"Vinegar Girl," by Anne Tyler

It seems that there are more and more books that are fictional retellings of famous literary works from the past. I have written here about the fact that many of Jane Austen’s novels, for example, have been retold in modern settings. I have just read a very new such retelling, in this case of Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew’: this version is called “Vinegar Girl” (Hogarth, 2016), and is authored by the inestimable Anne Tyler. Apparently it is part of a planned larger project by Hogarth. Kate Battista, an American woman of thirty, is unmarried, and has a job as a preschool assistant teacher that she doesn’t particularly like. She lives with her father and her much younger sister, taking care of them and the house; her mother has died many years ago. She feels a bit at sea in her own life. The main plot point is that her father, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, wants her to marry his research assistant so he can extend his visa to stay in the United States. Kate is of course resistant, and angry at her father. She, like the original Kate, doesn’t care about pleasing everyone, thus the “vinegar” in the title. I won’t give away the rest of the story, although you may be able to guess it. The story is told with Tyler’s familiar verve and warmth. It will be of interest to see which other Shakespeare plays will be retold by writers of today; stay tuned!

"They May Not Mean To, But They Do," by Cathleen Schine

The title “They May Not Mean To, But They Do” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016) is a reference to Philip Larkin’s famous poem: “They f--- you up, your mum and dad./ They may not mean to, but they do.” The irony in this novel by Cathleen Schine is that the parents and children mess (to use a more polite term than Larkin did) each other up, yet always with love. Impatience and exasperation, yes; resentment, sometimes; misunderstandings, definitely. But always love. Schine is the author of several other novels, including two that I have written about here: “The Three Weissmanns of Westport” (see my post of 4/11/10) and “Fin and Lady” (7/28/13). Schine has a distinctive, observant, wry, humorous, occasionally sharp voice, and she understands the nuances of relationships among family members. In this case, the parents are elderly; Aaron Bergman is suffering from increasing dementia as well as various unpleasant physical ailments, and his wife Joy is exhausted from taking care of him at their apartment in New York. Their daughter Molly has moved to California with her female lover, Freddie, and worries about her parents from afar, calling and visiting frequently; their son Daniel lives in New York too, and he is attentive, but he has a job and a family that limit the time and help he can give his parents. The situation is painful and poignant in its specificity, but also in its obvious relevance to an increasing number of people these days. Everyone is of good will, but there is no way that this situation is not very hard. Yet somehow the novel is not (very) depressing, probably because of the aforementioned love the family members have for each other, and because of the affirmation of the pleasures of life even in the midst of this serious situation. Schine is adept at showing all sides of this situation, and at the same time at not making this a one-issue novel.

Recent Developments in the Bookstore Arena

Readers know that I am a great supporter of independent bookstores, was sad and worried when many of them went out of business, and was encouraged when their numbers recently went back up a bit. Two recent related articles are of interest. The first, by Alex Shephard for The New Republic, says that the huge chain Barnes and Noble is in financial trouble and may close some or all of its stores. Shephard writes that although some of us independent bookstores supporters may be tempted to rejoice, we should not do so; B and N’s closing, if it happens, will hurt the publishing business. The chain can order large numbers of books, which contributes to the publishers’ being able to publicize the books more widely, support author book tours, etc., all good for the book business. Books in certain robust genres with hard-core fans, such as romance and science fiction, would be less affected by a closing than would “literary” fiction. A second related article, on The Literary Hub (a site which, by the way, I recommend), points out another (more positive) trend: some indie publishers are now starting indie bookstores. Several examples were given, including Melville House Publishing’s opening a bookstore in Brooklyn in 2008. The other examples were more recent, or were still in the planning stages. This is certainly an encouraging trend.

"A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories," by Elizabeth Harrower

I am embarrassed to say that I excitedly felt I had “discovered” the Australian writer Elizabeth Harrower when I picked up her novel “In Certain Circles” and was so very taken by it. (See my post of 1/24/15). My only excuse is that Harrower is in her late eighties; her books were out of print for a long time even in her native Australia, until a press republished them starting in 2012; in the case of “In Certain Circles,” Harrower wrote it and just as it was about to be published, withheld it from publication for almost fifty years, before she finally agreed to publish it, to great acclaim, in 2014; and her books were mostly not available or at all well known in the United States until the past couple of years. I am so glad she is being rediscovered. I have now just read the recently published collection of Harrower’s short stories, “A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories” (Text Publishing, 2015), and am grateful for this gift of her stories. Although I prefer the novel to the short stories, and although the collection is a bit uneven, as such collections often are, there is much to rejoice about and to enjoy in this volume. The stories’ main quality is their unflinching looks at characters’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and at the way the characters interact with family members, friends, lovers, co-workers, and in fact with life itself. Most of the characters are women, and most of them are unhappy, although there are moments of hope. Several of the stories portray the ways that people who love each other can deeply hurt each other, sometimes without even realizing it, because of their own limitations. We also see how constrained the lives of young people, especially young women, can be. Occasionally we get a sense of the desperation of people who live in certain dreary small towns of Australia (but they could be small towns anywhere). There is a grimness to some of the lives depicted. But despite all these darker aspects of the stories, there are almost always glimpses of, and eruptions of, a powerful life force.

"Genius," a Film about Editing (and Much More)

The minute I heard about the new film “Genius,” I was determined to see it, and soon after, I did. This movie depicts the relationship of the novelist Thomas Wolfe (played by Jude Law) and his Scribner’s editor, Maxwell Perkins (played by Colin Firth). To those of us readers who think of the creation of a literary work as an almost holy process, any insights into this process are a great gift. As is fairly well known, Wolfe was a wildly creative and seemingly undisciplined writer with an outsized personality who brought in enormous manuscripts, was very attached to his own words, and kept adding to them up to the last minute. His manuscript for “Look Homeward, Angel” had been rejected by over forty publishers when Perkins accepted it for Scribner’s. Then the two men embarked on a long, difficult process of editing it, cutting it down to a reasonable length. Much of the film shows the two in Perkins’ office, or walking, or on the train, or in various other locales, constantly talking and arguing about each phrase, each sentence, each description. Perkins was mostly endlessly patient with this brilliant but uncontainable author, and they became friends; some suggested they had an almost father-son relationship. The big question, of course, and Perkins himself brought this up at one point, is what the job of an editor is, and whether his (at that point, in the 1930s, it was always a “he”) editing made the work much better, or molded it in a way that diluted the original strength, vision, and style of the author. We also see Perkins’ family (his wife is played by Laura Linney), and Wolfe’s lover and inspiration Aline Bernstein (played by Nicole Kidman). Aline left her family for a passionate and deep relationship with Wolfe; ultimately, though, Wolfe’s allegiance was always first and foremost to his writing, and he left people behind along the way. Perkins also edited F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and there are a few scenes with those writers as well, showing the competitiveness and jockeying for reputation (and for Perkins’ favor) that took place among the three writers. The movie has received somewhat mixed reviews, as has the acting. Jude Law is accused of overacting, and Colin Firth of being too restrained. There are also complaints about British and Australian actors playing American literary figures. And some say it is just too hard to make s story about editing dramatic and interesting; it has been called "slow." To all of which I say (forgive my informality), “Whatever!” I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, the acting, the literary history, and the glimpses into the writing and editing and publishing processes, and I think you will too.

"Noonday," by Pat Barker

British author Pat Barker is perhaps best known for her “Regeneration trilogy,” three connected novels about England during World War I. She has now completed another trilogy of connected novels, this time about England during World War II. I have not yet read the “Regeneration trilogy,” although I plan to, but I have now completed these most recent novels, “Life Class,” “Toby’s Room” (about which I posted on 11/15/12), and “Noonday” (Doubleday, 2015), all of which are very powerful, and beautifully written. When I say these six novels in the two trilogies (and Barker has written others as well) are “about” the wars, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that they take place during the wars. They do include battle scenes, but even more, they depict the English, especially Londoners, who were affected by the wars in many different ways. They fought, they returned from battlefronts, often wounded; some didn’t return; they waited for their loved ones; they experienced the bombings and the deaths and injuries and the deprivations; they worked as wardens and rescue workers and ambulance drivers; they struggled with the emotions of wartime and massive loss. “Noonday,” which I just finished reading, takes up the same characters as the earlier two novels in this trilogy: a group of art students in the earliest novel, and now in the third one, middle-aged adults, still artists, who either have fought and been damaged physically and mentally, and/or are trying to keep their lives going in London and the countryside, despite repeated bombings, losses of their homes, being witness to terrible destruction of life and property, and always worrying about their relatives and friends and their city and country. Remarkably, they still work on their art when they can; art, along with love and friendship, is what keeps them going. Sometimes this desperate situation leads various characters to behave bravely, and sometimes to behave badly (the latter in their personal lives), but there is some question about whether the “normal” (non-wartime) rules about, for example, marital fidelity, apply in the midst of such destruction. It is fascinating to see how these characters –- mainly Elinor, Paul, and Kit, who have been art school classmates and friends and lovers at various times -- grow and change, and how their relationships also evolve through the 25-plus years they have known each other. These novels bring us up close to the horrors of war, yet show that daily life and relationships go on too. I can only describe this trilogy, and this novel, clumsily, as I have been fortunate never to experience anything like this. But I do want to say how exquisitely masterful Barker’s depictions, and her writing are; I highly recommend this trilogy. And now I plan to go back and read the earlier trilogy as well.

"We Should All Be Feminists," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Readers of this blog, and everyone who knows me, knows that feminism is an important part of who I am, and of my beliefs. So of course I was happy to find that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of the wonderful novel “Americanah” (about which I posted here on 5/24/14) and other fiction, has a slim book called “We Should All Be Feminists” (Anchor Books, 2015). The book is really more like a booklet, is based on a TEDx talk the author gave, can be read in less than an hour, and is well worth your time. For longtime feminists, there may not be a lot that is “new” per se, but the ideas can't be emphasized too often. And Adichie’s perspective, stories, and powerful yet humorous presentation all make her a compelling advocate for women’s rights and equity. She is Nigerian, and lives both in Nigeria and in the United States; this talk focuses on the African context, but also the larger world context. Ms. Magazine had a famous saying that all feminists have their “click” moments of recognition about inequality; Adichie tells of her moment when she was a young schoolgirl, was promised that whoever got the highest score on a test would become class monitor, but when she did get the highest score, was told that the promise only applied to boys. The boy with the second highest score was given the position Adichie had longed for and worked hard for. Adichie writes about how girls and women are not supposed to be angry, how they are taught to want to be liked, and how they are taught to focus on getting married. She writes about progressive men who say, “I don’t even think about gender,” and points out that this is because they have, and don't even realize they have, the privilege of not needing to think about it. I very much like this small book, and in fact I gave copies to several of my nieces last Christmas.