I just finished reading Miriam Toews's novel The Flying Troutmans, and quite enjoyed it. The plot is not especially fascinating (it's a typical "road trip" narrative), but the characters are fantastic. The 11-year-old girl Phebes is especially good. She is a precocious child similar to Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (her talents are artistic rather than scientific, though). Her adult-like persona is almost unrealistic at times, but Toews does a good job of mixing in enough childishness to make her believable. Phebes's brother Logan's single-minded devotion to basketball is also well-done, and is somewhat humorous because he's Canadian (Steve Nash notwithstanding).
The pastiche of pop culture references that Toews mixes in is also entertaining because of its highly eclectic nature. It includes Fight Club (109), the Bible (83), Sylvia Plath (167), Scrabble (63), David Bowie (125), the Beatles (83), and James Bond (116) among others. The novel has a postmodern feel despite its realist chronological narrative, in part because of its pastichiness and in part because of its continued emphasis that hoping for centers in human existence is futile: nothing is universal or infallible. It manages to convey this somber message in an enjoyable, often humorous way, though.
Showing posts with label the Beatles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Beatles. Show all posts
Friday, May 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Abbey Road Revisited
I just listened to the Beatles' Abbey Road for the first time in several years. Here are some random thoughts:
What is up with "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? This was one of my favorite Beatles song as a kid, and I have always had a fondness for it as a result, but listening to it now it sounds much more sinister than playful. Especially the women in the courtroom "screaming 'Maxwell must go free'." Very Charles Manson-esque.
Anyway, the entire album is darker than I used to give it credit for. For instance, while the ending medley (side two on the cassette I had as a kid [this is a separate issue--due to individual song downloads, young people these days have no sense of what an album is, of the cohesiveness that makes all of the songs better, let alone any sense of how a single side has to work together within the structure of a full album]) is fun, and according to George Harrison in the Beatles documentary that was on ABC in the mid-1990s (1994 or '95, when they released "Free As A Bird"), it was meant to be funny, the last two songs of the medley, "Carry That Weight" and "The End," are just depressing in light of the band's breakup shortly thereafter. They also had special resonance for me tonight since I am completing my last week of graduate school.
Also, while "Octopus's Garden" is a happy kind of song, one has to wonder what Ringo was going through to feel the need to express his desire for "hiding [...where] we can't be found"? The song's vision is happy, but the catalyst for that vision is not.
What is up with "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? This was one of my favorite Beatles song as a kid, and I have always had a fondness for it as a result, but listening to it now it sounds much more sinister than playful. Especially the women in the courtroom "screaming 'Maxwell must go free'." Very Charles Manson-esque.
Anyway, the entire album is darker than I used to give it credit for. For instance, while the ending medley (side two on the cassette I had as a kid [this is a separate issue--due to individual song downloads, young people these days have no sense of what an album is, of the cohesiveness that makes all of the songs better, let alone any sense of how a single side has to work together within the structure of a full album]) is fun, and according to George Harrison in the Beatles documentary that was on ABC in the mid-1990s (1994 or '95, when they released "Free As A Bird"), it was meant to be funny, the last two songs of the medley, "Carry That Weight" and "The End," are just depressing in light of the band's breakup shortly thereafter. They also had special resonance for me tonight since I am completing my last week of graduate school.
Also, while "Octopus's Garden" is a happy kind of song, one has to wonder what Ringo was going through to feel the need to express his desire for "hiding [...where] we can't be found"? The song's vision is happy, but the catalyst for that vision is not.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Beatles and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
One of my favorite aspects about Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is his love for the Beatles, which I share. Oskar randomly mentions Beatles songs throughout the narrative (including some fairly obscure ones), but there are two that are especially important for understanding his mental state througout the book (as opposed to, say, "Yellow Submarine" [1]). They occur in the same sentence, just before Oskar checks the phone messages on 9/11 that have been left by his soon-to-be-dead father (14).
The first song is "Fixing a Hole" (off of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, probably the least well-known song Oskar references--one has to be familiar with the album to know it). This one is rather obvious: throughout the novel Oskar is attempting to "fix the hole" left inside of him after his father's death so he can move on with his life. The song itself is a rather hopeful one because the speaker is having success fixing the hole, but Oskar has no idea how to begin this process. He simply falls into it once he discovers the key in his father's closet and begins searching for its lock.
The second song is "I Want to Tell You" (off of Revolver, an underrated album as far as it is possible for Beatles albums to be underrated). Oskar desperately needs someone to talk to, he "wants to tell" someone about his pain, and he does so to the reader in his rapid-fire almost stream-of-consciousness narration, but what he really wants is to be able to talk with his dead father, and, since that is impossible, to his mother, from whom he feels alienated. But "When [she's] here / All those words, they seem to slip away." He doesn't know how to break down the barrier between them, and she doesn't either. It is not until the end of the book that they slowly begin to communicate again.
The first song is "Fixing a Hole" (off of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, probably the least well-known song Oskar references--one has to be familiar with the album to know it). This one is rather obvious: throughout the novel Oskar is attempting to "fix the hole" left inside of him after his father's death so he can move on with his life. The song itself is a rather hopeful one because the speaker is having success fixing the hole, but Oskar has no idea how to begin this process. He simply falls into it once he discovers the key in his father's closet and begins searching for its lock.
The second song is "I Want to Tell You" (off of Revolver, an underrated album as far as it is possible for Beatles albums to be underrated). Oskar desperately needs someone to talk to, he "wants to tell" someone about his pain, and he does so to the reader in his rapid-fire almost stream-of-consciousness narration, but what he really wants is to be able to talk with his dead father, and, since that is impossible, to his mother, from whom he feels alienated. But "When [she's] here / All those words, they seem to slip away." He doesn't know how to break down the barrier between them, and she doesn't either. It is not until the end of the book that they slowly begin to communicate again.
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