Saturday, January 29, 2005
Hiaasen and Pavic
What do Milorad Pavic and Carl Hiaasen have in common?
Precious little, as it turns out, except that I finished novels by each of them a few days ago, and I found both rather disappointing. I came to both with high expectations -- The Dictionary of the Khazars got terrific reviews when it first came out, regarding both its interesting structure (about which more below) and its language and story. I don't recall reviews of Stormy Weather (the Hiaasen novel I read) in particular, but I've seen good mentions of his work all over, not least in Frazz, one of the comic strips I read.
And there was nothing particularly wrong with Stormy Weather, other than excessive expectations. It's a nice sort-of thriller, with a pleasantly complicated plot and some interesting (mostly quirky, but I can live with that) characters and reasonable twists and interesting language.
So what was there to be disappointed with? Well, the language kept reminding me of a sort of low-key Elmore Leonard, and one thing Leonard does fairly consistently is to challenge our ideas of what is good behavior. This is one of my bugs about fiction -- it is always about what constitutes good behavior or morality. And Leonard makes us think about it. Hiaasen, on the other hand, is pretty straight mainstream moralism. The farthest out he gets is having a major character who is opposed to the overdevelopment of Florida real estate and tourism. There's a touch of vigilantism, too, but the guy to whom it is applied is so ludicrously evil that it's hard to object to his demise (and it's only indirectly the responsibility of the good guys).
The Pavic was more of a disappointment, since I was led to expect a first-rate work of art. It's entirely possible that the book was beyond me, but I'm a fairly smart guy, and I've read a lot, even a fair amount of poetry. The poetry is relevant because Pavic is primarily a poet, and this was his first novel.
If you don't remember the reviews, The Dictionary of the Khazars is presented as not one but three encyclopedias, with entries arranges alphabetically. The conceit is that there is a mystery over the history of the Khazar people and whether they converted to Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. (Historically, there seems no real controversy; they adopted Judaism overwhelmingly but not unanimously, and adopted religious tolerance around the same time.) The three encyclopedias represent the fragmentary knowledge, and the search for further knowledge, among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, in particular about the participants in the supposed Khazar Polemic, where all three faiths were represented. The structure, in fact, is fascinating, and works reasonably well. All the information is there, and we can organize it however we like into whichever story we prefer. I did read the book straight through, but you could also start at any point and browse forward and back, much like hypertext, following associative connections. You might well come away with a different sense of what the story was and what it was about than I did.
So far, so good. But Pavic wants more from this book than amusing structure. He wants to talk about the nature of time and language, and he wants to talk about them in poetic terms. That is, he wants us to perceive them not through direct description but through metaphors. Many of the metaphors, perhaps nearly all of them, are lovely and evocative. But I got overwhelmed by them. Enough was enough, and eventually I was ploughing through them rather than savoring them. There was no solid ground where I could rest my feet while swimming through the poetry, and it lost its meaning for me. I'm glad I read it, but I won't read it again.
Now, on to The Worst Journey in the World and Agape Agape (William Gaddis).
dmh
Precious little, as it turns out, except that I finished novels by each of them a few days ago, and I found both rather disappointing. I came to both with high expectations -- The Dictionary of the Khazars got terrific reviews when it first came out, regarding both its interesting structure (about which more below) and its language and story. I don't recall reviews of Stormy Weather (the Hiaasen novel I read) in particular, but I've seen good mentions of his work all over, not least in Frazz, one of the comic strips I read.
And there was nothing particularly wrong with Stormy Weather, other than excessive expectations. It's a nice sort-of thriller, with a pleasantly complicated plot and some interesting (mostly quirky, but I can live with that) characters and reasonable twists and interesting language.
So what was there to be disappointed with? Well, the language kept reminding me of a sort of low-key Elmore Leonard, and one thing Leonard does fairly consistently is to challenge our ideas of what is good behavior. This is one of my bugs about fiction -- it is always about what constitutes good behavior or morality. And Leonard makes us think about it. Hiaasen, on the other hand, is pretty straight mainstream moralism. The farthest out he gets is having a major character who is opposed to the overdevelopment of Florida real estate and tourism. There's a touch of vigilantism, too, but the guy to whom it is applied is so ludicrously evil that it's hard to object to his demise (and it's only indirectly the responsibility of the good guys).
The Pavic was more of a disappointment, since I was led to expect a first-rate work of art. It's entirely possible that the book was beyond me, but I'm a fairly smart guy, and I've read a lot, even a fair amount of poetry. The poetry is relevant because Pavic is primarily a poet, and this was his first novel.
If you don't remember the reviews, The Dictionary of the Khazars is presented as not one but three encyclopedias, with entries arranges alphabetically. The conceit is that there is a mystery over the history of the Khazar people and whether they converted to Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. (Historically, there seems no real controversy; they adopted Judaism overwhelmingly but not unanimously, and adopted religious tolerance around the same time.) The three encyclopedias represent the fragmentary knowledge, and the search for further knowledge, among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, in particular about the participants in the supposed Khazar Polemic, where all three faiths were represented. The structure, in fact, is fascinating, and works reasonably well. All the information is there, and we can organize it however we like into whichever story we prefer. I did read the book straight through, but you could also start at any point and browse forward and back, much like hypertext, following associative connections. You might well come away with a different sense of what the story was and what it was about than I did.
So far, so good. But Pavic wants more from this book than amusing structure. He wants to talk about the nature of time and language, and he wants to talk about them in poetic terms. That is, he wants us to perceive them not through direct description but through metaphors. Many of the metaphors, perhaps nearly all of them, are lovely and evocative. But I got overwhelmed by them. Enough was enough, and eventually I was ploughing through them rather than savoring them. There was no solid ground where I could rest my feet while swimming through the poetry, and it lost its meaning for me. I'm glad I read it, but I won't read it again.
Now, on to The Worst Journey in the World and Agape Agape (William Gaddis).
dmh
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Sick cat
When I moved here to Nashville I brought one dog to join my then-fiancee's (now wife's) seven dogs and nine cats. My dog, Jake, moved into the house with me, but Judy's dogs lived in the yard, except on cold nights when we brought them in and put them in crates. The cats all lived upstairs in the very large bedroom with us, and I soon made friends with some of them.
Some, but not all. Bear and Annie curled up next to me in bed on the first night, and Furlough came inquiring and looking for attention the next morning, but the others took their time. One of them, Yoda, has only recently (after about a year and a half) started letting me pet him.
And for nearly a year, our household had a stable population.
Then one of the guinea pigs fell out of the cage when they were being moved. We found her body a week or so later, freshly dead, probably caught by one of the neighborhood dogs.
Then Bear died, and we buried him in the new back yard. Alley Oop joined him a month or so later. And now Guildenstern is sick.
There are two tortoiseshells, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (so called because it was so hard to tell them apart), littermates. Guildenstern was always the friendlier of the two. When I would get up to go to the bathroom she would come in with me for a head scratch. By the time I arrived, though, she was already thinner than Rosenkrantz, with a sensitive stomach that required prescription food. She is even thinner now, and the vet says that she is in full renal failure. She may be dead as I write, and hasn't long to go in any case. Last night we forced some fluids into her (subcutaneous injection), and she drank a little from the floor of the shower (her favorite drinking spot), but as soon as the ground thaws I need to dig another hole.
Some, but not all. Bear and Annie curled up next to me in bed on the first night, and Furlough came inquiring and looking for attention the next morning, but the others took their time. One of them, Yoda, has only recently (after about a year and a half) started letting me pet him.
And for nearly a year, our household had a stable population.
Then one of the guinea pigs fell out of the cage when they were being moved. We found her body a week or so later, freshly dead, probably caught by one of the neighborhood dogs.
Then Bear died, and we buried him in the new back yard. Alley Oop joined him a month or so later. And now Guildenstern is sick.
There are two tortoiseshells, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (so called because it was so hard to tell them apart), littermates. Guildenstern was always the friendlier of the two. When I would get up to go to the bathroom she would come in with me for a head scratch. By the time I arrived, though, she was already thinner than Rosenkrantz, with a sensitive stomach that required prescription food. She is even thinner now, and the vet says that she is in full renal failure. She may be dead as I write, and hasn't long to go in any case. Last night we forced some fluids into her (subcutaneous injection), and she drank a little from the floor of the shower (her favorite drinking spot), but as soon as the ground thaws I need to dig another hole.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Is Michael Frayn Jewish?
I ask because one of the issues in Spies, which I finished last night, is young Stephen's Jewish identity. (Stephen is the first-person protagonist.) There's certainly no reason why a non-Jew couldn't write a book involving a Jewish protagonist or inquiring into questions of Jewish identity -- but I can't think of such a book by a Gentile. I suspect that most non-Jews aren't even much aware that there are such questions.
And yet the question is certainly on the table in the literary world. It's one of the fundamental questions of Philip Roth's work (yes, even Portnoy's Complaint, although not The Great American Novel), for one example. Never mind that Jews are a tiny minority of Americans; we are a larger minority of American writers and artists.
Of course, Frayn is a Brit. I'm more familiar with Victorian literature than contemporary British work, and in Victorian novels one finds a casual, thoughtless anti-Semitism. (Not that it doesn't show up in American novels of the same period; Edith Wharton's House of Mirth comes to mind, in which the heroine, toward the end, abases herself to the point of being nice to the Jewish financier.) That doesn't mean it persists. After all, the head of the Conservative Party is Jewish. (That doesn't mean it doesn't persist, either.)
Making Stephen Jewish does make him much more of an outsider than he would otherwise be, and that suits Frayn's purposes (it's also one of the reasons Jews are overrepresented in the arts). I think that makes me even more curious to know whether it was a calculated or intuitive choice.
The book, incidentally, stays marvelous to the end. A final, short chapter adds layers of meaning that slip into place, into the places prepared for them.
And yet the question is certainly on the table in the literary world. It's one of the fundamental questions of Philip Roth's work (yes, even Portnoy's Complaint, although not The Great American Novel), for one example. Never mind that Jews are a tiny minority of Americans; we are a larger minority of American writers and artists.
Of course, Frayn is a Brit. I'm more familiar with Victorian literature than contemporary British work, and in Victorian novels one finds a casual, thoughtless anti-Semitism. (Not that it doesn't show up in American novels of the same period; Edith Wharton's House of Mirth comes to mind, in which the heroine, toward the end, abases herself to the point of being nice to the Jewish financier.) That doesn't mean it persists. After all, the head of the Conservative Party is Jewish. (That doesn't mean it doesn't persist, either.)
Making Stephen Jewish does make him much more of an outsider than he would otherwise be, and that suits Frayn's purposes (it's also one of the reasons Jews are overrepresented in the arts). I think that makes me even more curious to know whether it was a calculated or intuitive choice.
The book, incidentally, stays marvelous to the end. A final, short chapter adds layers of meaning that slip into place, into the places prepared for them.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Current reading
I've fallen into the habit of reading three books at a time (not including whatever I'm reading in order to teach it; I teach freshman composition at Tennessee State University lately): one that I listen to in the car and at the gym, one in the dining room, and one in the bedroom. Right now, I'm listening to Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather, and reading Michael Frayn's Spies over meals and Anthony Trollope's Phineas Finn at bedtime.
I'm a great fan of Trollope, although I haven't read nearly as much of his stuff as I should. Right now I'm working through the Palliser novels, some of them for the second time. But this time I'm going through them all in order. Phineas Finn is the second in the sequence, for those of you who aren't fans.
Stormy Weather is so far interesting. It's my first Hiaasen except for a couple of his columns that I read when I was waiting for the new Dave Barry to be posted (they both used to write -- Barry has just started an indefinite hiatus -- for the Miami Herald). It reminds me rather of Elmore Leonard -- not a bad thing -- but a little cleaner and a little more surreal. We'll see how it develops.
The big pleasure at the moment, though, is Michael Frayn. I'd listened to his previous book, Headlong, and enjoyed it but was not knocked out. I liked the art history but didn't get caught up in the story so much. But this one, Spies, is a knockout. It's a thin book, maybe 250 pages, but it is about memory and identity and responsibility and is also somewhat of a mystery (only partially solved at the point I've got to). The narrator comes back to England after a long absence in order to discover the meanings of a specific memory, so he's walking around his old neighborhood in the narrative present while also remembering his younger (about 10 or so) self -- in third person -- and trying to reconstruct what that boy, Stephen, knew and when he knew it. We know more than Stephen does, of course, but that only fits with the mode of the narrative. A lot of questions are not yet answered, and may never be -- for example, is Stephen unaware of his Jewishness, or suppressing it? (Or is that something that I'm projecting onto him?)
At any rate, it's not at all the kind of book you'd expect from the author of Noises Off.
I'm a great fan of Trollope, although I haven't read nearly as much of his stuff as I should. Right now I'm working through the Palliser novels, some of them for the second time. But this time I'm going through them all in order. Phineas Finn is the second in the sequence, for those of you who aren't fans.
Stormy Weather is so far interesting. It's my first Hiaasen except for a couple of his columns that I read when I was waiting for the new Dave Barry to be posted (they both used to write -- Barry has just started an indefinite hiatus -- for the Miami Herald). It reminds me rather of Elmore Leonard -- not a bad thing -- but a little cleaner and a little more surreal. We'll see how it develops.
The big pleasure at the moment, though, is Michael Frayn. I'd listened to his previous book, Headlong, and enjoyed it but was not knocked out. I liked the art history but didn't get caught up in the story so much. But this one, Spies, is a knockout. It's a thin book, maybe 250 pages, but it is about memory and identity and responsibility and is also somewhat of a mystery (only partially solved at the point I've got to). The narrator comes back to England after a long absence in order to discover the meanings of a specific memory, so he's walking around his old neighborhood in the narrative present while also remembering his younger (about 10 or so) self -- in third person -- and trying to reconstruct what that boy, Stephen, knew and when he knew it. We know more than Stephen does, of course, but that only fits with the mode of the narrative. A lot of questions are not yet answered, and may never be -- for example, is Stephen unaware of his Jewishness, or suppressing it? (Or is that something that I'm projecting onto him?)
At any rate, it's not at all the kind of book you'd expect from the author of Noises Off.
