Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (14 of 159)

Book covers of this type always make me wonder
 if they were painting from wooden models

One-Sentence Summary: The insufferably spoiled Harvey Cheyne topples off of his cruise-liner and into the lives of his rough fishermen saviors, only to be transformed by the manly virtue of their craft.

Excerpt:

“It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish- the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, an investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day - soft, mild and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs.” 

Teddy Roosevelt was probably all over this book. It was definitely designed to be read by people like this:

Ten bucks says that backdrop is painted.

Not that this was an uncommon audience. Kipling wrote in a time when men were men and boys beat each other up over damaging repressed emotions and daddy issues (but valiantly). I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the turn of the century's boy adventure story genre. One has to be sensitive to the times in which they were written- but Captains Courageous is a whole 'nother story. Robert Louis Stevenson was a contemporary of Kipling's, and while I would have loved to put them in one room to have it out over the treatment of island natives, let's focus on a comparison of their literary work. Where I find that Treasure Island reads as a pure adventure story, Captains Courageous can come across as a bit heavy-handed. Harvey begins the story by being characterized as effeminate and spoiled, a spiney little mother's boy who generally drives others mad with his demanding behavior. He ends it as the ideal son- quiet, composed, just in ways both economical and moral, and smelling ripely of cod. It's a little too clear cut of a moral tale. I was glad to say that Harvey was not impervious to weakness- Kipling may have seen Harvey going the way of the flawless convert and so throws in a fainting spell for good measure. Good work, Rudyard. Crisis averted. More than anything, this is just a reminder to take moral character tales of the time with a grain of salt. Or, you know, a whole ocean of it.

I don't want you to think that I didn't enjoy Captains Courageous. I am a huge geek for good naval yarns and history. I like to stand waste-deep in boat jargon and sit down to cramped dinners with swarthy mixed bags of callused crew. As a matter of a fact, reading this instilled in me the strong desire to re-read Moby Dick and In the Heart of the Sea, simultaneously. Good thing Melville's White Jacket is on my shelf, just waiting for its turn in The Great Book Liberation Project. I'm an ocean girl and I always have been. There may be a bit of the selkie in me yet. Kipling captured my favorite elements of the sea story with passion and precision- the fresh air, the colors of the Atlantic, the sense of unbridled curiosity for a secretive and ancient force. I actually stayed up until 12:30, totally immersed in the very satisfying conclusion of the little story. I don't know if Captain's Courageous is as deep as its main subject, but it is still fun and full of little jewels of description and character. 

Shelf Status: Being released to the great and bounding main

You May Enjoy Captains Courageous If You Enjoyed: Moby Dick, Treasure Island, In the Heart of the Sea

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson (11 of of 159)

One Sentence Summary:

 1) The dignified Mr Utterson investigates the mysterious connection between his friend, the esteemed Dr. Jekyll and his new, grotesque paramour, Mr. Hyde.

2) The trader Wiltshire arrives at his new station to find the goings-on of the island being manipulated by the conniving Mr. Case.

3) Three ne'er-do-wells of varying morality set out to improve their fortunes and end up invariably worsening them. 

Quote (from the dedication):

It's ill to loose the bands that God decreed to bind;
Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind;
Far away from home, O it's still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

The dedication feels like the correct thing to include because there is a reason that Stevenson chose to include that little verse. What follows are more or less morality tales which dabble in some seriously major questions: is there any such thing as absolute morality? Do we endanger ourselves by completely denying our inherent darkness? Is a person with no dimensions or conflicts of conscience even a person at all?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a great tale, just as I'd hoped, and definitely one that you think you know, but probably do not. There have been so many iterations of the story in pop culture that it has strayed from the root- this wonderful, lengthy short story. Stevenson has a great appreciation of tone and it is consistently his portrayal of a dank, mist-suffused London that give you the shivers. It is not difficult to imagine yourself alongside Utterson on a midnight amble to track down the deplorable Hyde. You can feel Stevenson's personal conflict surging beneath the surface of this story. I have to wonder how much of himself he saw in the fallible, mostly well-intentioned Jekyll and how much that writing this took out of him.

I wasn't terribly fond of the second story. Certain unlikeable characters can be survived for the sake of the story, but I didn't feel powerfully compelled enough by the plot to get over how obnoxious Wiltshire was. 

I was feeling a bit downtrodden by the time that I reached the third story, but it sucked me in- perhaps even more so than Jekyll and Hyde. My heart went out to Herrick, a hapless sort who has never applied himself enough to anything to amount to much. His moral compass is still in there, harkening to North, if weakly. Then there is Davis, pursued by his personal demons of failure and yet unwilling to adjust the habits and mentality that led him there in the first place. And, of course, Huish, the human leech. Setting the three together on their common course begins a game of the moral, immoral, and amoral that reaches its climax on the island of a dapper tyrant who is a dizzying combination of the three. The action moves along at a clip and it seems as if Stevenson found, in The Ebb-Tide, a way to combine his more exalted literary inclinations with his natural penchant for adventure tales. I wish it were a more famous work- it has the power to be a more fitting legacy.

Reading these three stories, so far from the clear-cut good and evil adventure tale of Treasure Island makes me wonder if Stevenson was feeling pigeon-holed in his career by his reputation for "ripping good reads". I think differently of him now, though, as a literary force in his own right, instead of merely a talented man with the imagination of a naughty boy.

"You must suffer me to go my own dark way."

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Note: I could not finish The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, which makes this eleven, instead of ten.

I Have a Problem: Volume V

The gentleman and I were strolling Salem, Massachusetts this past weekend, getting out of town to celebrate our year-and-a-half with a little adventure in a whole new city. Just the sort of thing that we were hoping to find was found- a wonderful book store, of the rare and special sort, books as shelves for books, haphazard stacks, and shelf labels hanging from the ceiling because there is no space on floor or wall. Everything was 75% off, and while we were happy to take advantage of such an incredible deal, it broke our hearts to find that our good fortune was at the loss of such a wonderful space. 39 years in business on that sweet little street corner and now closing. My heart aches. Salem has so obviously lost a treasure. 

It was difficult to keep to a strict budget under such conditions, but I have a speculative fiction event coming up and I know that I'll be spending at book signings and the like. So, now for what I finally decided on in the stack that I accumulated in three minutes:

I have never read any Flannery O'Connor, which is tragic and wrong and weird, considering how much I love a good Southern Gothic tale. And, as I mentioned before, I am trying to read more short stories.

I literally bought this book because of the author bio: 

Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne, Australia. A gifted writer and student, he became addicted to heroin when his marriage collapsed and he lost the custody of his daughter. When he committed a series of robberies with an imitation pistol, he was described as the Gentleman Bandit. Sentenced to nineteen years in prison, he escaped and journeyed to New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and Europe. For ten of those fugitive years he lived in Bombay-where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for a branch of the Bombay mafia. Recaptured in Germany, he served out his sentence there and in Australian prisons. Upon his release, he established a successful multimedia company, and since the international publication of Shantaram, he is a full-time writer, at home in several countries. (from Amazon) 

This guy:

From his website

Translation really does make all of the difference. I have stumbled over The Iliad in the past and really could not stand it, but upon finding a Fagles translation I think I shall have to try again. I read his work on The Aeneid in high-school and really couldn't get enough of it. It was the first time I realized the magic of Homer and just how he managed to capture so many imaginations over so much time. I sense a Greek history obsession coming on in my little chest.

154, 155, 156

Dubliners by James Joyce (8 of 153)

One-Sentence Summary: James Joyce outlines the moral landscape of his beloved city of Dublin in a series
of short stories spanning every social class in the early part of the 20th century.

First Lines (from Two Gallants):

"The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur."

This copy of Dubliners was given to me by the mother of a high-school boyfriend, years and years ago, with very few words. She simply knew that I would like it and she was a warm and thoughtful human being and, years later, I have finally got around to reading all of it and realized what a gift she had given me.

James Joyce writes a different sort of short story than I am used to. I am accustomed to a clear trajectory, a line that is straight from Point A to Point B, all things leading to a clear and concise climax and denouement, all things between informing the end. That is not how the stories in Dubliners unfold. In each is the whole world, and the plots often run still and deep so that the characters and their city can move to the front. Joyce is often a bit of brain work, but it is refreshing to read something critically for symbolism and depth again. I remember reading Araby in high-school for a class and feeling like I had my eyes opened to something. Joyce has that effect.

I don't think it necessary to pontificate on the wonder that is Joyce. There are plenty who could do a far better job at that than I. Still, I hope this is a safe space to say, I found a little humor in reading A Painful Case and The Dead and seeing a bit of the narrator's mind when it came to the elite and the hyper-educated. I think you can guess why I saw the irony in that. Joyce could have written himself into any great intellectual parlor in the land had he meditated on different themes, but he chose to reveal the moral underpinnings of the society from which he came instead. Little has changed in societies, in general. The meditations remain the same: religion, family, love, duty, class, injustice, on and on. The nature of his focus ensures that there is something that remains extremely relevant about Joyce's work.

While Dubliners is technically a short story collection, I think I benefited hugely from reading it as a single entity. There is a flow to the passions when read front to back, from ecstasy to despondency, courage to fear. From disillusioned youth to optimistic age and on and on, expertly ordered and woven. Still, I had my favorites, the ones that struck me most, for this reason or that. They were, and I sure this will change upon re-reading:

Eveline

Two Gallants

Clay

A Painful Case (ouch. ouch. ouch.)

A Mother (I swear, I have met Mrs Kearney)

The Dead

I am trying to purpose to read more short story collections. I fancy myself more naturally bent towards long-form fiction, but I don't really know how true that is. And, as any artist can tell you, it's wise to play with different mediums and not to limit yourself too much. I always think myself incapable of writing short stories until I am reading them. While reading Joyce is almost intimidating, it also reminds me of what the craft can be, what it can reflect, and what it can preserve.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (6 of 147)

One-Sentence Summary: A children's book and framework tale in which a little prince shares the story of his journey with a downed fighter pilot in the African desert. 

Subtitle: Feels You Didn't Know You Had

Excerpt:

"Goodbye," said the fox. "Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

My incredible boyfriend gave this to me for a Christmas gift, along with a $10 gift certificate to an antiquarian bookstore with a $5 admittance fee, and my own film camera. I'm always telling him to read things and as he despairs beneath a pile of to-be-reads from which, at this point, he could easily construct a book igloo, it is the rare and exciting moment that comes along when he can tell me to read something I've never read before. Because he is not six years old, he stops just short of leaping up and crying "A-HA" when the words "I've never read it" fall from my mouth, but just. The reaction was different with The Little Prince, though. It came up in conversation and he seemed truly struck and even disheartened that I'd never been exposed to it before. Months after that initial conversation had passed into forgetfulness, I opened my Christmas gift to find my very own copy. For me, there is no love like the sharing of a story that is close to your heart. It is a jewelry box, lying open, waiting to be plundered, hoping that its pieces are instead loved and respected. Reading The Little Prince was beautiful two-fold. First, it was a wonderful, wonderful story that I am so glad to now have in my heart and mind- Second, it was a reminder that the young man who loves me is full of a rare and wonderful light, and I am so very lucky to have it brighten my life.

"And I realized I couldn't bear the thought of never hearing that laugh again. For me it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert..."

 ---

"People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose.""I'm responsible for my rose..." the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

This is the story to tell in dark times. De Saint-Exupery, the man who wrote it, was a French fighter pilot in World War II, who died only a year after the publication of The Little Prince, which was his master work. On the phone last night, the boyfriend and I got into speaking about it when I called to thank him for what was potentially the loveliest Christmas gift I have ever received. Exupery brought me back to Roald Dahl, a much beloved writer of similar background. These two men had both seen incredible darkness by the time they came to the table to write their most loveliest stories. They had seen blood and death and skies on fire, but it remained that those experiences were not the most important thing they shared. "How did they protect the wellspring from where such child-like wonder and goodness flowed," we asked ourselves.

 It occurred to us both, even upon wondering, that it was perhaps their defense against the vicious world gone mad, that their exposure to great darkness allowed them to recognize those things that truly generate great light: the love of the Buckets in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the friendship of The BFG, the gentle care of the volcanoes and rose in The Little Prince, and so on and so forth. In a very complicated world, they detected what was vital in the landscape and found that the components of happiness were very simple indeed.

I look forward to having the opportunity to share this book with individuals both young and old that come across my path in the future. Its relevance is timeless. Best described as pure, The Little Prince does nothing if not reignite in the reader their sense of wonder.

I Recommend This For: Human Beings
New Goal: Read this in French