Last week’s news that Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature led to me pick up “Who Killed Palomino Molero?” Llosa’s version of a hard-boiled detective mystery translated into backwater South America.
What permeates this whole work is a feeling of listless indifference. The first chapter describes the body of Palomino Molero - an bony young airman in the Peruvian Air Force who is later found dead, virtually emasculated. Lieutenant Silva and Officer Lituma begin their investigations in a lackadaisical fashion - not by choice, but because of their limitations. They need a cab to the crime scene. They walk long distances when they cannot get a ride. Though witnesses mourn the loss of Molero’s singing voice, they don’t seem all that interested in who killed him, or why.
Llosa does something interesting here with pace and tone. This novel is only 150 pages long. Descriptions are spare. Dialogue dominates the narrative. There are the usual tricks of the mystery in that information we glean may only be momentarily correct. But action is, like the setting, listless and slow. Suppositions often lead to recalibration. Palomino Molero, for example, is not a draftee but an enlistee. The reason for this becomes clearer when Silva and Lituma uncover the reasons he joined. As a barmaid says, “He brought on his own tragedy.” Silva and Lituma must then navigate the no man’s land between military and civilian justice.
The reason for everyone’s indifference, outside our two lawmen, is the corruption one sees on every page. Molero’s murder is an outrage because “in these parts, people kill each other fair and square, man to man. But crucifying, torturing, that’s new.” Whatever solution Silva and Lituma find is discarded as being a cover story to allow the real guilty parties, shadowy higher-ups, to escape unnamed and unpunished.
As with all good hard boiled noir, Llosa gives you as much atmosphere as mystery. But instead of a big city with the corruption of politics and technology, instead we get the sweat from the sun in a mostly rural, corrupt backwater fetid with the scent of chicken droppings and endless toil.
Even Silva does not seem to care so much about catching a murderer as catching the barmaid whom he spies on at the riverside during her morning bath. Llosa gives, in the middle of a murder investigation, a playful, laughing regard for life. Life - which eludes easy definition and promises mystery once the first question is asked.
As Lieutenant Silva says, “Only death is definitive.”
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Morality by Stephen King
Tucked away in Stephen King's recent mini-book "Blockade Billy" was a disquieting little story called "Morality," worthy of a 19th century Russian author.
In a few short pages, King introduces us to Nora and Chad, a couple living in New York in the midst of the recession, scrambling to pay bills. Chad is an aspiring writer who hopes to finish a non-fiction collection and bring in some extra money. But this is just a prayer, and even though our young couple are earnest and believe in each other, reality rarely yields up the answer to a prayer the way one hopes. The solution to their money problems, though, comes through Nora, a nurse who works with a retired minister, Winston. The old clergyman, who conveniently has a horde of ready cash, is a stroke victim who has had a lot of time to ruminate on what he's been missing out in his life.
The story contains a few tropes familiar to any longtime King reader. Chad is a smoker, and when Nora asks him for a puff, he knows she's been shaken, since she constantly harps on the money going out to pay for his habit. Not only is this a well-documented crib from what we know of King's early married life as a struggling writer, it is also a hallmark of King stories that the passing of a cigarette is a symbol for temptation or moral laxity. The other easily recognizable King image is Winston himself, for he comes in the form King has sometimes used in the past for his men of the cloth - that of the tempter. Winston, with his "long sheep's face" and sheep eyes, is a wolf, or a dog "that bites and runs away." The biography he recounts, of simple selfless service, seems like a spectacular lie in light of what he reveals about himself later through his actions.
Nora reaches for a cigarette because Winston has offered an ungodly amount of money to Nora if she will help him do something his condition denies him - he wants to commit a sin. "This is not about sex," he assures her, and King slyly waits until the moment the sin occurs before he reveals just what it is Winston wants her to do. With Chad standing nearby holding a video camera to record the event, Nora is to go to a playground, pick out a child, and punch the child hard enough to draw blood. The meaningless act of violence will satisfy the terms of his bargain, and give the couple enough money to restart their lives away from the city, pay all their bills, and chase down Chad's dream of publication.
King's choice of "sin" is interesting. Strictly speaking, it is assault. Motiveless violence. The fact that a child is the victim touches on the violation of innocence that is the heart of this story. We like Nora, and we like Chad, because they are familiar, striving, young people who are beginning to feel the injustice of life, where no one will pay them for their good intentions but reward criminals in skyscrapers who make millions on empires of lies. Winston, obviously, is no ordinary clergyman, but he is diabolically good at this sin business. And he knows forgiveness is open to him even after the deed is done. But Winston, though it is never stated in the story, seems to miss the power of the pulpit. "We hold out heaven, then make people understand they have no hope of achieving it without our help," he tells Nora, and we see that his bet is a weird, negative recreation of his years of ministry. He warns her that he doesn't want to wallow in sin, but dive headlong in, regardless of whether he is chained to the life of a walking invalid. Winston perceives innocence in his nurse, and he means to destroy it.
The offer has the desired effect. Chad calls it a "bridge to nowhere," but during a sleepless night, the two contemplate how they might carry it out, and what they can do with the money. And suddenly, this proposition does indeed seem to be about sex, because the two of them are aroused by it. The effect, though, is that they are being spiritually violated by Winston, with the consequences to come. Nora delivers the punch, much harder than she intended, and releases something inside her in the process.
The child who receives the punch isn't seriously harmed, but Nora nervously keeps rewinding and watching the image of her delivering the blow. Chad and Nora's relationship is now rougher, coarser, harsher toward each other. The hostility they have unleashed is now aimed at each other. Winston revels in the damage he has wrought. After he watches Nora watching herself punch the child, he asks "is feeling dirty always a bad thing?" Nora, an agnostic, asks Winston how he intends to square this with God.
"If a sinner like Simon Peter could go on to found the Catholic Church, I expect I'll be fine."
"Did Simon Peter keep the videotape to watch on cold winter evenings?"
The sin of Simon Peter was denial - the denial of Jesus at the moment of his betrayal and condemnation. What we can glean from the Bible is that Peter needed forgiveness is order to be useful to God with the founding of the church. He understood that his faith was his only means of salvation. Winston, the only believer in this story, sees faith merely as a diving bell - which allows him to view the depths of human experience while still within a life-sustaining cocoon. Though this story is very old in its sensibilities, it's interesting that King uses the motif of the video image - record, rewind, rewatch, commit to memory - to facilitate the sin. This sort of spiritual pornography is what Winston wants to gorge on, with the help of his accomplices.
Once the deed is done, Nora leaves her job with the money in hand. In the end, Winston either dies or kills himself, but Nora wonders if he had set up a video camera to record his own exit. She indulges in wild sex with anonymous men and her marriage dies as Chad's bookish ambitions run aground. They have fled the city, but the money has not fulfilled them - not as much as their brush with iniquity. They are not happier. We understand, at story's end, that Nora knows something about the nature of morality, but King chooses not to tell us what it is. We don't know whether he expects us to know, or believes each individual reader will find an answer.
Other posts about Stephen King's work here and here.
In a few short pages, King introduces us to Nora and Chad, a couple living in New York in the midst of the recession, scrambling to pay bills. Chad is an aspiring writer who hopes to finish a non-fiction collection and bring in some extra money. But this is just a prayer, and even though our young couple are earnest and believe in each other, reality rarely yields up the answer to a prayer the way one hopes. The solution to their money problems, though, comes through Nora, a nurse who works with a retired minister, Winston. The old clergyman, who conveniently has a horde of ready cash, is a stroke victim who has had a lot of time to ruminate on what he's been missing out in his life.
The story contains a few tropes familiar to any longtime King reader. Chad is a smoker, and when Nora asks him for a puff, he knows she's been shaken, since she constantly harps on the money going out to pay for his habit. Not only is this a well-documented crib from what we know of King's early married life as a struggling writer, it is also a hallmark of King stories that the passing of a cigarette is a symbol for temptation or moral laxity. The other easily recognizable King image is Winston himself, for he comes in the form King has sometimes used in the past for his men of the cloth - that of the tempter. Winston, with his "long sheep's face" and sheep eyes, is a wolf, or a dog "that bites and runs away." The biography he recounts, of simple selfless service, seems like a spectacular lie in light of what he reveals about himself later through his actions.
Nora reaches for a cigarette because Winston has offered an ungodly amount of money to Nora if she will help him do something his condition denies him - he wants to commit a sin. "This is not about sex," he assures her, and King slyly waits until the moment the sin occurs before he reveals just what it is Winston wants her to do. With Chad standing nearby holding a video camera to record the event, Nora is to go to a playground, pick out a child, and punch the child hard enough to draw blood. The meaningless act of violence will satisfy the terms of his bargain, and give the couple enough money to restart their lives away from the city, pay all their bills, and chase down Chad's dream of publication.
King's choice of "sin" is interesting. Strictly speaking, it is assault. Motiveless violence. The fact that a child is the victim touches on the violation of innocence that is the heart of this story. We like Nora, and we like Chad, because they are familiar, striving, young people who are beginning to feel the injustice of life, where no one will pay them for their good intentions but reward criminals in skyscrapers who make millions on empires of lies. Winston, obviously, is no ordinary clergyman, but he is diabolically good at this sin business. And he knows forgiveness is open to him even after the deed is done. But Winston, though it is never stated in the story, seems to miss the power of the pulpit. "We hold out heaven, then make people understand they have no hope of achieving it without our help," he tells Nora, and we see that his bet is a weird, negative recreation of his years of ministry. He warns her that he doesn't want to wallow in sin, but dive headlong in, regardless of whether he is chained to the life of a walking invalid. Winston perceives innocence in his nurse, and he means to destroy it.
The offer has the desired effect. Chad calls it a "bridge to nowhere," but during a sleepless night, the two contemplate how they might carry it out, and what they can do with the money. And suddenly, this proposition does indeed seem to be about sex, because the two of them are aroused by it. The effect, though, is that they are being spiritually violated by Winston, with the consequences to come. Nora delivers the punch, much harder than she intended, and releases something inside her in the process.
The child who receives the punch isn't seriously harmed, but Nora nervously keeps rewinding and watching the image of her delivering the blow. Chad and Nora's relationship is now rougher, coarser, harsher toward each other. The hostility they have unleashed is now aimed at each other. Winston revels in the damage he has wrought. After he watches Nora watching herself punch the child, he asks "is feeling dirty always a bad thing?" Nora, an agnostic, asks Winston how he intends to square this with God.
"If a sinner like Simon Peter could go on to found the Catholic Church, I expect I'll be fine."
"Did Simon Peter keep the videotape to watch on cold winter evenings?"
The sin of Simon Peter was denial - the denial of Jesus at the moment of his betrayal and condemnation. What we can glean from the Bible is that Peter needed forgiveness is order to be useful to God with the founding of the church. He understood that his faith was his only means of salvation. Winston, the only believer in this story, sees faith merely as a diving bell - which allows him to view the depths of human experience while still within a life-sustaining cocoon. Though this story is very old in its sensibilities, it's interesting that King uses the motif of the video image - record, rewind, rewatch, commit to memory - to facilitate the sin. This sort of spiritual pornography is what Winston wants to gorge on, with the help of his accomplices.
Once the deed is done, Nora leaves her job with the money in hand. In the end, Winston either dies or kills himself, but Nora wonders if he had set up a video camera to record his own exit. She indulges in wild sex with anonymous men and her marriage dies as Chad's bookish ambitions run aground. They have fled the city, but the money has not fulfilled them - not as much as their brush with iniquity. They are not happier. We understand, at story's end, that Nora knows something about the nature of morality, but King chooses not to tell us what it is. We don't know whether he expects us to know, or believes each individual reader will find an answer.
Other posts about Stephen King's work here and here.
Set Your Fields on Fire
The award-winning novel by William Thornton
Available now
Some of the coverage of "Set Your Fields on Fire"
You can order "Set Your Fields on Fire"for $14.99 through Amazon here.
It's also available on Kindle at $3.99 through Amazon here.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast.
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book.
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here.
The Alabama Baptist wrote about the book here.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast.
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book.
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here.
The Alabama Baptist wrote about the book here.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.
Here's my appearance on East Alabama Today.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here.
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here.
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.
This is another interview with the fleegan book blog here.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Nemesis by Philip Roth
There is a classic air to Philip Roth's "Nemesis." The sun is evoked like an object of veneration. Children worship momentarily a man who hurls a javelin in a display of manly athletic power. Stories of ancient rites and ancient men are told around campfires to wild-eyed, bewildered listeners.
The style of "Nemesis" is similar to the other books in this ongoing series, which a Roth works list at the book's beginning helpfully describes as a cycle entitled "Nemeses: Short Novels." Like "The Humbling," "Desperation," and "Everyman," we are presented a male main character who faces an emasculating life or death trauma. "Nemesis" is written with long, complex sentences that wind through characters and situations back upon themselves. The story is told briskly, in less than 300 pages.
"Nemesis" follows Bucky Cantor, a Jewish gym teacher in New Jersey in the year of 1944, when life and death dramas are played out daily in Europe and the Pacific. Bucky, a 4-F, was denied glory on the battlefield because of his eyesight, and he struggles against his vision as do the other protagonists of Roth's late short novels - their aspiration forever frustrated by reality. Bucky, however, cannot escape the feeling that his misfortunes are his own fault. In this case, the problem is a polio epidemic in the Jewish neighborhood, and as the children Bucky watches over begin to succumb to disease, and death, he feels a growing sense of responsibility.
An obvious conclusion is that Roth is returning to the New Jersey of his childhood for this particular story. But one is conscious of the backdrop - World War II - and the ongoing liquidation of Europe's Jews in the concentration camps. Instead of fighting that menace, Bucky instead fights fear that begins to grip his community as families and children begin looking for the secret sources of the growing contagion, which robs the limbs of power and the lungs of breath. When one frantic parent asks, "Our Jewish children are our riches...Why is it attacking our beautiful Jewish children?" one has the Holocaust in miniature. A grief stricken father says for the whole planet, "The meaninglessness of it! A terrible disease drops from the sky and somebody is dead overnight. A child, no less!"
Which brings us to the other feature of "Nemesis," which is the feeling that stirs in Bucky that what follows him may not be a horror of his own making but a supernatural one. As Bucky begins to wonder at the purpose of innocent children suddenly being robbed of life, he begins to suspect that God is behind it all. This feeling grows in him, as tragedy piles on top of tragedy, both at home among his children and on the battlefield with his friends:
"Bucky's conception of God, as I thought I understood it, was of an omnipotent being whose nature and purpose was to be adduced not from doubtful biblical evidence but from irrefutable historical proof, gleaned during a lifetime passed on this planet in the middle of the twentieth century. His conception of God was of an omnipotent being who was a union not of three persons in one God-head, as in Christianity, but of two" - a sadistic soul and an evil genius.
It's interesting that Roth gives his character a sentiment C.S. Lewis expressed in "A Grief Observed" - that God can sometimes feel like a cosmic vivisectionist, that His power is not perfectly displayed in His grace, but instead in His ability to torture creation. Roth, who does not believe in an afterlife, God, Christ, or otherwise, creates a character who feels the presence of God in the negative, and presumes a God intimately involved in our day-to-day lives, for the purposes of destruction, like a child who destroys the sand castle he has spent the last two hours creating. This proof is not comforting, for how does the created hope to last against the Creator? The feeling that one strives against a Being who will not bless him even if he should grab hold of Him dogs Bucky and haunts the reader.
In mid-story, Bucky flees the playground to the summer camp where his girlfriend works. He feels secure in the mountains, and enjoys the love of the woman he intends to marry. His girl sings "I'll Be Seeing You" to him, a song that he resurrects later in life, the story of a lover who is reminded of the beloved in the familiar places of life that they have shared. But one wonders if this love song isn't instead a more menacing reminder that God is always watching. It falls to the book's final third act, where we see our faceless narrator revealed as one of Bucky's grown playground children, to allow events to reveal Bucky as he existed before and as these fears are realized, in his mind. Whether they are, in fact, so, is yet one more question for the reader to navigate.
"Nemesis" of course, was the Greek goddess of retribution. But the word also means an antagonist who brings punishment, or the cause of inevitable downfall. Whatever Roth's intent, he has created a universe of possibility in the chaos that forms, like a contagion, in the air of summer camps and summer romances where danger is thought to be distant but secrets itself behind our desperate longings, and in a negative faith that offers no consolation.
The style of "Nemesis" is similar to the other books in this ongoing series, which a Roth works list at the book's beginning helpfully describes as a cycle entitled "Nemeses: Short Novels." Like "The Humbling," "Desperation," and "Everyman," we are presented a male main character who faces an emasculating life or death trauma. "Nemesis" is written with long, complex sentences that wind through characters and situations back upon themselves. The story is told briskly, in less than 300 pages.
"Nemesis" follows Bucky Cantor, a Jewish gym teacher in New Jersey in the year of 1944, when life and death dramas are played out daily in Europe and the Pacific. Bucky, a 4-F, was denied glory on the battlefield because of his eyesight, and he struggles against his vision as do the other protagonists of Roth's late short novels - their aspiration forever frustrated by reality. Bucky, however, cannot escape the feeling that his misfortunes are his own fault. In this case, the problem is a polio epidemic in the Jewish neighborhood, and as the children Bucky watches over begin to succumb to disease, and death, he feels a growing sense of responsibility.
An obvious conclusion is that Roth is returning to the New Jersey of his childhood for this particular story. But one is conscious of the backdrop - World War II - and the ongoing liquidation of Europe's Jews in the concentration camps. Instead of fighting that menace, Bucky instead fights fear that begins to grip his community as families and children begin looking for the secret sources of the growing contagion, which robs the limbs of power and the lungs of breath. When one frantic parent asks, "Our Jewish children are our riches...Why is it attacking our beautiful Jewish children?" one has the Holocaust in miniature. A grief stricken father says for the whole planet, "The meaninglessness of it! A terrible disease drops from the sky and somebody is dead overnight. A child, no less!"
Which brings us to the other feature of "Nemesis," which is the feeling that stirs in Bucky that what follows him may not be a horror of his own making but a supernatural one. As Bucky begins to wonder at the purpose of innocent children suddenly being robbed of life, he begins to suspect that God is behind it all. This feeling grows in him, as tragedy piles on top of tragedy, both at home among his children and on the battlefield with his friends:
"Bucky's conception of God, as I thought I understood it, was of an omnipotent being whose nature and purpose was to be adduced not from doubtful biblical evidence but from irrefutable historical proof, gleaned during a lifetime passed on this planet in the middle of the twentieth century. His conception of God was of an omnipotent being who was a union not of three persons in one God-head, as in Christianity, but of two" - a sadistic soul and an evil genius.
It's interesting that Roth gives his character a sentiment C.S. Lewis expressed in "A Grief Observed" - that God can sometimes feel like a cosmic vivisectionist, that His power is not perfectly displayed in His grace, but instead in His ability to torture creation. Roth, who does not believe in an afterlife, God, Christ, or otherwise, creates a character who feels the presence of God in the negative, and presumes a God intimately involved in our day-to-day lives, for the purposes of destruction, like a child who destroys the sand castle he has spent the last two hours creating. This proof is not comforting, for how does the created hope to last against the Creator? The feeling that one strives against a Being who will not bless him even if he should grab hold of Him dogs Bucky and haunts the reader.
In mid-story, Bucky flees the playground to the summer camp where his girlfriend works. He feels secure in the mountains, and enjoys the love of the woman he intends to marry. His girl sings "I'll Be Seeing You" to him, a song that he resurrects later in life, the story of a lover who is reminded of the beloved in the familiar places of life that they have shared. But one wonders if this love song isn't instead a more menacing reminder that God is always watching. It falls to the book's final third act, where we see our faceless narrator revealed as one of Bucky's grown playground children, to allow events to reveal Bucky as he existed before and as these fears are realized, in his mind. Whether they are, in fact, so, is yet one more question for the reader to navigate.
"Nemesis" of course, was the Greek goddess of retribution. But the word also means an antagonist who brings punishment, or the cause of inevitable downfall. Whatever Roth's intent, he has created a universe of possibility in the chaos that forms, like a contagion, in the air of summer camps and summer romances where danger is thought to be distant but secrets itself behind our desperate longings, and in a negative faith that offers no consolation.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Solar by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan’s “Solar” swirls with a vortex of false narratives. The hapless hero, Michael Beard, is a physicist at the book’s beginning in 2000 who is brooding over the ruins of his fifth marriage. He is a Nobel Laureate, coasting on the accomplishments of his youth and seemingly doomed to playing out the string of his life by gaining weight, taking teaching positions and engaging in research of little distinction.
But that’s only the truth of his position. Beard senses his wife’s infidelity, so he fabricates a lover of his own, and the damage is done. Through a typical series of McEwanesque calamities, he pins a murder on another man, uses a dead man’s research as his own, and ultimately in entangled with a woman who fabricates her own lover to tease him. Any character’s individual honesty is only as good as their least elegantly told lie.
But all of these fictions point to something else - one of the grand narratives of our time - global warming. The idea that human consumption of energy is slowly but inevitably heating the atmosphere and will have catastrophic effects on human life is accepted by the scientific community but dismissed by much of the public as either an elaborate hoax or the kind of doomsday scenario scientists dream up for more government funding.
McEwan’s aim - to write a novel “about” global warming - seems a task tailor made for him. McEwan’s supple prose has been used before in illustrating, through fiction, the beauty of science. His usual combination of macabre happenstance and an appreciation for the comic in the human condition are up to the task here. But instead of writing a big, important novel about the dangers of consumption, McEwan has written a comic novel so subtle and enjoyable that his message, if he intended one, might be totally unrecognized.
McEwan slyly plays on the public’s skepticism about global warming to construct a story about false stories. And over ten years time, we follow Beard as his false stories grow through his career, his relationships, and his objectives. But we are aware, even as he is not, that none of these stories will last forever. The truth will not be held at bay indefinitely. Men framed for murder eventually leave jail. Jilted lovers will not be ignored. Plagiarism will out. A lifetime of junk food, alcohol and sedentary living will eventually choke the heart. McEwan leaves the parallel there, untouched, for the reader to pick up - that global warming can’t be ignored forever. Eventually, all the doubters will have to acknowledge they were wrong. But will it be too late by then? This is a playful invitation to believe, and quite refreshing. As someone who is dubious of the doomsday claims myself, I found his “argument” strangely compelling.
This isn’t a book of long sermons in the service of Al Gore-like hysteria. Instead, even as Beard gives speeches and engages in conversations about the dangers of global warming, he is thinking about his next meal, his insistent nausea, his lover. This is quite a journey, since at the book’s beginning, Beard is an indifferent, slightly skeptical believer in the truth of our rising temperatures. Predictably for McEwan, the book’s devout believer is a crank - a brilliant crank whose research Beard appropriates after the man’s untimely and convenient death.
Beard, our “hero,” reminds one of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the character in John Updike’s famous tetralogy on American life. Rabbit grows thick around the middle and hastens his own demise through his self indulgence and indifference to the consequences of his actions. It is Beard’s self-satisfaction that keeps this book grounded, as he leaps from lover to lover, trying to stay ahead of time itself, inventing his own explanations that only serve a little while. He even notices this himself, and is amused by it:
“At moments of important decision-making, the mind could be considered a parliament, a debating chamber. Different factions contended, short-and long-term interests were entrenched in mutual loathing. Not only were motions tabled and opposed, certain proposals were aired in order to mask others. Sessions could be devious as well as stormy.”
McEwan is an atheist, which makes his book that much more interesting, because he has created a book about belief. Michael Beard doesn’t believe in global warming until it suits him, but we aren’t sure he believes so much as he wants to wrap himself in something that will make others believe in him. He clings to his image even as it deserts him, and at book’s end reaches out for the touch of the toddler daughter he was a second before ready to abandon. He doesn’t need rising oceans to signal the end of the world - he unwittingly brings it on himself.
But that’s only the truth of his position. Beard senses his wife’s infidelity, so he fabricates a lover of his own, and the damage is done. Through a typical series of McEwanesque calamities, he pins a murder on another man, uses a dead man’s research as his own, and ultimately in entangled with a woman who fabricates her own lover to tease him. Any character’s individual honesty is only as good as their least elegantly told lie.
But all of these fictions point to something else - one of the grand narratives of our time - global warming. The idea that human consumption of energy is slowly but inevitably heating the atmosphere and will have catastrophic effects on human life is accepted by the scientific community but dismissed by much of the public as either an elaborate hoax or the kind of doomsday scenario scientists dream up for more government funding.
McEwan’s aim - to write a novel “about” global warming - seems a task tailor made for him. McEwan’s supple prose has been used before in illustrating, through fiction, the beauty of science. His usual combination of macabre happenstance and an appreciation for the comic in the human condition are up to the task here. But instead of writing a big, important novel about the dangers of consumption, McEwan has written a comic novel so subtle and enjoyable that his message, if he intended one, might be totally unrecognized.
McEwan slyly plays on the public’s skepticism about global warming to construct a story about false stories. And over ten years time, we follow Beard as his false stories grow through his career, his relationships, and his objectives. But we are aware, even as he is not, that none of these stories will last forever. The truth will not be held at bay indefinitely. Men framed for murder eventually leave jail. Jilted lovers will not be ignored. Plagiarism will out. A lifetime of junk food, alcohol and sedentary living will eventually choke the heart. McEwan leaves the parallel there, untouched, for the reader to pick up - that global warming can’t be ignored forever. Eventually, all the doubters will have to acknowledge they were wrong. But will it be too late by then? This is a playful invitation to believe, and quite refreshing. As someone who is dubious of the doomsday claims myself, I found his “argument” strangely compelling.
This isn’t a book of long sermons in the service of Al Gore-like hysteria. Instead, even as Beard gives speeches and engages in conversations about the dangers of global warming, he is thinking about his next meal, his insistent nausea, his lover. This is quite a journey, since at the book’s beginning, Beard is an indifferent, slightly skeptical believer in the truth of our rising temperatures. Predictably for McEwan, the book’s devout believer is a crank - a brilliant crank whose research Beard appropriates after the man’s untimely and convenient death.
Beard, our “hero,” reminds one of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the character in John Updike’s famous tetralogy on American life. Rabbit grows thick around the middle and hastens his own demise through his self indulgence and indifference to the consequences of his actions. It is Beard’s self-satisfaction that keeps this book grounded, as he leaps from lover to lover, trying to stay ahead of time itself, inventing his own explanations that only serve a little while. He even notices this himself, and is amused by it:
“At moments of important decision-making, the mind could be considered a parliament, a debating chamber. Different factions contended, short-and long-term interests were entrenched in mutual loathing. Not only were motions tabled and opposed, certain proposals were aired in order to mask others. Sessions could be devious as well as stormy.”
McEwan is an atheist, which makes his book that much more interesting, because he has created a book about belief. Michael Beard doesn’t believe in global warming until it suits him, but we aren’t sure he believes so much as he wants to wrap himself in something that will make others believe in him. He clings to his image even as it deserts him, and at book’s end reaches out for the touch of the toddler daughter he was a second before ready to abandon. He doesn’t need rising oceans to signal the end of the world - he unwittingly brings it on himself.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
“To imagine a man wholly destitute of freedom is the same thing as to imagine a man destitute of life.”
These words come not from Jonathan Franzen‘s heralded new novel but from the novel that keeps getting mentioned in it - Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Many times, Tolstoy reminds us that free will is something that diminishes the more we become entangled in the affairs of others, because their individual and collective senses of freedom are inescapably tied to ours.
The question of freedom, and “Freedom,” is ultimately what it means. Franzen’s novel has gotten plenty of attention - and backlash - since its publication earlier this month. Like its namesake, Franzen’s work will probably mean many things to many different people. To me, it was an endlessly frustrating reading experience.
“Freedom” bears more than a passing structural resemblance to “The Corrections,” Franzen’s 2001 book that earned him the praise and ire of Oprah Winfrey, and the reputation he enjoys today. “The Corrections” began with a scene-setting set piece to introduce us to its family, the Lamberts, then individual sections that focused on each member - the parental couple and their three children, Chip, Gary and Denise. For example, the section that dealt with Chip, and presented the self-important literary “hump” to the book, was derided by critics as being a trial to navigate before unlocking the rest of the rich novel. The other sections fleshed out our expectations. The book concluded with a bittersweet grace note epilogue that ties all of its characters together, “corrected” by each other and the events in their lives.
“Freedom” begins with the Berglunds, another Midwestern family, this time with two children - if one doesn’t count the passive-aggressive father Walter and the neurotic obsessive mother Patty. Instead of a third child, we have Walter’s best friend Richard, the secret repository of Patty’s sexual fantasies going all the way back to college.
The “hump” section of “Freedom” is Patty’s story, written by her for her therapist, with Patty referring to herself in the third person. More than a few readers have pointed out that Patty sounds a lot like Franzen stylistically, which reveals one of the major flaws of this very ambitious book. “Freedom” offers many observations, but the reader is not at all sure sometimes where these observations are coming from. Are they from the characters, or Franzen? Does this matter? It does when the tone of the book continues to become and more misanthropic as the book progresses. One sees the rest of the world - with all its other people, with all their disgusting otherness - as a travesty, a hindrance, a check on the characters’ freedom, to the point where the reader is left wondering if this is characterization, an artistic pose, or the author’s lack of regard for the rest of us mere mortals. One is reminded of the couple at the other table in the restaurant who continue to eat while cursing the food, the waiter, the other diners, etc.
We move through Walter’s story, Richard’s story, and find that the three adults are supposed to remind us of Tolstoy’s troika of Prince Andrei, Pierre and Natasha from “War and Peace.” More on that later. We then move on to Joey and Jessica, the Burglund’s two children. Jessica, a perfect liberal, is forever at odds with Joey, the Republican dolt. Joey’s chief occupation is running to and from Connie, the neighbor who very obviously would put her head through a plate glass window for him if he wished. Jessica exists to make her father happy, in the way that Patty dotes on Joey and is forever frustrated with him.
The party affiliations also bring up another gripe. There’s a disturbing political morality to all of this that is constantly off-putting. More often than not, Republican is shorthand in this novel for evil, just as religion is wrapped up in politics, and rendered either bad or annoying. All of this is fine for a campaign commercial, but this is supposed to be art. If the Great American Novel can be boiled down to a simple equation of Liberal Democrat= virtue, vision, intellectual, true, good - and Conservative Republican = mean, viscous, evil, stupid, greedy - then the field of candidates for the Novel has simultaneously gotten a lot bigger and much shallower. George W. Bush broods over this novel like a volcano menacing a sleeping city. Franzen seems to forget that his audience lived through the last ten years just like him. The familiar and tiresome gripes of the Iraq War, etc. have been rehearsed so many times that they lose any power they might have emotionally or intellectually. We get it, Jon. You didn’t agree with Bush v. Gore.
But the novel has many virtues. One is its sprawling inventiveness. Franzen gives us the history of the Berglunds going back several generations, which illustrates how much of these characters’ decisions are as much genetic predispositions as responses to the moment. Another is his use of the environment to describe how far the characters self-regard will clash with their regard for others. As the novel progresses, one sees that the inspiration for Walter’s interest in the hardly-endangered bird he hopes to preserve is merely his own long-checked ambition.
Franzen is also good at illustrating the divide between the elder Berglunds, boomers that they are with all the obligatory neuroses, with their children, who are destined not to understand them as much as they are misunderstood. Though the Berglunds have labored mightily to give their children a sense of freedom, the children don’t appreciate it, in the way that each generation squanders and ignores the lessons of the last one. This is one of the endearing, enduring qualities of the book. Franzen gives the reader fully-realized characters in ways that many novelists can only aspire to, with a rich leavening of information about weapons contracting, nature preserves, mountain top removal mining, and the politics of music. But he doesn't lose sight of the human. Toward the end of all of these moments, Patty's mother Joyce tells her, "I guess my life hasn't always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I wanted. At a certain point, I just have to try not to think too much about certain things, or else they'll break my heart." Many readers will nod their heads, having heard them before, or said them.
But he forgets something crucial, and that is that the reader desperately wants some reason to believe in these people, to like them. The Berglunds and the universe around them grow tedious after a few hundred pages, chiefly because there is very little to actually like about them. If they ring recognizable for stretches, it isn’t discomfort that makes them tiresome but how little we sense Franzen thinks of them. And somehow, of us.
For all the comparisons to “War and Peace,” the endless passages about freedom that pockmark this book reminded me of Tolstoy’s other great work, “Anna Karenina.” Levin, contemplating his impending marriage to Kitty, muses that he is about to lose his freedom, and then smiles at the question. “Freedom? Why freedom? Happiness is only in loving and desiring, thinking her desires, her thoughts - that is, no freedom at all - that’s what happiness is!”
Franzen seems to be telling us something similar to Tolstoy - that freedom is something we define for ourselves, and our conception of it defines us. But Tolstoy’s definition was a radically Christian one - that freedom spent on the self is squandered and meaningless. The illustration that Franzen provides us is the negative of Tolstoy’s, and our time with his book feels as misspent as a life spent only unto itself.
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These words come not from Jonathan Franzen‘s heralded new novel but from the novel that keeps getting mentioned in it - Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Many times, Tolstoy reminds us that free will is something that diminishes the more we become entangled in the affairs of others, because their individual and collective senses of freedom are inescapably tied to ours.
The question of freedom, and “Freedom,” is ultimately what it means. Franzen’s novel has gotten plenty of attention - and backlash - since its publication earlier this month. Like its namesake, Franzen’s work will probably mean many things to many different people. To me, it was an endlessly frustrating reading experience.
“Freedom” bears more than a passing structural resemblance to “The Corrections,” Franzen’s 2001 book that earned him the praise and ire of Oprah Winfrey, and the reputation he enjoys today. “The Corrections” began with a scene-setting set piece to introduce us to its family, the Lamberts, then individual sections that focused on each member - the parental couple and their three children, Chip, Gary and Denise. For example, the section that dealt with Chip, and presented the self-important literary “hump” to the book, was derided by critics as being a trial to navigate before unlocking the rest of the rich novel. The other sections fleshed out our expectations. The book concluded with a bittersweet grace note epilogue that ties all of its characters together, “corrected” by each other and the events in their lives.
“Freedom” begins with the Berglunds, another Midwestern family, this time with two children - if one doesn’t count the passive-aggressive father Walter and the neurotic obsessive mother Patty. Instead of a third child, we have Walter’s best friend Richard, the secret repository of Patty’s sexual fantasies going all the way back to college.
The “hump” section of “Freedom” is Patty’s story, written by her for her therapist, with Patty referring to herself in the third person. More than a few readers have pointed out that Patty sounds a lot like Franzen stylistically, which reveals one of the major flaws of this very ambitious book. “Freedom” offers many observations, but the reader is not at all sure sometimes where these observations are coming from. Are they from the characters, or Franzen? Does this matter? It does when the tone of the book continues to become and more misanthropic as the book progresses. One sees the rest of the world - with all its other people, with all their disgusting otherness - as a travesty, a hindrance, a check on the characters’ freedom, to the point where the reader is left wondering if this is characterization, an artistic pose, or the author’s lack of regard for the rest of us mere mortals. One is reminded of the couple at the other table in the restaurant who continue to eat while cursing the food, the waiter, the other diners, etc.
We move through Walter’s story, Richard’s story, and find that the three adults are supposed to remind us of Tolstoy’s troika of Prince Andrei, Pierre and Natasha from “War and Peace.” More on that later. We then move on to Joey and Jessica, the Burglund’s two children. Jessica, a perfect liberal, is forever at odds with Joey, the Republican dolt. Joey’s chief occupation is running to and from Connie, the neighbor who very obviously would put her head through a plate glass window for him if he wished. Jessica exists to make her father happy, in the way that Patty dotes on Joey and is forever frustrated with him.
The party affiliations also bring up another gripe. There’s a disturbing political morality to all of this that is constantly off-putting. More often than not, Republican is shorthand in this novel for evil, just as religion is wrapped up in politics, and rendered either bad or annoying. All of this is fine for a campaign commercial, but this is supposed to be art. If the Great American Novel can be boiled down to a simple equation of Liberal Democrat= virtue, vision, intellectual, true, good - and Conservative Republican = mean, viscous, evil, stupid, greedy - then the field of candidates for the Novel has simultaneously gotten a lot bigger and much shallower. George W. Bush broods over this novel like a volcano menacing a sleeping city. Franzen seems to forget that his audience lived through the last ten years just like him. The familiar and tiresome gripes of the Iraq War, etc. have been rehearsed so many times that they lose any power they might have emotionally or intellectually. We get it, Jon. You didn’t agree with Bush v. Gore.
But the novel has many virtues. One is its sprawling inventiveness. Franzen gives us the history of the Berglunds going back several generations, which illustrates how much of these characters’ decisions are as much genetic predispositions as responses to the moment. Another is his use of the environment to describe how far the characters self-regard will clash with their regard for others. As the novel progresses, one sees that the inspiration for Walter’s interest in the hardly-endangered bird he hopes to preserve is merely his own long-checked ambition.
Franzen is also good at illustrating the divide between the elder Berglunds, boomers that they are with all the obligatory neuroses, with their children, who are destined not to understand them as much as they are misunderstood. Though the Berglunds have labored mightily to give their children a sense of freedom, the children don’t appreciate it, in the way that each generation squanders and ignores the lessons of the last one. This is one of the endearing, enduring qualities of the book. Franzen gives the reader fully-realized characters in ways that many novelists can only aspire to, with a rich leavening of information about weapons contracting, nature preserves, mountain top removal mining, and the politics of music. But he doesn't lose sight of the human. Toward the end of all of these moments, Patty's mother Joyce tells her, "I guess my life hasn't always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I wanted. At a certain point, I just have to try not to think too much about certain things, or else they'll break my heart." Many readers will nod their heads, having heard them before, or said them.
But he forgets something crucial, and that is that the reader desperately wants some reason to believe in these people, to like them. The Berglunds and the universe around them grow tedious after a few hundred pages, chiefly because there is very little to actually like about them. If they ring recognizable for stretches, it isn’t discomfort that makes them tiresome but how little we sense Franzen thinks of them. And somehow, of us.
For all the comparisons to “War and Peace,” the endless passages about freedom that pockmark this book reminded me of Tolstoy’s other great work, “Anna Karenina.” Levin, contemplating his impending marriage to Kitty, muses that he is about to lose his freedom, and then smiles at the question. “Freedom? Why freedom? Happiness is only in loving and desiring, thinking her desires, her thoughts - that is, no freedom at all - that’s what happiness is!”
Franzen seems to be telling us something similar to Tolstoy - that freedom is something we define for ourselves, and our conception of it defines us. But Tolstoy’s definition was a radically Christian one - that freedom spent on the self is squandered and meaningless. The illustration that Franzen provides us is the negative of Tolstoy’s, and our time with his book feels as misspent as a life spent only unto itself.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Brilliant Disguises: Now available as an e-book
"Brilliant Disguises" is now available as an e-book at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other outlets. The reviews are rolling in:
"Thornton has much to offer the Christian fiction genre, and I hope that a publishing company picks him up soon." Christy's Book Blog reviews Brilliant Disguises here:
http://christysbookblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/brilliant-disguises.html
The book is "compelling, calling the reader to examine their own life with regards to their actions and motives." Radiant Lit also liked the reader's guide:
http://radiantlit.com/2010/10/review-brilliant-disguises/
"Enjoyable" "Convicting" "An inspiring book with a great message." That's what an Ohio blogger says about "Brilliant Disguises." You can read the review here:
http://thoughtsofasojourner.blogspot.com/2010/03/brilliant-disguises-by-william-thornton.html
Book Critiques gave the novel four stars. You can read that review here:
http://bookcritiques.blogspot.com/2010/03/brilliant-disguises-by-william-thornton.html
AusJenny, an Australian blogger, said "Brilliant Disguises" is "thought-provoking" and "a great read." You can read the review here:
http://ausjenny.blogspot.com/
"Brilliant!" You can read Winning Readings review here:
http://winningreadings.blogspot.com/2010/06/reviewgiveaway-brilliant-disguises.html
"Thornton has much to offer the Christian fiction genre, and I hope that a publishing company picks him up soon." Christy's Book Blog reviews Brilliant Disguises here:
http://christysbookblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/brilliant-disguises.html
The book is "compelling, calling the reader to examine their own life with regards to their actions and motives." Radiant Lit also liked the reader's guide:
http://radiantlit.com/2010/10/review-brilliant-disguises/
"Enjoyable" "Convicting" "An inspiring book with a great message." That's what an Ohio blogger says about "Brilliant Disguises." You can read the review here:
http://thoughtsofasojourner.blogspot.com/2010/03/brilliant-disguises-by-william-thornton.html
Book Critiques gave the novel four stars. You can read that review here:
http://bookcritiques.blogspot.com/2010/03/brilliant-disguises-by-william-thornton.html
AusJenny, an Australian blogger, said "Brilliant Disguises" is "thought-provoking" and "a great read." You can read the review here:
http://ausjenny.blogspot.com/
"Brilliant!" You can read Winning Readings review here:
http://winningreadings.blogspot.com/2010/06/reviewgiveaway-brilliant-disguises.html
Thursday, February 11, 2010
A Mention in the Leeds News
Brilliant Disguises got mentioned in The Leeds News here.
I will be signing copies at Moody's Doris Stanley Memorial Library Thursday, Feb. 18 at 11 a.m.
I will be signing copies at Moody's Doris Stanley Memorial Library Thursday, Feb. 18 at 11 a.m.
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