"Shine On, Bright & Dangerous Object"

On 1/21/11, I wrote about the wonderful author Laurie Colwin, who died too young, but not before writing several novels and short story collections. I recently picked up her novel “Shine On, Bright & Dangerous Object” (Penguin, 1975), which I had read years ago but decided to re-read. This slim volume tells the story of Olly, whose husband Sam –- a charming and daring man -- has died in a boat accident. She mourns him desperately, and is both supported by and frustrated by her relatives and his. As she reflects on her marriage to Sam, she realizes that though she loved him very much, he had serious problems too. Olly, still young, gradually regains some of her zest for life, and there is actually a happy ending that the reader can see coming before Olly does. Much of the novel is about family relationships, always an interesting topic for me. It is also about young, educated, upper middle class people at a certain time period -- the early 70s -- for whom, despite all problems and tragedies, there was a sense that all would eventually work out well. This was not so much a sense of entitlement (although this played into it) as a kind of optimism and confidence they inhaled (no, not that kind of inhaling, although there is a bit of that too) from their privileged and wide-open environment. This sense gave Olly her resilience. "Shine On..." was enjoyable to read, although a little less impressive than I remembered it. Still, it is well written and has much to offer.

An Airline Magazine Surprise

Many of us dismiss airline magazines as sources only of information about such airline matters as maps of terminals and lists of snacks for sale, along with a few fluffy travel articles; the magazines are generally good only for leafing through for five or ten minutes before settling in with one's book or perhaps a movie or a nap. However, on a very recent trip, I was pleasantly surprised by the June 2011 issue of American Airline’s “American Way” magazine. It included an interesting, fairly thoughtful article about Hemingway, tied to this year’s being the 50th anniversary of his death, as well as an editorial about Beryl Markham. Granted, the Markham piece was mostly about her aviation history rather than about her literary work, but still, I was pleased that the issue devoted this amount of space to literary figures.

Memorable Deaths in Literature

Another "memorables" list, this time "Memorable Deaths in Literature":

-Romeo and Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” (Shakespeare)
-Hamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, and Laertes in “Hamlet” (Shakespeare)
-Nell in “The Old Curiosity Shop” (Dickens)
-Beth in “Little Women” (Alcott)
-Anna Karenina in “Anna Karenina” (Tolstoy)
-Lily Bart in “The House of Mirth” (Wharton)
-Emma Bovary in “Madame Bovary” (Flaubert)
-the children in “Jude the Obscure” (Hardy)
-Lennie in “Of Mice and Men” (Steinbeck)
-Quentin Compson in “The Sound and the Fury” (Faulkner)
-Roberta in “An American Tragedy” (Dreiser)
-Dimmesdale in “The Scarlet Letter” (Hawthorne)
-Ralph Touchett in “The Portrait of a Lady” (James)
-Catherine in “A Farewell to Arms” (Hemingway)
-Myrtle Wilson in “The Great Gatsby” (Fitzgerald)
-Phineas in “A Separate Peace” (Knowles)
-Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Lee)
-Simon and Piggy in “Lord of the Flies” (Golding)
-Owen Meany in “A Prayer for Owen Meany” (Irving)
-The sisters in “The Virgin Suicides” (Eugenides)
-Old Yeller in “Old Yeller” (Gipson)
-Charlotte in “Charlotte’s Web” (White)

"A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman"

The English writer Margaret Drabble is best known for her many novels written over a long career, several of which I have read and enjoyed. She is also a biographer of writers and a scholar of English literature. She has written far less short fiction, but readers are fortunate that the short stories she has written have been collected in a new book, “A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: Complete Short Stories” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). Most of Drabble’s fiction, long and short, focuses on women characters, usually professional women in England. The stories are feminist in a non-explicit, non-didactic, moderate, English way. In this collection, most of the main characters are working through some issue or conflict, often related to being a woman in today’s world, and trying to understand their own feelings about the issue at hand. For example: How does it feel when your verbally cruel husband dies, and is it OK that your main feeling is relief and freedom? How does it feel when you think you might be dying, and you are so afraid for your young children to experience their mother’s death and absence? How does it feel to be so in love with a house and a way of life that you don’t care which man you have to marry to get it? How does it feel to allow your imagination to get too involved in the affairs of a man you met briefly on a train, and what does it mean that you allowed this to happen? How does it feel to be involved in a long term affair but know that you will never be able to be together more than the occasional meeting or brief vacation? How does it feel to break someone’s heart without even realizing you are doing it? The reader cannot help getting involved in these situations and dilemmas. And, as it perhaps goes without saying for a writer of Drabble’s stature, the writing is quietly assured and quite beautiful. I have the feeling that Drabble isn’t as well known in the U.S. as she should be; readers who have not read her work, please consider doing so; this collection of stories would be a good place to start.

"Family Dancing"

I recently read and posted (6/8/11 and 6/12/11) on two of David Leavitt’s novels; my comments were lukewarm. I have now (belatedly!) read his collection of short stories, “Family Dancing” (Knopf, 1984), perhaps his most well-known book, and now I “get” why his work has been praised by both critics and the reading public. His stories, as the title indicates, are all about families, and the many ways their members are entangled, are happy, are miserable, misunderstand each other, and drive each other crazy, yet provide a glue and a center for its members, drawing them back to each other again and again. There are certain common themes throughout many of the stories: divorce, cancer, mental illness, the connections of siblings, the gay brother, and the family home or summer cottage that keeps its hold on family members long after the children have dispersed to their adult lives. These stories are very readable and compelling.

"The Summer Without Men"

“The Summer Without Men” (Picador, 2011), by Siri Hustvedt, is a strange little novel. The narrator, Mia, a poet, has just been left by her longtime husband, Boris, and has had a sort of nervous breakdown. During the course of this novel, she spends the summer near her mother, and gradually recovers an interest in life, as she connects with her mother and her friends, a group of young girls whom she teaches poetry, and her neighbor Lola and her family. Mia is an extremely well-read person, and writes of philosophy, medicine, and more. She is interested in figuring out the differences between women and men, and what makes relationships and marriages work or not work. There are a number of intriguing events and scenes, as well as some bravura speeches about life and literature, in this quirky but compelling novel, a novel that appears to follow its own rules, and is ultimately both thought-provoking and satisfying.

Memorable Journeys in Novels

Another "memorables" list: Memorable Journeys in Novels

-Jane Eyre’s days wandering on the moors in “Jane Eyre” (Bronte)
-Leopold Bloom making his way around Dublin in “Ulysses” (Joyce)
-Clarissa Dalloway walking around London in “Mrs. Dalloway” (Woolf)
-Marlow’s journey down the Congo River in “Heart of Darkness” (Conrad)
-the Joads’ journey from Oklahoma to California in “The Grapes of Wrath” (Steinbeck)
-Sal Paradiso's and Dean Moriarty’s travels through America in “On the Road” (Kerouac)
-Jasmine’s journey from India to and within the United States in “Jasmine” (Mukherjee)
-Sister Mary Joseph Praise's and Dr. Thomas Stone’s voyage across the ocean from India to Africa in “Cutting for Stone” (Verghese)

"The Lemon Table"

I am apparently on a bit of a Julian Barnes kick (see my posts of 5/21/11 and 5/26/11). I have now just finished another of his short story collections, “The Lemon Table” (Knopf, 2004), and am becoming more and more of a fan of Barnes. This collection is lovely but sad. It focuses on age and mortality; in the last story, we are told that in China the lemon represents death. The stories are not so much “about” aging and death as about how we humans think about those topics, and deal with their inevitability in our lives. The stories take place in a wide variety of times and places, and the characters are varied as well. These stories keep the reader’s attention, and there are a few surprises. One of my favorites is “The Fruit Cage,” about a long marriage seen through the son’s eyes; this story reminds us that no one, not even family members, really knows the true nature of any given marriage. One of the saddest stories is “Appetite,” in which a wife reads recipes from favorite cookbooks to her much-loved husband who is disappearing into his dementia; only the recipes still give him pleasure, but sometimes -- unpredictably -- at the cost of hurting his wife’s feelings with his harsh remarks. In another poignant story, “The Story of Mats Israelson,” missed messages and lost opportunities keep a pair of would-be lovers apart for perhaps 30 years. Each of these eleven stories is beautifully crafted; each character is both unique and somehow universal; the writing is evocative and beautiful.

Reading Performance Programs

As I have noted before, reading material is everywhere, not just in books and magazines. I have written, for example, about conference programs and, just yesterday, about greeting cards. Going to a wonderful, exciting performance of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival -- yet another reason I love living in the Bay Area -- the other day made me think about programs at concerts, plays, and other performances. Such programs have a utilitarian value, obviously, in providing information about performances, performers, order of performances, and so on. Beyond that, they often give informative notes and context. Some also have ads. Some are large and fancy; some are small and simple. Some are colorful; some are black and white. Some are booklets; some are one piece of paper folded in half. Some cover just the day’s performance; some serve for a whole series of performances. I liked the program for the Ethnic Dance Festival because it was colorful and gave substantial information about each of the eight dance groups performing that day, as well as about all the other dance groups performing throughout the festival. My one quibble was that the background to the print was mostly dark colors, making it harder to read the print. But the information and the splendid photographs of performers made up for it. It would be a great souvenir for those who save programs; I personally stopped doing so some years ago, for reasons of space, and of knowing that it was highly unlikely that I would go back and look through them. But I do appreciate a program that combines clearly presented information with a bit of flair. By the way, my favorite dance performance that day was one combining South Indian dance and Japanese taiko drumming and dancing. Wow!

Choosing, Writing, and Reading Greeting Cards

A non-book kind of reading is reading greeting cards. Stationery stores, drugstores, supermarkets have aisles full of cards for all occasions: birthdays, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, get well, sympathy, new babies, graduations, retirements, and more. Then there are all the holidays: Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc. And there are some strange “special days” obviously concocted by, or at least encouraged by, the card companies themselves: Secretaries’ Day (now Administrative Assistants’ Day), for example. Then there are subcategories in the card sections of stores: humorous, spiritual, inspirational, budget, etc. Despite the reams of cards available for sale, I often find it hard to find the right one for a specific person on a specific occasion. Many cards are too sentimental, too sugary, too trite, too awkwardly “funny,” too stiff and formal, too sexist, or too vulgar. I try to find cards with simple greetings: “Happy Birthday,” “Happy Holidays,” “Congratulations on your Graduation,” “With my Deep Sympathy.” If I can’t find the right card, I often use blank cards and simply write my own messages. Despite these negative remarks, I do like the idea of greeting cards, and enjoy sending and receiving them. For one thing, they are one of the last remnants of personal mail that arrives in one’s actual physical mailbox rather than email mailbox (although there are email greeting cards as well, and those are fine too).

"We Had It So Good"

I find myself drawn to novels about my generation, those of us who were adolescents and young adults in the l960s and 1970s (OK, yes, the Baby Boomers…). For all the good and bad of those years, and there was plenty of both, I think most of us still feel that they were a sort of Golden Age. Linda Grant captures this feeling in her novel “We Had It So Good” (Scribner, 2011). Her protagonist, Stephen, an American who moved to England, often romanticizes this period in his life. His wife, Andrea, is more pragmatic and is glad that they have since then achieved a comfortable, upper middle class life. His hedonist friend, Ivan, happily enjoys the “best” of both lives: his habits from the sixties and his comforts from his later adult life. The fourth main character, Grace, is a bit of a lost soul; she is, on the one hand, an independent woman who travels everywhere and acts on her ideals, but on the other hand, always needs a man in her life, and doesn’t really get along well with anyone except her old friend Andrea. These four met when they were all at Oxford, Stephen as a Rhodes Scholar (who met Bill Clinton, another Rhodes Scholar, on the ship from the U.S. to England) and the others as English students. We also learn about Stephen and Andrea’s two children, Marianne and Max, each with her/his own complicated life, and Stephen’s father, Si, who is deeply loving but has his own secrets. But the main focus is on the Boomer generation, and how they come to terms with growing older and, eventually, encounter illness and mortality. They – especially Stephen – have led (mostly) charmed lives (thus the title) and can hardly believe that they too are subject to these calamities. One other point that becomes clear is that those who have had loving parents and happy childhoods are positively influenced by these their whole lives; the only problem is that they, as in Stephen’s example, are not really prepared for anything to go wrong in their lives. This situation really resonates with me. An intriguingly dissonant aspect of this novel, for me, was that I didn’t really connect much with any individual character -- well, maybe a bit with Stephen -- and I found the characters a bit complacent, but on the other hand, I connected a lot with the generational aspect and dilemmas. At the end of the book, Stephen thinks, “I don’t understand. How does it come to this? We were supposed to be so special, we were going to change everything and it turns out we’re just the same….” This novel is an absorbing read, especially for those of the Boomer generation.

Memorable Animals in Fiction

Another in my series of lists of "memorables" in literature: memorable animals.

Dogs:
-Pilot in “Jane Eyre” (Bronte)
-White Fang in “White Fang” (London)
-Buck in “Call of the Wild” (London)
-Grizzle in “Mrs. Dalloway” (Woolf)
-Old Yeller in “Old Yeller” (Gipson)
-Lassie in “Lassie Come Home” (Knight)
-Shadow in “Shadow the Sheep Dog” (Blyton)
-Nana in “Peter Pan” (Barrie)
-Yellow Dog Dingo in “Just So Stories” (Kipling)
-Jack in the “Little House” series (Wilder)
-Ribsy in Beverly Cleary’s books for children

Cats:
-Kitty in the “Little House” series (Wilder)
-Ginger in the Narnia books (Lewis)

Other:
-the horse Black Beauty in “Black Beauty” (Sewell)
-the Cowardly Lion in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (Baum)
-Peter Rabbit in the Beatrix Potter children’s books
-the White Rabbit and the March Hare in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (Carroll)
-the spider Charlotte and the pig Wilbur in “Charlotte’s Web” (White)
-the monkey Bandar-log in “The Jungle Book” (Kipling)
-the monkey Curious George in the series (Reys)
-the pigs Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer in “Animal Farm” (Orwell)
-the robin in “The Secret Garden (Burnett)

The Story of a Great Chef: Grant Achatz

As regular readers of this blog know, I like to read about restaurants, chefs, and the “foodie” (although I don’t particularly like this term, it is a kind of convenient shorthand) world. (See, for example, my 2/4/10 list of books on these topics, and my 6/10/11 list of “memorable meals in fiction.”) I have just finished reading a fascinating contribution to this genre: “Life, On the Line” (Gotham, 2011), by Chef Grant Achatz and his business partner, Nick Kokonas. Achatz is only in his thirties but has become one of the very best-known chefs in the United States and the world, because of the intensely creative food he produces in his award-winning Chicago restaurant, Alinea. The story of his becoming a chef and of his restaurant is intertwined with the story of his life. A very difficult and frightening occurrence in his life a few years ago was his diagnosis of, and treatment for, Stage IV tongue cancer. This is a terrible illness for anyone, but even more so for a chef, who needs his sense of taste for his livelihood and passion. He underwent an extremely painful and ravaging experimental treatment that, miraculously, cured his cancer and eventually allowed his taste to come back. Throughout, he continued to run the restaurant, create new dishes, and supervise his dedicated group of chefs. Now he and Kokonas have opened a new restaurant in Chicago as well, called Next, a sign of hope for a new beginning. This book catches the reader up in the compelling story it offers, and is informative, enjoyable, sad, and inspiring. I had the privilege and good fortune to dine at Alinea earlier this year, thanks to my friends E., J., and G.; it was an amazing, even thrilling experience. This book is a must-read for anyone at all interested in the world of restaurants.

Literature in the Current Issue of The New Yorker

The New Yorker is, among other things, a literary magazine, one of the reasons I like it so much (as I have posted to say before). The current issue (June 13 & 20, 2011) is particularly focused on literature, with three short stories (rather than the usual one), a literary memoir, and a special section, "Starting Out," comprised of short pieces by various authors about their early years. For me, the highlights are as follows: 1. Jhumpa Lahiri's memoiristic essay, "Trading Stories," about how she became a reader and then a writer, starting in childhood, and how she always felt torn between her Indian and American identities. 2. Jeffrey Eugenides' story, "Asleep in the Lord," about a young American man who goes to do volunteer work in Mother Teresa's home for dying poor people in Calcutta, and about what he learns about himself there. 3. Lauren Groff's wrenching story, "Above and Below," about a female graduate student who loses her connection to academe, becomes destitute and homeless, and suffers much hardship. 4. Salvatore Scibona's short piece about how he disliked school and assigned reading, but somehow heard about and was accepted at St. John's College, which utilized the Great Books approach, and was challenged, exhilarated, and educated through learning Greek and reading "The Iliad," Copernicus, Einstein, Hegel, Darwin, Baudelaire and much much more.

Memorable Villains in Literature

Here is another list in what is becoming an irregular "series" of lists of things memorable in literature. Today's list is of a few memorable villains.

-Iago in “Othello” (Shakespeare)
-Edmund in “King Lear” (Shakespeare)
-Pap Finn in “Huckleberry Finn” (Twain)
-Robert Lovelace in “Clarissa” (Richardson)
-Clare Quilty in “Lolita” (Nabokov)
-Bill Sikes in “Oliver Twist” (Dickens)
-Alec d’Urberville in “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” (Hardy)
-Mr. Hyde in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (Stevenson)
-Mr. Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness” (Conrad)
-Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca” (Du Maurier)
-The White Witch in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” (Lewis)
-The Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (Baum)

"Equal Affections"

At the same time that I happened to pick up David Leavitt’s novel “The Body of Jonah Boyd,” which I posted about on 6/8/11, I picked up another of his novels, an earlier one titled “Equal Affections” (Perennial, 1989). This story is also -- like most of his work -- about a family: Louise and Nat, their daughter April, and their son Danny. Louise is sick throughout most of the book; she is a loving but difficult wife and mother. Her marriage to Nat is loving but fraught. April is a semi-famous lesbian folksinger. Danny is a gay lawyer whose partner, Walter, is also a lawyer; they have their ups and downs, but overall a great relationship. There are other family members, friends, and lovers featured, but the main focus is always on the relationships among the four original family members. Like most families, they love each other deeply, and take for granted that nothing can break their connection, yet they squabble, offend each other, are sometimes out of touch for a while, then reconcile. Sometimes they are baffled by each other, but there is a warmth among them as well. This story, although lacking the mystery aspect of “Jonah,” is a richer, denser story with a more genuine feel to it. The novel kept me reading, and I enjoyed it. If it turns up in your life, say at a library sale or at a summer cottage, do consider reading it, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone’s going out of her/his way to find it.

Teacher, Practice What You Preach!

Among other things, I teach writing. I teach my students about the writing process, including all the things writers sometimes do on the way to a finished product. These can include reading, thinking, discussing ideas with others, brainstorming, freewriting, jotting down notes, outlining, drafting, getting feedback on early drafts from others, redrafting, and more. I firmly believe in this process, yet when I am doing my own writing projects, I sometimes have to remind myself to “practice what I preach,” or in this case, “practice what I teach.” I have recently been stuck on getting started on a certain piece that I have committed to write, casting about for how to focus the piece. A few days ago I decided to try the exercise of freewriting, which involves simply writing freely about a topic, without thinking too much, without worrying about logic or felicity, and most of all, without stopping. As I say to my students, “Just keep that pen moving!” It is a kind of priming of the pump; the idea is that the very act of writing freely and without prior plan or structure will bring ideas to the surface that one can then mine for use in the writing project. Although I often have my students do this exercise, I almost never do it myself. Well, sure enough, as I was writing away, letting words flow onto the page in an unregulated stream, my ideas started to take shape, and I began to see a way out of my tangle and block. And then as my focus became clearer, I started to get excited about the potential of the piece. When I finally stopped and read over what I had written, I could focus and organize the ideas I found there. I am still a long, long way from a finished piece, but now I know where I am going with it, and more or less how I will get there, which makes all the difference. I am happy about this, of course, and also slightly sheepish about the fact that I had forgotten or neglected this useful strategy that I blithely teach my students but tend to ignore in my own writing; I should listen to myself more often!

Memorable Meals in Fiction

Writers of fiction often write vividly and sensuously about meals. I have posted about memorable characters (3/6/11), memorable settings (3/11/11), and memorable children (5/2/11) in fiction; today I list a few memorable meals.

-Proust’s madeleine with tea in “Swann’s Way”
-The Morkan sisters’ dinner party for the Feast of the Epiphany in “The Dead” (Joyce)
-Mrs. Ramsey’s dinner for family and friends in “To the Lighthouse” (Woolf)
-The reunion meals of the six characters in “The Waves” (Woolf)
-The famous sensual, seductive meal in “Tom Jones” (Fielding)
-Hemingway eating oysters in “A Moveable Feast”
-The March girls taking their Christmas meal to the poor family in “Little Women” (Alcott)
-Jo’s botched meal in “Little Women” (Alcott)
-The dinner party in “Larry’s Party” (Shields)
-All the meals in Laurie Colwin’s novels

Glorious Literary Paris in the Twenties

Woody Allen’s new movie, “Midnight in Paris,” is great fun for those who love literature and especially for those who read about and dream about the golden days of American writers in Paris in the 1920s. The protagonist of the film, a screenwriter and would-be novelist (and clearly a stand-in for Allen himself) named Gil, is visiting Paris and completely enchanted with the city and with his visions of staying there and writing, just like his 1920s-era literary heroes. Magically, at midnight one night, and then for many nights after, he is picked up by a vintage car and transported into the 1920s, talking, drinking, and dancing with writers such as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Djuna Barnes, and with artists such as Picasso and Dali. Gil is dazed and then can’t believe his good fortune, as he moves through a golden haze of 1920s Parisian pleasures, just the way we all imagine it was. The portrayal of Hemingway is a hilarious parody; the film Hemingway speaks in an exaggerated version of the way the real Hemingway wrote: in short, forceful sentences about how to be a real man and a real writer. The movie is clearly Allen’s love letter to Paris and to what we all imagine was a magical time in literary history. Gil eventually has an epiphany that we all think the past was a golden age and our present is always dull in comparison; this epiphany seems tacked on, and in no way detracts from the gorgeous and beautifully filmed portrayal of 1920s literary Paris. I wouldn’t say this is the greatest film Allen has made, but it is very enjoyable, and fulfills a fantasy many lovers of literature have had about living the literary life in Paris.

"The Body of Jonah Boyd"

I stumbled across and read one of David Leavitt’s less famous books, the novel “The Body of Jonah Boyd” (Bloomsbury, 2004). It is, as most of his books are, about a family, and the setting is -- as is common in his novels -- California, in a college town. The center of the story is the wife and mother of the family, Nancy Wright. The story is narrated by Professor Ernest Wright’s secretary, Denny. Because Denny is the secretary (and mistress) to Ernest and a sort of companion to Nancy, she is with the family a lot, but is often relegated to the sidelines of the action. She both cherishes and resents her ambiguous position. There is a complicated story about friends of the family and one of the sons, Ben, who becomes a writer. The main part of the story happens in 1969; the sequel happens thirty years later. There was, I assume, supposed to be a bit of mystery as to what happened during this interval, but the mystery wasn't mysterious enough to cause any real suspense. The revelations it offered were not surprising, and in fact reminded me of the plot turns of at least two other novels I've read. I found this novel a quick, fairly enjoyable read, and that is about all I can say for it. Don't bother reading it.

"Making Home From War"

In 1999, my USF colleague, writing professor and poet Brian Komei Dempster, was asked to lead a writing workshop for former Japanese World War II internees in the United States, so that they could share their stories. In 2001, he edited a collection of their stories, “From Our Side of the Fence: Growing up in America’s Concentration Camps.” Now, ten years later, the same 12 writers, after a renewed time in their writing group, have told the follow-up stories of their resettlement after the war in a new book, also edited by Dempster, “Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement” (Heyday, 2011). The editor, whose own grandfather, a Buddhist priest, was interned, has done a great service to history and to justice, as well as to literature, in working with these writers, many of whom had no prior experience in writing for publication, to preserve their stories. An excellent foreword by Greg Robinson explains the historical context, and both Robinson and Dempster point out that although there has been much written about the internment (which Dempster and his writers decided to call, more accurately and less euphemistically, “incarceration,” “imprisonment,” and “confinement”), there has been much less written about the resettlement afterward. As the writers are now mostly in their 80s, it became essential for them to write and publish their stories now. These stories are very moving. We cannot help but admire the way the writers and their families, despite great difficulties and injustices, got on with their lives. Many of them earned advanced degrees and had estimable careers. Yet the years of confinement left their scars; one of Dempster’s points is that the resettlement process –- economic, geographic, logistical, social, emotional, psychological, and more -- took place not just during the traditionally defined period of 1945-1955, but for many years afterward, even into the present. This book is beautifully produced, with an evocative cover, many photographs of the authors and their families in the past and in the present, and useful “migration charts” showing where and when each family moved before, during, and after the war. “Making Home from War” makes an enormous contribution: it is informative, it reminds us of the grave injustices perpetrated on Japanese Americans, and it gives us the great gift of the authentic voices of those who experienced this sad chapter in American history.
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A personal note: This is my 400th post on this blog!

Ersatz Austen

One of my first entries on this blog (1/25/10) was about Jane Austen, whose books I have read and reread so many times. Because I love her work so much, I even occasionally read the “sequels” and other novels based on Austen’s books. I just finished “Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to ‘Pride and Prejudice’” (University of Chicago Press, 1993), by Julia Barrett. It tells the imagined story of what happens after Elizabeth and Darcy marry. The setting is, of course, Pemberley, and the main character is Darcy’s sister Georgiana. Other characters from “Pride and Prejudice” in “Presumption” are Elizabeth's parents and sisters, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, Mr. Collins, and more. New characters include two young men who vie for Georgiana’s affection. There are flirtations, romances, crises, two new babies, deceptions, betrayals, realizations, and other events. Naturally, after some manufactured suspense and a couple of surprises, all ends well. This novel, like some of the other sequels, prequels, and offshoots, is fun to read, and a chance to reconnect with Austen’s world. But because no writer can even pretend to be in Austen’s league (and to be fair, these authors don’t pretend that, but rather bill their novels as tributes to Austen), reading “Presumption” and other such novels is a bit like eating mediocre chocolate; it tastes OK, but it definitely isn’t the “good stuff,” the real thing.

Remembrance of Letters Past

When I was at my mother’s house recently, going through old papers, as she is downsizing, she showed me files of letters that my brothers and I had written to my father and her when we were children in boarding school in India, many years ago. I read them with great interest; they not only brought back memories of events and feelings from that time period, but they vividly illustrated different stages of our childhoods. My youngest brother wrote sweet, simple notes in block printing. We all listed litanies of activities: “On Saturday our class took a hike. On Sunday L. and C. and I went to the bazaar. Yesterday Mr. F. told us we have to memorize a poem.” Etc. The letters also were clearly from four different kids: I immediately recognized the handwriting of each of my brothers, and noticed the stylistic differences in our writing. I also still have some of the letters that my parents wrote to me in boarding school, and later on too, for example when I was in college and when I moved to San Francisco. During the boarding school holidays, when we dispersed and went home, some of my friends and I would write each other long letters, which helped with the separation from each other and our school and social activities. During my college and early adult years, when any of us -- family or friends -- went on trips, we would write letters and cards. As an adult, I enjoy reading the published letters of some of my favorite authors, and find them both revealing and intriguing. I still write and receive some handwritten notes or letters, although much more rarely than in pre-email days. In particular, my mother doesn’t use email, so we still write each other letters; we each enjoy both writing and receiving letters. A couple of my friends still (one in particular -- thank you, B.!) write the occasional note by post, which I enjoy and appreciate. And I have one friend in Canada with whom I have been exchanging cards and letters since we were ten years old, although we have only seen each other a few times over the years, and that is a treasured correspondence. But with cell phones, texting, emailing, instant messaging/chatting, Facebook, and all the other ways to communicate, old-fashioned letters are not very common anymore. Isn’t it a bit sad that nowadays when one opens one’s mailbox, the chances of that little uptick of happiness on finding a personal letter are very small? I know that technology marches on, and that is mostly a good thing; I, for example, am a great fan of email. But I can’t help feeling that the drastic decrease in letter writing is a loss.

Can't Get Into "Chronic City"

I just couldn’t finish Jonathan Lethem’s novel “Chronic City” (Vintage Contemporaries, 2009). I tried, I persisted, I got about halfway through, and then skimmed the rest. I thought I would like it because it is about New York City, and because the critics claim it shows the city in a way that it has never been shown before; the blurb on the back cover calls the novel “a searing love letter to the city.” The novel is mostly about a very small coterie of friends, mostly male; although one works for the mayor, and there is some ado about some citywide strange events, the novel seems to me claustrophobic and – OK, I will say it – boring. The narrator, Chase Insteadman, a former child TV actor, connects with the character Perkus Tooth, who is supposed to be, I guess, emblematic of New York cool and hip – or something like that. Tooth is a former rock critic with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, who now mainly smokes pot and hangs out either at his own apartment or at a nearby café where he always eats and drinks the same thing: a cheeseburger and a Coke. He gets fixated on trying to buy a certain rare type of ceramic vase on eBay, which he thinks has a mystical healing power. The novels mostly consists of many long, tedious, stoned conversations between Tooth, Insteadman, and a few of their friends, and a few walks through the city, none seeming to lead anywhere much. There is a sort of plot, but not one that held my attention. There is a sort of theme, something about “the pursuit of truth” (according to a New York Times review), but again, the way this theme is explored didn’t hold my attention. This novel was a bestseller, and was well received critically, so perhaps I am missing something. But personally I don’t recommend it at all.

A Misogynistic Nobel Laureate

According to an NPR article, “Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul Says No Woman Is His Literary ‘Equal’” (Peralta, 6/2/11), Naipaul has stated that women are “quite different,” and that they cannot write as well as he does because of their “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world.” Naipaul, who has been revealed by biographies and other books to be violent, racist, and misogynistic, reminds us that being a good writer definitely does not translate to being a good person. Statements such as the above show him to have a “narrow view of the world” himself. I do admire some of his writing, and I believe that he has added to our understanding of the damage done by colonialism and by racism, so this kind of prejudice makes me both angry and sad, because he should know better. It is always sad to see how some people understand very well one kind of prejudice and discrimination, but are blind to other kinds. I also hold him, as a writer who has received such high level recognition, to a higher standard. Perhaps I should be able to separate my feelings about the author and about his work, and I generally try to do so, but knowing of Naipaul’s apparent contempt for and dismissal of female writers certainly makes me less likely to want to read more of his work in the future.

"Cutting for Stone"

“Cutting for Stone” (Vintage, 2009), by Abraham Verghese, is a big (667-page) saga, a bestseller. I must admit it took me a while to get through it, and I read several other books while I was chipping away at this one. But I am glad I persisted. Verghese, a physican and author of the memoir “My Own Country” about working with AIDS patients in Appalachia, which I very much liked when I read it some years ago, has written a moving epic novel about characters from India and Africa who converge on Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The two main characters are twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone; other characters are their birth parents (they are born of an illicit but touching relationship), their adopted parents, and others who work at the hospital. The brothers are extremely close, considering themselves two halves of a whole, but a betrayal tears them apart, and Marion goes to the United States for further medical training. There he is successful but still haunted by his past, in both positive and negative ways. There is much in this book about family, about immigration, about love, and about death. The relationships are close and often moving. There is also much -- sometimes too much -- about medicine, although in some cases the medical crises and procedures are very dramatic. All of this takes place against the backdrop of Ethiopian history during and after the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie; the characters of the story see this history up close, and are directly -- sometimes tragically -- affected by it. I must admit that I personally was particularly drawn to a part of the book that was only a minor part of the story: the early part in South India, where I spent my childhood. The descriptions of that area, and the feelings of those who were torn between their pasts and their futures, their countries of birth and their need to go out into the world, are evocative and moving. It’s the beginning of the summer now, so if you are looking for a high-quality and enjoyable “good read,” one that takes you to other worlds, buy this book in paperback, take it with you on vacation, and get caught up in its gripping (and generally well-written) story.

"My New American Life"

The immigrant novel is a common genre in the United States, and adds new energy to American literature, just as immigrants themselves add new energy to the country. Francine Prose’s new novel, “My New American Life” (Harper, 2011) has elements of the classic immigrant novel, yet with a quirky, original energy of its own. The main character, the one through whose eyes we experience the story, is Lula, a young woman from Albania, now living in New Jersey with her employer, “Mister Stanley,” and his teenaged son, Zeke; since Zeke’s mentally ill mother, Ginger, left the family, Mister Stanley wants someone to oversee and take care of Zeke while Stanley works long hours on Wall Street. Lula meets some seemingly gangster types who are also from Albania, and falls in love –- well, thinks she may have fallen in love -- with one of them, Alvo. There is much mystery and intrigue regarding Alvo. Lula grows fond of Mister Stanley and Zeke, yet feels her life is going nowhere, staying with them in New Jersey. She is very creative, and tells and writes stories about Albania in which she exaggerates and distorts -- OK, lies, sometimes -- and watches bemusedly as those around her welcome and encourage her exotic if unlikely tales. Lula is an original character, funny and realistic and confused and positive, despite attempting to be cynical and negative. She is someone for whom we root, and who will always land on her feet. The novel is energetic, funny, enjoyable to read, and at the same time –- without belaboring the issues –- makes some important points about the lives of new immigrants in the United States.