Two Books I Don't Have Much to Say About

At first, I thought The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver was a bang-up book. I even mentioned that to the woman who recommended it for the September book club selection when I ran into her at the grocery store on Thursday. The farther I went into the story, the less I liked it: both for its blatant left-leaning stance and for its being padded with fictionalized fan letters and newspaper clippings referencing the main character Harrison Shepherd. When I was liking the book, it was retelling the story of Frida Kahlo's stormy relationship with Diego Rivera. I loved the movie Frida with Salma Hayek. Even though I knew the course of events with regard to Leon Trotsky, I liked Kingsolver's rendition. I guess her forte is all things Central American. She makes Mexico tolerably acceptable.

I have learned to be cautious of male authors with female leads and vice versa. Kingsolver mitigates this uncomfortable voice by making Harrison gay and aloof and the teller of the tale, Violent Brown, a sexless widow almost a score older than Harry. I read a review on the Internet today that compared Harry to Zeligman or maybe Forrest Gump, there when historic and unpleasant things were happening in America and either not understanding them or falling within their trap. Once the story ventured into the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, it lost me.

Kingsolver's ur-message was too blatant in this choice of topic. It would have been more interesting had Harrison not committed suicide and lived another 20 or 30 years to interpret both the media's and government's new messages. The 50's were no worse, just different from today. Tom Cuddy, Harrison's assignation heralds Mad Men and political spin doctors.

From a book club's vantage, it will be interested to focus a discussion on the distance between an artist and his / her work and the danger of that opus being interpreted by "officials."

I also finished a murder mystery, really more pulp noir novel called Galveston, a book written last year by Nic Pizzolatto. Like the Ripliad, this book does not satisfy my craving for social justice. The main character, after serving 13 years in Angola prison, after killing many while being hounded himself by the shady underworld characters he associates with, supposedly finds redemption by explaining a mother's death to an abandoned child twenty years later, just before he either succumbs to the ravages of lung cancer or the devastation of Hurricane Ike. Nothing I would recommend to the aging Nancy Drew gang.