"Binocular Vision"

Wow, wow, wow! “Wow” is perhaps not a literary term, but it describes the way I feel about Edith Pearlman’s “Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories” (Lookout Books, 2011). Why haven't I heard of this amazing writer before? I just stumbled across a review of her work, and the reviewer pointed out that Pearlman is a writer who is not as well known as she should be. In her introduction to this volume, Ann Patchett (a wonderful writer herself) instructs us to “put [Pearlman’s] stories beside those of John Updike and Alice Munro. That’s where they belong.” It sounds like hyperbole, but she is not far off, in my opinion. Patchett goes on to tell us that she once had occasion to read one of Pearlman’s stories, “Self-Reliance,” aloud 20 times. She said that the more she read it, “the more it bloomed .... when I had read it 20 times, I could see that it was flawless. Every word in every sentence was indispensable, every observation subtle and complex.... Every time I thought I had mastered all of the nuances, the story offered up another part of itself to me.” Patchett goes on to write of the “richness” and “depth of spirit” in Pearlman’s stories. I echo everything Patchett says; I savored every story, and found, as Patchett did, that each story was rich and complex. The stories range in locale from Russia to London to Central Europe to Central America, with many taking place in the fictional Godolphin, Massachusetts. They also range through 20th century history. The characters are diverse, and often whole lives are lived in one story. A few of the stories share overlapping characters. One of the pleasures of these stories is that many of the characters are older, yet still vital, and carry their whole rich histories within them. As I get older myself, I value this inclusion and these perspectives. The stories are also bursting with families, lovers, friends, and colleagues. These small masterpieces are compelling, engaging, and layered. They are beautifully constructed and written. Highly recommended!

Literary Event on Campus

I very much enjoy attending literary events at the University of San Francisco, the campus where I teach. Two days ago, in the late afternoon, I had the pleasure of hearing three faculty writers from our university reading from their new books. Tracy Seeley read from "My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back to Kansas"; Ryan Van Meter read from "If You Knew Then What I Know Now"; and Lisa Catherine Harper read from "A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood." All three said in their introductory remarks that their books were hard to classify; they seemed to fall under the umbrella of creative nonfiction, with elements of memoir and other genres. The three books are very different in subject matter and style, yet they share strong personal voices and compelling prose. Besides enjoying and savoring the readings themselves, I liked looking around at the others in the audience, especially the students, and seeing them respond with pleasure to the readings. The sense of shared pleasure was enhanced by the light pouring in through the many tall windows, as well as by the refreshments served; these elements added to the atmosphere of celebrating literature, especially literature created by our very own colleagues/professors. And to think that I only had to walk a few steps from my office to enjoy this literary experience!

Pronunciation Blues

I suffer from what I suspect is a common malady among avid readers: the vocabulary I know in print is much larger than the vocabulary I regularly hear or speak. Thus when I do use a word that I have only seen in print, I don’t always know how to pronounce it, and on some occasions, have embarrassed myself by mispronouncing it. Sometimes the word originates in a non-English language, and sometimes it is just not a widely spoken word. Unfortunately, in English, unlike in some other languages such as Spanish, spelling doesn’t give a clear and logical indication of pronunciation. I have recently discovered pronunciation guides online, so if I know ahead of time that I want to use a word, perhaps in a conference paper, I can look it up and listen to the correct pronunciation. But if the word occurs to me spontaneously in conversation, and I am unsure of the pronunciation, I have two strategies, depending on my audience. Most often I just think of a different word to substitute. But if I am with friends, I may say “XXXX” (my guess at how the word is pronounced) and then say airily “or however that word is pronounced.”

The new "Jane Eyre" movie

I saw the new (2011) movie version of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” yesterday and liked it. Of course the movie is a bit different from the book, as all movie adaptations are. A major difference is that the narrative is not in chronological order; the film starts with Jane’s desperately fleeing Thornfield Hall after she finds out about Rochester’s mad wife in the attic, and shows her miserable days on the moors before she reaches safety at St. John’s house. Then there are flashbacks to her childhood with her cruel aunt and at the dreary orphanage. Certain scenes are necessarily omitted, or skimmed over, but the basic bones of the story are there. Mia Waskowska is excellent as Jane, effectively showing her stillness, her held-in passionate feelings, and the rare but powerful outbreak of passionate expression of anger or love. Although -- or maybe because -- it is a very controlled performance, I found I couldn’t take my eyes off this actress. I liked Michael Fassbender as Rochester less; he lacks the strong, dramatic presence that the role requires, in my opinion. In any case, Rochester’s initial rudeness and arrogance, as portrayed in the novel, are downplayed, as they have been in other filmed adaptations. The movie is also enhanced by the presence of the always wonderful Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax. I will admit that I was happy just to have the chance to relive this rich and compelling story. After reading the novel many times, teaching it several times, and seeing several movie and television versions of it, I never tire of the story of this plain, unfortunate young woman who somehow, despite all the difficulties and sadness of her childhood, has the strength and confidence to stand up for herself no matter what, acknowledges and allows herself to feel and express passion, and has the ethics and self-respect never to compromise her beliefs. Charlotte Bronte’s creation, Jane Eyre, is truly unique and inspiring, even today, and I think this film by director Cary Fukunaga does her justice.

"Seven Loves"

I liked Valerie Trueblood’s recent short story collection, “Marry or Burn,” so much (see my 4/9/11 post) that I then found and read her 2006 novel, “Seven Loves” (Little, Brown). Trueblood is now one of my favorite contemporary writers. Her writing is wonderful and rich, and brings to mind a term used in anthropology: “thick description.” “Seven Loves” tells the story of May through important events and “loves” throughout her long life. Each chapter focuses on one love, not in chronological order: her mother, her husband, her lover, her son, the police officer who tried to save her son, a co-worker at May’s post-retirement job, and an attendant at the nursing home she lives in at the end of her life. Each of these elicits a different type of love from May, some conventional and some not. There are other loves woven into the chapters too, besides these seven, such as May’s love for her two daughters. The chapters interconnect and sometimes go over the same territory from different angles, sometimes from the perspectives of other characters. May is a wonderful, complex character, precisely portrayed, very believable and knowable, yet full of surprises as well. Her mother is also particularly well described and compelling. May's life illustrates the way we sometimes deeply connect to someone who isn’t necessarily a family member or a romantic attachment. One of the best chapters is the one about May after her stroke; she is shown in her full humanity, the same May we have known since she was a child, a woman who happens to have had a stroke, rather than a person defined by the stroke. This novel is full of insights and telling details; it was a great pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

Guest Blog: On "Freedom"

My friend Mary wrote me the following comments about the long novel "Freedom," which I struggled with some time ago (see my posts of 11/8/10, 11/11/10, and 11/13/10); I am happy to publish her thoughtful response as a guest blog entry.

Mary's comments:

As I read your recent posts about the subject of marriage in novels, I thought about Jonathan Franzen's book "Freedom." The marriage of Walter and Patty, two of the main characters, looked far different from the outside than the inside. Interestingly, as their seemingly happy marriage began to unravel, their mutual friend Katz (although himself part of their trouble) felt disoriented by the loss of what had felt like his home base.

I've been curious about this book since I read a practically worshipful review of it in the New York Times and then your own rather negative one. My reaction was in between, but closer to yours. I too found myself having to push through parts of it. It was part zingy satire, part saga, part family history, part current events -- with way too much stuffed in between. I found the descriptions of such things as the coal mining scheme and the endangered birds particularly tedious. It took me a long time to care much about the characters. They seemed to be intentionally "types," used for the purposes of satire, so it was hard to really feel for them. If I am going to have to live with characters for as long as this long book required, I'd like to feel a little more connected to them.

Toward the end of the book I began to like it more. Those last pages had the momentum that I didn't feel earlier in the book, and the writing itself just seemed better. There were parts where I found myself nodding at certain dead-on observations, beautifully phrased. It felt like finally genuine feeling had broken through the thick air of smirky satire that permeated most of the book. It just took too long to get there.

Marriage is a Mystery

People say that you never really know what someone else’s marriage is truly like, and I agree. Even the marriages of one’s parents (although I believe that my parents had the best marriage ever), other relatives, and close friends contain reserves and mysteries. I, like you I am sure, have had the experience of being surprised to hear of serious problems and/or impending divorces for couples whom I thought were happy, even models of good marriages. As I was thinking about this, I realized that I get at least as much of my “information” about marriage from books (fiction and nonfiction) as from “real life.” Even in books, however, authors are selective in what they share about the marriages they portray, and consciously or unconsciously shape the perceptions of their readers. Still, I regard literature as an important source of knowledge about marriage, as about so many things. One reason I am thinking and writing about this now is that I realize that several of my last few postings were on books portraying marriages (e.g., 3/15/11, 3/21/11, 4/9/11, 4/11/11, and 4/12/11). These and other books provide evidence that no matter how ubiquitous marriage is, each marriage is unique, and each marriage exists and grows in its own ways, with its own joys and travails, its own fluctuations over the years. As someone who has been married a long time, known a lot of people, and read a lot of books, I am somewhat knowledgeable about marriage, yet still sometimes feel quite ignorant about the mysteries of marriage in general and about the marriages of those I know.