Read 1,000 books

Death in Venice – read it when I was a college freshman; didn’t get what I needed to out of it. I can’t say that I’ve covered enough literary ground to make any judgment calls on Mann’s works, but based on my selective readings, I’ve noticed that he likes to depict troubled male artists who don’t fit the socially prescribed expectations of the manly man. Anyway, below is what I thought about the protagonist in Death in Venice (Aschenbach) and his descenion from the disciplined to the doddering and from the dignified to the grotesque. As it is rather long-winded, feel free to not read.

As Aschenbach’s inner “self” becomes increasingly dominated by his infatuation with the Polish boy Tadzio, his discipline and rigor in both art and life give way to his reckless senses. Paradoxically, the more he loses of himself to Tadzio (as he becomes consumed by the boy), the more his physical presence as a spectator intensifies. At first, Aschenbach’s sole intention is to look at Tadzio; he dares not take any calculated action, yet he is unable to let the boy leave his range of sight. He takes great pains to conceal his interest, but eventually conspicuity – that is, excessive and embarrassing visibility – becomes a non-issue. In fact, at the conclusion of the story – and, correspondingly, of Aschenbach’s life – conspicuity becomes a necessity and an inevitability, a dull pain and pleasure that causes him to experience both horror and elation whenever Tadzio catches his eye.

At his most pathetic, Aschenbach lets his longing gets the best of his self dignity. He follows the boy and his family around, dressed as a fop and made up with rouge. These attempts to contrive a youthful mien reinforce the reality of Ascenbach’s aging, sickly body and turn him into a sad fool whose painted face betrays a withering spirit. Such an absurd and grotesque spectacle shows not only that he is unable to forestall the progression of age but also that his artistic prowess has fully debilitated under the duress of his passions. He gradually evolves from being Aschenbach, the renowned writer, to merely the “solitary” – the semblance of a man, confined within himself, a perpetual spectator and outsider, yet himself the object of disgust and pity.

Finished Different Seasons but still reading Swann’s Way. I’m also on the tail end of The Virgin Suicides (Eugenides again; I liked Middlesex better) and have been skimming Jonathan Culler’s On Deconstruction and Barthes’s Image-Music-Text

Finished Changing Places (Lodge), Middlesex (Eugenides, highly recommended), and Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro).

Started Swann’s Way (Proust, re-read) and Different Seasons (my first Stephen King!).

Finished Jacob’s Room—ambiguous and oftentimes abstruse, but in a beautiful way.

Started Changing Places by David Lodge (hilarious! the belly-deep LOL kind, meaning the book should probably not be read in public) as well as Middlesex by Jeffry Eugenides (also very good and funny; less picaresque but probably more memorable.)

Finished Jude the Obscure (Hardy), finished Snow (Pamuk), midway through Jacob’s Room (Woolf), just started Middlemarch (Eliot), can’t wait to start Middlesex (Eugenides).

Finished Invisible Man. It was wonderful.

Started Jude the Obscure.

Just read – A Passage to India (Forster)

Now reading – Invisible Man (Ellison)

Random useless literary fact—Ralph Ellison was named after Ralph Waldo Emerson.

After OD-ing on Sparknotes and Wikipedia for the past few weeks, I’ve finally gotten back on track with my reading.

How Soccer Explains the World – uses soccer as a metaphor for thinking about globalization; cool concept but could’ve been better developed (main gripe: the “world” does NOT equate with Old Europe!)

Giovanni’s Room – at the risk of sounding trite, this book made me so, so sad; the narrator’s struggles with his sexual identity, while important, also speak to broader issues concerning the human condition—namely, self-consciousness and melancholy, both of which I, as a heterosexual, middle-class female, feel much too deeply.

I’m studying for the GRE literature test, which, ironically, has required massive and unabashed abuse of Sparknotes and wikipedia.

Yes…I’m applying for a Ph.D in English lit. What’s wrong with this picture?!

I’ve been keeping a book log since May 18, 2002. As of then, I’ve read 194 books… the main problem is that over the past two years, I’ve become a much, much less prolific reader. My all-time high was 61 books in 2004. All-time low was 31 books in 2005. Grumble, grumble…