Bohemian Gospel - A Ride to Nowhere

Bohemian Gospel by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

What to say about this book?  I read the review as part of my job, and there was an interesting premise to it.  There is a girl who heals a king - she has some kind of powers.  He asks her to travel with him in case anything else should happen to him - she can heal him.  Then they fall in love.


Mouse, the girl, somehow appealed to me.  I thought the story would have more to do with her journey from insecurity, obscurity, and immaturity into having a place in the world.  But this book is more concerned with the supernatural aspect of her powers.  It follows the implications of what she becomes capable of to some drastic ends - until Mouse is living alone in the woods for decades with only a wolf for company.  It kind of defied belief that that would happen - and it became a story about the burdens of power, the loneliness of being different, etc.  And while I wasn't expecting that it would have been interesting if it had fit the overall story.  But instead it was gimmicky to me. 


So, once again I have tried reading contemporary fiction and have been mighty disappointed.  I never used to read current stuff, not since I was a pre-teen/teenager reading young adult fiction.  That fiction was actually good back then so in principal I had nothing against giving newer stuff a try.  I dislike that a reader cannot be guided by a book's reputation as it's stood up through time as you can with classic texts.  If someone tells you this classic is great, it's reputation is well deserved - when you read the book you can be pretty assured that there will be some meaning or even great meaning that you'll get out of the time investment and the experience.  This is impossible with current literature. 


And in truth I have so many classic books on my shelves that I don't need to make the attempt.  And I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't for working in a library and now reading reviews of current fiction books.  But what I've noticed about much of today's fiction is that authors invent a pleasing premise to a story - i.e. Mouse being a young girl who comes of age but also has a quality that makes her different from anyone else - it sounds interesting and it's what makes you want to invest your time.  And then the idea is so poorly thought out, so poorly executed, and the story so poor.  So I'm starting to beware of gimmicky writers.  Then I get a sense of how much more of that stuff is out there than stuff of quality.  And that's disturbing.  And then I realize that we all have to learn to navigate through a sea of nonsense to get to valuable finds.  It's odd that we should make it so difficult on ourselves.  The personal life can be that way enough as it is - why should the collective, cultural life be so as well?  I guess the only answer is the money that's out there to made...

Tom Jones: the Foundling

The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling by Henry Fielding 

I heard of this novel when watching the film Becoming Jane about Jane Austen.  Her love interest tells Jane that if she wants to be the equal of a male writer she must be able to write truthfully about experience.  And, in order to do that, she must experience things.  

This is a novel about many of the possible experiences in life.  Tom Jones is a bastard child taken in by a wealthy landowner, Allworthy, and raised by him.  Allworthy is also raising his nephew and the two grow up side by side and very different.  

Tom Jones is a free spirit.  Very hot-tempered, quick to react, loves the ladies, fickle-natured, but has the desire to do good by others.  It just doesn't always work out that way.  He falls in love with Sophia, the daughter of his neighbor: Squire Western.  The Squire likes Tom, but as soon as he begins to desire Sophia, the Squire locks his daughter up in the house.  

Tom Jones is forced to leave Allworthy's house due to a deception by the jealous nephew.  Allworthy writes Tom off & sends him out into the world without any protection.  He withdraws his good opinion of Tom and his support.  Tom is adrift.

And all manner of things happen to him: conscription, fighting, sex, and meetings with strange characters.  In this way, the book is a philosophical tale similar to others of the time (for me it reminded me of Voltaire's Candide - only much, much longer).  Through a fictional tale that asks how do you make sense of the cruelty of experience and of people, of injustices, of the many opinions you hear others espouse during your travels, of temptations, of that which glitters but is not gold, and of the twists and turns of trying to love another - the novel is a challenge to learn for the reader. To learn without having to be the one immediately experiencing the twists and turns.  

Tom's journey, though very drawn out at times, is therefore very interesting to follow & I think it's still applicable to modern experience in many ways.  And I like that Tom errs, he actually errs quite a lot.  He gets involved when he shouldn't because he's a willing participant - a recipe that can make one very beleaguered very quickly if it goes on too long.  He always learns what he learns the hard way.  That might be helpful for a writer creating a character - but for a person trying to live it is actually very inconvenient.  But despite getting into trouble more often than not, Tom somehow keeps a good, carefree attitude through most of his wanderings.  I liked that.

I also liked that Fielding discusses the treatment of women in this novel.  Sophia is heavily controlled by her father who is himself a drunkard and very reckless.  While she is intelligent and careful, he thinks that her only value is in keeping her "fresh" for a good and wealthy husband.  Oddly enough, Sophia is very concerned about this too, but much more intelligently.  Squire Western is a hot-head who thinks it can always be solved by simply locking her up and guarding the key no matter how unhappy it makes Sophia.  She wants to have access to living and men, but doesn't believe that they will do well by her simply because they're attracted to her.  She questions and challenges Tom to be more honest about how he feels and this counteracts his tendency to simply fly by the seat of his pants.  This is a quality I admired in Sophia and wish I could employ on my own behalf.  

Then there's another couple that Tom meets while he's living in London.  The man throws the woman over and it's clear how little the woman was left with once she was abandoned.  Then others get involved and try to get the man to do the right thing.  Again, showing that woman have to almost marshall men...or to focus their energies that often are simply hectically trying to attain their prize.  The woman must give that process meaning, probe it and test it to make sure it's in earnest, and that there's an art to this that is different than being coy or just appearing and disappearing at random.  And without this art life is harder for a woman.  
 

Newly Discovered Website - Project Gutenberg

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