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Mark's Reviews > Hell
Hell
by
by
This is the problem. Not as I see it, no. This IS the problem. The problem is this: an insufferable narrator who assumes he knows everything.
See how annoying that is?
Now imagine you proceed despite this arrogant ass and you find a very good novelette buried among the prolix musings.
Makes it difficult to jive, dunnit?
See, to put it bluntly, this narrator is a peeping tom. (I can't write 'peeping tom' without hearing Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future describing his old man. 'He's a peeping tom !') And the majority of the story revolves around the narrator's narration of the things he sees while peeping. When the narrator simply narrates what he sees, the story comes to life. The characters he's peeping on are much more interesting than he is. In a few cases, just barely, but more interesting still they are.
And then we meet an older gentleman and his nubile charge. And here the 'novel' blossoms. I won't spoil it by revealing details other than what I have already, but for a moving, entertaining, all-encompassing story engaging many facets of the human experience here on earth, begin at Chapter 8 and read to the penultimate chapter. This portion of the novel, to me (there it is, again), encapsulated what the nitwit narrator was going for, without need of his worthless, self-infatuated pontifications.
The frame-tale, in this case, she no work. But, that does not mean this should be written off completely. The story of the older gentleman is more than worth your time.
There is a public domain edition of this work available on Project Gutenberg (there called The Inferno) It is prefaced with an introduction by Edward O'Brien. In it, O'Brien claims that Barbusse is "one of the most distinguished contemporary French writers of short stories." In reading the tale of The Older Man, I could not agree more.
For the rest, skip it.
See how annoying that is?
Now imagine you proceed despite this arrogant ass and you find a very good novelette buried among the prolix musings.
Makes it difficult to jive, dunnit?
See, to put it bluntly, this narrator is a peeping tom. (I can't write 'peeping tom' without hearing Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future describing his old man. 'He's a peeping tom !') And the majority of the story revolves around the narrator's narration of the things he sees while peeping. When the narrator simply narrates what he sees, the story comes to life. The characters he's peeping on are much more interesting than he is. In a few cases, just barely, but more interesting still they are.
And then we meet an older gentleman and his nubile charge. And here the 'novel' blossoms. I won't spoil it by revealing details other than what I have already, but for a moving, entertaining, all-encompassing story engaging many facets of the human experience here on earth, begin at Chapter 8 and read to the penultimate chapter. This portion of the novel, to me (there it is, again), encapsulated what the nitwit narrator was going for, without need of his worthless, self-infatuated pontifications.
The frame-tale, in this case, she no work. But, that does not mean this should be written off completely. The story of the older gentleman is more than worth your time.
There is a public domain edition of this work available on Project Gutenberg (there called The Inferno) It is prefaced with an introduction by Edward O'Brien. In it, O'Brien claims that Barbusse is "one of the most distinguished contemporary French writers of short stories." In reading the tale of The Older Man, I could not agree more.
For the rest, skip it.
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Hell.
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Reading Progress
July 25, 2012
– Shelved
August 10, 2012
–
Started Reading
August 10, 2012
–
6.0%
"Duuuuuude, you gotsta calm the f down. They're doin wonderful things with Prozac. Ya know, case you're interested"
August 11, 2012
–
37.0%
"I dunno, man. You're whining about experience, and being removed from experience so you can better experience experience. Imma call bullshit on you for the moment. Sounds like you're just too afraid to get out there a live, bucko, so you come up with this weasel way to "experience" without actually doing ANYTHING"
August 11, 2012
–
50.0%
"I agree witcha that there is no happiness without unhappiness, for how would one know one without the other? But, there's also a point where one realizes they spent their entire life suffering, and to what cause? What did it gain you, pray tell?"
August 11, 2012
–
55.0%
"Old Man Dying, I like ya. You provide a counterpoint to the narrator, though the narrator, in his infinite wisdom, will most likely feel you prove is point all the more. You would be wrong, narrator dude."
August 11, 2012
–
57.0%
"What's this? The questioning of the negative effects of Patriotism and the positives and negatives of progress? I do declare, you docs sound like 20-and-12!"
August 12, 2012
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-17 of 17 (17 new)
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Dang, that backfired massively! (That image nearly took me out, too, lol.)
Great review, Mark. I couldn't stomach the narrator either - I wanted to give him a good shaking. (Sending him to his room wouldn't help, because that was part of his problem in the first place.) Your status reports helped to keep me sane, though.And I also agree there is beautiful, moving writing in this book.
Thanks, Kris! And thanks for reading with me! I don't know what could be done to calm this narrator down, save a heavy drugging. Death seemed to enliven him, to live seemed to enliven him. And that ROOOOOM. The only thing left would be to subject him to the immobile torture of his on round-n-round thoughts!
A heavy drugging, or clubbing him over the head.....Although I like the Dantesque simplicity of your last sentence.....
Kris wrote: "A heavy drugging, or clubbing him over the head.....Although I like the Dantesque simplicity of your last sentence....."
I missed your comment here, Kris! Damn you, GR notifications!!! Now you're makin me wanna read Dante! But I must press forward with Margarita. That's a really good read, too! Thanks to you and Mary for forming the group read!
I'm so glad you're enjoying it! I think the group read will be a lot of fun. Maybe we can have a Dante group read sometime around 2020 or so. :)
Something makes me want so badly to say "when hell freezes" over, but it's so incomparable to what I feel, lol. But that connection, ahhhh, WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!!!! AHHHHHH, that feels better. Now, can we do it sooner than that? :D Have you read his, btw? If so, do you have a particular translation you liked?
We definitely can do it sooner than that! I had read Ciardi's translation in college and graduate school. Some people swear by the Pinsky translation of Inferno. There are some critical editions floating around, too - I would need to do a little research. Are you thinking of Inferno or the the Divine Comedy as a whole?
Being a horror fan, just The Inferno would be great. But if a group was open to the whole comedy, I'd read it too! :D Long, long ago I picked up a cheap Bantam translation by Allen Mandelbaum. Not sure of accurate it is, but the bits I've read are pleasing to the ear. I'll check out the translations you read for college and grad school and see how they compare with this un. Little ebookin might be in order! (This isn't anything that has to be done now, right this minute, since we have Margarita and later IJ. Inferno is just something I've always heard about and wanted to read. No hurries. Be maybe quicker than 2020, :D )
Mark wrote: "Being a horror fan, just The Inferno would be great. But if a group was open to the whole comedy, I'd read it too! :D Long, long ago I picked up a cheap Bantam translation by Allen Mandelbaum. Not ..."Absolutely - later this fall maybe, or early in 2013 once Proust gets off the ground?
I like it!! I'd love to do Proust, but fear a seven book commitment, when I've tried and failed several times to read Swann's Way alone, might be too much to shoot for, haha. So, that makes my reading commitments smaller. We'll go by whenever it feels easiest for you :)
Sounds good - I'd say February at the latest, but I'm hoping for earlier than that.
Febyeeary's good! When does this Jest group begin?? Do you guys start Prousting on Jan 1st, or thereabouts?
Jan 1 is Proust. We are going in two waves for IJ -- one starts on Dec 1, and one on Jan 1. So, there's TM&M, then Moby Dick, Bradbury throughout, and then IJ and Proust. I think that it's possible that late September or sometime in November could work as well. And I will start participating in Bradbury once I locate my books. I hope I have them at home - otherwise, they would be in my parents' attic, and that's a scary prospect.
I think I need to set up a Google calendar for reads. :)
Oh shizz, Moby Dick in the middle of all that!??? That's another I've wanted to read but no way in heck with all the other stuff going on! :DYou're definitely gonna need a calendar, yeeesh!
You will read Hell. You willlll read Helllllllll.
Plus, it's really short! You'll be done in a snap!
D'it work?