This picaresque novel about Bronx-born “Billy Bathgate” Behan, a street urchin and errand-boy for the Dutch Schulz mob, memorably evokes the tough urb This picaresque novel about Bronx-born “Billy Bathgate” Behan, a street urchin and errand-boy for the Dutch Schulz mob, memorably evokes the tough urban streets of the early '30's, but its principal achievement is the voice of the first person narrator, “Billy Bathgate” himself.
Like his literary ancestor Huckleberry Finn, Billy speaks naturally, with colloquial snap and humor. He describes his streets and adventures in the way that an intelligent boy of his age would see them, and he soon convinces the reader both of the believability of his character and of his reliability as a narrator. Once Doctorow has successfully created this illusion, however, he manipulates the narrative voice—and our perceptions of it—in a remarkably ambitious way. At the end of a crucial chapter, Billy's sentence structure will become more complicated, his metaphors more sophisticated, but Doctorow's alters them so subtly, he keeps the language so completely in character, that we soon come to realize we are listening to a reflective, older Billy commenting on his childhood memories. Doctorow never has to tell us this; he does it all with a slight shift of style.
Another virtue of the book—something all good gangster novels should have--is vivid, gritty scenes of sex and violence. As anyone who has ever tried knows, writing about sex and violence is difficult. All too easily it can slip into the clinical, the mechanical, until soon every scene sounds the same. In Doctorow's hands, however, each description is unique, and carries with it a distinct thrill. Whether it be two young bodies writhing in the mud of a country field, a skull kicked to pieces on a barroom floor, or feet placed in cement on a gangsters' yacht, we smell the odors, we taste the sweat and the blood, we feel the mud ooze--the cement harden—between our toes.
The only thing I didn't like about the book was the ending. Doctorow wished for a conclusion of classic circularity: to end on the same street—and with the same sort of description—with which he began. He granted himself his authorial wish, but—in my opinion—he had to do violence to the shape of the book to make such a neat ending possible. But this is only a minor irritant, and does not detract from the vividness and power of the book....more
The first picaresque "novel," Lazarillo de Tormes--more of a novella really--is an excellent introduction to the genre and a very good book on its own The first picaresque "novel," Lazarillo de Tormes--more of a novella really--is an excellent introduction to the genre and a very good book on its own merits. It is funny (I laughed out loud more than a few times, and I don't do that for anybody but Wodehouse). The atmosphere is realistic and gritty, filled with memorable character portraits (the down-at-heels gentleman who would rather starve than reveal his shameful poverty is a particularly notable--and characteristically Spanish--example), and the overall tone of the novel is delightfully ironic.
Lazarillo begins life as a desperately poor urchin who survives through his intelligent estimation and manipulation of others, but, by the end of the book, when he has attained a modicum of comfort and stability, he allows even this small bit of status to fill him with illusions, convincing him that his dubious office of town crier is actually respectable, and leading him to believe that his wife is faithful, even though she is obviously the mistress of the the local priest. In spite of this, though, we don't despise him, because through all he is resourceful and compassionate and filled with great good humor.
This exemplary work is coupled here with another well-regarded piece of early picaresque fiction, El Buscon or The Swindler.. I don't have any right to evaluate it definitively, for two reasons: 1)I read it in an English translation, and it is particularly valued for its highly ornate baroque Spanish style, of which I know nothing (I couldn't help comparing it to Thomas Nashe's "The Unfortunate Traveler," an early English picaresque that I highly esteem and yet am sure would lose three-quarters of its power in translation), and 2) I hated it so much that I only finished half of it.
Even if I could appreciate the style, I believe I should still detest the author. He is an Islamophobe and an anti-Semite, but what he hates even more than Moors and Jews are "conversos," Moors and Jews who have converted to Christianity, presumably "going along to get along." He is a well-bred snob who despises upstarts and social climbers, but who reserves some his most vicious ridicule for down-at heels gentleman who try to conceal their poverty. (A kind of person whom the author of Lazarillo de Tormes treats with dignity and respect.)
Even worse, however, is that the author does not seem to respect his own hero. It is as if Mark Twain despised Huck Finn, his origins and allegiances, and valued him only as a narrative conceit that would allow his creator--in artfully patterned baroque phrases--to pillory the King and the Duke, humiliate the Grangerfords, and joyously annihilate the humanity of Jim by mocking his aspirations for freedom....more
Sir Richard Burton has said "there is no 'Nights' without the nights," and I agree with him. Without the frame story of the "Thousand Nights and a Nig Sir Richard Burton has said "there is no 'Nights' without the nights," and I agree with him. Without the frame story of the "Thousand Nights and a Night," the stories themselves--while still a fascinating collection of Oriental folklore filled with fine examples of the extemporaneous storyteller's art--lack resonance and depth. As told by Scheherazade, however, each individual story is not only a stratagem enabling her literally to keep her head on her shoulders for one more night, but--taken together--they also function as a three-year course in civility and tolerance for her murderous spouse, a man made vicious and half-mad by a former wife's adultery. The corpus of the tales--by exhibiting examples of a variety of women (the virtuous and resourceful as well as the manipulative and adulterous), by showing the consequences of revenge and the beauties of forgiveness--help Scheherazade heal the psychically wounded shah who in time becomes not only a good man but also a good king, one who appreciates not only the mystery of woman, but also the importance of mercy and compassion--praise be to Allah, the source of both!--in the pageant of human existence.
Like all great books--as opposed to the perfect merely good ones--"The Arabian Nights" can often be infuriating. Many of the tales are little more than examples of what Henry James termed the easiest form of fictional invention, the improvisation, and others are too coarse for the modern sensibility, with their humor or horror derived from dwarfs, paralytics and the maimed. At the best, however, the tales are mesmerizing, creating a world of marvels that is nevertheless so gritty and real that you can almost smell the scents of the bazaar and see the variety of people parading down the palace avenues, crowding into the alleys and streets. And then, of course, there are the maidens, each as beautiful as a moon.
The very best tales are the ones you already know--The Fisherman and the Djinn, Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad the Sailor--but there are others here almost as good: "The Tale of Three Apples" tells a story of rift and reconciliation across the generations that-in its bittersweet, twilight wisdom--reminds me of the tragi-comedies of Shakespeare, and "The Tale of Judar and his Brothers"--a darker, more marvelous version of the biblical story of Joseph--unites magic and tragedy in a surprising and memorable way....more
If you remember the old toga movies from the '50's--the ones where all the Romans are played by Brits and all the Jews and Christians by Americans--th If you remember the old toga movies from the '50's--the ones where all the Romans are played by Brits and all the Jews and Christians by Americans--then I am sure you also remember those orgiastic banquet sequences crammed with sweaty wrestlers, kinky dancers, amphora after amphora overflowing with wine, and culinary surprises like roast oxen stuffed with pheasants (the pheasants in turn stuffed with oysters), and golden salvers heaped high with hummingbird tongues.
The Golden Ass is a lot like that. It has everything: comic misunderstandings and cruel mistreatment, amorous slave girls and lustful matrons, witches and ghosts, robbers and murderers, people transformed into animals, an account of religious conversion--plus a visit from the Queen of Heaven and a little bestiality thrown in for good measure. This picaresque work of late second century Roman Africa revels in its own excess and ornamentation, scattering its tales within tales with a spendthrift abandon, and yet preserving a sense of unity through its theme. It shows us how the individual's journey through pleasure and suffering, servility and beastliness, may eventually lead to humility and spiritual regeneration....more
This first picaresque "novel"--more of a novella really--is an excellent introduction to the genre and a good book on its own merits. It is also funny This first picaresque "novel"--more of a novella really--is an excellent introduction to the genre and a good book on its own merits. It is also funny (I laughed out loud more than a few times, and I don't do that for anybody but Wodehouse), the atmosphere is realistic and gritty, filled with memorable character portraits (the down-at-heels gentleman who would rather starve than reveal his shameful poverty is a particularly notable--and characteristically Spanish--example), and the overall tone of the novel is delightfully ironic.
Lazarillo begins life as a desperately poor urchin who survives through his intelligent estimation and manipulation of others, but, by the end of the book, when he has attained a modicum of comfort and stability, he allows even this small bit of status to fill him with illusions, convincing him that his dubious office of town crier is actually respectable, and leading him to believe that his wife is faithful, even though she is obviously the mistress of the the local priest. In spite of this, though, we don't despise him, because through all he is resourceful and compassionate and filled with great good humor....more
This narrative published in 1594 is sometimes listed as the first English novel, but it is surely not a "novel" in any formal sense of the word. An od This narrative published in 1594 is sometimes listed as the first English novel, but it is surely not a "novel" in any formal sense of the word. An odd book, extremely loose in construction, it begins as a collection of prankish anecdotes, shifts into a picaresque account of continental travel (studded with the occasional casual satire and stylistic parody), and ends as a grim Italianate narrative fraught with rape, murder and revenge.
But the style, oh the style! Nashe is a master of English prose--the sort of rambling, periodic prose, discursive and musical, that expired long before the beginning of the eighteenth century. The book is often difficult to read (the vocabulary is at time obscure and daunting), but the stylistic beauties of Nashe's prose make the journey worthwhile.
Speaking of revenge: if you read nothing else in this book, read the gallows speech toward the end in which Cutwolf tells us how he avenged the murder of his brother. Anyone who has even a vestigial belief in eternal damnation will find this account horrible indeed. (Cutwolf is everything Hamlet is not...and vice versa.)
Here's just a little taste of Nashe's unique prose, in which a gentleman poet speaks to his former servant about his love for lady-in-waiting Geraldine:
Ah quoth he, my little Page, full little canst thou perceiue howe farre Metamorphozed I am from my selfe, since I last saw thee. There is a little God called Loue, that will not bee worshipt of anie leaden braines, one that proclaimes himselfe sole King and Emperour of pearcing eyes, and cheefe Soueraigne of soft hearts, hee it is that exercising his Empire in my eyes, hath exorsized and cleane coniured me from my content.
Thou knowst statelie Geyaldine, too stately I feare for mee to doe homage to her statue or shrine, she it is that is come out of Italic to bewitch all the wise men of England, vppon Queene Katherine Dowager she waites, that hath a dowrie of beautie sufficient to make hir wooed of the greatest Kinges in Christendome. Her high exalted sunne beames haue set the Phenix neast of my breast on fire, and I my selfe haue brought Arabian spiceries of sweet passions and praises, to furnish out the f unerall flame of my follie. Those who were condemned to be smothered to death by shacking downe into the softe bottome of an high built bedde of Roses, neuer dide so sweet a death as I shoulde die, if hir Rose coloured disdaine were my deathes-man.
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