Kerouac “Subterraneans” and “Pic”

I really really enjoyed Subterraneans it seems to be that the underlying theme of most of the Kerouac I’ve been reading is his battle with alcoholism. Here he destroyed a relationship that he felt held a lot of potential because he couldn’t stop drinking and going out, and flirting with boys (even though he was straight!). It was hard to read in lots of ways as there were times when it reminded me a little too much of me 6 years ago, and people I’ve known. But it was also quite fantastic. I thought Mardou was pretty great for a crazy girl who hung out with junkies. I think it’s quite telling that when it was made into a movie she became white. But it was definitely one of the best Kerouac stories I’ve read.

I had my doubts about Pic a book written by “a 12 year old black boy in dialect” sounded truly horrendous, but I actually found myself enjoying it. It was rather strange to read a book that was obviously written as a novel and didn’t have the main character be a Kerouac in disguise. I’m guessing he took a lot of flack for trying to write as a black person, especially in pre-civil rights America. It was rather a short and odd structure, it seemed like half way through the narrator started talking to his grandfather, which I didn’t remember him doing in the first half of the book, when his grandfather was being taken away because he was sick. And the end seemed very short and abrupt. But still it was definitely worth reading.

Anatole France, Revolt of the Angels

I read Revolt of the Angels again for Bibliogoth, practically in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. Revolutionaries disguised as angels and politics disguised as religion. There are angels who read theology and become atheists or just abandon god for love of a woman. Then they try and take over heaven with bombs, with the backing of a fallen angel banker. It’s a book that hardly anyone has ever heard of but everyone I know whose read it has loved it and then passed in on to other people. Well worth a read if you can find a copy.

Kerouac Dharma Bums

thought this was very enjoyable. I always feel a bit trepidations reading books about Buddhism by westerners, but Kerouac had won me over by referring to Zen Buddhism as Chan in Big Sur so thought I’d read this to see what it was like. Love of nature and hiking are probably not my favourite topics for a book, but still I found this enjoyable. I did go and find the Chinese poet they were reading, and enjoyed reading his poems. There were interesting contrasts between the isolation of the mountains and the crazy parties at their friends. It was interesting to see that his friend lecture him about his alcohol intake, and then forgive him. It felt very odd to have him visit Seattle and know the area he was talking about. The whole ending felt rather dream like and unreal. But still an enjoyable book.

Hardy The Trumpet Major

I’d not heard of this Hardy novel but found it in a charity shop for 50p so thought it’d be worth getting. I have to say when I think of Hardy I rarely think of him as a laugh out loud author but this time I really was! There were parts that were simply hilarious, such as in the very beginning, “It should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of mankind – satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed his elder rival altogether. Mrs Garland alluded, of course, to the junior gentleman.” (6). There was just something so lovely about the writing style of this book. It was a nice melodramatic comedic love story set against the Napoleonic wars, but without being too over the top. I enjoyed the characters a great deal and was quite surprised by the ending. I think I will definitely continue to read more Thomas Hardy.

“Of Ghostes and spirites walking by nyght” by Lewes Lavater

I found this lovely copy of a 1572 translation of a German book on ghosts and spirits in the library at work. It was with the Shakespeare as the publishers in 1929 thought that it might be useful for people who want to get a new perspective on the ghost in Hamlet. I have to admit to skipping most of the introduction as I wasn’t really interested in what it said about Hamlet and just wanted to read it for itself.

The text was quite interesting. It gave many more examples from the classical world than from the biblical one, and gave theses examples without questioning the validity of the “pagan” authors. This is something that I’ve not often found in these types of books. Eventually he did set down his arguments against ghosts, and against the catholic interpretation of ghosts. The author clearly did not believe in spirits returning from the dead, or purgatory, and instead put up the majority of these cases to people’s imagination or demonic spirits. It was noteworthy to mention however, that he did seem to indicate that there were a few cases where such things did appear to be genuine. However, I didn’t see much evidence between his arguments about which things should be believed and which not. It did contain a prayer that it suggested the reader use if confronted by a spirit or ghost to use to test whether the spirit was real or sent by the devil. (106-107).

sahra_patroness it also had a very similar belief on how supposed ghosts can know about what happened to the Muslim belief about djinn and ghosts. It talked about how people believed that they had a good and evil angel that accompanied them throughout their lives and learned all about them, And said that if people saw something that was supposedly their ghost it was in fact their angel (whether good or bad) and this was how they knew all the details about that persons life. (150-151).

The last part of the book consisted of a very interesting essay by May Yardley that presented the catholic position about ghosts in the 16th century, in particular Le Loyer’s IIII livres des specters (1586). The essay was very interesting, the catholic position did seem to largely be that ghosts were the souls of the dead returned from purgatory, but they were also cautious and tried to take a scientific approach to the existence of spirits.

A fascinating book, it did get a tad too theological and preachy towards the end, and there were not very many examples of stories outside classical and biblical stories. But still worth reading.