An Old Friend

I have four volumes of W. Somerset Maugham's short stories that at one point I read through enthusiastically. In our reading group we read his Of Human Bondage and Cakes and Ale. So when I recently picked up The Moon and Sixpence it seemed more like visitng with an old friend. It wasn't until I was almost at the end of the book that I realized that it might be related to the life of Paul Gaughin - and it is. Although in this fictionalized biography the artist Charles Strickland is English instead of French.

What a hateful character Strickland is. Is it really necessary for an artist in pursuit of his vision of Beauty to be so thoroughly despising and abusive of his fellow humans? This is a perfect example of a book for which you can dislike the main character but like the book. What I really like about the book is the language. If you have ever been to Tahiti you really should read chapter 45 of this book. It will transport you there in an instant.

My only problem is that the narrator (speaking for Maugham?) seems to have a very low opinion of women. Not just the women in this story but the comments on the nature of women in general are far from flattering. Nevertheless...

Apparently Mario Vargas Llosa has also written a fictionalized account of the life of Gaughin: The Way to Paradise. It would be interesting to compare the two. No doubt the truth about Gaughin lies somewhere else still.

The Radetsky March

The Radetzky March, Opus 288 is an exuberant march written by Johann Strauss Sr. in 1848. If you think you've never heard it, you're probably wrong – listen to this rendition and I bet you'll recognize it. Note also that the audience automatically begins to clap in unison – it's a tradition that dates back to the march's origins when Austrian soldiers spontaneously clapped and stomped when it was played (thank you, Wikipedia).

Joseph Roth wrote The Radetzky March in 1932, as the fascist movement was gaining strength in Europe. His novel looks backward somewhat nostalgically at the decline of the Hapsburg Empire and the parallel decline of the von Trotta family. The entire story hinges on a single incident in 1859, when the young Slovenian infantry lieutenant Joseph Trotta saves the life of the equally young Kaiser Franz Josef of Austria at the Battle of Solferino in Italy. His heroism is rewarded with a barony and a promotion; he becomes Captain Joseph Trotta von Sipolje. 

Now a member of the aristocracy, the captain is distanced from his peasant father (“his father was separated from him by a heavy mountain of military ranks”). Embittered by the misrepresentation of his heroic act in a patriotic children's book, he directs his son Franz away from a military career into a civil service position as a district captain. But Franz, seduced by the strains of the Radetzky March and the legend of his war hero father, sends his son Carl Joseph to a lieutenant's life in a prestigious cavalry regiment. 

All this happens in the first fifty pages. The remainder of the book traces the paths of Franz, Carl Joseph, the emperor and the empire itself. The individual incidents in Carl Joseph's life seem mundane in themselves, and yet a sense of foreboding and inevitability hangs over his story. Even the minor characters, who seem three dimensional in their ordinariness, each add a layer to sense of disintegration that Roth builds. The respect and admiration that the father feels for the aging emperor, wonderfully portrayed as a doddering but sympathetic old man, is not shared by the son, who begins to see only vacant eyes in the emperor's portraits. The morale and cohesiveness of the army itself seems to be disintegrating in parallel to Carl Joseph. Even as the soldiers anticipate the upcoming war they sense their doom. 

Lieutenant Trotta's betrayal of the kindly Jewish Doctor Demant haunts him as his military career falters. Did Roth foresee his own and Austria's future in this incident? Less than a year after his book was published, Joseph Roth fled Germany for Paris, and his works were burnt by the Nazis. If you had known that in advance, would it have changed the way you experienced this book? What is Roth saying about fathers and sons? There are so many, including a number of father figures. In a book almost devoid of female characters, what role do you think the episode with Frau Slama played?

As a footnote, I'd be really interested to learn which translation you read. Mine was by Joachim Neugroschel, and I've seen references to ones by Michael Hofmann and Geoffrey Dunlop. In general it was a clear but formal style with a few odd exceptions. In Chapter 19, in the scene where news of the assassination in Sarajevo is delivered to the regiment party (wasn't that a great scene, with the storm rumbling in the distance and the military bands playing?), there's this description of the footman: “Although a sensible and enlightened middle-aged man, he suddenly got the creeps in this vestibule”. Got the creeps? I'd love to hear about other translations of that line.

Reading Aids

I have recently come across two items that I think fit under the "All Things Reading" category and I thought I would share them.

For those of us not yet owners of a Kindle or a Nook, there is another way to read books on a smart phone or a computer through DailyLit. The site has a selection of over 900 books. Once you select a book and provide an email address you will receive the book in installments. You can review the books by Title, Author, Category or Length of Book (Dickens might take months). You can select the frequency of installments (daily, weekdays, selected days, etc.). You can adjust the length of the installment, the font and font size. The site also has forums to discuss the books, ask questions about the books, etc. And it's all free. I think this would work best on a smart phone or a netbook, on the bus to work, in a cafe with a cup of coffee. I signed up to read The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Turgenev in 21 installments. One more reason to get that Droid phone now!

I am a faithful reader of David Pogue's column in the Thursday print edition of the New York Times. On the last day of the year he gave out his Pogie awards for the best tech ideas of the year. This is what he had to say for one of them:

"READABILITY The single best tech idea of 2009, though, the real life-changer, has got to be Readability. It’s a free button for your Web browser’s toolbar (get it at lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability). When you click it, Readability eliminates everything from the Web page you’re reading except the text and photos. No ads, blinking, links, banners, promos or anything else. Times Square just goes away.

You wind up with a simple, magazine-like layout, presented in a beautiful font and size (your choice) against a white or off-white background with none of this red-text-against-black business.

You occasionally run into a Web page that Readability doesn’t handle right — no big deal, just refresh the page to see the original. But most of the time, Readability makes the world online a calmer, cleaner, more beautiful place.

Go forth and install it."

How great is that! Enjoy.

The Raj Orphan

Old Filth – not exactly an appealing title. But as is explained on the first page of Jane Gardam's novel, 'Filth' is the name Sir Edward Feathers has invented for himself - Failed In London, Try Hong Kong. He has had a successful and lucrative career as a barrister and a judge in the Far East, and has now retired to Dorset with his wife Betty.

But Old Filth's retirement is not a tranquil one. As he reminisces about his life, Gardam flashes back to scenes of Filth's childhood in Malay, where, after his mother dies in childbirth, his grieving, alcoholic father leaves him to the care of the wet nurse and then ships him off to England at the age of six as a 'Raj Orphan'. At the time (the 30's – before World War II) it was apparently common for British families living in the Far East to send their young children back to England to live with foster families and then be sent to boarding schools. The idea was to save them from tropical diseases and prepare them for service to the Empire. Sounds harsh, but that's the English for you.

The story jumps back and forth between Filth's memories of his childhood and young adulthood (including as stint as a sort of security guard and companion for Queen Mary during the war) and his present day travels around England to try to resolve the turbulent emotions which hide under his 'stiff upper lip' exterior. Anyone who has ridden on the M roads in the UK will have to laugh at his motoring adventures. But his attempts to connect and come to terms with past are poignant and powerful.

Sir Edward Feathers can be snobbish, cold, and misanthropic (he can't remember the name of the maid who has worked for him for twenty years) but in Gardam's hands he becomes a sympathetic character whose loneliness is heartbreaking.I had already admired Jane Gardam's writing in "The Queen of the Tambourine" (see blog) and I now look forward to her “The Man in the Wooden Hat”, where she tells the story of Edward's marriage from his wife Betty's perspective.

PS Don't forget our round table discussion of The Radetzky March next week. There's much to talk about – fathers and sons, the simultaneous declines of an empire and a family, historical parallels.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!