"Someone at a Distance," by Dorothy Whipple

A few days ago (1/24/12) I wrote about my happy “discovery” of the English writer Dorothy Whipple, whose fiction had been popular in the mid-20th-century but fell out of fashion and was soon not easily accessible, until the wonderful Persephone Press republished her novels and stories in the past 15 or so years. In that post I wrote about Whipple’s short story collection, “The Closed Door.” Because I liked that book so much, I have now read one of her novels, her last one, titled “Someone at a Distance” (Persephone, 1999, but originally published by John Murray, 1953). This is a story of a happy marriage and family that is slowly and, it seems, inexorably destroyed by a snake in the garden in the form of a young French woman who has come to stay with the family, ostensibly to tutor the daughter in French. As readers, we watch with dismay as this beautiful but utterly selfish young woman, with no conscience whatsoever, takes what (and whom) she wants, with no regard for the devastation she leaves behind. The contrast between the original paradise and the ruins that follow is positively Biblical. The main character, Ellen, is a typical 1950s wife and mother, who happily builds her life around her husband, children, home, and garden. She is quite selfless and also quite naïve and unsuspecting that anyone could consciously come into her home and steal her husband and happiness. As a reader, I couldn’t help but like and admire Ellen very much, and feel sorry for her. I also admired that even after the ruin of her marriage, she managed to pick herself up and stay strong for the children and for her future. It is an old, old story, of course: the conniving female interloper, the husband who is too vulnerable to an attractive female’s paying attention to him, and the resultant drama and upheavals. But somehow Whipple manages to keep us interested and caring about how the characters live and how the story will turn out; she rewards us with a few twists and turns toward the end of the novel that are ambiguous but somewhat positive. As in the short story collection, the writing here is deceptively simple but lovely, and the insights into human motivations and behavior are “spot on,” as the British say, or at least used to say! I will definitely be reading more of Whipple’s fiction.

"An Angle of Vision," edited by Lorraine M. Lopez

I have written before, both on this blog and in my academic publications, of my interest in issues of social class. “An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots” (University of Michigan Press, 2009), edited by Lorraine M. Lopez, is a fascinating collection of essays. It speaks to my interest in women’s lives, writers’ lives, and social class issues as they are lived out by real people. The authors of these memoiristic essays are very generous in sharing their experiences and feelings, even when doing so is obviously very painful for them. As several of them remark, even though they know intellectually that it shouldn’t be so, they have often felt shame and secrecy about their class backgrounds and the poverty that many of them lived through. Now these women are established as writers and often as academics, but they never forget the legacy of their pasts. A common issue too is that many of them feel torn between two worlds: by virtue of their education and increasingly middle class lives now, they feel there are barriers between them and their families and past lives, yet they still don’t feel they truly “belong” in their current academic and writing lives, in their middle class lives. They often feel that in both situations they are just barely “passing,” and are imposters in both worlds. Some of these stories of childhood (especially), family, college years, and early careers are wrenching, even heartbreaking. Although reading these essays saddened and in some cases shocked me, I was grateful to the writers for allowing us readers these windows into their lives, and into the reality of the lives of so many in the United States, lives that are often forgotten, as the media and other venues prefer to present the façade that most Americans are middle-class and at least reasonably comfortable.

"The Odds: A Love Story," by Stewart O'Nan

At first I thought the plot of Stewart O'Nan's (author of the wonderful "Emily, Alone," which I posted about here on 5/17/11) new novel was too contrived, and I found the main plot device almost annoying. The premise of this novel, "The Odds: A Love Story," is that Art and Marion, a married couple, are both about to divorce (fairly amicably) and about to go bankrupt, so in a desperate last hurrah, they revisit the scene of their honeymoon, Niagara Falls, with their last wad of money, planning to gamble it all at the casinos there in hopes of recouping enough to save their house. This plot device is reinforced by each chapter’s beginning with an “odds” “fact”; some of these may be real and accurate, but others are fanciful (e.g., “Odds of being served breakfast in bed on Valentine’s Day: 1 in 4). Some of these “odds” statements connect directly to the plot, others only peripherally. But once I got past these premises and stylistic devices, the story of these all too human but ultimately understandable and likable characters caught me up and kept me reading with interest and sympathy. The best thing about this short novel is its very realistic portrayal of a marriage, with all its ups and downs, hurts, happy moments, arguments, near-arguments, memories, sensitivities, sudden changes in mood and alliances, connections “for the kids” and because of history together, and more. This marriage has survived some major problems and is currently in serious trouble, yet there is much surviving affection. Art hopes against hope that the marriage can be preserved; Marion doesn’t think it can, but succumbs to some hopeful moments. A major “character” in the novel is the Niagara Falls area itself, in its unnerving mixture of grandeur and touristy tackiness. The constant presence of weddings and honeymooning couples, along with the exhilarating and depressing casinos, combine to make a disorienting backdrop for Art’s and Marion’s story. A larger background is the economic recession and the burst housing bubble, which have brought Art and Marion to this drastic point in their lives, and precipitated this trip. Their case shows how nice, ordinary people, even those such as Art who are educated in finance, could get caught up in overextending themselves on their house, and then be bewildered by their downfall. This intense (all in the period of about three days) story distills the story of a marriage and of the inside and outside forces that affect it; it does so realistically and compellingly, in O’Nan’s trademark style of close attention to the details of human lives and relationships.

"The Closed Door," by Dorothy Whipple

What a joy it is to discover a “new” author (for me), even if that author was actually writing in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Where has Dorothy Whipple been my whole life? I am not sure how I completely missed her fiction until now. An acquaintance happened to mention liking her, and I was glad to find that my university library carried several of her books. I started with “The Closed Door and Other Stories” (Persephone, 2007), a collection of Whipple’s stories originally published in much earlier decades. Persephone, by the way, is one of the wonderful presses that have rediscovered and republished women authors who might otherwise be out of print and forgotten. I wrote about other such presses on 2/17/10 (Virago Press) and 7/17/11 (The Feminist Press), and I am most grateful to these publishers for “saving” many women writers from oblivion. Persephone has recently reprinted several of Whipple’s books, which although they were popular in the early-to-mid-20th century, were mostly out of print until Persephone revived them. But back to “The Closed Door”: These stories are mostly about women characters who, because they lack power in the world, try to exert power in their family and romantic lives in various ways. These characters find inventive, resourceful, and understandable, if not always completely laudable, ways of dealing with a difficult, male-oriented world. The stories are full of intriguing characters, relationships, and surprises. Some stories are just a wee bit schematic, but compelling nevertheless. The characters are closely observed and realistic. The stories are enjoyable to read, although they remind us of the limitations on women’s lives. The pleasure of reading this book is enhanced by the beautiful production of this volume, with a lovely light grey cover; clear, easy to read pages; and, notably, gorgeous colorful endpapers “taken from a 1930s dress fabric.” I now look forward to reading more fiction by Whipple.

(An "anniversary" note: I started this blog two years ago today. I have enjoyed writing it, and hope you have enjoyed reading it.)

"In Zanesville," by Jo Ann Beard

Although “In Zanesville” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Jo Ann Beard, is about a 14-year-old girl, it is not a “young adult” novel. It is perhaps the early side of a “coming of age” novel, but this sounds too grand for the way the novel captures the life of a young, smart, adventurous teen, special in some ways but very normal in others. The setting of the story in “a factory town, Zanesville, Illinois, the farm implement capital of the world,” seems to emphasize the middle-America average aspect of the story, but the narrator, named for Jo in “Little Women,” has her own spunky individual personality. Her growing up is portrayed through a series of episodes, such as a disastrous night of babysitting, an ambivalent relationship with her membership in the school marching band, unexpected positive attention from the popular girls in her school, ups and downs in her friendship with her best friend Phyllis, dealing with and worrying about her father’s drinking too much and his mental health, her first kiss, moving in and out of the gifted math class, and much more. Although the concept of the book sounds similar to that of hundreds of other books, the author manages to make this novel original, and to make us care about the narrator. This novel is by no means a “must-read,” but if the above description sounds interesting, you will find “In Zanesville” worth the time it takes to read.

Books Long and Short

Although I, like all readers, read books greatly varying in length, from thick tomes to slim volumes, I have particularly noticed this contrast in the past couple of months. Although I am a fairly fast reader, it took me a while to get through, for example, Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Marriage Plot,” and, especially, Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child.” Then, without consciously looking for shorter books, I found myself reading a series of very small books, including Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending,” Michelle Latiolais’ “Widow,” Alan Bennett’s “Smut,” and Anita Desai’s “The Artist of Disappearance.” (I have posted on all of these recently.) Long and short -- each has its advantages. I can “settle in” to a long novel with the feeling of really getting to know the characters and settings, and of becoming almost an inhabitant of the world the author has created. If the novel is wonderful, I relish being in that world, and am reluctant to leave it when I finish the book. This is part of the appeal of the great Victorian novels that I treasure, such as those by Eliot, Dickens, and Gaskell, and of the novels of a slightly later age by James and Wharton. If the novel is less engaging, or particularly difficult to navigate for various reasons, I may feel at times that reading it is a bit of a slog. On the other hand, short books are easy to carry around (I can even put them into my capacious handbag for easy availability when there is a break in my day, or a wait in line), and there is the satisfaction of either finishing it quickly, or savoring it slowly but still not taking forever to read it. Sometimes short novels are dense and intense, and therefore satisfying; at other times they feel a bit incomplete, a little insubstantial. Clearly these are all broad generalizations. And obviously the length of the book is only a very small factor in deciding what to read, in whether the book is “good” or not, and in whether I enjoy it. But it is one factor, and the experience of reading a book is subtly influenced by its length.

"How It All Began," by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively was one of the very first authors I wrote about here (1/25/10), and she is one of my favorite living writers. Just a few of the reasons, in no particular order, that I loved reading her new novel, “How It All Began” (Viking, 2011):
1. Lively is simply one of the very best writers writing today, so a new novel by her is an occasion.
2. Lively understands human nature, human relationships, and especially human families, better than almost any other writer.
3. Lively’s fiction is realistic. It focuses on everyday events, not on shocking or farfetched happenings. Lively has the gift of making readers really care about those everyday events.
4. Lively’s writing is very readable.
5. Lively writes about people of all ages, including middle-aged and older people, which is most welcome to those of us no longer young.
6. This novel takes place in London.
7. Some of the characters in this novel misbehave a bit, but most of them are basically good people. Some of them know that sometimes one doesn’t get to have what one wants, because it isn’t the right thing, and are willing to “do the right thing,” even at great personal cost.
8. There is an intellectual thread throughout the novel: the idea that one small, random event can start a chain of events, with a ripple effect of sometimes surprising consequences. This concept adds to the interest of the novel, but is not insisted on, and doesn’t overwhelm the plot/character aspects of the novel.
9. Lively’s main character often talks about what she is reading, why, and why she feels like reading different books at different times, depending on what is happening in her own life. Some of her favorites are some of mine as well (e.g., Edith Wharton, Henry James, Rosamond Lehmann).
10. The main character is a volunteer tutor, and when she tutors an Eastern European immigrant in reading English, she appeals to his love of “story,” starting with reading children’s books, including the wonderful “Charlotte’s Web.”
11. Lively writes so very well, yet makes it look easy. Her writing is not flashy, just very, very good.
I could go on and on, giving more and more reasons, but the bottom line is: read this novel, and then read more novels by this wonderful author, Penelope Lively!

Caitlin Flanagan on Didion's "Blue Nights"

Last time (on 1/17/12), I wrote about Joan Didion’s new book, “Blue Nights.” Today I write about a January/February 2012 Atlantic article, penned by Caitlin Flanagan, about Didion and the book. The title on the Atlantic’s cover is “Joan Didion’s Disaster,” a rather ambiguous title (does it refer to her daughter’s death, or to the book about it?). When I turned to the actual story, I saw a different title: “The Autumn of Joan Didion,” with a subtitle of “The Writer’s Work is a Triumph – and a Disaster.” Obviously these titles piqued my interest, and I was ready to be defensive and even angry on Didion’s behalf, if the story attacked her and her book. I admit that I was predisposed to be defensive, not only because I admired the book, but also because Flanagan -- whom I have been reading and often disagreeing with in the Atlantic for some years -- is a fairly conservative and less-than-feminist writer. In fact, the article was somewhat positive about Didion and her book, but just wasn’t very well written. It seems to me that the main excuse for the article was to give Flanagan a chance to tell about an incident in which Didion, as a visiting scholar, made a preliminary visit to UC Berkeley and had dinner at the Flanagans' childhood home, because her father was then Chair of the Berkeley English Department. Flanagan was 14 years old at the time, and observed that Didion was quiet and shy. That was it; otherwise the story about the dinner was pointless. The only interesting part of the episode was that the large auditorium where Didion spoke was unexpectedly overflowing with devoted Didion fans, mostly young women. It turns out –- after many diversions in the article, some rather irrelevant -- that Flanagan was and is herself an admirer of Didion and her work. She describes Didion’s appeal as follows: “What Didion wrote about were the exquisitely tender and often deeply melancholy feelings that are such a large part of the inner lives of women and especially of very young women -- and girls…” I must admit that this description is resonant of my own feelings when I read Didion’s early work when I was in my late teens and early twenties. But Flanagan’s statement seems condescending, and it undervalues the strengths of Didion’s work. I am still not sure what the real point of this Atlantic article is, and it doesn’t even spend many of its several pages on the new book, “Blue Nights.” Yes, I understand the concept of a “review essay,” but I feel Flanagan gives short shrift to the book itself. She does end by saying that Didion will always be remembered. I closed the magazine with very mixed feelings about this odd duck of an article/review.

"Blue Nights," by Joan Didion

Before I began this blog, I read Joan Didion’s remarkable story of the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne, and of her own response to that loss; Dunne died the same day my father did, and “The Year of Magical Thinking” spoke to me with great force, as it did to many others. I had read Didion’s work since the 1970s, and when I re-read “Play It As It Lays” recently, I wrote about it here (3/23/11). I recently read a fascinating New York magazine article on Didion and her new book, “Blue Nights” (Knopf, 2011), which is about the untimely death of her daughter, her only child, Quintana Roo; I wrote about the article's points on 10/26/11. Now I have read “Blue Nights” myself; I found it as powerful and moving as “The Year of Magical Thinking,” perhaps even more moving, because surely the death of a child is even more of a blow than the death of a husband. Didion seems utterly bereft, staggering from these two great blows, yet still finds that writing is the only way to cope with her losses. She is always controlled in her writing, yet very open in sharing her feelings, her self-doubts, her vulnerability. She wonders if she did something wrong in raising Quintana. She writes on her daughter’s childhood, obsessively returning to certain times, certain scenes. She writes of her own aging, illness and feelings of helplessness and loneliness. But she doesn’t ask for pity; she is never maudlin. As always, her writing is spare, strong, and compelling. I was afraid that reading this book would be painful, and indeed it was, but I am glad I read it. Her prose lays bare an elemental human experience, and she writes about death, loss, life, weakness, memory, and much more in her own inimitable way.

"The Buddha in the Attic," by Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka is the author of two small but extremely powerful novels. I wrote about her first book, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” on 12/22/11; that 2002 book about the U.S. internment of a Japanese-American family bowled me over with its beautiful writing and intensity. Now I have read Otsuka’s second book (nominated for the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction), “The Buddha in the Attic” (Knopf, 2011), about the Japanese “picture brides” who came to the United States and began their new lives with their new husbands, whom they had never met before, in the early part of the twentieth century, and it is even better, even stronger, than the earlier book. The novel is divided into eight parts, including sections about the difficult boat trip to the U.S., about the women's first few days and nights with their new husbands, about the hard and draining work they did farming or working as maids, about their giving birth to and raising children in a new land, and about the time leading up to their internship in the early days of World War II, thus bringing the novel full circle to the setting of Otsuka’s first novel. Throughout, the stories are told through a sort of chorus; the voice is “we,” not “I.” Individual stories are told in a sentence or two each, but as part of the group experience. In other words, the narrative structure is very different from that of most novels. What comes to mind is the word “incantatory,” which captures the chanting lines, the music with its variations, the onward movement of the story. The novel has also been called poetic, and that is accurate as well. The writing captures the feelings of the women, as well as the sweep of history in which their individual lives are caught up. What a heartbreaking but beautiful book this is. "The Buddha in the Attic" is a must-read; highly recommended.

"Smut: Stories," by Alan Bennett

Reading a book titled “Smut” makes me feel a bit risque. The initially innocent-looking cover made me smile, as at first I saw that it pictured several pairs of teacups, and thought “how lovely and British,” and then noticed that the teacups in each pair were posed interacting in various positions; what a combination of charm and the ever-so-slightly suggestive! However, “Smut: Stories” (Picador, 2010 and 2011) is written by the inestimable British author/playwright/autobiographer/screenplay writer/humorist Alan Bennett, and his “smut,” although it does include sexual themes and scenes, is more about human nature and human relationships than sex. Bennett, author of the wonderful “The Uncommon Reader” (which I wrote about here on 3/12/10), writes wryly, mischievously, and with great understanding about families, secrets, and delusions. A short book (152 pages), “Smut” contains two novellas, both of which are full of surprises and witty but -- dare I say it -- sometimes quite tender scenes. The first, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,” tells of a recent widow in her fifties who fills her spare hours and earns some extra money by role-playing patients with various symptoms in order to help medical students practice. She also rents her spare room to students, and gets involved with them in a surprising way. The second novella is “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes,” an elegant and slightly schematic story of a family in which everyone is hiding something, shielding someone from something, yet each family member actually knows more about each other’s secrets than she or he is letting on. There is adultery, secret homosexual trysts with strangers, online sexuality, blackmail, financial irregularities, snobbishness, and deceit all around. Yet somehow there is also loyalty, warmth, and caring. And in both stories, somehow everyone gets pretty much -- albeit not all of -- what she or he wants. Although these novellas push some boundaries, they really don’t seem terribly “smutty” at all. I found them great fun to read – light, entertaining, and quite insightful.

“Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry: Stories"

Each story in Christine Sneed’s “Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry: Stories” (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010) is a powerful, coiled-up mini-cannonball aimed to make its mark; once you start reading them, there is no ignoring, skimming, or ho-humming these stories. Most of the main characters are women, and they are all very intense. Many of the stories are about these women’s relationships; there is plenty of drama and sex. One story is about a screenwriter attending her class reunion; another is about a young college English professor whose class is attended by a very famous, very handsome movie star, making the professor nervous and uncomfortable; yet another is about a woman wondering how and when to tell her much younger lover how old she really is. Each story is distinctly original; the reader wants to keep reading because she has not read anything quite like the story before. The last story, “Walled City,” differs from the rest in that it is more impersonal, a sort of dystopian fantasy that is hard -- at least for me -- to connect with. But all in all, this is a fascinating collection and one that is guaranteed to keep the reader’s attention (OK, my attention, and I hope yours too!). This collection won the 2009 Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction; the book does the late, great Grace Paley proud.

"Widow: Stories," by Michelle Latiolais

Not only the title story but many of the other stories in Michelle Latiolais' "Widow: Stories" (Bellevue Literary Press, 2011) are about widowhood or some other type of loss. Some of the stories are desperately sad, describing the raw pain of losing someone who has been an essential part of one's life. The author -- and her narrators -- are not afraid to talk about their feelings, their experiences, their secrets, their shame, their sexuality, their fears, the ways they "get through," and more. The stories show the various ways that people -- in this case, usually women -- respond to or act out their pain. For example, one woman can't eat; another hoards provisions, especially food. The stories also include some very unusual topics, such as one called "Gut" about a woman who goes to Africa to help her scientist husband test out the diet of chimpanzees by living on such a diet herself. Dogs, teacups, gardens, oysters, and cakes are some of the other topics. A few stories -- especially the very short ones -- seem less involving and less good than the others. Overall, the stories are beautifully written and evocative, but very sad. I can't say I "enjoyed" them, and in fact some of them made me uncomfortable. But perhaps that is a wimpy response on my part. Two of the powerful stories in "Widow" -- "Caduceus" and "Place" -- were nominated for the Pushcart Prize; the one I liked best -- and one of the saddest -- was the title story, "Widow."

More on the Reading Group

One of the first topics I wrote about (1/26/10) when I started this blog was the Reading Group that I have been a part of for many, many (and I mean many!) years, and that has been so important to the six current members (we had a few more in the early years, but for many years now it has been the same six of us). I just came back from one of our meetings, and decided to write again about the group. We met at a café in Berkeley, sitting in the sun, eating, drinking, and talking. (We sometimes meet in each other’s homes and sometimes in cafes.) As sometimes happens, we didn’t focus so much on the chosen book as on other reading we have been doing; some books are hard to find, or not everyone reads the book; we are flexible about these things, because life is busy and because getting together is more important than the specific book. But M.J. brought another book that she suggested for next time: “Mending,” by Sallie Bingham; this book was already on my library request list, so I was pleased. M.L. said she was reading “The Marriage Plot” (which I recently -- 11/26/11 -- read and posted on), and we were all happy about the publication of P.D. James’ new book, “Death Comes to Pemberley,” which I also had posted on, on 12/28/11). M.L. also brought some pages from the New York Times Book Review for ideas. And after a while of discussing books, we of course also talked about politics, the news, our lives, our jobs, our families, our travels, our health and that of family members and friends. This regular getting together is a treasured thread throughout our lives, and our lives are richer for it.

"Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners"

For some reason, I am intrigued by and enjoy reading books on manners; I also love the Miss Manners column and other such columns. Henry Alford, in his new book “Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners” (Twelve, 2012), takes a humorous approach to explaining the importance of manners, his own research into manners, his interviews with various manners-related authorities (including Miss Manners herself, Judith Martin), his time as a sort of volunteer New York tour guide to visitors from around the world, and his experiments as a self-styled manners consultant, among other manners-related topics. At first I was a little put off by Alford’s rather flippant style, somewhat reminiscent of David Sedaris’ tone (I like Sedaris, but a little of his work goes a long way). But as I read more, I was somewhat won over by his apparent eagerness to please, his rather endearing approach, and his occasional self-deprecation. The book is enjoyable to read, and in a very painless way actually introduces some useful guidelines and some thought-provoking cultural, and cross-cultural, information. One place Alford went to gain some of the latter was Japan, and he writes both respectfully and entertainingly about what he learned there. Back in the U.S., he writes about such topics as cell phone use, email etiquette (such as over-use of the “reply all” function), the phrase “no problem,” avoiding delicate situations in drugstores (greeting a friend who is in the process of buying something embarrassing), damning with faint praise, dinner parties (What about vegetarians or the lactose-intolerant? Seating plans? Introductions?), RSVPing, talking with someone who has a serious illness, and many, many more topics. I don’t always agree with his advice or his own practices; in particular, his “touch the waiter” game, and his “cut in front of others to get a cab in New York” practices) but these exceptions aside, he seems to have a thoughtful, considerate, and reasonable approach to manners. This book feels a bit scattered, as Alford jumps from topic to topic seemingly rather arbitrarily, but it is brief, light, breezy, and fun to read.

"The Sense of an Ending," by Julian Barnes

I like fiction about characters of any age, but I do sometimes especially appreciate novels about “grown-ups” in middle age or later, particularly since such novels seem to be much less common than those about youngish characters. Of course this has something to do with my own Baby Boomer generation status. The acclaimed English author Julian Barnes’ new novel, “The Sense of An Ending” (Knopf, 2011), for example, is narrated by Tony Webster, a man in his early sixties. In the first half of the book, Tony looks back on his youth (high school, college, marriage, divorce) and thinks about the meaning of his life and what he has learned. In the second half of the book, he finds that his past is not completely in the past when he is surprised by a call from a lawyer bringing his past into his present. He reconnects with an important romantic partner (although the romance ended badly) from his college days, Veronica, and with a legacy related to one of his long-gone best friends from school. There is upheaval, mystery, misunderstanding, and at the end, a new understanding that finally makes sense of several relationships and entanglements from the past. Although this disentanglement produces a small shock, what I really like about this novel is less the plot than Tony’s meditations on being at this point in his life, and on how the past does and doesn’t affect the present. He goes from his teenaged beliefs that “we knew that we grasped life -- and truth, and morality, and art -- far more clearly than our compromised elders” (p. 12) (and isn’t this what we all thought when we were young?), and “I shall go there, do this, discover that, love her…I shall live as people in novels live…passion and danger, ecstasy and despair (but then more ecstasy) would be in attendance” (p. 102) to his adult statements that “There was a moment in my late twenties when I admitted that my adventurousness had long since petered out. I would never do those things adolescence had dreamt about. Instead, I mowed my lawn, I took holidays, I had my life” (p. 103) and later, “I have achieved a state of peaceableness, even peacefulness” (p. 75). But, as noted earlier -- and this is the part I like -- life has a way of surprising us. Tony in his sixties is surprised by his renewed interest in, and fantasies about, a possible renewed romance and, by extension, a new life. His peace is disturbed, his senses are awakened, he is engaged in a new way. Some version of this happens to most of us, if we are fortunate: we achieve a certain calm as we get older, but we are still surprised by new experiences, new opportunities, new dreams, new relationships. I wrote earlier (e.g., 5/21/11 and 6/20/11) here about some of Barnes’ other excellent books, and this novel confirms my appreciation of this author. Barnes, by the way, won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for “The Sense of an Ending,” and I believe it is well deserved.

"True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School"

Those who know me, and/or have read this blog at all regularly, know that I am a feminist from way back, and that feminism, women's lives, and women's issues are all extremely important to me. I am also an academic. So a book titled "True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School" (W.W. Norton, 2011) was bound to catch my eye and intrigue me. The fact that the book is edited by a leading feminist literary scholar, Susan Gubar (coauthor of "The Madwoman in the Attic" and coeditor of "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women"), whose work I have admired (and in the case of the Norton Anthology, taught) for years, was another incentive to read the book. And the fact that it is dedicated to the memory of the late scholar and author Carolyn Heilbrun, whose work I have so greatly esteemed and enjoyed so much (and wrote about here on 7/14/10), was yet another incentive. This book is a collection of essays by leading and pioneering feminist academics in various fields such as literature, history, and education. The essays are divided into two sections; one focuses on "Personal Views" and the other on "Professional Vistas." Of course the two areas -- personal and professional -- often overlap. Because these women were pioneers, they have seen the sweep of changes that have occurred over the years in women's studies and in society. They have both suffered for being pioneers and experienced the excitement of being part of the changes in scholarship and women's lives over the past 40-plus years. Most of the writers are quite candid, even when vividly recalling very painful and even humiliating experiences of being belittled and ignored in academe and elsewhere; remember that many academics (mostly males) for most of history did not see the point of studying women's lives, women's literature, women's history, or women's issues. But these strong women academics persevered. In the course of their stories, we learn not only about feminism in the academy, but also about how it intersects with race, class, religion and other identities. Following the old feminist saying that "The personal is political," we see how these scholars' experiences with their families, their colleagues, and their institutions are all formative and influential. The essays are compelling and mostly very well written. I couldn't get enough of them, and wished the book had been longer. The authors include Nancy K. Miller, Jane Marcus, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Jane Tompkins, Sandra M. Gilbert, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Martha Nussbaum, Lillian Faderman, Hazel Carby, Annette Kolodny, and Nancy Chodorow, and more, all giants in academe and in the fight for equality. I admire them so much, and can't thank them enough for their courage, leadership, scholarship, advocacy, and example.

"Curry, Corduroy and the Call," by Gwendolyn Hiebert Schroth

I have written here (7/28/11 and 9/18/11) about three of the “missionary kid” memoirs I have read, both for their connection to my own “missionary kid” background and for my research; I have just finished reading one such memoir that is probably the closest to my own experience of any I have read, although still of course with important differences. “Curry, Corduroy and the Call” (Outskirts Press, 2011) was written by Gwendolyn Hiebert Schroth, who is the older sister of L., one of my friends and roommates at Kodaikanal (Kodai) School in South India. The author’s family lived nearby where my family lived our second term in India, and she and her sisters attended the same boarding school as my brothers and I did. Although the author was there a bit earlier than I was, many of the names (e.g., of teachers and of places), events, and experiences in her book are very familiar to me. These include descriptions of ayahs, bazaars, the Telegu language, the system of getting water and bathing, snakes and scorpions, parcels from churches back in the U.S., parents’ visits to Kodaikanal for their vacations and their children’s consequent temporary moving out of boarding school, the tiffins in which lunch was then brought to the children at noon for eating on the lawn, driving overloaded cars through streams, the “compounds” we lived on, sleeping porches, trips to Hyderabad, the long train trip to and from Kodai (with a day’s break in Chennai, then called Madras, in the train station waiting room, with side trips to see sights and to eat at what seemed like very “fancy” restaurants to us), and the many hikes we took in Kodai and the surrounding hills, just to name a few. There is a special thrill of recognition when one reads a book -- memoir or fiction -- that gets many of the details of the author’s -- and one’s own -- life right. This is how Schroth’s memoir affected me. And let me add that the book is well written and flows beautifully.

"Foreign Affairs," by Alison Lurie

I have read several of Alison Lurie's novels over the years, and have enjoyed them. She is a very good writer, very erudite, and she writes with a sort of satirical but mostly good-natured humor and a light touch. She often writes about women's lives, and she often writes about academics, both of which characteristics add to her novels' appeal to my taste in fiction. Her books are frequently set on a fictional campus called Corinth, which is clearly modeled on Cornell, where she taught for many years. I have just re-read, after some years, "Foreign Affairs" (Random House, 1984), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Award. I thoroughly enjoyed it, not only because of the aforementioned focus on women and academics, but also because it takes place in London, one of my favorite cities. But mostly I enjoyed it because of its compelling plot and characters. Professor Vinnie Miner loves London and feels she is actually an Englishwoman at heart; thus she is thrilled to be beginning a six month research leave there. Vinnie is small and plain, but she feels happy with her group of friends in London, has an active social and cultural life there, and enjoys and is very efficient at doing her research on children's rhymes and folklore. Coincidentally, her young colleague in the Corinth English Department, Professor Fred Turner, is also on a research leave in London. She is not at all close to him, but she makes an effort to be nice to him, and introduces him to some of her friends, including the glamorous film and TV star, Rosemary Radley; soon Fred and Rosemary begin an affair. Meanwhile, to her own surprise, Vinnie becomes involved with a somewhat loud and unrefined but enthusiastic and kind fellow American from Oklahoma whom she met on the plane, Chuck Mumpson. Much intrigue and many twists and turns take place in these two relationships, all set in various interesting London locales. By the time Fred and Vinnie need to return to the United States, both have learned much about themselves and about others.

On Reading and Writing about Fiction from India

Writing here yesterday (12/31/11) about Anita Desai’s new book reminds me of how much fiction by Indian writers, and about India, I have read over the years. This is yet another result of my childhood there. It also reminds me of how for several years -- I believe in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but I could be wrong about the years -- I wrote a column on books by Indian authors and about India; this column was published in the alumni magazine of my school in India, Kodaikanal School, widely known as Kodai. I believe the magazine, and the column, were published twice a year. I loved researching, finding, reading, and writing about the books. There were fewer India-related novels available in the United States back then than there are now, and I didn’t have the benefit of the Internet in finding them. But I kept my eyes open when reading magazines with book reviews and publishers' catalogs, and when visiting bookstores and libraries, and occasionally got recommendations from fellow Kodai alumni and other friends. Each column discussed several books, so the “review” of each book was brief. In a way, that column was an ancestor of this blog... At a certain point, I stopped the column because I was too busy to continue, but I remember being reluctant to give it up. Writing about Desai’s latest book brings me back to that time, as I remember reviewing some of her earlier books in my column: definitely “Fire on the Mountain” and “Clear Light of Day,” and also, I believe, “In Custody.”

On another note: I wish you all a very Happy New Year, and plenty of good reading, in 2012!