An Unanticipated Segue to 2010: Theophilus North in Newport for the Summer of '26

I finished all 50 States, plus DC, at 2:45 PM on Tuesday, December 22. With the last minute rush of the holidays, and a need to take a deep relaxing breath, I've put off writing up the last review. But here goes:

Theophilus North was the last novel written by Thornton Wilder in 1973. It is heavily autobiographical and a look-back of almost 50 years. The hero of the story, Ted North, summers in Newport but only as an ancillary to the moneyed class that inhabits the cottages/mansions, as the tennis and French instructor for their children and as a professional reader to those too infirm, agoraphobic, or "entitle" to find amusement and interests out of doors. Wilder employs two structure devices on which to hang his tales: paralleling the city of Newport to the nine cities of ancient Troy and the motives of his protagonist, to his childhood ambitions and the attractions of nine possible careers: as a missionary, anthropologist, archaeologist, detective, actor, magician, lover, and my favorite, rascal/"el picaro."

To quote at length from Chapter One, Wilder's description of a rogue:
"... el picaro ... the man who lives by his wits, “one step ahead of the sheriff,” without plan, without ambition, at the margin of decorous living, delighted to outwit the clods, the prudent, the money-obsessed, the censorious, the complacent. I dreamt of covering the entire world, of looking into a million faces, light of foot, light of purse and baggage, extricating myself from predicaments of hunger, cold and oppression by quickness of mind. These are not only the rogues, but the adventurers. I had read, enviously, the lives of many and had observed that they were often, justly or unjustly, in prison. My instinct had warned me and my occasional nightmares had warned me that the supreme suffering for me would be that of being caged and incarcerated. I have occasionally approached the verge of downright rascality, but not without carefully weighing the risk.”

Ever since I introduced T.C. Boyle's Mungo Park to my book club and was surprised by their quite Victorian reaction to his escapades with native sexual practices, I decided that the blog for 2010 would be nothing but picaresque novels. Imagine my surprise to find Theophilus just as intent on being a rogue. In the next couple of days, I will post the list of randy adventurous books I have culled for next year's resolution. And I guess the theme is not that far afield from 2009. This year, I had been looking to validate that where a story happened was not incidental to its outcome. But passing through all the States has been a journey of sorts. Picaresque novels per se have a voyage overlay.

As I progress into the next resolution, I am looking for books that typify that personal voyage, one where the main character, through all his or her missteps, encounters unbelievable characters and situations, placing himself/herself in temptation if not risk, and gaining wisdom and personal insight thereby. That is the standard against which I will assess the novels next year.

But before that list, I will post two more reviews for 2009: one my first assessment of which of the 51+ from the States met or exceeded what I was looking to find (the centrality of location) and how my list aligns against that of the bonus book, State by State, the 2008 published anthology of 50 authors' treatment for each State. I'm interested to see if my preferences for a State from this book match those on our list, to see if there is anything intrinsic about a State that makes it prime real estate for literature.