The Hustler – Walter Tevis
In a lean, efficient prose Tevis takes us into a world that has elements of grime and grandeur. For Fast Eddie Felson the bright rectangle of a pool table is an arena where he can impose order by guiding the paths of ivory balls with amazing precision. When he goes against men nowhere near his level he pretends to be only a middling player – until the stakes are worth exploiting. Sometimes his opponent is as good – or nearly as good – as he is, and these encounters are prolonged battles of skill and will. The movie version, which I saw many years ago, stuck closely to the novel in plot and casting (Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats is Tevis’s creation brought to life). As in the film, Eddie meets Sarah in a bus station lunchroom where she’s killing time until a bar opens at 6AM. They come together largely because they’re both drinkers and lonely; though they begin to care for one another, they’re emotionally wary and thoroughly mismatched. At the novel’s end their relationship is left unresolved – as are many issues. Eddie has the determination and discipline needed to beat a player like Fats; but after victory he finds that he’s the property of his manager, and to go against this imposed arrangement is as dangerous as going against a mobster. This seems like a last minute – and unwarranted – complication. For an author whose endings are usually strong, to leave so much hanging is perplexing. The Hustler was Tevis’s first novel; I had previously read three other books by him (starting with his best of the lot, The Man Who Fell to Earth). I consider him to be a neglected author; he should be better known. He was always good, and at times he could be as exceptional as Fast Eddie on a run.

Signals – Tim Gautreaux
This collection has twenty-one stories, of which I read twelve. Gautreaux abides by the solid old virtues of storytelling – particularly the primacy of voice – and though the results are sometimes good, the slight nudge to very good isn’t there; often it’s sabotaged by a tendency to get sentimental or to send a message. In the title story, sixty-year-old Professor Talis lives an isolated existence; his radio – a venerable Pioneer SX-1250 – has been his “Mozart-seeping companion” for decades. It breaks down, and it turns out that the all-capable lawn lady is capable of fixing it. She’s a life force, his opposite, and in the course of the repairs he awakens to what he’s been missing. He asks her out, she refuses, saying “I don’t believe we’re cut from the same bolt of cloth.” With the radio once again producing beautiful sounds, he asks her to dinner, and she replies, “You stay home and be a good listener.” Talis responds by lugging the radio out of his house and throwing it on the sidewalk, where it breaks into pieces. He says, “And now?” She accepts. The Message was not only too overt and simplistic, but it came by means of a foolish act. Another aspect that kept recurring in the weaker stories was an over-reliance on outlandish characters (often old folks whose mind has given out) and the weird situations they get into. When this outlandishness goes rogue – when stories feature low-life types who are scraping bottom (such as the vicious, drunken cretin in “Sorry Blood”) – I felt I was being dragged through the mire for no good reason. But even in its milder manifestations, as in “The Adventures of Sue Pistola,” a character study is sacrificed for laughs based on someone’s freakish behavior. Bottom line: I have too many objections to what Gautreaux offers. He and I just aren’t cut from the same bolt of cloth.

My Antonia – Willa Cather
This novel is set in the Nebraska prairie in the 1880s. Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda arrive at Black Hawk at the same time, but they face drastically different circumstances. Jim is ten and has been recently orphaned; he’s going to live with his grandparents, who have forged a comfortable life on their farm. Antonia is a few years older; she and her family are immigrants from Bohemia. When Jim and his grandmother pay a visit to the Shimerdas they find that their home is a hole dug in a draw-bank. Antonia’s father is a cultured gentleman, totally unfit to farm the land; the mother is a shrewish study in negativity. Jim and Antonia form a closeness in the few years before she’s saddled with work (which she embraces, proud of her strength). Though they never lose the bond from their early years, she begins to live her hard life while his continues in an unruffled fashion. In the book’s second section, called “The Hired Girls,” Jim leaves the farm when his grandparents move to Black Hawk. Antonia is one of those hired girls, employed as a domestic; at the Saturday night dances life opens up for her, with mixed results. When Jim goes to the university, he and Antonia part ways (and the book loses some of its spark). As an adult Jim comes to think about Antonia in an almost worshipful way. In the closing scene he visits her, now a woman in her forties with a large brood of children, and he sees someone battered by life but still vital and able to “stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning of common things.” Maybe, through Jim’s outsized emotions, Cather is trying to express an appreciation for the pioneering spirit that can survive all obstacles. Not all survive – Antonia’s father commits suicide. Madness is not uncommon, and in some people the worst aspects of human nature take root. Others work and grow in generosity and understanding. Cather’s prairie is a testing ground for character. This is a rich and heartfelt book. And a tough one – when events or subject matter warrant it, Cather can be as unyielding as a Nebraska winter.

Effi Briest - Theodor Fontane (German)
This novel, written in 1894 by a 75-year-old man, contains elements that I found original and completely successful. What Fontane chooses to omit is critical. An example is the way he presents Effi’s affair; though we’re in her mind for most of the novel, we’re denied access to what transpires between her and Major Crampas. There was intimacy, but of what sort? We’ll never know. Crampas’s last words (which he speaks to Effi’s husband after he’s been mortally wounded by him in a duel) are: “Will you . . .” Will you what? We’re faced with enigmas, but they’re the kind that make you see life as an inexplicable and poignant mystery. Nobody is a villain, nobody is without flaws. No one is consistent. You can question every conclusion or justification any character makes. At the end Effi says that her husband “ . . . was as fine a man as any one can be who doesn’t really love.” But is she mistaken? Did Innstetten, despite his harsh actions after he learned of her infidelity, love Effi? In this tragic story there’s beauty and sentimentality and moments of untrammeled joy. And wisdom too – one doesn’t live to Fontane’s age without coming to some conclusions about life. *

The Big Nickelodeon - Maritta Wolff
In this page turner the author brings together a large cast of characters caught up in a variety of tangled predicaments. Dialogue is one of Wolff’s strengths; each individual comes alive with their own distinct voice. In the first chapter a body is discovered on a California beach; on the last page the identity of the person is revealed. Reading this rich, sprawling novel is more than entertainment. Wolff shows us people striving, often not sure what they’re after, sometimes pursuing the wrong goals. Ultimately they’re hostages to their needs and their natures.

Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
Though reading this book was not at all laborious, the plot and characters are so complex that they defy any tidy summing up. Tevis presents a futuristic world headed toward extinction (not with a bang but a whimper); even biological humans have lost their humanness. Bentley has to slowly discover his; books are the means by which he gains access to feelings which had been drugged and indoctrinated into dormancy. Mary Lou, a rebel who escaped such indoctrination in her youth, is relatively intact. The robot Spofforth was created using the brain of a human as a model; he fleetingly feels – and is disturbed by – random emotions and memories belonging to his donor. In its depiction of a social-engineered world in terminal disarray, the book makes you think. Tevis is less successful in making me feel. He tries to show the evolution of Bentley as he opens up to emotions and learns to love, yet this aspect seemed forced and awkward. In The Man Who Fell to Earth and Queen’s Gambit Tevis convincingly conveyed deep alienation, but in this novel he couldn’t breathe life into scenes of human engagement.

Old Red and Other Stories - Caroline Gordon
There are quite a few successes in this collection. The best are about Aleck Maury. He’s a great character, and I wonder if he was based on Gordon’s father. How else could she have such empathy for an aging sportsman with an elemental need to hunt and fish? In the Maury stories she captures, with a masterful understatement, Aleck’s feelings as the world he loves slips inexorably from his grasp. Her finest achievement is “The Last Day in the Field,” in which she makes this conflict of love and loss palpable. Bittersweet loss is also the theme of “All Lovers Love the Spring”; Gordon follows a woman’s random thoughts, and in doing so a whole life emerges. The weakest – and longest – story is “Emmanuele! Emmanuele!” It’s populated by intellectuals and the plot is intricate; both seem contrived. Gordon was an author with limitations – she had to care deeply about her characters and she had to keep the plot simple. When she stayed in those parameters she was capable of beautiful work.

A Summer Place - Sloan Wilson
A good, solid, engrossing novel. It begins with a troubled relationship between two young people; they part and go on to marry others. Decades later, when Ken and Sylvia meet again, the sexual spark is reignited, though now they’ve matured and know that their love is real. They divorce their spouses and marry. At this point Ken and Sylvia stop being the focus of the story and the children from their first marriages take center stage. It’s as if John and Molly are reliving the passion their parents had felt. But their relationship is a difficult, conflicted one because of the emotional dynamics at work. The people that Ken and Sylvia divorced are still the parents of John and Molly, and they play a complicating role. Wilson also shows how deeply the young people were damaged by growing up in loveless, dysfunctional families; whether they can unite to overcome the damage, or whether it will tear them apart, is left up in the air. Throughout the novel Wilson opted for honesty, and I respected this.

The Queen’s Gambit - Walter Tevis
I liked and cared about Beth. Her story begins when she’s put in an orphanage at age eight. It’s not a hellish place, but it offers her no emotional warmth. Beth visits a misanthropic janitor in his basement lair, and he grudgingly teaches her how to play chess. It’s soon obvious that she’s endowed with a genius for the game. Much of the book is taken up with tournament matches. I couldn’t understand the moves being described, but I shared Beth’s feelings as shifts of power occur. Against the caliber of opponents she faces, chess is mentally and psychologically grueling and demands an obsessional dedication; consequently, Beth doesn’t have much of a life outside of chess. Also, in the orphanage the children were given tranquilizers, and Beth continues to rely on them to alleviate a pervasive tension. When she’s eighteen she turns to alcohol with a vengeance. I didn’t entirely believe in the self-destructiveness of her drinking, nor how effortlessly she’s able to give it up. The book ends with her defeating the Russian grandmaster who had twice defeated her. Yet I was uneasy about Beth’s prospects for happiness. Chess can absorb and empower her, but it can’t fill an emotional void that has existed since she was a child. At age twenty she’s had a few sexual relationships (both with chess players), but they lacked the intimacy she needs. This wasn’t entirely the fault of the men. Beth has set up barriers that separate her from other people. I see the possibility – if her life continues to be loveless and friendless – of depression settling in and the drinking resurfacing. The fact that I was troubled at the end of the book means, of course, that Walter Tevis is a talented writer. There’s much emotion in Beth’s emotionally muted world. When she returns to the orphanage (after the death of the janitor) she goes down to the basement where she first saw chess pieces. I was surprised and impressed by how moving this scene was. In an understated way, vistas are opened.

A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence
I was totally out of sympathy with this novel. Rachel’s story is told by means of an interior monologue in which she sometimes expresses herself with a solemn eloquence that struck me as coming not from the character but from an author trying hard to impress. To be in Rachel’s mind is exhausting. She talks to herself a lot: “Stop. Stop it, Rachel. Steady. Get a grip on yourself. Relax. Sleep. Try.” Yes, Rachel, please, please get a grip on yourself. She’s besieged by raw emotions and often seems on the verge of hysteria. She teaches school in a Canadian town and lives with her manipulative mother. The focus of the novel is her first sexual experience, at age thirty-four. We have to endure lines such as “Put it in, darling.” Yet we’re never told if she feels pleasure when it is in. Since we’re spared nothing else about her (including her dreams and fantasies), why can’t we know this basic fact? As it is, the affair, which she had long desired, merely creates more problems for Rachel – we get a heavy dose of her doubts, awkwardness, anxiety, etc. She’s not coping at all well with life, but instead of feeling sympathy, I felt annoyance. Laurence, who did such a wonderful job in The Stone Angel, goes overboard with this character. There’s no distancing, just untempered earnestness. With relief I quit reading.

The Man Who Fell to Earth - Walter Tevis
This book seems to have fallen by good fortune into my hands. I pulled it from the library shelf because I recognized the title – a movie had been made of it (one I hadn’t seen and knew nothing about). I read the opening paragraph and admired its unadorned precision, so I took it home. I suppose it belongs in the category of science fiction (a genre I have little patience with), and its overly-familiar message has to do with the threat of annihilation by nuclear war. This novel, however, is something different; it’s an example of how intelligence and insight can generate a bright, crackling freshness. Tevis makes it entirely logical why an Anthean (who’s just able to pass as a human) has come to Earth, what his goal is, and how he goes about trying to achieve it. As I followed T. J. Newton’s story I shared the burden of his undertaking, respected his abilities, and admired his resolve and courage. That he winds up disillusioned and lonelier than one can imagine is a tragedy, and I was moved. I was moved by an alien! – when so many human characters in fiction fail to elicit that emotion in me. *

The Earthly Paradise - Robert Thom
From beginning to end, without respite, this novel’s intensity level is set too high. This applies to thoughts and feelings, events and dialogue, and even to the prose: “The words cut into him. He felt it at the base of his skull and in his spine.” Though the particular emotions people feel are on full display, they become suspect because of huge and unsupported about-faces; I didn’t believe in any character (the saintly and wise deaf mute was preposterous). Still, despite its strident, garish and silly aspects, the novel has momentum. The author could probably do good work if he gave up his pretensions. Thom tries to delve deep into the tortured human heart, but he needs to simply portray people as they are.

A Summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor
The book’s premise, which emerged early on, intrigued me: a father prevents all three of his children from marrying the people they love, and in doing so derails their lives. I wanted to find out what made this tyrannical figure tick. I can tell you now that nothing is revealed. One example: the narrator, Phillip, tells about the great love in his life. Though the girl he wants to marry seems satisfactory in every way, his father travels to Chattanooga to talk to her parents; after his visit the girl is shipped off to South America. What did he say to them? And why? These and other crucial questions remain a mystery. Not helping matters is the way the story is told; the narrator uses stilted language, he’s repetitive, he’s circuitous, he goes into long, dry digressions on clothes and society and manners. This novella is filled with five page stretches where nothing of substance happens. As for the main character, did Taylor intend for him to be sympathetic? If so, he failed dismally; I developed a strong aversion for Phillip. He insulates himself from any responsibility and hardly any contact with his family. When he’s summoned to Memphis by his sisters – who stayed and dealt with their father – he describes the experience as “hellish” and after one day he flees back to New York. He depicts his sisters as grotesques, but how did they get this way? They deserve compassion and insight; instead they’re ridiculed. To top it all off, Phillip winds up being a cheerleader for the old man, promoting him as a figure to be respected. I made it to this inane ending only because annoyance can propel along (at least if the book is very short).