The Dying Animal

This was probably my least favorite Roth so far, but even so, it had more than its share of poignancy and insight. More than any of his other books so far, Eros vs. Thanantos seemed to drive the action and the thinking of the book.

David is certainly led by his' his dick, and in many instances, he is morally despicable. I really cringed when he lied about going to Consuelo's party but even more so when he lied to Carolyn about the tampon in his bathroom. This was right after he wanted to watch Consuelo menstruate after she confessed that one of her younger lovers had done so years ago. David was so eaten with jealousy that he licked the blood running down her leg. He's such a predator, making no bones about it, especially in his paean to Janie and the revolution of morals in the 60's and his own hedonistic existence. Yet also, I think, he's looking back to the circumstances of his life with very self-conscious irony. He becomes ensnared in his own traps when he is consumed with Consuelo, especially after she breaks it off with him.

George Hearn's death was one of the great scenes that I've read in the past few years, made even more poignant with the ironic coda from George's wife. Then Roth stands the book on its head with the revelation that Consuelo has reconnected with David after 8 years and is about to have radical mastectomy, with the explicit comparison between her possible death from cancer at age 32 vs. George's pending death from old age at age 70--counting life from how much time is left vs. how much time has passed. Then what to make of the ending where David's monologue is really revealed as a dialog, implying that David will give up himself if he goes to Consuelo when she needs him. He has come off as a prick all along, but then the other voice suddenly implores him to stay. Why is that?

Author: Roth, Phillip

Date Published: 2006

Length: 4hr 9min

Narrator: Stechschulte, Tom

The Shape of Ancient Thought

An awful lot of information to digest, but three large thoughts endure: First, the diffusion of ideas from the ancient near eastern cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt to both India and Ionia. McEvilley suggests that the Ionian/Greek preoccupation with monism, leading to the Ionian enlightenment, came by way of India and the Upanishads. 

Second, dialectical thought develops in India only after contact with Greek culture and the establishment of Hellenistic centers in northwest India. So Nargarjuna's thought is really a fusion of Buddhism with Greek ideas.

And third, the ethics of imperturbability develops in both cultures as a response to pain and suffering--through cynicism and stoicism in the west and through Buddhism/Yogism in the east. Indifference to pleasure/pain, good/evil, etc. is the only way to survive and get by. And the way to achieve imperturbability is through mindfulness.

Author: McEvilley, Thomas

Date Published: 2001

Length: 816pp

print

A Short History of Nearly Everything

This was my third time through the book, and it has remained entertaining through each re-reading. While the particulars cannot stay with me, overall I am left with a great sense of wonder.

We are, as the song used to say, a fluke in the universe. We have no right to be here. And we--our selves, our species, our planet--won't be forever and forever, world without end, amen. A massive volcano--like Yellowstone--or a giant meteor--like Yucatan--could wipe out most of human life in one devastating second, without warning, at any time. Those not instantly destroyed will soon hope that they were with the massive dislocations to ecosystems. Or the planet could more slowly as a move back to the little ice age and massive starvation.

Some other life forms will eventually supersede the human species, whether sentient or not. And this planet is really all there is, and when it comes down to it, we don't know jack shit about the universe, about the planet, about life, about ourselves. It seems to me that about all we can grasp is how much we don't know. And it took us a damn long time to even reach that conclusion. About the only thing that Bryson didn't include was neuroscience and the development of language and psychology.

Author: Bryson, Bill

Date Published: 2003

Length: 560pp & 18hr 15min

electronic print and audio

Narrator: Matthews, Richard

Dead Man's Walk

McMurtry revisits Gus and Call, but what can he do after killing them both off in earlier books? He goes back to the earliest days when they first join the rangers and start adventuring. Buffalo Hump is the great antagonist, but the rangers are no great organization. They are a bunch of opportunists who seek glory and money, but also ignorant and naive in dealing with the realities of the land and the people. The group essentially falls apart and is essentially destroyed on the march across the llano and their encounters with Buffalo Hump. The group that survives is captured by the Mexicans and forced to march across the Jornado Muerte, and even then half of them are executed.

Gus and Call have one great adventure in escorting an English countess across the west Texas desert with a highly unlikely encounter with Buffalo Hump again. The book is nowhere near McMurtry's best and far too many improbabilities and coincidences. Still, a lot of gratuitous violence and bumbling characters with a lot of comic relief provided by Gus. The narrator turned me off at some points. He just didn't have the range of voices to pull it off, certainly not as Lee Horsley did with Lonesome Dove. I enjoyed Dead Man's Walk much more in print years ago when it first came out.

Author: McMurtry, Larry

Date Published: 1996

Length: 14hr 31min

Narrator: Patton, Will

The Stranger

Another classic from my youth. What in the world could I have gotten from this when I was 18 years old? I was struck this time with similarities with Hemingway stylistically--especially the "no ideas but in things." The abundance of sensual details supports the everyday commonplace life of Mersault as opposed to the extraordinary details on the Spanish Civil War or the Italian front in WWI.

At age 18, Mersault was something of a hero to me, but he does not come across as very sympathetic now, especially in his relationship with Raymond and his agreeing to write the letter to Raymond's ex girlfriend, and his refusal to keep Raymond from beating her. And he seems to make excuses for his choices from his lethargy brought on by the sun. He doesn't take responsibility for his choices. Mersault is "everyman," condemned to die in a meaningless life. Condemned to life in prison with no freedom but with a sense of starting life over, regardless of the circumstances.

We're here by fluke, searching for meaning where there is no meaning. Mersault never searches for anything beyond the sensual detail of his experiences, and that's all there is. "I laid my heart open to the tender indifference of the universe."

Author: Camus, Albert

Date Published: 1942

Length: 4hr 14min

Narrator: Davis, Jonathan

From Russia With Love

What can I say? Entirely escapist. And James Bond, as written, is certainly not Sean Connery. Even though SMERSH centers its plot entirely on killing Bond, mentioning his role in the previous four books, and even though he falls straight for their ruse to capture and kill him, he doesn't seem to warrant the attention. He is not the superspy portrayed in the movies. The movie does seem to hold relatively closely to the plot, though. But it is Bond's arrogance that ends up with Kellim Bey being killed, and his lack of cunning that mistakes Red Grant for a British secret service agent. Bond's escape from Grant is entirely too easy. But it is interesting that Rosa Krebs does seem to deliver a fatal kick with a poisoned toe knife in the end of the book. I wonder if Fleming had grown tired of him by this point, but was convinced to bring him back from the dead for a sequel in Dr. No.

Author: Fleming, Ian

Date Published: 1957

Length: 7hr 52min

Narrator: Vance, Simon

Catch 22

Another book that I read as a 19/20 year old and thought was really funny and spot on then, and that I think is probably one of the great novels on re-reading now. Parts of the absurdity of it made me laugh out loud, again, but I also realized that it is so much more than a book about bureaucracy or against war. It's a book about the absurdity of the human condition, a point made by Yossarian when he walks through the streets of Rome trying to befriend Nately's whore's kid sister.

Catch 22 isn't just a bureaucratic trick; it's the trap that we are all caught in just being alive. War is just of way of making that more clear to the rest of us. I found it hard not to dismiss Yossarian and to root for him all at the same time. Of course, when he refused the deal from Colonel Korn, especially after looking for the whore's kid sister, it is one of the few "stand-up" moments in the novel.

I also had a lot of trouble not thinking that all of my life was absurd when I got up from reading it. Everything in the universe seemed like a huge joke was being played on me. But then, it really is a huge joke being played on me.

Author: Heller, Joseph

Date Published: 1961

Length: 19hr 59min

Narrator: Sanders, J. O.