Père Goriot - Honoré de Balzac

Père Goriot (Balzac, 1834)

Twenty years before Flaubert, Balzac was already dishing out this depressingly modern novel, only without style or substance. The rich tradesman Goriot impoverishes himself to launch his daughters into high society, but his overindulgence leads to their indifference. Along the way, we get a coming-of-age story for Eugéne de Rastignac, a student who becomes corrupted by a desire for the same high society of Paris that ruins Goriot's daughters. We also get a random crime plot involving some sort of master criminal.

As I hinted before, Balzac's writing style leaves a lot to be desired. He waxes far too eloquent far too often. Goriot's dying speech rambles on for five overwrought pages, as does Vautrin's Machiavellian spiel about Parisian society. The first chapter, with its copious description of the boarding house where these characters live, provides the perfect one-sentence summary of Balzac's tiresome prose: "But any adequate description of how old, cracked, rotten, rickety, worm-eaten, one-handed, one-eyed, decrepit, and moribund is the furniture in the place, would only delay our narrative, and this the busy reader would never forgive." This after six pages, which apparently were not an "adequate description"...

The wordiness would be forgivable if Balzac told a great story, but it just isn't the case. Dickens gets away with his wordiness because his plots are masterful and his characters earn our emotional involvement. In Père Goriot, there is no one to love, no one to cheer.  Balzac does include some great scenes, though: genuine humor comes to life in a couple scenes at the boarding house dining room, and, after Goriot finally stops talking and dies, his funeral is actually one of the most pitiable scenes in literature.

Apparently, a lot of characters in this book either occurred in earlier works by Balzac or recur in later works. In this book, he decided he would start linking his works together through recurring characters to form a series of novels and short stories, pretentiously titled The Human Comedy, which intended to portray everything - yes, everything - in human experience. There are some genuinely successful moments in Père Goriot, but if this is his best, I think I can skip the rest.

Arbitrary rating: 3.5 out of 5 unforgiving readers

A Tab in the Ocean - Nektar

A Tab in the Ocean (Nektar, 1972)

1. A Tab in the Ocean - 16:52
2. Desolation Valley - 7:32
3. Waves - 0:40
4. Crying in the Dark - 6:28
5. King of Twilight - 4:22

Nektar's dramatic, harder-edged version of symphonic rock may be best represented by this, their second album. The title track starts with waves washing into a noble, elevating arpeggio theme played on organ, punctuated by Who-like power chords then galloping into a full-fledged neo-classical romp. The tone of the side-long opus transforms from sunny to dramatic, menacing to reflective, heavy to elegiac as the singer ponders human experience against a backdrop of the ever-changing variety of life in the ocean. Though not as technically accomplished as peers like Yes or Genesis, the players in Nektar definitely have chops, and they put them to good use in creating an epic-length piece with character and feeling.

The songs on the second side of the LP flow together without sonic breaks, but they are more distinct pieces and merit the separate track listings. "Desolation Valley", though trying to get into my good graces by prominently featuring distorted Rickenbacker bass, has a bit of a lounge feel to it with its swingy jazz rhythm. Yes pulled it off in "Perpetual Change," but I don't think Nektar succeed here. "Waves" is a nice mood piece that transitions into the guitar-based "Crying in the Dark".  With its driving rhythm and heavy beat, it owes as much to hard rock as symphonic. The closing "King of Twilight" continues the heaviness with a martial "chugga-chugga-chug" beat and minor key riffing. The mystical lyrics add an air of fantasy to the song and make for a gripping conclusion.

My only complaint (besides the lounge jazz) is the abysmal sound quality. Though British, the boys of Nektar lived in Germany and recorded for a small label which doesn't seem to have preserved their legacy well.  Unintended distortion, white noise, and general muddiness make it sound as if they were recorded in an empty concert hall instead of a studio. If you scrub beneath the layers, though, you'll find Nektar a very capable and creative band.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 chugga-chugga-chug

Space Shanty - Khan

Space Shanty (Khan, 1972)

1. Space Shanty - 9:01
2. Stranded (including Effervescent Psycho Novelty No. 5) - 6:35
3. Mixed Up Man of the Mountains - 7:15
4. Driving to Amsterdam - 9:23
5. Stargazers - 5:33
6. Hollow Stone (including Escape of the Space Pilots) - 8:18

Paradoxically, Khan's sole album Space Shanty starts where most albums end - a big, loud, raucous stinger, with drums, keys, bass, and guitar hammering a power chord in free time before drifting into silence. The undisciplined intro blasts open the doors of the ears to let in the hard rock, folk, stately classical, and easygoing jazz that will follow - and that's just the first three minutes of the first song.

Keyboardist Dave Stewart (later of Hatfield and the North) and guitarist Steve Hillage (later of Gong) are the dominant forces in this ambitious prog rock opus. Bassist Nick Greenwood contributes solid work, and drummer Eric Peachey successfully navigates Hillage's complex time signature changes. All the elements of a great 70's rock album are present - bubbling organ, brazen synth, razor sharp guitar, echo effects, calm acoustic moments, and compositional diversity out the wazoo.  It even has a concept of sorts, with its lyrics tending toward the cerebral and philosophical (though it also has a fair amount of "I am free," "I can fly", and "I found myself in you").  The six songs are replete with feel-good themes, freak-out moments, hard-rocking segues, and empassioned instrumentation.

The weak point has to be the vocals. Hillage and Greenwood are listed as the singers. I'm not sure who's the lead, but the vocals are very over-the-top, almost like pseudo-opera. They do harmonize nicely though, providing some of the album's more gentle moments in "Stranded", stirring up excitement in the dramatic coda to "Mixed Up Man of the Mountains", and making singable the jagged jazz of "Stargazers".

The strongest point may be the time signatures.  The six songs weave times and themes so seamlessly, almost effortlessly, you don't even notice how complex the music is, or how many hairs the musicians must have pulled out of their heads learning these tunes. The strange meters are brought to life by lots of great melodies. The aforementioned "Stargazers" has one of the most memorable and natural themes in 13/8 time I've ever heard.

On the whole, Space Shanty is a delightful listen, even if it does come off a bit as a relic of its time, a time when bands strove toward musical greatness and exploration no matter the cost.  In this case, the cost (besides commercial success) may have been overall impact - the music is so busy and diverse, it never coalesces into something truly great, though it is stuffed to the brim with flashes of musical brilliance.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 hard-rocking segues

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1857, translated by Mildred Marmur)

What a beautifully written, devastating book. In the name of "realism", Flaubert leaves us no character to applaud: not Emma Bovary, the dissatisfied wife who descends into adultery, betrayal, and debt; not Charles, her clod-like husband who blindly worships his wife yet wonders why his home isn't happier; not Homais, the educated sceptic who rails against the priests and pursues wordly fame; and certainly not Leon or Rodolphe, the men Emma loves.

Flaubert's writing style is admittedly dazzling.  His simple yet evocative prose cuts with the precision of a scalpel as it shapes his characters and their actions. The psychology and the situations are all true to life, whether in portraying Emma's dissatisfaction with Charles's lack of ambition, Charles waffling between the demands of his wife and those of his mother, or Emma manipulating her husband into allowing her the freedom she needs to escape to the arms of another. Flaubert is especially accurate depicting the quickness with which a new love's excitement diminishes, and the layers of lies involved in the illicit rendezvous:

He no longer used words so sweet that they made her cry, as he had in the old days; nor were his caresses so ardent that they drove her mad. So the great love affair in which she had plunged seemed to diminish under her like the water of a river being absorbed into its own bed, and she began to see the slime at the bottom. She didn't want to believe it and redoubled her tenderness. Rodolphe hid his indifference less and less.

The book was charged with immorality by the French government. Its defense was that the book incites its readers to virtue through the horrors of vice. I don't buy it. To incite to virtue, virtue must be portrayed. Supporters award Charles with the "virtue" mantle, but if that's virtue, count me out. Continually deceived, estranged without knowing it, Charles still worships his wife even after he learns the truth, as if her betrayal made her better. It would be different if Charles embodied unconditional love, but all he has is deluded love. Rather than loving Emma despite her wrongdoings, he finds himself unable to judge her actions as wrong.

All we see through Flaubert's lense is unquenchable dissatisfaction (Emma) or idiotic devotion to a lie (Charles).  Because of this, Madame Bovary, while a precision portrait of the hopelessness caused by sin, deceit, and materialism, offers no solution.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 ounces of slime at the bottom

The Odd Number - Guy de Maupassant

The Odd Number (Maupassant, 1922)

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) is an early practitioner of the short story. This posthumous collection (complete with a pretentious, long-winded introduction by Henry James) includes some of his more striking examples of the form:

* "A Coward" details the thoughts and actions of a young man on the day before he must fight a duel.

* A vain woman and her working-class husband are caught in debt trying to replace jewelry borrowed from a richer friend in "The Necklace".

* A peasant farmer's reputation is ruined over "A Piece of String".

* A man spends decades unable to shake a chilling encounter he can't explain in "A Ghost".

* An insurance adjustor and an English tourist establish a lifelong connection while stranded by the tide on board "The Wreck".

The stories are simple and straightforward, delving into the unpredictability of human emotions and actions, as well as the entrapping expectations and beliefs of society at large.  Because the subject matter restricts itself to the real (except for "A Ghost"), it can feel merely observational at worst, but subtly poetic at best. Some stories have a memorable twist at the end which adds pathos or humor, while others just end. Also, strange to see in such an economical style, several of these stories have framing stories that don't add much. On the whole, though, it's tough to fault a master. This was an enjoyable collection of stories: a veritable loaf of life slices.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 striking examples of the form

A Brief History of Time - Stephen W. Hawking

A Brief History of Time (Hawking, 1988)

"Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state..." Reading this book made me think of Sheldon Cooper from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory more than once. Hawking does an admirable job of transforming mathematical flights of theoretical physics into semi-palatable concepts for the average joe, occasionally adding some humor, and maybe doing a little too much academic name-dropping, but what can you do?  That's academia.

The first half of this book was great - I was reliving my astronomy class at KU. Einstein's theory of relativity, using the moons of Jupiter to calculate the finite speed of light, determining the chemical composition of stars through missing wavelengths of light in their spectrum, observing the expansion of the universe through Doppler-effect redshift, explaining gravity as the curvature of space-time created by matter - it was all coming back to me. Then we hit the quantum physics part, where a lot of that (well, really just the gravity) gets contradicted. At the end Hawking examines the efforts to bring general relativity and quantum physics together, but concrete and simple examples get harder and harder to find, as modern scientific models start to resemble angel-holding heads of pins.

I enjoyed seeing a lot of the assumptions behind the science.  While Hawking stresses that a scientific theory offers a framework under which observations could be made to disprove it, he takes several things for granted. First, he presents determinism and materialism as the basis of science: the idea that, if we knew the state of all energy and matter at one point in time in the universe, combined with a complete knowledge of the laws of physics, we could know everything that happened before or would happen after. Second, he presents the idea of God as patently unscientific, saying that even the Big Bang theory was unsettling to many scientists because it gave God room to create.  I guess these two assumptions go hand in hand, though he doesn't come across as anti-God, even saying that the purpose of science is to know the mind of God.

I did gain a greater respect for theoretical physics. Seeing the mathematically-based theories of various scientists born out by observation decades later is impressive, and it lends validity to extrapolating mathematically into unobservable territory, like black holes and dark matter. However, it also revealed several limitations, or perhaps prejudices of its theorists.  When we get theories about the universe being of finite space but with no edges or boundaries, and when this theory is more "scientifically acceptable" than the Big Bang theory (i.e., the universe didn't start, it just is), I have to wonder where the line is between physics and metaphysics.  I was also surprised by how often Hawking retreated to the weak anthropic principle, or, "the universe is the way it is because we are here, and if it went any other way, we would not have developed". I'm not sure what makes that scientific, but rules out "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Neither can be disproved through observation.

This book was a good reminder that science can do an amazing job answering the small "why", but its attempts at the big "why" are a misappropriation of the mantle of science to advance a particular philosophy or worldview.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 weak anthropic principles