More Wonderful Portraits of Writers

On 1/6/11, I wrote about the wonderful portraits (mostly paintings and sculptures) of writers that I saw at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC during my recent visit there. Yesterday I went to the impressive and moving “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; this photographer/artist documented much of the century, especially from the 1920s to the 1970s, and there were amazing photographs from all over the world in this exhibit. Again, I especially looked for pictures of writers, and although there were only a few, I found them fascinating. Simone de Beauvoir’s photo reminded me of how her breakthrough feminist book, “The Second Sex,” affected many women, including me, so strongly, and meant so much to us. Colette’s photo reminded me of how in her fiction she showed us in a different, less academic way what freedom for women could mean. Albert Camus’ portrait made me remember reading his work in college and being stunned, impressed, and depressed by his stark vision. Jean-Paul Sartre was important in my education as well; I remember studying existentialism in both philosophy and literature classes; one of my best college term papers was a comparison of aspects of existentialism and Buddhism. Ezra Pound’s battered face showed both the brilliance and the sorrows of his controversial, sad life. Truman Capote looked so young, smooth-faced, carefree, and yet knowing in Cartier-Bresson’s photograph; I thought of “In Cold Blood” and what an impression it made on so many of us, showing the ambiguity and “grey” that there is in almost everyone’s stories, whether they be victims or criminals. Andre Malraux, that prime example of a particularly French combination of government leader and literary writer, who was as well a dashing traveler and adventurer, and whose “Man’s Fate” and other novels I read, mostly also in college, showed dramatically in his photo. And William Faulkner, whose work I read, studied, and treasured for so many years, until somehow I couldn’t read him any more...what a face! Something about seeing Cartier-Bresson’s brilliantly portrayed faces of these authors whose work I had read quite extensively, often when I was far younger than I am now, was compelling and dramatic. It made me appreciate these authors even more than ever, and also evoked a kind of sad remembrance of how long it had been since they were alive and writing and well-known.

"Mennonite in a Little Black Dress"

I had been seeing Rhoda Janzen’s “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home” (Henry Holt, 2009) on bookstore display racks for a few months, but I resisted reading it because both the title and cover appeared gimmicky and “cutesy.” But an independent bookstore employee convinced me to read it, and I am glad I did. Janzen is 42 and has left her Mennonite background behind years ago, except for a few visits to her family. She is a PhD, a professor, and a poet. But after her husband leaves her for Bob, a man he met on Gay.com, and after she has a bad car accident a mere few days later, she goes home to stay with her parents for a while to recuperate, physically and emotionally. This act of going home is the premise for her story, but mainly it is a framework for describing her Mennonite childhood and how she has been influenced by it even though she has left the religion behind. Although she has much that is positive to say about it, and much that is funny, there are also undercurrents of criticism, especially of the way girls and women are raised to accept an obedient, compliant role (although fortunately her own mother doesn’t seem particularly compliant, and there seems to be a degree of equality in her parents’ marriage). Clearly her parents are wonderful, accepting, loving people, and though Janzen was embarrassed as a child by her Mennonite clothing, lunches, and restrictions on dancing and other things that young people like to do, she had a loving, good childhood. Her closeness with her calm, pragmatic, and funny sister Hannah has also been a great support to Janzen all her life. All of this is described with humor and affection. The other strand of the story, however, is flashbacks to the author’s bad marriage. Her husband Nick is brilliant, funny, handsome, charming, and intellectually compatible; he is also bipolar, violent, abusive, spendthrift, irresponsible, and bisexual. The marriage was sometimes thrilling, often miserable, and even frightening. Janzen says one reason she stayed with Nick, besides the intermittent good times and Nick’s penitence after the bad times, was her Mennonite upbringing that taught her to passively accept what life dealt her rather than taking action and leaving, as she should have done years before. The uneasy melding of these two strands of the story -- her peaceful Mennonite childhood and family on the one hand, and her destructive marriage on the other -- makes for a rather jarring mismatch. Janzen seems unsure about what tone to take about the marriage and about Nick, and unsure about how to integrate the story of her marriage into this memoir, so she includes a few brief but frightening passages about his violence -- e.g., his destroying dishes, furniture and whole rooms of their homes -- and his abuse -- the demeaning, destructive things he says to her -- but then goes back to telling entertaining, reassuring stories about her family. I also wish she had told us a bit more about her professional life and her poetry; she doesn’t give herself enough credit for her accomplishments. However, what she does convey very well is what a great gift it is to have loving parents and a stable, happy childhood; these form the foundation that allows her to survive the harsh difficulties life has brought her. This is a brave, funny memoir, and very readable.

"If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This"

Yesterday I wrote about the difficulty of finding new or at least not terribly overused words for book reviews. I was impressed with Tony Taccone’s saying that good writing has a certain “molecular excitement.” I just finished a book for which I am going to borrow Taccone’s phrase: Robin Black’s collection of short stories, “If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This” (Random House, 2010), has that molecular excitement. These stories pretty much knocked me over with their brilliance. Each story creates its own startling, compelling small world, one that is simultaneously mysteriously “other” and yet very familiar. The characters are generally well meaning, yet cannot help blundering in their relationships with the closest people in their lives. Over and over again, good people fail each other. There are secrets, mistakes, and tragic accidents that have to be absorbed and survived, somehow. The characters struggle, yet -- because they have no choice, really -- manage to muddle through and even transcend the difficult events. The stories have particularly painful yet loving things to say about family. One father tries to cope with his daughter’s blindness; another tries to reconcile with his long semi-estranged daughter. A pair of twins in their sixties are still trying to figure out their relationship with each other; then an accident changes everything. A woman has lost her brother when she was young, and now these many years later tries to comfort her teenaged son whose best friend has died in an accident. A woman with a much older husband tries to protect him from knowledge of her own illness, and at the same time to deal with her grown daughter’s infidelity. These stories are truly gripping. Highly recommended.

Finding the Right Words for Book Reviews

Have you noticed that certain words, especially certain adjectives, are used over and over again in book reviews, and in back-cover blurbs? Powerful, rich, wise, intelligent, honest, illuminating, electrifying, heartbreaking, magnificent, profound, original, enlightening, artful, gorgeous, important, thrilling, passionate, funny, hilarious, poignant, provocative, epic, fascinating, enthralling, unsettling, insightful, striking, creative, breakthrough, elegant, beautiful, masterful: these are just a few of the most commonly seen adjectives. I sympathize with reviewers’ trying to find new descriptive words, because I too have difficulty breaking away from relying on such adjectives when writing blog posts or other book reviews. In fact, I probably shouldn’t post this list, as I may now feel self-conscious every time I use one of these adjectives in the future! However, today I heard some new descriptive words that impressed me and struck me as very apt and true. On KQED Forum, a San Francisco NPR radio show, Dave Iverson interviewed Tony Taccone, artistic director of the wonderful Berkeley Repertory Theatre; at one point, Taccone described the work of certain playwrights as “fresh” and as having a certain “level of muscle, of imagination, and of molecular excitement.” Molecular excitement. I like that very much.

"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.