My Review to The Centaur by John Updike

The Centaur is written in such a way that it results pleasant and easy to progress through its pages. It's an interesting story that revolts around a series of events throughout 3 or 4 days. And yet, the author manages to introduce so many perspectives, both through the eyes of different characters or from different times; sometimes retrospectively, sometimes right from after the events took place. In the novel there is steadily an aura of mysticism by which the reader gets baffled and hesitates as to whether the author was simply narrating the events or there is indeed an intrinsic, transcendental or metaphoric meaning. Especially due to the several parallelisms between the novel and classical Greek mythology.
Given my restricted knowledge of said mythology, I believe I may have failed to understand much of the exquisiteness of this book. And I must confess I couldn't quite explain why the book is called The Centaur. In my humble opinion, that's a much to large name for this Updike's novel. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book altogether. I don't know why but I specially liked the scene where father and son struggle through a rough winter storm to make it back home to their family. I admire how the moral values of both parents prevail in spite of their personality flaws. Although many passages are melancholic, many of them are, at the same time, narrated in a hilarious way. This reveals the talent of the author.

Funnily enough, there is one interesting connection between this book and another one I recently read: The Goldfinch. Peter Caldwell, the kid in this story, is a huge fan of Johannes Vermeer: a pupil of Carel Fabritius, the painter of The Goldfinch. 

The Goldfinch. My review.

The Goldfinch is a painting by Carel Fabritius from the 17^th century. You should gather some information about it to better understand and enjoy the novel. It’s a really impressive art piece, totally unusual for its time; simple, plain and yet so enigmatic and beautiful.

The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius

I will start with the novel’s narrative. Despite being a rather lengthy book, the Goldfinch is easy to swift through. The writer made a good job keeping the story always interesting and making readers want to find out more about the main character’s adventures, much in the way Daniel Brown does (though slightly inferior in my opinion). There are indeed slow, somewhat boring passages, but they’re rather few.

I like classic, 19^th or early 20^th century novels and reading this totally recent book made me realize why: old novels have the magic that it feels like you’re listening to people from another time age; classic books are like time traveling in a way. They make me realize how different life was. Things we take for granted, like cars or telephones, didn’t exist at all. Reading how people back then communicated or traveled never fails to amaze me. Contemporaneous books lack this charm. And it is hard for me to seize their value. Like political or historical heroes, it is only after a time that the true dimension and grandeur of a literary masterpiece can be fairly appreciated. 

There is also the question between movies and books. I like both, but I believe some stories are more suitable for reading and others for watching. Being the writing style a major aspect for me to evaluate in a book, a contemporaneous book with an interesting storyline, like the Goldfinch, is in my opinion better enjoyed in a movie theater. In short: the story being told is interesting, but the literary value gained by reading is not that high.

The story flow is straight. The first 30 pages are so charged of events and emotions that you just want to keep reading. They are surprising, unexpected, thrilling, heart-touching, sad. And it goes on in this fashion throughout the book. However, the more pages you are into the book, the less I liked the main character. At first I felt compassion for him, and admiration for holding up so well after such a great loss. He seems to be a down-to-earth young boy, but this image is deceiving, as I discovered later on, and the dislike grew so much that, at the end, I didn’t like him at all.

I don’t like the image portrayed by the author that drugs and alcohol are not really that bad, and that you can succeed anyway; that money comes easily; that fooling is alright. Another thing I don’t like is that Theo, the main character, doesn’t want to progress in life, he’s stuck there, waiting for things to just work out on themselves. Surely losing his mother is a great loss, I totally understand that, I would like that to happen to me at all, it’d be the worse, but, to honor my mother, I would try my best to succeed, to show the world that she raised me well, to make her proud of me up there in heaven.

The story as a whole goes quite well until about page 600, with events that could totally happen in real life. And then there is a sudden twist. A sudden turn to surreal and unlogical and cheap Hollywood-ish ending, with guns, gangs, clueless police. Why in the world did he have to go to Amsterdam? How did he allow to be convinced so easily? Why all so sudden? I had the impression the writer wanted to just wrap up his novel, realized she had no more time (maybe her train was departing) and switched from a reasonable narration into a hurried, fictional and impossible series of events. I felt she wrote the first 500 pages in 1 year and the rest in 2 hours. Or that she wrote the first 500 pages herself and delegated the last ones to a teenager on the street.

The last 10-20 pages are a real masterpiece though. They are powerful and so charged with meaning. It definitely makes you analyze your own life and gives you good energy vibes. I can only recommend them.

As to the Boris character, I think it was exaggerated so that it made him seem a tiny bit unreal. If you are picky enough, you can find incongruences in his life story, there are things he couldn’t have done at the mentioned times.

Hobie is by far my favorite character. He is humble, genuine, very honest and has a huge heart. In real life he might be a little bit boring; I wouldn’t go out to a party with him, but definitely a good friend to rely on.

Another good thing: the idea of having something hidden that no one should see, otherwise you would get into trouble. I had the same feeling as a child, of course I hid no treasures, but still.

In short: first 500 pages or so, nice story, enjoyable, amusing, good quality. Pages 500 to 10 pages before the end: lame, forced ending. Last 10 pages: magnificent reflections! Life lessons! I would have to underline them all. I would definitely read them again and again. As a whole, however, I definitely enjoyed reading the book. 

A Review on Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

Two stars. There were moments during the reading process when I was more inclined to assigning three stars, but some other moments definitely would be overpraised if granted one star. Generally what I admire in Austen's work are her acute literary style at the portrayal of her characters and her elegant depiction of lifestyle back on the 19th century. I like the language and figures of speech that she use and I like the chance to see how the English language was 200 years ago and I like to  read how life in England was back then, narrated by a person from that period. That is something that fascinates me from classical books: it's the best shot you have at listening to stories told by people from the past.

That being said, I didn't enjoy Austen's language exquisiteness. The book is, all in all, by no means a great piece of art. The characters are too shallow; I didn't get the feeling I was "getting" their personality. The story line seems too unnatural, too forced, too predictable. After reading the first 30 pages I had already figured out a possible ending for the novel and, yes, I was right! That is a way too straightforward a story!!! Some passages are okay, but in very many you just wonder why so much time is spent in non-crucial events; why is the time flowing so slowly.

Books have to be evaluated taking into account what was happening in the world in that point in time. Mansfield Park is pioneer in discussing women's choice on marriage. Back then it was totally unheard-of for women to decline or question men's decisions. I can imagine the amount of discussions and criticism the novel might have raised upon its release. Evidently, reading the book nowadays, we are no longer stunned by this subject; enough material on it is already out.

So, yes, the book is not the cleverest choice. I was also left wondering what ever happened to the horse Fanny was supposed to get. Did she ever get one for herself? Why did she or Ms. Crawford suddenly stop riding horses or how did it stop being an issue? I guess we'll never know.