Monday, December 21, 2009
I Love the 00s: Chuck Palahniuk
I wasn't much of a reader as a child, a bad habit that continued well into adulthood. Thankfully I've begun reading a lot more books this decade and at least part of the reason why is my fondness for one particular author: Chuck Palahniuk.
Like a lot of people, I first heard of Chuck's work when I saw the movie Fight Club (1999) which was based on his 1996 novel. I didn't actually get around to reading it until 2004 though, shortly after I saw him speak at my university. I thought the book was terrific, even if I felt the movie had a better ending. I later read Survivor (1999) which was, frankly, an even better tale about the lone survivor of a cult trying to assimilate into (but ultimately recognizing the absurdity of) our society.
But those are 90s books and this series of mine is about the 00s. Chuck may not churn out books at Stephen King's pace but he's been busy in the past ten years, presumably thanks to the tremendous publicity a Hollywood movie can bring.
The first book I read after Fight Club was actually the one Chuck came to UAlbany to promote, Haunted (2005). It's a short story collection bound by a creepy main story about a group of people who attend a secluded writer's workshop inside an old auditorium. The doors are locked and the windows are sealed under the assumption that cutting themselves off from the world will allow them to concentrate on their work, but the situation quickly deteriorates as they intentionally spoil their surroundings so that the ordeal can be more dramatic. I can't say I found all of the short stories to be engrossing but most of them were superb, as was the master story about the lengths to which humans will go to draw attention to themselves. For a book about writers I suspect he was also taking a shot at reality television in tha regard.
Other books written by Chuck that I enjoyed were Choke (2001), the story of a man who pretends to do just that so people can save him, Lullaby (2002), about a poem that can kill, and Snuff (2008), a cringe-inducing story set inside the waiting room for participants in a gang-bang. I can't say I really thought much of Rant (2007), for while it was well-written the science-fiction angle just never grabbed me. I have yet to read Diary (2003) or his latest work, Pygmy but I hope to pick one of them up when I'm next in the States.
It's not easy to explain what it is about Chuck's books that I find so fascinating, but I guess it's in the details. His books are packed with little factoids, such as the recipe for napalm in Fight Club. That one happens to be false as his publisher insisted that the real ingredients not be disclosed to the public, but he's always slipping in little things like that into his stories.
Furthermore, he routinely describes things that are positively disgusting and that I would never want to contemplate let alone witness, yet his stories draw me and make me feel closer to that grime than any other writer. While I read Snuff I could picture that room as if I was standing in it, so much so that I felt like I desperately needed a shower. And I defy anyone to read "Guts" in Haunted without laughing out loud or gagging, depending on your tolerance for awful stories about masturbation.
If you've never read his work, I'd recommend either of his 90s works above as a starting point, but I'm certainly a fan now and I look forward to more. Supposedly all of his books have been optioned for films at this point (I didn't see Choke) but as great as Fight Club was on-screen, I think his stories lose their urgency in the adaptation process once his writing style is removed. It's a contradiction: his books deliver such vivid descriptions that I can vizualize myself in them and I would love to see more of his creations in theaters, yet I am aware that any film version will ultimately be compromised because it will not be delivered in his distinctive prose.
I guess that's what books are for.
This represents Part 6 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Like a lot of people, I first heard of Chuck's work when I saw the movie Fight Club (1999) which was based on his 1996 novel. I didn't actually get around to reading it until 2004 though, shortly after I saw him speak at my university. I thought the book was terrific, even if I felt the movie had a better ending. I later read Survivor (1999) which was, frankly, an even better tale about the lone survivor of a cult trying to assimilate into (but ultimately recognizing the absurdity of) our society.
But those are 90s books and this series of mine is about the 00s. Chuck may not churn out books at Stephen King's pace but he's been busy in the past ten years, presumably thanks to the tremendous publicity a Hollywood movie can bring.
The first book I read after Fight Club was actually the one Chuck came to UAlbany to promote, Haunted (2005). It's a short story collection bound by a creepy main story about a group of people who attend a secluded writer's workshop inside an old auditorium. The doors are locked and the windows are sealed under the assumption that cutting themselves off from the world will allow them to concentrate on their work, but the situation quickly deteriorates as they intentionally spoil their surroundings so that the ordeal can be more dramatic. I can't say I found all of the short stories to be engrossing but most of them were superb, as was the master story about the lengths to which humans will go to draw attention to themselves. For a book about writers I suspect he was also taking a shot at reality television in tha regard.
Other books written by Chuck that I enjoyed were Choke (2001), the story of a man who pretends to do just that so people can save him, Lullaby (2002), about a poem that can kill, and Snuff (2008), a cringe-inducing story set inside the waiting room for participants in a gang-bang. I can't say I really thought much of Rant (2007), for while it was well-written the science-fiction angle just never grabbed me. I have yet to read Diary (2003) or his latest work, Pygmy but I hope to pick one of them up when I'm next in the States.
It's not easy to explain what it is about Chuck's books that I find so fascinating, but I guess it's in the details. His books are packed with little factoids, such as the recipe for napalm in Fight Club. That one happens to be false as his publisher insisted that the real ingredients not be disclosed to the public, but he's always slipping in little things like that into his stories.
Furthermore, he routinely describes things that are positively disgusting and that I would never want to contemplate let alone witness, yet his stories draw me and make me feel closer to that grime than any other writer. While I read Snuff I could picture that room as if I was standing in it, so much so that I felt like I desperately needed a shower. And I defy anyone to read "Guts" in Haunted without laughing out loud or gagging, depending on your tolerance for awful stories about masturbation.
If you've never read his work, I'd recommend either of his 90s works above as a starting point, but I'm certainly a fan now and I look forward to more. Supposedly all of his books have been optioned for films at this point (I didn't see Choke) but as great as Fight Club was on-screen, I think his stories lose their urgency in the adaptation process once his writing style is removed. It's a contradiction: his books deliver such vivid descriptions that I can vizualize myself in them and I would love to see more of his creations in theaters, yet I am aware that any film version will ultimately be compromised because it will not be delivered in his distinctive prose.
I guess that's what books are for.
This represents Part 6 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: books, Chuck Palahniuk, I love the 00s
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Sunday, December 06, 2009
On The Road
First things first: I never would have heard of The Road were it not for this engaging Bitmob article by Tyler Miller on connecting games with other media. He compares The Road to Fallout 3 as both are set in a dreary post-apocalyptic United States. It was this recommendation that brought the book to my attention, and just in time too as the film version has been released in theaters.
Living in Japan as I do, I will not be in a position to see the movie for quite some time, but I did recently complete the book and I found it to be quite moving. I was impressed with how basic the narrative really was, even though the book provoked a lot of philosophical musing about how we define morality and why we live as we do.
The Road is certainly one of those books that, despite its exceptional quality, you can't simply recommend to people with the usual "I enjoyed it." It's a horrible book and by that I mean the story is full of horrible things, not that the story itself is horrible. Frankly, the story is kept to a bare minimum. The reader never learns what exactly caused the apocalypse, only that this man was alive to see it and his son was born afterwards, so the boy's only source of stories about the way things used to be is his father.
That last sentence reminds me of one thing about The Road that got on my nerves: there are no names or quotation marks in the book. There's the man and the boy and since both are male, there's copious amounts of just "he." When they talk their dialogue is not marked with quotes. While it's always obvious when someone is talking as opposed to the narration of the story, the speaker is often ambiguous. This often sent me back a page to re-read conversations to double check who exactly is talking, especially when the man meets other men who are also left anonymous. I can understand the stylistic choice, seeing how names no longer matter and part of the story is about the boy growing up to become his own man, but I'm not thrilled that clarity was a casualty of that choice.
An ambiguous element that I loved was how the story handled morality. The man frequently tells the boy they are "the good guys" and how they need to avoid "the bad guys." While they certainly encounter some outright monstrous people in their journey, there's seldom a stark difference between good and bad in their world. Everyone loots and guards what they have taken as if it is rightly theirs, often with deadly force. The man discourages the boy from helping others, a logical decision (since they have so little) but a harsh one that no doubt means they have inadvertently caused others to die through their neglect.
The world is a very complicated place. We all make choices everyday that could be viewed as right or wrong by others. I eat meat, for example, no doubt to the disgust of vegetarians and vegans around the world. I spend money on frivolities like video games and cable television, funds that would be better spent on my debts or given away to charity. However, these actions as a consumer benefit those businesses who provide these services, and those businesses have employees with families of their own who get paid with a portion of my money.
The Road removes all those abstractions from the equation and still presents a world where every choice is laden with hidden implications. Every morsel of food they scavenge is potentially taken from the mouth of another. The man always tells the boy that the things they find don't belong to anyone, but he has no way of knowing that. He presumes all unclaimed objects as ex-property of the dead, yet when someone takes their shopping cart one night he furiously tracks the culprit and makes him pay a high price for a crime he himself has committed countless times. When the boy tearfully objects, he defends his actions with a limp "that's what he did to us" argument.
The message that I took away from The Road is this: when the apocalypse comes there will be no good guys or bad guys among the survivors. There will only be survivors. The man and his son have no mission and no goal, only a vague notion that they should head south towards warmer climates. There is no MacGuffin in this tale, no object they need to deliver, no task they might fulfill to save the world or themselves.
The man tells the boy they are "carrying the fire," a statement that is never fully explained. My first thought was of Prometheus from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. The gods condemned him to an eternity of suffering for his crime. I also pictured the Olympic flame as something which is carried great distances by a select few individuals.
While comparisons could be made to those ancient Greek concepts, particularly since the entire planet is suffering in the wake of a cataclysm, I think "the fire" they speak of is the will to live as humans and cling to whatever social order they can. The concept of personal property may have lost out to the rule of Finders Keepers, but the man and his son do abide by certain standards. They do not prey upon the weak, (knowingly) steal from others, nor do they engage in cannibalism. Not everyone in their world adheres to those rules, so the man takes it upon himself to raise his son to respect minimal ethical guidelines while still surviving.
It's hard to picture survival as a "choice" in our world, since I live my life each day without ever questioning the need to continue my existence. Yet in the world of The Road, that choice comes up and there is an argument against life. Why torture yourself to scrounge for every last scrap of food just so you can die a little bit later? It's not a famine or a long winter that can simply be endured until it ends, the world has been destroyed and no one is there to help. Often the man looks at his handgun and wonders if he should end their suffering, especially when they are starving or in immediate danger. I can't possibly imagine putting myself in his position and making that choice, but reading The Road was a way to contemplate such a painful decision.
Lest this sound like a depressing book, I assure you it is the exact opposite. I've had my struggles with depression from time to time. Reading a book like The Road is a head-clearer, a reminder that anyone in a position to read novels in their leisure time is living a life worth preserving. No matter how unpleasant things were for me, it never got as bad as this situation. I'm guessing anyone with the ability to read this blog is in the same position.
So the next time life has you down, grab a copy of The Road. It's not a long novel and by the end you'll be psyched to eat dinner, watch TV or do any number of casual activities. As for me, I think I'll take comfort in knowing that my son has all the food, clothes and love he could ever want.
For a slightly different version of this piece with some thoughts about how The Road might make an interesting video game, check out my Gamer Book Report on Bitmob.com.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Living in Japan as I do, I will not be in a position to see the movie for quite some time, but I did recently complete the book and I found it to be quite moving. I was impressed with how basic the narrative really was, even though the book provoked a lot of philosophical musing about how we define morality and why we live as we do.
The Road is certainly one of those books that, despite its exceptional quality, you can't simply recommend to people with the usual "I enjoyed it." It's a horrible book and by that I mean the story is full of horrible things, not that the story itself is horrible. Frankly, the story is kept to a bare minimum. The reader never learns what exactly caused the apocalypse, only that this man was alive to see it and his son was born afterwards, so the boy's only source of stories about the way things used to be is his father.
That last sentence reminds me of one thing about The Road that got on my nerves: there are no names or quotation marks in the book. There's the man and the boy and since both are male, there's copious amounts of just "he." When they talk their dialogue is not marked with quotes. While it's always obvious when someone is talking as opposed to the narration of the story, the speaker is often ambiguous. This often sent me back a page to re-read conversations to double check who exactly is talking, especially when the man meets other men who are also left anonymous. I can understand the stylistic choice, seeing how names no longer matter and part of the story is about the boy growing up to become his own man, but I'm not thrilled that clarity was a casualty of that choice.
An ambiguous element that I loved was how the story handled morality. The man frequently tells the boy they are "the good guys" and how they need to avoid "the bad guys." While they certainly encounter some outright monstrous people in their journey, there's seldom a stark difference between good and bad in their world. Everyone loots and guards what they have taken as if it is rightly theirs, often with deadly force. The man discourages the boy from helping others, a logical decision (since they have so little) but a harsh one that no doubt means they have inadvertently caused others to die through their neglect.
The world is a very complicated place. We all make choices everyday that could be viewed as right or wrong by others. I eat meat, for example, no doubt to the disgust of vegetarians and vegans around the world. I spend money on frivolities like video games and cable television, funds that would be better spent on my debts or given away to charity. However, these actions as a consumer benefit those businesses who provide these services, and those businesses have employees with families of their own who get paid with a portion of my money.
The Road removes all those abstractions from the equation and still presents a world where every choice is laden with hidden implications. Every morsel of food they scavenge is potentially taken from the mouth of another. The man always tells the boy that the things they find don't belong to anyone, but he has no way of knowing that. He presumes all unclaimed objects as ex-property of the dead, yet when someone takes their shopping cart one night he furiously tracks the culprit and makes him pay a high price for a crime he himself has committed countless times. When the boy tearfully objects, he defends his actions with a limp "that's what he did to us" argument.
The message that I took away from The Road is this: when the apocalypse comes there will be no good guys or bad guys among the survivors. There will only be survivors. The man and his son have no mission and no goal, only a vague notion that they should head south towards warmer climates. There is no MacGuffin in this tale, no object they need to deliver, no task they might fulfill to save the world or themselves.
The man tells the boy they are "carrying the fire," a statement that is never fully explained. My first thought was of Prometheus from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. The gods condemned him to an eternity of suffering for his crime. I also pictured the Olympic flame as something which is carried great distances by a select few individuals.
While comparisons could be made to those ancient Greek concepts, particularly since the entire planet is suffering in the wake of a cataclysm, I think "the fire" they speak of is the will to live as humans and cling to whatever social order they can. The concept of personal property may have lost out to the rule of Finders Keepers, but the man and his son do abide by certain standards. They do not prey upon the weak, (knowingly) steal from others, nor do they engage in cannibalism. Not everyone in their world adheres to those rules, so the man takes it upon himself to raise his son to respect minimal ethical guidelines while still surviving.
It's hard to picture survival as a "choice" in our world, since I live my life each day without ever questioning the need to continue my existence. Yet in the world of The Road, that choice comes up and there is an argument against life. Why torture yourself to scrounge for every last scrap of food just so you can die a little bit later? It's not a famine or a long winter that can simply be endured until it ends, the world has been destroyed and no one is there to help. Often the man looks at his handgun and wonders if he should end their suffering, especially when they are starving or in immediate danger. I can't possibly imagine putting myself in his position and making that choice, but reading The Road was a way to contemplate such a painful decision.
Lest this sound like a depressing book, I assure you it is the exact opposite. I've had my struggles with depression from time to time. Reading a book like The Road is a head-clearer, a reminder that anyone in a position to read novels in their leisure time is living a life worth preserving. No matter how unpleasant things were for me, it never got as bad as this situation. I'm guessing anyone with the ability to read this blog is in the same position.
So the next time life has you down, grab a copy of The Road. It's not a long novel and by the end you'll be psyched to eat dinner, watch TV or do any number of casual activities. As for me, I think I'll take comfort in knowing that my son has all the food, clothes and love he could ever want.
For a slightly different version of this piece with some thoughts about how The Road might make an interesting video game, check out my Gamer Book Report on Bitmob.com.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, December 03, 2009
December? I Miss November.
Holy crap, it's December already. If time weren't already flying because I'm getting older AND having so much fun all the time, it's definitely quickening with every diaper I change. Seriously folks, if you want to completely warp your perception of time, have a kid.
For example, little Go is just past five months old already. He doesn't look any different, but each time we weigh/measure him the numbers don't lie: he's growing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the first week's worth of pictures we took and contrast them with these recent Twitpic shots (With Snoopy / With Mom and Cake / On a Scale). Now you see it, sure, but change like that is hard to spot when you see his li'l face everyday.
There's been a minor (major?) development in Go's, um, development. We've been waiting for him to start rolling over for quite some time now. According to some of the books Mako has, he should have done so by now. He certainly kicks a lot and can squirm his way around the bed when he's excited, but so far he hasn't rolled.
On Tuesday night we tried a little experiment. We rolled him onto his stomach to see if he could roll himself back into position. He did, more than once, though our attempts to record the feat have met with limited success. I've been told we should make a habit of these rolling sessions, as it apparently teaches him the coordination skills he needs to start crawling. As much as I'm looking forward to that particular stage, I'm less thrilled about all the cleaning up I'll have to do. There's a whole mess of wires and plugs in this apartment that should never be handled by a baby.
In very different developmental news, my writing was on a roll last month. Besides having four stories posted on Game|Life, my work on Bitmob got a lot of attention. The month started off great with my story about grinding in video games which got a lot of feedback and is, by far, my most popular Bitmob submission to date. More people have read that story in the last thirty days than have visited this entire website in the last three months!
Next, I was pleased to see that my suggestions of cheap/free games completely dominated their Bitmob Budget Games feature. I honestly thought they were only interested in games less than $10, otherwise I would have happily promoted the hell out of the PixelJunk series and given a shout-out to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, still my favorite game of 2008.
I was a little disappointed that no one took an interest in my thoughts on failure in cinematic games. I thought the Uncharted 2 angle would draw readers' attention but I guess all the hype surrounding that game was in October. I'm perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to video games that people are talking about because I progress through them so very slowly. It doesn't help that I have a choice of playing games or writing after Mako and Go fall asleep, and lately I've been choosing writing.
Not that I regret making that choice! I felt so jazzed after seeing Inglorious Basterds that I wrote two different posts on my blog about it as well as one item on Bitmob about how the movie made me want games that rely less on violence to provide conflict. That piece ended up on the front page earlier this week, much to my delight, and I was happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who wants more non-violent games to play.
You can expect my thoughts on The Road very soon, both here and on Bitmob. I'm not sure what book I want to read next. Atlas Shrugged is just sitting around waiting to be picked up, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for another mega-text from Ayn Rand so soon after The Fountainhead. Frankly, all this fiction has given me a craving to return to non-fiction. I think the last one of those I read was The Chris Farley Show.
One more thing: in case you forgot, the family going to New York later this month. In fact, we're leaving in less than three weeks. Like I side, time is rocketing past my face these days. Slow down, life! I'm trying to enjoy the ride!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
For example, little Go is just past five months old already. He doesn't look any different, but each time we weigh/measure him the numbers don't lie: he's growing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the first week's worth of pictures we took and contrast them with these recent Twitpic shots (With Snoopy / With Mom and Cake / On a Scale). Now you see it, sure, but change like that is hard to spot when you see his li'l face everyday.
There's been a minor (major?) development in Go's, um, development. We've been waiting for him to start rolling over for quite some time now. According to some of the books Mako has, he should have done so by now. He certainly kicks a lot and can squirm his way around the bed when he's excited, but so far he hasn't rolled.
On Tuesday night we tried a little experiment. We rolled him onto his stomach to see if he could roll himself back into position. He did, more than once, though our attempts to record the feat have met with limited success. I've been told we should make a habit of these rolling sessions, as it apparently teaches him the coordination skills he needs to start crawling. As much as I'm looking forward to that particular stage, I'm less thrilled about all the cleaning up I'll have to do. There's a whole mess of wires and plugs in this apartment that should never be handled by a baby.
In very different developmental news, my writing was on a roll last month. Besides having four stories posted on Game|Life, my work on Bitmob got a lot of attention. The month started off great with my story about grinding in video games which got a lot of feedback and is, by far, my most popular Bitmob submission to date. More people have read that story in the last thirty days than have visited this entire website in the last three months!
Next, I was pleased to see that my suggestions of cheap/free games completely dominated their Bitmob Budget Games feature. I honestly thought they were only interested in games less than $10, otherwise I would have happily promoted the hell out of the PixelJunk series and given a shout-out to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, still my favorite game of 2008.
I was a little disappointed that no one took an interest in my thoughts on failure in cinematic games. I thought the Uncharted 2 angle would draw readers' attention but I guess all the hype surrounding that game was in October. I'm perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to video games that people are talking about because I progress through them so very slowly. It doesn't help that I have a choice of playing games or writing after Mako and Go fall asleep, and lately I've been choosing writing.
Not that I regret making that choice! I felt so jazzed after seeing Inglorious Basterds that I wrote two different posts on my blog about it as well as one item on Bitmob about how the movie made me want games that rely less on violence to provide conflict. That piece ended up on the front page earlier this week, much to my delight, and I was happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who wants more non-violent games to play.
You can expect my thoughts on The Road very soon, both here and on Bitmob. I'm not sure what book I want to read next. Atlas Shrugged is just sitting around waiting to be picked up, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for another mega-text from Ayn Rand so soon after The Fountainhead. Frankly, all this fiction has given me a craving to return to non-fiction. I think the last one of those I read was The Chris Farley Show.
One more thing: in case you forgot, the family going to New York later this month. In fact, we're leaving in less than three weeks. Like I side, time is rocketing past my face these days. Slow down, life! I'm trying to enjoy the ride!
Labels: Bitmob, books, number one son, video games, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
From Rand to The Road
Quick heads-up: I've posted a list of quotations from The Fountainhead which I will be linking to last week's post about the book as a whole. I enjoyed the book a lot and I found myself taking notes as I read, so I decided to type up those quotes which grabbed my attention and share them with you. I'm probably not the first person to put Ayn Rand quotes on the internet but what the hell, right? It's not like this site couldn't use a bit more class.
There's no spoilers, so if you haven't read the book feel free to read the list and consider whether or not it makes the characters and philosophy sound like something worth exploring. Oh, and the Howard Roark quote from page 602 was one I saw on a T-shirt a few weeks back while walking in Umeda. The wearer looked an awful lot like me, actually. I took it as a sign that I needed to finish reading the book.
I think Atlas Shrugged is going to have to wait for at least a month or two. Hopefully I can finish it before BioShock 2 comes out, not that those two things are necessarily going to be connected. In the meantime, I picked up The Road on a semi-whim this weekend after reading this piece about gaming connecting with other media. It was a paperback so it was pretty affordable. Once I got home I looked it up properly and discovered it has an almost hyperbolic-level of praise. It's also been made into a movie that comes out in the US next month, so this is a good time to read it before the internet start plastering spoilers all over the place.
I also still have a cold from the weekend but it should be gone by Halloween. At the very least, my busiest days of the week are behind me.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
There's no spoilers, so if you haven't read the book feel free to read the list and consider whether or not it makes the characters and philosophy sound like something worth exploring. Oh, and the Howard Roark quote from page 602 was one I saw on a T-shirt a few weeks back while walking in Umeda. The wearer looked an awful lot like me, actually. I took it as a sign that I needed to finish reading the book.
I think Atlas Shrugged is going to have to wait for at least a month or two. Hopefully I can finish it before BioShock 2 comes out, not that those two things are necessarily going to be connected. In the meantime, I picked up The Road on a semi-whim this weekend after reading this piece about gaming connecting with other media. It was a paperback so it was pretty affordable. Once I got home I looked it up properly and discovered it has an almost hyperbolic-level of praise. It's also been made into a movie that comes out in the US next month, so this is a good time to read it before the internet start plastering spoilers all over the place.
I also still have a cold from the weekend but it should be gone by Halloween. At the very least, my busiest days of the week are behind me.
Labels: books, The Fountainhead, The Road
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Throwing My Two Cents in The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead is a novel that I've heard great things about for my entire life without ever learning what the book was actually about. Had I not suffered an academic meltdown in high school I'm sure it would have been assigned reading, which means this might be the very first good thing to come out of that whole crisis. If I had read this book when I was seventeen I would have thrown it across the room out of frustration. I can just picture my miserable teenage self asking aloud: What do I know about architecture? Why should I care?
Let's face it, The Fountainhead looks dreadful when summarized in any fashion and to a suburban kid with no interest in books that asked him to think about the world, the opening chapters about two architects engaging in a sort of professional rivalry just isn't compelling unto itself. Of course I'm being unfair here. The Fountainhead is no more about architecture than Fight Club is about fighting. Just because something is there doesn't make it central to the message of the story.
The real story is about man's greatness, at least as perceived by author Ayn Rand. All of the protagonists share key philosophical ideals and habits that make them stand out above the rest of the characters, some of whom are actively portrayed as villains while others are merely weak and mediocre in the face of real, creative people. I found it kind of amazing that the characters the reader is supposed to care about all completely agree with each other throughout the book. Even when certain folks get divorced, there's an amicability that is hard to believe.
More disturbingly, there's a rape and the only consequence is that the victim falls completely and totally in love with her rapist. I guess I'm supposed to write this off as the product of another era where people had very different views of sexuality and women's rights, but as a reader in 2009 it was a little hard for me to gloss over. At first I thought it was just rough consensual sex (she was certainly giving him looks before he made his move) but she later speaks of it as a rape. Again, maybe this is just semantics and in the 1930s "rape" simply didn't carry the weight it does today. At that point women hadn't even been voting for twenty years.
Aside from that unpleasantness, I found the story to be quite compelling. The story covers more than a decade of these characters' lives yet Howard Roark, the central figure, remains virtually unchanged throughout. He's introduced as a brilliant architectural student whose talents are dwarfed only by his stubbornness and the knowledge that he is right. His refusal to compromise or accept anyone else's terms gets him thrown out of college and loses him countless jobs as an architect. As the book progresses, his fortunes rise and sink but he never does anything different. This impressed me immensely and kept me reading to see whether he would ever be accepted as a genius.
I don't know a thing about buildings or construction but I got a strong impression of greatness from the descriptions of his work and I understood his disdain for paying homage to styles of the past simply because they are revered. I suppose this is an area where my philosophy and Ayn Rand's converge. I've never been one to accept tradition alone as a valid reason to do something. It's probably the single most irritating thing about living in Japan. All day long I am bombarded with empty words and habits that are tied to Japanese tradition. Most days I tune it out, but sometimes I wish I could just make them stop.
Other things that rang true to me was the notion that people surround themselves with "mirrors" with which they can reflect their own opinions rather than discussing things honestly and the idea of the press controlling public discourse rather than reporting it. Some of the concepts in the book were ones I never considered but found curiously appealing, such as Wynand's remarks about the magnificence of nature reminding him of man's achievements. Rather than feel overwhelmed by the sea or the vastness of space, he thinks of the men who built ships to cross the ocean or found ways to dig through the mountains.
On the other hand, some of Ayn Rand's ideas felt very, very wrong to me. Late in the book there is a collective dismissal of the idea of public housing because it somehow punishes those who are not poor enough to benefit from welfare. I can see the reasoning behind her argument but I feel it's entirely built on the faulty premise that poverty is a personal failing that can simply be overcome with a little hard work. I also don't understand the notion that beauty or magnificence can be lessened by allowing others to experience it. Does great art become tarnished because it is shown in a museum? I don't think my untrained eyes damage a Jackson Pollock even if I am incapable of appreciating it.
I was very surprised that the book ended as it did with Roark being vilified rather than condemned simply because he gave an impassioned speech in court. I know the author wrote in her introduction that the book is not meant to be realistic, instead presenting the world as it "could or ought to be," but given the savagery of the criticism that the public lays upon Roark throughout the story I was scratching my head when they suddenly embraced him. Of course I wanted him to succeed but I never expected him to wave his magic genius wand and walk out of that courtroom a free man.
Reading The Fountainhead was quite thrilling at times and I occasionally struggled to put the book down. Even when I disagreed with the philosophy or felt the language was a little self-indulgent, I wanted to press on and hear more about the world the book contained. I can't say this novel has sold me on objectivism as a concept but I am certain I want to continue reading Ayn Rand. I've already purchased Atlas Shrugged and will crack it open in the near future. I'll probably read something else first though, because at over 1000 pages it looks to be a another marathon read and I'd prefer not to run two marathons in a row.
UPDATE: I've created a page of quotes from The Fountainhead that I enjoyed. You may enjoy them as well.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Let's face it, The Fountainhead looks dreadful when summarized in any fashion and to a suburban kid with no interest in books that asked him to think about the world, the opening chapters about two architects engaging in a sort of professional rivalry just isn't compelling unto itself. Of course I'm being unfair here. The Fountainhead is no more about architecture than Fight Club is about fighting. Just because something is there doesn't make it central to the message of the story.
The real story is about man's greatness, at least as perceived by author Ayn Rand. All of the protagonists share key philosophical ideals and habits that make them stand out above the rest of the characters, some of whom are actively portrayed as villains while others are merely weak and mediocre in the face of real, creative people. I found it kind of amazing that the characters the reader is supposed to care about all completely agree with each other throughout the book. Even when certain folks get divorced, there's an amicability that is hard to believe.
More disturbingly, there's a rape and the only consequence is that the victim falls completely and totally in love with her rapist. I guess I'm supposed to write this off as the product of another era where people had very different views of sexuality and women's rights, but as a reader in 2009 it was a little hard for me to gloss over. At first I thought it was just rough consensual sex (she was certainly giving him looks before he made his move) but she later speaks of it as a rape. Again, maybe this is just semantics and in the 1930s "rape" simply didn't carry the weight it does today. At that point women hadn't even been voting for twenty years.
Aside from that unpleasantness, I found the story to be quite compelling. The story covers more than a decade of these characters' lives yet Howard Roark, the central figure, remains virtually unchanged throughout. He's introduced as a brilliant architectural student whose talents are dwarfed only by his stubbornness and the knowledge that he is right. His refusal to compromise or accept anyone else's terms gets him thrown out of college and loses him countless jobs as an architect. As the book progresses, his fortunes rise and sink but he never does anything different. This impressed me immensely and kept me reading to see whether he would ever be accepted as a genius.
I don't know a thing about buildings or construction but I got a strong impression of greatness from the descriptions of his work and I understood his disdain for paying homage to styles of the past simply because they are revered. I suppose this is an area where my philosophy and Ayn Rand's converge. I've never been one to accept tradition alone as a valid reason to do something. It's probably the single most irritating thing about living in Japan. All day long I am bombarded with empty words and habits that are tied to Japanese tradition. Most days I tune it out, but sometimes I wish I could just make them stop.
Other things that rang true to me was the notion that people surround themselves with "mirrors" with which they can reflect their own opinions rather than discussing things honestly and the idea of the press controlling public discourse rather than reporting it. Some of the concepts in the book were ones I never considered but found curiously appealing, such as Wynand's remarks about the magnificence of nature reminding him of man's achievements. Rather than feel overwhelmed by the sea or the vastness of space, he thinks of the men who built ships to cross the ocean or found ways to dig through the mountains.
On the other hand, some of Ayn Rand's ideas felt very, very wrong to me. Late in the book there is a collective dismissal of the idea of public housing because it somehow punishes those who are not poor enough to benefit from welfare. I can see the reasoning behind her argument but I feel it's entirely built on the faulty premise that poverty is a personal failing that can simply be overcome with a little hard work. I also don't understand the notion that beauty or magnificence can be lessened by allowing others to experience it. Does great art become tarnished because it is shown in a museum? I don't think my untrained eyes damage a Jackson Pollock even if I am incapable of appreciating it.
I was very surprised that the book ended as it did with Roark being vilified rather than condemned simply because he gave an impassioned speech in court. I know the author wrote in her introduction that the book is not meant to be realistic, instead presenting the world as it "could or ought to be," but given the savagery of the criticism that the public lays upon Roark throughout the story I was scratching my head when they suddenly embraced him. Of course I wanted him to succeed but I never expected him to wave his magic genius wand and walk out of that courtroom a free man.
Reading The Fountainhead was quite thrilling at times and I occasionally struggled to put the book down. Even when I disagreed with the philosophy or felt the language was a little self-indulgent, I wanted to press on and hear more about the world the book contained. I can't say this novel has sold me on objectivism as a concept but I am certain I want to continue reading Ayn Rand. I've already purchased Atlas Shrugged and will crack it open in the near future. I'll probably read something else first though, because at over 1000 pages it looks to be a another marathon read and I'd prefer not to run two marathons in a row.
UPDATE: I've created a page of quotes from The Fountainhead that I enjoyed. You may enjoy them as well.
Labels: Ayn Rand, books, The Fountainhead
つづく...(Click here to read more)
