'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway

A meditation on life and the meaning of struggle occupies the pages of 'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway, his last full length piece of fiction which gained him popularity and helped cement his reputation as a writer by winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The 'old man' of the story is Santiago, an experienced fisherman who is on a run of bad luck.  He has had eighty-four days without catching a single fish.  Now determined to end the run he goes out fishing further than he has done and ends up luring a great marlin, which takes his bait and continues to pull the fisherman for two days.  Santiago finally kills the beast but while he is trying to take the fish back with him to the market sharks come and eat the marlin, leaving him with only the skeleton.  He returns to the village and, exhausted from the ordeal, is waited on by his devoted young assistant Manolin back to health.

The story is probably unlike most of his other fiction being that it has an allegorical aspect to it, more fable like then his other realistic narratives.  For me this is a plus as I think it makes more of an impact relating a message,  or meditation, on the human condition.

The struggle for Santiago is the struggle for, initially, success, and then a struggle for life where all his can do is hold on until his moment to strike opens to him.  He lives but with nothing to show apart from a skeleton which the villages mistake for another fish, but somehow it has all been worth it as he managed to see another day.

No man loves life like an old man, so the saying goes and after his adventure you feel that Santiago loves life more than ever, or he will do when he recovers.

A darker interpretation of the story would be that for all his efforts the fisherman's escapade is futile, as man cannot, ultimately master the natural world but succumb to the forces of animals more adept to survive.  Nature humbles man offering no meanings for it's existence but a struggle to reproduce and survive.

And yet the surviving is enough.

By living we gain the greatest gift that all of the universe can offer: life itself.  To spend time smelling the roses and noticing the beauty of the world, the small moments of kindness, the unexpectant happiness and joy you might feel for no reason are reasons for living.

We may involve ourselves in great struggles that might feel to be life or death or end up in situations where you may have to prove yourself even if you think the odds are stacked then, Hemingway might be suggesting, the struggle is worthwhile as it proves something in yourself that you might not have known to be there before.  And that's valuable.

I thought this was a great book and didn't need to be any longer than it already is but certainly had plenty to say about life.


Now this is where you hit a paywall- well not exactly a paywall more like a moat you can swim across- but what I'm saying is that if you enjoyed this blog and my previous work than you can help support me by going on Patreon.com and search for Alistair David Todd-Poet.

I only ask for the lowest possible donation ($1) so that you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night sweating about bills and tax.  Two reasons I ask you of this is 1) It would mean a lot to me and 2) I can buy more Nobel Prize Winning books.

You can even message me with recommendations of books I should cover that I haven't already have (being that the canon is huge), I'd be really interested in what you have to offer me.  In the meantime stay safe and all the best to you.

'The Glass Bead Game' by Herman Hesse

In Castalia a special game is played.  A game for intellectuals, requiring years learning, practice and patience.  This is 'The Glass Bead Game' by German author Herman Hesse.  

In one of my earlier posts I had a look at 'Knulp' by the same writer and this is similar but far more complex, layered and, arguably, more significant.

It follows the life of Joseph Knecht, a man who starts at the bottom of Castalia's ordered society and works his way to Magister Ludi (the book's original title) which translates as Master of the Game.

The society is similar to a monastery in that these intellectuals do nothing but devote their lives to 'the game'.  What is the game?  Never explicitly described it is basically a game that encompasses every human subject including mathematics and music.  It is an intricate and subtle game that requires years of studying and excludes all else in human life.

Throughout his life Hesse was interested in the opposing dynamics of human freedom and spirit to his need for order and ritual.  Knulp was a definite free spirit but even he was prone to doubts about his ultimate purpose.  In 'The Glass Bead Game' Knecht has found his purpose: to be the master of the game.

A book worth re-reading due to it being dense and knotty but one that can be found with incredible force of life, particular it's ending.

In this rigid and ordered society only some are allowed to even play the game.  Half-way through the book a poor boy is brought to Knecht by his father asking him if he could be allowed to enter in Castalia.  The boy is found wanting and is turned back to his life of poverty.

Knecht finds much joy in the game, he finds meaning and purpose and true beauty.  This doesn't stop him to, towards the end of the book, to leave the society in pursuit of a life of exploration of the world, to tragic consequences.

I find that the use of an unspecified game as a metaphor for the intellect very enticing.  In the end it's all meaningless, but for the people playing the game it is meaning.  How much of humankind's culture could be described like that?  It's taken seriously, almost religiously,  yet the world will still take you and all you care about and piss all over it.  The game doesn't save Knecht, it's a positive distraction in reaction to a meaningless world.

It doesn't mean that it's worthless either.   As an end in itself it is beautiful, even with all the unfortunate snobbishness and privilege that the role of master of the games entails.  It's a solution to the chaos of life and, for the most part, works pretty well for those who are involved in it.

I found this to be a very influential book, even colouring my own writing, and it's exploration of rule and order against feeling and expression positively invigorating.  

I recommend this as good reading, even if it is a bit of a tome of a book, as it is one of those ones you can carry with you for the rest of your life, re-reading and reflecting on the issues it brings up.  It wasn't originally published due to a Nazi government but thankfully it survived the book burnings and is availed for you to read, and if you are free you can do that.


Now this is where you hit a paywall- well not exactly a paywall more like a moat you can swim across- but what I'm saying is that if you enjoyed this blog and my previous work than you can help support me by going on Patreon.com and search for Alistair David Todd-Poet.

I only ask for the lowest possible donation ($1) so that you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night sweating about bills and tax.  Two reasons I ask you of this is 1) It would mean a lot to me and 2) I can buy more Nobel Prize Winning books.

You can even message me with recommendations of books I should cover that I haven't already have (being that the canon is huge), I'd be really interested in what you have to offer me.  In the meantime stay safe and all the best to you.

'Seize the Day' by Saul Bellow

The Beatles sung about it and some of the best stories are based on it, it is the novel of a day in the life.  'Ulysses' by James Joyce, 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus are of this variety of story and so is Saul Bellow's 'Seize the Day', where a working man goes to his rich father for help and gets involved with a mysterious doctor who tries to help him overcome his difficulties.

Set in a hotel in New York, where the father is staying the main character, Tommy Wilhelm, tries to convince his father to help him out.  His father is unwilling with the attitude that Tommy just needs to stand on his own two feet.

Having read this novella a while ago I remember it's shortness, it's bitter-sweetness as it is a hymn to failure and short-comings.  Tommy tries to get a quick buck with the last of his savings and with the help of Dr. Tamkin, a questionable father figure, on the stock market.

The last scene of this book is powerfully moving with a character who has invested everything in other people and gets nothing back at a desperate point.  In his 'day of reckoning' Tommy seems to have exhausted all possibilities of reconciling with his father, his ex-wife, even his children, and he mourns himself and his burdens.

Things aren't tied up yet the ending seems like a satisfying conclusion, poetically at least, and all we need to know of Tommy's life.

Interestingly Robin Williams has played Tommy in the film version of 'Seize the Day' and I didn't think it was too bad as it had the right tone.

These types of stories are great because they are like long poems written in breaking points for the characters undergoing their worst day.  What it brings up is a depth of feeling, a brief exploration of extreme emotion and a short journey feeling like you've gone to the ends of the world.

Now on Patreon

Like many other writers trying to find their way in the world I have come to Patreon, the crowdsourcing website, in order to live from my writing.

Many of you know I have a passion for the Nobel Prize of Literature but some may not be aware that I am also a poet and writer of books myself, still in the early phase of his career.

I live in the South West of England working in a studio on the High Street and I have a self-published book out called 'The First Man In Space' on Lulu publishing.

At the moment I am trying to write more blogs on a regular basis, but since I have just moved house I haven't yet found my rhythm, yet the intention is there.

Currently I am supported by the welfare state because of my bi-polarity, and thankful I am too of it as it's allowed me to read and write as much as health allows.

But I would like to change this and live off my writing, which I hope you have enjoyed over the years.  More work will appear and having a financial reason to do it might make me write more and with more consistency.

The money will also be very handy for buying more Nobel Prize Winning books that would feed back onto this site.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog then think to donate to my Patreon page and I will only every ask for the lowest amount ($1) as I don't want you to notice it's gone out of your account.

So thanks to everyone so far whose read this blog and with your help the future could be very interesting indeed.  

https://www.patreon.com/alistairdavidtodd

A Historian for the Nobel Prize?

It is not always true that a novelist, poet or playwright are the only ones that get a Nobel Prize.

Sometimes a journalist gets one as well, such as Svetlana Alexievich, and sometimes a philosopher, such as Henri Bergson.  Indeed, in theory, any type of writing may be awarded the Prize, though the Academy usually goes for the similar types.

Recently Richard Dawkins has asked why has scientists been left out of the circle, when a lot of them write with elegance and style (I think of Steven Pinker's clear prose).  Presumably this is the case because most of the Nobel Prizes goes to scientists for their clearly defined and measurable achievements, why give any more to them?

I would like to ask a similar question but about historians, why have there been none for the Nobel Prize for Literature in it's own long history?

The reason I ask is that I have recently been reading a lot of history.  It strikes me that the kind of writing necessary for requires huge efforts in skill, in assimilation, in precision that is worthy of the highest literature award for it all.

When you think that a sentence, for the historian, might have to comprise several years of lived life it  asks a lot of that writer to write it accurately, to give a just presentation of that time  and to do so vividly requires serious talents.  For it is a lot harder to re-create a half-submerged world than to invent one.  There is a lot riding on you to it sensibly, as politics in this age could be changed.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume was regarded more as a historian in his own time, and one would think that his studies of men and women of the past informed his own thought experiments, which possibly proves the value of studying history.

Reading two books on the histories of the world (History of the World by J.M. Roberts, and An Unfinished History of the World by Hugh Thomas) I am bowled over as to how they must have researched and collected all the information that they needed to write such books.  And similarly with Yuval Noah Harari's Saipens it shows that history, and the way we look at them, changes.  History is not so fixed in the past as it can be constantly re-interpenetrated.

For all that the Academy has not seen this value and continues to award the Prize to creators of new worlds.

So this year I will be looking around and taking suggestions for a possible living historian that may well be a contender to champion for the Nobel Prize.  If anything I have leaned from history is that it is always in a process of change.

'Knulp' by Herman Hesse

Knulp was the perfect book for me.

I had been precariously travelling around the country after an upsetting incident that ended with me losing my accommodation and then struggling with myself and the world.  I find that in these times of questioning I need books more than ever and 'Knulp' by Herman Hesse was that rarest of stories found at the perfect moment.  It healed some of my hurt.

With the wayward traveller Knulp I found a kindred spirit- a nomad in the world.  Knulp has no occupation, yet knows a great deal of many things.  He is loved by all but can never stay in one place for long as he does not want to have a home while he wishes to see the world.  Others may find this irresponsible as he could have been a respectable person and practice a profession or a trade but Knulp needs his freedom to explore and discover.

Knulp earnest and sincere character made me respond to him so closely and immediately, a simple soul not wanting to complicate his life with the things that others have.  For me I understood him so deeply, the need to be innocent with a wide eyed wonder about the world against the odds.  To think that the book was written in 1917 shows how much of a searching of the soul the German Hesse has done, which gives it so much more of a poignant taste to Knulp's character.
 
Simply written and reflective it offers up a depth of feeling that other writers cannot achieve like Hesse.

The last part of the book was the most affecting aspect of the story where Knulp wonders if he has completely wasted his life, whether anything about it was good.  This turns him into a fully rounded character where his experience catches up with him with a profound insight.

It is a wonderfully short novella that inspires as much as it consoles, about usual lives and our resolving ourselves to ourselves.  One of my three favourite books, along with 'Auto-da-Fe' and 'The Clown' (what is it about German writers?) I highly recommend this book, particularly if you have become lost.

'The Clown' by Heinreich Böll

The tears of a clown is an old cliche and in Heinreich Böll's novel 'The Clown' we drink it deep.

Hans Schnier is the eponymous clown who befalls a romantic tragedy in his life during his late twenties.  He is in love with Marie, a good Catholic, who wishes to be married traditionally while Hans has spurned such a life and wants nothing of the sort.  One day Marie leaves him for another man, Zupfer, and Hans, being monogamous, is heartbroken.

Of all the novels of the Nobel Prize list this, to me, is one of the greatest, second only to Auto-Da-Fe by Elias Canetti. 

So why do I think this?

I've always liked Böll's short stories and thought that they were works of great moral strength, and this seems true with his longer works.  Secondly I was just leaving my twenties behind when I read this and so I could identify with the main character very well, his depression and disappointments.  Lastly it is a great work of art who through one character we see the workings of a hypocritical society always talking about love and never practising it.

It's story works very well as a novel as it is told in flashbacks while having a positive narrative drive.  Though Schnier is a depressed clown he is never morose, often funny and is particularly poignant as an innocent making his way through the wicked world of deceptions and betrayal.  But I think some of it, especially the middle scene with his father, could be made into a good radio/ stage play.  Reading it I could see it in a very cinematic  way.  Which is often a way of discovering if the writer is imaginatively acute or not.

Schnier's attempts to find out where Marie has gone and his obstruction from her friends and family are rigorous through a constant process of loss.  Not only loss of his love but also a loss of his job as a clown.  As he drinks more and becomes less and less in control of himself he finds that he is taking less money for the jobs he does.  His agent, another source of agitation, is in some sense his only friend and even he cannot help him.

This clown is very much a man who in losing the one thing he does love, loses all other things and he is willing to drop out of society completely and be in the gutter.  The layers of interaction give him no pleasure as he becomes increasingly at odds with those around him. 

What clinches it for me as a great book is the grace of it's ending.  Humble and ennobling it rescues Schnier from the very depths of tragedy and gives him a wholeness that he had lost but in a very different sense.  For me this book is about the act of standing up, of trying to restore order, and failing knowing that one had tried, about living honestly and all the pain it gives you. 

I enjoy German writers very much and this book is one of the finest, definitely one for book-worn humanists who need to be told such stories.