Reprint Time--Helena
A comment from the blogkeeper at Underbelly (thank you Buce) inspired me to look this up. I was fairly certain that I had reviewed the book in the recent past, and so I discovered this. a good book is worth appreciation--over and over and over again. Also, while you are appreciating, you might want to take in Underbelly's look at Helena as well. La Belle Hélène on March 18, 2005 8:11 AM In reading Helena last night I stumbled across a large number of passages I would like to share. But I thought the more important thing to share was an observation. Evelyn Waugh liked this best among his books. There are a good many reasons why this might be so: it is splendidly written--both the prose and the coherence are several notches above some of his earlier, more frenetic work. It is tightly done, with just the right strokes and exactly the right selection of detail. But I suspect the reason Waugh prized this above all the other works is that in t...
This is a good example of why I don't pay much attention to "professional critics."
ReplyDeleteThey seem more interested in saying something startling or controversial to generate reader interest than in really talking about the work, as it is, and not as "they" think it should be.
The point is that what is of immense interest to Anna and Vronsky is only of secondary and temporary interest to others who know them and of little or no interest to the rest of humanity. Life goes on. The universe does not come to a screeching halt and gaze in shock and awe at one person who commits suicide.
Tolstoy understands this. The reviewer either doesn't or can't say something as mundane as this and keep his job.
Thanks for posting the link.
Dear Fred,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more--I pay attention, but I don't take them seriously. I pay attention because things like this amuse me endlessly. Hubris of this sort can be a kind of spectator sport. We come at classic works with post-modern sensibilities and expect them to be what we would like them to be, not what their authors wrote them to be.
It becomes a kind of circus of the bizarre--but even so, you sometimes happen on something that provokes an interesting side thought or reflection, even if only in response to.
Thank you for you note.
shalom,
Steven