Subtle Bodies by Norman Rush

Occasionally, a second or third read of an author I admire comes off as something of a disappointment. Norman Rush won the National Book Award in 1991 for his first novel, Mating.  This novel explores the idea and the practice of love, and is set in Botswana.  It tells the story of a young woman working on a thesis in anthropology.  She comes to a dead end in her research, but then falls in love with a mysterious man who claims to have established a utopian society in a remote corner of the Kalahari Desert.  I found the novel – which I read at the urging of a close friend – to be exciting, and strangely disturbing, while revealing much about the nature of love.  Rush is a slow writer, so I lost track of his second novel, Mortals, but I grabbed his latest work, Subtle Bodies. 

At first, I felt a slight disinterest in the characters – five friends from their years at NYU – four of whom reassemble for a funeral to memorialize their “leader.”  However, something else about the characters, what they thought of each other and themselves and what role each played in the friendship, captured my attention.

Ned receives the news of Douglas’ death while deeply immersed in organizing the antiwar marches trying to prevent the invasion of Iraq after 9/11.  He rushes off to the funeral while he and his wife, Nina, are trying to conceive.  Nina chases after him to take advantage of a propitious moment in their endeavor.  Elliot is a lawyer and a stockbroker who has advised Douglas and his wife, Iva.  Gruen and Joris round out the quintet.

Iva tries to dictate every detail of the memorial service, and, as to be expected, the four friends recoil in horror.  Joris wants to leave.  Rush writes, “Ned was having a particularly strong reaction to Joris leaving.  Partly it was selfish because he hadn’t finished the task of putting together what they had all been, with what they were now.  And the question was still there of whether their true interior selves – the subtle bodies inside – were still there and functioning despite what age and accident and force of circumstance may have done to hurt them.  He meant something like that  … that when they had become friends it had been a friendship established between subtle bodies, by which he meant the ingredients of what they were to be …” (198).

Nina is a feisty young woman, who adds a lot of spice and color to the story.  She watches a woman reading, and, as Rush explains, “[Nina] always wanted to know what people were reading.  I can’t help it, she thought” (6).  “[S]he couldn’t interrupt this person when she was reading.  Because reading was sacred” (7).  A person after my own heart! 

Alert: this is an adult novel with a couple of explicit scenes when Ned and Nina work on their “project.”  Nonetheless, it is a gripping story, and as I learned more and more about the characters, I became more and more interested in them.  For the slow start, however, I must give Subtle Bodies by Norman Rush 4-1/2 Stars.

--Chiron, 5/14/14

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

When it comes to literary fiction, I have four preferences: novels about books, novels set in bookstores, novels about English Professors, and novels from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin encompasses all these elements. 

According to her website, “Gabrielle Zevin’s writing career began at 14 years of age when an angry letter to her local newspaper about a Guns ‘n’ Roses concert resulted in a job as a music critic.  She has published several novels for adults and young people, and she has written about female soldiers in Iraq, mafia princesses in a retro-future New York City, teenage girls in the afterlife, talking dogs, amnesiacs, and the difficulties of loving one person over many years.  Her first novel, Elsewhere, has been translated into over 20 languages. She is also the screenwriter of the cult hit Conversations with Other Women.  Fikry is her eighth novel, published in April of 2014.

A.J. Fikry suffers from the devastation of losing his wife in a tragic car accident, and seems to be slowly spiraling into alcoholism.  He half-heartedly runs “Island Books,” where he emphasizes literary fiction, and refuses to carry books he doesn’t like – even if they are popular best sellers.  One day, Amelia Loman, the book rep from Knightley Press makes the first call of her new job to Island Books.  A.J. has ignored the emails, because he did not recognize the name, so Amelia’s visit comes as a surprise.  He treats her rudely, and she leaves discouraged, but not before leaving A.J. with a galley of an old novel, which she loves.  Shortly after her visit, three things happen which change the course of A.J.’s life: he regrets his rudeness to Amelia, his prized possession a first edition of the extremely rare book of poems by Edgar Allen Poe, Tamerlane  is stolen, and someone abandons a toddler in the store.  A.J. begins bonding with the child, and when the body of a young woman washes up on the shore a few days later, the police discover the baby, now named Maya, is her child.  A.J. adopts the child, and his interest in life and the bookstore are reinvigorated.

One of the things I love about this book is the easy conversational manner of the prose.  I felt as if I had begun an extended conversation about novels and writing.  A.J.’s personal preference in reading involves short stories, and each chapter begins with a brief note about a story he enjoys.  Why he does this becomes clear in the end.

Gabrielle Zevin and friend

Maya quickly develops a love of reading.  Zevin writes, “The first way Maya approaches a book is to smell it.  She strips the book of its jacket, then holds it up to her face and wraps the boards around her ears.  Books typically smell like Daddy’s soap, grass, the sea, the kitchen table, and cheese” (82).  I have been a book smeller for a long, long time.

Maya becomes a rebellious teen, but she loves her dad, and books, and writing.  Late in the novel, Maya and A.J. have a conversation.  He says, “‘Maya, there is only one word that matters […] We are what we love. […] We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read.  We are, for as long as we are here, only love.  The things we loved.  The people we loved” (251).

Wise words, from a wise man.  The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, is a delightful read, thoroughly enjoyable, and a perfect book for a long Saturday afternoon.  5 stars.

--Chiron, 5/7/14

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

771 pages: a large book by any standard.  Unfortunately, because of teaching and other duties, I rarely have time to spend a couple of weeks on a behemoth of a novel.  But several friends were so insistent I read Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, I decided during a break in grading to clear all other priorities and tackle this novel.  I started on a Thursday and finished on Sunday. 

This might sound silly, but I actually enjoyed holding the book and feeling the silky smooth paper.  Then I got to the novel, and I was completely blown away.  This is my first experience with Donna Tartt, but I can guarantee it will not be my last.

Donna Tartt was born and raised in Mississippi, but she left the south for Bennington College in Vermont in 1982.  She was raised in a family of voracious readers.  She told one interviewer her mother read novels while driving.  While at Bennington, she began writing her first novel, The Secret History, which became a bestseller.  Her second novel, The Little Friend, won the prestigious W.H. Smith Award in 2002.  Tartt is a slow writer – each of novels take about 10 years from conception to publication.  The Goldfinch is her third novel.  The detail in this compelling novel attests to the level of work that took ten years She writes by hand on paper and note cards.

Theo Dexter lives in Manhattan with his, mother Audrey, a part-time model, actress, and artist.  Theo’s father, an alcoholic with a gambling addiction abandoned the family about a year before the story begins.  One day, Theo and his mother decide to stop into a museum to view some notable old masters on display.  Theo spots an attractive young girl with red hair accompanied by an elderly man.  He loses interest in the exhibit and begins to follow the young girl, when he is knocked to the ground by an explosion.  Unhurt, Theo begins moving toward the exit now blocked.  He encounters an elderly man, who has been mortally injured.  He gives Theo a ring and asks him to take it to a certain address.  The dying man also tells Theo to take a small painting which has fallen off the wall.  This is The Goldfinch of the title.  He does not see the young girl.  He takes the ring to the address, and meets the elderly man’s business partner, Hobie.  Together they ran an antique store.  He learns that Pippa, the red headed girl, is recovering from her injuries at the home of Hobie and the elderly man, Mr. Blackwell.  Meanwhile, Theo wraps the painting securely and hides it in his room.  All this action occurs in about the first 50 pages. 

However, I had absolutely no desire to abandon Theo, Pippa, and Hobie.  Every page of this novel contains interesting characters, situations, descriptions, interior monologues of the highest order.  I could not stop reading.  The list of characters far exceeds the few I have mentioned here.

Janet Burroway, in her creative writing textbook, Writing Fiction, says, “every story must have a complication, crises , and resolution.”  Tartt has filled this novel with a series of complications, which create one crisis after another for Theo, which he manages to resolve, through pluck, intelligence, and hard work.

Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch moves to the top of my list for the year, and perhaps the decade.  I have rarely encountered a novel of such grace, beauty, heartbreak, sadness, joy, and with thrills, mysteries, and even some chilling moments sprinkled on almost every page.  This novel has it all, and I could not urge my listeners more strongly to read this book as soon as possible.  You will get to know Theo; you will become a part of his family; you will be forever affected by Tartt’s power as a storyteller.  I have to raise my scale to 10 stars for this extraordinary novel, which I have just learned, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

--Chiron, 4/13/14

Home by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison has written ten novels, and while Sula, the story of two friends raised together, who take wildly different paths toward womanhood, remains my favorite, reading a Toni Morrison novel is always an interesting and thoroughly entertaining experience.  She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Home is her tenth novel.

Frank Money has returned from the Korean War physically and psychologically damaged.  To make matters worse, he returns to an America in the depths of the Jim Crow era, with lynching and cross burnings.  The murder of Emmett Till, and the bold stand by Rosa Parks were still in the future.  He returns to his home, but finds it oddly strange – he barely recognizes once familiar people and places.  He finds his younger sister suffering from medical abuse, and tries to rescue her.  In order to do that, he must return to the Georgia town he hated all his life.

Morrison describes Frank’s train ride home from Portland, Oregon.  She writes, “Passing through freezing, poorly washed scenery, Frank tried to redecorate it, mind painting giant slashes of purple and X’s of gold on hills, dripping yellow and green on barren wheat fields.  Hours of trying and failing to recolor the western landscape agitated him, but by the time he stepped off the train he was calm enough.  The station noise was so abrasive, though, that he reached for a sidearm.  None was there of course, so he leaned against a steel support until the panic died down” (27).  

Clearly, Frank suffered from what we now recognize as PTSD.  However in 1952, Frank was unlikely to get help from the government, and he certainly was not likely to find any help or support in the community at large.  Frank goes on a shopping trip for some new clothes with Billy.  The buy Frank a suit at Goodwill, then head to a shoe store for work boots.  When they come out of the store, they walk into some police activity.  Morrison writes, “…during the random search outside the shoe store they just patted pockets, not the inside of work boots.  Of the two other men facing the wall, one had his switchblade confiscated, the other a dollar bill.  All four lay their hands on the hood of the patrol car parked at the curb.  The younger officer noticed Frank’s medal.  // ‘Korea?’ // ‘Yes, sir.’ //  ‘Hey, Dick.  They’re vets.’ // ‘Yeah?’ // ‘Yeah. Look.’  The officer pointed to Frank’s service medal.  // ‘Go on.  Get lost, pal.’ //  The police incident was not worth comment so Frank and Billy walked off in silence” (37).  Sounds a lot like the recently discontinued New York City policy of “stop and frisk.”

Will Frank rediscover the courage he had in Korea?  If you have not read Morrison in a while, Home, at a mere 145 pages will reintroduce the reader to this thoughtful, powerful writer.  If you have not read anything by one of America’s great literary treasures – tsk, tsk – Home is a great place to start.  5 stars

--Chiron, 4/14/14

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen ranks high on the favorite list of not only non-fiction readers, but writers as well.  My first encounter with Peter came in the form of a book I choose for the title: The Snow Leopard.  I have always loved the big cats, and snow leopards were early on my favorite.  Sadly, Matthiessen died on April 5, 2014.  In a strange coincidence, I heard an interview with Peter on the radio on Friday, April 5.  The host, Terry Gross of Fresh Air, mentioned he was suffering from Leukemia, and they aired an interview from a few years ago.

The publication of Peter Matthiessen's final novel In Paradise came only days after his death at the age of 86.  Matthiessen was a naturalist, as well as writer, a spy, and a Buddhist monk.  His fiction and nonfiction books were often inspired by his travels to remote corners of the globe. In addition to Snow Leopard, he wrote Men's Lives, and Far Tortuga, and The Tree Where Man was Born, an interesting study of the Masai tribes of East Africa.  Peter, along with George Plimpton and Harold L. Humes, founded the noted literary magazine, The Paris Review.  Zen Buddhism provided the central tenets of his life and greatly influenced his writing.

The Snow Leopard, which recalls Mattheissen’s 1973 trek to the Himalayas to see the elusive cat, opened a whole new world of nature writing and provided the seed for my interest in the philosophy of Buddhism. His prose is as gentle and relaxing as a Buddhist monk softly murmuring his prayers.  A good example is in the Prologue to Snow Leopard, he writes, “In late September of 1973, I set out with [the zoologist George Schaller] on a journey to the Crystal Mountain, walking west under Annapurna and north along the Kali Gandaki River, then west and north again, around the Dhaulagiri peaks and across the Kanjiroba, two hundred fifty miles or more to the land of the Dolpo, on the Tibetan Plateau.”  … I knew [George] first in 1969, in the Serengeti Plain of East Africa … When I saw him next, … in 1972,  he had started a survey of wild sheep and goats and their near relatives the goat-antelopes.  He wondered if I might like to join him the following year on an expedition to northwest Nepal, near the frontier of Tibet, to study the bharal, or Himalayan blue sheep,” which were plentiful and protected by the Crystal Monastery. … where bharal were numerous, there was bound to appear that rarest and most beautiful of the great cats, the snow leopard” (3). 

This introduction filled me with wonder and curiosity.  Before the days of computers, I created a list of animals, and names of places, mountains and rivers.  I spent an afternoon in the local library pouring over books, to try and capture a glimpse of what Peter saw on this “mythic journey.”

Along with his vivid descriptions, he genously sprinkles philosophical musings.  In true Buddhist form, the journey has far more importance that the destination.  He wrote about his “own idea of freedom, the possibility and prospect of ‘free life,’ traveling light, without clining to or despising, in calm acceptance of everything that comes, free because without defenses, free not in an adolescent way, with no restraints, but in the sense if the Tibetan Buddhist’s ‘crazy wisdom,’ of Camus’s ‘leap into the absurd’ that occurs within a life of limitations” (112).

Over the years, I have heard many a writer praise the non-fiction of Peter Matthiessen.  Many of them aspire to writing something which approaches his powers of description.  Ironically, Mattheissen preferred writing fiction, and only, -- as he said in an interview on Fresh Air—wrote non-fiction to pay the bills.”  For lovers of animals, nature, adventure, and philosophical musings, The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen will provide many enjoyable hours in a comfortable chair.  5 stars

--Chiron, 4/9/14