JamesF's 2016 Challenge

[James]

Dec. 21

108. Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers [1966] 307 pages

After Cohen's recent death, I read some of his poetry last month, and I decided to look for this novel and by chance I found it in the next box I unpacked. It was published in 1966 (like most of the poetry, it was written before he became a song writer and performer), and I think it couldn't have been written at any other time; the style is a cross between Naked Lunch and Henry Miller, the background is Quebec politics and the foreground is mostly sexual fantasies. There isn't really any coherent plot, just a sort of kaleidoscopic view of the internal dynamics of the characters. There are only four characters; the unnamed narrator is a "loser", an aging (and obssessively constipated) scholar who has dedicated his professional life to studying an Indian tribe known for never having won a battle, and now reduced to a dozen or so members; his wife, Edith, one of the last members of that tribe, who has committed suicide shortly before the novel begins; his childhood friend/tormentor/gay lover, F., a Quebec nationalist who had represented Montreal in Parliament, and had also died just before the beginning of the book; and Saint Kateri (Catherine)Tekakwitha, a seventeenth century Mohawk who became a Catholic Saint, known as "the Iroquois Virgin" and "the Lily of the Mohawk" (I assumed she was fictional, but discovered on Wikipedia that she was an actual saint and her life was more or less as depicted in the novel; although he anticipated a bit, as she wasn't made a saint officially until some twenty years after the book was written.) The novel is divided into three parts; the first and longest is an internal monologue on the part of the narrator, partly addressed to the other three characters; the second part is a long letter written to him by F. from the hospital for the criminally insane just before his death; and the third part is a short epilogue. The cover calls Cohen "the most daring new novelist on the scene today", and I assume the book was rather scandalous when it was written; the changing attitudes over the past half-century, particularly with regard to bisexuality, have deprived it of much of its shock value. It contains some interesting writing, but I think its main value today is as a sample of the avant-garde literature of the sixties.

[James]

Dec. 24

109. Claude McKay, Selected Poems [1999] 52 pages

The Jamaican-born poet who was a major influence on the Harlem Renaissance; this is a slight selection out of his more than 300 poems. After reading these, I intend to get his Complete Poems, either through the library or by buying them on Amazon. There are selections from his two books written in Jamaica in 1912, the year before he came to the U.S. (Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads) and from his later collection, Harlem Shadows, as well as some which were not collected previously. The subjects include love poems, poems about Jamaica, and poems dealing with racism and oppression in both countries. All are worth reading.

[James]

Dec. 25

110. John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent [1961] 263 pages

Steinbeck's last novel, written in 1961, and much better than anything else he wrote after the Depression (possibly excepting East of Eden, which is now the only Steinbeck novel I haven't read). It's the story of an honest man who is corrupted (but perhaps not entirely) by the corrupt environment he's living in. The description of America in the fifties is as true as his descriptions of the thirties were in the novels of that period. Only one aspect of the plot doesn't seem realistic, and that in the end doesn't happen. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, because this is a book where it matters and there may be some who are getting ready to read it.) One of Steinbeck's faults in most of his "lesser" novels is that the characters, improbably, all speak and think like -- well, like Steinbeck. Here, the protagonist in terms of his education and position is enough like Steinbeck that it's not a problem.

[James]

Dec. 29

111. Sam Keith, from the journals and photographs of Richard Proenneke, One man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey [1973] 223 pages

One of the books for the Utah State Library book discussion in January; a nonfiction account of Richard Proenneke's building a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness and living in it for sixteen months. There was a lot of good description of the Alaskan landscape and the animals who lived in the area (brown bear, moose, caribou, and so forth), and the resourcefulness of Proenneke in making use of natural products in furnishing his cabin. I can understand how this sort of life might appeal to some people, although not to me (I'm definitely an urban person, and if I had the money I would be living back in Manhattan, if not London or Paris.) In any case, it's good to know that this sort of unspoiled area still exists (or did fifty years ago -- for all I know there's probably a leaky pipeline running through it now.)

[James]

Dec. 31

112. John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America [1962] 187 pages

I read this for the Utah State Library discussion group; it's the reason I was doing a Steinbeck mini-project the last two or three months (I've read all the novels now except East of Eden as well as this non-fiction book.) This was his last real book, and it is obvious that it was written by an older man near the end of his lifetime, full of regret for the changes that have occurred or are ongoing. It's a travel book, and that's not a genre I usually enjoy; this one was somewhat better than most in that he was actually interested in the people he met and the places he visited, rather than just complaining about the discomforts of the trip. He set out in 1960 to visit or revisit much of America, together with his poodle Charley, in a pick-up truck with a camper shell. Steinbeck has an anti-urban bias; he avoided cities because he considered the small towns and rural villages to be the "real" America. I, on the other hand, think that the real America is the cities; we're an urban population since a little before World War II, at the least. Not surprisingly, he idealizes small town life and laments its decline. He does make some good, if not highly original, points about the standardization of American life, and the disappearance of regional differences -- I couldn't help humming "Little Boxes" as I read parts of this. One of the most interesting points is that no one wanted to talk about politics; I remember 1962 and the intimidating influence of the witch-hunt was still strong then. Otherwise, though, there was little in the way of real insights. The section on the "Cheerleaders" in New Orleans was the most interesting.

[Terris]

James wrote: "Dec. 31

112. John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America [1962] 187 pages

I read this for the Utah State Library discussion group; it's the reason I was doing a Steinbeck mini-proj..."

I read Travels with Charley a couple of years ago, and there were parts that I had to read out loud to my husband! I just love the way Steinbeck puts words together :)
You must get to East of Eden! It's been a long time since I read it, but I think you'll like it. Enjoy!