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Pincher Martin

Pincher Martin by William Golding

Trade Paperback, 208 pages

Farber and Farber, 1956

ISBN: 9780571192519
(the cover of my copy is not pictured)

highly recommended

From the Publisher

The sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer is miraculously cast up on a huge, barren rock in mid-Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the night cold, and the terror of his isolation. At the core of this raging tale of physical and psychological violence lies Christopher Martin’s will to live as the sum total of his life.

My thoughts:

Wow. This is an incredibly odd book, but at the same time - incredible. Golding is an excellent writer and Pincher Martin uses every ounce of his skill as a wordsmith in this character study of a man facing an extreme struggle for survival, physically and mentally, after washing up on a rock in the mid-Atlantic. The psychological aspects of the situation are as dire as the physical circumstances, but Pincher Martin is a difficult character to sympathize with. Golding is continuing his exploration of the fallen nature of man. There is a surprise ending that will force you to reconsider what Golding was trying to convey. I think Pincher Martin requires more than one reading to more fully comprehend the final messages on the nature of man and perception of reality. Highly Recommended, but not for a casual reader.

Quotes:

He was struggling in every direction, he was the centre of the writing and kicking knot of his own body. There was no up or down, no light and no air. He felt his mouth open of itself and the shrieked word burst out.

"help!" opening

With the realization of the lifebelt a flood of connected images came back - the varnished board on which the instructions were displayed, pictures of the lifebelt itself with the tube and metal tit threaded through the tapes. Suddenly he knew who he was and where he was. pg 9-10

He put his hand before his eyes and saw nothing. Immediately the terror of blindness added itself to the terror of isolation and drowning. He began to make vague climbing motions in the water. pg. 12

Brown tendrils slashed across his face, then with a destroying shock he hit solidity. It was utter difference, it was under his body, against his knees and face, he could close fingers on it, for an instance he could even hold on. pg. 21-22

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Mass Market Paperback, 192 pages, including notes

G. P. Putnam Publishing, 1954

ISBN: 0399501487

reread; very highly recommended

The classic tale of a group of English school boys who are left stranded on an unpopulated island, and who must confront not only the defects of their society but the defects of their own natures.

My Thoughts:

Lord of the Flies is a reread. (I'm packing up books and have a whole little stack of books I've decided to reread during our packing and moving.) In the notes section of my book William Golding is quoted: "The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable. The whole book is symbolic in nature except .... in the end..." The Lord of the Flies is just as relevant today as it was when it was first published. Alas, human nature has not changed in the intervening years. Children are viewed as innocent. Golding use of children as the symbolic characters representing human nature is brilliant. We all have the capacity for good - and evil. (I love the cover of my copy of the book, which is pictured.) Very highly recommended

Quotes:

The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witchlike cry; and this cry was echoed by another. opening

"Aren't there any grownups at all?"

"I don't think so." pg. 6

He was old enough, twelve years and a few months, to have lost the prominent tummy of childhood and not yet old enough for adolescence to have made him awkward. You could see now that he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil. pg. 8

His ordinary voice sounded like a whisper after the harsh note of the conch. He laid the conch against his lips, took a deep breath and blew once more. The note boomed again: and then at his firmer pressure, the note, fluking up an octave, became a strident blare more penetrating than before. Piggy was shouting something, his face pleased, his glasses flashing. pg. 14

This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart. pg. 19

They knew very well why he hadn't: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the blood. pg. 27

"We're on an island. We've been on the mountain top and seen water all around. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We're on an uninhabited island with no other people on it." pg. 28

Disobedience

Disobedience by Jane Hamilton
Trade Paperback, 273 pages
Anchor Books, 2000
ISBN-13: 9780385720465

From the Publisher

From Jane Hamilton, author of the beloved New York Times bestsellers A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth, comes a warmly humorous, poignant novel about a young man, his mother's e-mail, and the often surprising path of infidelity.
Henry Shaw, a high school senior, is about as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge .... His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.
When he stumbles on his mother's e-mail account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the name Liza38, a name that Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour ....
Against his better judgment, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation, her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion....Over the course of his final year of high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what the knowledge will mean to each of them.
Henry's observations, set down ten years after that fateful year, are much more than the "old story" of adultery his mother deemed her affair to be. With her inimitable grace and compassion, Jane Hamilton has created a novel full of gentle humor and rich insights into the nature of love and the deep, mysterious bonds that hold families together.

My Thoughts:

Told by son Henry, ten years after the fact, Disobedience covers a year in the Shaw family during which time his mother is having an affair and his sister is entrench with being a Civil War re-enactor. Jane Hamilton is an excellent writer. It is a novel rich in character development as it observes the complexities of a family's dynamics and interpersonal relationships. But it's not all teenage angst and gloom. It is even humorous at times as it covers insightful events in the life of the Shaw family during that year. While Henry is perhaps a bit too obsessed with his mother, the point of the novel was him looking back and recounting the events of that year. Disobedience concludes that seemingly happy families are not always what they appear to be. People are disobedient. Highly recommended

Quotes:

Reading someone else's e-mail is a quiet, clean enterprise. There is no pitter-pattering around the room, no opening and closing the desk drawers, no percussive creasing as you draw the paper from the envelope and unfold it. There is no sound but the melody of the dial-up, the purity of the following Gregorian tones, and the sweet nihilistic measure of static. The brief elemental vibration that means contact. And then nothing. No smudge of ink, no greasy thumbprint left behind. In and out of the files, no trace. It could be the work of a ghost, this electronic eavesdropping. opening

But through most of the time I was living at home she was scornful of technology, stuck, as she was, in 1862 with her Civil War infantry regiment, the 11th Illinois. At a young age, much to my mother's sorrow, Elvira became a hardcore Civil War reenactor. pg.1

I can't say for certain what the first message revealed, or even whom she had written. Because it was not only messages from Richard Polloco and messages meant for Richard Polloco that I read during that time, but others too, e-mails that my mother wrote to her friend Jane, hundreds, thousands of words, to explain, to justify, to excuse herself. pg. 3

This is how our family was back then, not so long ago, less than a decade ago: Elvira Shaw, thirteen; myself, Henry Shaw, seventeen; Beth Gardener Shaw, thirty-eight; Kevin Shaw, forty-three. We had moved from a small town in Vermont to Chicago when I was fourteen. My parents seemed to feel that the upheaval, the trauma, of moving from one culture to another, from Mercury to Pluto, in effect, was worth it for all of our educations. I still ask myself regularly what it was, actually, that they were thinking. pg. 4

I was taken from Vermont before I could think to want to leave it myself, and so for me Wellington is the ideal, my old backyard there my deepest sense of home. pg. 6

My mother could never have homeschooled Elvira without losing her mind or harming her child, but she did recognize that her daughter would not fit the mold of a public school kindergartner. pg. 21

I knew when I was small that our worldly home was composed of the sun and the moon, the planets and the Shaws, the four of us holding together with a force that would not fail, would never cease. That knowledge was something so deep within myself it was usually unknown to me, doing its independent and vital work, much like the steady ticking of a heart. It is questionable, I think, whether it's better in the long run for a young person to have that kind of faith. pg. 23

"Elvira's developing a passion," he'd explain, "and it seems to me that it's probably immaterial what the passion is. All the while she's learning how to tackle an interest, she's learning how to find information she needs, and she's weaving that knowledge into her life in a way that feels useful to her." pg. 25

It is no secret, I don't think, that book clubs are formed so that women can quickly dismiss the novels they have sworn to read, moving on then into their real subjects, inexhaustible topics such as their midlife crises, their incipient menopause, motherhood, their own repressive mothers, and finally settling down to their favorite agenda item, marriage and men. pg. 30-31

There is probably very little either of my parents can add to the story except their own brand of confusion. They would ruin it with their perspective, their middle-aged wisdom. pg. 49

The Magician's Assistant

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

Trade Paperback, 357 pages

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

ISBN-13: 9780156006217

highly recommended

Synopsis from the cover:

When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine - who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years - learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the adventure she embarks upon, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her.

My Thoughts:

Sabine is assistant and friend to Parsifal the magician for over twenty years, and his widow for a year. Parsifal marries Sabine to ensure her security after his partner, Phan, dies. Then Parsifal dies suddenly of a brain aneurysm and Sabine discovers that Parsifal was really named Guy Fetters and the family he said died in Connecticut is actually alive and living in Nebraska. Parsifal's mother and sister come to L.A. to learn something about the son/brother they haven't seen for many years and Sabine later travels to Nebraska, learning family secrets and something about herself. Along the way, Sabine's dreams about Phan, and later Parsifal, help her not only mourn the loss of her friend (and husband in name only), but lead her to self discovery.

Patchett is a talented writer and has a way of telling a story that really appeals to me. Her dialogue seems simple, but is cunningly realistic. Her characters have flaws, although in The Magician's Assistant, the deceased Parsifal and Phan are rather idealized. Patchett's writing shows respect for the complexities and nuances in her imperfect characters. We feel empathy as Sabine grieves and tries to learn about Parsifal's family. The ending wasn't entirely satisfactory, but it does make sense in the context of the whole novel. Highly Recommended

Quotes:

PARSIFAL IS DEAD. That is the end of the story. opening

Wasn't suffering exactly the thing she had been afraid of? That he would go like Phan, lingering in so many different kinds of pain, his body failing him in unimaginable ways--hadn't she hoped for something better for Parsifal? If he couldn't have held on to his life, then couldn't he at least have had some ease in his death? That was what had happened. Parsifal's death had been easy. pg 4

The night Phan died, Sabine had thought the tragedy was knowing that Parsifal would die, too, that there was only a limited amount of time. But now Sabine knew the tragedy was living, that there would be years and years to be alone. pg. 6

"I do love you." Parsifal said he wanted Sabine to be his widow. And Sabine deserved to be married. she had been in love with Parsifal since she was nineteen, since that first night at the Magic Hat.... She had been a waitress at the Hat, but on that night she became his assistant.... pg. 10

After the funeral Sabine moved downstairs to Phan and Parsifal's room. She slept in their bed. She pushed her head beneath their feather pillows. pg. 14

"Parsifal's name wasn't Petrie. It was Guy Fetters. Guy Fetters has a mother and two sisters in Nebraska. As far as I can tell the father is out of the picture - either dead or gone, I'm not sure which." ..... "There was a letter in his will. He wanted me to tell his family about his death. He's set up a trust fund for them, the mother and the sisters. You're not going to miss the money. The bulk of the estate is yours." pg. 23

Movie Dude- Emo Arnold Edition

Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines, 2003

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken





They Live, 1988

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George "Buck" Flower

Quotes:

Movie Dude: Arnold's gone emo.

Just Me: I bet he sits alone in his room and writes sad poetry.

Arnold in T-3: "Anger is more useful than despair."

Just Me: Take that to heart, Emo Arnold.

Arnold in T-3: "If you were to die, I will become useless. There will be no reason for me to exist."

Just Me: Arnold's being all emo again.

----
From They Live: "Life's a bitch and she's back in heat."
----

Later, speaking of hairy men, and more specifically Sean Connery:

Movie Dude: And then he says, "Shave me down my butlers." And then he gets all naked....

Movie Dude: That's right, Just Me - all your fantasies will come true.

Just Me: What fantasies?

Movie Dude: I don't know your fantasies.

The Likeness

The Likeness by Tana French

Trade Paperback, 466 pages

Penguin, 2008

ISBN-13: 9780143115625
highly recommended, but...

Synopsis from cover:

Six months after a particularly nasty case, Detective Cassie Maddox has transferred out of Dublin's Murder squad and has no plans to go back. That is, until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene.

It's only when she sees the body that Cassie understands the hurry. The victim, a young woman, is Cassie's double and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used on an undercover job. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl but, more importantly, who is this girl? And as reality and fantasy become desperately tangled, Cassie moves dangerously close to losing herself forever.

My Thoughts:

While French is an excellent writer there were just too many implausible things happening in The Likeness that you had to accept in order to make the novel work. The biggest and first unconvincing event being that an undercover officer not only looks like a murder victim, but looks like her enough that she can actually pass as her while with a group of intimate friends who all live together. It would be different if she was trying to pass as the victim among acquaintances. As the novel continues there are other occurrences that also simply defy belief. If you can overlook all the unbelievable elements and plod through the slow parts, The Likeness is suspenseful. The ending is certainly more satisfying than In the Woods. I'm torn on this one. I enjoyed it, but while reading it I kept thinking the premise was too improbable.

Highly recommended - if you can overlook the implausible

Quotes:

Some nights, if I'm sleeping on my own, I still dream about Whitethorn House. In the dream it's always spring, cool fine light with a late-afternoon haze. opening

This is Lexie Madison's story, not mine. I'd love to tell you one without getting into the other, but it doesn't work that way. I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pulled the stitches tight and I could unpick them any time I wanted. Now I think it always ran deeper than that and farther underground; out of sight and way beyond my control. pg. 3

In every way that mattered, we lost and we lost big. Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out. Some cases - ask any cop - are malignant and incurable, devouring everything they touch. pg. 9

For a second I was confused - Sam lied? - because I knew her from somewhere. I'd seen that face a million times before. Then I took a step forwards, so I could get a proper look and the whole world went silent, frozen, darkness roaring in from the edges and only the girl's face blazing white at the center; because it was me. pg. 18

"We've got the chance," he said, taking his time, "we've got the chance to place an experienced undercover officer smack in the middle of a murder victim's life." pg. 25

I found out early that you can throw yourself away, missing what you've lost. pg. 34

Students and very young people can rent with no damage to their intellectual freedom, because it puts them under no threat: they have nothing, yet, to lose.... It's because they're here so lightly: they haven't yet accumulated loves and responsibilities and commitments and all the things that tie us securely to this world.... But as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever. All of a sudden you're playing for keeps, as children say, and it changes the very fabric of you. pg. 339