To an Early Grave – Wallace Markfield
There’s hardly any plot to this comic novel: someone dies and four of his friends assemble and try (successfully, though after many setbacks) to attend the funeral. The humor is based mostly on dialogue and wacky events, and it was working for me because of Markfield’s inventive prose and his ability to generate a rollicking energy. But gradually it turned sour. Part of the problem has to do with the word “friends.” Spite and resentment between these four men far outweigh affection; most of their conversing is abusive in nature, and even their feelings for the deceased are mixed with rancor. The negativity is wide-ranging. One character says, “You look at families, you don’t have to wonder why there’s war in the world.” Indeed, in these families, with these women (who play an off-stage role), life is an unruly combat zone. It was a relief when Markfield occasionally changes gears and takes on a gentler tone, as when Morroe, the main character, does a bit of self-evaluation: “I am no big intellect. I am no bargain. I watch too much television. I read, but I do not retain. I am not lost, exactly, but still I am nowhere. I am the servant of no great end.” But when Morroe parts with the last of the four, and is being told a sort of confession, he thinks, “Tough shit and tough titty.” So he could add mean-spirited to his flaws, as could everybody in the novel. A few last notes: all of Markfield’s characters are Jewish, and they talk in a Jewish cadence. Morroe remembers an argument (of course, an argument) he had with a Jewish tailor over a suit: “By me is the lining no lining. By me – you should pardon the expression – is a piece toilet paper.” There are also untranslated Yiddish words sprinkled throughout. (What does fahrblunged – and at least fifty other words – mean?) From the blurbs, it seems that Jewish reviewers – Heller, Shapiro, Levin – didn’t share my objections. They found the book to be spirited fun. Members of a culture tend to enjoy self-deprecating humor, at least when it comes from one of their own.

The Village – Ivan Bunin (Russian)
Bunin portrays Russia as a wretched place populated by malignant and degraded people. We see things from the perspective of two brothers. Both, though of different natures, are mired in unhappiness. What we get is a series of brutish events and sordid scenes and a procession of characters (men only) who contribute their bit of malice and then move on. The book was written in 1923, when Bunin was living in exile; he had fled Russia in 1918, during the revolution (in an Autobiographical Note he describes that upheaval as a time of unspeakable horrors). The czarist regime must take a large portion of blame for producing a wretched peasantry. As for its replacement, how can any government make good citizens out of men sunk into such cynicism and bestiality? And what can be accomplished in so severe an environment? But there’s another consideration: the misery is too much of a bad thing and leads to doubts as to the validity of Bunin’s depiction of Russia (a point that critics at the time took issue with). Judged on literary terms, reading this novel was like looking out a train window at a monochromatic landscape devoid of any trace of beauty, and two-thirds of the way through I pulled down the blind.

The Gourmet Club – Junichiro Tanizaki (Japanese)
Decades ago, when I set out on this ill-fated “Jack London” endeavor, I wanted the first book I reviewed to be a great one. Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters received that honor. It’s a realistic and sensitive portrayal of three sisters written in a clear, elegant style; in its stateliness it reminded me of Buddenbrooks. I don’t regret my choice, even though the collection of six short stories I’m now reviewing shows the same author at his worst. In the first story a ten year old boy is drawn into sadomasochistic sex games; in the last, “Manganese Dioxide Dreams,” the elderly protagonist (who seems to be Tanizaki himself) is studying his feces (throughout the book there’s an obsession with all manner of bodily discharges). Reading “Mr. Bluemound” (about weirdly realistic sex toys) one wonders that a human mind can contrive such depravity and that a self-respecting author would put it down on paper. But for all their shock value the stories are so silly that they’re boring. And they’re poorly written – the prose is amateurish and the construction slipshod (for no good reason “Dreams” includes a four page summary of the plot of the film Les Diaboliques). How can a writer capable of excellent work sink to such artlessness? And, if he’s compelled to indulge in gross fantasies, why not destroy the results? Another question arises: why, in 2017, did the University of Michigan Press deem these worthless pieces to be worthy of publication? In his introduction Paul McCarthy (one of the two translators) writes that he and Anthony Chambers “have been planning some sort of Tanizaki collaboration for many years; this collection of stories is the fruit of those plans.” They found their fruit rotting in the dumpster. Tanizaki must take responsibility for sullying his reputation, but all involved in the publication of The Gourmet Club have done no favor to an author they claim to respect.