A ways back, about a week or so ago, I finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It was a birthday gift, and a much appreciated one. I haven’t written about it yet because I’d really like to read it again before I do. It’s translated from Czech, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I wish I read Czech, because the translation is so gorgeous that I’d love to read it in the source language. Honestly, every word of this book is perfectly placed and specific, it’s difficult at times to believe that it isn’t the orginal.

It’s the story of four people whose lives intersect at varying points, and how they affect and are changed by each other. It’s also a mediation on love and connection, the concepts of weight and lightness, and how relationships weigh us down or make us lighter, and which of those is a positive.

Historically set as it is in Prague during a Russian threat, it covers a time period and area that I don’t really know at all, and as such, much of my reading experience was like reading a science fiction novel set in an unknown but slightly familiar world. This wasn’t really a drawback, as the characters and their relationships are so strong and solidly written, and their environment is well described and clear. I didn’t feel lost while reading it, just when trying to pinpoint the time period after the fact, but I will completely admit that this is my failing and not the book’s.

One thing that struck me was a sentiment of one of the characters that reminded me of something Gerald Murphy was quoted as saying to F. Scott Fitzgerald in the biography of the Murphys I just finished. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Franz is described as the following:

“Franz felt his book life to be unreal. He yearned for real life, for the touch of people walking side by side with thim, for their shouts. It never occurred to him that what he considered unreal(the work he did in the solitude of the office or library) was in fact his real life, whereas the parades he imagined to be reality were nothing but theater, dance, carnival– in other words, a dream.”

Gerald said, “For me only the invented part of life is satisfying, the unrealistic part. Things happen to you– sickness, birth, Zelda in Lausanne, Patrick in the sanatorium, Father Wiborg’s death– these things were realistic, and you couldn’t do anything about them. Do you mean you don’t accept these things? Scott asked. I replied that of course [I] accepted them, but I didn’t feel they were the important things really… the invented part, for me, is what has meaning.”

I don’t know what to make of that at the moment, but I found the connection interesting. I’ll write more about this one once I’ve reread it.

After the deepness of Unbearable Lightness, I went to the library and picked up a stack of books. The one I read on the way home was Groucho Marx, King of the Jungle, by Ron Goulart, a marvelously entertaining murder mystery featuring Groucho Marx and his friend as the detectives. Groucho Marx is his wise cracking self throughout the novel, and while all the wit is very well done, it made me wonder if this was lazy writing on the part of Mr. Goulart, or if Groucho was the character of Groucho in real life. (Or conversly, if he just played himself in the movies.)

I fully admit to not knowing a ton about the Marx brothers. I know who they are, obviously, and I’ve seen at least a couple of their films, but I don’t really know a lot about them personally, so I turned to my encyclopedic friend Gary Sassaman to find out what he knew. Gary informed me that Groucho was always “on”, and in fact couldn’t really turn himself off, and that this was possibly the cause of his 3 marriages falling apart. I can see how that would be hard to live with. This piece of information was very illuminating to the novel at hand, so thanks Gary! (You should all check out his blog at http://innocentbystander.typepad.com/innocent_bystander/, he’s one of the best writers I know.)

The mystery itself was clever and the characters entertaining. The book I read is apparently the most recent in a series, so I’ll have to go back and catch up. Oh the torture.

I’m currently reading Swing by Rupert Holmes, which I’m quite enjoying. I have to read it before anything else because I bought it, and I have a bad habit of buying books that then never get read, but it’s really very entertaining. It’s a murder mystery set at the time of the West Coast World’s Fair, and I’m really liking it. And I just found out from Gary’s blog that apparently there’s a website with a soundtrack for the book, so I’ll have to check that out. See, Gary really does know everything!

Next I will be reading The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Current total: 23
Just finished: Groucho Marx, King of the Jungle by Ron Goulart
Currently Reading: Swing by Rupert Holmes

I finished both the books I was reading, and they were both great. Deathbird Stories continued to stun me, spinning a world that I didn’t want to leave. I mean, I wouldn’t want to live there, but the stories were awesome. Only one, Bleeding Stones, was too graphic for me to read, I ended skimming over it as the violence was just too much for me. What’s somewhat suprising is that the first story, The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, is also quite violent, but I absolutely loved it, and thought that it worked perfectly as an entry to the visceral world that Ellison created. The story that follows it, Along the Scenic Route, has a Bradbury feel to it that made me very comfortable. My other favorites were O Ye of Little Faith, The Face of Helene Bournouw, and Ernest and the Machine God, but I realize as I try to pick which are my favorites that I really like them all for different reasons. They hit so many different tones that I appreciate them each differently. (And I use the word different a lot. Here, I’ll use it some more.) I get the feeling that when I read it again my favorites will be completely different, as different things jump out as important.

I also finished Everybody was So Young, and the experience of reading it was like finding a missing puzzle piece in my contextual understanding. As I mentioned before, it’s the biography of Gerald and Sara Murphy, a marvelous couple who were part of the “Lost Generation” in 1920s expatriate France. They were wonderful people, and friends with many of the important creative people who came out of that time and place. They inspired the characters of the Divers in Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, were the ‘rich people’ Hemingway wrote of bitterly (and completely unfairly) in A Moveable Feast, and were the family that Dorothy Parker went to Switzerland with instead of finishing her book. They were friends with Cole and Linda Porter, helped Serge Diaghilev with his ballets, were drawn by Picasso, and were the inspiration for Archie MacLeish’s Pulitzer Prize winning play JB. I’d read about them in passing as I read the biographies or works of these other people, but reading about them and their lives, and how these other people fit into it was fascinating.

As I said, the Murphys were marvelous people. They were stylish and charming, but more importantly, genuinely kind and compassionate people. They threw themselves into supporting their friends, emotionally and monetarily. Even at the detriment of their own financial stability, if someone asked them for money they didn’t hesitate to hand it over. They routinely sent Hemingway and his wife money, saying that they had no use for it; when Fitzgerald spent a year drunk instead of working and didn’t have sufficient money to pay his daughter’s tuition, they wired him the money even though they were struggling to pay for their own home. They had beautiful children who they doted over, two of whom died tragically of illness far before their time, but all the same they never became bitter, reaching out instead to their friends.

Even when those friends seemingly turned against them, they forgave (sometimes after a while- they were only human after all), and continued to support them. Fitzgerald’s novel was hurtful because it had the character based on her leaving her husband for a someone very similar to Ernest Hemingway who in real life was in love with her, and had the character based on Gerald falling into failure and despair (not because of the addition of Zelda’s madness to Sara’s character as I previously thought). Hemingway’s mocking portrayal of their support in A Moveable Feast (There is Never Any End to Paris) was really unfair. He relied heavily on their support throughout his career, and his attempt to rewrite his past was painful to them. MacLeish’s modern telling of the Biblical story of Job drew heavily from their experiences, he even named Job’s wife Sarah, and the disintegration of the marriage that he ends the play with was hard for them. I can only guess that the reason these friends decided to turn against the couple who had so unconditionally supported them was that they seemed to be blessed, and above it all. They masked their pain and suffering, and really seemed to be a golden couple, having everything and suffering nothing. Maybe they felt the need to take them down a peg or two- I don’t know.

It was a pleasure to read about these fantastic people. I wish I had known them, and am grateful that they were such a support to the writers that I appreciate so much. Now I want to go back and read all the references to them that I can find!

Current total: 21
Just Finished: Everybody was So Young by Amanda Vaill
Next Up: I have no idea!

More catching up to do.

The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh was delightful. There were some interesting insights into the writing process, some great historical context realizations for me, and over all I highly enjoyed it.

The Everlasting by Jamie S. Rich. I reviewed this last year when I read an advanced copy, and I read it again recently in an editing capacity. With each book Rich gets stronger and stronger in his storytelling, and his books manage to do what good literature does- make you feel. Happy, furious, so so sad, this book has a bit of it all. It will be released in August, with a truly gorgeous cover by Chynna Clugston, and you can bet I’ll be reading it again then. (I’ll write more about it then too.)

Writing down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I started reading this at the beginning of the year, then left it at my sister’s and only just got it back. Goldberg uses writing as a Zen practice, and this book is her instruction on how to do so. As a result she ends up giving insights on both Zen and writing, and as short and simple as the chapters are, I felt like I missed a lot, because there’s just so much in there to get. I’ll be reading this one again too.

I’m currently doing something I rarely do- reading 2 books at once. I’m reading both Everybody was So Young by Amanda Vaill, a biography of Gerald and Sara Murphy, the couple on which Fitzgerald’s Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night were based. They’re a fascinating couple in a fascinating time and place, and Gerald reminds me somewhat of Max Fischer, the main character in Rushmore.

I’m also reading Harlan Ellison’s Deathbird Stories, which is stunning. Similar in concept to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Ellison’s stories are darker and deeper, haunting you long after you’ve put the book down. The over riding concept is that many gods exist, as long as someone believes in them. Once the last believer is gone, so is the god. New gods are created as people worship new things, and these stories concentrate on those new gods- speed, gambling, violence and terror, etc. The stories are harsh but penetrating, shocking but purposefully so, as they electrify your brain into thinking about things differently. Jamie gifted me with this book, (it’s out of print), and I’m extremely grateful.

Current total: 19
Currently reading: Everybody was So Young by Amanda Vaill and Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison