"Agewise," by Margaret Morganroth Gullette

I don’t usually pick up a book intending only to read certain selections, but I did so with “Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America” (University of Chicago Press, 2011), by Margaret Morganroth Gullette. The topic of ageism is important (and of increasing relevance to my Boomer generation); the author is a scholar but writes in a way accessible to the general reader. I am sure the rest of the book is interesting, but what caught my attention and what I read were two chapters with literary connections. The first is “The Mystery of Carolyn Heilbrun’s Suicide: Fear of Aging, Ageism, and the ‘Duty to Die.’” Readers of this blog may remember that Carolyn Heilbrun is a feminist literary scholar whom I greatly admire (see my post of 7/14/10), and whose feminist detective novels, written under the pen name of Amanda Cross, are also wonderful; I was very saddened to learn of her suicide in 2003. Gullette feels, as the title indicates, that Heilbrun, despite being only 77 and being in good health, with many admirable achievements, greatly admired, with a loving family and many friends, felt that it was time for her to die; she had retired from Columbia University under difficult circumstances, had lost her interest to some extent in reading and writing, was subject to depression, and -- most notably, to Gullette -- felt that she was becoming somewhat invisible. The author theorizes that once women of Heilbrun’s generation had, with difficulty, been able to join the workforce and use their minds and talents, they became invested in doing so, and were/are at a loss when retiring, even more so than men (although Gullette doesn’t explain the difference very convincingly). This is an interesting although sad exploration of the topic. The second chapter of interest to me in this book is “The Daughter’s Club: Does Emma Woodhouse’s Father Suffer from ‘Dementia’?” Emma is, of course, Jane Austen’s “Emma.” Gullette points out that scholars have focused on Emma’s pride, immaturity, flightiness, misguided meddling, and love story, but have paid little attention to her dilemma (which is, with great good fortune, resolved at the end): her father suffers from great mental and emotional limitations, which Emma and Austen herself seek to minimize by treating them as endearing eccentricities, and by emphasizing what a kind, generous man he is. But Gullette argues that Mr. Woodhouse's limitations are actually signs of dementia, which will only get worse. Emma is well aware that her daughterly duty is to care for him as he declines, until he dies. She loves him dearly, does not shirk from the task, and is unfailingly kind to and patient with him, but it is a heavy burden for a very young woman; in addition, she realizes that this duty may preclude her marrying and having her own family. Only the great goodness of Knightley in agreeing to take the very unusual step of leaving his own estate and moving into the Woodhouse home solves the issue of how Emma can care for her father and still have a marriage and family herself. But still, all is not unalloyed happiness; Gullette points out that Austen shows us almost nothing of what happens after the wedding, as she -- Austen -- is well aware that Emma and Knightley will have a difficult time caring for Mr. Woodhouse as his dementia increases. This intriguing and original interpretation of the story puts Emma in a much better and more mature light than usual, and I found it sad but very compelling.

"Maine," by J. Courtney Sullivan

I have written before about books that are something between “beach novels”/”chick lit” and literary fiction. “Maine” (Knopf, 2011), by J. Courtney Sullivan, seems to fit this in-between category, as did Sullivan’s earlier novel, “Commencement,” which I enjoyed. “Maine” is about a Boston-based Irish Catholic family with a summer home in Maine. Come to think of it, within the past couple of weeks I have written about one book on a Boston-based Irish Catholic family and another book with a family summer house in Maine…interesting coincidences. (And a book I am reading now has a blurb on the back from Sullivan…but that is a post for another day….) I am always drawn to novels about New England vacation retreats. However, “Maine” left me a bit dissatisfied. I am not sure exactly why, but here are some possible reasons:
1. Too small a proportion of this nearly-400-page novel is actually set at the Maine cottage. Like a bored child in the backseat of a car, I kept wanting to ask the author, “Are we there yet? Are we there NOW?”
2. The back story takes too long; the novel seemed to have a lot of prologue and too little current action. It is not just that there is a back story, or history, which is common in novels and can be done well, but that it always seems to be interrupting, stuttering its way into the current story, and not necessarily smoothly.
3. Fictional dysfunctional families can be interesting; this novel, however, seems to be trying to describe a dysfunctional family, but ends up portraying a family more pathetic and annoying and sometimes nasty than truly dysfunctional. You wouldn’t want to spend much time with these characters.
4. And speaking of nasty: Alice, the matriarch of the family, is miserable, rigid, mean, judgmental, and racist. Yes, there is a back story about a tragedy that happened early in her life, but this doesn’t justify her mean-spiritedness and her cruelty to her own family members. Guilt, yes; cruelty, no. Perhaps this is a realistic “type,” but she is hard to tolerate. The family tiptoes around her, but we don't have to. And yes, I know, you don’t have to LIKE the characters in novels, if there is a reason that they are the way they are, but this one is gratuitously, pointlessly petty and mean.
If “Maine” were better written, maybe my objections would be less salient. As it is, the novel is fine, not a bad read, but not very good either.

Lost Worlds

On 4/8/10, I wrote about “book flashes,” the way in which odd bits and pieces of the many books I have read over many years sometimes suddenly and unpredictably flash through my head. In that post and in my 2/24/10 post on "books remembered and forgotten," I celebrated those strange but good occurrences. But there is another side to that experience: sometimes I feel sad about all the worlds I’ve inhabited for a few hours each, the worlds encompassed in the books I have read, worlds of which I can remember and/or revisit only a small part. Those worlds were so intensely felt for a few hours, and then they drifted into the vast inchoate mass of my fallible and inadequate memory. Of course I don’t believe they have all completely disappeared, and fortunately the best, the most impressive, the most powerful plots and characters and themes still usually stay with me, even if they are a little blurry around the edges. But what about all the others?

"Letters Never Sent," by Ruth E. Van Reken

Some of you may know that I was and am a “missionary kid” (MK), the child of missionary parents; I grew up in India. I say “am” because “once an MK, always an MK.” So I am always interested in the stories of other MKs. They usually tell of the adventures they had, and of the big moves their families made between their home countries and the countries where their parents worked. Most MKs write or speak positively about all this, but most also acknowledge that at times it was difficult and lonely. I recently re-read one such story by Ruth E. Van Reken. Written in the form of letters that express the author’s feelings about her experiences as she looks back on them, this book is titled “Letters Never Sent: One Woman’s Journey from Hurt to Wholeness” (“Letters,” 1988). This volume is certainly compelling, especially for those of us who have had similar experiences. But in major ways, it does not resonate with my experiences. The author’s main theme is that the long separations from her parents brought about by her education far away from them, first in boarding school and later living with relatives, left her with lifelong scars and feelings of deprivation and hurt. I understand that some MKs felt this, but my own stays at boarding school were a happy time in my life. I loved my parents and missed them, but did not feel sad and deprived. An important point in the book is that each child is different, and is affected differently by such experiences as separations from parents, and thus that parents and schools should be aware of these differences and act accordingly. Fortunately, Van Reken was eventually able to heal from her childhood experiences.

"Faith," by Jennifer Haigh

I am finding it very difficult to write about the novel “Faith” (Harper, 2011), by Jennifer Haigh (author of “Mrs. Kimble,” which I liked), because of the enormity and horror of its topic: child molestation by priests. To be more specific, Haigh writes about the accusation of the main character, Art, of child molestation; we don’t find out whether the accusation is justified until near the end of the novel. The novel’s narrator is Sheila, Art’s sister, and she writes about the difficult family history, the pain the accusation costs the family, the complex personalities involved, and the complicated web of people and relationships and events surrounding them. It seems it would be hard to write about all this without seeming to exploit this explosive topic, but Haigh writes sensitively and thoughtfully. Of course I can’t presume to know how reading this novel would feel to someone who had a personal connection to the topic. I feel I can’t write any more without revealing too much of the twists and turns and complications of the story -- and there are some surprises -- so I will stop here.

"Level Up," by Gene Luen Yang

I don’t usually read graphic novels, but there have been a few I really enjoyed, such as Posy Simmonds’ “Gemma Bovery” and “Tamara Drewe,” modern takeoffs on classic novels. Another that I enjoyed was Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese,” which aptly captured at least one character’s view of being part of this particular demographic. I have just read Yang’s new graphic novel, “Level Up” (First Second, 2011), with art by Thien Pham. The main character, Dennis Ouyang, feels constrained by his dead father’s dream for him to become a gastroenterologist (ironic in that Dennis gets sick to the stomach easily), when all he really wants to do is play video games. He fell in love with Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers when he was a young kid, and ever after felt the tension between what he “should” be doing and what he loved doing. The story of this tension is the focus of the book. It is an evocative portrayal of the burden placed on young people -- Asian or not -- who feel it is their duty to fulfill their parents’ wishes even when those wishes are very contrary to the young people’s own dreams. To Yang's credit, he makes both sides -- father and son -- sympathetic. Using the form of the graphic novel to portray this tension is very effective, with the absorbing, somewhat wistful drawings reinforcing the spare-but-powerful writing. It is easy to read this book quickly, but I urge readers to slow down to appreciate the details of the drawings, and the way the language and the art reinforce each other.

Sometimes I Just Don't Want to Read It

Sometimes I read a review of a book and I feel “I SHOULD read that.” It is significant, and/or it is by a great writer, and/or everyone will be talking about it. But it just doesn’t sound like a book I would like. Maybe the subject matter doesn’t interest me, or the book is too “experimental” for my taste, or it sounds like it will be extremely painful to read. Usually I try to read more reviews of the book, to learn more about it, in case the first reviewer just emphasized an aspect I tend not to like, or framed the book in a way that didn’t appeal to me. Sometimes I will flip through the book at the library or at a bookstore, to get a better sense of it. Sometimes these actions make a difference and I DO decide to read the book. More often, I don’t. I may feel a slight sense of pressure (guilt is too strong a word) about not reading it, and/or I may feel that I am being lazy or narrow or picky by avoiding a well-reviewed and well-regarded book that happens not to immediately appeal to me. But the older I get, the easier it is to trust my sense of whether a book is one I will like or not. After all, I -- like all readers -- have only so much time to read, and so I have to choose what I read with some awareness of that limitation.

In Praise of (and Defense of) Short Stories

A reviewer in today's San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Wayne Harrison, begins a sentence as follows: "In a literary landscape where short-story collections have been hammered smooth of risk and possibility in MFA workshops..." (p. F4). I agree that this assessment might be true in some cases, but it is a vast generalization (probably made to be provocative, and to highlight the book under review in contrast, but still...) that does not acknowledge the work of many wonderful short story writers writing today. Here I list (and I have written about many of these on this blog) some of these gifted writers of original, creative, surprising, enlightening, enjoyable, impressive stories (in no particular order, and in a list that does not claim to be complete):

William Trevor
Alice Munro
Edith Pearlman
Deborah Eisenberg
Julian Barnes
Colm Toibin
Jhumpa Lahiri
Margaret Drabble
Ann Beattie
Margaret Atwood
David Leavitt
Lori Ostlund
Valerie Trueblood
Carolyn Cooke
Ann Packer
Deborah Willis
Robin Black

I know that many readers of fiction do not particularly enjoy short stories, preferring the longer novel, and I respect that opinion. However, as much as I too love the novel form, I believe that such readers are missing out on some absolutely terrific fiction found in short story collections by authors such as those I have listed above.

Guest Post: On the Closing of Borders Books

When I heard about Borders Books closing, I felt sad. Although I am an advocate for independent bookstores, the closing of any bookstores, and especially so many throughout the country, is a huge loss. There is also the Ann Arbor connection; as a former resident of the Ann Arbor area, I feel a sentimental stake in Borders. But I haven't lived in Michigan for many years, so I asked my friend Mary, who has lived in Ann Arbor most of her adult life, to write a guest post about the closing of Borders, and she kindly agreed. (Mary is the one who suggested my starting this blog back in January 2010, and who generously contributed other guest posts on 3/7/11 and 4/15/11.) Her post is below.

Mary's guest post:

Borders is closing, and it makes me sad. It's true that for a long time it has not been the charming, stimulating, delightfully literary haven it was when I first shopped there. I moved to Ann Arbor in 1973, and at that time there was a tiny Borders, overflowing with used books, with artsy posters covering the walls. A couple of years later it was moved across State Street, into a big rambling space, with lots of dark wood shelves, nooks and crannies, and a steep staircase leading to a mezzanine filled with many more books, as well as some of those artsy posters. Here and there were built-in wooden benches -- the first time I had encountered seating in a bookstore.

Tom Borders, one of two brothers who started the store, created a computerized inventory system which was innovative at the time. Ironic, considering the computer was eventually the downfall of the chain now called Borders. But that is now. Then was a different story.

Borders, then, was a place to go and browse, and read, and buy, but also to learn things. Its inventory was not stocked with a hundred copies of every best seller, but rather with seemingly every book on every subject imaginable. And if you couldn't find what you wanted, there was always someone there who would help you, and probably teach you something too. There were employees who were experts in each subject area, but every employee was well-read and well-trained. Apparently there was a daunting test that prospective employees had to pass, covering all manner of literary topics. Many of the employees had advanced degrees, and the longtime manager there was so knowledgeable that he was revered in a town full of scholars.

I stopped by one of Borders' "superstores" this evening (10% off everything -- the liquidation has begun). It is a lot different than the original store. There are toys, CDs, DVDs, and a huge section of cards and novelty items. There are no experts waiting to teach me things. The Borders I remember has been gone for a long time. But as I browsed the store one last time, I felt sad to lose even this version. I miss my hometown bookstore.

"The John Cheever Audio Collection"

Planning for a recent car trip, I was browsing in my beautiful local library for a book-on-CD to accompany me on the trip. “The John Cheever Audio Collection” (Recorded Books, 2003) caught my eye. I pondered. Did I want to spend six and a half hours in Cheeverland? I have read many of Cheever’s stories, and liked them. I looked forward to spending those 6.5 hours in New York and its upscale commuter suburbs, the locales that Cheever wrote so precisely and evocatively -- and sometimes so painfully and depressingly -- about. His observations are always so razor sharp, so spot-on. His characters are both predictable and unexpected. Oh, and alcohol is a constant presence, reminding us of what a big part alcohol played in the affluent suburbs of the 1950s and 1960s, for both social and self-medicating purposes, and evoking a whole way of life during that time period. All in all, I thought, yes, I would like to spend that time with the Cheever stories. So I did. And I am glad I did. The selections include some of Cheever’s classic, best-known stories, such as “The Enormous Radio,” “The Five-Forty-Eight,” “O City of Broken Dreams,” and probably most famous of all, “The Swimmer.” Greatly enhancing the pleasure of listening to these stories is the fact that they are read by Meryl Streep, Edward Herrmann, Blythe Danner, George Plimpton, Peter Gallagher, and the author himself. What a treat to listen to these fine readers read these wonderful stories!

Always Reading, Always Writing

I was recently thinking about what a huge proportion of my day is filled with reading and writing. I read newspapers, books for work and pleasure, magazines, journals, letters, documents, email, Facebook, other online websites and blogs, memos, signs, bulletin boards, and more. I write letters, postcards, emails, syllabi, lesson plans, tests and exercises, lectures, conference proposals and papers, articles, book chapters, books, manuscript reviews, tenure and promotion reviews, notes for committee work, my ubiquitous to-do lists, grocery lists, posts for this blog, and much more. I am thinking about the sheer amount of time I spend with words. I am sure this is true for many of you as well. It is hard to remember that for much of history, people spent little or no time on reading and writing, and even now, there are people all over the world, including in the United States, who cannot or do not read and write, or do so only very minimally. I don’t say that spending as much time as I do on words is necessarily a good thing, but it is a major fact in my life and work, and a very large part of who I am.

"The Arrivals," by Meg Mitchell Moore

I have always loved stories that follow the classic Jane Austen pattern of gathering a few characters into a small place and then letting them interact. “The Arrivals” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Meg Mitchell Moore, does this, with an intriguing twist: Ginny and William’s three adult children all come home suddenly one summer, one by one, bringing their various family members, troubles and issues with them. Suddenly the house is full to the brim, noisy, messy, mostly loving but sometimes tense and difficult. Lillian brings her two young children, leaving her briefly unfaithful husband Tom behind, and is trying to decide if her marriage is over. Stephen and his wife Jane’s planned two-day visit turns into several weeks when pregnant Jane is put on emergency bed rest. And Rachel, who has just broken up with her boyfriend and gotten tired of her seemingly dead-end job, and is broke, drags herself home to recuperate. The events of the novel are both mildly dramatic and soothingly familiar -- very much like most people’s lives, most of the time. All the family dynamics come into play, with some mild snippiness and thoughtless behavior and words, but because everyone is basically nice, and basically loving, there isn’t too much drama or trauma to be had on this account. There are a couple of briefly scary scenes, but all is resolved quite quickly. Some readers might find the book a bit lacking in plot, but not I. To me, the interactions among the family members and the few outside characters allowed into the story are amply interesting. Although the initial setup is somewhat artificial (but clever!), the characters and their interactions seem quite realistic. Well, maybe Ginny and William are a bit too saintly, but they love their children and want to help them, even when they sometimes guiltily wonder how long they are all going to stay; after all, the pleasures of cooking and cleaning and doing laundry for, and worrying about, six extra people wear thin quickly. I won't give away the ending, but I will give a little hint: no, don't worry, they don't stay in the family nest forever.

"The End of Everything," by Megan Abbott

I can’t remember where I read the positive review of “The End of Everything” (Little Brown, 2011), by Megan Abbott, that led me to borrow it from the library and read it, but now I wish I hadn’t. The book is full of suspense, and kept me reading it all in one fell swoop, taking up my Sunday morning, despite my increasing distaste for the book. It reminds me of many bestselling suspense novels, but perhaps one or two levels up literarily. It is also a sort of domestic drama; otherwise I wouldn’t usually have picked up a suspense novel. The story is told through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl, Lizzie, and focuses on the disappearance of her best friend, Evie, who lives next door; the two girls have been inseparable since early childhood. Evie’s disappearance leads Lizzie into speculations, investigations, and newfound knowledge, forever taking away her innocence. Much is revealed about illicit desire, both adult and adolescent, some overt and some hidden, but with some doubt about exactly where the boundaries lie. Despite reading the novel without stopping, I was put off by two things. One was a kind of tic in the writing: the too-frequent use of such pumping-up-the-suspense, talky phrases as “And then I knew…”, “I knew there was something, if I could only figure it out…”, “And then everything changed,” “I knew things would never be the same again…”, etc. (In some cases, I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea….) The other, more important point was that the difficult topic of an adult male character’s obsession with a young adolescent girl (which is also echoed in another adult male character’s less overtly but still disturbingly inappropriate interactions with young girls in his sphere) is treated in a too-breathless, too-fascinated, somewhat exploitative way; reading this novel made me feel, finally, a bit soiled.

"Daughters of the Revolution," by Carolyn Cooke

On 7/14/11 I wrote of how much I liked Carolyn Cooke’s collection of short stories, “The Bostons.” Now I have read her new book, a novel, “Daughters of the Revolution” (Knopf, 2011), which I also liked very much, although it took me a little while to warm up to it. At first it almost seemed that -- despite the clear label of “novel” -- this book would be a set of interrelated stories. But the stories gradually come together in a more novel-like way. All the stories are connected somehow to the prestigious Goode School, in New England, and to its aging and change-resistant headmaster, Goddard Byrd, known to all as “God.” The school is for boys only, but through a clerical error, an African-American girl, Carole, is accepted, and then more girls are accepted, as the tide of history cannot be resisted. These two characters, as well as the widow of an alum of the school -- known as Mei-Mei -- and her daughter -- EV -- are the main characters in this novel. The stories are told in a leisurely yet economical way, focusing on a few key episodes over the period of 1963-2005. Readers may wonder about the significance of the title. It is suitably ambiguous, and could refer both to the upstanding, conservative nature of the school and its supporters, as the organization Daughters of the Revolution (not actually mentioned in the novel) represents, and -- especially -- to the new young women who have made the school coeducational. There is also a 1968 scene from the early days of the (second wave) women’s movement, in which “God” is caught up in, and slightly injured in, a demonstration for women’s rights. This event disorients and distresses him, and becomes a crucial episode in his life. The uses of the names “Goode” for the school and “God” for its head are certainly significant and ironic, and sometimes create amusing but also disturbing situations. The novel gradually reveals a few surprises, including a fairly big one near the end, one that is seemingly casually dropped into the story. It has to do with a main character's identity, and it connects with another revelation about a friendship and a tragic event, one that shows the deep class divide that the school papers over but cannot completely conceal. Now that I have read both “The Bostons” and “Daughters of the Revolution,” Carolyn Cooke is definitely on my list of authors whose new books I will always look out for, find, and read. I just hope Cooke will not wait another ten years, as she did between the above two books, to write and publish another book.

On the Founding of The Feminist Press

I have occasionally written about my interest in feminist literature, both fiction and nonfiction. An important early publisher of such fiction was and is The Feminist Press. The current (July/August 2011) issue of The Women’s Review of Books (a wonderful periodical which I have read for many, many years, and which I wrote about here on 2/17/10) has a very interesting essay by Florence Howe, a co-founder of the Feminist Press, about its founding and early years. The essay is excerpted from Howe's memoir, “A Life in Motion.” The Press began informally in 1970, organized by a sort of collective of enthusiastic women who did all the fundraising (they initially raised $100, which was a lot more back then than it is now!) and the work of deciding what to publish, editing, working with a printer, finding artists to illustrate books, and so on. No one in the group had expertise in or experience in publishing, but they moved forward fueled by their passion for making more literary works by women widely available. They started with a children’s book and with a series of biographies of influential women; the first subject featured in the series was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Then the writer Tillie Olsen recommended that the Press publish Rebecca Harding Davis’ 1861 novella, “Life in the Iron Mills,” which up to that point had only been published serially in The Atlantic. Howe read it through, weeping the whole time, and agreed to publish it; it became and still is one of the Press’ bestselling books. The Press’ second reprint of a novel lost in time after its initial publication in 1891 was Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” which immediately became, and is still, a feminist classic. (I have taught both of these novels several times.) In the early years, no book sold for more than $1.50. The Feminist Press went from that initial $100 investment in 1970 to a $500,000 budget ten years later and continued to grow and become more established year by year. I have read many of its volumes, and am most grateful to the Press for its work in finding both new books to publish and those seemingly lost to history to republish for a modern audience. I have twice had the good fortune to hear Florence Howe speak. Once many years ago she came to my university with some other editors from the Feminist Press and spoke about their work. Another time she was in the audience at a session at a conference on feminism and composition, and actively joined in the discussion. I truly admire her and her colleagues and the groundbreaking work they have done.

The Man Who Reads to People

Not only children but also many adults like being read to. There is something so basic, so almost primeval, and so enchanting, about being told or read a story. Even -- or perhaps especially -- for those of us who love to read, there are the gifts of the added dimension of sound, of the rhythm of the language, when hearing a story read aloud (as I have written about here, several times in different contexts). In the 6/26/11 issue of The San Francisco Chronicle there is a story, titled “Words on Wheels: British Expat’s Elegant Elocution Charms Book-Loving Clients,” by and about Alex Collins, who has a business reading to customers. He wears a tuxedo jacket and bow tie, goes to the client’s chosen location -- home, office, park, etc. -- and reads the literary selections the client requests. Collins reports that “British classics -- Austen and Bronte -- are popular, but all requests are entertained.” Other literature he has been asked to read includes poems by Rilke, passages from Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist,” and selections from D. H. Lawrence’s work. Apparently Collins’ British accent and “dulcet tones” are big assets in his business. (As readers of this blog know, I am one of those easily impressed by a British accent...what can I say?). He concludes by saying that he considers his readings to clients “a kind of bibliotherapy for us both.”

Austen Rocks!

Those who love and appreciate Jane Austen's novels may know that she left a couple of unfinished novels when she died. According to today's (7/15/11) San Francisco Chronicle, the manuscript of one of these unfinished novels, "The Watsons," was just sold at auction for $1.6 million, "triple its highest presale estimate." Many readers -- and I am one of them -- who mourn the fact that Austen only wrote six complete novels have happily read the incomplete novels as well, just to have another little bit of her wonderful writing. I am glad her writing and legacy are still recognized, and in today's world, such recognition is demonstrated not only by huge numbers of readers, legions of films based on the novels, and praise by critics, but also monetarily. Compared to what sports or entertainment stars earn, $1.6 million is paltry, but still.... Go Jane Austen, after all these years!!!

"The Bostons," by Carolyn Cooke

Not much current American fiction addresses social class differences; this perhaps stems from a reluctance, despite all evidence, to discuss the existence of social class differences in the United States. Carolyn Cooke’s short story collection, “The Bostons” (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), is an exception; these stories, mostly set in Boston and Maine, portray characters and settings from a wide variety of social classes. The stories set in Boston tend to feature middle- or upper middle-class characters, albeit sometimes genteelly poorer than they were in the past; the stories set in Maine focus on the working and nonworking poor. (These latter stories remind me a bit of Carolyn Chute’s 1986 book, “The Beans of Egypt, Maine.”) Both worlds are described by Cooke with a sort of clinical precision. She seems less interested in judging or in editorializing than in simple description. (Of course nothing a good author writes is truly ”simple.”). The result is that we as readers are given windows into several worlds, worlds that may be unfamiliar to us. We are challenged to understand people along the whole range of economic and social status. This is, after all, one of the roles of literature. These stories are well written, and the fact that characters from one story occasionally show up briefly in other stories starts to make a web of connections across borders – not only the borders of the stories’ beginnings and endings, but the borders of the characters’ geographic, chronological, and social sites.

More on Tessa Hadley

Yesterday (7/12/11) I wrote about Tessa Hadley’s new novel, “The London Train.” In the back of that novel there are interesting and revealing essays by the author about herself and about the writing of the book; I really appreciate the inclusion of these essays. There is also an annotated list titled “Author’s Picks: Favorite Books.” My pulse always quickens when I see such a list; I am immediately curious to know which books the author cherishes and recommends, whether I have read them, whether they are among my own favorites, and/or whether I need to put them on my “to read” list. This particular list is short (10 titles) but wonderful, including some of my favorites: Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Death of the Heart,” Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Alice Munro’s “The Love of a Good Woman,” Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl,” Colm Toibin’s “The Master," and Rumer Godden’s “Kingfishers Catch Fire.” I am also inspired to consider reading the other books on her list: Jorge Luis Borges’ “Selected Fiction,” J. M. Coetzee’s “Boyhood,” Aharaon Appelfeld’s “To the Land of the Cattails,” and -- especially -- Thomas Mann’s “Doctor Faustus.” I have read others of Mann’s works -- “The Magic Mountain” still exists vividly in my mind these many years after reading it -- but not this one.

"The London Train," by Tessa Hadley

When I first read UK writer Tessa Hadley’s work, I was blown away. Wow! What a discovery! I immediately read her three novels, “Accidents in the Home,” “Everything Will Be All Right,” and “The Master Bedroom,” and continued to be amazed and impressed. I have now just read her newest novel, “The London Train” (Harper Perennial, 2011), and although I still savor her wonderful writing, her insights into her characters, and her sharp wit, I have some mixed feelings about the novel. It tells the story of Paul, a writer, and his family, with a subplot about his young adult daughter’s running away to London. Paul regularly travels on the train from Cardiff to London, and even lives for a brief time with his daughter and her boyfriend in an untidy apartment in a sketchy neighborhood. The second part of the novel introduces the character Cora, who is gradually leaving her husband, living more and more in the house in Cardiff she has inherited from her parents. The two stories merge when the two main characters meet on the London train, and soon begin an affair. I won’t tell you how it ends. Perhaps one reason I have mixed feelings about the book is that I couldn’t really understand Paul’s vague dissatisfaction with his life; he has a good relationship with his wife, and even his daughter’s situation is eventually resolved satisfactorily. He misses living in the city, but this isn’t a big issue. I know I shouldn’t dislike a story because I (somewhat) dislike a character. But my unease with the novel is more than that: there is a sort of vague, unsettled feeling to the story. I do understand that this is probably intended by the author. So my reasons for some slight resistance to this novel are probably my own idiosyncratic ones. What I do find interesting, in this novel as in all her work, is Hadley’s twist on “domestic fiction.” In a 2/26/11 interview in the Guardian UK, she says that she is interested in relationships and families, and does not think “domestic fiction” is a negative label. She thinks it can be, but doesn’t have to be, formulaic. She also discusses why men are often puzzled by women’s interest in such fiction. I still consider Hadley one of the best writers writing today, and I still eagerly look forward to reading anything she writes. I can’t resist, in closing, quoting from another writer I truly admire, Anne Enright, who has said (according to the same Guardian interview) that “Hadley, for all the felicity of her prose style, is an immensely subversive writer.” I like that, because I see that although she writes “domestic fiction” (which I read a lot of myself, and will strongly defend), her stories and characters and ideas are never predictable, and never bound by what is fashionable or what others will think is correct. She is a truly original writer.

Pat Conroy's Summer Reading as a Youth

Yesterday (7/10/11) I wrote about Parade Magazine’s special issue on summer reading. Today I would like to focus on Pat Conroy’s essay in that issue, “The Sweetest Reading Season.” He writes about how his family would go every summer to stay at his grandmother’s cottage on a lake in North Carolina. (Those of us who have had the good fortune to spend parts of our summers at a cottage on a lake can relate to this.) The summer he was 15, he brought seven substantial, classic books to the cottage. These books had been recommended to him by his Jesuit English teacher, a man who thought that, in Conroy’s words, “literature itself was a form of holy orders and that reading could shape and exalt anyone.” (Isn’t that a beautiful statement?) Conroy read these seven books steadily and with great enjoyment, and then passed them on to his mother and his sister. Then the three of them would discuss the books, often on the deck on the lake, watching the sun go down. Conroy says that to this day, he always carries a carefully selected pile of books with him on vacation. (This careful selection of vacation reading resonates with me, as I have written before, and probably resonates with you as well). Here I would like to give tribute to this English teacher, and to all the many, many other English teachers who have encouraged and inspired young people to read good books. What a great influence these teachers, as well as other teachers and adults in young people’s lives, have had when they have given the gift of the world of books. Oh, and in case you were wondering what the seven books were, here is the list: Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” Eliot’s “Middlemarch,” Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary,” Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” and Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” We may or may not have chosen that exact list of books, but it is definitely a good one for a start. What a rich, wonderful foundation such books provided for the 15-year-old future writer of "The Great Santini," "The Prince of Tides," and many other books, including the very recent "My Reading Life"!

Parade Magazine's Issue on Summer Reading

I opened today's Parade magazine (7/10/11), which comes with my Sunday San Francisco Chronicle, and which focuses this week on "Summer Reading," with both pleasure and trepidation. Anything that promotes books and reading is great, but I was wondering which books it would focus on. I was pleasantly surprised to see many excellent books featured, rather than just the same bestsellers by the same authors that are often considered prime summer reading. (Please don't think I am being condescending, as I am happy to read good "summer novels," as I have posted about before. I was just hoping there would be more of a mix, and there is.) One juxtaposition that is a bit ironic is the full-page illustration to the "2011 Summer Reading Guide" on one page, showing an idyllic green nature scene of a boy leaning against a tree reading -- wait for it -- an E-READER, while on the facing page is a lovely essay by Pat Conroy about his childhood reading at a lake, with an extended mention of the sensory, tactile feel and smells of books (REAL books, the old-fashioned kind!), their pages and covers. Surely no one will wax poetic about the feel and smell of books on an e-reader...will they? Despite being struck by this ironic contrast, I enjoyed the special issue of Parade, with its lists of "great summer books" and great audio books, and its blurbs by various famous people about which books they will be reading on their summer vacations. (Sample answer: Kathryn Stockett, author of "The Help," says that she is reading "Gone with the Wind," because "People ask me all the time what I think about that book, so I've resolved to tackle it." Other samples: actor David Hyde Pierce says that he is reading the diaries of Christopher Isherwood and really enjoying them, and Elizabeth Gilbert is reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants"...a book that is on my list too.)

"Catch-22" Revisited

Does everyone remember reading Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," probably in college? And how amazing and funny and tragic and unique it was? Who could forget Yossarian and Milo Minderbender and all the other strange, quirky, funny, touching, and very human characters? Who could forget the crazy humor and the dead seriousness of the book? There is a fascinating article in the August 2011 issue of Vanity Fair about the writing, publishing, and reception of the book. Titled "The War for Catch-22," it is adapted from Tracy Daugherty's biography of Heller. Heller worked extremely slowly, and revised multiple times over a period of eight years. He made outlines, wrote chapters out by hand, typed them, then cut them up and shuffled the pieces, over and over. He was fortunate to have caught the attention of the agent Candida Donadio and the (later very famous) editor Robert Gottlieb. The book was originally titled "Catch-18," but when Leon Uris came out with "Mila 18," Heller and Gottlieb had to find a new title. They agonized over various numbers, briefly fixing on "Catch-14," but finally settling on "Catch-22." They predicted the book would be well-received but not sell a lot. The hardcover version sold respectably, but it was the paperback version that really took off and sold in huge numbers. It became one of those zeitgeist novels, like "Catcher in the Rye," that everyone -- especially the young and hip -- had to read. And although it was about World War II, it also became a part of the discussion about the Vietnam War.

On Googling Oneself

We all do it...don't we? We google ourselves, right? Don't make me go out on a limb and be the only one confessing to it, OK? We want to know what the world is saying about us. Many of the results are trivial and random. Some items are just listings of various sorts. But sometimes we are lucky enough to find something interesting, even complimentary, about ourselves, and we are vain enough -- or maybe insecure enough? -- to enjoy that. Each mention is a tiny mark we have made upon the world. In a strange way, finding references to ourselves is a kind of affirmation, however frail and insignificant.

Memorable Weddings in Novels

Another in my series of "memorables" lists: Memorable weddings in novels.

Some of these weddings are elaborate, some are simple; some are fated to end well, some are interrupted, botched, or doomed to go bad. But all are vivid and memorable.

-Meg and John in “Little Women” (Alcott)
-Anne and Gilbert in “Anne’s House of Dreams” (Montgomery)
-Jane Eyre and Rochester in “Jane Eyre” (Bronte) – the famous interrupted wedding
-Charles and Emma in “Madame Bovary” (Flaubert)
-Newland and May in “The Age of Innocence” (Wharton) – while he thinks only of Ellen
-Adam and Dinah in “Adam Bede” (Eliot)
-Sergeant Troy and Fanny Robin in “Far From the Madding Crowd” – a comedy of errors that turns to tragedy

"The Guy Not Taken," by Jennifer Weiner

For a recent long plane trip, I picked up what seemed like a perfect “plane trip book,” Jennifer Weiner’s “The Guy Not Taken: Stories” (Atria, 2006). (I know I have mentioned several books from my "recent plane trip" -- a perfect illustration of what I have written about before: that I always take many books on trips, being afraid I will run out of reading matter several thousand feet in the air....) I have read a couple of Weiner’s other books, so I knew what to expect, and I got what I expected: a book that is accessible, readable, enjoyable, but still at least somewhat “literary,” as opposed to beach reads/chick lit. (I have posted about this fine line before, for example on 2/8/10, 3/17/10, and 9/10/10.) Some of the stories in this volume are connected, sharing characters and history, and some not, but even the ones that are not share similar themes, most notably the after-effects of divorce on families. In an intriguing postscript, Wiener provides a bit of background information on each story and its inspiration and context; one of her main points is that she drew extensively on her experiences with her own parents’ divorce. She also writes about adolescence, sisters, families, starting out one’s career as a young woman in her twenties, romance, affairs, and marriage. These stories combine serious themes with a breezy style, and somehow this combination works well.

French vs. Creole Literature in the Caribbean

Last month I attended a professional conference on language studies (ISLS: The International Society of Language Studies) in the Caribbean, and one of the most interesting papers I heard there was titled “The Linguistic Crossroads of French Caribbean Writers.” The speaker, Maria Moreno, pointed out the conflict felt by Caribbean writers (she focused on those from Haiti, Martinique, and Guadaloupe), who were torn between using the native language(s) that they were/are proud of -- in this case Creole -- and the more prestigious and widely known French. Because Creole was considered by the larger world, and even many in those countries themselves, as a patois, a "bastardized" version of French, writers tended to write in French instead. Yet, as Moreno showed, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, writers such as Maryse Conde began to introduce more words and elements of Creole into their writing, first with explanations and then proudly standing on their own. I learned much from this conference paper about the specifics of literature in these countries (although I had read some of Conde’s work a while ago); I am aware of related conflicts experienced by writers in other parts of the world as well. For example, some African writers have chosen to write in English in order to be more widely read, while others have chosen to write in local languages in order to be accessible to local readers, and in order to help preserve those languages. The same situation exists in some cases in India and elsewhere. There are of course many more social/political/literary aspects of these questions around the world, and there is no one “right” answer for any specific writer or locale. This paper on French Caribbean writers was a good reminder of the ongoing issues.

Julian Barnes' "Homage to Hemingway"

Yet more Hemingway! After writing several times recently on Hemingway-related topics, most recently on 7/1/11, I opened the 7/4/11 issue of The New Yorker to find a Julian Barnes short story titled “Homage to Hemingway.” The story is about a writer who teaches writing at various seminars in various locales, and often alludes to Hemingway. The story’s three-part structure echoes, we find out, the three-part structure of Hemingway’s own story, “Homage to Switzerland.” In that story, three American men wait at different Swiss train stations, and idly amuse themselves by bothering and/or condescending to local waitresses, porters, and others in various ways. This is definitely an “ugly American” story. There is a feeling that the three men are three aspects of the same man or at least the same type. In Barnes’ story, the three parts depict the writer in different teaching situations, including one in Switzerland. The writer/teacher talks about and speculates about the Hemingway story. After reading the Barnes story, I found and listened to a podcast (of 12/8/10) on the Guardian UK book site (www.guardian.co.uk/books) of Barnes reading the Hemingway story, and it was illuminating to experience the two stories back to back. The podcast also included Barnes’ commentary about the story, which he chose because it was NOT one of the “macho” stories, but one that showed Hemingway’s lesser-known wit and humor, as well as some innovation in form. For another side of Hemingway, and a deft homage to that side, I recommend both “Homage” stories to your attention.

"Another You"

I like Ann Beattie’s work very much, and have written about it here (6/26/10). But recently when I took one of her novels, “Another You” (Vintage, 1996), with me on a trip, and read a bit on the plane, a bit in the hotel room, and a bit more on the plane back, I found myself dragging myself through it, dozing off, getting distracted, not looking forward to reading more. I finally did finish it, but I just didn’t enjoy it all that much. The problem may have been that I didn’t feel engaged with the main characters -- a couple in a lukewarm marriage, a charming but bizarre and deceptive English professor acquaintance of theirs, an earnest but also deceptive female college student, and assorted others -- or the plot, a kind of meandering, semi-mysterious one, with turns and twists that were meant to be surprising but just sort of fizzled out. Now I can’t decide if it is just this novel, or if I am somehow less taken by Ann Beattie’s work as a whole than I used to be. Or perhaps I still like her short stories (which she is most known for) but not her novels? Should I seek out and read or re-read another of her novels to find out? Or should I let the question percolate in the back of my mind until I happen to stumble across one of her novels again, perhaps at a library sale or on vacation, and then see what happens?

No Writing Without Reading

I am a firm believer that one cannot be a good, let alone great, writer without being a constant reader. It astonishes me to hear of people who want to be writers but don’t actually enjoy reading much, and sometimes proudly admit as much. Imagine the equivalent situations of someone who learns to play a musical instrument without listening to music, or someone who paints without looking at works of art in museums, galleries, walls of murals, or books. Yes, the basic content of art is life itself, but one needs to see and hear what others have made of this content throughout the history of music, art, and literature: the great themes, myths, and metaphors. And regarding form: one has to read a lot -- and I mean a LOT -- to absorb the rhythms of the language, the grammatical patterns, the riches of vocabulary, and the glorious combinations of words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters that form the best that language has to offer.

"The Paris Wife"

Hemingway, Hemingway, Hemingway! I haven’t thought much about Ernest Hemingway for years, but in the past few months he has re-entered my consciousness several times, through his novel “The Sun Also Rises,” which I re-read and then posted about on 2/27/11; the film “Paris at Midnight,” which I posted about on 6/9/11; an article about him in an airline magazine, of all places, which I posted about on 6/29/11; and now the bestselling novelized version of his first wife’s life, “The Paris Wife” (Ballantine, 2011), by Paula McLain. This novel recaps some of the information we all know by now about the Hemingway years in Paris in the 20s, but it adds (in a fictionalized version) much information and many insights both about Hemingway and about his wife Hadley. They had a lot going for them, including a child, and it was in some ways a golden time for them as well as for their group of friends, but Hemingway’s writing always came first, and Hadley was often lonely. And after a few years, he was somehow able to justify in his own mind that it was acceptable for him to have an affair with a dazzling woman, a free spirit, whom both Ernest and Hadley had been close to. The affair broke up the marriage. Although the novel gives Hemingway his due, and presents a rounded portrait of his strengths and weaknesses, finally we see that he was essentially selfish in feeling he should be able to have everything he wanted, no matter the cost to those around him. This novel is well written and fast-paced, a literary page turner.