"March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women"

I, like so many girls and women, read and adored Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women” when I was a child and many times afterward; I also taught the book in women’s literature classes. I was, upon re-reading the novel as an adult, a little put off by how didactic it was about its moral lessons. But I know Alcott felt that, at that time, she had to include such lessons. In any case, this is a novel that continues to be read and discussed and analyzed and celebrated and filmed. (A new film version, directed by Greta Gerwig and with a cast of stars including Saiorse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Meryl Streep, is due out on Christmas Day of this year, and of course I look forward to seeing it.) A new book, “March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women” (Library of America Special Publication, 2019), features four new essays by four well-known contemporary writers on the four sisters in “Little Women.” Each writer focuses on one of the sisters of whom she is a fan, and on the writer’s own relationship to that sister (because we know that we do have relationships with certain fictional characters, almost as if they were “real” people in our lives). Each writer gives us a “fresh” take on “her” character. The authors sometimes also compare or contrast the characters with the originals, Alcott and her sisters, on whom they were loosely based. Kate Bolick writes about Meg; Jenny Zhang discusses Jo; Carmen Maria Machado gives her illuminating view of Beth; and Jane Smiley provides an original, feminist perspective on Amy. Each author has clearly had a long, deep, and personal connection to the novel, and each is generous in sharing her own related experiences. I found all four essays bracing and occasionally provocative, in the sense that they made me think at least a little differently about the four characters, and indeed about the novel itself, not to mention about Alcott. This book will be of interest to anyone who has read, enjoyed, even loved the novel, and perhaps especially to anyone who has thought about which sister is their own role model.

"Olive, Again," by Elizabeth Strout

Olive is back! I, along with -- I am sure -- her many fans, am thrilled. Both Elizabeth Strout’s novel “Olive Kitteridge” (2008 – was it really so long ago?) and her cranky, eccentric, yet ultimately heartwarming (in a good, not saccharine, way) character Olive, are vivid, quirky and compelling. And then there was the excellent 2014 HBO mini-series, with its perfect casting of Frances McDormand as Olive. Now we Olive fans have Strout’s new novel, “Olive, Again” (Random House, 2019), and it is as good as or better than the original novel. It is a sequel in that it follows Olive’s life about ten years after the end of the earlier novel. Olive, now a widow, and Jack Dennison (also a character in the earlier novel) become friendly and eventually marry; much of the novel is about their happy, loving, yet often uneasy marriage (nothing is easy with Olive). There are also scenes showing the complex, fraught relationship that Olive and her only child Christopher (and his wife and children) share. Various other events ensue, and we see Olive having to face the often-difficult realities of aging, a major theme in this novel. As with the first novel, there are many chapters focused on the stories of others in her community (small-town Maine), in some of which Olive is an important character and in others of which she is only peripherally involved or even barely mentioned. Some of the stories include people we remember from the first novel, such as neighbors and former students from her long-ago teaching days. Some might find this focus on other characters for pages at a time distracting, but other readers probably agree with me that these stories are fascinating in their own right, and also help to create a whole world that provides context for Olive’s story. But the intense center of the novel remains the character of Olive herself, who practically jumps off the page in the way she keeps the reader’s attention. We keep wondering what will happen next, and what she will think and say next. The central situation and theme of the novel, as mentioned above, is the process of aging, and its effects on one’s life, health, emotions, connections, and more. The author does not hold back on portraying the painful, humiliating, frightening aspects of loss, illness, and decreased autonomy that so often accompany aging. The details of some of Olive’s experiences (e.g., with the reactions of others around her, with hospitals and medical personnel, with changes in housing, and with declining independence), strike me as just right (in some cases echoing what I observed in my late mother’s last years, although my mother’s personality was far, far more positive than Olive’s). Strout also, however, allows the aging Olive occasional flashes of epiphany and of unexpected and fleeting but real happiness. Olive is both a unique character and a universal character. Highly recommended.

I Have a Bone to Pick with Andre Aciman

Andre Aciman, the author of the novels “Call Me by Your Name” (2007) and “Find Me” (2019), among other books, believes that Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” is “an overrated novel that I don’t find particularly gripping or interesting. I’m not even sure it’s well written” (New York Times Book Review “By the Book” interview, November 3, 2019). REALLY??? Of course everyone has the right to her or his own preferences in literature. But to go as far as to say this brilliant, breakthrough novel is overrated and not necessarily well written? I strongly suspect that this is at least partly a gendered opinion, based on the facts that the main character is a woman, that the novel takes place in one seemingly ordinary day(the much-maligned "domestic fiction," which is usually written by women, but when written by men, is much more laudatorily received) and that much of the novel takes place in the mind and memory of that woman. The added fact that the main event of Mrs. Dalloway’s day is a party may also be partly the object of Aciman’s disdain. Woolf’s prose is known for its experimental-but-still-true-to-realism quality. And although the main character is from a time past, and from an upper-class life, these facts in no way undermine the essential consciousness and preoccupations and inevitable realities of her life, and of the lives of many women (and, for that matter, some men). I understand that Aciman has written novels that, among other things, speak to and about the lives of gay men, and this is a good thing. But it does not excuse his almost contemptuous dismissal of one of the great novels of the twentieth century and indeed, of all time. Perhaps it adds context to note that in the same interview, Aciman also expressed disdain for “Anna Karenina,” stating that Tolstoy’s writing is “[e]pic, panoramic and gushy, but ultimately simple” and that the novel “did not change me.” One could take this as evidence of Aciman’s equal-opportunity scorning of great writers. However, note that in the NYT interview he only favorably mentions (with the exception of Djuna Barnes’ novel “Nightwood") male writers, including Dostoyevsky, Pascal, Racine, John le Carre, Joyce, Eliot, and Gogol. I had recently been considering reading Aciman’s new novel, “Find Me,” but after his diss of “Mrs. Dalloway,” I don’t think I will. (That’ll show him, right?)

"Middle England," by Jonathan Coe

As readers of this blog may remember, I love “big,” sprawling nineteenth-century novels. Occasionally a contemporary British novel promises some of the same pleasures as those earlier novels provide. Jonathan Coe’s new novel, “Middle England” (Knopf, 2018), seemed that it might be one of these. Yet I hesitated about whether to read it, perhaps because according to descriptions and reviews I read, it seemed to be very much about politics, and in particular about Brexit. I of course am interested in these topics, but I usually don’t prefer novels in which politics are the main focus. I decided to read a chapter or two and see how I felt. Well, you can see what’s coming here: I was immediately drawn into the novel, and finished this 429-page book in a few days. The reason I found it so compelling was its masterful blend of the main characters’ stories, its description of English politics and culture in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and its portrayal of how England has changed – and in some cases, not changed – over the past few decades. I know that I have a romanticized view of England in some ways, but I know too that my view is unrealistic in many ways. Another reason for my enjoying this novel is that I am always drawn to descriptions of the English countryside (remembering my own wonderful train rides through that countryside at its most idyllic), as well as of London (of course I love London!). Of interest was that the novel took place in several places: London, Birmingham, several smaller cities and towns, and the countryside, giving a wider view of England than many London-centered novels do. Although not as masterful as the novels of George Eliot or Charles Dickens (but that is a very high bar!), this novel is a worthy if lesser successor. The novel also, obviously purposely, shows how changes in the British public and British politics are related to similar changes in the United States. But I can’t end this post without going back to the characters in the novel. They are mainly, although not only, a group of friends in their forties and their families and associates. They are of all age and genders, and several ethnicities and races (although mostly white) and social classes (although mostly the upper middle class, educated class). There are fascinating family and marital relationships, as well as generational conflicts. The characters’ stances on Brexit, and on immigrants, are often dividing lines among them, but dividing lines that reflect more basic differences, even between husband and wife and between parent and child. The story lines are well drawn, and the writing itself is excellent. I am glad I read this novel about my beloved (you may remember my Anglophile leanings) but troubled England.

"Modern Love"

“Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” (Broadway Books, 2019) is a revised, updated version of a 2007 book also titled “Modern Love.” That book in turn is a collection of true stories from the New York Times column of the same name. These stories are written by readers, not New York Times writers, and are chosen from among thousands that are submitted. The definition of modern love includes many varieties of love: between lovers, between spouses, between parents and children, and more. Likewise, the stories cover many stages of love, including the search for love, failed love, successful love, unexpected love, thwarted love, interrupted love, late-in-life love, and others. The stories are short, powerful, evocative, poignant, funny, sad, sometimes whimsical…in other words, they are like life itself, which of course is what makes them so appealing to readers. There is now a television show based on this column, also called “Modern Love." I read both the 2007 and the 2019 versions of the book, watched the first season of the television show, and enjoyed all three very much.

"Dutch House," by Ann Patchett

Who doesn’t love Ann Patchett’s novels? Many of us were immediately won over by her first big success, “Bel Canto,” and also relished “State of Wonder” and “Commonwealth.” Then there were her nonfiction books, also wonderful, such as her memoiristic essays in “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.” Patchett is one of the not-large group of contemporary writers who are critically acclaimed as well as beloved by wide audiences. The other thing that many of us love about her is that she didn’t just speak about the problem of the closing of many independent bookstores, but went much further and opened her own such bookstore – Parnassus Books, in Nashville, Tennessee. Talk about walking the walk! The reason I am writing about her now is that I have just read her most recent novel, “Dutch House” (HarperCollins, 2019). As with all her novels, her knowledge of and caring about her characters are palpable. We too care about them from the first few pages. The main characters are a brother and sister, Danny and Maeve, who are extremely close; Maeve is a few years older and has always taken care of Danny. They grow up in a fanciful, unusual, fairy-tale-like house, the Dutch House, but later are cast out by a stepmother (the proverbial “evil stepmother” adds to the fairy tale aspect of the house and, in part, the story). This sudden, cruel eviction is devastating to Maeve and Danny; although they manage to survive, they are permanently affected, even scarred, by the event, and by the ensuing revelation that they have been financially cut off by the stepmother. The narrative follows the siblings’ lives over decades, always somewhat under the shadow of the Dutch House. Their family story gets more complicated as they later encounter various inhabitants of the Dutch House, and as they connect with various friends and lovers. But the absolute spine of the novel is the connection between Danny and Maeve. In addition to all the other reasons for being completely caught up in this novel, I found it refreshing (and not common) that the novel explores the sibling connection. Patchett is at her best when family is one of her focuses. Her writing is inviting and accessible, and sometimes we readers rush headlong into her books, enjoying the plot and characters, without realizing we should slow down to savor the gifts of that writing. Highly recommended.

"Red at the Bone," by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of many books for children, and of a bestselling memoir, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” was also widely praised for her 2016 novel for adults, “Another Brooklyn,” about which I wrote here on 2/5/17. The latter is a powerful novel about young African American girls and adolescents, and portrays the severe sexism and racism they endured. Just as I recommended that novel, I now recommend Woodson’s new novel, “Red at the Bone” (Riverhead, 2019). This is the story of a teenaged mother, Iris, pregnant too soon, and her daughter, Melody. Iris’s well-to-do parents disapprove of Iris’s pregnancy, but fall in love with their new granddaughter and raise her, while Iris goes to college, as she had always dreamed. She dearly loves her daughter, but is not willing to give up her dreams for her, and their relationship is fraught because of this. There is a complex and vexed, although loving, relationship among these three generations, as well as with Melody’s father, Aubrey. There are themes of women’s aspirations, social class, race, and family relationships. This spare book is beautifully written and thought-provoking, never oversimplifies the issues, and never lets the issues overshadow the characters themselves. Woodson is now on my list of writers whose novels I will always read.