Book #559

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

Oran is a small town like any other; populated by people who seem to be engaged in a busy nothingness.  Happy in their everyday life, not overly spectacular in one way or another.  Then one day rats start showing up in frightening numbers, dead or dying in a horrific manner.  It isn’t long before this sickness spreads to the human population and soon this town is shut off from the rest of the world, quarantined and left to deal with it on their own.  Our anonymous narrator attempts to report the events in an observational and unbiased manner and is successful in their reporting but is not entirely able to remove the element of human nature; the fear, the desperation to return to normality and absent loves, the despair at death and too, the prevailing nature of humanity itself.

Albert Camus was a  Nobel laureate, philosopher and contemporary of that other famous literary philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre.  This allegorical tale is a platform on which Camus is able to present his main philosophical ideals, key of which is that of man seeking to find meaning and significance in his life and finding none.  That is not to say that a life without meaning is all for nothing, but that being happy in your life and the way that you live it should be reward enough and does not need any further significance attributed to it.  These ideas are laid out clearly.  In fact many of Camus’ philosophies are put directly into our narrator’s mouth:

But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over-importance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature.  For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule.  The narrator does not share that view.  The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding   On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point.  But they are more or less ignorant and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill .  The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.

The allegory of The Plague is that of Nazi Germany’s invasion of France, Oran being France and the plague itself being the Nazi occupation that effectively cut France off from the rest of the world for a time, of which Camus lived through.  This is an interesting premise to set, that of isolation in terror, because Camus is able to use it to demonstrate his philosophies, those developed based on his own observation.  It is an interesting setting to observe just what men and women do to cope and continue on.  There is almost a dismissive tone in describing the residents of Oran before the plague hit, almost condescendingly stating that their happiness is mundane and based on ignorance of anything better.  But what comes out of their ordeal is an acceptance of what has happened, that there is nothing or no one to blame and that death is unavoidable for everyone.  They may survive the plague but in the end everyone dies.  That it is the idea of community, finding comfort in those suffering along side you and doing what you can to comfort them in return.

The enjoyment I got from this book was actually reading it alongside reading of Camus’ ideas and philosophies.  From here it would be good to move onto some of Sartre’s work and others from our more modern philosophers. At a very basic level, this is an interesting story, relevant even now with flu pandemics being touted every cold season.  A reader would be hard-pressed not to come away with food for thought, which in my personal opinion, is what a great book should do.

Book #446

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

Martin Gibbon-Lynch is a 4o-ish wine seller, who is married to ageing beauty Antonia.  While not entirely overjoyed in the marriage, Martin is content and assumes Antonia is as well.  Despite having his own mistress on the side, Martin is destroyed when Antonia announces that she is leaving him for their psychoanalyst friend, Palmer Anderson.   This move sets of a chain of a bed-hopping, partner-swapping search for happiness and sense of self.

This satirical novel written in 1961 came at a time when Britain was moving into a period of sexual freedom.  Our characters are well educated and seemingly well moneyed as well.  They are trying to shake off  their society’s moral dictates in pursuit of what they think will make them happy.  This is not as successful as they would hope as they love then leave and swap a number of times.  I wish I could draw a diagram for you all, without completely spoiling the story.  It was this aspect that kept the story highly entertaining, particularly as a lot of the “moves” came as a complete surprise for me.  This became more important as the characters became  more unlikeable and my sympathy for them waned.  Martin in particular, displays old-fashioned attitudes towards having a wife and a mistress and then becomes enthralled with his wife again only after finding out she is leaving him. Even when Antonia and Palmer out their relationship, Martin doesn’t disclose his relationship with Georgie, his mistress, only for it to be discovered later on.  As Martin himself says;

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.

A forward thinking and brave novel for its time, Murdoch was not afraid to ramp it up with incest and abortion thrown in for measure.  Yet there is still a lightness, a humour about it all.  As if to say, look at these people, so silly in their machinations.  Because in their attempt to live their own lives, to live more freely and truthfully to their own instincts,  it all becomes apparent that this is just a contrivance for justifying bad behaviour.  Perhaps that these people are able to give so much effort and thought to these problems because they have no other concerns.  They are wealthy, they are educated, they are healthy and attractive.

This being my first Murdoch, I am happy to not make it my last. Very witty and bitingly insightful wrapped in an entertaining and fun story, Iris Murdoch has a new fan in me.

Book #27

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

I too am aware of being in incestuous waters, a woman writer who is writing about a woman writer who is writing …  We may pretend otherwise, but to many writers this is the richest territory we can imagine… This matters, the remaking of an untenable world through the nib of a pen; it matters so much I can’t stop doing it.

Unless is the last novel from Pulitzer Prize winner Shields, written shortly before her death in 2003, and is often claimed as her most personal.  Reta Winters is a writer,  living a charmed life of moderate professional success, loving family life and a full and supportive circle of friends.  When her eldest daughter decides to abandon her studies, family and friends for life on a street corner, holding up a sign saying only “goodness”, Reta brings her writerly contemplation to bear on the situation and its repercussions on her life.

Told from Reta’s perspective, the story of daughter Norah and her withdrawal from society is a vehicle in which Shields is able to voice her opinions on being a female, particularly a female writer.  Incestuous waters indeed.  There is a ongoing comment about female literature, how it is compartmentalised and trivialised, Reta often writing imaginary letters to convey her strong opinions on the subject.  But what does this have to do with a daughter who does nothing but hold up her sign of “goodness”?  The link is of her removal being Norah’s giving over the power in a sense of helplessness does relate to Reta’s musings on the subject, but her role in this story itself is trivialised.  The catalyst itself that feels rendered secondary to what feels like what Shields is trying to say rather than what it has evoked in the character of Reta.

This is important stuff, not only to Reta or even to Shields.  I did not find out that this was the author’s last book, written so close to her time of death until I had finished the book but there is the feeling that this is something that she really felt needed to be said about her profession and her role as a female writer in it.  The feeling of personal really is the correct description for this book.  At times I felt that this message of dismissing the power of feminine literature uncomfortable, the message too unflinching.  But learning more about Shields has leant a lot of credibility to it as well.  She was a noted Jane Austen fan and also wrote a biography before her death.  As a Pulitzer Prize winning female author, and a student and fan of one of the most visible female authors ever, these thoughts were obviously something she needed to say before she died, something she had to say on behalf of herself and those female writers who came before and to those who have and will come after.

I almost dismissed this novel as one of a display of great writing but one where the story was lost for the main agenda of its author.  I was reading to find out about Norah, what caused her self-exile and what would happen to her eventually.  And the reader is given these things albeit as a secondary to the main message.  But the message is powerful, so-much-so that this inexperienced part-time blogger feels too inadequate to properly convey.  One of the most important things I have read in a long time.