The idea that I was going to write a feature extolling the virtues of Goblin puddings has finally left the 'Mind' room in my building, a recently regenerated place, but with more development and investment needed. What Goblin puddings have to do with 1996 is still unknown.
I don't know what 1996 means to you either. I hope it contains good memories. (I wrote a section here, speculating on what those good memories might have contained but it just read like a naff, sentimental montage in a equally naff Brit-Chick-Rick-Flick, probably to a sentimental Britpop song, urgh!)
For me, and I did include it in a song, it represented the year of re-education. (No, I wasn't brainwashed or decoded or anything.) 1996 proved to be a stressful year. Emotional too. No more emotional and stressful than others to follow but one I didn't quite feel prepared for. In short there were exams/death of close family member/results/new university/dropping out of uni after three weeks/re-applying/year out.
However 1996 was the year I (properly) discovered literature for myself, not a book I had to read or study in order to pass an exam. There was, at last, in between my weekend job, enough time on my hands to actually read. For pleasure. Out of choice and from friends recomendations I read Knut Hamsun's Hunger, Gogol's Diary of a Madman and Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment. I hope I'm not sounding like a smug twat. I don't mean to. There is a point to this post. Or there was.
I know you can't actually eat books but if you substitute the words 'avidly read' to 'devoured' then I devoured these three books within a couple of sittings, often stufffing my face while buttering a slice of bread at the same time, such was my greed. I'd already read Kafka and James Joyce while at college, and many of the classics you'd expect but it was the likes of The Trial, Crime and Punishment and Hunger with their similar themes, characterisations, messages and styles that had me laughing and despairing at the pathetic, godforsaken, insane, passionate, fucked up, fascinating, poetic creatures. I sympathised with the private tortures of the central characters and the horrors of their actions. There was something brutal and realistic about the depictions, the characters, the language and the events, that somehow made the spate of costume dramas and the nonsensical Jane Austin revival at the time seem shallow, empty and frivolous.
Of course I could write a lengthy review about each of these books but even that would be more indulgent than all the indulgent things in this blog. These authors, along with Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams have, if not influenced, then certainly inspired my own attempts at creative fiction.
One Dostoevsky wasn't enough. My friend told me about The Idiot and it's hilarious scene about a man offering to stand on his head in order to be in with a shot of getting a share of someone's inheritance. I bought it, The Double and Notes From The Underground by Dostoevsky. I bought more Gogol - The Government Inspector and Dead Souls. Then I went Russian and Ukraine literature mad. Chekhov short stories followed the plays, Zamyatin's We whose blueprint utopia influenced Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four followed (albeit a few years later).
The work of Mikhail Bulgakov, particularly his 'magic realist' masterpiece, 'The Master and Margarita' followed. Then, (partly, but not really) for university course prep, it was the plays of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen. Books were making me obese. Albert Camus followed Jean-Paul Sartre, the complete works (except the poetry) of Oscar Wilde, Rip Van Winkle, Hans Andersen/Lewis Carroll biographies, Anthony Burgess and J.G. Ballard, (the latter unread for a while) Tove Jansson's Moomin series... Even some questionable things like Hornby and Fry didn't escape my attention (long since consigned to the charity shops.)
Of course I had read and discarded many things pre-1996, art, music and literature but in 1996 it felt as if I were creating the foundation and level. Maybe I was deluding myself, I don't know. There's many more books on my shelf now waiting to be read, appreciated, scorned and taken to the charity shop but I do love re-visiting the messed up world of Hunger or Crime and Punishment and The Master and Margarita.
Crime and Punishment by Dosteovsky
A murder is planned, a murder is committed and a criminal is caught. We know who the murderer is and why he did it. We aren't sure when he will be caught but we share his guilt and his madness. We suffer with him and by the end of the book we too, like Raskolinikov's silent, unseen, accessory, are redeemed and offered salvation. All the while we witness the suffering of Russia's underclass, the housing problems, the abuse, the paupers, the prostitution, the exploitation and wonder what it will take redress the balance.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Published in 1890, this story follows an individual who wants to be a writer. Whether he's talented or not we never really know. He probably is. We aren't sure how long his descent into madness, and his hunger have been threatening to consume him before the novel has begun. To some extent the narrator's situation isn't helped by his acts of madness or his unmotivated kindness. He becomes homeless, follows a pretty woman, invents a new word, and wanders around for much of the novel in a hunger-induced daze. The book is not about what doesn't happen but how the mind responds to lack of creative fuel, food, a place to live, a person to love. Incredibly sad when it's sad but roaringly funny when it's comic.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
In most reviews people will tell you a bit about the history of this book in order so you might understand the references (e.g. it was banned in Stalinst Russia, suffered from censoring, ridiculed the party line on religion, lambasted state funded literature) but none of this matters too much, such is the weight of the story. Anyway, its about the Devil and his bizarre associates appearance in Moscow, which certainly surprises the atheists, businessmen, and artists of the city. Indeed almost everyone. Woland's associates include a three foot high cat (that can walk on its hind legs, speak French and pay for its tram fare), a bloke with a funny eye and fang, and an ex-choirmaster, capable of creating disturbing illusions. While they are manufacturing chaos in Moscow, as the mental institutions are filling up, we meet the Master who tells his story.
Parallel to the book is a story about Pontius Pilate, reported by Woland who 'was there', in the last days of Christ.
Then there is the part about Margarita and her adventure with the bizarre troupe, her love affair with the Master and her strange journey she goes on, which involves flight, invisibility and being Satan's hostess. It's a compex, multi-layered novel that encompasses many themes, styles and narratives. Above all it's a tour-de-force which emphasises the need to question everything that the state, whatever state is in power, wishes to enforce and to always encourage thought and creativity. It does this without a preachy, moral, finger wagging tone. So there.
 |
| Oh yeah. Hale Bopp. Remember that? But I saw it in 1997 if I'm honest. |
For me, and I did include it in a song, it represented the year of re-education. (No, I wasn't brainwashed or decoded or anything.) 1996 proved to be a stressful year. Emotional too. No more emotional and stressful than others to follow but one I didn't quite feel prepared for. In short there were exams/death of close family member/results/new university/dropping out of uni after three weeks/re-applying/year out.
However 1996 was the year I (properly) discovered literature for myself, not a book I had to read or study in order to pass an exam. There was, at last, in between my weekend job, enough time on my hands to actually read. For pleasure. Out of choice and from friends recomendations I read Knut Hamsun's Hunger, Gogol's Diary of a Madman and Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment. I hope I'm not sounding like a smug twat. I don't mean to. There is a point to this post. Or there was.
 |
| Nothing to do with this post. I just think they're cute. |
I know you can't actually eat books but if you substitute the words 'avidly read' to 'devoured' then I devoured these three books within a couple of sittings, often stufffing my face while buttering a slice of bread at the same time, such was my greed. I'd already read Kafka and James Joyce while at college, and many of the classics you'd expect but it was the likes of The Trial, Crime and Punishment and Hunger with their similar themes, characterisations, messages and styles that had me laughing and despairing at the pathetic, godforsaken, insane, passionate, fucked up, fascinating, poetic creatures. I sympathised with the private tortures of the central characters and the horrors of their actions. There was something brutal and realistic about the depictions, the characters, the language and the events, that somehow made the spate of costume dramas and the nonsensical Jane Austin revival at the time seem shallow, empty and frivolous.
Of course I could write a lengthy review about each of these books but even that would be more indulgent than all the indulgent things in this blog. These authors, along with Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams have, if not influenced, then certainly inspired my own attempts at creative fiction.
One Dostoevsky wasn't enough. My friend told me about The Idiot and it's hilarious scene about a man offering to stand on his head in order to be in with a shot of getting a share of someone's inheritance. I bought it, The Double and Notes From The Underground by Dostoevsky. I bought more Gogol - The Government Inspector and Dead Souls. Then I went Russian and Ukraine literature mad. Chekhov short stories followed the plays, Zamyatin's We whose blueprint utopia influenced Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four followed (albeit a few years later).
The work of Mikhail Bulgakov, particularly his 'magic realist' masterpiece, 'The Master and Margarita' followed. Then, (partly, but not really) for university course prep, it was the plays of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen. Books were making me obese. Albert Camus followed Jean-Paul Sartre, the complete works (except the poetry) of Oscar Wilde, Rip Van Winkle, Hans Andersen/Lewis Carroll biographies, Anthony Burgess and J.G. Ballard, (the latter unread for a while) Tove Jansson's Moomin series... Even some questionable things like Hornby and Fry didn't escape my attention (long since consigned to the charity shops.)
Of course I had read and discarded many things pre-1996, art, music and literature but in 1996 it felt as if I were creating the foundation and level. Maybe I was deluding myself, I don't know. There's many more books on my shelf now waiting to be read, appreciated, scorned and taken to the charity shop but I do love re-visiting the messed up world of Hunger or Crime and Punishment and The Master and Margarita.
Crime and Punishment by Dosteovsky
A murder is planned, a murder is committed and a criminal is caught. We know who the murderer is and why he did it. We aren't sure when he will be caught but we share his guilt and his madness. We suffer with him and by the end of the book we too, like Raskolinikov's silent, unseen, accessory, are redeemed and offered salvation. All the while we witness the suffering of Russia's underclass, the housing problems, the abuse, the paupers, the prostitution, the exploitation and wonder what it will take redress the balance.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Published in 1890, this story follows an individual who wants to be a writer. Whether he's talented or not we never really know. He probably is. We aren't sure how long his descent into madness, and his hunger have been threatening to consume him before the novel has begun. To some extent the narrator's situation isn't helped by his acts of madness or his unmotivated kindness. He becomes homeless, follows a pretty woman, invents a new word, and wanders around for much of the novel in a hunger-induced daze. The book is not about what doesn't happen but how the mind responds to lack of creative fuel, food, a place to live, a person to love. Incredibly sad when it's sad but roaringly funny when it's comic.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
In most reviews people will tell you a bit about the history of this book in order so you might understand the references (e.g. it was banned in Stalinst Russia, suffered from censoring, ridiculed the party line on religion, lambasted state funded literature) but none of this matters too much, such is the weight of the story. Anyway, its about the Devil and his bizarre associates appearance in Moscow, which certainly surprises the atheists, businessmen, and artists of the city. Indeed almost everyone. Woland's associates include a three foot high cat (that can walk on its hind legs, speak French and pay for its tram fare), a bloke with a funny eye and fang, and an ex-choirmaster, capable of creating disturbing illusions. While they are manufacturing chaos in Moscow, as the mental institutions are filling up, we meet the Master who tells his story.
Parallel to the book is a story about Pontius Pilate, reported by Woland who 'was there', in the last days of Christ.
Then there is the part about Margarita and her adventure with the bizarre troupe, her love affair with the Master and her strange journey she goes on, which involves flight, invisibility and being Satan's hostess. It's a compex, multi-layered novel that encompasses many themes, styles and narratives. Above all it's a tour-de-force which emphasises the need to question everything that the state, whatever state is in power, wishes to enforce and to always encourage thought and creativity. It does this without a preachy, moral, finger wagging tone. So there.
