Monday, September 24, 2018

Quicksand by Nella Larsen (1928)

A biracial woman attempts to establish her identity in the South, in Harlem, and in Denmark, believing she can't endure in any world.

Book Review: Quicksand tells of an educated young woman, Helga Crane, who knows she isn't white, but believes she can't live within the black middle class ("why ... should she be yoked to these despised black folk"). She identifies more with the black world ("She hated white people with a deep and burning hatred ..."), perhaps because of how's she's perceived or the ubiquity of the one-drop rule: Helga Crane (and Larsen?) has bought into the dominant paradigm (race as a social construct). She's unhappy, self-loathing, she doesn't fit. Her unhappiness has made her a prickly and difficult person, self-destructive, which contributes to her inability to find a home anywhere. Upon leaving the U.S. she has a "blessed sense of belonging to herself alone and not to a race," like "a released bird." Ultimately, Quicksand is not a hopeful book, suggesting that there are too many pitfalls along the way of finding her identity, both racially, within a class ("very few Negroes of the better class have children ..."), or as a woman. All is disappointment. Unendurable. In a fit of pique Crane leaps into an uncertain future. Although the options for the multiracial are different today, Quicksand still has much that is valuable to share about identity, and Larsen digs deep into the complex character of Helga Crane. What she wanted was to live in both worlds, rather than trying to fit into only one.  [4★]

Friday, September 21, 2018

Look at Me by Jennifer Egan (2001)

A woman and a girl, both named Charlotte, encounter the same mysterious man who changes lives.

Book Review: Look at Me is clever, engaging, complex. An amazingly quick 500 plus pages. Clearly literary fiction, it aims even higher. Well written, Jennifer Egan's sentences are  worked like filigree. When a girl tried on her first adult dress, her younger sister "eyed the dress warily, as if knowing that it portended her neglect." "When she thought of herself a year ago she remembered a girl flush with outsized hopes. Charlotte hated her." Egan works hard at her words and sentences, with an extensive vocabulary that at times can be too extensive or too awkward for her characters. The plot is absorbing and intriguing, but also occasionally flawed, too implausible and coincidental to give it the same weight that her writing earns. Still, I read Look at Me relentlessly. There are several significant characters, which can become confusing if read in only one and two hour blocks. These are challenging characters; I'm unsure whether the author intended for them all to be "real" or allusive, but they're (mostly) all compelling. Look at Me raises significant issues, of a world where the importance of things has been lost to the importance of information, "the inversion of a thing"; where history is less meaningful than self-discovery, "personal history," and the exaltation of "identity." A world "without history or context or meaning ... because we are what we see." "The terrible acceleration of human history, combustive, exterminating, violent and blind." If this sounds like a world that "will end with fire," you're on the right track. For a book written before 9/11, Egan anticipates many developments and events (elements of terrorism, pictures of climate change, the power of social media, even the ubiquity of celebrity fragrances) that came after that key moment. For such a prescient book, I'm not sure why Look at Me seems forgotten. Egan is masterful at the elements of a story, though making them all coalesce at the end is difficult.  [3½★]

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

A Good Comb by Muriel Spark (2018)

A short collection of quotes excerpted from Muriel Spark's fiction (such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), demonstrating her keen intelligence, precise writing, and rigorous insight.

Book Review: A Good Comb is the perfect gift for the Muriel Spark fan in your life. It was affectionately released by New Directions to celebrate the centenary of her birth. Subtitled The Sayings of Muriel Spark, and edited by Penelope Jardine, A Good Comb contains the same distinct Spark vibe of all her writing. The collection may not be for everybody, and may be a wee bit more difficult to absorb unless the reader has devoured two or three of her novels. Her prickly intelligence and hopeful cynicism are like no one else. Her clear-eyed focus on religion is unique in itself (she may be a believer, but she's skeptical of that belief). For those who love Spark's gem-like writing as I do, it's a wonderful gift, even if I bought it for myself. The selection is divided into categories, such as "Writing," "Sex & Love," "Art," and "Truth." There are too many brilliant lines here, but a few are: "Beware the wickedness of the righteous"; "A good disposition is more precious to God than fine feelings"; "She wasn't a person to whom things happen"; "Henry Castlemaine loved his daughter dearly, and himself a little more." I should note that since these "sayings" were taken from her fiction, they are actually the words of her characters or narrators, and not necessarily those of Spark herself (but I think most reflect her thoughts and beliefs). My guess is that a second volume, equally good, could be easily created. My only suggestion, gently given, is that I wish the quotes in A Good Comb had been linked somehow to their origins, creating context for Spark's most avid readers.  [4★]

Friday, September 7, 2018

Laugh at the End of the World by Bill Knott (2000)

A selection of the late Bill Knott's "comic" poems.

Poetry Review: Laugh at the End of the World is subtitled Collected Comic Poems 1969 - 1999, which beyond wondering if this book was timed to come at the end of the millennium when the world was to end, is also "comic" in the sense that these are not necessarily funny poems. Some are surreal, some are absurd, and many aren't really humorous at all, except in the darkest possible way. Since finding Bill Knott is such a rare event I appreciate any collection of his work, even when subject to a misnomer. But buyer beware if going into this expecting LOLs. A wry grimace is more likely. First, the longer a Knott poem the less likely it's going to be a clear winner. He was best when writing short. This selection contains many longer pieces. Second, he's a marmite poet anyway. Readers are as likely to be baffled, angered, or disgusted by his poems as to enjoy, appreciate, or laugh at them. So why suggest he's the next Robin Williams? Finally, if looking for a better or more representative collection (for Knott fans only), then perhaps seek out I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014, edited by Thomas Lux. All the best poems from Laugh at the End of the World are in that one. Don't get me wrong, if your library has this or you run across it in a used-book shop and the price is right, by all means grab it. You're getting a real taste of the bizarrely enigmatic Bill Knott. Whether he's your cup of tea is a different question. He can be bitter, angry, childish petulant, cutting, surreal, and occasionally on his best behavior. Just don't expect Laugh at the End of the World to have you rolling on the floor laughing your arse off. But if you're on the right wavelength it may make you nod knowingly ... .  [3½★]

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Under a Glass Bell by Anais Nin (1944)

Thirteen short stories by the infamous diarist.

Book Review: Under a Glass Bell is collection of stories about language, the poetry of language, the beauty and magic of language, how to capture words that can describe indescribable emotions. In some of her work, Anais Nin can seem like one of those charming narcissists whose interest in their own life is so total that it becomes contagious, and only later does one wonder about spending a day wholly absorbed in someone else's, not-that-interesting, life. Of course, this is still better than those histrionic narcissists who drive one screaming from the room to avoid injury, to oneself or others. But Under a Glass Bell is not that, is not Anais Nin examining her life in microscopic and obsessive detail. This is not for everybody. This is a book for those who love language. Who love sentences that believe in spells and incantations and the power of language all in itself. This is not about plot or revelation, meaning or understanding. The only revelation is in the language. It can only be read slowly. Here is a sentence about the tramps living by the Seine: "They threw the newspapers in the river and this was their prayer: to be carried, lifted, borne down, without feeling the hard bone of pain in man, lodged in his skeleton, but only the pulse of flowing blood." From the same story ("Houseboat"): "Tiny birds sat in weeds asking for no food and singing no song but the soft chant of metamorphosis, and each time they opened their beaks the webbed stained-glass windows decomposed into snakes and ribbons of sulphur." If those sentences speak to you, you'll love Under a Glass Bell. I can see this book as a cult favorite for those who enjoy getting lost and then found again, overwhelmed and buried by emotions, sleep walking, mesmerized by words and syllables and images ("the dew of her anxiety clouded her face"). I can see Patti Smith enjoying this as some of the passages reminded me of her memoirs. Many of the stories are deep character sketches and portraits of people Nin knew ("The Mouse," "The Mohican"). Some are stories of people she did not know, but imagined. Some are fables and fairy tales found in old houses. A couple entries, the "labyrinth" stories, relate to her famous diaries. Others are fantasies, illusions, hallucinations. Nin's deepest emotions are touched on here. One note: there's some controversy about the order of the stories. In 1995, Gunther Stuhlmann rearranged the stories in "chronological order" per a revelatory introduction, which I haven't found yet. My collection, from 1948, was the original sequence. Under a Glass Bell is for those with unique and esoteric taste. This a book for wizards who can find a whole universe in 17 words.  [3½★]