The Bachelors by Muriel Spark (1960)

The disparate lives of a number of London bachelors converge during a medium's trial for forgery and fraudulent conversion.

Book Review: The Bachelors is not my favorite of Muriel Spark's novels, but being by Muriel Spark it is well worth reading and re-reading. Spark writes for the head as well as the heart, and this one spends more time with the cerebral. Our bachelors are all a bit selfish, somewhat neurotic, a little lost, weak, having too much time on their hands and not enough meat or meaning in their lives. As always with her novels, Spark is writing about morality, even as she notes the mundane details of life such as buying spices at Fortnum's. And as usual there is quite a lot about religion in general and Catholicism in particular, interaction between a group of seemingly unconnected characters, inner lives and fraught decisions, evil, and varying levels of good. Here is added spiritualism and quite a bit about the nature of bachelorhood. Yet everything is buried in layers of the everyday, as though daring the reader to find her deeper thoughts beneath the meandering, minimal plot, and wry incisive writing. Although The Bachelors is not my favorite, there is little I could say as to why that is so -- it's still written with her keen observation and dry wit. I doubt I will ever find a Muriel Spark novel that isn't worth reading, and in this one I felt the opportunity of seeing a little of Spark herself come through. Always a strong, independent woman, often single and always attractive to men, Spark appears to pass judgment on a certain class of men of her acquaintance, and finds them wanting. Maybe that's just me. Or maybe a helpful biographer could identify which of these characters actually were in Spark's life. Just idle curiosity ... . [3½★]

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1966)

The fantastic story of Satan's visit to Moscow, but that description only scratches the surface.

Book Review: The Master and Margarita is the masterpiece by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940), but is much less intimidating than I thought and much richer as well -- both easier and more entertaining than I expected. I can only give you a series of my impressions: (1) the book is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz, if Wonderland and Oz were Moscow in the 1930s; (2) there are four different threads: Pontius Pilate, life in Soviet Russia, Satan's visit, and the love story of the Master and Margarita (which is both the most and least important bit); (3) I'm sure my appreciation of the book would be enhanced if I had greater familiarity with the sociopolitical aspects of Moscow at the time, but I also felt that I didn't miss anything; (4) the translation by Mirra Ginsburg (who has translated at least six of Bulgakov's books) is fluid and easily readable, although it may be based on the censored version -- again, I felt I didn't miss a thing; (5) the book is intended to be both humorous and yet is eerily reflective of the times -- what is the persecution of black cats in Russia but a metaphor of suffering?; (6) since it was not published in his lifetime, Bulgakov could write without fear of censorship, ignoring both Communist, Christian, and any other dogma; (7) Russian names are as always mildly challenging for those unfamiliar with their structure (given name/patronymic/surname or family name), keep a cheat sheet if you want (Bulgakov's playfulness doesn't help, two intertwined characters are Nikolay Ivanovich and Ivan Nikolayevich -- why?); (8) don't think too much, don't fret, don't try to understand every little thing, just hang on for the ride and go with the flow. If you want to analyze it, do it on a reread, as I plan to do; (9) this deserves to be more than a cult classic; (10) is this Magical Realism? Read it and decide for yourself; (11) despite the brutality of the times and the book's jarring moments, the final message is that of love, which I found unexpectedly reassuring. I put off reading The Master and Margarita because I expected it to be a monumental challenge. Nope. Delightfully entertaining. Don't wait to read it. [4½★]

Our Emily Dickinsons by Vivian R. Pollak (2017)

A scholarly examination of Emily Dickinson's influence and effect on several American women poets.

Book Review: Our Emily Dickinsons is a more academic approach than I (a non-academic) was expecting, and is not a Michael Lewis-like effort to make the esoteric approachable. I'm not sure why I thought this would be a pop-lit endeavor, since it is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press and Professor Pollak teaches English at the esteemed Washington University in St. Louis. But the erudite nature of the book is not a bad thing. For those studying in the field, Pollak raises intriguing and creative approaches to the issues addressed, which are an invaluable resource and an excellent jumping-off point (she herself jumping off from Muriel Rukeyser's writings) for further investigations in American women's poetry. The author states that in "intellectually challenging, emotionally arduous poems that invite and repel intimacy, Dickinson links ... ugly feelings (such as shame and envy) to what I call trace scenes, scenes that evoke collective experience but mystify important personal particulars," and that she views "Dickinson's achievement as an extended meditation on the risks of social, psychological, and aesthetic difference." That seems like a mouthful to me, but if that speaks clearly to you, this is your book. The Notes, Bibliography, and Indexes are truly impressive; if you want someone to do your research, go no further. The book's subtitle is "American Women Poets and the Intimacies of Difference," and Pollak first examines some of Dickinson's biography and then relates her work to that of Helen Hunt Jackson, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, and Elizabeth Bishop (Ted Hughes and Adrienne Rich also make idiosyncratic appearances), and how those poets related to Dickinson. Let me admit I'm not fully qualified to evaluate this book, but I can tell you why I believe it's valuable. Dickinson and Plath are two of America's four or five greatest poets (although Plath's best output is tiny, like the statistics of a spectacular athlete whose career was cut short), and Moore and Bishop are today too much forgotten and due for revival. Pollak has looked into some dark corners of women's poetry that needed to be explored: In "some of the intimate reading practices through which women poets interrogate Dickinson, her literary culture, their literary cultures, and themselves." Pollak concludes that Dickinson's "multifaceted achievement exceeds any critic's ability to define it" even as she argues that women poets who write about Dickinson "are writing about themselves as well. They use Dickinson to test the validity of their own emotional and intellectual needs" as her "paradoxical self-awareness encourages us to draw close and to keep our distance." I enjoyed it for what I could take away at my level, as there's much to appreciate even without climbing the ivory tower, though it's certainly there for those who want to go up the steps. Personally I've always enjoyed going deeper and deeper into Dickinson's small poems, like going into the nucleus of an atom -- her small poems are enormous (a wonderful contrast with Whitman). Our Emily Dickinsons is an excellent examination of some of America's finest poets, and should find its way into myriad footnotes in scholarly papers and journals. [4★]

The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan (1995)

The debut novel by the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Book Review: The Invisible Circus is set in the 1970s, which adds a quaint touch in showing the end of the Aquarian Age, but in its other themes could be set in any time. I very much enjoyed Goon Squad, so was looking forward to reading Jennifer Egan's first novel, and was only mildly disappointed. The book is well written, easy to read, and the first half of the book compels the reader forward to find out what happens. I was impressed with Egan's evocative language and happily being carried along on her writing. But this does read like a first novel, and by the second half the pace had slowed, characters had failed to grow, and the reality had gotten progressively weaker. The story then became predictable, melodrama for the sake of melodrama, and the bratty main character became tiresome, being far too naive for the life she is portrayed as having led. She also had become self-centered, self-indulgent, cruel and willful for no apparent reason. It became hard to suspend disbelief, and there were gaps in the arc making the story seem incomplete, again for no apparent reason. The main character's sister just couldn't carry all the novelistic weight put on her. By this time there are so many similes and metaphors that some were failing to work. And the last 70 pages or so seemed to be chapter after chapter in search of an ending, until it was all neatly wrapped up for our main character, who may have been about to begin her own story. Other than the name on the cover I wouldn't have thought this was by the author of Goon Squad. All that snarkiness being said, I still enjoyed reading this and seeing Egan's early (21 years ago) writing. I could read it again and it was enjoyable (especially the first half), just not up to her best work. I still want to read her other books. [3½★]  🐢

The Last Shift: Poems by Philip Levine (2016)

The final collection of poems selected by Philip Levine (1928-2015), National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, and the former Poet Laureate of the United States.

Poetry Review: The Last Shift may not be Philip Levine's strongest collection of poems, but it is a representative one, sampling topics from all areas of his life and thoughts. Something like a "Best of" record, he returns to moments reminiscent of a number of his previous works. The Last Shift is not only the title of the fine final poem of the collection, but an appropriate title for the final book by this proud poet of the working class. One of his collections was titled What Work Is (winner of the 1991 National Book Award), not a topic often addressed by American poets. One of the striking attributes of this book, a useful primer for all learning poets, is just what a fine craftsman Levine is, how well these poems are written, how well put together, how well he expresses his thoughts. Anyone could learn much from the poems in this book, how to construct a poem, how to choose the right words, how to say enough without saying too much ("each in her best flowered dress,/each with her worn Bible in hand"). And then there are the subjects and the language in The Last Shift. Levine writes of things that are used, are worn, that are touched and felt: "armies of picks/and shovels, their handles/stained with our fathers' lives." He ends that poem with simple beauty:

   All that's left
   are these few unread words
   without rhythm or breath
   fading before your eyes.

At times he touches on the Spanish poets and the Biblical (Psalm 137):

   By the waters of the Llobregat
   no one sits down to weep for the children

   of the world, by the Ebro, the Tagus,
   the Guadalquivir, by the waters
   of the world no one sits down and weeps.

The Last Shift is a book of history, of memories, memories of his youth in Detroit, labor, women, work, angels, family, travel.

   A lifetime passes
   in the blink of an eye. You look back and think,
   That was heaven, so of course it had to end.

Or even,

   Oh
   to be young and strong and dumb
   again in Michigan!

Perhaps Levine's whole life is wrapped up in the pages of The Last Shift, he selected these poems, showing his skill and his dreams, and in these pages you can find all the poems he ever wrote, just in other words. He's written his own elegy. [3½★] 🐢

Jonah's Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston (1934)

The first novel by the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the story of a young man growing up to adulthood, but never fully reconciling himself.

Book Review: Jonah's Gourd Vine is just as good as Their Eyes Were Watching God, but is a smaller more focused story. While reading this wonderful novel, I felt as if I was sitting on the front steps, listening to the wisest woman on the block weave her stories of people she'd known long ago, staying up till late at night because I never wanted the words to end. As with Zadie Smith's writing, the characters come alive and the reader becomes fully invested, as if the people we meet are relatives or next door neighbors. In this book from 1934, Hurston says more about feminism, race in America, women and men, class, and poverty than any book written this year. She writes without self-pity and without defeat. Black people in Jonah's Gourd Vine are not less, incomplete, victimized, or somehow deprived versions of whites. They are whole, strong, determined, living full lives and confronting the world as they find it. Hurston is fully aware and writes of their reality, but for her white people are just another fact of life, like the weather, nature, fortune and misfortune. She has no time for hating or railing against the inequality she recognizes. Her characters are strong, intelligent, self-contained, they persevere, determined to carve their lives out of the wilderness. They are just as happy and realized as others; perhaps more so. This is a beautifully written book, poetry oozing between the words, lucky I get to see that world through other people's eyes. I'd never have known this was a first novel, it was so complete and rewarding. Only occasionally did I have the feeling that Hurston's field studies were being quoted at too great a length, but at the same time I enjoyed the idea of getting to see the results of her sociological and anthropological research. Don't forget that this is literature, with a fascinating readable surface, but with many thoughts and messages underneath. Readers could endlessly discuss what forces drive Lucy and John (the names of Hurston's parents), the role of religion, the strength and sorority of the women, the reality of hoodoo in the book, relations between classes and races. Jonah's Gourd Vine is as deep as the reader is willing to go (the Foreword by Rita Dove and Afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. are both well worth reading after you've read the novel -- you'll find they encapsulate many of your own ideas). The book was also a call to action for me: I want to: (1) learn more about Zora Neale Hurston's biography (she was forgotten for decades until Alice Walker published an article about her in 1975); (2) read her other two novels; (3) find more of her short stories (I read "Sweat," it was brilliant). This little review only scratches the surface. For me Hurston is now a must read. [4★]

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)

In the far future, desire leads D-503 to question the virtues of the One State and the wisdom of the powerful Benefactor. 

Book Review: We was written by a Russian (Evgenij Zamjatin) and published in the early 1920s, both of which make this book of historical as well as literary interest. There are two types of dystopian novels (at the time called "anti-utopian"), too much government (The Hunger Games) or too little (The Road). This is the former, and considered a precursor to George Orwell's 1984. Our journaling narrator is the engineer in charge of the One State's first interstellar rocket. He's content in his rigidly controlled society where people literally live in glass houses where everyone can be seen rising at the same time, eating at the same time, going to work at the same time (not sleeping at night is a criminal offence -- no mention of bathrooms); every act and emotion is prescribed. Content, that is, until he meets a mysterious woman, I-330, strong, intelligent, daring, who stirs him to acts he never even dared imagine. Which lead to endless mental anguish and torment. That's what it's about, but what did I think? In We, the reader is always one step ahead of our naive narrator, seeing and understanding more than he does; we know what is to come as he stumbles along. The world building is well done, creating a sterile society literally walled off from nature and all that is natural. A society where numbers (not "people") blindly follow directions, cheering on the repressive Guardians, and the Benefactor is annually elected unanimously. Overall the plot is fairly simple and simply told, but still a compelling story that read quickly and was satisfying at every step. Enjoyable, thought-provoking, and well-translated by Mirra Ginsburg. Knowledge of the time and place in which it was written (shortly after the Russian revolution) will add to an appreciation of We. Although some of the details may seem obvious or derivative, it's only because of the many books that came after and paid tribute to this one. [4★] 🐢