"Moon Tiger"

Because she is one of my very favorite contemporary writers, whose writing is so quietly outstanding that it gives me goosebumps, I wrote in praise of author Penelope Lively in one of my very first posts on this blog, on 1/25/10. I recently re-read her most famous novel, “Moon Tiger” (Grove, 1987), and was again struck by her masterful writing and her grasp of human nature. The main character, Claudia, is an old woman looking back at her event-filled life. She has been a journalist who traveled widely and a successful writer of books about history. She has had several lovers, and one daughter, but the person she considers her true love, and always remembers, is Tom, the man she met when she was covering the war in Egypt, and who soon after died in battle. His death was the biggest blow she has suffered in her life. Claudia has always lived life on her own terms, and some find her caustic and difficult; others find her admirable for her independence and fearlessness. She and her now grown daughter have a loving but complicated relationship; they are so different that they don’t know or understand each other well at all. The one person Claudia has always been extremely close to is her brother Gordon. As you can see, this story focuses on strong, original characters and their relationships; almost no one does this better than Lively.

A note about the power of books: When Tom is in the middle of horrific war locations, the one thing that gives him respite, besides thinking of Claudia, is reading. At one point he has a few hours to himself, reads a battered copy of Dickens’ “Dombey and Son,” and marvels at the power of books to blot out everything around him and allow him, just for a little while, to forget about his terrible surroundings and the awful war.

"I Remember Nothing"

Nora Ephron has been informing and entertaining us for almost 50 years, as a journalist, essayist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, producer, and director. Readers may remember her novel “Heartburn” or the very successful movies for which she wrote the screenplays, such as “When Harry Met Sally…”, “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “You’ve Got Mail.” Her forte is a uniquely stylish brand of humor and satire. Her most recent book, “I Remember Nothing and other reflections” (Knopf, 2010), is a collection of short essays, many of which were first published elsewhere (mostly in The Huffington Post and The New York Times). The tone is light, often very light. Sometimes the topics are serious, such as careers, aging, and divorce; Ephron has the gift of addressing even serious topics in a humorous way, but getting her point across. One of the best essays chronicles the waxing and waning of her friendship with Lillian Hellman; this is a mini-masterpiece of a revealing biographical glimpse into the personality and character of the controversial playwright. The essay on Hellman is a good example of Ephron’s occasional display of slightly -- but only slightly, and fairly subtly -- cutting wit, a wit that entertains with a soupcon of cattiness, but never appears truly mean-spirited. These essays are on the whole entertaining and enjoyable, with only a few exceptions that are so very light and trivial that they float away with no impact whatsoever. One of the reasons that most of the essays are so engaging, and that Ephron has a way of connecting with her readers, is her down-to-earth voice. Although she doesn’t hide the fact that she has moved in rarified circles and met (and in one case, was married to) some of the most famous people of the past few decades, she never comes across as a name dropper, and she always sounds like a person one could sit down and have a chat and a good laugh with. Of course this delicate balance of topic, humor, voice, and persona is nowhere near as easy to create as Ephron makes it look. “I Remember Nothing” is a quick read and a highly enjoyable one.

P.S. This is my 300th blog post!

"My Hollywood": Not the One You Expect

I read and very much liked Mona Simpson’s first novel “Anywhere But Here” when it was published in 1992; I also read the (sort of) “sequel,” “The Lost Father,” published in 1993. Simpson published another novel and a novella, then took ten years to write “My Hollywood” (Knopf, 2010). I was pleased to hear of the new novel, and started reading it a couple of months ago, but was initially put off by the way the Filipina main character’s accent and grammar in English were portrayed, feeling it might be demeaning; I stopped reading. However, as someone who has studied linguistics, I know that there is a reason and value to portray dialects as they are spoken. Linguists now believe that all dialects are equally legitimate, and that “standard” dialects should not be privileged over others; the varieties of English, for example, are now called “World Englishes.” So portraying dialects accurately is fine, as long as doing so is not used to “other” or demean the characters. I am glad I then went back to the novel and read it, as I soon saw that the Filipina middle-aged main character, Lola, is written (and not in a patronizing way) as a strong, wise, independent, compassionate woman. She has, like so many women around the world, left her own children back home in order to become a nanny in the United States and make money to send home to her family. Lola has used her wages to put her five children through college, including one daughter who graduates as a medical doctor. But although she misses her family, being a nanny is not just a job for Lola; she develops close and loving connections with her small charges. The other characters in this story are also nannies as well as their employers and children. The setting (except for a brief interlude in the Philippines) is Santa Monica, California, and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles. Any expectation raised by the title that the novel will be about the Hollywood of the movie business will be disappointed, as it has only a peripheral role in the narrative; the “My Hollywood” of the title is the quotidian reverse side of the glamorous image. Lola’s employers are, at various times, Claire and Paul, Helen and Jeff, and Judith. Two of the female employers struggle with balancing their careers and taking care of their children; even with nannies, they feel stretched thin, while also feeling guilty about nannies’ raising their children. Their marriages, too, are strained. Claire in particular is often angry, although usually quietly, about the fact that Paul seems to assume his career as a TV writer is more important than hers as a composer, is almost never home himself, and assumes she is always available for domestic work, as her work is not on a set schedule and doesn’t make much money. Claire and Lola become close, and Lola is devoted to Claire’s and Paul’s small son William. But at a certain point, money and other issues intervene and there is a break in the relationship; money is a continuing issue throughout the lives of the characters, both the employers and the employees. Sometimes the novel feels claustrophobic, because it is focused so closely on the world of homes and children, with its settings of houses, yards, pools, parks, playgrounds, and preschools. But this is, I am sure, purposeful on the author’s part, as she wants to illuminate a not often closely examined world, a whole universe operating under the radar. She reveals the never-ending work, the dailyness, the frequent tedium of childcare and housework, whether it is done by mothers or nannies (only rarely by fathers) or both, as well as the joys of seeing children grow and develop. Only occasionally is the routine punctuated by a dramatic event (e.g., a near-drowning of one child; the rescue of a Thai domestic being kept as a near-slave; two nannies’ weddings at different times; one nanny’s return to the Philippines; the firing -- “chopping,” as Lola puts it -- of more than one nanny; professional successes and failures of the employers). The novel is beautifully written, scrupulously observed, and well worth reading.

When to Write One's First Novel

In today’s “The Writer’s Almanac,” which is delivered to my email box daily, and which I recommended to readers in my 4/29/10 post, there is a brief synopsis of the life and work of the now obscure English writer, Storm Jameson. In her time (1891-1986), she wrote 45 very popular novels. One thing among many that I appreciate about “The Writer’s Almanac” (the daily poem, the short bios of writers and others, the nuggets of literary information) is the way it reminds us of writers we may have forgotten or perhaps never known about.

A point that particularly interested me in the entry about Jameson was her recommendation to young, hopeful writers that they wait until their early 30s before writing their first novels. She felt that writers shouldn't wait too long to start, "not so long that the terrible sharpness of young senses – like the sharpness of sensual excitement which makes a traveler’s first moments in a foreign country worth more to him in insight and emotion than a year’s stay – had lost their acuteness, but long enough to be able to see…with a margin of detachment.” This strikes me as wise advice, but also as advice that individual writers have always ignored, and will always ignore, as each writer's life and circumstances are different. We know of authors who started writing when they were in their teens and twenties, as well as of authors who wrote their first novels in their sixties or seventies. This information is of interest to readers, especially when writers are at the far ends of the spectrum (e.g., Francoise Sagan’s publishing her first novel, “Bonjour Tristesse,” at age 19, and Harriet Doerr’s publishing her first, "Stones for Ibarra," at age 74). But whether or not writers follow this advice, I think Jameson expresses it beautifully. I especially like the observation about “the traveler’s first moments in a foreign country.”

"Foreign Bodies"

I have considered reading, and even begun reading, novels by Cynthia Ozick before, and have never been able to get into them, let alone finish them (although I have read some of her short stories, and have taught her powerful short story, “The Shawl”). (This is not a criticism of Ozick, who is widely esteemed as a great writer; I simply did not connect with her style and/or subject matter.) But when I heard that her latest novel was a loose retelling of Henry James’ novel “The Ambassadors,” and read good reviews, I decided to read it, finished it, and am glad I did. Set in the early 1950s, “Foreign Bodies” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010) tells the story of middle-aged New York high school teacher Beatrice (Bea) Nightingale’s going to Paris and, at her obnoxious, ambitious, successful and semi-estranged Los Angeles-based brother Marvin’s request, checking on Marvin’s indecisive son Julian and trying to bring him back. She reluctantly complies, but is unsuccessful; Julian never wants to be controlled by his father again. However, Bea does become involved with, and even interferes in, the lives of Julian, his sister Iris, and his lover Lili (a Romanian “displaced person” who suffers nightmares from the terrible things that happened to her and her family members during the war), as well as with Marvin’s patrician but (probably) mentally ill wife, Margaret. The novel is also infused with Bea’s memories of her early brief marriage to Leo, then an impoverished musician and now a successful Hollywood composer who feels he has sold out; they reconnect in an intriguing, indirect way. Bea is an original, somewhat mysterious character. In some ways she is very ordinary, and has led a very ordinary life, but during the events of this story, she finds herself capable of manipulation and of making decisions that might greatly affect others’ lives. It is hard to tease out how much of this interference is well-meant and how much has a touch of malice toward her overbearing brother, and/or a slight intoxication with a newfound -- albeit unsought -- power to make a difference in others’ lives. As with most or perhaps all of Ozick’s work, a theme underlying much of the novel is the powerful influence of Judaism, and of anti-Semitism, on the characters’ lives.

Glorious Portraits of Writers

I just returned from a short trip to Washington, DC. While I was there, I went to the National Portrait Gallery for the first time. What an amazing museum! First, the building is gorgeous and impressive, including the huge central courtyard with its lovely, lacy high dome, and the soaring, ornate “Great Hall.” There were some great special exhibits, including the controversial, wonderful “Hide/Seek” (about LGBT writers and artists) that has been in the news lately. But best of all were the hundreds of portraits -- paintings, sculptures, and photographs -- of writers, politicians, scientists, musicians, artists, activists, and more. I of course especially focused on portraits of writers. Naturally I had seen pictures of many of the novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists before, but not these great original works of art, up close. I have to resist listing all of the writers’ portraits I saw, but let me mention a few: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, Allen Ginsberg, e. e. cummings, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Penn Warren, Eugene O’Neill, Frank O’Hara. But the portraits that drew me most were those of the women writers: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Margaret Fuller, Joyce Carol Oates, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Janet Flanner, Suzan-Lori Parks, and more. The strong, unique face of Louisa May Alcott is caught forever in a bronze bust. Edith Wharton is immortalized in a painting of her as a small girl. Marianne Moore is shown with her mother, with whom she lived and was close. There is something so striking and immediate about these faces. I couldn’t stop looking at them. Highly recommended.

I Know Someone Who Knows Someone

The theory of “six degrees of separation” postulates that each of us is connected with everyone else on earth; we are each only six steps, or six people, away from any other person. There has even been a play, later adapted into a movie, about this. I was recently thinking about how I am one degree – or maybe two, depending on how the theory is interpreted – away from several famous writers. Of course I know some quite well-known writers myself, mostly teaching at the same university I teach at (see my 11/28/10 post), and I believe that some of these are going to become even more well-known in the future. But here I am reflecting on some long-time, well-established writers that I read and admire, have never met, but feel a little connected to because they are relatives or friends of people I know. Four examples are as follows. Tobias Wolff is the close relative of someone who also teaches where I teach, and whom I have known for about three decades. Mona Simpson is a friend of someone else who works at my university. Bharati Mukherjee is a friend of one of my best friends from graduate school. And Maxine Hong Kingston is a friend of a member of my longtime reading group (which I wrote about here on 1/26/10). None of these friends tells indiscreet stories – or really any stories – about their famous friends. But, even though it isn’t at all logical, somehow these connections make me feel that I know the writers at least a little bit. Apparently I am as capable as the next person of being starstruck, and pleased at any tenuous connection with stars; it just happens that my idea of "stars" is famous writers!