Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

The plan was to read Waiting For Godot, then read about it, and see how much made sense. I'm currently 50 pages through (it's 60 pages long), and I'm now convinced that it will much more valuable to me to have more background info.

So now the plan is to write down some thoughts/observations, then read about it, then finish it and finish my thoughts below. Here we go:

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Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot, see, but they don't know why, they don't know when he's coming, and they don't know why they're waiting. Nor do they seem to remember much about anything. It's all absurd dialogue, quick banter, etc.

Along come a couple of odd ducks, Pozzo treating Lucky like a slave/horse - they engage in some wackery, and then they go. They come back, leave, etc. Boy enters, announces Godot's delayed arrival. Ten pages left.

I'm clearly missing a bunch of allegorical stuff. It's about God, I get that. (This just reminded me of High Fidelity: The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera - they're about girls, right?)

Are Vladimir and Estragon stand-ins for Russia and Spain? Seems too obvious. Both historically Christian nation/states/societies, though.

Pozzo represents some culture - maybe the Romans, with the chariot and such (Lucky is pulling him). Not sure what Lucky is - subservient masses? And then Boy comes in to say Godot is coming - is he Christ? Fits with the Romans narrative. Maybe Lucky is the Jews? Okay, starting to fit a bit more, it seems. Of course, it could be nothing to do with any of that...

How is this going to end... last ten pages, here I come. But I'm not feeling at all compelled.

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I'll be honest, if I didn't know that this was about God, I wouldn't have known or guessed any of this.

(And then I go and read that it's not about God. Ah fuck.)

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Okay, good stuff from Vladimir, ostensibly about helping a fallen Pozzo:

Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us... Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!

But then:

Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come... We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. 

(Pozzo remains unhelped...)

Okay, this is getting quite good. Funny.

What's with the boots/feet thing? Life is suffering? And then the suicide attempts - Beckett via Camus, standing on the abyss, just not shaking his fist?

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So, that's it. As my friend Emily reminded me, the clichéd bit about this is that it's "a play in which nothing happens, twice."

I would love to see this performed. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are doing it on Broadway right now - I imagine it would be amazing, and friends have said as much.

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

I started this on Tuesday while Sylvie was playing with toy food. It's going to be a fun, quick read. Part fish-out-of-water, part travelogue, it's a pretty simple story so far, and the writing matches it.

Joe McGinniss is an American writer who was completely new to soccer. He has a bestseller that I almost read called The Selling of the President 1968, about the marketing of Nixon - a book I'm interested in reading.

After the World Cup was held in the US in 1994 he fell in love with the sport and decided to chase the story of a team from a tiny town in Italy that against all odds was promoted to the second tier/division of Italian soccer.

(For those new to this: soccer in most parts of the world works in a promotion/relegation pyramid - that is, the best teams move up to higher/better divisions and the worst teams move down at the end of each season.)

It's rather simple for any fan of the game - he actually explains (in just a sentence or two, luckily) how the game of soccer works. But so far it's fun, and I'm a sucker for a story about soccer in small towns in other countries.

I was thinking of what this book might mean, at the heart of it, but I feel like I'm pretentiously searching for something that isn't there. It's a travelogue/cultural immersion sort of book that the food world thrives on.

In the end, there is a seriousness to it that I enjoyed. The first half floats along, painting a picture of a slightly buffoonish fan, stumbling through a world he doesn't really understand, but the second half explores some more difficult issues - death, morality, obsession. And it's worth the trip to get there. 

Some interesting things I've read lately

Here's a quick blog entry to share some interesting things I've been reading:

John Hickenlooper, former mayor of Denver and the newly-elected Governor of Colorado, is a loony. This New York Times piece shares some pretty creative stunts he has pulled, both as an entrepreneur (micro-brewing) and as mayor and gubernatorial candidate. And he seems like a smart guy.

Actor and one-time Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson had a significant role in the Watergate hearings, as chief counsel to Republican senators. He asked the famous televised question about whether there was a recording system in the White House, eventually leading to Richard Nixon's resignation.

Primary Colors is a better book than movie. Thanks to Kurt over at your Daily Gumboot for the recommendation. It's a fascinating read, detailing (fictitiously) Bill Clinton's nomination race. I've submitted a blog piece inspired by the book to my erstwhile editor at the Mainstreet; watch for it soon.

Enjoy.

-B

Some books I'm reading or about to read

Another trip to Pulp Fiction, another haul of books (see my earlier trip). Coupled with some earlier purchases, my list of books to read is getting huge. Here are a few that I'm excited about:


The Political Brain, by Drew Westen - The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. Kansas, despite all reason or logic, vote strongly for the Republicans. Al Gore had all the arguments for the rational mind, but George W. Bush chuckled and appealed to the brain stem. It's baffling to most of us. Helpfully Drew Westen has done a great job of explaining how and why the Republicans have done such a great job of using emotion while their Democrat counterparts have failed to capture the hearts of American voters. I'm enjoying the history and the anecdotes, and trying to relate it to my experiences here in BC.


Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov - I joined an online book club at Pajiba, and this is the first book. I just picked up the 50th anniversary edition at Pulp Fiction. I've read, more than a few times in the past half year, that Nabokov is the finest writer of this century, a crafter of the best sentences ever written. Luckily I'm not given to high expectations.


Inverting the Pyramid, by Jonathan Wilson - The History of Football Tactics. I've been excited about this book for a while, and it finally arrived in the mail the other day. I just finished Raymond Chandler's second Philip Marlowe novel, Farewell, My Lovely (which was a tad more over the top than his brilliant first novel, The Big Sleep) and I am already enjoying this change of pace. Ever wonder why central defenders are called centre-halves in England? Or how Hungarian teams could ever dominate European football? Or why most teams play a flat four at the back? I do.


The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte - While planning our trip to Spain (spits on ground at Spanish thieves), we wanted to find good books by Spanish authors, preferably about Barcelona. We settled on The Shadow of the Wind, a fun literary mystery that took place right around where we were staying. On the short-list was a series about a swashbuckling 17th century Spaniard, Captain Alatriste, which looked light and fun. Today I saw some books from the series, along with The Club Dumas, by the same author. I can't really say why I chose it instead, other than that it is an earlier book and sounds more serious.

New books from Pulp Fiction - light genre, two kids and a theorist

Just a few blocks from my house is one of the best (and my favourite) used-book stores in the city, Pulp Fiction (2422 Main St, between 8th and Broadway; there's a second store in Kits). They carry a great selection of used books, and now a great selection of new (and reduced price) books as well. Too often I end up walking out with two or three more books than I intended on buying. The staff are extremely knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. Their contemporary political commentary section could be better, but other than that it's pretty perfect. If they don't have what you are looking for right then they'll let you know when it comes in. And despite the huge number of books in store, they usually know if a book is in.

Today I went to browse (always a dangerous idea for me), starting with the discount ($1.00 plus GST) bin outside, which only rarely has something I want. Today I found Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. The edition is "Prepared for use in the Schools of BC by the Dept. of Education" probably in 1961, printed by Evergreen Press Limited on SE Marine, a publisher of books on British Columbia (latest reference is 1973). For $1.05, I'll take it. I haven't read it before, but I loved Treasure Island as a kid.

Next I grabbed Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card off the window display. My friend recommended it to me last year, and I've been looking for a used copy. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best sci-fi/fantasy novel of the year in 1986. I'm not sure what it's about, but my friend assures me that it's both very interesting and a good read.

UPDATE: It's excellent. Watch for a review soon.


Ian Rankin's Let It Bleed was next, #7 in the Inspector Rebus series. I'm a pretty big fan of long series, and this one has staying power. It's dark, gritty, clever, and realistic (I won't go so far as to say hard-boiled). Rebus is a fairly typical anti-hero police officer: divorced, slightly pathetic, a bit of a loose cannon, and not anywhere near promotion, but he's a damn good homicide detective. Ian Rankin's use of the city as backdrop for Rebus' casework is a strong feature of the series, as is his ability to keep readers interested in Rebus as a character.

(Ever since reading Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends I've been reading more "genre fiction", and finding it very enjoyable.)

I've been re-reading the books from my childhood over the last year and a half, with mixed results. Books four and five I found in the small children's section (small but jam-packed with classics). I grew up reading a series by Enid Blyton (the fifth most translated author ever, ahead of Lenin but behind Shakespeare) but I forget which series. Thinking it might be The Secret Seven I picked up their first two adventures in one book: The Secret Seven and Secret Seven Adventure. I'm interested to see if it has stood the test of time.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle was book five. I remember my mom and brother reading it when I was a kid but I don't think I ever read it myself, which is odd because we usually all read the same books, especially fantasy.

I'm in the middle of reading Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading (and here) and quite enjoying it, so I looked for and found The Library At Night, his examination of the role that libraries play in our civilization. I aspire to home library ownership (that is, I would love to have an entire room in my home dedicated to books), and I'm looking forward to exploring this book.

Last came William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, a book about which The Washington Post wrote "One of the first authentic and vital novels of the twenty-first century." It is extremely well reviewed (Neil Gaiman is quoted on the cover, and the Economist named it a Best Book of the Year), and I enjoyed his last offering, Spook Country (though it wasn't amazing). He will always enjoy some popularity for his masterful cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer, which, when read a few years ago for the second time, proved to still be relevant, interesting and gripping.


After purchasing these treasures, I remembered that I had meant to look for Walter Benjamin's Illuminations (that's him above, hard at work) after reading a mention of it in A History of Reading. So I asked, and they had just received a copy, which the clerk immediately retrieved from the shelf and handed to me. It's dense cultural theory, but I needed something to balance the sci-fi and kids' books. And it's a collection of essays, so won't be too daunting.

Phewf. Eight new books in one day. Thanks, Pulp Fiction.

The Book of History

More than a few years ago I purchased a complete set of the Book of History. I fancied myself a history guy, and thought they would be kinda cool to have. Two moves later, and they are still in my possession, all 18 volumes.

In the hopes of ridding myself of these weighty tomes via craigslist, I brought one inside and took some photos. And skimmed the first volume to see what it was about. What an odd set of books. There is zero information about its publication: no date, no company, no copyright. There is a list of authors, though, and tonight I Googled the most prominent, Viscount Bryce.

Turns out the books were written between 1915 and 1921. And they're quite progressive for their time, as you can see: "It is very possible that they are mentally inferior to the whites; but not so inferior as is commonly believed." The black races are potentially not that inferior to white races. Virtually open-minded these men were.

Okay, kidding aside, I wonder just how progressive this thinking was. Relating it to football (like I tend to do on occasion):

It may have been possible to have seen the first black footballer playing for England back in the 1920's with London-born Jack Leslie, a prolific striker for Plymouth Argyle between 1920 & 1935, scoring over 400 goals. Leslie had been informed by his manager Bob Jack that he had been selected to play for England. He later received communication cancelling his call up to the England team stating that they didn't realise he was ‘a man of colour’. Jack Leslie later remarked in 1982 to Brian Woolnough: “They must have forgotten I was a coloured boy.”

Racism was fairly common at the time in England. Even considering the possibility that "the black races" weren't inferior to white folk must have been fairly forward thinking. It's so difficult to judge historical attitudes.

Bartolomé de las Casas is often cited as a person who knew better at the time. He was a Spanish priest who, after witnessing the crazy exploitation of Native Americans by the Spanish, became a staunch defender of the rights of natives. He famously defended their... (have to publish to get around my failing autosave; watch for part II).

I just realized this topic is way too huge. Suffice it to say that de las Casas might not have been the paragon of virtue that he is at times made out to be. I have read that he did not feel as strongly about African slaves as he did Native Americans, though I really do need to back up this rumour with fact if I'm going to continue spreading it.