Reviews from the past

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Russian)

I came to resent this book – its length consumed so much of my time. It was good for the first third, but I didn’t bother to read the last fifty pages – I cared that little about the characters. Tolstoy didn’t care about them either – he was more concerned with the mechanics of the war, with philosophizing about Life and Death. He had a gift – some scenes are masterful; but, as the book moved on, Tolstoy became detached from his once-vital human creations. By the end he’s moving them about like pawns, and when he tries to generate emotions the results come across as overblown and artificial. The book, initially rich, became flat, mechanical. It was even sloppily done. Great novel? – hardly. (2 other books by this author are reviewed)

Yonnondio - Tillie Olsen

A very effective proletarian protest novel. Olsen creates people we care about, then she shows them gripped in the maw of poverty. She makes us feel the destruction going on in the bodies and, worse, in the minds and spirits of her characters. The Holbrooks could have been happy, could have had fulfilling lives. They have tremendous potential, yet it’s wasted in the all-consuming struggle for survival. Olsen was a smart enough author (even at nineteen) to show the faults of her characters; Anna and Jim and their children are all distorted and brutalized by the daily obstacles they face. Much of the novel is told through the eyes of Mazie, and since she’s a dreamy, impressionable child (her form of escape), the prose in her sections is dreamy, impressionistic. Other parts of the novel are gritty and realistic. These different styles mesh because they reflect two realities, two sensibilities. Yonnondio is more than a lament – it’s an indictment of the greed that fosters inhumanity (the description of work in the slaughterhouse is appalling; one shrinks from the suffering of man and beast). This is one of those books that should be read. * 

See To Have and Have Not and One and Done

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish)

Disappointing. Initially I found Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to be entertaining, and the premise – which involves the abandonment of reality – interested me. As for the humor, I was only mildly amused; it was often crude and silly, not to my taste. Cervantes set out to appeal to the common sensibility of the time. I had expected something more lofty, and I felt relieved that the going was so easy. After a number of variations on the same theme, Cervantes turned to the stories of people Quixote and Panza meet on their travels. These stories were very long and suffused with extreme romanticism. I saw no hint of parody – they were related in a forthright way. I can’t stomach ornate and extreme romanticism, with all the talk of womanly virtue, all the manly tears shed. I reached a point where I had enough. If Cervantes had continued with one adventure after another involving Quixote and Panza, I don’t think that could have sustained my interest either. The book may be a major step in the development of the novel, but too much has been made of it. For example, the famous battle with the windmills takes up about a third of a page, and it’s not even described; it happens off stage.

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Endearing. It was a delight to enter the world of Mole, Ratty, Badger and Toad. Though a book for children, and a funny one, there are deep aspects for adults to consider. How do we live our lives? What is our place in the great cycles of nature? What is contentment? Also, the eminently decent way the characters treat one another – with compassion, kindness, consideration, generosity – are a model of the way things should be between people (but, of course, aren’t). *

See The Wind in the Willows