Just today, E.L. Doctorow was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. I am thinking, however, that Andrew's Brain was not a big factor in his winning the award. Although the narration is sometimes third person and sometimes first, the book is apparently presented as a conversation between Andrew, a middle-aged brain scientist and his therapist, who may or may not be a government psychiatrist at a facility to which Andrew may or may not have been committed (I know there's a lot of uncertainty in this sentence, but that's how it was for me).
Andrew's life has provided plenty of material for him to relate to a therapist: he accidentally killed his first child by feeding the baby the wrong prescription (the pharmacist's mistake), his career has never really taken off, his second wife was killed in the 9/11 attacks, he has given his second child to his first wife to raise because he feels unable to care for her after her mother's death, etc. At the same time, his story has almost slapstick elements: His second wife's parents were little people, which the author plays for laughs, albeit briefly. A longer section near the end of the book is devoted to the fact that George W. Bush was his college roommate; when the two meet by chance, Bush offers him a White House job that allows Doctorow to poke fun at Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney.
For me, the book just did not add up to anything, and the attempts at humor were tired and out of place. To make matters worse, I listened to the audio version, which was read by the author himself in what my son described as a "mopey" voice. Not recommended.
Favorite passage:
How can I think about my brain when it's my brain doing the thinking? So is this brain pretending to be me thinking about it?
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Lucky Us, by Amy Bloom
The luck of the central character of Amy Bloom's latest novel, set in the 1940s, is mostly bad--though the serial abandonments she experiences at the hands of her loved ones probably don't truly qualify as luck. Eva is the illegitimate daughter of a married man, whose wife has recently died. Her mother decides to drive to his place to "see what might be in it for us." Determining there is nothing in it for her, the mother drives off, leaving Eva with father Edgar and half-sister Iris.
This is the start of a series of unlikely adventures in which teenage Eva generally plays a supporting role: She and Iris head for Hollywood so Iris can become a star; after a promising start, Iris's career is sabotaged by Hedda Hopper and another young actress with whom she had a romantic fling. Edgar, Iris, and Eva decide to move on to New York, along with Iris's make-up artist Francisco, where Edgar (formerly a college professor) and Iris pass themselves off as a butler and governess for a wealthy Italian family. Iris falls in love with the cook, Reenie. She reports Reenie's German-American husband Gus as a spy (he is not, but we learn of his travails, first in an internment camp and then in Germany, where he was "repatriated") and kidnaps an orphan to satisfy Reenie's baby-hunger. When Reenie is killed and Iris is injured in a fire, Iris leaves for specialized treatment in London . . . and doesn't come back. Once again, Eva is left behind, this time with a young boy to raise. Soon, Eva is also caring for her terminally ill father, who it turns out was not who he claimed to be. And on and on. There is some good luck in the people Eva meets along the way, but most of these relationships come and go. This makes the ending somewhat discordant for me, as it is extremely upbeat, with a lovely description of a photograph of the family that Eva has cobbled together.
To be honest, I don't quite know what to make of Lucky Us. It is, to some extent, a story of rising above one's circumstances, of persevering--yet the redemption comes so late that it felt inauthentic to me. I enjoyed Gus's story, but it seemed somewhat peripheral for much of the book. I love that the chapter titles are all the titles of songs of the era and the character of Clara, an African American jazz singer (who happens to have vitiligo) who becomes romantically involved with Edgar, is interesting and endearing--but she not only arrives late but leaves early. I guess I'll have to go with a "thumbs sideways" assessment.
Favorite passage:
He wanted to lick off her makeup, to kiss the perfect, bare Clara underneath. Clara thought that it would be good if he did; it would be cool water on her blistered heart if he did.
This is the start of a series of unlikely adventures in which teenage Eva generally plays a supporting role: She and Iris head for Hollywood so Iris can become a star; after a promising start, Iris's career is sabotaged by Hedda Hopper and another young actress with whom she had a romantic fling. Edgar, Iris, and Eva decide to move on to New York, along with Iris's make-up artist Francisco, where Edgar (formerly a college professor) and Iris pass themselves off as a butler and governess for a wealthy Italian family. Iris falls in love with the cook, Reenie. She reports Reenie's German-American husband Gus as a spy (he is not, but we learn of his travails, first in an internment camp and then in Germany, where he was "repatriated") and kidnaps an orphan to satisfy Reenie's baby-hunger. When Reenie is killed and Iris is injured in a fire, Iris leaves for specialized treatment in London . . . and doesn't come back. Once again, Eva is left behind, this time with a young boy to raise. Soon, Eva is also caring for her terminally ill father, who it turns out was not who he claimed to be. And on and on. There is some good luck in the people Eva meets along the way, but most of these relationships come and go. This makes the ending somewhat discordant for me, as it is extremely upbeat, with a lovely description of a photograph of the family that Eva has cobbled together.
To be honest, I don't quite know what to make of Lucky Us. It is, to some extent, a story of rising above one's circumstances, of persevering--yet the redemption comes so late that it felt inauthentic to me. I enjoyed Gus's story, but it seemed somewhat peripheral for much of the book. I love that the chapter titles are all the titles of songs of the era and the character of Clara, an African American jazz singer (who happens to have vitiligo) who becomes romantically involved with Edgar, is interesting and endearing--but she not only arrives late but leaves early. I guess I'll have to go with a "thumbs sideways" assessment.
Favorite passage:
He wanted to lick off her makeup, to kiss the perfect, bare Clara underneath. Clara thought that it would be good if he did; it would be cool water on her blistered heart if he did.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Fictitious Dishes, by Dinah Fried
Fictitious Dishes is an interesting little book that grew out of a design class project and became something of an obsession for the author. Always interested in the role food plays in novels, Fried has selected passages from literature describing meals and recreated those meals and the "place settings" in which they might have been served; thus, the food eaten by characters in Robinson Crusoe is pictured sitting in the sand. On each set of facing pages, the verso page presents the literary passage and a few pieces of trivia about the author of the passage, the food described, or another somewhat related topic. On the recto page is the photo of the author's recreation of the meal.
For me, the most beautiful of the photos depict outdoor settings--strawberries picked by Emma and her friends, potatoes and eggs in The Secret Garden, and a bucket of the title fruit in Blueberries for Sal. Some of the other photos are quite evocative--Moby-Dick and Lolita are two examples that spoke to me. The photo accompanying Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice is marvelously unexpected. Although American Psycho was written in 1991, that photo beautifully depicts the artiness of modern cuisine. I found other photos rather bland--for example, while it may have been authentic, the picture of Proust's madeleines lacked visual interest, conveying none of the "precious essence" he found in their taste.
Fictitious Dishes is pretty much a gimmick--but I found looking through it fun.
For me, the most beautiful of the photos depict outdoor settings--strawberries picked by Emma and her friends, potatoes and eggs in The Secret Garden, and a bucket of the title fruit in Blueberries for Sal. Some of the other photos are quite evocative--Moby-Dick and Lolita are two examples that spoke to me. The photo accompanying Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice is marvelously unexpected. Although American Psycho was written in 1991, that photo beautifully depicts the artiness of modern cuisine. I found other photos rather bland--for example, while it may have been authentic, the picture of Proust's madeleines lacked visual interest, conveying none of the "precious essence" he found in their taste.
Fictitious Dishes is pretty much a gimmick--but I found looking through it fun.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Remembering Laughter, by Wallace Stegner
This novella was Stegner's first published long-form fiction, written for a contest that won him $2500, a huge sum at the time (1937). While not as complex as his later, longer work, Remembering Laughter nonetheless has many of the features that were to become hallmarks of Stegner's writing: a strong sense of place; themes related to betrayal, forgiveness, and emotional repression; and the beautiful use of language.
Remembering Laughter begins at Eric Stuart's funeral and then flashes back to critical events that happened some 17 years ago. Eric and his wife Margaret are at the train station near their Iowa farm, waiting for the arrival of Margaret's sister Elspeth, who has immigrated from Scotland. We know immediately that Margaret is a little too restrained and Eric, who has a fondness for drink and wild stories, perhaps a bit too far toward the opposite pole. Nonetheless, the sisters are delighted to be reunited, and Elspeth quickly falls in love with the farm and its workings and, all too soon, with Eric, who finds her a welcome change from his uptight wife. The results of their affair are cruel for all three characters.
In its brevity and focus, Remembering Laughter reminds me of a Greek tragedy. The emotional death of the characters is stark, particularly in contrast with the lovely language in which their story is told. Highly recommended.
Favorite passage:
Almost any sentence could be a favorite. Here are just two examples:
The perfect weather of Indian Summer lengthened and lingered, warm sunny days were followed by brisk nights with Halloween a presentiment in the air.
. . . as she sat quietly finishing her breakfast, she looked across the table into the comfortless future, and the sternness of her unforgiving was bleak in her eyes.
Remembering Laughter begins at Eric Stuart's funeral and then flashes back to critical events that happened some 17 years ago. Eric and his wife Margaret are at the train station near their Iowa farm, waiting for the arrival of Margaret's sister Elspeth, who has immigrated from Scotland. We know immediately that Margaret is a little too restrained and Eric, who has a fondness for drink and wild stories, perhaps a bit too far toward the opposite pole. Nonetheless, the sisters are delighted to be reunited, and Elspeth quickly falls in love with the farm and its workings and, all too soon, with Eric, who finds her a welcome change from his uptight wife. The results of their affair are cruel for all three characters.
In its brevity and focus, Remembering Laughter reminds me of a Greek tragedy. The emotional death of the characters is stark, particularly in contrast with the lovely language in which their story is told. Highly recommended.
Favorite passage:
Almost any sentence could be a favorite. Here are just two examples:
The perfect weather of Indian Summer lengthened and lingered, warm sunny days were followed by brisk nights with Halloween a presentiment in the air.
. . . as she sat quietly finishing her breakfast, she looked across the table into the comfortless future, and the sternness of her unforgiving was bleak in her eyes.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn
Novel Conversations is reading Gone Girl this month, which I have already read. Since I didn't think I could stomach a re-reading, I decided to try another Gillian Flynn novel, Dark Places. Libby Day is in her early 30s. She has lived her entire adult life on donations sent to her after the grisly murder of her two sisters and her mother Patty and her teenage brother Ben was convicted of the crimes. For most of the nearly 25 years since, she has tried not to think about the crimes or her imprisoned brother or how she might create an actual life for herself. Then her lawyer tells her there is less than $1000 left in her trust and she needs to find a job.
Libby, however, doesn't see herself as the type of person who can be relied on to show up for work every day. So she becomes involved with a group of misfits, Kill Club, whose hobby is investigating old crimes. Some of the members are particularly interested in the Day case because they believe Ben was wrongly convicted and that little Libby's testimony (she was 7 at the time) was fabricated. Members of the club, led by the sad-sack Lyle, offer to pay her to talk to people who might know something about the case, in hopes of determining what really happened on that terrible night in 1985. They believe people will be more likely to talk to Libby than to them, and she agrees to do it for the money. Libby sets off on her investigations, talking to her brother for the first time in 24 years and finally looking through some of her family's belongings, boxed for more than two decades (in part, she looks through the items with the intent of selling some of them to Kill Club members). She looks up her ne'er-do-well father and contacts such other people as a younger girl Ben was accused of molesting.
Flynn intercuts accounts of Libby's activities in the present with Ben and Patty's narrations of events on the day of the murders. Both Ben and Patty are spiraling downward--Ben because he has, in his desperation not to be the weird poor kid too small for sports, made several bad decisions about who to hang out with and Patty because her financial situation is reaching desperate straits and rumors about Ben's behavior (involving both child molestation and devil worship) are circulating around their small Kansas town as fast as a plains tornado. Meanwhile, back in the "now," Libby is finding that she wants to know what happened for her own sake, not for the morbid curiosity of the Kill Club. While I was convinced at one point that the book was going to end without unearthing the truth, that did not happen.
Dark Places is definitely dark; the rapidity with which things can go wrong is stunningly depicted, as is the effect that becoming pro-active can pull a person back from the brink. While Libby starts as an obnoxious character, she grows more sympathetic as she struggles to make sense of what happened to her family. For me, this is a key difference with Gone Girl, in which the reader becomes more and more convinced that the characters are unredeemable; here, Libby redeems herself, making Dark Places a more palatable, though still disturbing, read.
Favorite passages:
Coffee goes great with sudden death.
That's what they were: a home past its expiration date.
Libby, however, doesn't see herself as the type of person who can be relied on to show up for work every day. So she becomes involved with a group of misfits, Kill Club, whose hobby is investigating old crimes. Some of the members are particularly interested in the Day case because they believe Ben was wrongly convicted and that little Libby's testimony (she was 7 at the time) was fabricated. Members of the club, led by the sad-sack Lyle, offer to pay her to talk to people who might know something about the case, in hopes of determining what really happened on that terrible night in 1985. They believe people will be more likely to talk to Libby than to them, and she agrees to do it for the money. Libby sets off on her investigations, talking to her brother for the first time in 24 years and finally looking through some of her family's belongings, boxed for more than two decades (in part, she looks through the items with the intent of selling some of them to Kill Club members). She looks up her ne'er-do-well father and contacts such other people as a younger girl Ben was accused of molesting.
Flynn intercuts accounts of Libby's activities in the present with Ben and Patty's narrations of events on the day of the murders. Both Ben and Patty are spiraling downward--Ben because he has, in his desperation not to be the weird poor kid too small for sports, made several bad decisions about who to hang out with and Patty because her financial situation is reaching desperate straits and rumors about Ben's behavior (involving both child molestation and devil worship) are circulating around their small Kansas town as fast as a plains tornado. Meanwhile, back in the "now," Libby is finding that she wants to know what happened for her own sake, not for the morbid curiosity of the Kill Club. While I was convinced at one point that the book was going to end without unearthing the truth, that did not happen.
Dark Places is definitely dark; the rapidity with which things can go wrong is stunningly depicted, as is the effect that becoming pro-active can pull a person back from the brink. While Libby starts as an obnoxious character, she grows more sympathetic as she struggles to make sense of what happened to her family. For me, this is a key difference with Gone Girl, in which the reader becomes more and more convinced that the characters are unredeemable; here, Libby redeems herself, making Dark Places a more palatable, though still disturbing, read.
Favorite passages:
Coffee goes great with sudden death.
That's what they were: a home past its expiration date.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng
From the first sentence--"Lydia is dead"--you know Everything I Never Told You is going to be sad, and it is so very sad. Lydia is the 15-year-old middle child of James and Marilyn Lee, their acknowledged favorite. One morning, Lydia isn't in her bed; when she is eventually found dead in a nearby lake, the family falls apart. But chapters about the past, intermingled with those focused on the weeks after the tragedy, reveal that the family was falling apart for years.
Lydia was a focal point for the family's unhappiness. She got more attention than brother Nath and little sister Hannah but also was subjected to greater pressure. James, a Chinese American history professor who never felt like he fit, wanted Lydia to be popular. He gave her dresses he bought off mannequins in store windows because he assumed they were "in"; he pressured her to call her friends (she often pretended to be talking on the phone but there was no one on the line); he gave her How to Win Friends and Influence People as a Christmas gift. Marilyn, his Anglo wife gave up her dream of being a doctor--still an unusual goal for a girl in the late 1950s--to marry James. She wanted Lydia to be a scientist, and she pressured her daughter to do well in school and gave her scientific tomes and biographies of female scientists for Christmas.
Lydia was miserable--she was failing physics, she had only one friend, and she was so desperately unhappy about her brother's impending departure for college that she hid his acceptance letter from Harvard. Both before and after Lydia's death, Nath could not wait to escape his family and the small Ohio town where he too felt totally out of place. Meanwhile, Hannah was so starved for attention that she stole from her family members, squirreling away small objects in her room. During conflict, she could often be found rolled into a ball under a table.
While there is some "mystery" about what happened to Lydia, the real story is how little people know even those they love most and think they know best. The members of the Lee family love each other--and the author provides an ending that builds on that love (somewhat overly optimistically in my opinion)--but they really understand nothing about each other, despite their shared experience as outsiders in small town 1970s Ohio.
For all but the most self-confident parents, Everything I Never Told You cannot help but prompt reflection on well you know your own children, the expectations you placed on them, and the ways in which you failed them. For parents whose families were in some way different from the majority (my family would fall in this category), the reflection may be even more difficult. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book.
Favorite passages:
All afternoon Nath had played his record over and over, but he has finally let it wind to a stop, and now a thick silence, like fog, seeps out onto the landing.
Years of yearning had made her sensitive, the way a starving dog twitches its nostrils at the faintest scent of food. She could not mistake it. She recognized it at once: Love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn't care and went on anyway.
Years from now, they will still be arranging the pieces they know, puzzling over her features, redrawing her outlines in their minds. Sure that they've got her right this time, positive in this moment that they understand her completely, at last.
Lydia was a focal point for the family's unhappiness. She got more attention than brother Nath and little sister Hannah but also was subjected to greater pressure. James, a Chinese American history professor who never felt like he fit, wanted Lydia to be popular. He gave her dresses he bought off mannequins in store windows because he assumed they were "in"; he pressured her to call her friends (she often pretended to be talking on the phone but there was no one on the line); he gave her How to Win Friends and Influence People as a Christmas gift. Marilyn, his Anglo wife gave up her dream of being a doctor--still an unusual goal for a girl in the late 1950s--to marry James. She wanted Lydia to be a scientist, and she pressured her daughter to do well in school and gave her scientific tomes and biographies of female scientists for Christmas.
Lydia was miserable--she was failing physics, she had only one friend, and she was so desperately unhappy about her brother's impending departure for college that she hid his acceptance letter from Harvard. Both before and after Lydia's death, Nath could not wait to escape his family and the small Ohio town where he too felt totally out of place. Meanwhile, Hannah was so starved for attention that she stole from her family members, squirreling away small objects in her room. During conflict, she could often be found rolled into a ball under a table.
While there is some "mystery" about what happened to Lydia, the real story is how little people know even those they love most and think they know best. The members of the Lee family love each other--and the author provides an ending that builds on that love (somewhat overly optimistically in my opinion)--but they really understand nothing about each other, despite their shared experience as outsiders in small town 1970s Ohio.
For all but the most self-confident parents, Everything I Never Told You cannot help but prompt reflection on well you know your own children, the expectations you placed on them, and the ways in which you failed them. For parents whose families were in some way different from the majority (my family would fall in this category), the reflection may be even more difficult. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book.
Favorite passages:
All afternoon Nath had played his record over and over, but he has finally let it wind to a stop, and now a thick silence, like fog, seeps out onto the landing.
Years of yearning had made her sensitive, the way a starving dog twitches its nostrils at the faintest scent of food. She could not mistake it. She recognized it at once: Love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn't care and went on anyway.
Years from now, they will still be arranging the pieces they know, puzzling over her features, redrawing her outlines in their minds. Sure that they've got her right this time, positive in this moment that they understand her completely, at last.
Friday, August 22, 2014
The Quiet Gentleman, by Georgette Heyer
I used to read Georgette Heyer regularly--but probably hadn't read one of her books in the past 40 years. When one was available as part of a BOGO offer from Audible, I decided to give her a try. It also seemed like something essentially escapist would be a good antidote to the rigors of Midnight's Children.
Heyer's Regency romances appear to have been inspired by Jane Austen--many are set in the time period when Austen lived and about which she wrote (although Heyer was writing in the mid-20th century), they satirize Regency England, and they generally end with an engagement. In The Quiet Gentleman, she satirizes both the aristocracy and the intellectuals who opposed the monarchy. She also incorporates an element of mystery (she also write in that genre)--who is trying to kill the new Earl of St Erth, recently returned to his family estate from service in the military?
I enjoyed listening to the book, although the narrator from time to time "overacted." Will I pick up another Heyer soon? Probably not, but I don't regret revisiting this author from my youth.
Heyer's Regency romances appear to have been inspired by Jane Austen--many are set in the time period when Austen lived and about which she wrote (although Heyer was writing in the mid-20th century), they satirize Regency England, and they generally end with an engagement. In The Quiet Gentleman, she satirizes both the aristocracy and the intellectuals who opposed the monarchy. She also incorporates an element of mystery (she also write in that genre)--who is trying to kill the new Earl of St Erth, recently returned to his family estate from service in the military?
I enjoyed listening to the book, although the narrator from time to time "overacted." Will I pick up another Heyer soon? Probably not, but I don't regret revisiting this author from my youth.
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