Trust Exersise: For better or worse

It's probably best to think of Susan Choi's Trust Exercise as three short novels bound together by some elements in common - the first a story of teenage aspiring theater kids in an arts h.s., the 2nd a #MeToo story of attack and revenge, the 3rd a search for origins by an adopted daughter story - rather than as a single, coherent novel, as Choi makes some some totally weird decisions that make it needlessly difficult to accept this as a coherent work on its own. For example, why the random switch from first- to third-person, sometimes in mid-paragraph? Why build the dramatic conclusion on the around a character that we do not meet until 3/4 through the novel and who never really emerges as an individual? Why leave so much ambiguity about the endings of the 2nd and 3rd/final narrative movements? And why wouldn't there be any follow-up, at least within this novel, after the act of anticipated violence that conclusions section 2? So, in short, I'm being ambivalent here; it was easy to read the novel and it has some dramatic moments and some insight into the arts-school culture as best as I know it but on the other hand there's something that feels almost improvised about the plot and structure, as if the events and the characters, over a span of 30 years or so, emerge out of nowhere without adequate reference back to the established groundwork of the earlier narrative stages. It's worth reading, but at times I wanted to wake the author up or come at the pages with an editor's pen. Put another way, if this were an exercise in trusting the narrator, one of us would have, at some point, failed.

A touching and sad story by Emma Cline in current New Yorker

Touching, somewhat sad story, Son of Friedman, by Emma Cline in current New Yorker tells of two 70-something men, sometime colleagues in the film industry, each at a different arc in their lives. Friedman directed a few movies earlier in his career, but now feels somewhat of a relic - out of touch with contemporary fast-paced, special-effect movies. He's at an old-fashioned restaurant in NYC that he used to frequent - he even remembers the waiter, an aspiring actor whom he hadn't seen in years and who obviously did not obtain his goals, as he waits for the arrival of his friend, William. W is a world-renowned director, a success in his work and in his (married) life; he seems in some ways to be modeled on Scorcese. They're meeting for dinner because W has agreed to attend the first screen of an indie film, self-produced, by Friedman's son, Benji - W is Benji's godfather. It's obvious to everyone that Benji's film is horrible and self-indulgent; it's obvious to F that W is showing up a the film and posing for a few photos as a favor but that he has zero interest in ever resuming work w/ F. He politely agrees to read a script from F., but he's obviously just being kind - yet there's a sweetness to their relationship, W does recognize their long-standing friendship and how much they'd shared, though all of that is in the past. The story ends on a truly sorrowful note, as F recognizes that his creative life is probably over and that his son will never succeed in film, even with help of family money and connections, and has to find a life of his own.

The strange narration in the second half of Trust Exercise

To recapitulate: The first half of Susan Choi's novel Trust Exercise (2019) tells of some teenagers in s high school for the arts and their various rivalries and amorous missteps and mistakes, with a focus on two, David and Sarah. This section ends abruptly after a very bad night for Sarah. The second section, in itself called Trust Exercise, takes place in the late 90s, about 15 years later, as Sarah, a successful author, reads at a bookstore from her new novel - presumably, what we've read in the first section; lurking at the edge of the audience is her high-school sometime friend, Karen, who seems to hold an enormous grudge against Sarah. S is upset to see K, but she sort of hides that and the two go out for dinner and catch-up. K does most of the talking, catching S up on some of the people they knew back in h.s.; K is still living in her hometown and is involved in the theater company that David runs and has taken up acting again and will play a lead in a new production (which sounds dreadful, but who knows), starring alongside an English actor, Martin, who played a tumultuous role in the h.s. days of section one. OK. This can work, so long as Choi can build some drama of her own: Is K. a stalker? Is there something we don't know about her teenage friendship w/ S., something that could make her hold such a fierce grudge over all the intervening years? Did S get something entirely wrong in her novel, something about which K will inform her? We don't (3/4 through the novel) know yet: K is an enigma and S is nothing but a listening post in part 2. Mostly, Choi is playing with the edges of narrative: Don't trust the author of a novel to tell you the truth; novelists are risk-takers who live on the edge and are bound to offend someone or everyone. For reasons completely unfathomable (to me, anyway) Choi switches, sometimes in mid-paragraph, from first- to third-person narration throughout this section: Sometimes she describes Karen; sometimes Karen is telling her own story. This decision makes no sense to me. By this point in the novel, the narrative should settle on a POV and move forward; if there are mysteries to unveil and truths to be uncovered and revealed, time is running out.

An uusual narrative development in Trust Exercise: Will it pay off?

The first half of Susan Choi's novel Trust Exercise includes and concludes with some really bad sex, by which I do not mean bad writing about sex (there's an annual prize for that!) but excellent writing about really bad sex. By the midway point I'm thinking: Why does the main character, Sarah, an intelligent and artistic young woman, put up w/ this horrible behavior and truly bizarre exhibitionism that she gets into w/ two men in her (young - she's 16 years old) in her life, one of whom seems to be considerable older than she? All men (and all sex) can't be that bad; does she make bad, humiliating choices, or is she just unlucky or too submissive? Put those thoughts aside for a second, because - kind of a spoiler here though many reviews mention this inevitably - the novel shifts gears in the second half (this section - perhaps the whole 2nd half of the novel? - is called Trust Exercise - as we now jump from a h.s. story about teenagers in and out of love some 15-20 years ahead to a young author doing a reading and book-signing, and we soon realize that the author is the author of the novel that we've been reading - and one of the attendees at the reading is one of her h.s. friends and thus the model for one of the characters in this novel. This could be interesting, though it all depends on what Choi does w/ this material. I have little interest these days w/ postmodern theatrics - is the "author" the author of this book or is the "author" a character? Where do we draw the boundaries between fiction and memoir?, etc. - but I do like the idea of a novel including a reaction to its own publication; in other words, there's a lot of potential if the young woman at the book-signing confronts the author/her old h.s. friend and tells her what she got wrong (or right). So far, though, this hasn't happened; what we get is a lot of updates on the lives of some of the characters; the central male figure, David, is now apparently a successful theater director in the same community (Atlanta?) in which the first half of the novel was set. I'm feeling a lack of direction at this point in the novel, and would like Choi to surprise me w/ something and to make her narrative decision - jumping ahead in time, calling into question the nature of fictional narrative itself - to provide a payoff and to give me insight into the lives of these characters.

Not sure yet what to make of Susan Choi's Trust Exercise

Not sure yet (13 thru) what to make of Susan Choi's new novel, Trust Exercise, which thus far is about a class of teens in a high school for the arts in Southern city that seems as if it might be Atlanta, but that doesn't really matter, anyone who's had anything to do w/ arts high schools will recognize the types and the struggles: the heart-throb who comes out as gay, the talented under-achiever, the lonely misfit who turns out to have a great operatic voice, the "hip" teacher who gets way too much involved in the personal lives of his students, et al. The two main characters - Sarah and David - are popular, talented if not star-quality kids from different socio-economic backgrounds: He a kid of privilege, she a kid in the projects who has to work part-time, although both it must be said are from supportive, artistic families. As the novel opens these two are beginning a sexual relationship, unusual in its fervor I would say for 15-year-olds (the setting is the 80s or 90s) - culminating, so to speak, in passionate sexual intercourse in the school hallway, while school is in session, if you can believe that (yes, anything's possible, but their judgment seems warped even for sexually advanced kids). For some reason unclear to their fellow students and their teacher (and to me) they more or less stop talking to each other after the hallway sex. OK, so far this may be enough to sustain a high-school musical - Glee meets Election - but I think Choi must have more in mind; there are long excursions into the "trust exercises," familiar to any who have studied drama, and a plot element introduced at about the point I've reached as a troupe of English acting students visit the school - lots of description of their production of Candide but not sure to what end. Also, surprisingly, Choi takes a step back to tell us of the fate of several of the secondary characters, one of whom becomes a TV star. I really liked Choi's American Woman (based on the Patty Hearst case) and am hoping the stakes will get higher and the plot more pointed as this novel progresses.

The strengths and weaknessess of Burns's Milkman

Anna Burns's Milkman (2018) is like no other novel I've come across, and to the extent that some of the key values of literary fiction are - access to the consciousness of another, originality ("make it new"), access to the experience of living in a time and place different from our own - Milkman is a classic and worthy of the accolades (Booker Prize) that have come its way. From the first page we experience the voice of this unnamed narrator and, over the course of the novel, though this was not clear at the outset, we come to understand the terror of living in a small community in a time of civil war and a police state (Northern Ireland ca 1970). We see how people abandon all hope for normal, healthy, loving relationships and we see the strange, sorrowful, even perverse ways in which people accommodate to the turmoil and danger of their lives: refusal to call anyone by his/her name, distrust of all social institutions (e.g., hospitals), inability or unwillingness to love anyone for fear of loss and death. That said, as some reviewers have noted, this is a difficult novel to read and possibly the most un-cinematic (make of that what you will) novels I've ever read. The conclusion provides a moment of optimism and the upbeat - the stalker Milkman is dead and the (unnamed) narrator resumes her running exercises with "third brother-in-law," but somehow this slightly hopeful ending feels tacked on and unearned: the world is still a shambles, danger is still everywhere, the narrator's "maybe boyfriend" has gone off with his male lover; the narrator's "first sister," who has barely had a presence in the novel, suddenly appears and tries to smooth things over w/ the family - this just feels like a quick effort to tidy up after a bloody riot. Oddly, the narrator gives almost no information about some key plot points, most notably the death of Milkman, who's just wiped off the board; that's what I mean by "un-cinematic": one would expect for, and hope for, the death of the antagonist to be treated directly, preferably by some action on the part of the narrator. Just wiping him off the slate just isn't enough of a payoff after we've grown to hate and fear him over hundreds of pages. Still, it's a novel like none other, one that demands a lot from readers but is one of the few that can truly transport you into the mind and tie and place of another.

Key plot developments near the end of Milkman, and Burns's strange narrative style

A few twists and surprises toward the end of Anna Burns's Booker-winning novel, Milkman - though one could hardly say that this is a plot-driven novel - as the eponymous Milkman, an IRA leader and a creepy guy who has been stalking and threatening the (unnamed) narrator, is killed, presumably by government troops/police in N Ireland, which of course lifts the burden that has been crushing the narrator from the outset. (Turns out, by the way, the Milkman is his actual name - which makes him, I think, the only truly named character in this novel.) In the process of getting to M, however, troops have killed or injured others - including, just to make things difficult, the "real milkman," so-called by the narrator because that's his actual profession. Narrator's mother, who is one of I think 18 women who swoon over the real milkman, is tending to him in the hospital - theirs seems to be a real and ongoing romantic relationship, perhaps the only one in this novel, part of whose theme is that everyone in this time and place deliberately avoids relationships and commitment so as not to be crushed by loss and sorrow when the partner, inevitably, is killed in the struggle. Meanwhile, the narrator pays an unannounced visit to home of "maybe boyfriend," and finds that the front door has been bashed in and the "MB" and his best friend, Chef, are in the kitchen doused in blood, with Chef attending to some kind of toxin tossed into MB's eyes. Narrator lurks in the background, unnoticed, and to her shock sees that Chef and Maybe Boyfriend are in love with each other and talking about leaving Ireland together. This twist was as much of a surprise to readers as the the narrator (perhaps Burns should have hinted at this outcome somewhere along the line?). So now the narrator is freed from her tormentor but alone and abandoned. There's nothing easy about this novel, and not much positive unless it's just the will to endure great hardships - obviously the narrator survives this long enough to look back on her early life and tell her story; as noted yesterday, the difficulty we encounter in reading this novel - the narrator's lack of obvious sequencing of events, oddity in dwelling on certain ordinary moments and encounters while quickly dispatching key plot moments, refusal to use any proper names (save Milkman) - mimics and re-creates the difficulty in living through these times of trouble.

Milkman and mimesis

As I near the end of Anna Burns's 2018 novel, Milkman, it strikes me that no one will finish reading this novel and say: I loved it. It's not a novel to love; it's one to appreciate, one that hits you like a kick to the stomach, one that informs you like none other about what it's like to live in a city torn by violence and civil war. It's a work that explores the consciousness of the (unnamed) narrator to the point where we know her intimately but also feel that she's strange and enigmatic, not someone we could "know" in any way in the course of our lives. In telling her own story, she has a disconcerting way of ruminating on the trivial and unessential and then, unexpectedly, hitting us w/ key facts about her family, her life, and her world. For ex., after much depiction of her slow recovery from the poison that "Tablets" sneaked into her drink at a club, the narrator is out and about and she runs across Tablets's sister, also poisoned by her, but more severely injured by the toxin - in fact, she's blinded. Suddenly, as the narrator is speaking with T's sister her (the narrator's) "Third Brother" turns up out of nowhere - and we learn that he's been in love w/ T's sister, though he's married to someone else, someone from outside the tight circle of this community, someone he doesn't love. And that opens the gate for the narrator to explain that in her culture nobody marries the one he/she loves because everyone know that life spans are inevitably short, everyone will eventually be killed in youth by one side or the other in this war, so there's a tacit understanding that it's better to marry one you don't love so as to avoid that inevitable heartbreak. The narrator herself recognizes that her parents were never in love (her father is dead, and is one of the saddest of Burns's inventions - a victim of childhood abuse who as a result was cold and distant and suffering from severe depression. No, this book is not for all readers. Burns has created a mimetic narration, in which the difficulty all will face in reading this oblique and meandering narration imitates (and re-creates) the difficulty in the lives of the narrator and the others in her family and social circle.

The absence of politics in Milkman

At about the 2/3 point in Anna Burns's novel Milkman (2018), at which point the (unnamed) narrator, who has spent an evening the most popular local bar-nightclub getting upbraided by her "longest friend" for her weird and antisocial behavior and for her rumored attachment to the IRA leader Milkman, gets poisoned by the troubled young woman known as "Tablets" for her propensity to drop tablets of poison into the drinks of the unwary; it's kind of weird that she's able to do so when literally everyone in the club knows who she is and know she's walked into the club and everyone is warned and on guard, but that's only one of the many oddities in this strange novel. In any event, the narrator is severely poisoned, which leads to her mother assembling a group of women from the "area" (i.e., neighborhood; in this portrayal of a North Ireland town/city in the 70s every neighborhood is clearly delineated by its religion) who sit in a kind of council over the narrator, debating how to purge her of the poison. Taking her to the hospital is out of the question, as it's widely believed that anyone who goes there will be coerced into becoming an informer - an in particular they believe the narrator is vulnerable because of her alleged (and incorrect) ties to Milkman. After a harrowing description of her purging, she wakes up and is consoled by her three younger - and hilariously precocious - "wee sisters," who describe to her the night's events. There's a sense that this brush with death and purging of her entire system may serve as a symbol - that perhaps the narrator comes out on the other side of this with a "clean" slate or reputation; she does seem to have a stronger, better relationship w/ her mother, who up to this point in the novel has been mainly a fount of criticism. This episode is also yet another reminder of and account of the omnipresence of death and violence and the strict division of society by class and religious affiliation, to no apparent end - as noted previously, the absence of any discussion of politics or end goals is a striking feature of this novel: The divisions that wrack the culture appear as existential facts rather than as temporal or social convictions and conditions.

Anna Burns

A long section that ends at about the 2/3 mark in Anna Burns's Milkman concludes w a meeting at a popular bar/club at which the best childhood friend of the unnamed narrator gives her a talking-to and a warning, telling her to be more conventional and not to draw attention to herself particularly regarding her propensity for walking around town while reading. This warning disturbs the narrator, who feels encroached upon from all sides, victimized, and misunderstood- in particular re her relationship w the eponymous Milkman, an IRA leader who has been stalking her and threatening her. It's widely believed that she is having a live/sexual relationship w him, which she emphatically is not - but she has little credibility, in part because of her odd behavior. Best Friend's advice is actually pretty good, tho narrator is too far gone to pay it heed. We have a sense at times that she is the only sane one in this world gone wrong, in which lives are cut short (Burns ends this section w a real kicker on this point, which I won't divulge), people are spied on and surreptitiously photographed by various forces: the government, the British army, The IRA, maybe others - it's a Kafka-esque world that seems like a nightmare or fantasy except that we know it's a depiction of a horrible time and place, quite accurate and credible if not on the specific details the without doubt on the feelings and fears. No one better than Burns has captured and depicted what it must have felt like to try to live a normal life in those times - the sense of an insular and smothering community, where as people go about their daily lives and chores and professions violent death is ever-present, so much as to go unremarked - and all for what? There's not a moment of discussion of politics or values anywhere in this novel - the antagonism between the two (or 3?) sides is just a state of mind, never discussed or explained - no peacemakers, no analysis or analysts, just a condition of ever-present danger.

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Further developments in the pervasive violence or threat of violence in Burns's Milkman

However this novel (Milkman, by Anna Burns) turns out, there's something incredibly frightening about the title character, who stalks the narrator and spies on her every movement; he's a known member of the IRA (setting is Northern Ireland in the 1970s) and works with a cohort of 4 or 5 toughs who always seem to be around him or nearby when he confronts the (unnamed) narrator. At this point, about halfway through the novel, Milkman issues various warnings to the narrator about pipe bombs on cars - a particular threat to her because her "maybe boyfriend" is involved in car parts and car repair. This poor character - a social misfit in almost every way, trying to keep to herself (she's known for walking around town while reading, mostly classic fiction) but part of the point of this novel is the pervasiveness of death, violence, and mayhem at this time and place: We learn only well into the novel that the narrator has lost 2 (or 3?) siblings to the violence that's everywhere as the two side fight it out for territory - a particularly weird and gruesome fight because, to the outsider, and maybe some of the insiders, there isn't a hell of a lot of difference between the two sides, and as the narrator makes clear there are many places where the two sides - Catholic and Protestant - interact peaceably, in bars and pubs, in the adult education program, for example. But this peaceable existence can be blown a part in a second, through terrorist bombs, sniper fire, muggings - and it happens all the time - losing a family member is just routine business. Some developments at this point in the novel: We learn that the narrator's 3 "wee sisters" are amazingly precocious learners; we learn that a group of brave souls have formed a women's caucus and support group, to the anger and ire of many, including the IRA; we meet another milkman, this one that's really his profession, who is assumed by most in the "area" to be an unfriendly sort, but he takes the narrator under his wing a big - he's also obviously involved in some kind of relationship w/ her widowed mother - and he suggests she get in touch w/ the women's group, which she believes would be a fatal mistake. In most novels that would be a true foreshadowing, but in this highly unconventional novel it may be just a bit of flotsam that will pass by as the narrator strives to maintain her independence and to salvage her reputation, sullied by the many approaches of the Milkman, which make all the people in her "area" assume she's involved in a relationship w/ him - the exact opposite of what she wants.

A twist in the plot of Anna Burns's Milkman

The strange narrative of Anna Burns's Milkman (2018) continues to unfold - or perhaps to fold in upon itself - as the (unnamed) narrator has her 3rd confrontation w/ the eponymous stalker; we learn by this point, about halfway through then novel (which consists of several extremely long chapters w/out a break) that she is terrified of the Milkman, who seems to be spying on her and confronts her unexpectedly at various moments in her life, but on the other hand her mother (and perhaps the community at large) suspects that she's having an affair with Milkman and warns her against this entanglement. At the 3rd confrontation we confront a new possibility: Milkman seems to be one of the "renouncers," which is code in this novel for members of the IRA (the resistance would be a more typical term), and he warns her about car bombs and in particular about the man she calls her "maybe boyfriend," who is fixated on car parts and car repair; it's possible that Milkman is providing her w/ a friendly if oblique warning, rather than a threat. The novel continues w/ its extremely odd and ominous tone; though the setting is obvious to all readers, Burns gives out almost all info on the setting and the characters in a kind of code. She never says "Ireland" or "the Troubles," but refers to "the Sorrows," "over thew water" (i.e., the UK), "over the road" (i.e., Ireland), the renouncers (see above), and other cryptic terminology. But there's no mistaking that this novel gives us the fear and feeling of young people trying to live a life while they recognize that they are under constant surveillance, that the slightest mis-step or tongue-slip could lead to ostracism or assassination, that they must live in constant fear of violence and death. Some of the great scenes in the middle section of this novel are the incident in which the forces from "over the water" slaughter all of the dogs in the community and place the dead bodies in a huge pile; the casual, off-hand way in which the narrator informs us that two of her siblings have been killed in the struggles; the death of the young man obssessed w/ potential nuclear war between the US and USSR.

The difficulty and the rewards of reading Anna Burns's Milkman - life in time of trauma

Glad I took the advice of M and of friend KK and returned to Anna Burns's Booker-winning novel, Milkman, as reading just the first 30 pp. or so does not give you time to inhabit the strange world of this novel. The narrator, a woman looking back at her youth (probably about 18 years old?) in the 1970s in Northern Ireland tells her story in the strangest possible manner, a meandering narration that jumps about among topics and settings from a narrator that seems completely unaware of then niceties of social interaction, much less of conventional storytelling. For one thing, she never uses names (even her own, I think), but calls her boyfriend her "maybe boyfriend," calls her brother-in-law something like "husband of third sister," calls her stalker "Milkman." Something in the narration reminds me of early Pynchon - perhaps the strange monikers, perhaps the sense of a cadre of friends and neighbors all of them odd - "the whole sick crew," as Pynchon called it. It definitely takes some time to get into the narrator's frame of mind, but as that happens we begin to realize that this is a smart and complex story about a society in fragments, the days of "the Troubles," or, as the characters call them in this book, "the Sorrows." So these young people are trying to lead ordinary lives with the usual interests of the young of their set - love, sex, cars, drinking - but everything in their lives is colored by the hatred and violence all around: why you can't walk in some neighborhoods, can't draw attention to yourself, all part of the fabric of lives in time of trauma. Amidst all the flotsam and seemingly unrelated detail are some fantastic scenes, notably the narrator's father's dying words - about abuse he endured as a child - and the strange scene in the French-language class when the teacher explains to the students that the sky is not always "blue" - a metaphor for this entire novel, which shows that everything is not "black and white" but there many shades and coloration to all aspects of life, once examined.

Thoughts about the ending of Esi Edugyan's George Washington Black

A number of puzzling and unexpected aspects to the ending of Esi Edugyan's novel George Washington Black (2018). I get that EE is working toward the symbolism of having the novel end of all places in the Moroccan desert, where the eponymous narrator at last tracks down his mentor and one-time companion, Titch, who had abandoned him in the Arctic. I have to say that the final chapters feel rushed and, even for this peripatetic novel, improbable, but she's earned my trust enough I'll shrug and go along w/ as GWB and his beloved Tanna follow a series of clues that lead them to Amsterdam and finally to Morocco. EE shows her fantastic writing ability once again in the Morocco scenes, that really seem to capture the look and feel of this place, from what I know from family and friends who've been there, and she gets in some other fine scenes along the way, notably the death by hanging of GWB's antagonist, the slave-catcher Willard - though that does feel like a plot element EE just had to dispense w/ one way or another, as we know nothing of his capture, for ex. She has a lot of i's to dot/t's to cross at this point in the narration - and GWB's final mentor, Goff, seems crowded out and even Tanna feels peripheral by the end. Who expected this Dickensian novel to end up feeling like a Paul Bowles novel? Not I! So what does happen at the end? GWB does seem to recognize that Titch used him for his own needs and didn't feel the same love and loyalty that GWB felt; there's a hint, too, of child sexual abuse, as another young black boy now appears once again in Titch's life in the desert. Most of all GWB recognizes that he has been and will always be marginal and exploited, that he will never get the credit he deserves for his scientific projects - and there's a sense at the very end that he abandons Tanna in a desert sandstorm just as Titch has abandoned him in an Arctic snow squall (which does not explain how or where GWB could write this manuscript). In any event, despite these quibbles, it's a startling book start to finish and evidence of a descriptive talent far and above most other young writers today; it will be fun to see EE's works develop and evolve.

Esi Edugyan

The 4th and I assume final part of Esi Edugyan 's 2018 novel, Washington Black, takes place in London, as The eponymous narrator, now 18 or so, travels to England w the scientist Goff who has take Wash on as a partner in the development of the first seaquarium and the Hoff's daughter, Tanna, w whom W has fallen in love - something G seems to tolerate just barely whether through overprotection of his youngest daughter or dislike of W as somehow beneath them because of his race and his background is not yet clear. There is a real sense in this section of the novel that W feels all sorts of racist snubs - he recognized for ex that he will never receive credit for his role in developing the aquatic exhibit- and some outright outrageous racism: the woman who berates him on the ocean liner, and most particularly the mother of Titch. In fact the central issue of the novel at this point is W's attempt to determine whether Titch is still alive and if so why he abandoned W in the midst of an Arctic storm and then cut W out of his life. The scene at Titch's childhood home, now in tatters and ruins, is EE at her best - both for the topical description and the sharply delineated dialogue w Titch's racist mother. We're obviously building toward a final confrontation between W and Titch, and there's still a smoking gun as W had wounded but not killed the bounty hunter Willard. No one can outdo Dickens at description of London, and EE wisely doesn't try - but is there anything she can't describe? Well, the love scenes between W and Tanna feel stilted and in some ways unconvincing- her on again off again attraction to W under the close surveillance of her father are odd to say the least. That caveat aside this novel holds reader interest and provides plants of drama and surprises right up to the end. It's no knock on EE to call her writing cinematic, though a movie version might not really hold up and the title role would present a casting/production challenge, w a badly disfigured central character.

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Esi Edugyan

Has M has noted it's impossible to foretell where Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black is headed, as we follow the eponymous narrator over the tumultuous ad enventful course of his young life - from about 8 years old to, in part 3, about 18. What at first seems as if it will about life on a Barbados sugar plantation in 1830 as experienced by a young man evolves into a story about an abortive attempt to build a "flying machine" and then into an escape from slavery to the USA w slave catchers in pursuit and then to a scientific expedition to the Arctic and next to life on the wharves of Nova Scotia where Wash falls in love for the first time w the daughter of one who turns out to be a world renowned what we would today call marine biologist - who it seems will enlist Wash in his studies - and the ever inventive Wash proposes creation of the world's first saltwater aquarium. whew. This cornucopia of plot would be too much in most novels, but EE brings it off. The novel is not quite believable - neither is Great Expectations or Tom Jones really - but she creates each scene and plot element (some of which , like the Barton fight in part 3, seem to be left by the wayside as the plot advances, which is actually quite lifelike) w such confidence and veracity that we are swept along in the onrush of events. I don't know if there's any great meaning to this novel, but it's impressive throughout for its entertainment value and some vividly rendered scenes (in part 3 for ex Wash's deep water dive and encounter w an octopus) and moments of great acuity (in part 3 Wash's account of his sexual loneliness and his fear of approaching too close to the scientist's daughter Tanna - a wise and worldly caution given his race, his status, and his vulnerability, bounty hunters are still, he believes, pursuing him as a runaway.

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Esi Edugyan

Part 2 ends at the midpoint of Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black with the eponymous narrator, now 13 years old, standing alone in a snow storm in the Arctic as he watches his mentor and protector, Titch, disappear into the whiteness (symbolic?), the 2nd suicide he'd witness. Titch has been overcome w sorrow at his reunion w his father, a renowned scientist living in spartan conditions w a crew of native assistants as he conducts a study of arctic ice. He is completely indifferent to his son - contemptuous even - about his son's own scientific exploration and equally contentious of his brother's management of the family plantation (Faith!) - and Titch recognizing the hypocrisy: letting others do the dirty work of plantation management while using the generated wealth to pursue his own interests. Some authors would end the novel at this point , but not EE, who seems to have limitless talent for plot generation and topical description: her account of Arctic life is worth reading in itself as well as her ability to imagine a first exposure to snow and ice from the viewpoint of one raised in The Caribbean. So we will continue to follow Wash on his adventures- however improbable, how ever much they resemble a "tall story," because of EE's writing and most important her careful establishment of the personality and perceptions of a young man making his way toward freedom in a frightening, racist, and hostile world.

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Esi Edugyan

Increasingly (about half-way through) Esi Edugyan's 2018 novel, Washington Black, is an adventure story more than a sociopolitical expose about conditions of slavery - though this novel rises well above the expectations of the adventure genre for a number of reasons. First, it is grounded in the tradition of escape from bondage, and EE has a lot of knowledge about the horrid conditions of life on a sugar plantation ca 1830, giving this novel a significant historical component. Second, she gives real insight into the mind and sensibility of young boy in slavery through the many perceptions of her eponymous narrator, who is always wary about what he might express and always attuned to the dangers he faces, in particular dangers the even sympathetic white men cannot recognize. Third, the novel is nuanced, as the whites are not uniformly racist - though even the sympathetic whites cannot fully escape the limitations of their time and their status. Fourth, the novel is riotously inventive - with totally improbable incidents - the balloon flight through a storm, for example, told with spirit and panache almost making is believe in the impossible. Fifth, EE knows how to maintain narrative tension: Wash and his protector, Titch (?), are not just wanderers but are in ever-present danger, w slave-catchers on the lookout and a large bounty on their heads. Sixth, her writing is fantastic throughout, both in subtleties of dialogue that reveal character and personality and in terrific, sometimes Dickensian, set pieces such as a description of the Norfolk docks, the suicide of the plantation-owner's cousin, and the crash landing aboard a Virginia-bound ship.

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Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black (2018) may not be typical of anything but through the first third of so at least it hold up as a fine and eventful "novel of education." What I mean by that: Many similar novels and in particular novels about escape from traumatic childhood and in particular about escape from slavery attain part of their drama and success because they present not only a story (often first-person) about an individual's life but also a representative story about the lives of many. EE's novel - about a young man born into slavery on a Caribbean sugar plantation in the early 19th century - seems much more the story of a unique individual - highly skilled as a self-taught artist, highly observant and insightful (this is a first person narrative richness topical detail and social observation). Though we see in this novel some of the harsh and sadistic conditions of slave life on a plantation, that does not seem to be the central purpose of this work. We are presented w the life story of one who is exceptional, not typical- and a narrative in which the protagonist/narrator does not break for freedom but in which he is more or less adopted as a protégée by the plantation owner's intellectual younger brother - one who is repulsed by plantation life yet finds himself inextricably tied to the system. Much of the first third of the novel concerns the brother's bizarre attempt to design, bios, and launch a hot-air balloon - and how this obsession depends whether he likes it or not on slave labor and nearly costs the narrator his life.

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Esi Edugyan

Another one of the many recent (and not so recent) slave escape to freedom novels (see recent post on forthcoming novel by T Coates) is Canadian author Esi Esugyan's well- received 2018 novel, Washington Black. Each of these stories has and needs its own slant, and what sets apart EE's novel is its setting - the eponymous narrator's escape is from a sugar plantation in the Barbados- and its narrative mode: the escape, in 1830, is obviously not about the Underground Railroad that figures prominently in many other escape narratives. In this case the agent of escape - at least as it appears from the first 35 pp or so - is the brother of the sadistic plantation owner. This man, known as Tick, wants no part in running the slave-dependent plantation; he's a would be scientist/inventor w dreams of building a "flying machine." Recognizing the intelligence and spirit of the young Wash, he takes the young man on as his manservant. Altho wash's main protector on the plantation expects the worst (w good reason), that Tick will abuse Wash sexually, it appears that Tick is a good man and that his protection will be what leads Wash into freedom. The narrative has the sense of an older man looking back on his youth, so at this point there is no indication of what Wash has done w his life - but it does seem that there will be many adventures and that overall this will be a Bildungsroman in the tradition of Fielding and Dickens: a young man of humble at best origins who learns from experience, achieves some social status or recognition unforeseeable at first, and reflects back on his life.


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Han Ong

A short story (or so it appears; feels completed and not part of a novel but these days who knows?) by Han Ong, a writer not familiar to me, rounds out the New Yorker double (?!) Fiction Issue. This piece, Javi, after the central character (full name Javier) begins w J arriving unannounced at the house of a famous artist, as 82-year-old woman living alone in New Mexico. J has walked some 20 miles from his home looking for work; has had a few run-ins w the police who suspect him of vagrancy and panhandling but don't arrest or mistreat him. He's learned that the artist is seeking some household help in hopes of avoiding an inevitable move to a nursing home. She's Kurt and crusty and J promises to work hard and stay out of her way, and the 2 hit it off. J know nothing at all about art, which is to his advantage- and hers. He's not an acolyte, and he can give her an honest and fresh perspective on her latest work. Up to a point this seems like a story loosely based on the later years of Georgia O'Keeffe - and perhaps set a few decades ago. But the story at some point shifts its focus as J's mother arrives w several other women from Mexico, and the artist gives them shelter, employment, and forged ID papers - and ultimately helps J transport the women to a safe-haven church in LA, at which point the story ends (and as a side note, at which point the story becomes a counterpart to another story or excerpt in this issue - Coates's Conviction). Interesting to note that the end note says that on the NYer web site Ong discusses how fiction can be usurped by current events. I can easily believe that Ong started out writing one kind of story - about J's developing relationship w the artist and how that affected her work (and both of their lives) - but by the end was writing a story about today's immigration issues. Both are good and worthy approaches, but I do feel that the characters in the second phase of the story are not as well established and that this phase of the story feels a bit rushed and unexamined.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Inevitably readers will compare Ta-Nehisi Coates's fiction piece - it clearly seems to be a first chapter in a forthcoming novel, not a short story - in the New Yorker fiction issue, Conduction, with other recent works on a similar theme notably Colson Whitehead's underground-railroad novel and maybe less recent works Ike the great film 12 years a slave or eve Beloved, but the key is there are many possible approaches to and imaginations about that too little chronicled moment in American history in which activists from north and south, both black and white risked their lives in search of freedom and in helping others in that search. So Coates's is a work of historical fiction set sometime before the civil war and narrated by a man who attained freedom through forged papers and w the aid of a group of activists who help guide black men and women to the North and then provided social services to the freedmen and women. The chapter in the NYer gives the needed background - sometimes w a clumsy narration in which characters tell their life story in a few paragraphs (too much tell not show), but in other ways it's a hugely promising opening, describing a social network among the recently freed that has been seldom chronicled at least to my knowledge - and the tension the builds across the narrative is that the narrator- Hiram (?) - will return to the south to help others, particularly those whose race to freedom separated them from the spouses and children.

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Andrea Lee

Andrea Lee has the leadoff story, The Children, inbthe New Yorker fiction issue; good to see her work again, as she's been on and off in the magazine for maybe 40 years - I think she debuted w a nonfiction/journalistic piece on the Soviet Union pocked up from the slush pile - almost unheard of for nonfiction. I really liked her debut novel in the 80s, Sarah Phillips (?), but she never really followed up on that nor did she follow the kind of literary course that would have made her a better-known author. Most of her life from what I know has been abroad - and this story is a piece of that, centering on an American woman who lives mostly in Italy and is spending some time w a literary friend and translator of her works in a remote Madagascar island - this seems as if it may be close to a self portrait. Lee overwhelms is at first w many characters and many, at least to me, obscure place names and topical references (just not up on the various Madagascar tribes), but the story in essence is quite simple and beautiful: the two first-world women meet a young woman on the island (her father is an Italian w addiction and other problems) and try to connect her and her bad brother w their estranged father. They fail - and it turns out the father has recently died - and the girl goes on a downward course, about which these women can do nothing. In a short section at the end, much later, the Lee-like character reflects on her own children and wonders about her responsibilities for them and reflects briefly on the social inequalities and on the privileges of class, even for those w the best of intentions.

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Will Burns ever get the Milkman narrative off the ground?

Have started reading an ebook v of Anna Burns's Booker-winning (!) novel, Milkman; will return to it in a few days for a second chance, but what I've read so far - 10 percent of the book but who can tell how long it really is? maybe 350 pp.?  - is far from promising. Starts off well - this has been id'd in some reviews as a MeToo novel, and I'm interested in that - as the narrator, a 30something woman living in what clearly is Northern Ireland (seems clearly to be set during a time of the "troubles," but I was/am confused as to what's in the present and what looks back 20 years), is being stalked by the eponymous Milkman, a weird and threatening man in his 40s or so; the narrator - an eccentric herself by any measure, known for walking through her town while lost in her reading (her taste in literature is excellent, but please watch your step!) - is not w/out resources, however, and enlists for her protection a brother-in-law who's a formidable street fighter. All to the good so far, but then the narrative veers off into unfathomably tedious digressions: almost the entire first 10-percent (shall we say 35 pp?) of the novel involve the narrator's visit to the man she refers to only as her maybe-boyfriend; he is a mechanic and has just retrieved a piece from a 1927 Bentley that he has set on his living room carpet and seems to worship (don't ask!); a # of his friends come in bearing lots of alcohol and they engage in a long discussion about the Bentley part: what if he'd retrieved the front-piece that includes a flag image from "over there"? Would that be an act of complicity with the enemy? Would someone be in the right to attack him for owning a car part w/ that image? And on and on. OK, Irish literature is famous for its difficult and eccentric narrations: Joyce, of course, but also Beckett, Flann O'Brien, maybe Donleavy, to name a few, and Milkman earnestly strives to be in this tradition - but Burns has to get this novel off the ground at some point. I really can't imagine reading another 300+ pp (I just looked it up, it's a 368 pager) of tedious conversation among inebriated blokes narrated by someone who can't tell a story straight.

How the ending of Little Dorrit surprised me

Okay, so Dickens really threw me a head-fake, as I completely guessed wrong about the ending to Little Dorrit; I thought for sure we were heading toward one of those happy but tinged w/ sadness conclusions, with Arthur Clennam dying in debtors' prison and the possibility of a new and more age-appropriate romance between Little (Amy) Dorrit and the man who has for years loved her, John (the prison turnkey). But no - Arthur recovers, LD remains by his side, at last they recognize that they are in love. As expected, Arthur's business partner, Doyce, returns w/ enough profits from his travels (I thought it was to America, but it seems he was traveling in Europe) to get Arthur out of prison and to keep their business in the black - and w/ that knowledge, Arthur and LD head off to the church to get married. Happy ending - though not for poor John - and a bit what's to make of the big, big secret that drove the Italian criminal - Rigaud? - to try to extort money from Arthur's mother? It was so incidental that I thought I missed something; went back and re-read, and even looked up some info about the characters on Wikipedia, and the whole thing is a revelation that Arthur a son from his father's first marriage. I don't see how that is so shameful or astonishing; he never loved the woman who raised him, so what does it matter who was his birth-mother? I still don't get it - but I guess this subplot is what Hitchcock would call the "McGuffin," a plot element w/ no real significance other than to keep the narrative moving. I can see, having finished reading LD, why Bleak House is the more popular of his late, long novels (and Great Expectations more popular than either); LD has some terrific comic pieces and character sketches and a searing takedown of the inefficiencies and cronyism in English government and of the corruption of the financial system - but it's a much more difficult novel to read, with a vast # of characters and some pretty obscure writing at times, and at the heart of it, the title character is so passive, so "good," so willing to sacrifice everything in her life, first for the feckless father and then for what looks to be a hopeless love that we don't really engage with her or care for her - she's too good to be true, or interesting. I also feel it's a shame that, toward the end, CD continued to take shots at the mentally ill Miss Wade and that he has Tattycorum crawling back to the "nice" Meagles family that treated her like dirt. Couldn't one woman at least stand up for herself in a righteous manner?

Totally confused by the twists of plot as we near the end of Little Dorrit

Well, Dickens does not make it easy to follow the narrative through to the conclusion of Little Dorrit. At least for me, it is extremely difficult to figure out what the characters are saying to one another in the big confrontation scene that moves, over three or four chapters I think, from the prison to the Clennam house, back to the prison, then back to the house, just in time to watch it crumble (of its own weight and decay?) into a pile of bricks, taking with it Mrs. Clennam and her business manager, Flintwatch. Dickens is not going for clarity here; if he were, the minor characters would be, by this point in the novel, more distinct and more distinguishable from one another (it doesn't help that he switches from using names to using various monikers, such as The Patriarch, which I assume is Mr. Dorrit?). OK, so what does happen? As best as I can discern, the evil Rigaud (he, too, has several names and aliases) tries to extort money from Mrs. Clennam; he has possession of a box w/ various documents that will reveal the secret of Arthur C's parentage. She refuses to pay, goes to the prison and tells all to Little Dorrit, who is standing watch over the dying Arthur Clennam; she doesn't care - nothing can faze her or diminish her love for Arthur. So what is the secret? I get that Arthur is not the son of the woman who raised him - but of what consequence is this? Is he actually Little Dorrit's brother or half-brother? If so, it's a good thing that they did not consummate their love, right? But I'm confused and befuddled by these chapters - w/ a few still to go, which maybe will help clarify things, at least in my foggy mind. Figuring all this out requires a more attentive and patient reading than I can give.Something wrong w/ me? With Dickens? Or maybe these details just don't matter - we get the gist of the story by following the life course of the 2 main characters, Clennam and Amy (Little) Dorrit. Just as these revelations and attempted extortion don't mean a damn to the intrepid LD, maybe they don't mean a damn to us, either.

Is she really Little Doormat?

It's appearing that I was right in yesterday's speculation: Much as the expected/traditional "happy ending" to Little Dorrit would have Arthur Clennom, who at last recognizes his love for Little Dorrit and who learns that she has been in love w/ him all these years, would have two of them joined in marriage - but Dickens, late in his career, does not go that route. We have near the end a powerful chapter in which LD shows up at the prison at night to visit Arthur, and she declares her love for him - and he responds, in effect, that he has always loved her and always will but now he's too old and broken to marry her. She offers to pay off his debts, which he refuses - I still suspect his business partner, Doyce, will come back from America w/ a load of $ so that Arthur can die in peace and in freedom, but it's more apparent that Dickens recognizes that the "old man" must be cleared out of the way - despite his noble and generous spirit (same kind of ending in Bleak House). The only issue, is: Who's good enough for LD? The only obvious candidate is John, the prison turnkey, but does it seem as if he can stand up against her poise and intelligence? And she has already told him, years back, that she could never love him. To us, he seems like about half her age, and marrying him would wed her to a life in the prison, albeit as a free person and employee. But she'll probably accept his love - Little Doormat, we might call her - and make at least John happy, if not the readers.

Trying to forecast the conclusion of Little Dorrit

Closer to the end of Little Dorrit (Dickens), I realize that I have no conscious memory of how this novel concludes - I first read it decades ago, and I saw the BBC adaptation on TV many years ago as well - so I will speculate here on how CD will bring this novel about. At this point there are two pathways: the protagonist, Arthur Clennam, now in the debtors' prison as he's lost all of his (and his business partner's) money in the financial debacle that the forger and thief Merdle caused, has begun to realize that all this time he has been in love w/ "Little" Dorrit (a Pygmalian, My Fair Lady romance?), and just as he realizes this the young man who has been madly in love w/ LD from the outset, John Chivery, the son of the prison turnkey (and now in that role himself) declares his hatred of Arthur, which A can neither understand nor fathom. John tells him that LD has always loved him, that is Arthur - hey, maybe it's a Gigi-type romance? So to all appearances at this point the two - Arthur and LD - are in love w/ each other, so the probable course for the narrative is to bring the two together, happy ending. But this is late Dickens and a really complicated novel, so I suspect he will follow the course of Bleak House, in which the old man - Arthur, in this case - reluctantly cedes his love to the younger generation, that he steps aside and that John Chivery marries Little Dorrit, in a happy ending with a Shakespearean touch of melancholy. But can Chivery really stand up to LD? Is he really the right guy to ensure her happiness? And what about the other unhappy marriage - Pet's marriage to the odious Gowan (sp?); and what about Tatty/Harriet - hasn't she earned a role in the conclusion as well? Should she marry Chivery, or is that a marriage "below" her? And what about the great wrong that Arthur's late father committed, presumably to the detriment of the Dorrit family, which Arthur has tried to rectify? One thing for certain: Arthur's business partner, Doyce, will return from American w/ a fortune, enough to lift Arthur from debt and to keep their business partnership in the black.

Thoughts nearing the end of Little Dorrit

Dickens surprised us in some ways near the end of Little Dorrit. It was obvious from the start this would be a "wheel of fortune " novel, in which the mighty fall and the downtrodden rise. And yes of course the wealthy though enigmatic banked/investor turns out to be a forger and crook - far more culpable than thousands held in the debtors' prison - tho he never gets there, unfortunately, as he offs himself before the collapse of his enterprise. Similarly, mr. Dorrit rises to great wealth and becomes as much of a snob and a sybarite as the other plutocrats of his era - but we don't see him return to prison; rather, he suffers a mental breakdown and a quick death as he believes he's still in the Marshalsea prison. We do expect, however, that his estate will be worthless, leaving his children w nothing. I was surprised to see Clennam imprisoned, however, one of the first victims of Merdles's criminal chicanery. An outstanding question is what to make of Miss Wade and her sponsorship of the former Tattycaron (Harriet). It may be that this whole mostly undeveloped subplot was to show a parallel injustice regarding daughters: both T and the eponymous Little are victims of a father who imagines himself to be doting and loving but who in fact is biased, selfish, and psychologically abusive. These also make an unusual parallel w the fatherless son, Clennam, and his cold and recriminative mother. I do suspect that Dockens started out w bigger plans for Miss Wade and then, though the novel got away from him in some manner, felt he had to return to her story (even to tell it is such a stilted and unrealistic form last a written confession)!as he'd introduced her in the first section - the price an author paid in a serialized novel - no chance to significantly revise.

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The death of Mr Dorrit

A little bit of a spoiler here but I was surprised that Dickens did away w Mr Dorrit before the final chapters of Little Dorrit. Dorris's demise begins on his return trip to London to straighten out his estate - it looks as if he was investing it all w that Madoff-like phony, Merdle - when he is paid a visit in his posh hotel by that sad innocent who works now as a "turnkey" at the Marshalsea prison. Dorrit is shocked and humiliated to be reminded of his past life and takes his wrath out on the young man. Returning to Europe to join Little Dorrit and that other phony, mrs Governor, he buys expensive engagement jewels to offer to mrs G. She rejects him - I'm not sure why or how final her off-putting was meant to be - but he goes into a deep swoon, highlighted or low lighted by an outburst at a dinner party in which he believes he is a prisoner once more. He declines to his death over the next few days, with daughter Amy/Little still by his side. We really get sick of her doormat personality by this point and wish and still hope that she might tell someone, anyone, off at some point. She is now a wealthy attractive single woman- though we still suspect that her wealth will disappear and we'll see who's still interested in her at that point - Clemson, or the prison turnkey perhaps? Good to see at this point in the move that we are also learning more about the much-abuses Tattycorum, now known as Harriet, and her protector - an early feminist it seems - Miss Wade. Unclear still how this episode fits into the overall scheme of this novel except as another example of the blindness of class prejudice and injustice within even "upright" families.

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