Oil! - Upton Sinclair
As Bunny and his father make a long drive over the mountains into California an endearing relationship is established. I liked the man, I liked the little kid. In the opening sections of Oil! Sinclair displays the gift of sustained narrative. Even when we get into the technical aspects of drilling and the business side of the industry (which includes deception and bribes) I was pulled along. Unfortunately for the book, Bunny grows up and becomes an idealistic prig; worse, his father fades into the background. The people who take center stage are crude stereotypes. The rich girl Bunny gets involved with is shallow, manipulative and has no morals (that’s how the rich are). Eli is an over-the-top evangelist, spouting revelations while accumulating wealth (religious hypocrisy in action). Paul – the poor boy who grows into a man with a clear-thinking mind – is a spokesman for all that is just. And so on. Sinclair’s most important work – one which led to reform in the meat packing industry– was The Jungle. In this novel he’s on the side of labor, and is out to show how an “evil Power roams the earth, crippling the bodies of men and women.” I peeked at the last sentence to get that quote; I didn’t make it halfway through this very long polemic. It’s no surprise that Sinclair was a politician – he ran for Congress as a Socialist and for governor as a Progressive Democrat under the banner of “End Poverty in California.” I’m not here to judge his political views – my judgment has to do with his ability as a novelist (he produced forty-five). He had talent – that opening section was good. But then the use of props to make political points took over. And the workmanlike prose turned clumsy; especially irritating was the overuse of exclamation marks. The one lesson I took from Oil! is to avoid any novel that has an exclamation mark in the title.

The Big Clock - Kenneth Fearing
This is one of the six crime novels in The Library of America’s American Noir of the 1930s and 40s (the lead off selection is The Postman Always Rings Twice). But Clock is atypical for the genre. Though there’s one act of violence (not depicted graphically) never does a gun appear, nor are any of the characters tough guys. This is a cerebral work, literary in nature, and it takes place mostly in the office of a New York publishing house or in the suburban home of George Stroud. He’s the main first person narrator, though others briefly take that role. The book involves the choices we make. George chooses to have an affair, and as the result he becomes the suspect in a murder: Who was that man with Pauline Delos on the night of her death? George was that man, and the plot twist is that he’s assigned the job of locating himself. He also knows the identity of the murderer, but to reveal what he knows would expose his affair and thus end his marriage. I found the novel to be engrossing and well-written; it’s a good character study of a flawed man. I was especially grateful that there weren’t any red herrings – we aren’t intentionally misled. That said, the ending was too abrupt and left some important loose ends unresolved. If Fearing could have continued for another twenty pages, pursuing the track he had established while keeping the proceedings logical, he might have a produced a real gem. I have a feeling he tried but found the task too complex to pull off. So maybe his choice to bail out was the right one. A letdown is better than a collapse.

The Cossacks - Leo Tolstoy (Russian)
Tolstoy began this short novel when he was twenty-four and worked intermittently on it for ten years. He was an author who always wanted to impart a higher meaning to his writing, and I think he was searching for – and having trouble finding – more than just a picaresque depiction of the Cossacks. His Olenin is a young Russian nobleman who becomes disenchanted with his profligate life in Moscow; he joins the army as a cadet and is sent to the Caucasus. He becomes enamored by the simplicity of that world and its people. He’s boarded at the home of a family, and he goes from admiring the sturdy beauty of the daughter to deciding that he wants to marry her and live the life of a Cossack. This is a silly idea; he isn’t, and never could be, a Cossack. Nor is there any foundation to his feelings of love for the girl; they don’t even have one conversation of substance. Though Maryanka somewhat encourages Olenin, she’s engaged to Lukashka, a freewheeling young man who’s a Cossack to his marrow. I thought the ending would involve a confrontation between Luka and Olenin; a duel seemed to be in the offing. This never takes place; instead Luka is shot in the stomach during a battle with Chechens. At this point things are wrapped up in a cursory manner: Maryanka turns hostile, Olenin’s regiment gets orders to relocate, he leaves the village (whether or not Luka dies is never disclosed). Later in life Tolstoy expressed dissatisfaction with the book; I’d like to know his reasons why, because I’d probably agree. Olenin’s moony romanticizing annoyed me; Maryanka came across as a tease; Luka was over-the-top with his flamboyant virility; the skirmishes with the Chechins seemed to be an excuse for exhibits of masculine bravado. As for that higher meaning Tolstoy was after, it seems to boil down to this: you can’t be what you’re not cut out to be. Not a bad little novel, but it wouldn’t be in the Everyman Library if it hadn’t been written by Tolstoy. And it certainly doesn’t deserve the words like “masterpiece” and “great” that John Bayley uses in his Introduction.

Arthur Rex - John Berger

I have no interest in the Arthurian legend, but I was absorbed for all 500+ pages of this book. It’s a unique achievement – one that makes you think, “I could never have done this in a million years.” The vigor and vividness, the unobtrusive scholarship, the consistent use of the vernacular of an ancient time, even the enjoyably fantastic gore. Berger shows man slowly emerging from the barbarism of the Dark Ages to pursue a knightly concept of virtue (a pursuit which is doomed to failure). The novel’s only fault is that the characters, being legendary and much larger than life, aren’t people one can relate to. That said, I found the aging and death of both Arthur and Lancelot to be moving.

The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy (Russian)

Starts out as a rant, an attack on society’s cherished beliefs, particularly love and marriage. This part is a bit strident, though interesting (and some of the rant is valid). Then it becomes the study of a bad marriage, and we’re into the themes of incompatibility and jealousy. Whereas the beginning had originality, this latter section trod familiar ground, and the strident tone became grating. I wasn’t even convinced of the authenticity of the main character’s actions – he’s too distraught.

Leaf Storm - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)

The long title story was extremely atmospheric – dark, heavy, haunted. Full of strong images. But when I was done I felt a lack of resolution. Maybe it was about misplaced compassion. Maybe – there wasn’t enough focus to reach a conclusion. Not helping matters was the use of multiple points of view. Faulkner’s influence is apparent (with his faults, mainly obfuscation). As for the five shorter stories that make up this volume, they’re good, particularly “Nabo.”

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Russian)
I came to resent this book – its length consumed so much of my time. It was good for the first third, but I didn’t bother to read the last fifty pages – I cared that little about the characters. Tolstoy didn’t care about them either – he was more concerned with the mechanics of the war, with philosophizing about Life and Death. He had a gift – some scenes are masterful; but, as the book moved on, Tolstoy became detached from his once-vital human creations. By the end he’s moving them about like pawns, and when he tries to generate emotions the results come across as overblown and artificial. The book, initially rich, became flat, mechanical. It was even sloppily done. Great novel? – hardly.

The Bialy Eaters - Mimi Sheraton
In exploring a type of bread (the bialy) the author explores a people – the Jews of Poland. One is struck by their resilience and the richness of their heritage, stubbornly kept alive in memories. It’s an interesting little book. I read an Advance Reading Copy and was surprised at the number of errors. And I wondered if the final, published version might have toned down Sheraton’s critical attitude toward “Polacks.” Even the last paragraph attacks the Poles. Maybe it’s justified and should be stated, but it seems a bit out of place in a book about bread.

The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake
The author committed suicide at age 27. This book has an introduction and an afterword by two of his creative writing teachers. Though I’m looking at events from the vantage point of hindsight, I wonder why, when they read these bleak, ugly, barren stories, his professors didn’t recognize how troubled Pancake was (his erratic behavior was a further sign). But no one intervened, so we have only this posthumous collection from a very talented writer. Pancake had a labyrinth style of narrative; it’s demanding, but he always leads you somewhere. However, I reached the point where I no longer wanted to go where he was taking me. “Time and Again” and “The Way It Has To Be” are horror stories; though there’s no on-the-page violence, what makes them so disturbing is the matter-of-fact way the author shows a warped mind preparing to commit a horrible act. Pancake had the ability to forcefully express his dark vision of life – a vision which turned out to be too dark for him.