Fyodor Dostoyevsky Notes From Underground

What to make of the "slap" and the previous "knocking into" of the friend, the police officer? All of the narrator's efforts are focused on this one moment of physical contact.

Michael Ondaatje The Cat's Table

There is a scene two thirds of the way through Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Tale where the narrator, Michael, also called Minah, sits on the bed of his beautiful cousin Emily. Michael is eleven. He tells her about the dog the boys brought onboard who was responsible for the bite that killed Sir Hector. Emily tells Michael, “Don’t...I mean, don’t tell anyone else about this -- what you just told me” and the narrator remarks on the “tradition” that has started between them of secrecy. Michael orders her coffee. Emily kisses him but we are not told if it is on his head or lips. She sits up and reaches for her robe and Michael says, “But what I saw hit me at the base of my heart.” Ostensibly, not mentioned, the reader believes he has caught a glimpse of her breasts. Michael experiences sexual awakening at this moment but it is more than this: “Suddenly there was a wide gulf between Emily’s existence and mine, and I would never be able to cross it.” Michael notes that he has experienced this feeling at certain times throughout his life, “And was it pleasure or a sadness, this life inside me? It was as if with its existence I was lacking something essential, like water. I felt in that moment that I had been alone for years. I had existed too cautiously with my family, as though there had been shards of glass always around us.” Michael’s thoughts reveal a lifetime experience with melancholy as he questions from what source it has sprung. Michael’s first taste of it allows him to more carefully and slowly consider the people and events around him as Ondaatje’s novel fills and more deeply explores considerations of the complications of experience.

Michael Ondaatje The Cat's Table

The Cat's Table takes place on the ocean liner the Oronsay with the title referring to the table the narrator, Michael, is assigned to to eat dinner with the other lowest class travelers enroute to England. I am only about a third of the way into this novel and reading this account of the narrator, who befriends Cassius and Ramadhin, their discoveries during the voyage of 21 days which include meeting several idiosyncratic adults such as the botanist, Mr. Daniels; the performer The Hyderabad Mind who is part of the Jankla Troupe; and the musician, Mr. Mazappa. This 21 day voyage, a time of leave taking from Colombo and sailing towards an unspecified new life in England is a time of unprecedented freedom for the boy who, unfettered, grows.

Entry 2 The Sense Of An Ending

When Adrian contacts Tony to tell him he is seeing Tony's former girlfriend, Tony relies with a pithy "everything is jolly fine by me, old bean." He decides to pretend he does not mind.Given his previous actions and comments, the reader does not see much evidence of why he should mind. The characteristics of the unreliable narrator begin to multiply. Later, he writes a "proper" letter where, "As far as I remember, I told him pretty much what I thought of their joint moral scruples" and tells Tony he thinks Veronica had suffered "damage a long way back." Damage is a consistent, recurring issue in The Sense Of An Ending which in our lack of empathy none of us can fully fathom and that reverberates and echoes in major and minor ways throughout the novel. Tony's estrangement from his own emotional life loom large. He thinks he knows what he is all about. Even Margaret's rather innocent catty nickname for Alexandria, "the Fruitcake" takes on a sinister meaning as we read to the end of the story. No one in the novel is innocent or blameless. And, actually, however much Tony tries to make sense, he cannot. And there is no ending or any kind of sense of one. Barnes' novel kept me awake last night thinking through the various scenarios repeatedly,as Tony does.

Entry 1 The Sense Of An Ending

Julian Barnes latest novel, The Sense Of An Ending, winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, begins with the narrator, Anthony, in a secondary school classroom with the instructor, Joe Hunt, asking the boys the "seemingly simple question, What is History?" This question becomes the basis for Tony's quest sixty odd years later and proves to be the opposite of simple when it comes to attempting to determine any conclusions about the motivations and actions that occurred throughout his life once he left that room. Anthony replies quickly to the instructor without taking time to think: "History is the lies of the victors." Hunt states, "I was afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self delusions of the defeated." This is exactly what Anthony forgets until he is well over 60 years old and is faced with Memory.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

In Margaret Atwood's novel which takes place in the fictional town of Port Ticonderoga outside of Toronto, the characters are mostly practical people who don't talk about feelings or love and barely seem to recognize these as existing. Yet, underneath this surface, feelings kept at bay wound and burn and, by the end of the novel, the reader feels the effect of emotions bared raw. Once again, Atwood uses various textual tools to shape her fictional Canada. The novel has three fictions residing within it: Iris Chase writing her autobiography, the novel The Blind Assassin, and the science fiction story told by Alex Thomas. In fact, Atwood uses a highly talented writer as her main character, just as she does in Alias Grace, who actually is either writer or collaborator to all the texts. Also included are the newspaper articles written by Elwood Murray -- all glosses or editorials. Once again, Atwood, as in Alias Grace, ponders our capability for knowing or finding truth. As Iris struggles to make sense of her history, her efforts are complicated by the falsity around her. As important as the included text is to the novel,text that is is omitted -- the letters, telegrams, information that is withheld -- is as important as the text included -- it ominously shapes events. Laura's reality reminds me of the clarity in a Sylvia Plath poem -- burning too brightly for many of us to touch. Finally, as the "older woman...with hair like burning spiderwebs," Iris, is the only person left capable of stating things as they are, or at least finally exploring them after a life of denial. Atwood's tale becomes a warning for young women - women whom Iris does not pity as she does not pity herself.

Now

I am currently reading another Margaret Atwood novel -- The Blind Assassin. I am in a bit over 100 pages. Once again, Atwood layers the present by way of the past. In this novel we have the now -- the daily life of Iris (Chase) Griffen who is recounting the story of her childhood with her sister Laura. Included are other chapters of an anonymous woman's assignations with a man who orally tells her the story of the blind assassin. Interspersed are press releases about the Chase family and other events that occurred during the 1930's. We see the (maybe) downfall of this prestigious Canadian family -- but it is too early (especially with Atwood) to tell!

I plan to order Ondaatje's The Cat's Table, Julian Barne's Sense of an Ending, and for just plain fun and a theatrical lift, The Night Circus for November reading.