"Afterimage"

I am grateful to my friend S. for her recommendation of Canadian writer Helen Humphreys' novel "Afterimage" (Metropolitan Books, 2000), which I have just finished reading. This book is "inspired by the life of Julia Margaret Cameron," the famed photographer, and takes place in 1865. A young maid, Annie Phelan, goes to work for a photographer, Isabelle Dashell, and her mapmaker/would-be explorer husband, Eldon Dashell. Both are much taken with Annie, who is intelligent and well-read as well as beautiful and unspoiled. A great line about Annie's love of books is the following: "that feeling of story rushes through her like a swoon" (p. 32). Isabelle uses Annie as her best model for her photographs, and Eldon shares his thwarted but lingering dreams about Arctic exploration with her. Annie's presence both inspires and unsettles the Dashells, and tragic events unfold. This book shows us much about social class, as well as about what it was like to be a woman, especially a talented but underrated woman artist, at that time. The loneliness and lack of support that Isabelle receives, even from her own husband, are sad to read about. A fellow (male) artist, for example, pontificates that Isabelle's work should be "more domestic" (p. 22). But the novel also shows us how transformative art can be. The main pleasure of this novel, finally, is the gorgeous, evocative, sometimes dreamlike writing.

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton is a writer I have long treasured. First, she writes beautifully. Second, her stories and characters are engaging. Third, she brilliantly portrays the lives and problems of the women of her time period (and in some ways, women of all time periods). Fourth, she teaches us so much about social class and how it worked and works. As someone who has studied and written about social class issues, I find her work fascinating and instructive in this regard. I also find myself with ambivalent feelings, as her portrayal of the luxurious life of the upper class has its glittering appeal, yet we also see its negative aspects: superficiality, callousness, inequity, even destructiveness. Wharton's "The House of Mirth," a novel I have read and taught several times, is illustrative of everything I have said above. The brilliant and beautiful but increasingly impoverished Lily Bart spends her time with those who have much more than she does, hopes for a marriage that will rescue her, but can't quite bring herself to give up her true self and her true love of a less affluent man in order to save herself financially. This decision costs her dearly, and she spirals downward to a sad end. Wharton was a great student of psychology and the human condition. She chose to write (mostly) about her own milieu, the world of the New York upper class, as that is where she found herself and that is what she could write best about, but she was well aware of other lives and of the wider world, and her work speaks to us still.

"Solar" is "fine"

My friend C. is the person who persuaded me several years ago to start reading Ian McEwan's novels, and I am grateful to her for that; since then I have read and very much enjoyed several of his novels, most notably "Atonement" and "Saturday." A few days ago, in an email about something else, C. mentioned that she was reading McEwan's current novel, "Solar" (Random House, 2010), and that it was "fine." I had to smile, as the phrase "damning with faint praise" came to mind. I haven't discussed the novel with her since, so I don't know how she feels about it as she has read more or perhaps finished the novel. But in the meantime I too have been reading "Solar," which I finished last night. I have to agree with C's assessment that it is "fine." I mildly enjoyed it, but it didn't grip me the way some of his other novels have. Perhaps it was because of the pages and pages of prose about physics and solar energy. Of course I admire the idea of solar power, but that doesn't mean I enjoy reading about the scientific details. This probably says more about my limitations than it does about the book, and I am sure some readers truly savor the very parts that I skim over. Or perhaps my lack of involvement was because the main character, Michael Beard, is -- intentionally, as I heard the author say in a radio interview -- a rather unlikable, completely self-centered character who doesn't connect to other human beings very well, even his five ex-wives, his small daughter, his dozens of lovers, and his scientific and business colleagues. Of course main characters do not have to be likable in order for a book to be good or even great, but such choices on the part of the author do make it harder for the reader to get emotionally involved with the story. I do note though that the power of seeing a story through a certain character's perspective is very strong: I found myself rooting for Beard even when he was covering up a crime, and then being appalled at myself for doing so!

"Lark and Termite"

In a bookstore yesterday, I saw that the novel "Lark and Termite" (Knopf, 2009), by Jayne Anne Phillips, is now in paperback (Vintage, 2010). Seeing the stack of paperback copies reminded me of how much I liked this compelling novel when I read it last year, despite having had some mixed feelings about Phillips' writing in the past. I believe it is her best book so far. It is the story of Termite, a little boy who is very disabled yet has a striking personality and loving temperament, and Lark, his nine-years-older half-sister who loves him dearly and is his main caregiver. Their bond is extremely close, made closer by the fact that they have few reliable and available adults in their lives. Their aunt does as much as she can, but she works long hours to support them and thus is gone most of the time. There is also a powerful back story about Termite's father, who was a soldier in Korea, and whom Termite never met. This is a truly original novel, as well as a moving one, with strong characters, and a sad but inspiring story.

"The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"

"The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008), by Rebecca Miller, is an eccentric little novel. Pippa, 50ish, has been married to Herb, 80, for 30 years, and they have just moved to a retirement community. Pippa loves Herb but feels out of place and vaguely unsettled in her new home. The story flashes back to Pippa's very troubled relationship with her mother, her adventures and misadventures as a very young woman, and the drama of her early years with Herb. Back in the present, various surprising events ensue, leading to some new beginnings. (I don't want to give away the plot twists.) The tone of the novel is an odd mixture of light and dark, but Pippa is an intriguing character, and the originality of her personality keeps us reading. Although I have a slight feminist reservation about mentioning the following, believing that women shouldn't be identified by the men in their lives, I will tell you that Rebecca Miller is the daughter of Arthur Miller and is married to Daniel Day-Lewis. (I resolved my concerns by realizing that I would have given you this information if the genders had been reversed; besides, the connections are just too interesting not to pass on!) Miller has also made this novel in to a movie, which I haven't seen, but may look for now.

"The Professor"

I seem to be reading more memoirs than ever...hmmm...not sure what that means, if anything... I just finished a new one: "The Professor, and other writings" (HarperCollins, 2010), by Terry Castle. Castle is a professor at Stanford University, but is not the professor in the book's title. The book is actually a collection of essays, but each of them is written through a memoiristic lens. Whether the topic of the essay is the writer Susan Sontag, the artist Agnes Martin, the musician Art Pepper, or the author's mother, the real topic is always Castle herself. This is by design, as the author has found herself tiring of traditional scholarly writing, and choosing to include herself and her life in her writing. This focus does not come across as (very) self-centered or arrogant, but as an exploration of her life and experiences, and of how they shed light on other topics, and vice versa. The longest essay by far (at almost 200 pages) is "The Professor," which describes a lesbian affair Castle had during graduate school, some three decades ago, with a charismatic but destructive professor. The story is full of drama, intrigue, shock, despair, humiliation, and even a bit of humor. Although the affair was short-lived, it had a major influence on the author, and it is only now, these many years later, that she feels ready to process and write about what happened. As she tells the story, we also learn much about Castle's life before and after this episode. She is now a well-known professor, the author of several well-received scholarly books (e.g., "The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture"), and in a long, happy relationship with her partner Blakey. Castle is an engaging writer, adept at weaving her story into the various stories of others included in this collection.

Birthday Thanks for All Things Book-Related

As today is my birthday, I am using today's post to pause and thank all the people and institutions that have allowed me to have a life full of the joys of books and reading. First, I thank my dear parents for reading to my brothers and me, for being role models of people who love to read, and for always making sure we had access to plenty of good books. Next I thank all my teachers, from childhood through graduate school, especially my English teachers and professors. In addition, I thank libraries and librarians, bookstores and those who work in them, publishers, editors, literary critics, book reviewers, and good friends who are fellow readers. Most of all, I thank the writers of all the books I have read over the years. I feel fortunate to live in a time and place that provide abundant access to books, and to have the education and resources to take advantage of these reading opportunities. So I send a huge "thank you" out to everyone involved in the world of books. And I send a special thank you too to those of you who read this blog!