Monday, January 22, 2007

The Emperor's Children

So, I finally finished Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. I felt about it much as I did about Zadie Smith's On Beauty--why take all this talent and time to write about these people. Look, I don't need a book to be a feel-good romp. I'm totally a Hardy "because we are too many" girl, and it's damn difficult to find a truly admirable character in anything by Fitzgerald. The very same could be said about both of my top 2006 books (see previous posts). But, you still care about the characters in these novels, want to spend time with them, want to see what happens to them. For all its length, The Emperor's Children seems such a small book, about small people with sadly small ideas; people you want to avoid. Though I haven't read anything else by Messud, it is tempting to compare The Emperor's Children to Marina's own book: a project likely not worth the talent of the writer.

A while back, while reading Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, I found a fundamental gap in the book: where is the music? Wouldn't these preppies be listening to something? The absence of music became a jarring presence that distanced me from the book in a big way. In reading Messud's book, I faced a similar distancing question: why aren't these characters in grad school? These are not working world people, even quasi-working world people. In real life, Marina, Danielle, and Julius would be gathered in their TA offices, still at Brown, speaking in disaffectedly reverential tones about the post-postness of it all while fraternizing with their dissertation chairs, sleeping with their students, and avoiding their writing. Restaging it this way would explain their shallow faux-depth; their incestuous circling and coincidental collisions. But, in the sharky world of Manhattan, they seem so out of place--especially at 30, which is a bit old in the tooth for the town. Also, since when is New York the smallest big city in the world? And, has Messud ever been to Miami? The chance of accidentally running into anyone there is even lower than it would be in NYC. And the chance of even a slimmer-Bootie being hired in a South Beach restaurant. Uh, yeah, that would be Less Than Zero.

Then, again, who would hire Danielle? She doesn't seem to have a single idea worth paying for--let alone sending her to Australia (Australia??? Um, okay) to explore. Julius seems like a gay fifth card character on an old Sex in the City. And Marina. There's nothing to her. Again, maybe her opacity is intentional. I can't believe that her entire character is simply to be a daddy's girl, the emperor's child. And Bootie. He's not just touched; he's actually unbelievable. Even a character as odd as he is wouldn't believe Marina would accept a rip-up-one-side-and-down-another article about her own father. I mean, really. Ludovic Seeley? Seriously. And, why give one chapter to Aurora if it's not going anywhere.

And, what's with the guest appearance of 9/11? There's such a "and then the CHUDS came" quality about the way this awful event is used in the narrative. It seems to come out of nowhere and recede just as quickly, a useful plot churner. Why use 9/11 without going somewhere with it? For all that it impacts the narrative content, it could have been a freak tsunami or one of those Jake Gyllenhaal-stranding ice storms from The Day After Tomorrow.

Well, dear reader, it's safe to say I'm not a fan of this book, and given all the hoopla surrounding it, I'm really disappointed. But, I'm throwing caution to the wind and diving into Calamity Physics next. Let's hope the second hyped-time is the charm.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Kid Stuff

I'm about a third into Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. It's good so far, but I'm already able to predict some of what's likely to happen. I think I'm liking the small scenes more than the big story arc. The scene with Thwaite and the undergrad in the bar. The scene with Marina and her dad in the study. And, am I already sensing the off-center relation in "Bootie"? Must there always be the more-damaged-than-initially-appears character in a novel aspiring to a certain level of importance? I'd just like to state for the record the following: in real life, if you pay any attention, you can always spot such individuals right off. They don't fool you; they don't surprise you; they don't shock and awe you. Instead, they tend to elicit from one simply an "of course you do, dear," a sigh, maybe a raised eyebrow, and then a polite distance. Still, I'll keep in it till the end.

In some real kid stuff news . . . being hypervigilant, academically-intense, overindulgent parents, we now subscribe to One More Story, which is a supercool online library for children with a neato "I Can Read" function. Given all that it offers, it's also somewhat of a bargain. If you have preschool kids and $40 burning a hole in your Vera Bradley, I encourage you to check it out.

And, we've discovered Jack Prelutsky and his scranimals (e.g., the radishark, the potatoad, etc.). What a clever guy! We now spend some dinners trying to create our own involving the foods on the table. Our best so far . . . the carrottweiler. He's also collaborated with some beautiful illustrators on these books, including the incomparable Peter Sis.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Best Books (I Read) 2006--Part 2

The other book on my list is by Allegra Goodman, Intuition. It got some initial good press when it came out and then disappeared. Goodman doesn't have a flashy back story like Marisha Pessl (whose book I have on my nightstand in waiting), nor did it reflect in any discernible way the post 9/11 reactions of NY (though Messud's book is also in that same nightstand stack). So, this may be why Intuition never bobbled to the top . . . and, oh yeah, it's about paranoia and deception among research scientists but doesn't involve dinosaurs, cloning, or sex-crazed serial killers.

All that said, I started Intuition at the beginning of a flight across country and finished it the first night of my trip. Lacan once referred to the university as participating in the master/slave discourse, and I can think of no better evocation of this statement as Goodman's novel. The incestuous, internecine politics of academic life--both personally and professionally--are captured perfectly in what boils down to a complex novel of manners. In this case, the manners are the expectations of behavior and etiquette amongst cancer research scientists up and down the intellectual food chain as they scramble to move out of bench work and into the well-funded life of the mind, as hungry for recognition and admiration as they are for any real scientific discovery.

There is a moment in the book that flew into me like a bolt in its ability to convey how very easy it is to inject venom into such a fragile structure: when Jacob upends the entire Phillpot Institute house of cards by sharing a simple observation with Robin about her ex-boyfriend's surprisingly successful results, "They're almost too good to be true." The manner in which he weights this statement, understands exactly how it will be received, and the events it is likely to trigger--and the way in which his own action is triggered by a combustible combination of personal and professional jealousy toward his wife--is magnificient. I had never read anything by Goodman before, and as soon as I finished this, I bought Kaaterskill Falls, which was equally wonderful. Both books create a realm for the reader that she enters as an omniscient observer, entirely powerless to prevent what she knows will unfold--no matter the personal cost. Intution is, in the very best sense, an old fashioned novel filled with exquisite writing, heartbreakingly flawed characters, and a world that should matter to us much more than it does.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Best Books (I Read) 2006--Part 1

Although Cormac McCarthy has appeared on everyone's best of for 2006, I really can't abide him. I tried to read All the Pretty Horses, and gave up. It might be a bit sexist, but writing like this always strikes me as "boy stuff." Once in an American Lit grad class, I refused to read half the syllabus because it was chock full of nothing but boy stuff; I came up with an alternate syllabus, which was approved. In this way, I got to read a book that has stuck with me forever, Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World--one of the most unintentionally creepy novels ever written . . . and so much better than a guy living in a beaver dam. Anyway, this is why Mr. McCarthy is not on my two book list.

The two books that stuck with me the most in 2006 were also both very creepy, though intentionally so.

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (really a 2005 book) had one of the most powerful narrative voices (Kathy) I've met in a long time. The combination of boarding school genre novel with horrifying science fiction run through a gothic blender was amazing, especially given that I'm not a sci-fi fan. The book seemed drenched in the bone chilling dampness of an English village, where the grey is brightened only by glimpses of some unattainable sun through a slightly brighter grey. Professionally, I've been reading a bunch of stuff on the posthuman as expressed through genomic art, and it's made me reflect back on Ishiguro's accomplishment at getting the reader to think about what it means to be human--and the relationship between soul and creativity--in a world where the human can be and is reproduced for clinical intent. Can art, and real connection, arise out of a replicated vessel? How do we become who we are? I also loved the Orwellian word play (especially in today's political climate) of "donors" and "carers". The agency suggested by the concept of donation is wonderfully at odds with the reality in the book, and the notion of caring--especially as evinced by Kathy--really problematizes the word. There's an opacity and distance to the entire book that is at once comforting (this is not us) and horrifying (this could be us). If you haven't read Never Let Me Go, please do.

Part 2 in the next post.