MMXVII

This is a list of the books I read in 2017:

Mountolive by Lawrence Durrell

The third book in the Alexandria quartet.

Adolphe by Benjamin Constant

The titular character is in a destructive relationship.

The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman

An old enemy plots to destroy the Library in the third book of the Invisible Library series. 


Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet

The events of an evening are geometrically described and a centipede is killed again and again.


Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

The Seeker, the Mother Confessor and the Great Wizard prevent Darken Rahl from becoming omnipotent in the first novel of the Sword Of Truth series.


Clea by Lawrence Durrell

The concluding volume of the Alexandria quartet.


Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

A collection of short stories set in a small town. I listened to the audio version.


The Courage To Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes

This book examines the fear writers experience throughout the process and suggests strategies to overcome it.


Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Kristin Lavransdatter is a rebellious daughter, headstrong wife and devoted mother in 14th century Norway. This trilogy includes The Wreath, The Wife and The Cross.


The Black Violin by Maxence Fermine

A cursed violin affects two artists in profound ways.


René by François-René de Chateaubriand

A short, semi-autobiographical novel about the melancholy that drives one to introspection.


At The Mountains Of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

An expedition to the Antarctic discovers an ancient civilization and a dormant menace. I listened to the audio version.


Death At The Excelsior And Other Stories by P.G. Wodehouse

A collection of short stories from a comedic genius.


The Great Ordeal by R. Scott Bakker

The third novel of the Aspect-Emperor series.


The House Of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Lily Barton resists high society's pressure to marry a rich man. I listened to the audio version.


A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov

A collection of stories. Most feature an anti-hero named Pechorin.


David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The many loves, labors and losses of David Copperfield.


The Elements Of Style by William Strunk, Jr.

A grammar and style guide.


Confessions Of Zeno by Italo Svevo

The narrator talks to a therapist about the events in his life that causes his anxiety.


Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

A play.


Venus And Adonis by William Shakespeare

The myth adapted as an epic poem.


The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Anarchists detonate a bomb near a well-known building.


Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov

A play.


Lucrece by William Shakespeare

An epic poem.


The Vicar Of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

The misadventures of a priest's family.


Kokoro by Sōseki Natsume

An older man mentors a younger student and reveals to him a shameful secret about his past.


Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans

Des Esseintes indulges in the arts.


The Book That Changed My Life by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen

71 authors share the novel that affected them most.


Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

A purported firsthand account of the life of a thief and con artist.


The Woman In The Dunes by Kōbō Abe

Two captives shovel sand to prevent a town from being buried.


Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This novel chronicles the dangers faced by pilots in the early nights of aviation.


The Watcher And Other Stories by Italo Calvino

A collection of three short stories.


The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A mentally ill woman insists she sees someone behind the wallpaper.


Kim by Rudyard Kipling

A young boy and an old priest begin a quest and a friendship.


Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett

A prose piece.


Ill Seen Ill Said by Samuel Beckett

A short novel.


Stone Of Tears by Terry Goodkind

The second novel in the Sword Of Truth series separates the heroes and introduces a new villain.


Talking Pictures: How To Watch Movies by Ann Hornaday

A guide to turn a casual movie watcher into a more critical reviewer.


Stories And Texts For Nothing by Samuel Beckett

A collection of stories.


The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Woland and an anthropomorphic cat create supernatural mischief in a book that jumps between modern Moscow and ancient Jerusalem.


No One Writes To The Colonel by Gabriel García Márquez

A bleak picture of an older couple's struggle in an unfair world.


Chronicle Of A Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

Murder is referenced on the first page and carried out on the last.


Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

A play open to many interpretations.


Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

The writer of an advice column is emotionally burdened by the letters he receives.


The Bridal Canopy by S.Y. Agnon

A Jewish father's quest to find dowries and husbands for his three daughters.


The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West

Hollywood inspires an artist to paint a masterpiece.


The Death Of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

Ivan faces the greatest challenge to his life of health and happiness.


The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy

Jealousy drives a husband to murder his wife.


Journey To The End Of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

A misanthrope fights in World War I, travels to Africa, works for the Ford Motor company and becomes a doctor.


Blood Of The Fold by Terry Goodkind

The Seeker unites the armies of the Midlands to fight the Imperial Order in the third novel of the Sword Of Truth series.

Unnamed

I read The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni.

Renzo and Lucia wish to marry but a tyrant named Don Rodrigo prevents the nuptials by intimidating and threatening the local officials. The young couple are separated and whisked away out of town and out of the reach of Don Rodrigo.

The young couple survive separation, riots, arrest, kidnapping, famine, war and pestilence to reunite. They forgive those that tried to keep them apart and thank those that helped bring them together. They marry, have lots of children and live happily ever after.

Manzoni breaks off from the main narrative twice to describe the bubonic plague's devastating effects on Italy and to relate the history of a nun at the convent where Lucia hides from Don Rodrigo.

Manzoni's masterful use of language is evident on the first page and the beautiful prose continues throughout the novel. He is humble and repeats often that he wishes not to bore the reader. He has no reason to be humble. This reader was not bored.

Into The Millennium

I read The Man Without Qualities, Volume One by Robert Musil.

Ulrich graduates from a private school, joins the military, quits the military, becomes an engineer, then a mathematician. Now thirty years old, he returns to his home town where his father, a well-respected government official, has secured a job for him on the board of a committee to plan a celebration, called the Parallel Campaign, of the Austrian Emperor's 70th anniversary.

Ulrich's distant relative, Diotima, is also on the committee. She has big ideas and wants to infuse the Parallel Campaign with them. Diotima's servant, Rachel, is thrilled to be part of a household where such important people visit and eavesdrops on the meetings.

The first meeting of the Parallel Campaign begins with controversy because Diotima invites a Prussian named Arnheim without anyone's knowledge. Placing a foreigner on the council expands the breadth of the Campaign beyond Austria's borders. Vice Count Leinsdorf suggests 'Emperor of Peace' as a symbol, in contrast to Germany's imminent war machine, and gives an opening address. Diotima opens the floor for discussion but no one speaks nor understands what is involved in planning an historic event.

Bogus rumors that the Parallel Campaign is accomplishing great things reaches Ulrich's father who implores him to convince Count Leinsdorf to promote certain legislature. Leinsdorf rarely reads the literature important to the Parallel Campaign and calls the council vain and useless because it accomplishes nothing. Ulrich does not want to admit that his and Diotima's grand ideas are impossible to attain.

Ulrich's childhood friend, Walter, is a musician and painter who never reaches his potential. Clarisse attaches herself to Walter because of his genius and marries him. Though not as naturally gifted as Walter, she drives herself to learn to paint and play music and now plays better than he. Walter accuses his wife of being in love with Ulrich, naming him a man without qualities. She denies it but admits to herself that her light shines brightest when Ulrich is near. She accuses him of being jealous of Ulrich's talent, tells him she doesn't want to be with him and leaves. Ulrich returns home that same night and sees his lights are on. He suspects a burglar but finds Clarisse. She tells him she wants to be with him but he rejects her.

Ulrich receives a telegram that his father has died. He rises early the next morning and goes to the train station.

Musil died before he completed Volume Two. In it, the Parallel Campaign plans a world peace congress. Ulrich withdraws from the council to settle his father's estate. His sister, Agathe, is introduced and Clarisse is institutionalized.

First, Last and Most...Always

I read An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

Clyde Griffiths achieves independence from his street preaching parents when he secures a position at a hotel in Kansas City. There, his co-workers introduce him to a life of freedom and debauchery. He is involved in a fatal hit and run accident and flees to Chicago.

Clyde secures a job at another hotel and his rich uncle arrives as a guest. He introduces himself and asks for a job at his uncle's collar factory in Lycurgus, New York. His uncle has reservations, but because of a debt he feels he owes his brother, relents. Clyde is given an entry-level, labor-intensive position but intends to work his way up. His Lycurgus relatives want little to do with him socially though he is promoted to the head of a stamping department to protect their stature within the company. It is clear that Clyde should not socialize with the girls working for him but he desires the newly hired Roberta Alden. He pursues her and they begin a clandestine relationship.

A local girl named Sondra Finchley invites Clyde to social events to irritate his relatives. He is introduced to other socialites, invited to more parties and his spot in the Lycurgus social scene is cemented.

Sondra plans a trip to Twelfth Lake and Clyde desperately wants to go but he must stall Roberta because she is pregnant and demands he marry her immediately.

Sondra loves him and tells him that once she turns eighteen, later in the year, she will marry him. Clyde is elated and determined to escape his situation with Roberta. He develops a plan to lure her to Big Bittern Lake and fake a double drowning. Then, he will hike to Twelfth Lake and pretend he has just arrived. Clyde rents a boat and rows to a remote location but cannot summon the courage to drown Roberta. She sees the conflicted look on his face and moves toward him. Clyde, startled from his reverie, strikes her in the face. He rises to aid her but his movement overturns the boat. He recognizes his plan has come to fruition and swims toward the shore while Roberta drowns.

Roberta's body is found quickly and the bruises on her face indicate foul play. A letter addressed to her mother announcing her plan to marry Clyde is found in her pocket. The district attorney secures a warrant to search Clyde's home and finds scores of letters from Roberta and Sondra. The investigators arrive at Twelfth Lake a few days after the drowning and arrest Clyde.

At trial, the prosecution presents testimony which, combined with the letters found in his apartment, piece together Clyde and Roberta's relationship from beginning to end.

Clyde takes the stand as the only eye witness to Roberta Alden's death and testifies that he took her to the lake to tell her about his love for Sondra and beg her to release him from his responsibility. He struck her accidentally and the boat capsized. He saved himself and notified no one of the accident because he is a coward.

Clyde is convicted and sentenced to death. The appellate court denies retrial and the governor refuses to remit his punishment. He finds peace with his Creator before he is executed.

Clyde's nomadic parents, living in Denver now, continue to preach and sing hymns on the streets.


Dreiser conveys pathos for Clyde Griffiths despite his actions. He wishes to improve his position because he feels inferior to those who are, by birth, wealthier and better connected. His path toward the American dream is blocked by his untimely entanglement with Roberta and diverts toward tragedy.

Et In Arcadia Ego

I read Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

Charles Ryder meets Sebastian Flyte at Oxford and becomes friends with him and his family. Sebastian's parents are separated. His father, Lord Marchmain, lives in Venice. His mother, Teresa, and siblings live at the family estate called Brideshead. His mother is a devoted Roman Catholic and will not divorce her estranged husband.

Sebastian is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and spends a night in the clink. His drinking becomes worse and his family's attempts to chaperone him fail.

Sebastian travels to Morocco and drinks himself sick. Charles delivers news that Teresa has died but he shows no reaction. He joins a monastery but remains addicted to alcohol for the rest of his life.

Charles quits Oxford, attends art school and becomes an architectural painter. More than ten years later, he divorces his wife and plans to marry Sebastian's sister, Julia, who is separated from her husband.

Lord Marchmain becomes ill and returns to Brideshead to die. He bequeaths the estate to Julia instead of his eldest son, Lord Brideshead. Moved by her father's deathbed reversion to Catholicism, Julia ends her taboo relationship with Charles.

Charles joins the military, revisits Brideshead and reveals a surprising secret.

Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy

I read Rabbit At Rest by John Updike.

In 1989, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 dominates headlines and Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom splits his golden years playing golf in Deleon, Florida in the winter and managing Springer Motors in Brewer, Pennsylvania in the summer.

Harry develops a sweet (and salty) tooth that adds extra pounds to his once lithe frame. After a sunfish overturns and nearly drowns his granddaughter, a myocardial infarction nearly ends his own life. Harry fears open heart surgery and has an angioplasty instead.

He returns to Brewer and discovers his son, Nelson, has stolen thousands of dollars from the family business to buy cocaine. Toyota pulls the franchise from Springer Motors because of the debt and Harry is shocked that his wife wants to sell the only house he has called home to pay it. Harry commits a monstrous act with his daughter-in-law then retreats to his condominium in Florida to avoid the consequences.

Alone but determined to improve his health by exercising, the former high school basketball star challenges a flashy, neighborhood youth to a game of 21. Rabbit overextends his weakened heart and collapses on the court after sinking the winning layup. At the hospital, Harry regains consciousness long enough to make amends with his wife and son.

The Red Domino

I read Petersburg by Andrei Bely.

Amid civil unrest in Petersburg, Nikolai Appollonovich Ableukhov is conscripted into a revolutionary group. This group sends him a red domino which he wears to a masquerade and on soul searching treks around the city. His costumed capers are embellished by the local press and frequent, fabricated sightings transform The Red Domino into a symbol for the revolutionaries. The group sends another package to Nikolai: he examines its contents - a sardine tin - and lays it aside. Later, a letter arrives which instructs Nikolai to assassinate his high-ranking government official father, Appollon Appollonovich, with a bomb revealed to be inside the sardine tin. After a brief period of indecisiveness (and after unsubtle encouragement from his contact within the terrorist organization) Nikolai activates the timer mechanism and the bomb begins its (less than 24 hours!) countdown.

Appollon Appollonivich learns that his rebellious and lazy son is the infamous Red Domino and discovers the sardine tin during a search of Nikolai's room. Unaware of its contents, he carries it to his study. Nikolai notices the sardine tin has disappeared and assumes that agents for the terrorist group have retrieved it. The bomb explodes in his father's study but harms no one. Nikolai faints into a delirium during the chaotic aftermath and when he awakens learns that his father has retired. This resolution, though an anticlimactic end to the progenitor of the thriller, achieves the terrorist's objective. Changed forever, Nikolai travels to Egypt, studies the pyramids and writes a novel.

Bely excised large amounts of text from his symbolist novel after its initial publication in 1913. I read Robert Maguire's and John Malmstad's translation of the 1922 revised text. Bely's translators include more than fifty pages of footnotes and a map of Petersburg to clarify cultural and geographic references.

The crayfish thrives in troubled waters

I read Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

In 19th century Russia, serfs are taxed commodities that are bought, sold and mortgaged. Taxes are collected from the serfs but the landowner is ultimately responsible for payment. Because the government relies on numbers reported on the current census - and because there can be many years between each one - landowners sometimes pay taxes on serfs who have died or ran away. Chichikov plans to be the first to profit from this loophole. He approaches landowners and offers to buy dead serfs (the titular dead souls.) The initial reaction is puzzlement and suspicion but most are eager to unload the financial burden. Chichikov is welcomed to the elite of the community and becomes the focus of gossip for the townsfolk who believe he is wealthy.

At the governor's ball, a landowner named Nozdryov, who is a notorious liar, reveals that Chichikov bought only dead souls from him. Though Nozdryov's word is suspect, rumors spread about Chichikov's true identity and nefarious motives. Subsequently, another landowner who sold to Chichikov arrives in town to inquire about the current exchange rate of dead souls because she believes Chichikov may have hoodwinked her. The lady's testimony fuels the current rumors, ruins Chichikov's reputation and drives him from the town.

Gogol reveals Chichikov's backstory near the end of the book. At his first job with the treasury, he works diligently, schmoozes with the boss and is promoted. He and his entire department accepts bribes but a new overseer arrives and cleans house after an audit reveals the corruption. Chichikov is unable to earn respect from the new boss and decides to start a career in customs. At first, he is incorrigible in upholding the law but his baser instincts lead him to partner with a group of smugglers. His actions are investigated and he barely manages to avoid criminal proceedings. He retires with less dishonor than some of his cohorts but the bribes required drain his fortune and leaves him with a paltry sum and a couple of serfs. He mortgages his estate and develops a plan to purchase dead souls.

At the end of Volume One, Gogol promises two more parts to Chichikov's story. Gogol burned the manuscript of part two shortly before his death. The fragments that survive are presented as Volume Two.

Chichikov continues to acquire dead souls but his sins, including forging a will, catch up to him and the Prince throws him in jail without a trial. Chichikov mourns the loss of his property more than his freedom.

Chichikov believes his friend Murazov can secure his release and, more importantly, retrieve his chest which contains the deeds for the dead souls. Murazov says he will do all he can to help Chichikov with one condition: he must abandon the empty enterprise of acquiring property. Murazov encourages him to think no longer about dead souls but about his own living soul. Full of tears, Chichikov promises to change his ways.

Meanwhile, Chichikov's louche lawyer arranges his release. The Prince orders Chichikov to leave town immediately then gathers all the officials involved in witness tampering and destroying evidence in Chichikov's case to deliver the most important message in the book: denounce corruption and falsity for your own sake and for the sake of your country.

MMXI

2011 was a busy year for me. Here is a list of the books I read.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

The Once-ler's cautionary tale of environmental conservation.

All Things Alice: The Wit, Wisdom and Wonderland of Lewis Carroll by Linda Sunshine

A collection of pictures, paintings, poems, quotes and recipes.

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

The first Discworld novel featuring Samuel Vimes and the city watch.

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

The magic of Hollywood on the Discworld.

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Death is put out to pasture.

One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde

A psychological thriller. The sixth book in the Thursday Next series.

Thirteenth Night by Alan Gordon

A murder mystery featuring characters from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The first novel in the Fools' Guild Mystery series.

Backlash by Aaron Allston

The fourth novel in the Fate Of The Jedi series.

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Prachett's fairy tale farce.

While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut

A collection of short stories published posthumously.

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett pokes fun at religion.

Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller

A comic book writer pens a novel.

Lords And Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett parodies Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

USA by John Dos Passos

Three novels: The 42nd Parallel, 1919 and The Big Money.

Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett

Vimes and the city watch return.

In Search Of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

A novel in seven volumes: Swann's Way, Within A Budding Grove, The Guermantes Way, Sodom And Gomorrah, The Captive, The Fugitive and Time Regained.

Allies by Christie Golden

The fifth novel in the Fate Of The Jedi series.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The first novel in The Dark Tower series.

The Black Violin by Maxence Fermine

A short, beautiful story. My second favorite book.

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

The denizens of Discworld become infatuated with Rockstars.

The Argonautika by Apollonius Rhodius

The story of Jason and the search for the Golden Fleece.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

All four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring the most famous detective in history.

The Drawing Of The Three by Stephen King

The second novel in The Dark Tower series.

Vortex by Troy Denning

The sixth novel in the Fate Of The Jedi series.

The Tale Of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Palace intrigue in 11th century Japan.

Interesting Times by Terry Prachett

Rincewind reunites with Two-Flower on the counterweight continent.

The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams

A collection of essays, short stories and an unfinished novel featuring Dirk Gently.

The Waste Lands by Stephen King

The third novel in The Dark Tower series.

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

The Phantom Of The Opera on the Discworld.

Feet Of Clay by Terry Pratchett

Vimes and the city watch investigate a serial killer.

The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien

The third O'Brien novel I have read.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

Hogswatch is Discworld's Christmas and the Hogfather is a bizarre Santa Claus.

The Sweet Cheat Gone

I read The Fugitive by Marcel Proust.

The sixth and shortest volume of In Search Of Lost Time begins where the fifth ends: the narrator wakes to find his house guest and love interest Albertine has packed her things and gone.

He believes her disappearance is temporary and that she will return when he promises to make certain concessions. But she does not. He becomes desperate and writes a letter which he hopes will convince her to come back. She replies that if he needs her so badly, she will return.

Instead of accepting, he writes a letter which retracts his former position and insists that they would be unhappy together and are better off apart. He hopes this will make him appear independent. However, his juvenile plan backfires: she writes a beautiful, short letter, thanking him for the kind words and telling him she will forever remember their final night of twofold twilights: the end of the day and the end of their relationship.

He invites a female friend of theirs named Andree to live with him and writes Albertine telling her so, hoping to stir jealousy and entice her to return.

The next letter he receives is news that she was thrown from a horse and killed.

He receives two more letters from Albertine, both sent before her death. The first is her approval of Andree and best wishes. The second entreats that if he has not yet written to Andree and it is not too late to return, she will take the train at once.

Naturally, this devastates him.

He enters Albertine's former room and finds two similarly styled, engraved rings. The housekeeper insists that they are gifts from Albertine's lover.

He sends a friend named Aime to investigate these allegations and learns more than he feared about Albertine's nature. It is clear to him that he didn't know her. He compares her to a spy who conceals her identity and an alien living among humans.

Despite his disgust with Albertine's behavior, everything he reads, touches or sees reminds him of her. Ordinary moments they spent together become extraordinary when recalled. In his dreams, he forgives her and tells her all the things he wishes he said when she was alive. His greatest fantasy is Albertine writes to him that she has recovered from her riding accident and will come to live with him.

After much time passes and his life regains normality, he receives a telegram which reads: You think me dead. I wish to meet and talk marriage. Albertine.

Because he has no emotional response to the content, he is certain that his feelings for Albertine have faded. This is fortunate because, cruelly, the telegraph office made a mistake and the message was from Gilberte – a friend who had not corresponded with him for a long time – not Albertine.

Gilberte is the daughter of Charles Swann (the man who gives the first volume of In Search Of Lost Time its name.) She is ashamed of this connection because Swann was disfavored by society's elite (including the Guermantes, who lend their name to the third volume.) She marries the narrator's friend named Robert de Saint-Loup – who hides a secret similar to Albertine's – and is widowed some time thereafter.

The narrator rekindles his friendship with Gilberte and walks with her along paths which once stirred fond memories. Gilberte confesses that she once loved him but he missed the signs. Sadly, he is not interested in her nor nostalgic for The Guermantes and Swann's Way.

The narrator is never identified but it is hinted that he shares at least his first name with the author. He is an aspiring author himself and often complains of writer's block. Proust does not suffer from this malady: his seven volume magnum opus about time and memory earns distinction as the longest novel ever written.

The earlier volumes detail the narrator's friendships with artists, authors, actresses and Swann, the Dreyfus case and the most famous sweet cake in literature.

For the rain it raineth every day

I read Thirteenth Night by Alan Gordon.

Fifteen years after the events described in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the Fools Guild sends Feste to investigate the death of the Duke of Orsino.

The Fools Guild is a covert organization that trains its members in the foolish arts: juggling, tumbling, music, magic, repartee and rhyming extemporaneously and deploys them throughout Europe and Asia to carry out its interests. In addition to pranks and pratfalls, fools are trained in swordplay and close combat and guide the hand of history while hiding in plain sight as the most derided figure in society.

Feste (or Theopholis as he is called by Gordon) suspects Malvolio, the dunce who swore revenge on the entire cast of characters in Shakespeare's play, has killed the Duke and summoned his nemesis to Orsino. It is unclear why Malvolio would wait for the quindecennial of his embarrassing epiphany to begin his revenge but the Guild suspects foul play and sends two fools to investigate: Theopholis disguised as a German merchant and another in cap and bells to divert Malvolio's attention and lure him into the open.

Shortly after arriving, Theopholis reveals his identity to the widowed Duchess by singing a song from Twelfth Night:

Come away, come away, death
And in sad cypress let me be laid
Fly away, Fly away, breath
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

Theo cleverly uncovers a minor mystery involving the duchess but the A-ha! moment when he disovers whodunnit sails above the head of any reader unfamiliar with the French etymology of chessmen names. Like a proper detective, Theo – in Feste guise for the first time – assembles all the players in one room to point the bauble at the bad guy(s.)

Gordon preambles each chapter with a grain of wisdom from the Bible, poetry or historical document which references fools or folly and by the end of the book exhausts nearly all puns and clichés involving jesters and jests.

I have also read the sixth book in the Fools Guild Mystery series. In The Lark's Lament, Theopholis returns with his noble steed Zeus to solve a murder mystery with help from his wife and burgeoning family of fools.

No Shadow

I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Pip is sponsored by an unknown patron and promoted from pauper to gentleman overnight. He rubs elbows with the elite, runs up debt on the expectations of coming into his property and is horrified when he discovers his patron is a convict he encountered in his youth. This convict escapes exile in Australia and travels to England for a friendly visit. He is captured by authorities, sentenced to death for returning to England and his fortune is forfeited to the Crown. Pip, made a pauper once more, resigns to life as a clerk, working hard all his remaining days to pay the debt he accrued from his frivolity.

Early in the novel, Pip encounters Miss Havisham, an aged lady whose affianced abandoned her on their wedding day. She wears her wedding gown everyday and the wedding cake rots in the corner of the room she never leaves. Forever, her clocks display the time she learned of her fiancé's flight. She arranges Pip's employ, introduces him to Estella and inspires him to rise above his class.

Dickens connects his characters with outlandish coincidence: Estella is Pip's obsession who spurns all his romantic advances and marries another. She is revealed to be the long lost daughter of the union between his convict patron and the servant of his attorney. Pip's patron's former partner in crime alerts the authorities to his presence in London and is revealed to be the man who purported to defraud the wealthy Miss Havisham out of her fortune and left her at the altar years earlier.

MMX

2010 is fin. Here is a list of the books I read this year:


The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Jack Spratt investigates a Nursery Crime.


Snow by Maxence Fermine

Snow inspires a young haiku poet.


Shades Of Grey by Jasper Fforde

The ability to see color determines social class in Fforde's dystopian future.


Darth Bane: Dynasty Of Evil by Drew Karpyshyn

The final book of the Darth Bane trilogy


For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Robert Jordan requires 400 pages to blow up a bridge.


The Iliad by Homer

Greek v. Trojan


Star Wars: Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp

Time traveling Sith and Jedi.


Fate Of The Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden

A poor debut for Golden in the second of the nine book series.


The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett

The first Discworld novel and/or a mix of purple and orange.


The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

Rincewind and the luggage return in the second Discworld novel.


The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.


Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

There are ghosts in the courtyard of Gateshead and madwomen in the attic of Thornfield.


Mort by Terry Pratchett

Death trains an apprentice because he wants a day off.


Rabbit Redux by John Updike

The second book in the Rabbit Angstrom series.


The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The most fun I had reading a book this year.


The Odyssey by Homer

Odysseus returns home after war.


To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Ramsay family takes as long to reach the lighthouse as Odysseus took to reach Ithaca.


Emma by Jane Austen

A silly girl plays matchmaker.


Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

More children are forced to fight to the death in the sequel to The Hunger Games.


The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Misadventures in the investiture of Prospero's daughter to his former dukedom.


Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Supplants Moby-Dick as the greatest book by an American author.


A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor

A collection of disturbing short stories.


Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

Another collection of disturbing short stories.


The Complete Stories Of Flannery O'Connor by Flannery O'Connor

More short stories.


Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

A novel.


On Writing by Stephen King

A memoir. For those who want to write and need encouragement or permission.


The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor

A disturbing novel.


The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

A children's book.


Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

An audio book.


If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino

My favorite book.


Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

The fourth Discworld novel I read this year.


The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

A three week tour turns into a seven year stay at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps.


V. by Thomas Pynchon

I'm still not sure what this book is about.


The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

A trilogy of mysteries set in New York.


Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

The eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard. The eighth son of a wizard is a sourcerer.


The Stories Of John Cheever by John Cheever

62 stories.


Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike

The third Rabbit Angstrom novel.


The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

A novel based on a video game.


Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.


My Antonia by Willa Cather

Jim Burden narrates his life and friendship with Antonia Shimerda.


Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book one of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. This book was highly recommended to me and was hugely disappointing.


Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The second book by Woolf I read this year.


Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanitas Vanitatum.


Julie And Julia by Julie Powell

Julie Powell cooks all 524 recipes in Mastering The Art Of French Cooking by Julia Child in 365 days.


Eric by Terry Pratchett

Faust on the Discworld.


Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Yossarian plans to live forever or die trying.


Fantastic Alice edited by Margaret Weis

A collection of short stories inspired by Wonderland


Test Of Metal by Matthew Stover

A novel set in the Magic: The Gathering universe by one of my favorite authors.


Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

An honorable man atones for a cowardly act.


Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett parodies Hamlet and Macbeth.


All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Jack Burden narrates his life and friendship with Willie Stark. Behind only Tender Is The Night as the best book I read this year.


Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

The most entertaining of the Discworld novels I read this year.

Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde

I read All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

Willie Stark is a rising star in politics who puts the interests of the people first and is adored in return. But a close encounter with the reality of the political pecking order ends Stark's innocence and transmogrifies him into The Boss.

Stark builds schools and hospitals and runs an impeccable public relations campaign but in political circles he is feared for the ruthless way he handles opposition. Suspect deals that stuff everyone's coffers made in the back rooms of smoky pubs or an unpleasant visit from Sugar Boy, his hyperbolic henchman with a sweet tooth lifted straight from the Dick Tracy comic strip are usually enough to push Stark's agenda through all levels of the state government. However, when the usual avenues of intimidation fail, he turns to his right hand man Jack Burden who digs up the dirt needed to blackmail his opponents into submission.

Jack is aware that The Boss manipulates everyone around him but the rationale for his own service to him is never an issue. Jack left his job as a journalist covering the campaign trail to work directly for The Boss and never looked back. Jack convinces himself that his motives are pure and absolves himself from responsibility for the trail of wrecked lives he leaves in his path while carrying out The Boss's orders.

With his eyes on a Senate seat, The Boss assigns Jack to work his magic on Judge Irwin, a respected man in the community and Jack's biological father, who has thrown his support behind a rival politician named Callahan. That bungled assignment ends in patricide and Jack is immediately thrust into a volatile situation he is unable to disarm involving siblings who were his best friends in childhood: Adam and Anne Stanton. Adam disapproves of Stark's politics but grudgingly accepts a position as Hospital Director from him. Jack secretly pines for his former flame Anne and to his dismay she has joined The Boss's harem. Jealousy drives a rival mistress to form an alliance with one of Stark's ambitious cronies named Tiny Duffy. The powder keg ignites when the cabal informs Adam of his sister's involvement with Stark and the implications of his appointment as Director. The bloodbath that results leaves Stark and Stanton dead and Jack in position to kneel at the feet of the new Emperor.

At Adam Stanton's funeral, Jack is forced to look at himself in the mirror and he doesn't like what he sees. Initially, he is tempted by an act of vengeance that would wrap up the Willie Stark saga with poetic justice and complete his fall to the dark side but he shuns it and lives as happily ever after as he can in the house he inherited when his father killed himself and with the woman who ignited the conflagration that ended Willie Stark's legacy.

Nearly ended:
Stark's son is a local football star who seems destined to follow in his father's footsteps until a sports injury paralyzes him and ultimately kills him. Among several youthful transgressions that precede the injury is a scandal concerning an illegitimate child. The paternity of the child is never proven but a widow pays off the poor, young mother involved and adopts the boy as her own. She names him Willie Stark.


Every summary of this book I read – even the back cover – describes the greatest American political novel about Willie Stark's rise to power and his eventual corruption. I read a different book. My copy of All The King's Men isn't about politics. It isn't even about Willie Stark. It is about Jack Burden. Stark's machinations exist in the periphery of Jack's story. It is he who is corrupted in service to Stark.

Danse Macabre

I read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

With one hand, the magical Mann misdirects the reader's eyes with diatribe from an eclectic group of characters and with the other hand he performs the trick: weaving fairy tale, art, theater and the number seven into his tale of the everyman.

Hans Castorp visits a sanatorium high in the mountains. His cousin introduces him to strangers who disdain the flatlands and sleep to treat their illnesses. Hans intends to visit only three weeks but his stay stretches to years.

Patients are encouraged to pursue hobbies beyond high brow discussion of philosophy. Photography becomes a fad until management bans it because of an accidental fire. Card games become popular around the time that Castorp's doctor concocts a new treatment for his pseudo illness: a vaccine derived from Castorp's own blood. Admittedly, this serum will have no negative or positive effect.

Castorp's cousin petitions his physician for dismissal and returns to the flatlands but Hans has drunk the Kool-Aid and decides to stay.

A newcomer named Peeperkorn stirs excitement at the commune. He excessively parties, incites debates on religion, thrills the ladies and commits suicide. He drew crowds at dinners but his passing is barely noted.

Castorp's cousin returns to the sanatorium and resigns himself to the treatment he receives but he has lost faith in its effectiveness. He goes through the motions of the rest cures but soon dies. At a sitting with a medium, Hans contacts his dead cousin on the other side. Hans is troubled by the encounter and after a disagreement between friends leads to a pistol duel with the most unexpected finish in the history of literature, the narrative glosses over five to six years of Castorp's stay in a hand full of pages and he is last depicted charging across the battlefield of World War I.

The Eternal City

I read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Using Kafka-esque characters and conflict, Heller relates the cost – in young lives – of war.

Major Major Major Major

A man whose rank, first, middle and last name are Major takes his meals in private, refuses to see anyone and jumps out his back window when he has a visitor.

Doc Daneeka

Doc Daneeka's name erroneously appears on the flight manifest of a plane that crashes. This letter is sent to his wife:

Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka:
Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action.

Mrs. Daneeka collects more than one life insurance policy and receives other benefits because of her husband's supposed death. At the base, Daneeka's squadron mates ignore him and he pilfers food because being dead disentitles him to eat in the mess hall with the enlisted men.

Milo

Milo is an entrepreneur who uses government resources to smuggle food and manages to turn a profit despite impossible odds: he buys eggs at seven cents apiece and sells them at five cents apiece. His endeavors are so successful that grateful cities elect him mayor. The savvy importer/exporter is widely revered, holds positions of state in many countries and demigod status in primitive cultures.

Lieutenant Scheisskopf

Scheisskopf cannot hold parades but is allowed to schedule and cancel them. It is better if he doesn't schedule the parade at all then posts a notice that it has been postponed. It looks like this:

Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no big parade this Sunday afternoon.

Yossarian

Yossarian fakes illnesses to avoid flying. When he is forced to fly, he doesn't care if he hits his target or not as long as he makes it back alive. He wants to go home but must first complete a mandatory number of missions. Unfortunately, each time he approaches the magic number it is raised.


Each chapter of Catch-22 gets its title from the character who is dominantly featured in it. Yossarian – the main character of the book – must wait until the final chapter for his.

The book's thesis can be found in a passage from one of the final chapters. While on leave in Rome, a soldier named Aarfy kills a young woman by throwing her out a window. Yossarian admonishes his dumbstruck friend as the police knock down the door: “You can't take the life of another human being and get away with it, even if she is just a poor servant girl. Don't you see? Can't you understand?” Heller hopes the reader will. But, in the nonsense world these characters inhabit, Aarfy is not arrested for killing the girl. Instead, Yossarian is punished for being in Rome without a pass.

He refuses to fly more missions and is told he can go home.

Of course, there is a catch.

A mercy killing, or murder most foul?

I read Rabbit Is Rich, the third novel in the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy by John Updike.

Inflation, the Iran hostage crisis and the unquiet dead dominate Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom's life in 1979. Ten years after man landed on the moon, Harry has reconciled with his wife Janice and inherited a pre-owned car lot from her father. In addition to his father-in-law, the swelling number of dead include his mom and pop, a girl named Jill who didn't escape Harry's burning house in Rabbit Redux, a drifter called Skeeter whose obituary reaches Harry by mysterious means and the one that haunts him the most: Rebecca, his infant daughter who drowned in a bath tub in Rabbit, Run.

A visitor to the lot sends Harry on a search for his daughter from an extramarital affair and his son returns from college with a secret and a desire to go into the family business.

Amid political, economical and familial turmoil, Rabbit invests wisely, plays golf with his rich buddies, vacations in the Caribbean and is happy, perhaps for the first time, with his marriage.

I've read the first two Rabbit novels by John Updike: Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux. Rich is the best of the three. It won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction in the year I was born.

MMVIII

2008 was great. Here is a list of the books I read that year:


Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

War And Peace is his most famous work but this is his best. I recommend the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.


Rebel Agent by William C. Dietz

I bought this at a bargain book store. Poorly written and illustrated.


Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut

Another solid collection of short stories, letters and essays.


The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hestor Prynn wears an A.


Wampeters, Foma And Granfalloons by Kurt Vonnegut

A collection of short stories from a master of the form.


Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry

That's no moon.


A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce

Joyce is the young artist.


Fates Worse Than Death by Kurt Vonnegut

There are many.


Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A diagram of the mind of a killer.


The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

A duo lie, cheat and steal.


Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut

A collection of short stories.


Stay Mad For Life by Jim Cramer

Booyah! Jim.


God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut's first of two beginning with God Bless You.


Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut

Narrowly misses Vonnegut's top 5 best.


The Red And The Black by Stendhal

The military or the church.


Legacy Of The Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss

The penultimate novel in the nine book series.


Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich

Students fleece casinos out of millions.


Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

A 999 line poem with commentary.


Ulysses by James Joyce

What Leopold Bloom did on June 16, 1904.


Legacy Of The Force: Invincible by Troy Denning

The finale of the nine book series.


Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut writes a play.


Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Another great one from my favorite author.


Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The horror.


King Lear by William Shakespeare

Beneficiaries squabble over an inheritance and most everyone ends up dead.


The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

My introduction to Hemingway. The titular old man perseveres but doesn't exactly overcome futility.


Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley

Classic sci-fi.


Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight by Michael Reaves

Jedi-noir.


Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The funniest and greatest novel I read this year.


Silver: My Own Tale As Written By Me With A Goodly Amount Of Murder by Edward Chupack

Long John sends us on another treasure hunt. This time the clues are more cryptic.


The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Don't panic.


The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe by Douglas Adams

Make your reservations early.


The Alchemist by Paul Coehlo

A young man searches for his personal legend and realizes it was where he started.


Life, The Universe And Everything by Douglas Adams

The answer is 42.


The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams

A novelization of the video game.


So Long And Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams

A farewell message from the dolphins.


Coruscant Nights: Street Of Shadows by Michael Reaves

The further adventures of Jax Pavan, Jedi Knight turned private detective.


Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Locke Lamora on the high seas.


The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

There are three *maybe four* of them. Which one murdered Daddy K?


The Stranger by Albert Camus

Killing An Arab.


Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

The final, completed Hitchhiker's Guide novel from Adams.


The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss

Better than the movie, but that's not saying much.


Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The only thing more meteoric than Macbeth's rise is his fall.


Paradise Lost by John Milton

An adaptation of the Creation with new characters and attempted insight into the motives of Lucifer.


The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Read this next time you think you're having a bad day.


Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover

The third Acts Of Caine novel.


The Lark's Lament by Alan Gordon

A Fool's Guild mystery.


Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The third book by Dostoevsky I read this year.


Millennium Falcon by James Luceno

A diagram of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.

Humpty Dumpty

I read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

Auster refused to pare his ideas to one story.

So: he wrote three.


City Of Glass

Quinn writes mystery novels under the pseudonym William Wilson. One night, he receives a phone call intended for the private detective Paul Auster. He pretends to be Auster and accepts the case.

Many years ago, a man named Peter Stillman locked his infant son in a room for more than ten years as part of a psychological experiment based on a wingnut theory about the Tower of Babel and universal language. Unhappy with the results, he set the house on fire. His son was saved and Peter Stillman went to prison.

Stillman is released and it is Quinn's job to protect the son – also named Peter Stillman (maybe) – from his father. Quinn tails Peter Stillman, Sr. as he wanders aimlessly around the city, picking up trash. More than once, Quinn engages Stillman, claiming to be Henry Dark or his son Peter. He researches Stillman's work, invents patterns in Stillman's wanderings and records it all in a red notebook. When Stillman, Sr. disappears, Quinn stakes out Stillman, Jr.'s residence to protect him. Refusing to abandon his post, Quinn barely eats, rarely sleeps, doesn't bathe or shave and slowly loses his mind. When Peter Stillman, Jr. disappears too, Quinn reaches out to the real Paul Auster, who turns out to be the author Paul Auster and not the private detective Paul Auster and is unable to help. Quinn enters the Stillman's abandoned residence and finishes filling his red notebook before disappearing himself. Paul Auster finds the notebook and gives it to an unnamed individual who is the fictional author of City Of Glass.


Ghosts

White hires the private detective Blue to watch Black through the window of his building. Day after day, Black sits at a desk, reads and writes in a notebook. Blue watches him, tails him whenever he leaves and writes a daily report that he delivers by post to White. Black and Blue are mirrors of each other and – to the detriment of Blue's fragile psyche – their identities merge. Frustrated with his job and unsure of his employer's motives, Blue begins wearing disguises to talk to Black. White writes Blue to back off but Blue sneaks into Black's room and steals some of his papers. To his dismay, the pages he recovers are his own. He returns to Black's room and discovers Black is really White. Black/White wears a mask, wields a gun and threatens to kill himself and Blue. Blue struggles with White, overpowers him, beats him unconscious, takes all his writings and leaves. He returns to his room, reads his own story and provides its ending by leaving the room.


The Locked Room

Fanshawe disappears. A private detective named Quinn declares him dead after a lengthy, fruitless investigation. Obeying Fanshawe's wishes, his widow entrusts a friend with a closet full of unpublished writings. Being a writer himself, he recognizes his late friend's literary genius and publishes his novels and poems posthumously to critical acclaim. He marries Fanshawe's widow and adopts his son. One day, he receives a letter from Fanshawe – who is alive! – thanking him for taking care of his wife and son and warning him to never try to find him. Ignoring the request, he proposes to write a book about Fanshawe's life and uses his research into Fanshawe's past as a ruse to track his movements. In Paris, he loses his mind but finds a man named Peter Stillman whom he believes to be Fanshawe and suffers a beating at his hands that brings him to his senses. He returns to his wife and receives another letter: this time Fanshawe wants to meet. At a vacant house, he has locked himself in a room with a gun and threatens to kill himself and anyone who enters. He reveals the mystery of his missing years and delivers a red notebook to his friend which he says is the culmination of his work.


Private detectives, pseudonyms, insanity, red notebooks and merging identities appear in all three stories which are really the same story told three ways. The Locked Room is the most viable, Ghosts has the most potential and while the recurring characters and themes are engaging, none have a satisfying ending. Auster raises questions and presents mysteries but never provides answers or resolutions.

In the final pages of The Locked Room, Auster – perhaps with a wink – provides analysis of his trilogy by describing the contents of Fanshawe's red notebook:

If I say nothing about what I found there, it is because I understood very little. All the words were familiar to me, and yet they seemed to have been put together strangely, as though their final purpose was to cancel each other out ... Each sentence erased the sentence before it, each paragraph made the next paragraph impossible ... He had answered the question by asking another question, and therefore everything remained open, unfinished, to be started again.

The Locked Room closes with each page torn from the red notebook and dropped in a trash bin. Perhaps my copy of The New York Trilogy should join it there. Auster presents two entertaining theories about the Tower of Babel and Don Quixote that deserve a second look but everything else is rubbish.

I've read one other book by Paul Auster: Travels In The Scriptorium. In it, an aging author is imprisoned in his mind by the characters from his stories. Like The New York Trilogy, Auster builds suspense with mastery but struggles with the denouement. His questions are consistently more satisfying than his answers.

But Here There Is No Light

I read Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald spent nearly ten years of his life writing this novel and it shows. He does not waste a page. A tender moment when Dick Diver receives news of his father's death or a simple exchange between him and his young son while he shaves before dressing for work can be mined for insight. I was intrigued by Fitzgerald's use of rainstorms at two key moments: once when Dick and Nicole first kiss and again when Dick kisses his mistress Rosemary (the actress who shuns fame, yet whom everyone recognizes from her role in 'Daddy's Girl.')

Dr. Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are introduced among the carefree, affluent, idle and bored who laze in the sun, swim and attend parties at the Riviera. But Nicole is a recovering schizo and the good Doctor feels intensely inferior because it is his wife's wealth that bankrolls their extravagant lifestyle.

The secret of NIMH is revealed when the narrative flashes back to Dick and Nicole's first encounter. The nonlinear storytelling initially disorients but the novel hits its stride once the characters are familiar and the disjointed plot concatenates. The book is presented in three parts and the second might be the finest piece of writing ever put to paper.

Everyone believes Nicole is an eyelash away from another psychotic break but she flashes more moments of self-awareness than those close to her give her credit for and her redux coincides with her increasingly estranged husband's descent into bitterness and alcoholism.

Diver's heavy drinking and embarrassingly bad behavior (he starts a fight with a cabbie over fare and punches the plain clothes detective that arrests him) reach critical level when a patient being treated for alcoholism at his clinic complains about the 90-proof doctor. His partner ousts him and he retreats to the Riviera for a final rendezvous with Rosemary who has outgrown him. Nicole no longer needs him, either, so the diminished Diver wanders aimlessly and unsuccessfully, aged and alone.