Wheels Within Wheels

In the lobby of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY there’s a fun piece of art that’s just perfect to stare at for a few minutes while waiting in line to get in to your movie.  It’s one of those complicated Rube Goldberg contraptions in which balls enter at the top and make their way through a fascinating series of ramps, levers, see-saws, etc. and end up at the bottom, only to be reinserted at the top.  You can’t help but be intrigued by how each little part of the mechanism works.  The variety seems endless, and the rhythms and counter rhythms set up by all the balls bouncing through the different parts at the same time is very entertaining.  Well, at least for a few minutes while you’re waiting for your movie.

That’s my overall impression of The Luminaries, this year’s Booker prize winner from Eleanor Catton.  At 830 pages, it's one of those big ones that require a tray table on an airplane.  Would probably be a good candidate for reading on an e-reader.  There’s nothing special about the hard copy except that I found the font to be a little light and hard to read after a while. Catton combines an old-fashioned complicated story with some newfangled concepts:

Old:  A real plot which is revealed to the reader gradually, point by point, through the entire book.  Lots of characters that are well differentiated from each other. A striking opening scene that does recall Dickens, at least in spirit.  A trial scene.  A love interest.  A who-done-it mystery. Lots of assumed names and legal documents. And a touch of the supernatural, a la Wilkie Collins.

New: The plot does not unfold chronologically, but rather the narration jumps around in time, and follows a complex astrological sequence of precession.  While the book is divided into chapters, the length of the chapters is carefully controlled.  The first is 360 pages.  The last is less than a page, and there’s a logical (in this case mathematical?) progression from the length of the first to the length of the last.

The story takes place in the New Zealand gold rush of the mid 19^th century.  It’s not a period I know much about, and that held some interest for me.  But except for the Asian influence (a few Chinese characters and a major role played by opium) and the obvious British flavor of it all, it all seems familiar from accounts of the California and Alaska/Yukon gold rushes from about the same time:  the chance to start one’s life again in a new place with new opportunities, the makeshift amenities, the greed, the improvised and fickle sense of law, the corruption, the alcohol and prostitution, the eccentric characters, the impermanence of it all.

We enter the outer layer of the plot at a point close to the end of the chronology, as it turns out.  We gradually follow the wheel around into inner wheels, and then into inner inner wheels.  The mechanism is fascinating and complex.  It’s fun to see the tiny pieces fall into place one by one.  There are clues skillfully dropped here and there, and also some blind alleys that end up going nowhere.

But the writing itself is disappointing.  It doesn’t have the sharp wit and playful exaggerations of Dickens, nor the other-worldly glow of Wilkie Collins.  It comes across to me as imitative and bland.  There just isn't much beauty or interest in the words themselves.

And the plot?  Well, there are many many characters, and while Catton does differentiate them pretty well, I just didn’t really care about any of them.  They're elements in a complex mechanism and are essentially controlled by the mechanism.   I guess the clockwork itself is the point?  Consider, for example, the love interest.  There are two characters very much in love.  Their love is very deep, even supernaturally so.  But one of these characters doesn’t actually appear until near the end of the book, and the scene in which they fall in love, while we know vaguely of it early in the book, Catton only describes it near the end, and even there she tells us what we need to know to understand the machinery.  There’s no glow, no attraction, no human interest.  The interest is the mechanism itself.  It almost feels like the machinery and the artificial structural rules are in charge.  The result is interesting, but quite detached and ultimately (for me) unsatisfying.  Not nearly enough to keep me happily engaged through 830 pages.  I ended up not caring a whit about the astrology or the strict structure because I didn’t really care about the characters or the writing.

How different is Murakami’s 1Q84, a book of about the same length.  The plot is also complex (albeit in different ways), it unfolds in an interesting fashion, and there is a love story at the center of it all.  But here we really care about the characters, and the love story packs an enormous emotional wallop.  Yes of course Murakami is a different sort of author with different ideas about writing and different goals.  But I still find the comparison useful.

The piece on the wall at the Jacob Burns is fun to look at for a while, but after a few minutes of waiting in line you have your movie.  With The Luminaries, that’s it.  That’s all she wrote.

Austerity

The latest Paul Auster memoir, Report from the Interior, disappointed me.  He’s such an innovative writer I expected something more striking.  It’s a book in three parts.  The first is about his boyhood.  The second is about two Hollywood movies and the influence they had on him as a boy.  The third, and by far the most interesting, quotes letters from him to Lydia Davies from his twenties.  Davies (a prominent and important novelist and translator in her own right, winner of the 2013 Mann Booker International Prize) was his girlfriend at the time.  They would marry later.  Some notable passages from the letters:

‘. . . to get going again, to write, you must meditate, in the real sense of the word. Honest, painful. Then the hidden things will come out. You must forget the everyday Lydia, your sister’s Lydia, your parents’ Lydia, Paul’s Lydia – but then you will be able to come back to them, without loss of inspiration next time. It’s not that the two worlds are incompatible, but that you must realize their interconnections.’

 

The Book of Illusions is one of my all-time favs.

‘He <a friend> spoke of order, precision, limited tasks, I of chaos, life and imperfection, unable to agree with him about the imminent annihilation of the individual. For me the problem of the world is first of all a problem of the self, and the solution can be accomplished only be beginning within and then . . . moving without. Expression, not mastery is the key. <He>, I believe, is still too much of a critic, too absorbed in abstractions that are not counterbalanced by the brute facts of gastral pains. Stick to life, I say. I will make it my motto. Do you agree? Stick to life, no matter how fantastical, repulsive, or agonizing. Above all freedom. Above all dirtying your hands.  . . . I saw that I had once and for all broken the bond with … academic prattle, with the seduction of neat ideas, with literature spelled with a capital L, elegantly embossed in fancy leather bindings.’

The memoir is written in the second person, which gives it an almost eerie personal tone. Knowing more about his literary pedigree does make me respect him more. Nonetheless I was hoping for more. 

Second Hand

Love used bookstores.  So many authors from the recent past fall out of favor and just don’t make it on to my radar.  They’re not discussed much in the periodicals and blogs I read, and their books aren’t available in the usual bookstores. Often it’s the generation or two before the current one that is most ignored.  Those writers seem so old and passé, often trite, and why read what we’re so busy reacting against? But in used bookstores I often come across authors whose names I recognize, and I might know a little something of their reputation, but I've never read a word. 

John O'Hara 1905-1970

A recent find: a collection of 26 short stories, Assembly, by John O’Hara.  It was originally published in 1960.  About half of the stories had appeared in The New Yorker.  The others were new.  Over 200 of his stories were published in The New Yorker, starting in 1928.  That’s a remarkable achievement that may never be duplicated.  I didn’t start reading The New Yorker until the 70’s (O’Hara died in 1970), so I entirely missed his long run there.

Most striking to me is O’Hara’s incredibly sensitive ear for dialogue.  Many of the stories are just about all dialogue, almost screenplays in essence. It’s amazing how in what passes for a literal transcription of a conversation O’Hara can deliver so much information about character, social and economic status, and state of mind.  I’m not at all sure how he manages it.  Rereading some of the stories I realize that though the dialogue reads with a natural flow, it’s not actually very natural.  People really don’t talk like that (true also of many plays).  But nonetheless it seems absolutely true-to-life.  That takes talent and effort.

The stories that are more plot driven were for me less pleasing ('In a Grove', 'The Free').  My favorites are more static, a snapshot in time rendered through conversation.  'Call Me, Call Me' is just two conversations (hence the title), that’s all.  The similarities and differences between the two conversations are fascinating.

'Weakness' is a telling portrait of a boxer, and 'In The Silence' is a stunning depiction of veteran with what we would now call PTSD. 

Now that we’re so wrapped up in avoiding ‘realism’ with all kinds of literary devices, subterfuge, and yes sometimes gimmicks, it is instructive to read someone from a few generations ago how mastered an old-fashioned approach to realistic storytelling.  I’m reminded that it’s not in fact very realistic.  It’s perhaps just as artificial, just as carefully constructed and balanced and hence unnatural.  But it’s better at concealing the artifice, and quite a bit less self-conscious.  The writer isn’t calling attention to himself quite so directly, and he’s not trotting out techniques with the self-satisfied smile of a young magician that has just learned a new trick.  But it’s just as artful in a more modest, less obvious way.

True, today new and experimental non-mainstream fiction is much more accessible than 40 years ago.  But if reading eventually becomes all digital, what will become of the used bookstore?  With nothing new being printed, will the trickle-down process from new to used eventually dry up completely? How will we discover these worthy authors who just don’t get much exposure in today’s world?  I hope the work of writers like O’Hara will be somewhere for readers to stumble across. Fifty years from now the works of many of today’s hot young writers may well dwell in similar obscurity. Where will we find them?

Holy Hialeah, Batman!!!

The latest Tom Wolfe is, well, Tom Wolfe.  Back to Blood isn’t short, and it can’t and shouldn’t be taken seriously.  It reads like a comic book, and it’s lots of fun.  The overall plot isn’t particularly interesting or believable, but each chapter is a set piece, like a scene in a play.  Each  has a setup and a dramatic (often overly dramatic) climax.  The language is action packed and over the top, but not in any pretentious way. Lots of all-caps, made up words to represent sounds, some profanity, plenty of exclamation points … you get the picture.  You can’t even take the character names seriously. There’s a minor character, a fat man, whose last name is Belli.  Another minor character is a stylist, i.e. makeup artist, named is Maria Zitspoppen. 

 

A real circus: and here's the ringmaster.

Many of Wolfe’s pet peeve issues reappear in the book: the fakery (in Wolfe’s view) of most modern art, violent clashes between races and economic strata, ignorance in high places, selfishness that masquerades as charity, lust that presents as professional expertise.  It’s all on display here, and in Technicolor.

The story takes place in Miami, and just as Bonfire of theVanities was in one sense a portrait of New York City at that time, this is a portrait of today’s Miami.  And it’s not a pretty picture.  As usual, it’s pretty much a catalog of The Seven Deadly Sins, with a few more tossed in for good measure.  Don’t look here for any real heroes, or any relationships between characters that might be generous and loving. That would be far outside the purview of Wolfe’s intensely cynical outlook. Or for that matter don’t look for any complexity or depth in these characters either.

But here and there there’s a wink from the author, as if he’s silently and slyly admitting to us that he’s exaggerating, that it really isn’t so bad, that he’s just doing his best to entertain us.  So read it with a smile.  Bring on the dancing bear, the chorus girls, the strong man, the dwarf, and the incredible fire eater.  There’s plenty of evil to go around, but in the end it’s pretty much harmless comic-book evil.  Gosh, if any of this were truly believable there really is no hope.  I’ll go with the wink, thank you.

A Gem

I knew Jeannette Haien when I worked at The Mannes College of Music in the 1970’s and 80’s. She was one of the strongest forces on the piano faculty at that time. She had few students, but she chose wisely. Her presence on a jury was formidable; indeed she was not always an amiable colleague. She demanded respect, and she could be very abrasive if she thought she wasn’t getting her full share. Over the years she helped to form some big talents, but her role was always a bit controversial. I respected her judgment and her taste even as I feared her scorn and dreaded having to cross her. There was only one Jeannette; yes there was probably only room for one Jeanette Haien on the planet.

Jeanette Haien

I do remember vaguely that she had published something close to when I left the school, but at that time I paid little attention. So last week I got to wondering what had happened to Jeanette and I was sad to discover that she had died in 2008; but I was happy to learn that she had published two novels, and I quickly acquired copies of both. The All of It is the first, published initially in 1986 when Jeanette was in her sixties.  I have no idea how someone could publish a first novel of this quality at that age.  She was an accomplished musician and teacher.  Where from this skill with words, literary form, dialect, structure, and character?  These are techniques that writers develop over decades, but Jeanette published this gem late in life seemingly from out of nowhere.

It’s a compact novel, traditional in structure; it takes place in Ireland.  Yes, there’s a priest and also some mysterious racy conduct. But this is a book with great regard for both literary and cultural tradition.  No modern touches here, no tricks, no self-referential mirrors.  But there is great beauty of language, and much subtlety in morality and human values.  The language recalls Banville minus his modern touches. The brevity makes the narration riveting. Once you get a bit into the 140 pages you’ll read it straight through.  I was both captivated and moved. This is one of those side lines that spin off from the main railroad line of literary evolution.  It probably won’t lead anywhere important in the future; rather it looks back to other times, other places, other techniques.  I’m glad to have it with us.

Jeanette, I understand from this book that I knew only small parts of you.  My loss. But I’m glad to have read your first novel, and I look forward to reading the second (and last) novel as well.  Your teaching continues.

Is Hollywood Listening? Bollywood? Anywood?

When Aravind Adiga’s first novel, The White Tiger, won the Booker Prize in 2008 I read it with high expectations, and for the most part I was not disappointed. It’s high energy fiction that is both serious and dark.  So his second novel, Last Man in Tower, has been on my list for a while. Having just finished the latest Lahiri I decided to stay in India for a bit longer and see what Adiga has been up to.

One aspect of Mumbai

Again, it’s high energy.  The hustle and bustle of modern Mumbai jostle the reader along on every page.  And that aspect I did enjoy. Economic development against the backdrop of colonialism, extreme poverty, diverse religious traditions, and deep-seated corruption are jarring, but both the voltage and the financial stakes are high.  Nonetheless this book is not nearly as dark as his first. I didn’t feel the same power of potential violence around every corner nor did I ever feel threatened in any way. It’s a modern tale that weaves together historical forces, individual idiosyncrasies, historical baggage, and old-fashioned storytelling. We do sense the outcome from the outset.

Another

Here, the real protagonist is modernization. It has its own momentum, and all characters pale alongside its brilliance.  It’s an unstoppable force, and the real interest is in how various individuals react. Some accommodate, some resist, some abdicate, some flourish. But it is unstoppable, and the inevitability is the only scary part here. It will happen, like it or not.  You can laugh (there are many funny passages); you can cry. Choose your stance in reaction; place your bet. But the country will careen forward even without a carefully charted course. That momentum is the one truth that cannot be questioned; it is today’s faith in India.

In essence the story and the narrative technique are very traditional.  The characters are not especially memorable, mostly because the writing is not unexceptional and fairly shallow. But I do think this book could make a very good movie.  With the right director and good casting this would be fabulous cinema.  The high energy would push the movie along from scene to scene, and the quirky characters could provide lots of foreground interest. This Is more Slumdog Millionaire than The Lowland. 

I hope Adiga feels empowered to move towards a more serious literary approach in his next book. There were plenty of signs in the first book that indicate he’s fully capable of it. This book is a bit of a step back.  A good read, but not the forward progress I had hoped for.

A Canadian Thanksgiving

Thank you, Nobel Committee.  Alice Munro, Nobel Laureate. Finally.

Alfred Nobel.  Made his fortune in explosives.

So gratifying to see that a writer who has devoted her career to cultivating a relatively small bit of land exquisitely well has finally been recognized with the biggest prize of all. Yes, it may be a bit old-fashioned, but her prose is exquisite and sparse, and there are many doses of truly modern thought hidden within. The space between the words is just as important as the words themselves. What's not said is crucial.

And no ego.

Speaking of ego, when will Philip Roth be recognized by the Swedes? So often we (they) get things wrong. As Roth put it in American Pastoral:

'You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we  all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive; we're strong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well lucky you.'

Alas, Nobel Committee, you got one right this year, but your track record leaves quite a bit to be desired. You are in good company.

Broken Ties

Jhumpa Lahiri has always excelled at depicting both the value of close human connections and the inevitable pain when those connections are broken. Sometimes the cause of the break is a geographical move, hence she writes often about those who move across the globe to start a new life. Sometimes the break is brought about by a more personal change or failure.  Nonetheless the pain is real and the loss palpable. And when the fractures compound one another the losses build over time and the effects deepen to the point of irrevocability.

Her latest novel, TheLowland, contains more breakage than can be inventoried here. Invaluable relationships are shattered by circumstance, by intent, bu politics, by individual shortcomings. Most of the damage is never repaired, but in fascinating ways the characters each react in their own way.  One continues to invest in new connections, sometimes not so wisely, but always with an open heart and good intent.  Others never heal, remain closed forever, and reflect and inflect their own pain on their peers and on subsequent generations. 

Lahiri. Part of a truly international generation of writers.

The writing is straightforward and effective.  No pyrotechnics here, just good old-fashioned well edited affecting prose.  If there are few outstanding gems to be found,

there are many pleasing semi-precious stones scattered throughout.  And, maybe more importantly there are very few real clunkers.  The result is a moving if rather pessimistic book that shows us over and over again how difficult it is to protect even our most valuable relationships.  The prevailing feeling from the book is the long-term dull pain that comes from those losses. There is hope. We can move forward and strive to make new connections, we can try to heal and minimize the pain, but we are all inevitably deeply scarred.

Interesting that a book with such a dark message can be both moving and uplifting.  My own personal circumstances involve some major recent personal upheavals, so I could easily relate to Lahiri’s characters. But I was not depressed by the book at all.  I took some comfort in knowing that others experience pain similar to my own, and that some do manage to move forward in deeply meaningful ways. Others don’t.  There are lessons to be learned there.

We'll Always Have Beijing

This summer I enjoyed my first visit to China, a week in Beijing and the surrounding countryside.  So glad to have made the trip; not sure I’ll be going back soon.

The Forbidden City.  The scale is hard to show in a photo.

It really is another planet.  Pollution, over-crowding, odd foods, capitalism gone wild:  it’s the wild, wild west all over again.  But also strong cultural traditions and confidence, really good food, and a positive attitude about the future that probably will conquer all in the long run.

We did get to see The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace, two important sites in Chinese history, so I thought I should honor that experience by reading a little about it.  Anchee Min’s Empress Orchid is the first half of the story of Tzu Hsi, an important figure in late 19^th-century and early 20^th century Chinese political history.  Shes was the controversial Dowager Empress that essentially ruled the country for many years. She lived in The Forbidden City, and The Summer Palace as we see it today exists in its present form because of her.

The Summer Palace

It is incredibly difficult to bridge the cultural gap between American and Chinese cultures.  Maybe even impossible.  This book is a valiant attempt.  We learn that power plays in The Forbidden city many years ago are essentially the same as those today in The White House today. And the privileged life enjoyed by the Emperor’s family had its own hardships, both physical and emotional.

The Great Wall. Yes, it is great.

Nonetheless it should be said that this is not great writing.  The historical research is all too obvious, and the prose is often clunky and rarely pleasing.  The story itself is interesting, though I’m not sure it makes a satisfying book.  But such is the lot of historical fiction; you don’t get to contrive the larger plot. It is what it is, and you have to do your best to make an appealing book out of it.  Not sure this one entirely succeeds.  I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t visited China the book would have left me cold.  But I did make the visit, and that’s why I read it.

Beijing is one of the few large Chinese cities to preserve significant historical sites.  It’s not Hong Kong or Shanghai.  It’s not just another international city with skyscrapers and incredible shopping.  It is the site of a huge piece of history, and it’s there for us.  Enjoy it if you can.  I highly recommend a visit.  It’s available to us now and the sites are accessible.  Who knows how long that will be the case?

Schumann Fantasy in C Major, op17

Ever since I first heard the Clifford Curzon recording many years ago, this piece has held a special place in my heart.  I was also privileged to hear Curzon teach the piece in a a master class in France in 1972.  I find it to be one of the most enigmatic pieces in the repertoire.  It lives in the guise of a traditional three-movement large-form piece for piano solo, but it is anything but traditional. Some aspects are truly bizarre, almost supernatural. The irrationality, yes insanity of it all is apparent, as is the searing talent at its core, as well as the incredible innovation in its composition. Stunningly, even disturbingly inventive, it contains some of the most beautiful pianistic inventions of all time, and also some of the most unusual juxtapositions and transitions.  It’s a piece that can’t be easily categorized, but it’s an important part of the canon of the Romantic solo piano repertoire.

All of the formal flaws of the piece can be excused in the light of its remarkable inventiveness, spontaneity, and most of all its sincerity.  If there’s a ‘New Sincerity’ in modern rock music, this is the ‘Old Sincerity’, the original.  I can’t imagine anything more heartfelt, more sincere, and ultimately more sad and at the same time uplifting.

The technical difficulties are daunting, but I think I've got my arms around them now.  I've worked on it for several months, and have played it from memory a few times for friends.  It is, after all, a virtuoso piece, and there is the circus element here.  “Will he fall? Is there a net?” No, there is no net, and the tension from the technical difficulties in the second movement is palpable.  I think it’s almost acceptable to fail, to have it all come off the rails.  That too is sincere, and sincerity is the most important element here.

I cannot imagine what it was like to be Robert Schumann.  Today he would surely be diagnosed as schizophrenic or manic depressive, medicated, and his great creativity suppressed.  Nonetheless his life was a chaotic and unpredictable combination of the greatest euphoria and the deepest depression.  That chasm is the essence of his music, and his great sincerity is the only way to bridge the chasm.  He doesn't fully understand, and neither do we.  But the great depth of sincerity makes us accept that conundrum nonetheless.  In essence, this was his experience.

I do find it thrilling to walk a few steps in those shoes. But I’m so grateful they’re not mine; I can discard them at will.  He could not. 

I cannot imagine.

Emmy Awards

I remember the Emmy awards 40 years ago.  All of America watched the same shows and we rooted for our favorites.  If our faves won we were happy, if not we groaned but we understood. We had seen the other shows and we had at least some scornful respect.

Now we watch what we want when we want.  I've recently seen all three seasons of Downton Abbey and the first season of House of Cards.  That's just about all of the current TV I've watched, which puts me pretty much on my own island. Not unlike others, I guess.  But what does that say about the Emmy's? Without a common viewing experience how can such awards be meaningful?  Most of the awards went to shows I'd never seen, and many went to shows I'd never heard of.

But let's not romanticize the past.  Most of what was broadcast was just plain awful, and it all lived within a very narrow mainstream creative range. Now there's still lots of crap to watch, but there's much much more of everything, including the good stuff. And thanks to almost unlimited bandwidth the range is enormous.  There truly is something for everyone.

Nonetheless there was a stronger sense of community back then. Common experience that encouraged a sense of belonging to something larger then ourselves. Shared sacrifice for a larger good was more accepted. Today's fragmentation and focus on the individual does have political, economic, and sociological consequences. I guess we have to look elsewhere for shared experience. Online social networks certainly help to bring people together. Sports still connect us, both as participants and viewers. I hope we continue to find new ways to connect, on almost any terms.

Meanwhile the Emmy Award Show is at least a way to find out what I should perhaps be watching. And unlike the past, I can watch it as I please.

Space

When we have open time before us, what do we do?  3:00am and can't sleep? Lull in the work day? Free eve? Immediates away?  Alone unexpectedly? It's easy to fill the time with a crossword, sudoku, something easy from the to-do list, a quick errand, an overdue email, etc.  Then there are heavier options: read something serious, practice the piano, write something serious, cook something creative.

For me a good answer lately is to do nothing. Constant motion can keep me from attending to myself. Instead, be still.  Be comfortable with nothing. During the nothing something meaningful will emerge.  It always does, but it requires courage to keep listening to the nothing.

Upstairs, Upstairs

Anthony Trollope, contemporary of Dickens, famous in his day.  47 novels published, and by his late years already considered old-fashioned. Nobody reads him today, or at least so it seems.  I love his books, though I am aware of his limitations.  Every so often I return to Trollope for another sanity dose, be it an installment from the Chronicles of Barsetshire or the Palliser novels.  Always does me good.

Uncle Anthony

The Eustace Diamonds is one of the Palliser novels, and it’s vintage Trollope: a microscopic discerning account of a very thin slice of upper crust London society in the mid 19^th-century.  This is truly all upstairs.  No downstairs.  That would be is beneath his notice.  We have a set of characters that represents a very narrow range of London society, but nonetheless we can enjoy very finely etched distinctions.  And we also have a kaleidoscope of character juxtapositions. Just about every conceivable combination occurs, and the results are fascinating indeed.  We have plenty of social and political commentary, but again within an extremely narrow range.  Lawyers will be lawyers, be it 1870 or 2013.  The game is still the same.  Politics and money still have a stranglehold on government.  Not much has changed, and probably not much will.

The extraordinary moral vision of Dickens is completely absent.  Trollope takes a relatively objective observer’s point of view, and the lack of moral imperative can be tedious.  We almost feel like we’re reading a train schedule, just a record of what is, with little explicit indication of what might be, what needs to be, or what must be.  Also, the influence of Wilkie Collins is clear.  (The Woman in White remains one of my all-time favs.) The Eustace Diamonds came out only a few years after the fabulously successful The Moonstone, and the effort to get on the new bandwagon is evident, understandable, and forgivable.

It’s a long book, about 800 pages.  It’s divided into tightly structured short chapters, and was initially published as a serial.  Hence it doesn’t read quickly.  Like a telegram, it has many ‘stops’, but I’m happy to devote a month to this book.  The subtle and gradual revelation of character is very rewarding, and the plot is well crafted.  And even at 800 pages, the book is clearly part of the larger picture, the Trollope universe of characters and context, one that I take great pleasure in visiting and revisiting every so often.  The writing is effective but limited.  Little of the extraordinary range of Dickens is in evidence.  Listen to Uncle Anthony tell his story.  He’s a bit of a bore, but if you have the patience to hear him out, you won’t be disappointed.

I will never forget some of the characters in The Eustace Diamonds.  Trollope was a master, and it’s our loss if we toss him aside in favor of our latest fads.

Disney World Dickens in Delhi

All three of Rohinton Mistry’s novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  Never read any of them, so a week or so of travel seemed a good opportunity to try a longish traditional novel.  A Fine Balance takes place in the India of the 1970’s, a time of change as well as political and social strife.  I can’t help but compare it to Lahiri (alas, Mistry is not nearly as careful a writer or as insightful into human nature, and I am looking forward to her new book due out in September), Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy, an even longer but much more satisfying epic about 20^th-century India), and Rushdie (Midnight’s Children is much more progressive and modern when it comes to literary technique).   

A Fine Balance isn’t in the same league as any of the above, I’m afraid.  Mistry tells the story of India at that time through four main characters.  Each character endures much pain and unhappiness as a result of the surrounding unrest, but each is also curiously unchanged by it.  The characters maintain their good nature, pure motives, and exemplary behavior throughout. Even their thoughts remain relatively pure.  And they simply endure. 

So do the animals in Disney’s The Incredible Journey, but that doesn’t make it a great movie.  And the book felt like a Disney movie after a while.  Four innocents buffeted about by larger forces.  They keep getting knocked down, they get up, they plod on and smile.  But they never seem to learn much about human nature along the way, nor are their characters significantly changed by the experience.  That may be admirable in the abstract, but it’s not particularly convincing or interesting. Experiences change people. We all have good and bad, selfish and altruistic within us. 

Dickens’s Little Nell endures unimaginable pain but always retains her purity of heart.  When she finally breaks down we are heartbroken. I weep openly every time I read that death scene.  Dickens is a master at such plots.  His portraits of evil make us shudder (because we've seen such tendencies in ourselves), and they transcend the time and place of the setting.  Dickens’s characters are often just props for his political and social propaganda.  And Dickens is also a great entertainer.  Mistry doesn’t have the same agenda, nor does he have the same skills.  So it all comes off as a bit superficial.  It just doesn’t seem right that those four characters could have those experiences and not be tainted by bitterness and disappointment.  And the portrayal of that bitterness (mixed with their better natures) would be so much more interesting than what we actually get. One character’s demise at very end makes us realize that he had in fact been fatally damaged, but we are not at all prepared for that outcome.  It comes from left field and is not convincing.

While I’m glad to be reminded of the recent history of India (it is fascinating, if disturbing), I can’t really recommend Mistry unless you’re really just looking for some light and easy reading.  And even then you could probably do better.  Laugh with Kingsley Amis, shudder with Wilkie Collins, be embarrassed with early Philip Roth, weep and chuckle with Dickens, snicker with Trollope. It's all good.

Keep Looking

Don DeLillo

You look out at the water near the end of the day.  The sunlight is reflecting off the surface in interesting ways.  At times it doesn't look like a lake at all, but also not like anything natural.  The play of light is wholly unsettling, but you can’t not look.  You walk up to the shore and look down to the water.  At first you see nothing but changing patterns of light and dark and color; nothing is recognizable.  But gradually you see shapes below the surface, shapes that glint and glow, move and morph.  Then they’re gone.

That’s my experience reading the nine stories that comprise Don DeLillo's The Angel Esmeralda.  The surface is puzzling and not entirely coherent, but there are glimpses of an inner order that is compelling.  The language is pleasing but not unconventional.  The plots are straightforward.  There is little that is explicitly postmodern.  But the real action is below the surface in the realm of ideas.  DeLillo’s real subjects are ideas and feelings, and his approach is always from the side, never straight on.

I remember reading some of the stories when they originally appeared.  This time I read a few of them more than once.  The feelings stay with me even if I remain a little frustrated that my glimpses below the surface are so fleeting.

I won’t even try to discuss the individual stories, but suffice it to say that DeLillo has quite a bit to say on the subject of terror in modern life.  Sometimes the terror is explicit, sometimes not.  DeLillo seems fascinated with how we deal with fear in everyday life.

I’ll have to come back to these stories.  I can’t not look.

Dora Lite

Therapy.  It has been an important strand in my life for many years.  I’m not currently in therapy.  Perhaps I should say that I’m not currently seeing a therapist. But I do hear my former therapist’s voice in my head every day.  It’s my voice, but I needed his help to find it. That voice represents a view of my life from a higher place; and at times that voice provides detachment from the crusted ruts and self-constructed ruthlessly enforced agendas that have inevitably grown from my past.

We live, we learn, we remember, we construct stories that make sense of our experience. That ability is our greatest strength and our most powerful curse. We are bombarded by sensory input.  We use our brains to make survival sense of it.  We do a pretty good job, for the most part, but sometimes in the long run those stories sell us short because the narrator’s point of view is too localized, too restricted, too personalized.  If only there were a generic human psychological handbook that we could reference so that we would not draw conclusions based only on a personalized and narrow slice of evidence.

My guess is that literature is one of our attempts to produce such a handbook.  We read the narratives of others, stories told from others’ points of view, and then we filter them through our own internal stories. Sometimes when we read fiction a new streak of light enters the semi-darkness of our consciousness; sometimes we are able to see something truly new, and we are forced to reconstruct our own narrative in ways that take into account the new data.  It’s still our own personal survival handbook, but the point of view is ever so slightly broadened.

Stephen Grosz is a psychotherapist with many years of experience.  His book, The Examined Life, is a non-fiction collection of 31 short chapters. In each he  summarizes the therapeutic experience for one patient.  The chapters are short and contain no technical medical or psychoanalytical jargon.  Just stories told in human terms.  In each of these short chapters Grosz attempts to explain a patient’s patterns and to some degree the newly discovered paths that offer escape from those ruts.  In some stories the gains are huge, in others quite modest.  In some the jump from reported experience/feelings to insight is difficult to follow (and for me virtually incomprehensible), and in others the connections are clear and convincing.  I suspect the distinction lies solely in my own ability to truly empathize with each patient’s situation.

If nothing else the book offers hope that we can all grow beyond the seemingly ironbound limitations of our everyday lives.  Our own view is so limited, and we must constantly work to broaden it.  Grosz makes the point that the therapist’s most important job is to be truly present.  That means setting aside all preconceived notions and truly listening, being open, patient, and accepting.  It’s a lesson we can all stand to revisit from time to time.  Be truly present for ourselves as well as for others.

I don’t have all the answers, not even for myself.  And when I interact with others I need to set aside myself and be truly open to what others might offer.  I can choose to accept those offerings or reject them; I can embrace or construct healthy boundaries.  But if I don’t truly listen, I’ll never know what an appropriate reaction might be.

And listening to ourselves may be the most important skill of all (along with that essential sidekick self-deception). We can’t deal with all the complexity at once.  We need to artificially simplify in order to survive, but we also need to be open to what is beyond the walls that we have constructed for ourselves and that we reinforce every day.

Is it time for me to go back to therapy?  There’s never a bad time for therapy.  It doesn’t hurt (except the bills), and for the most part it can only help.  For the time being the internal therapeutic voice seems to be serving me well enough.  Or is that just self-deception talking?

A Room (on Elba) with A View

Lots of stir about the latest young whippersnapper, Tao Lin. Couldn't put it off any longer so I tackled his latest, Taipei, a full-length novel. It’s not particularly long; the narrative is not complicated; there aren't that many characters; no post-modern trickery here.  But it’s not an easy read; nor is it a pleasurable read in the usual sense. The story, such as it is, centers on a young Asian-American writer (Paul) who takes lots of drugs, does many public readings, goes in and out of romantic relationships, and in the course of the book gets married.  Doesn't sound especially unusual, but this is the most bizarre book I've read in a long time.

Paul’s childhood places him in a self-imposed protective isolation.  In a sense the book represents his attempt to escape that exile.  IMHO he achieves little more than a glimpse out the barred window, but some reviewers (see NYT) think he achieves more.  As an intelligent and well-educated young adult Paul wraps himself in multiple layers of protective irony to the extent that any kind of normal emotional reality is so distant as to be inconceivable.  Lin writes in an informal journalistic blog-like style, complete with syntax that only a programmer can appreciate.  At first I had to read every chapter twice it was so different.  I did find a flow after a while, but what kind of flow I’m not really sure.  One reviewer called it “a massive discharge of waste matter.” 

The style is so flat, so devoid of what at least I take to be fundamental humanity as to be almost unreadable … or maybe super-readable (or compilable) … or just plain boring.  Characters are introduced with their age in parentheses, almost like programming code.  They never truly interact.  They are concerned only with themselves and with their images of themselves as seen online, in mirrors, or most often in their own heads.  It really is like a group of blind people in a circle jerk.  Each is intensely involved in his own experience, but minimally aware of what’s going on around him.  Yet each longs for interaction.  What they’re doing is only a substitute for the ‘real thing’, so the isolation paints a crushing underlying despair.  I so dearly hope that Lin’s personal life is not accurately portrayed here.  You can’t get out of depression easily if you don’t truly feel.  And the only path out is a long and painful one that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Perhaps Paul’s experience shouldn't be taken literally.  Perhaps the book is meant to represent metaphorically the alienation imposed on us by society and especially by technology (both electronic and pharmaceutical).  If so, I guess I get it.  But if so, we’re all in a shithole without much hope.  The few strands of light that Lin shows at the end are only a hint of the beginning of the start of the awakening. And it will only get worse. Every year we’re offered new more up-to-date tools that are supposed to help us, but actually only distance us further from human interaction and the concomitant fundamental joy and pain., and push us deeper into the hole If we continue to take the bait offered by those tools, we’re doomed to a life-long mostly futile struggle to find the simplest pure and strong feelings about each other. Our masochistic feelings about ourselves play an impenetrable zone defense that keep us far from the basket.  But if we don’t take the bait, we’re outside the mainstream (or at least the whippersnapper version thereof), and doomed to yet another version of exile.

Is this the novelistic version of art as the urinal on the wall?  In a way it is.  I’m not fond of it. I wish him well. I'm happy to have read it. I’ll take it as a warning.

“Abandon all hope ye who enter here."

John Banville continues to thrill me.  Shroud (2002) is part of a loosely bound trilogy (Eclipse, Shroud, Ancient Light), but stands very well indeed on its own. This is almost writing for writing’s sake.  There isn’t much of a plot at all, at what plot there is is not particularly interesting or even credible.  But no matter.  The ‘plot’ is merely an excuse for Banville to write marvelous passages about identity, authenticity, love and death, a pretext for absolutely hypnotic mood painting.  It’s poetry in the guise of a novel, and that’s just fine by me.

The book is divided into three sections.  The first is the least successful and the most plot-centric. The main character is an aging academic and writer.  Early on he muses:

‘For a second, strangely, and for no reason that I knew, everything seemed to stop, as if the world had missed a heartbeat. Is this how death will be, a chink in the flow of time through which I shall slip as lightly as a letter dropping with a rustle into the mysterious dark interior of a mailbox?’

In the second section, that character as a young man assumes the identity of a recently deceased friend.  The switch is not premeditated, and the motives are mixed.  Political circumstances (Nazi’s clamping down on Antwerp) trigger the ruse, but Banville is quick to explore many facets of the inevitable consequences.  I quote at length partly out of respect for Banville’s prose, partly because I suspect and hope that retyping Banville’s words will have a positive effect on my own writing:

‘No, I did not attend Axel’s funeral. I knew that I would not be welcome, that my presence would be an embarrassment, possibly a danger, to the Vanders.  I do not know when it took place, or where, even. I think now I should have been there to see him into the ground. It is said that those close to a person who goes missing will not find peace and an end to their grieving until they know the fate of their loved one, and, especially, the place where he, or she, is interred. I would not wish to appear fanciful, but when I look back over the years of my life, and those moments in it of great stress and suicidal urgings, I wonder if all along I may have been in a state of suspended mourning for my friend.  Does this make me seem too good, too faithful? It does. But certainly there is something buried deep down in me that I do not understand and the nature of which I can only intuit. It will seem too obvious if I say that it is another self – am I not, like everyone, like you, like you especially, my protean dear, thrown together from a legion of selves? – but all the same that is the only way I can think of to describe the sensation.  This separate, hidden I is prey to effects and emotions that do not touch me at all, except insofar as I am the channel through which its responses must necessarily be manifest. It will prick up its ears at the tritest, most trivial plangency; it is a sucker for the sentimental. Sunsets, the thought of a lost dog, the slushy slow movement of a symphony, any old hackneyed thing can set the funereal organ churning. I will be passing by in the street and hear a snatch of some cheap melody coming from the open window of an adolescent’s bedroom and there will suddenly swell within me a huge, hot bubble of something that is as good as grief, and I will have to hurry on, head down, swallowing hard against that choking bolus of woe. A beggar will approach me, toothless and foul-smelling, and I will have an urge to open wide my arms and gather him to me and crush him against my breast in a burning, brotherly embrace, instead of which, of course, I will dodge past him, swiveling my eyes away from the spectacle of his misery and keeping my tight fists firmly plunged in my pockets. Can these splurges of unbidden and surely spurious emotion really have their source in a bereavement nearly half a century old? Did I care for Axel that much? Perhaps it is not for him alone that I am grieving, but for all my dead, congregated in a twittering underworld within me, clamouring weakly for the warm blood of life. But why should I think myself special – which amongst us has not his private Hades thronged with shades?’

Banville also describes the liberating aspect of the identity assumption:

‘Everything had been taken from me, therefore everything was to be permitted.  I could do whatever I wished, follow my wildest whim. I could lie, cheat, steal, maim, murder, and justify it all. More: the necessity of justification would not arise, for the land I was entering now was a land without laws. Historians never tire of observing that one of the ways in which tyranny triumphs is by offering its helpers the freedom to fulfil their most secret and most base desires; few care to understand, however, that is victims too can be made free men. Adrift and homeless, without family or friend …I could at last become that most elusive thing, namely – namely! – myself.  I sometimes surmise that this might be the real and only reason that I took on Axel’s identity. If you think this a paradox you know nothing about the problematic of authenticity.’

And, to offer yet more contradiction:

‘What did it benefit me to take on his identity? It must be, simply, that it was not so much that I wanted to be him – although I did, I did want to be him – but that I wanted so much more not to be me. That is to say, I desired to escape my own individuality, the hereness of my people. This seems to matter much. Yet I have lived as him for so long I can scarcely remember what it was like to be the one that I once was … I pause in uncertaintly, losing my way in this welter of personal, impersonal, impersonating, pronouns.’

But it’s in the third part that Banville creates a stunningly hypnotic vision.  The main character, an old man, has fallen in love with a young girl:

‘The object of my true regard was not her, the so-called loved one, but myself, the one who loved, so-called. Is it not always thus? Is not love the mirror of burnished gold in which we contemplate our shining selves? Ah, see how I seek to wriggle out of my culpability: since all lovers really love themselves, I am only one among the multitude. It will not do; no, it will not do.

I am, as is surely apparent by now, a thing made up wholly of poses. In this I may not be unique, it may be thus for everyone, more or less, I do not know, nor care. What I do know is that having lived my life in the awareness, or even if only in the illusion, of being constantly watched, constantly under scrutiny, I am all frontage; stroll around to the back and all you will find is some sawdust and a few shaky struts and a mess of wiring. There is not a sincere bone in the entire body of my text. I have manufactured a voice, as once I manufactured a reputation, from material filched from aothers. The accent you hear is not mine, for I have no accent. I cannot believe a word out of my own mouth. I used Cass Cleave [the young girl] as a test of my authentic being. No, no, more that that; I seized on her to be my authenticity itself. That was what I was rooting in her for, not pleasure or youth or the last few crumbs of life’s grand feast, nothing so frivolous; she was my last chance to be me.’

That about sums it up for this Humbert Humbert, and for modernity’s seemingly futile quest for authenticity. We’re just too damned self-aware to be the least bit fundamentally confident.  We’re doomed to constant reinvention, self-reflection, and self-doubt. Banville points out the consequences for writers:

 ‘... every text conceals a shameful secret, the hidden understains left behind by the author in his necessarily bad faith, and which it is the critic’s task to nose out.’

In this novel the damning physical evidence of the main character’s duplicity is hidden inside a fountain pen, a lovely symbol indeed.

There is a dinner scene near the end of the book which is a wonderful combination of Fellini, Bergman (think the dinner party scene in The Hour of the Wolf’), Philip Roth, and maybe even a bit of Woody Allen. So many levels of falseness; a gaping chasm where only truth and faith could really do.  Finally the main character realizes that his own recently deceased wife probably understood his deception but kept silent and just loved him as best she could.  His first glimmer of what a more genuine life could have been:

‘What I marvel at is her silence. All those years when I thought I was preserving myself through deceit, it was really she who was keeping me whole, keeping me intact, by pretending to be deceived. She was my silent guarantor of authenticity. That was what I realized, as I stood that day in the stationer’s shop on the Via Bonafous and one whole wall of my life fell down and I was afforded an entire vista of the world that I had never glimpsed before.’

Shroud is not an easy book. I read it slowly and not without some frustration.  But there are passages to will stay with me for a long, long time. For now, Banville will be my therapist.

What were you reading in 1995?

Picked up a used copy of T.C. Boyle’s story collection After the Plague (2001) for next to nothing a while back.  Sixteen stories, all previously published in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Esquire, GQ, etc.  It’s curious how old-fashioned these stories seem now.  In the last 10-15 years there has been so much prominent experimentation in the genre that has pushed the boundaries of the genre quite far.  Not that all the experiments have been successful, but they have been interesting for the most part.  These stories were initially published mostly in the 1990’s I presume, and they do show their age.

Bad boy?  Not really.  Not at all, actually.

 What might have seemed adventurous then is now old hat.  Form is very traditional.  No prominent dialect play or time shifting here.  Even point of view is very straightforward. Nothing post-modern in the least. The language is everyday and easy to read, the subject matter non-controversial by today’s standards.  The ideas are interesting but treatment is a little clunky and heavy-handed.  Crafted but predictable.

I especially enjoyed ‘Rust’, ‘Achates McNeil’, and ‘My Widow’. For the most part the stories avoid the overwritten ‘240 volts where 12 would have done nicely, thank you’ approach in many of his novels.  There is some subtlety and grace here.  Take it to the beach.  You’ll smile here and there and be grateful.  

Pollan Redux

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  Busy with some traveling and with a musical event.  Both kept me from reading much in the last month.  But truth be told, it also had to do with what I was trying to read.  I’ve been a Michael Pollan fan from the beginning.  Botany of Desire is a fascinating book, and Omnivore’s Dilemma is a classic.  In Defense of Food less good because it doesn’t break new ground but summarizes and condenses much of the earlier material into a book that smacks of Dr. Oz and self-help.  While I agree with much that Pollan writes, I don’t find it particularly rewarding to read.

[Igor Stravinsky was once asked why he published so many revised editions of The Rite of Spring.  He answered at the blackboard, saying ‘because my name is [I]gor [S]travinsky’, and he drew on the blackboard a superimposed I and S ($).]

Even more so with Pollan’s latest, Cooked.  For someone who’s been at the forefront of the food movement for years, the book is remarkably stale.  Has he really never cooked seriously in his past?  If so, why did we take is writing so seriously?  I’m just an average cook, but I know a good deal about roasting, braising, baking bread, etc.  I’ve done all of it more or less seriously for a long time, and I do have a basic understanding of the theory and science involved.  I don’t need Michael Pollan for that.  But that’s what he tries to do in Cooked, and I remain bored and disappointed by the book, so much so that I couldn’t even finish it.

Who exactly is he writing for?  I think most foodies already understand this stuff.  We don’t need to be told what barbeque is, what a braise is, or why and how bread rises.  And if we have little interest in cooking we’re not going to read the book.  If we’re not already sympathetic with the lefty food movement, we’re not going to read the book either.  Are there really a significant number of left-leaning folks interested in food who know about Pollan but need a basic introduction to cooking?  Feels like a Michael Moore documentary to me.  If you already agree with his point of view you nod your head but learn little. If you don’t you’ll be offended by the shallow insider winkiness of the argument, and you’ll be convinced that he’s another one of those Berkeley nuts.  Who watches MSNBC anyway?  Only the liberals (like me) that seek reinforcement for the liberal brand and who want to feel part of a group of like-minded folks.

The book is full of logical contradictions and circular paths of reasoning that will astound and infuriate an outsider.  Most insiders will just nod and accept it as party line.  When push comes to shove this just isn’t a serious book.  It’s fluffy left-wing foodie porn/propaganda, and I don’t think it will do anyone much good.  Except of course for Michael Pollan, who is busy promoting and building the Pollan brand into an empire.

It hurts to be harsh with someone on my own team.  Michael, I think you’ve let us down here.  You raise our spirits in the intrasquad pre-season games, but when it comes to confronting the real opposition you don’t have the guts for rigorous argument, genuine introspection, and baffling complexity.  To parody a fun Penny Marshall movie from the early 90’s, I think you’ve developed ‘A Team of Your Own’.

Olive, Wherefore Art Thou?

I just loved Olive Kitteridge, and was very happy when it won the Pulitzer a few years back.  The character of Olive is unforgettable.  She’s likable, annoying, funny, boring, even detestable at times, but you won’t forget her.  The setting of rural Maine shown to be just as interesting and idiosyncratic as Olive, and Strout’s talents as a writer are clear in her handling of dialogue and in the careful interweaving of the independent but interwoven stories that comprise the novel. Unfortunately we get only pale reflections of those strengths in Elizabeth Strout’s latest, The Burgess Boys.

Elizabeth Strout

It’s a very straightforward story, one in essence we’ve encountered many times.  The main characters are adults, but they’re all strongly influenced by a violent family incident from childhood, one they remember in a certain way but actually happened very differently.  The deception and false memories take their toll.  The strong successful and dishonest sibling ultimately falls apart and the weaker less successful siblings are allowed to rethink the past and gradually shed some of their guilt.  I’m reminded of Ursula Hegi’s Salt Dancers, in which a childhood incident is misremembered and shaped by the forces of personality and subsequent events.  The book takes us on that path of rediscovery and relearning the past, and I was quite moved by Hegi’s account. Also makes me think of Eliot's Adam Bede. Now there's a book where emotional truth and honesty ultimately wins out, but also exacts a steep price.

For me, The Burgess Boys falls quite short of the mark.  There is no main character with which to empathize, nor are any of the characters particularly compelling.  There is almost no humor, and though half of the book takes place in rural Maine and half in New York City, not much is made of the contrast. And the writing is just fine, I guess, but nothing to write home about.  Olive Kitteridge encouraged me to expect something more ambitious in a literary sense, something a little off the beaten path but rewarding in a truly interesting way. Didn’t happen for me, but I’ll hang in there for Strout. Olive was just that good.

Grim(m) for Grownups

Ben Marcus’s TheFlaming Alphabet was recommended by none other than George Saunders in an NPR interview.  Never read anything by Marcus, so why not give it a try?

 Well, it probably ranks among the top ten strangest books I’ve ever read.  This is a serious book by a serious writer, don’t get me wrong.  But such an unusual blend of genres: science fiction, apocalyptic vision, Jewish mysticism, traditional thriller.  The basic premise is that language itself (the element that elevated humans to a unique position of dominance in the animal kingdom) becomes toxic to human adults.  There’s just too much of it everywhere, and especially the speech of children causes adults to become severely ill, and in many cases to die.  The children themselves are mostly unharmed, but they will mature, and when they do they will be subject to the same curse.  Eventually all language (written, spoken, even thought) becomes deadly. Survival means giving it all up and ‘living’ in an uninviting, unrewarding, and utterly empty space. Or maybe that’s where we are now and we don’t know it?

Ben Marcus

What a strange idea: a novel (language in a particularly potent and seductive form) in which language itself becomes toxic. Ironies abound.  While in the early sections there is a slightly humorous approach to the dynamic of two parents living with a teenager (we’ve all been there and can relate), when that dynamic is exaggerated to the extreme things get ugly pretty quickly.  The remainder of the book is dark and gory.  Things go from bad to worse to awful damned fast, and there really is no way out.  Many places feel like holocaust literature.  It’s not a pleasant read.

Marcus indulges himself in many places, allowing himself to splurge in linguistic feasts that ultimately exhaust and defeat the reader.  For him there really is no way out.  Those miniature verbal orgies are upsetting but also very telling.  It’s a truly virtuosic performance, but a poignant portrayal of utter degradation and loss is not fun to read.  It was tough for me to get through, though I’m glad I did.

Think of it as a cautionary fairy tale:  what might happen if we don’t recognize and cherish the redemptive power of language.  If we continue to abuse our words we will forfeit their potential for enlightenment, growth, and expression, and we will be forced to live without language and its positive capabilities. We will retreat from our elevated human status. Perhaps the book could be shorter.  Maybe it’s really a novella or even a short story.  But just think of how much ‘fast food’ language surrounds us in our everyday lives, and how infrequently we protect ourselves from language inflation and devaluation.  No wonder that serious poetry is so far from the mainstream.  Too many words to consider any of them carefully and lovingly. Too much of a good thing.  Way too much.

Say it ain't so.  Please?

Boston

Organized road races for runners have always felt special to me.  Though I’ve never run a full marathon, I have run in many shorter races, and I’ve also provided support for other runners on race day.  The events are held on public roads and can be a major inconvenience for the local residents.  Nonetheless there is almost always a good spirit in the air.  There aren’t many such events where we set aside differences of class and race, smile a lot, help each other, and act like real community members. We leave our jackets and water bottles unattended and trust that no one will take them.  Maybe the feat of a human being (no equipment, no machines) running a long distance as fast as possible is just so obviously difficult and painful that we can’t help but empathize and therefore support.  Or maybe those that object simply go elsewhere for the day.

 

So the bombings at this year’s Boston Marathon are particularly poignant for me.  Such a shame that an event that consistently brings people together should be tarnished with chaos, grief, and sadness.  Security for an event held on the streets over 26 miles is a real problem.  At least in a stadium there are gates where people can be searched.  Here there can only be a significant police presence and large doses of common sense.

But on the other hand let’s not lose perspective.  Bombings have long been a part of our history; many of the worst in our past were deadly and remain unsolved.  Only since WWII do we seem to expect that such things cannot happen here.  Well, they always have, and they probably always will.  American exceptionalism is an illusion.  We’re just as vulnerable as any other country, and if we look around the world we realize that we’ve dodged a good deal of our fair share of political violence at home in recent years.

On the other hand, in the US over 100 people a day are killed in traffic accidents.  Another 100 die each day from firearms.  250 die every day from taking prescription drugs (as directed).  These are not natural deaths; they arise from human action or lack of action.  Yet we’ve come to accept them as unremarkable and inevitable, though they need not be, at least not to that extent. But when a small number die in a terror incident and the media run with it 24/7 for days, an entire city is paralyzed, and we all scratch our heads wondering what’s wrong with the world.  Terror just makes for a better narrative, and our thirst for narrative cannot be quenched.  Humans have probably always been addicted to narrative; it helps us to make sense of a confusing world.  But now technology gives us the opportunity to have stories at our fingertips at every moment.  And we can ‘enjoy’ everyone else’s narrative, too, not just our own.  In fact, we often just about stop living our own life because we’re too busy following someone else’s, or at least the version that that person is exposing, no matter how real or unreal that might be.

And as we eavesdrop on the amped up stories of others, the temptation is to view our own experiences in that bright stage light.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the drama.  One Watertown resident reported be ‘terrorized’ by the helicopters hovering over her neighborhood.  Well, I get it, but how much is her reaction conditioned by those stories, movies, and news reports of Apache attack helicopters in real war zones? We can get trapped in a feedback loop of drama and exaggeration that doesn’t seem to have an end.  An entire city is shut down in fear of a 19-year old who is bleeding and hiding in a boat?  Try living in Afghanistan or in Palestine.  There you justifiably wonder if that helicopter will blow up your house in the next minute.  And your fear is well grounded because that just happened to your friend down the street last week.  At some point you realize that you just have to go on with life, accept the risks involved, be courageous.

Facebook gives us the opportunity to transform countless simple everyday events into high drama.  I wonder if over time that makes it more difficult for us to differentiate between what matters and what doesn’t?  Can we tell the difference anymore?  Do we even want to?  Language is probably our only useful tool for maintaining perspective, a real-time view of our own lives which is realistic, humble, gracious, and meaningful. But language itself is being abused and devalued every day around us, and is perhaps losing its ability to grant us that view?  It’s our only chance at an ‘examined’ life, our only opportunity to see ourselves live as we live.  I wonder if a new kind of ‘language obesity’ is taking hold?  Modern fiction would suggest that is the case, witness much of DFW, for example, or White Noise, or The Flame Alphabet. We defend the need for fiscal austerity, and we understand that we must eat less and eat better.  Maybe it’s time for verbal austerity.  Let’s keep our own narratives in perspective.  Let’s not binge on media.  Let’s give ourselves space and time to think.  ‘Just say no?” At times perhaps ‘enough for right now’ would be helpful.