Challenge: 50 Books discussion

86. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

I read this book and fell in love with a woman named Janie. And I think given the chance she would have loved me back for I would never have wanted to change her. Zora Neale Hurston created this woman and for that I feel much obliged. I imagine Janie is back in Florida, sitting on her porch and telling jokes and laughing and playing games. And I would love to stumble on to her porch, grab a chair and play a game of checkers with her. Later we could go fishing.

She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, 'Ah hope you fall on soft ground,' because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed.

This is a story of real people, people that just jump off the page (or porch) and into your heart. Though the characters were African Americans in the early 20th century, I felt that they could have been any flavor of the human race in practically any century and in any place. Their zest for life was infectious. And their wisdom was overabundant. When told to keep a secret one woman simply says "Ah jus lak uh chicken. Chicken drink water, but he don't pee-pee".

One of the main characters of the story is the small town porch. Without the porch the story could not have been told. The porch was the heart of the community. It was a place to go to lift the spirits (and drink the spirits) and share the wonders of each day. Everyone should have a porch they can go to. I think the porch could be the answer to many of the world's problems (well, that, and bacon).

Zora Neale Hurston wrote this book in 7 weeks. She must of been a woman possessed because the tenor of the book is pitch-perfect.

Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered

That's just beautiful writing. And one of my favorite parts is when ZNH personifies the buzzards. I really did love Janie and I loved this book.

After reading Sutton E. Griggs and his "oh we are oppressed and must fight or die" and then Nella Larsen and her "woe is me for being neither black nor white", Zora Neale Hurston's joy of life in the face of adversity was a refreshing song.

87. Blood Meridian Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

Oh my goodness... This is a western novel that doesn't sanitize the west like the television shows Gunsmoke or Bonanza did. This novel peels off it's skin and pisses in it and drags it through bloody viscera, blackened ears, and spit. It's what I imagine part of the wild west was really about in the early/mid 1800's. And I'm glad I was conceived later in life.

What I do know is I wouldn't have survived one breath with that gang of scalp harvesters. I can't sleep when I'm cold. I like to take baths. Wearing another's blood unnerves me (not that I ever really wore blood before). I don't do well in the presence of someone losing limbs, especially heads. And I don't spit well. And you have to spit. And you have to spit at the right time and in the right place. Attitude is all about spitting. One wrong spit could get you killed.

So a gang of bad-asses roam the southwest collecting scalps from 'injuns' and anyone else they happen to kill. Imagine the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but more of them. Imagine the movie 'Natural Born Killers' with a whole bunch of Mickey and Mallory's set in the west...

The story follows the 'Kid', a 16 year old man, shot twice at the age of 15, and will more likely kill you than answer a simple question. He joins up with the scalp harvesters and ventures west towards the coast. Many things happen. Bloody and terrifying things.

And then there's the Judge, the hairless philosopher and all-round crazy man. If Satan is ruler of the earth, the Judge is surely Satan.

He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

Death can be creative. Death can come in many ways. And I believe McCarthy has described them all.

88. Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami

Civilization is transmission. When it comes to pass that things that should be expressed and transmitted get lost, civilization itself comes to an end. Click... Off.

I believe that the word should in Murakami's quote above from his book Hear the Wind Sing aka Happy Birthday and White Christmas makes this statement obviously subjective. And with that I question whether this book should have been written. Civilization would certainly have continued without it and indeed it did in the western countries (I'm assuming here) because this, his first book, was never published outside of Japan (again assuming again).

Written in the first person, a person with no name, the story follows this no-name person during a couple of weeks or so of his summer vacation while back in his hometown from Tokyo university. He drinks beer with his friend Rat, reminisces about past girlfriends, and sparks up a relationship with a new girl with nine fingers. Then he goes back to school. And thus civilization is saved by this nameless person chronicling his two weeks in a small town near the coast. Thank you. I like civilization, just wish it could be more civil.

The book did have great moments as does most of Murakami's books (ummm... assuming again since I haven't read ALL of his books). And if I continue with this review it will be longer than the book itself. It's short. Only 130 pages. And those pages are only 4 inches by 6 inches.

Here's a short conversation from this short book with his new nine fingered girlfriend...

"Last year, I dissected a cow."
"You what?"
"I slit open the belly, but all I found was a handful of matted grass in one of the stomachs. I put the grass in a plastic bag and took it home with me. Put it on my desk. Then whenever something went wrong, I'd just stare at that lump of grass and think. Why do cows chew and chew and regurgitate and rechew this disgusting stuff over and over again?"

Fun read. A few good moments. Nothing spectacular. It is his first. Civilization is declining.

89. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

A married man goes to the mountains during spring deep in the snow country, the north western mountain region of Japan. He is an idler. Wealthy. A city man from Tokyo. Coming down from the mountains and into a inn he meets a geisha and his soul is stirred. And though he revisits the inn during the years that follow, both he and the geisha know that the relationship is but a wasted effort.

Kawabata takes a simple relationship between a man and a woman and melds it into their natural environment and seasonal setting. They become the snow that falls, the turning maple leaf, the isolated village, the shadowy mountains, and in the end... the milky way. Reading Kawabata is reading poetry in prose. He is not about complicated plot lines. His books are not, and should not, be 'page turners'. They should be read slowly, each line savored... only then might you feel what it's like for the entire Milky Way to roar into your being.

I was in Kyoto last week and visited Takayama and the mountains surrounding that area. I brought with me Blood Meridian for the brutal contrast of time and place. Back home, Kawabata came to mind and I picked this book up and scenes from the book echoed some of the places I saw and experienced. When travels and fiction meet, a sort of magic occurs.


From behind the rock, the cedars threw up their trunks in perfectly straight lines, so high that he could see the tops only by arching his back. The dark needles blocked out the sky, and the stillness seemed to be singing quietly.


The air in the earthen-floored hallway was still and cold. Shimamura was led up a ladder before his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. It was a ladder in the truest sense of the word, and the room at the top was an attic... although there was but one low window, opening to the south...


"Listen! The crows. That frightening way they sometimes have. Where are they, I wonder? And isn't it cold!" Komako hugged herself as she looked up at the sky.


Following a stream, the train came out on the plain.

Wow! It's so amazing when a book becomes something more than a collection of words on paper (or on a screen), and makes itself at home in your life, becoming so entangled with a place or a time that one isn't the same without the other. Thanks for sharing these photos.

You're welcome Monica... before I would go out and search for the reality behind the words. This time I saw the reality first and picked the right book to illuminate it.

90. Yu Li Confessions of an Elevator Operator by Jimmy Qi

This guy, Yu Li, he works in an elevator. He pushes buttons. He's like a NASA astronaut. Elevator's are technical things. He also protects an A-list actor (although he doesn't know who he is), a B-list actress (although he doesn't know who she is), and a director (although he doesn't know who he is). So he's like a NASA astronaut and James Bond. He's also young, single, horny and has acne.

This is a short story novel showcasing one of China's promising new writers. The book is funny... and sad in it's portrayal of the most populace country in the world.

91. It's Not an All Night Fair by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I forget who said (want to think it was Pamuk), "Every man's death begins with the death of his father", but it is that quote that this book kept whispering in my head. This is a simple story, a sad story, a story of death... a son returns home to central Java to see his dying father and tries to find meaning in his father's life and in his own in a world that makes little sense.

I looked out of the window again. Rubber plantations followed, fast one after the other. Small towns which I often used to pass through before, I now passed through again. And scores of memories, some bitter, some pleasant, invaded my thoughts at their own will. And it was then that I realized: sometimes a man isn't strong enough to fight against his own memories. And I smiled at my realization. Yes, sometimes unconsciously man is too strong and drowns his own awareness. I smiled again.

-----

On this earth men aren't born into the world in swarms nor do they return to the earth in swarms. One by one they come. One by one they go. And those who have not gone anxiously await the moment when their souls will fly away to who knows where...

92. The Passport by Herta Müller

Herta Müller is the latest to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. That in itself does not ensure that her books are great. This book was a dud... it just sucked. A bunch of Germans live in Romania under Ceausescu's dictatorship and they want to move to Germany but can't get passports... well they can, it's just not easy. Whoring your daughter though is good for passports and it helps if your daughter was already a whore. Mother was too. And there's an owl that flies around informing the village of death. And a bunch of bleak, depressing images. And flour. And a church with it's door locked. And Windisch and his bicycle.

She writes this book kind of like a Dick and Jane book. Short sentences. To the point... for instance... There were grey cracks between the blinds. Amalie had a temperature. Windisch couldn't sleep. He was thinking about her chewed nipples.

It's a short book. Time wasted was short. It bored me. Bleakness is bleak. I hope her other books are better. I'll give her another chance. Herta looks cool. I credit her with coolness. I now end this review.

93. The Hawkline Monster A Gothic Western by Richard Brautigan

When reading Brautigan I just never know what's going to happen and when it happens I'm never sure what it is and sometimes things happen when I'm not reading the book because when I come back to the book it's different and I'm usually hungry.

Greer and Cameron, the man who counts, are wild west men. They're hired killers. So an Indian girl, Magic Child, hires them to kill a monster and in the process they fornicate a lot, drink tea, bury a dwarf, and set an elephant foot free. Really. This all happens... and more.

"I count a lot of things that there's no need to count," Cameron said. "Just because that's the way I am. But I count all the things that need to be counted."

A well-crafted book that unfolds like a piece of paper wadded in your pants pocket and washed a few times... I think. Some things may have happened while I was away.

94. Where All the Ladders Start A Novel by Ron Loewinsohn

Infidelity in high fidelity... that's this book. It's a beautiful book that you can hear as you read... sounds are used to propel the story.

David Lyman is a composer/conductor (and the main character in Loewinsohn's novel Magnetic Field(s)). He listens to the silence between sounds both in his music and in his life. Problem is... going through a mid-life crisis with a wife that creates a steady repetitive rhythm, a son beating to the sounds of punk, and a beautiful young musician blowing the flute (no pun intended... well intended a little bit but it's true) and idolizing him creates a noisy situation.

And when he had passed, the silence stitched itself back together again behind him.