Picador

The Girl With The Glass Feet

brittany — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

I am a bit of a daydreamer, as I imagine we all are. When I read, the same rule applies; while the letters unfurl on the page, the images unwind in my mind, doing as they will, relying on my knowledge of the world. I do not like intrusions into that universe. Ali Shaw is a daydreamer as well; however, his dreams have intruded into my own. In The Girl with the Glass Feet, Shaw not only shares the story of Ida Maclaird, her feet, and Midas Crook; Shaw over-shares, too much information and not enough room for imagination. Oily rag skies and overuse of analogies lead to worn dreams.

The story revolves around the everlasting search for redemption. Each character looks to be saved from their glass feet. For some, it is a physical ailment; for others, an emotional, their Achilles heel, if you will. The book’s main character, Ida Maclaird, becomes the very metaphor of Shaw’s analogies after a while—tired and overused. It is disconcerting how helpless and wounded Ida seems. In comparison to the male characters, the women in this book are utterly dispirited.

There is an additional character, however mute and muted in this book. A mythical creature they all seek, knowingly or not, which blanches everything it looks upon. The creature is in the image of a fawn and seems to be female. In a way it assumes the faults many literary women have but not the ones in this book; it forces its will onto others indiscriminately, it enchants and beguiles. Like the glass it is the physical manifestation of a condition. This creature is the one manifestation of the absence of light.

I tend to like how men write about women. Men are kinder or harsher upon women than we are upon ourselves. In this book, Shaw is more kind. His women, while meek and dispirited, are not unreal; they are translucent like the glass that permeates the islands on which they live. Furthermore, these women are beyond redemption. The men who constantly try to save them fail. In that way, the men have no redemption either; tethered to one another they all become immovable works of intricate glass weighing down on one another. Not the islands and their latent hostility, not the mythical creature of white and the purity it enforces by turning everything white as it is, but rather the nature of the people to seek camaraderie and sink when they fail.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, March 25th 2011

The Summer Without Men

brittany — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Siri Hustvedt

Picador

The basic storyline of The Summer Without Men, while not startling or original, seemed full of possibility: husband cheats, wife goes to her childhood home for a respite to recover, and along the way makes potentially hopeful discoveries about herself. I anticipated a bitter beginning, full of hurt feelings, with some healing by the end. However, either the moment of redemption never arrived, or it was obscured by the lack of clarity in the narrative.

Siri Hustvedt has given us for a protagonist Mia Fredrickson, an intellectual poet who has almost nothing good to say about anybody, except for the philosophers and poets who stream through her mind and punctuate moments of daily life. Her library of poets-at-the-mental-fingertips was the most charming thing about her, and most readers could likely relate to the way a quote or a lyric arises unbeckoned from one’s memory. Mia assails the reader with her stream of consciousness ramblings, bouncing from observations about her detestable, cheating spouse to glimpses of her mental breakdown to detached remarks about her daughter. At times, it was difficult for me to remember where she was in space or time because her ramblings were hard to follow.

To my disappointment, Mia Frederickson was not a very sympathetic protagonist. She spends time with the women in a home for the elderly where her mother lives, and one scene raised my hopes that Mia might feel some humility, some sense of connection with other women. Instead, she continues to sound bitter and superior. When she befriends a young neighbor with a troubled marriage, I thought perhaps this friendship would bring moment of real connection. Instead, after she holds the neighbor’s baby, she describes it as a “borrowed homunculus.” This variety of cold, pretentious language fills the book and makes Mia rather difficult to connect with.

Toward the very end of the book Hustvedt asks, “Who among us would deny Jane Austen her happy endings?” Perhaps I am naive and too fond of stories that show the healing rather than the bitterness. After all, Mia’s husband has cheated after a long marriage full of disappointing moments. She was the supportive wife in the background, whose intellect often propelled her husband’s achievements while her voice went unrecognized. However, throughout the novel her voice is cool and distant, and events that might contribute to healing and growth seem to create no real effect. In this way, the novel reads more like a series of jarring snapshots.

Author Siri Hustvedt is the author of five novels, and this was my first encounter with her work. It may be that one of her earlier works would suit me better.

Written by: Lisa Rand, March 6th 2011

The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued

tina — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Ann Crittenden

Picador

Like many of my generation, I am a child of divorce. I watched as my newly single mother struggled to work, find and pay for childcare, and afford lawyers that could compete with my father’s during endless days of court. I watched as we plummeted into poverty while my wealthy father’s lifestyle barely changed. I am the daughter of a woman who chose to sacrifice her career to raise me, and who was subsequently penalized by a system that encouraged her to do precisely that. As such, I am profoundly grateful for the tenth anniversary edition of The Price of Motherhood, a book where former New York Times reporter Ann Crittenden reminds us that despite the incessant rhetoric about “family values,” America has yet to put its money where its mouth is and motherhood is still dangerously undervalued.

Crittenden seeks to demonstrate that it is motherhood and not being female that is the primary source of women’s inequality. Mothering, she claims, is dismissed by American culture as something menial, and the housewife’s work is neither politically nor economically recognized as labor. Despite this; however, inflexible workplaces almost guarantee that women will have to cut back or quit their job when they have children, resulting in a “mommy tax” of approximately $1 million in lost income for an educated mother. Moreover, when women sacrifice their careers to raise children, their unpaid labor does not entitle them to the breadwinner’s income during marriage or after a divorce. Women often have to ask their husbands for money to cover basic expenses or they’re put on an allowance that is only a fraction of the husband’s income. During divorces, many states are reluctant to give women half the assets or the highest child support payment. They also rarely go after dads who refuse to pay even the smallest sums. It is because of all of these reasons that Crittenden argues that motherhood is the single biggest risk factor for poverty, and women—who have fought to earn respect for their work in the workplace—need to keep fighting to win respect for their work in the home.

By design, Crittenden’s book promotes an intersectional approach to examining the “price of motherhood,” utilizing gender analysis, the law, public policy, and economics. Each chapter features an in-depth analysis of one of the problems facing mothers and multiple sources, including personal stories of Crittenden’s life as a mother and interviews with other women. Crittenden’s decision to use such a wide variety of sources, coupled with the structure of the book, ultimately facilitates her argument that “the price of motherhood” is derived and perpetuated from multiple locations. The book’s conclusion features a list of concrete suggestions and policy changes that should be made to “bring children up without putting women down,” a list that could be helpful to a wide array of readers, from mothers and feminist organizations to politicians.

Crittenden chooses not to rely heavily on theory, possibly in an attempt to make her book accessible to a wider audience and to better showcase her breezy, witty writing. Unfortunately; however, a lack of theory allows her to ignore feminist theorists who fear a focus on motherhood produces the idea that women are “naturally” suited for the family. She never addresses theorists, such as Wendy Brown, who argue that women should be wary of relying on the state—a patriarchal institution—for protection, or who argue that welfare regimes only swap a woman’s dependency on a husband’s paycheck for a (patriarchal) government’s check. Indeed, Crittenden seems slightly wary of taking a position on the “naturalness” of women’s mothering, hinting at times that there is something innately caring in women. I also felt she stressed the importance of having a mother at home too much, which could lead to a backlash.

Overall, I think The Price of Motherhood is a tremendously important book. It is perfect for an introductory women’s studies class, or any economics, law, and public policy class with a feminist focus. It is also a book I think every woman should read. We’re told repeatedly that we can “have it all,” but The Price of Motherhood reminds us that mothers don’t have it all—yet.

Written by: Shannon Hill, March 1st 2011

Blame

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Michelle Huneven

Picador

Michelle Huneven’s Blame spans twenty years in fewer than 300 pages but avoids any frantic pacing or strange leaps. Patsy MacLemoore, the main character, is an alcoholic. A young academic, her scholarly accomplishments initially help to balance negative effects of her alcoholism. Huneven’s protagonist has a professorship at a at a small liberal arts college. She had a small but sunny house, friends, family nearby, and was pretty, with long blonde hair, long tanned legs and a dazzling smile. At the county jail, the regular inmates call her “Professor” when she wakes up there after having had too much to drink.

When Patsy wakes up in jail—again—she assumes she’d simply had too much to drink; perhaps she’d driven even though her license had been revoked. She tries joking with the officers, the lawyers. She’d blacked out—again—and doesn’t know what she’d done to land in jail. “What is it?” she asks, “I really don’t remember. Did I kill someone?” She’s joking. Then they read her the police report. A mother and daughter, killed in her driveway, hit by a car.

Patsy pleads guilty and goes to prison. Huneven’s depiction of prison is sobering and not heavy-handed. She doesn’t romanticize Patsy’s prison experience, but neither does she withhold from her readers the moments of grace Patsy does experience there. In prison, Patsy sobers up, leaves prison and returns to town.

Patsy loses many friends, but miraculously (isn’t friendship and forgiveness always a miracle?), she is not left completely alone. Her ex-boyfriend visits her every week, becoming one of her most faithful and loyal friends. Her parents are gentle with her. Her brother looks out for her. When she leaves prison, she comes home to an apartment lovingly appointed by her best friend and his boyfriend. She meets an older man in AA and remains sober, gets married. Many years later, Patsy learns what happened when she blacked out in the car that night. That new information changes Patsy’s new and hard-won self-perception.

I didn’t want this book to end. The story isn’t incomplete, not by any means. Huneven’s feel for just the right bit of detail was wonderfully effective. I felt attached to these characters, their lives and stories, their back-stories, and their private moments very early on and simply wanted even more by the time the book ended. I loved them. I loved the depth with which Huneven wrote them. I am a sucker for stories depicting people who are deeply flawed but who are nevertheless very much loved. This was one of those stories and I hope to find another one like it again.

Written by: kristina grob, August 8th 2010

The Tricking of Freya

admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Christina Sunley

Picador

The Tricking of Freya is a multi-generational family story narrated by a girl named Freya Morris, following her life from early childhood through middle age. Freya grows up in suburban Connecticut, but her heart lives in a small village called Gimli, the Canadian settlement of her Icelandic ancestors. In Gimli, her family is revered as the descendants of two of Iceland’s best-loved poets. Freya learns early that Icelanders love words so much that many immigrants carried heavy books in their suitcases as their only belongings. She grows to love words as well, hoping to become a writer in the tradition of her family.

As an adult, Freya lives in New York and is composing a series of letters to the as yet unknown cousin she is desperately seeking. The story of her life is recalled through the events of the family past to present, much as one would update an out of town relative on all the gossip from back home. We see a tragedy that will shape the future of the entire family, as well as lead to Freya’s uncovering a long buried secret that she must try to solve by retracing her steps through the past. The story moves from the history of the immigrant settlers of Gimli to that of the descendants of those who stayed in Iceland, and is rich with the folklore, dialect, and culture of the country.

The story carries you along with Freya through her adventures, with beautiful descriptions of Iceland and its inhabitants, as well as poignant descriptions of family members lost and sought. The “tricking” referred to in the title is a mystery at the core of the story, which the reader solves along with Freya, coming each to their own conclusions about what may be real, what may be believed, and which of those is closer to the truth.

Written by: Melissa Ruiz, May 13th 2010

All the Living

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By C. E. Morgan

Picador

It doesn’t take much of a search to learn that All the Living by C. E. Morgan has been very well-reviewed. The story itself is simple: girl and boy meet; event pushes them toward a commitment neither of them had thought through; life gets rough and someone thinks about finding a way out; a certain kind of intimate conversation between girl and boy becomes possible as a result of the difficulties they learn to endure together.

But for all the simplicity of the basic story, there is a kind of fresh music in the characters’ names: Aloma, Orren, and Bell. The names sound improbably foreign to my contemporary, urban ears. It is possible that I don’t typically think about my own urbanity until some shock moves me to confront myself. This novel was just such a shock.

I’ve lived in the Midwest—along the very same Great Lake, in fact—all my life. Hills—real ones—are exciting and exotic to me, but mountains, I realize, are the stuff of fairy tales. Mountains are an event, a vacation, a dreamworld, an aberration. A mountain could only be wonderful or terrifying. There is nothing mundane—to me—about a mountain.

To Aloma, the mountains are stifling and oppressive. Indeed, they are almost as much a character in the novel as the humans who live within them. Aloma dreams of flat land and a sky that meets the horizon. She dreams of days that are longer than the mountains’ peaks permit. It is amazing that the flatness of my own geographical reality could be someone else’s dream.

Morgan’s book evokes such a strong sense of place that I felt disoriented for the duration of my reading. Aloma’s experiences resisted me: I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be her. I couldn’t imagine what my own reactions would have been. I couldn’t even imagine what it must feel like to feel burdened by topography. In short, I was jolted from a comfortably narcissistic reading practice and could only (only!) try to understand Aloma, Orren, and Bell as separate characters, utterly distinct from me.

Perhaps this reveals me to be—generally—a “bad” reader: one who feels comfortable and relaxed with familiarity and disoriented and alert when confronted with the unfamiliar. Perhaps, too, it explains the number of negative reviews of Morgan’s novels: a surprising number of readers complained that “nothing happens.” But it also speaks to the subtle power of Morgan’s writing. She has created characters and situations that resist readerly co-option and a place that insists on its particularity. The effect was wonderful, and I can’t wait to reread this book and to read more by her in the future.

Written by: kristina grob, May 3rd 2010

Molly Fox's Birthday

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Deirdre Madden

Picador

The fact that Deirdre Madden's tale takes place all in one day, as a calm reflection of the narrator’s relationships, does not take away from the fantastic insights to human nature that the author reveals. It may be Molly Fox’s birthday, but the real gift is for the playwright who hangs out in Molly’s house in Dublin while the eponymous character is away.

Molly Fox’s Birthday is told from the point of the view of the playwright, who revisits the memories of how she met Molly and their careers. She later expresses her feelings for another character, Andrew. The playwright is very good at pinpointing the motivations behind the actions of people she associates with; however, she comes to discover that maybe she doesn’t really know Molly at all. Madden puts into words what is universal to the human psyche.

One of the more interesting aspects of Molly Fox’s Birthday is how the playwright's brother, a Northern Ireland raised priest, maneuvers his way through cosmopolitan Dublin and London, maintaining a rather secretive relationship with Molly. He appears to be much more self-accepting and tolerant than our storyteller, who lies to others when she feels insecure.

Denial opens up to truth as the book winds down, not that it ever moves at a fast pace. It is, instead, rather tranquil. The narrator mentions and revisits one small memory from her relationship with one of the male characters, which she has lied to Molly about. It only takes a knock at the door to bring emotions from twenty years ago back into the front of her focus. Time can’t erase what she still feels, and tries to bury under silent hemming and hawing.

The ho-hum nature of describing what a wonderful actress Molly is, and how beautiful her belongings are could be replaced with more detail about the two women's undergrad years at Trinity, since this is the time that forms the foundation of all of the relationships in the book. Another aspect that should have been further explored was the behind-the-scenes details of life behind the stage (the actors, writers, directors), a life about which we only get hints.

One of the struggles that is universal to the human experience is the choice of whether to conform to family and community expectations or step into the role of the black sheep. Madden explores this through the narrator, who has trouble returning to the embrace of the family. She also makes a point of inserting the tensions between Molly and her mother. These examples, like the other memories, further the view that the past directs our present. Molly Fox’s Birthday is a nice, short, quiet trip.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, April 30th 2010

The Spare Room

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Helen Garner

Picador

Many of us love our friends just as much as our family members. We often believe we would go to great lengths to protect them, as does Helen, the narrator of The Spare Room. Garner's novel is the story of a fifteen-year-old friendship between two women in their sixties, a period that is perhaps the busiest in a woman’s life with competing familial, social, and in many cases, professional demands.

Nicola, an artsy bohemian who turned her back on mainstream culture in the 1970s, goes to stay with Helen in her spare room in Melbourne so that she can undergo alternative Vitamin C treatments for her stage-four cancer. Selfless Helen, who initially does whatever is necessary to accommodate her friend, quickly butts heads with Nicola’s coping method of choice: denial. As Helen puts her life on hold caring for Nicola for a mere "fortnight," which turns into three weeks, she quickly becomes overcome with fatigue. Her exhaustion stems not only from the constant care she feels her friend needs, but also from having to hold her tongue in the face of money-grubbing charlatans and her much-loved friend’s magical thinking regarding her disease.

It may be difficult to imagine this as light reading. However, Garner is a master of concision, and it is difficult to find even a single superfluous sentence in her 175 pages. In addition to shedding light on the limits of friendship, she also celebrates key aspects of friendship between women: the validation of thoughts and feelings, the understanding, and the laughter. In fact, it is Garner’s use of rich, dark humour that knocks the stuffing out of death and illness in this book and keeps the narrative rolling.

Although many young women will feel this scenario is still a long way off, Nicola’s harsh look back on what she made of her life will cause some to realize just how insidious and powerful mainstream culture is. Our strong and seemingly invincible bohemian mothers and aunts who chose their counterculture lives in the 1970s have not always been immune to the pervasiveness of the status quo and how it still manages to creep in and colour their basic personal views. The Spare Room gives us all a much needed reminder of the work that we as women still have ahead of us, not only in striving for equality in material terms, but also in acknowledging and validating our own personal struggles with mainstream culture as we head down the road less traveled.

In short, The Spare Room should be read not only for the quality of the writing but also for the situation that everyone will be pushed one day to consider. This is a perfect book for an intergenerational book club.

Written by: Heather Leighton, April 29th 2010

Mathilda Savitch

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Victor Lodato

Picador

Despite years of being told not to, I immediately judged Victor Lodato’s novel Mathilda Savitch by the cover. I opened it expecting to speed through a mature version of Harriet the Spy with a twist of Tim Burton’s eccentricity. The title suggested a fantastic world not unlike Coraline; however, the fantasy of Mathilda Savitch is of the saddest shade.

Young Mathilda Savitch is a teenager who introduces herself in the first line of the book by saying, “I want to be awful.” Disoriented by the sudden death of her older sister Helene, Mathilda descends into an internal world of obsessive compulsive habits, nightmares, and delusion. Her home reflects her dark imagination, as her mother has succumbed to depression and alcoholism while her father weakly tries to maintain the family’s previous levity.

Mathilda Savitch is bitterly funny at times, reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye or The Bell Jar. While it’s supposed to be a coming-of-age story—addressing menstruation, sexual experimentation, as well as basic rebellion—it feels more like a moment fixed in time.

While there are wonderful moments in the book, it isn’t flawless. A parallel theme of terrorism felt superficial and gratuitous. I also wasn’t completely convinced by Mathilda’s voice, especially when it came to puberty and sexuality. As a woman, I did not sense authenticity in these moments as I did when she was frustrated with her parents or missing her sister. Her thoughts, which compose the majority of the book, often sound more like staged monologues.

In fact, Lodato is a playwright and a poet, and this is his debut novel. Bits of the text read like poetry—“Window eyes, a window nose, and a door for a mouth”—while other parts sound like a play. Overall, however, Lodato has captured a painful stream of consciousness. I could imagine myself as a sometimes unhappy teenager wanting to find a dark place, alone, to obsess over Mathilda Savitch like a secret friend. This is a book worth reading, and although a fast read, it is not best suited for the beach.

Written by: Claire Burrows, April 16th 2010

Hotel Iris

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Yoko Ogawa

Picador

Having been forced to drop out of school to work at her family's seaside hotel in Japan, a young woman named Mari suffers through days marked by routine. She cleans rooms, minds the desk, and attends to the needs of the guests. The novel Hotel Iris explores what happens when a girl breaks free of a life of controlled repetition, only to fall victim to an even more brutal cycle of submission and domination. Taking shape slowly, like the way breath comes on a hot summer day, Mari reaches so far into the depths of her own fantasy that she eventually chokes on it.

The story begins when a translator and a prostitute have a fight in Mari's hotel. The seventeen-year-old is drawn into the sureness of the man's "beautiful voice giving an order, with no hint of indecision," as he barks insults and orders at the woman. "Even the word 'whore' was somehow appealing." This is the beginning of the end for both the translator and for Mari, as they enter into a secret affair.

Violence is found in every aspect of Mari's life, even the common procedure of styling hair is painful and brutal. Mari's mother is so controlling that she insists on doing the girl's hair, the force of the tugging dependent upon the older woman's mood. Eventually, Mari leaves one dungeon for another, thus transferring violence from the hotel to the translator's island, an isolated home off the coast that can only be reached by boat.

Publicly careful and timid, Mari's time on the island is full of pain, pleasure, and submission. As the translator's violence increases, so too does Mari's desire. The translator is decifering not only Russian pamphlets but also this young girl's body, expanding her worldview. The suspense in Hotel Iris is as suffocating as the heat, and metaphors are both abundant and rich.

The physical action of the characters says more than psychoanalysis could, and Ogawa does not overanalyze her characters' behavior. Many writers fall victim to saying too much, but Ogawa's chief strength is that she doesn't feel compelled to explain her characters' motivations. Instead, the iceberg is acknowledged without being examined.

The restraint shown in the early sections of Hotel Iris is sadly lost in its final few pages. Too much is explained at once, and the result is a rushed, incomplete closing to such a poetic and nuanced novel. The tension that held the story together ultimately dissipates with little pay off. Ogawa's patient weaving of an enthralling tale is what keeps the reader suspended, waiting to see if everything will drop and knowing that, if it does, the fall will be far and dangerous.

Written by: Lisa Bower, April 11th 2010

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By David Rieff, Susan Sontag

Picador

When reading fictionalized journals, one never experiences the sense of the guilt that results from a real intrusion into someone’s private thoughts and personal life. The fictive writer simply does not exist. When the journal being read belongs to someone who has had a very real public persona, the reader will always experience a few uncomfortable moments. In reading Susan Sontag’s journals, this feeling is amplified tenfold. Firstly, these are the journals of a young woman who eventually became a famous writer and intellectual—the journals start when Sontag is only fourteen years of age. Secondly, the fact that her son, editor and author David Rieff, edited the journals for publication and glimpsed his mother’s private garden is a bit daunting.

From the outset, the thorny question of the dual son-editor role that David Rieff plays should be addressed. Any editor would have chosen to trim down the journals, which span sixteen years of Sontag’s life. This period, and the resulting length of the journals, would be excessive for any publication, and Rieff plans to issue two other tomes covering the rest of her personal writing. In choosing to publish the journals in the first place, the decision to “censure” some of its parts seems questionable. Censure is a term Rieff clearly rejects, citing “the literary dangers and moral hazards of such an enterprise.” But, how could he not let his own emotions act as filters to his mother’s journals’ contents? Rieff sometimes selects “a few representative entries,” while other times he omits complete sections intentionally (as with Sontag’s notes about her trip to Italy) and includes thoughts that had been redacted in the original journals by Sontag herself. Inexplicably for someone so prolific in her journal-keeping, there is a notable absence of notebooks for the years 1951-1952, the years Sontag was first married.

Sontag’s journals were clearly not meant for an audience, contrary to some journals of other famous authors. In his (often moving) introduction, Rieff recognizes that his “decision [to publish] certainly violates [his mother’s] privacy.” The notebooks consist of Sontag’s private thoughts and experiences, and also of random lists, facts, and information. They were most certainly kept by the author to remind herself of some of these pieces of information: films seen, books read, or to be read. It could be argued that the fact that she abbreviates some of her lovers’ names meant she was concerned about possible readers (or snoops) and she also codes some words/ideas with an “X” which Reiff does not (cannot?) interpret.

Sontag’s journals provide some fascinating insight into the author’s development from late adolescence into adulthood, and provide rare glimpses into very private aspects of her life: her homosexuality, her divorce, and various other life experiences. Her “feelings” and personal insights, which we normally associate with a personal journal, are only a minor element in the journals, but probably what most readers will seek the most in her private writings. Although much of the material starts off with a date and the editor provides some guidance in deciphering the entries (possible locations, for example), one only gets the sense, but for brief moments, that we are “along for the ride” with Sontag. As all who have attempted to write journals know, the writing is often sporadic, linked to decisive moments in life and/or strong emotions. For Sontag, as they are for most people, these notable periods were the beginnings of her studies in university and of her writing, her homosexual adventures, the birth and raising of her son, and some of her travels. These snapshots show a different side of Sontag, one that does not always match her public persona. She questions her reactions to love and carnal pleasures, motherhood, marriage, and filial relationships, among other things.

Usually, the publication of journals or correspondence takes place many years after a person’s passing. Sontag passed on in 2004 and this publication allows us to discover another side of her, since the journals were the vehicle for, as she called it, her “sense of selfhood.”

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, February 3rd 2010

The Sixties

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Jenny Diski

Picador

Jenny Diski gave me more to contemplate in 134 pages of The Sixties than I could manage to willfully squeeze out of the last piece of popular literary fiction I read. It is clear after only a few sentences that Diski is a writer worth her salt, and why she was the one chosen to handle this topic.

Often the sixties are romanticized to the point of obscurity, those who lived through them trying to weave fame, and infamy, out of their psychedelic experiences. But it was also a time of astounding idealism, a time of rethinking and challenging ways of life, while communication between people and cultures flourished in a way previously unheard of before the expansion of global media.

Rebelling against abusive parents and already on the edge, Jenny Diski lived through the sixties in London, experiencing all that it had to offer. From the substances, to the sex, to the music; she helped found an alternative school and actively played her own role in the counter culture. Now, at sixty years old, she can see both the wonder and the naiveté of her generation:

Our youthful cruelty was boundless. Youth does cruelty quite easily, not having the accretions of time to deal with, but I remember a glaring clarity as I looked at the bourgeois life and its compromises... The compromises adults make cause much of the suffering in the world, or, at best, fail to deal with the suffering. Acceptance of one’s lot—maintaining a silence about what can’t be said, lowering your expectations for your own life and for others, and understanding that nothing about the way the world works will ever change–is the very marrow of maturity—and no wonder the newly fledged children look at it with horror and know that it won’t happen to them—or turn their backs on it for fear it will.

She is nostalgic for the energy_—and most of all for the music—_but she contends that some of the most vital agendas were not only sidetracked, but were even inherently flawed. Free love was made possible by the presence of effective birth control and, she points out, central heating (especially in London). But the freedom of it was only for saying yes. Anyone who ever said no, was considered rude... (rude, can you imagine?). She describes feeling that you had to do it with anyone who asked, and that sometimes that wasn’t really so hot for a woman eyeballing her evening’s sweaty, overweight suitor. Communal living often failed simply because everyone was there to be free and to do their own thing, but "own thing became highly problematical when one’s own thing clashed with someone else’s..."

Picador is known for outstanding literature, and their Big Ideas/Small Books series is filled with gems. I am now determined to check out the other offerings, and maybe re-gift them as stocking-stuffers for my more discerning friends and family.

Written by: Jen Wilson Lloyd, December 25th 2009

The White Mary

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Kira Salak

Picador

Marika Vicera is a war reporter who has dedicated herself to telling the stories of oppressed peoples around the world. She is giving a talk at Boston University when she meets a psychology doctoral student named Sebastian Gilman. Seb, as he is known, is in awe of Marika's war reports, which have landed frequently on the covers of major newspapers. Although Marika doesn't think much of the practice of psychology, she is taken with Seb. Marika takes a break from her globe trotting to write a biography of famous journalist Robert Lewis, who recently committed suicide. At the same time, she begins dating Seb, and, eventually, she moves in with him.

Soon, the memories of her near death in the Congo begin to haunt her. She feels the easy life she has in Cambridge is meaningless, and she begins to push Seb away. She refuses to let Seb use any of his psychology skills to help her. When she learns that Robert Lewis may be alive in Papua New Guinea, she uses that as an excuse to run from Seb and the intimacy that is so uncomfortable to her.

Marika has admired Lewis all of her life, and now she is driven to find out what really happened to him. She ends up alone in the “heat and humidity of New Guinea...covered in sweat, her clothes entirely soaked. She accidentally left the top of her tent unzipped, and engorged red mosquito bites cover her body like a series of reprimands: do not underestimate this world.”

There have been a couple of sightings of someone who resembles Lewis near Walwasi Mountain, a distant region. Marika hires a guide, who abandons her before they reach their destination. She recruits Tobo, a medicine man in the village where she is abandoned. He reluctantly agrees to take her, as he sees it as a spiritual obligation. The trip to Walwasi Mountain is harrowing: by the time they reach the village, Marika is near death. She is completely dependent on Tobo, who relies on magic and herbs to keep her alive.

Salak's descriptions of Papua New Guinea are vivid and brutal. The fact that Salak herself actually did walk across the country as a reporter lends credence to the world she creates on the page. Salak describes Krit, a village they pass on the way to Walwasi Mountain that seems to have been cursed, and unflinchingly: “Marika sees a little girl with a distended belly relieving herself under one of the huts. Flies buzz over piles of feces scattered about the village, and a fetid stench wafts to her on the breeze.”

The White Mary is indeed a page turner, though at times the back story about Seb and even Robert Lewis seems to interrupt the Papua New Guinea narrative. The connection between the Marika of Papua New Guinea and the Marika back in the States was tenuous and might have been more carefully interwoven. Salak's examination of Seb's insights into psychology in relation to Marika's own psychological makeup could be a bit less heavy handed as well.

But Marika's journey, in the end, goes beyond a search for Robert Lewis. It becomes a search for her own soul, and her own sense of what really matters in life. Ultimately, Salak has crafted a rousing and ultimately satisfying adventure.

Written by: Natasha Bauman, December 7th 2009

Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:39:00 +0000

By Tom Wolfe

Picador

Radical Chic, noun: a small clique of the New York upper elite who, in order to appear groundbreakingly fashionable, support social movements and causes which ironically are at odds with the morays inherent to their identity

Mau-mau, verb: to stubbornly and meticulously badger someone into supporting a cause; to petition while using one’s minority identity in such a way that a member of a majority is left without rebuttal

Flak Catcher, noun: poorly paid and hardly respected public officials who are often used as human shields to protect their bosses from mau-mauing (see definition)

Beginning Tom Wolfe’s collection of two essays Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, I admit I knew very little. Who or what was the radical chic? What was mau-mauing? Why were flak catchers on catching end? A child born long after the '60s, I had little beyond a layperson’s knowledge of Wolfe’s other eccentrically long titles—something involving Kool-Aid, acid, and some sort of test.

Upon concluding the book, I’m happy to admit that I now know infinitely more, not only about the kooky title, but also about race relations in the 1960s, the Black Panther movement, and the infamous evening that brought the hypocrisy of the highest New York socialites to the nation’s attention. With a constantly tongue-in-cheek tone, Wolfe walks the reader through the dinner party hosted by Leonard and Felicia Bernstein in 1970 in his essay “Radical Chic” and through the methods employed by minority groups to petition the local government of San Francisco in “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” On both coasts and with two different populations, Wolfe holds up a mirror to the duplicity, irony, and hilarity of race relations.

I couldn’t help laughing as Wolfe aptly described the wonderfully humorous scenarios: Roquefort cheese balls served to dinner guests in black leather, rich Jewish party-goers writing checks for an anti-Semitic organization, minority leaders protesting against a white government for their failure to follow through, then failing to follow through with their own protests. Wolfe’s style is disarming and feels truthful, as if he’s the only person who sees each situation for what it actually is, and the actions, desires, and blind spots he reveals in people of every ethnicity serve to both humble and unite them.

Both essays were highly enjoyable, and as someone far removed from the 1960s, New York, and San Francisco, I can only imagine they would be even more interesting to someone with firsthand knowledge of those locales during this time period. Although the book was essentially about how people tried to deal with difference, I turned the last page feeling more akin to each person’s fumbling portrayal regardless of race. The best part of Wolfe’s writing is the recognition that he himself is part radical chic, part mau-mauer, and part flak-catcher. We all are, to varying degrees, and as long as there is a satirist to expose our foibles and peccadilloes, we should keep hosting parties to provide hilarity for the audiences of the following decades.

Written by: Melissa Ablett, October 12th 2009

Atmospheric Disturbances

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:42:00 +0000

By Rivka Galchen

Picador

In some cases, you may be midway through a story, novel, or film before realizing you’re dealing with an unreliable narrator. He or she is biased, withholding information, or mentally unstable. (Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s disturbing story “The Yellow Wallpaper” springs to mind as just one example.) In Atmospheric Disturbances, the debut novel by Rivka Galchen, it is apparent early on that the main character, psychiatrist Dr. Leo Liebenstein, is off his rocker. Perhaps that’s putting it too strongly. Liebenstein is delusional, but his delusion is at first confined to one specific aspect of his life: he is convinced that his wife Rema has been replaced by a double, who he terms a simulacrum.

As Liebenstein sets out to “find” his wife in a very roundabout manner, we learn how they met at the Hungarian Pastry Shop in Upper Manhattan shortly after Rema arrived in the U.S. from Argentina. We also learn that she is now a translator at the same hospital where Liebenstein works and we are told about one of Liebenstein’s patients, Harvey, who is convinced he is a secret agent of the Royal Academy of Meteorology. The Academy, he believes, is able to manipulate weather and must act against mysterious forces that would use meteorological phenomena for their own purposes.

While treating Harvey, at Rema’s suggestion, Liebenstein decided to play along with Harvey’s version of the world and pretend to be an agent of the Academy as well, a higher-ranking one passing orders along. To make the story convincing, Liebenstein and Rema chose the name of a scientist at the Royal Academy, Tzvi Gal-Chen, who was supposedly issuing Harvey instructions through his therapist. The ruse works and Liebenstein is able to keep Harvey from leaving town without warning by telling him that his assignment is to monitor the New York weather. But now, just hours before the simulacrum appears, he has gone missing. As Liebenstein ponders the meaning of Rema’s doppleganger and how he can find the real Rema, he becomes increasingly obsessed with Tzvi Gal-Chen, believing that his meteorological publications contain instructions that will lead him to Rema. As Liebenstein becomes more and more part of the world Harvey has constructed, the reader must ask, what is the distance between patient and healer? A friend noted that the book calls into question everyone’s perceptions of reality, and in a way that’s true. For example, Rema and her mother have different opinions of what happened to Rema’s father, both plausible, and neither woman seems delusional. Perhaps one of them is in denial, or perhaps they really don’t know. Later, Rema’s overheard telephone conversation reveals her perception of her husband, which differs from her mother’s and probably his own.

Galchen, herself a psychiatrist, writes with an ease and an eye for detail that draw the reader in. While the focus of the story is narrow and there are only a handful of characters, the writing is playful and smart. The reader delights in finding clues as to Liebenstein’s behavior and personality and gaining insight into his character. And while we become frustrated with the errant doctor, his devotion to his wife and her real feelings for him keep us reading.

I found myself exasperated and touched by Liebenstein. His dependence on Rema to ground him is apparent and he describes almost every woman he meets in comparison to Rema. He is also kindhearted in his own strange way, noting that it was wrong of him to leave the simulacrum without a word. His empathy towards her, all while refusing to accept her evidence that she is, in fact, the real Rema, is heartbreaking. Galchen’s prose expresses his longing: “Her voice in the dark, so familiar—is was almost as if Rema was actually there with me, in the absence of luminosity, and maybe she really was there, paying me a visitation.” Seeking Rema has become a kind of holy quest.

Atmospheric Disturbances ends without resolving the questions it raises about Liebenstein’s sanity, Harvey’s strange reappearance, or the existence of Tzvi Gal-Chen. In another novel this might be unsettling, but in this case the beauty of the prose offers the completion that is lacking in the plot. A beautifully written, original debut.

Written by: Karen Duda, July 17th 2009