Yet Again: Re-reading
I find myself re-reading increasingly; it must be a sign of aging. In a recent review of a newly published novel the reviewer quotes several writers of fiction who pronounce the very genre dead: it seems that “making up stories about imaginary people” is passé, thus the avalanche of barely fictionalized accounts of the minutiae of the daily life of authors, such as “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, and its ilk. The rules are changing, the world and its mirror image in literature, in music, in visual arts hurtles forward ever faster and I seem to fall back increasingly on books from the past, old friends, for solace. So recently I tested the slightly dangerous waters of picking up books after decades-long intervals; as I said in a post in March of 2013, this step requires some bravery since one never knows if one will retain the solace of an old friendship or find the cherished connection lost. Two books provided examples of both possibilities.
The publishing of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” was a major literary event in the early eighties; the fame of the book preceded it even before the English translation of the Italian original (excellent, by William Weaver) had appeared in the U.S. and immediately catapulted on to the best-seller list. The author, a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, had written a classic Whodunit, a crime story replete with multiple murders and a brilliant investigator who arrives at the solution to the mysterious events in a nick of time. We are transported to an abbey in the early 14th century, the object of desire causing the series of murders is a lost manuscript, and victims, suspects, and detectives are all monks. The background to all this is an intensely political atmosphere having to do with the rival factions within the Church as well that of the rivalry of the Church itself with the Holy Roman Empire. I devoured it avidly when it appeared, I saw parallels in the detailed descriptions of the schisms, the no-holds-barred enmities of a divided 14th century Europe to the 20th century versions of it, its hot and cold wars raging, its powerful Popes replaced by powerful dictators of Fascism and Communism vying for supremacy with Western Liberalism. Somehow the enormously detailed references to medieval marginalia, minutely detailed descriptions of religious symbolism in the abbey’s art, philosophical arguments among the monks about tiny divergences of dogma did not faze me in the least; I was enthralled. There were huge arguments raging at the time among critics as well as readers about the underlying political meaning of the story, even whether there was any contemporary reference at all, or was this simply a very erudite work of a brilliant medievalist having some fun. To make an attempt at solving this question, (see the post of March 6, ’14) I wrote a letter to the person in the best position to answer it: the author himself, and to my utter shock, he answered. He essentially said that the political parallels were in the eye of the beholder, i.e. the reader; but since history seems to repeat itself endlessly, such interpretations are not unreasonable. – And that’s where matters were left, until I picked up the book again recently, after thirty years have gone by. I wish I hadn’t. I changed; it changed. Where on first encountering it, I found the minutiae riveting, now I found it over-detailed, mannered, precious. Where long ago I found the solution to the crimes clever, this time I found it forced and artificial, depending less on clever reasoning than a series of haphazard revelations. And where the political parallels were then clear to me, I saw them as much less relevant now; perhaps the minute details of the then raging Cold War made me more acutely sensitive to them. Undoubtedly it is my loss, for while I recognize the book as full of fascinating details of medieval life and literature written by a master, the personal appeal it had for me long ago is severely diminished; partly perhaps because the intense interest in finding the solution to the crimes that had kept one riveted was now gone, somehow it all seemed thinner. I should have savored the memory of it.
On the other hand. “Howards End”, by E. M. Forster, recently re-read for the third time, is a book of such balm, such endless pleasure, such an overwhelming embrace by an old friend, such a madeleine to bring back the memories of first encountering it, remembering how one was then and how the book impressed then, and how one changed and yet how the book has a world of things to say still, though they may be different things than they were years ago. Here remembering the denouement diminishes the reading experience not at all; if anything, it enhances it. I was struck, again, about the modernity of a book written a century ago: the minute differences among the upper and lower tiers of the middle classes and the difficulty of communications across those barriers, the enormous importance of being financially comfortable, the gentrification of London, the displacement of charming neighborhoods by expensive high rise apartment buildings could have been written about present day New York. The language is lyrical; the story is riveting; and the final peace that arrives with the unexpected denouement never ceases to bring a sense of completion to the reader. This is one to return to over and over again.
The publishing of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” was a major literary event in the early eighties; the fame of the book preceded it even before the English translation of the Italian original (excellent, by William Weaver) had appeared in the U.S. and immediately catapulted on to the best-seller list. The author, a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, had written a classic Whodunit, a crime story replete with multiple murders and a brilliant investigator who arrives at the solution to the mysterious events in a nick of time. We are transported to an abbey in the early 14th century, the object of desire causing the series of murders is a lost manuscript, and victims, suspects, and detectives are all monks. The background to all this is an intensely political atmosphere having to do with the rival factions within the Church as well that of the rivalry of the Church itself with the Holy Roman Empire. I devoured it avidly when it appeared, I saw parallels in the detailed descriptions of the schisms, the no-holds-barred enmities of a divided 14th century Europe to the 20th century versions of it, its hot and cold wars raging, its powerful Popes replaced by powerful dictators of Fascism and Communism vying for supremacy with Western Liberalism. Somehow the enormously detailed references to medieval marginalia, minutely detailed descriptions of religious symbolism in the abbey’s art, philosophical arguments among the monks about tiny divergences of dogma did not faze me in the least; I was enthralled. There were huge arguments raging at the time among critics as well as readers about the underlying political meaning of the story, even whether there was any contemporary reference at all, or was this simply a very erudite work of a brilliant medievalist having some fun. To make an attempt at solving this question, (see the post of March 6, ’14) I wrote a letter to the person in the best position to answer it: the author himself, and to my utter shock, he answered. He essentially said that the political parallels were in the eye of the beholder, i.e. the reader; but since history seems to repeat itself endlessly, such interpretations are not unreasonable. – And that’s where matters were left, until I picked up the book again recently, after thirty years have gone by. I wish I hadn’t. I changed; it changed. Where on first encountering it, I found the minutiae riveting, now I found it over-detailed, mannered, precious. Where long ago I found the solution to the crimes clever, this time I found it forced and artificial, depending less on clever reasoning than a series of haphazard revelations. And where the political parallels were then clear to me, I saw them as much less relevant now; perhaps the minute details of the then raging Cold War made me more acutely sensitive to them. Undoubtedly it is my loss, for while I recognize the book as full of fascinating details of medieval life and literature written by a master, the personal appeal it had for me long ago is severely diminished; partly perhaps because the intense interest in finding the solution to the crimes that had kept one riveted was now gone, somehow it all seemed thinner. I should have savored the memory of it.
On the other hand. “Howards End”, by E. M. Forster, recently re-read for the third time, is a book of such balm, such endless pleasure, such an overwhelming embrace by an old friend, such a madeleine to bring back the memories of first encountering it, remembering how one was then and how the book impressed then, and how one changed and yet how the book has a world of things to say still, though they may be different things than they were years ago. Here remembering the denouement diminishes the reading experience not at all; if anything, it enhances it. I was struck, again, about the modernity of a book written a century ago: the minute differences among the upper and lower tiers of the middle classes and the difficulty of communications across those barriers, the enormous importance of being financially comfortable, the gentrification of London, the displacement of charming neighborhoods by expensive high rise apartment buildings could have been written about present day New York. The language is lyrical; the story is riveting; and the final peace that arrives with the unexpected denouement never ceases to bring a sense of completion to the reader. This is one to return to over and over again.
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