"Lady Susan," by Jane Austen

Readers of this blog know how much I love and admire Jane Austen's fiction. The Austen canon consists, as all Austen followers know, of six glorious complete novels. There are also two unfinished novels, "Sanditon" and the "Watsons," as well as some juvenalia. Less known and lauded is a very early epistolary novel that was not published until long after Austen's death, "Lady Susan." I had read this short book before, but not for a long time; I just finished listening to it on CD. Although it does not stand up to The Six, it is enjoyable to read (or hear) and demonstrates a good portion of the wit and perceptiveness of Austen's more developed work. The novel features a widow who is not afraid to have both flirtations and affairs; somehow, despite her shaky reputation, she manages to be accepted (reluctantly) by her relatives and friends. She is very manipulative, a liar, a two-timer, a distinctly unmaternal mother to her teenaged daughter (whom she tries to force to marry a unappealing man), smart, funny, selfish, and a little bit evil. She is the villain we are meant to root against, yes, but Austen slyly makes us pull for her a bit as well, despite ourselves. I decry her willingness to use whoever can be useful to her, and to step on anyone who gets in her way, yet there is something appealing about a woman at that time in history (late 18th century) who -- unlike most women of the era -- knew what she wanted and went for it, and who was so in control of her own life and relationships.

Doctorow on Leonard

The esteemed author E. L. Doctorow (I remember reading his amazing novel “Ragtime” when it came out in the 1970s) has written a fascinating essay about, and lovely tribute to, the late great writer and critic John Leonard; this essay can be found in the 2/27/12 issue of The Nation. What struck me in the essay was Doctorow’s description of Leonard’s great love of the novel. Although he wrote about the arts and popular culture, the novel was to him the pinnacle. In a piece called “Reading for My Life,” he said (as quoted by Doctorow) that “Popular culture is where we go to talk to and agree with one another; to simplify ourselves; to find our herd…Whereas books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves.” For example, when he first reads Garcia Marquez’s ”One Hundred Years of Solitude,” he not only feels it is a “marvelous novel” which set his “mind on fire,” but he makes connections between this novel and others; the Buendias “invite comparison with the Karamazovs and the Sartorises.” Doctorow says Leonard saw books “as if [they] are antiphonal calls and responses”; this statement really resonated for me, as I am sure it does for many longtime readers of the great novels of the past and present that speak to each other as they speak to us. Further, the following quote from Doctorow sheds light on some of the reasons Leonard was such a great critic: “It is not only his capacious mind that distinguishes him; it is the wisdom of his critical decency. When he attends to someone’s work, there is not only illumination but a beneficence of spirit, as if, even when he doesn’t like something and will tell us why, he is still at work championing the literary project.” Doctorow concludes with the following: “With his love of language and his faith in its relevance to human salvation, [John Leonard was] our own inadvertent, secular humanist patron saint.”

Guest Post: On Annie Dillard

When I heard how much my colleague Dennis Bacigalupi admired Annie Dillard, I asked if he would write a guest post about his feelings about her work, and I am pleased and honored that he agreed to do so. You can read his thoughts below.

"When I first read her 1975 Pulitzer Prize winning non-fiction narrative “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” Annie Dillard became a cornerstone of my worldview. Lunging at every new publication since, though few and far between, whether poetry (“Tickets for a Prayer Wheel”), essays (“Holy The Firm”), novels (“The Living," “The Maytrees”), biography (“An American Childhood”), travelogue (“Teaching a Stone to Talk”), or writer’s/reader’s guide/memoirs (“Living by Fiction," “The Writing Life”), Dillard has the ability to transport me to the micro-dimensions of inner-life and to the macro-fantastical nether-reaches of all that is beyond. Dillard uses words to illuminate the invisible and transform the obvious. With her inquisitiveness toward the scientific, awareness of the psychological, experience of human nature, and mastery of the function of words, she guides and pulls readers into a sense of soaring I have come to yearn for. Her seminal “a-ha” moment, famously described as “the tree with the lights in it,” suggests an enlightenment experience reflected in all her literary works. She can describe sailing down Puget Sound in a way that puts one in mind of Twain’s dexterity on the Mississippi (“The Living”), detail unfolding intricacies in a life-long marriage (“The Maytrees”), grippingly compare cultural connections of ancient and modern east/west wordsmiths (“Encounters with Chinese Writers”), or delight in the melange of vegetables used as medium in the portrait hanging on her motel wall (“Teaching a Stone to Talk”). Dillard points to the universe in a drop of water and creates a psychic connection to the Crab Nebula. She can blithely reference the Emperor of Bavaria in 840 C.E. and then the platinum blonde in the lobby: always uplifting, recharging, and leading, encouraging us to wake up and SEE."

Franzen on Wharton

Following up on my 2/19/12 and 2/20/12 posts on recent New Yorker stories, this third blogpost focuses on another story in the Feb. 13 and 20, 2012 issue. When I looked at the table of contents, as I always do almost immediately when I receive a new issue of this magazine, I was very happy to note that there was a piece on Edith Wharton, a writer whose work I have read and re-read over the years, have taught, greatly admired, and truly enjoyed (see my post of 4/18/10). The next relevant piece of information was that the story was by Jonathan Franzen, a writer I have mixed feelings about. Readers of this blog may remember that I liked “The Corrections” very much, but never warmed up to his more recent novel, “Freedom.” (See my posts of 11/8/10, 11/11/10, and 11/13/10, detailing my struggles with and ambivalence about “Freedom”). So I was very interested to find out what Franzen would write about Wharton, and at the same time a bit wary. Sure enough, he first wrote about his reservations about her, starting with a very negative portrayal of her “privileged life” and her “indulging her passion for gardens and interior decorations, touring Europe endlessly in hired yachts or chauffeured cars, hobnobbing with the powerful and the famous,” and so on. One of my first responses was to wonder why Franzen was highlighting this aspect of her life, when many authors have had privileged lives. Was it because she was a woman? And was this really the most relevant information about her and her sublime fiction? He then went on to say that Wharton “did have one potentially redeeming disadvantage: she wasn’t pretty.” Once again, my reaction was to wonder why male critics so often discuss the appearances of female authors. In any case, Franzen’s initial main point is that we need to feel sympathy for an author, and for her/his characters, in order to admire the author and her/his work; since (in his view) neither Wharton nor most of her characters are sympathetic, it is hard to like and/or admire her work. Franzen then dissects three Wharton novels: “The House of Mirth,” “The Custom of the Country,” and “The Age of Innocence.” He speculates on why, despite the main characters being hard to sympathize with (again, in his view) because of various failings, including ambition, crudeness, and shallowness, he, and we, are still drawn to the novels. He decides that “sympathy in novels need not be simply a matter of the reader’s direct identification with a fictional character…One of the great perplexities of fiction…is that we experience sympathy so readily for characters we wouldn’t like in real life.” He gives as examples Becky Sharp and Tom Ripley. And so, after more discussion, Franzen comes around to the conclusion that despite creating unsympathetic characters, Wharton helps readers understand their contexts and why they are the people they are. His concluding sentence is that “What you get…at the novel’s end, is sympathy.” I follow Franzen’s argument, but somehow it all seems like a set-up, a construction and round-about interpretation of Wharton’s fiction that leads to a rather arid conclusion. I still can’t really tell if Franzen actually likes reading Wharton’s work. I know, I know… that is not the point of literary criticism. But I would like to be able to discern that simple fact somewhere in a critic’s writing. Further, although I was interested in Franzen’s take on Wharton, I don’t feel I learned much from it about her or her work, and I feel that the whole essay was a sort of house of cards. Further still -- and I fully realize that this part is probably a bit unfair on my part -- I got the feeling from this piece that Franzen admires Wharton only reluctantly, and that he feels he is doing her a favor by -- finally -- praising her. And that doesn’t sit well with me.

"The Plagiarist's Tale"

After I posted on 2/19/12 about a 2/6/12 New Yorker story about Chinese workplace novels, I read two additional fascinating book-related articles in The New Yorker, this time in the February 13 & 20, 2012 issue; I will write about one today and one next time. The first article, “The Plagiarist’s Tale,” by Lizzie Widdicombe, details the case of Quentin Rowan, who wrote under the pen name Q. R. Markham, and whose works over a period of 15 years were patchworks of hundreds of excerpts from the work of other authors, some quite famous. Widdicombe points out that “originality is a relative concept in literature,” as “ideas are doomed to be rehashed….Rowan’s method, though – constructing his work almost entirely from other people’s sentences and paragraphs – makes his book a singular literary artifact,” or, according to Thomas Mallon, “an ‘off-the-charts case’ both in the extent of the plagiarism and in the variety of Rowan’s sources.” The article delves into Rowan’s background, and the way in which he gradually plagiarized more and more, while constantly fearing and believing he would get caught, as he eventually -- but only when his novel “Assassin of Secrets” was published and sold well -- did. Rowan characterizes his plagiarism as an addiction, one as powerful as alcoholism -- an interesting take on plagiarism!

Chinese "Workplace" Novels

Who would have guessed that one of the most popular genres of novels in China is the workplace novel? According to Leslie T. Chang's article, "Working Titles," in the 2/6/12 issue of The New Yorker, "'Zhichang xiaoshuo,' or workplace novels, have topped best-seller lists in recent years." For example, "'Du Lala's Promotion Diary,' by a corporate executive writing under the pen name Li Ke, is the story of a young woman who rises from secretary to human-resources manager at a Fortune 500 company. It has inspired three sequels, a hit movie, and a thirty-two-part television series. The books have sold five million copies." There are subgenres of the workplace novel, such as the "commercial warfare novel," the "financial novel," and the "novel of officialdom." Although they are fiction, many of these books offer extensive advice and "rules" for success in the workplace. Americans might expect that such novels would include romance and/or sex, but publishers tell authors that their novels will sell better with more about finance and less about love. Chang speculates that one reason for the popularity of these workplace novels is that for decades, people in China were assigned jobs by the government, and didn't have to worry too much about competing in the workplace; now that the old system has changed and become more competitive ("Darwinian," Chang calls it), readers are looking for guidance in how to succeed. This article discusses several examples of popular books and their authors, and this discussion provides fascinating insights into what the work world is like in China today.

"Making a Literary Life," by Carolyn See

Upon my recently experiencing a disappointment regarding a piece I had written, my wonderful friend S. sent me a copy of a chapter titled "Make Rejection a Process," from the book "Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers" (Random House, 2002), by Carolyn See. The chapter was smart, funny, and "bracing," a word See likes, and it made me feel better. (Of course rejection is part of the life of any writer, whether of fiction or scholarship or any other type of writing; it comes with the territory.) After reading this chapter, I decided to check out the whole book, and enjoyed reading it. Although it is intended mainly for aspiring fiction writers, rather than academic writers, and although I have been writing and publishing (in modest quantities) for many years, I still found it useful, entertaining, and even inspiring. See, who has published numerous books (mostly fiction), and whose novel "Golden Days" I remember reading some years ago, has a distinctive voice and is generous in sharing her experiences as well as advice. The book is a mixture of practical advice and cheerleading; it is down to earth but also encouraging. As a side note, Carolyn See is the mother of the bestselling author Lisa See, whom she mentions with pride.

So That's Where That Good Book Scent Comes From...

My friend and colleague Andrea sent me a "wall post" with a quote from "Perfumes: The Guide," that she thought -- rightly! -- that I would enjoy. I think I have mentioned here that I -- like many of you, I am sure -- love the smell of books. This quotation says that there is a substance in trees called lignin, which "is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us." So there is a scientific reason that old books smell so good! I don't think I had identified that smell as being related to vanilla, but it makes sense, as vanilla is such a soothing, feel-good scent.

"The World We Found," by Thrity Umrigar

It is a common theme: the inseparable group of friends who have grown up together, or met at camp or in high school or in college. I always fall for this type of story. In Thrity Umrigar's novel, "The World We Found," the four friends met at their university in Bombay (before it was Mumbai) in the 1970s, 30 years before the main action in the novel. At college they were idealistic, fought political fights, loved, lost, and were always there for each other. OK, this is all familiar stuff, even a little formulaic, although in this case it is set in India, which provides some variety through the setting and cultural aspects. Since the four are mostly of the upper class, their lives are in some ways not so very different from those of the upper class around the world. But Umrigar (mostly) makes us care about these four women, and now 30 years later when one of them, now in America, is very ill and wants the other three to come visit, and to do so as soon as possible, various complications set in. There are secrets from the past and present that jeopardize this plan. The four friends, with some help from husbands and others, have to pull together to overcome obstacles. There are issues of social class, of religion, of gender restrictions, and of sexual identity threaded throughout the novel. I wouldn't recommend going way out of your way to read this novel, but, overall, I liked it; it was an enjoyable read.

"They Were Sisters," by Dorothy Whipple

I seem to be on a bit of a Dorothy Whipple binge. Sometimes when I discover a new (to me) writer whose work I really like, I find and read more and more of that author’s work. I imagine some of you do the same. I recently (on 1/24/12 and 1/30/12) wrote about two of Whipple’s books, and now I have read a third: “They Were Sisters” (Persephone, 2005; originally published by John Murray, 1943). I think I like this novel best of the Whipple books I have read so far. It describes the interlocking lives of three sisters who have taken different paths and married very different men. Lucy is the oldest sister, the one who in childhood always watched and worried over the two younger sisters, and still does. She is in a good, happy marriage with a quirky but kind and compatible man. Charlotte, however, marries a man, Geoffrey, who turns out to be a nasty, horrible, sadistic husband who ruins the lives of his wife and his children. Vera, the most beautiful one, marries a man who adores her, Brian, but whom she doesn’t really love. She enjoys the comfortable lifestyle Brian provides her, has a number of flirtations and even affairs, and finally her marriage crumbles. Her children are somewhat neglected, although they are better off than their cousins, Charlotte and Geoffrey’s children. Lucy is the one who tries to keep the family together and to help her sisters, but nothing she can do really changes things. She does manage, however, to help some of her sisters’ children. Despite the despair and sadness of parts of the story, there is the redeeming power of the love among the sisters, and especially of Lucy’s constant caring and efforts to help her sisters and their children. And it turns out that at least some of the children will survive and even be happy, despite their miserable childhoods. This novel is deeply compelling; I couldn’t stop reading it. The writing is impressive. I am quite sure I will be reading more of Whipple’s fiction very soon.

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens!

Belated (one day late) 200th birthday greetings to Charles Dickens! This great novelist has given so much pleasure to so many readers for so long. NPR.org had a nice article about Dickens' birthday yesterday, in which Linda Wertheimer quoted Dickens biographer Clare Tomalin as saying "After Shakespeare, Dickens is the great creator of characters, multiple characters." Dickens' novels often contain 100 characters. Tomalin tells us that "David Copperfield" was Dickens' favorite of his own novels. In the same NPR article, novelist Jennifer Egan (a San Francisco native) reminds us how relevant Dickens still is. For example, she says, in 'Bleak House," "one of the major characters is [in] corporate litigation, and the way in which it consumes all kinds of people associated with it" is very relevant today. Egan goes on to get to the heart of the matter: the way Dickens' novels catch up and entrance readers. She tells of a a recent experience, in which "I was on a very bumpy plane ride, an overnight flight. I was so miserable, and I pulled out 'David Copperfield,' and I forgot how scared and tired I was, and I thought, 'This is what reading should be.' I'm utterly transported out of my current situation." Thank you, Charles Dickens, for your wonderful novels.

Guest Post: "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," by James Ford

I am very pleased to introduce a guest post by my colleague, Sue Bae. Thank you, Sue, for this thoughtful review, below.

What started out as a consideration for some of my more advanced ESL students turned out to be a treat for me. James Ford’s debut novel, “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” (Ballantine, 2009), though it probably won’t win any literary awards, is a poignant story of two innocents: Henry, a young Chinese American boy, and Keiko, a Japanese American girl, who meet and develop a deep friendship in the midst of the turmoil of the WW II years. Unlike for those around them, including Henry’s parents, race, ethnicity, and politics mean nothing to them except that they are what keep the two apart. I found myself cheering for the two, and urging them on in their valiant efforts to overcome the obstacles laid before them, the worst of which was Keiko’s family’s forcible imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp with the rest of the residents of Seattle’s Japantown. What I initially appreciated about the story was that there are no harsh words about or condemnations of the national policies that brought on such tragedies. It is Ford’s ability to keep politics out of his story that makes it so sweet and tender. (Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” comes to mind.) But I, and I’m sure other readers as well, could not help but taste the bitter, when reading that others merely looked on while guiltless people, innocents like Henry and Keiko, were stripped of their rights and homes, and other minority groups did nothing to help them in their common struggle for social justice. Henry’s father, one of many Chinese Americans trying to survive the times, has his son wear an “I am Chinese” button on his jacket to keep him from being mistaken for Japanese. He rages at Henry for hiding Keiko’s family treasures in his room for safekeeping, and does not speak to or acknowledge his son when he befriends a Japanese girl. Of course, this was all done out of fear. Through the bitter years of separation, Henry and Keiko live their lives as best they can, finding what happiness they can, just as countless people had to do in those times. Henry and Keiko’s story is, I believe, a testament to human resilience in times of struggle and the ability to find happiness even in wretched circumstances. Ford tells a very bittersweet tale of the history of his hometown and his heritage, and I believe Seattleites and those, like me, who hold the city in high regard, will enjoy reading about it. I have recently learned about another story about the internment of the Japanese, also told from a child’s perspective, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” by Julie Otsuka, which received very good reviews. [Editor’s note: This novel was the subject of a 1/15/12 post here.] One guess what my next bedtime reading will be.

"An Available Man," by Hilma Wolitzer

It is a well-known truth that widowers are soon presented with many opportunities for new romance and marriage. "An Available Man" (Ballantine, 2012), Hilma Wolitzer's new novel, focuses on this situation. Edward Schuyler's wife Bee has just died, and Edward, in his early sixties, is devastated. He and Bee had had a very happy, loving marriage. To deal with his grief, he tries to lose himself in his teaching and in staying involved in the lives of his mother-in-law and his young adult stepchildren. Those children, after a time, without Edward's knowledge or permission but with good intentions, put an ad in the personals section in the back of The New York Review of Books on his behalf. He is uninterested, yet tries to be a good sport and eventually meets a few of the many women who have replied to the ad. Suddenly the woman who had left him at the altar long before he met and married Bee comes back into his life. There are many complications, but finally there is a happy ending (but not the one you might predict). This novel is delightful and charming. Edward is a very human and very likable character, and some of the other characters are also well-developed and engaging; Edward's mother-in-law is one such, for example. One of the several things I like about this novel is its portrayal of older characters, and of the romantic relationships that older characters can and do have. "An Available Man" is an enjoyable and satisfying "good read," something Wolitzer is known for.

"Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary"

“Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) is startlingly similar to “In Zanesville,” which I reviewed here on 1/23/12. Both are about young teenagers (around 15 years old) moving between childhood and young adulthood, experiencing the pains and pleasures of high school, of young love, first kisses, drama, great fluctuations in moods, tiffs with friends, and more. “Tina’s Mouth,” written by Keshni Kashyap and illustrated by Mari Araki, is a West Coast, multicultural version of this classic “young girl coming of age” story. What makes it stand out is that it is a graphic novel. The device that shapes the story is that Tina is assigned in her honors English class to keep a diary in which she writes about her life and feelings as if in a letter addressed to Jean-Paul Sartre. A quirky device, to be sure, but somehow it works. In general, I am not drawn to graphic novels, but have read and enjoyed a few, such as Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis,” Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese,” and Posy Simmonds’ “Gemma Bovery” and “Tamara Drewe.” In “Tina’s Mouth,” the main character (Tina) is an Indian American girl living in Los Angeles. We get to know her parents, her older sister and brother, her best friend, her big crush, her English teacher, her partner in the play she stars in, and various other relatives and friends. In other words, within the confines of a graphic novel, Kashyap and Araki create a whole world and a whole cast of characters. One thing I particularly like, besides the realistic picture of a young girl’s moods, problems, and triumphs, is the way her ethnicity is portrayed. It is an important part of who she is, and we see that she is part of an extended community of Indian Americans. But she is not defined by her ethnicity; it is just one part of her identity. I am also intrigued by trying to figure out how much of the pleasure of reading this graphic novel is the words and how much is the illustrations. All in all, this graphic novel is charming and engaging.