My reading outpaced my reviewing. These are short reviews of some of the books I read in the last 4 months or so.
MADAME BOVARY by GUSTAVE FLAUBERT (1856)
Third reading
Although Madame Bovary was written in the 19th Century, it seems remarkably modern because of Flaubert's psychological insights into the mind and character of his protagonist. Emma Bovary is a woman who has read too many romantic novels and so believes that she can somehow leave her middle class life with a mundane husband and find a life of luxury and romance with a dashing hero. As she betrays her husband and ruins him with her debts in an attempt to achieve her goals, she is repeatedly disappointed by the disparity between her dreams and real life.
Haven't we all known someone similar, someone never satisfied with life as it is, someone who wishes for the kind of life only present in fiction and in the imagination? Isn't it sometimes a struggle not to fall into the same mind trap?
It is perhaps surprising to modern readers that this novel caused such a sensation and so much criticism when it was written, but this was a new kind of novel at the time -- one that realistically portrayed life without the gloss of romanticism. Highly recommended.
A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD by JUSTIN EVANS (2007)
Second reading
What a creepy book this is. It's a psychological thriller, wherein the reader never knows if the events are actual or only in the narrator's mind. It could portray a case of demonic possession or it could portray a psychotic break resulting from grief and abandonment issues. The narrator, a new father, visits a psychiatrist because he finds himself reluctant to even touch his baby. Through a journal given to him by the doctor, he recounts a series of startling events from his childhood.
The author is particularly adept at the pacing of the narrative to provide maximum impact. This is a short book, easily and quickly read, and it will make you believe that demonic possession can occur.
GABRIELA, CLOVE AND CINNAMON by JORGE AMADO (1962)
Second reading
This most entertaining novel by the Brazilian author Jorge Amado tells the story of Nacib, the owner of a popular cafe, and of the free-spirited migrant girl he hires in desperation as a cook. She proves to be not only inspired in the kitchen but also an enticing beauty, once she is cleaned up. Needless to say, Nacib falls in love with her, but once they are married and he begins to expect her to behave like a traditional wife, their romance takes a bad turn.
The novel is richly comedic, very funny, in fact, so the reader knows that somehow everything will turn out for the good. The question becomes how. Recommended when you feel in need of a well-done romantic comedy.
FIVE QUARTERS OF AN ORANGE by JOANNE HARRIS (2001)
Second reading
This novel has two time lines -- World War II's Nazi occupation of France and modern-day France. The protagonist, Framboise, is a 9-year-old girl in the earlier time line, who comes under the sway of a Nazi soldier. Emotionally estranged from her harsh mother, she unwittingly brings about a tragedy which results in her family being cast out of their small village. When she returns to the village many years later, she bears a new name and is unrecognized (she thinks), opening a restaurant, using her mother's recipes. When the restaurant becomes well known throughout the country, she runs the risk of being recognized and of the shame of her past being revealed.
Five Quarters of an Orange provides both a picture of occupied France, with the conflicts of conscience which occurred, and a tale of redemption and forgiveness. It is very pleasantly written and emotionally affecting. It is not a novel to be long remembered, but it makes for interesting reading.
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by EDITH WHARTON (1905)
Third reading
I re-read this book not too many years ago, but I chose to read it again because I so enjoy Edith Wharton's elegant prose style and the mastery of her story telling. The House of Mirth is not a feel-good book at all. In fact it is a tragedy, in the classical sense. The heroine's downward spiral is of her own making. Her tragic flaw is her inability to bring herself to marry for money while being incapable of living without it. This is a tale of the highest society in late 1800s New York City, the society of which Wharton was a member, so the details are not imagined so much as they are remembered.
Wharton is a peerless novelist, and is thus able to make a story so foreign to the life experience of most readers fascinating. Perhaps all can relate to the obstacles social expectations and upbringing can place in our lives.
This is a must-read, as is Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence. Ethan Frome is also impressive, involving a different class of society.
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by ARTHUR GOLDEN (1997)
Second reading
This fictional memoir is fully believable as a true, first person account by a former geisha, covering the years just before, during, and just after World War I. The author is said to have based his novel on actual interviews he conducted with a retired geisha. However, she later sued him because he revealed her identity and was not accurate in his account of geisha life.
However true-to-life this book actually is, it makes for fascinating reading, not only offering a glimpse of a life-style unfamiliar to us of the Western Hemisphere, but also providing a darn-good story, complete with romance and suspense. It dispels the preconception that most Westerners might have that "geisha" is an Eastern term for "prostitute." A better synonym would be "entertainer" or "hostess," although one path to financial security for the geisha was to become the kept mistress of a wealthy patron. They were not otherwise available for sexual favors.
EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS by DAVID GUTERSON (1999)
Second reading
While being short on plot, this novel compensates by being beautifully written in its description of the landscape of Washington state. A retired doctor has been diagnosed with incurable colon cancer, and determines to stage his suicide to look like a shooting accident. He takes off with his two dogs on an ostensible hunting trip. However, several events conspire to upset his plans: he is involved in a car accident, one of his dogs is killed and the other injured by another hunter's wolfhounds, he rescues a gravely ill illegal migrant worker, he is called upon for an emergency baby delivery. Actually, that sounds like a lot of plot, but all the incidents are merely backdrops for the doctor's attempt to accept his coming death.
East of the Mountains is an exceptionally low-key book. It is the opposite of being a page-turner. The author also has the annoying habit of describing in detail the appearance and clothing of every single character, including even the random store clerks who make a two paragraph appearance. I would not recommend it, except that the descriptive writing is exceptional.
THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by ARUNDHATI ROY (1997)
Third reading
This 21-year-old novel is still as fresh and unique as the year it was published. What makes it especially memorable is the narrative voice, which for most of the novel is third person through the perspective of seven-year-old twins in the late 1960s in India. The author has mastered the magical ability to portray the world through their innocent eyes in an entirely believable way, making the doom which looms for them doubly tragic. This is not a happily-ever-after book. In my reading experience, novels by Indian authors never are. A deep streak of fatalism seems to inform their world view, so that they portray a country where tragedy and loss become inevitable.
The twins, Raahel and Esthappen, live with their beautiful mother, their blind grandmother, their Rhodes-scholar uncle, and their enemy, grandaunt Baby Kochamma. When their English cousin, the uncle's daughter, arrives for a visit, events are set in motion that will affect their lives forever.
The negative effects of India's caste system loom large here. In a sense, this is a Romeo and Juliet story, but one wherein the children suffer along with the illicit lovers. The God of Small Things won England's Booker Award. I recommend it most highly.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
PARADE'S END by FORD MADOX FORD (4 novels: Some Do Not..., No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up-, The Last Post) (1924-1928)
Second reading
This 4-part series, known collectively as Parade's End, is highly regarded among literary critics, especially those who are British. It is set in England and on the Western Front, before, during, and immediately after World War I. It is told through the interior monologues of its various characters, particularly through the consciousness of Christopher Tietjens, a member of England's upper class.
As the first novel begins, Christopher's wife Sylvia has decided to return to him after having run away with another man. He does not believe that a real gentleman should divorce a wife and bring public scandal upon the family, so he takes her back, although not resuming sexual relations. While she has been gone, however, he has met a young lady from a well-born but impoverished family to whom he is powerfully attracted. As war looms, Sylvia spitefully tries to harm her husband's reputation, because, we are led to believe, she actually loves him and just wants to get his attention or some sort of reaction. The title of the novel, Some Do Not..., gives the reader the clue that Christopher and the girl he loves will refrain from acting on their feelings.
The subsequent novels take place during and immediately after the war. Sylvia continues to torment Christopher, even while he is stationed in France. His stint in the trenches later on is reported only through his thoughts, so it is not a very specific account of events. The last novel takes place after the war, and strangely enough, does not include his thoughts but those of others about him.
This is a very, very English story, with the "hero" being so "stiff-upper-lip" as to seem almost emotionless. Christopher tries to cling to the code of the ideal gentleman, but gradually finds that the old ways are no longer practicable. At one point he muses, "Gentlemen don't earn money. They exist." By the end of the series, however, he makes a living by selling antique furniture to rich Americans. The "parade" has ended. The old England has disappeared.
Perhaps the upper-class English do behave in the way these characters do, or perhaps they did back in the 1920s, but I have never known anyone who acted even remotely as these act. The major characters, in their stream-of-consciousness monologues, all seem deranged. Although the scholarly introduction to my edition assures me that Ford was highly influential and celebrated for his introduction of modernism, I found this novel series to be unrealistic (to my experience, at least) and even boring. I would not have devoted myself to these 900 pages if I had anything better to do.
This 4-part series, known collectively as Parade's End, is highly regarded among literary critics, especially those who are British. It is set in England and on the Western Front, before, during, and immediately after World War I. It is told through the interior monologues of its various characters, particularly through the consciousness of Christopher Tietjens, a member of England's upper class.
As the first novel begins, Christopher's wife Sylvia has decided to return to him after having run away with another man. He does not believe that a real gentleman should divorce a wife and bring public scandal upon the family, so he takes her back, although not resuming sexual relations. While she has been gone, however, he has met a young lady from a well-born but impoverished family to whom he is powerfully attracted. As war looms, Sylvia spitefully tries to harm her husband's reputation, because, we are led to believe, she actually loves him and just wants to get his attention or some sort of reaction. The title of the novel, Some Do Not..., gives the reader the clue that Christopher and the girl he loves will refrain from acting on their feelings.
The subsequent novels take place during and immediately after the war. Sylvia continues to torment Christopher, even while he is stationed in France. His stint in the trenches later on is reported only through his thoughts, so it is not a very specific account of events. The last novel takes place after the war, and strangely enough, does not include his thoughts but those of others about him.
This is a very, very English story, with the "hero" being so "stiff-upper-lip" as to seem almost emotionless. Christopher tries to cling to the code of the ideal gentleman, but gradually finds that the old ways are no longer practicable. At one point he muses, "Gentlemen don't earn money. They exist." By the end of the series, however, he makes a living by selling antique furniture to rich Americans. The "parade" has ended. The old England has disappeared.
Perhaps the upper-class English do behave in the way these characters do, or perhaps they did back in the 1920s, but I have never known anyone who acted even remotely as these act. The major characters, in their stream-of-consciousness monologues, all seem deranged. Although the scholarly introduction to my edition assures me that Ford was highly influential and celebrated for his introduction of modernism, I found this novel series to be unrealistic (to my experience, at least) and even boring. I would not have devoted myself to these 900 pages if I had anything better to do.
Friday, March 8, 2019
ASYMMETRY by LISA HALLIDAY (2018)
When I finished this book, I slammed it down and said, "What the hell?" It seemed to me to be senseless, pointless, meaningless. It is by far my least favorite of the nine 2018 books I have read, taking the advice of "Best of...." lists and already-given awards. If you think you might want to read this novel, don't read the rest of the review, as it contains major spoilers. Just know that you would be reading it against my advice.
The novel is divided into three sections. The first, taking up 123 pages, or almost half the book, chronicles the romance between Mary Alice, a young woman in her early 20s, and a much-older award-winning author. Much of it is dialogue, tending to show that the young woman is allowing herself to be subservient to her older lover, following his directions as to when to come and when to go, reading the books he recommends, fetching and carrying for him, sitting by his bedside when he is ill, and so forth. It ends abruptly, seemingly in mid-story.
The second section is the story of the American-raised Amar who is on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan. Detained in the Heathrow airport, he remembers past visits to his birth country and reflects on the different paths he and his brother have followed. A goodly bit of this section is also dialogue, primarily between Amar and customs agents.
So how do these two low-key and borderline-boring sections relate to each other? I trusted that the final section would provide an epiphany. Section three is couched as a transcript of the BBC Radio show "Desert Island Disks," wherein a famous person (the author from the first section) talks about the music he would bring with him if stranded on a desert island. He indicates through hints that the story of Amar is a novel written by a lover who left him (obviously Mary Alice). At the end of the interview, the author endeavors to entice the married female interviewer to go out with him. He is obviously a narcissistic jerk.
But why should a reader even care about any part of this disconnected mess? Why was it named one of the best novels of 2018 by numerous sites, including the New York Times? What did I miss? I resorted to researching various reviews and articles on the internet, and learned that the author, in her younger days, had been the lover of author Philip Roth (who is now deceased). Roth, one of the most honored authors of his generation, is well known for basing his novels on autobiographical material, so the first section of Lisa Halliday's novel is universally presumed to be an autobiographical account of her love affair with Roth, especially since Roth's divorced second wife had previously written a memoir which portrayed Roth in an unflattering light.
The second section of Halliday's novel is apparently her reaction to her lover's advice to write what she knows and has experienced, as he did. I can't figure out if the lackluster quality of that section means that Halliday realizes that she does better when she follows her controlling lover's advice, or if she thinks she is proving that she can disregard his advice.
The third section serves to let reader's into the secret connection of the first two sections.
I still wonder why I should be impressed by this book. I guess it's a bit clever. I could see Halliday was aiming to be clever after reading only the first five or six pages. I'm wondering if critics praised it because they were all a bit jealous of Roth and, of course, human nature dictates that we all are secretly a little pleased to hear that a lauded person is in reality a son of a bitch.
The novel is divided into three sections. The first, taking up 123 pages, or almost half the book, chronicles the romance between Mary Alice, a young woman in her early 20s, and a much-older award-winning author. Much of it is dialogue, tending to show that the young woman is allowing herself to be subservient to her older lover, following his directions as to when to come and when to go, reading the books he recommends, fetching and carrying for him, sitting by his bedside when he is ill, and so forth. It ends abruptly, seemingly in mid-story.
The second section is the story of the American-raised Amar who is on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan. Detained in the Heathrow airport, he remembers past visits to his birth country and reflects on the different paths he and his brother have followed. A goodly bit of this section is also dialogue, primarily between Amar and customs agents.
So how do these two low-key and borderline-boring sections relate to each other? I trusted that the final section would provide an epiphany. Section three is couched as a transcript of the BBC Radio show "Desert Island Disks," wherein a famous person (the author from the first section) talks about the music he would bring with him if stranded on a desert island. He indicates through hints that the story of Amar is a novel written by a lover who left him (obviously Mary Alice). At the end of the interview, the author endeavors to entice the married female interviewer to go out with him. He is obviously a narcissistic jerk.
But why should a reader even care about any part of this disconnected mess? Why was it named one of the best novels of 2018 by numerous sites, including the New York Times? What did I miss? I resorted to researching various reviews and articles on the internet, and learned that the author, in her younger days, had been the lover of author Philip Roth (who is now deceased). Roth, one of the most honored authors of his generation, is well known for basing his novels on autobiographical material, so the first section of Lisa Halliday's novel is universally presumed to be an autobiographical account of her love affair with Roth, especially since Roth's divorced second wife had previously written a memoir which portrayed Roth in an unflattering light.
The second section of Halliday's novel is apparently her reaction to her lover's advice to write what she knows and has experienced, as he did. I can't figure out if the lackluster quality of that section means that Halliday realizes that she does better when she follows her controlling lover's advice, or if she thinks she is proving that she can disregard his advice.
The third section serves to let reader's into the secret connection of the first two sections.
I still wonder why I should be impressed by this book. I guess it's a bit clever. I could see Halliday was aiming to be clever after reading only the first five or six pages. I'm wondering if critics praised it because they were all a bit jealous of Roth and, of course, human nature dictates that we all are secretly a little pleased to hear that a lauded person is in reality a son of a bitch.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS by LUIS ALBERTO URREA (2018)
Out of all the books published in 2018 that I have read, this is my favorite. It is not the one most well written, or the one most topical, but it is the most enjoyable to read and the one that left me with the most hope for the future of mankind. This is a love story -- the love and support provided by an extended family. The fact that it also highlights some of the problems of today's Mexican-Americans, legal and illegal, is secondary.
The plot set-up would seem to presage that The House of Broken Angels would be a sad story -- a large Mexican-American family gathers for the funeral of the grandmother of the clan, followed immediately by the birthday celebration of the oldest surviving member, who is himself dying of cancer. The descendants and relatives of the ailing patriarch, Miguel Angel de la Cruz (affectionately called Big Angel) include those who came to the U.S. as immigrants and became citizens, those who crept across the border and stayed, those who were brought here as children and are still here illegally, and those who are birth citizens. Some never knew they were not citizens until they were almost adults. Some speak only Spanish, some speak only English, but most speak both. Some are dark of complexion and some are light. Big Angel's half-brother, known to the family as Little Angel, is one of the light-skinned ones, having had an Anglo mother.
Over the course of the weekend's events, Urrea tells their stories, particularly those of the two Angels. This is a novel which brings forth both tears and laughter. It is eminently satisfying on an emotional level, and the ending is perfect.
I wrote in the first paragraph that this was not the most topical novel of 2018 that I had read, but perhaps it is, in the best way. It does not attempt to gain the reader's sympathy for the plight of Mexican-Americans in today's divisive society nor does it accentuate their difficulties in dealing with bigotry and racism. Instead, it celebrates family and love and (this sounds corny) the circle of life. Despite what some would like us to believe, these people are not rapists, or murderers, or sex traffickers, or M-13 members. This is a typical Mexican-American family, patterned after the author's own family.
This novel is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was on many Best of 2018 lists. I love it. Highly recommended.
The plot set-up would seem to presage that The House of Broken Angels would be a sad story -- a large Mexican-American family gathers for the funeral of the grandmother of the clan, followed immediately by the birthday celebration of the oldest surviving member, who is himself dying of cancer. The descendants and relatives of the ailing patriarch, Miguel Angel de la Cruz (affectionately called Big Angel) include those who came to the U.S. as immigrants and became citizens, those who crept across the border and stayed, those who were brought here as children and are still here illegally, and those who are birth citizens. Some never knew they were not citizens until they were almost adults. Some speak only Spanish, some speak only English, but most speak both. Some are dark of complexion and some are light. Big Angel's half-brother, known to the family as Little Angel, is one of the light-skinned ones, having had an Anglo mother.
Over the course of the weekend's events, Urrea tells their stories, particularly those of the two Angels. This is a novel which brings forth both tears and laughter. It is eminently satisfying on an emotional level, and the ending is perfect.
I wrote in the first paragraph that this was not the most topical novel of 2018 that I had read, but perhaps it is, in the best way. It does not attempt to gain the reader's sympathy for the plight of Mexican-Americans in today's divisive society nor does it accentuate their difficulties in dealing with bigotry and racism. Instead, it celebrates family and love and (this sounds corny) the circle of life. Despite what some would like us to believe, these people are not rapists, or murderers, or sex traffickers, or M-13 members. This is a typical Mexican-American family, patterned after the author's own family.
This novel is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was on many Best of 2018 lists. I love it. Highly recommended.
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