I finished my first book!
Doktor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg
First up, a Swedish classic sent to me by my mother, who was mortified to find that the sales girl at her book store was unfamiliar with this book; Doktor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg. "Time to switch book stores," she announced. Although not as well known and appreciated as August Strindbergworld wide, Hjalmar Söderberg is considered by most Swedes to be his equal. Söderberg was a Swedish novelist, playwright, poet and journalist. His works are often melancholic and his character descriptions are rich, vivid and truly poetic, as are his descriptions of the world they inhabit. Reading it in Swedish was such a treat...I kept on stopping and just thinking about the words he used...so specific, perfectly chosen and perfectly placed in each sentence. Like a forgotten art form...people don't write that way anymore. Truly poetic and inspiring.
Doktor Glas is written in journal form. The main character is Doktor Glas, a physician. When the young, beautiful wife of Reverend Gregorius, a morally corrupt clergyman, confides in Doktor Glas that she is repulsed by the thought of having sex with her husband, Doktor Glas helps concoct a "condition" where she can't perform those wifely duties. Gregorius still insists on his marital rights which eventually leads Doktor Glas to plot his murder. One of the big conflicts in this book, and with the character of Doktor Glas is that he has no moral reservations with this, but he refuses to perform an abortion on another patient, insisting instead that she get married.
This book was extremely controversial when it was released in 1905 because it deals with abortion, women's rights, euthanasia and other moral ambiguities. Söderberg was not popular in literary circles after the publication of Doktor Glas but today it's considered a masterpiece. I have it in Swedish if anyone's interested...
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I finished my second book!
My friend Javier Gonzalez-Rubio didn't write this book. But his father did, and he has the same name, so I thought it would be a great book to represent Mexico. Javier Gonzalez-Rubio senior was born in Mexico and served as the Director of Information for the President of the Republic of Mexico.
Javier junior is at the AFI with me and last year he produced a short I wrote to good reviews and an "Excellent" grade by Frank Pierson, our artistic director. About a narcissistic, self-absorbed actor. Imagine that. This year he produced the thesis film Marvin the Matador and Javier and I are also working on a funny and sweet romantic comedy together...he is a sweet, smart guy, loved by everyone and a total gym rat.
And now to the book! First of all, it was one of the fastest reads ever. And so worth it. The book is about lust and passion and longing. The kind of longing that makes you crazy feverish with desire. Taking place during Pancho Villa's Mexican revolution, the book is set in Monreal, a small town at the edge of the desert. When the revolution passes through Monreal, Rosario's adequate husband is forced to fight, not because he is a fighter but because his involvement in town meetings and lectures on political ideas are such that he would be ridiculed if he doesn't. Needless to say, he dies a hero.
Enter General Valentin Cobelo, a cruel and somewhat disturbed man obsessed with nothing but war and death, and not for political reasons as much as for money and guts and glory. Rosario falls for him the second their eyes meet and from then on, she is completely consumed by love and desire and spends every waking moment clammy, love sick and eagerly awaiting his return. Cobelo has a similar reaction but forces himself to continue plundering and fighting while dreaming about her, before finally coming back to take her with him to the desert where they don't leave his room for days. When she finally comes out of this intense lust-a-thon, she finds that Cobelo has left and she is stranded in the desert without friends, family or anything to do but help the other women make tortillas.
Basically, as often the case in these types of scenarios, she gives up her life to be with him and ends up a house wife in a big house in Ojai while he's away taking care of business. And yes, she eventually escapes.
Gracias por la recomendación, Javi.
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And here we go...book number 3 is done!
Recommended by my sweet Australian friend Radha Rani Amber Indigo Anunda Mitchell (who owns the movie rights and is in the process of turning this into a film) Holy Cow is a book about an Australian woman, Sarah MacDonald, who moves to India for two years to be with her Australian boyfriend. Her style of writing is intense with a fair amount of self-analysis and critique, and the way she describes India is both accurate and harsh. The dirt, the pollution, the chaos, the insanity, the poverty, the lack of personal space...the stuff that is hard to cope with there...is all described in detail, to an extent that made me feel like I was back. And for some reason, that made me happy.
Like most people who visit, Sarah goes through a resistance phase when she first arrives, struggling and arguing and really disliking everything and everyone. It's a tough place to be and the most annoying thing about it is that everyone is so kind and sweet and gracious in the midst of the chaos so basically, you feel like a complete asshole for not just surrendering and enjoying right away.
Jesus lives in Kerala
Similar to my own experience a year and a half ago, Sarah goes through quite the transformation. After spending ten days in silence at a Vipassana retreat, singing with Sufis, bathing in the ganges, visiting an ashram in Kerala, seeing an Ayurvedic healer and studying Buddhism in Dharamsala, she finally discovers the spiritual, sweet, still India in the midst of the chaos and finds herself in it. Like I did.
Must. Go. Back. Soon.
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Book Number 4 is finished!
I don't know James Webber very well. In fact, when he recommended this book I had only met him once, but he impressed me with his knowledge of Swedish literature, so I decided we had to be friends. Usually when people hear I'm Swedish, they throw out all the Swedish words they've learned from that Swedish girl they dated in a matter of minutes (yes, Jesse, that's a shout-out to you.) James brought up Hjalmar Bergman and Hjalmar Söderberg when he heard I was Swedish, and as followers of this blog will know, Hjalmar Söderberg's "Doktor Glas" was the first book I read for Read 5 Books from 5 Countries Recommended by 5 Foreign Friends.
So although he is British which, let's face it, isn't all that foreign, I let him recommend my next book. He desperately wanted to recommend a book from Brazil, but the rule is, you have to stick your own country. The book he recommended is kind of a stretch, since the author was born in Argentina to settlers of American origin, but since William Henry Hudson (Guillermo Enrique Hudson) settled in England when he was 28 years old and seems to have written most of his books there, I let it slide.
James trying his first cupcake EVER...mine
Before I get into the book, I have to mention that James Webber is not just well read, interesting and a total gem, but a very talented musician. On the day we were introduced, he gave me his CD which I put in the CD player in my car right away, and that was the second time that day James Webber impressed me. His voice is really deep and grounding and his music beautiful. So check him out.
Onto "Green Mansions" by William Henry Hudson. It's a very exotic romance novel about a man named Abel who travels to Venezuela and meets Rima, this magical young woman who lives in the forest with Nuflo, a man she calls her grandfather. The beautiful thing about Rima is, when she appears in the forest, she is beautiful, mystic, magic...almost like a fairy or even an apparition of Abel's imagination. Outside the forest, she is plain, withdrawn and somewhat awkward. In the forest, she speaks a language that is more like a song or a buzz or a whistle...something the creatures in the forest understand. Back at her hut, she speaks an indigenous Indian language as well as Spanish.
Rima is not unintelligent by any means, in fact, in many ways she is highly conscientious and evolved... she co-exists with all the animals in the forest and doesn't allow hunting and killing for food or for any other reason. Still, there is a refreshing naivety about her. For example, she says what's on her mind simply because it's on her mind, without being aware of whether is appropriate or not, and I relate to that. I have to say what's on my mind; to sit on something is torture for me, sometimes to my detriment and to other people's discomfort. Rima is also very strong willed, like myself.
Abel obviously falls in love with Rima, although she is only 17, and they take Nuflo on a journey to find her village, which she finds out from Abel is out there somewhere. Throughout the journey, Nuflo relays to Abel the story of how Rima came to live with him, which makes the journey really fantastic. The journey and the return to the forest is vivid, interesting, surprising and in a way, sadly fitting and appropriate for this kind of book. Doesn't it always end in disaster when the white man comes along to try to "help?"
I don't want to give more away, because it's a book that should be read. It gives you a deep sense of being in South America and being in nature; the descriptions are colorful and vivid, and the relationship Rima has with the plants and animals in the forest is quite beautiful. The relationship she develops with Abel is innocent at first, before it has devastating consequences.
Thank you, Mr. Webber for the most excellent recommendation!
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And the last book has been read!
Valentin Vignet is French in every sense of the word. He drinks, smokes and loves too much, and as a result, comes across as a tortured artist most of the time. Which he is. A cinematographer who attended the AFI with me, Val has strong opinions about everything, is well read, traveled and beyond well schooled in cinema. He has suggested many fantastic films for me, which has enhanced not just my writing, but my life.
Val is stubborn and arrogant and once told me that writers are not filmmakers...because they don't participate in the actual filmmaking process. I of course continue to argue that without the writer, there wouldn't be a filmmaking process, but it's mostly to deaf ears. Val is also extremely handsome, charming, funny and intellectual, and can talk anyone into or out of anything - a talent that is mostly used to talk women out of their underwear. I know this because I've had to hold onto mine quite tightly on more than one occasion.
Val and I, probably arguing about the value of screenwriters
A man of few words, the Facebook comment just said "L'etranger, a Camus" and that was that. Of course I was familiar with it, but had never actually read it, so for this task, it became the fifth and last book that I read.
Like the lead character in this book, Albert Camus was a "pied-noir," (black foot) a Frenchman born in Algeria to an illiterate cleaning woman mother. His father, an agriculture worker, died in the Battle of the Marne when Camus was just a few months old. Camus was educated in Algeria and stayed there until 1938, when he moved to France. When he left Algeria he had already gained a reputation for being a leading writer there.
Camus was the second-youngest author to win the Nobel Prize for literature (Kipling was the youngest) and died in a car accident two years later, in January of 1960, at 46 years of age. His best known works are "The Stranger" (1942) and "The Plague" (1947.)
The main character in "The Stranger" is Meursault, a French man who kills an Arab in French Algiers. The book is divided into two parts, both told in Meursault's first-person narrative; his life before and after the murder. Although the book is subtle and is about a man whose life is simple and uneventful, there is much to get under the surface. The details used to describe Meursault's somewhat boring life, makes his life come alive in an interesting way. It unfolds slowly and methodically, almost like an early Bergman film, where the viewer is at the edge of their seat, hanging on every word, waiting for some dramatic action, that most of the time never comes.
Meursault doesn't make any decisions at all, so his life occurs quite accidental. The events leading him to commit murder, and his subsequent imprisonment and trial are coincidental, and so although there is drama at the heart, it's not written very dramatically at all, not even the murder. Meursault ends up where he ends up because of his inability to say yes. Or no for that matter. And at the end of the day, he does find salvation within, but still with restraint.
What I enjoyed the most about this book was the stereotyping and communal judgment that occurred during Mersault's trial. The idea held by the prosecutor, jurors, reporters and spectators, that because Meursault hadn't acted in a way that society considers appropriate when his mother passed away, it was assumed that he was guilty of pre-meditated murder in this case. The argument that because he had said "yes" when offered coffee during his mother's wake, meant that he was without a soul was fascinating to me.
The other thing I enjoyed thoroughly was the evidence of how delusional women truly are at times. This is one of my pet peeves. In the book, Meursault's "girlfriend" asks him if he'd marry her and his response is something like "I guess." She then asks him if he'd marry any girl that asked him and his response is something like "probably." Then she goes off to celebrate their impending wedding, feeling loved and adored. WHAT?
Translated into 2010, the whole notion that a guy not calling you somehow translates into him being in love with you, and is just intimidated by those feelings and you in general, is such bullshit. It's really just something your friends tell you to make you feel better. But it actually makes it worse because it disconnects you from reality. I'm usually that one person that says "yeah, he's not into you" and then is called unsupportive...oh well.
Merci pour la recommendation Monsieur Vignet, et merci pour écrir un bon livre, Monsieur Camus.
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