Link to Part II
Link to Part III
The Agony and the Ecstasy – Irving Stone (Arthur Morey) (5
stars)
A masterpiece story about a masterpiece artist. The story of a man who wanted to do one thing
his whole life more than just about any person has ever wanted to do any one
thing. Had I not read this story I might
not have known that Michelangelo’s true love was never painting, but
sculpting. That’s not to say, however,
that whenever he found himself with a commission to paint he didn’t commit his
whole soul and energy into it.
If you’re interested in finding a good self-help book on
career advice, I think this story has a lot of it implicit in the approach and
dedication of Michelangelo. When, due to
political circumstances, he was tempted by others to walk away from the
black-hole project that was the painting of the Sisteen Chapel, he explained to
his friend, Sangallo, that he couldn’t walk away because he would despise
himself. “I need my complete
self-respect... Once let me know that I
can be content with inferior work, and as an artist I’m through.”
I enjoyed gaining insight into the minds of artists and
tradesmen. It was enjoyable to hear the
recurring debate over the superiority of painting or sculpture, and what the
artist is able to express through the different mediums. Michelangelo always preferred sculpture but
he couldn’t always put it into words except by waxing poetic about it, and this
frustrated him when people like Da Vinci presented a more compelling case for
the superiority of painting.
For me, the climax of the story is shortly following the
completion of the radical sculpture project, ‘The David’. Yes, his life was marked by agony and
ecstasy, but each project he undertook was also a microcosm of the competing
emotions, and even the marble itself underwent the former to achieve the latter. And the contest of these two emotions was
eminently noticeable in the undertaking of ‘The David’. It was reviled by many, mostly for being
nude, but also for being outsized and ostentatious. At one point the completed statue was even
felled by rock hurlers such that one of the original arms broke off. When the statue was finally given a permanent
place in Florence it was almost exhilarating to see Michelangelo find it the
next morning with handwritten notes about it, uncertain as to the tone of the
notes, but eventually relieved and emotional to find that they were notes of
praise. “You have given us back our
self-respect.” “How magnificent is man.” “Never can they tell me man is vile – he is
the proudest creature on earth.”
The writing by Irving Stone is also very good. To write history in such an imaginative and
descriptive way is quite a feat, and it makes the reader the better for being
able to remember the details in this way.
Some examples of his near-poetic writing: “…No, because he felt that
each new piece he carved had to break through the existing conventions –
achieve something fresh and different.
Bregno moved his jaws in a chewing movement as through trying to
pulverize this concept with his teeth.”
And elsewhere, “She laughed the soft musical tone that dissipated the
last of the day’s humiliation.”
One of the reinforcing lessons to me personally from this
book is that I love art. I’m so glad at
its existence, and for the variety it adds to life, and the difference of
perspective it provides. I was inspired
by Michelangelo to see that even at the end of his life, with all the hardships
and poverty he had endured, he wanted to extend his life, or even live it a
second time. And that his body of work
remained genuine and impressive throughout his entire life. “The forces of destruction never overcame
creativity.”
At Home: A Short
History of Private Life – Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson) (4 stars)
If you want to know about the progression from cave
dwellings to mud huts to halls to two-story homes to basically Downton Abbey
this is a great book. Oh, and if you
also want to learn everything about everything while you’re at it, this is the
book for you.
Bill Bryson takes the reader on a guided tour of a proper
English-style home and stops at each room, nook, and appliance to expound on
the origin and purpose of each component.
It’s actually very fascinating, and a lot more entertaining than one
might think from the sounds of it.
You’ll be learning about the introduction of light into homes and that
will take you on a series of expositions ranging from what life was like when
people lived in the dark (did they go to bed when the lights went out? Answer: not really), to how difficult it was
to clean out kerosene lamps, to how main sources of power were kerosene, then
whale oil, then natural gas, then electricity (I may have missed some parts of
the succession. Did bat guano belong in
that list, or was that an altogether different chapter?), to a discussion of
Benjamin Franklin’s misunderstood contributions to various inventions as well
as his personality. If you can keep up
it’s a fascinating ride.
One Hundred Years
of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (John Lee) (4 stars)
This is an intense read.
You had better keep your Buendia family tree handy as well as bookmark
the link to the book’s “sparknotes” on your iPhone. The creative and disjointed writing style
reminded me a lot of Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’. I suppose one reason why I probably preferred
this book to that is that the Latin American culture/history is more accessible
to me than is that of India, so when he writes about the firing squads and the
massacres it somehow resonates a bit more.
This is the kind of book that I wouldn’t have had much
luck with without the help of sparknotes.com.
For example, I learned things like the following through reading the
notes in step with my progression in the book:
García Márquez’s style of
writing is commonly referred to as magical realism, which describes, among
other things, the way historical events are colored by subjectivity and memory
is given the same weight as history. One easily identifiable trait of magical
realism is the way in which mundane, everyday things are mingled with
extraordinarily wonderful, or even supernatural, things. In Chapter 2, as José
Arcadio is seduced by Pilar Ternera, we learn that “he could no longer resist
the glacial rumbling of his kidneys and the air of his intestines, and the
bewildered anxiety to flee and at the same time stay forever in that
exasperated silence and that fearful solitude.” Here, García Márquez describes
very specific physical events side by side with huge, abstract emotions. This
is typical of magical realism: just as the distinctions between different times
are muddled up, the distinction between the real and the magical, or between
the ordinary and the sublime, become confused.”
The book is an undertaking, but it’s fun and it’s brain-stretching.
Moby-Dick – Herman
Melville (Frank Muller) (5 stars)
I once explained to Val that boring isn’t necessarily a
bad thing. If you can be convinced of
that concept then I think there may be something in this book for you.
There’s something to be said about a thorough exploration
about any subject, for in the thoroughness of the exploration new discoveries
are borne of necessity. This is a simple
tale of Ishmael getting on board the Pequod to help Capt. Ahab hunt down the sperm
whale, dubbed Moby Dick. But in the
telling of the story we’re introduced to various exploits (the comical, Huck
Finn-esque account of Ishmael bunking with Queequeg), geographies (the
exposition on the preeminence of Nantucket), religious histories (the
introduction to Ahab and his puritan contemporaries), revenge, and of course,
whales. After reading this book, I now
feel like I have a special kinship with all whales, and I perk up whenever
anyone mentions the prodigious sperm whale.
It’s fascinating to think about whales and their behavior (e.g. sperm
whales apparently come up to spout air with precise rhythmic duration, and each
particular whale has its own particular spouting and diving durations), and to
consider their mass, and the fact that they have eyes separated by a massive (I
mean, really massive) block of head.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about whales is what we don’t know
about them. (From the ‘At Home’
book, it is believed that sperm whales
perhaps have spermaceti in their heads to cushion their
brains from sparring blows that they might incur with other sperm whales at
underwater depths that surpass man’s ability to descend, so of course no one
can confirm this.)
Some chapters are certainly a drag, but others are just
so good. Probably the best of all is
chapter 1 which touches on man’s primal attraction to water. That intro is almost scriptural or
Shakespearean in the sense of importance and truth it conveys – I have almost considered
memorizing it (but don’t count on it).
Circumambulate the city of a
dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from
thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels
all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads;
some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the
rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all
landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to
benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What
do they here?
But look! here come more crowds,
pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing
will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the
shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh
the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles of
them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues-
north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them
thither?
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