And of the Year and Everything Else

Emily left two more books behind when she flew back to Texas from her first visit north of the Carolinas. We graciously were able to provide a mini-blizzard for her snow-angel enjoyment. And for my enjoyment, I finished The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt, a fictionalized biography of the last few months in the life of Nikola Tesla.

Why bother recapping the facts of Tesla's life when they are exhaustively available on Wiki. Hunt holds true to that chronology, introducing supporting characters who really were Tesla's friends and acquaintances, including Mark Twain who for chapters here is the mysterious "Sam." So the question is why does Hunt write a novel instead of a biography? She contrasts Tesla's science and hobby interests with an invented character Louisa, a maid at the Hotel New Yorker in 1943 where Tesla lived his last years. Like Tesla, she has a father prone to invention and raising homing pigeons. I suppose a lot of the plot intentionally plays the famous against the wanna-be scientist and how people relate to them. A time machine created by her father and his best friend on Long Island is as fantastic as Tesla's death machine.

Despite this contrasting interplay, I find it difficult to conclude why a fictionalized rendition is better than a true life story. Maybe Hunt is hoping to reach a different audience. Nevertheless, she writes engagingly and I have reserved her other novel to pursue her style and voice.

I have moved on to the other book passed on to me: Ahab's Wife which I am loving, never having actually sat down to read Moby Dick even though Herman Melville graduated from Albany Academy. Guess I have another gap in my knowledge of literature. Anyway, thanks again to Em for a good read.

Ten Days Early: Know When I See It and This Isn't

Sorry to begin too early, Slackers, but I put through a reserve request and the library garnered most of them right away. I finished A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter in a couple of days since it is less than 200 pages. Bosh! It was not time well spent.

What I left out from the summary of Paz' analysis of love and eroticism are his catalogues of what they are not. They are not found in the libertine, nor the person who objectifies his love object desiring to possess that person, only to discover that this passion of "greed" turns the object into a person who subjugates the libertine into an object himself.

Such a person is Phillipe Dean, a Yale dropout (one of the reasons I selected the book knowing a couple myself) who is financially dependent on his father (again a reprise for me) and who believes that a mistress is a prerequisite of his grand tour of France. Dean is in his early twenties and his lust interest, Anne-Marie just out of her teens. Dean's debasement and abuse of Anne-Marie is not sexual, although there is plenty of the wanna-be voyeur in the story. His is a socio-economic humiliation. He craves her body while finding disgust in her teeth and breath; he transports her around French countryside chateaux and auberges in a rusty Delange but feigns not knowing the language when he visits her parents and eats in their kitchen. He marries her with full intent of deserting her and flying back to America.

Maybe one could look at the story from Anne-Marie's point of view and hope that the red flame of passion turned into the blue flame of love, but her motives too are financial, expecting an improvement in class and life style that Dean cannot pay for on his own. The reader has no sympathy or identification with either of them.

What is more disturbing is that the entire story is told by an unnamed narrator, who seems to be a Yale grad hobnobbing with the Northeastern blue bloods who emigrated to Paris to intermarry. The narrator, who could not possibly know Dean and Anne-Marie's itinerary let alone the couplings in there hotels, concedes: "I am inventing him. I am creating him out of my own inadequacies, you must always remember that."

Perhaps the most author-revealing quote is: "Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One alters the past to form the future. But there is a real significance to the pattern which finally appears, which resists all further change." (Unlike Paz, the only quote worth citing at length.)

Is this story then just a fantasy of the narrator, a projection of his frustrated attraction to his friend's wife Claude? Is it an embodiment of his alienation from France? Personally, I don't care. Even if I wasn't looking for lust as a manifestation of love, this novel would not appeal to me. Salter considered it his best work. I can't imagine reading his others (even though they are basically war stories.)

Hate to start the new year like this, but Slackers, I read the first couple of pages of Zola's Nana waiting for my annual mammogram at 7 this morning and I believe that one bodes well.

A Reference and Clarifyer: The Double Flame

The blog theme for 2011 is "lust." Providing we can find enough of it; otherwise we might add other deadly sins. But quite honestly, I am not looking for another year of sensational posturing like I encountered in the year of picaresque novels. Maybe I'm "looking for love in all the wrong places," because I am not added erotica, sado-mas themes nor romantic unrequited love stories. I want novels/biographies of people who loved passionately.

And so I decided to benchmark and establish criteria by resorting to Octavio Paz' literary criticism of love and eroticism, The Double Flame. His examples rely heavily on classical Greek, Latin and Renaissance Italian and Spanish masterpieces and he does not give laurels to any contemporary efforts. In fact, he quite succinctly echoes the observation some of the Slackers have made:

"The period we are living through is not sterile, even though serious damage has been done to artistic productions by the scourges of commercialism, profiteering, and publicity. Painting and the novel, for example, have been turned into products subject to fashion -- painting by means of the fetishism of the unique object, the novel by means of mass production ... Our time ... is simplistic, superficial, and merciless. Having fallen into the idolatry of ideological systems, our century has ended by worshiping Things. What place does love have in such a world?"

After that introduction to our pursuit of lustful love, here is Paz' definition of the double flame:

"According to the Dicionario de Autoridades, the flame is 'the most subtle part of fire, moving upward and rising itself above in the shape of a pyramid.' The original, primordial fire, sexuality, raises the red flame of eroticism, and this in turn raises and feeds another flame, tremulous and blue: the flame of love."

Love will by force provide wonderful tensions in the selected readings and the following quotes in essence become those characteristics I am looking for in the 2011 selections:

"In love, predestination and choice, objective and subjective, fate and freedom intersect. The realm of love is a space magnetized by encounter"

"Our flesh covets what our reason condemns."

"The mystery of the human condition lies in its freedom: it is both fall and flight. And therein resides the immense allure that love has for us. It does not offer a way of salvation; neither is it idolatry. It begins with the admiration of a person who is physically present, followed by excitement, and culminates in the passion that leads us to happiness or disaster. Love is a test that ennobles all of us, those who are happy and those who are wretched."

"Almost always, love manifests itself as a rupture or violation of the social order; it is a challenge to the customs and institutions of the community. A passion that, uniting the lovers, separates them from society."

"Love is not a desire for beauty; it is a yearning for completion."

"In all loves, even the most tragic, there is an instant of happiness that it is no exaggeration to call superhuman: it is a victory over time, a glimpse of the other side, of the there that is here, where nothing changes and everything that is, truly is."

"In love, everything is two and everything strives to be one ... The beloved is then both terra incognita and the house where we were born, what is unknown and what is recognized."

Like The Perfect Orgy's analysis of Madame Bovary and the components of a great, unforgettable novel, Paz' short reprise on the elements of love as found in literature should be a well-worn reference for serious readers. As I typed up these quotes, I was pulling off a blizzard of post-it notes from a volume that runs only 275 pages. His insights are poetic and as such capture the evasiveness of the most personal of human emotions.

Back on the Reservation

It was a hit! Everyone who came to book club last night loved Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, the novel I read for the state of Washington for the 2009 blog theme. We had great discussions on the tension between alienation and assimilation and the need to preserve cultural heritage without demonizing the majority. We talked about how he advances plot seamlessly using dialogue and how much more readily we could suspend disbelief for the magical realism in this story as opposed to A Hundred Years of Solitude. I think we have tempted another person to join our group after she "audited" the get together last night. And everyone loved the Christmas cookies and went home with doggie bags. Here's hoping our selections for 2011 are all as rich.

Preview of 2011

Christmas week is not a time to still be dealing with wallpaper hangers and enormously heavy boxes of doors parked on the front porch. Compound that with book club here tonight and only one tree up if not decorated fully since I can't find the storage box with the smaller icicles in it. Blame the spring flood. At least the elves came during the lunar eclipse last night and cleaned off the table so I could start arranging the goodies for tonight.

Meanwhile, working with one of the Slackers to redecorate her home office, we digressed to plan the upcoming year's theme. Because it has been significantly absent from the plots of the stories the face-to-face group has selected, we decided "lust" would be appropriate and enjoyable ... see how vicariously middle aged women live. So, after this lengthy apologia, I admit to only being able to garner eight titles so far. Here they are, to be supplemented, I promise, next week with more of the same, or failing that, another deadly sin:

The Double Flame by Octavio Paz (I actually finished this book yesterday, hoping that it would clarify the lust them and distinguish it from sadistic erotica and bodice rippers and that it contained a lengthy bibliography pointing me to novels to add to the 2011 list. It met my expectations in the former but was completing lacking in the latter. A more detailed review come the New Year.)

A Sport and A Pastime by James Salter

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

The Pure and the Impure by Colette

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Nana by Emile Zola

Possession by A S Byatt

Compelled Me to Inventory: Something Missing

The wallpapering was finished in the dining room, officially, yesterday with the sconces re-hung and the rug moved back in from the family room. As I began to reload the crystal cabinet and the silver chest, I had a strange Virgo-like need to write up a count of how many of each piece I have. Am I doing this to round out service sets? To know what I should be on the look out for on eBay? Or because I am spooked after reading Something Missing by Matthew Hicks?

This is the last of four books sent by Emily in my birthday box and like the other three, a good read. This is the story of an antisocial man, Martin Railsback who supplements his pitiful job at Starbucks with stealing from several residences on an on-going basis, in one case, for over nine years. Martin is compulsive in his research and requirements for becoming one of his “clients:” certain demographics and surroundings are paramount. In addition, he has strict standards for his own entry, surveillance and targeted items. He comes with a “shopping list” of groceries written in French, watching expiration dates and only taking a small number of items the home owners have in bulk. But he needs to make money besides being well fed so he photographs jewelry, china, silver and crystal to notice their lack of use, therefore, their likelihood of not being immediately missed.

Dicks structure is that of the all-knowing narrator, one who not only observes Martin in the minutest detail but describes what is going on in his thoughts. The logic and planning of his burglaries belie the image of the dumb criminal. He is no Cary Grant cat burglar though, bereft with phobias, misreading social situations and needing to rehearse all conversations that he cannot avoid in the first instance. Eventually, the story line develops this second layer – that what is missing is not the cache of luxury items but a piece of Martin’s personality.

Dicks brings this deficits much more into play in the second half of the book as Martin’s strategies to know his clients without ever feeling for them begins to fall apart: he is still in one house when the owners show up unexpectedly early; he encounters pets and children, two of his disqualifications for becoming a client; and most importantly, he begins to influence the behaviors of his clients by obliquely contacting them. He overhears a wife bemoaning never getting flowers and sends an anonymous note to the husband; he listens to a phone message that would expose a surprise birthday party and intervenes to ensure the wife in this case has time to delete the message and hide the gift.

As these near misses occur with more frequency, the reader wonders if it is inevitable that Martin is caught and undone. The reader fights with the balance of seeing his thefts as justified, harmless, and maybe done for a higher purpose, especially when Martin saves a client from attack. To become “Super Yegg” Martin finds himself reconnecting with a father he hasn’t seen in twenty years and dating.

Several blog reviews lately have commented on the author introducing into his work the self-disclosing aspects of the need to write, the search for an appropriate topic and voice, and the tension between the writer’s life experiences and fictionalized facts. It is the use of the all-knowing narrator that makes this book so “itchy.” In the about the author section at the back of the book, Dicks’ youthful peccadilloes are listed, his late-blooming straight career plus a disclaimer “that he is not, himself, a thief.” Why does that word “himself” bother me so much? Stopping the review now – forgot to write down how many cocktail forks I have.

Comfort Food – The Girl with No Shadow

This is the perfect time of year to read The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris, the sequel to her better know story, Chocolat. I don’t recall how many years ago it was that I watched the movie version of Harris’ novel; all I remember in a haze of favorite things are the French chocolaterie, Juliet Binoche, Lena Olin and a young and gorgeous Johnny Depp. So it was somehow new and fresh to discover the overplot of magic and danger steeped in this book. Heretofore, I thought the allure of the chocolate bon bons was the addition of chili.

Since the movie, I have discovered the vast array of scented and spiced chocolate, finding Vosges bars with chili, hemp and best of all bacon. I even went so far as to buy candy molds shaped like pigs to try my hand at making bacon chocolates, only giving myself a mediocre “C” for my efforts. This kitchen magic alludes me.

But back to TGWNS. Harris narrates the story alternating chapters as told by Yanne, her pre-teen daughter Anouk and the mysterious Cyndi Lauper like Zozie. After some time on the run, Yanne ends up in Paris, on Montmartre in charge of a failing chocolaterie. She is trying to blend in to the environment and not draw attention to herself and her daughters by becoming average and shedding all vestiges of her magical powers. Flamboyant Zozie upsets these plans, hexing the shop into success and tempting Anouk to dabble in the black arts as a vehicle to combat school yard bullying.

Yanne’s engagement to a “plain vanilla” kind of man falls apart as her business becomes more profitable and she gains back her self-confidence. Her former lover also reappears and while she can weigh the relative worth of comfort and security over passion, her daughters want Roux back in their lives.

Zozie collects people. At first, she seems like another gypsy con artist or identity thief but there are those ominous charms on her bracelet, one for each life.

The author is telling a tale about writing a fiction of one’s life as it is lived. The main two female characters change their names so often their true selves seem buried too deep. These masks cover other events in their younger lives that are mightily being suppressed. The plot moves quickly over two months, from Halloween to Christmas, the time of year itself loaded with traditions and ancient beliefs. At the end of the story, Harris has sent a message that each of us not only has chosen our own family, but our own history and identity. That only through honesty, trust and originality can individuals find completeness in parents, children and lovers.

This is yet another of the perfect books that Emily sent me for my birthday. I hope when she visits, she will rummage through my book case and borrow as many as catch her eye.

Junk Food versus Gourmet

I can't believe it's almost the end of the year (except for maybe the horrifically cold temperatures and howling winds) and I have to acknowledge the failure of the 2010 theme of picaresque novels and work my brain to find something more fruitful for next year. In the meantime, I have been reading a rag-tag assortment of books. When in doubt, or in a lusty mood, a revert to J. D. Robb and her "In Death" series. The latest is Indulgence in Death which I just now finished. Not one of her better ones, terribly formulaic, making its predictability not comforting but contrived. This series is set in the not too distant future in NYC after a class war. Yet social strata survive and villains abound. Normally, I adore the release Eve Dallas and Rourke find in each other and the fleshing out of the minor characters, Eve's friends on and off the force, but they seemed very superficial in this installment. The bad guys are over-indulged inherited-it-all thrill seekers and the concluding chapters are now where near as dangerous as other installments. Had I time enough and audience, it would be a scholarly challenge to decode Robb's stock format with that of Dick Francis.

But Robb attracts me like potato chips. I swear off them several times a month, only to succumb when I find a new bag in the cupboard.

What has proven again to be an unexpected delight is to discover the intrigue, wonder, and enjoyment of those books my Emily sent me for my birthday. As I opened another one and found another charming note from her, I must conclude that she has a much better sense for good contemporary literature than my book club members do. I loved Zafon and now have discovered Seldon Edward's The Little Book. Where is the buzz on this book? Here is a well-educated author who spent decades researching and polishing his manuscript to turn it into an engaging novel of time traveling to Vienna in 1897.

Unlike the book club's November selection, A Short History of Women, here is a book where both sexes are strong, loving and supporting each other in a successive generations of family and friends. Place and time are integral. Supporting characters play six degrees of separation with well known figures -- Mahler, Freud, WWII French resistance and 19th Century Boston Brahmins -- all intermingling. Actually, I think this is the first time travel book I've read, but to call it that is to do it injustice. Edwards counterpoints Freud's theories against the generational tensions between fathers and sons and contradicts his premises with strong female heroines.

The main characters are unforgettable: Weezie, Wheeler, Dilly and the Haze. When the author admits in his afterword that he developed them over decades of polishing, the reader believes him since all are so multi-dimensional and fraught with human concerns.

As much as I liked Zafon's Barcelona, Edwards' Vienna is more familiar to me. My visit was in 1976, an Olympic year and a time when early OPEC was holding its first meetings. I toured St Stephens, the Imperial Gardens, ate my schlagg and then returned to my hotel to watch international sports with young Arabs. Vienna was surreal even then.

There are still two Emily books next to my bed and the ever present daunting tome of Drood. Holiday busywork will impede my efforts to close 2010 with a flurry of wintertime reading and a new assignment at work has expressed itself as "cut back on the blog and write what we need." But The Little Book is a solid "A" and one that I will pass along to my Slackers.