Alice Munro Wins the Nobel Prize!

As Julie Bosman of the New York Times writes today, Alice Munro, "the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Ms. Munro, 82, is the 13th woman to win the prize." Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy! I, along with legions of her other readers, and many of her fellow writers (according to what I have been reading online), am so very happy -- OK, ecstatic! -- to see Munro's work recognized in this way. I have often seen her labeled as the best living writer of short stories in the world, and I think that assessment is absolutely right; to have the Nobel Committee confirm that view is just fantastic! I have been reading, appreciating, enjoying, loving, learning from, savoring, and being awed by Munro's short stories and novels for 40 years, and am always excited when a new volume comes out. (See my post of 7/22/10, titled "Ode to Alice Munro."). Sadly, she said when her most recent book came out (see my post of 12/6/12 on "Dear Life") that it would be her last one. If she changes her mind, we readers will rejoice, but no matter what, we have more than 40 years worth of her amazing work to read and re-read (and they all bear re-reading and even re-re-reading). As a personal postscript, I have to say this: the fact that the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is both a woman and a Canadian (I am Canadian-born) is, for me, a bonus cause for joy.

"The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.," by Adelle Waldman

Adelle Waldman’s novel “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” (Henry Holt, 2013) allows us to get into the head of a young male writer living in Brooklyn (the current headquarters for a huge number of young writers), just as he starts to become successful. The question is: Is his head a place we want to be? In my case, the answer is – not really. Although the novel is narrated in the third person, it is so closely tied to Nate’s every thought, feeling, and action that it might as well be told in the first person. Nate is not a bad guy, but he is extremely self-centered. Even when he is trying to be thoughtful and nice to, say, a girlfriend he is about to dump, he is examining his own behavior to see if he is being genuine or not, worthy or not, etc., etc. All this preening, self-conscious angst is so solipsistic that it becomes highly annoying. This aspect of Nate’s being annoying mixes with another aspect: he is constantly – and I mean constantly -- checking out and judging women. He judges their bodies, their clothes, their beauty (even using the dreaded 10-point scale at times), their voices, their brains, their emotional temperature, and more. To be fair, he realizes he is doing so, and occasionally scolds himself briefly for it, but we never get the sense that he is genuinely sorry, or truly intends to change, and it doesn’t take long for him to return to his old ways. He often comments on the advantages and disadvantages of being single as opposed to having a girlfriend. He is also very aware of his own status, and of how his increasing success allows him to aspire to what he considers a higher level of women to sleep with, date, and perhaps have as a girlfriend. I can’t tell if the author intends Nate to be a sympathetic character (which he is, but only sporadically) or an example of the worst of a particular kind of full-of-himself urban, artsy, preppy, status-conscious young man. Probably a combination of the two. There is of course the interest factor of a female author getting so deeply into a male psyche. And the novel is quite well written. But as I read it, I just couldn’t get over the annoyance factor.

"Memories of a Marriage," by Louis Begley

Well, there seems to be a theme in some of my recent posts: weddings and marriages (see, e.g., my posts of 8/29/13 and 9/28/13). Maybe marriages were on my mind (because of my daughter’s recent engagement) when I picked up Louis Begley’s ”Memories of a Marriage” (Doubleday, 2013), but I also like his novels and have read several of them over the years. Begley is a novelist of the old school; he writes about the lives of characters of the upper class, mostly in Manhattan, with side trips to other haunts of the wealthy. The narrator, Philip, is a writer in his later years; one day he runs into Lucy De Bourgh, a member of a prominent Upper East Coast family. They have not seen each other for many years, and reminisce about her ex-husband, now deceased, Thomas Snow, about whom Lucy has bitter memories. Philip has some sympathy for her, but also some for Thomas, and determines to find out more about what happened in their marriage. He meets with Lucy many times, as well as with others who knew both Lucy and Thomas, and gradually disentangles the various stories and perspectives about what “really” happened. The premise of the novel – that Philip would be interested enough to invest a fair amount of energy and time in this project (although he seems to have had a vague idea of writing a book about them – this book?) – seems a bit unlikely to me, but I was willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. And an elegant, low-key, gentlemanly ride it is. It is not without its provocative sections, especially as Lucy prides herself on candor, including candor about her love and sex life when she was young. It becomes clear that Lucy was and is a troubled woman, and a not particularly likeable one. This novel is more of an intellectual exercise than one that readers – at least this reader – get emotionally involved with. And what is set up as a sort of mystery never really pays off – there are revelations but they are not particularly surprising or intriguing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this novel, in a mild sort of way.

"Beautiful Day," by Elin Hilderbrand

A novel about a wedding on Nantucket (regular readers know I love Nantucket novels), with lots of family and romantic complications and crises that all get resolved by the last page…what’s not to like? I don’t remember which review or friend steered me toward Elin Hilderbrand’s “Beautiful Day” (Little, Brown, 2013) but I know my current interest in weddings (because, as I wrote on 8/29/13, my daughter is engaged and we are planning the wedding) was partly responsible for my putting this title on my library request list, and reading it. The novel describes a wedding weekend on Nantucket, where the bride’s family has long owned a second home, and where there is much family history. The plot hook is that the mother of the bride died several years before of cancer, and during her last few months, wrote down in “The Notebook” all her advice for her youngest daughter’s future wedding – everything from location to food to invitations to décor to…well, you get the idea. She did so not to be controlling, but so her daughter would feel she had her mother’s loving guidance. There are of course many sidetrips into the past, and we learn about several of the main characters’ romances, marriages, divorces, affairs, and other personal matters. Although only competently written, the novel offers plenty of reading pleasure. Does the dreaded term “chick lit” apply? Probably. And once in a while, that is just fine with me.

"The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells," by Andrew Sean Greer

I thought Andrew Sean Greer’s novel “The Story of a Marriage” was beautifully written (and the San Francisco setting was a bonus!). So when his new novel, “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells” (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2013), came out, I planned to read it. Then the idea that it was about a character who, because of electroshock treatments given to her to treat her depression (because of her brother’s terrible death, and the breakup of her marriage) in 1985, finds herself living in three different time periods (1985, 1918, and 1941), made me reluctant to read it. As readers of this blog may remember, I generally shy away from anything that smacks of science fiction, even very literary science fiction. But on second thought, I realized that the book was still character- and history-driven, and the time travel conceit was only a way of getting at how we all have different possible (although here titled “impossible”) lives, so I decided to read it after all. Hearing, by chance, the tail end of an engaging talk by the author at one of my favorite local independent bookstores, Book Passage in Corte Madera, increased my interest in the novel. So I did read it, liked the novel, and found it intriguing. It was fascinating to see the same characters in three different time periods, all in New York City. But I can’t say I loved it, and I am not sure why. Perhaps it was too schematic as it cycled through the three time periods. At times it was a bit confusing as well. Sometimes it just dragged a little. And there was perhaps too much musing, mourning, wondering, philosophizing by Greta. I did like the characters (Greta, her twin brother Felix, her husband Nathan, Felix’s lover Alan, Greta’s lover Leo, and Greta’s Aunt Ruth), found them interesting, and felt for their often difficult lives. Their difficulties mainly arose from living in the disastrous times of two wars, World Wars I and II, as well as from the sadness of the closeted lives the gay characters had to lead (in 1918 and 1941) and then the tragedy of AIDS (in 1985). Finally we are left to ponder the question “Why is it so impossible to believe: that we are as many headed as monsters, as many armed as gods, as many hearted as angels?” Why indeed?

The Man Booker Prize Expands its Eligibility Rules

It was just announced that the very prestigious Man Booker prize, which has always been awarded annually to a book by a British or Commonwealth author, will, starting next year, make eligible any novel written in English and published in Britain. The reaction among the British, Australians, and others is consternation. Some say they fear that American novels will dominate the competition. In the past, the competition for the Booker, with its carefully spaced announcements of the long list, then the short list, and then the winner, has created audiences for many books from, for example, Indian authors whose books might otherwise receive little exposure. I don’t have strong feelings about this, but I do associate the Man Booker (formerly the Booker) Prize with the best of Britain and the Commonwealth, and I have been introduced to some books I wouldn’t know about otherwise by perusing the long and short lists and the prize winners.

Acceptance Letters

I have written here about how lovely it is to find personal letters in one’s mailbox. Lately I have been thinking about the importance of another kind of letter: acceptance letters. For example, each spring millions of young (and sometimes not so young) people receive, if they are fortunate, acceptance letters from schools, colleges, graduate schools, law schools, and medical schools. Other people receive acceptances for internships, clerkships, fellowships, project proposals, and jobs. Writers are thrilled to get letters of acceptance for their submitted books, stories, poems, and articles. For academics, one of the most prized types of letters is those from academic journals accepting their articles for publication. A few days ago I received one of these (well, in this case it was an email, but the genre and the excitement were the same!). An article that, although brief, I had been working on for some time, will go out into the world and be read by others! Although I have had many academic articles published over the years, acceptances are still far enough apart that each time it happens is a special occasion, a bit of a relief, and a pleasure.