Memories of a Catholic Childhood – Mary McCarthy

I first read “Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?” in Cast a Cold Eye, McCarthy’s 1950 short story collection. It reappears as the lead-off story in these memories (which came out seven years later). In it she dissects the mentality that allowed her paternal grandparents to be blithely indifferent to the miserable existence she and her brothers endured after their parents’ death. “Dissects” is the correct word: emotions are presented in a detached, analytical way, and sometimes with a wry humor. This is true even in the next piece, in which she describes the nature of their misery at the hands of the brutish uncle they were sent to live with. Uncle Myers is the only person in the book who comes across as evil. McCarthy isn’t a condemner; she sees people as too complex to be categorized as good or bad. The stories follow her life chronologically; when her well-to-do maternal grandfather takes her to live in Seattle she begins to live in privileged circumstances. She attends school at a Sacred Heart convent; though Catholicism is an influence, early on she becomes a non-believer. My favorite piece in the collection is the final one, “Ask Me No Questions,” in which McCarthy finally tackles (after the woman’s death) her supremely vain maternal grandmother. The smooth and precise prose never flags, but when we move into McCarthy’s mid-teens I got the sense that she was at a loss for material. Actually, these memories are meager; without the supplement of italicized addendum (which I skimmed) the book would come to less than two hundred pages. I can’t say that I grew fond of Mary, but I don’t believe she was asking that of me. Respect for her intelligence would mean more to her, and that I can grant her.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard – Anatole France (French)

This novel takes the form of a diary of a man in his seventies (and moves into his eighties). Sylvestre Bonnard is a bachelor whose house is filled with books – he lives in a “City of Books.” He has an elderly housekeeper and a cat named Hamilcar, to whom he talks. He is, actually, talking to the reader throughout the novel – a sense of intimacy is established on the first page and never wanes. My acquaintanceship with this unique individual was a most enjoyable one. The novel has a sentimental strain that may be old-fashioned, but it’s appropriate to the character of Bonnard; there are soft-hearted people like him. The first part of the book is devoted to a search for a precious manuscript, but that subject is dropped entirely. The story then concerns itself with the young daughter of a deceased woman whom Bonnard loved in his youth (a love that was unrequited; she married another). Paris is a big city, and how likely would it be for him to cross paths with someone he didn’t even know existed? But I found these “faults” to be irrelevant; the voice dominating the novel kept me out of a fault-finding mood. Jeanne is in need of  help; she’s staying at a school where she’s a charity case and has been relegated to the status and duties of a servant. Bonnard – who has led a sheltered a life among his books – sees for the first time a manifestation of evil in the person of the headmistress. She informs Bonnard that Jeanne must be trained in the struggle of life, and is to learn that she can’t just amuse herself and do what she pleases. His response: “One comes into this world to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do what one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent and generous.” He rescues Jeanne, and to provide for her dowry he decides to sell his book collection; the books gave him pleasure, but they have no real value. (His “crime” is robbing Jeanne by secreting some volumes aside from the sale.) As for his age and his solitary existence, it’s not in his nature to complain or to harbor regrets about what he doesn’t have. He accepts, and does so with benevolence and humor. The simple act of acceptance is shown to have its rightful place as one of the keys to contentment. Bonnard has reached the age when he has observations to make about Life (such as the one quoted above), and I found wisdom from a man who professes to have no wisdom. That Anatole France was thirty-eight when he created his “old-book man” is remarkable, as is the fact that this was his first novel. Years ago I read his Penguin Island and thought it a wonder, yet I didn’t pursue other works by him. I succumbed to the fact that France (even though he won the Nobel Prize) is out of vogue. Who even talks of this contemporary of Flaubert? Sylvestre Bonnard might say, with a shrug and a smile, thus are the vagaries of fame.

Transparent Things – Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov’s novels can be divided into three categories. Two of the categories are similar in that both have believable characters involved in an intelligible plot; what separates them is that some succeed in telling a good story and some don’t. Generally speaking, the simpler the plot, the more successful the story. The third category consists of works that are unintelligible. Though Lolita has its difficulties, it’s certainly not impenetrable. After that novel, Nabokov was finally freed of money worries and he no longer seemed to care about the reader (and so we get Ada). Transparent Things belongs in the third category; it delves into arcane matters in a prose that often seems like a verbal labyrinth. The characters that occasionally emerge from these encumbrances are unreal and act with a perverse randomness. For all his vast intelligence, why couldn’t Nabokov perceive how boring and foolish this is? At any rate, my long association with him ends here, on this down note: I’ve now read (or attempted to read) all of his novels. I wish I had taken his final two in chronological order. Look at the Harlequins! (the last to be published in his lifetime) would have been a much more fitting goodbye to an author who gave me so much pleasure.

Found, Lost, Found – J. B. Priestley

Priestley was a hugely productive writer – I counted thirty novels in the list of his works, and there were equally long numbers of plays, essays, autobiographies and criticism. This novella was published when he was in his eighties, but it has the feel of something done by a young man. I have a hunch it was a discarded manuscript that the elderly writer discovered in a drawer and found pleasing. Premise: Tom drinks a lot of gin (why he chooses to float through life in a perpetual state of inebriation is not made clear); he and Kate meet and soon (too soon) fall in love. She leaves London for an undisclosed location, challenging Tom to find her; she wants to test his commitment to their relationship. The episodes involved in his search make up the bulk of the novel. They’re played as comic set pieces; trouble is, they’re not funny. I became awfully annoyed with Tom the inventive wit (he likes to make up names for himself such as J. Carlton Mistletoe and Theodore A. Buscastle). So I skipped to the end: he finds her. But the larger question for me is why I’m having such a hard time finding a good book to read. I only review those that I get halfway through, so you don’t know about all the ones (sometimes six in a row) I can’t tolerate for that long. Even having to write about this bit of fluff has put me in a bad mood.

The Takeover - Muriel Spark
A comedy of bad manners. Amorality reigns. An entertaining book, but I expect more from Spark. The problem is that her characters – every last one of them – are deplorable. We await the next terrible thing they’ll do, but that’s all we expect. They’re not real human beings but one-dimensional props for Spark to use in wild plot machinations. Sometimes events get silly, as in Hubert’s botched performance as a high priest. Maybe Spark is showing us a world in which moral values have vanished. But there has to be a positive character as a counterbalance. Or a day of reckoning for the evil ones. But at the end evil (in the form of Hubert, who’s probably the worst of the bunch) escapes unscathed. I think Spark was indulging herself in this book. The question is, what was she indulging? She seemed to be having a suspiciously good time with evil.

Bright Day - J. B. Priestley

Initially engaging, this became tedious. The original virtues remained, but the characters, the situation – both of which were sound – became stagnant; the same plangent note (the loss of youth, the loss of what was beautiful) was repeated over and over. When you constantly interrupt your reading to look at how much of the book you have left, and it seems to be more than you hoped for, it’s time to put it aside.

Scandal - A. N. Wilson

This novel delivers the wicked fun to be had from reading a British tabloid story featuring politicians and prostitutes. None of the reprobates, lowlifes, and losers ensnared in this tawdry farce are sympathetic, though nobody engenders feelings of moral censure. Wilson didn’t try for depth; he aimed merely to entertain, and he does so with skill and intelligence.

Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
A realistic novel, and a wonderful one. A long one too; unfortunately, it weakens at the end. Carrie’s success in the theater is too swift and easily gained, and her ultimate loneliness struck me as false (she could meet men who would please her – she has a warm and loving nature). The effect on her of the idealistic Ames also seems false. As for Hurstwood’s decline, he only makes appearances in which he’s more and more pitiable. So the author loses his way. But what precedes that? A psychological study of three people and an in-depth look at city life and society (or two societies, that of the Haves and the Have-Nots; the book is largely about money). Dreiser treats his characters with compassion. No one is evil; no one is innocent. Carrie, in abandoning two men, can’t be condemned; she acts out of necessity, like we humans do. Though the novel is a tragedy, in the beginning Dreiser evoked a peculiar luminous shimmer, as a young Carrie views the world opening before her, so full of potential. *

Thirteen Stories - Eudora Welty
Disappointing. I wasn’t amused by the outlandish characters nor by the vernacular-type humor, which is on a par with the lowly pun. Welty’s prose is good – of course it is! – but it isn’t put to any worthwhile use. The best story (I didn’t read them all) was the most serious: “The Hitch-Hikers.” At least in this one the author dealt with real people, not stereotypical Southern oddballs.

Angel Pavement - J. B. Priestley
A novel suffused with atmosphere – the city of London (circa 1930) comes alive, wet streets and all. The author concerns himself with “ordinary” people – people who hold white collar jobs of little importance. But he doesn’t treat them with condescension. He cares about their lives and so did I. Priestley has a style of prose in which words do a lot of inventive work while never impeding the narrative flow. Though the novel has a pleasing heft, it should have been lightened a bit by cutting down on the part played by the Turgis character. His involvement with the Golgis girl is far-fetched and his misery strung out; also, matters turned melodramatic, which didn’t fit in with the solid, pedestrian nature of the rest of the book. Priestley is at his best with ordinary events and encounters and tribulations. He presents life as a hard affair in which humans try to wrest some happiness – and often don’t succeed. The type for whom life’s pleasures come easily are the selfish and uncaring and amoral.