Three stories about class relations

Many of the stories in the anthology 50 Great Short Stories concern class relations, which is not surprising as we could say the same about almost all literature, even though some deny or overlook the importance of class relations and class conflict in literature, comedy especially. Three of the stories show three aspects of the stance of the author (and editor of this anthology?) toward social class and class conflict. Take Henry James's story Brooksmith, about which I've posted earlier: In this story the narrator reflects on the great days of the past when he attended a literary salon in London, and the importance of the eponymous butler who made the atmosphere just right and, upon the death of the host of the salon, decline of the butler's life into illness and poverty - all written ostensibly as an appreciation of the butler and his importance but we can see the naivete and even the cruelty of the narrator (and his cohort) who go on w/ their lives and do nothing to help the poor man who all deem so important and unfortunate. A second story, the surprisingly good The Curfew Tolls by the now mostly forgotten Stephen Vincent Benet: In this epistolary story the narrator writes to his sister - this is the 1700s in England - about a man he meets while both are recuperating at a coastal spa who laments that he could have been a great general had he only been born to a life of some privilege, like the narrator. The narrator's description of the man makes him out to be odd, obsessed, angry, and almost deranged - yet what the would-be general is saying is absolutely correct: class status plays a huge role in success and opportunity, then and now. And the narrator does, toward the end of the story, seem to recognize the distance in privilege between their two lives: the would-be general was born into the wrong time, place, and class (far before his rightful time …). Third: Clarence Day's story, Father Wakes Up the Village, a supposed comedy (Day was famous long ago for the Life with Father series) about his father raising hell in his Westchester town when the ice man skipped a delivery on an especially hot day. This story is contemptuous and tries to get laughs out of the discomfort and abuse the father inflicts on those in no position to tell him to f. off.

Closed and open endings in short fiction

Milton Crane's outdated anthology, 50 Great Short Stories, from 1952!, shows its age in Crane's selection of early 20th-century stories. The 20th century, and modern age in literature, moved away from the tightly plotted stories of previous years. To be fair, Crane includes a few stories from some of the great Modern writers, notably Hemingway, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, but far too many pieces in this collection depend on a "surprise ending" or a conclusion w/ a wry twist. Three I read yesterday are examples: Frank O'Connor's The Man of the House, about a young man in early 20th century Ireland, living w/ his mother in a state of poverty (this story anticipates the work of Frank McCourt and to a much lesser extent William Trevor), who is sent to buy medicine for his mother, consumes the whole bottle, but that is pardoned by mother, now feeling much better, which he takes to be the miracle he'd prayed for; Edmund Wilson's The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles (Wilson was a giant of 20th-century lit crit, less well known for his stories), a well written piece about the eponymous man (title an homage to DH Lawrence?) who builds a business selling canned turtle soup and is shot to death by a biz partner - who escapes blame when another employee runs away for unrelated reasons but vows he will tell the truth and take the blame if the runaway is ever caught and charged; and The Giocanda Smile, by Aldous Huxley, famous of course for Brave New World, a somewhat long story about a philanderer who gets what he deserves - each of these stories is well-crafted and ends with a tight wrap that concludes everything, and each feels quite different from, say, the Three Day Blow, which I read and posted on a few days back and which ends with a sense of mystery, longing, and openness.

Two seldom-read writers plus an excellent Wharton story in 50 Great Short Stories

Three stories from the early 20th century in the anthology 50 Great Short Stories (1952), two of them by authors once famous but today little read: first, O. Henry's story The Man Higher Up, from which we can see why he was once highly popular (and the namesake for the eponymous award) but today seems quaint and beside the point. This story, written in pseudo tough-guy patois is about 3 thieves, one a burglar, the second a scammer (selling useless products in small towns), the 3rd a financier, and it's a bit of a contest to see which scheme is the most successful - but it all feels so remote from the present and so stage-managed that it's hard to see why any contemporary reader would be much interested. The next story, The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse, by William Saroyan, has the air of a memoir-story, recalling a event from the narrator's childhood in farming community in California populated mainly by Armenian immigrants. In some ways this is a forerunner - immigrant stories and memoir-like stories are a staple of short fiction today - and it other ways a throwback, reminding me of tales from the shtetl by Singer et al., but, like O.Henry, Saroyan was a highly regarded literary figure in the 40s and 50s and is now seldom read: he showed the way toward a new type of fiction, but if this story is typical his writing was exaggerated, caricatured, and not so engaging. The next story is the best of the group by far and by an author his popularity and reputation have only increased since over the past century - Edith Wharton's The Other Two. She was personally close to Henry James, and we can see, in this story and others, her careful development of character, attention to the nuances of social position, ability to create and establish a setting distinct in time and place (among the elite in the meritocratic early 20th century Manhattan). This story is beautifully nuanced and tells of a man's complex relationship with the two previous spouses of his young wife - worth reading then, and today.

An example of the art of the short story at its best - de Maupassant's Looking Back

Read 3 more stories in the Milton Crane 1952 anthology, 50 Great Short Stories, not all of which are "great." EA Poe's 19th-century piece The Masque of the Red Death is one - not really a great story, kind of ghastly and over-written and material for a comic book or video game - a horrible plague that leads to blood-soaked death w/in 30 minutes of contact overtakes a medieval European principality, and the prince's effort live with courtiers inside a walled palace fails, as the plague invades. There's a bit of contemporary symbolism here - a wall won't really "protect" everyone, or anyone - and Poe touches on the universal fear of infection, still a fore in our society (see the recent Ebola panic in the U.S.), but the story is more significant as a forerunner of the modern short story and as an example of EAP at his most gruesome. Then there's Max Beerbohm's A.V.Laider, from the early 20th century is a curiosity - a too-long account of an encounter between two Englishmen, one of whom opines on his belief in palmistry and how that led him into a life of tragic remorse - with a twist at the end when the eponymous Laider pulls the rug out and says, no, he was only kidding. Yes, so what? Beerbohm is one of those authors who has slipped into obscurity, and we can see why: This story hardly stands up to the great Modern writers and feels irrelevant and over-written today. Then there's Guy de Maupassant, whose "Looking Back," another 19th-century entry, possibly the saddest and most moving story in this anthology: an elderly priest explains to a woman his decision to enter the priesthood, recounting a life in which he has struggled against all feeling and emotion. He suffered from loneliness in boyhood and was traumatized by the death of a pet dog and decided he needed a life in which he could be insolated from feelings of love and compassion. GdM treats this man with great delicacy and sympathy and at the end, when he walks off slowly into the night, we feel we have understood a whole sorrowful life in just a flash or a glimpse - a great example of the art of the short story and what writers can achieve through concision and intimation.

One good thing about Thomas Wolfe's story and a surprisingly good story from Anatole France

One thing that's really good about the Thomas Wolfe story in the Crane anthology 50 Great Short Stories (from 1952) is its title: Only the Dead Know Brooklyn. Could there be a better "noir" phrase? Yet what does it mean in the context of this nearly forgotten story? The story is of a man who meets another guy, an out-of-towner, on a subway platform in Brooklyn; the guy asks directions to some obscure place, and they set off together heading toward that that remote area, and a discussion about Brooklyn ensures. The mysterious stranger is just visit various sites that he'd marked on a map. OK is he an Angel of Death in some manner? As far as I can see he represents nothing in particular - just a chance for TW to write something in Brooklyn dialect (what's with Crane's fascination w/ dialect stories, anyway? - perhaps a long-abandoned literary fad). Few writers have suffered such a decline in their reputation as Wolfe, said to say - clearly one of my favorite authors when I was about 16. But even Wolfe devotees must scratch their heads at this story - so removed from the Southern childhood memories and effusions that made Wolfe famous, for a time. Another story in this odd anthology turns out to be a real surprise, though: Anatole France's Putois. I know nothing about AT (nor does this anthology tell me anything about him), but in the spirit of this "new critical" collection looking at the story as completely removed from historical time or place, it's an amusing tale of a family that invents a character, the eponymous Putois, as an excuse to get them out of social obligations (we can't come to dinner as we're expecting the gardener, Putois) and how the invented character grows in scope to encompass the life of the whole town, perhaps for generations (blame every misstep and poor happenstance on the never-seen Putois) - and how some buy into the joke and others, not. In other hands - Borges, Calvino, Murakami, for example - this could have been a great story about universal mysteries, but it stands up well here as an amusing tale of mischief.

Three stories in the 1952 anthology, 2 of which are completely dated

Reading further in the Milton Crane 1952 anthology, 50 Great Short Stories, still kept in print by Bantam Classics, a few observations: Shouldn't Bantam at least change the title, to let the buyer beware that these stories were selected about 80 years ago and that this anthology, if it's an attempt to survey the field, which it was, is ridiculously out of date? The collection skews heavily toward English language, is predominantly male (though to be fair the major female writers of its time are included), is I think entirely white - so it's a historical curiosity as much as a reader's anthology. The 3 stories I read yesterday give a sense of the limitations. First, a story by Kipling, The Courtship of Jenny Branch, or something like that, a soldier's tale related to what today we'd call an embedded reporter w/ some British troops doing an exercise in India. I can only think of Strunk & White's principle: Don't write dialect unless your ear is good. Kipling's is pretty good, which doesn't make this tedious tale of drink and carousing any more interesting; the one nice moment of pathos, however, is when the narrator reflects on the life and fate of the men gathered around the campfire, a beautiful moment in an otherwise forgettable tale. And what about the John O'Hara selection - Graven Image - which not only is by no means his best story but is one that would hold little interest for most readers then for sure and now as well: a business meeting between 2 successful men, one of whom still holds a grudge about a social-club snub in their Harvard days. This is one of the best stories of the century? Pushkin's "The Shot" is the best of the 3, a strange tale of vengeance in 19th-century Russia - worth reading, but if you were to place it beside almost anything by Chekhov you'd see how Chekhov lets the characters and events in his fiction grow and change and suffer whereas Pushkin depends much more on actin, drama, and extremes of coincidence.

Mason's novel merits comparison w/ Pasternak

Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier (2018) continues to grow on me; as I near the end I'm not only impressed w/ how he incorporates so much knowledge about so many subjects - European and military history, medical science, world languages, flora and fauna, art and décor, and others - into a credible, swift narrative. Sure, it does get annoying that every single sentence could entail some kind of fact check - flowers blooming in the pavement cracks in Vienna at the close of WWI? Must be asphodels! - and yes there's always the sense that Mason is proving he's the smartest kid in class, but all that pales against what amounts to a really good story line w/ lots of powerful scenes and vivid settings: The protagonist, Lucius, is a Viennese medical student who volunteers for military duty in the war and, through his eyes, we see the horrors of medical trauma care in the early 20th century; he falls in love w/ the head nurse in his remote field hospital; she, Magarete, is a nun - although maybe not? - and just as they commit to each other they're separated by one of those tectonic shifts of wartime and he searches for her, even back home in a war-ruined Vienna after the peace treaty. Among others, we get a great scene in which L thinks he spots M in a crowd in Vienna and follows her in desperation, painfully awkward scenes in which her visits his family in Vienna and has no way to convey to them the horrors he's seen in war, many more. Mason keeps the plot dramatic w/out being melodramatic, and builds and holds our confidence in his assured knowledge of the historical period - while avoiding heavy-handed, irrelevant period detail. It reminds me in some ways of that other great war-medical-hyperdramatic Doctor Zhivago and it would be provocative to compare Winter Soldier w/ another WWI/military/medical/romance, A Farewell to Arms, completely different in tone and style but similar in some ways in mood.

Why the narrator of James's story Brooksmith is a complete fool

The Henry James story Brooksmith (1892), in the Crane anthology 50 Great Short Stories, is among the most sorrowful and in many ways horrendous of James's stories; those who find his novels meandering and impenetrable, especially the late novels, should consider or re-consider his stories, where the confines of the form pushed him if not toward concision at least toward building a plot and establishing a character with some economy of phrasing, while maintaining the James acuity and psychological insight. In this story, the unnamed narrator reflects on an "Arcadian" time in the past when he and several others would regularly visit a retired diplomat in his house in London for what was essentially a literary/intellectual salon - and the narrator opines that the eponymous Brooksmith, the butler, was the one who through his acuity and sense of order and whom to sit near (or away from) whom, etc., made the salon pleasant and possible. Eventually, the retired diplomat sickened and died and of course the salon ended; the narrator laments this lost period of his life, but what about Brooksmith? The diplomat left B some 80 pounds; I don't know how to translate that into contemporary $s, but it was obviously a pittance. Brooksmith goes on to work in other houses, then gets ill and is out of work for a while, then takes on a job as a hired hand in a catering crew - a steady downward slope. And none of the well-to-do men in the all-male "salon" is able to do a thing to help this poor man - yet apparently they all look upon this past period of their lives as a shining moment. But a moment w/out a heart or a care for any but themselves, without even for a moment questioning the class structure that keeps B confined to a clearly lower class and without a social structure to support anyone in ill health or unemployed. All of their opining about beauty and art and philosophy does nothing to broaden the scope of their understanding of and compassion for others. The narrator is in a sense a complete fool, without James ever having to say so; he hangs himself w/ his own rope.

What's wrong with the anthology 50 Great Short Stories

I've been poking around in an anthology, 50 Great Short Stories, originally published in 1952 and kept in print through various editions by Bantam Classics - thanks, guys - so we know from the start that this will be a dated anthology, with nothing from the past 3/4 of a century!, but still there are many great stories included from a range of cultures though w/ heavy leaning toward British and American. The 4 stories I've read over the past 2 days are all good, of course; I posted on a Hemingway story yesterday, and will note in passing a good story by Dorothy Parker, Standard of Living, which has a fantastic opening paragraph about the overly rich food two women are consuming and then goes on to describe the two partners in a secretarial pool, each living at home with parents/family in NY and dreaming - through an elaborate thought-game they concoct - about what they would acquire if they were wealthy - a funny story despite its obvious condescension, plus a story, Saint, by the V.S. Pritchett about his loss of faith when he spends some time w/ the humbug minister who'd enraptured his parents - worth reading for the funny scene alone in which they engage in a punting accident (this may take place in Cambridge, England?) that humiliates the minister - a good story except that the minister is such an easy target and obvious blowhard that there's really no dramatic tension. Parker and Ptritchett are not read much today. But I have to register here a complaint about this anthology, edited - or I would say "selected" as there is no editing - by a UChicago English prof, Milton Crane, and this collection shows all that was wrong and idiotic about the ultra-conservative Chicago lit dept in those days, w. their New Criticism belief that the text stood alone outside of authorial or cultural context. Following this absurd dicta, Crane gives no notes on authors, no sense of original publication date (you could look at the copyright permissions for some info), and no clue as to his principal of organization, if any. Great, you've given us 50 well-selected "texts" but have done nothing to help a reader w/ context, and what did they pay you for that?

Why Hemingway's Three-Day Blow is a great story

I don't know when I last read Ernest Hemingway's story The Three-Day Blow - it's part of his first (?) collection, In Our Time, which I first read when I was in h.s. and which I could not possibly have understood or recognized. In those days, for some reason they always presented EH and Faulkner as a pair, and for a young reader Faulkner seemed clearly the superior; now, his work seems more flashy and uneven - what he took pages to establish, EH took phrases (at his best). Of course EH is out of vogue at present, in large part because of his obvious sexism, racism (I recently read To Have and Have Not, and it was at times appalling), and fascination with violence. That said, a story like 3-Day Blow remains a masterpiece - a simple narrative of the protagonist, Nick Adams (whom we know from other stories as a 20-something man home in Michigan after service in World War) who hikes up to a small cabin in the Michigan woods to meet up w/ a friend, Bill. The simple description of his walk to the cabin is enough to make any story, but the narrative begins when Nick and Bill get into a bout of talk and drinking. At first their conversation is tempered and trivial - baseball scores, a couple of long-forgotten authors that they like or dislike for various reasons. They get increasingly drunk, and the conversation subtly develops an edge, in particular when Bill says that Nick did the right thing in breaking off a relationship w/ a young woman. Nick's not so sure about that, and we see the pull and the tension between two aspects of his life: masculine, the outdoors, drinking, fishing, hunting, and the potential for love, a normal family and domestic life; he puts up a tough front to Bill, wearily agreeing w/ him that he was right to break off the relationship, but he can't help but think that the has turned away from something that could have saved his life. All of this EH conveys through indirection and understatement, and with an air of mystery: the pending storm, Bill's absent father (he's out shooting while the young men sit and drink, toward the end of the story they hear his shotgun - an ominous foreshadowing esp for this author).

Short Stories and a sense of an ending

One of the most difficult aspects in writing a short story is bringing the story to a conclusion. As noted in many previous posts, there are so-called open stories and closed stories. Roughly speaking, the closed stories end in some kind of dramatic climax or confrontation - sometimes death - whereas open stories, much more in vogue over the past century - end with a perception, an image, or perhaps a realization. Either way, ending a story well is a challenge; they have to avoid cliché, stating the obvious, and melodrama while maintaining a sense of an ending, not an abrupt halt to the narrative. Reading through parts of The Best American Short Stories 2018, we can see that this problem remains an obstacle to greatness, even among the award-winning stories. Writers, young writers in particular, seem to know how to get a story going, with a sharp image in the opening sentence or paragraph, and good writers will always know how to proceed from there, sketching in a delineation of the main character or characters, providing a sense of place and a setting in time if appropriate, and building a narrative arc or plot line. But how to conclude? One story in the collection called and set in Los Angeles gives us a quick sketch that feels true to life of an aspiring actress living in shared quarters in LA and barely making a living wage at a story selling overprice designer label togs. Soon she supplements her income by catering to a creepy, kinky clientele who will pay her for underwear she's worn. At the end of the story she meets an especially disturbing customer, provides him with what he wants, feels endangered, and, bing, the story ends. You lost me there! Another story starts of with a terrific sentence, as a 60-something woman receives a call notifying her that excavators have  found the lost remains of her brother, who died in childhood at an Indian Bureau school - powerful start - but after several scenes with the woman coming to terms w/ this discovery, she drives to a nearby rez, buys some staples, and prepares a bowl of mush or porridge much like that her grandmother used to prepare. It's a nice moment I guess, but it doesn't alleviate or respond to all of the emotions the story raised and feels too much like heavy-handed symbolism. Just like novels, stories need to achieve a true sense of an ending.

A powerful scene/chapter at the mid-point of The Winter Soldier

About halfway through Daniel Mason's novel The Winter Soldier (2018) there's a terrific chapter in which a sadistic Austrian officer comes to the military hospital that's at the center of this narrative. The officer, Lt. Horst, is charged with returning to the front (this novel takes place during World War I, near the Eastern Front) men who he believes have recuperated - which is to say everyone in the hospital save for those with amputated limbs or gruesome head injuries. The protagonist of the novel, a young medical student serving as the head of this small hospital, Lucious, has been deeply involved w/ the recovery of those with what today we would call shell shock; Horst can't accept that these men are incapacitated, as they have no visible physical injuries, and accuses them of being deserters and cowards. He basically tortures to death one of the mentally ill soldiers and then forces another into his caravan heading back to the front; Lucious feels helpless, humiliated in front of the other soldiers and his top nurse (with whom he's also developing a love relationship) Margarete - and in particular he feels that he has kept one of the victims in his field hospital too long - rather than sending him back from the front - so that he could continue his research and experimental treatment on a victim of shell shock - altogether a powerful and frightening chapter. I'm not sure where this novel is headed, but it's clear that the novel is improving as it develops, after a slow start. Yes, it's at times over-written and, yes, Mason can't resist showing off his knowledge of medical history, languages, and other arcana, but he's building a good story that centers on character and that establishes a milieu and historical setting that's pretty far from most American fiction, contemporary or otherwise.

A strong entry in the 2018 Best American Short Stories

In his author's note, Jamel Brinkley, in the Best American Short Stories 2018, cites some of his key influences, most notably William Trevor and Edward Jones - and I couldn't think of any better pedigree. We can see the connections between their short fiction - fluid narratives that center on one character and follow him (usually a man) through a large portion of his life, and in the process illuminating aspects of a particular setting or milieu (with WT and EJ, respectively, rural Ireland and the black community in DC - pretty far apart, come to think of it) - and w/ Brinkley the setting is the black community in contemporary Brooklyn - though setting is not as important to him (this story could just as well take place in any other major American city) as is familial relationships. He examines the life of a man who in youth broke off from his best friend because a woman came between them, then did 12 years in prison after he'd hit and killed a pedestrian, now out he focuses his attention, in what at first seems a creepy way, on his best friend's son and on his mother (the woman who caused their friendship to break up), and over time they develop a loving relationship and the story ends on a dissonant but hopeful note. He hasn't, yet, attained the level of Jones or Trevor, in that they would most likely end the story with an air of mystery and disconnection, sorrow, or disappointment; the ending here feels a little too easy, but the story stands out as a strong portrayal of a troubled man who is trying to make amends.

Why I read a story by Amos Oz

Yes, I know I'd said I would never read Amos Oz - after he refused an interview request in advance of a reading he gave at Brown University, this guy who always made time for an interview w/ the NYTimes - but he died a few weeks ago a let us not speak ill of the dead; moreover, the New Yorker last week ran a somewhat lengthy story from Oz, written in the 1960s but not published in English until now so I had to give it a look: All Rivers. I definitely like the title, and as we read the story we see that these are the first 2 words in an unfinished poem written by a woman that the protagonist meets at a coffee shop. On the plus side, this story provides what we hope and expect from good fiction, esp in translation - a glimpse into contemporary (of in this case contemporary 50 years ago) life in a different culture. The protag lives on a kibbutz in Israel and has a passionate interest in philately and seems to have no enduring relationships w/ women - he seems from these stereotypes as if he might be weak and bookish, but we learn that he served and won a valor medal w/ the formidable Israeli army and has great physical strength and dexterity (he can climb stairs on his hands!) - and so are we to think of him as a symbolic stand-in for the young nation (then) of Israel: Don't dismiss us, we're much tougher than we look. Over the course of the story he meets the woman/poet, who's 33 and extremely strange. He sidles up to her in a coffee shop, spends much of the day w/ her, flirting but essentially ignoring her sexual advantages. I think it's fair to say that most normal men we run away from this woman, who seems incredibly self-destructive (throughout their entire encounter she chain smokes and then coughs brutally, while telling him not to touch her). But  he stays w/ her for a while, long enough to miss the appointment (to trade stamps!) that he'd travelled some distance for, and then he goes back to his kibbutz and secures himself in his room to write. So what's the big deal? I'd say that Oz pulls off a neat trick regarding the protagonist and his attempt to recollect his meeting w/ this woman, and I won't give it away, but at the end of the story we have to go back to the beginning and read it in a new light. I have no idea why this story remained untranslated for 50 years; I'm not sure if I'm going to read more of Oz, but this story would pique the interest of many readers.

Daniel Mason

After some very rough going on the first day of reading Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier (2018), I've come around and beginning to like this novel or at least shake my head in wonder at the incredible research he's done for this historical fiction - about a medical student who volunteers to serve w the Austrian army in the First World War. We get through Mason's vivid description of the horrors of medical care in that time and in remote wartime conditions - and it's probably best to just accept this as a work of historical fiction and not worry about the niceties of plot, character, or dialog. Mason doesn't wear his research lightly but the end result - ok I'm not even at the halfway point so who knows? - is that this novel gives us a better sense of life on the ground in that time and place than any work of nonfiction could provide. The account of daily life and care and survival and more often death in the remote military hospital where the physician/protagonist (Lucious) learns surgery by trial and error is almost painfully gruesome but has the feeling of veracity. As to what will happen in the remaining two-thirds of the novel - more of the same? Or will it become a romantic wartime drama, Lucius and the nurse, Margarete, who is of course a nun? - I can't yet determine, but I'll stay w it for now.

Sent from my iPad

To read or not to read Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier

For the first 50 or so pages I found Daniel Mason's novel The Winter Soldier (2018) nearly unbearable, in part because of Mason's skills as writer and in part, not. The novel follows the life of the eponymous soldier, a young physician (or medical student, actually) who volunteers to serve in the Austrian medical corps at the outset of the first World War. Bringing us to that point, Mason (a physician himself) gives us an incredible amount of detail about medial training a century ago and also about the primitive, painful medical practices of the day, in particular in the army where resources and equipment (as well as skill and experience) are scarce - tough going for any reader, as Mason intends. But I also felt that this was a novel going nowhere - a canvas on which Mason could show that he's the smartest guy in the room, a well-researched book that gave me far more information than I need if I'm interested in this book as a novel (someone interest in WWI or in medical history might feel otherwise). As I've noted in other posts, I'll always give a novel at least two days of reading before abandoning the ship, so to speak - and I do have to admit that chapter two ends on a promising note, as the physician at last arrives at the field camp where he will begin his military service and learns, to his surprise, that he's the chief medical officer. That opens some possibilities and puts the narrative at a crossroad; if Mason can use this opening material to develop a character and a plot, so much the better, but if I's about to embark on more detailed, gruesome accounts of makeshift medical practices, amputations, wounds, injuries, etc. then, well, it'll be time to move on.

Thoughts about the novel Heat and Dust evolve over the course of reading

Finished reading Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Booker-winning 1975 novel, Heat and Dust, and events and disclosures in the final third of the novel force me to rethink parts of the entire book. I won't give too much away for fear of spoiling the experience for potential readers, but will just say that, as the parallel narratives develop - one about a young married woman, Olivia, in India in the 1920s as the wife of a British government officials, the other about a young woman diarist/narrator (unnamed?) in the present day (i.e., the 1970s) who travels to India to learn more about Olivia's fate - begin to converge (and to mirror each other; the two women 50 years apart undergo similar experiences) we, or at least I, recognize that some of my assumptions, as expressed in the previous posts, are completely inaccurate. This observation shows me or reminds me that these posts, the act of keeping a daily reading blog, differs from writing a review: If I were to review Heat and Dust or were to try to shape these posts into a review, I'd have to make major edits to the previous posts; but in fact my goal in this blog, as noted in initial posts back in 2009, is to keep a daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading. If my thoughts about a novel change over the course of my reading, these posts are a record of that process. All told, RPJ's novel is a success and I still could imagine it as a movie (I haven't check to see if it's ever been filmed); the comparisons w/ Forster are still apt, though particularly in the final third of the novel we see a much more critical look at life in India, the crime, the injustices, the horrible medical services, the callous attitude toward death and suffering, the brutality toward women. Also, of course, this novel feels more contemporary that Forster, even in the 1920s section; RPJ is more open and explicit about sex, and in the 1970s portion one of the significant characters is a young Englishman who's trying to live life as an ascetic pilgrim (when in fact he's more of a mooch), a contemporary character that would never - I think - have appeared in an India-set novel from the early 20th century. The conclusion may not satisfy all readers, and the final chapters may be a bit schematic, as the two women undergo similar experiences, but altogether H&D is an impressive work - and makes me want to read mor eof Jhabvala, particularly her short fiction.

Jhabvala as novelist and screenwriter and a comparison w/ Forster

We don't expect any surprises in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's 1975 novel, Heat and Dust, as she announces in the first sentence that this novel relates how Olivia (a young Englishwoman married to a colonial official and living in India in the 1920s) left her husband (Douglas) and began a (lifelong?) relationship with the local Indian governor, always referred to as the Nawab. The narrator of the story is Olivia's granddaughter, a 20-something who journeyed to India in the present (of the novel, i.e., the 1970s) to learn about her grandmother's life; the narrative incorporates the granddaughter's diary and letters from Olivia in the 20s to her sister. So, no major surprises - but RPJ rises to the challenge and holds our interest throughout the novel - I'm about halfway through this relatively short (180 pp) work - despite our foreknowledge of the outcome. She deftly sketches in Olivia as a dutiful but bored member of the tiny British-colonial society who is increasingly drawn to the Nawab, who showers her w/ attention and small gifts - and all the while she (and we) learn about the Nawab's utter corruption and cruelty. She should be able to see what a mistake it would be to fall for him, but the fact that she's drawn to his charm - and wealth - and that she's stifled by the role of the colonial wife - stay at home and knit and play the piano, head for the highlands for a four-month separation from husband every year - shows us how desperate she must be to leave her conventional life and take up w/ this dangerous man. RPJ is great at dialog and at the deft sketching of a scene through careful detail selection, so we can see how she later transofrmed her work as a novelist into a highly successful career as a screenwriter, known for her work w/ classic 20th-century British fictoin (not sure if H&D was ever filmed but the adaptation would be pretty easy given the groundwork that RPJ has set in place). Obvious comparisons w/ Forster of course come to mind - but there are major differences as well: In Forster, the British families (notably Mrs. Moore) are hoping to "connect" with the Indian people, with dire and tragic consequences; here, Olivia has no illusions (nor does her granddaughter decades later) and she wants not so much to learn about and connect w/ an "exotic" culture but to give up her life and privilege and to dive recklessly into an alien (to her) world. 

A passage to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's fiction

Would like to get a hold of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's recently released collected (?) stories, as I'm always interested in writers of plot-driven narratives that translate well into film (and in how that happens and what's gained or lost in the process), but as it's not yet on library shelf picked up a copy of her Booker-winning 1975 novel, Heat & Dust (even though a recent intelligent review of her story collection made little of H&D, oh well). This novel treats the familiar theme of English officials and business-people living in India and adjusting, or not, to the style of life and the conventions of the native Indians - but the original twist in RPJ's work is the focus on the women (Graham Greene did likewise in some of his African-set fiction). The novel is a little rough going at the outset, as there are a couple of separate timelines introduced abruptly, but as we settle into the plot we see that, as announced in the first sentence, it's about a woman, Olivia, he left her civil-servant husband, Douglas, to marry a local village or community leader, something like a governor or mayor. The story is told by Olivia's granddaughter, who has just (ca the time of composition, 1975) inherited a cache of letters from Olivia, and thus visits India to see what else she can learn about her grandmother's life and fate. Some of her experience is told through diary entries; others parts, told in direct narration - so there are many narrative currents, sometimes cross-currents. The obvious point of comparison will always be Forster, and we can't expect much English fiction to stand up to the standard EMF set in Passage, but RPJ is extremely intelligent as well as knowledgeable (the Jhabvala was her husband's name - a long and seemingly happy marriage that would have exposed her, a European by birth, to many of the experiences and prejudices faced and endured by Olivia), so will see how well this well-received novel stands on its own.

Two types of short story, each modeled in Eisenberg's collection

Some short stories feel almost like novels in miniature, and in fact we sometimes read these stories and think, yes, this should be, or could be, expanded into a novel - but if the story truly works there is absolutely no need to do so. Here I'm thinking of stories in the realistic-narrative tradition, by such authors as Chekhov, Munro, and Trevor. (Not to put myself in their company at all, but I once presented a story to my writers' group and the overall suggestion was to expand it into a novel, about which I felt that if I did so I'd look back and say that it's basically just a short story; I never expanded it, but it was never published either so they were probably right.) Other stories seem to be exactly of the right length as is, w/ no possibility of expanding w/out doing damage: Here we think of experimental/avant garde writers, such as Borges, Calvino, Coover, Barth, Saunders maybe, and also those with "open" endings, e.g. stories of Joyce, Cheever, Updike - realistic, but not conventional narratives. Deborah Eisenberg concludes her brief collection, Your Duck Is My Duck, w/ 1 of each type: The Three Towers is a weird, dystopian story about a woman hospitalized because of a strange malady through which she sees multiple meanings of words. It's hard to imagine extending this story to novel length; however, I could imagine a film adaptation, as we gradually realize that the woman's supposed ailment is actually her use of imagination - a malady in the face of the bland commercial world (future) in which she lives. Many odd details - such as her journey by train into the city where the hospital is located - could play well in a movie, albeit not a movie w/ huge box-office upside. The final story of the collection, Recalculating, is far and away the most conventional: The story of a young man raised as the youngest son in a Midwest farm family who travels to England for the funeral services of his oldest uncle, who has been completely alienated from the family; he learns of his uncle's successful life and of his circle of artistic, omni-sexual friends in London, a visit that changes the course of his life; yes, this one could be expanded into a novel and, unlike all the other stories in the collection, it's told in straightforward chronology though encompassing wide gaps in the time sequence. But why should it be expanded? The story covers a lot of time and a long span of life with economy and concision: Leave as is. 

The structure of Deborah Eisenberg's narratives

To give you a little sense of the way Deborah Eisenberg works her narrative short stories, here's a top-of-my-head summary of the structure of her story Merge (in her new collection, Your Duck Is My Duck): She starts with a description of a middle-aged, infirm woman (Cordis) who is waiting for someone to arrive to walk her small dog, that someone being her "assistant," a young man, Keith, who gathers her bills etc. in exchange for a meager salary. Then we follow Keith, walking the dog and bemoaning his life, which is entirely unsettled, in need of housing and a good job (he's a recent Princeton grad, from a wealthy family, father refusing to help him). Soon we get to his chance meeting in a coffee shop w/ a woman, Celeste (I think), as he strikes up a conversation, which over time leads into a relationship and she lets him live w/ her in her small apt., as he is otherwise homeless - and we learn that she gets him the job w/ Cordis, who lives in the same building. Then we learn more about her - she works as a specialist in dealing with disasters (floods, fires, etc.) - Keith says that sounds interesting, could he be part of her work - she says he'd need training but they always need volunteers, to which he thinks: Volunteer! Exactly what he did not want. (That's an ex. of DE's sharp humor). She goes to Europe for work, has to clear out of her apt. (which she's subleased), she sends him cryptic handwritten cards. Do you see how far we've come from the opening scenes, the narrative unfolding like an origami flower? Eisenberg is highly cerebral, very funny at times, and coldly analytic regarding her characters; her stories are amusing and provocative (this one involves extended discussion between K and Ce. re the origin and function of language - the story reflecting on its own material in a way) though it's hard - intentionally - to ID w/ the characters: Even when they're familiar types, as is Keith in many ways, they don't feel alive and rounded, they feel like authorial constructs designed to make or illustrate a point. (In fact I have read at least one DE short story, contrary to a note in a previous post, as I have just noted that she had a piece in the 1995 O.Henry Awards collection, in which I also had a story published.)

Deboarah Eisenberg's style and what makes her work (nearly) unique

Halfway through the 3rd story (Cross Off and Move On - corrected title) in Deborah Eisenberg's 2018 collection, Your Duck Is My Duck and still trying to get a handle on her style, what makes it work, what makes her writing unique. the first 3 stories in this short (6-story) collection differ in many ways, entirely different protagonists, for example, but one quality they have in common: a meandering, mosaic-like narrative structure. That is, none of these three stories proceeds on a straight course through time, beginning to middle to end. Rather, each opens abruptly (the 3rd story begins with the names of the protagonist's 3 aunts) and over the course of about 30 pp (these stories are relatively long) the narrative fills in so that only at the end do we see the full picture, so to speak. Different protagonists: a successful NYC artist invited to spend time at the home of one of her patrons where she feels like an outsider and somewhat like hired entertainment; the daughter of a movie star from the 60s joins a gathering of her mother's colleagues for a brunch in NY to discuss and carp about a recent book about their set; a woman learns of the death of her cousin, her only known relative, which leads her to ponder her childhood and the lies her mother told her about family origin. But is DE's narrative strategy unique? Not quite - think for ex. of Alice Munro, famous for her stories in which, as she once put it, the narration is something like wandering through the rooms of a big house. But their work is so different, as well: Munro's is highly interior and tightly focused on a lead character; DE's work is full of quips and bright lines, highly depending on sharp dialog. Munro for all her strengths has focused her life's work on two locales - Vancouver and rural Ontario - and on narrators who share many qualities with the author; DE, judging from this small sample, is more interested in variety and reveals little about herself, at least ostensibly. Reading Munro we feel we get to know the author and her world in depth; reading DE, I believe (from this small sample so far), we are impressed by the author's wit and imagination but we don't have the sense of a life unfolding or of a study of a time and place in depth.

Aspects of Eisenberg's short fiction

Deborah Eisenberg is one of those writers well-known to members of the literati, especially in NY (where she teaches) but little known to the general reading public. I have heard of her and her various story collections going back to the '80s; her reviews have always been strong - but somehow I've never to my knowledge or recollection read any of her works. There aren't too many; she's the Anti-Joyce Carol Oates/TC Boyle - known for her limited productivity and respected for it: a slim collection every 10 years and not even a novel in the works! I'm right now reading her 2018 collection, Your Duck Is My Duck; too early to pass judgement (1.5 stories in), but some things are clear: She's a very funny writer w/ some of the quirkiest observations and moments: Woman enters a room (shared kitchen in large house) where another house guest is sitting at the table: Sorry, am I bothering you? A: Not yet. The first (title) story is about a NYC artist invited by a wealthy couple who own one of her pieces to come stay w/ them at their house in what appears to be a Caribbean Island. Over the course of 30 or so odd pages we grow to the loathe the wealthy couple (an easy target, no doubt) and the feel glee when they get what they deserve - a satirical puppet show that mocks their whole perverted, exploitative way of life (and they don't even get it) and a fire that wrecks their property (they don't seem to care, even houses are disposable). This story strikes a Gatsby-like note: an educated protagonist on the periphery of a seemingly glamorous who comes to realize that's all an illusion and a facade. Many writers of short stories focus on characters w/ whom readers can ID or on characters whom we assume to be versions of the author or on protagonists so odd and extreme as to be satirical; Eisenberg, or so it seems so far, in contrast focuses on those whose lives we read about or view from a great distance (the 2nd story is about a gathering of aged movie stars, disturbed about the inaccuracies of a recent book about their set); at times I found myself thinking - who cares about these people? - but there in a way you can't stop reading about them, either, accurate or not, easy targets or not. And if you ask: Why a duck? The host in the title story regales or lectures or warns his team of visiting accountants with a koan about a Zen master who, presented with a duck in a glass bottle said: Not my duck, not my bottle, not my problem. I kind of feel that way about the story, too.

An unfortunate ending to an otherwise good novel

Part of a writing  novel involves the establishment of a plot - OK, not always, there are weird and grand exceptions such as Ulysses - but most novels include some form of plot, an arc to a story, a passage of events that are connected by more than just temporal sequence but by a the development of a character or an idea. Rebecca Makkai, in her 2018 novel, The Great Believers, to her credit recognizes the importance of plot in this novel of grand ambition. In the process of re-creating the world of a gay urban community at the time of the AIDS crisis, a literal Holocaust taking thousands of lives, and in look at this time of crisis from two perspectives - during the height of the AIDS virus and attendant fears and prejudices ca 1985 then reflecting back from the near present (2015), Makkai gives us two narrative plots, one stronger than the other: The 1985/6 plot about the politics and nuances of accepting an art donation worth millions of dollars and arranging an exhibit and dealing with the egos and rivalries and legal challenges attendant, is the stronger and more unusual; the 2015 plot, about a mother searching in Paris for her adult daughter who had years back joined a cult, seems like it would be the stronger but doesn't quite get there as the mother finds the daughter basically by hiring a detective, big deal. I wish I could give unalloyed endorsement to this novel, which has so many elements rare in contemporary literary fiction, including not only the abundance of plot material but a strong central character and a powerful re-creation of a time of crisis based on careful historical and archival research; however, there's more to a plot than getting it into motion: The author has to know when to bring it to a close as well, and I found this novel to be about 50 pages too long, as Makkai drags out the inevitable death scene to Tolstoyan length when it provides us w/ little or no new information, she lets the Paris plot bubble along forn o good reason, and she includes a really good account of an community demonstration about AIDS treatment and awareness but uses it at a point where we expect the novel to draw to a conclusion not to be drawn out for a lengthy chapter that adds little to the story line. It seems as if at the end Makkai is more focused on including material that her research unearthed than in keep this novel tight and dramatic - an unfortunate ending to an otherwise good novel.

A New Yorker debut story - and what sets this one apart

Story in the current New Yorker, The Politics of the Foot, by Taymour Soomra, comes w/ the intriguing author's note that he's a student in East Anglia and this is his first published fiction. Wow, that's completely unexpected from the New Yorker, so one would expect this story as a work of literary genius that immediately rose from the slush pile and grabbed an editor's attention from the first sentence. Well, those expectations are too high. No doubt the story rose up from the masses of submissions in large part because of its 3rd-world setting: It opens w/ a brief description of a commercial street where, between a beauty parlor and some other small enterprise, an itinerant shoe-repair man has set up shop, and a man who lives nearby engages him in conversation about shoes. This kind of opening is atypical of the New Yorker of late, but not unique in literature: We could be entering a Naipaul novel or a story by any of many India-born authors, notably Rohinton Mistry. As it happens, this story is set in Karachi, Pakistan, and Soomra interlaces the narrative w/ many words untranslated - some familiar to most readers (ayah = maid, servant), others, not. The story will need more than exotic veneer to carry its burden of high expectations, and Soomra comes through, for the most part. Though the going is rough at the outset, do to the choppy, fragmented narrative lacking at times clear referents as to who is speaking, where, and when, the story emerges gradually as a coherent whole composed of its many fragments: We come to see that the central figure is a young man whose family was politically prominent; his father was assassinated and their large urban complex/estate was seized, and now he and his mother and a servant are living in cramped quarters on a commercial street across the road from a major construction site (a mosque being built, w/ a towering minaret). The young man has many conversations w/ the shoe-repair vendor, much younger, and we learn toward the end that they are interested in each other sexually, though not clear if they consummate their relationship. At first, the homosexuality seems to come out of nowhere, but then a quick re-read shows that there are references, particularly to homophobia, earlier in the story. There is not sharp conclusion - the story more or less ends where it began, with the mother upstairs w/ fading mental capacity and obsessed with the riches that once were hers - again, a familiar trope in much third-world fiction - things are what they used to be! - but handled w/ subtlety here, leading us to a dissonant, unresolved conclusion. In short, an impressive debut story by any measure though I have to suppose that a similar story set in contemporary London or New York would still on that slush pile.

A polt twist toward the end of The Great Believers, but is it believable?

Nearing the end of Rebecca Makkai's 2018 novel, The Great Believers, and it becomes apparent - spoilers to follow I guess - that the main character, Yale, will, like so many of his friends and colleagues ca 1985, die of the AIDS virus - though the novel has not yet said so directly. But after we thought that Yale was off the hook so to speak despite his former lover's infidelities and subsequent infection - Yale gets a clean lab report and is relieved though not ecstatic, as the rest of his life is falling into a shambles - he gets/we get a curve ball: Turns out that the grad-student intern w/ whom Yale is now engaged in an affair of casual, noncommittal sex, Roman, has been a big promiscuous player in the Chicago gay scene. I could accept this twist if it were not so entirely a shift, even a violation, in Makkai's portrayal of Roman, albeit through the POV of Yale, who had assumed (why would he?) that Roman was virginal and quite inexperienced in the homosexual scene,a  repressed Mormon, no less, who was unsure of and ashamed about his sexual orientation. So I get it that Yale's character judgment was off - though he seems to be shrewd, cautious, and sophisticated man - but I feel a bit yanked around by this - it's not so much a plot development as a sleight of hand pulled off by the author. In any event, it looks likely that Yale has been infected by Roman and he's headed toward another untimely and unnecessary death. I think another hint was dropped in the 2015 subplot, i.e., 30 years later, in that Fiona's granddaughter may be named in Yale's memory. Still, Makkai is being cagey right to the end - good writerly strategy! - and she may pull yet another trick out of her hat, so to speak.

The importance and value of plot

To her credit, Rebecca Makkai holds our interest and attention all the way through The Great Believers - at least to 75%, where I am now - because of her strong characterization in part but mainly through her plot-driven narrative style: I really want to know what happens to the central character, Yale. At this point in the novel Yale's life is whipsawed; on the one hand, he has learned that he is negative on the test for AIDS, great news (and increases the likelihood that he survives the 30 years to the counterbalanced narrative. On the other hand, he has lost his job at the art gallery/museum, as he takes on full responsibility for defying the will of a powerful university trustee in landing a multimillion-$ art donatinon - this lets his counterpart and friend, Cecily, off the hook. OK, so we know that Cecily gets over this, as she and her son play a secondary but significant role in the 2015 narrative thread of the story. But what happens to Yale by 2015? In part, I have to feel that Makkai is being very manipulative here; as the central figure in the 2015 narrative, Fiona, reflects at various times about many of her late brother's friends whom she knew back in the day (1985/6), she never once thinks of or mentions Yale and his fate. On a literal level, that's not likely - he would be at or near the top of her remembrances. But it's a device to keep us wondering and guessing, and I'm caught up in that. I have no idea as to what's become of Yale - I do suspect that he's still alive, as it would seem really hokey at this point to have him die by suicide or by accidental death - but I have no idea of his fate or why he's a blank in the mind of Fiona, once a comrade and friend (and sister of one of his best friends). Readers like plot, as one of my writing-group members one succinctly put it (responding to a group member who said that in he writing she had no interest in plot); this reader will keep going with The Great Believers because of the plot.

The terror of the AIDS epidemic as depicted in The Great Believers

Rebecca Makkai's novel The Great Believers (2018) becomes increasingly scary, almost horror-movie like, as we watch the AIDS virus rip through the gay male community in Chicago in 1985/6 - especially scary because at that time there was no known cure, it took a long time after testing to determine whether one was infected or not, many believed the test was inaccurate anyway, and there was even political pressure in the community not to be tested, with the idea, not totally off the wall, that the government would use data on who's been tested to identify gay men with who knows what nefarious intent or purpose. So at about half-way through the novel the main character (of the 1985 narrative), Yale, suspects he might be infected as his partner, Charlie, announces he's been unfaithful and has come down w/ the virus. Yale's world goes into a tailspin, as he leaves their relationship and is essentially homeless - and he goes through a litany of all the men, all the friends, he has lost already, a frightful accounting. As readers, we don't know Yale's fate, although the parallel narrative takes place in 2015, but so far Yale has not been mentioned in that narrative (though several men and women in his acquaintance are part of it); Massai does a good job maintaining the tension, and a particularly good job with the surface narrative of the 1985 story line, as Yale works to secure an large art donation to the museum where he works; that story line is surprisingly interesting (at least to me) and nuanced. Somewhat less successful are the story line involving Yale's long-term relationship with the now-infected Charlie - I just never sensed that there was anything deep or lasting there, in part because Yale's interest often strayed - and the plot line in the 2015 narrative as Fiona, sister of one of Yale's late friends, searches in Paris for her daughter (who'd joined a cult) and grand-daughter (whom she'd never met). That narrative seems more like a typical quest story, one incident or citing or bit of evidence leading her ever closer to her quarry, but without any real tension or drama. Still, overall, the novel maintains its pace and interest level over several hundred pages - a rarity!

A memorial to a horrendous time in the gay community: The Great Believers

About halfway through Rebecca Makkai's novel The Great Believers (2018), which, as noted previously, consists of 2 parallel plots set 30 years apart w/ one overlapping character (Fiona, whose brother's funeral after his death from AIDS is the kick-off for the first plot and who is the central character - in search of her absconded daughter - in the 2nd). What really strikes me as I read deeper into the novel is that know nothing of the fate of the main character (actually, of the 3 main characters) in the 1985 section; Fiona must know what happened to Yale, Charlie, and Julian - did they survive the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s or not? - but Makkai has carefully crafted the novel to keep us in suspense about the outcome and later life of these characters. Good for her - it's not easy to balance two time-separated plots w/out giving everything away and deflating the tension. The first (1985/6) plot is quite impressive as it gradually becomes apparent to us that this is a memorial for a time that was horrendous for the gay community (this novel focuses on the gay community in Chicago), with what seemed at first like an aberrant death quickly becoming a ravaging epidemic, when every gay man had to take stock of his life and when funerals and rapid declines to death affected everyone - particularly tragic in that these young men so afflicted were part of a vibrant, artistic, intellectual community, suddenly becoming eradicated by disease. In some narratives, death can be a cheap convention, a way to "wrap up" a plot or dispose of a tangential character; here death is central and omnipresent, much as in a novel of war. Makkai focuses on the brief and most terrifying moment in time when it was clear that AIDS was devastating male homosexuals yet there was no cure and, among many, not much information about prevention - in fact, there was much misinformation about contagion, as Makkai dramatizes in a powerful scene at which a homophobe refuses to allow a gay man to use the bathroom - my children use this bathroom, the man says. He's hateful of course - but the knowledge about the disease at that time was so sparse and suspicious that his action was probably typical of many unpleasant encounters at that time.

A rarity in contemporary literary fiction - a plot-driven novel

Rebecca Makkai's 2018 novel, The Great Believers, moves along smoothly - I'm about halfway through the novel - because it's one of those rare things among literary fiction today, a plot-driven novel. In fact there are two plots, running in alternating chapters: one set in 1985/6 among a very lively gay male community in Chicago and which involves a 30-something man, Yale, involved in trying to secure a major art donation to the museum where he works; the donation entails many complications, including difficulty in verifying the authenticity, family opposition to the donation, and threats from another major donor, as well as homophobia; the second plot, set 30 years later, concerns the sister of one of the first men to die in the 1985 AIDS outbreak who is now in her early 50s and in Paris in search of her adult daughter who has gone off the grid and aligned with a cult or sect. Either of these plots could stand up well alone, but Makkai is smart to see that the two actually bolster each other, providing a perspective in time - one gives the historical background, the other gives us the near-present-day outcome - though at least up to this point the only true overlap of the plots is the appearance in both of the same character - Fiona, a teenager w/ only a small role in the earlier story and the protagonist in the later. The novel is not entirely flawless; at times it seems to just hug along and it's really hard for us, for me anyway, to retain the names and salient traits of so many characters. Makkai rarely sets a scene and never pauses for authorial comment, which keeps the novel moving but also makes it feel at times flat and sketched in - especially because of her frequent us of lists and sentence fragments. That said, there are many strengths - particularly its unflinching look at the physical and emotional trauma of the early days of the AIDS outbreak (without being unduly mawkish) - enough, anyway, to keep my attention and interest for 200 or so pages and proceeding.

Thoughts on the 9th anniversary of Elliot's Reading

Happy New Year to all who follow the Elliot's Reading blog. Last week (Saturday) marked the 9th anniversary of this blog and nine years of consecutive daily posts on what I'm reading and what I'm thinking about what I'm reading. A few notes as we enter year 10: For those who follow this blog via daily notices or searches on an iPhone, please note that at or near the bottom of your screen you will see the option to "view web version." Not all are aware that the web version contains all of the posts - 3,300 as of Monday - indexed by topic and by author's name. The web version also includes a link to the booklet on the first 2,500 posts of Elliot's reading, which you can order through Amazon. Also note that you have the option to add your own comments on every post; the template isn't too helpful on this, as it say "No Comments," which means that to do no comments have been posted. By clicking "no comments" you can add one (ridiculous, I know). Technically, I will receive your comments via email and will have the option to post, which I always do unless the so-called comment is actually spam or a disguised advertisement. My goes in keeping this blog haven't changed since the outset in 2009: To give followers insight into the process of reading and interpretation, is the reading process unfolds over time. These posts are not meant to be review or critiques in the conventional manner; readers will see my thinking about what I'm reading unfold and develop of the course of my reading of any book or "text") almost always literary fiction; sometimes, poetry). Similarly, I don't have the book beside me as  write these posts and I don't cite references or other works except as I can summon them into my thinking (I will sometimes check the spelling of a name or the name of a character); I never want these posts to feel like a homework assignment; rather, they're my thinking, in process, aloud and in public. Hope you enjoy reading Elliot's Reading.