The May, 2024 Reading List

 

The list of books read in May isn't long. Six isn't spectacular, but it is more than one a week - so there's that.

Three books on the list were reviewed in earlier blog posts : The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - and The Steppenwolf  by Hermann Hesse, so there's no need to write more on those three here.

In the Courts of Three Popes by Mary Ann Glendon tells of the writer's experiences in Rome during the pontificates of Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. Unfortunately, the book deals more with her than with the three Popes. It's not exactly what I thought I was getting into when I started reading the book.

Edith Tiempo was a Filipino poet, fiction writer, teacher and literary critic in the English language. She graduated from Silliman University in Dumaguete (the city I call home now) and would go on to attend Universities in the U.S.. She would eventually return to Dumaguete to teach at her alma mater. Although she wrote six novels in English, I was only able to locate one as an ebook - Blade of Fern. The story tells of a mining operation is the fictional village of Nibucal, Mindanao.

One of Tiempo's short stories was required reading in my son's final year of high school. I suppose I might be able to find more of her books at the local public library.

The Provincials - A Personal History of Jews in the South by Eli N. Evans was originally published in 1971. Although I'm not Jewish, I can relate to much of the book, having grown up in the American south during the time period of which the book was written. Again, although Evans wrote a number of books, this one is the only one I could find in ebook format.

This list for May, 2024:
The Son of Tarzan    by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle  by Haruki Murakami
In the Courts of Three Popes   by Mary Ann Glendon
The Steppenwolf      by Hermann Hesse
Blade of Fern   by Edith Tiempo
The Provincials   by Eli N. Evans

The Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

 

I was a teen during the late 1960s, and like many of my generation my first awareness of the name Steppenwolf came by way of the Canadian-American rock band that burst upon the scene in 1968. After awhile, we learned that the band had taken their name from a novel written by "some German guy". Some of us would eventually get around to reading the novel.

As best as I can recall, I was 19 or 20 when I first read Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf and then only after I had been introduced to his earlier novel, Siddhartha. Being 19 or 20, I couldn't really understand the story of a fifty year old man going thru a spiritual crisis. Of course, I recognized Hesse's talent, but frankly, the novel was not written with 20 year olds in mind.

I would go on to reread Steppenwolf in 2014. Although I had made note of having reread the book at that time, I failed to write a review. I've just finished reading the novel for the third time and I won't let a review slip by this time.

This time around, I read a relatively recent translation of the book by Kurt Beals. Beals notes that he preferred to follow the original German title Der Steppenwolf. Beals goes with The Steppenwolf. I agree with Beals.

Now I'm 72 and I can better appreciate Harry Haller's struggle. The character was 50 at the time of the story and I suppose 70 is the new 50. A fifty year old man in 1927 was much older than a fifty year old man today. Of course, my life doesn't exactly parallel the life of the main character in the novel, but there are similarities. I can relate to having difficulties sleeping at night as my mind replays my earlier life choices. While The Steppenwolf may not be for mad men only, it is not for the young either.

Hesse once said that Der Steppenwolf was widely misunderstood. I'd like to think that I am at a point where I can better understand and appreciate this brilliant novel.

Fun At The Vulcanizing Shops

 

In March of 2021, less than a month from my 69th birthday, I purchased a mountain bike. It wasn't my intention to do my biking off road, but knowing the condition of the roads in this area, a mountain bike seemed a safer option than a road bike. Prior to buying this bicycle, it had been 40 years since I last road one. It would take time to build up my endurance, but I would eventually get up to seven days a week, averaging sometimes 15 miles a day. I would often get in 100 miles a week.

A few months ago, I decided to cut back to five days a week. This would mean - weather permitting - Monday thru Friday. If, for whatever reason, I lost a weekday, I'd make it up on Saturday or Sunday. This past Saturday I was not scheduled to ride, but as I was up early (as usual) I wanted to do an inspection of my bicycle. There it was - a flat front tire. Depending on what causes the flat, sometimes a tire will flatten while I'm on the road and that requires an immediate detour to a vulcanizing shop, of which there are, thankfully, many. Sometimes, the object that causes the flat will be so minor as to be unnoticeable until the next day when I go outside to go on my ride. That was the case this past Saturday.

I was planning to meet a few fellow Americans that morning, so I removed the front wheel, put it in the back of the car to be taken to a vulcanizing shop after breakfast.

As it turned out, the man at the shop said the tube was damaged due to the spokes rubbing the tube. There is a lining, of sorts, around the rim which is supposed to prevent that. Obviously, this one needed to be replaced. This lining wouldn't be something a vulcanizing shop would have, so I decided to wait until a bicycle shop in Dumaguete opened up Monday where I could buy a new tube and liner for the rim.

The bicycle shop doesn't open until 9:00 AM, so I wouldn't be able to get a ride in on Monday. Today, I went outside at 6:00 o'clock to go for my Tuesday ride and all looked OK. Unfortunately, I hadn't gone more than a mile when I got another flat. I was able to flag down a pedicab to take me and my bicycle home. At home, I removed the front wheel - I'm getting good at that. There was a rather nasty looking pointy thing sticking in the tire. I took the tire to yet another vulcanizing shop for repair. Hopefully, I'll be good to go Wednesday morning.

A word of note - the photos of the pedicab and the offending object are from today's adventure. The other two are from earlier flats.

 

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

 

I first learned of Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami about three years ago when I read an interesting review of his novel, Kafka on the Shore. I've gone on since then to read four more of his novels, although two of those - 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - were originally published as trilogies, so I suppose you could say I've read nine in total.

In 1Q84 a particularly nasty character named Ushikawa plays a crucial role. After finishing that book, I learned that Ushikawa had appeared in the earlier The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle so I made it a point to read it as soon as I could fit it in.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, reading Murakami brings to my mind the works of Franz Kafka and Mikhail Bulgakov with perhaps a bit of Dostoevsky thrown in for good measure. In my review of Kafka on the Shore I described Murakami's writing as "surreal and hallucinatory". The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle certainly fits that bill. I might even add that this novel reads like a Salvador Dalí painting - dreamlike.

While reading this novel, I was reminded of a novel I read back in the days when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth - The Steppenwolf  by Hermann Hesse. I'm placing that one in the queue to be re-read very soon.

The Son of Tarzan

 

I recently came across a meme on social media which featured characters from the MGM film series of the 1930s and 1940s, Tarzan. This series, starring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane and Johnny Sheffield as Boy, was a hit with me when the movies were shown on TV in the 1950s. Feeling nostalgic, I tracked down the six MGM films and the six RKO movies with Weissmuller on the ok.ru website.

I had read the first three of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels a few years ago - one in 2011, one in 2012 and # 3 in 2016. Looking for a change in pace from my reading material, I decided to read # 4 in Burroughs' Tarzan books, The Son of Tarzan.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with the Tarzan franchise knows that the books are very different from the films. Never the less, I could not have expected anything like The Son of Tarzan. At the beginning of the novel, we find Lord John Clayton II (AKA Tarzan), his wife Jane née Porter and their son Jack living in England. Due to a series of events, which I won't go into, Jack makes his way to Africa accompanied by an ape named Akut. One thing leads to another, whereupon Jack takes the name Korak and becomes another Tarzan, so to speak. He is unable to return to England. He is lost to Tarzan and Jane.

The story is interesting enough, in that pre-World War I adventure story sort of way. Lots of characters (human and non human) - lots of adventures - twists and turns.

I was a bit taken aback by the amount of killing done by Korak - which it turns out is ape language for "Killer". A hero today couldn't get away with the killing done by the young man.

As I say, the book is interesting and I imagine I will go on to read more in Burroughs' Tarzan series. Just not any time soon.