It seems that young writers these days are masters of short stories and never novels. After The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which started out so promisingly before wandering unfocused from character to character, I question the ideas that any successful short story writer can simply pick up and write a novel.
But The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is certainly an exception. Or perhaps a new twist on the same old problems. The detail of the book is startling - so many scenes filled with vivid, telling details that I did not think Lahiri could sustain such a pace. And yet, the novel is filled with moment after moment, like a million tiny climaxes within a short story that never ends. The story spans four decades, yet the main characters always feel so deliberately drawn, so delicate and present in the exact moment of their life.
The difficulty is that the tone here is so lacking in emotion and reliant on detail that at times it seems as if the characters feel nothing at all. All grief is expressed in action, such as clearing out a dead father's apartment or shaving one's head as a sign of mourning. Love is rarely expressed. In this Bengali family built upon an arranged marriage, the two lovers of the book do not even speak each other's names. They are distant and only slowly become accustomed to each other, and never in the book do you see a declaration of love. Their love is meant to be apparent only in that they stay together and raise a family, but frankly this does not come across in the book. It is not until one has lost the other that you feel that they truly had a life together, instead of a life side-by-side.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory has been a delightful read from beginning to end. The fascination of the story lies in Gregory's ability to so clearly depict seduction and courtly flirtation. We are drawn into a world managed by wit, jest and compliments. Courtiers accept and decline proposals in the same loving language, always praising the person who complimented them, declaring their undying affection for them, using jests to parlay a conversation into personal gain. We see a court where women use sex and flirtation to achieve something that almost always benefits the men around them more than it benefits themselves.
The story is told by Mary Boleyn, sister to the famous Anne. She is the more conscientious but less clever sister, unable to manipulate the court and men as easily as her sister. Initially, I found myself hoping with her to achieve something in the court, to become the king's mistress and then queen. I hoped for her to succeed with King Henry. But as Mary gives birth to two children and comes to love pleasures that come without a price, such as raising her children and living in the country, I began to tire of the demands placed on her by her family. The constant work put in by the court in order to please the king is staggering, and when Mary calls the king and Anne "the two most selfish people alive," I had to agree. The work of pleasing a king seems like a very clever game until one begins to tire of it, and then it seems like a ridiculous thing, particularly to this Yankee rebel. We have been raised in a country where no one is unquestionable, and to watch two women circle each other just to keep the favor of one tyrant becomes increasingly difficult throughout the book. By the time Mary leaves court, I too was ready to be free of it.
Despite my enjoyment of the book, discussing the writing is a far more difficult thing to do. The characters are well-drawn, each presented with conflicting motives and passions which show why some, like Mary, find happiness and others, like Anne, find ruin. But once each character is drawn, the plot is set in motion. There is little physical description of England, or of the various palaces where much of the action takes place. There is much description of costume and dress, in part because the costumes worn by each character so frequently indicate their mood or desires. But this story is one that does not fuel itself on an elegant turn of phrase, but instead on the interactions of a multitude of ambitious people. Although I enjoyed the book and always looked forward to taking it up again, I cannot highlight any specific passage or quote the way I might for a book by, say, Michael Chabon or Somerset Maugham. Ultimately, the writing is humorous, well-characterized and driven. But there is no point where my breath caught in my throat at the beauty or aptness of some description. Only a general warmth and gratitude towards the characters for giving me such dramatic and gripping stuff to sink my teeth into.
The story is told by Mary Boleyn, sister to the famous Anne. She is the more conscientious but less clever sister, unable to manipulate the court and men as easily as her sister. Initially, I found myself hoping with her to achieve something in the court, to become the king's mistress and then queen. I hoped for her to succeed with King Henry. But as Mary gives birth to two children and comes to love pleasures that come without a price, such as raising her children and living in the country, I began to tire of the demands placed on her by her family. The constant work put in by the court in order to please the king is staggering, and when Mary calls the king and Anne "the two most selfish people alive," I had to agree. The work of pleasing a king seems like a very clever game until one begins to tire of it, and then it seems like a ridiculous thing, particularly to this Yankee rebel. We have been raised in a country where no one is unquestionable, and to watch two women circle each other just to keep the favor of one tyrant becomes increasingly difficult throughout the book. By the time Mary leaves court, I too was ready to be free of it.
Despite my enjoyment of the book, discussing the writing is a far more difficult thing to do. The characters are well-drawn, each presented with conflicting motives and passions which show why some, like Mary, find happiness and others, like Anne, find ruin. But once each character is drawn, the plot is set in motion. There is little physical description of England, or of the various palaces where much of the action takes place. There is much description of costume and dress, in part because the costumes worn by each character so frequently indicate their mood or desires. But this story is one that does not fuel itself on an elegant turn of phrase, but instead on the interactions of a multitude of ambitious people. Although I enjoyed the book and always looked forward to taking it up again, I cannot highlight any specific passage or quote the way I might for a book by, say, Michael Chabon or Somerset Maugham. Ultimately, the writing is humorous, well-characterized and driven. But there is no point where my breath caught in my throat at the beauty or aptness of some description. Only a general warmth and gratitude towards the characters for giving me such dramatic and gripping stuff to sink my teeth into.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A reflection on the writing process
James Agee died before he finished his novel, A Death in the Family. He wrote the first draft, in various parts, but had not finished editing his work when he passed away. He had enough admirers among his writing friends that they banded together to finish his work. They edited his novel, but took care to leave his original words intact. They also inserted certain portions that were not part of the original manuscript in the places they seemed best to fit. In some portions of the book, these pieces fit. In others, one cannot guess at the intent of the author, only that he was experimenting with a voice or tone that he might have altered or somehow fit into the novel had he not died beforehand.
Although I generally object to posthumous publications -- the idea of someone publishing a work I never completed is frightening to me, and I imagine many writers; we can't all be Emily Dickinson -- reading "A Death in the Family" is an education. For any writer, it is a thrill to see another writer's process; although we so rarely share this side of our lives because it is the most terrifying, boring, exhausting and essential part of our work. But to read a manuscript that will always sit without the author's final touch shows me that the writing process was not so different for Agee than it is for me and many other writers. The essential plot is there, but there are also sideliness, digressions, stories that never go anywhere. Agee may have intended to tie them up; he may have intended to cut them, forever, from the literary world. We will never know.
Now, Agee is such a fine writer that it is easy to overlook these portions. Also, his death provides an easy excuse. "Certainly, he would have cut these if he could have," we murmur at points that do not suit, that do not please. But the publication of his book without that final draft means we are privy to all the possibilities of the manuscript. It might have gone this way. It might have gone that. It might have been a fine book. It might have been great.
My instinct is that the novel would have been great, but to never know seems to me that Agee cheated the system. When an author allows a work to be published at a specific point, it leaves her open to our judgment. We criticize her choices, her mistakes, the weak points. But with Agee, we simply cannot know what to criticize because the author did not have the final choice. He may have intended so many changes, but given to us in this form, who among us can fault the novel or the writer when a set of now-nameless editors had that final say? Ultimately, we can only speculate. We can only say what we would have cut. But to critique the novel of a writer who never had that final choice seems impermissible and petty. "He died. We cannot criticize him for that."
Although I generally object to posthumous publications -- the idea of someone publishing a work I never completed is frightening to me, and I imagine many writers; we can't all be Emily Dickinson -- reading "A Death in the Family" is an education. For any writer, it is a thrill to see another writer's process; although we so rarely share this side of our lives because it is the most terrifying, boring, exhausting and essential part of our work. But to read a manuscript that will always sit without the author's final touch shows me that the writing process was not so different for Agee than it is for me and many other writers. The essential plot is there, but there are also sideliness, digressions, stories that never go anywhere. Agee may have intended to tie them up; he may have intended to cut them, forever, from the literary world. We will never know.
Now, Agee is such a fine writer that it is easy to overlook these portions. Also, his death provides an easy excuse. "Certainly, he would have cut these if he could have," we murmur at points that do not suit, that do not please. But the publication of his book without that final draft means we are privy to all the possibilities of the manuscript. It might have gone this way. It might have gone that. It might have been a fine book. It might have been great.
My instinct is that the novel would have been great, but to never know seems to me that Agee cheated the system. When an author allows a work to be published at a specific point, it leaves her open to our judgment. We criticize her choices, her mistakes, the weak points. But with Agee, we simply cannot know what to criticize because the author did not have the final choice. He may have intended so many changes, but given to us in this form, who among us can fault the novel or the writer when a set of now-nameless editors had that final say? Ultimately, we can only speculate. We can only say what we would have cut. But to critique the novel of a writer who never had that final choice seems impermissible and petty. "He died. We cannot criticize him for that."
Literary Cat Fight
Apparently Kakutani insulted Franzen's work, so Franzen insulted Kakutani. It's lovely that critics and writers have such a healthy working relationship.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
I finally finished my first Somerset Maugham novel. I knew I'd love his writing. I knew I'd enjoy this book, and I was thoroughly enjoying the writing and characters up until the last ten pages when I began to suspect that no one could pull off a satisfying resolution in so short a time.
Theatre tells the story of Julia Lambert, the "greatest actress in England." Julia is talented, beautiful, and despite a modest upbringing manages to charm the rich, the aristocratic, the royal, with her acting talent and wit. She attends beautiful parties where she says scandalously funny things, does wonderful impressions of other actresses, and has a loyal following of rich and smitten patrons. Her long marriage to her theater manager, Michael, is affectionate but seems to be sexless. The couple no longer has a sexual attraction to each other, it seems, but imbued in their scenes together is the familiarity and comfort of two people long accustomed to each other. While both characters make clear that they do not fully understand the other - Michael insists that Julia doesn't care about sex, which Julia believes herself smarter than Michael in many ways - they do understand each other in certain crucial ways that make you believe that their marriage really could have lasted so many years. Michael is not greedy enough to have stayed with Julia had he been truly unhappy, nor is Julia so ambitious that she would have stayed with Michael simply to further her career. The two genuinely loved each other when they married, and if both have felt their lust of each other fade over the years, neither seems to be mind very much. Julia continues to compliment Michael's beauty, and Michael continues to manage Julia as the brilliant actress that she is.
For Julia is an amazing actress. One reads little of her time on the stage itself, but one is always aware of how Julia arranges herself to appear to her best advantage in front of her husband, her friends, her would-be lovers, and her actual lovers. To say it plainly, she is manipulative, artful, and downright deceitful. But that discounts the beauty of these very deceptions. Julia is very clever, and very intelligent. She sees people for who they are, for what they desire, for what they most want to see, and she ever affects to give this to them. She changes her tact and expression to present the best version of herself to her friends, and so it is often unclear who Julia really is. Is she the intelligent, refined, sensitive woman she presents to her friend Charles Tamerley? Is she the playful and easy lover she acts toward Tom Fennell, her young lover? Or is she indeed the deceitful person her son Robert believes her to be? In the end, the reader knows better than any character in the book, but I still wonder if I know, truly, who Julia is. She is artful, she is talented, captivating, and she has a dark and (to me) enjoyable sense of humour. She is a mighty actress. But she is ultimately not very kind, rarely sincere, and uses her friends to her own advantage. She has so many stories woven for so many people in her lives that at times she must be very careful not to get the threads crossed. But ultimately it is all done to benefit herself.
I think Somerset Maugham is brilliant. I loved his depiction of Julia. He has a talent for crafting small but not insignificant characters with a few quotes and a description of their hat. But he also saw such a complex character so clearly as he wrote this novel. He deftly handled how Julia would react to slights, to embarrassment, to disappointment. In the end, he knew his character best, and we are left looking in, trying to understand as well as he what Julia truly desires from her life. For in the end, what she seems to want is the triumph of interpreting best how life appears to be. In the final scene, she sits, alone and unrecognized, in a crowded restaurant, the victor in a battle of wills with her former lover and an ambitious young actress, and she watches couples dancing on the floor before her, and reflects that it is her gift that gives people's lives meaning. She says to herself, "Roger says we don't exist. Why, it's only we who do exist. They are the shadows and we give them substance. We are the symbols of all this confused, aimless struggling that we call life, and it's only the symbol which is real."
I felt at first that Somerset Maugham had given us no conclusion. A novel must have a conflict, and a resolution, and in the end the conflict is not between Julia and the young man who drops her, or between Julia's public and private person, but instead between the stage and real life. And in Julia's opinion, the stage wins out. There is a conflict here between the real world and this actress, but the resolution is that Julia is interpreting us at every moment, and that while she exists to give us meaning, we exist to give her the raw stuff of which plays are made. I cannot help but feel disturbed to find myself a shadow dependent on an artist as great as Julia to make me real. And yet I think of Somerset Maugham, of Virginia Woolf, of James Joyce and Jane Austen, and indeed I am dependent. Reading their work has shown me that my own thoughts are not unique - others have thought as I do, have grown up, have loved, have made mistakes and tried to correct them just as I have. I do not mean to compare myself to the great heroes and heroines, but the fact is that these very heroes and heroines, the Miss Elizas and Gatsbys and Mrs. Dalloways, do exist as mirrors against which we hold ourselves. We live, we breathe, we act, and these great writers see, interpret, and publish, and suddenly we have characters and plots that so remind us of some part of our lives, but with more meaning, more grace, more importance. Reading these books provides some interpretation for my life, some version of truth to consider. And Julia's plays, Julia's acting, does the very same for her audience. And so perhaps these people do depend on Julia, in some way. Perhaps she does hold all the power.
Theatre tells the story of Julia Lambert, the "greatest actress in England." Julia is talented, beautiful, and despite a modest upbringing manages to charm the rich, the aristocratic, the royal, with her acting talent and wit. She attends beautiful parties where she says scandalously funny things, does wonderful impressions of other actresses, and has a loyal following of rich and smitten patrons. Her long marriage to her theater manager, Michael, is affectionate but seems to be sexless. The couple no longer has a sexual attraction to each other, it seems, but imbued in their scenes together is the familiarity and comfort of two people long accustomed to each other. While both characters make clear that they do not fully understand the other - Michael insists that Julia doesn't care about sex, which Julia believes herself smarter than Michael in many ways - they do understand each other in certain crucial ways that make you believe that their marriage really could have lasted so many years. Michael is not greedy enough to have stayed with Julia had he been truly unhappy, nor is Julia so ambitious that she would have stayed with Michael simply to further her career. The two genuinely loved each other when they married, and if both have felt their lust of each other fade over the years, neither seems to be mind very much. Julia continues to compliment Michael's beauty, and Michael continues to manage Julia as the brilliant actress that she is.
For Julia is an amazing actress. One reads little of her time on the stage itself, but one is always aware of how Julia arranges herself to appear to her best advantage in front of her husband, her friends, her would-be lovers, and her actual lovers. To say it plainly, she is manipulative, artful, and downright deceitful. But that discounts the beauty of these very deceptions. Julia is very clever, and very intelligent. She sees people for who they are, for what they desire, for what they most want to see, and she ever affects to give this to them. She changes her tact and expression to present the best version of herself to her friends, and so it is often unclear who Julia really is. Is she the intelligent, refined, sensitive woman she presents to her friend Charles Tamerley? Is she the playful and easy lover she acts toward Tom Fennell, her young lover? Or is she indeed the deceitful person her son Robert believes her to be? In the end, the reader knows better than any character in the book, but I still wonder if I know, truly, who Julia is. She is artful, she is talented, captivating, and she has a dark and (to me) enjoyable sense of humour. She is a mighty actress. But she is ultimately not very kind, rarely sincere, and uses her friends to her own advantage. She has so many stories woven for so many people in her lives that at times she must be very careful not to get the threads crossed. But ultimately it is all done to benefit herself.
I think Somerset Maugham is brilliant. I loved his depiction of Julia. He has a talent for crafting small but not insignificant characters with a few quotes and a description of their hat. But he also saw such a complex character so clearly as he wrote this novel. He deftly handled how Julia would react to slights, to embarrassment, to disappointment. In the end, he knew his character best, and we are left looking in, trying to understand as well as he what Julia truly desires from her life. For in the end, what she seems to want is the triumph of interpreting best how life appears to be. In the final scene, she sits, alone and unrecognized, in a crowded restaurant, the victor in a battle of wills with her former lover and an ambitious young actress, and she watches couples dancing on the floor before her, and reflects that it is her gift that gives people's lives meaning. She says to herself, "Roger says we don't exist. Why, it's only we who do exist. They are the shadows and we give them substance. We are the symbols of all this confused, aimless struggling that we call life, and it's only the symbol which is real."
I felt at first that Somerset Maugham had given us no conclusion. A novel must have a conflict, and a resolution, and in the end the conflict is not between Julia and the young man who drops her, or between Julia's public and private person, but instead between the stage and real life. And in Julia's opinion, the stage wins out. There is a conflict here between the real world and this actress, but the resolution is that Julia is interpreting us at every moment, and that while she exists to give us meaning, we exist to give her the raw stuff of which plays are made. I cannot help but feel disturbed to find myself a shadow dependent on an artist as great as Julia to make me real. And yet I think of Somerset Maugham, of Virginia Woolf, of James Joyce and Jane Austen, and indeed I am dependent. Reading their work has shown me that my own thoughts are not unique - others have thought as I do, have grown up, have loved, have made mistakes and tried to correct them just as I have. I do not mean to compare myself to the great heroes and heroines, but the fact is that these very heroes and heroines, the Miss Elizas and Gatsbys and Mrs. Dalloways, do exist as mirrors against which we hold ourselves. We live, we breathe, we act, and these great writers see, interpret, and publish, and suddenly we have characters and plots that so remind us of some part of our lives, but with more meaning, more grace, more importance. Reading these books provides some interpretation for my life, some version of truth to consider. And Julia's plays, Julia's acting, does the very same for her audience. And so perhaps these people do depend on Julia, in some way. Perhaps she does hold all the power.
Friday, June 15, 2007
From the book review "Warsaw Underground" by Irvine Welsh
One measurement of a genuine writer is his or her ability to evoke a place that is instantly familiar yet outside our direct personal experience, presenting it to us as a more accurate and vivid depiction than our prejudices had previously allowed. Andrzej Stasiuk is this kind of writer. He’s an accomplished stylist with an eye for the telling detail that brings characters and situations to life.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Virginia Woolf, oh how you know me...
Here is an except from a book review I recently read in the New York Times. I'm delighted to discover this quote by Virginia Woolf that perfectly explains my issues with modern writing (I have highlighted it below). I'll write more later when I have time.
From the article "To See You Again" by Paul Gray, a book review of Margaret Drabble's "The Sea Lady."
"The Sea Lady” is a waterlogged, ramshackle contraption that fascinates even as it annoys. Drabble’s longtime readers won’t be surprised by the novel’s tactics. After all, the most important entry in her long bibliography may be her sympathetic biography of Arnold Bennett, one of the Edwardian novelists — along with John Galsworthy and H. G. Wells — denounced by Virginia Woolf. (“They have given us a house,” Woolf declared, arguing that their concentration on external description, on the workings of society, failed to convey the inner lives of their characters, “in the hope that we may be able to deduce the human beings who live there.”)
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
Novels are funny things. They build up so many expectations, particularly when they sit on your shelf for a year, two years, maybe even three, and you glance at them occasionally over your university reading and long to pick them up and burrow into a delightful story rather than read in depth about the agricultural and occupational differences between the Hutu and the Tutsis in the 1850s.
I bought Green Rider by Kristen Britain several years ago at a lovely bookstore in Colorado called The Tattered Cover. I highly recommed this store if you're ever in Denver. I remember beautiful hardwood shelves reaching to the ceiling and lists of recommended books that helped me pick out this and other very enjoyable reads. In any case, this book sat on my shelf for years, a lovely fantasy novel with a cover of a pretty woman on a horse, riding fast over a forest path and looking behind her, concerned with the grey-cloaked rider that occupied the back cover. However, the title and the cover grew more and more plain to me - the wash of green over the woman's outfit blended too well into the forest cover, and as my writing professors told me that fantasy and science fiction were "genre fiction" (ie, not real fiction), I began to wonder if my choice of paperbacks had been mistaken.
Initially, I felt I was justified. The main character, Karigan, seemed flat, and the adventure she set out on - to deliver a message to her king - seemed like a micro-Lord of the Rings adventure. There was even a strange detour to a magical house occupied by two spinster sisters, a house quite like Tom Bombadil's in its ability to shelter and soothe those on a quest. But when Karigan is captured on her route by two warriors, and she is almost raped and forced to fight off two male attackers, my interest was renewed. The author wasn't afraid to put her heroine through hell, and the heroine actually survived it. My appreciation of Karigan grew, and the rest of her journey and her struggle over whether she should join the ranks of an elite messenger group that insits she was called to them (which is left unresolved at the end of the first volume) pulled the book from the run of the mill fantasy and made it into a story with real characters who don't take the choice of adventure over family as lightly as other novels might. Though the several continuing volumes that have been published since I bought this paperback so many years ago tell me that Karigan makes the more interesting choice, I appreciate that the author did not push the choice into the first volume. A quest, several murders, and a plot to overthrow the king is quite enough for one novel.
*My only criticism of this book, and it must be noted, is the poorly named country that Karigan inhabits. "Sacoridia" tripped me up again and again in the text. It sounds more like a GI infection than a country. I could not decide how to pronounce it, and not one pronunciation made it any more melodious or interesting as a name. Definitely should have gone back to the drawing board on that one.
I bought Green Rider by Kristen Britain several years ago at a lovely bookstore in Colorado called The Tattered Cover. I highly recommed this store if you're ever in Denver. I remember beautiful hardwood shelves reaching to the ceiling and lists of recommended books that helped me pick out this and other very enjoyable reads. In any case, this book sat on my shelf for years, a lovely fantasy novel with a cover of a pretty woman on a horse, riding fast over a forest path and looking behind her, concerned with the grey-cloaked rider that occupied the back cover. However, the title and the cover grew more and more plain to me - the wash of green over the woman's outfit blended too well into the forest cover, and as my writing professors told me that fantasy and science fiction were "genre fiction" (ie, not real fiction), I began to wonder if my choice of paperbacks had been mistaken.
Initially, I felt I was justified. The main character, Karigan, seemed flat, and the adventure she set out on - to deliver a message to her king - seemed like a micro-Lord of the Rings adventure. There was even a strange detour to a magical house occupied by two spinster sisters, a house quite like Tom Bombadil's in its ability to shelter and soothe those on a quest. But when Karigan is captured on her route by two warriors, and she is almost raped and forced to fight off two male attackers, my interest was renewed. The author wasn't afraid to put her heroine through hell, and the heroine actually survived it. My appreciation of Karigan grew, and the rest of her journey and her struggle over whether she should join the ranks of an elite messenger group that insits she was called to them (which is left unresolved at the end of the first volume) pulled the book from the run of the mill fantasy and made it into a story with real characters who don't take the choice of adventure over family as lightly as other novels might. Though the several continuing volumes that have been published since I bought this paperback so many years ago tell me that Karigan makes the more interesting choice, I appreciate that the author did not push the choice into the first volume. A quest, several murders, and a plot to overthrow the king is quite enough for one novel.
*My only criticism of this book, and it must be noted, is the poorly named country that Karigan inhabits. "Sacoridia" tripped me up again and again in the text. It sounds more like a GI infection than a country. I could not decide how to pronounce it, and not one pronunciation made it any more melodious or interesting as a name. Definitely should have gone back to the drawing board on that one.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Nothing to do at work
August is real estate's slow season. Any experienced realtor can tell you that, and they 're really not kidding. July 31st was busy and booming like any Monday, but August 1st hit, and SLOOOOOOOOOW down, we're coming up on a traffic jam that won't quit until early autumn. The phones don't ring, the houses don't sell (and they haven't been selling for months), and I am left with virtually nothing to do. I have done perhaps 45 minutes of real work today. The rest of the time, I have checked my email, read the news, and snuck chapters of my latest book, Green Rider by Kristen Britain. The book has turned out to be quite good, and I'm dying to know what happens next. But I'll save the review for when I finish.
I picked up a copy of Marie Claire today. I don't read most magazines aimed at women unless I'm going on vacation, but I read in the New York Times that the magazine was switching editors, and that the new editor, Joanna Coles, was looking to change the magazine's focus to "confident, professional women." The main things that turn me away from women's magazines are endless articles praising whatever star has a new movie coming out, and the fascination with things that I consider childish. I've picked up Marie Claire in the past because there are articles about managing situations at work and how to meet your significant other's parents for the first time. Articles that actually apply to my life. So I think I might enjoy this change. I wouldn't mind finding a new magazine to enjoy. I love reading InStyle precisely because it bypasses the subjects that should only interest teenage girls, and I really enjoy getting National Geographic Adventure again. Even if I never climb Everest, I'm still fascinated to read more about climbing, surfing, and particularly good hiking. I'm hoping to incorporate hiking and adventure more into my life, especially if we move to the West Coast next year. Hiking always gets my minding spinning with stories because I can imagine so many scenarios in my mind. It was hiking in Taos' mountains that inspired 30 pages worth of one of my novels. And I so love the feeling of a good story buzzing in my brain. At the moment, there's just a faint hum.
I picked up a copy of Marie Claire today. I don't read most magazines aimed at women unless I'm going on vacation, but I read in the New York Times that the magazine was switching editors, and that the new editor, Joanna Coles, was looking to change the magazine's focus to "confident, professional women." The main things that turn me away from women's magazines are endless articles praising whatever star has a new movie coming out, and the fascination with things that I consider childish. I've picked up Marie Claire in the past because there are articles about managing situations at work and how to meet your significant other's parents for the first time. Articles that actually apply to my life. So I think I might enjoy this change. I wouldn't mind finding a new magazine to enjoy. I love reading InStyle precisely because it bypasses the subjects that should only interest teenage girls, and I really enjoy getting National Geographic Adventure again. Even if I never climb Everest, I'm still fascinated to read more about climbing, surfing, and particularly good hiking. I'm hoping to incorporate hiking and adventure more into my life, especially if we move to the West Coast next year. Hiking always gets my minding spinning with stories because I can imagine so many scenarios in my mind. It was hiking in Taos' mountains that inspired 30 pages worth of one of my novels. And I so love the feeling of a good story buzzing in my brain. At the moment, there's just a faint hum.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
My most recent book was Midwives by Chris Bohjalian (ain't that a mouth full?). I've wanted to read it for years, and finally pulled it off my shelf a week or two back and took it up.
At first, I was uncomfortable with the "hippie" attitude of the parents of the protagonist. I wondered if I had to buy into pot-smoking, flowers in guns, and that love is all you need. But Bohjalian is very good at never requiring you to buy into a belief to enjoy his story. You can even believe that Sybil, the midwife accused of manslaughter after her patient dies in childbirth (and she subsequently delivers the baby via C-section with only a sharp kitchen knife), is actually guilty throughout the novel and still appreciate the drama of the courtroom scenes and the tense situation her family finds herself facing every day.
I once wanted to be a midwife, or an Ob-gyn. I thought it was such an interesting field, and I thought I would really like helping women through labor. Now, I'm not so sure. I think hanging out around women's vaginas is really not what I'm intended for, considering how much annoyance I experience around women. But the fascination is still there, and Sybil's diary entries, which punctuate the chapters of her daughter's narration, were fascinating and provided a welcome insight into her character. What women wouldn't want to know about massaging a perineum with baby oil to ease the passage of a baby and avoid cutting the mother? Well, many women probably don't want to know that, but I do. I like the idea of finding solutions to such difficulties in labor. I also like Sybil's word for contractions: surges. It isn't a contraction, which sounds like tightening and pressing and fighting against something. It's a surge, a wave rolling through your body to help you labor, to help you press the baby out into the world. I think I'll hold onto that idea when I first go into labor - the idea that each surge is a wave that helps me get my child into the world, that helps press my child out of the ocean and onto the beach. It also syncs well with the article I just read in National Geographic Adventure about surfing. But, yes, I like the idea.
And the novel was beautifully written. Prior to reading Midwives, I finished Leonardo’s Swans by Karen Essex, her first novel if I recall correctly. While I love historical fiction and loved the descriptions of paintings and the portrayals of two very powerful sisters (each strong in very different ways), the novel jumped in time from one moment to another. At first we would be in the 1st person with one of the sisters, and they would be a few years ahead of the last chapter, and disgusted or delighted by some recent occurence, and then the novel would slowly catch us up, backtracking and piecing together moments to explain how we got to this place. But the suspense of so many moments is severed by the very fact that we know the fate of Isabella and Beatrice. The novel is ruined because we are told at the very beginning who will die and who will survive. Two different women, each ruling over their court in very different ways, but only one's method will preserve her against her husband's infidelity and other men's mistakes. The final chapter really is triumphant as we view the victor and how she has stayed alive and charmed her way into success, and we are happy for her. But again, the repetitiveness, the loss of suspense, and the annoying repetition of facts - first Leonardo reveals a detail in his notebooks (the entries of which punctuate this book much as they punctuate Midwives). Then we hear the same detail all over again from one of the characters. Midwives impressed me so much because of the fact that it never repeated itself - if a journal entry said one thing, the narrator did not repeat it, and I was charmed by the creativity and attentiveness of this fact. I love reading for pleasure again, but I can't help noting techniques I would like to emulate in my own writing, as well as critiquing novels that show less attentiveness than one would desire. I am looking forward to reading more of Bohjalian's novels.
*One more note: I must credit Chris Bohjalian (a man) for writing so convincingly in two women's voices. I pray my own male characters may feel so real and come so close to what it is to be male as his female characters come to what it is to be a woman.
At first, I was uncomfortable with the "hippie" attitude of the parents of the protagonist. I wondered if I had to buy into pot-smoking, flowers in guns, and that love is all you need. But Bohjalian is very good at never requiring you to buy into a belief to enjoy his story. You can even believe that Sybil, the midwife accused of manslaughter after her patient dies in childbirth (and she subsequently delivers the baby via C-section with only a sharp kitchen knife), is actually guilty throughout the novel and still appreciate the drama of the courtroom scenes and the tense situation her family finds herself facing every day.
I once wanted to be a midwife, or an Ob-gyn. I thought it was such an interesting field, and I thought I would really like helping women through labor. Now, I'm not so sure. I think hanging out around women's vaginas is really not what I'm intended for, considering how much annoyance I experience around women. But the fascination is still there, and Sybil's diary entries, which punctuate the chapters of her daughter's narration, were fascinating and provided a welcome insight into her character. What women wouldn't want to know about massaging a perineum with baby oil to ease the passage of a baby and avoid cutting the mother? Well, many women probably don't want to know that, but I do. I like the idea of finding solutions to such difficulties in labor. I also like Sybil's word for contractions: surges. It isn't a contraction, which sounds like tightening and pressing and fighting against something. It's a surge, a wave rolling through your body to help you labor, to help you press the baby out into the world. I think I'll hold onto that idea when I first go into labor - the idea that each surge is a wave that helps me get my child into the world, that helps press my child out of the ocean and onto the beach. It also syncs well with the article I just read in National Geographic Adventure about surfing. But, yes, I like the idea.
And the novel was beautifully written. Prior to reading Midwives, I finished Leonardo’s Swans by Karen Essex, her first novel if I recall correctly. While I love historical fiction and loved the descriptions of paintings and the portrayals of two very powerful sisters (each strong in very different ways), the novel jumped in time from one moment to another. At first we would be in the 1st person with one of the sisters, and they would be a few years ahead of the last chapter, and disgusted or delighted by some recent occurence, and then the novel would slowly catch us up, backtracking and piecing together moments to explain how we got to this place. But the suspense of so many moments is severed by the very fact that we know the fate of Isabella and Beatrice. The novel is ruined because we are told at the very beginning who will die and who will survive. Two different women, each ruling over their court in very different ways, but only one's method will preserve her against her husband's infidelity and other men's mistakes. The final chapter really is triumphant as we view the victor and how she has stayed alive and charmed her way into success, and we are happy for her. But again, the repetitiveness, the loss of suspense, and the annoying repetition of facts - first Leonardo reveals a detail in his notebooks (the entries of which punctuate this book much as they punctuate Midwives). Then we hear the same detail all over again from one of the characters. Midwives impressed me so much because of the fact that it never repeated itself - if a journal entry said one thing, the narrator did not repeat it, and I was charmed by the creativity and attentiveness of this fact. I love reading for pleasure again, but I can't help noting techniques I would like to emulate in my own writing, as well as critiquing novels that show less attentiveness than one would desire. I am looking forward to reading more of Bohjalian's novels.
*One more note: I must credit Chris Bohjalian (a man) for writing so convincingly in two women's voices. I pray my own male characters may feel so real and come so close to what it is to be male as his female characters come to what it is to be a woman.
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