The sky is falling.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on January 11, 2010 by litterbury

So full disclaimer: I’m not loaded up with fancy degrees, despite all the book learnin’ that goes on around these parts.

I’m an armchair English major, just as I’m an armchair art historian.  I’m an amateur chef, and budding windowbox farmer, and the biggest politician to ever grace my own living room.  I also happen to be something of a budding economist, which is a timely pursuit given the national condition right now.

I’ve been yammering elsewhere about the economy, but I haven’t made a sustained and coherent argument yet, so one is definitely in order.

First, a bit of a background check.

Roughly three, maybe four years ago I began telling people that the New Great Depression was coming; if only then I had a blog.

Granted the economy was murky then, and one could make a case that things were pretty lousy ever since the first of the second Bush administrations began.  That was a period where the Republican party abandoned every key cornerstone of their political philosophy regarding fiscal restraint and small government in favor of gushing excess.  It left our two-party government no longer operational under appropriate checks and balances and it severely weakened the country as a result.

Whether you disliked him or not, Bill Clinton could count one of the biggest political and economic accomplishments in our country’s history under his tenure: the national debt got paid off, and with a surplus to boot.  That was no minor thing, and whether he could even be credited directly for such an accomplishment didn’t really matter.  He was the one running the show at the time and the buck stopped with him; the Clinton years really were a time of relative peace and prosperity, and that was even a selling point that Hillary Clinton used on the 2008 campaign trail in her own bid for the presidency.

2008 was, in fact, the year of the Democrat.  It was a very exciting year because of the general election, and because both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running for president, as the first African-American and female contenders, respectively, and the country was clearly poised to rally behind one of the candidates in a national rebuff to the Republican party’s lack of discipline.

I supported Hillary Clinton during the 2008 California primary.  I liked her tough-as-nails image, her lovable wonky side and I really believed that she was going to come back stronger than ever and deliver national healthcare reform as she kicked in the White House front doors.  She didn’t win, so I’m not going to talk about her.

It was Barack Obama who won, and while I do like the guy, he makes it hard for me to really love him, and I’m surprised that the qualities that kept me at bay during the ‘08 primary are now so widely apparent as he sits in the oval office.  During his campaign, he and his team took a wait and see approach to everything they did, which didn’t instill much confidence in me.  I also didn’t like refrains of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ because I’ve followed politics for far too long and am jaded as a result.  It was, however, a welcome relief to see him get into office, and to see Bush packing up for the ranch.  He didn’t deliver a good, swift kick in the ass to Bush, which would have delighted me, but the changing of the guard couldn’t have happened soon enough.

So I’m not going to rant, but I now have complaints, since Obama and his administration grossly fumbled with healthcare reform, as handing over a blank tablet for congress to scribble on was like tossing cows over to sharks.  There has also been a complete stall on gay rights, and the administration appears bothered and squeamish should the issue even be brought up.  So I’m dissatisfied and disappointed, though unsurprised.

But there have been a few successes.

Watching Michelle Obama grab a shovel and move ground on a genuine victory garden on the white house lawn pleased both the environmentalist and the foodie in me at once, just as I’m sure it pleased Bay Area chef and activist Alice Waters who had lobbied for such a thing for years.  It seems small to talk about the garden, but it sets a very positive example for the rest of the country and could (and should) inspire everyone to do the same.  It offers quite a bit of leverage in putting some power back into the hands of people, both from a preventative health standpoint and for some much needed economic relief.

And believe it or not, President Obama also did right by the economy as well.  Nobody was comfortable with the possibility of throwing piles of cash at a growing economic hole, but miracle of miracles, it worked, and kept the country from seeing a genuine financial collapse.  Credit also goes to to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve and Tim Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, two people that nobody really wanted to support.  Together they all delivered a real safety net to halt the country’s financial free-fall, and while it lasted, it worked.

That financial free-fall I mention began years ago, though it would go relatively undetected, but became noticeable and mainstream in mid to late 2007, and accelerated into 2008.  That was the period in which two very big Wall Street names went belly up: Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers.  While Bear Sterns was rumored to be having major troubles and even mismanagement, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was seen as something of a shocker, and it very loudly announced that a recession was indeed underway if anyone could still stand foolishly to deny it.  That period also seemed to usher in a snowball effect that took down other banks in the process, necessitating a government bailout to prevent a massive financial breakdown.  Toss in a weakening dollar, rising unemployment and then a full-blown housing crisis and it became vastly apparent that this was going to be no ordinary recession.  Two operational wars and a growing federal deficit added insult to injury; and then even individual states were going bankrupt.

The Great Recession was clearly in effect, but I was relieved to see that real action was taking place and things appeared to slow down.  I was humbled, but satisfied to see that my bold, Paul Revere style warnings had been little more than Chicken Little scurrying around the hay.  I called for a New Great Depression, and was happy that it didn’t show.

Until now.

A couple of days ago I came across a few articles that crunched out unemployment data and struggled to squeeze it into percentages and figures.  The claim in the articles, and has been for some time, that the unemployment rate is at, or around 10%; I would disagree with that, but more on that in a second.  The recent articles also had a curious new revelation in which there were ‘monthly’ unemployment numbers that were juggling 17% for a monthly unemployment rate; around 17% for both October and December, if I recall.

This is where the armchair economist in me goes on full display, perhaps, much in the way that scientists toy around philosophically with the Doomsday Clock ticking towards midnight.  I’ve actually been playing with numbers on this matter almost as some sort of new little parlor game, and I always feel confident that national unemployment is situated at 13 to 15%.  The numbers change, sometimes I hold things accountable that I didn’t before, and things alter depending on different articles for different days, but I always feel good about 13 to 15% being the magic numbers.

Now the ‘monthly’ assessment of 17% is cause for concern, and directly puts the assumed national unemployment average of 10% into serious question.

First of all, I find it very hard to believe that unemployment is still kicking around 10% month after month even as a ‘monthly’ average would consistently offer up a rather high number of 17%.  Those monthly averages are not static.  17% from one month to another does not equate stability, and would indicate that even if that percentage is the same, it still is making a case that unemployment keeps rising, and dramatically at that.  If unemployment keeps rising, then there is no reasonable basis to assume that we’re dealing with a 10% national unemployment rate.  This puts me back into confidence with my own fantasy lottery sweepstakes numbers of 13 to 15%.

Then there is another thing.

All the articles that bring up the 17% figure do so by folding in people who are part-time but looking for, or, accustomed to full-time work, and probably people who have given up looking for work out of frustration and are no longer being tracked by the Feds or the experts.  I always make room for the frustrated people who have given up looking for work, as until they find a job, they’re still unemployed in my book.  My 13 to 15% figures are essentially a running (and growing) tally akin to tossing more wood on the pile, part of the reason I feel more confident with my own estimates versus others.

I have a really big issue with including the part-time, wannabe full-time workers, however.  I mean, seriously? Are real world economists actually counting reasonably employed people as unemployed? Who wouldn’t want a dependable full-time position right now? It was within my understanding that if you even have a job pushing a broom you should be kissing the sweet-ass floor in that it meant you could actually claim to be working for a paycheck.  And is this a kosher, even common practice in the economic world? I thought unemployed meant out of work with no prospects, perhaps with qualifying factors of being poor, hungry and no money in the bank.  Granted, that doesn’t even address people who are employed and still having severe financial issues, but that’s a whole other mess.

During the Great Depression that lasted from 1929 to about 1940, national unemployment achieved a staggering 25%.  I had always just assumed that the 25% were fully out of work legal adults, but I wonder; in economic circles what qualifies or defines unemployed, and who exactly made up the 25% from the depression past?

That’s worth digging up because if I had to factor in another couple of percentage points to put my unemployment numbers in the same league as the experts, then my 13% very comfortably becomes 15%, and my 15% percent grows even higher.  High enough to 17%? Maybe.  That wouldn’t be a ‘monthly’ jobless estimate, either, but a baseline level of national unemployment; which is scary.

I’m also curious about what this strange monthly number is in relation to the assumed 10% that keeps getting bandied about.  I’m suspicious that there is the throwaway 10% of losers who should just give up hope, and that there is this revolving-door total that goes up and down on a monthly basis that is viewed and treated independently even though it shouldn’t be.  To put it bluntly, that there is the 10% sitting in Hell, and the added monthly numbers that somehow qualify as Purgatory.

And I’m still baffled as to how unemployment can seemingly sit still at 10% and yet with job losses trending at anything higher than zero on a continuing basis.  It’s very strange.  I don’t do math well, admittedly, but that just appears to defy logic and common sense as well.

If I sound a little hysterical about the whole thing it’s because when I mentioned that the New Great Depression was coming, people looked at me as some sort of tin-foil hat wearing sideshow in polka dots and stripes.  I was very confident that the economy was in for a rough spell but received little more than eye rolls and sighs.  People just wanted to pretend that the situation was going to go away.  I’m feeling the same sense of deceit, if you will, all over again, as things look bad and the experts we lean on don’t seem to have a full grasp on what we’re all talking about.  My fears are bolstered by the fact that I’m beginning to notice that various news articles now seem to be diverging towards different conclusions, and it’s starting to look like not everyone is on the same page.

I consider the unemployment numbers one of the key indicators in regards to our economic health, and pretty much the only way to beat out this dire economic climate is going to reside with job growth.  I also look at even a high number of 15% unemployment still doable as a recession indicator, but getting up to something like 17% is right on the cusp.  I would definitely qualify unemployment numbers at 18 to 20% as a very real depression, which I was beginning to believe we had avoided, but now I’m starting to wonder if we could really hit that magic number.  And when.

History has also shown us that gingerly treating the situation, as the government did in regards to the Great Depression, cannot be allowed if we are to avoid severe consequences.  The government then felt that things were going reasonably well, took away support too early, and then things proceeded to roll back down the hill.  The recent government stimulus plan was painful to pay for, but it was really doing the trick, and there is no reason to believe that further stimulus programs won’t stabilize the economy and protect any progress we’re making long enough for job growth to kick in.

But my old problems with Obama that haunted him on the campaign trail have returned.  His wait-and-see approach is back in familiar form, and it’s benefiting Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke’s probable conflict of interest issues with their friends on Wall Street.  The war between the Democrats and Republicans isn’t helping matters, either, and with housing a mess, and a weakening dollar, jobs are the only thing to look toward.  I thought things were improving, perhaps, even made safe, but tonight the colander goes back on my head and a wooden spoon goes over my shoulder.

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Considerations/Depression Era Novels: The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain

Posted in Cain, Depression Era books with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2010 by litterbury

“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.  I had swung on the night before, down at the border, and as soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep.  I needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let the engine cool.  Then they saw a foot sticking out and threw me off.  I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out.  They gave me a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.”

* * *

My curiosity with the Great Recession (The New Great Depression) has had me sifting through my personal libraries looking for content to see how a different generation framed it’s own dire economic straits.  I don’t necessarily have as much to pull from as I had assumed, but I managed to pick out a few little things of interest.

While I do own a copy of Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, I’ve yet to read it, so what is assumed to be the great novel of the depression era isn’t really up for a literary debate over here; yet.

I also picked through a whole bunch of my classic crime and noir novels, but was surprised to realize how few in my collection were actually written during the depression period, or, for that matter, seemingly relevant to it even if they were.  Also, what qualifies as a depression era book to begin with? Mood and atmosphere? Specific financial worries clearly stated and implied? Or bleak landscapes complete with tumbleweeds set as a backdrop?

Published in 1934, The Postman Always Rings Twice is set during the Great Depression, but it’s not stated, per se, and I’m not sure that it’s even the context that it’s author, James M. Cain, would want it to be objectified under.  Still, when looked at it from that vantage point, it makes an already compelling book just that much more so.  And why so compelling? Need I even go into the story…

Frank Chambers is broke and out of work; he’s been grifting and bumming rides, and thumbing his way up and down one highway to the next.  “That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern,” Frank says.

“It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California.  There was a lunchroom part, and over that the house part, where they lived, and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court.  I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road.  When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac.  He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch.  Not today, said the Greek.  He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have.  I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee.  Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.”

Frank takes up a job with the Greek, a Mr. Nick Papadakis, and the proprietor of Twin Oaks, and it doesn’t take Chambers long to notice that the Greek has got a beautiful young wife, named Cora.

Soon begins a tale of an illicit affair where Frank and Cora realize that her husband is looking a little inconvenient, and since divorce is naturally not a consideration in this case, as it always is in these cases, they devise a scheme to bump him off and pursue a more successful life with each other.  Things don’t go according to plan (naturally), but even when things don’t go according to plan they don’t occur within expectations, as one calamitous thing happens after another.

* * *

“He never did anything to me.  He’s all right.”

“The hell he’s all right.  He stinks, I tell you.  He’s greasy and he stinks.  And do you think I’m going to let you wear a smock, with Service Auto Parts printed on the back, Thank-U Call Again, while he has four suits and a dozen silk shirts? Isn’t that business half mine? Don’t I cook? Don’t I cook good? Don’t you do your part?”

“You talk like it was all right.”

“Who’s going to know if it’s all right or not, but you and me?”

“You and me.”

“That’s it, Frank.  That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not you and me and the road, or anything else but you and me.”

“You must be a hell cat, though.  You couldn’t make me feel like this if you weren’t.”

“That’s what we’re going to do.  Kiss me, Frank.  On the mouth.”

* * *

The roman noir is distinctly an American concept and product; it’s the story of the failed promise of the American Dream, and the darker undercurrent of the mainstream American belly that ‘they’ never wanted ‘you’ to read about.  It’s birth is tough to pin down, but the book Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir, by Geoffrey O’Brien, includes a comprehensive checklist for majors and minors in the noir cycle; his list begins in 1929 and goes all the way to 1960.

And then there is the excellent release from the Library of America, Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s, and edited by Robert Polito.  There is a companion (American Noir of the 1950s), but I’ve yet to read all of the included pieces, and it’s the first volume that actually includes Cain’s Postman.

Typically, and unfairly regarded as merely ‘pulp’ work, the written noir canon has captured some of the best American writing ever published, though for all the combined efforts not every entry would be a masterpiece, but an excellent writer like Cain would contribute many phenomenal works, including the very famous Double Indemnity.

What captures and defines a noir is tough to describe, as the rules aren’t necessarily rigid and each writer’s style could vary significantly from one offering to the next, but The Postman Always Rings Twice is one of the most fully realized, and therefore comprehensive noir works available.  It’s the base narrative of the American ‘everyman’ and how he was done wrong, lured into crimes he didn’t anticipate, thrown off-balance for carnal desires he never knew he had.  Moments of violence are quickly traded and, often, equated with scenes of sex, but the literal action taking place is often just a subterfuge for the mental deterioration and unravelling of the poor character left struggling at the story’s center.

The psychological undercurrents in noir are not accidental, either, as the entire genre functions as both honest and literal male perspective, as well as commodified parody, and, additionally, as thrilling potboiler to satisfy the longings of the average, perhaps, desk-bound joe.  The multi-tasking noir book was essentially the fears and longings of the straight, white male, and told his story of newfound suspicion for Uncle Sam, and his quiet appreciation for the little guy ’sticking it to the man.’  Even the popular construct of the femme-fatale was less of an easy mechanic to fold in available sex, but instead spoke to the fearful and fretting anxiety of man’s specific place as the societal breadwinner, and offered explanation to the ever increasing presence of the working class woman.

In short, it’s reactionary: every nice white boy grows up to be a nice successful white man.  The American male is heterosexually ‘normal,’ will settle down with the wife and kids and just might even get the gold watch for showing up to work.  His president would never send him off to get hurt in a war, and he’s casually heroic just when he’s mowing the lawn.  The Great Depression would hit well before the suburbs would take on national importance (motivated by both government interests and matters of social vanity), but by 1934 the American Dream was frayed, because if the first World War had been at one time unthinkable, then the economic ravages of the depression must have seemed wholly unconscionable.

That’s why Cain’s Postman takes on such a new sheen when not framed as just a thrillingly bleak novel about adultery and murder, but when looked upon as a product and even a relic from the depression era.  So what if Cora made a mistake and didn’t marry the right guy? Or the fact that the right guy is someone who isn’t necessarily her husband, and why should Frank care one way or the other? That ‘can-do!’ American spirit has taught us that we can all reinvent ourselves without consequence if our collective goal is to better ourselves off for future good and use; that the final and giddy swipe for the brass ring is worth shooting for even if the aspirations are a tad lofty to start.  Even when Frank and Cora talk about the importance of just being together, there’s still the added sell of trying to have it all, and having it all does not include starting from the ground up with scratch when there is a perfectly good diner and auto yard in the Twin Oaks.

To see such morally bankrupt characters plot away is almost laughably obscene, but the great perverse thrill is that, frankly, it makes perfectly logical sense.  After all, what’s a little sex and murder when the moral high ground is simply pursuit of the American Dream? It’s the story of deserving to have it all because it’s your right by birth as an American, and whatever debt you’ve accumulated along the way is of little consequence or responsibility when you were just doing what you were told to do in the first place.  It’s the book’s brilliant title that warns, however, that fate, much like death, is sure to knock again, and that debt accumulated never fully goes unsettled.

* * *

My voice sounded queer, like it was coming out of a tin phonograph.

“And this you don’t know how you got.”

I hauled off and hit her in the eye as hard as I could.  She went down.  She was right down there at my feet, her eyes shining, her breasts trembling, drawn up in tight points, and pointing right up at me.  She was down there, and the breath was roaring in the back of my throat like I was some kind of a animal, and my tongue was all swelled up in my mouth, and blood pounding in it.

“Yes! Yes, Frank, yes!”

Next thing I knew, I was down there with her, and we were staring in each other’s eyes, and locked in each other’s arms, and straining to get closer.  Hell could have opened for me then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.  I had to have her, if I hung for it.

I had her.

* * *

The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain, 1934

Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks And The Masters Of Noir, by Geoffrey O’Brien; original copyright by Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981; expanded edition published by Da Capo Press, 1997.

(A photo taken of a still from the Tay Garnett directed film starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, both pictured.  The film version didn’t come out until 1946, as Hollywood couldn’t figure out how to tone down the raw sexuality from Cain’s novel; the Italians, however, would film an unauthorized version, entitled ‘Ossessione,’ in 1943.)

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Considerations/Depression Era Novels: Appointment In Samarra, by John O’Hara

Posted in Depression Era books, O'Hara with tags , , , , , , , on January 7, 2010 by litterbury

So the economy is bad right now; perhaps, it might even be getting worse.

All economic professors and professionals claim that the very worst is behind us, and that while the recession is over, it will continue to feel like one as things improve over a prolonged period of time.

I am not reassured.

There are signs that things are starting to go a little bit haywire as people get increasingly desperate, as now one in eight Americans are on food stamps; one in fifty count their entire household income from food stamps alone.  In my own apartment building, people who could typically make rent so far are starting to have trouble making it work, and a family friend just recently told of a story involving a neighbor, in her very upscale country club residence, who was so distraught for cash that he was set to lose his business and his multi-million dollar home.  He committed suicide.

I’m finding that people who have jobs quietly nod with a tough smirk saying how things will get better soon.  People who don’t have jobs all say that they can’t even remember when it’s been this bad before and they think that it’s only going to get worse.

This is in addition to the concept of ‘recession gardens,’ which, in itself, are a nod to the ‘victory gardens’ of past wartime eras, which took hold this past Summer even at the White House.  Talk of homegrown organic food seemed to be the epitome of the fussy and liberal Bay Area’s progressive streak, and now everyone is starting to take a thoughtful eye to backyards and window boxes with visions of green.

And I noticed something else when I went to Trader Joe’s this past week: my sales receipt didn’t include any sales-tax added on.  The subtotal and total were one and the same, and while a slight relief, it makes one leery to think even the government is lacking enough knowledge on the matter to do little more than offer minor discounts on the basics for life.  It was embarrassing, too, that I was almost giddy and gleeful with pleasure at discovering the result.

My memory was jogged of this past Summer, when both my mom and I had run-up short at the bank and we only had a few bucks to buy food for a holiday weekend until our respective checks cleared days later.  She held up a loaf of bread in either hand and, first, tried to figure out which looked the biggest, and then, second, tried to figure out which was the heaviest and I had said, “So, do you want to weigh it, or what?”

We are, in fact, distinctly middle-class (or were), too poor to cover all the expenses like monthly credit card minimums and to make sure the fridge is fully stocked on a take-it-for-granted basis, and yet too unbelievably wealthy (ha!) to take a further slide into the banana split of poverty’s embrace.  It’s very uncomfortable being stuck, but that’s exactly what it feels like.  Stuck with little to do, and caught out unexpectedly spinning your wheels.

When I look at the small thousands I somehow loaded up with on credit card debt, I’m shocked and unnerved to try and find even an ounce of anything really great to show for it.  That isn’t just my story, mind you, but it’s funnily enough the story of all those boys and girls on Wall Street, too.  It seems that the profits and the progress from a whole decade’s worth of trades has been eroded and lost, and we’re no better off now than we were roughly ten years ago.  The American Dream was apparently unfulfilling and it cost a whole lot, too.  Keeping up with the Jones’ never seemed so silly as it does now.

It’s all got me in the mood for Depression-era books, however, and much of that school of thought happens to be right up my alley: roman noirs and hardboiled writers who wrote with a tough-but-tender sentiment that would define a literary landscape for a bygone time; a time which is now stoically familiar.  John O’Hara published one of the great American novels in 1934 with Appointment In Samarra, and it would prove to be a major addition to that period and cycle.

The novel’s title is actually a reference to a play, Sheppy, by W. Somerset Maugham, and is included as a sort of epigraph or frontpiece in my volume, though I’m not clear if it appeared in editions that were originally sanctioned by the author or published during his lifetime.

* * *

Death Speaks:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

- W. Somerset Maugham

* * *

Taking place in December of 1930, the book starts a little more than a year after the great stock market crash of 1929, which incidentally happened October 29th, just in time for Halloween.  O’Hara described the premise of the novel, in a letter to his brother, as “essentially the story of a young married couple and their breakdown in the first year of the depression.”  One half of that couple is a Mr. Julian English, who in a matter of days, is consumed with the nagging unease and desperate fears that would plague and define his generation.  Small town life proves suffocating and stifling, and it all begins to reel when everyone becomes casually observant to the fact that they’re just a bit on the brink.

The back of the book says that ‘in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction,’ but that’s only a partial take on the narrative itself.  It’s a novel set in 1930 around a thirty-something set, as the birthright and promise to the twentieth-century wouldn’t quite go as anyone imagined, but then it never does.

The Roaring Twenties gave way to a severe reality check that many didn’t see coming, and early life in the new century would be bookended by major world wars.  The story is a youthful one, and brash in it’s sexuality (censored before and after it’s publication), but it also has a masterful ability to be fondly reminiscent when the book’s own status and the lives of it’s characters could barely yet be qualified into existence.

(Portrait of the author, credited to C. J. Pujol, referenced to be courtesy of Pennsylvania State University.)

Perhaps that’s why I find the book so provocative and obviously timely.  To find a great American novel at a time when the great American dream is being questioned as to it’s basis and fact, is somehow less than comforting, but reassuring in it’s own melancholy.

Make no mistake about it here: life is a hell of a lot more complicated now than it was back in the nineteen-thirties.  To just even get a sense of how ridiculous American life has become, take a look at healthcare, or try to cut through all the red-tape of just securing a job nowadays even when faced with ‘now hiring’ signs.  Credit cards proved to be a disastrous exercise, too, and could wind up being the next shoe to drop in an ongoing financial mess.

You see, I like the book, not because it’s so immersed in a timely topic of national strife, but in spite of the fact, as it’s going back to a time that was definitely troubled, but one that also made do with a whole lot less.  It’s the simplicity of reexamining what defined the promise of a modern America, not by a lot of simpering flag-waving or ego-centric cries, but by embracing a proud legacy of keeping your chin up in the worst of lows and letting your own pride be exemplified by that sense of the Incomparable You.

John O’Hara was sure one hell of a good writer, and this, his first novel, could probably never find an equal, though he would try with a prolific literary career.  His writing is tough and sweet, funny and sarcastic, but there’s no getting around the fact that the story is a little missive to break one’s heart.

Julian English is just trying to traverse the American Dream as best as he knows how, and he just wants a highball to send it off right; don’t even get me started on how Samarra is a place in Iraq and that this is being written circa January, 2010.

* * *

Appointment In Samarra, by John O’ Hara, copyright 1934

Vintage Books edition published July 2003, 269 pages,

featuring an introduction by John Updike

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Considerations: Don’t Look Now, by Daphne du Maurier

Posted in du Maurier with tags , , , , on December 6, 2009 by litterbury

October 2008 was a great time for stylish rereleases.  I’ve posted on The New Annotated Dracula and The Complete Ripley Novels box set, both by W. W. Norton, and now I want to mention the New York Review of Books’ compilation from Daphne du Maurier.

Don’t Look Now is a collection of nine stories by du Maurier as chosen by Patrick McGrath; he also supplies an introduction piece.  It includes the very popular story, ‘The Birds,’ though it won’t be recognizable to Alfred Hitchcock fans (du Maurier was reportedly not pleased with the liberties Hitchcock took with her narrative), and also the popular title story, which was filmed by Nicolas Roeg.  The other stories are filled with the sense of romance, the mysterious and, naturally, the type of thrills and chills that made du Maurier such an icon in world literature.

Daphne du Maurier is probably best known for her novel, Rebecca.  It’s a very misunderstood and under appreciated book, with critics citing it as a poor retread of Jane Eyre, and it managed to snag an Oscar for Best Picture for the David O. Selznick production in 1941, which, incidentally, was Hitchcock’s first American film; Hitchcock would also helm another du Maurier adaptation in Jamaica Inn.

It’s Rebecca, however, where du Maurier really made a case for her literary career.  It’s an almost peerless, modern gothic that tells of a mysterious widower who remarries a much younger woman, only for her to discover in great unease that no one can seem to forget the now dead former wife, Rebecca.  How charming Rebecca was.  How beautiful Rebecca was.  Just how very perfect Rebecca was.  The story then takes some unexpected, not to mention, creepy twists, and there is a constant sense of the supernatural at work, and maybe more than a few people who have some sinister secrets to hide within the walls of the old estate residence, Manderly.

I’ve read Rebecca and consider it a very good book, even if not everyone seems very comfortable admitting it.  If one doesn’t draw too staunch a comparison to the towering masterwork in Bronte’s Jane Eyre, then Rebecca survives as truly inspired storytelling.  I’ve also read Jamaica Inn, and while the character work was fantastic, the story seemed a little too frothy for it’s own good, and the sexual references seemed to almost border on the absurd.

There are many other du Maurier books that I’ve yet to read, but one quickly notices a problem with trying to track them down.  None are really available as recently published hardbacks, and the flimsy paper copies are strikingly pricey, though Amazon seems to be offering them at a minor reduction.  Obviously the London born du Maurier won’t see the royal treatment from an entity such as the Library of America, but why hasn’t someone turned on a light bulb over at Everyman’s Library? It’s all very discouraging, and establishes an ongoing trend in the publishing business, and the literary world at large, in that cheaply produced copies can inherently translate a particular writers legacy to be of the same quality.  I just did a post on on the unfairly recognized Woolrich, and many others of the ‘Pulp’ genre find themselves to suffer a similar fate.  It’s hideous.

That’s why it’s so reassuring to see du Maurier getting some real respect for a change with this particular release.  It is a paperback, true, but it’s beautifully printed and bound.  The inside covers are a solid purple color, which had me wondering if it wasn’t a nod to the concept of endpapers in hardcover books, and it also happens to be printed on acid-free paper.  Shock! I wasn’t even sure if they could do that with paperbacks, as I don’t recall ever seeing such a thing before, and I was honestly convinced that maybe acid-free paper couldn’t somehow be bound in softer fashion.  Has anyone told the folks over at Penguin about this ingenious marvel? If not, then they really should as Penguin needs to get on top of that one.

Anyway, this is an excellent release, and a generally faultless one at that.  My only complaint is that it seems far too short at only nine stories, and I easily could have settled in for twice that number, but it wouldn’t be fair to take up such a complaint with this one as what is here is pretty good stuff.  The stories are all filled with nice little twists and shocks, and they are all perfectly creepy, and they also capture the rather romantic and stylish knack that du Maurier brings to her writing.  There are great touches of her excellent wit on display, as well.  To Mr. McGrath’s credit, he did a nice job with the selection, and provides a nice introduction.  It’s brief, but articulate and incisive.

If you’re looking for an entertaining and quality read, you’ll be pleased with this one.  My instructions are to gather up any available pets at your feet, and make yourself a proper drink as you take to your favorite reading chair.  This book is the perfect companion for a dark and stormy night, or great fare for a rainy day.

* * *

Don’t Look Now, by Daphne du Maurier, and selected with an introduction by Patrick McGrath, 346 pages

The New York Review of Books

Published October 2008

Listed at $15.95

UPDATE: It probably would have been helpful if I had listed the stories contained in this volume; here they are:

Don’t Look Now

The Birds

Escort

Split Second

Kiss Me Again, Stranger

The Blue Lenses

La Sainte-Vierge

Indiscretion

Monte Verita

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Considerations: Night Has A Thousand Eyes, by Cornell Woolrich

Posted in American noir, Woolrich with tags , , , , , , on December 3, 2009 by litterbury

Cornell Woolrich is probably one of the best writers that still charts in unknown territory.  Often labeled as the ‘Godfather of Noir,’ and having been the inspiration for a number of films, his legacy of stories still languishes in the lower echelons of critical and established literature.

He was born in 1903.  His life was tempered with alcoholism and paranoia, and he was believed to have been gay.  An infection in one of his legs became gangrenous, making an amputation necessary in 1968, and that same year he would suffer a fatal stroke.  That sense of being haunted, tragic and questioning would be source material that he would riff on best.

I want to make it clear that it’s a tough task to recommend which Woolrich book to start with.  He’s regarded as a pulp writer, which is certainly true, to a certain extent, but he was also capable of rousing up a masterpiece, and did so on a few occasions.  There were more misses than hits, but he was a prolific author, and when he was good, he was one of the best.

I read the following books of his in this order, so take note:

Phantom Lady (1942)

Rendezvous in Black (1948)

I Married a Dead Man (1948)

The Bride Wore Black (1940)

Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1945)

All are good, though Bride Wore Black is the weakest, leaving the other four as masterworks.  It’s somewhat disputed as being too pulpish for it’s own good, but some fans make a case that Phantom Lady is the best Woolrich novel; I can’t really disagree with that.  It’s largely understood that Rendezvous in Black is Woolrich’s undisputed masterpiece, and technically, I believe it is.  It was I Married a Dead Man that was selected for inclusion by the Library of America as the sole Woolrich offering in their collection, as part of an anthology on roman noirs, edited by Robert Polito (Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s); that novel, too, is brilliant.  But Night Has a Thousand Eyes didn’t really have much of a critical reception to it, and I picked it up largely unconvinced that it would have the same power over me as the other books, but I was stunned to discover just what a moving, and haunting book it really is.

I think then that Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a good place to start if one has never had the common-sense to read a Woolrich book.  It’s filled with the signature Woolrich staple of having a twist of bad luck become increasingly, and hideously realized.  Everyday American men and women faced with the grim prospect of a looming sense of fate that quickly turns sinister.  It’s largely a sense of the American Dream gone horribly, and irrevocably wrong, and the quiet struggle of being faced up against elements that are stronger than you are, and which get the better of you until you’re faced with an oncoming defeat.

The book deals with a mysterious case involving a man who can see the future, a trick he claims to have had since he was a little boy.  Enter a rich, older man and his spirited daughter, and the old man’s growing obsession with knowing what the future holds for him as the mysterious stranger offers up his visions of moments to come.  At some point, the police get involved, and one cop in particular has to figure out if this is just a classic con-job and a shakedown for cash, or if this curious oracle is a bit of something more…

I’m not going to spoil anything else.

What can I say, but that it’s so very beautiful in the way and manner in which it has been written.  That the writing is so classy, polished and sophisticated; attributes that are rarely considered with Woolrich, but are terms I find best to describe him.  Its writing harks back to a different era of the Americana experience, at a time when life should have been so much easier than it is now, and when men wore fedoras, and took them down and tipped them to a passing girl.  It’s very quaint, and a bit naive, and it makes the shattered innocent lives of these characters just so much more painful to bear witness to.  Woolrich so skillfully takes the dreams and longings of a different era and crushes them in an agonizing bloodbath that mocks hope, promise and just the downright ability to win in savage and thrilling fashion.  I never thought, personally, that a really good thriller could make you cry, but reading Woolrich taught me otherwise.

If I had to sum up Night Has a Thousand Eyes, I would say that it’s just a very elegant thriller.  There is a psychology at work in Woolrich’s books that makes you feel like you’re right there with the characters, and getting a peek into the secret places of their hearts, and it’s on good display in this one.  I was very touched by the little people in this book, and was absolutely crushed when they lost it all.

I’m going to have a lot more to say about Cornell Woolrich soon, but in the meantime, I very highly recommend that everyone should take a look at this one, as it’s a damn good read.

And watch out for lions should they ever haunt you.

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Leslie S. Klinger has a website!

Posted in Dracula, Stoker with tags , on December 2, 2009 by litterbury

As Mr. Klinger was kind enough to post in the comments on my piece on the New Annotated Dracula, the favor is being returned in some fashion.  Mr. Klinger has his own website, which I was unaware of, and it features links to his work on The New Annotated Dracula, as well as his work on The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes; the links being full-fledged websites that offer details on the books themselves.  I heartily recommend that everyone checks them out.

www.lesliesklinger.com

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Twilight author Stephenie Meyer claims to be a big fan of proud homophobe Orson Card

Posted in Twilight with tags , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2009 by litterbury

I had just written a little piece on Twilight in which I detailed my casual fascination with the saga, and how, for me, it tied in with Mormonism and Proposition 8.  The piece is here:

http://litterbury.com/2009/11/23/obligatory-twilight-post/

I expressed my latent fears of supporting Twilight if there could be a potential issue of homophobia in regards to the author, Stephenie Meyer.  I just watched a Q&A clip Meyer did for Oprah.com following Meyer’s appearance on Winfrey’s talk show.  In it, Meyer raves about sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card, someone who is deeply homophobic and staunchly against the issue of same-sex marriage.  The link to the clip follows and Meyer mentions Card at about the 3:37 mark:

http://www.oprah.com/media/20091113-orig-stephenie-meyer

The Wikipedia entry for Card has a whole section on his stances of people who are gay, but I decided to pick this little nugget: “With regard to the acceptance of legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and California, Card writes that: “The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to ‘gay marriage,’ is that it marks the end of democracy in America. These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.”  And there’s much more where that came from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Card

Does this reflect poorly on Meyer’s part? Yes, it does, but there’s no direct way of knowing where she stands on gay rights from this alone, though it is troubling.

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Considerations: The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted in Dostoevsky with tags , on November 24, 2009 by litterbury

A couple months back, I read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I had actually gone into the endeavor rather excited.  A family friend had noted that it was one of her sons’ favorite books, but had remarked that it was too dark for her, personally.  Another person had clucked air through their teeth and said, ‘oh, that one’s deep.’  Amazon.com customer reviews had also raved, talking of such elements as drama, adventure and mystery.

I was going to post some reviews that adorn my copy’s jacket, but at this point, and to me anyway, they just sound ridiculous.  You see, I didn’t really think all that much of the book.  In fact, I’m still rather baffled as to why people see such brilliance emanating from it, and worse still, I found it to have an almost childlike shallowness to it.

The characters function as little more than cardboard cut-outs to drag along a narrative that grapples with spiritual meaning.  When the characters aren’t pandering towards the obvious, they very obviously drift or break from character, and it’s handled in such noted manner, that it’s clearly intended to shock the reader as it qualifies these moments as real plot advancement.

That level of plotting is also where I take issue, because you see, three hundred pages into the book, I was still wondering when it was all going to start.  Four hundred pages in I thought it might have started, but then was still debating for another hundred or two if that had really been the case.  This book is slow.  That isn’t to say that it’s not engaging, because there were elements that genuinely interested me, but the very deliberate (read as heavily staged) sequence of events was further hampered by long stretches of philosophical musings that would drag on for pages, sometimes even consisting of whole chapters, as was the case with brother Ivan’s recounting of ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ and the journals of Zosima.  In fact, during Ivan’s telling of Inquisitor to his brother, and fellow Karamazov, Alyosha, he even quotes Shakespeare; Hamlet of all things!

There’s also the fact that, try as I might, I’m still not sure exactly why this book is deemed important, and what exactly all the philosophy is really supposed to convey.  I’m not daft.  I swear to God that this book has the outright audacity to make it’s central focus asking, just, what is, after all, the meaning of life.

It riffs on themes of spiritual commitment as challenge, that spiritual bliss isn’t always pretty, and how doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing.  That there is good and bad! Darkness in all of us! That even an act of plain murder can be upstaged by the more criminal break from another’s flee from the righteous.  That even when things go wrong? You can absolve your sins and live in exiled peace and the contentment of poverty.

Is that treating the book lightly? Yes, it is, but these are the most basic themes that make college freshman scrunch up their noses in perplexity.  Everything is obvious, and if there is to be a double of a meaning lodged anywhere, it’s also carefully framed and I have no doubt that this deliberate structuring, which so knowingly cuts into second guesses and which could fuel debate, is one of the chief reasons that the book is so highly regarded in the literary circle.  In short? It’s accessible and knowing all at once.  It lacks the smugness of Mark Twain, but it never departs from seriousness or the self-aware.

I also understand that much of what the Russian masters, Dostoevsky included, were dealing with often involved trying to reach new understandings of the world around them, at a time when others had seemingly ceased to question; that’s what the critics say.  My own perspective from Karamazov is that it’s more akin to watching one go about reinventing the wheel.  Anything story-wise seems to have already been beaten out by precedent, as this book doesn’t attempt to sway from anything contained in the Bible (perhaps an allegory! parallels!), the Myths or that of Shakespeare.

In fact, I’ll make a case that everything that this book hoped to achieve and explain had already been stated by Pierre Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and that work managed to be thrilling, provocative and groundbreaking; it also pre-dates Karamazov by roughly a century.  I am biased, as Dangereuses is one of my favorite books, and I have a feeling that it fails to command the respect that it deserves because it has yet to be blessed with the stature of Dostoevsky in the eyes of professors and the intellectual ‘elite.’

Did I like anything about The Brothers Karamazov? Yes, a few things.  The growth and maturity of Alyosha was nicely handled, and he has the makings to be a literary great in a pantheon of characters, and the writing sometimes had a personality and warmth that reads beautifully, but that’s pretty much where my list ends, and that this is a gloating work which envisions an epic opera, but has, rather, delusions of grandeur as it performs more as dry soap opera.  I didn’t come away with anything more than bragging rights to say I’ve commanded it, and that it pales in comparison to far better, and more meaningful books that I’d previously read.  Should I encounter anyone who considered their time with The Brothers Karamazov to be intellectual growth, I’ll quietly suppress a grin knowing them to be a full-on dunce.

* * *

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated from Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Everyman’s Library

Publication dated as 1879-80

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Obligatory Twilight post.

Posted in Twilight with tags , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2009 by litterbury

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga broke box office records in theaters this weekend with the second film installment of the franchise, ‘New Moon.’ Her books continue to be bestsellers, the film series is a phenomenon and she just did her first appearance on the Oprah Winfrey talk show.  Not bad.

They are a disputed success, though.  The series skews in the Young Adult-YA ghetto, the author is Mormon writing goth-lite, the romance can be viewed as syrupy, the quality of writing to some is questionable (Meyer, to her credit, qualifies herself more as a storyteller than an author) and the repressed romance can be read as an allegory of sexual abstinence.

I own all four of the books, and have read three.  I actually kind of like the Twilight books and appreciate them for what they are.  I don’t hang effigies of Anne Rice on them, or burn them in honor of horror past, and I haven’t seen the films yet, so I’m not completely tied into the wild fanfare of the moment.

I find their appeal fascinating, but in unusual fashion.

You see, when the first Twilight movie surprised everyone with box office success (shocker!), talk of Proposition 8 was going through the state of California.  Prop. 8 was a ballot initiative that would appear on the November ballots of the 2008 general election, in which Barack Obama was elected President of the US.  The California Supreme Court had previously passed down a decision months earlier which stated that the state constitution couldn’t bar same-sex couples from getting married, which led to Prop. 8 in putting the issue to vote during an election with support for the measure hoping to outlaw same-sex marriage.  Prop. 8 passed.  It was very upsetting, and there had been some trending conversations that the Mormon church had stepped in with an invested interest to  sway the outcome in favor of it’s passing.

Now, I will say that, to my knowledge, the Mormon church doesn’t specifically issue any statement in regards to a position on same-sex marriage.  Also, I’m aware that not everyone who is Mormon supports the opposition to same-sex marriage, with many, in fact, supporting gay friends, acquaintances and family members.  But, the Mormon church may have contributed funds to support the passage of Prop. 8, though it’s questionable, and I wonder if the church would knowingly support such a thing if it could put to risk it’s own tax-exempt status.

This brings me to the author of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer, who is, of course, Mormon.

Does Meyer have a personal opinion on same-sex marriage? I’m sure she does.  I’d be shocked if she was genuinely homophobic, and yet it wouldn’t surprise me either, and that lack of knowing makes me a little nervous.  I would really hate to discover that supporting Twilight would be supporting homophobia, but I would also seriously doubt if much of the young adult population that generates the cash flow for Twilight books, movies and memorabilia would be in any way homophobic in this day and age, and many probably even know of a few school peers who are gay.

It’s in regards to that where, suddenly, the Mormon church had become part of our national consciousness in two very big ways, and it wasn’t deliberately manufactured, but happened of it’s own accord as a genuine pop-cultural moment.  That dichotomy between Mormonism, gay marriage and the Twilight Saga was fascinating and the appeal for me, personally, was undeniable and I had to investigate for my own curiosity.

What I can appreciate about Twilight is it’s moody atmosphere, it’s angst-ridden teen brooding and epic romance delivered under the guise of a slow-burning crush.  It’s also one of the first times that ‘goth’ has been packaged and presented for the mainstream with a cool factor that wasn’t tied into visions of drugs, violence and delinquency.

I like Edward, too.  Having a grumpy teenage vampire who wants to get close to you but can’t because he wants it too badly, and is afraid of what he just might do to you in the process sounds like the stuff of cheap romance novels.  In Twilight? It works, and I’m amazed that no one gives Meyer any credit for her trouble, if not from a creative standpoint, then at least a lucrative one.

Typically books for the young are treated as light fiction and while many don’t pander towards those expectations, there is a definite approach to marketing good vibes and self-esteem.  Meyer embraces that, and there is a case to be made of the Twilight Saga being representative of the self-esteem movement that plays a role in shaping a lot of kids today, but she doesn’t cast out darkness in the process.  There is an underlying sense, too, that what should be viewed as bad is really wrong to hate, especially when you know that it feels so true.

I recognize that Twilight centers on matters of difference, and trying to understand the difference of others.  Judgement is not handed down, and there are no bullies at Forks High School.  You can be different, maybe even looked upon with suspicion for it, but nobody says anything bad about you, and the high-school peers of Bella and Edward are merely curious with the world around them and treat it as such.

Meyer’s representation of Forks, Washington is misty, woodsy and insulated, with a surprisingly diverse community, and residents take that community for what it is.  There is no threat to life in Forks, and it’s only when one wanders out of it’s safe confines that violence and danger become apparent, or when bad things are unleashed upon it from an outside place.  There is a spiritual current to the ferns and trees that quietly watch over it’s residents, and an almost religious authority that is not steeped in religion.  The grey, rainy sky that looms overhead feels oddly cleansing, never cold, and while it’s home, it never ultimately feels familiar.

This is obviously a world that Meyer’s young readers wished they lived in.  This is what they wish their school life could be like, and they want to be taken seriously for the romances they feel, and that their sense of self is to be taken at the value it deserves.  They don’t want to live in a world that punishes them, or their friends, for who they are, but, rather, embraces them instead.  Meyer understands this about her audience, and I can see that.

* * *

“Hmm.” Edward’s voice had a new edge to it.  “In that case, perhaps we’d better leave sooner rather than later.”

“Yes,” Aro agreed.  “That’s a good idea.  Accidents do happen.  Please wait below until after dark, though, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Edward agreed, while I cringed at the thought of waiting out the day before we could escape.

“And here,” Aro added, motioning to Felix with one finger.  Felix came forward at once, and Aro unfastened the gray cloak the huge vampire wore, pulling it from his shoulders.  He tossed it to Edward.  “Take this.  You’re a little conspicuous.”

Edward put the long cloak on, leaving the hood down.

Aro sighed.  “It suits you.”

-New Moon

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Brace Yourself: In which I take to task translator Richard Pevear, ‘The Elegant Variation’ blog author Mark Sarvas and have a little bit to say about translating Dumas.

Posted in Count of Monte Cristo, Dostoevsky, Dumas, Musketeers with tags , , , , , , on November 22, 2009 by litterbury

There is a small article up on The Wall Street Journal about the husband-and-wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  I must give credit to The Elegant Variation in drawing my attention to it, a website that I was just taking issue with today, and where I’m about to take issue again.

First off, Pevear and Volokhonsky are renowned in the publishing world for their work, perhaps even having won awards, I don’t know.  They translate classic Russian works together, and Pevear has translated some French on his own.  I’m familiar with these two because about a month or so back I read the Everyman’s Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov, which Pevear and Volokhonsky worked on.  Also, about a year ago I read Pevear’s independent translation of The Three Musketeers, published by Viking, which I believe is now available from Penguin.

Now I’m leery to criticize the translation of Karamazov, seeing as it’s my first Russian novel, and thus making it my first encounter with Fyodor Dostoevsky.  My problem with that book is that it’s so very overrated and, in my view, perhaps not even all that great a book, but I’ll have more to say about that soon enough.  Don’t you worry!

I can, however, safely criticize Pevear’s translation of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.  To his credit, Pevear does restore a missing element that had been censored from previous translations into English from it’s native French.  Without giving anything away, there was a minor sex scene that had been altered between two of the characters, and Pevear does include it in his version of the book.  Make no mistake, it’s an important development, but it concerns a single sentence if I recall, and nothing more.

I was anxious to get my hands on a newer translation of the Musketeers, as I’m a devoted fan, and a fan of Dumas in general; he’s one of my favorite authors.  As I read through the book, I seemed to enjoy myself, but when I had finished I had a very distinct feeling that something was missing.  The translation, to my knowledge, is clean enough, but if I had to recommend a version of the Musketeers to someone, this would not be the one.

The writing was crisp and kept up the familiar pace of the adventure, but it also read as very, if not distinctly, modern, and I ultimately decided that it was a little too modern for it’s own good.  Much of the lush romantic swooning that I had come to associate with Dumas seemed to be missing, and the weightier, more archaic sounding language seemed to be completely overhauled to the point of, quite frankly, seeming somehow unfamiliar.  It’s a very literal translation, if that makes any sense.

Now a couple points I want to make.

Have I read The Three Musketeers in French and attempted to translate it myself? No, I have not.  I took some French in junior-high and high-school, but I don’t necessarily believe that I would have the confidence to delve into such an endeavor personally, and I don’t currently have access to a copy of the novel in it’s original French, leaving this argument I’m making to guesswork.

Second, I just noted ‘the weightier, more archaic sounding language.’  Could that very well be the work of time and place versus the translation itself? And could my own familiarity and sense of comfort with older versions be limiting me to a certain bias? Perhaps… but I place very sensitive emphasis on that perhaps.

I’ve read quite a few versions of the Musketeers over the years, and a sizable amount of books by Dumas, and rarely done by the same translator twice:

1.  About four versions of The Three Musketeers; the William Barrow edition from 1846 published by Oxford and Richard Pevear’s version from 2006 being the two in my current library.

2.  Twenty Years After, 2nd in the Musketeer saga, is more difficult to nail down, but large credit goes to William Robson who supplied an authorized French text to London, and seems to be the basis for most modern translations, but I’m not sure who receives the credit for the English itself; my version is published by Oxford.

3.  The Vicomte de Bragelonne, 3rd in the Musketeer saga, is also a bit messy.  My Oxford copy credits an 1848 section (Thomas Williams) and an 1850-1 complete text (Thomas Pederson) for the basis of a copy put out by Routledge in 1857, which has been revised and cleaned up, apparently, for my copy.

4.  Two separate editions of The Count of Monte Cristo; one translated by Robin Buss originally published in 1996, currently available from Penguin, and the recent Everyman’s Library edition from the first English translation credited as anonymous from 1846, and has been revised by Peter Washington; I should note that I’ve yet to read the second one.  I’ve also read an older abridged version (butchered in half) many years ago.  I can credit it to Signet Classics, but that’s all, and it wasn’t very good.

5.  Another Robin Buss translation, this time for the novel, The Women’s War, with an original copyright of 2006, currently available from Penguin.

6.  And lastly, a modern translation of The Knight of Maison-Rouge from Julie Rose, credited as being released in 2003 to the Modern Library.

Whew!

Now, the Oxford editions of the Musketeers are pretty much the copies that readers will find the most readily available.  They are fine editions, but a little on the old-fashioned side of things, but they relate the tales well and convey Dumas’ own knack for storytelling beautifully.

The Julie Rose translation of Red House is good, but it feels a bit conservative.  It could be the book itself, it could be her own stamp of translation, I’m not really in a position to say, but it did feel oddly cold for a Dumas book.  I recently picked up her newer translation of Hugo’s Les Miserables (also Modern Library), so I’ll have to take stock of things when I get around to reading that one.

Now the Robin Buss books are going to be my Rosetta Stone, if you will.  Having read both of Buss’ versions (Monte Cristo and The Women’s War), there remains a a recognizable style that is distinctly, strictly Dumas, but with a bit of modern approach that suggests the effort in trying not to limit the sound or cadence of the translation itself to any specific era.  In short? The Buss translations have more in common with the texture of the first translations of Dumas in English.  It sounds like the Dumas I came to fall in love with in the Oxford editions of the Musketeer books, but not sounding as though it was filtered through a specific era (Victorian? or was that later? I’d have to check).  All the emotion and sparkling psychology of Dumas is richly on display, to the point that I find it crushing that Buss never translated any of the Musketeer books, and never will; he died in December 2006.

It might seem inappropriate to even make this comparison, but the basis of an argument lies in this: the translation work of Robin Buss is very different than the translation work of Richard Pevear.  Granted, we’re talking completely different books here, but when I say that I wouldn’t recommend the Pevear version of The Three Musketeers, I mean it.  Judging how Dumas can be effectively conveyed in modern English put’s Pevear’s work at a step back.

Now here is my argument: having no frame of reference to hold to Russian literature, I’m a little concerned about the Volokhonsky and Pevear translation work that they have done together.

Is it blind and irrational? Yes, and I understand that they have pretty much the whole industry propping them up with accolades, and I would say that their version of Karamazov sounded richer than Pevear’s sole work on the Musketeers, so maybe they just work better together.  But there is the unmistakable fact that the industry seemed to praise Pevear’s version of The Three Musketeers, not that I examined the issue heavily, mind you, but I did come across a few things.

Specifically! Seeing TEV’s post from Sarvas linking to the Wall Street Journal article, in which Sarvas says “The Royal Family of translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, are interviewed in the Wall Street Journal,” it jolted my memory on something I had read from Sarvas on his blog some time ago.  I can’t give a date, but it was in regards to Pevear’s new translation of The Three Musketeers, in which Sarvas simply commented “which we liked.”  I remember at the time thinking, huh, I didn’t like it! and thought that it was just yet another opportunity to find myself at odds with Sarvas and his blog.

I have to wonder.  Is Mark Sarvas the real deal and an unbiased opinion on a very honest and widely read blog? Or is he so enmeshed in the industry that it’s just more of the same signs of blind industry acceptance for the lucky few to have been admitted beyond the hallowed, golden gates? My disagreeing with him on the Dumas matter seems slight, even a bit shrill, but to someone like myself it speaks volumes about taste and judgement, and, frankly, I feel comfortable on my side of the issue.

This worries me because if the publishing and literary world is collectively so navel-gazing to the point of almost going down on itself, can one trust their faith to be dealt with honestly and seriously in regards to the quality and craftsmanship that the industry has an invested interest in promoting? I’m starting to wonder, and it makes me uncomfortable with many of the recognized literary blogs that often sound more like endless PR, rather than genuine outbursts of sincerity from real book lovers.

I’m okay with thinking that Pevear and Volokhonsky are a capable team in regards to translating Russian literature, as my own time with their shared work didn’t see any obvious fault to the language, but then again, I have nothing to compare that to, and little to no background on the specific subject either.  That really does concern me, because I’ve read translations of books before that later proved to be inferior, but seemed widely, if not commonly accepted at the time.  And this industry is really enamored with these two, which I hope isn’t representative of fawning adulation.

I’m just as unnerved by the fact that I trust well-connected, highly intelligent and literate people who run sites like The Elegant Variation to give me unfiltered reviews and insight that I can trust.  I’d like to think that it’s generally the case with many other blogs, columns, critics and publishers as well.  Could there be a difference of opinion? Absolutely.  I do find liking Pevear’s translation of the Musketeers odd, though.  And as a Dumas fan, it sticks out to me.

The Wall Street Journal article is here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539613167679976.html?mod=article-outset-

Mark Sarvas here:

http://marksarvas.blogs.com/

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