Boswell’s London Journal 1762-1763

It’s important to note two things: Boswell was twenty-two when he wrote this, and he embarked on it to fulfill an agreement with a friend – they would exchange daily jottings. Therein lie the weaknesses of this journal: youthfulness and writing under obligation. Despite its faults, Boswell has a brilliant mind and is mature beyond his years. Also, the style and anecdotal structure of the journal is the form he’ll use in his great biography of Samuel Johnson. But back to the weaknesses. On many days Boswell doesn’t have much of interest to write about; there are too many teas, strolls, etc. (whereas, with Johnson, there was always a bubbling of ideas). Also, Boswell ran out of steam at the halfway point; the task he set himself clearly became a chore. An interesting aspect of this work is the honesty with which he presents himself and his actions; as a result, I didn’t particularly like him. He’s too much of a social climbing fop. The hypocrisy of the Victorian Age has been much remarked on; here we can see it – as when Boswell has sex with a very young prostitute in the park (an outdoor brothel at night) and, the next day, finds the church service uplifting. He’s oblivious to any conflict between the two events. The book captures the flavor of London and its people (at least those of the upper class). But, when Boswell ran out of steam, so did I.

Notes from a Cold Island - Frederick Exley

This is the second part of an autobiographical trilogy that began with A Fan’s Notes, that wonderful ode to failure. Exley starts out by telling the reader that he’s having trouble with this book. And indeed he is. It’s a patchwork that cobbles together such disparate subjects as his dissolute life on Singer Island in Florida, a long interview with Gloria Steinam, a very long semi-biographical study of Edmund Wilson, an account of his stay at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, etc. The book is a mess, though maybe it reflects something about Exley. He’s living with a debilitating depression and is steadily drinking himself to death. But of his life on Singer Island he writes about his many loving friends, a colorful crew who do fun things (in particular, they cook epic meals – Exley is great at describing food); he has all the sex he could wish for (and which I could do with less description of; plus, I wondered how a middle-aged man with a long term drinking problem could carry on so lustily). Maybe Exley found it too onerous a task to write about the dark side of himself when he’d already, in the previous book, spilled his guts (and he is, by nature, an author with no other topic but his sad self). Despite the problems, Exley’s instincts are good; he can hit the mark – the heart – when he takes aim (as in the last paragraph of the book, when he bids us a fond and bittersweet farewell). I can’t imagine what Exley has left to say in the third installment.

Captain Maximus - Barry Hannah

My problem with this story collection is that Hannah intentionally creates the impression that his larger-than-life characters are stand-ins for him. The glossy photograph that fills the entire back of the dust jacket shows Hannah astride a motorcycle, wearing black – the whole package, including grimy hands. This outlaw biker clearly has contempt for the sheltered world, but a look at Hannah’s resume (which I did after I read the book) reveals that he spent most of his life in academia, either as a student or teacher. I found the purported likeness the author establishes between himself and his renegade characters to be an annoying conceit. The book itself is something of a scam. It’s only 101 pages long (with wide margins, big print, etc.) and forty of those pages are devoted to a screenplay that’s nothing more than filler. In other words, here’s a “collection” that isn’t one. I can’t say what’s going on with Hannah; maybe he’s a prankster. What I can say for sure – despite all the reservations I’ve brought up – is that Captain Maximus contains a gothic masterpiece. In “Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter” man’s darkest side is unleashed and runs amok. This wild and fierce story is the real thing.

The Stories of Denton Welch - Denton Welch
I read about half. Maybe I missed an excellent story or two – and I do think Welch was capable of writing them. But the majority were just good, and I reached the point where they started to take on a sameness: a vivid moment in time, involving bizarre characters, with a vague conclusion. Mood pieces done with sensitivity – and that’s it.

Tour of the Hebrides - James Boswell
Johnson Lite. I found him an interesting character and liked to read what he said, but there was too much extraneous matter – people, places, events duly recorded. If, in this book, Boswell learned what to do and what not to do, its chief virtue would be as a precursor to his great Life of Samuel Johnson.

Double Honeymoon - Evan Connell
A terrible mistake from an author I greatly respect. It’s about a sick and sordid relationship. The girl is crazy, in every bad and dangerous sense of that word, and Karl, infatuated with her, comes across as a fool. How Connell could have strayed so far from excellence is a mystery to me.

The Crofter and the Laird - John McPhee
An okay book. I finished it only because it was short. McPhee isn’t interested enough in people to hold my attention. The Scottish characters don’t come alive. His wife and four daughters, though with him, could be in Cleveland. In fact, the author himself never emerges as a person. Sometimes he just recites facts.

Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell
A great book, an instructive book. It contains much wisdom about life, it concerns itself with lofty matters; it’s intelligent, it’s dignified. All these qualities are aspects of the character of Samuel Johnson. Boswell built the book around that man talking. Just his words! Johnson lives: frank and more honest than most humans dare to be; prejudiced, humorous, vulnerable, argumentative, bullying, tender – the descriptive terms can go on and on. But I love the man – as, clearly, did Boswell. *

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
There’s talent galore in these pages, but it was untempered. The book was, in the beginning, bright and new. But a pattern set in: Franzen would embark on a section with one of the characters – and it would be good at first, really good – but it would go on too long; first satiation would set in, then it would turn tedious; then I felt a kind of repulsion, because the characters are all weird, unhappy, sick. It’s as if I had been served a wonderful appetizer, a good soup, then wound up eating a long, fatty sausage. It reached a point where something inside me rebelled and I simply could not bear to take another bite.

The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
I liked the first three chapters – the clarity, the originality – but the problem lay in the characters. As time went by I came to dislike all of them and didn’t want to hear about their miserable relationships. (Yes, the feast of love produces a lot of bellyaches.) There’s something pretentious in writing overtly about love; one takes the stance of having some special wisdom. And sex scenes turn me off – all this banging around. When a particularly ugly-spirited woman, Diane, has her epiphany about love, I had enough.

Voss - Patrick White
I nearly finished this. White is a difficult writer. Reading him is labor. The question remains, is it still worthwhile? Well, yes. He offers up unique virtues, and I believe he writes out of conviction. What failed for me is that his conviction – a belief in a transcendent, spiritual significance permeating the world – is something I don’t believe in. He could have convinced me, at least on his terms, but he didn’t. Mainly because White’s prose confuses most when trying to describe that transcendent state.