The Ice Saints – Frank Tuohy
This is a Cold War novel without the espionage. Tuohy is concerned with ordinary people living in Poland in the 1960s, when it was under communist rule. A young English woman, Rose, travels to Biala Gora. Her sister is married to a Polish man, and a deceased aunt has left their teenage son a sizable amount of money. It seems like good news, but in Poland forces conspire to undermine anything that’s good. In this unrelentingly drab and dreary place even a stroll in a park reveals a squirrel with “thin fur and a degenerate face” and trees that show “the amputations of shell fire.” People long subjected to defeat and deprivation are resentful, suspicious, and their self-deprecating humor is a mixture of cynicism and defiance. Rose’s hope is that the son, Tadeusz (for whom she forms an immediate attachment), can escape to England; all he needs is a visa. Yet her plans turn out badly, and at the end the sister tells Rose “Just leave here as soon as possible. That’s all I want now.” Rose is appealing, and her imperfections are the sort that makes her easy to identify with. The prose seems made up of concrete slabs that don’t quite fit flush, but this wasn’t a defect; it conveys the unavoidable disorientation one feels in a foreign world. By keeping things grounded in the realities of everyday life, Tuohy gives us an honest look behind the curtain. In 1964, when this novel was published, it may have been important. Today, it’s still a good read.

An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
In the first sentence the elderly narrator tells the reader “you will not have to walk far.” This personal approach is to be a constant, along with asides (“I believe I was recalling the events of that day last month . . .” or “It is possible, of course, that Mori-san did not use those exact words”). What Ono slowly reveals is the part he played in the nationalism that led to World War II. In his paintings he portrayed the New Japan as a militant force, and he became an adviser to the Committee of Unpatriotic Activities. In 1948 (when events take place) some – especially the young – feel hostile to those who, in their eyes, caused so much misery. Ono can’t remain unaware of such an attitude because his daughter is of marriageable age; in the Japanese culture of the time, suitors hire investigators to check on the backgrounds of prospective mates, and Ono’s past may be an obstacle for Noriko. There are problems with how the story is told. The prose is smooth, unruffled; but people don’t talk that way, so Ono’s voice seems artificial. And then there’s what he tells the reader. For much of the book we don’t know what his “secret” is, even though he’s fully aware of it. To withhold information is a novelistic tactic that the author hangs on his narrator. Still, when we finally understand Ono’s involvement, Ishiguro rejects the simplistic path of presenting us with an unrepentant war criminal or a man wracked by guilt. Instead, Ono perceives that his actions were mistaken and caused harm, but he also knows that he was motivated at the time by sincere belief. We get acceptance instead of catharsis; the book turns out to be about an ordinary man contemplating his life from the perspective of old age. That he’s content at the end didn’t bother me. Others, though, may see it as an example of his callous obliviousness, and they may be right. When Ono’s daughter tells him that the role he played in the war was a minor one, he resists this evaluation. Is his desire to have been of importance a natural human impulse, or something more sinister? This is one of those books that can provoke argument, which is a strength.

To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway
This book was depressing. Partly because of its content, partly due to the fact that everybody involved (including the author) had to know how bad it was. Maybe, if an editor had insisted on changes – that Hemingway take out the spite and make it a much shorter hard-boiled crime novel – it might have worked. It starts out pretty well, with Harry Morgan as the first person narrator. There’s far too much tough guy talk, but the voice is good, the action sequences move, and Hemingway’s knowledge of boats, fishing and Cuba adds authenticity. But Harry is a grim, oppressive presence, and I felt nothing but aversion for him. The back cover of the edition I have calls him an “honest man.” Honest? He agrees to smuggle some “Chinks” to Florida, but when he gets the dough he kills Mr. Sing by breaking his neck (“I bent the whole thing back until she cracked”); the Chinks get dumped back in Cuba. As for the above-mentioned spite, for long stretches Hemingway has other narrators take over; some are writers, and the only possible reason for their inclusion is to show how contemptible they are. So we swing from brutish Harry to Richard and Helen Gordon bickering: “I’m through with you and I’m through with love. Your kind of picknose love. You writer.” Eighty pages from the end I couldn’t bear to continue, though – having seen the movie and read the back cover (which claims that Harry will become involved “in a strange and unlikely love affair”) – I skimmed what was left, waiting in vain for Lauren Bacall to appear. Harry’s a family guy, but he exchanges about a half dozen words with his daughters, and his wife is merely a stooge whose purpose is to rhapsodize about what a man Harry is. He’s more of a man than other men, even after he loses an arm in a shootout and is left with a stub that’s “like a flipper on a loggerhead.” This grungy, sullen, blood and booze-saturated mess isn’t just a minor novel by a Nobel Prize winner; it’s a failure of character. The prose is careless, and the stream of consciousness sequences lumber along like Frankenstein’s monster: “You just get dead like most people are most of the time. I guess that’s how it is all right. I guess that’s just what happens to you. Well, I’ve got a good start. I’ve got a good start if that’s what you have to do. I guess that’s what you have to do all right. I guess that’s it. I guess that’s what it comes to.”

The Puzzleheaded Girl: Four Novellas - Christina Stead
Honor is certainly puzzling. Her odd nature and actions (such as appearing at the doors of people she barely knows, asking for money or a place to stay for the night) engenders both a mystery (what makes her tick?) and sympathy for someone seemingly proud and self-sufficient yet obviously in dire need. However, in order to generate pathos Stead needed to provide insight into her character’s mind, but Honor remains inexplicable; her story covers many years and eventually she becomes a sort of jack-in-the-box, popping up in an increasingly disheveled state. Lydia, of The Dianas, is another oddball – hyper, bordering on the frantic; she hurtles from one man to another at a headlong pace. Inklings of what lies behind her behavior seem to emerge near the end (something intriguingly dark), but Stead veers away from the darkness and wraps things up with an improbable happy ending. The Righthanded Creek (“A sort of ghost story”) is a mishmash of heavy atmospherics. Stead abandons one family living in a haunted cottage (in the middle of a crisis) and introduces a new one (no explanation for the switch offered). In Girl from the Beach George (another frantic character) tries ineffectually to deal with problems involving women and money. It’s a romp through the chaos of a man’s life (I hope Stead knew that she was writing a comedy). None of these novellas can stand as a finished work. They have the feel of castoffs, ideas pursued but dropped. Still, I found each one entertaining. Stead’s idiosyncratic prose is engaging, and some scenes show her prodigious gifts. Creek contains a chilling monologue in which a man describes his addiction to alcohol; in his words I felt the real ghost in the tale emerge, the one that devours and destroys from within.

Salem Possessed - Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum
The authors don’t describe in detail what went on in Salem during the witchcraft craze. Instead they explore the underlying factors – moral, economic, psychological – that gave rise to the events. They support their conclusions with extensive research. A shift from traditional Puritan values to capitalistic entrepreneurship was occurring, and this change created turmoil and conflict. In Salem the clash resulted in tragedy. I found the authors’ analysis not only valid, but relevant to the pressures at work in our present-day society. We have much in common with Salem.

A Middle Class Education - Wilfrid Sheed
This is a long, substantial, complex novel. On a superficial level it’s about young men at Oxford’s Sturdley College. John Chote is the central character; when the novel opens he’s just received a scholarship to study in the United States. John is no model student; he and his friends spend their days and nights drinking, gambling, playing pranks and womanizing (or claiming to womanize). They value humor above sincerity; to them everything is fodder for a sarcastic remark. But this book is far from a campus frolic. As Sheed digs deeper into the inner workings of his evasive character (especially when John is marooned in America) I felt what was hidden behind his facade of jokes: a stultifying depression. Sheed refuses to end the book with any sort of resolution. After his college years are over John faces a world which offers him no hope for happiness. It’s not the world’s fault; John is his worst enemy. I think Sheed knew his character too well to provide easy answers.

The Admiral and the Nuns - Frank Tuohy.
I admire Tuohy’s writing style but not his sensibilities. Most stories in this collection were murky and oppressive and had no discernible point to make (except, possibly, that life is a grubby affair). Too many characters were either emotionless or borderline hysterics; I couldn’t understand or care about them. The joyless sex that the morally-challenged males have with prostitutes got tiresome. After reading a few short pieces that were nothing more than filler, I called it quits. Only one story was fully successful. The match being arranged in “The Matchmakers” is between cocker spaniels; a man and woman become acquainted for the purpose of mating their dogs. Tuohy handles this premise cleverly, and there’s a gentleness to the story that wasn’t evident anywhere else. Also, both characters were likable.