"The Dream Lover," by Elizabeth Berg

George Sand, the French woman novelist, was a fascinating, passionate, flamboyant writer and character. She provides a contrast to George Eliot, her near contemporary (both were born early in the nineteenth century), who used the same male name, in her case in order to win more acceptance of her writing, and who was also independent and strong, but not at all flamboyant (although she flouted society's conventions in living with her longtime lover). They shared, however, an unstoppable desire to express themselves in writing, at a time when it was not easy for women to do so. George Eliot was the greater writer, but Sand was also a strong writer with a large following. I have to admit I know more about Sand’s life than I do about her work, and have read very little of the actual work (as opposed to my extensive reading of and deep admiration of Eliot’s fiction). Parenthetically, here is an odd related personal memory: When I was in high school, we (very amateurishly) performed a musical titled “Enchanted Isle,” about Sand’s stay on the Spanish island of Majorca with Frederic Chopin, her lover at the time. This memory has stayed with me, and I think of it whenever I hear something about George Sand or Frederic Chopin, although I now realize the musical was a highly romanticized version of their love affair and time together. All of this is prelude to saying that I have just read Elizabeth Berg’s novel, “The Dream Lover” (Random House, 2015), a fictionalized biography of George Sand. It is written in the first person as if Sand herself were writing, and written in what seems to be the style of the time period in which Sand lived and wrote. It is somewhat dramatic, even melodramatic at times, and certainly captures the reader’s interest. Berg has chosen to alternate between Sand’s childhood and young adulthood, on the one hand, and her later years once she has left her husband and started her writing life, on the other hand. The author shows Sand as a very complex woman. She has had a difficult childhood, and is affected for the rest of her life by that childhood. She is determined and disciplined about her writing, frequently staying up all night to write. She believes that women should be able to do everything that men can. She is also not afraid to break society’s rules, and, for example, has many lovers over the years. She is constantly looking for love, and is often in passionate relationships that deteriorate or end, leaving her in despair. She is a loving mother, but struggles with her daughter, and repeats some of the same mistakes her own mother made with her. She is a very appealing, although flawed, character, especially for feminists, artists, readers, Francophiles, and all combinations of these. I am, as readers of this blog can imagine, a fan of books – fiction or nonfiction – about great women writers, so although I think this one is a good but not great novel, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Dream Lover.”

"Honeydew," by Edith Pearlman

One of my best “discoveries” of 2011 was the short story writer Edith Pearlman, who has received too little attention, but whose powerful 2011 collection, “Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories,” brought her to the attention of many more readers and critics. I was – to use a not very literary term – blown away by that book (see my post of 4/22/11). So I was thrilled to hear that she had a new collection out, “Honeydew” (Little, Brown, 2015), and have recently finished reading it. It didn’t disappoint me. The stories are as compelling as those in the earlier collection. They reach that perfect balance among originality, surprise, delight, beautiful writing, and teaching us something about humanity. As in the earlier collection, many of the stories take place in the fictional small town of Godolphin, Massachusetts. In fact here, more than in “Binocular Vision,” small town life and small town characters (albeit ones who often have histories elsewhere) are the focus. One of my favorite characters, one who appears in several stories, is Rennie, who owns an antique store; she interacts with many of the other characters. I find myself unable to adequately convey what is so special about Pearlman’s stories, but please trust me that the stories, and this collection, are brilliant!

"Happy are the Happy," by Yasmina Reza

Yasmina Reza, best known as an award-winning playwright, has written a jumpy, nervous, fascinating “novel,” “Happy are the Happy” (Other Press, 2013, translated from the French by John Cullen.) I put the word “novel” in quotation marks, because although it is labeled as such, this book contains twenty short chapters with shared characters, forming something between a short story collection and a novel. The title comes from Borges’ poem about love (“Happy are those/who are beloved/and those who love/and those who can/do without love./Happy are the happy.”). Certain things about the structure of the book feel just slightly gimmicky, such as the fact that each chapter is one unbroken piece of prose, with no separate paragraphs. But the reader’s experience of diving right into the consciousness of each character, and seeing the same events and experiences from the characters’ various perspectives, provide a kind of delicious (although sometimes painful) immersion in the lives of these prosperous Parisians of the intellectual class. The characters do not always behave well, but on the whole are good people, trying to find their way in life. All the classic subjects (and, as regular readers of this blog know, the topics I love so well) are present: love, sex, families, work, illness, despair, redemption, death, and more. Yet in a way these chapters, this book, are not “about” experiences as much as about painting pictures of lives in exquisite detail. The writing is gorgeous. The translator as well as the author deserve credit for that beauty.

Not Happy with Alexander McCall Smith's "Emma"

The newest book in the Austen Project, which has contemporary writers writing modern versions of Jane Austen’s six completed novels (see my post of 7/6/14 about this project) is Alexander McCall Smith’s version of “Emma,” subtitled “A Modern Retelling” (Pantheon, 2014). I never in a million years would have thought of McCall Smith (author of the bestselling “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective” series, among many other very popular books) for this task. It is true that Emma is a sassy, irrepressible character, like some of McCall Smith’s. But really??? However, of course I had to read it, despite these doubts and reservations. And it is a fun read, faithful to the bones of the plot of the original. But it just doesn’t ring true to me, even allowing for the change of time period. For one thing, too many of the characters sound too different – not just more modern, but essentially different. The style is too casual. The match between the writer and the assignment is just not a good one, in my opinion. For Austen devotees, it will be hard to resist reading the book, but I predict rather profound disappointment on the part of most readers. (A coincidental postscript: After I drafted this post and before I posted it, I was making small talk with another juror at the lunch break of a trial I served at, we somehow started talking about this project, and this juror spontaneously offered a very negative assessment of this McCall Smith version of “Emma,” confirming my own reaction.)

"A Small Indiscretion," by Jan Ellison

Jan Ellison’s novel “A Small Indiscretion” (Random House, 2014) has a teasing, seductive title, and that title sets the tone for the novel. In this book, her first, Ellison writes what qualifies as a literary novel, but with large portions of mystery, even thriller-like structure and plot developments. The novel alternates between the main character Annie Black’s adventures as an American girl in London twenty-plus years ago, replete with adventure, intrigue, secrecy, and of course sex and drinking, on the one hand, and Annie’s present-day life as a married mother of three living in San Francisco, California, on the other. One day a photo arrives in the mail, a sort of intrusion from her London past, reminding her of a lost love, precipitating a new trip to London, and setting off a chain of events that threatens her marriage and family. The story is well constructed, and although at times the quick cuts back and forth between the past and present are too jumpy for my this reader’s comfort, we readers are kept wanting to keep reading. As for the mystery part, I guessed about halfway through what some of the secrets were, but that did not stop me from eagerly reading to the end. The novel is an intriguing blend of romance, adventure, family story, mystery, and drama. For me the story was enhanced by both the San Francisco (and environs) and London settings, with a side trip to Paris for good measure. And if some of the character development is a little thin, and at least one character is a bit “over the top” (the intense but elusive London lover/artist Patrick), one finds oneself (OK, I found myself) not caring about such small details in the midst of the breathless forward movement of the story. For a “good read” with literary qualifications (and isn’t that a perfect combination?), I recommend “A Small Indiscretion.”

"After Birth," by Elisa Gilbert

Elisa Gilbert’s main character Ari, in the novel “After Birth” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), is not only not afraid to speak her mind, but seems unable not to do so, strongly, harshly at times, compulsively, emotionally, and with little filter. She has recently given birth by Caesarean section, and feels traumatized and angry about the experience, about the way medicine treats pregnancy and childbirth, and about the fact that no one warned her what the whole experience would be like. Ari lives in a small upstate New York town where her husband teaches at a local college, and where she is supposedly working on her doctoral dissertation in Women’s Studies, but where she has in fact not been able to do anything since her baby boy’s birth. Although she loves her baby, Walker, deeply, and is learning to love him more as he gets older, she is overwhelmed not only by the birth experience but by the complete change in her life, and by her inability to do much more than just survive each day. She is lonely; her mother died when she was young and was not a good mother anyway, she has no sisters, and she has made but almost always somehow lost many friends over the years. Her husband Paul is a good man, supportive and loving, but doesn’t really understand what Ari is going through. A major plot strand is that Ari meets a former musician, Mina, who has given birth even more recently, and they form a bond that helps them both during this difficult time. This novel could have become merely a blast against the medical establishment and against the way motherhood is in the U.S. today, and that is certainly a big part of the message. And it is an important message. Because childbirth and motherhood is definitely a strange new land, one that no woman can be really prepared for. And it is true that the hard parts, the sleeplessness, the postpartum depression, the overwhelmingness of it all, are rarely talked about or written about. (Of course not all women suffer all of these, or at least not as intensely as Ari does, but many do.) So Albert has done a good thing with this impassioned explosion of a novel. But if that were all, it might be more message than literature. Fortunately, despite the cry of anger and desperation that forms so much of the novel, it also features realistic and compelling characters and situations, and growth on the part of the main character. Further, the writing is self-aware, even witty.

Long Hours of Reading While Ill

I recently came back from three weeks of travel, mainly for conferences but also to visit a good friend (thus the paucity of posts here during that time). I had a wonderful time in three different cities out east. Along the way (perhaps on one of those airplanes full of coughing people?), I picked up an illness, the main symptoms of which were a very bad cough and extreme fatigue. I have been back just over a week, and have been gradually recovering, but only yesterday did I feel close to normal again. What does this have to do with books and reading? Well, once I had acknowledged that there was no way I was going to get any work done, beyond responding to emails and a few basic errands and chores (and, yes, a couple of posts on this blog!) (and fortunately I am on sabbatical so didn’t have to arrange coverage for classes), I realized that the only upside to illness (and I rarely get sick, so had forgotten this) is that the one thing I still feel like doing when sick is – of course! – reading. Fortunately I had a newly acquired pile of novels and short story collections available, and so I dived in. Of course I sometimes dozed off while reading, and sometimes didn’t even have the energy to read at all. But I did read for many hours over the past week, finishing several books, (mostly) without the slight guilt I sometimes feel when I read for hours, feeling I “should” be doing something else – writing, other work commitments, housework, correspondence, exercise, errands, etc. I will post on those books in the next few days. I’m very glad to be feeling much better, but slightly sad to leave that other world, the world where (debilitating but temporary) illness takes over and normal work goes by the wayside, the world of long days of getting lost in wonderful fiction.