Uncle Fred In the Springtime

P G Wodehouse

"They're all potty."

While this is the first Wodehouse review I'm putting up here, I've always been a huge fan; you might even say that next to Calvin and Hobbes, these books have shaped my mind more than any others. While Wodehouse is most famous for his Jeeves and Wooster books, Uncle Fred is a part of a different series which intersects only once or twice with Wooster and his crowd.
I cannot attempt to do justice to Wodehouse lighthearted style, but if you find yourself looking for a jolly romp through the buffoonery of early twentieth century English aristocracy, Wodehouse is your man. With such literary traditions as the evil and devilish Aunt Agatha, the pompous and over prim hostess Lady Constance Keeble, the hen-pecked Lord Emsworth content to potter around with his pig, and various other classic characters, Wodehouse will make the time pass faster than most.
And for those of you who enjoy a spot of the complex plots which twist and turn and get so muddled up resolution seems to be impossible--yet inevitable, Wodehouse can deliver yet more for you. Wodehouse has a knack for weaving love stories which have twice as many twists and dual storylines as any Tarentino movie. By the end of this little tale you will only be able to shake your head and wonder how he does it. Not only does Wodehouse plant little seeds in his storyline which develop into life-saving trees later on, but the reader can always see these things happen and yet never be able to guess where they are heading or how crucial they will turn out to be.
And finally, perhaps the most glorious touch of the whole thing is Galahad. Galahad is to these stories what Jeeves is to Wooster, only Galahad is a dashed sight more rambunctious, humorous, and classy. Wodehouse's Galahad even makes his savior-like namesake seem frowzy and damaged goods. If you read the book for no other reason, read it for Galahad. 7/10

All The President's Men

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

The President said, "I want you to know that I have no intention whatever of walking away form the job that the American people elected me to do for the people of the United States."

While not the best written book, All The President's Men is remarkable in the least for its incredible story. Woodward and Bernstein tell the very personal account of the struggle they went through to develop and prove their coverage of the Watergate fiasco. The story itself is incredible, but I found myself irritated by their inability to write it well. This was especially evident in Woodward's conversations with Deep Throat. While there is much to be said for journalistic taciturnity and objectivity, when writing a book it always help to give a little bit of description. It seemed that Bernstein and Woodward were always reluctant to include any sort of physical or mental descriptions. While there is plenty of factual documentation and evidential descriptions, the colorful stuff that actually makes reading enjoyable was almost entirely lacking. However, the story is incredible enough to make up for all of this. It is not often such a convicting account of politics is brought into the open. I warn you that All The President's Men may taint you on politics for a while--it's hard to trust any of our current officials when you know that this is their heritage.
Some people have suggested to me that the book is difficult to follow because of all the various players and the many names, but I did not find this to be the case. The book flows very well and reads fast. While I wouldn't recommend it as an occasional read, it doesn't require a map to follow the course of events. 6/10

Heretics

G K Chesterton

Posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romatic; for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable.

And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet,with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of mangoes on concerned with this tree or that temple, with this harvestor that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched.And it watches from its splendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-car civilization going its triumphant way,outstripping time, consuming space, seeing all and seeing nothing,roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system, only to findthe sun cockney and the stars suburban.

I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists.There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence of the lady clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvish instinct, like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door.

I did not intend to use so many quotes to introduce this book, but Chesterton is one of the most quotable people I have ever read. Not only continually state the most shocking things as if they were obvious to a three year old, but he usually goes on to prove that they are indeed this obvious. I do not know how he works he wonders with words, but wonders deserve to be read none the less.
Heretics is an expansive discussion of early twentieth century thought, from the perspective of one of the last men who really understood ancient thought. Chesterton has an eye for pointing out in Heretics the many assumptions our often pompous sense of being modern has hidden from us. While it is primarily concerned with specific issues of English society in the 1900s, Heretics manifestly applies to our own current situation as well.
Some people might find his confidence to be prideful, but it is nothing more than the confidence of a man who thinks he is right. And as Chesterton explains in towards the end of Heretics, any man who rights better damn well think he is right or else he is merely wasting everybody's time. In addition to a broad discussion of issues, Heretics also addresses the beliefs of such authors and thinkers as H. G. Wells, G. B. Shaw, and Rudyard Kipling, just to name a few. Chesterton is wonderfully correct in his outright criticism of them, so much so that one finds oneself slipping from kind, gentlemanly words of deference and outright praise to sudden contradiction and accusations of confusion (if not idiocy). Chesterton has a way with addressing people without ever letting you guess that he intends to sacrifice them to his cause in a few minutes.
Lastly, one of the aspects of Chesterton's writing which I admire most is his love of paradox. Throughout Heretics he continually confronts the readers with things which are contradictory and yet which we know to be true. Chesterton also loves to lead you on with a sentence which should, as you imagine, end a certain way, but will inevitably spring a complete switch on you just before the period. While this is unsettling, it only makes the reading better. Heretics will make your brain hurt, but it will also make you a wiser person.
9/10

Rickshaw

Lao She

Experience is the fertilizer of life. When you have certain kinds of experiences you become a certain kind of man. You can't grow peonies in a desert.

So, you think getting along on your own is best, do you? The old man gave his judgment of Hsiang Tzu's story. "Who doesn't think that way? But who gets on well? My body and bones were sound and my character was good when I started out, and I came straight on down the road to where I am now and ended up like this! Sound body? Even men of iron can't get out of this snare of a world we're in. So you have a good character. What good is that? 'The good are requited with good, the evil with evil.' There never was any such thing! When I was young they called me a zealous fellow. I took everyone else's problems for my own and did it do me any good? None at all. I've even saved lives. People who jumped in the river, people who'd hanged themselves, I saved them all. And did I get anything for it? Nothing at all! I'm telling you, I'm not the one who decides what day I'll freeze to death. I figure it's perfectly understandable that any poor guy who thinks he can succeed by himself will find it harder than going to heaven.

Rickshaw is one of the more famous novels to come out of the New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century, and it is not a bad read. I have heard comparisons drawn between Dickens and Lao She, but while I can understand how someone would be inclined to make such a connection, I don't think they are that apt. Lao She is much more realistic and blunt with his language than Dickens. It's been a while since I've read Dickens, but from what I remember he always put a sanitized coating on his stories of horrible circumstances; Lao She leaves this off entirely.
If you are looking for an uplifting tale, Rickshaw is not your cup of tea. At the heart of the story is the rickshaw puller Hsiang Tzu, what everyone might call a young, hopeful, idealistic, and honorable man. Time after time he is beaten down by different circumstances, but Lao She doesn't leave any room for passing the blame off on society. When it comes down to it, Hsiang Tzu's "Individualism" (a word Lao She uses often to mean Selfishness) is the cause of almost all his woes. Hsiang Tzu continually tries to pit himself against whatever odds are piled up against him, but it is always himself versus.
Lao She's writing is very fluid--in the translation I had. He weaves his own commentary nicely into the narrative of Hsiang Tzu's life and knows the perfect moments to allow emotion to grow beyond his normally objective tone. I never felt that Lao She was contriving or forcing his story out, which may be its most impressive quality. The story flows wonderfully well and reads fast--you'll be done before you have remembered you started. 7/10

Waiting For Godot

Samuel Beckett

Pozzo: (Suddenly Furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. (He jerks the rope.) On!

It is safe to say I did not understand this play, but I also got the feeling from that understanding wasn't the issue. I haven't yet read any commentary on it beyond the dust-jacket, but judging from the ambiguity of the play, I bet there is plenty of commentary to be had. What really made me happy, in some confusing way, was how the play resembles a circle. Composed of two acts, the first could just as easily be the second and the second the first. There are certain moments in the first act which seem very confusing at the time, but once you get to the second act, you begin to understand. It works out as a beautiful circle. Each act, which is an evening, melting into the next and melting back into itself. Whether you want to read this as some sort of meaningless of time or perhaps the aimlessness of life, I'm not going to hazard a guess. Look for clues to this neat little trick of Beckett's when you read Waiting for Godot.
Another very interesting aspect of the play is everyone's incredible ignorance or stupidity. Memory is incredibly faulty, to the point that the characters seem feeble at the best and infantile at worst. Beckett is working at some point with this, although I am not sure what. I couldn't help but imagine that when you take a step back, we must seem the same way to the impartial observer. Really, we cannot remember things which happen mere minutes ago, much less the day before.
And of course there is the confusion around waiting. I did not find difficulty imagining that this whole ponderous, expansive, and as yet unfulfilled waiting which is the whole play was really a thinly guised metaphor for the second coming of Christ which so much of the Christian world is "in waiting" for. The language characters use to talk about Godot is anything if not suggestive.
I also was enthralled with Beckett's thin usage of characters and props. Five characters, one of which is a very small part, is the total cast. I have heard that Beckett is known for his minimalist sort of productions, and once I read Krapp's Last Tape which might have been the culmination of this. While I doubt that just any person can carry off this sort of sparse play, Beckett does. As well as the minimalism, I thought the dialog flowed faster and more smoothly than most. This might have been because I was reading and not watching, but this isn't a theater blog, so I expect this will inspire only to read Godot, if anything.
But the most puzzling aspect of the whole play, the thing which I am almost wholly uncertain on is Pozzo and Lucky. These two characters make their way back and forth across the stage, one of them has the longest speech in the play, the other the most despicable character, and I have no clue why they are in the play at all. I wouldn't say that they are any Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but only that I am lost when it comes to them. 7/10

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.

I had never before read a manifesto, so not only was this my first foray into the realms of communist literature, but also manifestos. However all this is mere background. I am surprised, though I shouldn't be; for some odd reason I expected the communist version of Thomas Paine--this expectation was without logic, but none the less present. I figured that this as a "manifesto" would be a fiery work with all sorts of pulls at the heartstrings and what not. The only really propaganda-like line of the whole work is its last, "Workers of the world, unite!" Perhaps I found to it be lacking in passion because I did not agree with it, but I have read other things which I disagreed with yet still felt them working their emotional magic on me.
Really, aside from Marx's desire to abolish the family, the current societal system, religion, and others, I found it to be less unreasonable than I imagined. I don't know that I want to venture into anything near political commentary, so there is not much more to say. But if you happen to be interested in Communism, I thought this was a pretty good introduction to what it looked like in its earlier forms--although you can hear the echoes of the Communist Manifesto in Soviet and Chinese communism, but only the echoes.