The Age of Reason
So.. here's how I resolve to live my life:
Live every day with the aim of maximizing that given moment's happiness (without indulging in anything which is illegal, or hurts others) and do not try to make your thoughts conform to any pre-conceived/ defined patterns... notions etc.. you get the drift, right? I know this seems kind of out of context here, but I reached this resolution while I was reading The Age of Reason. And I thought perhaps this is my interim resolution while I wait to attain the Age of Reason.Okk so about the book.. even though I am sure there were parts of the book I did not understand completely, I loved it. I am not sure why I liked it so much though. It could be because of the very honest assessment of the character's feelings and their personalities.. it created such a vivid
image that you could almost feel it.. makes it easy to relate to the real world too (even though the book is set in late 1930'a Paris, the time or place does not prevent it from applying to general human emotions)
I also liked the fact that unlike philiosophy books in general, which assumes you have a philosophy and english teacher at your disposal to explain everything to you.. this one was an easy read. You could even read it just for the story, without dwelling too much on the philosophical angles... and thats commedable I feel.
Next, there were some really good lines that I liked... "Friendship does not exist to criticize, its function is to inspire confidence" "Thats what existence means: draining one's own self dry, without the sense of thirst" "All this was so natural, so normal, so monotonous. It was enough to fill a life. It was life." "Youth is fantastic, so vivid on the surface. But no feeling inside it." "Your sister's taste is bad, but its better than impeccable good taste - its profoundly bad taste"
About the characters: Mathieu: The central character of the story. I loved this charater. The book reveals how different people perceive him or expect him to be and at the same time as the reader, you know what he thinks about him self. He is extremely self aware and also very perceptive of what people around him are thinking... He has moments when he realizes he's been living in a false belief of freedom and has been waiting (perhaps too long) for the moment to escape... "He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from beind: all thirty-four of them. He ought to have taken his decision at twenty five." " He thought, "I am no longer waiting. I have cleared myself into a being that cando nothing but wait. I am now empty, it is true, but I am waiting for nothing" At the end of the book he tells himself "It's true, its absolutely true: I have attained the Age of Reason" You can not help feeling sorry for him as he is left with nothing. "Free" in Daniel's words, but Mathieu realizes all too well that in the quest for freedom he had lost what he really cared for.
It was all for nothing!
Boris and Ivich: I've clubbed the two because they seem to share an inherent desire to be one individual in two bodies.
They also share a lot of common charateristics:
They both have a fear of getting old and imagine that life should end after 30. They live in their own romanticized worlds with strong pre-conceived notions of how one should act, think, feel, etc in order to be completely "free". In a way that is a self defeating thought process! and just emphasizes that they are still discovering themselves and probably want to be "free just as they would follow a fashion trend.
They do however in some respects have very opposite views on Mathieu.Boris views him with respect and admiration.. as "free". But he does not aspire to be like Mathieu. He views Mathieu as only a stage in his
life and feels that once Mathieu has served his purpose in Boris' life, he must be forgotten. Again, thats how he wants himself to think. Over and over again its clear that there are few natural thoughts in his mind. Most of them are forced by his notion of what is the ideal thought. Ivich on the other hand pretends to hate Mathieu while she constantly seeks comfort in his company, more so in moments of distress. She
"acts" in order to ensure that she is brutal and cold to Mathieu, probably driven by the fact that Mathieu makes no attempt to hide his affection for her. Its like the very fact that his affection for her is out there in the open, drives Ivich to act indifferent towards him. On two instances she lets her gaurd down and expresses her affection for Mathieu, but retracts into her shell even more quickly.
Marcelle: Mathieu's mistress.. The victim (of circumstances or her own doings, I'm not sure).
What gets to you about her is her hollow and weak personality. While all the other charaters share common threads in their personality, she's the most different. She's a mere mortal in the world of the free souls of Mathieu, Boris, Ivich, Daniel... She's been Mathieu's mistress for seven years and yet does not have the courage to voice her own opinions and gets harried when Mathieu (unknowingly or probably pretending to be ignorant) assumes that she agree's with his beliefs. Her innocence or pehaps feeble mindedness also makes her an accomplice in Daniel's plans to revenge on Mathieu.
Daniel: Perhaps the most complex character in the book. Or may be I just could not understand him properly. He is not free from the worldly emotions
of hatred, love, and therefore Mathieu's impervious personality and eternally calm exterior gets to him and is probably the cause of his hatred for him. Throughout the story he plots and conspires to ruin Mathieu's life and destroy his freedom. In the end he goes meet Mathieu, just to see his solid exterior break and feel satisfied. That is the only moment when he does not hate Mathieu. Coming back to his complex personality, his personality has traits of both narcissism and sadomasochism (I just learnt that this was a word,
a combination of sadism and masochism. One one hand, he hates himself - to the point being suicidal. But lacks the courage to afflict pain on to himself directly, so he goes about iin rather cruel ways.. for instance, he thought of drowning his cats as a punishment to himself. Even that he could not carry out. Which leads us to his love for himself! He has immense confidence in his good looks and charming personality.
There are other charaters in the book.. I dont have much to write about them..
All in all a good read. I am pretty sure I will read the other 2 in the trilogy soon :)
