Memories

In 2004 when the National Book Award finalists for fiction were announced there was much grumbling in the literary world. The finalists were all women, and none was widely read. The New York Times critic Edward Wyatt complained that Christine Schutt's first novel Florida had been read by only about 150 people. In an interview two weeks later with Deborah Solomon, Schutt set the number slightly higher - “at least 1,099 copies”. Schutt didn't win the award – it went to the equally obscure Lily Tuck for The News from Paraguay – but her novel found a wider audience and was even published in paperback.

The story is told in a fragmented, impressionistic way by the narrator Alice Fivey. Alice lives with her eccentric widowed mother until the age of ten, when her mother's increasingly unstable behavior causes her relatives to pack her off to “the San” in Florida. Alice is then shuttled between various wealthy relatives. The childless Uncle Billy and Aunt Frances take her in, but they are far more interested in their possessions than in their niece. She also lives with her bedridden grandmother who is unable to speak due to a stroke. Her one anchor is Arthur, the family retainer who offers Alice the valuable gift of his time and attention. Eventually the adult Alice reconnects with her mother, and attempts to sort out her childhood memories.

What separates Florida from the standard melodramatic tale of an orphaned and abandoned child is the beauty of Schutt's prose. The spare, elegant chapters often read like poems, When the ten year old Alice describes the scenes of her childhood, they have a muddled dream-like quality that rings true. The adult Alice's voice is more clear-eyed and more wry, but adult and child voices share the same lonely intensity. This short spare book is a tribute to the power of language and memory.

Faraway Fiction

Many of us are fascinated by putting ourselves into another time and place, imagining life in another context. In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, author Lisa See does just that, taking the reader and the characters into rural 19th century China.

Expressing herself in the language patterns and through the lens of attitudes of women of that time, the protagonist Snow Flower tells us of the life of a village woman from childhood into old age. While most of us in the West are familiar with the customs of foot binding and arranged marriages, the book includes unfamiliar ones such as secret writing among females and formal sworn sisterhoods. Some of this gives the impression of revisionist history, ancient Chinese life viewed by contemporary women looking for signs of incipient feminism. But the special writing language invented by women not permitted to become literate has recently been documented. The book has been so well researched that one has to conclude that it is accurate in other areas as well.

The prose, full of flowery metaphor, often seems formulaic as it speaks in the rhythms of old Chinese writings. And the author tells us too much rather than letting us interpret situations ourselves. Overall, this is an interesting read during which you'll learn more about that time, although as we say in Book Club, " it's not great literature".

A Natural Selection

For several years now I have considered reading Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle but have put it off thinking it would require an extra intellectual effort beyond what I was willing to invest in recreational reading. So when I came across The Darwin Conspiracy by John Darnton I thought from the descriptions on the book jacket that I might have found a good compromise: “…novel of gripping suspense and scientific conquest…page-turning historical mystery that brilliantly explores the intrigue behind Darwin and his theory of evolution.”

The author starts from Thomas Carlyle’s view that history is “…the distillation of rumor.” Apparently the actual historical record regarding Darwin and the development of his theory has some gaps and it is these gaps that the author has set out to fill in his novel.

There are actually three alternating and interwoven stories. One is the actual voyage of Darwin on the Beagle; a second is the correspondence and journals of Darwin’s daughter Lizzie from a later period in Darwin’s life; and the third is about a pair of modern-day researchers whose area of interest is Darwin.

The first story has just enough history and science to interest and inform but not overwhelm. Imagine my delight in finding that the second thread includes correspondence between Lizzie and her friend Mary Anne Evans (aka George Eliot) and a reference to Middlemarch! And the third has the predictable competitors turned lovers turned allies.

It was as the cover promised "...an entertaining fast-paced read." But the question lingers: did Darwin really appropriate his theory of natural selection from someone else as the book describes?

A Quirky Place in Brooklyn

Paul Auster’s novel “The Brooklyn Follies” was our book club’s choice for the month of May. Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947 and has written many novels. He has a great following, almost in the sense of a cult following. He is best known for his three experimental detective stories. Although most of his novels have a sense of bleakness, “The Brooklyn Follies” has been acclaimed as his most uplifting novel.

Most of the readers in our group liked the zany cast of characters. Nathan Glass, the hero-protagonist, has come to Brooklyn to die and to write “The Book Of Human Folly” which will “set down in the simplest, clearest language possible an account of every blunder, every pratfall, every embarrassment, (etc., etc.), (he) has committed in his long, checkered career as a man”. But, what happens to Nathan is that he becomes totally involved in the lives of the people he meets in this wonderful, quirky neighborhood. Nathan finds his long lost nephew, Tom, who is working for Harry Brightman, the charismatic, wildly eccentric owner of a thriving neighborhood bookstore. Through Tom and Harry, Nathan meets the other rather colorful characters in the story, including the Perfect Beautiful Mother aka P.B.M. and a long lost great niece who refuses to talk. There are several intriquing, amusing subplots in the story, one which involves a forgery, another which revolves around a sperm bank.

The author uses a different technique in “The Brooklyn Follies”. He cedes the story control to Nathan, who is a bad writer. Nathan’s writing is plagued with cliches and contrived or pedestrian language. But, the author has a reason for this switch. He needs Nathan to speak with a truly honest voice, deluding himself and keeping things moving along in a haphazard sort of way. The story moves along to a grand finale, so to speak, a happy ending for a happy man. Although, we were not sure why, on the last page, Auster injected the reference to Sept.11,2001, except that it was the last time people were able to be genuinely carefree and happy. It was simply a more frivolous time.

Most readers really enjoyed the book, although some thought it was just too contrived, with the perfect happy ending. The critics have called it Paul Auster’s warmest, most exuberant novel, a tribute to the glories of ordinary human life.