Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Thanks again to Erika and Jasmine for independently recommending this book. Extremely interesting and worth the while.
It is one part memoir and one part psychoanalysis guide. It outlines the growth of the principles of logotherapy in the mind of its creator, Viktor Frankl, during his three year detainment in Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz and Dachau. It also provides notes from the doctor as he continued to develop this therapy at his practice in America after the war.

A really interesting trait of the memoir was that it did not focus on the tragedies of the camps, either on a personal or national level, although there was certainly tragedy enough to talk about. Frankl seemed more concerned with describing how and why people may choose and desire to continue living even when living is agony. It details how the doctor and others around him found meaning in their sufferings and how healing was possible after the experience.

The writing was very formal and somewhat more clinical than many memoirs would be. He tends to give very analytical views of his emotions, which I rather like. If I can analyse a thing it is not so scary, right?

Now to the clinical part. Frankl focuses on how the search for and realisation of a meaning or purpose helps heal a great many of the psychological problems people consult him for. In his words, "Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human".  He demonstrates, with examples, how people may find meaning in work, love, or even suffering and why it is necessary that meaning is found.

I loved this validation of my own desperate quest for purpose. I am, as you know, a pathological nihilist. Looking at how this man found purpose in pain or in love or in work. It gave me some helpful tips on how to deal with the existential panics which assail me when I least expect it. The one thing I think is very worth mentioning is that the doctor never suggests anyone make pleasure or self-satisfaction their purpose or meaning. It is simply not done. REMEMBER THIS BECCA!

Up currently: The Cosmic Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (beginning with Out of the Silent Planet). A return to an old favourite that I will always love.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

My initial reaction to this book was a huge, resounding "WAT".
On one hand, I knew from other sources that it was supposed to be about waiting for God/purpose/the answer to life the universe and everything. On the other hand, I don't know how anyone arrived at that conclusion from what was actually written on the page.

Sorry Calvin, I think this is one of the ones I'm condemned to not understand.

So being a play, this has a writing style that's much harder to criticise than novels. To be honest, the only play that I've ever read that I've LOVED is Cyrano de Bergerac, and I only loved it because Cyrano is SO sassy and SO poetic and SO heroic that nothing else matters. I digress.
There are two people waiting in the play: Estragon and Vladimir. I'm not sure what they are supposed to represent. Maybe two states of waiting: one who is ignorant to the intention and one who is aware? Anyway they both hate it. Then there's these other guys, Pozzo and Lucky, who come in and out, and I have no idea what that's about.

There was one point in the play where Beckett nearly stumbled into lucidity. Here's the bit:

VLADIMIR:

Let's wait and see what he says.

ESTRAGON:

Who?

VLADIMIR:

Godot.

ESTRAGON:

Good idea.

VLADIMIR:

Let's wait till we know exactly how we stand.

ESTRAGON:

On the other hand it might be better to strike the iron before it freezes.

VLADIMIR:

I'm curious to hear what he has to offer. Then we'll take it or leave it.

ESTRAGON:

What exactly did we ask him for?

VLADIMIR:

Were you not there?

ESTRAGON:

I can't have been listening.

VLADIMIR:

Oh . . . Nothing very definite.

ESTRAGON:

A kind of prayer.

VLADIMIR:

Precisely.

ESTRAGON:

A vague supplication.

VLADIMIR:

Exactly.

ESTRAGON:

And what did he reply?

VLADIMIR:

That he'd see.

ESTRAGON:

That he couldn't promise anything.

VLADIMIR:

That he'd have to think it over.

ESTRAGON:

In the quiet of his home.

VLADIMIR:

Consult his family.

ESTRAGON:

His friends.

VLADIMIR:

His agents.

ESTRAGON:

His correspondents.

VLADIMIR:

His books.

ESTRAGON:

His bank account.

VLADIMIR:

Before taking a decision.

ESTRAGON:

It's the normal thing.

VLADIMIR:

Is it not?

ESTRAGON:

I think it is.

VLADIMIR:  

I think so too.

So if this had been the whole play, I would have seen the metaphor with waiting for God et al. at once. But this nonsensical banter goes on and on and then the other guys show up and it's even more impossible to tell what's actually going on. Maybe I need to see it acted, I don't know.

Anyway, I talked it over with some people and I'm not the first person to have struggled with it. The general consensus is that it's so far out in the abstract that it may have cut itself adrift from sense entirely.

Overall, 2/5. Because that's how many of the characters I understood.

Up next: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, which comes highly recommended by both Erika and Jasmine. Thanks! After this one I want something less heavy so I might revisit a G. K. Chesterton or C. S. Lewis favourite.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Overall, this book is very similar to the Stanley Kubrick film, which some of you kids will have seen.
The major difference lies in the conclusion so I must issue a spoiler alert, although if you continue reading this review I doubt you will ever read the book or see the film.

The important thing to disclaim here and now is that Anthony Burgess approved of the ultra-violence which his character Alex metes out to various members of the unsuspecting public. Burgess wrote later that the gang-rape scene especially (probably memorable to those who've seen the movie) sickened and appalled him even as he wrote it. Yet write it he did, and it does indeed fill the reader or observer with the squeamies.

Disclaimer delivered, now on to the real stuff.

The writing in this short novel is some of the most difficult that I've ever succeeded in reading. I know at least one of you has read Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (or snippets thereof) and that is the nearest thing I can liken it to. Chaucer's middle English, with its borrowed words from German and Latin and French and its bizarrely phonetic spelling is a joyous thing to read, especially aloud, because it exposes the roots and heart of our language. Burgess writes in a language which borrows 60 or so words from Russian (ie: "devotchka" = female, "slovo" = word), adds another handful of American slang (ie: "pee and em" = dad and mom, "guttiwuts" = stomach), and tops up the rest with a very formal dialogue voice (he uses the phrase "O my brothers" to speak to the reader throughout). The result takes some real adjusting. I suppose I could have looked up a glossary of the words online, but I just tried to piece it all together from context and I got on just fine after a few pages.

Aside from the difficult language, Burgess writes most sensory experiences very literally. His metaphors are so novel as to nearly lose meaning. The effects of using an uneducated voice to narrate a very clever novel is well-observed here, while Alex listens to his favourite song, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:

Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.

Lovely stuff. And just a few pages later we get to the ultra-violence (not my words, the narrators). In the early chapters, Alex stomps, stabs, beats, loots, and rapes his way around town with three friends. He is ratted out by these friends and convicted of murdering an old woman. He is sent to prison, where he kills another inmate and is sent to a "Juvenile Reclamation" project which is every bit as sinister as it sounds. Using drugs and a TV set, a doctor causes Alex to feel violently ill whenever he imagines or sees violent or sexual behaviour. After two weeks of treatment he is released to the world. Immediately on his release his friend from the ultra-violence pack finds him and beats him nearly to death. A man whose wife Alex raped nurses him back to health. A group of mercenaries under the direction of the government torture him into attempting suicide. The suicide is unsuccessful and Alex loses the anti-violence conditioning. Within days he is back on the streets, causing all manner of trouble. The film ends here, the book carries on a few more pages: he grows up.

In the beginning, Alex is 15. At the end he is 18. Very few years, but very important ones. In the end of the book, Alex abandons the reckless and violent behaviour of his friends and decides he will look for a good job and a good wife ("a mother to his son"). The summary Alex gives is that being young is basically being a wind-up toy. We bumble around and mess up ourselves and everyone else and there's nothing much to do about it. It's worse than being an animal.

So basically Burgess was saying that youth is the same, even in this ultra-violent future, and that whether you bother to brainwash them or not eventually they will settle down. They will come to their senses of their own accord. We will all want that white-picket fence or equivalent when we've awakened from our youth.

I like that the novel doesn't glorify youth at all. Being young is being stupid and then whining about how hard it is to be stupid.

I have more thoughts but it is my bedtime. Overall I wouldn't recommend this book because of the difficult language and the rape and violence even though they aren't the moral of the story. Maybe a 5/7? I really liked the language, personally, because it makes me feel like I'm reading a different language and I'm cleverer for it.

Up next: Waiting for Godot, suggested by Calvin!

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

A little change of pace from what has been rather heavy reading. This book was an absolute pleasure cruise stylistically and I've made peace with the content for now.

Neil Gaiman is the writer of such classics as Coraline and Stardust. This book was suggested by my cousin Daniel, whose opinion I can generally respect. I read American Gods this past summer and it was a little bit too grown up for me but this novel is a masterpiece.

It follows the man Richard Mayhew as he stumbles from a normal life in London to a tumultuous adventure through the parallel universe of London Below. He accompanies the Lady Door on her mission to discover who ordered her family murdered.

This is not unlike one of those kids' adventure books (of which the Narnia series were the first-ish) where an unassuming child falls into another world and becomes a hero. They learn about the value of friendship or some similar trite BS and come back home with a deep appreciation for their home/family/boring life, etc.

Except Gaiman doesn't let that trope be. He explores the nature of the demons we face in our parallel universes (aka: inner lives/selves). He gives them names and forms - our fear of losing our identity, of losing our dignity, of losing our physical lives, of losing our minds. His allegory for the triumph of belief over inanity is astounding. He champions the hero of the mind who will not lie to themselves, who will not be blind to the inscrutable just because it is difficult. I love that theme. A hero does not accept a fate just because it is the most obvious or comfortable choice. A hero accepts the materials given and forges their own fate from it. A departure from the Wizard of Oz, no-place-like-home stuff, more of the Tolkenian epic written conveniently all in English and a healthy amount of snappy one-liners.

Or it might just be a nice little fantasy work that has no metaphorical depth whatsoever. Depends whether you're a materialist (Daniel...). Here's your tasty little quote:

So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experiences; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.

 The style is super British, which I love because I read too much Tolkein and Lewis and Chesterton and Kipling and Bronte in my youth. There is also a tendency to draw heavily on the mythology and history and geography of London. I don't know the city, obviously, never having been, but I do love that a true son of that city writes about it so craftily. He weaves the elements of those myths with elements of reality to demonstrate the city as he experiences it: half hagridden ancestral birth-mother, half tangible brick-and-mortar. Gaiman will always get full points for writing style. I doubt I can help it.

I give this book 3/3 stars, because that's how many I know (Polaris, Alpha Centauri, the Sun).

Up next: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.