Piles of Books for the Taking

I have written before (e.g., 3/27/12) about how books move around in my life, as they probably do in yours: to and from the library, to and from bookstores, to and from friends, from home to office and vice versa, etc. I also mentioned that sometimes colleagues at work put piles of unwanted books outside their office doors for students or others to take if they want them. Over the summer there have been several moves on my office floor and the floor above, as one person retired, another became a Dean and moved to a Dean’s office, another moved to a different floor, and new faculty moved in to their offices. The moving around and packing up of office contents made people go through their shelves and discard books they no longer used, older editions, etc. So in the past couple of months, I have seen several of those book piles in our hallways. Sometimes they have a hand-lettered sign saying “Free,” or “Help yourself,” or “Take what you want.” Even without signs, it is generally understood that books in the hallways outside office doors are up for grabs. I am oddly fascinated by watching the piles diminish. One day I will see a tall pile, the next day it is smaller, the following day smaller still, with perhaps a lone rejected book or two left. And then somehow even those disappear. It is a simple and elegant solution to the problem of too many books, which is a problem most people in my field (education) have eventually. The former owners clear space on their shelves, and a student or perhaps a fellow faculty member picks up a new book or two of interest, free. I find this whole interchange strangely satisfying to observe (and occasionally participate in). It makes me happy to see each book find a new home.

"Alys, Always," by Harriet Lane

It is hard to categorize the brief, gripping British novel, “Alys, Always” (Scribner, 2012), by Harriet Lane. It is a literary novel, but also has elements of suspense and psychological gameswomanship. Reviewers and blurbers have mentioned the author Ruth Rendell and the classic novel “Rebecca” as influences or antecedents. The main character, Frances Thorpe, stops at the scene of an accident and is the last to speak to the dying woman driver, Alys Kyte, who turns out to be the wife of a prominent writer, Laurence Kyte. (A side note: what is it with characters meeting at the beginning of novels at the scenes of accidents? This is at least the third novel I have read recently with this plot device.) What follows is her increasing connection with Alys’ family, as she learns more about them and becomes associated more with them. The psychological aspect of the novel comes into play here, as we readers slowly realize there is more going on under the surface than initially appears, and that Frances is a much more complicated and less innocent character than we might have thought at first. This is a well-written, compelling but somewhat disturbing novel. I can’t decide whether I liked it or not, but it definitely kept me reading.

"The World Without You," by Joshua Henkin

Female authors have, over many years and then with renewed objections in the past couple of years, spoken out about how male writers are still taken more seriously. In particular, they have pointed out that when women write about families, relationships, and other “female” topics, their work is considered less important, but when men write about those topics, they receive kudos. A case in point, they say (and I agree) is the novels of Jonathan Franzen. To quote Jennifer Weiner (from an interview in the Huffington Post, 8/26/10), whose objections to the high praise for Franzen’s novels for their attention to family I have written about before: “It’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book.” She also says that the big reviews and articles in The New York Times and other prominent periodicals tend to be about “white guys. Usually white guys living in Brooklyn or Manhattan, white guys who either have MFAs or teach in MFA programs.” I have just read “The World Without You” (Pantheon, 2012), by Joshua Henkin, who, according to the back flap, “directs the MFA Program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.” Bingo! This book -- very much about family and feelings -- has already been extensively reviewed, and since it just came out last month (and since his earlier novel "Matrimony" was well-reviewed), it is likely that it will be reviewed much more in the months ahead. Although I agree with much of what Weiner has said, for some reason I feel different about Henkin’s novel than I did about Franzen’s “Freedom” – I like it better. (Readers may remember my extreme ambivalence about "Freedom"; I did like Franzen’s earlier novel, “The Corrections.”) “The World Without You” tells of a family torn apart by their grief at their son/brother Leo’s death in Iraq, where he was a journalist. The family meets at their summer house one year after Leo’s death for his memorial service. Leo’s parents David’s and Marilyn’s marriage is suffering because they don’t know how to comfort each other, and each is going a different way. The responses of his older sisters Clarissa, Lily, and Noelle are each affected by their complicated relationships with their parents and with each other, not to mention with their spouses, partners, and children, as well as their very different relationships with being Jewish. Leo's widow, Thisbe, is there with her toddler son Calder, wondering about her future and about her relationship with Leo's family. The main focus of the novel is on the family and their complex reactions, interactions, and expressions of grief. But an also important although less emphasized theme is the unnecessary tragedy of the war in Iraq and of all the terrible losses so many families suffered (and still suffer) because of it. This novel puts a human face on those great losses.

"The Receptionist," by Janet Groth

The New Yorker. New York. Literary stories and gossip. An independent woman figuring out what she wants in life, having adventures, (mostly) happy in her work, longing for love as well. All of these elements and more make Janet Groth’s memoir, “The Receptionist” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012), a delight to read. Groth, like so many other Midwestern young people, moved to New York after college to seek a bigger and more exciting life. In her case, the move was from Minnesota, and the year was 1957. She became a receptionist at the offices of The New Yorker magazine, and stayed there for 21 years. During those years, she met and became friends (and sometimes lovers) with many well-known writers, editors, artists, and other members of the New York literary/art world. She went to their parties and became their confidant. She knew about their writing blocks, their affairs, their secrets. She herself hoped to be a writer, but it took a while. She was also a great traveler. And she loved literature, and knew it well. After a few years at the New Yorker, she started studying for her PhD in English literature, and only ended her receptionist job when she got a position as a university professor. She finally did write; her main publications have been on the great critic Edmund Wilson. And now she has written this generous memoir, candidly sharing her experiences and feelings during those 21 New Yorker years. And although the literary stories are wonderful, so too is the portrait of a young woman making her own way in a time before it was common for women to be single, self-supporting, independent, and adventurous. Although she had her troubles and doubts, she seems to have had a strength and belief in herself, and a desire for a full life, that carried her through. This book is beautifully written and a great pleasure to read.

"They Knew Mr. Knight," by Dorothy Whipple

I have now written about several of Dorothy Whipple’s novels, thrilled with having “discovered” her work. (See my posts of 1/24/12, 1/30/12, 2/10/12, and 7/24/12.) I seem to be slowly working my way through her fiction, feeling fortunate that the USF Library has several of her books. The most recent I have read is “They Knew Mr. Knight” (originally published 1934 by John Murray; Persephone republished version, 1968 – and once again, I thank Persephone for these republishings of Whipple and other women writers who would otherwise have faded into the woodwork of the past). This novel tells the story of a robber baron type, Mr. Knight, who seems to succeed at everything he touches in business, and who becomes a benefactor to Thomas and Celia Blake and their family. He helps them prosper, and they are grateful. But, well, not to give away the ending, things change…. This novel was published at a time of a problematic economy (in the U.S. and in England too), and reading it now in another time of a seriously struggling economy is chilling. Mr. Knight prefigures the same class dominating the economy and the news today: a ruling class of businessmen (and I use the term “men” advisedly, although of course there are a few women involved as well) who think it is acceptable to do anything that benefits their businesses and profits (or simply don’t care about the ethical or even legal aspects of what they do, or about whom they hurt along the way). Such names as Bernie Madoff spring to mind. But this novel is not simply a polemic; there is much more in the story, regarding the psychology of the family that gets drawn into the world of Mr. Knight, and regarding the relationships among all the characters, as well as regarding the place of money and class in England and in its people’s lives. In this, as in her other novels and short stories, Whipple’s writing is so very good that the reader luxuriates in reading it.

"The Forever Marriage," by Ann Bauer

I know I sounded a little crabby when I wrote about “The Kissing List,” “Seating Arrangements,” and a couple of other books recently, and now I am going to be crabby again, this time about “The Forever Marriage” (The Overlook Press, 2012), by Ann Bauer. It is hard to warm to a novel that starts with a wife’s being happy when her husband dies of cancer. Not happy because he is no longer in pain, but happy because she is finally released from a marriage of 22 years in which she has been disappointed from the very beginning. Carmen knows and fully admits that Jobe is a good man, but she has never been in love with him, and their love and sex life has been tepid and unsatisfying for her. She married him because she felt grateful to him, and sorry for him, and because she felt grateful to his mother (I know, this reason is strange, but true in this story), and because he had the money that would allow them a comfortable life. She did her duty as a wife and mother, and took good care of him in his illness, but did have affairs. Although it is clear that the marriage was unhappy, one still does not feel comfortable rooting for a character such as Carmen. Yet it slowly becomes clear that Carmen is not a bad person, and that there is more to the story than it seems. The tone of the book is an odd tension between the wrong and even -- seemingly -- despicable, and on the other hand, the heartwarming. This would be unsettling in a good way if the book were better, but as it stands, it just seems a bit artificial. There is a subplot about Jobe’s being a genius mathematician, and about what will happen to his ideas and discoveries in that area; this subplot is mildly interesting but seems tacked on, especially as it brings us to a sort of false-feeling closure at the end of the novel.

"The Kissing List," by Stephanie Reents

Is it my age that makes me come close to disliking the stories and their characters in “The Kissing List: Fiction” (interlocking short stories) (Hogarth, 2012), by Stephanie Reents? Although well written, the stories seem like so many others I have read about smart, well-educated, urban twenty-somethings stumbling their way through life, full of angst, having lots of sex and doing lots of drinking, but not seeming to really enjoy even those pursuits. The characters are not unlikeable but not particularly likeable either. Some of the characters blur; their lives are so similar and so intertwined. I am sure that even for these privileged young people, Reents’s portrayal of the disappointment and difficulty involved in searching for meaningful work and fulfilling relationships is accurate. I also suspect that – except for the unfortunate young woman with cancer – these characters will land on their feet and lead comfortable lives. It is not that I don’t like reading about young people. I do. I enjoy reading about characters of all ages. But this particular subset of young people has been done, and done, and done by young writers. Although each book, including this one, has its own twists and its own rewards, the problem is still a sort of wearying predictability. (P.S. I confess that I skipped one story; when I saw that it featured a mouse, my rodent phobia kicked in, and I thought “No, I just don’t want to read this." So it is possible that this is the one story that would change everything I have written above. But I doubt it.)