1% Well-Read: The Inheritance of Loss

Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss was another substitute title of the 1% Well-Read Challenge, found in the last week on the shelf of the local library. To be honest, reading Loss took up the majority of the last week, as I found it to be a more dense and contrary read than I had anticipated.

I was surprised, because normally (and be forewarned, this is a broad statement), I do pretty well with literature from the Indian Diaspora. It probably serves me right then, to get bogged down in my own arrogance and assumptions! Loss was a fine read, but it was not what I expected. Much like the mist that featured prominently in the book, story lines materialized and faded away when I least expected, and I never felt that I had a firm grasp on the plot or the motivations of the characters. In the end, I felt unsatisfied and like the main questions posed by the novel were left unanswered. I think this is more my hang-up than a fault in the novel, however. Probably it comes from reading too many mysteries, and a love of traditional plot and narrative devices. Everything Is Illuminated was hell for me, I tell you. My greatest disappointment was not getting to know Sai, the young heroine, better that I did.

Because I am typing one-handed with a sleeping baby, this will be a short review, Suffice it to say, this was another title that I had been meaning to get to, but may not have without the impetus of the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I'm glad I read it, even if it wasn't my favorite book.

1% Well-Read: The Optimist's Daughter

In my attempt to finish the 2008-09 1% Well-Read Challenge, I made a desperate run to our small local library to see what they might have on the shelves. Normally I rely on inter-library loans through our extended regional system to find specific titles, but with a week or so left in the challenge, I had run out of time for that option. It was a remarkably successful trip, and one that netted me Rabbit Redux, two other titles that shall be discussed later, and an American Library volume of Eudora Welty's complete novels. Of all of Ms. Welty's works, The Optimist's Daughter was the one chosen for the 1% Well-Read Challenge source list (or at least one of them).

Although I enjoyed The Optimist's Daughter, it struck me as an odd choice. It felt much more like a novella, and was the only work I read that felt like something that would have been assigned for an AP English course in high school. I don't mean to be derogatory; East of Eden, a high school assignment many years ago, remains one of my favorite novels. However, The Optimist's Daughter was that sort of fast-paced, clear-eyed observation of society that is so favored in high-school curricula. The characterizations and dialogue, however, were very witty. I understand that Ms. Welty was an acute observer of her milieu, and her perception shows.

One of the things that made this work such an interesting read was that the culture and setting of the main characters, rather than the characters themselves, filled out the story and provided the orientation for the reader. In my read, each character was actually rather one-dimensional, but it was the ambiguity of their interactions and positions in society that gave complexity and depth to the story. It was hard to feel close to Laurel, the protagonist, but it was easy to become engaged in her actions and choices as she navigated her father's death, the social rituals of her home-town, and interactions with her father's wholly inappropriate second wife.

I liked Ms. Welty's style and prose, and would probably enjoy other works even more. She wrote female characters well, even if there was very little mercy at times. I don't think I will carry the story with me for any great length of time, but in my mind, it would make a very acceptable substitute for many standard titles in lit intro classes.

I had not realized that Ms. Welty enjoyed such a long life, and was alive until 2001. Strange that this fact should alter my perception of her, and in my mind render her less bounded by 2oth Century literature, but it does. How little know about American writers; as a reader I read for pleasure, but in doing so, sometimes I miss important bits of context.

1% Well-Read: Rabbit Redux

I will admit to an irrational and totally unfounded (former) dislike of John Updike. As the Hubby is able to testify, (but perhaps is loathe to admit for fear of retaliatory oversteeped green tea the next morning), I can be pretty unreasonable in some of my long-held prejudices, and none die harder in me than skepticism about lauded male writers and whiny male singer-songwriters. I do like to think, however, that I can admit when I'm wrong. It happens often enough, goodness knows I get my practice in. And I was wrong about John Updike.

So wrong, in fact, that I could compare my former opinion of Mr. Updike to the year spent in Italy neither dating nor eating meat (Fool!). So maybe not having read any Updike until my mid-thirties doesn't quite rise to the level or skipping prosciutto in Parma or Romans in Rome (what was I thinking?), but it's pretty close. From the first page of Rabbit Redux, I knew that I would love not only the book, but also the author's dialogue, descriptive phrases, and probably even the pacing of the narrative. If Blade Runner is the planner's movie (although I think Pleasantville should be up for a shot at the title), then Updike, like Pratolini and Russo, was a planner's writer. Updike "got" cities, and particularly how to describe different neighborhood and the slow, disintegrating sprawl out to the suburbs. Updike's language is so rich in visual and emotional cues that reading is almost as vivid as walking down the street in a city that you are just getting to know. I'm sure I could get all undergrad lit-crit here and wax on about urban form and the construction of the main characters, but that would really be pushing my credibility. I read because I love to and because it is almost a compulsive need, not because I do the best analysis on the block.

I have to admit that I am glad I started with Rabbit Redux and not Rabbit, Run. Given that the beginning of the Rabbit series features the death of a child, I would have put the book down and never returned, even skipping the sequels. Updike does such a wonderful job of building up and tearing down his characters, however, that I didn't feel as if I had missed any key pieces. Another sign of Updike's mastery was that I also didn't notice clunky "backstory inserted here" passages. Instead, the story was well-paced, readable, inventive without stretching the limits of plausibility, and hinted at myth and archetypes without becoming pedantic. The language fit the characters, even as dated and racist as their notions could be. Rabbit is a figure that I can both loathe and love. I already have Rabbit is Rich waiting on the bookshelf.

So here's to long-held assumptions disproved and discarded. The 1% Challenge got me to read Updike, and I'm so glad that I did.

1% Well-Read: Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser had been on my "must read" list for years, and the 1% Well-Read Challenge gave me an excellent opportunity to finally make good on my intention. I'm sorry I waited so long, although I'm very glad that I didn't pair The Grass is Singing with Sister Carrie. If so, I might have been to depressed to breathe.

*Spoiler alert*
I suppose The Grass is Singing came to mind because of the similar themes of financial ruin and the slow, seemingly unavoidable ruin of primary characters in the book. And my desire to shake some sense into both George Hurstwood, which echoed my sentiments about Mary. What a bleak view of human nature Dreiser must have had! Odd, though Carrie left very little impression on me; I didn't dislike her or find her actions to be reprehensible. She was clearly a survivor and adaptable in ways Hurstwood was not, and I certainly got the sense that Dreiser chalked these abilities up to both age and gender. However, Carrie was such a blank slate, for so many around her, that as a reader (and a female reader), I never felt close to her or even all that interested in her decision making. There were a few interminable chapters when I did wish that she would make any decision, or at least the obvious one where Hurstwood was concerned. Rather than a horror, it was a relief when she started to succeed, even though I knew her success would come at the expense of Hurstwood. However, that trade was Dreiser's decision, not an inevitable consequence of Carrie's actions. I suppose Hurstwood was the intended protagonist, and Carrie merely a foil, but that seems so unfair.

Realistically, though, I suppose that I shouldn't be looking to male writers of Dreiser's era to be fair to their female characters. If I had more time in the month to finish the challenge, maybe I'd pick up some Virginia Wolfe to cleanse my palate a bit.

Speaking of the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I also have reviews for Rabbit Redux and The Optimists' Daughter to get written. I've discovered that I own (but have not read) Fugitive Pieces, so I can get another quick read in. However, I am running out of time, and will have to scrap my original list in order to finish. Better pacing next time!

1% Well-Read: Tipping the Velvet

I didn't like it. Well, maybe that's not the full story - I did like it, but not in a "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" sort of way. It was fun and jaunty and sexy, but not challenging or significantly enlightening. I read books of a similar caliber every week; they are the bread-and-butter of my reading habit. I can take a stack back to the library and feel happy to have read each one, but certainly not feel changed or that groping loss that comes with the end of a book you can't put down. So perhaps that's where I should leave it ... I was happy to have read Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet, but I did not find it all-consuming. I did begin from a patently unfair starting point - I made the mistake of reading the review blurbs on the cover, and some comparison was made to Jeanette Winterson (After all, one British lesbian novelist is the same as another, no?), and I love Jeanette Winterson. Although Ms. Waters can tell a compelling story, her prose is not lyrical. And although I said I should leave it, I just have to add that I found the theme of salvation through a good woman, working class community and just causes to be tedious. The only stereotype left unjustified was sensible shoes. I liked the heroine, Kitty Butler, more when she was a kept dandy. So there.

With that said if I come across more of Ms. Waters' work, particularly Fingersmith, I would certainly pick it up. Of course, it would feed my crime-novel/mystery habit, but I make no apologies for that now.

The 1% Well-Read Challenge is almost over, and I honestly do not know if I will finish. So many books to read, and so little time! Regardless, I will probably sign up for the next challenge; at the very least it gives me fodder for posting, and a continued excuse for more reading past my bed-time.

1% Well-Read: The Grass is Singing

Simply take my advice on this one: Doris Lessing is not the best reading choice during the early, heady days of a world-wide economic crisis. The Grass is Singing was a wonderful read, but the story of a couple sinking into financial, emotional, physical and spiritual ruin amidst bleak poverty does not provide much in the way of a welcome distraction.

I'm not sure if there is anything else that can be written about The Grass is Singing that has not already been committed to paper (or the screen, in this case). Lessing's prose is sparse without feeling empty; in this work the language echoed the promise of a hidden richness found in the landscape, but was as inaccessible to the reader as the land was to either Mary or Dick Turner. Mary was at turns pitiable and exasperating, and wholly unlovable. Come to think of it, I have a hard time remembering even one amiable named character in the entire book. I think my favorites may have been the women who came to the Turners' store with their children, but then left when it became clear how unwelcome they were as individuals and a group.

And Moses ... well, I cannot feel that Moses is a fully realised character. Who is he? What drives him to his final acts? What would the story look like from his viewpoint? What a fascinating novel that would be, much like Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. The analogy between Moses and Rhodesia seem obvious, but I cannot love the story more for it. That neither the country nor Moses can sustain the Turners is clear, but Moses is his own person, not the land that slowly kills the hopes and abilities of Mary and Dick.

Despite my distaste for the characters, however, I cannot fault the story or the book. What a gift it is, complete and compelling on its own. The technical precision of the storytelling makes the story that much more inexorable and heartbreaking.

I have not chosen my next read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I'm trying to finish Sharon Kay Penman's Devil's Brood, which is long, written in a small font, and printed on light paper. It's also as obsessive a read as her earlier works. Speaking of obsessions, I finished the Twilight series, and it was enjoyable. Not perfect, sometimes irritating, but a fun and light story (mostly). Perhaps I can say that Doris made me read it ;o)

1% Well-Read Challenge: An Artist of the Floating World

Although I had to fit it in between all sorts of extra-curricular reading (think mysteries), I really enjoyed Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World. It didn't hurt that I've been interested in the past in the use of art and architecture in the service of political ideology. Indeed, my undergraduate honors thesis was on the ways in which architecture and the movements of the early twentieth century were variously co-opted or derided in Italy during the fascist regime. Fun times, let me tell you, fun times. So Ishiguro's exploration of a similar topic through the musings of Japanese artist after WWII was, in a way, familiar territory.

It was also refreshing, to be quite honest, to read a work that didn't go on long past any reasonable point of stopping. This was a shorter read, and a perfect length for the story being told. It was not an epic, with deep character exploration of even peripheral figures and multiple complex plot lines. As befits the topic, the tale was told through the almost myopic view of the narrator. I am not a political scientist, but at the end of the day, don't all dictators really work from a world-view that cannot accommodate other viewpoints or experiences? That the narrator is starting to confess that he may hold some responsibility for what befalls him, his country, and his fellow artists helps to lighten what could otherwise be an oppressive and stifling atmosphere. All the while, Ishiguro manages to maintain his vulnerability and essential human appeal. In that sense, the book is truly remarkable.

I don't know what my next choice for the challenge will be. I'm avoiding Sostiene Peiriera for now, with the excuse that I'll need time to read during daylight hours and without a baby latched on and draped over one of my arms. I will need to consult my dictionary; this much is clear. If I have to pull out my old grammar textbook, so be it.

On an unrelated note, my iPod may be dying. I am in denial. Who knew I could become so attached to that which I mocked so completely? If it turns out to be true, I might just have to, as Miles puts it, "sob just a little bit."

1% Challenge: Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee

If my first read in my 1% Well-Read Challenge was not the experience I had hoped it would be, my second read made up for it. Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee, was exactly what I was looking for. There is something so satisfying about finding the right read at the right time. I was looking for something with a touch of nostalgia, but nothing cloying or deeply sentimental. Laurie Lee’s description of growing up in a small village in England immediately after the First World War struck the right chord with me. Although the trappings of traditional village life are very different from what I experience in my immediate surroundings, living and working in a rural community still allows for some observation of the workings of small, close-knit communities. Activities, transportation and community norms may change, but the reliance on belonging, family, neighbors and the regularity of the immediate and known sphere have not.

Lee’s use of language is beautiful. While he utilizes a certain romanticism found in memoirs of the period, his metaphors and descriptions seem to always throw the reader slightly off-guard. Images and adjectives were not always what I expected. These choices, as well as some of the storyline, rescue the reminiscences from being trite or ordinary. As an example, one of my favorite images in the book comes from Lee describing his mother and older sisters, as viewed by his very young self:

My Mother and sisters sailed past me like galleons in their busy dresses … How magnificent they appeared, full-rigged, those towering girls, with their flying hair and billowing blouses, their white-mast arms stripped for work or washing. At any moment one was boarded by them, bussed and buttoned, or swung up high like a wriggling fish to be hooked and held in their lacy linen.

I don’t know if I’ve read a better description of that mix of love and terror a young child feels in the presence of adored and overwhelming older relatives. I could feel the tug between wanting the grounding affection of his family, and the growing realization of and need for independence. I remember the same emotions from my childhood, in relation to my aunts and uncles as they moved through young adulthood. Lee captured not only the strength he found in his sisters and mother, but also the threatening awe they inspired.

Lee’s memoir continues, up to the point of his household disintegrating as sisters married and he left the confines of the primary school. He presents memorable and well-realized characters along the way, and many times I could image acquaintances stepping in for village residents (with some updates). Small minds, large dreams, endless summers and frigid winters all collide with familiar tensions.

Although the village Lee described reminded me forcefully of one I know well, there was at least one glaring difference that troubled me, Lee and his contemporaries knew their surrounding landscape with the same intimacy as we might know our own backyards. What have we lost, I wonder, in reducing our scale so? How many of us could find our way across even a few fields, through a small wood, or over a hill to reach our destination? Do we have any idea what we would find along the way? I think our disconnection diminishes us, and makes commonplace surroundings seem difficult to understand. Perhaps our personal and community lives would be richer if we experienced a similar connection to our environs. Perhaps we’d also make different choices.

Cider with Rosie is the first book in a trilogy, and I will probably read at least one more book. I don’t know about the third, as he gets older. I’m not a huge fan of young male coming-of-age stories (for Salinger, give me Franny & Zooey over Catcher in the Rye any day), but too often I make up my mind before I should. My next assignment, however is to get cracking in my 1% list. Up next: An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

It's All About the Books

The weather has been uncooperative for the past week, so my hobby time has been dedicated to reading (which is really no surprise, since my reading time is before bed and I'm almost always willing to sacrifice sleep to read into the wee hours). Rain and frequent thunderstorms, combined with a bunny infestation of Watership Down-like proportions has me so far behind in my gardening that I'm now looking at tomatoes and whatever I can get out of a fall cool-weather planting as my only real home-grown produce this year. I have seriously considered learning how to make rabbit snares after everything but the tomatoes was consumed by those damn rabbits. I am frustrated and disappointed by the small scale of my vegetable garden, but I have to remind myself that it is an increase from the total production of absolutely nil from last season. Still, when you start to consider purslane and lamb's quarters from the flower garden as legitimate "veggie" crops, you know you are desperate. Even then, I have to find ways to sneak the wild greens (a.k.a weeds) into my suspicious family. The dogs are not as discriminating, and since we've started making their food again, I've been feeling quite satisfied by my ability to make use of a free and abundant food source.

So what have I been reading, to keep myself sane? I finished the first installment of Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crime series last week, and I have to say I was surprised to find I found the second book in the series to be much better. I've often found that mystery/genre series can suffer from a sophomore slump, but I think the second airing of Jack Spratt et al was much more successful.

I've also moved on to my second 1% Well-Read Challenge choice, Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee. So far I love it, and I look forward to curling up with it tonight. I've also been sequestering my local library's copy of A Grave in Gaza, the second of Matt Beynon Rees' Omar Yussef series. I really should return it, since I don't think I'm going to get to it before it is due, but I can't quite give up hope yet. I loved The Collaborator of Bethlehem, and can't wait to devour the sequel. I may try to also find Cain's Field (you know, for that light summer reading).

Speaking of summer reading, we'll be heading to Maine in the not-so-distant future, and I will have to amass my collection of books to take with me. We'll be visiting my in-laws, and they always have a wonderful collection of books I've been meaning to read. Invariably I haul along 3-4 books, and then read none of them, having spent every spare moment trying to make it through 1-2 of their books before we have to leave. I will also bring more knitting projects than I could possibly finish. I accept this, and hope it will fit in just one bag. I have made no progress on the second half of the Clementine Shawlette, though, and I really should finish that project before moving on to anything more interesting than a dishrag.

So I have my choice of good intentions to follow up on. Different varieties, but all quite tempting. What I have not found time for is sewing, but until Miss T can really walk on her own, I may be out of luck. Either that or the snow needs to fly to get me inside and away from the garden.

1% Well-Read: Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

I’ve put off writing this review for so long, it’s almost shameful. My reticence stems in part, no doubt, from the fact that I didn’t really enjoy Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, my first choice of the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I’m not disappointed, per-se, but what does it say about me that I couldn’t really get into one of my few recent attempts at “real literature,” whatever that might be? Should I just stick to genre fiction? As an inveterate reader of just about anything I can get my hands on and that strikes my fancy, does this mean I am doomed to a constant search for new mystery series or whole sub-genre? Really, the dragon-nautical-fiction, sci-fi, historical-fiction of the Temeraire series is a show-stopper, but how often is that going to happen? And there are only so many “mysteries-set-in-an-Austen-novel” I can read.

But on to Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare. I didn’t like it, but maybe that’s not the point. I can face my failure to appreciate great literature with a little help from wasabi peanuts and a splash of Makers’ Mark. (Yum). In this specific case, I don’t think I can even blame my dislike on the experience of reading in translation. The English-language version of the book reads well, without many awkward moments or areas of oddly imprecise language. The basic elements of my aversion come down to the simplest ones of all for any reader. I didn’t connect with the protagonist, and the story failed to engage me. Oh, there were moments of pure farce and enjoyable lunacy, and in a few of the middle chapters, I started to appreciate Kadare’s very dry wit. One get the sense that this is a man very well acquainted with the absurdities of human nature. Although I risk a rush to judgment based on only this one read of a book I had to make myself finish, I felt Kadare harbors a certain warmth of feeling towards the mostly harmless varieties of our failings. The failures of the State, however, are treated with the cold and damning logic that I suppose they deserve.

I mentioned in a mid-read posting that the structure of the novel was intriguing, with chapters and counter-chapters. I was disappointed that this symmetry didn’t carry through. I will have to read the book again to get a better sense of why the counter-chapters were inserted where they were, and to do that means suffering through the protagonist again, which I’m not sure I’m ready to do. To another reader he may be an everyman, but to me he was tedious. His girlfriend was intriguing, but she was not as fully developed. Perhaps if my main reading time didn’t come between evening household chores and sleep, I might have more patience for a character that irritates me.

Even though I was not swept away by Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, I would like to read more of Kadare’s work. I may try Three Elegies for Kosovo or Agamemnon’s Daughter (or maybe not, I'm not good with angst and men). There’s an interesting article on “retranslation” and Kadare’s work on the complete review. I admit to a fascination with Albania, and I do hope to travel there someday. The references to Albanian folk culture and traditional cultural norms within Spring Flowers, Spring Frost were intriguing. As an aside, when I was reading this book, the New York Times ran a quirky story on the “honorary men” of Albania. In reading Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, I felt I missed important cues, and didn’t know enough about the culture from whence the story sprang to appreciate some of the interplay between past and present, dream and reality. This is my failing as a reader, and not that of the author or the book.

So, my first excursion into the 1% Well-Read Challenge was not an unmitigated success. However, it did give me more to think about than my average reading these days, and I appreciate the value in that. It’s not called a “challenge” for nothing.

Scratch That Thought

Since I can't seem to get Small Remedies through my regional library system, and I'm on a book (and yarn & fabric & cookbook) diet, I guess I'll move on to a new selection for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I'll come back to Small Remedies, but for now, I've placed a hold on Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee. Sounds folksy, and I could use folksy right now. Can you tell I often pick a book by its cover? We'll see if my faith in the folksy integrity of anything having to do with "cider" is misplaced.

A summer cold is slowly turning my brain to mush. Hopefully I can lie down at home, and just have the kids crawl on me.

Starting at the Beginning

On my way home tonight I need to stop by our local library (to which I could compose an ode, if I had any poetic talent whatsoever), and pick up Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare. It is the first book on my 1% Well-Read Challenge list, and I thought that I might as well just jump in and start at the top. For those linear-thinkers amongst us, perhaps my blog post title is inaccurate, since starting at the beginning would probably be Sister Carrie, but I'm just not feeling like embarking on a bit of Dreiser right now. I'm finishing Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia, and gave up hope last week on My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. I almost never give up on a book already started, but I couldn't do this one, and I'm pretty sure I'd already attempted it once. I think it was the narrative in the first person that did me in (a rich comment coming from a blogger!). I didn't dislike it ... I just couldn't keep up with the changes in narrator. I'll put it on the "try again" list, where hopefully the third time is the charm. Perhaps when my brain isn't already taxed by wrangling two young children.

At the other end of the spectrum, for the second time I am facing a wrapping up, an ending of sorts. As a working and breastfeeding mom, I've become very good friends with my pump, an Avent Isis Iq Duo this time around. Oh, the many times I have cursed its existence! However, now that Miss T is over a year old, I can stop. But oddly enough ... I can't stop. I have a very hard time dropping the pumping, and not just for the restful breaks in my cave of an office with the soothing "whoosh-whoosh" of a breast pump as background noise. (I actually had a dairy farmer ask me if I was near a milking machine when I was using a hands-free pump and speaking on the telephone the last time around. I told him that indeed, I was. Surprise!) Breastfeeding is something my body has actually done well, and while I never try to rub that in, I do take a certain small amount of pride in sticking with it. But Miss T really needs to move on to other sources of nutrition, and I need every extra minute in my work day. So I'm trying to cut back to just once a day, and some day, I will drop that session as well. Perhaps its harder this time because I am so conflicted about stopping at two children. That decision isn't tied to this one, but it is one more step away from the baby stage in my life. Ah well, nothing lasts forever.