2018 | Yearly wrap

2018 was a good reading year. Glad on two counts - (a) I read more non fiction and (b) I wrote a little bit more, making it one of the better years for this blog. 

In my reading, there was fair bit of non fiction (referred as NF below), close to half the books, mostly personal NF. Not as many Short Stories (SS) as I would have liked. Just 4 collections (and there is this Mansfield collection with unread bits on incomplete stories not added here). Very little science fiction. (SF, Just a couple of books). A few translated books (not as many as I thought I normally read). This was also the year when I discovered Elizabeth Von Arnim, read a lot from Katherine Mansfield, and came across the essays of Stephen Jay Gould. Read a bit of autobiographical/ memoir writing from different people across different times and cultures. And finally read Vanity Fair, Portrait of a Lady and Jane Eyre. Finished my first Turgenev. And could get around to reading Svetlana Alexievich. This was also the year when I gave myself a few no-fiction months.

Following is the list of books that I read in 2018 from my 'recent reads' page. Not as many as 2017 (when I was lucky to read over 50), but I loved most of what I read. 

For the following, the order is sequential: No.1 on the list read in January, last on the list most recent. The links lead to related post on this blog.

1. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth (or Mary Annette) Von Arnim ****
2. In Light of India by Octavio Paz (NF/ sort of personal essay) *****
3. Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse (SS) ***
4. Winter Tales by Isak Dinesen (SS) ****
5. The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth Von Arnim *** (iphone reader)
6. The Benefactress by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
7. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard *** (NF/ personal essays)
8. Vera by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
9. Elementals by AS Byatt **** (SS)
10. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard **** (NF/personal essays)
11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
12. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ** (iphone reader)
13. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte ** (iphone reader)
14. Villette by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
15. Memoirs of a Nun by Denis Diderot **
16. 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke *** (SF)
17. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone De Beauvoir **** (NF)
18. The Abundance by Annie Dillard **** (NF/ essay collection)
19. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson *** (NF/ Eminent Lives)
20. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James **** 
21. Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson ** (NF)
22. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev *** 
23. Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard ** (NF/ personal essays)
24. Jacob's Room is Full of Books (a year of reading) by Susan Hill ** (NF/ personal/ memoir?)
25. The Richness of Life - The Essential Stephen Jay Gould by Stephen Jay Gould **** (NF)
26. Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich *** (NF)
27. Under My Skin by Doris Lessing *** (NF | Autobiography)
28. Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant *** (How should I rate a book when I don't like it as much, but it is not the book's fault. It is a well written story - and like all Maupassant stories, is a reading delight. It is just that I don't like the way people behave in it. Anyhow, these are my personal ratings. It falls more in three, and since I have avoided half points, books that are between two and three often get rated two or three basis my mood or my whim on the day I think)
29. 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (SF) kindle ** 
30. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (phone) ***
31. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (NF | Memoir) phone ***
32. From Silk to Silicon by Jeffrey E. Garten **** (NF)
33. The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad ****
34. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** phone
35. The Folded Clock, A Diary by Heidi Julavits *** (Diary/ personal /NF)
36. The Golden Thread - how fabric changed history by Kassia St Clair *** (NF)
37. Artful by Ali Smith **** (NF/F?)
38. This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges (NF) *****
39. Evening in Paradise - More Stories by Lucia Berlin (SS) ****
40. The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton **

Apart from what's on the list, I explored and opened a lot more. And perhaps took away something from each one of them. At the end of the day, it is not the number that's relevant but what I come away with from the year.

For me, one of the big book-blog realization this year was that the thought-space you can access and unlock while reading a book, or fresh out of a book somehow magically disappears after a while. Difficult to retrieve those emotions or recreate the same magic even on an immediate re-read. Even as I am reading, the more moments of recording the thoughts, the more I have to say about the book. After the book ends, trying to relive the experience can sometimes be difficult. I do have the overall thoughts and impressions. But while reading, while bobbing on the stream of thoughts that the book triggers, if I write them down, it goes with the flow, perhaps just a pause to hover and examine before I row forward. A few rightly placed moments and I can express and save those transitory thoughts.

Wouldn't call this an epiphany, but a gradually unraveling thought, which has been in the making but not articulated or set in definite terms. Pretty much goes with other stuff in life too. And makes me wonder whether those who keep detailed diaries and journals of life as it flows through them, remember more or live more intensely? By recording as much as you can. You can perhaps click pictures which so many of us do so much more now. But what about the thought chain? From where things start and where they land, the chain is so unique. Each one of them. Illuminating different parts of memory and your inner landscape as the thoughts pass through them train like. When you write them down, you get the access key for future use. Makes little sense when I write it here like this. But what I wish to note and remember is that I am better off writing as I read, rather than not writing.

What next?

For 2019, no major reading plans or goals. Although I do hope that for books that start a conversation in the head, they get a little bit of that jotting down and recording on this blog.

To 2019, and to more reading.

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" has been on my reading list for some time now, referred in many of my other recent readings. I have had the Gutenberg version saved on my phone, but for one reason or another, never got around to it until I came across this translation by Bayard Quincy Morgan (Alma Classics) and saw the physical dimensions of this book. It is a small, 135 page book, more like a novella. And it is a pretty engaging read from the first letter itself.

First published in 1774, in German, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, this book is regarded as one of its kind. See below from the introduction:

"Werther is the first German novelette (a form in which German writers have excelled), the first German epistolary novel and the first German work of any kind to make both its author and his country's literature internationally known."

The book has been translated a lot many times since its first publication. Perhaps a fitting place to add a bit about translations. Some books are ideally read in their own language. But there, I'm quite impaired, knowing nothing beyond two languages. They also say about certain books that it is better to read them in translation than not read them at all. And I guess I find it easier to subscribe to this philosophy. I enjoy stories from different times and countries, which means I read a lot of translated books. Choosing and finding a good translation can be difficult for the more famous works. A bit of google, a look at sources you trust, and you get a fair guidance. At the end of the day, availability and access rule what translation I end up reading.

Werther is set in epistolary form - letters by Werther to his friend (mostly), one way, responses not shared in the book. A new term that I learnt, epistolary novels: novels written  as series of documents. I have tried to read Clarissa (the other famous epistolary novel) in the past with little progress. And last year I read Diderot's Memoirs of a Nun  - the epistolary prank by Denis Diderot.

Spoilers ahead.

The book is about Werther falling in love with Lotte, who is engaged to another. And the eventual absorption and annihilation of Werther. You see the unrequited love (or would one call it a crush in modern times?), developing letter by letter. Knowingly our protagonist walks into trouble and that doesn't end well for him. It can't be helped, but if addressed, and handled with a tough will, it could easily have been otherwise. But then, there won't be a story to be told. 

May be it is how it comes across in translation, may be it is since these are letters to a friend, I find Werther quite self-absorbed and a shade arrogant, considering only himself in the whole equation (not even Lotte in the way things play out and affect her). To that end, his love is not the selfless love but a sort of unhealthy, selfish absorption. I find his way of looking at the world convoluted - he chooses to see what he wishes to see (which, agreed, most of us do most of the time).  At times, there are moments in his letters when you see an old, wise soul shining through (see some quotes below), but most of the time, Werther behaves like a spoiled child. There is a tone of complaint, a sort of whining throughout his letters. It is just the impression that I get. May be, this is the author's way of portraying the protagonist. May be, the times have changed and what was ok 250 years ago might be considered wrong today. 

I wonder whether Werther's problem was just a matter of finding another occupation? May be I am simplifying matters.  But I believe, that had Werther found a better occupation, and distance from what had captured his heart, mind and imagination, there would have been a Werther living for longer. If only he had removed himself from the scene. Given himself distance and time away from Lotte, time enough to find other interests to occupy his thoughts and mind, there'll be something else vying for his attentions, perhaps pulling Lotte's thoughts to the right proportion instead of the way they envelope and consume his psyche. May be, then there would have been the pain of lost love that he would have lived with, but hopefully, with time, its edges would have been dulled. In the book too, once Werther finds employment away from Lotte, there is less talk about his thoughts on Lotte, more about other troubles in his life. And the reason he continues to stay unhappy in the clerical job is more to do with the general tedium of life, and ennui and difficulties of living and bonding, which, short of a worthy pursuit or purpose, makes life dull for one and all. And Werther, tired of this tedium,  rediscovers his worthy pursuit in Lotte. A path which eventually keeps curving back in, in smaller and smaller circles, leaving no other space or option for him, then to subsumed by the abyss his life becomes without Lotte.

That, is a point of view on the protagonist, not the book. The point that the author is making is reminding us that what Werther pursues is worthy of pursuit. Given the meaning or non-meaning of life, any pursuit is worthy of the pursuer depending on how much value one assigns to stuff. It is like beauty, in the eyes of beholder. Yet, going by the more practical, the more mundane, or what Brodsky calls, tedious way of our lives, the loss of Werther's life was avoidable. Yes, it proves a point, but a big cost for proving a point. And yet again, Werther is not really concerned with the practical, or the mundane. He just wishes to be valued for his heart (following, him talking about a friend he is staying with):

"he prizes my intelligence and my talents more than he does this heart, which is after all my sole pride, which is the only source of everything I have, of all my force, all my bliss and all my misery. Oh, anyone can know what I know - only I possess my heart."

Despite knowing where it was going, I was saddened and moved by the ending. 

**


The flowing prose feels very different than most of the modern, clipped, sparse prose. Perhaps the sentimentality and emotional extravagance has something to do with the times this book was written in.  One can perhaps see Werther in Julien Sorel (The Red and the Black by Stendhal), and oddly, Gatsby.


**

There are a few quotes from the book which I find interesting. Recording them here.

"...I have found again, my dear fellow that misunderstandings and lethargy produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do. At least the two latter are certainly rarer."

On expressing how you feel:

"ah, could you express all that again, could you breathe onto paper that which lives in you so fully, so warmly, that it could become the reflection of your soul as your soul is the mirror of infinite God!"

On people, and his thoughts on working for living (which so much more of the humanity does now. Talk about landed gentry and the commonfolks. Most of the world is common folks now).

"If you ask me what the people here are like, I must tell you, "Like people everywhere!" Uniformity marks the human race. Most of them spend the greater part of their time in working for a living, the scanty freedom that is left to them burdens them so that they seek every means of getting rid of it. O fate of man!"

On life,

"That the life of man is only a dream has seemed to be so to many before now, and I too always carry this feeling about with me." 

**

One gets to wonder about letter writing. When people wrote on typewriter or longhand, they would have to fully form their sentences and thoughts. Make their fragmentary notes elsewhere. I have written and received a lot of longhand letters from penfriends before emails changed communication for ever. It was a pleasure, waiting expectantly for the postman. And rambling on in longhand. Not the way I do now, going all over the screen, adding, editing, changing the sentences, paragraphs, grouping this or that. Even for this post. When you do not have a word processor, there is so little forgiveness in the system. You have to be articulate and think through what you wish to say before you say it. But I find the word processors better. If writing is a process of discovery for your thoughts, then we live in good times of word processors. Borrowing a borrowed quote from An Exaltation of Larks beginning essay, where James Lipton is quoting W.H. Auden quoting a child who says:

"How can I know what I think 'til I see what I say?"

Exploring: "An Exaltation of Larks"

I currently have a few open, exploratory reads around poetry, language and words. One of them is "An Exaltation of Larks - The Ultimate Edition (More than 1000 terms)" by James Lipton.

The author bio page mentions that “James Lipton is an author, playwright, lyricist, director, choreographer and producer.” First published in 1968, my edition (1993), this book is a result of his efforts and obsession of over two decades. The book lists and showcases terms of venery (hunting). Or nouns of multitude. Or words that describe a group. Most of the terms originated as hunting terms and eventually, over time, coinage of new terms to represent a collection of items in other fields too. What we call collective nouns, or group nouns. Perhaps quite familiar with some of them, but many are quite outlandish to the modern ear. The book tries to list these terms exhaustively (hence the ultimate edition) or to the extent possible they can be collected in one place, with some very beautiful illustrations. 

This is not a book to be read cover to cover, but to be dipped in for the pleasures of language. For browsing and exploring.  If reading itself is a long, wide road, this book is a very interesting detour or sidebar with delightful, shiny presents of beautiful words packed rich with context and history strewn around everywhere. 

As the author mentions, these terms can be divided in broadly six categories (although he refrains from doing so through the book), those six categories being (1) Onomatopoeia (e.g., a murmuration of starlings), (2) Characteristic (e.g., a leap of leopards), (3) Appearance (e.g., a knot of toads), (4) Habitats (e.g., a shoal of bass), (5) Comment (e.g., a richness of martens) and interestingly, (6) Error (e.g., school of fish, which was originally meant as shoal of fish). 

The introductory essay at the beginning of the book was one of the most interesting reads for me so far in this new year.  It deals with the story of how the book came about. And how English language itself has been so open and pliable, absorbing words from other languages and cultures. In the opening paragraph, the author fittingly quotes Arthur Conan Doyle's Sir John Buttesthorn (Sir Nigel) talking about the importance of the "terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table" referring to hunting which was the key pursuit of the landed and the rich, and in which craft these terms originated. They got supplemented over time with more terms, as English language itself expanded and mushroomed with other influences. Here's the author summarizing the expansion of the English language: 

"And with each new wave of traders or invaders came new semantic blood, new ideas and new ways of expressing them. The narrow, languid brook of the Celtic tongue suddenly acquires a powerful tributary as the splendid geometry of the Latin language burst into it, bringing such lofty sounds and concepts as intellect, fortune, philosophy, education, victory, gratitude. From 449 on, the blunt, intensely expressive monosyllables of the Anglo-Saxons joined the swelling stream, giving us the names of the strong, central elements of our lives: God, earth, sun, sea, win, lose, live, love and die. Then, in the eleventh century, with the Norman Conquest, a great warm gush of French sonorities - emotion, pity, peace, devotion, romance - swelled the torrent to a flood-tide that burst its banks, spreading out in broad, loamy deltas black with the rich silt of WORDS."

The essay eventually becomes a call to action. For precision. For the right word for the right thing. A sort of defence of using the right word, rather than trying to replace it with a simpler word or something that can be understood by the common denominator. There is an argument to be made in favor of effective communication and common denominator, but there is beauty and an inherent pleasure in finding the right and precise word, and poetry too, when a lot can be packed in a few perfect words and phrases. 

On a related note, precision in language is what Joseph Brodsky advised as well for in his commencement address at University of Michigan in 1988. He said:

" Now and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success — although those, too, can be consequences — nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one’s psyche; the mode of one’s expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience."

The rest of the address is worth a re-read anytime I believe. And more so in current times. It can be found in his essay collection, On Grief and Reason (Speech at the Stadium). Or on the internet, here.

I find this study of words, and roots fascinating. I haven’t done much of it in the past. But looking at the history of words, seeing how they have traveled, and where they have eventually reached is interesting. History of words can be proxy for history of cultures and civilizations as well. 

I am fluent in just two languages (Hindi and English), and both these languages in their own way carry a lot of influence and history. The way schools teach Latin in the Western world, people in India grow up learning Sanskrit, and its grammar. With Sanskrit, I am familiar, not fluent. Familiar enough that I can guess or figure out which words in Hindi are derived from Sanskrit and which ones from Urdu, and which from other European languages. Isn't it fascinating? This history of a people reflected through assimilation in its language. Each such loaded word can be a glimpse into history - a moment of pause and wonder. 

Poetry, and poetic phrases is another such source of pleasing phrases and combination of words. Poets have a much sharper sense of words and there imagery than prose writers. They use packed, high RoI, high impact words. Few words loaded with rich meaning.  (I have Leonard Cohen playing in the background as I am writing this, encountered after a while. And a lot of rediscovered poetry is dissolving in the air around me).

I am enjoying these reads - the joy of discovery, and where it is taking me. And I am also collecting a lot of new words. It is an engaging pursuit, this collecting of words. Writing them down, speaking them aloud. Trying to make them my own. This hunting of words to tame them. A pursuit worthy of a term of venery itself.