Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14 I decided to read all of Agatha Christie’s mysteries featuring Hercule Poirot. I plowed through what was in the library and used the virtue of my being “such a good reader!” to persuade my parents to buy me the ones I couldn’t track down for free. I loved the funny little Belgian and the appearance of his various sidekicks. All of this is to say that I am not unfamiliar with British crime writing (during another summer I read every one of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures). Kate Atkinson is a writer of this variety. Her novel "When Will There Be Good News?" is the third she has written that includes former policeman Jackson Brodie and the only one I’ve read.
First off, it’s a quick read. The characters are amusing and Atkinson is capable of enticing the reader forward with the carrot of the next sensational event. The prologue is a gruesome murder that sets a particular tone for the rest of the book. The events that follow occur some thirty years later, but that first murder and other murders like it are never far from the surface.
Jackson Brodie is only one of the characters from whose perspective the novel unfolds. He is semi-retired and too young to be cantankerous but approaches something like it.
Reggie is sixteen years old, alone, but for her thief of a brother, in the wake of her mother’s accidental death. She works for Joanna, the only survivor of that first murder. Reggie cares for her toddler daughter and worships both mother and child.
Finally, there is Louise Monroe. She and Jackson have a history of working together and there are undertones if what might have been more. At the moment Louise’s life is filled with the burdens of a new, not particularly suitable marriage, (though the husband is jolly and adjusted, perhaps too perfect) and the protection of women who have been the victims of brutal crimes.
The lives of the three protagonists become tangled in various ways that rely heavily on coincidences manufactured by the author. Together they work to discover the solutions to the various, lengthy mysteries that present themselves.
All three carry on amusing inner monologues. They have quick tongues and each possesses a particular twist of humor. It is not difficult to glide along beside them as one thing or another is bemoaned or discovered. But despite the light tone of the characters, they are all somewhat grating. Much of consequence is taken for granted in this narrative and trivialities explicitly explained. The book is packed with dramatic events because the characters lack the complexity to carry the story forward on their own.
Atkinson’s novel is not particularly mysterious in the sense of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle. There is not a carefully placed trail of clues, which only the brilliance of an uncommon mind can link together. That approach is not necessarily essential for a successful detective novel, but there should be some suspense as to the way the outcome unfolds. In "When Will There Be Good News?" any urgency to turn the pages was linked to an obvious cliffhanger as opposed to the titillating suspense of not yet having found the answer. I always knew the answer was coming with Atkinson, a great mystery makes you forget that the formula demands an answer.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Quick read fails to properly gauge the meaning of Help
While in transit, I always find myself studying what others have brought to pass the time. Is it something from work, something mindless, something to savor? Despite the crowds it may be among the only meditative moments people have regularly, before stepping out into the flurry of activity that usually marks their lives. On the New Jersey Transit, I sat next to a young woman reading a copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I’d seen the yellow jacket frequently throughout the summer and had had it recommended to me once or twice. I asked her how she liked it. “It’s pretty good,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I started it yesterday,” she added while demonstrating that she was more than halfway finished.
My conclusion, when I read the book a few weeks later, was about the same. It reads well, you can’t really put it down for long, and in the end it is little better than okay.
Stockett chooses three Southern women to recount their stories. Aibileen has brought up 17 white children and is currently raising Mae Mobley, whose own mother lacks real affection for her child. Aibileen loves the children whom she is hired to care for. After the first few she learned to detach before their environment developed their perception of color. Aibileen lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and at the time her narrative begins it is 1960. Stocket has chosen a particularly fraught moment in history during which Aibileen and other black maids make the decision to tell their stories of what it is like to be the help.
Their confessions are prompted by Stockett’s second narrator, Skeeter Phelan. She had a black nurse of her own, Constantine, who has disappeared without a trace while Skeeter was in her last year of college. Skeeter does not conform to the Southern standards of femininity and beauty, she is too tall, her hair is unmanageable and since graduating she has harbored ambitions of becoming a journalist. Given a somewhat implausible chance by an editor in New York, Skeeter embarks on her exposé of what really transpires between white mistresses and their maids.
The Help is full of the drama of a society constructed on an explicit understanding of manners and demeanor. Minny, the sass-talking maid who has to date lost 19 jobs, and is the most feisty of the three narrators. She currently works for Celia, a woman of poor white upbringing, who doesn’t understand that nothing she does will provide her with entrance into the world of highfaluting Southerners.
Much of The Help’s content is the politics of feminine society. The dynamics between the maid and her mistress are manifestations of other personality traits. It is disheartening to see these catty dynamics unfolding across the page. But Minny’s exclusion from white society and Celia’s are hardly parallel injustices. Crossing boundaries for Minny has far more dire consequences than for Celia. Although it is the men who perform the lynching’s and other atrocities, the maids make it clear that it is the wrath of the mistress that should be most feared.
The largest flaw of the novel is one that the characters frequently acknowledge. That is Skeeter’s failure to comprehend the danger of what she is asking. The weight of the risk is never depicted with enough force. The book contains a few reports of brutality and unjust behavior, but the era Stockett is dealing with is the early 1960s in Mississippi. Her inability to drive home the gravity of the Aibileen and Skeeter’s endeavor deprives The Help of being a serious novel about the realities of the time.
My conclusion, when I read the book a few weeks later, was about the same. It reads well, you can’t really put it down for long, and in the end it is little better than okay.
Stockett chooses three Southern women to recount their stories. Aibileen has brought up 17 white children and is currently raising Mae Mobley, whose own mother lacks real affection for her child. Aibileen loves the children whom she is hired to care for. After the first few she learned to detach before their environment developed their perception of color. Aibileen lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and at the time her narrative begins it is 1960. Stocket has chosen a particularly fraught moment in history during which Aibileen and other black maids make the decision to tell their stories of what it is like to be the help.
Their confessions are prompted by Stockett’s second narrator, Skeeter Phelan. She had a black nurse of her own, Constantine, who has disappeared without a trace while Skeeter was in her last year of college. Skeeter does not conform to the Southern standards of femininity and beauty, she is too tall, her hair is unmanageable and since graduating she has harbored ambitions of becoming a journalist. Given a somewhat implausible chance by an editor in New York, Skeeter embarks on her exposé of what really transpires between white mistresses and their maids.
The Help is full of the drama of a society constructed on an explicit understanding of manners and demeanor. Minny, the sass-talking maid who has to date lost 19 jobs, and is the most feisty of the three narrators. She currently works for Celia, a woman of poor white upbringing, who doesn’t understand that nothing she does will provide her with entrance into the world of highfaluting Southerners.
Much of The Help’s content is the politics of feminine society. The dynamics between the maid and her mistress are manifestations of other personality traits. It is disheartening to see these catty dynamics unfolding across the page. But Minny’s exclusion from white society and Celia’s are hardly parallel injustices. Crossing boundaries for Minny has far more dire consequences than for Celia. Although it is the men who perform the lynching’s and other atrocities, the maids make it clear that it is the wrath of the mistress that should be most feared.
The largest flaw of the novel is one that the characters frequently acknowledge. That is Skeeter’s failure to comprehend the danger of what she is asking. The weight of the risk is never depicted with enough force. The book contains a few reports of brutality and unjust behavior, but the era Stockett is dealing with is the early 1960s in Mississippi. Her inability to drive home the gravity of the Aibileen and Skeeter’s endeavor deprives The Help of being a serious novel about the realities of the time.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Evasions: Wilson's employ of the Bizarre
Many of Kevin Wilson’s stories in his collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth are structured around the plausibility of the absurd. Spontaneous human-combustion, scrabble-tile sorting as a profession, and paper cranes determining an inheritance sound feasible and not at all unlikely. The oddity of the events that Wilson uses as scaffolding for his stories does not interfere with the sharp insights into the composition of his characters.
At the start of the collection I wasn’t entirely wooed by the frequent transpiring of the weird. For a few stories it felt a little like a ploy. Not halfway into the collection, however, my mind was changed. When the stories are seen as a whole, each odd twist of plot and personality fashion themselves into a comprehensive and well-executed examination of individuality.
Wilson’s stories are amusing, and more suddenly heart-breaking. He has a light touch with the irregular angles of the personalities he captures. Those who appear in his stories are somewhat fragile. They operate slightly outside the predictable boundaries of society. But they are functioning, some with grace, some patience, some despair.
The two friends in “Mortal Kombat” are outsiders due to the stereotypical marks of the geek. Their predilection for obscure knowledge removes them from the sphere of popular high school culture. They spend their lunch hour locked in the library together, quizzing each other on historical and pop trivia. While waiting for the interminable span of high school to come to a close, the boys amuse themselves with each other and video games. By proximity and accident they move from playful physicality to a rough embrace. The revelation of this intimacy disrupts their friendship. Neither fully understands his feelings; trepidation and electricity edge their discovery. Within the space of this story Wilson delves into the uncertain territory of adolescence. A turbulent world of choice lies beneath the surface and it is impossible to exclude anything from the realm of possibility.
Like the boys in “Mortal Kombat”, others of Wilson’s protagonists are reluctant if not entirely opposed to forming attachments. They are aware of the repercussions of connections and reluctant to address them. One woman works in a museum dedicated to the odd collections of other people (spoons, rubber bands, tinfoil, etc.) while refusing to keep even the odd book for herself. Another woman works as a stand-in grandmother for various families; she enjoys the occupation but has no desire to create a family of her own. In the story that titles the collection, three recent college graduates dig a complex maze of tunnels underneath their town. For the moment they have nothing better to do and the retreat into the dark depths of the earth provides solace from the emptiness above. The world is open to these people but it is up to them to find their way into it.
It is difficult not to feel alongside the people that populate Wilson’s stories. In each he channels a different mode of survival, confusion, joy or triumph. There are many who are adrift and those that find anchors are to be envied.
All of Wilson’s characters are in search of something. Understanding, significance, and entrance reside at the center of their pursuits. The remarkable aids them; retreat and participation abets their cause in various measure. It is not for everyone to find what they seek. The satisfaction and the crucial struggle sometimes resides in the search alone.
At the start of the collection I wasn’t entirely wooed by the frequent transpiring of the weird. For a few stories it felt a little like a ploy. Not halfway into the collection, however, my mind was changed. When the stories are seen as a whole, each odd twist of plot and personality fashion themselves into a comprehensive and well-executed examination of individuality.
Wilson’s stories are amusing, and more suddenly heart-breaking. He has a light touch with the irregular angles of the personalities he captures. Those who appear in his stories are somewhat fragile. They operate slightly outside the predictable boundaries of society. But they are functioning, some with grace, some patience, some despair.
The two friends in “Mortal Kombat” are outsiders due to the stereotypical marks of the geek. Their predilection for obscure knowledge removes them from the sphere of popular high school culture. They spend their lunch hour locked in the library together, quizzing each other on historical and pop trivia. While waiting for the interminable span of high school to come to a close, the boys amuse themselves with each other and video games. By proximity and accident they move from playful physicality to a rough embrace. The revelation of this intimacy disrupts their friendship. Neither fully understands his feelings; trepidation and electricity edge their discovery. Within the space of this story Wilson delves into the uncertain territory of adolescence. A turbulent world of choice lies beneath the surface and it is impossible to exclude anything from the realm of possibility.
Like the boys in “Mortal Kombat”, others of Wilson’s protagonists are reluctant if not entirely opposed to forming attachments. They are aware of the repercussions of connections and reluctant to address them. One woman works in a museum dedicated to the odd collections of other people (spoons, rubber bands, tinfoil, etc.) while refusing to keep even the odd book for herself. Another woman works as a stand-in grandmother for various families; she enjoys the occupation but has no desire to create a family of her own. In the story that titles the collection, three recent college graduates dig a complex maze of tunnels underneath their town. For the moment they have nothing better to do and the retreat into the dark depths of the earth provides solace from the emptiness above. The world is open to these people but it is up to them to find their way into it.
It is difficult not to feel alongside the people that populate Wilson’s stories. In each he channels a different mode of survival, confusion, joy or triumph. There are many who are adrift and those that find anchors are to be envied.
All of Wilson’s characters are in search of something. Understanding, significance, and entrance reside at the center of their pursuits. The remarkable aids them; retreat and participation abets their cause in various measure. It is not for everyone to find what they seek. The satisfaction and the crucial struggle sometimes resides in the search alone.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Duncan guides readers through "A Day A Night and A Day"
In his novel A Day A Night and A Day Glen Duncan bookends a fiery love affair with two equally combustible eras. Selina and Augustus, the enticing protagonists, fall in love in the heat of the 1960s. Their relations are startling and carnal. The sight of them together in public turns heads; Augustus is half black and Selina is a white woman of wealth. The duo alarms its audience and the couple is very aware of this effect and its power has a channel in their relationship.
Duncan situates the reader in an alternative timeline almost four decades later, in the wake of 9/11. Augustus is being tortured for information in a sterile cell by a man called Harper. Initially, the reader does not know what could have occurred that would deliver Augustus to this fate. There is the suggestion that the corporeal abuse he suffers is connected to Selina, but the ties do not reveal themselves until later in the narrative.
The tone of Duncan’s narrative is declarative. His sentences firmly direct the reader’s understanding of the events that unfold; he leaves wiggle room for reactions but not speculation. Duncan handles the seething tensions of the 60s with grace, giving voice to the passions and fears that surrounded new liberties and new fears.
Augustus and Selina’s love story is passionate and full of the intensity of youth. Their strong attraction to one another is complicated by Selina’s relationship with her brother, Michael. He is a soldier in Vietnam and his reasons for going, she believes, are at least partly because of her. Selina’s relationship with Michael was at one point physical, and while she has resolved to bury that dynamic, Michael is unwilling to do the same. The vengeful ex-lover is a common figure in literature and the incestuous feature is a difficult twist to add. The immediate, inherent reaction to this revelation is revulsion and leads to feelings aversion toward Selina, a character formerly revered. The author does not condone the violation of boundaries between brother and sister, but neither is the breach condemned. He shapes the reader’s sentiments, without force, so that the incident resonates as an element of Selina’s past as she wishes it to. It is a blemish but not a disfigurement.
Duncan examines the dynamics between aggressor and victim with as much attention as he does the attractions between lovers. He recognizes the opposing scenarios as fundamentals of human nature and addresses them equally.
Harper is the worst kind of interrogator. He expresses sincere interest in Augustus. He is cheerful and purposefully pauses between interrogations to talk freely and deeply with his prisoner about the state of the world in the aftermath of 9/11. Many of his theses are valid, cold in their lucidity. Harper’s occupation does not draw him as far beyond reality as the reader would like to believe such an occupation demands. He thrives on the energy his job requires and approaches it without sensation. Harper sincerely likes Augustus, but when he arrives at the point when it is required of him to shoot him in the head, he would do so; and he would think it a shame, but he would execute him without hesitation nonetheless.
Duncan refrains from gratuitous explanations of the corporeal pain Augustus is made to suffer. His descriptions do not resemble the scenes in an episode of 24. The author is precise in the moments he reveals about pain and pleasure. He respects them and their effect is communicated without obscenity.
In the terrain of both love and hate, Duncan is an excellent guide. He does not need to magnify the strength of either; his clear presentation and direct prose are sufficient.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
"New Valley" plunges through varied terrain
The valleys of Virginia are not vastly populated. And yet they are inhabited by the complex and simple people of Josh Weil’s first book The New Valley. The debut contains three novellas. Each utterly distinct from the others despite the fact that they share the same locale.
In the fist novella, a man, Osby, has just lost his father. For years the two of them lived and worked side by side on their farm. They bred cattle and lived a controllable if not entirely contented life as bachelors in a house too large for just two of them. Osby finds himself marooned by the grief his doesn’t know how to express or even own. Left with no one to care for besides his cows, Osby attempts to navigate the new waters he finds himself adrift upon. Innocent and reluctant to open himself up to the world, he approaches everything with good intentions and is bewildered by his inability to succeed.
Stillman Wing is the main character in Weil’s second novella. At seventy he is forced into retirement and in a rare break from his customary caution, Stillman makes away with an ancient Deutz from his former employer’s yard of machines, planning on fixing the tractor up like new.
Stillman lives with his obese daughter Caroline. Her tremendous weight plagues Stillman and he begs her to abide by his own fastidious approaches to physical health. Caroline continually rebuffs him. He has raised her on his own since she was a toddler and his love for her is evident and immense. But his devotion to her is incapable of stabilizing his impetuous daughter.
Two elements of this novella are particularly intriguing. The manner in which Weil deals with time is remarkable in Stillman Wing. Within the space of a single paragraph inside Stillman’s head, a whole year has gone by. The transition is absolutely fluid and once one tunes into his strategy, Weil’s approach to the seasonal cycles is both striking and delightful. Time resides at the axis of the story, and the author’s unique approach to its unfurling makes its importance all the more conspicuous.
Secondly, there are wonderful illustrations splitting up the text in this narrative. The drawings are intricate and surprising. They complement the story beautifully, adding another element of mystery.
Finally, Weil introduces the reader to the last of the Sarvers in the final, longest novella. All of Weil’s stories do a dance on the heartstrings, but Sarverville Remains is particularly affecting.
Weil strikes an entirely different tone in this story. Geoffrey Sarver is the first-person narrator of this dark narrative. He is writing to someone and it becomes evident through his prose that he is mentally impaired to a minor degree. At the age of thirty Geoffrey spends his time with high school boys who are looking for sex and trouble. The company he keeps leads him to his first love affair, an event that disrupts the placidity of the life he had made for himself.
Weil’s ability to enter the minds of the characters on his pages is remarkable. The variations in their lives and personalities are complex and yet ring with a similar searching tremor. None of them are resigned. All three male protagonists strive toward something beyond what they have known; their largest obstacle is only that they are unsure of what lies beyond their immediate existence.
Weil’s debut has rare depths and penetrates into minds and communities that are rarely explored. A literary trend toward the exploration of those outside the spotlight is emerging, a phase that Weil proves to be compelling and profitable.
In the fist novella, a man, Osby, has just lost his father. For years the two of them lived and worked side by side on their farm. They bred cattle and lived a controllable if not entirely contented life as bachelors in a house too large for just two of them. Osby finds himself marooned by the grief his doesn’t know how to express or even own. Left with no one to care for besides his cows, Osby attempts to navigate the new waters he finds himself adrift upon. Innocent and reluctant to open himself up to the world, he approaches everything with good intentions and is bewildered by his inability to succeed.
Stillman Wing is the main character in Weil’s second novella. At seventy he is forced into retirement and in a rare break from his customary caution, Stillman makes away with an ancient Deutz from his former employer’s yard of machines, planning on fixing the tractor up like new.
Stillman lives with his obese daughter Caroline. Her tremendous weight plagues Stillman and he begs her to abide by his own fastidious approaches to physical health. Caroline continually rebuffs him. He has raised her on his own since she was a toddler and his love for her is evident and immense. But his devotion to her is incapable of stabilizing his impetuous daughter.
Two elements of this novella are particularly intriguing. The manner in which Weil deals with time is remarkable in Stillman Wing. Within the space of a single paragraph inside Stillman’s head, a whole year has gone by. The transition is absolutely fluid and once one tunes into his strategy, Weil’s approach to the seasonal cycles is both striking and delightful. Time resides at the axis of the story, and the author’s unique approach to its unfurling makes its importance all the more conspicuous.
Secondly, there are wonderful illustrations splitting up the text in this narrative. The drawings are intricate and surprising. They complement the story beautifully, adding another element of mystery.
Finally, Weil introduces the reader to the last of the Sarvers in the final, longest novella. All of Weil’s stories do a dance on the heartstrings, but Sarverville Remains is particularly affecting.
Weil strikes an entirely different tone in this story. Geoffrey Sarver is the first-person narrator of this dark narrative. He is writing to someone and it becomes evident through his prose that he is mentally impaired to a minor degree. At the age of thirty Geoffrey spends his time with high school boys who are looking for sex and trouble. The company he keeps leads him to his first love affair, an event that disrupts the placidity of the life he had made for himself.
Weil’s ability to enter the minds of the characters on his pages is remarkable. The variations in their lives and personalities are complex and yet ring with a similar searching tremor. None of them are resigned. All three male protagonists strive toward something beyond what they have known; their largest obstacle is only that they are unsure of what lies beyond their immediate existence.
Weil’s debut has rare depths and penetrates into minds and communities that are rarely explored. A literary trend toward the exploration of those outside the spotlight is emerging, a phase that Weil proves to be compelling and profitable.
Monday, July 13, 2009
"Hedgehog" has prickly intelligence but falls into fairy tale predictability
Capricious little girls have the capacity to be annoying or incredibly endearing. Crotchety concierges can be as gnarled as they appear or unpredictably erudite. Muriel Bradbury’s novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, translated from the French, seeks to examine those who are usually overlooked, peeling back exterior presentations to reveal the subtlety or the prickles that lie beneath.
Renée presides over number 7, rue de Grenelle in Paris. She is a self-described inelegant lady, plump, ugly and utterly uninteresting. This is an image she cultivates as the concierge of a building filled with wealthy men and women, broods of self-important children, and pampered pets. Behind her façade of stoic tedium Renée reads Tolstoy with a vengeance, peruses philosophy, and fosters a deep love for art and classical music. The reader is privy to her scorn for the inhabitants of her building and to her admiration of the academic realms she is not supposed to have access to or interest in. Through Renée’s ponderings and observations the crass and disappointing behavior of modern, wealthy Parisians is revealed and soundly judged.
On the other side of the financial divide is Paloma. She is the 12-year-old daughter of the Josses who live in one of the upper apartments of rue de Grenelle. Like Renée, she is ferociously bright. She also has no tolerance for the frivolity of her mother and elder sister and the tedious politics of her father. Paloma has become so disgusted with the lives around her that she has decided to kill herself on her thirteenth birthday. Renée’s musings are interspersed with Paloma’s Profound Thoughts and her entries in her Journal of the Movement of the World. She marks down moments that resonate with her, wondering if something will appear in her last few months that might make life worthwhile.
Paloma and Renée’s withdrawn scrutiny of the world is interrupted by the arrival of a new tenant. He is Japanese and his coming captures the entire building's attention. Much to Renée’s chagrin, her behavior and the offhand quoting of a Tolstoy line, catches Kakuro Ozu’s attention. He senses that something more lies behind the stern exterior of his concierge and works to break down the barriers Renée has constructed to protect herself.
Both Renée and Paloma’s musings verge on tiresome. Intriguing insights glimmer among the precocious ruminations of Paloma, and Renée’s somewhat overdone erudition. But both parties’ decision to conceal their intelligence struck me as odd and disappointing. Renée’s disguise might be explicated by an inability to break out of the class her working class birth dictated, but that notion seems antiquated and Renée’s will too strong to succumb to such prescriptions. Paloma’s suppression of her mental capacity felt childish and somewhat ridiculous. It suggests an adolescent desire to dupe the world, indulgent and immature. Her despair was believable but her behavior made me pity her less.
After the appearance of Kakuro, the novel too closely follows the path of a Cinderella story. He is the exotic prince, come to deliver Paloma and Renée from the farces they have created for themselves. Kakuro plays his role down to the delivery of a new wardrobe for the drab Madame Renée. The transformations occur too quickly and lack the disciplined unraveling that would make them resonate truthfully.
Bradbury does salvage the novel with something of a surprise ending. The upward trajectory of the story comes to a screeching halt and Paloma has a final revelation that strikes a significant chord. But by the conclusion of the book the reader has tired of both ladies’ musings and has little invested in their fates.
Renée presides over number 7, rue de Grenelle in Paris. She is a self-described inelegant lady, plump, ugly and utterly uninteresting. This is an image she cultivates as the concierge of a building filled with wealthy men and women, broods of self-important children, and pampered pets. Behind her façade of stoic tedium Renée reads Tolstoy with a vengeance, peruses philosophy, and fosters a deep love for art and classical music. The reader is privy to her scorn for the inhabitants of her building and to her admiration of the academic realms she is not supposed to have access to or interest in. Through Renée’s ponderings and observations the crass and disappointing behavior of modern, wealthy Parisians is revealed and soundly judged.
On the other side of the financial divide is Paloma. She is the 12-year-old daughter of the Josses who live in one of the upper apartments of rue de Grenelle. Like Renée, she is ferociously bright. She also has no tolerance for the frivolity of her mother and elder sister and the tedious politics of her father. Paloma has become so disgusted with the lives around her that she has decided to kill herself on her thirteenth birthday. Renée’s musings are interspersed with Paloma’s Profound Thoughts and her entries in her Journal of the Movement of the World. She marks down moments that resonate with her, wondering if something will appear in her last few months that might make life worthwhile.
Paloma and Renée’s withdrawn scrutiny of the world is interrupted by the arrival of a new tenant. He is Japanese and his coming captures the entire building's attention. Much to Renée’s chagrin, her behavior and the offhand quoting of a Tolstoy line, catches Kakuro Ozu’s attention. He senses that something more lies behind the stern exterior of his concierge and works to break down the barriers Renée has constructed to protect herself.
Both Renée and Paloma’s musings verge on tiresome. Intriguing insights glimmer among the precocious ruminations of Paloma, and Renée’s somewhat overdone erudition. But both parties’ decision to conceal their intelligence struck me as odd and disappointing. Renée’s disguise might be explicated by an inability to break out of the class her working class birth dictated, but that notion seems antiquated and Renée’s will too strong to succumb to such prescriptions. Paloma’s suppression of her mental capacity felt childish and somewhat ridiculous. It suggests an adolescent desire to dupe the world, indulgent and immature. Her despair was believable but her behavior made me pity her less.
After the appearance of Kakuro, the novel too closely follows the path of a Cinderella story. He is the exotic prince, come to deliver Paloma and Renée from the farces they have created for themselves. Kakuro plays his role down to the delivery of a new wardrobe for the drab Madame Renée. The transformations occur too quickly and lack the disciplined unraveling that would make them resonate truthfully.
Bradbury does salvage the novel with something of a surprise ending. The upward trajectory of the story comes to a screeching halt and Paloma has a final revelation that strikes a significant chord. But by the conclusion of the book the reader has tired of both ladies’ musings and has little invested in their fates.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Interiors excavated by Wells Tower
As I believe is becoming clear to anyone who reads my reviews regularly, I have a penchant for things like names and titles. I came across the name Wells Tower two summers ago when I was working at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. At the time, Tower’s book wasn’t even in galleys but I knew I wouldn’t forget that moniker in a hurry. This spring, FSG published Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned and I rushed to the bookstore as soon as I received graduation funds from my grandparents. I vanquished Tower’s book promptly, much like his Vikings vanquish whom they choose in his final story.
Tower’s prose is fairly plain, straightforward. But he knows when to throw in a zesty noun or verb, like ravaged, to prick your attention. The simplicity of his language is deceptive, and neither are his characters hot shots. More often than not, they are regular Joes, playing at bigger roles and quickly determining that what they are suited for is less glamorous and more comfortable.
The internal troubles of Tower’s characters manifest in their surroundings. The helplessness of a recently separated man is embodied by the decimation of his gigantic fish tank, while a boy’s fear of his peers and stepfather is encapsulated in the lurking presence of a leopard. Tower mostly focuses on men in his stories, men and boys who are adrift, have lost or have not yet found their anchors.
In most stories, the events that Tower turns into revolutionary moments are fairly basic. My favorite occurred in “Door in Your Eye.” A man who has just moved in with his daughter believes that their neighbor is a prostitute. He watches a wide variety of men enter said neighbor’s house while perched on his daughter’s porch. Aside from the man’s endearing nosiness, what I liked most about him was what he occupied himself with while spying on the neighbors. Every morning he goes out to paint the sky. It is these sorts of details that distinguish Tower’s people from the usual characters on the fringe, making them unique and plausible.
Tremors of despair certainly loiter beneath the surface of these stories. The fundamentals of the lives described are not dramatically awry, but neither are they particularly secure or even pleasant. These characters are not setback by customary hiccups of existence but they are affected and Tower allows them to be shaped by these occurrences without pitying them or hanging them out to dry.
The men, women and children of these stories are flawed. Few have magnanimous or glamorous goals. Managing their god-given peccadilloes and learning to construct them into something satisfactory is enough work. Tower gets into the heads of the ordinary and unravels their emotions and ponderings with a sensitivity and patience not always seen in a writer.
Tower’s debut is attracting a lot of attention. He is being compared to a number of masters and mistresses of the short story. The praise is largely rooted in his vernacular abilities and the tightly bound quality of each story. Anything of excess has been battered from the lines of his polished first work.
This collection is both amusing and brooding, two moods one can usually expect from life. Despite the down and out situations many of Tower’s characters are found in, the bitterness they might possess remains absent. They maintain their humor: Life gives you lemons, and if you can’t find a way to make lemonade why not crack a grin.
Tower’s prose is fairly plain, straightforward. But he knows when to throw in a zesty noun or verb, like ravaged, to prick your attention. The simplicity of his language is deceptive, and neither are his characters hot shots. More often than not, they are regular Joes, playing at bigger roles and quickly determining that what they are suited for is less glamorous and more comfortable.
The internal troubles of Tower’s characters manifest in their surroundings. The helplessness of a recently separated man is embodied by the decimation of his gigantic fish tank, while a boy’s fear of his peers and stepfather is encapsulated in the lurking presence of a leopard. Tower mostly focuses on men in his stories, men and boys who are adrift, have lost or have not yet found their anchors.
In most stories, the events that Tower turns into revolutionary moments are fairly basic. My favorite occurred in “Door in Your Eye.” A man who has just moved in with his daughter believes that their neighbor is a prostitute. He watches a wide variety of men enter said neighbor’s house while perched on his daughter’s porch. Aside from the man’s endearing nosiness, what I liked most about him was what he occupied himself with while spying on the neighbors. Every morning he goes out to paint the sky. It is these sorts of details that distinguish Tower’s people from the usual characters on the fringe, making them unique and plausible.
Tremors of despair certainly loiter beneath the surface of these stories. The fundamentals of the lives described are not dramatically awry, but neither are they particularly secure or even pleasant. These characters are not setback by customary hiccups of existence but they are affected and Tower allows them to be shaped by these occurrences without pitying them or hanging them out to dry.
The men, women and children of these stories are flawed. Few have magnanimous or glamorous goals. Managing their god-given peccadilloes and learning to construct them into something satisfactory is enough work. Tower gets into the heads of the ordinary and unravels their emotions and ponderings with a sensitivity and patience not always seen in a writer.
Tower’s debut is attracting a lot of attention. He is being compared to a number of masters and mistresses of the short story. The praise is largely rooted in his vernacular abilities and the tightly bound quality of each story. Anything of excess has been battered from the lines of his polished first work.
This collection is both amusing and brooding, two moods one can usually expect from life. Despite the down and out situations many of Tower’s characters are found in, the bitterness they might possess remains absent. They maintain their humor: Life gives you lemons, and if you can’t find a way to make lemonade why not crack a grin.
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