"In Zanesville," by Jo Ann Beard

Although “In Zanesville” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Jo Ann Beard, is about a 14-year-old girl, it is not a “young adult” novel. It is perhaps the early side of a “coming of age” novel, but this sounds too grand for the way the novel captures the life of a young, smart, adventurous teen, special in some ways but very normal in others. The setting of the story in “a factory town, Zanesville, Illinois, the farm implement capital of the world,” seems to emphasize the middle-America average aspect of the story, but the narrator, named for Jo in “Little Women,” has her own spunky individual personality. Her growing up is portrayed through a series of episodes, such as a disastrous night of babysitting, an ambivalent relationship with her membership in the school marching band, unexpected positive attention from the popular girls in her school, ups and downs in her friendship with her best friend Phyllis, dealing with and worrying about her father’s drinking too much and his mental health, her first kiss, moving in and out of the gifted math class, and much more. Although the concept of the book sounds similar to that of hundreds of other books, the author manages to make this novel original, and to make us care about the narrator. This novel is by no means a “must-read,” but if the above description sounds interesting, you will find “In Zanesville” worth the time it takes to read.

Books Long and Short

Although I, like all readers, read books greatly varying in length, from thick tomes to slim volumes, I have particularly noticed this contrast in the past couple of months. Although I am a fairly fast reader, it took me a while to get through, for example, Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Marriage Plot,” and, especially, Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child.” Then, without consciously looking for shorter books, I found myself reading a series of very small books, including Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending,” Michelle Latiolais’ “Widow,” Alan Bennett’s “Smut,” and Anita Desai’s “The Artist of Disappearance.” (I have posted on all of these recently.) Long and short -- each has its advantages. I can “settle in” to a long novel with the feeling of really getting to know the characters and settings, and of becoming almost an inhabitant of the world the author has created. If the novel is wonderful, I relish being in that world, and am reluctant to leave it when I finish the book. This is part of the appeal of the great Victorian novels that I treasure, such as those by Eliot, Dickens, and Gaskell, and of the novels of a slightly later age by James and Wharton. If the novel is less engaging, or particularly difficult to navigate for various reasons, I may feel at times that reading it is a bit of a slog. On the other hand, short books are easy to carry around (I can even put them into my capacious handbag for easy availability when there is a break in my day, or a wait in line), and there is the satisfaction of either finishing it quickly, or savoring it slowly but still not taking forever to read it. Sometimes short novels are dense and intense, and therefore satisfying; at other times they feel a bit incomplete, a little insubstantial. Clearly these are all broad generalizations. And obviously the length of the book is only a very small factor in deciding what to read, in whether the book is “good” or not, and in whether I enjoy it. But it is one factor, and the experience of reading a book is subtly influenced by its length.

"How It All Began," by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively was one of the very first authors I wrote about here (1/25/10), and she is one of my favorite living writers. Just a few of the reasons, in no particular order, that I loved reading her new novel, “How It All Began” (Viking, 2011):
1. Lively is simply one of the very best writers writing today, so a new novel by her is an occasion.
2. Lively understands human nature, human relationships, and especially human families, better than almost any other writer.
3. Lively’s fiction is realistic. It focuses on everyday events, not on shocking or farfetched happenings. Lively has the gift of making readers really care about those everyday events.
4. Lively’s writing is very readable.
5. Lively writes about people of all ages, including middle-aged and older people, which is most welcome to those of us no longer young.
6. This novel takes place in London.
7. Some of the characters in this novel misbehave a bit, but most of them are basically good people. Some of them know that sometimes one doesn’t get to have what one wants, because it isn’t the right thing, and are willing to “do the right thing,” even at great personal cost.
8. There is an intellectual thread throughout the novel: the idea that one small, random event can start a chain of events, with a ripple effect of sometimes surprising consequences. This concept adds to the interest of the novel, but is not insisted on, and doesn’t overwhelm the plot/character aspects of the novel.
9. Lively’s main character often talks about what she is reading, why, and why she feels like reading different books at different times, depending on what is happening in her own life. Some of her favorites are some of mine as well (e.g., Edith Wharton, Henry James, Rosamond Lehmann).
10. The main character is a volunteer tutor, and when she tutors an Eastern European immigrant in reading English, she appeals to his love of “story,” starting with reading children’s books, including the wonderful “Charlotte’s Web.”
11. Lively writes so very well, yet makes it look easy. Her writing is not flashy, just very, very good.
I could go on and on, giving more and more reasons, but the bottom line is: read this novel, and then read more novels by this wonderful author, Penelope Lively!

Caitlin Flanagan on Didion's "Blue Nights"

Last time (on 1/17/12), I wrote about Joan Didion’s new book, “Blue Nights.” Today I write about a January/February 2012 Atlantic article, penned by Caitlin Flanagan, about Didion and the book. The title on the Atlantic’s cover is “Joan Didion’s Disaster,” a rather ambiguous title (does it refer to her daughter’s death, or to the book about it?). When I turned to the actual story, I saw a different title: “The Autumn of Joan Didion,” with a subtitle of “The Writer’s Work is a Triumph – and a Disaster.” Obviously these titles piqued my interest, and I was ready to be defensive and even angry on Didion’s behalf, if the story attacked her and her book. I admit that I was predisposed to be defensive, not only because I admired the book, but also because Flanagan -- whom I have been reading and often disagreeing with in the Atlantic for some years -- is a fairly conservative and less-than-feminist writer. In fact, the article was somewhat positive about Didion and her book, but just wasn’t very well written. It seems to me that the main excuse for the article was to give Flanagan a chance to tell about an incident in which Didion, as a visiting scholar, made a preliminary visit to UC Berkeley and had dinner at the Flanagans' childhood home, because her father was then Chair of the Berkeley English Department. Flanagan was 14 years old at the time, and observed that Didion was quiet and shy. That was it; otherwise the story about the dinner was pointless. The only interesting part of the episode was that the large auditorium where Didion spoke was unexpectedly overflowing with devoted Didion fans, mostly young women. It turns out –- after many diversions in the article, some rather irrelevant -- that Flanagan was and is herself an admirer of Didion and her work. She describes Didion’s appeal as follows: “What Didion wrote about were the exquisitely tender and often deeply melancholy feelings that are such a large part of the inner lives of women and especially of very young women -- and girls…” I must admit that this description is resonant of my own feelings when I read Didion’s early work when I was in my late teens and early twenties. But Flanagan’s statement seems condescending, and it undervalues the strengths of Didion’s work. I am still not sure what the real point of this Atlantic article is, and it doesn’t even spend many of its several pages on the new book, “Blue Nights.” Yes, I understand the concept of a “review essay,” but I feel Flanagan gives short shrift to the book itself. She does end by saying that Didion will always be remembered. I closed the magazine with very mixed feelings about this odd duck of an article/review.

"Blue Nights," by Joan Didion

Before I began this blog, I read Joan Didion’s remarkable story of the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne, and of her own response to that loss; Dunne died the same day my father did, and “The Year of Magical Thinking” spoke to me with great force, as it did to many others. I had read Didion’s work since the 1970s, and when I re-read “Play It As It Lays” recently, I wrote about it here (3/23/11). I recently read a fascinating New York magazine article on Didion and her new book, “Blue Nights” (Knopf, 2011), which is about the untimely death of her daughter, her only child, Quintana Roo; I wrote about the article's points on 10/26/11. Now I have read “Blue Nights” myself; I found it as powerful and moving as “The Year of Magical Thinking,” perhaps even more moving, because surely the death of a child is even more of a blow than the death of a husband. Didion seems utterly bereft, staggering from these two great blows, yet still finds that writing is the only way to cope with her losses. She is always controlled in her writing, yet very open in sharing her feelings, her self-doubts, her vulnerability. She wonders if she did something wrong in raising Quintana. She writes on her daughter’s childhood, obsessively returning to certain times, certain scenes. She writes of her own aging, illness and feelings of helplessness and loneliness. But she doesn’t ask for pity; she is never maudlin. As always, her writing is spare, strong, and compelling. I was afraid that reading this book would be painful, and indeed it was, but I am glad I read it. Her prose lays bare an elemental human experience, and she writes about death, loss, life, weakness, memory, and much more in her own inimitable way.

"The Buddha in the Attic," by Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka is the author of two small but extremely powerful novels. I wrote about her first book, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” on 12/22/11; that 2002 book about the U.S. internment of a Japanese-American family bowled me over with its beautiful writing and intensity. Now I have read Otsuka’s second book (nominated for the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction), “The Buddha in the Attic” (Knopf, 2011), about the Japanese “picture brides” who came to the United States and began their new lives with their new husbands, whom they had never met before, in the early part of the twentieth century, and it is even better, even stronger, than the earlier book. The novel is divided into eight parts, including sections about the difficult boat trip to the U.S., about the women's first few days and nights with their new husbands, about the hard and draining work they did farming or working as maids, about their giving birth to and raising children in a new land, and about the time leading up to their internship in the early days of World War II, thus bringing the novel full circle to the setting of Otsuka’s first novel. Throughout, the stories are told through a sort of chorus; the voice is “we,” not “I.” Individual stories are told in a sentence or two each, but as part of the group experience. In other words, the narrative structure is very different from that of most novels. What comes to mind is the word “incantatory,” which captures the chanting lines, the music with its variations, the onward movement of the story. The novel has also been called poetic, and that is accurate as well. The writing captures the feelings of the women, as well as the sweep of history in which their individual lives are caught up. What a heartbreaking but beautiful book this is. "The Buddha in the Attic" is a must-read; highly recommended.

"Smut: Stories," by Alan Bennett

Reading a book titled “Smut” makes me feel a bit risque. The initially innocent-looking cover made me smile, as at first I saw that it pictured several pairs of teacups, and thought “how lovely and British,” and then noticed that the teacups in each pair were posed interacting in various positions; what a combination of charm and the ever-so-slightly suggestive! However, “Smut: Stories” (Picador, 2010 and 2011) is written by the inestimable British author/playwright/autobiographer/screenplay writer/humorist Alan Bennett, and his “smut,” although it does include sexual themes and scenes, is more about human nature and human relationships than sex. Bennett, author of the wonderful “The Uncommon Reader” (which I wrote about here on 3/12/10), writes wryly, mischievously, and with great understanding about families, secrets, and delusions. A short book (152 pages), “Smut” contains two novellas, both of which are full of surprises and witty but -- dare I say it -- sometimes quite tender scenes. The first, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,” tells of a recent widow in her fifties who fills her spare hours and earns some extra money by role-playing patients with various symptoms in order to help medical students practice. She also rents her spare room to students, and gets involved with them in a surprising way. The second novella is “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes,” an elegant and slightly schematic story of a family in which everyone is hiding something, shielding someone from something, yet each family member actually knows more about each other’s secrets than she or he is letting on. There is adultery, secret homosexual trysts with strangers, online sexuality, blackmail, financial irregularities, snobbishness, and deceit all around. Yet somehow there is also loyalty, warmth, and caring. And in both stories, somehow everyone gets pretty much -- albeit not all of -- what she or he wants. Although these novellas push some boundaries, they really don’t seem terribly “smutty” at all. I found them great fun to read – light, entertaining, and quite insightful.