Candid Literature Reviews

Synopses of the stereotypical story of certain authors and/or a short commentary on that author.

[snailkites]

Inktober Day 17: Battle

Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) versus White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla)

The crane delivers a powerful kick to the face of its assailant after extensive grappling in the sky. This battle was an unwise one on the part of the eagle.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Robert Frost

Although his work is less offensive than Jonathan Swift’s when people fall victim to Poe’s law, Frost is the more often misinterpreted. He is often quoted in uplifting, statuesque-nature, power-of-the-human-race scenarios, instead of critical, semi-defeatist, oh-this-is-futile scenarios. He’s a little like Eeyore, but more ironic and probably less cuddly.

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William Carlos Williams

Simple, direct, and concrete, these are poems you can spend hours analyzing and finding meaning in before you give up and just write your essay about how nice those words are together, and how much you want to go sit in a garden to see the sun rise. And the dew. Everything is a fragile lattice, the destruction of which is inevitable. The monarch butterfly spreads it’s wings toward the sun, journeying as we all do to death. But in the process, it is orange.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Robert M. Pirsig

There is a main character who is a middle-aged male and is some sort of dad-type. The plot would be boring if it weren’t merely a mechanism for philosophical meanderings which explore deep but uncomfortable notions about life in modern day society, what is real and what is not, and what is good and what is not. 

But, remember, it is fiction, not real philosophy. So don’t get carried away with how “meaningful” you find it there buddy. Only people who write *real* philosophical essays (aka the meandering, poorly constructed ones) can truly convey any sort of Truth about Life or add to the Body of Philosophy, through which, Of Course, One Finds the Truth. Ugh, fiction is so low-brow – I mean, it’s written so people can understand it the first time through! But there are cool bits about motorcycles, so I guess it’s worth it.

(Turns off the sarcasm). Please read Zen and the Art. It is a very thoughtful, relaxing book and will present at least one new idea that you will consider very enlightening and then have trouble explaining to your friends who don’t read obscure pseudo-philosophy.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Chinua Achebe

There is a main character who is an African. The plot is about how the Europeans enslaved all the African people and didn’t understand at all the very much flourishing (if convoluted) culture that they stomped on. Before you argue that Achebe’s work is “inaccessible,” “unrealistic,” or “boring,” remember that you are probably not African. Remember that you are probably of European descent and might have certain similarities in your (mis)understandings as the stompers. Remember Heart of Darkness and how pointless that entire book was. Remember these things, then go back and read that whole book. Do it. Then read this essay by Achebe. Realize that there is a problem, and you should try to not be a part of it. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and then we can have a conversation about Achebe.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Albert Camus

The main character is a man. All the sentences are written as though Camus just read a book on the optimal distribution of different sentence structures – simple, simple, compound, complex, complex, complex, simple. The main character lives in a safe bubble is shocked when at last he has to meet death. The shock leads him to call things absurd which are not really absurd. In fact, what is most absurd is his seemingly sub-human understanding of human emotion and the workings of the legal system. One wonders if, given the comfortable haze in which the character has lived for so long, his death is really the ultimate alarm to call him to awareness of these seconds which had previously for him slipped so idly by. 

Camus, from the perspective of a jaded American, these things you cast as extreme, as dark, and as evil, aren’t really that extreme, dark, or evil. Now, if you had stuck with the theme of sincerity, particularly emotional sincerity, you would have been fine. But no, much like Pete Townsend, you have to try to go out with a bang. Unfortunately, also like Pete Townsend, this bang causes people to impatiently switch to the next song or tap their fingers on the steering wheel, wishing he would just get on with it already.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Roald Dahl

There is a main character who could be male or female. If the main character is a child, this is a nice, uplifting story. If the main character is an adult, this is a sad, depressing story. If it is about a child, there will probably be some subtle references to poverty or to the janked up British boarding school system that inspired at least two songs on Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There will probably be some element of fantasy or magical realism. No matter who the main character is, be prepared to lose all your faith in British adults, and adults in general – they are all stupid, or evil, or both. 

Side note, Dahl led a really cool life (fought in WWII, was good at handball), and fathered a child who potentially slept with Paul Farmer. The more you know!

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Sylvia Plath

The poem is probably rhythmic and stream of consciousness oriented, with elements of depression and potentially disturbing content. Cutting to the chase, she wasn’t kidding when she wrote about suicide.

Read Plath, but ignore the criticism that pretty much says she was a self-centered, spoiled bitch. People who call her out for this need to consider the case of Fitzgerald, who was more extremely a self-centered, spoiled bitch with much less call to be in both a personal and literary sense.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

C.S. Lewis

There is a main character who is male, or four children main characters, two of whom are male and two  of whom are female. Everything is a metaphor for God, Heaven, and Christianity. The only distinguishing feature between books is how subtle that metaphor is and whether or not lions are involved. If the book has a lion in it, be prepared for some disturbingly violent content for a book written for small children. Spoiler for The Screwtape Letters: he wrote it to sass all those people whose piety (or lack thereof) he had a problem with. Also: his real name is Clive Staples. No wonder he wanted the moral high ground so badly.

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Jane Austen

There is a main character who is a woman and lives in 19th century England. She either has or will have money troubles because she can’t inherit. Only men can solve this problem. Therefore, the plot is mostly centered around her interaction with men. The book probably has a happy ending. 

Many people think Jane Austen is “less” of a writer because her works are a) viewed as being largely written for women and b) were considered more commercial and “low brow” for her time. To the first comment: you seriously need to rethink your priorities. To the second comment: Austen’s sly sense of humor and subtly satiric criticism of the silliness and failures of her characters, the British social structure, and common human characteristics and endeavors make her work just as politically meaningful as Dickens and more generally meaningful than all of Faulkner. She has a compassion for her characters that avoids flatness and stereotypes, making each character interesting in his or her own right. To those people who think that Mrs. Bennett is annoying: if you ever have children, I curse you for the rest of your days to worry that they will live in sad destitution after you are dead because, besides marrying them off, there is legally literally nothing you can do to save them from such a fate.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Allen Ginsberg

You think the poem contains a deep but ultimately unsatisfying revelation regarding the place of humanity within modern (1960s) American culture. That becomes tainted when you realize the author is racist and sexist. He uses so many words because he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and hopes to confound you into believing his work is meaningful with “creative” uses of grammar and syntax. Ginsberg, I would have more sympathy for you if you weren’t the real-life version of @GuyInYourMFA.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

George Orwell

If it’s a novel: there is a doomed main character who is either a pig or a man. What’s the difference? There isn’t one. Just like there isn’t a difference between four and five. It’s communism. 

If it’s a short story: the elephant dies.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Joseph Conrad

There is a main character who is a man. That’s pretty much the last thing you’ll be sure about. If it weren’t written like a bad fever dream the plot would actually be pretty boring. Heavy use of symbolism and language that coyly suggests a depth of message without ever making good on the promise conveys what can loosely be called the text’s “meaning.” The one worthwhile critique of Western culture that comes through clearly is negated by his misinterpretation of what constitutes culture because of – wait for it – racism. On the whole, the text is overly dramatic, a bit like watching a teenage boy discover that his first love thinks about vanilla ice cream more than she thinks about him. Except the female characters are all so flat I would be shocked to discover they know what vanilla ice cream is – like Dickens’ uber-angels except quieter. The other characters are probably flat caricatures or over-glorified crazy people whose words drip with prophetic inflection for no apparent reason. For a man who could speak three languages, you’d think his take on the human condition would be a little more nuanced.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Charles Dickens

There is a main character who is either a man or a boy. The book is probably about twice as long as it needs to be because someone thought it would be a good idea to pay him by the word. On the other hand, the writing style is actually kind of nice once you get used to it. The book has a plot but whatever the details are it’s actually a political critique of either the British system of public goods and services (linked to British poverty) or the French revolution. Most of the characters are actually caricatures that poke fun at the representatives of British law. The main character is unequivocally good. There are several other good people who will come to serve him as the book goes one. One of these characters feels badly about himself because his life is too messed up for some poorly explained reason but ends up redeeming himself by selflessly serving the main character, usually by dying. Any female character is either unabashedly, dirtily evil or a pure, boring angel. All the characters are white. At least one scene will be set in a garden. There might be some vaguely unsettling sexual reference. Once you realize that he wrote it to be consumable and commercial the tropes make a lot more sense.

[literarysassmaster-blog]

Cormac McCarthy

There is a main character who is a poor white man who doesn’t pass much comment on the weird and disturbing things that happen to the people around him (and eventually to him). There is lots of death. Most of what can loosely be described as the plot happens outside, far from any normal human habitation. Everything else is representative of the void. For something so simple, you would think you wouldn’t need such a wordy, confusing, and esoteric writing style would you? Just kidding – it’s also racist.

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J.D. Salinger

There is a main character who is a young, white, upper-middle class, highly intelligent man who lives in and/or comes from New York City. He is so smart he can see through the synthetic guise of the upper-middle class life he leads and is therefore depressed. Nothing matters. Everyone and everything is fake. Except for his siblings, who are also crazy and depressed but at least they understand what it’s like to be so much better than everyone else you are forced to realize the meaningless of the competition and rankings that do you so well. The conflict comes from him dealing with his insanity and trying to find meaning and mostly failing. The main character is exceptionally sympathetic for being so perfect and makes you want to swaddle him in soft blankets and pet his head until he feels better. If the main character’s name is Seymore Glass and you make fun of him in any way I will find you and I will fight you don’t do that.

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[literarysassmaster-blog]

Leo Tolstoy

There is a main character. If he is a man, this story is about him being impure but finding God anyway, even if it’s in the last second before he dies. If she is a woman, this story is about her being angelic until she betrays her husband for the first time and then has to be satisfied with being a either a normal, less than godly homemaker or a certified social deviant because nothing will be as it once was. If the cast of characters is the entire Russian nobility and quite a few almost-peasants, all the characters (except the almost-peasants) will always be in too much monetary debt, which is really a metaphor for the moral debt every character (except the almost-peasants) accumulates trying to be happy in the stupid social patterns of Russian society. The weight of this moral debt causes all characters to either be in denial, alcoholic, or suicidal, even the ones you like or think might actually be good people. The almost-peasants are better people than everyone else because they are poor and close to the good Russian soil. They will have an orgasmic realization of the goodness of God despite considerable former existential doubt. Only they will be happy. If a character who is not an almost-peasant has a realization of God, it will actually be fake because he is unworthy and he will end up causing more misery for himself and everyone else because he doesn’t know how to be truly well-meaning. If the cast of characters is most of the Russian nobility plus the entire Russian military, it’s about religious conflict. If a character that is also a horse is mentioned more than twice, it will die.