Bel Canto: Unlikely Situation Sings

To my own surprise, I have finished a good contemporary novel. I suspected it might be one, but then I was warned it got slow in the middle. I reserved judgement until I shut the covers last night. Bel Canto is an engaging and graceful read by award-winner Ann Patchett.

It concerns a birthday party featuring an opera singer held in a poor South American country, in hopes of luring the guest of honor, a Japanese business tycoon, into building factories there. As she sings, the room is invaded by terrorists who take the group hostage. The substance of the book lies between this action-packed beginning and it's similar, and inevitable, end. The group of prisoners and captors forget more and more of the outside world, as the weeks go by inside their new home. Relationships form, eventually between the captors and their prisoners as well. And then people begin falling in love!But, as they all forgot inside the house they share, the situation is a ticking bomb.

An interesting premise and a well-done story, Patchett excels at creating depth in a wealth of characters. So there we have it, a good book. It's treatment of opera (bel canto means beautiful song), and how it moves this diverse group of people is lovely. Opera in many ways dominates the characters lives, as the singer begins to practise every morning. Conterposed to child terrorists in fatigues it seems improbable, as if both could not exist in the same world.

I am still sticking to my resolve, however. Only classics from now on. Dickens and Proust. There's not enough time to read everything. If only I could have a separate self of me, just for reading. But first some Baudelaire and Jack Kerouac's On The Road.

Book Review: The Subway

The Subway is an intriguing quasi-fictional appropriation of reality that all New Yorkers can identify with. The Subway contains the full sweep of humanity in its passengers, as they jostle or sit at safe distances or stare into the passing faces. This panorama of society contains the myriad human interactions that make up civilization, from shoving to giving up your seat to flirting.

Minute gestures of the passengers lead one to observations of humanity. For the protagonist is like Everyman of Pilgrim's Progress. He goes about his quest to arrive at his destination, and struggles with the conflicts of finding his metro card, missing a train by a second, being crowded into a smelly homeless person; we see his personality revealed, and as people and especially as New Yorkers, we can identify with his quest.

Within The Subway, all the glories and incongruities of American democracy are present. From the homeless to the elite, at any hour of the day the vast swell of humanity is present in all its odors. All people in the hunt for seats have the equality that makes America great.

Who wrote this fascinating study of the human psyche and deployed his acute and pointed observations on human nature? Who depicted the possible scenarios that could happen among such a group of people? No one. This novel doesn't exist.

How is it possible that no one has written this book yet? I can't be the only New Yorker who on their endless commute sometimes wondered about their fellow passengers, about where they were going and why. Storytelling has its roots in such unparalleled access to people. People who are too immersed in their experiences to put up facades. The subway is humanity raw and uncensored.

Considering people's (and my own behaviors) on the subway, I'm convinced it is a minefield of character and of situation that is integral to a great story.

Musicians...

Mother with child, woman in pink, and Hasidic Jew

Nursing mother

Young lovers

Homeless man

Young pole dancers

These photos from the NYC subway make great character studies. It's seems so much like a book already written to me. But I checked on the Internet, where all things are true, and The Subway hasn't been written. Yet.

Hating Philip Roth's The Dying Animal and Sabbath's Theater

Maybe you learn more about yourself by reading a book. Apparently I find lecherous, scheming old men inexcusable, and therefore renounce Philip Roth's works. I finished The Dying Animal, about an aging professor having an affair with a young woman that drives him mad, over a year ago. I didn't enjoy this accomplished, character-driven story last year, for all its merit. I was never going to read him again. Currently, I am not enjoying Sabbath's Theater, which seems remarkably similar.

Indeed, I hate Sabbath's Theater much as I hated The Dying Animal. In Roth's hands, themes of sexuality rankle with me. Adultery is glorified as the only real type of love, where both partners are free. (Except it never really works out well for the aging buccaneer.) His emphasis on sexuality seems wishful rather than a fully formed theory about people. As is imagined sex with young girls and prostitutes and maids were some Freudian projection of his penis, and thus his self-worth. Yet he buys into conventional morality just enough to use its labels of 'bad girl' and 'satanic lust' to great effect. Interestingly, sex ultimately does not offer his characters salvation. Maybe conflating Roth and his characters is a mistake?

I do not identify with, and in fact hate, the protagonist of Sabbath's Theater, which is a problem in a character-driven novel. Hate is no light word, and I think for Roth to inspire such a reactions in me he must be doing something right. Sabbath's Theater is driven by the death of a great mistress and realization that Sabbath has nothing left. Sabbath, a puppeteer before he became an arthritic, lecherous old man, attempts to deal with this much like a mental patient.

Sabbath's (and Roth's for all I can see) merit is a brutal honesty and fluency when describing life without money or friends or hope, when all the women you love have died, and the feeble desires of a fading penis become more than solace but life itself. Despite what you might think, Sabbath needs no pity from you, dear Reader, and Roth accomplished something when he created a character so repulsive that even hearing of his brother's death and mother's tragedy doesn't redeem him somewhat. Theories on the glories of free love, love you pay for, and love with those underage fall much like self-justifications on these deaf ears.

As to recommending these books, rarely have I enjoyed reading something so little. Yet both The Dying Animal and Sabbath's Theater are capably done. The characters are rich and interesting, and the harsh, jaded take on humanity is as humorous as it is dour. Philip Roth is an accomplished writer with a great knowledge of the nuances of people; I just happen to dislike his people. Hating his novels makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me....

Shameless Plug: Salon to Biennial

Another new book I would love to have. And I would buy this work, but it's rather expensive ($90 from Phaidon Press). However, I think its both interesting and deserving of a good plug. Roberta Smith of the New York Times already did so in its Holiday Gift Guide section on art books, so perhaps my two cents are unnecessary. Or perhaps they are.

Entitled Salon to Biennial, examining exhibition history of modern art, Roberta Smith describes it as such:

"One of the most interesting books of the season takes a nothing-but-the-facts bead on a subject of increasing art historical study: the exhibitions that have introduced most modern art to the public. Thick and very orange, Salon to Biennial — Exhibitions That Made Art History, Volume I: 1863-1959 is a marvel of information, organization and design. Largely the work of Bruce Altshuler, an independent scholar, in collaboration with Phaidon’s editors, it combines engaging analysis with myriad details to create in-depth portraits of exhibitions that are known, but not well."

However, I would like to correct the New York Times, as this book has been written by Elizabeth Zechella, an editor at Phaidon Press. Elizabeth, who is a friend from home, worked very hard to research and put together this lovely volume over the past 2 1/2 years. She is young and unaccredited. This is apparently the reason why she will not be credited on this book (although Phaidon recognized Altshuler's limited role in the project and he himself felt Elizabeth's name should be on the cover).

A shamelessly, self-interested plug of a great book for you artsy readers, and slight correction to the New York Times. Happy Monday.

Correction from Elizabeth Zechella: Bruce Altshuler did in fact write the intro essay, chapter intros, and was instrumental in the conception of the book. I was the editor of the book, researching, compiling, and making the selections of what was to be included. There was a team of people who contributed to this book in one way or another, including outside scholars, and a bevy of in-house and freelance help.

Swashbuckling Swill and a Song

A swashbuckling adventure story with a limp and noodly protagonist whose unintentional irony and understatement form the greatest (and yet not so great) part of the tale.

All the Tea in China proceeds with action over character development, but even the action is envenerating. Little drives the plot forward except the feeling our dear protagonist has gotten himself into quite a muddle. And so he muddles forward. To lack suspense as it does, it needs to be more humorous (the 17^th century dialogue was forced rather than funny).

That said, you could give it to the 13-year-old boy of your Christmas list, assuming he's already had the pleasure of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped (which I remember being quite scary) and is permitted a few X-rated scenes.

This novel, besides being mildly historical, is hardly a typical choice of mine. The inside flap tricked me; it gave the the author Kyril Bonfiglioli kudos as a "groundbreaking satarist" in this "maritime romp." So for that reason, and because the title reminded me of a song by The Magnetic Fields, I picked it up.

Clearly if I know the expression "all the tea in China," I should also know "don't judge a book by its cover" by now. For your listening pleasure, here is the better of the two, still with an ironic twinge but with a bit more heart:

Greater women in Kate Christensen’s The Great Man

Terrible title, but I picked it up because there was a paint brush on the cover. I didn't know about Kate Christensen's other novels or that this one had won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Instead of the light trash I imagined, I'm in the midst of the lives of some intriguing women as they sort themselves out as the great (dead) man's biographers stir up their static lives. On knowing this, the title becomes amusing, especially because the book is about the not-so-great, great man's many women.

The dead artist, Oscar Feldman, binds his wife Abigail, his sister Maxine, and his mistress Teddy together, and not always in ways they enjoy. These very different and complex women are complex and passionate. Oh, they happen to be old. That's by no means a focus of the story, but I find it interesting to see old women as active characters. The fact the Oscar was a selfish womanizer who got everything he wanted makes their stories a bit more poignant.


The male biographers who come to interview these women think of Oscar as a great painter, a great man. As the women see it, Oscar was a good painter rather than a great man, and a closely guarded secret bears them out. The Great Man theory, according to Wikipedia, is a theory that aims to explain history by the impact of "Great men", or heroes; that is, highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence and wisdom or Machiavellianism, used power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. Examples would be Stalin or Napoleon, my image left, or Oscar Feldman. Except the novel snips away at the Great Man theory with curt comment after snide remark. A purely feminist approach to this novel would be limiting, but it is satisfying to see the women come into their own in the wake of Oscar's death. It certainly beats cats and knitting.

Christensen captures the competitiveness of the art world and its strikingly different personalities with tongue-in-cheek humor. The character Maxine provides a stringent perspective on all art (besides her own), like

the dinner party where she criticizes the artist across the table and her dealer in a sweep of faux pauxs. Oscar's paintings get ripped apart women by women to the starry-eyed biographers dismay. A question of authenticity arises about some important paintings, and the art world buzz is so strong the book hums a bit in the reader's hands.

Vibrant women and art transforms this book on the great man into a delightful dialogue that would be a home Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Chicago, who created the art installtion of a triangular table with 39 places for iconic women, stated that its purpose was to "end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record." Appropriately enough, The Great Man is the story of women writing themselves into history.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through, which is the perfect time to review a book: I can't give away the ending, but I know quite well what I think. The characters are delightful, and the plot well-constructed. I got more swept up in it than I expected, despite having reservations about the writing itself. Obviously it's well-written enough to convey characters that are sweeping me along, yet the language itself is predictable and non-distinct. Don't let my nit-picks or this sketchy plot outline dissuade you though; Christensen is onto something quite delightful.

Of Russians: Returning to Babel's Verve

My Russian kick (first Chekhov, then Vladimir Sorokin) has led me back to Isaac Babel, and the rogue is finally starting to get interesting. As I mentioned in a previous post, I ambitiously took out Babel's collected short stories from the library, then found one story might have been enough for me. On a second perusal, I find his lively verve thrilling and terseness masterful.

Babel's folksy tales are rollicking in a way Sorokin's The Queue was not. (To The Queue's credit, it ended with a hilarious dialogue of sex sounds.) Babel writes the Jewish experience in Odessa in the 1920s and 30s, so he isn't dealing with Communism as Sorokin is. Yet he critiques society in a way that suggests he must poke fun at life because he must somehow bear the status quo. These Russians attempt humor through criticism, or criticism through humor, but I'm not sure to what effect, as I haven't laughed out loud as of yet.

I flipped through Babel's collection again, hopping from Odessa stories to Red Calvary stories to autobiographical stories. There's always a joke on someone by the end, and with a modicum of detail he suggest a world of characterizations. His people don't always have great depth, but they fit in their role in society that grows increasingly complex as we read his cycles of stories. His portrait is one of Russia rather than an individual. Humble lives are transformed into red-blooded exercises in existence. What I'm trying to say is, Babel is a great storyteller.

Babel, photographed upon his arrest

Babel's life is a story unto itself: he survived the 1905 pogrom that killed his grandfather. He became a journalist and fiction writer, only after fighting in wars and studying finance for lack of other options. He become silent under Stalin's tightening control. Accused of being an aesthete, Babel would pay for his artistic licence (see Wikipedia article here):

After the suspicious death of Gorky in 1936, Babel noted: "Now they will come for me." ...In May 1939 he was arrested at his dacha in Peredelkino, and eventually interrogated under torture at the Lubyanka....After a forced confession, Babel was tried before an NKVD troika and convicted of simultaneously spying for the French, Austrians, and Leon Trotsky, as well as "membership in a terrorist organization." On January 27, 1940, he was shot in Butyrka prison.

Reportedly, while Babel confessed under torture, "once he realised he was doomed, he recanted" but "it made no difference." His last recorded words were,

"I am innocent. I have never been a spy. I never allowed any action against the Soviet Union. I accused myself falsely. I was forced to make false accusations against myself and others... I am asking for only one thing -- let me finish my work."

Maddening Queues of Soviet Russia

Imagine you've been waiting in line to buy a pair of shoes. Imagine you've waited all day and all night with hundreds of people. Can you imagine how dull that is?

This is the subject of the book I'm reading, The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin. If you went to school in the U.S., you probably came across the book 1984 by George Orwell. Well, I'm halfway through a Russian novel written in 1983 the follows much the same line of poking fun at the communist system. The Queue was the debut of this popular contemporary Russian author, and in it he tackles form with an absolute appropriateness to the subject that exploits every angle, or rather the straightness, of the line.

How does the subject of waiting in line influence the structure? Brilliantly, that's how. The narrative is actually nameless dialogue of innumerable people in line, making conversations and noises as they stand there. One comes to recognize certain voices, like a little boy and his mother and a young man hitting on a girl named Lena. Even so, it feels like overhearing the hum of the crowd, as people complain about the sun or their feet in short, colloquial snippets. The chain of dialogue moves as the line moves. For example, a segment of the line twists itself to a courtyard with benches where they nap. After settling in, the reader finds page after blank page while they sleep. The text on the pages even looks like a line.

Yet as the reader finds, this farcical line in the Soviet Union is anything but straight. The humor of the book comes from the deadpan depiction of people moving backwards instead of forwards in the queue. Humor, immediately recognizable as it is, is difficult to pin down. The Queue rests on a recognition that waiting in line in a perhaps futile attempt to purchase anything, of the difficulties of merely waiting to do so, such as the Georgians cutting in front and pushing the whole crowd back, is not reasonable, and is incongruous with the society that Communism purported to establish. The absence of the author's voice keeps the novel from taking on a didactic or even very dark aspect. The Queue is a comedy, but a rather dull one, as waiting in line has little to recommend itself.

Despite the cleverness of the structure, it's also difficult to become involved in fiction without engaging characters. The struggle of the line seems the struggle of faceless individuals, but not of people despite hearing their voices speak throughout. It's also because the characters do not act--they wait and wait in line. Following orders is not the inspiring stuff of novels, though it is perhaps truer to life. Only halfway through, and here I am critiquing the novel. This is less unfair that you might think. A disappointment of the novel is the extended stasis of the plot, and leaves me thinking the line will continue forever, without them ever buying the shoes of rumored American-make and brown leather.

Ah, Russians on the joys of communism..The novel really is interesting in itself, but believe me when I say it fully explores its chosen topic. No one, no where need ever write about queue in Soviet Russia ever again. Sorokin has filled that niche.

Factious Fiction: Alan Bennet's The Uncommon Reader

Perhaps you know the term 'factious'? No? A blank slate are we? Then memorize the second italized definition, for that is the one that will be useful in this book review.

fac·tious (fak′s̸həs): adjective. 1. producing or tending to
produce faction; causing dissension 2. adding facts to fictious
stories or things, characterized by the misplacement of
fact

Alan Bennet's new novella, The Uncommon Reader, is a light read about a dutiful Queen, a most pratical and attentive Queen, who takes to reading, of all things. Her servants put it down to dottiness, as at a ripe old age she begins thinking, noticing people, and reconsidering her duties and life.

The term factious is handy here, because Alan Bennet seems to be writing an imaginary fable about the joys of reading and self-discovery, except its about the real Queen of England with oodles of corgis and Diana's death thrown in. A peculiar mix of fact and fiction, that is to say, factious. The dramatization of living people with stories that have nothing to do with them strikes me as a little odd, as if the Queen was a bird that wanted stuffing, if I may be so factious as to say so.

The Queen's tone determines the whole novella, as it should since its her point-of-view, but it's a pity her tone happens to be plain, uninsightful, and purely functional. Only at the end does the Queen take on some elegance and humor in her speech, and one gleans its a function of her reading. Novella-sized is the perfect length for its easily digestable but not inspiring tale. Amid teas and prime ministers and rain, it lacked only one British thing: that wicked sense of humor.

However, this homage to the written word did have its fun plot elements, such as the gay kitchen boy, and a neat ending, and its a pleasure to find something a little bit different on the shelves of Barnes & Noble. One also found the use of the impersonal royal tone never failed to please. Alan Bennet is a succesful author, whose most recent play is the The History Boys currently on Broadway. No doubt this little red book will find its way into many stockings come Christmas.