Notes on a Former Moon

The Rings of Saturn 

by W.G. Sebald

“Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.”   ― W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn




The novel as walking tour, but it is more than that being a voyage of the imagination into both the presence and history of one's own interior spaces. Inspired by writers from Thomas Brown to Conrad and Borges, Sebald narrates a journey outward through Eastern England and inward into his mind. The book brings Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker to my mind - part reminiscence, part meditation, as Rousseau seeks to come to terms with his isolation and find happiness in solitude and nature. Sebald also ventures into themes of nature and isolation, but even more important is the theme of desolation and the quest itself.

The book consists of ten chapters that seem to document a meandering journey, yet really provide a wide variety of thoughts, references, and experiences that all are connected with the major themes of desolation, interiority, and nature. The beginning reminded me of Dante as the author sets off on a journey into the countryside of Suffolk. He feels a joyous sense of freedom while he is traversing the countryside, even as he feels a disabling sense of horror when he encounters past events of destruction there with his own focus on "traces of destruction" so intense that he finds himself in hospital. There he looks out on the world from a small window and finds it difficult to judge reality from illusion; he thinks of himself as Gregor Samsa, the young man in Kafka’s story Die Verwandlung (1915; The Metamorphosis, 1936).

Images of dust, sand, ashes, fog, and mist pervade The Rings of Saturn. The ashes contained in the burial urn are much like the particles of sand on a beach or the dust particles that ring Saturn; they are particles of matter that remain after some form of destruction or transformation of organic matter. One of the epigraphs to the novel recalls that the rings of Saturn consist of ice crystals and meteorite particles that are fragments of a former moon that was destroyed. The narrator concludes that human civilization, from its earliest times, is little more than a strange luminescence whose waning and fading no one can predict.

His journey is not only physical but mental as he shares his thoughts about the author Thomas Browne whose work was inspirational for him. More connections of this kind are described and even though they seem unrelated, upon reflection there are connections between disparate authors and divergent moments from history. These moments range from the Renaissance to Bergen Belsen to the cause of the Irish Nationalist Roger Casement. The connections are curiously frequent as when the author Joseph Conrad meets Casement early in his career. References from the art of Durer and Rembrandt are cited to demonstrate the desolation that exists in a reality that we know through the artistic genius of men like these.

Using a beautiful prose style the novel presents the borders between illusion and reality, fact and fiction, and dreams and life as porous and permeable. The novel does not contain a specific plot that can be followed from beginning to end. Much like Joyce’s Ulysses or Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925), The Rings of Saturn records the narrator’s thoughts in stream-of-consciousness-like fashion as he moves from one topic to another, with various images or events sending him into associative reveries. The result is mesmerizing.

A Trusting Nature

The Idiot 

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Parts III & IV, "A Beautiful Man"

“What matters," said the prince at last, "is that you have a child's trusting nature and extraordinary truthfulness. Do you know that a great deal can be forgiven you for that alone?”   ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot





On January 12, 1868 Dostoevsky wrote in a letter to his good friend, the poet A. N. Maikov, that he was "inventing a new novel."  This novel would focus on an idea that excited Dostoevsky: "to portray a perfectly good man".(Selected Letters, p 262)  It would be a novel in four parts that was published later that year.  It is in the final two parts of the novel that the four "heroes" lives stand out and their interaction, along with a few key supporting characters, leads to the denouement of the story.  

I would like to focus briefly on these four heroes and, without giving away the exciting conclusion of the novel, discuss their relationships.  Of course Prince Myshkin, the young blue-eyed epileptic, remains at the center of the story.  His is the life of an outsider in both the obvious physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense.  He is friendly with both leading ladies;  the younger Aglaya and the older Nastasya Fillipovna.  His friendship is born of innocence and as such he is frequently, perhaps always, misunderstood by both the ladies and others.  Aglaya recognizes his "beautiful heart" but is conflicted by her feelings for Ganya and the presence of Nastasya.  It is Nastasya's presence that unnerves the sensitive Myshkin.  "For him there was something tormenting in the very face of this woman;" (p 349) 

Other characters intrude on the relations of the heroes bringing with them discussions of ideas that seem to be important to the narrator and thus to the story.  In particular, the consumptive Ippolit who is dying throughout the story presents a confessional pronouncement  titled "My Necessary Explanation: Apres moi le deluge" (p 387).  This is a blackly comic demonstration of nihilism of the sort that Dostoevsky had first introduced in his short novel, Notes from Underground.  Here it is presented as an adjunct to the activities of the fourth Hero, Rogozhin, whose actions mirror the thoughts of Ippolit in many respects.  

The result of both the fantastic characters and the plot, such as it is in its meandering ways, gives this novel an originality among Dostoevsky's final period of great novels.  The theme of nihilism will be central to his next novel, The Demons, and the exploration of the nature of spiritual goodness will reach its height in the character of Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov.  However it is The Idiot that bridges the gap between the Victorian novels of Balzac and Dickens and the uniquely Russian themes that emanate from the Slavophilic pen of Dostoevsky.  Thus this is a novel worthy of the Russian master who more than any of his peers looked forward toward the next century.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky, trans. Everymans Library, New York. 2002 (1868)

Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Joseph Frank & David I. Goldstein, eds. Andrew MacAndrew, trans. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. 1987

The Poor Knight

The Idiot 

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Part II, "The Poor Knight"

"A month ago you were looking through Don Quixote and exclaimed those words, that there is nothing better than the 'poor knight.' I don't know who you were talking about then---Don Quixote, Evgeny Pavlych, or some other person---nut pm;u that you were speaking about someone, and the conversation went on for a long time . . ." (p 247)



Part II of The Idiot begins six months after the party at Nastasya Filippovna's home.  Prince Myshkin left St. Petersburg for Moscow a mere two days later and according to some rumors, he claimed his inheritance, which turned out to be smaller than initially expected. Furthermore, the inheritance shrank considerably because a large number of creditors suddenly appeared, and the prince satisfied all their claims.   Typical of the Prince was his lack of concern for the money and whether the creditors deserved to be paid, although "a few of them had indeed suffered".  

The style of the beginning of Part II contrasts sharply with the end of Part I. The tone is very nonchalant and removed from the events that take place in the lives of the characters. Whereas at the end of Part I it seemed that we were right in the middle of the dramatic intensity of the novel, in the beginning of Part II the plot seems very far away. The narrator himself is not sure of everything that has happened; he has to reconstruct the story by piecing together rumors and letters.

Among the people encountered by the Prince upon his return was one Lebedev, a rogue who was a member of Rogozhin's entourage.  Lebedev relates to the Prince his belief and interpretation of the Apocalypse quoting the passage "and there will follow a pale horse and him whose name is Death, and after him Hell . . ." (Revelation 6:5-8)  The theme of death is even stronger than in Part I.  Even more important is the Prince's meeting with Rogozhin who he first encountered on the train returning to Russia.  Myshkin is entertained at Rogozhin's house, a dark house that is described in as much detail as another character - one which mirrors its owner's characteristic personality.  Myshkin tells him that he does not intend to interfere with his relationship with Nastasya Filippovna. If she decides to run from Rogozhin herself—which is what happened in Moscow—Myshkin will take her in. The prince does not hide his opinion that a marriage between Rogozhin and Nastasya would result in mutual destruction. Myshkin loves her with pity and is also fond of Rogozhin himself.

Before Myshkin leaves, he notices a large garden knife hidden inside one of Rogozhin's books. As Rogozhin escorts the prince out, they pass by a painting by Holbein, of a Christ who has just been taken off the cross. Myshkin cannot help but stare at this painting for a long time; Rogozhin asks him if he believes in God. In response, the prince tells four stories, the fourth of which explains the essence of religion as he understands it. The story is of a young mother delighting in her newborn. The prince thinks that God feels joy in his creation much as the mother feels joy in her child. Myshkin and Rogozhin then exchange crosses, and Rogozhin takes the prince to his mother, who blesses the prince.

In a later scene Myshkin describes his illness for the first time and then suffers an actual fit. He says that an attack is characterized by a momentary feeling of complete clarity of mind and an almost sublime understanding of life and its purpose. This moment is quickly followed by utter darkness. Before his fit, Myshkin wanders about the city. Mirroring his physical wandering, his mind wanders from subject to subject. The narrative becomes a sort of stream of consciousness as we experience Myshkin's thought process and feelings just before and during the epileptic fit. Because the narrator merges with Myshkin's consciousness, we learn little about the reason for the fit. The prince cannot himself clearly explain it.

Prince Myshkin eventually settles himself in Lebedev's summer cottage in Pavlovsk. Though Lebedev makes sure the prince receives few visitors aside from himself, many of the other characters are also in Pavlovsk.  On the third day of Myshkin's stay in Pavlovsk, Madame Yepanchin—who is convinced that the Prince is on his deathbed—comes to call on him along with her three daughters and Prince S., who remembers that he is an old acquaintance of Myshkin. Coincidentally, at about that time, the Ptitsyns, Ganya, and General Ivolgin also come to visit Myshkin. The entire company establishes itself on the spacious veranda of Lebedev's cottage.  Suddenly everyone starts joking about the "poor knight." Madame Yepanchin is a bit irritated because there is a hint that they are talking about Myshkin. Kolya remarks that Aglaya, as she was leafing through Don Quixote, said that there was nothing better than a poor knight. General Yepanchin and Yevgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, Aglaya's suitor, join the company. Aglaya recites Pushkin's poem "The Poor Knight," which is about a knight who idealizes Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Instead of the initials A.M.D., which stand for Ave, Mater Dei, ("Hail, mother of God"), Aglaya says N.F.B.—Nastassya Filippovna Barashkov—implying that Myshkin has chosen Nastassya Filippovna as his ideal. Aglaya begins in a rather mocking tone, but soon changes to speak more seriously and earnestly.  

The plot seems to be lost in all the meetings and discussions -- it will take two more parts to sort out the tale of The Idiot, both a Prince and a Poor Knight.

A Good Man

The Idiot 

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Part I, Prince Myshkin Returns

“One can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. And if we understand things too quickly, perhaps we shan't understand them thoroughly.”  ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot



The Idiot is one of Dostoevsky's great novels from the final decade of his life. Narrated in the third person it tells a tale of the fate of a truly good man, an apparently naive innocent. This character, Prince Lef Nicolaievitch Myshkin, is a noble man whose behavior at first is only strange and unconventional. Short, slight, with light hair and mustache, nearly white beard, and searching blue eyes, he arrests the attention of all who see him. His naive, unblemished goodness, in part the result of his life-long bout with epilepsy, causes men to doubt him and women to love him. He is considered by some to be in part a prototype for the character of Aloysha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov.

After four years spent in Switzerland, where he was treated for his epilepsy at a sanatorium, Prince Myshkin returns to St. Petersburg. On the train, the threadbare shabbiness of his clothing attracts the attention of the other passengers. One of these, Parfen Rogozhin, begins to question him. By the time they reach Petersburg, the prince and Rogozhin are well informed about each other, and Rogozhin offers to take the prince to his home and to give him money.

Myshkin, however, first wants to introduce himself to General Epanchin, whose wife is distantly related to him. At the Epanchin home, he meets the general and his secretary, Ganya, who invites him to become one of his mother’s boarders. The prince interests the general, who gives him some money, and he fascinates the general’s wife and three daughters. His lack of sophistication, his naïveté, and his frankness, charm and amuse the family. Soon they begin to call him “the idiot,” half in jest, half in earnest, but he remains on good terms with them. At one point the narrator relates the Prince's thoughts about being called an idiot: "Everybody also considers me an idiot for some reason, and in fact I was once so ill that I was like an idiot; but what sort of idiot I am now, when I myself understand that I'm considered an idiot? I come in and think: 'They consider me an idiot, but I'm intelligent all the same, and they don't even suspect it . . .' I often have that thought."(p 75)

In this first of four parts of the novel we are introduced to themes of class distinction through the many characters we meet at the Epanchins and elsewhere; while a contrast is developed between Myshkin and those he meets primarily through his indifference to the trappings of society, including their money, dress, and self-serving behavior. Other themes arise such as death, which is emphasized through two stories related by the Prince, and sickness that is endemic to the Prince's physical character. One of the stories about death mirrors an actual experience of Dostoevsky when in his youth he had been imprisoned and taken out to be executed -- an execution that was abrogated at the last moment leaving a permanent scar on Dostoevsky's psyche.

The first part, covers only the first day of the Prince's return to Petersburg, and concludes with several chapters detailing a drinking party given by Nastasya Filippovna, a courtesan. Extremely emotional and neurotic, Nastasya is thought by many to be guilty of  sins of which she is really innocent. Myshkin realizes her helplessness and pities her; and he asks her to marry him, saying that he received an unexpected inheritance. She refuses, declaring that she has no desire to cause his ruin. Instead she goes with Rogozhin, who brings her a hundred thousand rubles.  Will the prince continue to pursue Nastasya?  Perhaps Part Two will tell us.

A Surprising Discovery

The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H. 
in The Deeps of the Sea and Other Fiction 
by George Steiner


"Yes,  I know they've been hunting for him.  They've never stopped.  Started almost immediately after the war.  Small parties sworn to get him.  To give their lives.  Never to rest until he was found." (p 19)

In 1981 George Steiner wrote a literary and philosophical novella, The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.. In it Jewish Nazi hunters find Adolf Hitler (A.H.) alive in the Amazon jungle thirty years after the end of World War II. It is a daring fictional endeavor that is as much a philosophical rumination as it is a political thriller. It is the longest work in this compilation of short fiction by George Steiner.

From his base in Tel Aviv, Holocaust survivor Emmanuel Lieber directs a group of Jewish Nazi hunters in search of Adolf Hitler. The hunters believe that the former Führer is still alive, and following rumors and hearsay, they track Hitler's movements through the jungles of South America, until after months of wading through swamps, a search party finds the 90-year-old alive in a clearing. Lieber flies to San Cristóbal where he awaits the group's return with their captive. But getting the old man out of the jungle alive is more difficult than getting in, and their progress is further hampered by heavy thunderstorms.
Meanwhile, broken and incoherent radio messages between Lieber and the search party are intercepted by intelligence agents tracking their progress, and rumors begin to spread across the world of Hitler's capture. Debates flare up over his impending trial, where it will be held and under whose jurisdiction. Orosso is identified as the nearest airfield to the last known location of the search party, and aircraft begin arriving at the hitherto unknown town. But when the search party loses radio contact with Lieber, they must make a decision: do they sit out the storms and deliver their captive to Lieber later, or do they try Hitler in the jungle before their prize is snatched from them by the world at large, who they know will be waiting? Lieber warns "You must not let him speak ... his tongue is like no other". A trial is prepared and surprisingly the attention Hitler is receiving, however, renews his strength, and when the trial begins, he brushes aside his "defense attorney" and begins a long speech in four parts in his own defense.

Hitler claims he took his doctrines from the Jews and copied the notion of the master race from the Chosen people and their need to separate themselves from the "unclean". "My racism is a parody of yours, a hungry imitation." Hitler justifies the Final Solution by maintaining that the Jews' God, purer than any other, enslaves its subjects, continually demanding more than they can give. He claims that he was not the originator of evil and his atrocities were dwarfed by those of others. He even maintains that Zion owes its existence to the Reich. Throughout the rant there runs an underlying theme of the persecution of the Jews in history.

Steiner demonstrates both insights and an imagination of major proportions in a small space.  In an interview he told New York Times editor D. J. R. Bruckner that this book arose out of his lifelong work on language. "Central to everything I am and believe and have written is my astonishment ... that you can use human speech both to bless, to love, to build, to forgive and also to torture, to hate, to destroy and to annihilate." *   The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. was a 1983 finalist in the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. 

*Bruckner, D. J. R. (2 May 1982). "Talk With George Steiner". The New York Times.

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First Encounter

The Sparrow 
by Mary Doria Russell

"they were suffused with their surroundings.  The windborne fragrance of a thousand plants as varied as stephanotis, pine, skunk cabbage, lemon, jasmine, grass, but unlike any of them;  the heavy dank odor of vegetation decayed by another world's bacteria;  the oak-like musky bass notes of the crushed herbs they lay on overwhelmed their ability to perceive and categorize such things.  As three dawns and three dusks came and went, the sounds of the long day changed," (p 191)


This is a novel that starts out as a story of a first encounter with aliens on another planet, but before it is over it appears to be one that explores the nature of good and evil. It opens with Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest, who has survived an expedition to another planet and returned to Earth. He has been damaged physically and psychologically. The story is told in framed flashback, with chapters alternating between the story of the expedition and the story of Sandoz' interrogation by the Jesuit order's inquest, set up in 2059 to find the truth. Sandoz' return has sparked great controversy – not just because the Jesuits sent the mission independent of United Nations oversight, but also because the mission ended disastrously. Contact with the UN mission, which sent Sandoz back to Earth alone in the Jesuit ship, has since been lost.
The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order. The main character is Sandoz, a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, who leads the mission. Sandoz and his companions are prepared to endure isolation, hardship and death. From the beginning, Sandoz, a talented Puerto Rican linguist, born in a San Juan slum, had believed the mission to Rakhat was divinely inspired. Several of his close friends and co-workers, people with a variety of unique skills and talents, had seemingly coincidental connections to Arecibo and one of them, a gifted young technician, was the first to hear the transmissions. In Sandoz's mind, only God's will could bring this group of people with the perfect combination of knowledge and experience together at the moment when the alien signal was detected. These were the people who, with three other Jesuit priests, were chosen by the Society of Jesus to travel to the planet, using an interstellar vessel made out of a small asteroid.

Sandoz tells about how the asteroid flew to the planet Rakhat, and how the crew tried to acclimatize themselves to the new world, experimenting with eating local flora and fauna, then making contact with a rural village – a small-scale tribe of vegetarian gatherers, the Runa, clearly not the singers of the radio broadcasts. Still, welcomed as 'foreigners', they settle among the natives and begin to learn their language and culture, transmitting all their findings via computer up link to the asteroid-ship now orbiting above the planet; however, an emergency use of fuel for their landing craft leaves them stranded on the planet.
They eventually meet a member of the culture which produced the radio transmissions who proves to be of a different species from the rural natives. Their interactions with him and his culture lead to the disastrous consequences for all with Sandoz singled out for special suffering. The outcome of the novel his held in suspense until very near the end of the story which was somewhat frustrating since it is clear from the opening chapter that there was a major disaster of some kind. Some feel this book is really "a philosophical novel about the nature of good and evil and what happens when a man tries to do the right thing, for the right reasons and ends up causing incalculable harm".  Questions include the larger issue about the nature and role of god for, as one character says, "to make creation, God had to remove himself from some part of the universe, so something besides himself could exist. . . He watches. He rejoices.  He weeps.  He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering." (p 401)  Not everyone is satisfied with this viewpoint given the evil in the world.  It certainly raises moral questions and provides suspense within a futuristic science fiction setting.

This was the second time I have read the novel with what I consider mixed results. The dangers when encountering civilizations different than our own seem to be unpredictable while it turns out that the unintended consequences of actions that seem benign can be devastating. The moral dilemma presented in this novel seemed to be an accident that may or may not have been avoided. It may also have been simply a story of the inevitable costs of exploring our universe.

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A Nightmare Fantasy

The Man Who Was Thursday: 
A Nightmare 
by G.K. Chesterton


“Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, 'You lie!' No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, 'We also have suffered.”   ― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday


More than one hundred years ago in 1908 Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote a mysterious fantasy called The Man Who Was Thursday. Sixty years later while I was a student at The University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin I discovered this wonderful book. 
More recently I attended a stage adaptation by Chicago's New Leaf Theatre Company of the satire about a man who finds himself tapped by Scotland Yard to infiltrate a council of anarchists.  The unique qualities that fascinated me as a college student remain.

Chesterton's satire is part metaphysical and part philosophical. It is a comic fantasy, which he calls on the title page "A Nightmare," and in which free will is symbolized by anarchism. Man's freedom to do wicked things, as Augustine said, is the price we pay for freedom. If our behavior were entirely determined then we would be mere automatons with no more genuine free will than a vacuum cleaner. But we are not automatons. We have a knowledge of good and evil and a freedom to choose, within limits, of course, between the two. Somehow our choices are not totally determined, yet somehow they also are not random, as if decisions were made by shaking tiny dice inside our skull. This is the dark, impenetrable paradox of will and consciousness. "I see everything," Gabriel Syme shouts in the book's last chapter. "Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? … So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist."

The philosophical references abound, like this moment that recalls Socrates' myth of the cave in Plato's Republic:  “Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--” 

The story's mysterious developments and relationships make a creation that fascinates as the policeman from Scotland Yard, Gabriel Syme, poet extraordinaire, battles with "anarchists" in London. The conspiracy he discovers, the highlighted London background, and the way that Chesterton tells the story is both compelling and profound. While the story is at times dreamlike, even nightmarish, it also is filled with humor. A great chase scene closes the book, as if Chesterton were using the Keystone Cops to make philosophical points. The novel must have seemed daring in 1908 and it remains fresh and compelling.


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The Story of the World

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Macy Halford, writing in the New Yorker, discussed the nature of "Big, Engrossing Novels" saying in part that, "Perhaps every big book is a leap of faith: it can take a hundred pages or so for the story to pick up, or for the reader to acclimate to the writer’s language; and there are sometimes passages that lag, requiring confidence on the part of the reader that the writer knows what he's doing—that despite the detours, he'll bring the journey to a satisfying end. Ultimately, of course, this is part of what makes big, engrossing novels so engrossing. They’re not too tight, too perfect. They’re loose and shaggy, like the world, and like the world, you can get lost in them. "(New Yorker 9/23/2010).
Steinbeck's largest novel and the one that he considered his best, East of Eden, is one of these. The fourth and final part of East of Eden begins with a meditation on a fundamental question for humans, "What is the world's story about?"(p 411). The narrator claims that this story is one of a "net of good and evil" in which humans are caught. Thus the ultimate question for each one of us about our life is just: "Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?"(p 411).
There are almost two hundred pages left before the end of the novel, but the case for this view has been already effectively made through the lives of the major characters. From Adam Trask and Sam Hamilton to their wives and children the events of the story demonstrate each of their abilities to deal with their own actions, both good and evil. The sometimes heavy hand of the author presents violence and pure evil to make his point in a few characters, notably Cathy Ames. Cathy is the epitome of what the narrator calls a "monster" in that she has no conscience, no redeeming features, and even as she changes her name she does not change the evil within her soul. But she is an outlier and most of the characters, like most human beings are a mixture of good and bad, with their good side ruing their bad actions most of the time.
The dichotomy of good versus evil is striking and it is a part of Nature and the very landscape of the novel from the opening pages. It is there that the Salinas Valley is described with beautiful prose and the reader encounters the contrast between the "Galiban Mountains to the east which are "light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation", and the Santa Lucias to the west that "were dark and brooding---unfriendly and dangerous"(p 3). As the individual characters are introduced throughout the story it is worth remembering this contrast because each of them (with the exception of the pure evil Cathy) have personalities that are part light and part dark. It seems to be a somewhat gnostic view of human nature and the world except that there is seldom much discussion of the place of god or gods in all of it, at least until the fourth part when Adam's son Aron begins to pursue the ministry. The case for good and evil is thus fundamentally part of the the story East of Eden and perhaps the story of the world, if you believe the narrator.



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A Philosopher's Tale of Ideas

The Last Puritan 
by George Santayana

“A habitual indulgence in the inarticulate is a sure sign of the philosopher who has not learned to think, the poet who has not learned to write, the painter who has not learned to paint, and the impression that has not learned to express itself--all of which are compatible with an immensity of genius in the inexpressible soul.”  ― George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty

The Last Puritan is both a novel of ideas and one of personalities--real people living real lives. The places, the backgrounds are accurately depicted while the events of the novel are sketched as dramatic incidents. The scenes evoke an America of a certain age and the characters speak with a language that not only conveys ideas but emotions as well.  Some of the sections of the novel that I enjoyed the most were the conversations which were, fortunately, not too terribly impeded by the trappings of the story's structure with its quotidian details of everyday life.
The protagonist, Oliver, is the masterful character whose individual personality is drawn with all of its perplexity, sensitiveness, and youthful seriousness. The other characters are no less real with both women and men exhibiting believable emotions including love that is both platonic and physical. The novel presents a good story in addition to the ideas that are presented. One may enjoy it for its story but the primary appeal for this reader is the novel of ideas in the robust realization that Santayana brought to his creation of a lifetime.

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A Russian Nihilist

Fathers and Sons 
by Ivan Turgenev

“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!”  ― Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

The novel Fathers and Sons, like other great works of literature, has a timeless quality. The characters are memorable and the plot, while not terribly complicated, is universal in its aspect. Turgenev had, earlier in his writing career, contributed to the ideas of the developing intelligentsia with his collection of short stories, Sketches from a Hunter's Album. His portrayal of the peasants and serfs as real human beings showed a character not demonstrably different than that of the narrator who was a member of the aristocracy.
Published a decade later, Fathers and Sons became an inadvertent political agenda favorite, juxtaposing two generations, "the fathers," or the fading aristocracy, and "the sons," or the new fresh blood of the middle class and the nihilists, the novel seemed a perfect vehicle for portraying the brewing unrest of the pre-revolutionary era, and introduced the character of Bazarov -- the spirited nihilist who was seen as a brilliant idealistic rebel, the new kind of perfect man who rejected the old notions of class and came to disrupt nobility's status quo. His nihilism is particularly interesting since it was not the sort of nihilism I had previously encountered in Western European intellectual history, but it is more like a sort of empiricism. As such it was a Russian intellectual movement in the 19th century that insisted that one should not believe in anything that could no be demonstrated to be true. As a critical approach to virtually everything it is a powerful force used by Turgenev through the character of Bazarov to provide an alternative to the traditions and romanticism of the 'fathers' of the novel. The force does not prevail however. The strength of Bazarov's intellectual approach to everything crumbles in the face of both nature and love. His adoring friend Arkady loses interest in it and Bazarov himself succumbs; first to the personality of Madame Odintsov and finally to the infection that leads to his untimely death. Growing up, Turgenev witnessed much class injustice in Russia, and his themes reflect his overwhelming concern with the suffering of the poor and the voiceless serfs. But Fathers and Sons is not merely a convenient socio-political piece; Turgenev is a lyrical romantic. At the novel's heart lies the ultimately tragic human story of Bazarov's flippant kiss of a servant girl and the bizarre tension it causes in a cozy country gentry household where he is a guest. The world goes on, but the ideas presented are not vanquished but merely lie dormant, to be resurrected in continuing political unrest in Russia.

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Novelist and Philosopher

Ayn Rand Explained 

by Ronald E. Merrill

Revised and Updated by Marsha Familaro Enright

"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture an intransigent mind, and a step that travels limitless roads.
... Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark.  In the hopeless swamp of the bot quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only the frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. . . . The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p 993.

The title tells it all.  Marsha Familaro Enright's revision and update of Ronald E. Merrill's book provides an explanation and an overview to the life and thought of Ayn Rand.  The author demonstrates a substantial breadth of knowledge about Ayn Rand and her work.  In addition to the overview of Ayn Rand and her work the author presents examples of people in many different walks of life that have been influenced by Ayn Rand's thought along with a brief history of the growth of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.
As someone who has read most of Ayn Rand's fiction and non-fiction I was impressed with the depth of understanding and the insights of the author.  She compares Ayn Rand's fiction with examples of other authors when relevant and explains clearly the development of the philosophical outlook represented by the characters in Rand's major works.   She also presents some of the common criticisms of Ayn Rand's philosophical views in lucid prose that makes clear the nature of the issues and the power of  Rand's ideas to refute them when they are properly understood.  Above all, her presentation and discussion of the ideas and the views of critics of Ayn Rand show a reasonableness that demonstrates the true nature of Objectivist thought and honors her subject.  This approach was refreshing and all too rare in an age when irrationality is held as the norm by many.
Ultimately, any explanation of Ayn Rand must focus on the power of ideas.  These are presented clearly here and the reader is encouraged to read her work and think for himself about the value of those ideas.  The nature of Ayn Rand's ideas is presented in a way that I found engaging and hopeful.  I believe that readers both new to Rand and those who have read much of her work will benefit from the insights provided in Ayn Rand Explained.   

Ayn Rand Explained by Ronald E. Merrill, Revised and Updated by Marsha Familaro Enright.  Open Court Publishing, 2013. 

Philosophical Traveler

Traveler of the Century: A Novel 

by Andrés Neuman

"Silence radiates, like concentric rings, from the centre of the market square towards the yellowish gloomy alleyways, from the capacious tip of the Tower of the Wind to the sloping contours of St. Nicholas's Church, from the high doors to the railings round the graveyard, from the worn cobblestones to the dormant stench of the fields manured for spring, and beyond.
In Wandernberg a sandy moon turns full, a moon caught unawares, a moon with nowhere." (p 146)

This new novel by Andres Neuman, Traveler of the Century, is the type of book I enjoy -- a novel of ideas. But in this case it is also a love story of sorts, and the author comments on history and politics in addition to his decided interest in philosophy. In other words it is what any good novel of ideas should be, a long book that is both challenging and imaginative. While the American edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux has a Picasso on the dust jacket, the story is set in the 19th century. The exact period is purposely left undefined - this is not an historical novel and the Picasso is one of his works inspired by Velasquez which does not help explain the choice.
The main character is an itinerant translator named Hans. Readers who are familiar with German literature will recognize him as an everyman and he almost immediately assumes a role that reminds one of the similar role taken by Hans Castorp in The Magic Mountain.
Hans arrives in Wandernburg, an unremarkable hamlet on the border of Prussia and Saxony. He intends only to pass through, but fortune detains him: First he befriends an old street musician, and then he falls in love with Sophie, an intellectually voracious young woman sadly affianced to the pampered scion of Wandernburg's wealthiest family. The story unfolds as a one whose themes embody both mind and flesh; Hans and Sophie love each other for their imperfect yet sensual flesh and for the liberty and equality of their fraternal thoughts. Reading texts in various languages as they plan an anthology of European poetry, lying together in bed, they practice translation as an erotic art and lovemaking as an intellectual pursuit. This is what intrigued me - the story of these passionate readers. I was transported into Neuman's imaginary world.
The meat of the story for those who are interested in ideas is demonstrated in scenes like the discussion between Hans and Professor Mietter (reminiscent of Mann's Settembrini in discussions with young Castorp) about the views of Kant and Fichte on Nationhood.
"A country ought not to ask what it is, but when and why." said Hans. "Professor Mietter responded by comparing Kant and Fichte's ideas of nationhood in order to show that, rather than betraying Kant, Fichte had taken his arguments a step further. Hans said that in contrast to his views on Fichte, he liked Kant better when he spoke of countries rather than individuals. Every society, said Hans, needs order, and Kant proposes a very intelligent one. Yet every citizen needs a measure of chaos, which Kant refuses." (p 95)
While Hans and the Professor's discussion of the ideas of Kant and Fichte continued I was reminded of my own recent reading of Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace in which he is considered to have foreshadowed many of the ideas that have come to form the democratic peace theory, one of the main controversies in political science. Episodes like this are grist for the mill of those who enjoy philosophical literature. But also interesting are the characters in Neuman's novel. In the scene from which I quoted Sophie is in the background, full of her own ideas, and feeling "the urge to behave in and unladylike way" by entering the fray herself at the risk of taking sides between her lover and the respected professor.
Traveller of the Century doesn't merely challenge the reader's intelligence; it rewards it with literary depth and beauty. I was not familiar with the author but in this novel he demonstrated the talent is required to create an accomplished vision that embodies interesting ideas and a great story.

Traveler of the Century by Andres Neuman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012 (2009)

Mesmerizing Fiction

Bernard Foy's Third Castling 

by Lars Gustafsson

“The fantastic in literature doesn't exist as a challenge to what is probable, but only there where it can be increased to a challenge of reason itself: the fantastic in literature consists, when all has been said, essentially in showing the world as opaque, as inaccessible to reason on principle. This happens when Piranesi in his imagined prisons depicts a world peopled by other beings than those for which it was created. ("On the Fantastic in Literature")”  ― Lars Gustafsson



I remember being mesmerized by the unique fictional world(s)of this novel. the author manages to narrate three disparate lives, all belonging to characters with the same name, done with a voice reminiscent of my favorite nineteenth century novels. At the same time it is a philosophical tour de force in three long sections from Swedish writer who also wrote The Death of a Beekeeper (The Tennis Players; Funeral Music for Freemasons; etc.). This was my introduction to his work and it was an astounding discovery. At its best, it is intellectually challenging in the tradition of Borges or Calvino.
The title is an obvious metaphorical reference to the game of chess, but the novel's complexity goes beyond that of mere characters moved about on a chessboard. Bernard Foy is alternatively an American rabbi who gets caught up in an episode of international intrigue, an 83-year-old poet unable to finish his memoirs because he's lost his memory, and a gifted juvenile delinquent who is writing a novel that contains poetry, vanishing with Baudelaire's poems into a bog. Though self-indulgent at times, the book is witty and engaging, and Gustafsson has it both ways: in a ruminative 19th-century voice, he's written a brilliantly contemporary novel, a playful chess game that cancels itself out.
It is truly indescribable and must be experienced; it can be frustrating, but it is a brilliant conception.  Gustafsson is the rare writer who seems equally adept at writing fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. He has a philosophy background, and often deals with complex concepts, but effectively and -- more importantly -- unobtrusively integrates theory and ideas into his work.   His books are filled with linguistic, moral, and other philosophical concerns, but these never crowd out actual story. Amazingly, he's able to tie invention and philosophy together in a way that often enhances the stories.

Bernard Foy's Third Castling by Lars Gustafsson. New Directions, 1988 (1986)