 (in 1938) and kept writing until her death one day before her 57th birthday. In that time, she published 9 novels and 8 short story collections. All of these works with successful with Portuguese readers, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that she started gaining much traction stateside and started really selling.

“But those are just numbers,” you might say. What was it that made her popular enough that Brazil has erected not one but two statues in her honor?

*A math teacher once tried to bury that dog.*

She was one of the first female authors to bring the modernist movement to Brazilian readers. Modernists, you might recall, have a penchant for exploring the psychological workings of their characters and using new narrative forms such as stream of consciousness. Two of Lispector’s English-language influences were Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, so that ought to give you some idea of the style she was bringing to the Portuguese language.

Not to imply that she doesn’t stand on her own! Based on the stories I’ve read over the last few days, Lispector strikes me as substantially more accessible than Woolf or Joyce. Her stories have a dream-like quality that couple the mundanities of life with profound psychological revelation. They examine how simple events — like a chicken running away before being killed and cooked — can drastically impact a household.

You May Say I’m a Dreamer

Psychologists have long understood that language impacts thought; the language in which we speak dictates the thoughts we think. There’s that urban legend going around that Eskimos have 40 words for snow, which is a huge oversimplification, but the point holds true: We can only think about things we have words for.

This, I think, is what gives translated works like Lispectors’ such a dream-like quality and makes them seem so other-worldly: The authors, in their native language, are often using words and ideas that don’t have a direct English corollary. In the hands of a bad translator, this can make the stories seem clunky or dull. In a good translation, however, they can capture a poetic sort of magic that’s lacking in works that were written originally in English.

We literally get to see the world through a different set of eyes.

*And those eyes are lookin’ at you, Rio!*

What a Body

There are a few authors who put their work out there in “complete” editions (Ginsberg, Dickenson, and now Lispector), creating some absolute bricks that would strain any shelf. I have the same problem with these that I have with plays — they aren’t books.

I mean. Physically, yes, they are books, but they aren’t meant to be read all at once. I can’t imagine anyone who would want to sit down and read every short story that Clarice Lispector ever wrote all in an afternoon.

I have a certain philosophy when it comes to the lengths of these works and how much time you should spend on them. Let me put it in food terms:

Poems are a quick snack.

Short stories are a single meal.

And novels are a trip to the grocery store.

To read the entirety of Lispector’s work all-at-once would be akin to sitting down at Chili’s and ordering one of everything. Even if the meals are good — even if some of them are the best meals you’ve ever had — they will ultimately be lost in the mix and you’re going to come away feeling like you’re A) bloated, or B) dying. Probably both.

As I do with any big collection, it’s better to read them a little bit at a time, every once in a while, just when the mood strikes you. Bearing that in mind, I didn’t read the whole thing — I read (and listened to the audio versions of) about 15 of these. I will, however, wind up reading them all.

Lispector’s are stories I’d pick up and read on a spring morning when the weather has just become pleasant enough — still crisp, but pleasant — to open a window and let nature take over the room. The unique feel of this new, purer kind of air would make me notice things in minute detail, like the way my pencil hangs off the edge of my desk, as if that particular placement were somehow profound.

And it would be, simply for my thinking it so.

*You should bring a pencil everywhere you go.*

The Self on a Shelf

Sarah and I have a . . . confusing shelving system. We have a couple thousand books between us — me being an English teacher and she a librarian — and while our system makes sense to us, I imagine any other bibliophile would recoil in Dewey horror.

It’s organized loosely by genre, but mostly by feel. Alphabetizing has absolutely nothing to do with it, and it’s not uncommon to find scary books at a lower level than humorous books. Why? Because they deserve it.

Anywho, I’m probably going to put “Complete Stories” by Clarice Lispector on the shelf with the poetry books I take down and look at when the mood strikes me. Emily Dickinson is up there, along with Walt Whitman, Robert Pinsky, and a few others that I read at certain times of year.

“Chicken” just strikes me as a story that I’ll want to read again, and there are a few others that I’m sure will stick with me. “Love.” And the one about the math teacher unburying the dog.

I’m also going to be on the lookout for a few of her novels — it’ll give me an excuse to hit up one of the few used bookstores that survive in this midwest literary hellscape.

*An accurate depiction of the state of bookstores in the midwest.*

* * *

Here’s Clarice Lispector on Goodreads.

“Notes From Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Note: This is based on the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

By the end of “Notes From Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, #285 on the list of Books to Read Before You Die, I’d gone from thinking, “This book is an absolute waste of time,” to thinking it really was essential reading. There were also lyrics to a Tool song going around and around in my head. The lyrics go like this:

Disembodied voices deepen my
Suspicious tendencies
Conversations we’ve never had,
Imagined interplay…

It took a while to get into, but by the time I reached the end of this novella penned by the guy who wrote books notorious for being some of the longest books ever, I had a pretty clear understanding of where Dostoevsky was going — it’s a character study of a man who takes a natural tendency to an absolute extreme, resulting in his self-isolation.

*“I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man.”*

Existentially Speaking

Fyodor Dostoevsky led a difficult life. That sounds like I’m about to write a floppy research report on the guy, but it’d honestly take too long to get into all of it — people write books about the subject. Still, it’s good to know some basics:

Born into a somewhat wealthy family in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky was exposed to literature at an early age and worked as a translator before joining literary circles and beginning to publish his own work. His association with those same literary circles resulted in his being exiled to Siberia and then being forced into military service.

If all of that sounds miserable, you’re right, and the difficulties he faced no doubt contributed to his particular style of writing, which would charitably be called “depressing” and accurately referred to as “essentially Russian.“

“Notes From Underground” was published in 1864 and is widely considered to be one of the first examples of existentialist literature.

*“Two heads? Yes, I noticed, but I’m trying not to freak out about it.”*

Existentialists look at the world through the lens of the individual and his search for meaning in a world that is often cruel and absurd. Other popular existentialists include Sartre, Camus, and Kafka — three people who, if they were playing a round of golf together, wouldn’t finish the first hole because they’d be too busy arguing about why they had to use clubs.

The way I think about it is this: You can’t spend years and years in Siberian exile without wondering if there’s a purpose to all this. Dostoevsky wanted to explore man’s search for meaning in his writing, which meant forgoing certain tropes you might find in earlier literature — heroes, plot, catharsis — and creating works that delved (too?) deeply into characters and their relationships.

The unnamed narrator of “Notes From Underground” is a man (widely referred to as “Underground Man“) who is so neurotic that he can’t do . . . anything. He can’t really work, he can’t form relationships, he can’t communicate with anyone. He tries, but he overthinks every aspect of every relationship and ultimately screws it up. All that’s left for him to do is live (literally) underground and isolate himself from everyone and everything.

I Think You Ought to Know I’m Feeling Very Depressed

In the first half of the novella, Underground Man talks directly to his readers about what is wrong with him and what is wrong with the world, but readers will agree with almost none of his observations — nearly every statement he makes is contradicted by another. At one moment, he calls himself “wicked,” and in the next he is “noble.” He hates love and loves hate, resents everything but blames himself, and cannot seem to stick with any decision he makes without second-guessing.

This is where the song lyrics I mentioned earlier started to go through my mind in a loop — Underground Man isn’t actually talking to anyone. He’s talking to himself. The “gentlemen” he continually addresses, as if the book were written for someone, don’t exist — the book itself is part of his downward spiral.

*“And he’s a real sonofabitch for writing it!”*

We all imagine conversations. You think about what you’d like to say to your boss, or what you’d tell the guy who just cut you off on your way to Chick-Fil-A, or how you’d win over that girl at work you’ve had a crush on for six months. In your own head, you’re a hero, you’re noble, you know just what to say.

Of course, we never say those things. Or, at least, we rarely do. And we very often feel guilty about not being able to be the person we think we ought to be, the person we imagine we are.

Underground Man takes that self-talk to an absolute extreme — it is the only kind of talking he does. The whole book is him speaking to himself in this way.

He thinks about what he’d like to say, what he’d like to do, he realizes he can never do or say those things, and then he beats himself up for his cowardice.

*“I’m sinking and I frankly deserve it!”*

I Resent the Implication

The second half of the novella sees the Underground Man discussing some of the things that have gone wrong in his life. It’s basically him mucking up relationships with old schoolmates and then hollering at a prostitute one night when he’s really drunk.

It’s clear that, while he blames himself for his wickedness, he also resents everyone else for not being as messed up as he is. Can’t anyone see? Doesn’t anyone realize how terrible it all is? Of course they don’t; they’re all fools. But if only he could connect with them, then maybe he’d be able to turn his life around.

He is very nearly able to make some kind of “real” connection with the prostitute (Liza) that he hollered at, but he ruins it, of course, by vacillating between wanting to “save” her and calling her a fool for thinking she can be saved.

Underground Man ultimately breaks down briefly and hits upon one of the truest moments in his entire existence when he says, crying,

“They won’t let me . . . I can’t be . . . good!”

It’s All Good

If you’ve never felt that way, then existentialist literature might not be your bag. Odds are, though, that you can sympathize at least a little with Underground Man. Like it or not, most of us search for meaning in life. We want there to be an answer, and for a lot of us that answer is that we want to be “good” people.

But what if you were never able to figure out what it meant to be “good?” What if that meaning eluded you, or if you felt like you could never achieve it because society wouldn’t let you?

There aren’t a lot of books on this list from which I can glean some kind of practical moral, but “Notes From Underground” does provide some semblance of a lesson: Don’t talk to yourself the way Underground Man does.

Modern psychology calls this negative self-talk and its characteristics are a list of issues that the narrator faces: catastrophizing, mind-reading (supposing the thoughts of others), blaming yourself for things outside your control, and approaching life as an all-or-nothing event.

I’m certainly guilty of all of these things, and reading Notes puts a lot of those thought processes into sharp relief. So, even if you find the Underground Man to be utterly reprehensible and you struggle to finish the book because he’s just so thoroughly dislikeable, there’s still value to be found.

Psychopathy
Misleading me over and over
Psychopathy
Misleading me over and over and over
Don’t you dare point that at me

* * *

Here’s a biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky from Britannica.

“Notes From Underground” on Goodreads.

Here’s that Tool song (Culling Voices):

(Watch out: It’s over 10 minutes long. (Insufferable.))

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson, #869 on the list of Books to Read Before You Die, has been a welcome respite from the literary labyrinth I’ve recently been trudging through.

Chased not so much by a Minotaur as by a Woolf, I’ve been far off the well-worn path, in the deep woods, surrounded by sky-high hedges and tormented by a distant howl.

I’ve escaped, though, and I wanted something a little less literary for my next book, so I figured an old fashioned adventure story would fit the bill.

*“Hey there I write stories.” – Robert L. Stevenson, esq.*

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of those authors whose works are regarded as “classics” by nearly everyone who can read. Any list of popular books will feature one of his works — his most famous are probably “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped,” but Jekyll and Hyde also shares a secure place in the literary canon. And, despite being mostly aimed at children, his books are enjoyed by people of all ages.

Who am I kidding? It’s mostly old people at this point. The “Fourth Wing” crowd aren’t getting their rocks off to “Treasure Island.”

Sick! Sick! Sick! Don’t Resist!

Published in 1886, Jekyll and Hyde was one of several famous Stevenson works that were written while he was bedridden in a seaside town in the south of England, doing a whole bunch of laudanum and writing writing writing — in every sense of the word — feverishly. (My sort of vacation!) Thus adding to my anecdotal theory that all the best books are written by people who either A) Aren’t writers, or B) Are in some way sick.

*“Fetch me the laudanum, Timmy! My bones are atremble.”*

A Proper Toad’s Proper Grandmother

I read Jekyll and Hyde for the first time after my Proper Grandmother took me aside to say, “When I was a little girl, I had nightmares that Mr. Hyde was at my window.”

This meant something coming from her. She talked about her emotions in the Minnesotan Episcopal fashion — begrudgingly, and only ever in places where no one could overhear.

So, naturally, I found a copy and read it right away, thinking this Jekyll and Hyde thing must have been truly horrific.

It wasn’t. Not the tiniest bit. Even as a 12 year-old I could see that the horror genre had grown by leaps and bounds since Proper Grandmother had read whatever quaint little novellas she’d been able to smuggle into her central-European hovel and fawn over by candlelight.

I was coming from a background of not only Stephen King, but A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th and Hellraiser. A British doctor with a split personality didn’t exactly pump my horror-loving nads, and having grown up thinking Cenobites were hiding under my bed, I wasn’t too worried about some dandy and his fancy ego-bending concoctions.

I had real worries: Guys with bloody lines all over their faces.

A Double Existence

Modern retelling of the Jekyll/Hyde story have seen the character of Mr. Hyde ballooned into something of an Incredible Hulk, which might be more exciting, but is wildly off base. The actual story sees a prim-and-proper doctor develop a potion that makes him smaller in stature, not some hulking monstrosity. The horror is that he’s an entirely different person; a person who gives in to and revels in his darkest desires.

The idea being that every person has these two sides. One presentable, stable, and of good social standing. The other hideous, heinous, and capable of committing the kinds of atrocities of which our “normal selves” can only daydream.

If you could become a different person, would you? To switch not only bodies but desires and purpose? Become a person who could drink or gamble or screw their way across town, a person who could get in fights, a person who could murder the guy you don’t like rather than just grumble about him when you’re all alone on a stairwell?

Bear in mind that you WOULD BE a different person — such are the workings of Jekyll’s potion. When you switched back (by consuming the same potion), you’d look entirely different and, presumably, would never be punished for your wrongdoings. The other you — the evil you — would simply vanish.

I’m guessing a lot of us would consider it and consider it strongly.

*“Hey, it’s my turn to use the body today.”*

Concocting a Metaphor

I’ve often wondered if Proper Grandmother saw the image of Mr. Hyde in someone she knew. That is to say, was there a person in her life that had a double, a more sinister counterpart?

The effect of the potion the titular doctor drinks isn’t all that different than the effects of alcohol or other drugs (laudanum, perhaps?), and I feel safe in assuming it is some kind of metaphor for the “double life” a lot of addicts lead. I honestly don’t know if Proper Grandmother had someone like that in her life, but it certainly isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Hell, maybe she led a double life.

I’ve definitely felt that “call of darkness” Dr. Jekyll feels.

Once, in Ubud, on the island of Bali in Indonesia, I tried in a drunken state to convince several compatriots to pile four bodies onto a tiny motorized scooter and drive through the rice fields during a torrential downpour so we could get hamburgers. The road on which we would have traveled looked like this:

“We’ll crash in the storm!” I told everyone. “We’ll absolutely crash and it’ll be ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS. And if we DON’T, we’ll get HAMBURGERS.”

Calmer heads prevailed that night, thankfully, and to this day I have no idea why I felt the desire I did — a desire, almost a need, to crash a scooter into a rice field during a tropical storm. It was like that feeling you get when you imagine driving your car off the road: “The Call of the Void.” Only I was absolutely, completely, 100% ready to do it. It wasn’t hypothetical; I hoped it would happen.

I was afraid, maybe — those roads are narrow and horrifying — and wanted to face that fear head-on. Not just face it, but embrace it, revel in it. Enjoy the experience! Why dread these things? Why be afraid of pain and anguish? Can’t we embrace our tragedies and meet them as friends?

I may have been a fool to think so. Or, as I prefer to believe, my love of those rice fields was a pure and tragic sort of love that could only ever end in pain.

Doublethink

If I were a betting man, I’d suppose that the laudanum Robert Louis Stevenson was taking at the time he wrote Jekyll and Hyde had put into his mind this dual-consciousness many people espouse when they are inebriated. Anybody who’s been drunk knows what it’s like to feel like a different person, and while I’ve never done laudanum, it’s a pretty safe bet that it whacks you out of your gourd.

I think this impacted the style of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” It’s less a horror story or adventure than it is a mystery, with the “twist” (everyone knows Jekyll and Hyde are the same guy now, but they didn’t when it first came out) being the revelation of who the murderer actually was.

What’s really wacky to me is trying to imagine what it would have been like to first realize that Jekyll and Hyde were the same guy. It must have been like the first time everyone saw Fight Club! I bet a bunch of twats met up at the pub afterwards to brag about how “they knew they were the same guy the whole time no really I did I saw the subliminal flashes and I figured it out.”

*“And I figured it out before I even saw the trailer!”*

But the lasting impact of this tiny little book isn’t the mystery aspect — there are better, tighter mysteries out there — or even the glorified Hulkamaniac that Mr. Hyde has become in modern media, but rather the notion that you might not be who you think you are. “Know thyself,” says the Oracle to Neo, but is that really possible?

Or is there, in some shape or form, hidden in a cabinet in some dingy doctor’s office, a phial of liquid that’ll release all those thoughts and desires you’ve been too afraid to look at?

Can you imagine something, anything, that would make you crash your proverbial scooter into the rice fields of Ubud?

And can you then imagine a way back?

* * *

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson is available for free at Project Gutenberg.

Robert Louis Stevenson on Goodreads.

“To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf

After reading “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I thought it would be FUN to read a little bit of the beast herself. So, I took a trip to a used bookstore and found a copy of “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf which is #987 on the list of Books to Read Before You Die.

It was cheap.

By “cheap” I mean the bookstore paid me to take it. They seemed happy to see it go. “Finally,” the cashier mumbled, reaching into her pocket and tossing a pinch of confetti onto the counter by way of celebration.

Since finishing the book, I’ve been struggling to figure out a way to talk about it in a positive way. I don’t think I’ve landed on the perfect “format” for a blog like this, but one thing I don’t want is for this to be the sort of thing that rips books apart for their perceived failings. I’d rather it be something that focuses on the positive. A “Ted Lasso” sort of book blog, even if I constantly struggle to maintain that positivity.

Let Me Think About It

Honestly, though, I did not enjoy “To the Lighthouse.” Reading it was more work than my actual job, and I kept losing the thread and having to back up a page or so to reread parts. Was I distracted by how stressed I am due to work and personal stuff? Sure. But, based on what I’ve read, I’m not alone in finding my mind wandering when reading Virginia Woolf.

The issue is that Woolf is a Modernist author who is most famous for exploring “stream of consciousness” writing. Born in London in 1882, Woolf was raised in a wealthy family and began writing at the age of 18. Her first book was published in 1915 and she continued writing nearly until her death in 1941. “To the Lighthouse” was published in 1927 and examined one large family’s attempt to … visit a nearby lighthouse?

That’s actually the plot?

Anyways. This part of thee early 20th century was Prime Time for Modernists, who reacted to the literary establishment by testing out new forms and narrative styles. A whole slew of young authors seemed to collectively rise up and shout, “F you, Dickens! We’ll do was we damned well please!” I’m sure it didn’t hurt matters that Woolf was wealthy enough to start her own publishing company, Hogarth Press.

Essentially, Woolf wanted to try new things, so she got all caught up in trying to write in a way that captured the inner workings of her characters. I heard that she used to sit around and think about thinking — metacognitive reflection — and would use that in her writing.

Marcel Proust probably did the same thing, but he did it in bed while thinking about his mom.

*“I don’t WANNA get up and YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.”*

You Got Psyched Out

Was Woolf taking an important step in the development of modern literature? Absolutely. In a sense, “stream of consciousness” is an attempt to marry literature and psychology. Woolf literally tried to get into the heads of her characters, embracing the difficulty of it and the way thoughts seem to form as if out of thin air, inexplicable and confounding.

There are two problems with this, in my opinion.

First, you can’t ever accurately capture a person’s thoughts. (I’m secretly solipsistic, it turns out.) Virginia Woolf didn’t know that, of course, and it shouldn’t have stopped her from trying, but the fact of the matter is that our experiences are our own and understanding — truly understanding — the perspective of another person is nearly impossible.

What we’re getting in Lighthouse is how Virginia Woolf thinks people think, and that is represented in the printed word, which doesn’t ever accurately portray its subject matter. It’s a fallacy within a fallacy, a wheel within a wheel.

The second problem with stream of consciousness is that it’s just bad writing.

*“HOW DARE YOU!?! **WARGARHARBLARGH**!”*

Before you get up in arms at my disparaging a literary titan, let me explain what I mean; stream of consciousness is often riddled with run-on sentences. It’s one nonsensical aspect of trying to capture “consciousness” that a lot of Modernists fall into.

Check out this monstrosity:

“Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul.”

I just typed all that and I still feel like I’m not understanding the thought process that’s going on. I mean, if you get it, great. Maybe it resonates with some people. But it’s work to read, and literary diarrhea like that is half the reason I lean towards minimalism.

It reminds me of the parable of the avant-garde violinist.

*“Get ready to have your ASSES BLOWN OUT.”*

Once Upon A Time…

…there was a violinist whose skill and knowledge of the violin surpassed all others. He lived and breathed his instrument; when he slept, he kept it clutched to his chest; when he ate, he wiped crumbs off its lacquered surface; even when he bathed, the violin was not far from his reach.

Nobody, the violinist figured, had ever truly explored the sounds of which his instrument was capable. So, he began composing.

Typical music notation was of no use to him — the violin, he knew, could play notes between the notes — and the blazing speed and languid slowness of which it was capable could not be expressed on paper. No pen could write the sound of his nails scratching the wood or the creaking of the violin’s neck as it was brought close to snapping. You could not write the sound of a pen knife slowly cutting through the strings. No; his compositions could only ever exist in his mind, and there they burned.

The songs he composed tested the limits of not only music theory but the tensile strengths of wood and gut. He played notes higher than any you’d ever heard, and notes so low that fog horns grew envious. He played notes that droned on and on for weeks, and some notes that were over so quickly you weren’t sure if you’d heard anything at all. He tapped on the violin’s back with a hammer and slapped the instrument into shallow water, creating sounds no one had ever dreamt of.

One evening, he put on a concert that was to be the grandest performance of the violin ever to grace a stage. In the audience were countless celebrities & politicians, along with world-famous musicians & composers. Bach was there, along with Chopin, and Beethoven too. Impossible! you say?That’s just how unique this violinist was.

The violinist soared that night. He leapt and he twirled and from the violin issued an unimaginable cacophony. When he was finished, he was covered in sweat, tears, and not just a little blood. The violin lay in ruin at his feet like the body of a conquered enemy.

And when the last note echoed through the concert hall and out across the open sea, nobody clapped. Nobody cheered and nobody cried “Bravo!”

Because, as technically masterful as it might have been, in the end it was just two hours violent noise that nobody could understand.

The point, of course, is that the avant-garde might be appreciated by some, but even if you’re the absolute BEST at what you do, the end result might not be appreciated.

Did Virginia Woolf achieve something by trying to get into the heads of her characters using stream of consciousness? Sure she did, but to a lot of us it sounds like a madman whacking a violin with a hammer while mumbling, “Listen to how unique it sounds!”

When sometimes all you want is a song you can dance to.

Here’s Virginia Woolf on Goodreads.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

There is a long and detailed history of books about war that stretches back just about as far as the written word; name a big war in the past 3,000 years and it’s likely you can find a book that someone wrote about it. Sure, books like “The Iliad” or “The Histories” or “The Art of War” aren’t novels, but they do show that readers have always had an absolute fascination with fighting and death.

It’s hard to say what effect “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien has on readers today. The Vietnam war was looked at differently 30 years ago when the book was published, and people my age — children, then — would have grown up hearing stories about it from relatives, making it fresher than it seems now. (Most of my students today wouldn’t be able to find Vietnam on a map, let alone discuss its psychological impact.)

Does “The Things They Carried” transport you to the jungles of Vietnam; does it let you feel the mosquito bites, the dampness in your socks, or the burn of chlamydia? Maybe not. But there are some absolute gut punches in here that are revealed as if in slow motion, showing Tim O’Brien’s understanding of how the literary conversation was evolving at the time.

*“Hello? Jungle? I heard there would be fun and games.”*

You Can’t Ever Really Know Anything, Man

And of course the book doesn’t transport you there. One of the themes is that memory is fallible; we can’t trust what we put down on paper. It’s technically “fiction,” after all. Even if there are real people in it doing real things, it still carries that label — Tim O’Brien chooses to call it a work of fiction rather than a memoir. (Hearkening after Norman MacLean, maybe?)

In a postmodern sense, you can’t understand anything at all by reading a book.

Want to know what war is like? Join the army. Want to experience Vietnam? Buy a plane ticket. The only thing we’ll possibly be able to understand by reading “The Things They Carried” is what Tim O’Brien felt like when he was sitting at his typewriter, and we’ll only get a partial understanding of that.

You might disagree with it, but I bet Tim O’Brien agrees with me.

*Just as he’ll agree this portrait is 100% accurate.*

Don’t Drink The Milk

There are a few books that I’m not worried about “spoiling,” and “The Things They Carried” is one of them. It’s non-linear and only a breath away from being a short story collection, so telling you what’s happening on the last few pages won’t ruin anyone’s experience.

The reason I want to talk about the ending is this: O’Brien is right on the cutoff point for what I would consider to be a “current” author. I’m showing my age by saying so, but anything published before 1990 isn’t current — sorry “A Farewell to Arms” and “Catch-22,” you’ve been relegated to the realm of the “Classic.” “The Things They Carried,” though, is still quite sensible as a “modern” war novel (postmodern, really), and it has a particular effect upon modern readers.

A part of that is related to the ending, which flashes back to when the narrator was 9 and he had his first encounter with death — a girl he was “in love with” died of brain cancer, and the last chapter is an exploration of how dreams keep that little girl (and all his war buddies) alive in his mind. It’s an emotional twist of an ending considering the number of people who explode in the story.

Death and Dreams

As you get closer to the final pages, you expect there to be some sort of violent climax. It’s a war novel, after all. Certainly there could be an action-packed thrill ride of an ending. People get shot and step on landmines and have their legs blown off and there must be a bridge somewhere that needs exploding — but the actual climax is this subtle little story about a girl who wears a red hat to cover her bald head and how little Timmy O’Brien hears on the playground one day that his girlfriend “kicked the bucket.”

It’s like that “My Girl” movie or one of those other horrible tales that only exist to make children confront death before they really need to.

More than the stories of his buddies drowning in a shit river, that last chapter about the girl in the red hat clings to you, especially if you’ve experienced that kind of significant loss. We all have those dreams, and they stick around for years and years and years. Enough to make you wonder if they ever really go away.

I still have dreams in which my mother is alive. Instead of being dead and cremated and poured into a box buried on a hillside, she’s instead “retired” from life and now lives in a facility somewhere. Like a facility for “dead” people; a post-hospice hospice. The same way cops turn in their badge and gun and uniform when they retire, Ellen has turned in her friends, her home, and her family. Death isn’t the end of existence, just the end of that existence.

In my dream, that’s what happens to old people. Instead of dying, a bunch of guys in white coats come get them and take them somewhere else. A retirement village for the dead. She has her own little room with a single bed and a TV with 13 channels.

She doesn’t have what you’d call a “life,” this woman. She follows a schedule that’s “the best thing for her, really.” She’s a shell of her former self, and all of us survivors — the men in her life who are still clinging to all this absurd bullshit we bumble through every day — are supposed to just let her exist in some sort of half-life of field trips and cafeteria meals and plastic bowling balls being rolled down long, carpeted hallways.

Every now and then, we run into her in the wild, out on the street. Like we’ll see her getting off a bus and heading into a museum with the rest of the “retired from life” folks. The same way you might see a group of students getting off a big, yellow school bus. I stop whatever I’m doing, I run over, I grab her by the shoulders and say, “What are you doing here? Why would you rather do … this than be a part of our lives? You’re being led around like a geriatric elephant that gets to go see all the other zoo animals!”

And someone, an orderly, a tough guy, will pull me aside and say, “Leave her alone. That’s just the way it is man. People gotta retire. And you gotta let ‘em alone.”

She looks at me and she sees me and she knows me but it doesn’t matter anymore. She’s moved on to a new phase of existence. This is her life now, and all of us are no longer a part of it. The whole world stands on a sidewalk in the sunshine and shrugs.

*Hop aboard!* *We’re headed off to our impending doom.*

It’s odd for a war story to make you think about these things — dreams you have of dead people. People who didn’t blow up or get shot; people who disappeared in more common, even mundane ways. I don’t think even Hemingway would have had the balls to end a war novel like that. Joseph Heller might have, and Vonnegut probably thought Tim O’Brien was a-okay. But it hits you, that ending. All of it hits you, and even if it doesn’t really capture WAR, it captures something.

Me? I just wish I had different dreams. Better dreams.

Christ, I couldn’t dream her onto a beach or something? Texas, at least?

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” by Edward Albee

While I know that “books” (in the broadest sense) are just a bunch of pages that are put together with glue or string and bound in cloth or leather or human skin or what-have-you, I’ve always found it a little strange to refer to a play as a book. That’s why I find it a bit … surprising that “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” appears as number 11 on the list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. Woolf isn’t a book. It’s a play.

The difference, to me, is that plays (when they are printed) are missing fundamental information that would be presented in a book. Namely, they lack prose, which is an essential building block of a narrative. Plays are spoken word and minimal direction intended to be performed on a stage. They are purposefully left open to interpretation, with one production being different than another.

This isn’t to say that they aren’t important. It’s easy to see why Edward Albee’s play, first performed in 1962, is significant. But I don’t feel that I fully got it until I’d both read the book and seen a production of the play itself. (Or, in this case, a movie of it.)

Elizabeth Taylor was actually drunk for most of the filming. **#facts**

There was a lot of subtle characterization — things like blocking, facial expressions, inflection — that you don’t get from the text. Seeing it performed really makes the thing come alive.

An Absolute Freud

There’s a line in the sand when it comes to being a serious reader of literature, and that line goes by the name LITERARY THEORY. I recognize why many people don’t want to cross that line — some of the most avid readers I’ve ever known have never bothered to concern themselves with LITERARY THEORY and, to be honest, they are happier staying in that particular section of the desert.

Hell, I have a degree in English Writing & Rhetoric and I barely think studying LITERARY THEORY is worth the effort. Those discussions just don’t seem to be happening anymore. Or, more aptly, things have gotten so goddamned fractured that any conversation about LITERARY THEORY lacks a fundamental vernacular.

Harold Bloom is dead and he isn’t coming back.

*Or was Harold Bloom ever really there in the first place?*

There are certain works, though, that beg to be viewed through a certain lens, and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is one of them. It seems to me that Edward Albee was just dying to talk to someone about Freudian Analysis, couldn’t find anybody to chat with, and so wrote a play out of frustration.

Talking about Freudian Analysis is difficult, though. Not only because modern psychology has largely moved on from Freud, but also because nobody understands how or why we should read books utilizing that theory. I dare you, however, to approach “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” without thinking to yourself, “Just what in the hell is wrong with these people?”

The Theatre in Your Head

The way I wish I’d had LITERARY THEORY explained to me is this: There’s a theatre in your head and it’s full of all the people you’ve ever met, heard about, or thought you knew. Your parents are in there and so are your siblings. Your teachers are in there along with your friends, coworkers, and neighbors.

They see everything you see and read everything you read. It appears as if on a screen before them, and they sit comfortably munching on popcorn and slurping diet soda while enjoying the show.

Every now and then, you come across a movie or TV show or a book and you think, “By golly, Dad would love this.” You think so because you have a clear understanding of good ol’ Dad and you know what would turn his crank. In your head, that little version of your father stands up in the theatre and cheers.

“Bravo!” he cries.

Alternatively, sometimes you see something Dad would hate, and your little head-pappy starts throwing ice cubes at the screen.

“Filth!” he roars as a little version of your mom tells him to pipe down and grips his leg so tight her nails almost cut him.

“Typical,” your brother mumbles.

LITERARY THEORY is just a way of thinking about how certain groups of people would respond to whatever you’re reading. You try to see a work through the eyes of somebody else, respond to it the way the would respond to it, etc.

So, when we say we’re going to consider “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” through the lens of Freudian Literary Theory, all we mean is that we’re reading the book as if there’s a little psychoanalyst sitting in our head-theatre chiming in about what we’re reading.

A Night of Fun and Games

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” features four characters. There’s George (a college professor) and Martha (the Dean’s daughter), an older married couple, who have invited Nick and Honey over to their house for drinks late one night after a faculty mixer. The only problem seems to be that George and Martha are both certifiable (in a literal sense) and are intent upon tormenting each other for their perceived failures and shortcomings. Every quip in the fast-paced dialogue is a barb meant to incite a drastic response as George and Martha use the younger married couple in their attempts to humiliate one another.

They think of this torment, which seemingly happens with great regularity, as a kind of “game” that they play. While the torment is real and both George and Martha say things that are so abysmally cruel, this is all just part of who they are. They’ve been doing it for quite some time, and they don’t show signs of stopping.

One of them leaving the other would be an easy, sure-fire way to fix their problems, but that seems to be against the rules of the game.

Do they really love each other? That’s up for debate. But they are dedicated, and often that is enough.

Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You will be. **You will be.**

The four lunatics drink and drink and drink the night away and readers are left feeling second-hand embarrassment as George taunts Martha and Martha taunts George. Some of the scenes are just so goddamned uncomfortable that it strains believability. Right around the time George tells Nick that he thinks Honey is “slim-hipped” is when Nick and/or Honey should have just gone home.

But for some reason they don’t. Even when Martha starts grinding on Nick and George just sits there pretending it doesn’t bother him. (It can’t bother him, don’t you see! He’d lose the game if it bothered him.)

Eventually, the sources of their psychological trauma are revealed and we begin to see a picture of why they’re doing what they’re doing. I won’t spoil it for you, because it is a fairly good twist, but astute readers will see it coming.

The Freudian Slip

As to why this play begs to be read through the lens of Freudian Literary Analysis has to do with several of the elements of psychoanalysis. There are themes and imagery of repressed memories and the unconscious mind. There’s the Uncanny, and the mother (ba-dop CHING!) of Oedipal Complexes. The play oozes sexuality at several points and readers can’t help but see themselves within the characters and begin to psychoanalyze themselves in the process.

Essentially, a little Sigmund Freud sits in your head-theatre in a smoking jacket and mumbling, “What is wrong with these people? Is it a symptom of a broader psychological malady that has infected the whole of 1960’s America? Or, perhaps, is it representative of our own inner desires to murder our fathers?”

Then everyone else shushes him and demands that he puts out his goddamned pipe. “You can see Liz Taylor’s cleavage!” your dad stage whispers.

All in All

People in the 1960’s were nuts for psychoanalysis and seemingly thought we were somehow going to unlock the mysteries of the mind by carefully analyzing the way people speak and act. Edward Albee thought about it so hard he gave himself fits. And while there might be some elements of truth to it, as much as we might wish we could understand why we’re all so messed up, Nick and Honey would have left that shitty party as soon as they got there. Liz Taylor or no Liz Taylor, it was an awful party, and that schtick with the umbrella gun was a straight up dick move. Nobody would stick around to receive such abuse, and even if they did, there would have been more punches or at least some biting.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is worth checking out, but, if you read it, you’ll run the risk of starting to psychoanalyze yourself and that’s a fool’s gambit. Only suckers try to therapize themselves.

Did I say that?

Anyway, you can read the whole thing in an hour, which ain’t bad.

“The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler

With a big enough lens, you can think of all literature as a conversation that people have been having with themselves since Gilgamesh decided to forgo godhood and embrace his humanity. You could probably say the same for art in general, but this is a blog about books, so we’ll skip the cave paintings and focus on writing.

The fact is: Nothing is written in a vacuum. No author is free from influence, and while writers have for centuries sought to create something new and utterly original, what ends up happening is they mash things together or decide to write in ways that are completely counter to the status quo. Either way, everything that has ever been written has been written in response to something else.

Is that pessimistic? Maybe. But knowing that’s the case is what allows us to look back at works of literature and decide what’s important and what isn’t. Generally, we celebrate anything that seems to have taken a substantial step forward or have been influential to others — works of literature that are genre-defining, or that represent a hard swerve to the left when everyone else was going right.

*If literature were a car, what sort of car would it be?*

The Big Sleep is Death

This is the mentality that I brought to reading “The Big Sleep,” number 189 on the list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. Considered a pioneer of hard-boiled detective fiction, one can’t possibly count the number of books/movies that have been influenced by Raymond Chandler’s 1939 pulpy crime novel. Hell, we should consider it a classic if only because The Big Lebowski wouldn’t have happened without it. Never mind The Dresden Files. Or Se7en. Or L.A. Confidential. Or True Detective.

Somebody had to be the first person to think, “I should write a book from the perspective of a poor, drunk private detective with a heart of gold,” and while Chandler wasn’t the first to do so, “The Big Sleep” was one of the most popular works to take on such a character.

And now, nearly 100 years since its first publication, the gritty detective novel is still hugely popular. Does the modern version need twists, like having that detective be a wizard who fights gods on or around Lake Michigan? Sure. But the grit is still there. And the stories all start with some dame walking into a smoky, run-down office.

*“The broad was all legs, with hair that went all the way to her scalp.”*

Who Is This Chandler Guy, Anyway?

Born in Chicago in 1888, Chandler spent his early years in midwest America before his alcoholic father abandoned their family, after which Chandler’s mother moved them to Ireland so Chandler could get a decent education. He skipped college in favor of traveling around Europe to improve his language skills before returning to Britain to become a civil servant.

The job didn’t suit him, so Chandler found work as a reporter. He might have dedicated himself to becoming a writer at this point, were it not for an encounter with Richard Barham Middleton, author of “The Ghost Ship.” While Chandler admired Middleton, he couldn’t help but notice that Middleton was miserable all the time and eventually committed suicide. “If that guy can’t make it as a writer, what chance do I have?”

He moved back to the U.S. (Los Angeles this time) in 1912 and enlisted in Canada to fight in World War 1. He fought in the trenches of France, which, I’m sure, did nothing to contribute to his mental health problems later in life. When the war was over, he came back and fell in love with a woman who was 18 years his senior. He worked for an oil company before all of his vices caught up with him — the company let him go because of his penchant for booze, women, and skipping work to drink booze with women.

*“**#feltcute** Might try to off myself later.”*

He started writing pulp detective fiction during the great depression as a way of making ends meet. He was influenced by a lot of other crime writers and primarily learned his fiction writing by driving around California reading pulp magazines and feeling bad about himself.

As difficult it is for me to imagine making any money through writing (especially during the Great Depression), it’s easy to see how Chandler’s life contributed to his writing style. Hard-boiled detective fiction is full of no-nonsense characters, sex, violence, and deals primarily with the darker side(s) of society.

Chandler probably felt right at home.

“The Big Sleep,” his first novel, was published in 1939.

Welcome to Grim Reality

Chandler, in an essay for The Atlantic called “The Simple Art of Murder,” had this to say about English mysteries the likes of which were written by Agatha Christie:

There is a very simple statement to be made about all these stories: they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. They try to be honest, but honesty is an art. The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn’t know what to be honest about.

If we take literature as a discussion that’s been going on for thousands of years, it seems clear that Chandler is writing in direct response to a handful of other authors; those who wrote detective stories before which “do not come off artistically,” and those stories that are honest.

*Ernest Hemmingway looks on approvingly from his watery grave.*

So, the detective can’t be a prim-and-proper little Belgian who speaks in an odd manner — that’s unrealistic! We need a guy who drinks his breakfast, rattles off one-liners, and risks his life for around $25 a day. Because that’s reality, baby.

What’s more likely is that Chandler took detective stories and injected them with things like sex and pornography and guns and booze because, despite what Chandler himself says, people who like reading about that sort of thing aren’t psychopaths. They’re just people who like excitement in their stories and aren’t necessarily getting it from Poirot or Holmes. Plus, he was following a formula. Editors told him how to put his stories together in a way that they thought would sell, and “The Big Sleep” was essentially just two of those stories put together and padded out to make a novel.

It’s an Absolute Crime

There’s a lot you can learn from “The Big Sleep” and hard-boiled detective fiction in general. One of the biggest and most lasting impacts of this genre has been its effect on prose. The grit, the realism, the short and punchy dialogue. Aside from the language being dated, “The Big Sleep” reads like it could have been written last week rather than in the 30s.

I had a chance to watch the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movie from 1946, which seems to put some paint over the grime and soften the story in places. It’s good if you like watching guys hike their pants up over their belly buttons and sweat through their shirts, but otherwise I’d suggest the novel.

The story also popularized “the twist” — not the dance we did last summer, but the idea of a plot that takes sudden and unexpected turns. Again, you have to remember that this story is pretty old, so it’s not like we’re getting M. Night Shamusalan “He Was Dead The Whole Time” sorts of twists, but still.

A Denouement at a Bar With a Double Scotch

Is “The Big Sleep” worth your time? Is anything? It’s hard to tell these days. In a world gone haywire, what are we to make of an unlikely hero, a dedicated shamus who’s too good for this world? Maybe it don’t amount to much, but it sure amounts to three fingers of rye whiskey from a warm bottle.

The answer must be down here somewhere, nestled into the corner of my glass where it kicks up its heels and waits for the next dame to come walking through those doors. When she talks, I know it’ll be a story I’ve heard before, a story I’ve heard a thousand times.

Will I have it in me to hear it again?

“Watership Down” by Richard Adams

How Books Are Like Drugs

We might not have concrete proof for the gateway hypothesis when it comes to drugs—does early use of cigarettes and alcohol lead to later use of harder drugs like cocaine or heroin?—but I’m convinced the gateway hypothesis holds true for books. Starting to read at a young age seems to encourage a lifelong love of reading, which is something I think we can all agree is good.

While I can’t prove it definitively, the anecdotal evidence is compelling. As a teacher, part of my mission is to inspire students to read more, much more, as much as possible — hoping they become so captivated by books that they continue reading throughout their lives. Even if I’m wrong, the worst that can happen is that a few kids are forced to read “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

*“You tricked me and I won’t forget it.”*

Why Animals?

A question I’ve often wondered: Why do so many children’s books feature animals as the main characters? We can think of countless examples: “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “The Wind in the Willows,” “Winnie-the-Pooh,” “The Jungle Book,” “The Lion King,” “The Velveteen Rabbit,” “Paddington Bear”—and that’s just in Western literature. People in nearly every culture use animals when they’re writing for children.

It seems there’s a natural instinct among children’s authors to anthropomorphize anything with fur and a cute face.

There are many reasons for this. Animals are relatable and adored by children, and using them allows kids to view their world in new ways. The backyard transforms from a bland patch of grass into a battleground or an adventure zone. One of my biggest regrets about becoming an “adult” is that I’ve lost the ability to get lost in my own imagination the way I used to–to so vividly imagine being a mouse or a cat or a bird navigating through my neighborhood’s secret pathways. In essence, the older I get, the harder it seems to be to play. For children, though, it is as natural as breathing.

Another reason to use animals in children’s literature is that animals are safe. It’s unthinkable to write a children’s story depicting the brutal death of a parent by gun violence, yet Bambi’s mom gets blown away in an absolutely devastating scene and that story is celebrated all over the world–it’s strange if someone hasn’t seen it.

This approach — using animals as characters — lets us explore profound or disturbing themes in a way that’s less likely to traumatize young readers. We can do this while featuring creatures that children find engaging. (Another interesting question is why children find animals like mice and rabbits so fascinating, but that’s a topic for another time.)

The “Watership” Isn’t Actually a Ship

“Watership Down,” number 7 on the list of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, is a book I should have read by now but haven’t. Given that “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” is one of my favorites, you’d think “Watership Down” would be right up my alley.

As a kid, though, the title “Watership Down” confused me. I imagined it was something like “Black Hawk Down,” a story about rabbits speeding around the Atlantic in a submarine. How did the rabbits build it? I wondered. Were they welders? And would beavers or ducks lead some kind of rescue operation?

*“It appears as if my water ship has gone down!”*

Years later, when a student of mine wrote a report on “Watership Down,” I realized I’d misunderstood the title. A “Down” is simply a grassy hill in southern England, derived from the Old English word “dūn” for “hill.”

The story follows a group of rabbits who leave their warren after a prophetic rabbit named Fiver foresees its destruction. Fiver’s brother, Hazel, believes him, and they set off to find a promised land called “Watership Down.,” taking along any other rabbits who believe them.

While the rabbits in the book do talk, the book portrays them as realistic rabbits with detailed behavior, customs, and even a rudimentary religion centered around a trickster rabbit, El-ahrairah. It’s clear that Richard Adams observed rabbits closely to capture their behavior, probably while walking around grassy southern England, where daily walks are mandated by a government agency.

“There must be some goddamned rabbits around here **somewhere…”**

Challenges & Magic

Watership isn’t magical realism per se, but it does include some inexplicable elements. Fiver’s visions often come true, suggesting he might be some kind of oracle. I can’t tell if this ability is common for rabbits or if Fiver is unique. I mean, if other bunnies had similar abilities, their old warren might have heeded Fiver’s warnings about the humans who began developing the land and killing all their rabbit pals instead of ignoring it.

The bunnies who manage to escape, led by Hazel and the burly Bigwig, face many challenges before realizing they forgot something crucial: female rabbits. Whoops! This oversight leads to a new phase in the story as Hazel and his friends plan to find some girls to ensure their survival. But will the be able to steal some from a nearby warren?

Bloody Rabbits!

The 1970s movie adaptation of “Watership Down” gained notoriety for its depiction of rabbit deaths. While the book contains violence—reflecting the dangerous lives of rabbits—it’s fairly tame by today’s standards.

Yikes! That trailer makes it sound like a horror story. The book, though, is mostly just rabbits talking and/or running long distances before digging holes to sleep in. Richard Adams could almost be called a naturalist for how much he focuses on nature. The result is rather idyllic prose that makes it easy to forget the occasional snare or dog attack.

The Final Results

“Watership Down” exemplifies why animal stories captivate readers of all ages. By exploring themes like survival, leadership, and resistance through the eyes of rabbits, the book makes complex ideas accessible and safe. Animal stories open new worlds, foster empathy, and, most importantly, encourage students to become lifelong readers.

The sorts of clowns (like me!) who read kids’ books when they’re supposed to be working.

It might not be as addictive as heroin, but whether or not the gateway hypothesis for books can be scientifically proven, stories like “Watership Down” have a special power. They draw us in with lovable animal characters and keep us going with stories that inspire. Perhaps they even spark a lifelong love of reading.

After all, if we can learn life’s lessons from a group of rabbits on an English hill, who knows where else might take us?

*Strange place for a submarine to sink, but who am I to judge?*

“Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” by Edwin Abbott Abbott

English teachers are ready at a moment’s notice to not only explain aspects of literature, but to defend and justify literature to people who think it needs defending and justification. These are people we lovingly refer to as “idiots” — the vocal majority who have only ever picked up a novel when forced and, for whatever reason, feel no qualms when boasting about that fact.

Students gripe. It’s part of being young and not liking it when people tell you what to do, so you’ve got to be ready to talk back to them. Recently, when my students have gone off on a tangent somewhat parallel to “Why bother to read books?” which happens at least once a semester, I’ve told them this: “Books are the only media left that isn’t trying to sell you something.” Ads are everywhere — books are one of the only safe spaces left. While that’s more than enough reason for me to go to bookstores more frequently than I ought to, some bull-headed students require a little extra:

“Books allow you to glimpse into other lives and other times. This, in turn, increases your understanding of other people and your capability for empathy. Understanding and empathy are the things that make our world better.”

*“I don’t WANNA identify with others and YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”*

Welcome to Flatland: The Least Romantic of Dimensions

“Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions” by Edwin Abbott Abbott is one of those old science fiction books that hits you over the head with this idea. The book, pseudonymously written by one “A. Square” tells the story a … square (oh, I see what he did there) that lives in a 2-dimensional universe — their world has length and width but no height, so every creature and object is essentially flat. But more flat than we can even understand. To them, height just doesn’t exist.

The square explains a bit about the nature of his world, which turns out to be a satirical take on (mostly) British society and its rigid class hierarchy, before meeting a sphere (gasp!) and being brought into the world of 3 dimensions. Upon his return, Mr. A. Square is unable to convince any of his fellow Flatlanders that this 3rd dimension actually exists and is eventually jailed for his heretical ramblings.

It’s a short book (a novella, really) that doesn’t require much of a time commitment, and Mr. Abbott Abbott does a fine enough job of incorporating some exciting trigonometry, but I think the hook of this story is that There Are Things Out There That You Will Never Understand.

*Pictured above: Two Flatlandian women. (Not joking. Women in Flatland are lines.)*

Wouldn’t You Like To Know

The same way that Mr. A. Square is utterly confounded by the appearance of a sphere in his 2-dimensional universe, so too would we be confounded if we were to encounter a being from the 4th dimension here in our 3-dimensional universe. It’s like trying to imagine what’s inside a black hole; our brains simply can’t comprehend it.

If we did encounter such a creature, we might mistake its voice for a voice in our own heads — they might be able to speak directly inside of us.

We would only ever see a 3-dimensional cross-section of it; we couldn’t ever witness it in its entirety. Meaning we’d probably get to see its 4-dimensional kidneys.

It would seemingly be able to pop in and out of existence.

No, It Wasn’t Carl Sagan’s Idea

My first exposure to Flatland came from the Cosmos TV series starring Carl Sagan, which rather brazenly recounts parts of the plot of Flatland and presents the concept in an easy-to-swallow way — it’s a lot more practical to discuss a 2-dimensional world if you have visual aids:

By understanding a 2-dimensional creature’s response to a 3-dimensional creature, we can extrapolate what it might be for we 3-dimensional beings to encounter a 4-dimensional being. At least sort of.

I think, more importantly, that it encourages us to come to terms with things that are beyond our comprehension. I don’t know where most people fall when it comes to solipsism — the philosophy that the self is all we can ever know — but I do recognize that it’s nearly impossible to fully understand another human being. We’re all a mess of memories and trauma and neurosis; guessing why anybody does anything can often seem like it’s beyond the wisdom of salmon.

I certainly don’t understand everybody. In a country as politically divided as the United States, it’s easy to look at other people and think, “Jesus Christ, what in the hell are they thinking?” My neighbor with a Trump flag on his F350 might not look like a 2-dimensional creature on the surface, but my understanding of him is much the same. He spends all his time moving back and forth in predictable patterns whilst ignoring what the rest of us see as obvious — all while keeping a weathered eye out for foreigners and grinding his teeth at property taxes.

How Many Dimensions Are There, Really?

It stands to reason that if a being from a 2-dimensional reality can become aware of a 3-dimensional reality, and if we can sort of imagine a 4-dimensional reality, then there could be more dimensions. But how many are there? Oh, where is Neil Degrasse Tyson when you need him? Probably tweeting about how unrealistic Alien: Romulus is.

Anyway: String Theory suggests that there could be 11 dimensions in our universe — 10 spatial dimensions and one dimension of time. If you think it hurts your brain to imagine the 4th dimension, just try to imagine what sort of wackiness is going on in the 10th. (So many Trump flags!) All I can tell you is that string theorists predict these dimensions are all around us but too small for us to interact with.

Unable to grasp such scientific mumbo-jumbo? Try drugs. I hear they help.

Who Was Edwin “Don’t Make Me Repeat Myself” Abbott Abbott?

Born in London at the start of the 19th century, Edwin Abbott Abbott became an educator at a young age after realizing how much he hated kids and desperately wanted to explain math to them. He was a homely fellow with a penchant for weak chins and was probably the sort of teacher that talked really quietly and then got mad when you couldn’t hear him from the back. “Maybe if you put your phone away my instructions would have been clearer, Beatrice.”

He wrote several books, but Flatland was easily his most notable.

Also notable: The word “Abbott” appears twice in his name because his parents were cousins. (Only partially joking.)

While Flatland may be seen as science fiction, many people call it “Mathematical Fiction.” It’s hard to imagine why that particular genre never really took off, but authors like Neal Stephenson are still miffed about it.

*There goes Neal Stephenson in his steampunk hot air balloon.*

Final Results

Given its relatively short length, I’d say Flatland is worth your time. You won’t be dazzled by the prose, and the plot is just as cohesive as Gulliver’s Travels (that is to say: mostly incoherent), but it’s an fun thought experiment and there really is some interesting math-related stuff. I particularly like the explanation of how fog makes it easier to discern who is who in Flatland.

It almost makes up for the casual sexism and xenophobia!

If you’re interested in what encountering creatures from other dimensions might actually be like, there are a few modern authors who are doing some good work in that area: “Superposition” by David Walton is about alien intelligence developing in quantum randomness, and the Southern Reach Trilogy (of which “Annihilation” is the first book) lives and breathes the confusion one would feel while encountering alien, extra-dimensional life.

The Remembrance of Earth’s Past is another great series that deals directly with extra dimensions. Mild spoilers: Dimensions are weaponized by ultra-intelligent aliens. Don’t like your 3D neighbors? Collapse them into 2D. Boom! Now your neighbors have literally been flattened.