"The Body of Jonah Boyd"

I stumbled across and read one of David Leavitt’s less famous books, the novel “The Body of Jonah Boyd” (Bloomsbury, 2004). It is, as most of his books are, about a family, and the setting is -- as is common in his novels -- California, in a college town. The center of the story is the wife and mother of the family, Nancy Wright. The story is narrated by Professor Ernest Wright’s secretary, Denny. Because Denny is the secretary (and mistress) to Ernest and a sort of companion to Nancy, she is with the family a lot, but is often relegated to the sidelines of the action. She both cherishes and resents her ambiguous position. There is a complicated story about friends of the family and one of the sons, Ben, who becomes a writer. The main part of the story happens in 1969; the sequel happens thirty years later. There was, I assume, supposed to be a bit of mystery as to what happened during this interval, but the mystery wasn't mysterious enough to cause any real suspense. The revelations it offered were not surprising, and in fact reminded me of the plot turns of at least two other novels I've read. I found this novel a quick, fairly enjoyable read, and that is about all I can say for it. Don't bother reading it.

"Making Home From War"

In 1999, my USF colleague, writing professor and poet Brian Komei Dempster, was asked to lead a writing workshop for former Japanese World War II internees in the United States, so that they could share their stories. In 2001, he edited a collection of their stories, “From Our Side of the Fence: Growing up in America’s Concentration Camps.” Now, ten years later, the same 12 writers, after a renewed time in their writing group, have told the follow-up stories of their resettlement after the war in a new book, also edited by Dempster, “Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement” (Heyday, 2011). The editor, whose own grandfather, a Buddhist priest, was interned, has done a great service to history and to justice, as well as to literature, in working with these writers, many of whom had no prior experience in writing for publication, to preserve their stories. An excellent foreword by Greg Robinson explains the historical context, and both Robinson and Dempster point out that although there has been much written about the internment (which Dempster and his writers decided to call, more accurately and less euphemistically, “incarceration,” “imprisonment,” and “confinement”), there has been much less written about the resettlement afterward. As the writers are now mostly in their 80s, it became essential for them to write and publish their stories now. These stories are very moving. We cannot help but admire the way the writers and their families, despite great difficulties and injustices, got on with their lives. Many of them earned advanced degrees and had estimable careers. Yet the years of confinement left their scars; one of Dempster’s points is that the resettlement process –- economic, geographic, logistical, social, emotional, psychological, and more -- took place not just during the traditionally defined period of 1945-1955, but for many years afterward, even into the present. This book is beautifully produced, with an evocative cover, many photographs of the authors and their families in the past and in the present, and useful “migration charts” showing where and when each family moved before, during, and after the war. “Making Home from War” makes an enormous contribution: it is informative, it reminds us of the grave injustices perpetrated on Japanese Americans, and it gives us the great gift of the authentic voices of those who experienced this sad chapter in American history.
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A personal note: This is my 400th post on this blog!

Ersatz Austen

One of my first entries on this blog (1/25/10) was about Jane Austen, whose books I have read and reread so many times. Because I love her work so much, I even occasionally read the “sequels” and other novels based on Austen’s books. I just finished “Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to ‘Pride and Prejudice’” (University of Chicago Press, 1993), by Julia Barrett. It tells the imagined story of what happens after Elizabeth and Darcy marry. The setting is, of course, Pemberley, and the main character is Darcy’s sister Georgiana. Other characters from “Pride and Prejudice” in “Presumption” are Elizabeth's parents and sisters, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, Mr. Collins, and more. New characters include two young men who vie for Georgiana’s affection. There are flirtations, romances, crises, two new babies, deceptions, betrayals, realizations, and other events. Naturally, after some manufactured suspense and a couple of surprises, all ends well. This novel, like some of the other sequels, prequels, and offshoots, is fun to read, and a chance to reconnect with Austen’s world. But because no writer can even pretend to be in Austen’s league (and to be fair, these authors don’t pretend that, but rather bill their novels as tributes to Austen), reading “Presumption” and other such novels is a bit like eating mediocre chocolate; it tastes OK, but it definitely isn’t the “good stuff,” the real thing.

Remembrance of Letters Past

When I was at my mother’s house recently, going through old papers, as she is downsizing, she showed me files of letters that my brothers and I had written to my father and her when we were children in boarding school in India, many years ago. I read them with great interest; they not only brought back memories of events and feelings from that time period, but they vividly illustrated different stages of our childhoods. My youngest brother wrote sweet, simple notes in block printing. We all listed litanies of activities: “On Saturday our class took a hike. On Sunday L. and C. and I went to the bazaar. Yesterday Mr. F. told us we have to memorize a poem.” Etc. The letters also were clearly from four different kids: I immediately recognized the handwriting of each of my brothers, and noticed the stylistic differences in our writing. I also still have some of the letters that my parents wrote to me in boarding school, and later on too, for example when I was in college and when I moved to San Francisco. During the boarding school holidays, when we dispersed and went home, some of my friends and I would write each other long letters, which helped with the separation from each other and our school and social activities. During my college and early adult years, when any of us -- family or friends -- went on trips, we would write letters and cards. As an adult, I enjoy reading the published letters of some of my favorite authors, and find them both revealing and intriguing. I still write and receive some handwritten notes or letters, although much more rarely than in pre-email days. In particular, my mother doesn’t use email, so we still write each other letters; we each enjoy both writing and receiving letters. A couple of my friends still (one in particular -- thank you, B.!) write the occasional note by post, which I enjoy and appreciate. And I have one friend in Canada with whom I have been exchanging cards and letters since we were ten years old, although we have only seen each other a few times over the years, and that is a treasured correspondence. But with cell phones, texting, emailing, instant messaging/chatting, Facebook, and all the other ways to communicate, old-fashioned letters are not very common anymore. Isn’t it a bit sad that nowadays when one opens one’s mailbox, the chances of that little uptick of happiness on finding a personal letter are very small? I know that technology marches on, and that is mostly a good thing; I, for example, am a great fan of email. But I can’t help feeling that the drastic decrease in letter writing is a loss.

Can't Get Into "Chronic City"

I just couldn’t finish Jonathan Lethem’s novel “Chronic City” (Vintage Contemporaries, 2009). I tried, I persisted, I got about halfway through, and then skimmed the rest. I thought I would like it because it is about New York City, and because the critics claim it shows the city in a way that it has never been shown before; the blurb on the back cover calls the novel “a searing love letter to the city.” The novel is mostly about a very small coterie of friends, mostly male; although one works for the mayor, and there is some ado about some citywide strange events, the novel seems to me claustrophobic and – OK, I will say it – boring. The narrator, Chase Insteadman, a former child TV actor, connects with the character Perkus Tooth, who is supposed to be, I guess, emblematic of New York cool and hip – or something like that. Tooth is a former rock critic with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, who now mainly smokes pot and hangs out either at his own apartment or at a nearby café where he always eats and drinks the same thing: a cheeseburger and a Coke. He gets fixated on trying to buy a certain rare type of ceramic vase on eBay, which he thinks has a mystical healing power. The novels mostly consists of many long, tedious, stoned conversations between Tooth, Insteadman, and a few of their friends, and a few walks through the city, none seeming to lead anywhere much. There is a sort of plot, but not one that held my attention. There is a sort of theme, something about “the pursuit of truth” (according to a New York Times review), but again, the way this theme is explored didn’t hold my attention. This novel was a bestseller, and was well received critically, so perhaps I am missing something. But personally I don’t recommend it at all.

A Misogynistic Nobel Laureate

According to an NPR article, “Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul Says No Woman Is His Literary ‘Equal’” (Peralta, 6/2/11), Naipaul has stated that women are “quite different,” and that they cannot write as well as he does because of their “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world.” Naipaul, who has been revealed by biographies and other books to be violent, racist, and misogynistic, reminds us that being a good writer definitely does not translate to being a good person. Statements such as the above show him to have a “narrow view of the world” himself. I do admire some of his writing, and I believe that he has added to our understanding of the damage done by colonialism and by racism, so this kind of prejudice makes me both angry and sad, because he should know better. It is always sad to see how some people understand very well one kind of prejudice and discrimination, but are blind to other kinds. I also hold him, as a writer who has received such high level recognition, to a higher standard. Perhaps I should be able to separate my feelings about the author and about his work, and I generally try to do so, but knowing of Naipaul’s apparent contempt for and dismissal of female writers certainly makes me less likely to want to read more of his work in the future.

"Cutting for Stone"

“Cutting for Stone” (Vintage, 2009), by Abraham Verghese, is a big (667-page) saga, a bestseller. I must admit it took me a while to get through it, and I read several other books while I was chipping away at this one. But I am glad I persisted. Verghese, a physican and author of the memoir “My Own Country” about working with AIDS patients in Appalachia, which I very much liked when I read it some years ago, has written a moving epic novel about characters from India and Africa who converge on Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The two main characters are twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone; other characters are their birth parents (they are born of an illicit but touching relationship), their adopted parents, and others who work at the hospital. The brothers are extremely close, considering themselves two halves of a whole, but a betrayal tears them apart, and Marion goes to the United States for further medical training. There he is successful but still haunted by his past, in both positive and negative ways. There is much in this book about family, about immigration, about love, and about death. The relationships are close and often moving. There is also much -- sometimes too much -- about medicine, although in some cases the medical crises and procedures are very dramatic. All of this takes place against the backdrop of Ethiopian history during and after the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie; the characters of the story see this history up close, and are directly -- sometimes tragically -- affected by it. I must admit that I personally was particularly drawn to a part of the book that was only a minor part of the story: the early part in South India, where I spent my childhood. The descriptions of that area, and the feelings of those who were torn between their pasts and their futures, their countries of birth and their need to go out into the world, are evocative and moving. It’s the beginning of the summer now, so if you are looking for a high-quality and enjoyable “good read,” one that takes you to other worlds, buy this book in paperback, take it with you on vacation, and get caught up in its gripping (and generally well-written) story.