The Man of My Dreams

I picked up Curtis Sittenfeld's The Man of My Dreams in the Atlanta airport on my latest trip into the wide, wide world. I was actually drawn in by the paperback's cover, which so captured that moment in the Great Gatsby when Daisy weeps into Jay's beautiful shirts that I was overcome and purchased immediately . . .

And, then I looked inside. I hesitate to call the book a novel because it strikes me as a succession of character moments in the protagonist's life. They are connected more by the thread of her existence than by any real plot or momentum. Now, this may be the point, as Hannah herself seems stuck as the emotionally remote, psychologically scarred child, but if this is the case, it makes better structural theory than structure. Nothing makes this clearer than the end, which is basically a stopping point rather than anything that suggests the book had an arc.

To wit: at the end, there's this kind of Lifetime movie letter to the now-we-see-her, now-we-don't therapist who's been in and out of the book rather randomly. The letter is a sadly overdetermined, "I'm over him, I swear" creation that in real life would be about 30 typed pages--which immediately pushes it into the realm of seriously and/or cry for help. In effect, the letter acts as the "Angels talk to Charlie" end to this episode and wraps up the novel just about as well. This is especially true because the letter seems to harken back to the undergrad Hannah, not to the slightly more adult Hannah seen just a few pages earlier. But, we never learn why she regressed or if she had never progressed or why we're still supposed to be reading.

Having said all this, Hannah is interesting largely because she's all inner life separated from any expressed emotion or engagement. But, this kind of character is more short story interesting than novel interesting. And, few of the other characters sustain interest at all: Fig is a tiresome and stereotypical queen bee; Michael is a passive loser; Allison seems brought on stage left for dramatic tension and then forgotten just as quickly when the need for her plot point vanishes; Elizabeth and Darach could be intriguing but they disappear. We never see enough of Hannah's mom or dad to get what exactly is going on, etc. If they were all drawn more fully, we might care, but they aren't.

Beautiful cover, though.

The Brief History of the Dead

I grabbed Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead off my husband's night stand before a flight to Texas because it was slim enough to fit in my bag. I had just started the latest Jane Smiley, but it was too thick. I didn't really know anything about it other than it was about some kind of afterlife waiting room. I got a bit worried when I read that Brockmeier was a McSweeney, as this is really more my husband's cup of tea than mine. But, what a great book! I had it finished by the time I hit Austin.

Okay, here's my question: why wouldn't Coke stop this book from being published? I'm not going to give away any big secrets--not that I have a bunch of readers who would be disappointed by spoilers--but Coke is not presented in the best light in this book. And, this less-than-best-light seems to fit just fine. I was just really surprised that the book wasn't squashed or squished or buried under antarctic snows.

But, given that it wasn't, I really liked how the stories are woven together with the dropped hints about connections. I was also surprisingly affected by the way in which relationships supersede all else in the city--how all the dross falls away from the Byrd's relationship and how Minny connects with Luka and so on--and in Laura's own life as it hurtles to its end. Brockmeier's descriptive touch is also solid. I could feel the cold, see the colors, and hear the heartbeat.

I also appreciated the subtle way in which we're placed in the future. It is a place similar to our own in so many ways (e.g., crappy business meet and greets; egg sandwiches; and, of course, Coke), but the world has just enough techno changes to make it clear we're in the "not now." This is the way the future is coming at us--not with flying cars and jet packs but with BlackBerries, corporate mergers, and bioengineered waters--so it all seemed very real.

If I had any criticism, it is that the last section of the book, as Laura fades away, goes on a bit too long. I had too many, "I got it, already," moments that I didn't earlier on. So, it didn't end as strongly as it should have. Still, a real surprise that makes me rethink my next visit to Atlanta.

Suite Francaise

I took a break to defend my dissertation and actually finish my degree. Woo-hoo! So, now, I get to go back to novels rather than policy and data (though, I'm wonky enough to like those as well).

So, the first book I picked up upon finishing was Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise. As probably everyone knows by now, this work is actually two chapters of a planned novel by Nemirovsky. However, her plans were interrupted by those of the Third Reich. I had read a brief sketch of the horrifying events of her life before reading the book--and intentionally didn't want to read the more detailed recounting that is part of the ancillary materials in the book before reading the two chapters: Storm in June and Dolce. I didn't want my opinion of them to be overly colored by her biography. I needn't have worried.

Suite Francaise is an achingly beautiful book. Nemirovsky's narrative voice is sharp and cold in its pitiless assessment of the foibles of the rich and privileged that frequently spell their doom. She is particularly harsh on the upper class, whose emotional range seems to have been as neatly trimmed and trained as its carefully manicured gardens and as dulled as its dusty drapes. An example . . . The head-spinning turn of Madame Pericand in a moment from self-righteous self-declared exemplar of noblesse oblige to wild-eyed hoarder is wonderfully drawn to both show the horrors that the war is bringing and distance the reader from any moment of sympathy for Pericand.

At other times, Nemirovsky can paint a reasonably unsympathetic situation in a cautiously warm glow all the while suggesting the dangerous sadness that war both creates and reveals. When Lucile engages in her platonic romance with Bruno, Nemirovsky manages both to play with the romantic conventions and then to shatter them as foolish delusions destined to lead to tragedy. In these first two chapters, her own heart is reserved for the characters stuck in the middle (like Lucile or the Michauds or even Bruno), those whose own goodness and kindness seems to arise in spite of their surroundings. War, the book suggests, doesn't produce "the greatest generation"; it simply makes each of us even more of what we really are, which--for most of the characters--is not very pretty.

I had never heard of Nemirovsky before reading Suite Francaise but the talent that exudes from the pages and the sheer beauty of so many of the sentences makes me want to read more. Her anger and the vengeance that she clearly desired comes through the weaponry of her words, and I am intrigued to see how her voice plays out in her earlier works.

Read this book. It will break your heart--for all the right reasons.

Veronica

I am not an edgy person. I think at one point I was. I went to clubs and shows, stayed out all night, wore trendy clothes, etc. Now, I stay at home and am quite thrilled that tonight I can both fold laundry and walk on the treadmill to Dancing with the Stars. So, I typically don't read novels by edgy novelists. No Chuck Palahniuk-ish or Susanna Moore-esque writers for me.

But, now I can say I've read a novel by a scary-persona novelist, and it was really quite good. Last week, I picked up Mary Gaitskill's Veronica. The narrative voice of Alison was wonderfully un-Lifetime movie-- cool, distant, with an oddly misplaced serenity. Her matter-of-fact rendering of her rebellion and its repercussions, good and bad, really drew me in. Some of Gaitskill's writing sparkled with a sharp sheen, especially early on during Alison's time in San Francisco and her observations about her Hepatitis friends. Yet, it also mingled with some oddly pedestrian and overwrought prose, and I thought the climbing narrative that pulled along the second half of the book was a bit forced. And, the "physical punishment of the pretty girl" is a little tired. Couldn't Alison have made it to the point she did without the car crash? Wouldn't her revelations have been just as powerful or even more so if she simply got old?

Alison's relationship with Veronica is laid bare in a way that leads to little sympathy for Alison, which is nice. The book doesn't go for the heart and suddenly create a Oprah-momented character where none would exist. Alison is solipsistic and enclosed throughout, letting her love for Veronica in and out just a sliver at a time. Even after Alison's epiphany about the depth of her friendship with Veronica, there remains an element of their relationship that arises because of Veronica's role as magical mirror rather than as actual human. Yet, the novel does show that she has grown wearily wiser overtime; if not to the degree one would wish, then likely to the degree that a real world Alison would.

I do think this book could have been cut by 50 pages or so with little harm and probably some benefit. Still, I highly recommend it.

Something Borrowed

Yes, it's chick lit, but I bought it at the airport--so it's kinda like eating while standing up in the kitchen . . . it doesn't count against me. Actually, I was coming down with a nasty virus and had just finished some messy work callbacks and was facing a 2 hour layover. So, I walked into the airport's Simply Books and stared blankly at the racks. The kindly woman dustmopping the store pointed at a nicely muted pink book with a sparkly ring on it, Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed, and said, "lots of people are buying that." So, I did. It is the literary equivalent of a Cinnabon, which was also nearby, and if you are stuck in the airport and can feel the flucold wrapping itself around you like a numbing old sweater and are tired of cleaning up other folks' messes and just want to Calgon-away for a couple hours in the time/space continuum rift that is the modern day airport, buy this book.

Dogs of Babel

Another of the novels I read on my trip was Carolyn Parkhurst's Dogs of Babel. I read Parkhurst's follow-up novel (Lost and Found) last year and liked it, so when I saw this one used, I picked it up. It was a quick read and generally falls into the "buy if cheap and used" category. The book did a nice job of examining grief and the way in which it can reshape our memories of the past. Yet, as with the odd Bootie in Emperor's Children, it took about ten seconds for me to know Lexy was a more-than-wee-bit rattling upstairs. It was also hard for me to believe that Paul, an academic, hadn't met enough screws-loose grad students and colleagues to have recognized Lexy for what she was--especially as she exhibited signs of the unhinged that were billboard big. And, who makes enough money by making masks (masks???) to buy a house . . . anywhere? Really. And, the whole DogFightClub-like turn about the dog surgery cult at 2/3 through was really unbelievable and not at all in keeping with the rest of the novel, very jarring and ridiculous. (Remo? What kind of name is that?) I also found Paul's sudden gestalt moment with the book titles a tad silly and unbelievable. Actually, the more I write about this book, the less fondly I think about it, so maybe I was impacted by the narrative's point about memory. Ha! Point won, Ms. Parkhurst. I still think Lost and Found is a good novel, so if you're going to read one of her books, pick that.

Patron Saint of Liars

Okay, now that my dissertation is done and submitted, I can get back to reading. I just came back from a trip to New Orleans--which is still there, kinda. And, the flights gave me the opportunity to read several (three!) novels. Here's the first, Ann Patchett's The Patron Saint of Liars.

I love Ann Patchett's work; it's readable, creates a lush world of words, but isn't overtly "book clubby." Things always turn out unsettled, though in a way that makes sense within the universe of the novel. This particular novel opens with the backstory to the hotel that will eventually become St. Elizabeth's--a home for unwed mothers. It has a magical realism-tinge to it, a fairy tale quality that hovers over all the Patchett novels I've read. Yet, what's nice, is that in her books the fairy tales are like the flawed golden bowl, run through with a small fissure lets the real world seep in.

Rose is a distancing heroine, keeping the reader at bay much as she keeps all others--save her substitute mom, Sr. Evangeline. She marries Tom without loving him, cruelly because he loves her. She marries Son without loving him, cruelly because he loves her and will love her unborn child. She keeps Cecelia (Sissy) and fears loving her. There is a crudeness to her symbolic role as foodgiver that seems a bit below the novel, though.

I have to admit that I did not see the Cecelia story ending as it did, so that was a nice twist. I had envisioned her as a cruel young heartbreaker, a proto-Fitzgerald pretty young thing, but did not see her dying.

And, I loved Sissy. Her palpable love for and disappointment in her mother and her chill. Her adoration of her father, and his for her. Shortly after reading this book, while home sick with the flu, I caught up on all the Heroes that I missed while working on my dissertation. The episode in which Claire's relationship with her father is backstoried struck me as so similar to the way Son and Sissy's closeness (note the names) is portrayed. Both made me cry.

All in all, a good book. Not as transporting as Bel Canto nor as emotionally grounded as The Magician's Assistant, but still, definitely worth the read.