"Daughters of the Revolution," by Carolyn Cooke

On 7/14/11 I wrote of how much I liked Carolyn Cooke’s collection of short stories, “The Bostons.” Now I have read her new book, a novel, “Daughters of the Revolution” (Knopf, 2011), which I also liked very much, although it took me a little while to warm up to it. At first it almost seemed that -- despite the clear label of “novel” -- this book would be a set of interrelated stories. But the stories gradually come together in a more novel-like way. All the stories are connected somehow to the prestigious Goode School, in New England, and to its aging and change-resistant headmaster, Goddard Byrd, known to all as “God.” The school is for boys only, but through a clerical error, an African-American girl, Carole, is accepted, and then more girls are accepted, as the tide of history cannot be resisted. These two characters, as well as the widow of an alum of the school -- known as Mei-Mei -- and her daughter -- EV -- are the main characters in this novel. The stories are told in a leisurely yet economical way, focusing on a few key episodes over the period of 1963-2005. Readers may wonder about the significance of the title. It is suitably ambiguous, and could refer both to the upstanding, conservative nature of the school and its supporters, as the organization Daughters of the Revolution (not actually mentioned in the novel) represents, and -- especially -- to the new young women who have made the school coeducational. There is also a 1968 scene from the early days of the (second wave) women’s movement, in which “God” is caught up in, and slightly injured in, a demonstration for women’s rights. This event disorients and distresses him, and becomes a crucial episode in his life. The uses of the names “Goode” for the school and “God” for its head are certainly significant and ironic, and sometimes create amusing but also disturbing situations. The novel gradually reveals a few surprises, including a fairly big one near the end, one that is seemingly casually dropped into the story. It has to do with a main character's identity, and it connects with another revelation about a friendship and a tragic event, one that shows the deep class divide that the school papers over but cannot completely conceal. Now that I have read both “The Bostons” and “Daughters of the Revolution,” Carolyn Cooke is definitely on my list of authors whose new books I will always look out for, find, and read. I just hope Cooke will not wait another ten years, as she did between the above two books, to write and publish another book.

On the Founding of The Feminist Press

I have occasionally written about my interest in feminist literature, both fiction and nonfiction. An important early publisher of such fiction was and is The Feminist Press. The current (July/August 2011) issue of The Women’s Review of Books (a wonderful periodical which I have read for many, many years, and which I wrote about here on 2/17/10) has a very interesting essay by Florence Howe, a co-founder of the Feminist Press, about its founding and early years. The essay is excerpted from Howe's memoir, “A Life in Motion.” The Press began informally in 1970, organized by a sort of collective of enthusiastic women who did all the fundraising (they initially raised $100, which was a lot more back then than it is now!) and the work of deciding what to publish, editing, working with a printer, finding artists to illustrate books, and so on. No one in the group had expertise in or experience in publishing, but they moved forward fueled by their passion for making more literary works by women widely available. They started with a children’s book and with a series of biographies of influential women; the first subject featured in the series was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Then the writer Tillie Olsen recommended that the Press publish Rebecca Harding Davis’ 1861 novella, “Life in the Iron Mills,” which up to that point had only been published serially in The Atlantic. Howe read it through, weeping the whole time, and agreed to publish it; it became and still is one of the Press’ bestselling books. The Press’ second reprint of a novel lost in time after its initial publication in 1891 was Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” which immediately became, and is still, a feminist classic. (I have taught both of these novels several times.) In the early years, no book sold for more than $1.50. The Feminist Press went from that initial $100 investment in 1970 to a $500,000 budget ten years later and continued to grow and become more established year by year. I have read many of its volumes, and am most grateful to the Press for its work in finding both new books to publish and those seemingly lost to history to republish for a modern audience. I have twice had the good fortune to hear Florence Howe speak. Once many years ago she came to my university with some other editors from the Feminist Press and spoke about their work. Another time she was in the audience at a session at a conference on feminism and composition, and actively joined in the discussion. I truly admire her and her colleagues and the groundbreaking work they have done.

The Man Who Reads to People

Not only children but also many adults like being read to. There is something so basic, so almost primeval, and so enchanting, about being told or read a story. Even -- or perhaps especially -- for those of us who love to read, there are the gifts of the added dimension of sound, of the rhythm of the language, when hearing a story read aloud (as I have written about here, several times in different contexts). In the 6/26/11 issue of The San Francisco Chronicle there is a story, titled “Words on Wheels: British Expat’s Elegant Elocution Charms Book-Loving Clients,” by and about Alex Collins, who has a business reading to customers. He wears a tuxedo jacket and bow tie, goes to the client’s chosen location -- home, office, park, etc. -- and reads the literary selections the client requests. Collins reports that “British classics -- Austen and Bronte -- are popular, but all requests are entertained.” Other literature he has been asked to read includes poems by Rilke, passages from Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist,” and selections from D. H. Lawrence’s work. Apparently Collins’ British accent and “dulcet tones” are big assets in his business. (As readers of this blog know, I am one of those easily impressed by a British accent...what can I say?). He concludes by saying that he considers his readings to clients “a kind of bibliotherapy for us both.”

Austen Rocks!

Those who love and appreciate Jane Austen's novels may know that she left a couple of unfinished novels when she died. According to today's (7/15/11) San Francisco Chronicle, the manuscript of one of these unfinished novels, "The Watsons," was just sold at auction for $1.6 million, "triple its highest presale estimate." Many readers -- and I am one of them -- who mourn the fact that Austen only wrote six complete novels have happily read the incomplete novels as well, just to have another little bit of her wonderful writing. I am glad her writing and legacy are still recognized, and in today's world, such recognition is demonstrated not only by huge numbers of readers, legions of films based on the novels, and praise by critics, but also monetarily. Compared to what sports or entertainment stars earn, $1.6 million is paltry, but still.... Go Jane Austen, after all these years!!!

"The Bostons," by Carolyn Cooke

Not much current American fiction addresses social class differences; this perhaps stems from a reluctance, despite all evidence, to discuss the existence of social class differences in the United States. Carolyn Cooke’s short story collection, “The Bostons” (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), is an exception; these stories, mostly set in Boston and Maine, portray characters and settings from a wide variety of social classes. The stories set in Boston tend to feature middle- or upper middle-class characters, albeit sometimes genteelly poorer than they were in the past; the stories set in Maine focus on the working and nonworking poor. (These latter stories remind me a bit of Carolyn Chute’s 1986 book, “The Beans of Egypt, Maine.”) Both worlds are described by Cooke with a sort of clinical precision. She seems less interested in judging or in editorializing than in simple description. (Of course nothing a good author writes is truly ”simple.”). The result is that we as readers are given windows into several worlds, worlds that may be unfamiliar to us. We are challenged to understand people along the whole range of economic and social status. This is, after all, one of the roles of literature. These stories are well written, and the fact that characters from one story occasionally show up briefly in other stories starts to make a web of connections across borders – not only the borders of the stories’ beginnings and endings, but the borders of the characters’ geographic, chronological, and social sites.

More on Tessa Hadley

Yesterday (7/12/11) I wrote about Tessa Hadley’s new novel, “The London Train.” In the back of that novel there are interesting and revealing essays by the author about herself and about the writing of the book; I really appreciate the inclusion of these essays. There is also an annotated list titled “Author’s Picks: Favorite Books.” My pulse always quickens when I see such a list; I am immediately curious to know which books the author cherishes and recommends, whether I have read them, whether they are among my own favorites, and/or whether I need to put them on my “to read” list. This particular list is short (10 titles) but wonderful, including some of my favorites: Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Death of the Heart,” Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Alice Munro’s “The Love of a Good Woman,” Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl,” Colm Toibin’s “The Master," and Rumer Godden’s “Kingfishers Catch Fire.” I am also inspired to consider reading the other books on her list: Jorge Luis Borges’ “Selected Fiction,” J. M. Coetzee’s “Boyhood,” Aharaon Appelfeld’s “To the Land of the Cattails,” and -- especially -- Thomas Mann’s “Doctor Faustus.” I have read others of Mann’s works -- “The Magic Mountain” still exists vividly in my mind these many years after reading it -- but not this one.

"The London Train," by Tessa Hadley

When I first read UK writer Tessa Hadley’s work, I was blown away. Wow! What a discovery! I immediately read her three novels, “Accidents in the Home,” “Everything Will Be All Right,” and “The Master Bedroom,” and continued to be amazed and impressed. I have now just read her newest novel, “The London Train” (Harper Perennial, 2011), and although I still savor her wonderful writing, her insights into her characters, and her sharp wit, I have some mixed feelings about the novel. It tells the story of Paul, a writer, and his family, with a subplot about his young adult daughter’s running away to London. Paul regularly travels on the train from Cardiff to London, and even lives for a brief time with his daughter and her boyfriend in an untidy apartment in a sketchy neighborhood. The second part of the novel introduces the character Cora, who is gradually leaving her husband, living more and more in the house in Cardiff she has inherited from her parents. The two stories merge when the two main characters meet on the London train, and soon begin an affair. I won’t tell you how it ends. Perhaps one reason I have mixed feelings about the book is that I couldn’t really understand Paul’s vague dissatisfaction with his life; he has a good relationship with his wife, and even his daughter’s situation is eventually resolved satisfactorily. He misses living in the city, but this isn’t a big issue. I know I shouldn’t dislike a story because I (somewhat) dislike a character. But my unease with the novel is more than that: there is a sort of vague, unsettled feeling to the story. I do understand that this is probably intended by the author. So my reasons for some slight resistance to this novel are probably my own idiosyncratic ones. What I do find interesting, in this novel as in all her work, is Hadley’s twist on “domestic fiction.” In a 2/26/11 interview in the Guardian UK, she says that she is interested in relationships and families, and does not think “domestic fiction” is a negative label. She thinks it can be, but doesn’t have to be, formulaic. She also discusses why men are often puzzled by women’s interest in such fiction. I still consider Hadley one of the best writers writing today, and I still eagerly look forward to reading anything she writes. I can’t resist, in closing, quoting from another writer I truly admire, Anne Enright, who has said (according to the same Guardian interview) that “Hadley, for all the felicity of her prose style, is an immensely subversive writer.” I like that, because I see that although she writes “domestic fiction” (which I read a lot of myself, and will strongly defend), her stories and characters and ideas are never predictable, and never bound by what is fashionable or what others will think is correct. She is a truly original writer.