Born in Exile – George Gissing
The name of the main character is Godwin Peak. God. Win. Peak. He is a superior being as far as intelligence goes; but he was born in poverty, which, in his mind, exiles him from the world in which he belongs. It’s not mere social status he seeks; he wants cultural and intellectual stimuli and a fineness of moral values. Though Peak is a snob, Gissing manages to make his thinking justifiable; we all want to be in an environment that gives us sustenance. When he’s introduced to the Warricombe family he finds the virtues he desires; also, he’s attracted to the daughter. Sidwell and her father are devoutly religious, and Peak decides that the only way he could make her his wife is by going into the clergy. He is, however, an unwavering atheist. For someone as moralistic and judgmental as Peak, to play the role of a deceiver and hypocrite is hard to swallow. Yet he persists; the goal justifies the means. This is a novel in which intellectual matters are explored, and at times Gissing gets a bit ponderous (as does his prose, which is stodgily outdated for a novel written on the eve of the 20th century). But Gissing didn’t care; his attitude was that he would deal with matters that meant something to him, and do it in the style he preferred. If a reader wanted light entertainment or a modern approach, they could go elsewhere (in some ways he displays the rigidity of his main character). But his instincts as a writer of fiction are solid; I was engrossed throughout this very long novel, and that’s because Gissing had insight into human nature. When I approached the last three pages, and Peak’s fate had not been revealed, I was still sure that Gissing would not fail me. What was remarkable was the emotional punch he was able to deliver. With a few sure strokes the novel became a tragedy.

Laura - Vera Caspary
This is the book that the famous film of the same name was based on, and I was curious about how the two differed and were similar. But after reading Part One I had hopes that the novel would stand alone as a successful mystery. Waldo Lydecker (the Clifton Webb character) gives his account of matters, and his personality is deliciously rendered. There’s also a logical reason for him to be writing (that’s what his profession is), so his stylish prose is appropriate. In this opening Vera Caspary shows that she had talent. But in Part Two, told from perspective of the detective, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), things get shaky. There’s no reason for his putting into words – in a novelistic form – his account; Caspary is simply using him to move the plot along. And whereas Waldo arrogantly takes on the right to imagine scenes that he was not a witness to (an author’s prerogative), it’s not credible when Mark does it. Lastly, his voice isn’t distinct; no personality emerges. In Part Four we get the story from Laura Hunt’s diary, and here the book falls apart. My three complaints about the McPherson section are magnified to the point of ineptitude. Laura, the enigmatic figure in the film (played by Gene Tierney), comes across as weak and silly. And though she’s the prime suspect of a murder, never once does she state that she’s innocent. This is blatant evasiveness on the part of the author. I found myself reading third-rate fiction, but I kept going for the reason I began – to see how the film differed or coincided with its source (there’s very little coinciding, beyond the bare bones of a premise). That five writers (including Ring Lardner) worked on the screenplay indicates a problem; I see a revolving door of conflicting ideas. Maybe it was the director, Otto Preminger, who should get the credit for constructing a coherent story, one in which love is the major element (in Caspary’s version the love angle is so flimsily handled as to be nonexistent). Before Laura was published in book form it ran, in a seven part serial, in Colliers magazine. So it had a lot of readers. I wonder how they felt about the movie version. I hope they appreciated it.

The Good Leviathan - Pierre Boulle (French)
The name of the ship is Gargantua, but many call it Leviathan (an Old Testament creature spewed out of hell). Both names refer to its enormous size, but the hellish aspect is that it’s powered by a nuclear reactor. And, since it’s a tanker capable of carrying six hundred thousand tons of oil, environmentalists foresee the possibility of an ecological disaster. The people in the French town where it’s berthed feel animosity for the ship; the leading antagonist is a woman known as the Cripple. She’s the organizing force behind a protest in which a flotilla of boats surround the ship. When some people begin to board it, the captain has hoses release a barrage of water to drive them off. The outcome of this defensive measure is unexpected. The Cripple, who’s in a lead boat, is drenched, and is immediately cured of her lameness. One could use the word “miraculously” cured by waters from the ship, which is the interpretation given to the event by the townsfolk – and then the world at large. The issues raised in this novel are nuclear power; how faith in something can endow it with potency; capitalism’s way of exploiting any situation for profit; the survival of the planet. We get attitudes toward these matters from the viewpoints of characters with widely differing beliefs, inclinations and interests. But nobody is fleshed out to the point where one can relate to them. The closest we come is the captain – the only person who’s practical – and he starts to waver. I began to question the author’s attitude toward the melee he had created, and I reached the conclusion that he viewed humans with such cynicism that he looked down on their machinations with disdain (most of it directed at fanatical environmentalists). This theory was supported by the farcical ending: during a huge storm the characters carry on like participants in a comedy. This is a novel of ideas, but they simply accumulate and then fizzle with a sour laugh.

The Usurpers - Francisco Ayala (Spanish)
How do you review a book that you respect but didn’t enjoy? Perhaps recommend it to others who have a taste for what Ayala has done. These stories, rooted in fact, are set during the medieval and Golden Age of Spain; it was a time and place soaked in blood. The characters are captives in the insular worlds of their particular obsessions. All is ponderous, gloomy, barren of human warmth. With a sinuous, exacting prose Ayala weaves ornate baroque tapestries; powerful tableaus emerge, yet they emerge slowly, and I often lost the thread of thought. Still, I read every story because I hoped to find one which I could feel an affinity for; my hope was realized in “The Bewitched.” It takes the form of a critique of an unpublished autobiography written by Gonzalez Lobo, an adventurer who returned from the New World with gold-filled galleons and who sought compensation from the royal court. The anonymous reader of this manuscript often complains of being frustrated, bored, perplexed, but there are sparks of something intriguing which keep him going (I, of course, could relate). In his account Lobo finally gets an audience with the king. This scene’s abruptness confounds the narrator/reader; after so much insignificant detail, the facts he wanted divulged are absent: “Regarding the audience itself, which should have been, precisely, the most memorable thing for him, he sets down only these words, which bring his lengthy manuscript to a close.” The six sentences that follow succeed in expressing, with conciseness and restraint, the need to withdraw in silence from the futility of ambition.

The Asphalt Jungle - W. R. Burnett
An author should be judged by how well he succeeds in what he sets out to do. Burnett set out to write a crime novel; he wrote one that grabs the reader’s attention and doesn’t let go. But it’s in the depth of his characterizations that he excels; nobody is one-dimensional. With Dix and Emmerich the exploration is particularly probing. In the beginning both men are shown in an uncompromisingly harsh light; their considerable flaws loom large. But over the course of the book they take on layers of complexity until, by the end, they’ve become people we can understand and pity. And then there’s Doll Pelky, a seemingly minor character. She clings to Dix: “She was crazy about this big tramp. Why – was no matter. She just was. If only he had a little kindness, a little understanding in his nature; not much, just a little.” This is a woman who has reached the end of the line, and that end is Dix. She had known only the rough side of life for thirty-five years, had been engaged in a “constant, tough, but inconclusive battle against the long, easy slide into the mire.” She had not taken on the “sordid fatalism” of the people around her. Doll has retained a core of decency. I was moved by her, and at the end I was left worrying about her. That feeling may best define Burnett’s accomplishment. *

Born in Exile - George Gissing
A cerebral novel, unsparingly so. Unlike the other two books I’ve read by Gissing, in this one he makes little effort to set scenes or develop well-rounded characters. For over 800 pages we’re immersed in an analysis of ideas, feelings, motivations. When people come together they talk, and whether it’s about religion or relationships, the discourse goes deep; when people are alone they think. The main character is Godwin Peak; though he’s exceptionally intelligent, he feels that his humble origins will forever exile him from the class of people he wants to associate with. The Warricombe family embodies all the virtues he aspires to be part of. To win the love of the daughter he turns to manipulation and hypocrisy. Even the love story operates on a high intellectual plane. Strong emotions are described, but there’s a lack of action to animate the feelings, so they come across as arid and bloodless. I wanted Godwin and Sidwell to simply share some pleasant time with one another, but they’re given no such respite. Gissing demands a level of concentration that I wasn’t up to. The book was published in three volumes, and I had to take breaks between each one to read something lighter. Yet I completed all 800 pages because I wanted to know how Godwin would wind up. As might be expected from a realist like Gissing, the ending is bleak. In Godwin’s last letter this austere and proud man admits to suffering from a crushing loneliness. The words that close the book come from his only friend: “Poor old fellow!” I felt the same way.

The Odd Women - George Gissing
Gissing’s “odd women” are the unmarried ones. What’s their plight in Victorian England? And what’s the plight of women who marry only to escape spinsterhood? Written in 1893, by a man, this is a feminist novel. I don’t think any modern feminist can fault him – unless they want simplistic black and white scenarios. The cast of characters is large and varied; some people act badly, but even the deeply flawed are comprehensible. The prose has a straightforward clarity; it plods along at a comfortable pace. What matters when reading Gissing is the quality of his mind; he was a complex thinker who went deep into a subject. This quality is evident in how he was able to surprise me. On important occasions I expected something to happen, but it didn’t happen the way I had foreseen. This was no trick; what does happen is exactly what would happen; I was (shame on me) expecting the formulaic version. Gissing wrote at the close of the Victorian period, and he questions the still-prevailing values of that time; what’s remarkable is how his honesty and incisiveness make him relevant today. He doesn’t allow his plot or characters to wander far from the subject he’s tackling, so he’s an issue-oriented author. As for the issue of concern here – the relationship between the sexes – he sees it as inherently fraught with difficulties.

The Sea of Grass - Conrad Richter
This would be a long short story if you took away the repetition and the over-abundance of adjectives. What would the story be about? A cattle baron – the imperious Colonel – holding sway over his empire of grass (about to be invaded by hordes of nesters) and his marriage to the beautiful and fascinating Lutie. Both characters are depicted as larger than life; Richter is trying for a legendary, elegiac quality. He fails. To be true to its subject, this novel should have been lean and mean and much less adoring of the Colonel and Lutie. They don’t deserve adoration. Lutie abandons her husband and three small children (one fathered by a man other than her husband), but she’s still a “lady.” The Colonel is supposed to be tremendously imposing, but he’s unable to impose his will in any instance. These two are treated with hushed awe by Hal, the Colonel’s nephew. But Hal, for all his wordiness, doesn’t get into the gritty matters I wanted to know about: the relationship between the Colonel and Lutie, the dynamics of the infidelity, Lutie’s whereabouts for twenty years. One could say that Hal wasn’t privy to these intimate matters. True – but why use him as the narrator? Because the result is a novel about a cattle empire that has no beef in it.

The Red Box - Rex Stout
Entertaining, though not up to the level of the previous two Nero Wolfe mysteries I read. In this one Archie plays a minor role, and I missed his liveliness. Also, the plot was too complex for me to unravel its many intricacies. But I figured out some, and that made me feel good; when Wolfe connected the dots I didn’t feel cheated (I’m not as smart as he is and I know it). A point of interest: in all three books the murderers commit suicide; in two cases Wolfe provides him/her with the means to do so, and in the other he knows that the man intends to kill himself and does nothing to stop him. Dr. Kevorkian would approve.

New Grub Street - George Gissing
A novel about the literary life, written in 1891 but relevant today. I liked the anger and cynicism in this portrayal of writers and the business of writing. The manipulator wins out in the end; the two true artists are dead and forgotten. The book is a bracing antidote to cheery platitudes. But it’s more than a polemic. The subjects of love, poverty and the calcifying effects of failure are also explored with honesty and perception. All of Gissing’s characters have depth; Marion, in particular, was a strong feminine presence, and her loss of love was moving. The book has one foot in Victorian times – in the prose style, the depiction of emotions – and so it’s somewhat dated. But Gissing thinks and understands. When those qualities in a writer no longer have value, the cynicism of New Grub Street will be fully justified. *

Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
Pleasant, funny, but not enough for me to continue reading. I like a more character and plot-based type of humor. This book is composed of riffs.

The Middle of the Journey - Lionel Trilling
An intelligent novel. That’s its predominant quality. It may go too deep into motivations, and the subject (communism in the USA) is no longer relevant, but I still read with interest. What helped is the prose, lucid and pleasurable. However, I was perplexed by the romantic angle (which interested me more than communism). Laskell’s attitude toward Emily and Susan lacks compassion. Yet it was Trilling who created those two female characters – he created my feelings for them. It’s because of him that I can censure Laskell for not caring enough. Was Trilling revealing a lack in Laskell? Or had he, like his character, simply lost interest in the women? I think the answer is to be found in the introduction, where Trilling writes about politics exclusively.

The End of My life - Vance Bourjaily
A novel by a young man – and it shows. Immaturity is its major fault. The author presents us with a hero who has everything a man could desire – even a smashingly good woman in love with him – and he shows this hero indulging in the pleasures that are at his beck and call, doing everything with wit and authority. But then the author imposes on this character (as opposed to it arising from the character himself) a fatal flaw: an indifference to life. Life is so empty, don’t you know, for this generation that grew up between the wars. Or some such nonsense. The anomie deepens, suicide is contemplated, etc. The last scene has a prison meeting between our hero and the good woman, but he spurns her love because Life is, don’t you know, empty for us lost ones.