"The Feast of Love"

Charles Baxter is a writer I have been vaguely aware of, but I have read very little of his work. He is the author of several novels, short story collections, and poetry collections, as well as nonfiction. I have just finished reading his novel "The Feast of Love" (Pantheon, 2000), which I enjoyed. Although it is a novel, it is a sort of collection of interlocking short stories. Each chapter is told from a different point of view; the main characters have more chapters and the minor characters fewer. The story is set in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to which I feel a connection as I lived in that area for my last two years of high school, and have visited a good friend there many times over the years; this sense of connection and familiarity added to my enjoyment of the book. The novel is seemingly self-referential, as the author himself lived and taught in Ann Arbor for about a decade, and as the framing storyteller/writer in the novel itself is named "Charlie." The book is divided into five parts: Preludes, Beginnings, Middles, Ends, and Postludes, and is loosely a "reimagined 'Midsummer Night's Dream'"; this is not immediately obvious, but once one makes the connection (and it had to be pointed out to me), the echoes and signs are there. Shared topics and aspects include love, loss, sleep, insomnia, dreams, foretellings, unexpected connections, death, reversals, and resolutions. When I was reading the first pages of this novel, I was not sure I was going to like it, but I was gradually drawn into the story. The best thing about it is its compelling characters, who are individual, quirky, vulnerable but strong; they are not always sympathetic, but the author allows us to understand and feel a connection with each of them.

On Textbooks

Although it is traditional for college students to complain about the number (and cost) of textbooks, and I sometimes did so too, I actually felt a certain special pleasure when buying assigned books for my classes. Seeing the lovely pile of books with their varied topics, sizes, and colors, I had a sense of anticipation. I knew that I would read my way through those books as the semester progressed, and by the end of the term, I would know so much more about the world. This feeling came from the same place where all my feelings about books come from: the overwhelming conviction that books are central to my life, and that they provide knowledge, power, variety, connection, and pleasure. Twentieth century American fiction! Survey of European art! Introduction to Social Psychology! The Novels of Joseph Conrad! Hinduism! Existentialism! It has been many many years since I was a college student, but as a professor, I still feel a little frisson when I walk into a university bookstore at the beginning of a new semester and see all those beautiful books, classified by department and class number, filling the shelves.

"Normal"

On 2/27/10, I wrote to highly recommend Amy Bloom's latest short story collection, "Where the God of Love Hangs Out." I was intrigued to discover that in addition to writing short stories and novels, she had written a nonfiction book titled "Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude" (Random House, 2002), so I found and read it. Bloom had been wondering about the definition of "normal" regarding questions of gender and sexuality, so she researched three groups of people, as the title indicates: female-to-male transsexuals, male cross-dressers, and the intersexed. She spoke with doctors and scientists, as well as with people in each of the three categories, including activists, people who are open about their differences, and those who hide them. For example, she went on a cruise with a group of male cross-dressers and their wives, and describes them in perceptive detail. Bloom writes of the great variety, the great continuum, of what is "normal." She states that nature is "vast, capricious, occasionally hilarious, and infinitely varied." Even within each of the three groups she writes about, there is enormous diversity. At the same time, she shows us the ordinariness and humanity of people who happen to be different from the majority in particular sexual or gender traits. Besides Bloom's message of understanding, the best part of the book is her portraits of specific individuals whom she has gotten to know and with whom she has made a very human connection. The stories she tells are alternately serious, humorous, and heartbreaking; of of them are fascinating.

Canadian Writers

Because I was born in Canada of Canadian parents, and although I grew up in India and have lived my adult life in the United States, I still feel a close connection to, and pride in, Canada. I am particularly proud of the great Canadian writers who have international reputations. I discovered some of these authors during my college days, in a wonderful class on Canadian literature taught by the great Canadian poet A.J.M. Smith, and discovered others on my own throughout the years. Below is a list of a few prominent Canadian writers, some from the past and some currently writing, whose work I have read and liked, along with brief comments, as well as the titles of one or more of their best-known works. I will likely write in more detail about some of these authors and books individually in future posts.

-Margaret Atwood. Novelist, poet, critic, and political/social commentator. She and Munro are the most famous Canadian writers currently writing. Surfacing; Cat's Eye; The Handmaid's Tale.
-Robertson Davies. He and Richler were the most famous Canadian authors until Atwood and Munro came along. The Deptford Trilogy.
-Mavis Gallant. Gallant published over a hundred stories in The New Yorker. The Collected Stories; Paris Stories.
-Margaret Laurence. The Stone Angel.
-Malcolm Lowry. Under the Volcano.
-Anne-Marie Macdonald. Fall on Your Knees.
-Rohinton Mistry. Mistry is also on my list of writers of Indian heritage (3/1/10). A Fine Balance. Family Matters.
-L.M. Montgomery. Revered by young female readers around the world. I adored her books as a child, and loved reading them to and with my daughter later. It happens that I am also distantly related to Montgomery; her stories take place on Prince Edward Island, where my grandfather grew up. Anne of Green Gables and its sequels.
-Alice Munro. Considered by many to be the leading living short story writer in the world. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories (a collection from several earlier volumes); Too Much Happiness (her latest collection).
-Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient. Anil's Ghost.
-Mordecai Richler. The great Montreal writer. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
-Carol Shields. I have already posted about Shields (2/20/10), a great favorite of mine. The Stone Diaries; Larry's Party; Unless.

"Old Filth"; "The Man in the Wooden Hat"

Jane Gardam, the terrific English writer, has only recently been "discovered" in the United States, precipitated by the publication of her two most recent novels, "Old Filth" (Europa, 2006) and "The Man in the Wooden Hat" (Europa, 2009). These two novels are complementary; the first focuses on a husband and the second on his wife. We hear the same story from their two different viewpoints; each novel reveals new information. Sir Edward Feathers, nicknamed "Filth" for "Failed in London, try Hong Kong," has made his way in the still colonial Hong Kong of the post-World War II years, eventually rising to the position of a successful judge who is knighted, and retiring to the Dorset countryside at the end of his long career. He is an example of the effects of the British Empire on its children, having had a sad, almost parentless childhood in Malaysia and then Wales. Although he is somewhat emotionally stunted by this childhood, and has great trouble communicating his feelings, Gardam also shows his essential decency and humanity. His wife, Betty, has a very difficult childhood as well, having been starved in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai during the war. This couple, each somewhat at sea in life, and needing some stability and human connection, stumbles into marriage. Gardam's depiction of their long, complicated marriage of almost 50 years is a masterpiece, as she portrays its constantly shifting landscape of happiness, unhappiness, secrets, and compromises. Jane Gardam is an astonishingly good writer; as soon as you begin reading either of these novels (and I strongly recommend you read both), you know you are in the hands of a master who is in complete control of her material. She has been called "mordantly funny" and"acerbic," both true, but she also shows us the underlying humanity of her characters, in all their complexity. So I recommend these books for their insider portrayal of British colonialism (a topic that has fascinated me since my childhood in India), for their startlingly original yet recognizable characters, and for the portrayal of Filth's and Betty's marriage. I also recommend Gardam's other novels; some that I have relished (and they are so good that you do "relish" them!) include "The People on Privilege Hill," "The Flight of the Maidens," and "The Queen of the Tambourine."

On Vacation Reading

Whether it be in a city, by a lake or ocean, or in the mountains, I have a few basic requirements for good vacation trips: beautiful locales, comfortable accommodations (no camping or roughing it for me!), and -- perhaps most critical -- an abundant provision of carefully selected books. There must be more than enough, more than I can possibly read, to ensure against the unthinkable disaster of running out of good reading material. When my parents had a lakeside summer cottage in Michigan for many years, I would spend two or three weeks there every summer. In the weeks before I (or we) left California for Michigan, I would carefully browse bookstores and accumulate a hefty stack of suitable books. Although for my regular reading, I often check out books from libraries, for vacations I prefer my own paperback books that I can read by a lake or pool without worrying about getting them wet, and that I can leave behind for others to read. The selection of vacation books has to be carefully calibrated. I don't generally want anything too "heavy," but I also don't want the proverbial "beach books" that are just too predictable and badly written. But there is a wide middle ground of wonderful novels, short story collections, and memoirs, and this is where I focus my selections. Going to Michigan (or anywhere I needed or need to fly), there was the delicious and slightly anxious decision about how many books to take onboard; I had to calculate how much I would read during the several hours flying out east. And, finally, there was the bliss of unpacking that pile of books at the cottage, stacking them on a dresser or bedside table, and knowing I could relax, enjoy the camaraderie of family, and sit on a deck chair by the gorgeous lake with a book in my hand and the prospect of more to come....what could be better?

"One Amazing Thing"

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you might be surprised to see that I am discussing this novel, as it was one of the books listed in my 3/5/10 post titled "On 'Perfectly Fine' Books" as not outstanding enough for me to highly recommend. However, my friend Mary asked that I consider writing about books I had recently read that I had mixed feelings about, explaining what I liked and didn't like about them. It was a good suggestion, so I will occasionally do that, starting today with "One Amazing thing" (Voice, 2010), a novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I have read several of this author's novels, and generally enjoy them. The story in this one involves a diverse group of nine people trapped in the Indian consulate in an unnamed city (but seemingly San Francisco) by an earthquake. As they wait, hoping to be rescued, they decide that each person will tell a story about "one amazing thing" that has happened to her or him, along the lines of "Canterbury Tales," the book that one of the characters has been reading. The individual stories are compelling, even wrenching. And there are some intriguing and touching interactions among the characters. But the overall story is a bit pat, a bit too schematic, a bit too dependent on the artificial structure of the stitched-together stories. Some of the characters are shadowy and inadequately developed. The book is quite readable and will keep your attention, but finally, despite the gravity of the characters' situation, this novel seems to me rather lightweight and forgettable.