The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendahl

After a long hiatus, involving a 3600-mile road trip wrapped around a week grading the AP English Literature exams, which left me little time for reading, I am back.

Stendahl’s The Red and the Black has long been one of my favorite 19th century novels. How I had not read The Charterhouse of Parma in all these years remains a mystery with no further need of resolving. This novel is another masterpiece by Marie Henri Beyle who wrote under the pen name of Stendahl. This novel bears some resemblance of plot to The R & B. The main character, Fabrizio, first tries the military (red), but later settles on the clergy (black), although the results in both cases are dramatically different.

At first I felt some confusion over titles. Some were in French, some in Italian, and some in English. Only once did Stendahl explain names and relationships, and then refer only to these characters by their titles. About half way through, I began to become accustomed to this habit, and I sailed through the rest of this 500+ page story.

The notes in the preface tell us that Stendahl wrote this novel in an amazing 53 days. He kept a journal of his progress, noting each day how many pages he had written. The story has a certain level of complication, but no careful reader will fall off the sled more than a time or two.

Another thing that puzzled me involved money. Francs, livrés, écus, and sequins were flying all over the place – sometimes in the same sentence – and I could not grasp the relative values of these denominations. A trip to my faithful friend and companion, the dictionary, did not help, since it only offered dates, precious metals, and countries that had issued these coins.

Nevertheless, the 19th century represents my old comfortable chair that I return to again and again. It gets more comfortable with each visit. The ending came as a pretty nice surprise, even though Stendahl did tie up all the loose ends in about 16 pages. 4-1/2 stars.

--Chiron, 6/20/09

Every Boat Turns South by J.P. White

Fortune has sent me several excellent reads from Permanent Press, including Klein’s The History of Now and Brookhouse’s Silence, so something which did not appeal to me was inevitable.

This quick read of mishaps on a voyage from Florida to St. Thomas will most definitely appeal to salty, lusty sailors, but the boat jargon soared over my head.

More trouble, however, came in the form of the narrator’s voice. I had a difficult time visualizing him based the words that came out of his mouth. I guess a character, who thinks the same way he or she talks, is the ultimate villain here.

Another problem involved what I call “over the top” prose. It seemed as if White was struggling to put together colorful, original metaphors, but most of the time they didn’t work for me. When describing Jesse, a prospective cook and deck hand, the narrator describes her feet as having “a full fleet of fire-engine toenails” (19).

Lastly, the story of the mysterious death/disappearance of an older brother, for which the younger brother bears the guilt and approbation of his parents, is an old story becoming more worn out by the day. I didn’t really care about any these characters.

If you like gritty, salty tales of the bounding main, the ports with cheap rum, loose women, and shady deals, then you might like Every Boat Turns South. Me, I’ll take the next flight out. 3 stars.

--Chiron, 5/29/09

Gentle Action by David Peat

Is the attention span of people who read business books really this short? How many times am I going to be able to force myself to read this crap. “Business ethics” is the classification the publisher gives this book, and that is an oxymoron if I ever heard one. The covers and inserts are filled with blurbs from CEOs of “feel-good” companies. Great. I hope they can run their businesses gently. I don’t want to tell my book club, “No more!”

But, as you can imagine, no Exxon, or WalMart, or CitiBank executives here. Oh no, their god is profits, their sacrament is greed, and their mantra is exponential growth, regardless of the consequences to employees, the environment, or the country.

I did a little research on Mr. Peat, and I saw the most bizarre CV I have ever come across, and believe me, I have seen many, many hundreds – from professionals and amateurs.

To give you an example from the text, he leaps from “medieval looms” to Charles Babbage and computers. A simple Google search showed me several sites that listed the late 17th century as the date of the invention of the mechanical loom. He also mentions punch cards, but the prose is so fuzzy and poor, I can’t tell if he means looms or computers with punch cards.

Zero stars -- don't waste your time or your money.

--Chiron, 5/28/09

Cassada by James Salter

This novel represents a perfect example of why the “rule of 50” works. I read two novels and a volume of his short stories years ago and then collected a couple of his other works. The next I read was Cassada. I decided to go back to Salter this week and found a bookmark on page twenty. As I began to read, the unusual names rang a bell, and then I remembered. I began it, but did not like the first chapter. This time I decided to push on, because Salter’s prose is tight and brief without being stingy.

What I did not like about the first chapter was all the military acronyms and lingo, but this time I fought through them, and they became another part of the story even without the meanings. Salter has packed an emotional and thrilling story in just over 200 pages.

About two-thirds of the way through, he begins weaving the ending into the narrative. Then he grips the ending and follows through for the last 40 pages, which I saved it for my morning tea. Wow! What a wallop! Wonderful story, wonderful characters.

If you do not know Salter, try him out. Light Years, Solo Faces, and Dusk and Other Stories would be the best places to start. Save Cassada for the day you are hooked and admire his prose as much as I do.

The New York Times featured him on February 11, 2001 when it reviewed this novel. The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/salter.html. Five stars.

--Chiron, 5/28/09

Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

This curious book has more of an ethereal quality than any I have read in years. It starts off with an elaborate frame. The unnamed narrator travels from England to Belgium several times on business, and each time he notices a solitary man taking pictures of the train station and writing elaborate notes. Driven by curiosity, he approaches the man, Austerlitz, and the two develop a long-lasting friendship.

Gradually, the novel devolves into Austerlitz’s story of his search for his roots in Prague in the middle of the 1930s. His mother evacuated him to England at the age of 12 to live with a Welsh minister and his wife. Austerlitz remembers nothing of his family and his childhood, but his obsession with architecture provides fleeting glimpses of his past.

It took a while to get use to Sebald’s unusual style. Some paragraphs go on for ten or more pages. Only a few breaks in the narrative occur marked by a single star centered on the page. This proved no problem, because as Austerlitz’s story progressed – with incredible descriptive detail – I could scarcely stop reading this meditation on art, architecture, and psychology.

In addition to long paragraphs, Sebald uses long sentences. Here is an example of his style:

“As I lay down I turned on the radio set standing on the wine crate beside the bed. The names of cities and radio stations with which I used to link the most exotic ideas in my childhood appeared on its round, illuminated dial – Monte Ceneri, Rome, Ljubljana, Stockholm, Beromünster, Hilversum, Prague and others besides. I turned the volume down very low and listened to a language I did not understand drifting in the air from a great distance: a female voice, which was sometimes lost in the ether, but then emerged again and mingled with the performance of two careful hands moving, in some place unknown to me, over the keyboard of a Bösendorfer or Pleyel and playing certain musical passages, I think from the Well-Tempered Clavier, which accompanied me far into the realms of slumber" (165).

This passage, and many others, provide clues to Austerlitz, as he begins to piece his past back together.

In addition, photographs are interspersed throughout the book that relate to people, places, and architecture referred to in the texts. These ghostly images from the past and present add to the ethereal quality I mentioned above.

I see more of Sebald’s works in my future. 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/26/09

Shroud by John Banville

Axel Vander is angry. He is also a self-described liar. In fact, as this fine novel by Banville unfolds, his entire life of falsehoods unravels. Banville does not disappoint, and he seems to prove himself one of the most consistently fluid and lyrical writers alive today. He has turned his talents to create one of the most despicable characters in all of literature.

Several years ago, I stumbled on a Noel Coward film from 1935 entitled The Scoundrel. Never released on DVD or VHS, I cannot find out much about the film, and I have little hope of ever seeing it again. But I do remember vividly the despicable character Coward played. I always thought him the worst person in all of literature since Milton’s Lucifer. Now I have a new leader in the categories of rudeness, meanness, with an overall despicable character – Axel Vander.

When describing his siblings, Axel says, “my older brothers and sisters, those botched prototypes along the way to producing me” (132). He is also a snob. While visiting Italy, a native does not understand a request, and he thinks, “I learned my Italian from Dante” (22).

Banville has given Axel a voice that drips of egotism, boorishness, and misery. For example, Banville writes when Axel explains why he did not go to the funeral of a friend, he thinks, “in some ancillary ventricle there still lodged a stubborn clot of doubt” (154). Echoes of Noel Coward!

Twenty times or more, I was driven to the dictionary to look up arcane words, such as gallimaufry, instauration, and apocatastasis. Banville is a first-rate wordsmith.

Vander is also a character I call a “topper.” No matter what anyone says, Axel, must top with a better story, a bigger experience, or a more important acquaintance. Boy does THAT get under my skin.

Despite all this, Banville has told a much more than interesting story. On one occasion, about a quarter of a grain of sympathy for Vander crept into my reading, and at one point (page 95 of 257) he does show the tiniest shred of kindness. But I had to find out what happens to him. You will, too. 4-1/2 stars because I can’t give the devil a perfect score.

--Chiron, 5/23/09

One Big Self: An Investigation by C.D. Wright

I met C.D. Wright at the recent Beall Poetry Festival at Baylor University. I bought this book because Copper Canyon Press published it, and they maintain high quality in the printing and selection of poetry. My first look at this book was disappointing. I thought a collection of random sayings, thoughts, and images from three prisons in Louisiana would not appeal to me. Today is a lazy, rainy Saturday, and the arthritis throbs in my knee, so I decided to read it. I am glad I did.

My taste for poetry usually runs as follows: short, structured (at least a little), and with a tendency toward the humorous. This long poem had none of these characteristics. Nonetheless, I found it absorbing and thought provoking. Wright’s aim was to match personalities and desires of the men and women in these three prisons. She has done a marvelous job.

Once I started reading, I could not stop – except for the occasional pause to re-read a line or two that deserved an extra moment of savoring. This really is poetry at it best – the collection of images, the words from the inmates, the signs on the walls, all came together to draw the reader inside. A sense of claustrophobia and the relentless monotony of their lives came out in Wright’s words. The next item on the agenda is to try and find Deborah Luster’s book of photos from the trip Wright made with her to visit these prisons. One Big Self wants me to read more of Wright’s work. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 5/16/09

The Museum at Purgatory by Nick Bantock

According to Nick Bantock, Purgatory is a place that “takes a meditative, non-partisan view of reality…thanks to its geographical placement, midway between the earthly community and the region presided over by the Utopian States (those provinces that lay emphasis on recuperation) and the Dystopian States (whose dictum forcibly discourages indulgence and foppery) (viii). Upon arrival in Bantock’s Purgatory, the newly deceased “are faced with the fundamental questions of self-worth” (viii). “Assessing oneself after death is a matter of measuring the information acquired during life” (ix). “In order to travel on from Purgatory, a spectral being must come to terms with those conflicting elements not dealt with previously. No god-like external judge is going to decide the being’s destination” (ix). Through the assemblage of objects collected during life, a person reviews his or her life before moving on.

This may all sound quite strange, and it absolutely will become one of the strangest books you will read -- until your next Bantock. All his novels involve mysterious characters, strange and bizarre stories, and almost all with ambiguous endings. The books are beautifully illustrated with collages, photos, drawings, paintings, and a myriad variety of visual arts. Reading Nick Bantock takes one into the bizarre world of his imagination with invented names, places, professions, and objects.

This got me thinking of my ideal heaven: a small room, two easy chairs, a radio with innumerable stations, each of which plays only one kind of music (no commercials of any kind), with a display panel showing the artist and title. My stations would be classical, opera, Ella Fitzgerald, et al, New Age, and movie sound tracks. The room would have a soft ambient light that reached into every corner. The walls would all be lined with bookshelves -- everyone I ever read – and one special shelf would be empty. When my thoughts turned to authors I liked, the rest of their books would magically appear. Coffee, hot tea, or iced tea would appear upon the presence of thirst. A door would appear when I wanted a walk on the beach, in the woods, at a zoo, or a museum. Ahhhh, that would be paradise.

I originally discovered Bantock back in the 80s with his Griffin and Sabine trilogy. These books contained letters (inside envelopes pasted to the page) and postcards between the titular characters. The drawings and stamps on the post cards and letters enchant endlessly. His books are hard to find, but worth the effort. 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/16/09

The Story of the Night by Colm Tóibín

I recently discovered Colm Tóibín (pronounced “Collum Toe-bean”), and this is my second read by him. After reading Blackwater Lightship, I bought several of his books off the shelf of a local bookstore. His prose has a lyrical quality and quite a bit of intensity, but it remains sensitive and absorbing. I was not aware when I bought The Story of the Night that it had won the Ferro-Grumley Award for the best gay novel in 1998, and made On Lambda’s list of the 100 best gay novels of all time. I have read Mann’s Death in Venice, Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and Djuna Barnes Nightwood, so the genre is no surprise to me. Tóibín has written a sensitive and moving story of a young man’s coming to terms with his sexual preference, and capped it off with a tender love story. That does not give away the ending.

I do not know what else to write. If the idea of homosexuality disturbs you, then I would advise against reading this book. I am completely, 100% straight, but I have also known a number of people who are gay, and several who have died of AIDS. I know they fall in and out of love, they laugh, they cry, they try and live their lives against varying tides of intolerance and even hatred. If the names and the fact of AIDS were removed from this novel, no one would have any idea it was about gay men.

Maybe I should change my mind about anyone not reading this book. The Story of the Night portrays gay people as living through all the things straight people do: discovering who they are as people, finding their place in the working world, dealing with crises of family and friends, traveling, and having fun. If you are open-minded, then you should read this book; if you are not, maybe this book will open your mind. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 5/16/09

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This curious favorite of book clubs has only a tinge of the bizarre. Except for three chapters in which Pi discusses his embrace of all three major religions, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. The prose has a sing-song quality, and I found myself hearing the narrator with a stereotypical Indian accent.

Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) lives with his family in India. Pi’s father is a zookeeper, and the boy has learned a lot about zoo animals and their care. Facing financial ruin, the zoo animals are sold to North American zoos so the family can emigrate to Canada. The Patels load the creatures onto a rusty freighter piloted by Japanese officers with a Chinese crew. During a storm, the ship sinks, and Pi finds himself alone on a lifeboat with a spotted hyena, an orangutan, a rat, a zebra with a broken leg, and a tiger. For over 200 days, the 16-year-old boy battles the elements and his fellow survivors of the wreck.

The only connection I can make between the religious odyssey, which causes Pi to attend a Hindu Temple, a mosque, and mass at the local Catholic Church, and the story involves a sort of reworking of the Lord of the Flies scenario. None of these religions insulate Pi from abandoning all his values and beliefs. Aside from an occasional epithet, “Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, and Vishnu” the religious part of the story does not directly figure into the rest of the novel.

Pi never addresses the contradictions these three religions present, but rather focuses only on their surface similarities. He worries about violating an injunction of one but does not seem to justify his actions when another religion permits the same behavior.

The ending is quite a surprise, and will leave the reader guessing. All in all, a more than worthwhile read. The story of Pi’s 220 plus days in the boat is exciting – I could barely put the book down then. Maybe another read will reveal more details and a better explanation. 4-1/2 stars

--Chiron, 5/10/09

Death with Interruptions by José Saramago

Satire is the use of humor to promote improvement in an individual, the government, or an institution. I have always considered Saramago’s novels to be satiric, but with a subtle streak of fun. Death with Interruptions is no exception, but the final chapters are really a hoot!

Saramago’s Blindness was a little like Camus’ The Plague, and Death is a little like Blindness in some respects. Like several of his novels, Death is set in an unnamed country, and this time the characters have no names, only titles: president, director, minister, cellist, king, and prime minister. Saramago uses long, complicated sentences with commas, periods, and an occasional apostrophe. He never uses question marks, exclamation points, or colons, semi or otherwise. The only letters capitalized are those following a period, those beginning a new statement in a conversation, and the letter I when death (not capitalized) refers to herself.

Here is an example of what I mean: “Death is sitting there, on a narrow crimson-upholstered chair, and starring fixedly at the first cellist, the one she watched while he was asleep and who wears striped pajamas, the one who owns a dog that is, at this moment, sleeping in the sun in the garden, waiting for his master to return. That is her man, a musician, nothing more, like the almost one hundred other men and women seated in a semicircle around their personal shaman, the conductor, and all of whom will, one day, in some future week or month or year, receive a violet-colored letter and leave the place empty, until some other violinist, flautist or trumpeter comes to sit in the same chair, perhaps with another shaman waving a baton to conjure forth sounds, life is an orchestra which is always playing, in tune or out, a titanic that is always sinking and always rising to the surface, and it is then that it occurs to death that she would be left with nothing to do if the sunken ship never managed to rise again, singing the evocative song sung by the waters as they cascade from her decks, like the watery song, dripping like a murmuring sigh over her undulating body, sung by the goddess amphitrite at her birth, when she becomes she who circles the seas, for that is the meaning of the name she was given” (188-89). Death has decided to send violet colored letters to individuals whom she has scheduled for death in seven days.

This excerpt constitutes two-thirds of a page of a five-page paragraph. Not exactly stream of consciousness, but it does require close attention to stay on Saramago’s wagon.

His dialogue is not broken into individual statements but is simply blended into the paragraph. Here follows a brief example of a conversation between the scythe and death, who has made a mistake and failed to deliver a letter to a man while he was forty-nine. The birthday has passed and he is still alive: “You can’t do that, said the scythe, It’s done, There’ll be consequences, Only one, What’s that, The death, at last, of that wretched cellist who’s been having a laugh at my expense. But the poor man doesn’t know he is supposed to be dead, As far as I’m concerned, he might as well know it, Even so, you don’t have the authority to change an index card, That’s where you’re wrong, I have all the power and authority I need, I’m death,” (184).

Saramago is always great fun. He also wrote The Stone Raft (Spain and Portugal float off into the Atlantic), and All the Names about a clerk in a government ministry in charge of vital statistics, who becomes obsessed with a stranger on a card stuck to one he was updating. Saramago won the Nobel Prize a few years back, and I highly recommend him for some fun, absorbing reading. 5 stars

--Chrion, 5/6/09

Ransom by David Malouf

A professor once said, “Only one story exists – The Odyssey – and from it all other stories flow.” I thought this a ridiculous statement at the time even though I already knew and loved the story of Odysseus and his wanderings at the end of the Trojan War. I had also read The Iliad, but it did not hold for me the charm of the sequel.

This fall, I will teach a class on Mythology, and the centerpiece will be The Odyssey. However, after reading this story of Achilles, Patrocles, Priam, and Hector, I am going to slowly re-read The Iliad and The Odyssey this summer.

Malouf has taken these four characters and rewoven the tale of Hector’s death and the ransom of his body by Priam. David has simplified the story, cut away much of the flowery, epithet-filled language of Homer to focus on the essential theme of the story – fathers and sons and war.

I don’t think I am giving anything away here, after all, the joy of reading Malouf lies in his use of language and the manipulation of words and phrases. If these details of The Iliad surprise you, shame! Get thee to a book store and read these two foundational blocks of western literature! Then read Malouf and experience the glee of noting which details he has added and which he has deleted.

The important things remain: Hector’s farewell to Andromache and Astyanax, the death of Patrocles, the fight between Achilles and Hector, the grief of Priam, and his humiliating plea for the release of his son’s body.

Malouf’s prose echoes the poetry of Homer, and at times, moves us dreamlike through those thrilling legends more the 2,500 years old. I believe I could have read this slim volume in one sitting, but I deliberately took breaks after each chapter. Before resuming, I thumbed through the previous chapters and re-read some passages that struck me. For example, “Why do we think always the simple things are beneath us?” (59), and "'It seems to me,’ [Priam] says, almost dreamily, ‘that there might be another way of naming what we call fortune and attribute to the will, or the whim, of the gods. Which offers a kind of opening. The opportunity to act for ourselves. To try something that might force events into a different course’” (61). 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/3/09

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

As my legions of readers know, I have recently rediscovered Philip Roth. Although I still do not appreciate the artistry of Goodbye, Columbus, I have really enjoyed several of his later works. The Human Stain has added greatly to my admiration of this fine writer.

Few writers delve into the psychology of characters the way Roth does. The intense reflection and the detailed examination of motives, actions, and consequences make for absorbing reads. As I have said many times, I believe good characters drive a good story. These characters surprise, alarm, and bring the reader deep into the psychological gymnastics we all go through, sometimes unconsciously, every day. Roth brings all these emotions, fears, joys, prejudices, and hopes right out in the open.

Stain is the second “Zuckerman” novel I have read, and by no means will it be the last. Nathan Zuckerman, the narrator, is a writer, and as revealed in the closing pages, we have read as he writes. We make discoveries along with him.

Some of the passages are long, and this novel requires a great deal of concentration as he meanders among the characters and situations. Many of these ring true on many levels. For example, I know a Delphine Roux. I have seen students complain to administration over harmless, off-hand remarks made in class. I have seen the petty jealousies and political maneuvering in the perpetual turf wars of academia.

Realism is the hallmark of Roth’s novels, and The Human Stain clearly ranks as one of his masterpieces. I see a large shelf, with all his books, in my future. Caution: Raw language throughout with graphic depictions of some sexual situations. Five stars.

--Chiron, 4/29/09

How Fiction Works by James Wood

This fascinating little volume will require many reads to absorb all the information contained in the 123 short essays on various aspects of writing fiction. At first, I had considered this as a text for my creative writing class, but now, I think not. I asked how many had read Madame Bovary, and none had. They need to read more – much, much more – before tackling this valuable book.

Wood presumes his reader has read world literature widely. He provides an extensive bibliography listed by date of publication. The 98 selections are eclectic and fascinating. He begins with Cervantes and the King James Bible then runs all the way through to Updike’s last novel, Terrorist. Pynchon, Saramago, Joyce, Kafka, Austen, the Brontës, Stendahl, Bellow, Nabokov, Roth (Joseph and Philip), Chekhov, Henry Green, and many, many others of my favorites. Alas, no Patrick White.

I started underlining the best passages, but I found nearly every essay had a memorable line or two. This example discusses Madame Bovary:

#29
“Novelists should thank Flaubert the way poets thank spring: it all begins again with him. There really is a time before Flaubert and a time after him. Flaubert decisively established what most readers and writers think of as modernist narration, and his is almost too familiar to be visible. We hardly remark of good prose that it favors the telling and brilliant detail; that it privileges a high degree of visual noticing; that it maintains an unsentimental composure and knows how to withdraw, like a good valet, from superfluous commentary; that it judges good and bad neutrally; that it seeks out truth, even at the cost of repelling us; and that the author’s fingerprints on all this are, paradoxically, traceable but not visible. You can find some of this in Defoe or Austen or Balzac, but not all of it until Flaubert.” (39)

I think I will add this to my desert island shelf for the future and my nightstand for occasional browsing before bed. It IS that kind of book. 5 stars

--Chiron, 4/22/09

Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry by Donald Hall

Donald Hall delivered the keynote lecturer at the annual Beall Poetry festival at Baylor University this year. I purchased this book and a collection of his poems, which he graciously inscribed to me.

Over the years, I have run into an occasional poem by Hall, but never read him extensively. His lecture had humor and a certain earthiness to it, but I had a hard time understanding chunks of his talk – the sound system failed time and again.

The initial chapters related his childhood and his early desire to become a poet. the story followed him through high school and college to post-graduate studies in England. He related details of his life as he began teaching and finally reached a point in his career where he could devote himself to writing full-time.

Unfortunately, the last three chapters dwell on his wife’s battle with cancer, and his decline, culminating in a stroke a few years ago. He recovered and returned to his desk to finish this book.

These last chapters turned the whole tone of the book around, and it ended on a sour note. Still an interesting life, and I am glad I met him. I look forward to reading the collection of poems. 4 stars

--Chiron, 4/20/09

American Rust by Philipp Meyer

One might think this book only refers to the decay of heavy industry in the Northeastern and North Central United States – the rust belt – but that would sell this fine debut novel short. The decaying factories, steel mills, and auto plants do have a profound presence in the novel, but the characters that populate Buell, Pennsylvania also find themselves in a state of decline. However, unlike the industrial infrastructure, the people have a streak of toughness that shows itself as loyalty, love, and courage.

The publisher’s note compares this novel to Cormac McCarthy – particularly The Road, I think – but that would be a bit of an overstatement. Nevertheless, Philipp Meyer has woven a tight, absorbing tale in American Rust, which I found difficult to put aside, even for brief moments.

The chapters alternate among six characters, although the author’s voice remains consistent throughout. All the characters spend large chunks of time ruminating on their past lives, their present actions, and future plans. Unfortunately, Meyer has the peculiar style of occasionally slipping from the third person narrator to a second person “conscience” of some of the characters. I think these passages of self-admonishment and reflection might have benefitted from the use of italics.

This example, from a chapter narrated by the town police chief, Harris, who has a crush on Grace, the mother of a young man in trouble:

“It felt different with Grace this time, he didn’t know why, it really seemed the hillbilly was no longer in the picture. The spare tire comes out. The spare tire is you. He was not sure about any of it. There were people meant to die alone, maybe he was one of them. You’re getting a little ahead of yourself, he thought.” p 237 (pp 218-219 in Advanced reading Copy)

Is Harris talking to himself? Is the third person narrator addressing the character directly? Strange.

Despite this minor annoyance, an outstanding, exciting read. 4-1/2 stars

--Chiron, 4/15/09

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

Few people are fortunate enough to have a friend who loves reading at the same level. Fewer still have a friend who can be trusted enough to recommend books that “must be read.” I am fortunate enough to have several such friends. My first encounter with Joseph Roth is the result of such a friendship. To say I loved this novel amounts to the greatest understatement I could make about this sprawling epic of the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the outbreak of “the Great War” in 1914.

Roth has reminded me that my heart lies firmly in the 19th century – the Brontës, Austen, Stendahl, Gaskell, Flaubert, and Thackeray, among others, all drove me to graduate school, and I still revel in the lush land of romantic and realistic literature of that period.

This novel of three generations, who revered and served Emperor Franz Joseph, encompasses not only the politics of the era but the relationships among fathers, sons, and even the memory of a deceased grandfather. The prose sparkles, and I am hard pressed to recall more than a few novels with prose so consistently beautiful, lyrical, and engrossing.

Normally, I provide a quote or two, but I could pull a paragraph at random from any page and give the slightest glimmer of the power of Roth’s artistry. The story he weaves holds the reader’s attention from page one through to 331. Even the introductory essay by Nadine Gordimer gushes with praise and allows the reader a glimpse or two into the magical, romantic, and psychological depth of these characters.

At times, I felt as if I were watching a film. The detail of the dress, the food, the carriages, and the houses had such precision and completeness of detail my mind had no trouble calling up clear images as backdrops for the story.

Roth wrote a sequel, The Emperor’s Tomb, and I already have it on my Amazon wish list. 10 stars for one of the finest novels I have ever read.

--Chiron, 4/11/09

The Tree Where Man Was Born by Peter Matthiessen

In September of 1972, this work was serialized in The New Yorker magazine over three issues. Only a few years before, I had discovered what some have described as the best magazine in America. The story of the peoples and the vast herds of animals in the Serengeti fascinated me and cemented forever my love of TNY. Many memories of the images from this sprawling narrative persist 35 years later.

This volume is quite a bit longer than the original article. The early chapters describe Matthiessen’s journey to the interior, along with the patchwork groups of peoples spread over millions of square miles around Lake Victoria, the Rift Valley (of Louis, Mary, and Richard Leakey fame). The author includes long sections stretching back to the origins of colonial East Africa and forward into some of the chaos and lawlessness of the end of the colonial period. His narrative captures the rhythm and flow of life on this exotic continent.

The braided histories of many tribes, clans, customs, beliefs, lifestyles, and feuds among neighbors, can be a bit confusing, but the prose is so lyrical and vivid, I never really minded the extra effort to stay with Matthiessen as he bounced over rugged, arid landscapes in his beat up Land Rover. I wanted to own a Land Rover after reading this absorbing story. Take this example from chapter two:

“Our camp was in the mountain forest, a true forest of great holy trees – the African olive, with its silver gray-green shimmering leaves and hoary twisted trunk – of wild flowers and shafts of light, cool shadows and deep humus smells, moss, ferns, glades, and the ring of unseen birds from the green clerestories. Lying back against one tree, staring up into another, I could watch the olive pigeon and the olive thrush share the black fruit for which neither bird is named; to a forest stream nearby came the paradise fly-catcher, perhaps the most striking of all birds in East Africa. Few forests are so beautiful, so silent, and here the silence is intensified by the apprehended presence of wild beasts – buffalo and elephant, rhino, lion, leopard. Because these creatures are so scarce and shy, the forest paths can be walked in peace; the only fierce animal I saw was a small squirrel pinned to a dead log by a shaft of sun, feet wide, defiant, twitching its tail in time to thin pure squeaking.” (79-80)

Wow. Prose like that rarely appears these days. Even at 400 pages, Matthiessen’s story flows quickly, but languidly through the forest. The best parts, however, involve his descriptions of the Maasai of East Africa, which most interested me then and now.

Admittedly, Matthiessen’s prose requires gaining a level of comfort. Many of the long, rambling sentences could benefit from a few more judiciously placed commas! But in the end, the journey is well worth the effort. 5 stars

--Chiron, 4/7/09

Endpoint by John Updike

I had to drop everything and read John Updike’s last book. First, I saw the dedication – “For Martha, who asked for one last book: here it is, with all my love.” Then it struck me: he really was gone, no more novels or stories, unless some nearly finished manuscript even now wends its way through editors, typesetters, printers, book sellers, eventually to me. One can only hope.

He died this past January. Every year I remembered -- too late – that I wanted to send him a birthday note on March 18th. How much I now regret those lapses.

He wrote the first group of poems each year on his birthday beginning in 2002. Then a few as he went to the hospital for tests, treatments -- never losing his keen sense of observation and that subtle humor I love so much.

Usually, when I review a book of poetry, I include a sample, but not this time. I need to keep these magnificent words, images, and phrases to myself. Believe me, these poems pack emotion in every line. Memories thread their way from one to the other. Quiet references to friends, books, family, and events color the fabric of his last years, months, and days.

Buy this book. Spend an afternoon with Updike at his bedside, near his easy chair. You will be converted to a lover of his talent as the premier wordsmith of 20th century American letters. Marvel at the list of his works – novels, poems, short stories, a play, a memoir, essays – all too wonderful to put down at the last page, but each new book opens up a whole new world.

A perfect little book! Beautiful in type, in words, in images, and even in its dust jacket with John half-turning back to the photographer -- a leaf-shaded country lane and all the world before him. My highest rating – 10 stars.

--Chiron, 4/3/09

News of the World and The Company of Horses by Peter Fallon

Poetry lovers all over Central Texas look forward to the annual Beall Poetry Festival at Baylor University -- a really special treat. Some of the foremost poets in America attend every year for readings, lectures, and panel discussions. This year’s class included Peter Fallon, the well-known Irish poet, C.D. Wright, David Lehman, and Donald Hall.

The festival always presents a great opportunity for signed editions, which I took full advantage of this year. Peter Fallon’s work is my favorite so far, and I am looking forward to readings by Donald Hall on Saturday, March 28th.

These two slim volumes contain some of the sparest, most compact poetry I have read in a long while. Many of the poems deal with nature – Fallon spent many years as a shepherd – while some others describe some ordinary events and observations. For example, “Gravities” from “News”:

“A ewe moves northward
to a gate, her lambs in tow.
Another follows and again
the night’s migration

is begun. Thin lines of sheep
approach a slope, the frantic calls
resume, the mothers’ for lambs,
the lambs’ for milk.

And I’ve known men
tell weather by this moment. (31)

From The Company of Horses, a brief elegy for Michael Hartnett (1941-1999):

End of sureness
end of doubt –

when the darkness
like a light
went out. (50)

We have already gone onto Amazon and his website to add to our collection. These neat, sweet, and petite collections belong in every poetry lover’s library. 5 stars

--Chiron, 3/28/09