Lockdown Literature Part 2

Aurora Guerrini (Secretary) is a DPhil student reading Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Worcester College.

Recent loosenings of lockdown restrictions have, of course, finally allowed one to experience the joys of consumerism. Those familiar with Oxford are of course aware that along with the spires, the pubs, and the tacky tourist shops, this dreamy city is home to a selection of bookstores. From the Oxford-grown Blackwell’s to the elegant out posting of the Waterstones on Broad Street, to the Jericho vintage book store, Oxford has provided me with a worthy means of restarting the economy: hoarding books. 

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

“Solitude produces originality, bold & astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd, and the forbidden.”- Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann is a legend in literary circles. As someone who spent their teen years claiming to be a literature buff, I found myself ashamed upon my first attempt with Mann when I could barely manage 20 pages of his take on Doctor Faustus. Luckily, I was able to redeem myself upon acquisition of a set of three of Mann’s most famous novellas: Death in Venice, Tristan, and Tonio Kruger. While all three were beautifully written and affecting pieces, I was completely taken by Death in Venice. 

The story of an ageing German author, who, when lacking excitement in his life and feeling dissatisfied with his singular, and frankly drab, existence, makes a pilgrimage to Venice. What follows is a rich, subtle, and hypnotizing portrait of a man obsessed with youth and love. The protagonist, Gustav von Aschenbach, finds an imperfect muse in the form of a young Polish boy, Tadzio, on vacation with his family and in residence at the same decadent Venetian hotel. Perhaps best described by Mann himself, Death in Venice is about the ‘ voluptuousness of doom’. As the author finds himself growing more and more obsessed with Tadzio, the shadow of cholera begins to loom in Venice. Importantly, the author and Tadzio never have any meaningful physical connection, but the intense and unspoken connection is obvious. 

Completely taken by Tadzio, the author succumbs to this and ignores repeated and urgent warnings about the deadly cholera that is quickly turning Venice into a graveyard. With this, Mann presents desire and obsession as unworthy emotions, with the story of the author being one of sure warning. The continual references to Greco-Roman myth are not lost on the reader, with the stories of the troubled- lovers Apollo and Daphne and the vain Narcissus being clear inspirations and allusions. 

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Attwood 

“Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you've made.”- Cat’s Eye, Margaret Attwood 

Reader, please beware, as Cat’s Eye by Margaret Attwood is a book that made me extremely uncomfortable. This book contains and details perhaps the most unsettling methods of self-harm, making this one of my most excruciating yet fulfilling reads. I read Cat’s Eye directly after finishing Attwood’s latest novel, The Testaments, and while the latter details the cruel and scarily realistic Theocratic regime of Gilead, it was Cat’s Eye which has truly scared me. 

However, while a painful read due to its gory descriptions, Cat’s Eye is an excellently written and compelling story of a woman as she looks back on her mundane yet brutal past. Now a semi-successful new-wave artist, the protagonist, Elaine, has returned to Toronto only to find it, and herself changed. Telling the story of Elaine in a non-linear and scattered narrative, Attwood details the cruelty and manipulation that often forms the basis of nascent female friendships. Elaine’s fears, anxieties, and fantasies take the form of her effortlessly elegant yet vicious best friend Cordelia.  

Seeing Cordelia everywhere she goes, it is obvious that the quasi-parental role that Cordelia occupied is one that had a lasting effect on Elaine. While Attwood claims that this novel is not autobiographical, the concepts of a dangerous friendship and its lasting effects on your life is a universal one. Attwood cleverly details the bullying that Elaine experiences, and offers a realistic portrait of the different strategies one may use to utterly destroy your idea of self. Worshipped and feared, Cordelia is a fearsome creature and one that haunts Elaine well into her 60s. Say what you will about Attwood, but one fact is undoubtedly true: she knows how to write a villain. 

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress- Dai Sijie

“I was carried away, swept along by the mighty stream of words pouring from the hundreds of pages. To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same.” - Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

 A quick and beautiful read, I read this novella by the critically-adored French-Chinese author Dai Sijie over the course of two hours while a raunchy Carry On film played in the background. Yes, through echoes of lewd humour, I was transfixed by this beautiful piece of literature about the inextricably powerful role of literature in a person’s life. 

Set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Sijie follows two teenage boys from a relatively privileged and intellectual upbringing as they find themselves undergoing the brutal re-education or liajiao,  that was one the key policies used by Mao Zedong and his acolytes to control the population and protect Chinese culture from influences of the West. A book about books, the novella details the magic that enters the life of these two young adults as they discover a collection of banned books. The powerful works of Balzac, Dumas, and other similarly skilled authors not only influence these two but also the mysterious and seemingly simple Chinese seamstress.  

An important and beautiful story that reminds one of the liberties that many so easily take for granted, I urge you to discover its subtle denouncement of a life made miserable without the freedom to learn and experience true literature.