25 July 2013 Kerala Commentary
Earnest Hemingway a boring novelist? Which others are there?
In Language, Literature and Criticism http://lnkd.in/EcXijh
Started by Lampard Lee.
'I have finished reading the Hemingway's novel, a farewell to arms, not having deep impressions for this book. Could anyone give me some personal comments on this novel and recommend other ones?'
P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum• If a book does not captivate you before it is the second page, do not bother to read it. Many famous novels, including Earnest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms, Dostoyevsky's House Of The Dead and Crime And Punishment, and Henri Charrière's Papillon had this kind of inability to hold readers, at least in my opinion. But if one decides to finish them however boring they may be to go through, and however dreary the passages in them be, it has to be admitted that these literary works certainly are rewarding, in uplifting and cleansing the soul of a persistent reader- the reason for their illogical popularity. If we are bold enough to tell it, like Mr. ….did it here, we can see that the popularity of such novels shall not hinder us from voicing our dislike. If we hesitate to express our dissatisfaction, as a reader who is also a critic, we are falling into a fallacy. The number of such boring famous novels is unbelievable. Thomas Hardy's The Return Of The Native have also created such impulses in readers. I think, it is likely, this discussion might list them all here. Regarding Hemingway, The Old Man And The Sea seems less boring.
Regarding : I want to add Vanity Fair into the list.
P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum • So, it is another book added here, Thackerey's Vanity Fair. It would be very interesting to know which are the other books which dissuade readers from reading them. Readers have their rights just as writers have theirs. If a reader does not like a book, he has the right and should have the independence to tell it so. No one can compel a person to like a book.
P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum • The First World War was a great time for testing the spine and courage of the intellectuals of the first and the second decades of the twentieth century. Responding to the horrors of this war and criticizing the need for this war would generally make them considered as traitors to their nation and alienate them from government, media, other intellectuals, politicians, generals and most of the people. It may also lead to arrest and incarceration and burning of their books. That was why there was not much voice raised by writers in the beginning years of the war. Children of the world were frightened and terrified at the daily news. They began to consider grown up people including their fathers, uncles, neighbours, teachers and whoever grown ups they knew as weak, timid and evil siblings, responsible for the torments they suffered in the war. They sensed that the grown ups will leave behind only misery and a sad life for them children. Their confidence in people, society, mankind and humanity was shattered. A few intellectuals of the world, in those times, were conscious of this bad situation and began to respond boldly, the first ever response and criticism coming from Britain, in the form of H.G.Wells. Then there was Romaine Rolland from France and Maxim Gorky from Russia. A Farewell To Arms was an American response to this war, which came in the form of perhaps the first American war novel, from Ernest Hemingway. Everyone agrees that it is a very bleak novel but the fact that the book published in 1929 was an attempt of criticism at Italy’s military imperialism by an active participant in the war, and condemns war as its borrowed title indicates, cannot be ignored. It indeed was censored by the fascist administration of Italy and was not permitted to be published in Italy until 1948 when the war was over. Even its illegal Italian translator of 1943, a lady, was arrested by military police.
Regarding the comment, ‘I have read The Old Man and the Sea and though it is fairly short, I found it terribly boring. I couldn't understand what made it so popular. There is another novel that fits the criteria here, though it is far from short; it's George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss.
P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum • When characters in a novel do not rise up to our expectations, we will be tempted to beat them for remaining still in the lower rung of human performance or the writer for spoiling and weakening a character which could have been cast more capable of doing the things he does. We will even think about deflowering that book, so that anyone else won't happen to read it again. This is because we have read and are familiar with so many powerful characters in literature, like Jean Val Jean and the Count of Monticristo. After reading Tarzan, even Phantom appears a weakling. Presence of Sherlock Holmes was what made Agatha Christy’s detectives unadmirable and created the general consensus that women are incapable of conceiving brilliant criminal plots and crime detection stories. George Elliot’s Silas Marner was the only one to survive this somewhat general consensus, and that was because of the unusual skill in conceiving drama the authoress displayed in that novel. Modern readers, after reading Robert Ludlum, think why the characters are not using modern weapons and gadgetry like Jason Bourne, fly jets and cross continents in a sweep. Some writers will have to portray the life of weaklings and tell the story of how the drabness and dullness in their lives lead to their missing opportunities and golden chances for success. Like creating brave and quick-responding characters as models for others to follow in real life, the life of weak and slow responding characters also will have to be told by writers as models who never shall be imitated in real life by anyone. When we say this, hundreds of characters from many novels will suddenly rush towards us, asking us if we called them. It is not the literary taste of a reader that makes a character dull, uninteresting and unnecessary, but the drabness in real life around the writer which he intends to tell truthfully. We can ask ourselves whether Charles Dickens’ characters also were not leading such miserable lives, but Dickens added drama and colour to his plots to make them interesting and lovable. It is the insistence of a writer’s unwillingness to sacrifice truth for colour and drama that results in such dull characters, novels and writers.
Regarding: ‘I love the image of hundreds of literary characters rushing toward us and asking if we called them. That's the feeling we get in a good library or bookshop. Can't happen on the internet.’
P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum • It's at a library that thousands and thousands of characters wait on us, waiting for our call, to be summoned to entertain us. To an experienced and trained reader, it is not books that are sitting there but characters sitting on row after row of shelves, racks and almirahs, characters with whom the world has laughed and wept, sitting there waiting to be called in their turn. Not that is the experience we have in a book shop where only the hot and fast books are displayed and sold. Nor will we get any sequestered place there for reading, even if we are permitted to read too much. Those books in a book shop may be accepted by many coming generations or discarded by the very next generation, but those in the library are the world's time-tested companions and friends. Suppose a person with a fifty years' life experience writes a book which we will take five days to read. We get fifty years' life experience within five days. Think how many years' life experience can we acquire in our life time by continuously reading books! Also think about how many years' life experience is stored in a library in the form of books!! Why is the smell of a library sweet to those who love books? Even after reading thousands of books, this smell does not tire us, or this characteristic smell ever leaves us- the smell of varnish, paper, carbon, gum and press. Libraries are a good place for consolation also. When we are stricken with grief, we go to a library and read, and soon we would be laughing with the characters. An excessively happy man will occasionally find himself weeping with his characters also. When we take home two or three books from the library, we are assured that our next week would be interesting and peaceful for us in our home. It is after experimenting too much that typographers have designed those beautiful prints for books which do not tire our eyes. Have anyone ever thought what appeals most in a book to a viewer? It is their perfectly rectangular shape. Had they been produced in the square or in an oval, they might not have become this much popular and this much pleasing to see. Hard bound volumes do not please us as equally as paperbacks which can be read sitting, standing, walking or lying. If we try to read a hard bound while lying in our bed and if it falls from our hand, our sternum will be broken. That accounts for the popularity of paperbacks. Since a manager of the Oxford University Press invented India Paper in 1875 which made thin paper opaque with liberally sprewn silicon, books became immensely lighter and Shakespeare's collected works can now be held propped up in just three fingers. If we do not read but sit in a library just observing, the things we observe are countless. We know a great author who passed away holding a book. Alfred Lord Tennyson was found dead on the Sixth of October 1892 at midnight, lying on his bed, the full moon falling on his face, with a Shakespeare in his hand. Sure, it was not hard bound.
Who contributed to the discussion:
Lampard Lee, Nada Adel Sobhi, Ellora chaudhuri, Sandy Schachter, and your editor, P S Remesh Chandran Trivandrum.
Note:
There are several learned, informative and interesting comments in this discussion. To see the original discussion page in Linked In, this link can be used. Link: http://lnkd.in/EcXijh. Due to Linked In policy of protection of privacy, only Linked In members can view the profiles pages of those writers, editors and publishers who contributed to this discussion. If you have a Linked In account you can use it or you can create one using this link. Thank you for reading through this discussion.
Posted In Language, Literature and Criticism
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25 July 2013 Kerala Commentary