Mrs. Ted Bliss - Stanley Elkin
Elkin inhabits his character: Mrs. Ted Bliss lives. She’s an elderly widow residing in a condominium on Biscayne Bay. She considers herself an ordinary person, but her thoughts and memories yield a rich vein of material. What is unnecessary are the plot complications that Elkin introduces (drug kingpins, Junior Yellin’s antics, Hurricane Andrew). He should have had more confidence in Dorothy and the so-called small events of her life. Also, the vulgarity – which appears sparingly – was jarring because I felt that Dorothy wouldn’t approve of it (not that she’s a prude, but still). It’s an odd sort of tribute when a reader thinks he knows a character so well that he objects to what an author does. The prose rambles along in freewheeling style; it turns an occasional somersault, but this novel – which was Elkin’s last (he died the same year it was published) – is more straightforward than other work by him. Like her creator, Mrs. Bliss is facing the end of life, but for the most part this is an upbeat and frequently funny read. And in Dorothy’s observations we get some down-to-earth wisdom. Regarding how people react to the elderly: “The trouble with kindness, Mrs. Bliss thought, was that there was a limit to it, that it was timed to burn out, that if you slipped up one time too many, or didn’t put a brave enough face on things, or weren’t happy often enough, people lost patience.” And on making a change in your later years: “What was to stop her from moving back to Chicago? Nothing. Nothing but her failing energies, nothing but her sense of how disruptive and untrue one must be to oneself even to want to make a new life.”

The Shrimp and the Anemone - L. P. Hartley
I liked half of this two hundred page novel, but the rest was all downhill. Hartley writes well in every sense of the word except one: he doesn’t have the right instincts. For one thing, he doesn’t know when enough is enough, or when a little is too little. He goes into every nuance of Eustace’s overactive mind, but in doing so the little boy becomes a tiresome neurotic. On the other hand, his sister gets shortchanged; Hilda is an interesting presence in the beginning, but she’s demoted to the sideline. As for the mechanics of the plot, Hartley glosses over major events and prolongs minor ones. Eustace’s year long relationship with Miss Fothergill, in which he goes to her house for tea, takes up one short chapter; the brief glimpse of what went on between the two is inadequate considering that the old lady will leave him a small fortune. Hartley has a taste for misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Anxious Eustace thinks “You’re going away” means “You’re dying,” and Hartley explores the repercussions at length. Then he has the father withhold from the boy the news of his inheritance; since every living soul in town knows about it, a scene reminiscent of the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on first?” skit ensues. Poor instincts = poor choices. This is the first of a trilogy that make up Eustace and Hilda. I won’t be reading the others.

To Be a Pilgrim - Joyce Cary
The first person narrator has a voice that pulls you in. Tom Wilcher has strong opinions, and his inner dialogue is interesting and vigorous. Though he doesn’t lead an exciting life, he’s the primary character only in that what we get is filtered through his sensibilities, and the people he writes about supply an abundance of color. One of two alternating plot lines takes place in the present, when Tom is an old man, and it mostly involves his brother and sister’s adult children, who are married and with whom he lives. The other is based on memories of the past and focuses on his three siblings. All the lives in this book end in dismal defeat. But Cary writes with such verve and liveliness that he manages to divert the reader from the bleakness. He also managed, for a long time, to divert me from the fact that his characters act without proper motivation. Cary sets up terms by which some people are outside the limitations imposed by logic, so I accepted that Tom’s sister Lucy was emotionally explosive and his brother Edward a calculating enigma. The problem came near the end, when Tom suddenly – after a lifetime of propriety – begins acting in a way that he considers shameful. No reasonable explanation is given; the one that Tom proposes – possession by the devil – may be an okay defense for Flip Wilson, but not for someone whose highly-rational mind we’ve been in for the entire book. This episode of errant behavior (which ends abruptly) called into question all the previous randomness, the sudden about-faces that fill this book. Mostly they involve Lucy and Edward, but I thought back to Tom’s unconvincing love affair with Julie, which was full of inexplicable twists and turns. I was left wondering if Cary was an irresponsible author who liked to toss furniture about. Well, even if he was, it was rather fun watching him do it. One last aspect of interest is Tom’s religious convictions. He believes that, without faith, life is pointless and frightening. Yet this viewpoint isn’t presented in a proselytizing manner; it’s merely the way Tom sees things, and he’s a flawed man. Pilgrim is the middle volume of a trilogy. The first is Herself Surprised and the last is The Horse’s Mouth. I haven’t read either of them, but will attempt (for the fourth time) to read the latter.

Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
Though I read half of this very short novel, and thus it qualified for a review, I considered avoiding the task of being critical of an author whose work I admire. Garcia Marquez was in his late sixties when he wrote Demons. I don’t see a decline in his abilities; what I object to is how he takes his trademark magic realism to an extreme; the result is a steaming heap of peculiarities. On page eight Bernarda is introduced: “Her Gypsy eyes were extinguished and her wits dulled, she shat blood and vomited bile, her siren’s body became as bloated and coppery as a three-day-old corpse, and she broke wind in pestilential explosions that startled the mastiffs.” While such extravagances abound, we get few glimmers of humanity. On page one young Sierva Maria is bitten on the ankle by a rabid dog; when I called it quits she had been placed in a cell at a convent run by a monster of an Abbess and was to be exorcized. It’s not that I dreaded what the girl would be put through; I had no feeling for a character who was depicted as a feral animal. I dreaded what I would be put through.

Collected Short Stories of Aldous Huxley
There are over four hundred pages of them, and they vary widely in quality. Some are wonderful (“The Gioconda Smile,” “Nuns at Luncheon,” “Sir Hercules”), some are clunkers. Huxley generally does better in the longer pieces; the shorter ones tend to have a “tossed off” quality. He’s mostly in his acerbic, cruel mode (which can get repetitious in back-to-back stories), but at times he shows compassion; the results are usually successful, though, surprisingly (for such a cynic about human nature), he can get a bit mawkish. Even the prose is inconsistent; it’s mostly polished writing, but there’s some sloppy work. I wish this was a two hundred page The Best of Aldous Huxley.

The Ballad and the Source - Rosamond Lehmann
This novel is made up of three monologues. They’re framed as conversations, but Rebecca (who’s the listener) only serves to ask leading questions. This struck me as artificial (particularly since Rebecca is ten when the first exchange takes place; how could she ask the questions that lead the speaker on – and on and on?). Also, the plot and characters are exaggerated, even melodramatic. There are detailed descriptions of flowers, dresses, and a concentration on feelings. Seems like a woman’s novel, one I didn’t like, right? Wrong. This is a remarkable work. The three voices are those of very different people, but Lehmann captures each perfectly (the book is written in flawless prose). I became caught up in the dense, ambiguous, sinister, tragic story which takes shape. The middle speaker, Sibyl, is at the core of everything. Her version of events is not to be fully believed, though it’s unclear how much is falsified. She emerges as a driving force – but driven by a desire to make people and events conform to how she wants them to be. At times I thought she was evil, at other times I felt (as does Rebecca) wonder at the strength of her will. The ending is extraordinary: there’s a death (and I felt the loss); then, in the last paragraph, Rebecca has a dream. Nightmare is a more fitting word. Harry finally reveals the secret behind his silence and Sibyl emerges from where she’s been hiding in Rebecca’s heart. We suddenly understand how deeply this adult tale has affected the girl. *

The General in His Labyrinth - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
On the first page the General is dying. When I stopped reading, on page 170 (with a hundred pages left), he’s still dying. In other words, when dealing with the present the novel was stagnant. There was a lot of going back in time to include historical events, but this material meant little to me. What I read was good, and I was interested, but the “interested” gradually became “somewhat interested.” I think the foremost novelist of South America felt obligated to write a novel about South America’s greatest leader, Simon Bolivar. Being Garcia Marquez, he couldn’t write a simple tribute – his Bolivar has flaws, though what predominates is the man’s tremendous determination. Also, Garcia Marquez focuses on the shabby end to glory. The book was an easy read (no labyrinth in the prose), but the “somewhat” prevailed.

Arthur Rex - John Berger

I have no interest in the Arthurian legend, but I was absorbed for all 500+ pages of this book. It’s a unique achievement – one that makes you think, “I could never have done this in a million years.” The vigor and vividness, the unobtrusive scholarship, the consistent use of the vernacular of an ancient time, even the enjoyably fantastic gore. Berger shows man slowly emerging from the barbarism of the Dark Ages to pursue a knightly concept of virtue (a pursuit which is doomed to failure). The novel’s only fault is that the characters, being legendary and much larger than life, aren’t people one can relate to. That said, I found the aging and death of both Arthur and Lancelot to be moving.

The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy (Russian)

Starts out as a rant, an attack on society’s cherished beliefs, particularly love and marriage. This part is a bit strident, though interesting (and some of the rant is valid). Then it becomes the study of a bad marriage, and we’re into the themes of incompatibility and jealousy. Whereas the beginning had originality, this latter section trod familiar ground, and the strident tone became grating. I wasn’t even convinced of the authenticity of the main character’s actions – he’s too distraught.

Leaf Storm - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)

The long title story was extremely atmospheric – dark, heavy, haunted. Full of strong images. But when I was done I felt a lack of resolution. Maybe it was about misplaced compassion. Maybe – there wasn’t enough focus to reach a conclusion. Not helping matters was the use of multiple points of view. Faulkner’s influence is apparent (with his faults, mainly obfuscation). As for the five shorter stories that make up this volume, they’re good, particularly “Nabo.”

Sleepless Nights - Elizabeth Hardwick
This New York Insider novel (it’s dedicated it to Mary McCarthy and has blurbs by Didion, Sontag, etc.) is an arty exercise in prose styling that’s short on substance. Though autobiographical, Hardwick remains behind a gauzy literary veil; some of the characters she interacts with are identified only by initials. The book is composed mostly of vignettes, with much circumlocution and mood and angst. I’m sure the Insiders got more out of it than I did (and knew whose initials were being used). I quit halfway through.

No One Writes to the Colonel - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
One long story and eight short ones. The long one is the best – though it’s so dreary and dark! The shorter ones are insubstantial when standing alone, but cumulatively a town and its people emerge. Still, nothing here adds to the luster of Garcia Marquez’s reputation.

The Sun in Scorpio - Margery Sharp
An unusual novel. Cathy, at its center, is distant and sometimes unlikable. I often didn’t know what to feel about her. Why her fixation on the island paradise? What’s her problem with people? My sympathy for this integral character wavered, and thus my involvement in her story waxed and waned. Then came the ending, with Cathy at age forty, and at last I understood her, including who she was in her youth. She faces the fact that she’s led a wasted life, without loving or being loved. I was glad that Sharp gave her the opportunity to make up for that loss.

Strange Pilgrims - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
This collection has the great “Maria dos Prazeros” and the excellent “Bon Voyage, Mr. President” (plus some other good stories), but half of the twelve are just fair to middling, formless impressionistic pieces. Which brings up the question of why Garcia Marquez included them. To get the requisite number of words for a collection?

Nights at the Alexandra - William Trevor
This is a long short story. It’s nicely done, but unconvincing in one vital respect. A fifty-eight-year-old man is looking back at an incident that happened when he was fifteen. This incident is given much weight – supposedly affecting him for the rest of his life. But although I believed in his boyhood state of mind, and that he was silently dealing with disturbing feelings, too much remained hidden for the long- range effects to stand up.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
Garcia Marquez circles around a murder obsessively, around and around, from different angles and perspectives, and at the end we’re there for the knife thrusts. It’s as if a vast cosmic command – unavoidable and terrible – is being obeyed by us poor mortals. The author includes discrepancies in the various accounts of the killing. Most significantly, he leaves a key question unanswered: Did Angela accuse Santiago falsely? Garcia Marquez presents us with an unsolvable mystery, one that takes on dimensions larger than a single murder in an isolated town. *

Ceremony at Lone Tree - Wright Morris
I stopped reading this book with regret but with the conviction that I wasn’t missing anything. For a good span I thought the writing – the unique and quirky Wright Morris style – was wonderful. He’s terrific at character portraits and histories. Then he moved into present action and his style became confusing. Maybe he’s accurately presenting life as it is when he throws things at the reader in a disjointed way. Granted, life is not neat and orderly, but, still, we shouldn’t have to figure out who’s talking and about what. When Morris enters into the thoughts of the characters the confusion increases to the point of frustration. Not only that, he imparts a significance to things that don’t deserve it. What’s the big deal? This thought of mine, on top of all the other difficulties, became fatal.

Laugh Til You Cry - Wolf Mankowitz
An odd little book. In the beginning I was put off by the lack of the amenities of good fiction – such as setting and character. But that’s not what the author is concerned with; this is a philosophical novel, and it’s interesting on that level. Mankowitz found a fresh way to expose human shortcomings. I admired what he was doing until the end, when he softens toward his characters and lets them off the hook.