Flotsam and Jetsam

I usually like to write around a central theme, and there isn't one to be had today. However, as Obama has recently stated, we shouldn't "let the perfect be the enemy of the good," so I'm going to relax and ramble a bit. Here goes:

The Problem with Historical Fiction

I finished reading Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank" two days ago and I'd like to give the novel a qualified thumbs up. Why the qualification? Let me explain.

A novel that is loosely historical and extremely well written can be highly successful. The book's page-turning story captivates readers, who learn a little about the time period involved without concerning themselves with the literal accuracy of each event and conversation that is articulated from page to page. Horan's novel, however, is more than "loosely historical." Horan is a journalist by trade, and the book smacks of fact-based veritas. As for her writing, it's solid, but I wouldn't rate it as an exceptional piece of literary prose.

Ultimately, therefore, "Loving Frank" ends up in a perplexing "literary limbo." You pick up the book because you want to learn more about Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah (pronounced May-muh) Cheney, but the book isn't really a biography -- it's marketed as fiction heavily interspersed with facts (but which is which?). Conversely, if the book is truly a work of literary fiction, you expect more writing skill from the author. (You don't expect an official biography to be filled with lush prose or page-turning sizzle, but you do expect such characteristics to be present in outstanding fiction.)

Nonetheless, I recommend Horan's book for the insight it provides into the societal restrictions, changing mores and competing lifestyles that were fighting for legitimacy at the beginning of the 20th century.

Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting With Jesus:"

Joe Bageant focuses an uncompromising lens on "his people," the white working poor of Winchester, Virginia, and ends up producing a book that is both a scathing send-up and a loving tribute to his family, friends and neighbors in that neck of the woods.

Bageant doesn't pull any punches: "Here, nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems, credit ratings rarely top 500, and alcohol, Jesus, and overeating are the three preferred avenues of escape." He calls it as he sees it, even at the risk of straining family ties. Joe's brother is a Baptist pastor who claims to cast out demons, but that doesn't stop Joe from writing that "The 2008 elections, regardless of the outcome, will not change the fact that millions of Americans are under the spell of an extraordinarily dangerous mass psychosis [religion]."

None of these people ever had a fighting chance to achieve the American Dream, and yet they are its most enthusiastic, bellicose, flag-waving proponents. Every November, they proudly march to the ballot box and vote for the very policies that will push them further into debt, poverty, and ignorance. Bageant warns that neocon operatives "understand that the four cornerstones of the American political psyche are (1) emotion substituted for thought, (2) fear, (3) ignorance, and (4) propaganda." Grossly substandard public schools, shameful health "care," parochial resistance to progressive ideas and independent thinking, unconscionable lending practices, and the "Jesus palliative" all contribute to tragically squandered lives that the rest of us ignore at our own risk.

Bageant's political views and conceptions of reality couldn't diverge more from those of his Winchester neighbors, but the depth of his compassion and empathy for the plight of these "invisible victims" as he relates their personal stories will make you want to cry. Anyone who has ever recoiled at the thought of NASCAR, tent revivals, or the NRA should read this book. How can you contemplate the experience of a man who performs forty years of physically debilitating menial work without complaint, cherishes a "dream" of someday owning a prefabricated modular home in a former industrial park, and goes home each night to a wife on oxygen support (asbestos lung), and then proceed to mock him for going out and popping a few raccoons in the butt over the weekend for a momentary distraction? I'm telling you, this book will change your perceptions, and you'll be the better for it.

Endangered Pleasures, by Barbara Holland

The sybaritic subtitle of this book hooked me in like a bigmouth bass: "In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences." Other pleasures covered by Ms. Holland include bare feet, coffee, staying in, and undressing (for comfort, not sex -- think flannel bathrobe).

I have to quote a passage from her piece on "Happy Hour." If it doesn't make you want to bolt from your office chair and head for the nearest watering hole, I'm sorry for everyone involved:

"For the perfect happy hour, it should be summer, blistering hot, the street clogged with ill-tempered rush-hour traffic and the melting asphalt soft underfoot. Our workday should have been frantic but ultimately successful. After the glare outside, the bar should be almost pitch dark, icily air conditioned and smell of black leather banquettes, and we should be meeting someone there . . . Then, knees touching, neck muscles relaxing, brows drying in the cold dry air, we should drink. Certain things were put upon the earth for our enjoyment, and it's wasteful and wicked to contemn them."

Bravo, Ms. Holland.

A Note On the Origin of the Phrase "Flotsam and Jetsam."

It struck me as odd that these two nouns never stand on their own, so I decided to get to the bottom of the matter by visiting a UK website called "The Phrase Finder." (Warning: this site can become addictive if you are of a wordy disposition).

Flotsam and jetsam are indeed distinct things: flotsam are those items (natural and manmade) which float and bob on the surface of the water as a consequence of the action of the sea (floatsom, get it?); jetsam are those items which have been intentionally jettisoned into the water by a ship's crew (of course, they may float, too). Apparently these two words were traditionally used in conjunction with a third term, lagan, which denoted goods or wreckage at the bottom of the sea. Lagan was rudely booted out of bed by flotsam and jetsam in the early 1800's, never to gain egress again.

If You Read Only One Book This Summer . . .

Most avid readers, if they are lucky, encounter two or three books a year that they simply cannot put down. You know the kind of book I'm talking about. It is usually discovered through sheer serendipity -- a friend's casual suggestion, a snippet in the NY Times, a title that sticks in your mind -- and after reading the first few pages, you throw over life's distractions (grocery shopping, oil changes, sleeping) and dive into the book like there's no tomorrow. You're mesmerized, and the only debate is whether to ration your literary feast or devour the book all at once with the sloppy gusto of a mule eating an apple.

I've just finished a week-long affair with "Child 44" by Tom Rob Smith, and I'm prepared to crown it as my summer reading standout for 2008. "Child 44" is a murder mystery set in the cold environs of Stalin's Soviet Union. The novel is a winner on three fronts: it has the page-turning quality of a compelling police procedural novel; its descriptive prose immerses the reader in a sensory sea of Soviet life, complete with grey weather, grey expectations, and grey housing blocks; and the interpersonal relationships in the novel are explored with literary depth and insight.

Leo Demidov is the golden boy of the USSR's State Security Force ("MGB"). He has a beautiful wife, a luxurious Moscow apartment, and a future that is as secure as can be hoped for in a society in which the slightest misstep -- the slightest rumor of nonconformity -- can destroy a comrade's life overnight. Demidov is under pressure to solve a delicate problem: a murdered child has turned up in his neighborhood, but murders are not supposed to occur in Stalin's USSR, a paradise where all citizens are supposed to live free from the fear of crime. Demidov must diffuse the situation, and quickly. The MGB is rife with backbiters, and Demidov's enemies are more than happy to see how he will wiggle his way out of this one.

The murders begin to mount up, and the bizarre, twisted way in which the young victims were killed points to the work of a madman. The confounding nature of the crimes, speculation as to the nature of the killer, and several well-placed clues and surprises enhance the page-turning quality of the novel, but that is only part of this book's charm.

The author's exploration of Demidov's evolving relationship with his wife, Raisa, as he gradually loses his "golden boy" status and questions everything he has based his career upon, is masterful. (Tidbits for thought: How much can any woman love a man who has the power to extinguish her future at will? How far can spouses be expected to go in order to save their own lives, each at the expense of the other? Why do they, or don't they?).

In addition, the book is a psychological and sensory primer on what it must have been like to live in the USSR under Stalin's rule. Smith writes in such a way as to make the reader experience the paranoia of being "found out" by one's neighbors and reported as an enemy of the state. He explains the Kafkaesque nature of the criminal justice system (all accusations of crime are fatal -- the accusation itself is decisive, since the Soviet system is perfect, and in a perfect system, there are no false accusations, etc.). Similarly, Smith's writing conveys the smell of a two-room apartment occupied by twelve people and twelve pairs of perpetually moist, slush-infused shoes with a verity that will send you to the window for a breath of air.

Smith's prose is also a powerful component of his book's success. I dare you to read the first sixteen pages of the book without reading more. If you read only one book for pleasure this summer, read this one.

More Deaths in Cold Climates:

If you enjoy this book's combination of page-turning suspense, psychological exploration, sense of place, and overall literary merit, I suggest three other novels: "Smilla's Sense of Snow," by Peter Hoeg; "The Yiddish Policeman's Union," by Michael Chabon, and "Gorky Park," by Martin Cruz Smith. I invite other readers to add to this list.

Barbara Cartland Can Save Your Life

A few months ago, I decided to make use of the "dead" time I was spending in my car by listening to a recorded version of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir, "Infidel."

Ayaan is an exceptional woman. Born into a traditional Islamic family in rural Somalia, her remarkable intelligence, strength, and stubborn independence enabled her to endure and ultimately overcome the sexist limitations and indignities inflicted upon her as a girl and young woman growing up in Africa and Saudi Arabia. She eventually escaped to the West (and I do mean escape -- she had to "jump ship" in Amsterdam en route to an arranged marriage), and currently lives in the United States. I highly recommend her book to anyone who wants a forthright, firsthand account of one woman's experience with Islamic fundamentalism.

Where does Barbara Cartland fit into this picture? Ayaan's book discloses that a virtual "black market" in Western romance novels existed among her teenage girlfriends. I like to imagine well-thumbed paperbacks with titles like "Highland Lover" and "My Naughty Marquis" being passed from burqa to burqa like so much contraband hashish. Even established classics like "Jane Eyre" and "Emma" were carefully concealed and read with furtive interest (and astonishment!) by girls in the chancy privacy of their bedrooms.

Most people I know don't hold paperback romance novels up as a paradigm of women's liberation. The heroines usually have matrimony and motherhood on the brain and aren't above scheming to achieve their goals. Most of them are described (in painstaking detail) as beautiful, although the beauty is frequently labeled as "unconventional" (a nod, I suppose, to broadmindedness). The men are frequently characterized as commanding, arrogant, and brutishly virile. Even good literature is a product of its time, and few women today would publicly own up to the matrimonial campaigning and feminine subterfuge contained in Jane Austen's works.

Ah, but we take so much for granted. These fictional women may appear hopelessly "retro" to us, but imagine their effect on young girls boxed into orthodox fundamentalism. Jane, Emma and Desiree must seem like creatures from another universe. They are opinionated and smart. They address men directly, and initiate conversations in public without a second thought. They venture into the public square without male supervision. It is obvious that they are not enshrouded from head to toe, and yet they survive the day without being stoned or bringing shame upon their family. They frequently disagree with their parents, elders, and suitors and yet they suffer no lasting punishment for it. They have firm opinions about those with whom they are willing to spend the rest of their lives. They smile at ridiculous homilies in their minister's Sunday sermon. They are not at all inclined to spend a life of unending submission, suffering, and self-sacrifice in the hope of a post-mortal existence in which they will be rewarded for their pains.

These kinds of books provided Ayaan with the first inkling that another way of life existed, and that it was being experienced by a great number of girls and women, currently, on this very planet. Knowledge is a powerful thing. Infinite possibilities began to present themselves to her. She began to doubt the justice of her current circumstance, and the infallibility of the tenets she had been raised with. In many ways, her journey to freedom could not have begun without those tattered paperbacks passed back and forth between giggling schoolgirls.

Ironically, Ayaan's flight to freedom has been compromised by constant death threats due to -- you guessed it -- the publication of her book. Those who pursue her aren't delusional in one respect: they know that ideas are dangerous things. Books are powerful. Barbara Cartland can save your life.

Nonfiction: Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose

In an effort to clean out my current backlog of books (see my post, 6/30/2008), I've finished reading two nonfiction books in the past week. My conclusion: one thumbs up, one thumbs down.

"The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead" by David Shields

This book was spectacularly depressing. I know, I know -- with a title like that, what did I expect? In my defense, I thought that the name of the book was the kind of tongue-in-cheek title that denotes a book of wry and witty essays about a traditionally sobering subject, a la Nora Ephron's "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman." Wrong.

I should have known better after reading some of the book's chapter headings ("Our Birth Is Nothing but Our Death Begun," "Decline and Fall," "Paradise, Soon Lost" . . . ), and Shield's use of a quote from Schopenhauer: "Just as we know our walking to be only a constantly prevented falling, so is the life of our body only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-deferred death."

Nonetheless, I slogged through this book to the bitter end (no pun intended), fruitlessly seeking some redemptive ray of hope. I did gather some interesting factoids along the way (did you know that when you're born, taste buds cover your entire mouth -- including your throat and the underside of your tongue -- or that from ages 11 to 16, boys' testosterone levels increase 20-fold?), but I can't recommend this book unless the prospective reader enjoys despondence. Even the book's "hero" -- the author's father, who has lived an amazingly healthy, vital life into his 90's -- eventually succumbs to vacant inertia as he awaits the inevitable knock on the door from The Reaper. Spare me.

"Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions," by Dan Ariely

Ariely's book, a New York Times bestseller, strikes a nice balance between respectable reportage of scientific research and "pop-psych readability." Each chapter is self-contained and deals with an irrational aspect of the human psyche that nonetheless dictates many of our daily decisions. What an eye-opener!

Ariely deals with such topics as the power of "free" (Quick! Which would you prefer at a shopping mall kiosk: a free $10 Amazon certificate or a $20 Amazon certificate in exchange for $8?), the "price" of social norms (lawyers are much more likely to participate in a program that offers free services to indigents than they are to participate in a program that offers the same services to indigents for a reduced fee), and the effects of sexual arousal on moral decision making (in one study, college men who filled out a questionnaire while in an aroused state were five times more likely to report that they would "consider" drugging a date in order to obtain sex than those men who filled out the same questionnaire in a composed state).

Besides being entertaining, the book has important social and personal implications (sex survey, above, duly noted). Imagine harnessing the power of "free" to improve public health and the environment by offering free registration and inspection for hybrid cars; free physical exams at set intervals; free weight loss clinics, etc. It's also good to acknowledge that most people are so adverse to losing an option that they will do almost anything to hang onto it, even to their obvious detriment (think personal relationships here . . . ), and that the emotion of "ownership" almost always causes the owner to inflate the value of the owned object (face it, your VW van holds a lot of fond memories, but you need to sell it at market value -- your neighbors are tired of looking at that heap).

Incidentally, the book also reports an experiment in which college students who completed a scrambled-sentence task containing words that suggested old age ("bingo," "ancient," "bifocals," etc.) exited the testing site more slowly than those students who performed a similar task with neutral words. This is yet another reason not to read "The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead." You may be unable to summon the energy necessary to rise from your Rascal (oops -- chair).

The 1950's: America's Golden Decade? For Some, Not So Much

If you're looking for a short, atmospheric novel to read this summer, I recommend Andrew Greer's latest book, "The Story of a Marriage," which recounts the story of one family's domestic crisis in post-WWII California, 1953.

Greer's tale, which follows the lives of the Cook family (Pearl, Holland, and their young toddler, Sonny) as they settle into the newly developed Sunset district of San Francisco, contains several well-placed surprises that I won't give away here. In the course of the story, the author makes it abundantly clear that the 1950's appear "golden" only if they are viewed through the rosy lens of selective memory. If you enjoyed membership in a favored class -- white, politically orthodox, and heterosexual -- the decade had its high points. Otherwise, not so much.

Greer weaves the darker threads of the 50's -- polio outbreaks, communist witch hunts, the Korean War, and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation -- into his story with language that is evocative, yet understated. He is at his best when he addresses societal restrictions that suppressed personal freedom and dignity. Pearl and Holland live in a world where elegant grandmothers in their Sunday hats, eager to celebrate a special occasion, must request directions to the "special area" of the tea room reserved for blacks. Gay men are rounded up in private club raids and imprisoned for criminal indecency. Interracial couples must assess when and where they can be seen in public without risking physical injury. Conscientious objectors and draft dodgers are run out of their hometowns and forced to relocate in order to reclaim any semblance of a normal life. Next door neighbors spy on each other and suppress their political opinions. Unhappy wives and husbands consider clandestine murder as a preferable alternative to the public shame of a divorce. A repressed blanket of desperation smothers Pearl and Holland's suburban neighborhood as thoroughly as the fog that rolls in from San Francisco Bay each morning.

As indicated by the book's title, Pearl and Holland's marriage crisis forms the crux of the novel. Pearl, Holland, and some integral third parties are all casting about for some measure of freedom, some unfettered definition of their own personhood, throughout the book. Although the novel is written in Pearl's voice, I think that Greer's depiction of Holland's internal struggle offers the more subtle and deep exploration of human nature. Holland is portrayed as a handsome man -- the stunning kind of "handsome" that necessarily affects every aspect of his existence. It is his gift, and his curse. Greer writes (in Pearl's voice): "By being what everyone wanted him to be -- being the husband, the flirt, the beautiful object, and the lover -- by pleasing us all in giving us his gracious smile, he had tortured each of us when it did not turn our way. Beauty is forgiven everything except its absence from our lives, and the effort to return all loves at once must have broken him."

Other characters in the novel seem to have some idea of who they want to be and how they want to escape the box that the mid-20th century has constructed around them. Holland, on the other hand, has lost all sense of himself after years of existing as no more than a mirror image of other people's desires. Everyone has attempted to employ his beauty and use it to actualize their own "dream narrative." He has been a chameleon for so long that he is hard pressed to know his own heart's desire, and the choice he eventually makes may surprise you.

This is a good book on many levels -- I recommend it.

Anne Enright's "The Gathering"

I finished reading Anne Enright's "The Gathering," winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2007, last week. Since previous winners of this major literary prize, which is rewarded annually to a full-length novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland, have included "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai, "The Sea" by John Banville (one of my favorite books of all time), and "The Line of Beauty" by Alan Hollinghurst, my expectations for Enright's novel were high.

I confess that my initial reaction was tepid. Enright's writing is engaging, lyrical, and thought-provoking, but the subject matter itself kept prompting me to indulge a peevish desire to shout "Oh, get over it, for God's sake!" The story contains all of the classic elements of the "dysfunctional Irish family memoir:" too many children, too little space, exhausted parents, alcoholism, suppressed sexual memories, suicide, family rivalries and secrets, untimely deaths, and a jigger of vaguely malevolent Catholicism for good measure.

Since the main character of the book appears to have escaped her childhood situation unscathed -- she is financially secure, healthy, married to a decent husband, and the mother of two delightful girls -- I couldn't help but wonder why she would choose to immerse herself in negative memories. ("Stop picking at that scab," as my mother always said, "or it will never get better.")

I decided to give Enright's novel a second chance after listening to an engaging interview with her about her book (find it HERE). The novel begins as Veronica Hegarty prepares to accompany the body of her beloved but hapless brother, Liam, to Ireland for burial. Liam's death was a suicide -- he walked into the sea near Brighton -- and the shock of the event has propelled 39-year-old Veronica into a kaleidoscopic quandary regarding her childhood past, her troubled family, the mysteries of love, and a burgeoning midlife crisis.

During the course of Enright's interview, she states that the natural consequence of a crisis is the universal urge to somehow "make sense of it all." This is accomplished by using our memory (an elusive and faulty tool at best), imagination and creativity to fashion a narrative that explains, if not justifies, a tragedy. All of Liam's nine surviving siblings are shocked by his passing, but Veronica bears a unique burden. She was Liam's closest friend and confidant, and she believes she witnessed an event in their shared past that could explain Liam's alcoholism and mental decline -- an event that she has suppressed and shared with no one for decades. The narrative that she fashions to "make sense of it all" is dark, beautifully rendered, and full of contradictions that she must acknowledge and grapple with before she can embrace her future.

Enright's brutally honest exposition of Veronica's conflicted emotions carried the book for me. Veronica loves her siblings, but at the same time, she will never forgive her parents for having so many children. She is devastated that Liam is dead, but she is also relieved. She mythologizes her beautiful grandmother, Ada, but she also longs to point a finger of blame at her. She loves her mother -- a woman who became successively "vaguer" with each of the twelve children and seven miscarriages she endured -- but at the same time she hates her for being so compliant, so willing to lose herself in her family. Veronica loves her husband and two daughters, but she wants to escape them, too. She knows them intimately, and yet fears they are complete strangers. These internal battles strike a chord with any reader who is capable of honest self examination, and Enright's prose peels the skin of this human predicament with exceeding skill.

Enright also explores the conflicts inherent in desire: it can be glorious, it can be destructively naive, it can be actively evil. There are as many varieties of desire as there are kinds of people, and Enright understands that we are often powerless to choose the people we are swept together with in the stream of life, be they our family, our friends, or our lovers. They happen. They just are.

In retrospect, this was a good book, especially upon a second reading.

Book Lover's Attention Deficit Disorder: So Many Books, So Little Time

I haven't posted in over a month and I'm laying the blame squarely on a disorder that catches up with all avid readers sooner or later. I like to call it "Literary ADD," and it's driving me crazy.

My job submerges me in a sea of books, books about books, blogs about books, and any number of related blurbs about books, day in and day out. Suddenly, after years of thoughtful and well-paced book consumption, I've lost all sense of self control and selectivity in my personal reading habits. I'm like an acquisitive chimpanzee in a room full of bright and shiny objects. The resulting stockpile of borrowed books on, under and behind my bedside table has grown to insane proportions. As soon as I open one book, I begin weighing the relative merits of an alternative choice. I switch books. After three pages, I hesitate, and decide that the alternative book doesn't quite fit my mood for the evening. I switch books again. The new book is good, but it's going to require a lot of concentration. I stare restlessly at the hill of books. I love them all! I must read them all! I sigh and turn on the television. Obviously, something's gotta give.

What's to be done about the delicious, but maddening, cornucopia of books at my fingertips? I haven't encountered this paralyzing blend of infinite choice and limited time since my parents plopped me down inside the gates of Disneyland and told me to "go for it," with the proviso that we would be leaving promptly at 5 p.m. for dinner and a sensible bedtime.

Several options have occurred to me:

1. Read more frequently.

This is out of the question if I want to live in reasonably hygienic surroundings and engage in any semblance of normal social life.

2. Read faster.

I've decided that this is ultimately unsatisfying. It defeats the very purpose of recreational and/or "deep" reading. I had to master the art of speed reading in order to survive law school, and it has taken me years to shake off the nasty habit of racing through text like a scholastic sprinter, mercilessly scanning each paragraph in search of the "take away point." Speed reading is the equivalent of taking one of those twelve-day "Highlights of Europe" package tours. You know for a fact that you were in Luxembourg on Wednesday, but all you can remember is that you had heartburn after lunch.

3. Read fewer, but better, books.

There are numerous readers' advisory sources that will recommend the best new books of the month, Critics' Top Ten of the Year, The Best 25 Books of the New Century, The Classic 100, etc. At first blush, this seems like a reasonable strategy for winnowing your reading list into a manageable, select collection. Don't be fooled. I can tell you from recent experience that these sources will exacerbate the problem.

To begin with, if you discover that a book is listed as one of the "100 Best Books of the Century," how can you NOT read it? Don't you owe it to yourself to at least check it out? Come to think of it, shouldn't you read all 100 in the interest of thorough edification? And what about book number 101? Is it really that less worthy of your time than book 100? You can't win this game.

Secondly, many of the shorter lists contain a brief, glowing description of the book which justifies why the critics think it is a must-read. These snippets are frequently so tantalizing that they compel you to explore a book that you initially considered to be easily dispensable in the interest of efficiency. This (and the fact that I'm totally out of control) explains why I seriously considered adding "Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, A Scientist, and a Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Creature" to an already bloated list of must-reads. (Don't get me wrong -- I think Tim Flannery is a fantastic science writer, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I can't spend them chasing kangaroos, even if his book made the "Best 10 Science Books of 2007" list, etc.)

Finally, readers' advisory sources are so varied and bounteous that they themselves have become unmanageable -- thus the advent of websites with names like "The Review of Reviews." It never ends.

4. Throw everything out, start from scratch, and hope for the best.

Within the course of this week, I'm going to return all of my borrowed books. All of them. Period. Out of sight, out of mind, just like spooning the last half of that chocolate cake down the disposal. Next, I'm going to form a "reading plan" and pursue it in depth. More about this in a future blog post. All I'm willing to divulge at this point is that the plan involves limiting my bedside book cache to a maximum of three fiction books and three nonfiction books at any given time. Sigh. Wish me luck.