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gregzimmerman's reviews
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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
3.0
Will Jacob de Zoet ever get the girl? To answer that, David Mitchell leads us through the day-to-day routine of a little-known 18th century Dutch trading post, a bizarre Japanese cult where women are "engifted" and their "gifts" confiscated, and a naval battle with huge geopolitical implications. Still, whether or not the nice guy won't finish last remains the central question in David Mitchell's fascinating new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
Mitchell's story is, in a word, vivid. As The Millions pointed out, the novel has a cinematic feel. The sentences sparkle and the plot, told in the present tense, continuously veers off unexpectedly. It's not hard to follow (keep a list of characters, like this helpful fellow did, though; there are many), but sometimes it is hard to stay engaged.
Here's why: Mitchell constantly interrupts himself to provide detail. He stuffs bits of narration into dialogue mid-sentence (see below for an example) and describes in several one-line sentences in a row that read at times like poetry (see below for an example of this, too). These tricks in themselves aren't annoying, but you never quite get used to them, and they tend to distract from the flow of the story. And when you're telling a story about something as abstruse as Dutch-Japanese-British relations in 1799 at an obscure trading post, doing whatever you can to keep your reader with you seems to be the tack to take.
Basically what that all means is that Mitchell's snappy, crackling writing was both a blessing and a curse; both a hindrance to me totally investing myself in the story, but also the way by which I was able to find my way in and derive the enjoyment I did. That said, there are parts — a daring rescue attempt, the aforementioned naval battle — that speed along with thriller-like speed. But the scene-setting — and there's quite a bit to recreate the 18th-19th century world as vividly as Mitchell is able to — and jumps in story (Mitchell basically re-starts the story at the beginning of each of the three "acts" of the novel) cause a few lags in reading enjoyment, at least for me.
But back to Mr. de Zoet, the mild-mannered, honest-to-a-fault young clerk who is employed by the Dutch East India Company. Charged with cleaning up the company's ledgers and clamping down on the blatant profiteering and corruption, Jacob has quite a challenge on his hands, especially given that his superiors are as corrupt as anyone. A chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, a Japanese midwife who has the rare opportunity to study under the Dutch Dr. Marinus on Dejima — the Dutch East India's trading post off the coast of Nagasaki — causes Jacob to all but forget his betrothed back home in the Netherlands. Jacob is fascinated with Miss Aibagawa, and is heartbroken when she is essentially kidnapped and forced to take up residence at a bizarre nunnery atop a mountain. Will the two ever be reunited? And if so, will she requite his love? If not, will Jacob ever get back home?
This was my first foray into Mitchell, and I am in awe. Thousand Autumns isn't my favorite book of the year by any stretch, but it's easy to see the genius behind it. The imagination and research that must've been required to tell this tale is simply stunning. There's always two ways to evaluate a book — the way that's objective as possible, putting yourself in the shoes of other readers, and the "it was/wasn't my cup 'o' tea" way. Objectively, it's a stunning book, but one I wish I would've liked more than I did.
Example of in-dialogue narration:
"So," Vorstenbasch settles himself, "after three days ashore, how are you finding life on the company's farthest-flung outposts?"
"More salubrious"—Jacob's chair creaks—"than a posting on Halmahera, sir."
Example of several one-line sentences in a row that read like poetry:
Steam rises from a bowl of water; light is sliced on the bright razor.
On the floor, a toucan pecks beans from a pewter saucer.
Plums are piled in a terra-cotta dish, blue-dusted indigo.
Mitchell's story is, in a word, vivid. As The Millions pointed out, the novel has a cinematic feel. The sentences sparkle and the plot, told in the present tense, continuously veers off unexpectedly. It's not hard to follow (keep a list of characters, like this helpful fellow did, though; there are many), but sometimes it is hard to stay engaged.
Here's why: Mitchell constantly interrupts himself to provide detail. He stuffs bits of narration into dialogue mid-sentence (see below for an example) and describes in several one-line sentences in a row that read at times like poetry (see below for an example of this, too). These tricks in themselves aren't annoying, but you never quite get used to them, and they tend to distract from the flow of the story. And when you're telling a story about something as abstruse as Dutch-Japanese-British relations in 1799 at an obscure trading post, doing whatever you can to keep your reader with you seems to be the tack to take.
Basically what that all means is that Mitchell's snappy, crackling writing was both a blessing and a curse; both a hindrance to me totally investing myself in the story, but also the way by which I was able to find my way in and derive the enjoyment I did. That said, there are parts — a daring rescue attempt, the aforementioned naval battle — that speed along with thriller-like speed. But the scene-setting — and there's quite a bit to recreate the 18th-19th century world as vividly as Mitchell is able to — and jumps in story (Mitchell basically re-starts the story at the beginning of each of the three "acts" of the novel) cause a few lags in reading enjoyment, at least for me.
But back to Mr. de Zoet, the mild-mannered, honest-to-a-fault young clerk who is employed by the Dutch East India Company. Charged with cleaning up the company's ledgers and clamping down on the blatant profiteering and corruption, Jacob has quite a challenge on his hands, especially given that his superiors are as corrupt as anyone. A chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, a Japanese midwife who has the rare opportunity to study under the Dutch Dr. Marinus on Dejima — the Dutch East India's trading post off the coast of Nagasaki — causes Jacob to all but forget his betrothed back home in the Netherlands. Jacob is fascinated with Miss Aibagawa, and is heartbroken when she is essentially kidnapped and forced to take up residence at a bizarre nunnery atop a mountain. Will the two ever be reunited? And if so, will she requite his love? If not, will Jacob ever get back home?
This was my first foray into Mitchell, and I am in awe. Thousand Autumns isn't my favorite book of the year by any stretch, but it's easy to see the genius behind it. The imagination and research that must've been required to tell this tale is simply stunning. There's always two ways to evaluate a book — the way that's objective as possible, putting yourself in the shoes of other readers, and the "it was/wasn't my cup 'o' tea" way. Objectively, it's a stunning book, but one I wish I would've liked more than I did.
Example of in-dialogue narration:
"So," Vorstenbasch settles himself, "after three days ashore, how are you finding life on the company's farthest-flung outposts?"
"More salubrious"—Jacob's chair creaks—"than a posting on Halmahera, sir."
Example of several one-line sentences in a row that read like poetry:
Steam rises from a bowl of water; light is sliced on the bright razor.
On the floor, a toucan pecks beans from a pewter saucer.
Plums are piled in a terra-cotta dish, blue-dusted indigo.
Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne
5.0
You might expect a character like Karim Issar, who corrects others' grammar, who doesn't get humor, whose language is sprinkled with techno-financial business geek speak, and who lays out his decision-making processes in painstaking, ultra-logical detail, to not be the most likable fellow you've ever read. But you'd be wrong — Karim is actually a wonderfully sympathetic, interesting character. And his story is equally sympathetic, interesting, and fun.
Karim's story begins in the fall of 1999 with a cross-Atlantic flight, during which he makes up math problems to amuse himself. Karim is coming to American to work on the Y2K problem in the New York office of the investment company he'd worked for in Doha, Qatar. After a co-worker steals credit for a profitable program he develops, he's more cautious with his next endeavor: The Kapitoil program, which accurately predicts oil futures and makes his struggling company a crapload of cash.
Meanwhile, Karim also explores the nightlife of New York, heading out to clubs, museums and parties with his clownish co-workers. Through an often painful (but fun to read) trial-and-error process, he slowly learns American etiquette on everything from one-night stands to interoffice crushes. Soon, circumstances force Karim into a tough choice regarding Kapitoil, and his traditional Qatari values collide with the possibility to make a ton of money for himself — but at a pretty hefty moral cost.
It's a straightforward narrative, but Karim's voice and Wayne's writing are anything but. Karim's voice, as Wayne explains in the podcast above, is the result of Wayne's desire to write a novel with an idiosyncratic voice guiding the narrative as well as his want to use language to be disruptive— but in a good way, because Karim's false starts with language and violations of American etiquette make you cringe and laugh at the same time. And as Karim begins learning the ways of New York, the novel begins to move from a laugh-at-Karim, to now laughing-with-Karim dynamic. He slowly begins to "get it" and as his moral dilemma arrives, you're confident he's now equipped with the tools to make the right decision. But will he?
If you're a fan hip, urban fiction, you'll dig this. If you enjoyed the way Jonathan Safran Foer wrote his character Alex in Everything is Illuminated — stilted, just-a-bit-off-English — you'll really enjoy Karim specifically but also the novel on the whole. It's a quick read and definitely one worth checking out, especially if you're someone (like me) who enjoys "getting in on the ground floor" of talented new novelists, like Mr. Wayne. But this isn't just some obscure novel from a writer you'll never hear from again — Teddy Wayne writes frequently for the New York Times (and many other pubs) and Kapitoil was blurbed by Jonathan Franzen and given a coveted "starred review" by both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist.
Karim's story begins in the fall of 1999 with a cross-Atlantic flight, during which he makes up math problems to amuse himself. Karim is coming to American to work on the Y2K problem in the New York office of the investment company he'd worked for in Doha, Qatar. After a co-worker steals credit for a profitable program he develops, he's more cautious with his next endeavor: The Kapitoil program, which accurately predicts oil futures and makes his struggling company a crapload of cash.
Meanwhile, Karim also explores the nightlife of New York, heading out to clubs, museums and parties with his clownish co-workers. Through an often painful (but fun to read) trial-and-error process, he slowly learns American etiquette on everything from one-night stands to interoffice crushes. Soon, circumstances force Karim into a tough choice regarding Kapitoil, and his traditional Qatari values collide with the possibility to make a ton of money for himself — but at a pretty hefty moral cost.
It's a straightforward narrative, but Karim's voice and Wayne's writing are anything but. Karim's voice, as Wayne explains in the podcast above, is the result of Wayne's desire to write a novel with an idiosyncratic voice guiding the narrative as well as his want to use language to be disruptive— but in a good way, because Karim's false starts with language and violations of American etiquette make you cringe and laugh at the same time. And as Karim begins learning the ways of New York, the novel begins to move from a laugh-at-Karim, to now laughing-with-Karim dynamic. He slowly begins to "get it" and as his moral dilemma arrives, you're confident he's now equipped with the tools to make the right decision. But will he?
If you're a fan hip, urban fiction, you'll dig this. If you enjoyed the way Jonathan Safran Foer wrote his character Alex in Everything is Illuminated — stilted, just-a-bit-off-English — you'll really enjoy Karim specifically but also the novel on the whole. It's a quick read and definitely one worth checking out, especially if you're someone (like me) who enjoys "getting in on the ground floor" of talented new novelists, like Mr. Wayne. But this isn't just some obscure novel from a writer you'll never hear from again — Teddy Wayne writes frequently for the New York Times (and many other pubs) and Kapitoil was blurbed by Jonathan Franzen and given a coveted "starred review" by both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist.
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
5.0
In his treatise On Writing, Stephen King says the spark for many of the best novels is when a writer combines two or more disparate ideas/topics/themes and then figures out how they can complement each other in interesting or unexpected ways. Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn is one of the best examples you'll ever find of this theory in action.
To explain why, let's try to follow (an absurdly abbreviated version of) what must've been Lethem's thought process before actually sitting down to write: "What I want to write is a literary detective novel that pays tribute to the masters like Raymond Chandler. I like that. But I need something more. What if one of the characters has Tourette's Syndrome? Yeah, that'll add intrigue. But he can't be a punchline, he has to be sympathetic. And his relationship with language is how I'll make him sympathetic. Boom, novel."
Then, he sat down to write, and the book he produced (in 1999) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, turned out to be one of the most-read novels of the aughts, and is often cited as a favorite novel of all time.
The plot is pretty simple: Gangster Frank Minna is murdered, and the four wise guys he's nurtured since orphan-hood (Tourrette's-afflicted Lionel Essrog being one of them) try to find out who killed him and why. Lionel tells us the the story in first person, as he wanders around New York City and then coastal Maine looking for clues and doing his best to manage his disease.
In my mind, Motherless Brooklyn succeeds spectacularly for two reasons: 1) The novel is incredibly inventive, and avoids cliche, when cliche would've been easy, and 2) It's very clear how much fun Lethem must've had writing this novel, which makes it fun to read.
First, how easy would it have been to make Lionel and his Tourette's a silly source of comic relief? Instead, Lethem uses Lionel's Tourette's in an unexpected way: He uses the disease to show us how intricate and clever language can be. Lionel must use the "wall of langauge" as a way to protect himself from his disease-addled brain's attempts to destroy him. For Lionel, language isn't what sets him apart from what's normal, it's what helps him be normal himself. If he didn't have language, even nonsensical strings of language, as an outlet to oppose his other physical tics, his disease would get the better of him, rendering him useless. This is part of Lethem's trick to make Lionel a sympathetic and incredibly self-aware character, as opposed to a source of cheap laughs. He also has Lionel continuously explain Tourette's to us so that we not only understand it (see below for an amazingly written passage explaining Tourette's), but we also understand how his unconventional thinking is actually helping him solve the mystery.
Secondly, if we understand #1, then we can also understand that when Lethem has Lionel let loose with a string of language (Franksbook! forkspook! finksblood, i.e.), the effect is not meant to be comic relief. It's just Lionel being Lionel. But, those Tourette's word explosions (ghostradish! pepperpony! kaiserphone!), which appear frequently, sure had to be helluva lot of fun to write! If Lethem wants to be funny, he'll have his characters tell a joke, use a pun (i.e., soon after Frank's dead: "my mourning brain had decided renaming itself was the evening's assignment"), or toss in a word like "chucklehead" — which cracked me up every time. It wasn't until about two-thirds of the way through the novel when this notion of how much fun the novel had to be to write dawned on me. And that's the moment the novel really clicked for me. Lethem's not showing off or being superfluous, he's having a blast! And therefore, as a reader, you can't help but have a blast also.
I read this book as the third in my personal New York trilogy (Let The Great World Spin and New York: The Novel being the other two). And while I'm sad to "leave" New York, I'm thrilled that I finished up with one of its resident poets. I'd always met to read Lethem but never had until now, and can't wait to take on his other stuff. I'd highly, highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys detective novels, the complexities of language, and just great writing.
Have you read Motherless Brooklyn? What'd you think?
To explain why, let's try to follow (an absurdly abbreviated version of) what must've been Lethem's thought process before actually sitting down to write: "What I want to write is a literary detective novel that pays tribute to the masters like Raymond Chandler. I like that. But I need something more. What if one of the characters has Tourette's Syndrome? Yeah, that'll add intrigue. But he can't be a punchline, he has to be sympathetic. And his relationship with language is how I'll make him sympathetic. Boom, novel."
Then, he sat down to write, and the book he produced (in 1999) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, turned out to be one of the most-read novels of the aughts, and is often cited as a favorite novel of all time.
The plot is pretty simple: Gangster Frank Minna is murdered, and the four wise guys he's nurtured since orphan-hood (Tourrette's-afflicted Lionel Essrog being one of them) try to find out who killed him and why. Lionel tells us the the story in first person, as he wanders around New York City and then coastal Maine looking for clues and doing his best to manage his disease.
In my mind, Motherless Brooklyn succeeds spectacularly for two reasons: 1) The novel is incredibly inventive, and avoids cliche, when cliche would've been easy, and 2) It's very clear how much fun Lethem must've had writing this novel, which makes it fun to read.
First, how easy would it have been to make Lionel and his Tourette's a silly source of comic relief? Instead, Lethem uses Lionel's Tourette's in an unexpected way: He uses the disease to show us how intricate and clever language can be. Lionel must use the "wall of langauge" as a way to protect himself from his disease-addled brain's attempts to destroy him. For Lionel, language isn't what sets him apart from what's normal, it's what helps him be normal himself. If he didn't have language, even nonsensical strings of language, as an outlet to oppose his other physical tics, his disease would get the better of him, rendering him useless. This is part of Lethem's trick to make Lionel a sympathetic and incredibly self-aware character, as opposed to a source of cheap laughs. He also has Lionel continuously explain Tourette's to us so that we not only understand it (see below for an amazingly written passage explaining Tourette's), but we also understand how his unconventional thinking is actually helping him solve the mystery.
Secondly, if we understand #1, then we can also understand that when Lethem has Lionel let loose with a string of language (Franksbook! forkspook! finksblood, i.e.), the effect is not meant to be comic relief. It's just Lionel being Lionel. But, those Tourette's word explosions (ghostradish! pepperpony! kaiserphone!), which appear frequently, sure had to be helluva lot of fun to write! If Lethem wants to be funny, he'll have his characters tell a joke, use a pun (i.e., soon after Frank's dead: "my mourning brain had decided renaming itself was the evening's assignment"), or toss in a word like "chucklehead" — which cracked me up every time. It wasn't until about two-thirds of the way through the novel when this notion of how much fun the novel had to be to write dawned on me. And that's the moment the novel really clicked for me. Lethem's not showing off or being superfluous, he's having a blast! And therefore, as a reader, you can't help but have a blast also.
I read this book as the third in my personal New York trilogy (Let The Great World Spin and New York: The Novel being the other two). And while I'm sad to "leave" New York, I'm thrilled that I finished up with one of its resident poets. I'd always met to read Lethem but never had until now, and can't wait to take on his other stuff. I'd highly, highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys detective novels, the complexities of language, and just great writing.
Have you read Motherless Brooklyn? What'd you think?
New York by Edward Rutherfurd
4.0
Edward Rutherfurd's New York: The Novel delivers what it promises: A sprawling historical fiction that links generations of characters through significant events of the city's rich history. Beginning in the 1600s with the original Dutch settlers, we work our way through the Revolution, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Depression and into contemporary times. The cornerstone characters are the "old money" Master family, who trace their roots back to the original Dutch and English settlers on Manhattan island. Over the centuries, though, the story brings in tangential characters from all walks of life that range from slaves to Italian immigrants who land at Ellis Island to a middle-class Jewish family.
But much of the joy of this book is the little-known nuggets of historical fact, and how Rutherfurd relates these episodes to his characters. For instance, did you know that to quell the Panic of 1907, when widespread unscrupulousness in investing and banking practices nearly brought down the entire financial system, President Theordore Roosevelt handed $25 million to JP Morgan and basically said, "Save us"? And he did.
These bits of trivia (Wall Street is so-named because it at first literally was a wall that protected Dutch settlers from Indian attacks) are the take-aways from the book because looking back, it's tough to remember which Master character made a narrow escape from the 1863 New York Draft Riots or the name of the Italian immigrant who helped lay bricks for the Empire State Building as it went up during the Depression.
But that's okay, because this is an event-driven novel. For the most part, the characters are simply the vessels through which Rutherfurd allows his story of New York to flow. They're there to be representatives of their time and as a way to interface with the historical events. In a novel that spans 400 years, there's not time to give these characters a full emotional range.
That said, it's also worth mentioning that Rutherfurd's style can be a bit grating at times. Even during the longer sections that span a few hundred pages and several years with the same characters, Rutherfurd writes in page to page-and-a-half sections, which gives the narrative a bit of a choppy, start-and-stop feeling. James Michener, who invented this historically hefty genre, writes better than Rutherfurd does, in my view.
The book winds up telling the stories of Gorham Master, a rich Wall Street banker, and his wife Maggie O'Donnell, a lawyer and descendant of the Masters' 19th century poor servants from Five Points. Though it takes more than 800 pages to get to the one part of New York's story that will really resonate with readers, Rutherfurd does a very commendable job of fitting his characters into a dramatic and harrowing 9/11 narrative. The wait is worth it for this part.
Overall, if you're a fan of the Michener-esque long historical novel, you'll probably enjoy this. I'd give it 3.9 out of 5 stars (yes, just slightly below four stars). I learned a lot from this book and, for the most part, enjoyed the three weeks I spent with it. It also was a lot of fun to read this book before, during and after trip to New York — and then visiting Battery Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church, the Empire State Building and other historical landmarks, all which figure prominently in the story. So if you have similar plans, that'll probably bump up your enjoyment of the book as well.
But much of the joy of this book is the little-known nuggets of historical fact, and how Rutherfurd relates these episodes to his characters. For instance, did you know that to quell the Panic of 1907, when widespread unscrupulousness in investing and banking practices nearly brought down the entire financial system, President Theordore Roosevelt handed $25 million to JP Morgan and basically said, "Save us"? And he did.
These bits of trivia (Wall Street is so-named because it at first literally was a wall that protected Dutch settlers from Indian attacks) are the take-aways from the book because looking back, it's tough to remember which Master character made a narrow escape from the 1863 New York Draft Riots or the name of the Italian immigrant who helped lay bricks for the Empire State Building as it went up during the Depression.
But that's okay, because this is an event-driven novel. For the most part, the characters are simply the vessels through which Rutherfurd allows his story of New York to flow. They're there to be representatives of their time and as a way to interface with the historical events. In a novel that spans 400 years, there's not time to give these characters a full emotional range.
That said, it's also worth mentioning that Rutherfurd's style can be a bit grating at times. Even during the longer sections that span a few hundred pages and several years with the same characters, Rutherfurd writes in page to page-and-a-half sections, which gives the narrative a bit of a choppy, start-and-stop feeling. James Michener, who invented this historically hefty genre, writes better than Rutherfurd does, in my view.
The book winds up telling the stories of Gorham Master, a rich Wall Street banker, and his wife Maggie O'Donnell, a lawyer and descendant of the Masters' 19th century poor servants from Five Points. Though it takes more than 800 pages to get to the one part of New York's story that will really resonate with readers, Rutherfurd does a very commendable job of fitting his characters into a dramatic and harrowing 9/11 narrative. The wait is worth it for this part.
Overall, if you're a fan of the Michener-esque long historical novel, you'll probably enjoy this. I'd give it 3.9 out of 5 stars (yes, just slightly below four stars). I learned a lot from this book and, for the most part, enjoyed the three weeks I spent with it. It also was a lot of fun to read this book before, during and after trip to New York — and then visiting Battery Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church, the Empire State Building and other historical landmarks, all which figure prominently in the story. So if you have similar plans, that'll probably bump up your enjoyment of the book as well.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
5.0
Better described as a literary work of art than a novel, Let The Great World Spin, is brilliant and profound — and well-deserving of its 2009 National Book Award. As life is episodic, so are the interconnected stories of a diverse cast of characters that populate this novel. An Irish Catholic monk. An African-American hooker, and her heroin-addicted daughter. A wealthy socialite named Claire grieving the loss of her son in Vietnam. A Jewish judge. Computer geeks. A guy who photographs graffiti. The novel revolves around the connections — often in unexpected ways — of these characters with the common thread of Philippe Petit's daring tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in August, 1974.
Part of the wonder of the novel is the verisimilitude with which McCann renders these characters. Endowed by their creator with beautiful, elegant, but clearly delineated voices, these New Yorkers practically spring off the page. They are so real, themselves so human. And through them, McCann offers a simple road map for being human: Connect. Love. Hope.
But the novel isn't just about the interconnectedness of people; it's about connecting with a moment, a memory, an image. As the broke-down hooker Tillie wastes away in jail, she remembers a week spent at an expensive hotel with a trick who only wanted to talk with her, respected her, practically loved her. She relies on that memory to help her navigate the vicious downward spiral of her life. Gloria, a poor black woman, who befriends the grieving mother Claire based on their shared experience of losing children to the Vietnam War, explains this idea as clearly as the English language could render it: "I guess you live inside a moment for years, move with it and feel it grow, and it sends out roots until it touches everything in sight."
This novel is also a portrait of New York City. Spanning races and classes, it's a tribute to the city's diversity, richness and history. As McCann tells us through one of his characters, "The city lived in a sort of everyday present....New York kept going forward precisely because it didn't give a good goddamn about what it had left behind." And then later, "(The tightrope walker) had made himself a statue, but a perfect New York one, a temporary one, up in the air, high above the city. A statue that had no regard for the past." For that reason, Petit's walk was a "stroke of genius."
And though 9/11 is never mentioned explicitly, it's clearly the undercurrent for and possibly the impetus of this novel. As people connected based on the novelty and shared experience of Petit's walk, so also did they connect on the shared and horrific experience of the terrorist attacks on the most horrific day in American history. McCann, seemingly randomly at the time, includes a photo of "a man high in the air while a plane disappears, it seems, into the edge of the building." The photo's weird trick of perspective didn't mean anything particularly interesting until 27 years after it was taken. Now, looking at it, and contemplating its prescience, you can't help but shudder.
This is a novel that I cannot leave; it really affected me. As I've written this, I've gone back and reread several of McCann's elegant passages. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for McCann, it only takes 95 or so. He conveys images, emotions, memories in words and phrases that are just so precise. For example: "She had the bluest eyes, they looked like small drops of September sky." How many times have you read novelists who totally flub an eye-description analogy? Not McCann — it's perfect, and that's just one of hundreds of examples throughout the novel. I can't recommend it more highly. Please read it. Please.
Part of the wonder of the novel is the verisimilitude with which McCann renders these characters. Endowed by their creator with beautiful, elegant, but clearly delineated voices, these New Yorkers practically spring off the page. They are so real, themselves so human. And through them, McCann offers a simple road map for being human: Connect. Love. Hope.
But the novel isn't just about the interconnectedness of people; it's about connecting with a moment, a memory, an image. As the broke-down hooker Tillie wastes away in jail, she remembers a week spent at an expensive hotel with a trick who only wanted to talk with her, respected her, practically loved her. She relies on that memory to help her navigate the vicious downward spiral of her life. Gloria, a poor black woman, who befriends the grieving mother Claire based on their shared experience of losing children to the Vietnam War, explains this idea as clearly as the English language could render it: "I guess you live inside a moment for years, move with it and feel it grow, and it sends out roots until it touches everything in sight."
This novel is also a portrait of New York City. Spanning races and classes, it's a tribute to the city's diversity, richness and history. As McCann tells us through one of his characters, "The city lived in a sort of everyday present....New York kept going forward precisely because it didn't give a good goddamn about what it had left behind." And then later, "(The tightrope walker) had made himself a statue, but a perfect New York one, a temporary one, up in the air, high above the city. A statue that had no regard for the past." For that reason, Petit's walk was a "stroke of genius."
And though 9/11 is never mentioned explicitly, it's clearly the undercurrent for and possibly the impetus of this novel. As people connected based on the novelty and shared experience of Petit's walk, so also did they connect on the shared and horrific experience of the terrorist attacks on the most horrific day in American history. McCann, seemingly randomly at the time, includes a photo of "a man high in the air while a plane disappears, it seems, into the edge of the building." The photo's weird trick of perspective didn't mean anything particularly interesting until 27 years after it was taken. Now, looking at it, and contemplating its prescience, you can't help but shudder.
This is a novel that I cannot leave; it really affected me. As I've written this, I've gone back and reread several of McCann's elegant passages. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for McCann, it only takes 95 or so. He conveys images, emotions, memories in words and phrases that are just so precise. For example: "She had the bluest eyes, they looked like small drops of September sky." How many times have you read novelists who totally flub an eye-description analogy? Not McCann — it's perfect, and that's just one of hundreds of examples throughout the novel. I can't recommend it more highly. Please read it. Please.
How to Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper
4.0
Normally if you read several books by the same author, and the main character in each of those books is pretty much the same guy, you'd be annoyed and probably scream "Unoriginal! Repetitive!" But Jonathan Tropper manages to pull this off. How? His prose reads like a 330 pages of stand-up comedy, so you don't really mind that he doesn't spend a whole lot of time on character development. But beyond his wonderful prose, as I've mentioned before, I love reading Tropper because his stories have heart, and are just so, for lack of a better word, true.
If you've read Tropper at all, you'll easily recognize Doug Parker, our protagonist for How To Talk To A Widower, as Zack from Everything Changes and Judd from This Is Where I Leave You. He's a wise-cracking, self-deprecating dude's dude with a slightly off-kilter family and a complicated relationship with women.
In this novel, the angle is that Doug's wife Hailey, 11 years his senior, has died in a plane crash (Doug is 29). And so he's spent the last year grieving — which has limited his activity to drinking heavily, feeling sorry for himself, occasionally yelling at people who express sympathy, and writing a monthly column for a magazine about how to talk to a widower. But Doug's twin sister Claire, who has her own relationship dilemmas, convinces him that he needs to get back into the dating pool. Meanwhile, he's also charged with the care of his wife's 16-year-old son from a previous marriage, who is angry at the world, as teenagers are. Hilarity ensues.
But, again, the fun derived from this novel is directly attributable to the writing. Want some examples? Sure, no problem: "Pity, I've learned, is like a fart. You can tolerate your own, but you simply can't stand anyone else's." Too low-brow? Then this'll really make you wince: "I've never been to an OB/GYN office before, and you can almost see fractal bends in the air from all the estrogen floating around in here."
I read the last 200 pages of this novel on a plane in a feverish, barely-looking-up trance. I loved it! So if you're looking for something on the light side that'll make you laugh, think and even get a little emotional, check it out.
If you've read Tropper at all, you'll easily recognize Doug Parker, our protagonist for How To Talk To A Widower, as Zack from Everything Changes and Judd from This Is Where I Leave You. He's a wise-cracking, self-deprecating dude's dude with a slightly off-kilter family and a complicated relationship with women.
In this novel, the angle is that Doug's wife Hailey, 11 years his senior, has died in a plane crash (Doug is 29). And so he's spent the last year grieving — which has limited his activity to drinking heavily, feeling sorry for himself, occasionally yelling at people who express sympathy, and writing a monthly column for a magazine about how to talk to a widower. But Doug's twin sister Claire, who has her own relationship dilemmas, convinces him that he needs to get back into the dating pool. Meanwhile, he's also charged with the care of his wife's 16-year-old son from a previous marriage, who is angry at the world, as teenagers are. Hilarity ensues.
But, again, the fun derived from this novel is directly attributable to the writing. Want some examples? Sure, no problem: "Pity, I've learned, is like a fart. You can tolerate your own, but you simply can't stand anyone else's." Too low-brow? Then this'll really make you wince: "I've never been to an OB/GYN office before, and you can almost see fractal bends in the air from all the estrogen floating around in here."
I read the last 200 pages of this novel on a plane in a feverish, barely-looking-up trance. I loved it! So if you're looking for something on the light side that'll make you laugh, think and even get a little emotional, check it out.
Solar by Ian McEwan
2.0
You won't find too many literary characters more despicable than Michael Beard, the star of Ian McEwan's new novel, Solar. Michael is the prototypical dumb smart guy — he's a capable, well-respected physicist, but he can't seem to get his personal life together, and Solar is basically a study of his (deplorable) character. When the novel opens, Michael, a serial philanderer, is trudging amidst the ruins of his failed fifth marriage and happily resting on the laurels of the Nobel Prize he won decades ago.
Solar is also a novel of ideas, to use a cliche — McEwan is an incredibly skillful writer, easing us in and out of complex scientific and philosophical notions in a way that enlivens them, keeping the reader engaged. To me, one of the more interesting parts of the novel is a discussion of why more women don't go into physics. To get to the root of this question, we see Michael, as a scientist and therefore staunch objectivist, defending his discipline against what he believes to be silly postmodernists who believe that science is only one of many possible ways of understanding the world — on par with philosophy, sociology and religion.
To relate this to climate change, Michael's opponents would say that it's just as legitimate for fundamentalist Christians to be exasperated by those who don't believe in God as it is for scientists to dismiss as idiots people who don't "believe" in climate change. Obviously, most scientists would disagree with the validity of that analogy.
Ultimately, though, this novel is about Michael. We travel with him from the Arctic to his London home to the desert of New Mexico, where he tries to develop a new solar energy technology. Ostensibly, his goal is develop a source of clean energy and save the world from climate change, which seems very admirable, but only until you realize that he's only doing it for personal fame and fortune. Throughout the story, you constantly feel bad for the people, his women especially, who are caught in Michael's misogynistic maneuverings. Even so, there are some laugh-out-loud funny parts (during his trip the Arctic, Michael stops to take a pee, and his thing gets frozen to his zipper), especially in the first few chapters as McEwan seems to realize he needs you on his side to continue telling Michael's depraved tale.
So I won't render an absolute judgment on this book, because it'll appeal to different folks. If you're turned off by a protagonist who is such a turn-off, you'll hate this book. But if you don't need likable characters to enjoy a novel, this could work. For me, the cynical view of climate change action — that the majority of those working on solutions are either greatly deluded or only doing so for personal gain — was more than a bit irritating, which is too bad, because I enjoyed the writing, the physics, and the discussions about renewable energy. I also had fun rooting for Michael to get his comeuppance.
(Also, if you are skeptical of or just cynical about climate change, you'll probably really dig this novel. It'll fit nicely on your shelf next to State of Fear, by Michael Crichton.)
Solar is also a novel of ideas, to use a cliche — McEwan is an incredibly skillful writer, easing us in and out of complex scientific and philosophical notions in a way that enlivens them, keeping the reader engaged. To me, one of the more interesting parts of the novel is a discussion of why more women don't go into physics. To get to the root of this question, we see Michael, as a scientist and therefore staunch objectivist, defending his discipline against what he believes to be silly postmodernists who believe that science is only one of many possible ways of understanding the world — on par with philosophy, sociology and religion.
To relate this to climate change, Michael's opponents would say that it's just as legitimate for fundamentalist Christians to be exasperated by those who don't believe in God as it is for scientists to dismiss as idiots people who don't "believe" in climate change. Obviously, most scientists would disagree with the validity of that analogy.
Ultimately, though, this novel is about Michael. We travel with him from the Arctic to his London home to the desert of New Mexico, where he tries to develop a new solar energy technology. Ostensibly, his goal is develop a source of clean energy and save the world from climate change, which seems very admirable, but only until you realize that he's only doing it for personal fame and fortune. Throughout the story, you constantly feel bad for the people, his women especially, who are caught in Michael's misogynistic maneuverings. Even so, there are some laugh-out-loud funny parts (during his trip the Arctic, Michael stops to take a pee, and his thing gets frozen to his zipper), especially in the first few chapters as McEwan seems to realize he needs you on his side to continue telling Michael's depraved tale.
So I won't render an absolute judgment on this book, because it'll appeal to different folks. If you're turned off by a protagonist who is such a turn-off, you'll hate this book. But if you don't need likable characters to enjoy a novel, this could work. For me, the cynical view of climate change action — that the majority of those working on solutions are either greatly deluded or only doing so for personal gain — was more than a bit irritating, which is too bad, because I enjoyed the writing, the physics, and the discussions about renewable energy. I also had fun rooting for Michael to get his comeuppance.
(Also, if you are skeptical of or just cynical about climate change, you'll probably really dig this novel. It'll fit nicely on your shelf next to State of Fear, by Michael Crichton.)
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky
4.0
Right off the bat, let me apologize to my readers for this too-long and rather narrow post, subjectwise — I fully realize that this post and the book it's describing won't appeal to anyone who hasn't read Infinite Jest or who doesn't care about David Foster Wallace. But I loved reading "Becoming Yourself" and wanted to write about it in some detail in case someone out there is a DFW fan and hasn't come across it yet.
And but so, if you ARE as big a fan of David Foster Wallace's writing as I am, then reading this book may be as difficult as it is illuminating. The reason: How do you square the light-hearted, good-natured writer that splashes jokes and humor throughout these pages with the man who suffered from a crushing depression and hung himself 12 years later? It's truly tragic, and while I loved reading this, it made me immensely sad a lot of the time, too.
But let me back up for a second: The story behind this book, for those unfamiliar, is that in early 1996 at the height of David Foster Wallace's newfound Infinite Jest-resultant fame (and he was quite the literary rock star!), Rolling Stone sent reporter David Lipsky to follow him around on the last leg of his book tour. The article was never published, but the result instead is this barely edited transcript of their conversations about life, literature (both traditional and avant garde), television and film, dogs, drugs, depression and dozens of other topics over the course of five days.
Several themes emerge from the conversations:
1) DFW was hyper self-aware, but also almost painfully shy and self-conscious and always self-deprecating — Almost every important answer DFW gives is couched with a sort of disclaimer that he's aware how what he's saying could be misinterpreted in print. He's constantly asking Lipsky to be nice and portray him positively in the article — which is one of the reasons why Lipsky is terrified to actually write the piece (thankfully for Lipsky, RS canceled the article). One of the best parts of the book is near the end of their time together when Lipsky asks him about his "act" of appearing as a normal person, when everyone knows he's so much smarter than everyone else. This is one of the questions (along with questions about his past drug use) that really rubs DFW the wrong way, because DFW insists that he's been nothing but genuine throughout. He's not posturing or being anyone but himself. It's easy to understand Lipsky's skepticism, because it's amazing to think that someone who was as smart as DFW was really can come off as a guy you'd love to have some beers with — making jokes about being disappointed that his fame hasn't gotten him laid, discussing music and movies, or warning Lipsky about using the bathroom 'cause he "just wreaked a little havoc."
2) DFW was uncomfortable with his meteoric rise to fame, especially after a somewhat pockmarked past, including a stay in suicide-watch ward in the late 1980s — He really had no idea how Infinite Jest would be received. He knew he'd written a good book, because he'd worked so hard on it, and at that level he was satisfied and proud. Finishing that book was his personal justification (even with two other published books under his belt) that he was truly a writer. His reaction to the critical acclaim and massive attention as almost a pop culture icon (every girl wanted to date him, every guy wanted to be him) was only that it would erode his credibility as a serious writer, both in his own mind in the mind of his readers. In fact, his biggest concern was that the fame would affect his writing — that he would be so worried about making his follow-up as impressive and worthy-of-attention as Infinite Jest, that he'd get bogged down in a loop of perfectionism. Here's how he puts it: "I have an enormous ambition to be centered...I mean this stuff, it's really scary...I'm now so scared of having the ambition to be regarded well by other people."
3) DFW was as incredibly smart and incredibly funny in person as he is in his writing — In the introduction, Lipsky describes DFW's voice as a writer as "the best friend you'd ever have, spotting everything, whispering jokes, sweeping you past what was irritating or boring or awful in humane style." I couldn't agree more, and DFW's wit, charm and intelligence is best illustrated with some quotes from the book:
— On reading vs. TV (and DFW LOVED TV): "...a book has to teach a reader how to read it. You teach the reader that he's way smarter than he thought was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb." Later, when they're talking about why books are losing ground to other mediums (and remember this was 1996!), DFW argues the reason is that reading requires its consumer to do work, whereas TV doesn't — it's incredibly passive, and Americans are incredibly lazy.
— In response to a flight attendant who has announced that "Smoking only is permitted outdoors." DFW: "Permitted only outdoors. It's not the only thing that's permitted outdoors." Lipsky adds: "Irritated as a grammarian and as a smoker."
— NPR radio guy prior to interview DFW: "We're gonna record digitially. I hope that's okay." DFW: "So, only yes and no answers?"
— On being a writer: "I don't think writers are smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion."
— "Although of course you end up becoming yourself" — DFW is talking about the influences of your parents, but then, of course, at some point you diverge and forge your own identity.
The one thing that bothered me as I read this book (other than the fact that Lipsky seems to be constantly trying to prove how smart he is to DFW, and thus inserting himself quite frequently into the narrative) is something I read in a recent interview. Lipsky said he never talked to DFW again after the time they spent together, and I wondered why. The two have such a great rapport, and admit to each other that they think of each other as friends after the time spent together. So what happened?
And but so, if you ARE as big a fan of David Foster Wallace's writing as I am, then reading this book may be as difficult as it is illuminating. The reason: How do you square the light-hearted, good-natured writer that splashes jokes and humor throughout these pages with the man who suffered from a crushing depression and hung himself 12 years later? It's truly tragic, and while I loved reading this, it made me immensely sad a lot of the time, too.
But let me back up for a second: The story behind this book, for those unfamiliar, is that in early 1996 at the height of David Foster Wallace's newfound Infinite Jest-resultant fame (and he was quite the literary rock star!), Rolling Stone sent reporter David Lipsky to follow him around on the last leg of his book tour. The article was never published, but the result instead is this barely edited transcript of their conversations about life, literature (both traditional and avant garde), television and film, dogs, drugs, depression and dozens of other topics over the course of five days.
Several themes emerge from the conversations:
1) DFW was hyper self-aware, but also almost painfully shy and self-conscious and always self-deprecating — Almost every important answer DFW gives is couched with a sort of disclaimer that he's aware how what he's saying could be misinterpreted in print. He's constantly asking Lipsky to be nice and portray him positively in the article — which is one of the reasons why Lipsky is terrified to actually write the piece (thankfully for Lipsky, RS canceled the article). One of the best parts of the book is near the end of their time together when Lipsky asks him about his "act" of appearing as a normal person, when everyone knows he's so much smarter than everyone else. This is one of the questions (along with questions about his past drug use) that really rubs DFW the wrong way, because DFW insists that he's been nothing but genuine throughout. He's not posturing or being anyone but himself. It's easy to understand Lipsky's skepticism, because it's amazing to think that someone who was as smart as DFW was really can come off as a guy you'd love to have some beers with — making jokes about being disappointed that his fame hasn't gotten him laid, discussing music and movies, or warning Lipsky about using the bathroom 'cause he "just wreaked a little havoc."
2) DFW was uncomfortable with his meteoric rise to fame, especially after a somewhat pockmarked past, including a stay in suicide-watch ward in the late 1980s — He really had no idea how Infinite Jest would be received. He knew he'd written a good book, because he'd worked so hard on it, and at that level he was satisfied and proud. Finishing that book was his personal justification (even with two other published books under his belt) that he was truly a writer. His reaction to the critical acclaim and massive attention as almost a pop culture icon (every girl wanted to date him, every guy wanted to be him) was only that it would erode his credibility as a serious writer, both in his own mind in the mind of his readers. In fact, his biggest concern was that the fame would affect his writing — that he would be so worried about making his follow-up as impressive and worthy-of-attention as Infinite Jest, that he'd get bogged down in a loop of perfectionism. Here's how he puts it: "I have an enormous ambition to be centered...I mean this stuff, it's really scary...I'm now so scared of having the ambition to be regarded well by other people."
3) DFW was as incredibly smart and incredibly funny in person as he is in his writing — In the introduction, Lipsky describes DFW's voice as a writer as "the best friend you'd ever have, spotting everything, whispering jokes, sweeping you past what was irritating or boring or awful in humane style." I couldn't agree more, and DFW's wit, charm and intelligence is best illustrated with some quotes from the book:
— On reading vs. TV (and DFW LOVED TV): "...a book has to teach a reader how to read it. You teach the reader that he's way smarter than he thought was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb." Later, when they're talking about why books are losing ground to other mediums (and remember this was 1996!), DFW argues the reason is that reading requires its consumer to do work, whereas TV doesn't — it's incredibly passive, and Americans are incredibly lazy.
— In response to a flight attendant who has announced that "Smoking only is permitted outdoors." DFW: "Permitted only outdoors. It's not the only thing that's permitted outdoors." Lipsky adds: "Irritated as a grammarian and as a smoker."
— NPR radio guy prior to interview DFW: "We're gonna record digitially. I hope that's okay." DFW: "So, only yes and no answers?"
— On being a writer: "I don't think writers are smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion."
— "Although of course you end up becoming yourself" — DFW is talking about the influences of your parents, but then, of course, at some point you diverge and forge your own identity.
The one thing that bothered me as I read this book (other than the fact that Lipsky seems to be constantly trying to prove how smart he is to DFW, and thus inserting himself quite frequently into the narrative) is something I read in a recent interview. Lipsky said he never talked to DFW again after the time they spent together, and I wondered why. The two have such a great rapport, and admit to each other that they think of each other as friends after the time spent together. So what happened?
Bloodroot by Amy Greene
5.0
Don't be surprised if you see Amy Greene's Bloodroot make its way onto several of the literary prize short lists later this year. It's that good; a wonderfully engrossing story by a debut novelist who writes with amazing clarity, emotion, authenticity and beauty.
Bloodroot is a plant that has the power both to cure or kill; it's the central symbol throughout a novel rich with dichotomy (love and hate, life and death). Bloodroot is also the name of the mountain in dirt-poor East Tennessee where the novel takes place. Much like the Mississippi River in Mark Twain's works, Bloodroot Mountain stands as both the setting for the story and a "thing" with which the novel's characters have a real, tangible relationship. The mountain itself is a character.
These tragic characters, all with an inseparable connection to Bloodroot, take turns telling this story about the importance of family heritage and the dangers of fate. Blue-eyed, beautiful Myra Lamb is the central character. She is her family's hope for breaking a century-old curse. But Myra herself seems also to be cursed, and marries an abusive jerk who does everything he can to sever her roots and destroy her sense of self. Her only saving grace is her hope of one day returning home to Bloodroot. "You might leave one day," Myra says, "but your blood will whisper to you."
Bursting with symbolism and Biblical allusions, but maintaining a wonderful sense of "country mysticism" and superstition, this novel is about as literary as literary gets. That's not to say the book is difficult — it's actually one of the most brilliant types of literary novels: Even if you don't get all of it, you're still totally engaged in the story and the writing, because the story stands strongly on its own merit and the writing is so fantastic. Taking time to think through and understand the "literary adornments" only adds to the enjoyment of the novel.
I'm not in a book club, but if you are, this would be a fantastic novel. It's one that begs to be discussed, and therefore, savored.
Bloodroot is a plant that has the power both to cure or kill; it's the central symbol throughout a novel rich with dichotomy (love and hate, life and death). Bloodroot is also the name of the mountain in dirt-poor East Tennessee where the novel takes place. Much like the Mississippi River in Mark Twain's works, Bloodroot Mountain stands as both the setting for the story and a "thing" with which the novel's characters have a real, tangible relationship. The mountain itself is a character.
These tragic characters, all with an inseparable connection to Bloodroot, take turns telling this story about the importance of family heritage and the dangers of fate. Blue-eyed, beautiful Myra Lamb is the central character. She is her family's hope for breaking a century-old curse. But Myra herself seems also to be cursed, and marries an abusive jerk who does everything he can to sever her roots and destroy her sense of self. Her only saving grace is her hope of one day returning home to Bloodroot. "You might leave one day," Myra says, "but your blood will whisper to you."
Bursting with symbolism and Biblical allusions, but maintaining a wonderful sense of "country mysticism" and superstition, this novel is about as literary as literary gets. That's not to say the book is difficult — it's actually one of the most brilliant types of literary novels: Even if you don't get all of it, you're still totally engaged in the story and the writing, because the story stands strongly on its own merit and the writing is so fantastic. Taking time to think through and understand the "literary adornments" only adds to the enjoyment of the novel.
I'm not in a book club, but if you are, this would be a fantastic novel. It's one that begs to be discussed, and therefore, savored.
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
2.0
Like practically everything else in Lorrie Moore's novel, the title A Gate at the Stairs is a metaphor. No matter your station in life, there are always obstacles. But some "obstacles" -- like race, or past mistakes, or ignorance, or preconceived notions -- are harder to climb over than others. In and of itself, that's a great message, but the plot with which Moore frames this idea is such a tangle of subplots, digressions and varying styles, that this idea almost gets lost amidst the din.
In a thinly veiled fictional version of Madison, Wisconsin (Moore teaches at the University of Wisconsin), freshman Tassie Keltjin lands a job as a babysitter for the adopted, mixed-race child of Sarah Brink and her husband Edward. But Sarah and Edward's marriage is rocky, and they have secrets. But Tassie gets a boyfriend who isn't what he seems. But Sarah is a restauranteur. But Tassie's farmer father and Jewish mother are a little kooky. But racism exists, even in a liberal college town. But Tassie's brother is joining the army. But nothing is ever what it seems in a paranoid post-9/11 world.
Moore seems to have the literary version of attention deficit disorder. The style and story shifted so often that it was hard for me as a reader to get comfortable. When Sarah has meetings with other parents of mixed-race children, Moore writes these scenes as pages of modifier-less dialogue. But then the next section might be a long description of flowers and nature, practically bursting with over-adorned, metaphor-laden prose. And even when the plot is moving along, Moore will key off a single word or phrase, and spend a several-paragraph digression making jokes or describing further or generally trying to "wow" you with her words. (Here's an example: "Contents may shift during the flight, we had been told. Would that be good or bad? And what about discontents? Would they shift, too? And what if the oxygen deprivation in the cabin caused one to think in idle spirals and desperate verbal coils like this for the rest of one's life?")
When I did get comfortable enough to slow down or reread to get some of the jokes (like the one above about "contents shifting during flight"), I did enjoy them. Moore is frequently a clever and witty writer. But more often than not, these seemed like spaghetti-at-the-wall gimmicks. If it stuck with the reader, great. If not, well, Moore had amused herself. Similarly, with the multiple themes Moore tries to tease out of her many subplots, there just seemed to be too many balls in the air. Instead of trying to catch one or two of them to give them the appropriate attention and treatment, Moore actually just drops them all.
In a thinly veiled fictional version of Madison, Wisconsin (Moore teaches at the University of Wisconsin), freshman Tassie Keltjin lands a job as a babysitter for the adopted, mixed-race child of Sarah Brink and her husband Edward. But Sarah and Edward's marriage is rocky, and they have secrets. But Tassie gets a boyfriend who isn't what he seems. But Sarah is a restauranteur. But Tassie's farmer father and Jewish mother are a little kooky. But racism exists, even in a liberal college town. But Tassie's brother is joining the army. But nothing is ever what it seems in a paranoid post-9/11 world.
Moore seems to have the literary version of attention deficit disorder. The style and story shifted so often that it was hard for me as a reader to get comfortable. When Sarah has meetings with other parents of mixed-race children, Moore writes these scenes as pages of modifier-less dialogue. But then the next section might be a long description of flowers and nature, practically bursting with over-adorned, metaphor-laden prose. And even when the plot is moving along, Moore will key off a single word or phrase, and spend a several-paragraph digression making jokes or describing further or generally trying to "wow" you with her words. (Here's an example: "Contents may shift during the flight, we had been told. Would that be good or bad? And what about discontents? Would they shift, too? And what if the oxygen deprivation in the cabin caused one to think in idle spirals and desperate verbal coils like this for the rest of one's life?")
When I did get comfortable enough to slow down or reread to get some of the jokes (like the one above about "contents shifting during flight"), I did enjoy them. Moore is frequently a clever and witty writer. But more often than not, these seemed like spaghetti-at-the-wall gimmicks. If it stuck with the reader, great. If not, well, Moore had amused herself. Similarly, with the multiple themes Moore tries to tease out of her many subplots, there just seemed to be too many balls in the air. Instead of trying to catch one or two of them to give them the appropriate attention and treatment, Moore actually just drops them all.