Saturday, November 29, 2008

Pumpkin Pie and Indignation

I'm writing this entry during Thanksgiving weekend, and I'd like to take a shot at linking that holiday with, of all things, Philip Roth's newest book, "Indignation." Bear with me here.

I remember reading some pop/psych editorial piece (Psychology Today? Yahoo? NY Times?) a few years ago which addressed the phenomenon of the "College Freshman Catharsis" that occurs over Thanksgiving tables across the USA each year. You may not be familiar with the phrase, but I'll bet you've experienced the event in one capacity or another.

Freed from the orthodox constraints of home, and exposed to the liberating charms of self expression and independent thinking that are part of college life, a lot of freshman students return home each year for the Thanksgiving holiday with new beliefs and opinions that are bound to invite contention from Mom and Dad. The worst shock, of course, is reserved for those parents who successfully smothered any incipient "misbehavior" from their child during the high school years. Woe be unto them.

An uneasy détente is usually maintained during the Thanksgiving prayer (rolled eyeballs from the returning freshman notwithstanding), but sometime before the pumpkin pie is served, tempers flare when the returning guest of honor calmly informs the table that she supports gay marriage, has become a Buddhist, and is sleeping with her new boyfriend (a tattooed vegan).

Roth's book is a deeply serious one, and I don't mean to make light of its narrative. The book's protagonist, Marcus Messner, is experiencing the painful aspects of young college life. Driven to exasperation by his father's constant supervision and overly protective paranoia (Have you been drinking? Have you edited your paper yet? When will you be home?) Marcus has fled his local city college in Newark, New Jersey to attend a pastoral college in faraway Winesburg, Ohio. The year is 1951, and Marcus' continuing education is essential if he is to avoid being drafted and shipped off to Korea (his father's ultimate nightmare).

The acute sexual ambivalence that Marcus experiences at Winesburg would seem odd to today's college student. He is wildly attracted to the lovely and mysterious Olivia, but he suspects there must be something damaged about her when she willingly accepts his physical advances. Her unexpected gift of oral expertise creates a queasy mix of shock, euphoria, and disgust in Marcus that shakes him to the core and leaves him to conclude that she must be a psychological victim of her parents' divorce (a rare event in those days).

On all other fronts, however, Marcus' struggles resonate with those of today's undergraduate. He looks back fondly at his childhood years spent helping his father at the family butcher shop, where his blue collar father taught him the dignity of hard work and the value of committed effort, even in the face of despicable tasks. "That's what I learned from my father and what I loved learning from him: that you do what you have to do." College widens Marcus' view, however, and opens his eyes to the myopic parameters of his parents' world. His father chides him into improving a class paper without ever haven written one himself, while his long suffering mother desperately wishes "the best" for him without the slightest idea of what "the best" might be in a world outside of Newark. Marcus' frustration at his parents' inability to absorb new ideas or take a broader view of the world is surpassed only by his frustration at their inability to perceive their benighted state in the first place.

Marcus is forced to deal with class issues (he works as a waiter at the college inn taproom, with socially toxic consequences), disastrous roommate situations (he is too sexually naive to realize that Flusser, his abrasive and verbally abusive suitemate, is desperately attracted to him), and thwarted attempts to reinvent himself (Dean Caudwell pointedly asks Marcus why he put "butcher" down as his father's occupation instead of "kosher butcher.")

Above all else, however, Marcus' story conveys the white hot indignation that occurs when a young person's budding conviction about the way things should be in an ideal world conflicts with the arbitrary and ridiculous demands of reality. Marcus is outraged that his own father has so totally misjudged his character as to suspect that Marcus may become an alcoholic or engage in barroom fights. He is furious that his fellow students treat him with contempt and suspicion because he works at the college inn taproom and refuses to join a fraternity (not even the "lame" one). He is incensed by Dean Caudwell's ridiculous assumption that he must be psychologically unbalanced because he prefers to live alone in an attic dorm room. As a matter of fact, he is incensed by Caudwell's power to call him into the dean's office at all; as long as Marcus is a good student, why must he endure Caudwell's prying inquiries into his private life in the first place? Marcus is also driven to distraction by his mother's narrow, single-minded perception of Olivia; once she observes the healed cut marks on Olivia's wrists, she is blind to any other input -- Olivia may as well not have a head.

Marcus' indignation reaches a breaking point when he is forced to attend Sunday worship services at the college chapel as part of his graduation requirement. Not content to pay someone to attend the service and sign the attendance record for him (as many students do), he goes head to head with Dean Caudwell on the issue, armed with a inflamed sense of injustice and quotes from Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian." Marcus' sense of righteous fury in all of these situations is heightened by his firm belief (correct or incorrect) that everyone he opposes is clearly less enlightened than he is. Marcus' passion of conviction is both heroic and tragic; it simultaneously serves as the catalyst of his selfhood and his self destruction.


"Indignation" is a short book -- one or two nights of reading at the most -- and despite some of the details that I've mentioned above, I haven't really ruined the plot line, which contains some shocking twists. It's well worth the time.

Happy reading, and may all of your Thanksgivings be memorable.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Kate Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?"

I've never been a fan of the kind of paperback murder mysteries that fill the shelves of airport gift shops like so many king-sized Snicker bars. Even the best page-turners in this genre seem to bear a formulaic, commoditized quality that is surpassed only by the prepackaged peanuts that their readers will soon be munching in flight. In both cases (the books and the peanuts), the product is consumed because it offers a momentary diversion, but the long term effects aren't particularly gratifying.

I knew Kate Atkinson's work rose above the average murder mystery when I stumbled upon her first book in that genre, entitled "Case Histories." I was browsing the shelves of my library, picked up the book on a whim (interesting cover), and was hooked after reading the first three pages. Ms. Atkinson's writing had a tart and quirky edge to it that I hadn't encountered before, and I finished the book in about two days. When friends asked me why I was recommending it, I could only say that they had to read it for themselves. Her second book in the series, "One Good Turn," didn't impress me quite as much as her first, and I was anxious to see what her third installment would have to offer.

"When Will There Be Good News" was worth the wait. The book begins with a horrific crime that is presented to the reader in typical Atkinson style. The reader is gently pulled into the narrative by a comfortable depiction of everyday domesticity: A harried mother gets off a country bus with her three children and the family dog. The summer day is hot, the children are flushed and sticky, and the baby stroller is stubbornly resisting every rut in the deserted lane as the family slowly trudges home from the market. Bees buzz, grocery bags are juggled, the children chatter and argue over who is in charge of the dog, and then . . . the unthinkable.

As usual, Atkinson intertwines the crime and its aftermath with several other narrative threads that collide and twist together in amazing ways. The lives of Jackson Brodie, Brodie's former love interest Louise, an orphaned 16-year old girl named Reggie, and the sole surviving victim of the crime described in the book's first chapter intersect in a series of unlikely coincidences that keep the reader guessing until the end.

Atkinson's mordant humor has a dark quality that invites comparison with Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket (a series of unfortunate events for adults, if you will). Every character in "When Will There Be Good News" has loved someone who died in a brutal or sinister way, and almost all of the adults have made disastrous domestic choices that can only lead to tears (if not worse). And yet, a spirit of feisty resistance against despair infuses Atkinson's work: Reggie, a cheeky little scrapper who has seen the worst that blind chance can dole out, is determined to worm her way into a new "adoptive" family; Jackson, bruised and battered by multiple romantic disasters in the past, is nevertheless ready to take his chances again if opportunity knocks.

The resilient "carry on" attitude of Atkinson's characters helps to counterbalance the malevolent twists of fate that they encounter, and the result is unusually engaging.

Atkinson's books are especially appealing to American readers who prefer a heavy dose of UK atmosphere in their fiction. Reggie's diet (crisps, digestive biscuits, and chocolate wafers), Louise's unwitting connection to some dodgy real estate schemes (we're talking Glaswegian underworld types here), and many other details (inadequate space heaters, Pakistani convenience stores, etc.) make for a convincing tour of the rough northern uplands.

The last chapter of "When Will There Be Good News" leaves the reader eager to discover what course Jackson's life will take next. I'm already awaiting Atkinson's next installment.

Note: If you like the Jackson Brody series, you should also read Kate Atkinson's first book, "Behind the Scenes At the Museum," winner of the 1995 Whitbread Award. It's hilarious.