"Aerogrammes," by Tania James

I read and very much liked Tania James’ debut novel, “Atlas of Unknowns,” when it came out in 2009; it was very well reviewed and received. It is the story of two sisters from India, one of whom moved to the U.S. to study, and the other who came to find the first when she disappeared. The shifting yet enduring relationship between them, and the emotions involved, were compellingly portrayed, as were the obvious and subtle differences between life in India and life in the U.S. So when I saw that James had a new book out, a short story collection titled “Aerogrammes,” I knew I had to read it. Not only had I liked her earlier book, but also the word “aerogrammes” is evocative for me. These are the thin blue sheets of paper, ingeniously folded into one piece that serves as letter and an envelope as well , that are so familiar from my childhood in India. We almost always used them when writing back and forth to relatives and friends in Canada and the United States, and when we returned to America, I still got letters from friends in India in the same well-known form. My mother still gets them from her old friends in India. To this day, I have some aerogramme letters saved somewhere deep in a box or two in a closet or two, souvenirs of that time in my life. This is obviously not an adequate reason to read the book, but it drew me in. So how are the stories? Let’s put it this way: when I finished, I felt I had been on a rather bumpy journey through various completely different terrains. The settings of the stories are widely scattered, but more than that, the styles, the tones, the emotional temperatures, the characters are so very diverse that I didn’t feel much unity in the collection. It is an interesting question to consider: should there be a feeling of cohesiveness in a short story collection? Do we admire the extremely diverse array of experiences provided by an author, such as in this case, or do we feel a bit jostled and unsettled? I found some of the stories fascinating and sure-footed; others seemed too wispy, or too self-consciously quirky. I liked the stories “Aerogrammes” (and not just because of the title!), “Light and Luminous,” and “Escape Key” (although the latter was especially painful to read). I only mildly liked “Lion and Panther in London,” “What To Do with Henry,” or “Girl Marries Ghost,” probably at least partially because I didn’t particularly like reading about – respectively – wrestlers, a family that raised a chimpanzee, and a woman who married a ghost. I will say, though, that all of the stories are beautifully written, and I will definitely continue reading whatever Tania James publishes.

"The Dressmaker," by Beryl Bainbridge

“The Dressmaker” (Penguin, 1992, originally published by Duckworth 1973) is by Beryl Bainbridge (who died just two years ago at the age of 75), one of the quintessentially English writers who could never be mistaken for being from any other country. Her writing focuses on working class life, and there is usually a sense of psychological suspense, of strangeness, of unexpectedness in the midst of seeming ordinariness. “The Dressmaker” is no exception. It tells of a family in Liverpool during World War II. Although the family composition is unusual -- a young woman, Rita, who has been raised by her two aunts, with her widowed father nearby -- they seem to be very traditional, even straitlaced. Aunt Nellie is exceptionally conservative; Aunt Margo is a bit more open-minded, but generally doesn’t challenge Nellie. Father Jack loves his daughter but leaves the parental decisions to his two sisters, especially to Nellie. Rita, who has led a very sheltered life, meets and falls in love with an American soldier, Ira. He seems a bit passive and less than reliable, not to mention uncommunicative about his family or any personal details. The story moves slowly and the events seem unremarkable, although of interest because of the well-drawn characters and the depictions of wartime life. But -- as we might expect from Bainbridge -- there is a surprise ending building up and ready to shock us at the end of this brief novel. Once we read what happens, we look back and see all the portents that have been pointing the way to this ending. Despite -- or perhaps because of? -- the slight feeling of creepiness throughout the novel, this is an absorbing and satisfying read. [As a side note: the copy of this novel that I picked up at my local library used-book sale has a stamp inside showing that it was originally bought at the famed Shakespeare and Company Bookstore (established by Sylvia Beach) in Paris -- a delightful bonus discovery, linking the book to the tradition of that great bookstore (to which I made a pilgrimage when I was in Paris).]

"Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)," by Jason Shiga

Graphic novels are increasingly often published and increasingly popular. “Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)” (Abrams, 2011), by Jason Shiga, is an entertaining if somewhat ambiguous new example of the genre. The two main characters, Jimmy and Sara, are friends, but Jimmy wonders if their relationship could be something more. Although he is profoundly uncomfortable about change, he follows Sara from Oakland to New York to see if there is a chance for things to work out with her. He is very socially awkward, and actually generally awkward; she is similarly somewhat nerdy, but with marginally more social savvy. When Jimmy reaches New York, he finds that Sara is dating someone somewhat seriously. It is unclear how much she discerns Jimmy’s feelings, so except for a little flash of understanding, they remain as friends, for the time being anyway. How will it all turn out? We don’t know. The above is the whole of the “plot,” but there are many poignant and beautifully observed and captured moments along the way, some displaying joy, with more illustrating unease or ambivalence. We as readers have to admire Jimmy for breaking out of his rather constricted life, at least for a while, to go after someone he wants. But he is hit with reality over and over again, including on his long bus ride across the country. This is an endearing and sometimes funny book, yet with an edge. The drawings are engaging. One blurb says the book is semi-autobiographical; if so, Shiga has been brave in revealing himself in all his geekdom and vulnerability.

"The City of Your Final Destination," by Peter Cameron

When I finally, belatedly, “discovered” Peter Cameron (see my post of 5/1/12 on his newest novel, “Coral Glynn”) for myself, I decided to read more of his fiction. I have now read “The City of Your Final Destination” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002). I was partly drawn to it because it is about a young and insecure academic, Omar Razaghi, who needs to get permission from the literary executors of the late Jules Gund, a writer from Uruguay, to write an authorized biography of Gund. This permission is extremely important to Omar, as he needs this project for his fellowship stipend. The novel starts with two strands, two stories. On the one hand, we learn about Omar, and on the other hand, we learn about Gund’s executors: his wife and his mistress, who now live together a bit uneasily (yes, it is strange!) in Uruguay, and his brother, who lives nearby with his partner. The executors are divided about whether to sign the permission papers. In desperation, Omar spends all his available money to travel to their isolated location in Uruguay to try to persuade the executors in person, thus bringing the two stories together. The usual misunderstandings, approaches, rejections, kindnesses, agreements, refusals, entanglements, and other common human responses ensue, as we might expect when people are mixed together in unlikely groupings. Although several of the characters are a bit prickly, we grow to appreciate and even feel affection toward them all. Based on the two novels by Cameron I have read so far (and I will probably read more), he seems to like the classic literary situation of mixing people in fairly isolated settings and seeing what happens. I am personally very partial to novels with such situations. The all-important point, as always, is the people, with all their emotions, interactions, quirks, inconsistencies, and other hallmarks of humanity. While reading this novel, I had a similar feeling to the one I had reading “Coral Glynn”: at first I resisted and was even put off a bit by the oddities of the settings and characters, but somehow it all “worked,” and I think I am, although late to the party, becoming a Cameron fan.

"The New York Stories of Edith Wharton"

A reader or two may remember that I mentioned in early April that I was joyfully reading a collection of stories by Edith Wharton -- one of my favorite writers, about whom I have written here several times, including on 4/18/10, 2/22/12, and 4/18/12 -- on the plane in late March on my way home from two conferences on the East Coast, and that I said I would write about it when I finished. Somehow the book migrated to the bottom of my books-to-read-or-finish pile, but I finally got back to it and read the last few stories with great pleasure. This collection, “The New York Stories of Edith Wharton” (New York Review Books, 2007), selected by Roxana Robinson, is overflowing with wonderful stories, all describing the city where she lived for much of her life, and written over the course of her career. The first story in the collection, “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” happens to be the very first story that Wharton published. The final story, “Roman Fever,” is one of her most famous ones. The New York settings are so evocative, so precisely rendered. But best of all are the characters; they are always well drawn, always compelling. Every single one of them draws the reader in, and makes the reader wonder what will happen. Somehow Wharton manages to make us care without ever being sentimental or soft. The situations the characters find themselves in are both inevitable, because of the rigidity of society’s norms and expectations, and startlingly original. And the writing is amazing; Wharton makes it look easy, but it is so clear and yet so complex. There is, too, the old-fashioned pleasure of being caught up in the story, wanting to know what will happen next, and trusting the author absolutely to take us somewhere new, somewhere revelatory, even when in the midst of somewhere very familiar. In fact, there is something deliciously subversive about Wharton's writing. One theme that appears in several stories in this collection is that of writers writing under others’ names, or pretending to be other than whom they are; one wonders why this theme is important to Wharton. Perhaps she is exploring the question of what originality in writing means, and the blurring of borders. There is much about social class, about gender, about ethics, about sheer humanity. But it is never just “about” something. I am tempted to tell you about each and every one of these twenty stories, but do not have the space to do so. If you loved “The Age of Innocence” and “The House of Mirth,” you will love this collection as well. If you haven’t read much or any Wharton before, this volume would be an excellent place to start.

"Unless," by Carol Shields

Readers may remember that one of my most-admired contemporary writers is the late Carol Shields, the Canadian author who, sadly, died in 2003, at the age of 68. I recently listened to her last novel, “Unless” (2002), on CD. I had read the book twice already, but not recently. As I listened, I marveled once again at Shields’ gorgeous prose and wonderfully wise writing. In this novel, she writes about family (especially the mother-daughter relationship), about writing (especially the situation of women writers), and about the nature of “goodness,” among other themes. The narrator and main character Reta Winters’ oldest daughter Norah, a college student, has suddenly had some kind of crisis and started panhandling in downtown Toronto, mostly silently, with a cardboard sign saying “Goodness” around her neck. Most of the novel is about how the family reacts to this sad and mysterious happening, as well as about the narrator’s writing her second novel to distract herself as much as possible. One strong strand throughout the novel is the narrator’s anger at the way women writers over the years have been condescended to, underestimated, and left out of consideration or even notice in reviews, literature programs and classes, and elsewhere. She gives example after example, and writes (but does not send) cutting letters to magazine editors and others about this issue. This focus on the issue of women writers' being marginalized sounds didactic, but Shields is such a good writer that it does not come off that way. “Unless,” like Shields’ other books, especially “The Stone Diaries” and “Larry’s Party,” is exquisitely well written, full of wisdom, thought-provoking, intricately textured, and deeply satisfying. Shields is an incredible writer, and although she has a high reputation (for example, “The Stone Diaries” won the Pulitzer Prize), I fear that she herself is not adequately read and appreciated. I hope I am wrong. Now I want to add a personal note: Some years ago, I recommended Carol Shields’ novels to my friend C., whom I have mentioned here several times. C. read her work and went to hear Shields speak at a bookstore in her East Coast city, and was very impressed (and C. was not easily impressed). We both mourned Shields’ death of cancer in 2003. A few years later, in 2008, C. was diagnosed with cancer herself and, as I wrote about here (on 4/29/11), died in 2011, a terrible loss to her family and many friends and colleagues, and to the world. When earlier this week I heard an interview with Shields at the end of the CD of “Unless,” apparently in a bookstore type setting, the interview reminded me of C., of her description of having heard Carol Shields read and speak, and of how we both appreciated and loved Shields’ impressive and perceptive writing. This memory was symbolic of the many book-and-reading-related bonds C. and I shared for almost 40 years.

On Avoiding "Difficult" Books

Sometimes I feel guilty that I often (not always, but often) avoid “difficult” books these days. I mean difficult in two senses: first, books that are very experimental in their prose styles, and second, books that are about very painful topics. When I was younger, I would take on books in both categories, because I wanted to read everything and to know everything that literary people knew. I devoured it all. I would never re-read now some of the books I inhaled back then. Although I still read very widely, in various types of literature and by various authors of various backgrounds, I tend to focus on novels about human relationships in somewhat familiar settings. But I occasionally think about how I am likely missing out on important books that I really “should” read, and would benefit from, and maybe even like better than I think ahead of time that I would. Let me give just one concrete example from the many that I could give. In the current (5/14/12) New Yorker (p. 121), there is a brief review of “The Hunger Angel” by Herta Muller. Although I am attracted by the phrase “moving novel,” as soon as I read that the book is “set in a Russian Gulag at the end of the Second World War,” and that “[s]urviving on bread and cabbage soup, the internees are maddened by starvation” and “steal food from one another and clothes from still warm corpses,” I immediately mentally retreat from the prospect of reading the book. I see the word “bleak” and am too much of a reading coward to face this book. I fully admit that this is a failing on my part, and I am somewhat reluctant and even embarrassed to write about it here. I don’t know, though, if I feel guilty enough to actually change my reading habits. I do resolve to push myself at least a little more in this regard.