Reading serious books

                                           

Actually, this is what I have been doing lately. There are times I find it very rewarding and there are times I feel that it is a hard work and that I may be missing the point. Reading is supposed to be the time of my pleasure…and learning. Actually, learning is one of my important values and even my strength as the Strength Finder test told me. The test placed learning in the third place of the list of my personal five strengths. The first is Intellection. Hmm…I am supposed to be introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions (whatever intellectual discussions might be?). I know, I like conversations, even the gossipy ones. This may not be all that intellectual after all. Introspective is my game though, most definitely. Reading serious books and thinking about their meaning may be just my thing.

I have been reading The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt in the last two weeks. Good book but it may be more than I wanted. Today I have finished it and my final reaction was: WOW!!! I sat stunned, shocked and depressed for quite a while gathering my thoughts and trying to regain emotional equilibrium. It is a definitely a good book, very well written, interesting structure, packed with intellectual observations, exploring interesting philosophical options. I would call it literature not just a book. So, why do I think that this may be enough for me of Siri Hustvedt? 

Mainly because it is a disturbing book. It takes too many idealistic illusions away from the reader. I perhaps need some lighter reading from time to time. It may have been too much of Ishiguro with his sad observations of life, followed by two books by Hustvedt. I may for a while switch to something lighter.  Reading serious books carries some danger with it. The danger of creeping up pessimism and depression.

The book is good though, very good. Siri Husdvedt is a wife of Paul Auster who is an American writer and director; apparently of a greater fame than his wife. I have not read any of his books, so I take the comparison of the couple’s writing as per general opinion. Anyhow, the perception is that Siri Hustvedt is the wife of the famous Paul Auster and not the other way around.  Generally, the public does not think that it is Paul Auster who is the husband of his famous wife. 

                        

The book is about Harriet Burden, a painter, who is a wife of a famous art dealer. Her artistic talents are concerned as insignificant by the artistic NY society, she is better known as an organiser of her husband’s dinner parties. Harry, as Harriet is called by her friends, is a remarkable woman, possessing brilliant intellect and great artistic talent. She is a woman, though, and this is her problem. She understands that there is nobody who would want to help her to get recognized as a brilliant artist, so she comes up with an idea to publish her work as a man. She finds three artists who agree to give their names to her work, and under the male names, her work gains spectacular recognition. There are very positive reviews in the press, people are prepared to pay high prices for the work. She becomes very successful, but under cover. Not as herself. She was planning a coming out as her life success, but this does not work out. Two of the artists reveal that Harry is the creator of the art they got recognition for, but the third one makes a mockery out of her claims. The deviousness and cruelty of Rune, this is the name of the artist, is frightening. Harry is humiliated and loses on all fronts.   

One could say that this is a book to present the misogynistic nature of our world, and it is, but there is much more than that Siri Hustvedt wants to tell us. It is a book about masks we put on and the influence of that on the way we act. I examined my own life for masks I had been wearing, quite revealing… I would recommend a little examination of the roles we play in our life, as we inevitably do, the masks we put on willingly or not even realizing that we put them on. They, in a profound way, change the way we act. 

I found parts of the book related to our perception of the world very interesting. Me writing about it will not bring any revelations as I need to think more about it, but the book brought to me, observations related to how culture influences individual perceptions of the world. I want to explore it in the future.

The book is written by a stream of narrators. Harry, herself, speaks through her diaries, there are interviews with several artists, there are voices belonging to her children, friends, lover, acquaintance… The result is impressive even if I found it, at times, difficult to read because of the sudden changes.

A remarkable book in many ways.