"Miss Kansas City"

Joan Frank, a San Francisco Bay Area resident, has written four works of fiction. (She has also written at least one book of nonfiction.) I wrote about three of them on 7/6/10 and 7/11/10. Now I have read the fourth one (the second one to be published), “Miss Kansas City” (University of Michigan Press, 2006); this novel won a literary prize from the University of Michigan. (I also feel a slight connection to the book through its publisher, which is the publisher of my most recent book as well, although my book is academic rather than fiction.) This novel shares some characteristics with Frank’s other three books of fiction (one novel and two short story collections): much of it takes place in the San Francisco area (of which Frank writes wonderful descriptions, including a lovely one of the swirling fog patterns just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, something which I see almost every day on my way to work); the main characters are mostly female; the characters tend to be damaged or at least bruised by life, as well as lonely; and the characters are often aimless and unsure of what to do next, and often don’t live up to their potential. In “Miss Kansas City,” a woman in her late twenties, Alex, has moved to the SF Bay Area and taken a respectable but dull job editing software manuals. She makes no friends, but gets involved with a successful married man, and in classic fashion, wants and dreams of much more from the relationship than he ever considers giving; this is obviously a situation with no happy ending possible. Other characters include Skip, the excessively good-looking receptionist at the company where Alex works, and Mort, Alex's nervous and repressed boss there. Both of these men are gay but closeted, at least at the company. Then there is Alex’s sister Maddie, who lives back east and is both supportive of and worried about Alex; she has her own problems at home with her husband. The sisters are forever affected by and bonded by their sad childhood experiences. An important theme in this novel is the tension between the human need for solitude and the equally human need for connection with others. Despite much sadness and depression all around, the ending of “Miss Kansas City” is, mercifully, cautiously positive.

In Memory of My Father, a Great Reader

My wonderful father, Dr. John Vandrick, died seven years ago today, December 30th. During this holiday season, at Thanksgiving and again just a few days ago on Christmas Day, I was very happy to be with my family: my husband, daughter, mother, two of my three brothers (the third lives too far away to join us every year) and their wives and children. But as we sat around the dinner table for these holidays, we all missed my beloved father, who used to sit at the head of the table and carve and serve the turkey, and who used to be “Santa” handing out gifts around the Christmas tree. He was a very good man and a very good father, and I remember and miss him for so many reasons, but here I will focus on our shared love of reading. My dad read a lot. I remember him sitting at his desk in his study, reading medical books. I remember him sitting in various armchairs in various living rooms over the years, reading a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction. I remember how he ordered many books through book clubs and catalogues, and I remember the multiple bookcases, large and small, full of books on many topics, in almost every room in every house he lived in. I remember our conversations about books. I remember that when I recommended a book, he would actually find and read it. I remember exchanging books at Christmas and for birthdays. I remember how he would carefully read and comment on my own published articles and books. I know that if he were still alive, he would read this blog and give me interested and encouraging responses. Most of all, I remember how he enjoyed reading, and was always so interested in what he learned from what he read. In reading, as in so many other areas, he was a great role model.

Family History: My Daughter Interviews Judith Viorst

When my daughter M. was ten years old (she is now in her 20s), she was asked by the local children’s newspaper to interview the author Judith Viorst. Viorst is the author of many children’s books, the most famous of which is “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” as well as of nonfiction, poetry, and journalism for adults. I took M. to the hotel in downtown San Francisco where Viorst was staying, and sat in a corner of the room during the interview. I noted that Viorst was crisp and matter-of-fact with adults (the newspaper staff), but was warm, gracious, and encouraging with my daughter. She even gave M. her phone number to call in case she had further questions; M. never took her up on the offer, but it was a kind gesture. The interview went well, with Viorst giving thoughtful, generous answers to M.’s questions. It was published the following month. Naturally, as a doting mom, I kept a copy of the interview, and have just now dug it out from my files and enjoyed re-reading it. Meeting and interviewing Viorst, and then seeing her interview in print, was an exciting experience for M. It was also good for her, as it is for all children, to see that an actual, real person wrote the books she had been reading and had had read to her. Thank you, Judith Viorst, for providing this experience for my daughter! And I am glad to see, on checking online, that Viorst is still writing and publishing; her most recent book, one on turning eighty years old, was published this year.

"World and Town"

Gish Jen’s fiction is a perfect example of the increasing multiculturalization of American literature; her novels and short stories are (mostly) about immigrant families, and families of mixed ethnic and religious backgrounds. Her fiction closely observes the everyday lives, issues, problems, and tensions of such families and their members. It also explores the benefits and pleasures of discovering the differences and the similarities in those of other cultures than one’s own. Jen writes seriously about serious situations, but there is always a wryness, a sense of humor underlying and informing her fiction. In her latest novel, “World and Town” (Knopf, 2010), her wonderful and completely nonstereotyped, unpredictable main character is a sixtyish woman named Hattie, whose parents were a white missionary mother and a Chinese father; Hattie grew up both in China and in the U.S., and lived her adult life in the U.S. Both her husband and her best friend have recently died, and she has moved to the outskirts of a small town, where her neighbors are a Cambodian family of recent refugees. She becomes involved with their family problems as well as their successes. She also tries to figure out how she feels about the reappearance in her life of a lover from her youth. Jen’s multiple and various characters are entirely original, unlike those in any other novel I have read recently, yet very understandable and (mostly!) sympathetic. The issues explored in the novel are current, yet the novel never feels like an “issue” novel. The book also has much to show us about small towns and about community. “World and Town” manages to be heartwarming without at all veering into sentimentality. Highly recommended.

Short Hiatus for the Holidays

StephanieVandrickReads will go on a short hiatus (perhaps 4 days) for Christmas. I wish my readers very happy holidays! And I thank you for reading this blog and allowing me to share my book-related thoughts and experiences with you this past year.

William Trevor's "Selected Stories"

The New York Times critic Charles McGrath states that William Trevor and Alice Munro are the two greatest living short story writers, and I heartily agree with this assessment (I have written more than once here of my admiration – even love – for Alice Munro’s fiction), with only the proviso that V.S. Pritchett be included as the third in the trio. A second volume (the first was in 1992) of Trevor’s collected short stories has recently been issued: “Selected Stories” (Viking, 2009). This hefty volume is made up of 48 stories from four of his books: “After Rain,” “The Hill Bachelors,” “A Bit on the Side,” and “Cheating at Canasta.” Trevor is Irish, and has lived both in Ireland and England; his stories are set in both countries. One of the many pleasures of the stories is some of the Irish-sounding titles, such as “The Potato Dealer,” “Justina’s Priest,” and “Graillis’s Legacy.” Reading, and in many cases re-reading (as I had read some of the original volumes from which these stories are collected), these stories reminds me of the way they capture aspects of human nature in quiet, unassuming but beautiful prose. McGrath’s 11/28/10 New York Times review of the new collection emphasizes the way the essential aspects of human life as portrayed by Trevor stay the same: the stories are “not modernist, but neither are they antique. They are almost literally timeless”; I think this assessment gets at the essence of Trevor’s fiction. His settings are often small towns, and often the “events” of the story are everyday, quotidian, focusing on revealing character more than on dramatic plots. However, occasionally a sudden change comes into a character’s life, and we learn about the character, as well as about the others around her or him, from the way she or he responds to that change. The language is descriptive but in a low-key, straightforward way. Every word seems just right, but not in a fussy, precious way. The author is both very present through his voice, yet self-effacing. When I read his perfect stories, I think of him as a sort of brilliant but quiet uncle who tells the best, wisest, and most compelling stories one can imagine.

A Touching Christmas Story

I have been thinking about Christmas stories in literature, and the one that keeps coming to mind is the first two chapters in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." As I posted on 5/9/10, I have always loved this novel, although upon re-reading it in adulthood I was surprised by how didactic it was. Still, its classic portrayal of a family of girls -- especially the intrepid Jo -- has a certain magic attraction. The novel begins with an introduction of the four girls as they prepare for Christmas. Their family is educated but genteelly poor. Their father is away at war (the Civil War) as a chaplain and their mother does good works for charities. The girls would love Christmas treats for themselves, but choose to use their small amounts of money to buy their mother gifts. Then when their mother suggests giving their special, much anticipated Christmas breakfast to a very poor, very hungry family with six children, they hesitate a moment and then agree, cheerfully taking the breakfast over and feeding it to the little children. The girls feel happy about their sacrifice, and their mother is proud of them. They are rewarded that evening by the unexpected gift of a feast sent over by their rich neighbor, Mr. Lawrence. This story, like the whole novel, is moralistic and schematic, but readers -- at least this reader -- can't help being touched and even inspired by its old-fashioned sweetness and emphasis on doing the right thing. Christmas in this story truly is a time of giving.

Balvenie Thinks the Best Writers are Male

I have written a few times (e.g., 8/26/10, 8/27/10, 9/4/10, 9/15/10, 11/15/10) on the issue of gender in the publishing and judging of literature. We all know that women throughout history had a far harder time writing, being published, and being well reviewed, at least up until the past 30-40 years. The question is how much matters have or haven't improved during those years. An October 2010 Harper's ad (p. 5) for "The Balvenie," a maker of scotch whiskey, states that "For 160 years, Harper's Magazine has published fiction and nonfiction by some of the world's most renowned authors. The Balvenie is pleased to bring to you [on its website] a selection of these pieces from writers who have helped define world literature since 1850, including Horatio Alger, Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, Winston Churchill, Joseph Conrad, Stephen A. Douglas, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain." The claim about "world literature" seems questionable when all the authors are American or British, except for one lone Dane. And the authors are all male and white! Not only male, but mostly of the tough, "manly man" variety -- e.g., Churchill, Conrad, Kipling, London, Roosevelt. Granted, most of these authors wrote during the days before there were a large number of women or minority writers being published in the U.S., where Harper's is based, but "The Balvenie" could definitely have found a few such authors in Harper's' archives if they had wanted to. Perhaps they were going for a masculine, men-sitting-in-deep-armchairs-in-a-men's-club-library-sipping-scotch vibe? And perhaps a woman author on their list -- or in that imagined library -- would disturb that cozy-but-macho picture? It's "just" an ad, and perhaps I shouldn't read too much into it, or take it personally, but each such experience is a reminder, a pinprick of annoyance, even sadness, and those pinpricks accumulate....

"The Bigness of the World"

“The Bigness of the World” (University of Georgia Press, 2009; paperback 2010), by Lori Ostlund, is a wonderful collection of short stories. Each story is a precise, pointed, original, small gem. I love being surprised, and these stories are surprising, not in a strange, avant garde or experimental way, but in the sense of being unpredictable, yet very believable. The characters are intriguing; the reader feels she knows them, and yet doesn’t quite know them after all. And the characters care for each other -- family members, lovers, friends, even strangers -- but often find out they don’t know each other very well either. This feeling is captured in the last line of the story “And Down He Went”: “[A]t each turn, the people we hold close elude us, living their other lives, the lives that we can never know.” Ostlund grew up in Minnesota and has lived in Spain, Malaysia, and New Mexico, and traveled to many other places; many of her characters are also originally from Minnesota, and her stories take place in some of the same places she has traveled. This makes for a combination of a sort of Midwestern, calm politeness with a traveler’s stolid adaptability to the vicissitudes of world travel. But the characters also have a tendency to be unhappy, and the (mostly lesbian, mostly fortyish) couples have a tendency to be on their way to breaking up. Many of the characters are teachers, and as an English instructor myself, I enjoyed the humorous yet deadpan depictions of the importance of correct grammar to some of these teacher characters. I find myself wanting to write in detail about each of these eleven compelling stories, to illustrate how terrific they are, but I also don’t want to give away all the twists and turns and surprises, because I really hope you will find this book and read these stories for yourself. But I will list some of the titles, which will give you a sense of the unpredictability of the stories: “Talking Fowl with My Father,” “Nobody Walks to the Mennonites,” “Upon Completion of Baldness,” and “The Children Beneath the Seats” are a few of them. This collection, Ostlund’s first book, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and has received several other recognitions. On a more personal note, I am pleased to note that Ostlund is now a resident of San Francisco.

"The Ask"

I was only vaguely familiar with the name of the author Sam Lipsyte, until I recently read a review of his new novel, “The Ask” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) and decided to check it out. I think what drew me in was the main character’s having a job in the development office of a university (which the character, Milo, calls Mediocre U.); I am, as I have written before, drawn to academic novels. The academic aspect turned out to be a minor part of the story, and at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about the character or the narrative, both of which could be off-putting, but I kept reading and became absorbed in the story. Milo is a classic sad sack/loser type. He is smart and somewhat talented, and is not a bad guy, but he has a gift for undermining his own success. True, he has been dealt some bad (but nothing close to catastrophic) hands, but he isn’t very good at coping with them. He is funny and very self-aware, and despite his ongoing propensity for getting into sticky and awkward situations, he is good company. Somehow he disarms the reader. And by the rather anti-climactic but quietly satisfying ending of the story, he has more or less accepted the negatives and made the most of the positives in his life, which include his very young son, his return to painting, and an unexpected financial windfall. For some reason, this character and this novel remind me of a sort of gender role meld: the character and the novel itself are brash and trying to be tough, but are actually very vulnerable and aware of human foibles and fallibilities, and at times could even be considered “sensitive.” Yin and yang? Or simply a sign of the times: less stereotypically gendered literature? (I am fully aware that I too am stereotyping gender roles for literature as well, but those -- as I have written about here before -- are often, although far from always, very easily discernible in fiction, for better or for worse.)

Feminist YA Titles

Jessica Stites' article in the Fall 2010 issue of Ms. magazine, "Kick-Ass Girls & Feminist Boys," states that some YA (Young Adult) fiction "offers fabulous fantasies of how the world should be." The article acknowledges predecessors such as "Little Women," "Anne of Green Gables," and the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. It then praises current YA fiction that addresses girls' fall-off in self-esteem at puberty. Such books provide role models and heroines; they are "full of girls performing amazing physical feats...YA can be both escape and succor." Many YA novels also address issues that often affect teens, such as rape, eating disorders, racism, sexism, and war. Ms.' YA recommendations include Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games," Nancy Garden's "Annie on My Mind," Patricia C. Wrede's "Dealing with Dragons," Nnedi Okorafor's "The Shadow Speaker," and Scott Westerfeld's "Uglies." I of course believe in the power of fiction to educate, support, console, and encourage, and I applaud YA authors who address teen issues in a responsible, egalitarian way. I do sometimes wonder about books that are too shaped by an issue rather than by literary goals, but fortunately the best books can and do combine the two.

My Perfect Morning at the (Independent!) Bookstore

I have several times blogged about the importance of supporting independent bookstores, most recently in my 12/1/10 post urging readers to buy their holiday gifts at bookstores. I have been following my own advice the past couple of weeks with several visits to two of my favorite indy bookstores, Books, Inc. (in Laurel Village in San Francisco), and Book Passage (in Corte Madera, near where I live in Marin County), where I have purchased several book gifts with great satisfaction. As an example of the joys of shopping in indy bookstores, let me describe a recent morning visit to Book Passage, a beautiful, spacious, airy, bustling, friendly bookstore. I took my gift list, but I had some uncertainty about what to buy a certain relative. I browsed a bit, found a couple of possibilities, but then asked the wonderful Janelle a question about a certain genre of books, to get some leads. She immediately started asking me further questions about the person and what she usually liked to read, began thinking, and eyeballed certain shelves for ideas. She had an ah-ha moment of inspiration and took me to the book, explaining why she thought it might be appropriate. It was perfect! Then she had another idea, and again explained the story and why it might be a good match. Again, it was perfect! Both were books I had very peripherally heard about, but had never read, didn't know much about, and wouldn't have thought of on my own. Janelle did all this cheerfully, with genuine engagement and apparent pleasure in the task, and never made me feel she was in a hurry to finish or do something else. To me, she epitomized what is wonderful about independent bookstores: she was extremely knowledgeable about books, helpful, and generous with her personalized attention. Another bookstore employee wrapped my gifts (such a boon for a terribly clumsy -- and a bit lazy -- gift wrapper like me!) I browsed a little more, and then finished my morning at Book Passage with a delicious latte and the newspaper in their cafe. Now that is my kind of morning!

Jane Austen's Birthday Today

I have posted several times -- most recently two days ago -- about various aspects of Jane Austen and my love for her work. Today I simply want to point out that she was born on this day in 1775. As I think about her life, I am sad that it took so long for publishers to recognize her as an author, and to publish her work; I am even sadder that she only lived long enough to write six complete novels. She died at the much too early age of 41; if only she had had another twenty or thirty years or more to write! But most of all, I celebrate and am deeply grateful for her unparalleled novels, a gift from her to us over two centuries later.

The Writer's Almanac today has a piece on Austen which is worth reading. The link is below. If it doesn't work, just Google the Writer's Almanac for today, 12/16/10.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Guest Blog: Romance, Regret, and Book Gifts

On 7/8/10, I wrote about how my friend "Z" connected a certain author ("A") with a certain time in his life and a certain romantic relationship (with "Y"), because he and "Y" had read "A"'s work together and even met her at an author event. After splitting up with "Y," "Z" no longer read "A"'s work, because of the association. "Z" has now kindly written a guest post with further thoughts and experiences related to connections between certain books and certain romantic relationships (see below). I think you will find the post as intriguing as I do; the intersections of literature, romance, regret, and memory are most evocative. Thanks, "Z"!

From "Z":
"Over the years, amid my growing library are books given to me by past loves and lovers. They all share one thing in common: a note from them on the front-piece or the first page. Some signed off "with all my love," or "love you." Others referred to a shared intimacy or moment. A confession is in order though. Depending on the memories of how these relationships ended, I have done several things to these books. I left several alone because I enjoy reading their sentiments from time to time and recall the exact circumstances of receiving the book. Other books fared less well. The most extreme are the one or two (or three??) I tossed out or sold because I couldn't stand to look at even the book's spine sitting there on one of my shelves, reminding me of love's failures, or rather love's disappointments and regrets. The compromise I reached with the other books was to tear out the page on which the sentiment was written. It wasn't because they were less emotionally connected, but it was simply because I like the book and wanted to keep it, minus the reminder of who had given it to me. However, I remember all gifted books, so the missing page with its sentiments in some ways is all the more present by its absence."

Shields on Austen

Readers of this blog know that my most-loved author is Jane Austen. It's not original, but that's the way it is. I have read each of her six completed novels over and over and over. A few years ago, I picked up a small (185 pages in a petite format) biography of Jane Austen by the late and much-mourned Carol Shields (Viking, 2001), one of my favorite contemporary writers (see my 2/20/10 post on Shields). A couple of days ago, emptying a bookshelf to move it for some flooring work at our house, I came across it again, and smiled to myself. I read it before with such delight; what could be better than one wonderful writer writing about another? Shields obviously loves Austen as well; she writes with such affection and insight about her life and work. This lovely book is part of a lovely series, the Penguin Lives; its subjects are writers, artists, and historical figures. The books are brief and accessible but not dumbed-down; they are written by some of the best contemporary authors. Writers have obviously been carefully matched with their subjects. Besides the Shields book, I have read Jane Smiley's contribution to the series, on Dickens, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Other books in the series include Edmund White on Marcel Proust, Elizabeth Hardwick on Herman Melville, Nigel Nicolson on Virginia Woolf, R.W.B. Lewis on Dante, Janet Malcolm on Anton Chekhov, Hilton Als on James Baldwin, and Mary Gordon (another of my favorite writers) on Joan of Arc, to name just a few. Now I think I will go and re-read Carol Shields on Jane Austen...a pleasure to look forward to!

Picture Books Forever!

The New York Times Book Review of 12/5/10 mentions a recent news story that “the tyranny of standardized testing has stoked anxiety among some parents, who feel they must press chapter books on their offspring at increasingly younger ages, thus diminishing the market for picture books and causing publishers to prune their lists accordingly.” This is completely wrongheaded and extremely saddening. Any parent, teacher, author, child psychologist, kid, or former kid knows that picture books are joyful fun for young children, and stimulate the imagination and the enjoyment of books. Who can forget being read to by our parents or other adults, or reading to our children, such picture books as the following classics? (Some of my personal favorites are starred.)
-Goodnight Moon*
-Babar series
-Dr. Seuss books
-Corduroy series*
-Angelina Ballerina series
-Jamberry*
-Brown Bear, Brown Bear
-Frances series (e.g., Bread and Jam for Frances)*
-Curious George
-George and Martha series*
-Madeline
-Make Way for Ducklings
-The Snowy Day
-Peter Rabbit books
-The Very Hungry Caterpillar
-Where the Wild Things Are
-The Polar Express
-Miss Nelson is Missing
-Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
-Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
-and many many more...

"The Imperfectionists"

Wow! Who is Tom Rachman, and how did he learn to write so well? Granted, he has been a journalist for some years, but "The Imperfectionists" (Dial, 2010) is his first published novel, and it shows amazing control of his material. It builds on some classic topics and themes -- most notably that of the American abroad -- but it is highly original and most compelling. There is not one main character; instead there are many, all connected by being somehow involved with an international newspaper owned by Americans but published in Rome. There are reporters, editors, owners, stringers, spouses and partners, and one lovable dog. Each chapter focuses on one character, but brings in other characters from other chapters. The story ranges over a period of 50 years, and although dates are given, it is sometimes hard to keep track of whose story overlaps whose. Each chapter is a mini-masterpiece. Each character is vivid and illuminated through carefully etched, generous portraits, yet not a word is wasted. A common theme is that of people who stumble into a job and a life and somehow get in a rut it is psychologically hard to escape. Rachman obviously knows this setting and material inside out, not surprising since he also worked for an international newspaper in Paris and was a correspondent in Rome. But the novel goes far beyond the facts, deep into the lives and souls of the characters. Highly recommended.

"Celebrity Chekhov"

"Celebrity Chekhov" (Harper Perennial, 2010) is a collection of nineteen of Chekhov's stories "adapted and celebritized" by Ben Greenman, a New Yorker editor and author of several volumes of fiction. The conceit of the book is that Greenman takes the Chekhov stories as starting points, including plots and much of Chekhov's original (well, translated) language, but substitutes celebrities of today for the characters, and makes other adjustments as needed. Some of the celebrities that now "star" in Chekhov's stories are Michael Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Simon Cowell, Eminem, Nicole Kidman, Beyonce, Lindsay Lohan, Jay-Z, Paris Hilton, Justin Timberlake, and several more...you get the picture. This is obviously a quirky book; as I was reading it, I couldn't decide if it was "quirky brilliant" or "quirky gimmicky." Although it is a real pleasure to revisit Chekhov's stories, and the melancholy wisdom they contain, it is jarring to encounter denizens of US Magazine in these beloved stories. I understand the author's concept of reinvigorating our appreciation of the stories, reminding us of the timelessness and universality of the human feelings and relationships Chekhov portrays. I also appreciate the gentle -- and sometimes not-so-gentle -- humor that Greenman teases out of the original stories and enhances with his own interpretations. I must admit that the book was enjoyable to read, but overall I have to conclude that the experiment is an intriguing but failed effort. However, other readers may well conclude otherwise, so if the concept appeals to you at all, do check it out; it is a quick read, and you will soon know what you think (although some of the best stories are in the middle to later parts of the book, so don't stop too soon).

Ten Favorite Books of 2010

Seeing several versions of "The Best Books of 2010" in various publications, I was inspired to make my own list of my favorite books published in 2010. The list is perhaps idiosyncratic and is quite biased in certain ways: the books included are all fiction, nine of the ten are by women, and all lean toward "domestic drama" and the character- and relationship-driven books that I favor. I have posted on all of these books on this blog, so without further ado, I list my "Ten Best from Twenty-Ten."

All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, by Lan Samantha Chang
The Gin Closet, by Leslie Jamison
The Hand That First Held Mine, by Maggie O'Farrell
In Envy Country: Stories, by Joan Frank
The Lovers, by Vendela Vida
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson
One Day, by David Nicholls
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
Red Hook Road, by Ayelet Waldman
The Three Weissmanns of Westport, by Cathleen Schine

My Literary Umbrella

On this rainy day in San Francisco, I have been carrying a special, lovely, big, sturdy umbrella given to me some years ago by my dear friend B. It is special because it has on its panels intricate drawings of eight famous women writers: Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emma Lazarus, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. I thoroughly enjoy using this umbrella, and I often get admiring comments on it. With other more ordinary umbrellas, I don't mind much if I lend them or lose them. But I take extra good care to make sure I don't leave or lose this one. When I am using it, I always check before I leave a classroom, office, shop, or restaurant to make sure I haven't left it behind. Yes, an umbrella is a simple, utilitarian item, but mine is a depiction of some great literary women, and it gives me pleasure to use it, and to receive compliments on it. Thanks, B!

"America America"

Ethan Canin's novel "America America" (Random House, 2008) features the time-honored device of a young outsider observing and reporting on life among the rich and powerful. Corey Sifter comes from a working class family, but works for and is taken under the wing of the wealthy Metarey family. That family provides support for New York Senator Henry Bonwiller's 1972 run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. As Corey is drawn into the Metarey family and its dynamics and secrets, he is also witness to both the good and bad aspects of the candidate and the campaign. Senator Bonwiller is a great progressive, a champion of the working class and minorities, and a voice against the Vietnam War. But he has his weaknesses as well, and is brought down by a sex scandal clearly reminiscent of that of Senator Edward Kennedy and of the tragic accident at Chappaquiddick in which Mary Jo Kopechne lost her life. The book is occasionally a bit portentous in style; the novel moves back and forth through time, and there is a little too much both of the young Corey's mysterious comments about the future, and of the current narration by the much older Corey, saying things like "if only I had known then..." or "later I would realize..." But overall the writing is good, and the story draws the reader in. The novel is an interesting and sobering reminder of the events of the 1960s and 1970s, especially for readers who remember that time period. There are several well-drawn and intriguing characters. Most of all, the novel is an extended meditation on who has power in a society, and on how it is acquired, kept, and then sometimes lost.

Writing about Food Memories

On 2/4/10 I posted about some of my favorite books on food and restaurants. Almost everyone -- not just food professionals -- has wonderful food memories evoking important times and connections in her or his life. I was recently reminded of this when I asked students in a writing class to write about a meal or dish that was significant in their lives. I asked them to describe the food itself (good practice in focusing on details) and what the meal meant to them (good practice in making larger connections). It was a topic they could all relate to, and they did some of the very best writing they had done all semester. Most of the stories had to do with family meals or specific dishes -- from dumplings to pickled vegetables to paella -- cooked by mothers, fathers, and grandparents, and symbolizing the importance and warmth of family gatherings and family ties. A couple of them had to do with meals created in students' newly independent days away from their families, as they formed their new communities with college friends. For many of the writers, these meals and dishes clearly symbolized love, caring, and connection. In all cases, the writers not only told but also showed the reader how and why these meals or dishes were important to them, and how the associated memories reverberated through the years.

Hi-Lo Books

Having a new teenaged family connection from a different country who is still working on her English, I decided to investigate hi-lo books that might interest her. Hi-lo stands for high interest, low reading level. These books are for readers who, for various reasons, read below grade level. They may also be "reluctant readers." The idea is to get kids to read books that they are interested in and that they can handle. Such books are written for various ages from middle school through high school. A typical book for teenagers would be for age 12+ but at a reading level of grades 2-4. Hi-lo books are short -- 400-1200 words -- with many illustrations. Successful hi-lo books have engaging characters; interesting, fast-moving plots; short, simple sentences; limited vocabulary; and straightforward stories with no complications such as flashbacks. Readers should be able to relate to the characters and stories. The covers, layouts, and typefaces should be clear, yet not appear childish or "different" from regular books, something young people are very wary of. These books are not literary masterpieces, and lack complexity and nuance, but they do get young people to read, and the hope is that as they read more, they will eventually read more complex books. I am in favor of anything that gets kids to read more, so I salute the writers and publishers of hi-lo books.

Literature about AIDS

Yesterday, December 1, was World AIDS Day, which made me think about the important contribution that literature about AIDS has made. Here I list some of the most well-known such novels, poetry, plays, and memoirs.

-Doty, Mark. Heaven's Coast (memoir)
-Gunn, Thom. The Man with Night Sweats (some of the poems in this collection)
-Gurganus, Allan. Plays Well with Others (novel)
-Hoffman, Amy. Hospital Time (memoir)
-Kramer, Larry. Angels in America (play); The Normal Heart (play)
-Maupin, Armistead. Tales of the City (which I blogged about on 11/30/10) (some of the later novels in the series)
-Monette, Paul. Borrowed Time (memoir); Afterlife (novel); Halfway Home (novel); Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog (poetry)
-Schulman, Sarah. People in Trouble (novel)
-White, Edmund. The Farewell Symphony (novel); The Married Man (novel)

Give Books for the Holidays!

Now that we have enjoyed Thanksgiving, the holiday shopping season has begun. As you are planning gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or other holidays, please consider buying books for many or most of those on your gift list. We need to support book publishing! And there are books for everyone with every interest. Further, please buy those books from independent bookstores. We really need to support those wonderful bookstores (see my 2/11/10 post for several reasons why). Your holiday spending could make a difference in the survival of these great cultural and literary resources, these bookstores that are suffering from large chains moving in and undercutting them, as well as suffering from the current economic problems. So, make an afternoon of it: go to your favorite independent bookstore with your gift list, browse, ask the knowledgeable salespeople for suggestions, get your books gift wrapped, and you are all set! And maybe pick something up for yourself while you are there...

A Nostalgic Return to Tales of the City

"Mary Ann in Autumn" (Harper, 2010), by Armistead Maupin, is a nostalgic update of the iconic "Tales of the City" novels of the late 1970s and the 1980s, about an eclectic mixture of young characters, gay and straight, in San Francisco. I well remember when the stories were first serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, and what a huge hit they were then. Readers, including this one, would eagerly look forward to each day's installment. The stories were current, eccentric, charming, and refreshingly different. What wonderful characters there were in these stories: the young gay man Michael Tolliver; the wide-eyed recent import to the city Mary Ann Singleton; Anna Madrigal, the pot-smoking landlady of the charming little apartment building, who we later found was transgender; the socialite DeDe who realized she was a lesbian; the sweet straight guy, Brian, whom Mary Ann fell for; and many more. The stories captured the excitement of the city, the sexual freedom, and later, the sadness of the AIDS epidemic. Most of all, they captured the caring and camaraderie among the characters, as they became each other's family. In 2007, Maupin published a novel updating us on Michael's life, "Michael Tolliver Lives." Now in this new book we have a similar update on Mary Ann's life, as she returns to San Francisco after 20 years in New York, running away from some personal disasters in her life, and seeking comfort and support from her old best friend Michael and his young husband Ben, as well as from her dear landlady and friend Anna. Various reunions and events ensue, including some suspenseful although a bit peripheral subplots, but again, the main point is the enduring closeness of the friendships made in the characters' youth. The plot and writing are a bit formulaic and even clunky, but the goodwill and the nostalgic appeal, as well as the easy forward movement of the story, overcome such shortcomings. This new novel, like the older ones, is probably of most interest to those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and who remember the earlier "Tales," but the facts that all the books sold well, and were the basis of a very popular TV mini-series, attest to their much wider appeal. Maupin himself still lives in San Francisco and is a beloved and respected local figure.

Pride in the Acclaimed Writers at USF

David Vann, a faculty member in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco, where I teach, has just won a very prestigious French award, the 2010 Prix Medicis etranger (for foreign writers), often compared to the Pulitzer Prize in the U.S. He won for his novella "Sukwon Island," published in the U.S. as part of the book "Legend of a Suicide." Vann is just one of the USF's faculty's prize-winning, acclaimed writers. In February 2010, poet D. A. Powell, also of the MFA Program, won one of the top awards in poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, which comes with a purse of $100,000, for his poetry collection, "Chronic." Poet and English professor Dean Rader recently won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for his first book of poetry, "Works and Days." Just a couple of months ago, MFA professor Catherine Brady won the 2010 Northern California Book Award in Fiction for "The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories." Other well-published and frequently honored USF writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction include Aaron Shurin, Susan Steinberg, and Lewis Buzbee. I am proud of these very talented USF colleagues.

Taking the Mystery out of Tipping

A couple of years ago, I ran across a blog titled "Waiter Rant," and started reading it semi-regularly. The author was, at the time, anonymous, and thus able to tell engaging stories from his life as a waiter. His voice was humorous, tough, and philosophical, and his observations were detailed and entertaining. It was not a surprise to find that he was a former seminarian and psychiatric worker, and seemingly quite well read. Soon after, he wrote a book based on his blog, also called "Waiter Rant,"and upon its publication, quit his job and "went public" as Steve Dublanica. I enjoyed that book, which was quite successful, even appearing on the New York Times bestseller list, so when his new book, "Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity" (Ecco, 2010) appeared, I read it as well. The author frames his information on tipping -- its history, social contexts, and appropriate amounts for different situations -- with his "quest" to learn about tipping through interviewing people all over the country: waiters, of course, but also taxi drivers, doormen, hotel workers, beauticians, barbers, valets, pet groomers, deliverymen, movers, and more. The raciest sections of his journey take place in Las Vegas, where he observes and interviews strippers and sex workers. His framing the book through his own journey gives a structure and interest to the book that a simple list of appropriate tips wouldn't have. His stories are often amusing and even occasionally touching, but the humor of this book is a bit more forced, a bit more jocular, even somewhat crudely so at times, than that of his blog and book. Yet Dublanica is obviously also a thoughtful person, despite his efforts to seem "tough" at times. In any case, this book is a quick read, with some entertaining stories and some helpful information and guidelines about tipping. There are also useful appendices about tipping during the holidays and tipping wedding employees, as well as a thoughtful, sensitively written appendix on the fraught topic of tipping and race.

Thanksgiving Day Thanks for Books and More

Today, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, I am very thankful for health, family, friends, interesting work, living in a beautiful and congenial locale, and much more. And -- on the topic of this blog -- I am exceedingly grateful for books (a special thanks for Jane Austen's novels!), magazines, newspapers (especially the San Francisco Chronicle), academic journals, books-on-tape, publishers, libraries (especially the USF library and the Mill Valley Public Library), bookstores (especially Book Passage, Books Inc., and Green Apple), my reading group, my reading friends (C, M, B, S, and many more), my good fortune in having been able to publish books and journal articles of my own, the opportunity to write about books and all things book-related on this blog (special thanks to Mary, who urged me to start the blog), and you, the readers of this blog!

Who are the "Best" Living American Writers?

The publication of Jonathan Franzen's new book, "Freedom" (about which I posted on 11/8/10, 11/11/10, and 11/13/10) brought about a flurry of articles and reviews speculating on whether Franzen is the new best American writer, now that Bellow, Updike, and others have died. Those who read my posts know I do not agree with this assessment. But the ensuing discussion did make me wonder who could be considered the "best" now. I don't really believe there can be one, or even several, "best" writers, because different great writers pursue different themes, employ different styles, and have different strengths. Also, who is the "best" of a generation may not become clear until all the writers of that generation have died and enough time has gone by to get a clearer perspective. But for fun, I looked around the internet to see which names are most often listed in the category of "best"; I found about 30 names that are consistently cited. Most often mentioned are Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Marilynne Robinson, and Thomas Pynchon. Others frequently mentioned include Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Louise Erdrich, Lorrie Moore, Jane Smiley, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Lethem, T.C. Boyle, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon, Anne Tyler, Richard Russo, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, Barbara Kingsolver, Nicole Krauss, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Readers, what do you think?

"The Widower's Tale"

The title of “The Widower’s Tale” (Pantheon, 2010), by Julia Glass (author of "Three Junes" and "I See You Everywhere"), is reminiscent of Chaucer's writings (but, don't worry, in modern English!), and the novel has the same stuffed-with-overflowing-humanity feeling as his "The Canterbury Tales" does. The Chaucerian theme of pilgrimage is also present: there are geographical, personal and political journeys aplenty. Further, there is plenty of plot, there are plenty of characters, and there is plenty of engagement with current events and social issues. There is much engagement with the question of whether the end justifies the means, when dealing with political and social issues. There is family, there is romance, there is illness, there is suspense, there is drama. There is nature, there is attachment to houses and land. There is pride, loneliness, betrayal, love, friendship, loyalty, caring, and fierce attachment. The reader is pulled into a full, busy life of a community full of intriguing and sometimes quirky characters. One of my favorite things about this book is the easy mixing of characters of various ages, from pre-school to post-retirement. Percy Darling, the 70-year-old widower of the title, lost his wife Poppy in a sad accident some thirty-plus years before, and lives a fairly solitary life in the big old farmhouse outside Boston that he and his late wife had fallen in love with and lived in as young marrieds. He has loving but guarded relationships with his two grown daughters, Clover and Trudy, and is closest to his grandson, Harvard undergraduate Robert. After all these years, he begins a tentative romance with the much younger Sarah, who has a four-year-old son, Rico. Other characters include Robert's politically activist roommate Turo; Ira, a teacher at the nursery school recently opened in the barn next to Percy's house; Ira's life partner Anthony, a lawyer; and Celestino, an immigrant gardener with a past romantic attachment that still haunts him. The stories of all of these characters, and several more, form strands that come together in a dramatic ending, followed by a low-key but healing postscript. We are left with the feeling that -- despite spectacularly bad behavior on the part of a couple of characters, and bad decisions on the part of some other characters -- most people are basically good, and want to do the right thing. This is a life-affirming and thoroughly enjoyable novel.

"Let's Take the Long Way Home"

"Let's Take the Long Way Home" (Random House, 1010), by Gail Caldwell, is subtitled "A Memoir of Friendship." It tells the gripping and touching story of Caldwell's close friendship with fellow writer Carolyn Knapp (author of "Drinking: A Love Story"). They met in the Boston area in midlife, initially drawn together by their mutual love of taking walks with their dogs in a beautiful wooded area. They immediately "clicked," and became inseparable; their commonalities included their writing, their dogs, their athletic endeavors, especially rowing on the Charles River, their shared status as recovering alcoholics, and their fierce independence. Sadly, a few years later, Knapp was diagnosed with and soon died of lung cancer. Caldwell, along with Knapp's fiance and a loyal group of friends, attended Knapp during her illness and deeply mourned her after her death. There are many novels and memoirs about family and about romantic relationships, but not enough about the depth and power of close friendships and the great support, joy, and profound enrichment of one's life that they can bring; this memoir provides a reminder of the enormous gift provided by close and sustaining friendships.

Writing is Hard

Yesterday (11/18/10) I posted “An Ode to Composition.” That post was heartfelt. But after a long, hard writing session later that day, working on an academic book project, I have to acknowledge the more difficult side of writing. My post on composition didn’t negate the difficulties of writing, but it certainly skipped over them. So let me say outright what most people know: writing is – for most of us – hard and even sometimes painful work. My colleagues and I spend much time discussing this: Why is something we want and love to do still so hard? Although I have been writing and publishing for many years now, and although at times and in some ways I enjoy and am excited by the process, I still find that large parts of it feel like climbing a steep mountain. It is also a satisfying process, and there are moments of joy. But I can't deny that creating something from nothing -- getting from an idea to a finished article, essay, or book -- is a huge undertaking. Figuring out what one wants to say, formulating a statement of that intent, finding and including the proper support, organizing the text into a clear, logical, and readable form, is all hard work. In addition, because of the emotional component of writing, especially writing that will be judged (e.g., articles and books for publication), the writing process is also full of tension, unease, and fear of failure. And then there are the ways we work against ourselves: procrastination, distraction, doubting ourselves, giving up. All of these have to be fought and overcome, in order to get back to the hard work of chipping away at a writing project until somehow, miraculously, if we work very hard and are very fortunate, it gets finished and into print.

An Ode to Composition

My university recently switched to an institutional version of gmail. One small but significant detail that I noticed and like about it is that for creating a new message, it asks us to “compose message.” I like the idea that it uses the word “compose,” which reminds us that all writing requires composing. Even if we only take a minute or a few seconds to think about how to word an email message or a text message, we are composing. We are putting words together in a particular way; we are framing our messages; we are thinking about our various audiences and purposes for our various messages. These are all the things that those of us who teach writing tell our students, which is why writing classes are often called composition classes. Often people think of writing as a skill, and in a way it is, but not in the way typing or programming or gardening are. Most of all, writing is thinking, and then composing those thoughts into effective combinations of words to form sentences, of sentences to form paragraphs, and of paragraphs to form letters, emails, memos, essays, chapters, and books. When I hear the word “compose,” I am also of course reminded of composers of music, who put together notes, sounds, and instructions about orchestration and about volume, in order to create glorious music. Both cases -- composing writings and composing music -- are marvelous, complex processes that create something new in the world, something unique and valuable. Obviously some writings, and some musical offerings, are better than others, but all are worth celebrating, even if only for the good intentions and the effort. And when the composing succeeds, what wonders are sent out into the world!

"By Nightfall"

“By Nightfall” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010), by Michael Cunningham (best known as the author of “The Hours”), is a strange, intriguing, and at times faintly creepy novel. It is set in New York City’s artsy Soho, and features a very odd trio of main characters. Peter owns an art gallery, loves his wife, and ponders the place of beauty in his life. His wife Rebecca edits a literary journal. Ethan, Rebecca’s much younger brother, breathtakingly beautiful but lacking direction, with a history of serious drug-taking, comes to stay with Peter and Rebecca for a while. Peter finds himself drawn to Ethan’s beauty and his resemblance to Rebecca when she was younger; this attraction, and Ethan’s casual duplicity and self-protection, combine to cause a major upheaval in the lives and marriage of Peter and Rebecca. Interwoven with this story are Peter’s meditations on art, beauty, love, aging, romance, and more. Cunningham captures the contradictory desires that often appear at mid-life: on the one hand, the enjoyment of a comfortable, happy, reasonably fulfilling life, and on the other hand, the yearning for something “big” and dramatic – a passionate romance, a huge, brave yet somehow effortless change in one’s life – to happen before it is too late. He understands the mid-life fear of having allowed life to pass one by, the fear of having “settled.” These are all serious issues, obviously, but Peter's sudden preoccupations with them seem rather superficial and even melodramatic. “By Nightfall” certainly keeps the reader’s attention, but there is something a little too facile, a little too self-indulgent in the character of Peter that put this particular reader off a bit.

On Reading More Male Writers Again

I just realized that the last three novels I read were all by male authors. That realization made me reflect on how I have fluctuated over the years regarding the gender of novelists whose works I have read. Like everyone else of my age (Baby Boomer), in school and in college days I read mainly male authors, with a few notable exceptions (Austen, Bronte, Eliot, Woolf, Cather, and a few more recent female novelists); they were the ones considered the “best”; they formed the “canon.” Not only were most of the novelists male, but most of their main characters were male as well. I, like most female readers then, had to do what some feminist literary critics later described as suspending reality in order to identify with the mostly male main characters of most novels. But along with the women’s movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s came a glorious increase in novels (and short stories and poetry and plays) by women writers being published. For the avid reader I was, this development was manna from heaven. For many years afterward, I read mostly works by women, with women as the main characters. Now that there are as many women writers being published as there are men (although there is still the issue of how seriously women writers and “women’s topics” are taken; see my posts of 8/26/10, 9/4/10, and 9/15/10), I have gradually, in the past few years, begun reading more novels by male writers again. This has not been a conscious decision, as much as a natural evening-out process. Also, I give much credit to the women’s movement, not only for the increased number of novels by women being published, but for the fact that the worlds of women and men are now less separate than they were, and therefore the subject matters and styles of novels by males and females are less different, more overlapping than they were. I still read many more women writers than men, but the proportions are less starkly different than they were for a long time.

"The Rain Before It Falls"

I just finished listening to “The Rain Before It Falls” on CD (BBC Audiobooks, 2008), by Jonathan Coe (one of “The Jonathans” that I posted about on 11/2/10). It is a family saga, about a dysfunctional but -- mainly, although at times tortuously -- loving family over many years and many (mostly sad) events. The conceit of the novel is that the elderly Rosamund, who is dying, dictates her own life's story and the family story, and the ways in which they intersected, onto cassettes for Imogen, the long-lost but much-loved granddaughter of her cousin and best friend. Beatrix. She organizes her memories by choosing and describing 20 photographs taken at various times in her and the family's lives. Her taped narration is framed by the narration and stories of her niece and grandnieces, who when they cannot find Imogen after Rosamund's death, listen to the tapes themselves and add their own stories, thus creating a story-within-a-story effect. Consequently, the novel is somewhat schematic, but the structure mainly works. Rosamund’s voice, and some of her digressions, sometimes grow a little wearying, yet most of the time the story is compelling. Rosamund is and always has been neurotic and needy, but is nevertheless a sympathetic character. Overall, I enjoyed the book, not surprisingly, since this kind of character-driven, relationship-enmeshed, psychologically intriguing story is exactly the kind that I most like to read. Added attractions are the English setting, and -- for those listening on CD as I did -- the lovely English accent of the reader, actress Jenny Agutter.

Finally (Foolishly?) Finished Franzen's "Freedom"

I did it! I finished Jonathan Franzen's 562-page novel, "Freedom." If you read my interim reports on 11/8/10 and 11/11/10, you know that I was not enjoying, and was not impressed by, this novel, but because of all the critical attention it was getting, and at a certain point because of all the time I had already invested in it, I felt compelled to continue to the end. So I won! I wrestled the novel to the ground! I was able to leave Walter, Patty, Richard, Joey (although I kind of liked Joey), Jessica, Carol, Connie, and Lalitha behind with relief and no regrets! Hurray! On the other hand, I spent many, many hours on a novel that was pretty unsatisfying and that I had to struggle through, so maybe I actually lost? In any case, maybe I have saved some of you from spending time on this vaunted but disappointing novel.

Still Wrestling with Franzen's "Freedom"

I posted 11/8/10 about trying to get into Jonathan Franzen's new book, "Freedom," but having mixed success. However, I have persisted, and am now up to page 400 (162 to go...). My interest continues to be intermittent. The big chunks of prose about Walter's genuine struggle to do good, and the terrible compromises he is making, are of interest but somehow undigested and trying-too-hard-to-be-great-moral-struggles-of-our-time. I have the feeling that Franzen tried to write a great sprawling novel of ideas and full of interesting characters, like the wonderful nineteenth century novels of Eliot, Dickens, etc., but somehow just doesn't engage our interest on either level -- characters or issues -- as those novels do. As B. R. Myers writes in the October 2010 Atlantic, Franzen's characters are mediocre and uninteresting, and he seems to believe that "The more aspects of our society he can fit between the book's covers, the more ambitious he is considered to be." Myers concludes that "the novel is a...monument to insignificance." Now that I have invested this much time and energy in the novel, I will strive to finish it. It is, after all, the "big" novel of the year, both critically and saleswise, and has engendered widespread talk about Franzen's possibly being the greatest writer of the new generation; thus, I feel I should at least finish it before passing judgment. But it is not looking good....

Novels with LGBT Themes

Some good novels with LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) themes:

Alther, Lisa. Other Women. Kinflicks.
Baldwin, James. Giovanni's Room.
Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood.
Colette. Claudine.
Donoghue, Emma. Landing. (which I posted about on 7/31/10)
Forster, E. M. Maurice.
Grumbach, Doris. Chamber Music.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness.
Holleran, Andrew. Dancer from the Dance.
Hollinghurst, Alan. The Line of Beauty.
Lorde, Audre. Zami.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice.
Maupin, Armistead. Tales of the City.
Miller, Isabel. Patience and Sarah.
Millett, Kate. Sita.
Monette, Paul. Halfway Home.
Renault, Mary. The Persian Boy.
Richardson, Dorothy. Pilgrimage.
Sarton, May. Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing.
Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple.
Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited.
White, Edmund. A Boy's Own Story. The Beautiful Room is Empty.
Winterson, Jeannette. Oranges Are not the Only Fruit.
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando.

"Madame Bovary" Re-translated

I studied Flaubert's work in graduate school and was always gripped and impressed by his portrayal of Emma Bovary. A couple of years ago I tried to re-read "Madame Bovary" and found myself put off by Flaubert's realistic but in some ways misogynist view of Emma. It's true that he famously said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!" so any negative portrayal of her was, in a sense, a purposeful revealing of his own weaknesses as well.
Nevertheless, reading the novel many years later, although I still understood her yearning for romance and for "something more," I found myself impatient with Emma and with the novel. Now there is a new translation into English, by the well-respected author of unusual, very short stories and a translator of Proust's "Swann's Way," Lydia Davis. Davis feels that earlier translations strayed too far from the original, and lost the sense of Flaubert's style. According to a very informative New York magazine article by Sam Anderson (10/11/10), Davis "spent more than two years trying to create the closest possible replica of 'Madame Bovary' that would still make sense to an English reader." Anderson adds that "Flaubert's novel demonstrates the kind of perfect control seen more often in poetry...craftmanship so advanced that the craftmanship disappears....Davis admits that this is the one aspect of Bovary that will never survive translation: an almost superhuman cohesion." I think I will look for this new translation.

"Freedom": A Progress Report

I normally don't write about a book until after I have read it, or in a few cases, have decided not to continue reading it. But the novel I am posting about today is so long (562 pages) that I think it justifies an interim "progress report." Jonathan Franzen's new novel, "Freedom" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010) is both a bestseller and (mostly) a big critical hit. As I said in my 11/2/10 post about "the Jonathans," I very much liked Franzen's earlier well-received novel, "The Corrections," and eagerly waited to get a copy of "Freedom" from my local library. Only slightly daunted by its length, I dived in. At first, the novel just wasn't grabbing my attention. Maybe I had read too many reviews ahead of time, so it all seemed a bit too familiar already. Maybe the characters just weren't that interesting. And then I read a very negative review in the Atlantic that almost discouraged me from continuing. But I pushed on nevertheless, and after about 100-plus pages, I found my interest picking up a bit. I am now -- at 295 pages -- just over halfway through the book. My interest waxes and wanes. I don't particularly like any of the characters, but I find them realistic, at times interesting, and occasionally sympathetic. I am a bit bored with the rather didactic parts about the environment and about one of the main characters' (Walter's) social conscience and the compromises he makes. In any case, now that I have gotten this far, I predict I will keep reading to the end. If/when I do finish it, I may post again about it, and about how I feel about the novel by then. If any of you have read it, or started to read it, or decided against reading it, please do let me know what you think about it, either by commenting here or by emailing me (vandricks@usfca.edu).

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

The October 18, 2010 New Yorker cover features a wall of books with mini-faces looking askance at a man sitting in a comfortable armchair in front of the tall bookshelves but with his back to them, completely absorbed in his laptop and i-pod. The books' spines have their own personalities, with various facial features (glasses, mustache, beard, mouth open, eyebrows raised, etc.) and with different facial expressions ranging from horror to sadness to helplessness to resignation. It's a humorous but sad evocation of the way technology distracts people from books.

W. S. Merwin on Reading for Delight

There is an interesting and inspiring interview in the November 2010 issue of The Progressive with W. S. Merwin, the current U.S. Poet Laureate. He talks about his poetry, of course, including his gradual dropping of punctuation from his poems. He also speaks of his progressive political beliefs. Toward the end of the interview, he speaks about the importance of "astonishment," of opening one's eyes and feelings to the possibility of being surprised, an "always marvelous" thing. When the interviewer, Ed Rampell, ends the interview by asking "Any advice?", Merwin replies "Read for pleasure....Read every kind of book....begin in delight and continue in delight."

The Jonathans

On 9/25/10, I posted about "The Alices" -- contemporary women writers named Alice whom I admire. Today, in a gesture of gender equality, I offer a list of "Jonathans" -- contemporary male writers named, yes, Jonathan. Unlike the Alices list, in which I only listed writers I have read and admired, from this list I have read novels by only four of the six Jonathans (Dee, Franzen, Coe, Tropper), and like the work of some of them better than that of others. Still, I can't resist pointing out (and I am not the first to do so) the abundance of Jonathans on the early twenty-first century literary scene. And, as it turns out, I am currently reading one of them and listening to another on CD, so they are prominent in my reading life just now. So, without further ado, here is the list:

-Jonathan Dee (“The Privileges," about which I posted on 3/31/10)
-Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom,” “The Corrections”). Franzen is perhaps the ur-Jonathan, the most famous Jonathan of all among contemporary writers (for our current purposes, we will leave out the great but long-dead Jonathan Swift), especially right now as his book "Freedom" tops the bestseller list AND is receiving rave reviews. I read and liked "The Corrections" and have just started reading "Freedom," which I imagine I will be posting on in the near future.
-Jonathan Coe. Coe is a British writer; I am currently listening to his book "The Rain Before It Falls" on CD during my daily commute to work.
-Jonathan Tropper (“This is Where I Leave You,” which I read and mildly enjoyed before I started this blog)
-Jonathan Safran Foer (“Everything is Illuminated,” which I halfheartedly tried to read at one point and gave up on; I hear that it is a great book, but it was not to my taste)
-Jonathan Lethem (“Chronic City”)

Feminist Fiction for Social Change

In 1993, I published an article titled “Feminist Fiction for Social Change” in the journal Peace Review. I argued that although nonfiction writing was essential for moving social change forward, fiction could also reach readers in perhaps an even more powerful way that would influence their feelings and actions regarding social change. I don’t mean that these novels are only “about” social issues; they all stand on their own as good or even great literary works, but the portrayal of important human social issues is part of what makes them great. In the article I focused on fiction that spoke to women’s lives and issues, although other topics were touched on as well. Here I list some of the novels (or, in a few cases, collections of short stories) I discussed in that article, along with a few more recent novels in the same vein; these are, of course, just a small sampling of all such fiction.

Aikath-Gyaltsen, Indrani. Daughters of the House.
Akiyoshi, Sawako. The Twilight Years.
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard out of Carolina.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. (and just about all of Atwood’s novels)
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening.
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions.
Emecheta, Buchi. Joys of Motherhood. Second Class Citizen.
French, Marilyn. The Women’s Room.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Herland.
Gordimer, Nadine. Burger’s Daughter. July’s People.
Hong Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior.
Keller, Nora Okja. Comfort Woman.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. Prodigal Summer. The Lacuna.
Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine.
Naylor, Gloria. The Women of Brewster Place.
Russ, Joanna. The Female Man.
Shute, Jenefer. Life-Size.
Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy.

For related lists, see my 2/28/10 list of (nonfiction) books on women’s liberation, and my 4/3/10 list of recommended women novelists.

Defending Jane Austen Against All Criticism

Readers of this blog know of my great reverence and extreme affection for Jane Austen’s novels (see my 1/25/10 post, among other mentions of Austen). So I was immediately defensive and even irrationally annoyed when I read an Associated Press article in the 10/26/10 San Francisco Chronicle about Oxford University English professor Kathryn Sutherland’s research that concluded that “Jane Austen was a poor speller and erratic grammarian who got a big helping hand from her editor.” But as I thought about it more, and as the article concluded, “the revelations shouldn’t damage the reputation of Austen,” who was “even better at writing dialogue and conversation than the edited style of her published novels suggest.” I thought about all the wonderful writers whose work has been enhanced by great editing. I decided that having a few spelling and grammar errors that needed to be corrected is pretty minor compared to the major editing some other writers needed. And I realized that nothing can obscure Austen’s amazingly wonderful writing, and nothing can dim her well-deserved reputation and popularity. So my automatic defensiveness and protectiveness toward Austen’s reputation (as if she needed my defense!) subsided.

"Instead of a Letter"

On 3/15/10, I wrote about the wonderful famed English editor and memoirist Diana Athill, now 92 and still writing. In that post I praised her three most recent memoirs. I have now gone back in time to read one of her earlier memoirs, "Instead of a Letter," which has just appeared in a U.S. paperback (originally Doubleday, 1962; paperback W. W. Norton, 2010). In this book, she writes a bit about her childhood (later covered in more detail in another memoir), but mainly about her life from her teens to her early forties. The most critical series of events for her was her long courtship by, and eventual engagement to, Paul, who then went off to war (WW II), stopped writing her, and after two years informed her of his engagement to another woman. He subsequently died in the war. These events left her devastated and stripped of her self-confidence and ability to relate to others, especially romantically, for almost twenty years. What eventually brought her out of this state was love, interesting work, and -- most of all -- her writing and the fulfillment it provided her. Ironically, during her difficult years, she dreaded old age, but now at 92 she has had a long, productive, and happy life that she is still -- according to recently published interviews -- thoroughly savoring. Athill writes with scrupulous openness about her own feelings and shortcomings. She also writes beautifully and descriptively about her life and her surroundings. Highly recommended.

"Bound"

The word “bound” is the title of Antonya Nelson’s new novel, “Bound” (Bloomsbury, 2010); it is also a word that evokes various images and responses. The multiple meanings of the word in this novel include the connections among characters, the connections of characters to their dogs (prominent in the story), the parallel story in the newspapers about the Wichita serial killer BTK (“bind, torture, kill”), and the way the characters are bound/limited/compelled by their own histories, economic and social backgrounds, and psychological traits. The main characters are childhood friends Misty and Catherine, who bond as teenagers from very different backgrounds; Catherine’s husband Oliver; and Misty’s teenage daughter Cattie (short for Catherine; she has been named after her mother’s best friend). There are also various ex-wives, stepchildren, friends, and traveling companions. Misty dies in a car accident early in the novel; Cattie disappears from sight for a while; and Catherine is notified that although she and Misty have been out of touch for years, Misty has named her in her will as Cattie’s guardian. All of the characters are a mixture of “lost” and “found.” As the various strands of the novel come together, there is loss, adultery, affection, worry, reunion, and more. Yet somehow the overall feeling of the novel, despite some deep sadness, is positive and life-affirming. Despite some straying and some selfish impulses, the characters eventually come through for each other.

Lovely English Names

On 10/24/10, I wrote about my weakness for the English accent, as well as for all things English. Another thing I encounter and get pleasure from when reading British novels is the novelty (from an American point of view) of some of the characters' names. Those evocative (to me, at least!) names show me that I am -- while reading the novels -- happily in England (or perhaps a non-American English colony). Some of these very British names for women are Edwina, Philippa, Fiona, Delia, Penelope, Rosamund, Beatrice, Briony, Fanny, Sophie, Louisa, and Augusta. British men's names include Nigel, Clive, Rowan, Winston, Rupert, Alastair, Cecil, Eustace, Sebastian, and Reginald. Just typing these lists makes me feel a bit British!

Panic on our Driveway!

On Sunday it was raining so hard that when I picked up the extra-big, supplement-filled Sunday San Francisco Chronicle from the driveway, it was -- despite being in a plastic bag -- totally soaked, a sodden unreadable mess. I had an immediate moment of irrational panic: What would I do without the Sunday paper? I would be missing essential -- yes, ESSENTIAL! -- information, articles, reviews that I couldn’t live without! Not to mention the comics and Parade magazine! Oh NO!!! What would I read with my morning coffee? I had to stop and talk myself out of my panic, reminding myself that I could go out and get another paper at a store, and even if I couldn’t, much of the content is online. This rather extreme reaction is embarrassing to recount, but I do so to show that -- despite reports of the imminent demise of newspapers -- those newspapers are still extremely important for at least some of us. I posted here on 8/5/10 about how important newspapers are, to me and to the world; today I add this postscript (do you like my pun?) to show how viscerally dependent some of us are on our daily newspapers.

"All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost"

When I first started reading Lan Samantha Chang’s “All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost” (W. W. Norton, 2010), I thought it would be the typical, somewhat self-referential and self-indulgent novel about writers and writing programs. Chang is the director of the famed Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and the first part of the novel is set in the fictional Bonneville School writer’s program. Despite this expectation, or – to be honest -- maybe partly because of it, I looked forward to reading this novel. Sure enough, there were some classic scenes of graduate student/writers’ reading their work around a seminar table and having it discussed and sometimes “bludgeoned” by their classmates and their revered professor, the mysterious Miranda. There were also classic scenes of angst, doubt, and dark nights full of self-examination about whether one had the talent to be a successful writer. In this first section, we get to know the main characters -- Roman, Bernard, Lucy, and Miranda – and their entanglements. Then the novel jumps forward to the future and follows the lives, careers, loves of, and intersections among, these characters for perhaps 25-30 years. Chang explores the nature of being a writer/poet/artist, and the delicate connections between one’s writing life and one’s personal life. She leads readers to imagine different ways for a writer to live. Roman, for example, takes a fairly traditional (for those few writers talented enough and fortunate enough) path to success as a poet and writing teacher. Lucy, intentionally or not, puts her writing mostly on hold while raising a child. Bernard is a sort of semi-recluse who chooses to devote his life to writing one long poem, at the cost of poverty and a rather restricted life, a price he is willing to pay. The character development is intriguing, and there are a couple of surprises near the end of the novel, but the surprises are –- fortunately –- fully in character for these writers we have come to know. So my initial concerns about predictability and tired scenes were –- mostly –- proven wrong, and I found the novel a rewarding exploration of the writing life, and enjoyable to read.

Oh, That English Accent!

Yesterday I wrote about listening to the audio version of “On Chesil Beach,” by Ian McEwan. Today I write about my first reaction to the first words pronounced in the recorded reading by the author himself. As soon as I heard that plummy, educated English accent, I melted and was completely drawn into the listening experience. At the same time, I had to laugh at myself for the almost knee-jerk positive reaction I have always had to that accent. Why do I always go a little gaga for it? Is it the somewhat common American feeling that somehow the British accent is more elegant, more educated, more intellectual, more mellifluous than the American accent(s)? Is it my frequent listening to Masterpiece Theater and other such British dramatic productions and films over the years? Is it my background as a person born in Canada to Canadian parents and raised in postcolonial India, with all the British-related aspects of each of those experiences? Is it simply part of my deep love of all things English, especially English literature? I have written directly or indirectly about my connection to England and English matters in various posts (e.g., on tea, 2/2/10; on my literary pilgrimage to Jane Austen sites, 2/18/10; on the colonial novels “Old Filth” and “The Man in the Wooden Hat,” 3/18/10; and on the Guardian UK, 9/19/10), as well as in my non-blog (academic) writing, but I haven’t written before about the visceral positive and a bit nostalgic (although I have never lived in England) feeling I get when I hear that lovely and – to me – evocative English accent. Of course I know that not all English, or British, people speak with that accent. And of course I understand intellectually that there is nothing inherently “better” about it; after all, I have studied linguistics and teach in a linguistics-informed field. My reaction is, I speculate, conditioned by my Canadian/Indian childhood and by my immersion in English literature for most of my life. It is personal, deeply embedded and, I suspect, ineradicable, even if I should want to eradicate it, which I do not.

"On Chesil Beach"

Ian McEwan is an amazing writer, but my own taste causes me to very much like some of his novels while feeling less enthusiastic about others. The ones I have most liked and admired have been "Atonement" and "Saturday." I didn't like "Amsterdam" or "Solar" (see my 4/17/10 post) as much. The ones I prefer focus on relationships and psychology. I have now just listened to the audio version of "On Chesil Beach" (Random House, 2007; Books on Tape, 2007) and was completely drawn into the small, tightly focused, precisely told, and emotionally intense world that McEwan has created in this short novel. The book tells the story of the wedding night of a very young (very early 20s), very sexually inexperienced newly-married couple in 1962 in England. Edward is enthusiastically if anxiously looking forward to the first consummation of their relationship, while Florence dreads it, finding the idea completely repulsive. Because sex was so seldom openly and explicitly talked about during these pre-sexual revolution days (as we know, the real "Sixties" of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll" started late in the decade and continued into the 70s), she has not been able to tell Edward beforehand of her revulsion. Although they truly love each other and are compatible in many ways (we learn about their backgrounds and the progress of their courtship in flashbacks), sexuality is an area where they completely misunderstand each other and are completely mismatched. The minute by minute recounting of their attempted sexual connection, and of their tense conversation afterward on the beach outside their honeymoon hotel, is excruciatingly painful, embarrassing, and heartbreaking. The novel demonstrates so much about lack of communication even between those who love each other. It also shows how one event, one word or lack of a word, can change a person's whole life. This is an absolutely compelling, beautifully distilled short novel; I highly recommend it. A bonus to the audio version is a thoughtful and informative interview with the author following the reading of the novel.

"Going Away Shoes"

"Going Away Shoes" (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009), by Jill McCorkle, is a little book (literally little, about 5" by 7") full of short stories that pack a big emotional punch. I have read several of McCorkle's novels ("Tending to Virginia," Ferris Beach") and short story collections over the years and have always enjoyed them. I also feel a (tenuous, granted) connection to her because she used to teach at the university where my daughter went for her undergraduate degree, and because she is the friend of a friend of a friend. So I picked this new book up expecting to like it, and I was not disappointed. Her stories are generally about women and their relationships with their husbands, lovers, children, and extended families. Those relationships are often troubled, but always valued for their human connections. McCorkle's stories remind us that we are all human, all flawed, but that there is redemption because of the fact that we are all connected, all enmeshed in our worlds of family and close friends. These stories allow us to accept imperfection and know that life and relationships are not "all or nothing"; they are messy and unpredictable, but there is a deep vein of human connection that allows us to keep going, and even be happy, despite the messiness. McCorkle is especially good at describing marriages that have survived challenges and crises but continue because of a deep connection that overrides the problems. I don't mean that the stories all have happy endings; some of them are scary, sad and wrenching. But the overall message or feeling of the collection is life-affirming.

Guest Blog Two: Reading Still Opens New Worlds

Yesterday I posted my friend C.’s first guest blog entry, on “The Pleasures of Re-reading”; today I am very pleased to post, below, her second guest entry, “Reading Still Opens New Worlds.” Thank you, C., for these two illuminating entries!

C.:
"Thanks to an extraordinary teacher, I first went to Japan almost forty years ago. Since then, the land, the history, the people, and the culture of Japan have enriched my life immeasurably. My bookcases bulge with books about Dai Nippon. But with all these years and all those books, there are some things Japanese that I never really "got." Until four years ago haiku was a good example. I suppose I thought about haiku the way Emily Dickinson used to be thought of -- precious (horrors!). So when I was invited to a talk at the Japanese Embassy's Culture and Information Center by Abigail Friedman, the author of "The Haiku Apprentice" (Stone Bridge Press, 2006), I decided to go so I could hear what she had to say and get a copy of the book for my English-speaking friend in Japan who is a haiku devotee. At the lecture I encountered another extraordinary teacher. Ms. Friedman's talk and her book lifted the top off my head and opened my heart to the many pleasures of haiku. Since then I've been swimming happily in Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki, Richard Wright, and other American haiku poets. I've also been exploring translations and anthologies of Japanese poetry -- haiku and other forms -- such as "The Manyoshu" (Ten Thousand Leaves) and "Hyakunin Isshu" (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each). One extraordinary book has yielded years of beauty already and assured more such pleasures in the future."

Guest Blog: The Pleasures of Re-reading

Readers of this blog may remember my 2/16/10 post about “reading friends,” in which I particularly focused on my longtime, extremely well-read, dear friend C., with whom I have had my “best, longest running, most continuous book conversation” over a period of 39 years. In honor of that long conversation, and because I value her opinions so much, I invited C. to write a guest blog entry or two, and she kindly agreed, contributing two posts under the joint title of “Still Reading After All These Years.” Today, I am honored and pleased to post her first entry, on “The Pleasures of Re-reading,” below; her second guest post will follow tomorrow.

C.:
"I started out thinking I'd write about re-reading books I read forty years ago. But time is ever the trickster; it's actually more than forty years ago. Among the books I've re-read recently are books I read in college -- in 1968, that year of exhilarating and tragic turmoil. Three, in particular. First, Emily Dickinson. I don't know what was more radical: the teacher, who at that point was the only English Department faculty member who showed up to teach in a suit and tie, or his statement to the lounging crowd of bored students that he intended to prove to us that Emily Dickinson was the greatest American poet of all time. Unheard of, and indeed, ridiculous at that time. But that is also exactly what he proceeded to do. I am still grateful every time I find myself leafing through my Emily. Second, Joseph Conrad, and "Heart of Darkness" in particular. The overwhelming richness of the language, the lush pairings of adjectives and nouns. As I re-read, I kept dropping the book so I could jot down those wonderful phrases in my haiku notebook. And finally, Herman Melville. "Moby Dick." Reading it was a thrill -- again. I walked through beautiful woods, I swam through beautiful corals, the pathways still familiar, beauty re-revealed and renewed. With a thrill, I remembered individual sentences, while also remembering the thrill I felt reading them the first time. In a world where we're often overwhelmed and so much seems to slip away from us, it is pure pleasure to realize the power of literature and memory."

My (Minority Opinion) Affection for Semicolons

A couple of days ago, I happened to look down at the keyboard on my five-year-old laptop at home, and suddenly noticed that the most smudged key -- a sure sign of frequent usage -- was the semicolon key. I chuckled to myself, as I have long had a special (geeky, I know) affection for the semicolon, which is not, I know, the majority opinion. Many English instructors and others interested in language believe that few people know how to use semicolons correctly any more. For example, a few years ago, one of my daughter's high school English teachers was so exasperated with their misuse that she preemptively banned their use in her students' papers. I was somewhat annoyed at this edict, as I had made sure that my daughter knew how to use them! I also make sure my students know how to use them. In a nice coincidence, a day after I noticed my smudged semi-colon key, a Facebook friend posted a lovely, graceful 1979 Lewis Thomas essay (from his book "The Medusa and the Snail") about punctuation, which included the following sentences: "I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; it reminds you sometimes of the Greek usage. It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period....with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come;... it will get better."

The Thrill of Being Cited

Please forgive today's bit of academic nerdiness, but bear with me: it IS related to writing and reading! As one who came late to academic publishing, I was -- and still am -- probably particularly susceptible to being pleased, even thrilled, when my own publications (journal articles, books, book chapters) started being cited in other scholars' work. Other scholars' mention of one's work in their articles and books is a bit of recognition that means a lot academically, professionally, and personally. Most of all, it is a sign that all the work of writing, revising, submitting, more revising, sometimes getting rejected, still more revising, and finally getting one's writing published is actually validated by others' saying they have read it and found it worth mentioning as support for their own work. Or to boil it down to its basics, and in very non-academic language: People are reading my work! Hurray! People think it is worth mentioning in their publications! It feels great! (I know I am not the only one who feels this way; colleagues/friends have told me they feel the same.)

"True Prep"

"True Prep" (Knopf, 2010), by Lisa Birnbach with Chip Kidd, is a sort of sequel or update to Birnbach's 1980 bestseller, "The Official Preppy Handbook." It, like the earlier book, is a half serious, half tongue-in-cheek compendium of information and advice about the lives of the upper class in the U.S. Topics include schools, colleges, jobs, wardrobes, travels, houses, second houses, food, drink, etiquette, and more. The book is rather non-linear, and is profusely sprinkled with pictures, drawings, diagrams, and lists. Although presented in a "fun," self-deprecating tone, it is clear the authors are describing a social class that does still exist and that they believe is admirable for its history, tradition, and -- to them -- endearing traits. It is also clear that they hope to have it both ways in gaining readers: they hope for readers who will enjoy the book in an ironic, satirical, humorous way, as well as readers who may take it as a useful guide to acting more like members of a class they aspire to. As someone who writes about social class and its effects, I find the U.S.'s ambivalent relationship to class matters interesting and telling. Americans both deny social class differences and are fascinated by those differences, whether in a yearning or a condemnatory manner. "True Prep" captures a bit of this ambivalence, although in a light and indirect way.

The Ever-Fascinating Bloomsbury Group

As many readers know, the Bloomsbury Group of writers, artists, and critics lived, met, wrote, and painted in and around the Bloomsbury area of London (as well as outside of London) before, during, and after World War II. Many of them met through the Stephen family, whose most famous member is Virginia Woolf (about whom I posted on 2/26/10). The other main point of connection was Cambridge University, where most of the male members of the group studied. Besides Virginia Woolf, the most prominent members of the group were her husband Leonard Woolf, the publisher and writer; E.M. Forster, the great novelist; Virginia's sister Vanessa Bell, an artist; Vanessa's husband, Clive Bell, an art critic; Vanessa's lover, Duncan Grant, a painter; John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist; Lytton Strachey, a great and very witty writer; Roger Fry, a painter; and Desmond McCarthy, a critic. There were others on the periphery of the group as well. Many of the members were related professionally, familially, maritally, and sexually. They were known not only for their literary and artistic work, but for being progressive in their ideas about art, literature, politics, economics, and social issues, as well as in their own lifestyles. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of books and articles written about this group and its members; it has always had a fascination, even a sort of magic, for those of us who care about literature and art. During their time, and even now, their talent, their dedication to the arts, their flouting of many of society's "rules" and norms, and their intricate and often shifting relationships with each other over time seemed and seem both enviable and the source of much gossip and sometimes disapproval. Over the years, I have read many books by and about this group, their work, and their entanglements, and never grow tired of learning more about them. I also visited (from the outside only) some of their former homes in London. Although I acknowledge that they had their faults, they were and are enormously influential, and -- still -- fascinating!

But What If I Run Out?

We visited my mother, brothers, and families this weekend, a three hour trip each way by car. For two days and one night, most of which was of course filled with visiting with family, I took one substantial novel I had just started reading ("My Hollywood," which I am sure I will be posting on in a few days), six magazines, and that day's newspaper. I came back tonight having read that day's newspaper and a few pages of one magazine. What was I thinking? I knew I would never read more than a very small portion of what I took, yet I was impelled to take it all anyway. I think the key is a fear of running out of things to read, a fate too awful to contemplate. This is one case when I never learn from experience, and keep doing the same thing over and over again. Fortunately there are no serious negative consequences of hauling reading material back and forth in one's suitcase.

International Novels by Women

When I wrote on 10/4/10 about world literature I had read in my 20s, I mentioned that much later – in the mid-1990s - I designed and taught several times a class called Contemporary Fiction by Nonwestern Women. Today I want to briefly write about three of the novels I taught in that class. Duong Thu Huong is a well-known Vietnamese writer and political dissident; her novel “Paradise of the Blind” (Penguin, 1993, originally published 1988) describes Vietnam from the 1950s to the 1980s, focusing on how land reform destroyed many families and their connection to the land. It is a sad novel, but also glows with the light of family and food. Yes, food. The descriptions of family meals, markets, and food in general are detailed, sensuous, and practically leap off the page. Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta’s title “The Joys of Motherhood” (Heinemann, 1994; originally published 1979) is somewhat ironic, as the main character constantly struggles with poverty and other problems (moving from her village to the big city where she feels disconnected from her community, dealing with her husband’s taking new wives, and much more) in order to raise her children. But there is joy as well, as she takes pride in her children, and is respected by others. Nahid Rachlin is an Iranian-American writer whose novel “Married to a Stranger” (City Lights, 1983) tells the story of the marriage of a young couple who, although they chose each other, are unprepared for marriage, especially in the changing Iran of the Revolution. All three of these powerful novels feature strong women characters and glimpses into women’s lives in the three countries where the novels are set.

"After This"

I just finished listening to the audio version of "After This," (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2006; Audiobooks America, 2006), by Alice McDermott. This lovely novel tells the story of an Irish American Catholic family in Long Island. Early in the novel, Mary meets John; they then marry and have a family, and their kids grow up and begin their own lives and families. That is pretty much it. There are no pyrotechnics, just good writing. Although nothing amazing or strange happens, the usual family events -- romances, marriages, births, schooling, jobs, deaths -- are told with dignity and with a quiet lyricism. The novel is in effect a series of set pieces; the author gives great, detailed, loving attention to some scenes, and then skips over years to other scenes. The scenes described at length are almost tableaux; the reader keeps thinking they are leading up to dramatic events, yet in most of the scenes they do not. One scene in which John and a pregnant Mary take their three young children to the beach reminded me of a painting, or of one of those leisurely European films which dwells lovingly on the simple details of everyday life. In contrast, the dramatic events in "After This" are often sprung upon us suddenly. There are even a few disconcerting fast forwards, almost asides, to tell us the eventual fate of some of the characters. Another lovely aspect of this novel is the quiet, modest goodness of the main characters. I recommend this novel to your attention.

The Joys of Reading Jack Kerouac in Youth

In the third of what has turned out to be a trio of recent posts on Beat literary heroes (Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” on 10/3/10; Lawrence Ferlinghetti on 10/5/10), today I am remembering the liberating influence of the novels of Jack Kerouac. Of course the iconic novel is "On the Road," but in my teens and twenties I read many of his other novels as well: "The Subterraneans," "The Dharma Bums," and "Desolation Angels," among others. For a young person especially, these novels were intoxicating, with their evocation of feelings of freedom, Bohemianism, thumbing one’s nose at the establishment, and living authentically. At the time I read them, my generation was creating its own version of all that in the excitement of the late 60s and early 70s: the “hippie” era, with its proverbial “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll,” along with the era of political protests, the Civil Rights movement, the beginnings of the women’s movement and the gay rights movement, and more. Other signs of the more liberated times included our colorful clothing and long hair, our willingness to “take off” on trips to various places with only a backpack (although perhaps with our parents’ financial support…), and the increasing acceptance of couples living together without marriage. Although I now have trouble re-reading Kerouac – partly because of my age, partly because of knowing about his later descent into alcoholism and a sad end – I honor and remember with joy his contribution to opening up the world for many young people. And on a quick personal note: it still makes me happy to remember being young in the sixties/seventies; one representative memory (among many!) is my first big trip on my own, my trip “out west” (from Michigan to British Columbia) on my own, wearing jeans, a fringed vest, and a floppy hippie hat, feeling like the ultimate free spirit. Although it was actually quite a tame adventure, for me it felt liberating and joyous!