"Freedom": A Progress Report

I normally don't write about a book until after I have read it, or in a few cases, have decided not to continue reading it. But the novel I am posting about today is so long (562 pages) that I think it justifies an interim "progress report." Jonathan Franzen's new novel, "Freedom" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010) is both a bestseller and (mostly) a big critical hit. As I said in my 11/2/10 post about "the Jonathans," I very much liked Franzen's earlier well-received novel, "The Corrections," and eagerly waited to get a copy of "Freedom" from my local library. Only slightly daunted by its length, I dived in. At first, the novel just wasn't grabbing my attention. Maybe I had read too many reviews ahead of time, so it all seemed a bit too familiar already. Maybe the characters just weren't that interesting. And then I read a very negative review in the Atlantic that almost discouraged me from continuing. But I pushed on nevertheless, and after about 100-plus pages, I found my interest picking up a bit. I am now -- at 295 pages -- just over halfway through the book. My interest waxes and wanes. I don't particularly like any of the characters, but I find them realistic, at times interesting, and occasionally sympathetic. I am a bit bored with the rather didactic parts about the environment and about one of the main characters' (Walter's) social conscience and the compromises he makes. In any case, now that I have gotten this far, I predict I will keep reading to the end. If/when I do finish it, I may post again about it, and about how I feel about the novel by then. If any of you have read it, or started to read it, or decided against reading it, please do let me know what you think about it, either by commenting here or by emailing me (vandricks@usfca.edu).

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

The October 18, 2010 New Yorker cover features a wall of books with mini-faces looking askance at a man sitting in a comfortable armchair in front of the tall bookshelves but with his back to them, completely absorbed in his laptop and i-pod. The books' spines have their own personalities, with various facial features (glasses, mustache, beard, mouth open, eyebrows raised, etc.) and with different facial expressions ranging from horror to sadness to helplessness to resignation. It's a humorous but sad evocation of the way technology distracts people from books.

W. S. Merwin on Reading for Delight

There is an interesting and inspiring interview in the November 2010 issue of The Progressive with W. S. Merwin, the current U.S. Poet Laureate. He talks about his poetry, of course, including his gradual dropping of punctuation from his poems. He also speaks of his progressive political beliefs. Toward the end of the interview, he speaks about the importance of "astonishment," of opening one's eyes and feelings to the possibility of being surprised, an "always marvelous" thing. When the interviewer, Ed Rampell, ends the interview by asking "Any advice?", Merwin replies "Read for pleasure....Read every kind of book....begin in delight and continue in delight."

The Jonathans

On 9/25/10, I posted about "The Alices" -- contemporary women writers named Alice whom I admire. Today, in a gesture of gender equality, I offer a list of "Jonathans" -- contemporary male writers named, yes, Jonathan. Unlike the Alices list, in which I only listed writers I have read and admired, from this list I have read novels by only four of the six Jonathans (Dee, Franzen, Coe, Tropper), and like the work of some of them better than that of others. Still, I can't resist pointing out (and I am not the first to do so) the abundance of Jonathans on the early twenty-first century literary scene. And, as it turns out, I am currently reading one of them and listening to another on CD, so they are prominent in my reading life just now. So, without further ado, here is the list:

-Jonathan Dee (“The Privileges," about which I posted on 3/31/10)
-Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom,” “The Corrections”). Franzen is perhaps the ur-Jonathan, the most famous Jonathan of all among contemporary writers (for our current purposes, we will leave out the great but long-dead Jonathan Swift), especially right now as his book "Freedom" tops the bestseller list AND is receiving rave reviews. I read and liked "The Corrections" and have just started reading "Freedom," which I imagine I will be posting on in the near future.
-Jonathan Coe. Coe is a British writer; I am currently listening to his book "The Rain Before It Falls" on CD during my daily commute to work.
-Jonathan Tropper (“This is Where I Leave You,” which I read and mildly enjoyed before I started this blog)
-Jonathan Safran Foer (“Everything is Illuminated,” which I halfheartedly tried to read at one point and gave up on; I hear that it is a great book, but it was not to my taste)
-Jonathan Lethem (“Chronic City”)

Feminist Fiction for Social Change

In 1993, I published an article titled “Feminist Fiction for Social Change” in the journal Peace Review. I argued that although nonfiction writing was essential for moving social change forward, fiction could also reach readers in perhaps an even more powerful way that would influence their feelings and actions regarding social change. I don’t mean that these novels are only “about” social issues; they all stand on their own as good or even great literary works, but the portrayal of important human social issues is part of what makes them great. In the article I focused on fiction that spoke to women’s lives and issues, although other topics were touched on as well. Here I list some of the novels (or, in a few cases, collections of short stories) I discussed in that article, along with a few more recent novels in the same vein; these are, of course, just a small sampling of all such fiction.

Aikath-Gyaltsen, Indrani. Daughters of the House.
Akiyoshi, Sawako. The Twilight Years.
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard out of Carolina.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. (and just about all of Atwood’s novels)
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening.
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions.
Emecheta, Buchi. Joys of Motherhood. Second Class Citizen.
French, Marilyn. The Women’s Room.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Herland.
Gordimer, Nadine. Burger’s Daughter. July’s People.
Hong Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior.
Keller, Nora Okja. Comfort Woman.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. Prodigal Summer. The Lacuna.
Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine.
Naylor, Gloria. The Women of Brewster Place.
Russ, Joanna. The Female Man.
Shute, Jenefer. Life-Size.
Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy.

For related lists, see my 2/28/10 list of (nonfiction) books on women’s liberation, and my 4/3/10 list of recommended women novelists.

Defending Jane Austen Against All Criticism

Readers of this blog know of my great reverence and extreme affection for Jane Austen’s novels (see my 1/25/10 post, among other mentions of Austen). So I was immediately defensive and even irrationally annoyed when I read an Associated Press article in the 10/26/10 San Francisco Chronicle about Oxford University English professor Kathryn Sutherland’s research that concluded that “Jane Austen was a poor speller and erratic grammarian who got a big helping hand from her editor.” But as I thought about it more, and as the article concluded, “the revelations shouldn’t damage the reputation of Austen,” who was “even better at writing dialogue and conversation than the edited style of her published novels suggest.” I thought about all the wonderful writers whose work has been enhanced by great editing. I decided that having a few spelling and grammar errors that needed to be corrected is pretty minor compared to the major editing some other writers needed. And I realized that nothing can obscure Austen’s amazingly wonderful writing, and nothing can dim her well-deserved reputation and popularity. So my automatic defensiveness and protectiveness toward Austen’s reputation (as if she needed my defense!) subsided.

"Instead of a Letter"

On 3/15/10, I wrote about the wonderful famed English editor and memoirist Diana Athill, now 92 and still writing. In that post I praised her three most recent memoirs. I have now gone back in time to read one of her earlier memoirs, "Instead of a Letter," which has just appeared in a U.S. paperback (originally Doubleday, 1962; paperback W. W. Norton, 2010). In this book, she writes a bit about her childhood (later covered in more detail in another memoir), but mainly about her life from her teens to her early forties. The most critical series of events for her was her long courtship by, and eventual engagement to, Paul, who then went off to war (WW II), stopped writing her, and after two years informed her of his engagement to another woman. He subsequently died in the war. These events left her devastated and stripped of her self-confidence and ability to relate to others, especially romantically, for almost twenty years. What eventually brought her out of this state was love, interesting work, and -- most of all -- her writing and the fulfillment it provided her. Ironically, during her difficult years, she dreaded old age, but now at 92 she has had a long, productive, and happy life that she is still -- according to recently published interviews -- thoroughly savoring. Athill writes with scrupulous openness about her own feelings and shortcomings. She also writes beautifully and descriptively about her life and her surroundings. Highly recommended.