Concepts of Modern Art: from Fauvism to Postmodernism:
This is a book about modern art. It contains phrases such as ritual accepted as referring to a transcendent realm and In spite of an initial concern with the architectonics of stained glass, Bart van der Leck was opposed to the premature union of architecture and painting. These are things that I read and enjoy. Therefore, I will always be lonely.
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides:
Firstly, I will admit that I enjoyed the first hundred pages or so before falling into a deeply troubling indifference towards the characters and the entire novel. Madeleine is a privileged white girl studying English in Brown. I'm like, Sure, this is an OK premise, why not? Then she discovers semiotics. Then, she discovers boys while, at the same time, discovering semiotics. Apparently when a character is interested in semiotics he/she will also spout lines from A Lover's Discourse, which is a fine text both romanticized and de-romanticized when read and imagined, but to me it's annoying as a plot device. (Side note: dreading the day when tumblr and/or hipsters discover this book and being Goethe-depressed like they totally epitomized unrequited love) Oh, her boyfriend throws this book at her too. Also he descends into madness, but because he's brilliant, he strives valiantly to understand his mania and even adjusts his medication experimentally. This is because he is brilliant. (The novel does not stop alluding to his brilliance because SPOILER ALERT this is his tragic downfall.) Here is a representative line: Leonard lay his head back, sighing. "They don't even understand the mechanism of manic depression yet. Our knowledge about the brain is vanishingly tiny."
You're probably wondering why this annoys me. The characters respond to and are affected by each other in ways that are not unexpected. The characters are constructed in ways that foreground a singular aspect about them which is frustratingly clichéd. There are two men competing for the love of a woman. One of them flies to India because he's, like, spiritual, and stuff?
The other reason Calcutta felt real was that he was here for a purpose. Until now he'd been merely sightseeing. The best he could say about his travels so far was that they described the route of a pilgrimage that had led him to his present location.
This is just one of the many lines that successfully demonstrate how annoying, if not enraging, contemporary orientalism can be: Asia is still a landscape framed by the language used by the West. It is a place of spirituality and pilgrimage (see: Eat, Pray, Love), and also a landscape lousy with chaos and squalor; the antithesis of the West in its urbane, disinterested hedonism and materialism, a land of rational order that provides a calm, placating sort of education which is now making the kids restless and radical. I want to believe that Eugenides is being deliberately ironic about the statements his characters say, perhaps as a means of ridiculing eighties "spirituality", but the condescension here is too subtle to be farce. Take, for instance, this scene in Calcutta:
The vendor explained what was in each, pointing, "Salt lassi. Sweet lassi. Bhang lassi."
"We're here for the Bhang lassi," Mike said.
This provoked merriment from the two men loafing against the wall, the vendor's friends, presumably.
Of course they choose the lassi laced with weed. You can only get three flavours of lassi in India apparently: salty, sweet and weed. I wouldn't be surprised, since this is the India of a more exotic flavour, of a mystic brand of religion and spirituality. But usual tropes about college and post-college kids aside, the presentation of the non-White is embarrassingly one-dimensional. The now-postcolonial Other (or should I say, "once-colonized Other" since this is a thing constantly alluded to) is the product of the tropical, stifling climate: they are lazy, they "loaf" around leading simpleton lifestyles, etc. etc. Either that, or they are weakened invalids whose basic needs are met by the "charity" of these Brown grads,
Wrapped in his sheet he looked as ancient and brown-skinned as an Egyptian mummy... [the old man] sagged between them like an animal carcass.
These are the few glimpses of Asian life that Eugenide's characters experience — their lives are shaped by the apparent horror of what they keenly observe in the lives of other people. Generally the text is at once trite, condescending and anachronistic in its undertone of a latent manifest destiny, steeped in the concerns associated with the powerful and the privileged. This is surprising, considering that the recurrent ideas Mr Eugenides' previous work are informed by experiences from the margins: the skewed narrative perspectives in The Virgin Suicides and unconventional sexual experiences and identities in Middlesex.
Still, there are parts of the novel that are arresting and moving, if in an understated and muted way. The text is readable but not dumbed-down. There are passing references to many other texts. I am somewhat disappointed with my experience of reading The Marriage Plot.
The Stories of Ray Bradbury
This tome is interesting to me because I have always associated science fiction with pulp novellas, Asimov's Science Fiction magazine and terrible cover art. These short stories are deeply psychological. I would read a story, take a nap and then feel a terrible sense of dread that I can't really locate.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion
This is useful to the person who wants to memorize esoteric pieces of information to throw around at a sit-down dinner party, over the potpourri and the vases of orchids. This one way to end a conversation you never wanted to be in. Here are some shorter entries:
Goy: a term used in the Bible for any nation including Israel
Sandalfon: an angel who figures prominently in the ancient divine-chariot mysticism
Kalischer, Tsevi Hirsch (1795-1874): rabbinic forefunner of modern Zionism who flourished in the western Polish province of Posen annexed by Prussia.
Etc. etc.
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