The Mortal Enemy & Obscure Destinies – Willa Cather

Though this will result in the best coming last, I’m reviewing Enemy and the stories that make up Destinies together because, though they were published separately, each volume must have been under a hundred pages. The setting for the first part of the novella is New York, a place Cather knew well – as an adult she was quite cosmopolitan. In it she has a first person narrator observe Myra and Oswald Henshawe. This couple lead a comfortable, cultured life (operas, etc.), but Nellie is perplexed by the dynamics of their marriage – something is amiss – and she remains perplexed right to the end. The problem for me is that I also remained perplexed right to the end. Though Cather seems to value – or be fascinated by – the quicksilver nature of Myra (she even grants her a romantic death), no one in Enemy got to me emotionally; it was merely a fairly interesting read. The three stories in Destinies are set in the plains of Nebraska, where the author was born and spent her early – and impressionable – years. They’re peopled not by sophisticates but by rural folk. In “Two Friends” she again has an outside observer tell the story; and, like Enemy, it was merely pretty good. But then – drum roll – we come to two gems: “Neighbor Rosicky” and “Old Mrs. Harris.” Here Cather enters the minds of her characters, and she does so with depth and sensitivity. Beyond the events that occur, the stories are about what matters in life. Rosisky and Mrs. Harris accept their lives because they live in accordance with their values. They also accept approaching death – the inevitable ending. With these “simple” characters (Rosicky has “one taproot that goes down deep”) I was more than emotionally involved; I was moved.

A Life in Letters – John Steinbeck

A collection of letters has a main character and a plot (the character’s life), but it can’t be reviewed the way a novel would. It comes down to a purely subjective consideration: was the person interesting? In the case of Steinbeck, for me the answer is yes and no. On page 356 he meets the woman who will become his third wife, and from there on my interest began to wane. And, since this is an 860 page book, there was a lot of waning going on. What also began to wane was Steinbeck’s creative output. After his last marriage, at age forty-eight, the only thing he published of consequence was East of Eden. He died at age sixty-five, so we have an artistically fallow period that lasted for almost twenty years. It’s important to note that the co-compiler of this collection was the third wife – Elaine – and she devotes about 500 pages to the period in which she’s involved. Maybe – since he became famous with The Grapes of Wrath – there were more letters available. And he was often writing to people who were of consequence (he was friendly with Adlai Stevenson, Elia Kazan, Oscar Hammerstein, etc.). But Elaine Steinbeck might have wanted to place preeminence on his years with her. At any rate, I found his early letters more engaging. During his first marriage to Carol Henning he was a struggling writer (sometimes struggling to buy food). He made a breakthrough with Tortilla Flat, followed by Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony (my favorite of all his work). And then came Grapes in 1939. Two years later he met the woman who would become his second wife. It’s interesting that in his letters written during the twelve years he was with Carol he never writes a word that suggests any problem in their marriage. She comes across as a stalwart trooper, holding two jobs, typing his manuscripts, etc. Yet in post-divorce letters he writes about how mismatched and miserable they were. Maybe he was revising history to justify his actions; I felt that he moved on, and in doing so discarded the shopworn wife for an aspiring Hollywood singer (from whom he would break after five years). Do you detect a note of disapproval in my choice of words? But John Steinbeck was only human, and he was too damn likable and decent a guy to dislike. As to why he lost the ability to produce work of note, one factor could be that in his later years (especially after receiving the Nobel Prize) his life became way too complicated – too many people, too many demands on his time, too much traveling. He was never comfortable with the status of celebrity and often expressed a desire for a life of anonymity. I don’t think he’d be bothered by the fact that my spell checker doesn’t recognize the name “Steinbeck.” He might have gotten a laugh out of it.

The Eustace Diamonds – Anthony Trollope

This novel first appeared in twenty monthly installments of the Fortnightly Review. No doubt it was eagerly awaited – how else were those in the upper crust of British society supposed to entertain themselves back in 1870? Trollope offers up a cynical look at the values of that very society, but this aspect is somewhat masked by the light, comic tone he employs. Because she’s primarily a caricature made up of moral deficiencies, no one would see themselves in Lizzie Eustace (Lady Eustace – for she is so elevated in status by having married into money and a title). The plot revolves around a Eustace family diamond necklace valued at ten thousand pounds that her husband – who died shortly after their marriage – had given her as a gift. Or so she claims. Whether he did indeed give her this gift is the matter that is hotly disputed for over 700 pages. The diamonds represent what is valued by society. Love and virtue are insignificant for Lizzie and many others. Marriages are made not on the basis of love (in one notable side story the engaged couple despise each other), but to enable the parties involved to garner economic and/or social advantages. This is not true for everyone – Trollope has some characters who are virtuous and for whom love is meaningful. But the flawed ones are more vivid. The novel has the feel of having been written in haste, and is not one of Trollope’s full-fledged successes. One-dimensional Lizzie is not that interesting in the long run, and I began to get mighty tired of those damned diamonds. Also, the book’s many disparate parts don’t coalesce, and the result is a sprawling, sloppy mess. But it’s a delicious mess, and I never faltered in my reading. In his presentation of a greedy and willful woman, Trollope injects a cautionary note. Because Lizzie is false to the bone – unable to have sincere feelings for anyone, not even her infant son – she’s destined to be alone and loveless. And at the end she may have met her match in the greasy cleric she marries, for he’s as avaricious and devoid of morals as she is. Since Trollope takes up moral issues, he has something to answer for in his depiction of Jews. They are, without fail, loathsome creatures (Lizzie never elicits loathing). The cleric is actually a Jew, and I used the word “greasy” to describe him because that’s the word Trollope uses whenever a Jew makes an appearance. You’d think a writer of his genius would have been able to come up with other terms (well, actually, at times he does resort to “oily.”). His anti-Semitic attitude must have been sanctioned by the people for whom he wrote. Which is another fault of that society, but one which Trollope was also guilty of.

The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
When Wharton was guided by her steely intelligence, she was wonderful; but this contrived and foolish novel shows how precarious excellence is. The premise of Moon is interesting. When Nick and Susie get married they have an agreement: they’ll spend a year together, sponging off rich friends; but if one of them finds someone who can advance them socially/financially, they’ll be free to take the offer and dissolve the marriage. They first stay at a villa on Lake Como (they chose that over places in Versailles and Monte Carlo). Their idyllic honeymoon is marred by one problem: Nick has scruples that Susie doesn’t. While he’s a non-paying guest at the villa he has no problem smoking the expensive cigars of his absentee benefactor; yet when they leave and he finds Suzie packing four boxes of cigars, he sternly orders her to unpack them. At their next stop, a palace in Venice, Susie – who has a practical approach to “managing” the people she depends on – mails four letters at intervals in order to deceive a husband as to his wife’s whereabouts. When Nick finds out about this, he abruptly leaves Susie. For over six months they’re apart, not even writing to one another. Both continue to live in luxury, thanks to the generosity of friends. They also form relationships, but they’re superficial; they moon about each other. In a sort of comedy of errors, each believes that the other has found someone else, and that their agreement to let the other free is still in effect. This whole scenario is rife with problems. Wharton wants us to believe that a deep and everlasting love exists between Susie and Nick; why, then, couldn’t their initial differences be settled with a sensible conversation? She has Susie look to Nick as a moral compass, but he comes across as a stiff-necked hypocrite. And she wants to make the point that material goods aren’t of true value, yet she saturates the novel with the trapping of the ultra-wealthy. She winds things up with Susie living in a humble abode, taking care of a friend’s five children (and learning all about true values). There Nick finally seeks her out, and they declare their eternal love; they will, we’re to assume, live happily ever after. “ ‘Nick!’ Susie sighed, at peace, as if the one syllable were a magic seed that flung out great branches to envelope them.” Which brings me to the prose, which is exceedingly wordy, and the words are often purple.

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Hurari
What makes this far-ranging study of man so unusual is Hurari’s perspective: he looks at our species as an analytical alien might. His lack of commitment to accepted norms allows him to move away from conventional ways of thinking. One of his major points is that much of what we hold onto as bulwarks of our lives is imagined. Christianity, democracy, capitalism, our homeland – all are concepts manufactured by the mind of man and thus can be categorized as delusions. And he gives full legitimacy to any other set of delusions that a different culture may believe in. Hurari goes into origins – mainly the Cognitive, Agriculture and Scientific Revolutions that allowed our species to become dominant – but it’s only to show the path that led us to where we are today. It is today (and the future) that concerns him. Hurari acknowledges how disturbing his undermining of the status quo can be. He writes, “Perhaps happiness is synchronizing one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction.” To him this is “quite a depressing conclusion.” His commitment is to the truth, as he sees it, and he’s equipped with persuasive arguments to back up his views.

I Thought of Daisy – Edmund Wilson
Wilson’s intellectuality undermined his strengths as a novelist. He encumbers Daisy with a schematic framework aimed at presenting different life views; the narrator goes on tangents about Sophocles, politics, metaphysics; the long descriptive passages are Proustian attempts at evoking moods. The plot consists mainly of a series of Greenwich Village parties in which eccentric types – poets, revolutionaries, hangers-on – drink and talk. Though aspects of this were fairly interesting, they obscured what should have been the book’s main focus – namely, the person the narrator is thinking of in the title: Daisy. She’s an emphatic creation, fresh, lively, sparkling. That sparkle is sometimes dulled (due mostly to her problematic relationships with men), and I felt the absence because I cared for her and wanted her to be happy. When the narrator is with Daisy he has an appeal that’s otherwise absent. The same can be said for the author; unlike his other characters Daisy is earthbound, and when she’s present Wilson is pleasingly earthbound too. At the end the narrator expounds on what Daisy offers him: “. . . if only I could hit off, in prose, her attitudes, her gestures, her expressions, the intonation of her voice – preserve them so they should not vanish, as Degas had done for his dancers . . .” In sections Wilson fully succeeds in doing this. But Daisy makes brief appearances in which she reflects the man she’s presently with (that schematic framework at work); only in the last section do we get her undistilled. In his Foreword, written in 1953 (the novel came out in 1929), Wilson says that he had an idea for a sequel, one which he abandoned when he couldn’t find his notes. He considers this “no great loss. By the time you have finished this book, if you do, you will no doubt have had enough of Daisy . . .” Though he’s wrong there, I should be grateful for what I got of her. And maybe his offhand words account for his meager output of fiction. Which is a shame, because in parts of Daisy and in the stories that make up Memoirs of Hecate County he could be remarkable in a unique way.

Orley Farm – Anthony Trollope
In this flat second installment of the Orley Farm saga the characters I found invigorating are either absent or watered down. Early on Mrs. Mason confesses to two close friends that she forged the will. There’s much moralizing about her dastardly act, but the repentant woman is forgiven. The trial proceeds and she’s found not guilty. Trollope has sympathy for Mrs. Mason, but he also has a problem with a legal system that allows justice to be subverted by wily lawyers. The main dilemma involves her righteous son, who believes passionately in his mother’s innocence. It’s determined that he must be told of her guilt, and how will he take this blow? He agonizes, considering what she did to be “the foulest fraud that practiced villains can conceive!” – but he too winds up forgiving her (in his stern fashion). It has been decided that, after the trial, Orley Farm must be returned to its rightful owner. This is done, and there things end, leaving the fate of a handful of characters up in the air. Not that I cared much; the novel was too emotionally overwrought and high-minded for any but Victorian readers. In regard to that high-minded tone, there’s a matter that Trollope chooses to gloss over. It has to do with a side story: Felix, who is portrayed as exceedingly upright, is to marry Madeline, who is a paragon of virtue (and beautiful and wealthy to boot). But there’s an obstacle. Before he met her, Felix had been grooming a lower class young woman to be his wife. He had entered into a legal document with the neer-do-well father stipulating that a marriage is to take place; he has hired someone to teach Mary Snow the niceties of manners and to watch over her activities. This lady informs Felix that Mary exchanged letters with a young man and met him once under a lamp-post. Felix has a talk with a contrite Mary in which he gently proposes that they aren’t meant for one another and that they should call off their union. The angry father is appeased by a considerable sum of money (which he will drink away). Thus Felix is provided with a convenient “out” from his entanglement. Trollope the moralist expresses no misgivings about an episode that struck me as thoroughly unsavory.

Orley Farm – Anthony Trollope
This novel was published in two volumes, so I’m going to read (and review) the two separately. And I surely will read the next volume, as I’m interested in how things turn out. A trial is to take place determining whether Mrs. Mason forged the signatures of her husband and two witnesses on a codicil to a will, one which left her infant son the heir to Orley Farm. At the time, twenty years ago, her husband’s well-to-do adult son had taken the matter to court, contesting the validity of the codicil; the decision went against him, yet he remained convinced that he had been cheated out of property that was rightfully his. When new papers are discovered, giving credence to his belief, he revives the case; if a wrong has been done to him, however long ago, he’ll exact his full pound of flesh. For me, Mrs. Mason’s guilt or innocence is not in question: she forged the codicil. Still, how will she survive the retrial? Trollope is adept at putting characters in moral/emotional vises, and then tightening the screws. The crosscurrents that play over relationships are deviously constructed but entirely sound, given the characters’ psychology and temperament. Another Trollope strength is his portrayal of people who are unpleasant, deviant or evil. I’ll note two of many compelling creations: the lawyer Mr. Dockwrath, a coarse, wily brute force, and the elder son’s wife, a miser of psychotic proportions. But a Trollope weakness is also on display: some characters come across as simplistic and cloying (this is most evident in his depictions of womanly virtue). It all has to do with his attitude: when Trollope was hard he was as good as it gets, but when he was soft he turns mushy. Orley Farm also suffers in that it’s cluttered with too many characters and lines of plot (such as the love triangles involving a handful of young people). But readers in 1862 were desirous of a blockbuster, so Trollope, the human word machine, added the necessary padding. His readiness to produce on demand was an aspect of his work that critics would attack. Where’s the divine inspiration, they asked.

The Final Deduction – Rex Stout
Again I turn to Stout for a diversion. Archie gets a lot of play, which is good (when he glances into a wealthy client’s bedroom he decides it “would suit my wife fine if I ever had a wife, which I probably wouldn’t because she would probably want that type of room”). But this is a sloppily written and plotted novel; Stout wasn’t half trying. In fact, I think he was deliberately seeing how much nonsense he could foist off on his readers. The overly intricate maneuvering of the kidnapping is topped for preposterousness by the method of committing a murder. The Teddler library has a dozen life-sized bronze statues of figures from American history. A drugged man is dragged under the statue of Ben Franklin, which is then pushed over so that it falls on him. But how could someone be sure that a statue of that size and weight would land on the unconscious victim in a way that would cause death (and not just, say, crush his legs)? A little off to the side and the whole plan would be a fiasco. Of course, if the Ben Franklin had missed completely, the murderer could drag the body to the George Washington statue for another try. I often complain about how writers of detective fiction deliberately try to mislead the reader. So this time out, when the five suspects were identified, I chose the most unlikely person to be the murderer. It turns out that I was right. So now I can solve mysteries just like Nero Wolfe.

The Hat of My Mother – Max Steele
I admired Steele’s only novel so much that I got this collection of his short stories. But only “When She Brushed Her Hair” approached the excellence of Debby. And even that story is marred by an awkward introduction and a postscript in which Steele muses about the project. There’s one other piece that’s very good — “The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers” — but the rest range from interesting to mistakes. Since their publication dates begin when the author was thirty-one and end when he was sixty-six, which was his age when the collection came out, it’s a summing up of his work as a writer of short fiction. There’s simply not much of value in this slim volume (under two hundred pages), and I was left wondering how Steele could have written something as good – and ambitious – as Debby. Maybe the novel was so heartfelt that it elicited the best in him, and his best was better than what he was normally capable of. And he wrote it when he was in his twenties; he would attend five universities, ending up as the longtime director of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; possibly academic affairs took up his time and energy. In most of the stories he uses personal experiences for subject matter; this works as long as he stays in the background. In the two successes I noted, one is about his mother and the other is about his kindergarten teacher; in the first he isn’t born yet, and in the second he’s just one of the anonymous boys in Miss Effie’s class. But too often I felt I was in a psychiatric session in which Steele reveals his inability to sustain romantic relationships (in “Color the Daydream,” which is about a love affair that turns out badly, there’s a paragraph that consists of two words: “Torture time”). This collection left me with a feeling of sadness. The stories weren’t as good as I wanted them to be, and Max Steele seemed to have had a struggle with life.

The Possessed – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian)
When I was reading this as a comic novel, for more than half its 700 pages, I thought it was wonderful. Dostoyevsky assembles a cast of people who are twisted in some way – mad, delusional, malignantly manipulative, etcetera – and sets them to work on one another. The book is in the Victorian tradition, complete with set scenes on a grand scale; there’s a Gala held to raise funds for the Aid of Needy Governesses which turns into a fiasco, complete with pratfalls. The melodramatic pot-boiler of a plot (about an undercover attempt to overthrow the whole of society) is run by a ragtag handful of bunglers. Possibly Dostoyevsky was commenting, in a cynical fashion, on the errant tendencies in the Russian character. At any rate, it was vivid, vigorous and entertaining. My first stirring of unease came in a long dialogue Stavrogin has with a priest; it involves a confession and a discussion of faith and the soul and God’s forgiveness. Suddenly we’re in Crime and Punishment territory. This change in tone slowly takes precedence. Dostoyevsky tries to force elements that are comic into a serious mold. The result is still comic, but foolishly so; the book becomes a nonsensical jumble, and two hundred pages from the end I had enough. I truly believe that for much of the book Dostoyevsky was having fun; if I was, how could he not be? Maybe he couldn’t separate himself from his reputation as one who probes into profound matters. Who knows?

Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford is an English village which, Gaskell writes in the first sentence, “is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.” Yet these Amazons are not warriors; they’re spinsters or widows concerned solely with local matters, and the rare conflicts that take place are conducted with slights and snubs. Cranford began as stories that appeared in the mid-1800s in Household Works, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. Their quiet charm made them very popular and they were collected to make up this slim volume. Gaskell’s benevolent attitude toward her elderly ladies can become a bit saccharine, but that’s countered by the sly humor she directs at their preoccupation over matters of status and propriety. My enjoyment of the book was probably due in part to what readers long ago found pleasing: it offers escapism. Cranford is a safe retreat from worldly turmoil.

The Breaking Wave – Nevil Shute
This unusual war novel involves a Wren in the British navy who works behind the lines maintaining guns on ships that will take part in the D-Day invasion. Except for one flyover by a German plane, there are no battle scenes. For Janet Prentice war will have a lasting appeal. She’s young, involved in an event with a vital purpose; added to that, she falls in love for the first and only time in her life. But war’s dark side hits her hard. Though she’s unscathed physically, she deals with guilt (involving that flyover by the German plane); she comes to believe that she killed seven innocent men. Shortly afterwards she loses Bill, the man she loves, then her father. She sees their deaths as retribution for her actions, and she conceives the idea that she’s fated to lose five more things she loves. She’s not deranged; in the months before the invasion exhaustion and stress have eroded her emotional resources. When the dog Bill had entrusted to her is crushed by a tank she breaks down. It’s a case of PTSD before that term was in use. The war is over for Janet. She goes through years of caring for others as they die: first her mother, then a distant relative. She repeatedly tries to rejoin the Wrens, but is rejected. Though the bulk of the plot is devoted to her, the first person narrator is Alan, Bill’s brother. The book opens twenty years after the war, with Alan returning home to a sheep ranch in Australia; on the morning of his arrival he learns that his parent’s live-in maid had committed suicide. Her name – or the one she gave them – is Jessie Proctor. What follows, in flashbacks, is Janet Prentice’s story. To make Alan the narrator of this story (he only spent one day with her and Bill) seemed like a dubious contrivance, but it didn’t interfere with my reading because the Janet that emerges is strong and authentic. More so than Alan, who is the other central character. I was disappointed in how Shute wraps things up; I couldn’t accept the final entries in Janet’s diary. In this book you have to take the good with the not-so-good. And the good is not just engrossing, but it goes deep.

Kept in the Dark – Anthony Trollope
In an ideal marriage, by Victorian standards, a wife should be pure as the driven snow, a husband should be a stalwart and benevolent Master. Though these roles are antiquated, what gives this book relevancy today is the fact that jealousy and possessiveness are constants in human nature. Trollope creates a situation which is analogous to a tightening noose. A year before her marriage to George Cecilia was engaged to a charming reprobate; when she began to discern Sir Francis Geraldine’s true nature she broke things off. Then she meets and marries George and they live in conjugal bliss. But Cecilia never tells him of her previous engagement. Though she’s innocent of any wrongdoing, she never summons up the courage to divulge something that she finds distasteful. To further complicate matters, George knows and despises his wife’s former suitor. Sir Francis, with malicious intent, sends George a letter in which he reveals his relationship with Cecilia; he tells no lies, but he implies that he and Cecilia still have a sort of understanding. At first George believes the letter is a complete falsehood; when Cecilia admits that the facts in the letter are true, suspicions arise in George’s mind. How could she have been close to such a despicable man? Why has Cecilia kept him in the dark about Sir Francis? What secret has she been hiding? Distrust and a feeling of being duped consume George, and his response is to institute a complete separation. Though Trollope tries to give George a basis for his emotions, his harshness toward someone he purports to love puts him in a bad light. The two strongest characters are the villains; the book is most alive when Sir Francis and Francesca Altifiorla are in action. Interesting, isn’t it, how evil is more compelling than virtue? This slim volume may have been Trollope’s last work; it was serialized in Good Words magazine in 1882, the same year he died. I read it in a republication as it first appeared (in cliffhanger installments, and complete with typos). As always with Trollope, those readers long ago were rewarded. Not a masterpiece, but a good read in which one forms opinions about the situation and the protagonists.

Framley Parsonage – Anthony Trollope
Trollope understood his audience. They were the educated upper class of Victorian society, and they had no interest in the brutish lives of those in the lower classes. They wanted to read about lords and ladies, vicars and bishops. They wanted romantic entanglements, money matters and political maneuvering; they wanted virtue and villainy. And since reading was their main form of entertainment (imagine that!) they wanted a story that would go on at length. A bit about the genesis of Framley Parsonage shows how well Trollope gave them all they desired. Thackeray asked him to contribute to Cornhill Magazine, which he was editing. Trollope produced monthly installments of three chapters (the complete book consists of forty-eight). During this run the circulation of the magazine stayed around the 120,000 mark; after the last chapter was completed the sales dropped off sharply. Trollope was highly readable then, and he still is. His enduring strength is his insight into human nature (which hasn’t changed over time). He avoided one-dimensional characters or treacly sentimentalizing. And despite his benevolent attitude, he was a cynic; thus we get observations like this: “If I want to get anything from my old friend Jones, I like to see him shoved up into a high place. But if Jones, even in his high place, can do nothing for me, then his exaltation above my head is an insult and an injury.” And, for a novel populated largely by clerics, Trollope chooses to exclude God; what his religious hierarchy care about are money, position and prestige. If a barb can be gently applied, Trollope was a master at it. He did believe in some things, one being that man and woman weren’t meant to live alone. Marriage was a wonderful institution – if the couple are united by love and respect. Fanny is generous and forgiving toward her errant husband; without her, he would have crumbled. Though I enjoyed my five hundred page stay in Barsetshire, I was more interested in some characters than others. Nathaniel Sowerby has lived for over fifty years indulging in every luxury without doing a lick of work. He’s a manipulator, a man who uses others for financial gain. But he operates so smoothly, with such charm, that he resists being dismissed as a mere scoundrel. I also had strong feelings for Lucy Robarts, a girl that the imperious Lady Lufton condemns as too “insignificant” to be a proper match for her son. But Lucy is very significant – not in beauty or how she carries herself, but in how she thinks and in her actions. Lucy does marry Lord Lufton, with his mother’s blessing. And they lived happily ever after? Trollope seems to imply that things may not be all that rosy.

Chalky – Matthew Vaughan
This resolutely idiosyncratic novel was written by a twentieth century author, but the setting is the Victorian England that Victorian English writers don’t concern themselves with. The opening sentence: “Chalky sat in the corner of the room and chewed his piece of rag while the snake-swallower vomited into a battered bucket over by the bed.” Three-year-old Chalky is abandoned by his prostitute mother and is taken to a Church orphanage whose manager is a sadist and a pederast. When Chalky emerges as a distinct personality he’s a thirteen-year-old who is physically strong, intelligent, and determined; his first act is to bring about the downfall of the manager. The reverend who had taken Chalky to the orphanage sees potential in the boy, and he educates him (how to speak correctly, what books to read, etc.). But though Chalky absorbs, his ideas and personality are set. The most important element in his makeup is his reserve: he’s composed, stoical. He has two sexual encounters in his entire life (described in a detail that would make D. H. blush); they’re releases from his self-imposed repression, but are followed by a resumption of defenses against such release. As a profession, Chalky selects the military; he’s perfectly suited for that life, and he rises in the ranks. When Vaughan stuck to factual episodes, the book flowed, was very readable. But he clutters things up with long, erudite asides about religion, metaphysics, etc. And too many events are contrived. Most significant is the ending, which involves an encounter in Africa with a sect of “snake-men” (yes, more snakes). Chalky’s plan to have his platoon captured and then rescued is just plain dumb. The scene that ensues is as nightmarish as the opening one – purposely so. It exists only so Vaughan can have Chalky relive childhood terrors. This is a novel that fails in some ways, but which is endowed with an inner conviction. Ultimately I cared about Chalky. Or, rather I felt sympathy for the fact of his isolation, and that may have been what Vaughan was aiming for.

The Silence in the Garden – William Trevor
Trevor always approaches his stories from an oblique angle; I’ve come to expect this, and to wait for characters and events to take shape and become meaningful. In this case, I waited to the end, largely in vain. I’ve also long admired his ability to evoke emotions, but with this book I felt little to nothing. So what went wrong? For starters, there were too many characters, some who matter and many who don’t – one’s attention gets diluted. And telling the story in part through a diary doesn’t work when the diary writer has no defined personality. Trevor is good with muted people, but Sarah is almost non-existent. At the heart of the matter there’s a long-ago tragedy that has lasting repercussions; the revealing of what happened is done in such a vague and disjointed way that it had no impact. Characters, too, are handled in a desultory fashion. Villana marries a much older man – there’s a lot about wedding preparations – but we never learn how this oddly-matched couple get along. What we do get are pages devoted to young, illegitimate Tom walking around town. In the final chapter Trevor jumps ahead decades, to when everybody except two players are dead (and unaccounted for). Tom contemplates the downfall of the once-idyllic Carriglas. But since Trevor had never created a sense of the idyll, its downfall had no resonance. The writing is good, there are patches that are stand out, such as John James’ affair with a fat, fifty-ish owner of a boarding-house (he despises himself for his weakness, she’s desperate for his love). And the deeply religious Holy Mullihan is really creepy (“There’s a thing called contamination, Tom.”). But beyond these effective odds and ends, there’s not much life stirring in this garden. One wonders, when an author falls far short of his own standards, if he realizes it. I think Trevor did. What he delivered to his publishers was a very short novel with an aborted ending.

Dr. Wortle’s School – Anthony Trollope
In this late (and short) novel by Trollope only the title character has depth and dimensions. The plot revolves around the predicament of Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke, but he’s a dry stick – a gentleman who always does the upright thing – and his wife is so vapid that she’s no more than a twig. When it’s found that they’re unmarried, they face the condemnation of Society. The issue at stake has to do with morality; because Dr. Wortle believes the Peacockes to be innocent of any sin, he’s determined to stand by them to the end, even if it means the collapse of his beloved school. In doing so he reveals strengths and weaknesses; it’s his weaknesses that make him interesting. His injured pride provokes him to enter into reckless battle, yet he can often see that he’s acting in a foolhardy way. We follow his struggle not only with public opinion but with his own self. This is a novel filled with religiosity – Wortle is a Reverend – but he sees so-called religious people acting without compassion, and at one point he thinks “It is often a question to me whether the religion of the world is not more odious than its want of religion.” Also, it’s suggested that part of Wortle’s spirited defense of the beleaguered couple is motivated by Mrs. Peacocke’s beauty. Without the bull in the china shop, this would be no more than an insipid Victorian novel. The tacked-on romance involving Wortle’s daughter and Lord Carstairs has only one notable aspect: it shows the obsequious attitude people have toward status and wealth; Mrs. Wortle thinks with ecstasy of “the diamonds her daughter would certainly be called upon to wear before the Queen.”

A Clergyman’s Daughter – George Orwell
Orwell’s intent in this novel was to bring up social and religious issues, and he crudely manipulated events to achieve that goal. Most striking was his having Dorothy lose her memory. In chapter one she’s living in Suffolk with her father, resolutely doing good deeds that go unappreciated; in chapter two she’s on a London street, wearing strange clothes and not knowing her name. She joins a ragtag group and winds up in the fields picking hops. I almost quit reading when this switch occurred. What kept me going was that I got involved with the more muted Dorothy and her new life. Then, abruptly, we’re with Dorothy and a weird assortment of the homeless spending the night in Trafalgar Square; she’s penniless and freezing (this hallucinatory section is constructed like a play of voices). In the next sequence she gets a job as a teacher in a girls’ day school where minds are stunted rather than developed. In the final chapter Dorothy is restored to her life as a clergyman’s daughter; here Orwell introduces his last issue: she’s lost her faith. The question for her is how to go on, because, as she sees it, without faith life is “meaningless, dark and dreadful.” Orwell’s ability to create vivid characters makes the issues he introduces engaging. Mrs. Creevy, the principal of Ringwood Academy, ranks high in fiction’s assemblage of petty monsters. Dorothy’s father, the Rector, is constricted by a selfishness so stifling that he’s unable to love anyone, including his daughter. But Orwell must have loved his creation, because he made me care for Dorothy. She goes through an enormous journey and ends up with nothing; even the possible consolation of marital love is denied her, for at no point does she have the least interest in sex. In the closing scene she’s making costumes for a church play by gluing together sheets of brown paper; she gets caught up in this mindless task and “The problem of faith and no faith had vanished utterly from her mind.” A bleak ending to a bleak but honestly felt book.

The Autobiography of My Mother – Jamaica Kincaid
The novel begins: “My mother died at the moment I was born, and so for my whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity; at my back was always a bleak, black wind.” Later in that opening paragraph she refers to the “black room of the world.” Xuela grows up without love; when that word appears it’s always in the negative sense (in reference to her father, “He could not love me”). She becomes stoically defiant: “Until I was four I did not speak. This did not cause anyone to lose a minute of happiness; there was no one who would have worried about it in any case.” The word “happiness” seems out of place because nobody in this novel is capable of that emotion. When Xuela strikes up a short-lived friendship, she describes it as “something I did not experience with anyone ever again in my life.” So something positive appears in a negative light (and with a warning that things are not going to get better). Xuela’s first sexual encounter is with a man (or, rather, an automaton) who shows her not one grain of affection. She becomes pregnant and has an abortion; she suffers extreme and prolonged pain. Afterwards she becomes hardened to the point of being inhuman: “I would bear children, they would hang from me like fruit from a vine, but I would destroy them with the carelessness of a god . . . I would cover their bodies with diseases, embellish skins with thinly crusted sores, the sores sometimes oozing a thick pus for which they would thirst, a thirst that could never be quenched.” This litany of motherhood goes on, but I could not go on. Kincaid’s world is airless and without light. She indulges in and expands the unhealthy aspects of her psyche. I know anger, hatred, cruelty exist, but it’s the indulgence and the expansion that renders it unreal. Kincaid makes no concession to the reader: we will be immersed in her negative emotions. But the reader also has the choice not to remain in her “black room.”

The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell
In the late 1930s Orwell was sent by a socialistic book club to investigate conditions in a coal mining district of England. Being Orwell, he didn’t just observe from the sidelines, he tried to immerse himself in the lives of the people he was writing about. Though no personality (except his own) emerges, Orwell’s rigorous intelligence is (as always) refreshing, and he had the ability to express what he thinks simply but forcefully. He includes some autobiographical material; it seems that the critical event in his life was his five year stint with the Imperial Police in Burma. Being a part of an oppressive system left him with a bad conscience; he did things that went against his nature, and as a result he sided with the oppressed and became opposed to “every form of man’s dominion over man.” With Wigan Pier I have now read every book Orwell wrote. Since I respect him so much, I have always found it distressing when he shows prejudice toward Jews. In A Clergyman’s Daughter Dorothy is treated callously when she moves to London, but it is “The Jew on the corner, the owner of Knockout Trousers Ltd., who was the worst.” Too often, with Orwell, it is the Jew on the corner who is the worst. But I did some research and found that later in life he acknowledged his anti-Semitism and renounced it. Actually, I expected no less of the man.

And Even Now - Max Beerbohm

In these essays Max offers a unique perspective on life, and he does it with intelligence and wit. He also establishes a familiarity with the reader; I got the sense that he was speaking to me as a friend. I hope, in the following samples, that I do him justice. In “How Should I Word It” Max skims a book that provides models for people to use in writing letters for a variety of occasions (including romantic breakups). They’re perfect in their tactfulness, generosity, etc. Max begins to “crave some little outburst of wrath, of hatred, of malice.” So he comes up with his own array of letters (one, in response to a “small, cheap, hideous” wedding present: “Perhaps you were guided in your choice by a definite wish to insult me. I am sure, on reflection, that this was so. I shall not forget.”). In “Hosts and Guests” he gives convincing arguments that all of humanity can be classified as one or the other. He puts himself firmly in the “Guest” category; on those occasions when he must be a host, he fulfills this role only passably well (he tries hard to avoid a “frozen look” when he first glances at a restaurant bill set before him). “William and Mary” is a love story. After his friend’s marriage, Max visited him and his wife; he found her to be delightful. He came often to their home and observed their relationship with a sense of wonder; they were blessed. But Mary died in childbirth (as did the baby); afterwards William volunteered to go to a war zone as a reporter; he was killed. Many years later Max finds himself in the vicinity of where they had lived; with some trepidation he takes a detour, half hoping that the house will no longer be there; but it is, in decay. What follows, as Max stands at the door, is an evocation of loss that is surprising and moving.

Stories - Elizabeth Jolley

A strange mishmash. The first six stories are interconnected, though they skip huge gaps in time. They depict a family – a mother, son, daughter – existing precariously on the fringes of society. The daughter serves as narrator and is the most sensible of the three. She’s likeable, and there’s pathos in her efforts to fend off chaos (though she often succumbs to the antics of the others). Despite the setbacks they face, the Morgans have an unquenchable ability to enjoy whatever comes their way. Their love for one another is interlaced with verbal abuse (when the mother calls her son a “son of a bitch” he answers, “Well if I’m the son of a bitch dear lady you must be the bitch”; after this routine comeback there’s wild laughter all around). But the last of the Morgan stories was so fragmented and impressionistic that I had no idea what was happening. It was also devoid of liveliness, which turned out to be a harbinger; the shapeless mood pieces that follow are about life’s outcasts, but unhappiness can’t be served up in such a drab, plodding, muddled way. I skipped to the self portrait at the end called “A Child Went Forth.” It starts out well, then it too loses coherency and focus. I found myself wondering whether Jolley’s undisciplined wandering was an artistic choice or a symptom.

Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope

I do forgive Alice. I’m also grateful to Trollope for entertaining me for 800 pages. That said, the first volume of this double-decker is better than the second. More care was taken in the characterizations and the prose, and in the second half the predicaments developed in the beginning simply go through a process of resolution. The knotty twists and turns and changes in thinking are unraveled and things begin moving in a straight line. Alice’s initial dilemma has to do with her reluctance to marry the man she loves. What holds her back is that he’s perfect – steady in his love for her, always composed and sensible and kind. Alice, who is flawed and knows it, has the uncomfortable feeling that life with such a paragon of virtue will place her at a disadvantage; this feeling leads her to make some foolhardy decisions, the worst of which is getting involved with the far from virtuous George Vavasor; his evolution into a monster borders on the unbelievable – but not quite. Trollope’s understanding of human psychology turns what could have been a soap opera into literature. He was even adept at high comedy. A side story involves Alice’s widowed aunt and the two suitors clumsily pursuing her. Neither man is a match for the cunning, manipulative and eminently practical Aunt Greenow. This is the first in a series of Palliser novels, but I won’t be reading the others; politics loomed ahead, and the conflicts that initially engaged me have been put to rest.

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite - Anthony Trollope
Something unique from Trollope: a short novel. This is a strength, because he’s able to narrow his focus and concentrate on three people. A young woman falls in love with a ne’er-do-well; her father blocks her from marrying the man. Emily, George, and Sir Harry are engaged in a struggle so compelling that I was tempted to peek ahead to see what happened (I resisted). Actually, as we get to know George, he’s much worse than a ne’er-do-well. But Emily, though she becomes aware of his faults, has given herself to him forever. The characters are in vises, ones made up of moral choices and matters of the heart, and Trollope turns the screws tighter and tighter. At the end I reluctantly accepted Emily’s refusal to budge in her resolve – “reluctantly” because I doubted that a young, sensible woman would give up her life for love, especially when she becomes aware that her love has never been reciprocated. This was, for me, the only weak point in the novel; it shouldn’t have been a tragedy, but Emily makes it one. I wondered how Trollope felt about her. Did she, in his eyes, embody a Victorian virtue?

Continental Drift - Russell Banks
Banks set out to write a major novel, a commentary on American life. After 400 pages he closes with the words: “Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is” (italics the author’s). Banks tackles something important – the values and dreams that determine the course of our lives – and does it in a way that’s engrossing. The problem I had emerged gradually, and it involved the main character. Early on I began to dislike Bob Dubois; then I didn’t respect him; then I didn’t believe in him. His emotions – anger, discontent, confusion, longing, frustration, etc. – got to be overwhelming. I did like his wife and thought that she deserved a better man than conflicted Bob. Especially since he hasn’t grasped the concept of being faithful (I could have done without the icky sex scenes). One of Bob’s infidelities involves a black woman; the relationship is supposed to have depth but seems injected into the plot so that the author can pontificate on the subject of race relations. Banks belongs to the pile-it-on school of writing. Bob becomes a walking assemblage of problems and issues, and the predicament he’s in deteriorates drastically. The ending is improbable and overwrought; instead of eliciting sorrow, I merely thought Bob’ actions were incredibly dumb. So, sorry to say, this was a novel (and an author) that I became alienated from; those closing words – “Go, my book . . .” – struck me as mighty pretentious. Another major plot line involves Haitians trying to get to America. This, again, shows the scope and importance that Banks aims for (plus he’s out to impress with his knowledge of Haitians). The suffering of these people is conveyed in all its horror (more piling on, but I suppose it’s justified). However, the main character, Vanise, gradually becomes zombie-like, and I couldn’t relate to a zombie. Her teenage cousin, Claude, was the person I most admired, and his death – which occurs offstage – was the only one that moved me.

The Sheltered Life - Ellen Glasgow
In Part I Glasgow has a nine-year-old girl observe the adult world; the reader sees problems that the child has inklings of. Though emotions were exaggerated, this section was fairly successful. I went into Part II with good will, but all I got were the musings of the elderly grandfather. His thoughts – about Life, unfulfilled hopes, a lost love, etc. – are expressed in a hypersensitive (and obscure) way: “Was this second self of his mind, as variable as the wind, as nebulous as mist, merely the forgotten consciousness of the poet who might have been?” It didn’t take much of such rambling before I abandoned the book.

The Man Who Owned New York - John Jay Osborn, Jr.
This might have been a nice little diversion if the author hadn’t set up expectations that aren’t met. Take the title. The man who owns New York is Marsiglia, but the role he plays is so trifling that he could have been omitted from the novel. In the first paragraph it’s stated that the main character, Robert Fox, “is losing his mind.” It turns out that he has a few minor problems, but he’s just fine. The woman he loves is said to have inherited some “black part” to her emotional makeup, but it turns out that she’s eminently well-adjusted. The young associate lawyer-on-the-rise, initially depicted as eerily “perfect”and “robotic,” turns out to be a nice guy with problems. As for the plot, a dangerous nut case is handled stupidly by supposedly smart people. They want to keep matters out of the newspaper and away from the police, but their actions lead to a fatal shooting in a town house where an auction is being held; the repercussions that would surely follow are swept under the rug. In fact, by the end of this book Osborn has swept far too many false leads and loose ends under rugs. This would be sloppy housekeeping; it’s irresponsible writing.

The Wayfarer - Natsume Soseki (Japanese)
I have high regard for three Soseki novels – and then this. The plot makes no sense. Do the characters and events in the first section, “Friend,” exist simply to be dropped? Increasingly the book concerns Ichiro, the narrator’s brother; at first the issue is Ichiro’s unhappy marriage (with his wife playing a major role), but the marriage (and the wife) are dropped too. Supposedly Ichiro’s problem is very, very deep, and involves existential matters. What’s the meaning of life? – that type of thing. Ichiro is supposedly brilliant and as a result he’s unable to live simply, unquestioningly, happily. The book ends (the last section is entitled “Anguish,” and it was, for me) with a long letter which supposedly sheds light on the enigmatic and tortured Ichiro. I’m overusing “supposedly,” right? I didn’t buy any of it. Ichiro is an ugly-tempered, self-centered bore. He wasn’t worth my time. But he was worth Soseki’s time. Why? Could he be the author’s alter ego? I don’t know. But I do know that a major peril in writing about oneself is that you reveal yourself without even knowing it.

The Vicar of Bullhampton - Anthony Trollope
This novel is earthy (who could be more down-to-earth than the miller?). I believe that common people, rendered honestly and without condescension, are of great interest; so did Trollope. The novel’s central issue is “The Woman Question,”and it’s presented through two very different characters. Mary Lowther’s dilemma has to do with whether she should marry a man she doesn’t love. He’s an excellent match and various forces push her towards the marriage. Her struggle in making this decision is depicted with all the doubts and conflicts she feels. Then there’s the miller’s daughter, Carrie Brattle, who’s a “fallen woman.” Her predicament is hard for a modern reader to comprehend. Because of one misstep this unmarried girl becomes an outcast from society; even her father disowns her. I had a problem with how Trollope handled both women. Mary is given an easy way out: she meets a man who stirs real love in her. Okay, but why the Perils of Pauline-type obstacles thrown in her way (and then conveniently removed)? We’re constantly left hanging with the question of “What happens next?” (wait for the next installment to find out). As for Carrie, she clearly had Trollope’s sympathy, and he shows the hypocrisy and insensitivity of the so-called upstanding, moral people who find her soiled beyond redemption. But his portrayal of her is so flat! She’s often referred to as “poor Carrie” and she’s little more than an abjectly sad victim. Still, these problems don’t sink the ship. There’s much about the novel that makes it a success. It’s emotionally rich, engrossing and written in a smooth, reader-friendly style. Trollope shows compassion for all his many characters, even the deeply flawed. The eponymous Vicar is someone of importance: a good man who diligently tries to do the right thing. His efforts sometimes fail to achieve their goals; but he, like all the people of Bullhampton, is merely human.

Hemlock and After - Angus Wilson
I had mixed feelings as I was reading this; admiration was offset by fault-finding. Wilson is intelligent (he makes sure you know it) and his prose is graceful and inventive (though its intricacies serve mainly to impress). Then there were the people he assembles. The book is under 150 pages, but it has a list – one I had to constantly refer to – of twenty-five characters. Many are homosexual; almost all, of whatever sexual persuasion, are distasteful. Some only indulge in backbiting, but one woman is outrageously evil. Wilson has a cultured taste for the kinky, and he displays a cynicism that’s downright acidic. Kinkiness and cynicism can be entertaining – they are entertaining as presented here –but they can turn rancid. Perhaps Wilson realized this was happening to his wicked brew, because near the end he tries to impart a higher purpose to the proceedings; I was unconvinced by the sudden emphasis on self-revelation and compassion. Hemlock is a poison, and this book has a poisonous heart. Though Angus Wilson is surely an artist, is he a person whose work I want to spend more time with?

The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope

Trollope is true to his title. He depicts the world of upper class Londoners in the1870s. There are at least ten major characters and as many secondary ones. All are drawn with intelligence and insight; the women play roles as significant as those of the men. I especially admire how people are not one-dimensional; they have good and bad qualities, strengths and weaknesses. Trollope embraces complexity and ambiguity; it took an extraordinary mind to create this novel. Many Londoners objected to the book because of the greed, decadence, false values, hypocrisy, prejudice (and a variety of other vices) to be found in its pages. But every country, in every stage of its history, needs a Trollope. The author provides a happy ending for most of his characters (in the form of marriages that will, ostensibly, be of lasting contentment). Well, happiness is to be found at one’s hearth. But the driving force behind this work is a cynicism about society and human nature. No single person dominates; what we get is a sprawling panorama of lives. I mentioned the complexity and ambiguity. Those qualities aren’t in the prose, which is simple and direct; they’re in the characters and situations, which are engrossing to a high degree. Trollope was so accurate an observer that he was able to bridge the barrier of time; remarkably, this novel has relevance for us, today. *

A Single Pebble - John Hersey

A thought-provoking short novel. It concerns a trip on the Yangtze River aboard a huge yak in the 1920s; the narrator is an American engineer who’s there to direct the building of a dam. The people he meets and the experiences he has during the grueling journey deeply affect him – and I could understand why. He’s immersed in a different sensibility, one which is embodied most vividly in Old Pebble; this character is no less than an elemental force of nature. The faceless trackers, the lowest of the low, emerge with a bit of the universal about them. Hersey uses too many words to describe the narrator’s feelings (which are vague and shifting). Also, people are one thing on one page and something else on another. It’s hard to anchor one’s feet; but that, in retrospect, is one of the novel’s strengths. In the last pages the author refuses to tidy everything up and put a bow around it. He leaves it messy and confused – which, in its way, is a statement about life. *

The Sleeping Beauty - Elizabeth Taylor

For the first forty pages I thought I was reading a well-written woman’s novel. Then, quite suddenly, everything shifts, becomes sinister, twisted, dark – becomes strong stuff. But in the last forty pages Taylor retreats; the ending is pat. Before this disappointing drop off, I was impressed by the depiction of the transforming power of passion; the selfishness of people (and how far they’ll go to protect their structured worlds); the tenaciousness with which a mother can hold onto a child; the way we face loneliness and aging. All very good. As for that ending, maybe the task of reconciling these complex matters proved too much for the author.

The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. - William Makepaece Thackeray
Very readable, entertaining, funny – and much more. At first I thought Barry was simply a rogue, but about halfway through I realized he was a monster. He’s revealed to be what he is through his own words; the degree that Thackeray succeeds is more than admirable – it’s a feat. Barry boasts and lies, but we see the ugly truth. I felt the terrible wreckage left in one man’s wake. Barry’s values are mercenary, and in his pursuit of them he tramples on anything in his path. This is a moral tale and, in its powerful ending, a cautionary one. *

Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
A great novel, rich and expansive, with a vibrant cast of major and minor players. That one mind created such a treasure-trove is amazing. Thackeray observes the human panorama from a lofty height, but with a benevolent shrug (“This, dear reader, is how people are”). The two main characters, Becky and Amelia, are opposites in all ways; it’s strange how Becky, amoral, grasping, even evil, gained some small measure of sympathy from me. What a resourceful and tenacious little battler! At the surprising (and sad) ending all Amelia’s virtues are revealed to be empty. A word about the “minor” characters; they don’t seem minor, each has a distinct role to play on life’s stage. *

The Driver’s Seat - Muriel Spark
Though we’re not aware of it until deep into this short novel, the events could not happen. So Spark is not writing in a realistic mode. I think she’s exploring the depths of someone’s despair – Lise’s lonely grief. The last words are “fear and pity, pity and fear,” and I felt both. I read that Spark checked herself into a hospital after she completed the book, and I can believe it. I have often found her to be a cold writer. Not here. *

The Warden - Anthony Trollope
I like his writing. Placid, stately. His plots are interesting, not full of action but with psychological and moral complexity. He creates great villains, both on the grand and petty scale. The one thing I find annoying is that sometimes his complexity vanishes: his good characters are too good and their romantic relationships are cloying. Trollope is not at his full-blown best in this book; it’s dwarfed by major works like Barchester Towers and The Way We Live Now.

A Piece of My Heart - Richard Ford
His first novel, and impressive in parts. Ford is at his strongest when presenting dark psyches and creating a sense of menace and dislocation. Dialogue, mood can be authentic and fresh, as in the scene where Robard picks up the woman with the broken-down car. Vivid characters appear, like Mr. Lamb. But I stopped reading because I felt I was being manipulated. Ford involves the reader in lowlife doings, such as his setting up an expectancy regarding what’s going to be done with a plastic bag – apparently something very kinky (I never stuck around long enough to find out). As if to compensate for this focus on sordid mattters, he has Robard engage in high-minded (and annoyingly obscure) musings. This deep introspection isn't believable because nobody actually thinks like that. Sometimes the writing was show-offy, especially in the overdone descriptions. Also, why use words not in my dictionary?

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
The author has his feet firmly planted. The world he creates has the weight of reality, though his best creations have a grotesque quality – Slope, the Bishop’s wife, all the Stanhopes. The beautiful, crippled Madame Neroni is fascinating and frightening. I wish that Trollope had leaned more toward comedy (done so well in the Bishop’s party). I felt that Eleanor and Mr. Arabin were not particularly interesting, and their goopy romance took up too many pages. Still, this novel is like one of those grand old buildings that was constructed to last. *

Body and Soul - Frank Conroy
I skipped the last fifty pages because the characters were wooden and unbelievable; I didn’t care about them anymore. And to think that I read the first hundred pages with such pleasure! It started out with an appealing boy in trouble; his situation and the people around him created a dark tangle, and I liked his muted responses. Then Conroy has everything good happen to this boy, which turns him into a privileged prig. The complexity disappears, not only in his character but in everybody’s (the mother has her problems solved with the wave of an authorial wand). It’s as if Conroy lacked the will to sustain his original premise. He winds up writing a high society chronicle, with people called Muffy.

S - John Updike
A mean-spirited concoction, without a person who is real or sympathetic – all are cardboard cutouts meant to be ridiculed. Every relationship, even that between mother and daughter, is destructive and selfish. For the story to be told through letters is illogical – Updike shows the commune as a nest of backbiting hypocrisy, yet the character who presents it this way is supposed to believe in it. Lastly, this is a boring book; it had little substance, and Updike inflates it to full length with filler about Eastern philosophy. He attempts to liven things up at the end by throwing in plot twists, but S is a mess.