"The Odds: A Love Story," by Stewart O'Nan

At first I thought the plot of Stewart O'Nan's (author of the wonderful "Emily, Alone," which I posted about here on 5/17/11) new novel was too contrived, and I found the main plot device almost annoying. The premise of this novel, "The Odds: A Love Story," is that Art and Marion, a married couple, are both about to divorce (fairly amicably) and about to go bankrupt, so in a desperate last hurrah, they revisit the scene of their honeymoon, Niagara Falls, with their last wad of money, planning to gamble it all at the casinos there in hopes of recouping enough to save their house. This plot device is reinforced by each chapter’s beginning with an “odds” “fact”; some of these may be real and accurate, but others are fanciful (e.g., “Odds of being served breakfast in bed on Valentine’s Day: 1 in 4). Some of these “odds” statements connect directly to the plot, others only peripherally. But once I got past these premises and stylistic devices, the story of these all too human but ultimately understandable and likable characters caught me up and kept me reading with interest and sympathy. The best thing about this short novel is its very realistic portrayal of a marriage, with all its ups and downs, hurts, happy moments, arguments, near-arguments, memories, sensitivities, sudden changes in mood and alliances, connections “for the kids” and because of history together, and more. This marriage has survived some major problems and is currently in serious trouble, yet there is much surviving affection. Art hopes against hope that the marriage can be preserved; Marion doesn’t think it can, but succumbs to some hopeful moments. A major “character” in the novel is the Niagara Falls area itself, in its unnerving mixture of grandeur and touristy tackiness. The constant presence of weddings and honeymooning couples, along with the exhilarating and depressing casinos, combine to make a disorienting backdrop for Art’s and Marion’s story. A larger background is the economic recession and the burst housing bubble, which have brought Art and Marion to this drastic point in their lives, and precipitated this trip. Their case shows how nice, ordinary people, even those such as Art who are educated in finance, could get caught up in overextending themselves on their house, and then be bewildered by their downfall. This intense (all in the period of about three days) story distills the story of a marriage and of the inside and outside forces that affect it; it does so realistically and compellingly, in O’Nan’s trademark style of close attention to the details of human lives and relationships.

"The Closed Door," by Dorothy Whipple

What a joy it is to discover a “new” author (for me), even if that author was actually writing in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Where has Dorothy Whipple been my whole life? I am not sure how I completely missed her fiction until now. An acquaintance happened to mention liking her, and I was glad to find that my university library carried several of her books. I started with “The Closed Door and Other Stories” (Persephone, 2007), a collection of Whipple’s stories originally published in much earlier decades. Persephone, by the way, is one of the wonderful presses that have rediscovered and republished women authors who might otherwise be out of print and forgotten. I wrote about other such presses on 2/17/10 (Virago Press) and 7/17/11 (The Feminist Press), and I am most grateful to these publishers for “saving” many women writers from oblivion. Persephone has recently reprinted several of Whipple’s books, which although they were popular in the early-to-mid-20th century, were mostly out of print until Persephone revived them. But back to “The Closed Door”: These stories are mostly about women characters who, because they lack power in the world, try to exert power in their family and romantic lives in various ways. These characters find inventive, resourceful, and understandable, if not always completely laudable, ways of dealing with a difficult, male-oriented world. The stories are full of intriguing characters, relationships, and surprises. Some stories are just a wee bit schematic, but compelling nevertheless. The characters are closely observed and realistic. The stories are enjoyable to read, although they remind us of the limitations on women’s lives. The pleasure of reading this book is enhanced by the beautiful production of this volume, with a lovely light grey cover; clear, easy to read pages; and, notably, gorgeous colorful endpapers “taken from a 1930s dress fabric.” I now look forward to reading more fiction by Whipple.

(An "anniversary" note: I started this blog two years ago today. I have enjoyed writing it, and hope you have enjoyed reading it.)

"In Zanesville," by Jo Ann Beard

Although “In Zanesville” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Jo Ann Beard, is about a 14-year-old girl, it is not a “young adult” novel. It is perhaps the early side of a “coming of age” novel, but this sounds too grand for the way the novel captures the life of a young, smart, adventurous teen, special in some ways but very normal in others. The setting of the story in “a factory town, Zanesville, Illinois, the farm implement capital of the world,” seems to emphasize the middle-America average aspect of the story, but the narrator, named for Jo in “Little Women,” has her own spunky individual personality. Her growing up is portrayed through a series of episodes, such as a disastrous night of babysitting, an ambivalent relationship with her membership in the school marching band, unexpected positive attention from the popular girls in her school, ups and downs in her friendship with her best friend Phyllis, dealing with and worrying about her father’s drinking too much and his mental health, her first kiss, moving in and out of the gifted math class, and much more. Although the concept of the book sounds similar to that of hundreds of other books, the author manages to make this novel original, and to make us care about the narrator. This novel is by no means a “must-read,” but if the above description sounds interesting, you will find “In Zanesville” worth the time it takes to read.

Books Long and Short

Although I, like all readers, read books greatly varying in length, from thick tomes to slim volumes, I have particularly noticed this contrast in the past couple of months. Although I am a fairly fast reader, it took me a while to get through, for example, Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Marriage Plot,” and, especially, Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child.” Then, without consciously looking for shorter books, I found myself reading a series of very small books, including Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending,” Michelle Latiolais’ “Widow,” Alan Bennett’s “Smut,” and Anita Desai’s “The Artist of Disappearance.” (I have posted on all of these recently.) Long and short -- each has its advantages. I can “settle in” to a long novel with the feeling of really getting to know the characters and settings, and of becoming almost an inhabitant of the world the author has created. If the novel is wonderful, I relish being in that world, and am reluctant to leave it when I finish the book. This is part of the appeal of the great Victorian novels that I treasure, such as those by Eliot, Dickens, and Gaskell, and of the novels of a slightly later age by James and Wharton. If the novel is less engaging, or particularly difficult to navigate for various reasons, I may feel at times that reading it is a bit of a slog. On the other hand, short books are easy to carry around (I can even put them into my capacious handbag for easy availability when there is a break in my day, or a wait in line), and there is the satisfaction of either finishing it quickly, or savoring it slowly but still not taking forever to read it. Sometimes short novels are dense and intense, and therefore satisfying; at other times they feel a bit incomplete, a little insubstantial. Clearly these are all broad generalizations. And obviously the length of the book is only a very small factor in deciding what to read, in whether the book is “good” or not, and in whether I enjoy it. But it is one factor, and the experience of reading a book is subtly influenced by its length.

"How It All Began," by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively was one of the very first authors I wrote about here (1/25/10), and she is one of my favorite living writers. Just a few of the reasons, in no particular order, that I loved reading her new novel, “How It All Began” (Viking, 2011):
1. Lively is simply one of the very best writers writing today, so a new novel by her is an occasion.
2. Lively understands human nature, human relationships, and especially human families, better than almost any other writer.
3. Lively’s fiction is realistic. It focuses on everyday events, not on shocking or farfetched happenings. Lively has the gift of making readers really care about those everyday events.
4. Lively’s writing is very readable.
5. Lively writes about people of all ages, including middle-aged and older people, which is most welcome to those of us no longer young.
6. This novel takes place in London.
7. Some of the characters in this novel misbehave a bit, but most of them are basically good people. Some of them know that sometimes one doesn’t get to have what one wants, because it isn’t the right thing, and are willing to “do the right thing,” even at great personal cost.
8. There is an intellectual thread throughout the novel: the idea that one small, random event can start a chain of events, with a ripple effect of sometimes surprising consequences. This concept adds to the interest of the novel, but is not insisted on, and doesn’t overwhelm the plot/character aspects of the novel.
9. Lively’s main character often talks about what she is reading, why, and why she feels like reading different books at different times, depending on what is happening in her own life. Some of her favorites are some of mine as well (e.g., Edith Wharton, Henry James, Rosamond Lehmann).
10. The main character is a volunteer tutor, and when she tutors an Eastern European immigrant in reading English, she appeals to his love of “story,” starting with reading children’s books, including the wonderful “Charlotte’s Web.”
11. Lively writes so very well, yet makes it look easy. Her writing is not flashy, just very, very good.
I could go on and on, giving more and more reasons, but the bottom line is: read this novel, and then read more novels by this wonderful author, Penelope Lively!

Caitlin Flanagan on Didion's "Blue Nights"

Last time (on 1/17/12), I wrote about Joan Didion’s new book, “Blue Nights.” Today I write about a January/February 2012 Atlantic article, penned by Caitlin Flanagan, about Didion and the book. The title on the Atlantic’s cover is “Joan Didion’s Disaster,” a rather ambiguous title (does it refer to her daughter’s death, or to the book about it?). When I turned to the actual story, I saw a different title: “The Autumn of Joan Didion,” with a subtitle of “The Writer’s Work is a Triumph – and a Disaster.” Obviously these titles piqued my interest, and I was ready to be defensive and even angry on Didion’s behalf, if the story attacked her and her book. I admit that I was predisposed to be defensive, not only because I admired the book, but also because Flanagan -- whom I have been reading and often disagreeing with in the Atlantic for some years -- is a fairly conservative and less-than-feminist writer. In fact, the article was somewhat positive about Didion and her book, but just wasn’t very well written. It seems to me that the main excuse for the article was to give Flanagan a chance to tell about an incident in which Didion, as a visiting scholar, made a preliminary visit to UC Berkeley and had dinner at the Flanagans' childhood home, because her father was then Chair of the Berkeley English Department. Flanagan was 14 years old at the time, and observed that Didion was quiet and shy. That was it; otherwise the story about the dinner was pointless. The only interesting part of the episode was that the large auditorium where Didion spoke was unexpectedly overflowing with devoted Didion fans, mostly young women. It turns out –- after many diversions in the article, some rather irrelevant -- that Flanagan was and is herself an admirer of Didion and her work. She describes Didion’s appeal as follows: “What Didion wrote about were the exquisitely tender and often deeply melancholy feelings that are such a large part of the inner lives of women and especially of very young women -- and girls…” I must admit that this description is resonant of my own feelings when I read Didion’s early work when I was in my late teens and early twenties. But Flanagan’s statement seems condescending, and it undervalues the strengths of Didion’s work. I am still not sure what the real point of this Atlantic article is, and it doesn’t even spend many of its several pages on the new book, “Blue Nights.” Yes, I understand the concept of a “review essay,” but I feel Flanagan gives short shrift to the book itself. She does end by saying that Didion will always be remembered. I closed the magazine with very mixed feelings about this odd duck of an article/review.

"Blue Nights," by Joan Didion

Before I began this blog, I read Joan Didion’s remarkable story of the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne, and of her own response to that loss; Dunne died the same day my father did, and “The Year of Magical Thinking” spoke to me with great force, as it did to many others. I had read Didion’s work since the 1970s, and when I re-read “Play It As It Lays” recently, I wrote about it here (3/23/11). I recently read a fascinating New York magazine article on Didion and her new book, “Blue Nights” (Knopf, 2011), which is about the untimely death of her daughter, her only child, Quintana Roo; I wrote about the article's points on 10/26/11. Now I have read “Blue Nights” myself; I found it as powerful and moving as “The Year of Magical Thinking,” perhaps even more moving, because surely the death of a child is even more of a blow than the death of a husband. Didion seems utterly bereft, staggering from these two great blows, yet still finds that writing is the only way to cope with her losses. She is always controlled in her writing, yet very open in sharing her feelings, her self-doubts, her vulnerability. She wonders if she did something wrong in raising Quintana. She writes on her daughter’s childhood, obsessively returning to certain times, certain scenes. She writes of her own aging, illness and feelings of helplessness and loneliness. But she doesn’t ask for pity; she is never maudlin. As always, her writing is spare, strong, and compelling. I was afraid that reading this book would be painful, and indeed it was, but I am glad I read it. Her prose lays bare an elemental human experience, and she writes about death, loss, life, weakness, memory, and much more in her own inimitable way.