Re-reads

Momento Mori – Muriel Spark

Spark’s assemblage of mostly upper crust aged folk receive phone calls from an anonymous source that simply says “Remember you must die.” And they do die; most of those that don’t expire in the course of the novel are summarily put to rest in the last two pages. But this is not a dark book; it’s entertaining in a spirited way, and has a mordant humor. The writing is pretty much perfect, particularly the dialogue in the Maud Long Ward where the “Grannies” without money are housed. It made for enjoyable reading, though I felt that there should be a significant point. The only thing I can come up with is that Spark was showing people nearing death carrying on in the same petty ways they did all their lives. For example, wills play a large role, and are often changed (in one case, twenty-six times), based on shifting grudges and resentments. And the two most despicable characters wind up as major beneficiaries. Spark was only forty-one when she wrote this novel, and had, five years previously, converted to Catholicism – something that, she claims, greatly affected her writing (in Catholicism Death is the first of the Four Last Things to be remembered). While her characters on death’s doorstep don’t become wiser or more compassionate, neither, it seems, did Spark. When she died at age eighty-eight her will created a controversy. She and her son (an only child) had long ago broken off relations, and in her will she left him nothing. A final expression of spite? Though Mori comes close to a 4, I’m giving it a 3.

Stamboul Train – Graham Greene

Greene considered this“thriller” to be one of his “entertainments” (as opposed to his serious work, which usually had a religious theme). Problem is, it’s not very thrilling or entertaining. What succeeds is the depiction of the murky and ominous political atmosphere prevailing in Europe in the early 1930s (when the book was written). There are also some interesting characters in interesting situations, but most are not fully developed – or, in some cases, pretty much abandoned. Greene’s tendency was to ponder over weighty intellectual matters, which is anathema to a thriller. Too often I found tedium setting in. Anyway. . . One character, a businessman named Myatt, is Jewish – at times he’s simply referred to as “the Jew.” People can spot him as a Jew at first sight, and in many cases their reactions are highly negative. He seems somewhat stereotypical (eg., he’s “greasy”). He’s not a bad person – he acts generously toward Cora, a showgirl, to the point where she offers up her virginity to him. He also makes an aborted attempt to save her from peril. But at the end he’s forgotten her and his predominant interest is the closing of a business deal. Just like a Jew, right? Since I mentioned Cora (the virginal showgirl), she’s supposed to garner our sympathy, but she warrants a single summing-up word: unconvincing. I’m giving this novel a weak 2. (delete)

Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin

A book should be judged by how well it succeeds at what it attempts, and Levin has succeeded in writing a horror story that’s compelling and convincing. It’s done with an intelligent efficiency – the plot unfolds with momentum, and there’s not a boring page. Every character comes across clearly, every situation is constructed with logic. This is, simply put, damn good writing. Levin stated that he didn’t believe in the devil, and neither do I. So how can a book in which the Devil does exist be credible? Well, in a sense it isn’t. But I found Rosemary to be real and appealing, so I cared about the situation she becomes enmeshed in. To me the horror is the way people use her – evil exists in people. The worst of the lot is her husband; while the others act out of a belief, he sells Rosemary to advance his acting career. Her aloneness comes across with force, and at the end she’s emotionally and mentally broken. Roman Polanski did an excellent job of adapting this story to the screen. Many of Levin’s novels were made into movies because they’re so cinematic – that is, they embed real people in a fascinating plot that moves. 5

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont – Elizabeth Taylor

This novel is the best of all the books I’ve reread so far. There’s one primary reason: it got to me emotionally. It did so in a quiet way – no fireworks go off in this story of an elderly lady who takes up residence at a hotel that has a few permanent guests (all of whom are also elderly). The writing is perfect in a straightforward, unembellished way, but what matters are the insights into age (or, more correctly, the human condition) that are imbedded in the story. These insights are simple, but how seldom are they presented so clearly. If you want to know about the feelings of those near the end of life – a difficult stage, particularly for the ones who are alone – this book will show you. And it will tell you, even if you’re young, something about yourself. It isn’t depressing or dark; it has an engaging plot, and a host of characters you’ll get to know (and whose minds you sometime enter). Of course, Laura Palfrey is foremost, but there’s a young man who is very strong. We can understand why Laura develops feelings for Ludo. It’s not sexual love, but one based on an attraction to a person who is kind, handsome, lively, funny (“kind” comes first). A caring love. Anyway: read this book – it’s one of the few that really matter. As an author Elizabeth Taylor was burdened by her name’s similarity to that of some actress. Palfrey was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1971; Saul Bellow was one of the judges, and he dismissed it as “a tinkling tea cup novel . . . not serious stuff.” It’s an ignorant statement; there are no tinkling tea cups, and my entire review addresses the book’s serious nature. Maybe the lack of pretentiousness turned Bellow off. (V. S. Naipaul's In a Free State would win the award that year.) Taylor was fifty-nine when she wrote Palfrey, and she died five years later. 5

By the Lake – John McGahern

My first reaction, as I was into the opening pages, was: “Who is this guy?” I had never heard of McGahern, but what I was reading was very good. A bit of research told me that in his lifetime (he died in 2006, at age 71) he was acclaimed for his work, but he existed outside the literary in-crowd. As I read on I found this to be a novel of unusual depth. It takes place in a Irish farming village in the mid 1900s and involves everyday matters. The lives of a handful of characters are followed through what seems like a year. It’s all quite interesting – the village and its occupants (many of whom are eccentric) come alive, the activities (bringing in a crop, a cattle sale) have an authenticity (the author lived his early and his last years working on a small farm). The dialogue is outstanding in that each voice is distinctive and conveys the essence of the speaker. The main character, Ruttledge, though mostly an observer, gets involved in the predicaments of others. In his relations with those others he’s always considerate, thoughtful, generous. He’s a man who has obviously made a choice as to how to conduct his life. He also made a choice as to where to live: London or the village? His choice seems to be the right one for him. The village is not an idyllic world – far from it – but there exists a sense of community; people care for one another (even if it is mainly out of curiosity). His friendship with a neighbor, Jamesie, is one that will endure (though Jamesie, on parting, often says “I never liked yous anyhow.”). Ruttledge has no answers to life’s big questions, but those questions exist as an aura – or a mood – which envelopes this novel. One thing that emerges is a sense of mortality. McGahern died of cancer four years after On the Lake came out; possibly he had a diagnosis. Another aspect of the aura concerns the relationship between Ruttledge and his wife, Kate. She exists almost entirely in the words she speaks; though none of these words express love, the sense of a deep love between the two quietly evolved in my mind. Anyway: read this one — it’s a masterful job. *

Paul Cezanne – John Rewald

A good biography, one that relies heavily on letters. Many come from a childhood friend – Emile Zola. That the friendship eventually foundered was unfortunate, but Cezanne was a very difficult man. And, although they broke off relations, they still retained affection for one another. I won’t go into the personality of Cezanne and his art – the book does that. But I found it interesting how schools of thought existed concerning what good painting should be. The Paris Salon dominated in the mid 1800s, but there was a rebellion against its dictates. Rightly so; it was a dull, stagnant art. The Impressionist movement evolved, and was initially vilified. Though some artists (Manet, Renoir, Degas, Monet) gradually attained acceptance, Cezanne wasn’t proclaimed to be a master until old age. And when acceptance finally came, his attitude was this: Once those whose judgements people follow ridiculed me; now people follow the judgements of people who laud me. All followers! Art would continue to change in its attitudes as to what was of value. The trend has been toward a turning away from the human face and form. Cezanne never went in this direction; his portraits are character studies. I wonder what he would say about blocks of color and dribbles of paint and Campbell soup cans. Last note: this book proclaims on the cover that it has “over 100 illustrations,” but almost all are in black and white. To Cezanne color was a primary element of his work. He wouldn’t be pleased.

The Story of Lucy Gault - William Trevor

I’ve reviewed eleven other books by Trevor, and four he’s written are on my Most Meaningful list. Not all of those eleven got good reviews, but I finished them. This one – the shortest, a novella – I only made it halfway through. The prose was good, and so was the beginning, but when Lucy (age eight) runs away and is permanently separated from her mother and father, there were too many pages in which Trevor struggles to make these events plausible. But what bothered me the most was his abandonment of what is going on in Lucy’s mind. He had given us access to that mind, but when dire events occur to her (injury, near starvation, etc.) we learn nothing of what she was experiencing. When she’s found, and recovers (though with a permanent limp), we continue to be excluded; she’s merely presented as a subdued and withdrawn presence. Then Ralph arrives (he drives up to the house by mistake), and love blooms. Suddenly we’re again privy to eighteen-year-old Lucy’s thoughts and feelings, and she seems remarkably stable, sensible, well adjusted. How did she get this way? If it’s her story, as the title proclaims, why the gap between eight and eighteen? And the love happens too quickly, without basis (Ralph lacks much of a personality). I simply wasn’t buying it, so I stopped reading.

Reality and Dreams – Muriel Spark

At age 78 the spark of creativity had died in Dame Muriel. Despite the pretentious title, this is a silly mishmash involving a bunch of characters who all have problems with marital fidelity. The prose is still good – that’s the last to go. I guess the lifelong habit of sitting down to write is hard to break. And when an eminent author issues yet another book, it gets published (no editor is going to say, Muriel, you’ve lost it – don’t embarrass yourself). And it also gets praised by other eminent authors; on the back cover we have blurbs by Updike, Vidal, Byatt. I was only able to plod my way to the halfway point of this very short book. But – let me end this with a reappraisal. I had the belief that I was a fan of Spark’s writing. But I just looked back through my previous reviews of her work (12 in all), and discovered that I was mostly disappointed. Only one – The Driver’s Seat – impressed me. And, before I began reviewing, I greatly admired Momento Mori and The Bachelors. So my positive feelings for Spark rests solely on three novels. But, actually, that’s enough to garner respect. And, as for authors who continue writing when the well is empty (Trevor was another one), they’re responding to a compulsion. They have to write.

Fun Home – Alison Bechdel

All my doubts about the legitimacy of a novel that combined words with comic book style drawings were erased in Bechdel’s talented hands. Fun Home fuses these two modes of expression together beautifully – they supplement one another, with the words serving to explain, and the drawings to depict emotions. The story is about homosexuality in a family. The daughter (Bechdel) is a lesbian – she doesn’t become one, she’s born that way, and suffers no angst over that fact. Her father, though married with three children, would, if he had grown up at a different time, have chosen a man as a mate. He can function sexually with a woman, but, since that was not his preferred choice, he leads a furtive, closeted life. Alison’s mother turns away from the situation, devoting herself to acting in a community theater; she mostly has a sour, cynical expression. But she’s less developed than the father, and Allison’s two brothers play minor roles. This is a father/daughter memoir. He’s a strange fish, incessantly involved in projects around the house, often angry, morose. He teaches high school English and he also runs the family funeral home (which the kids call Fun Home). He’s quite well-read, and guides his daughter, in a rather dictatorial way, in her reading (some of which, such as Ulysses, she resists). While she’s in college, after having her first sexual experience, Alison writes home that she’s a lesbian (surprise!); both parents take it in stride. But not long after the letter the father is killed — struck by a Bunny Bread truck. Is it suicide? According to the driver, Bechdel jumped backward into his path. But it seems an odd way to kill oneself – there’s so great a possibility for a crippling injury. When Alison tells a friend that her father is dead, she does it with a smile, then breaks up laughing when she explains how he died. It’s a peculiar series of drawings, though I thought that she would react in that way; it was an absurd death. The last drawing in the book shows her, as a child, jumping off a diving board into a pool, and her father is there, ready to catch her. This is a strong image – the expression on his face – and it wouldn’t have had as much force if told in words. There’s much in this “Family Tragicomic”(the book’s subtitle) that is humorous, along with much that is sad.

A Manual for Cleaning Women – Lucia Berlin

My interest in this book fizzled on page 310 (where the bookmark has been sitting for weeks). Since I was only one quarter away from the end, and I had enjoyed and appreciated some of what I had read, why couldn’t I just truck on? This is a question I’ll try to answer. For starters, Berlin was (I use the past tense because she died in 2004) a short story writer. This collection, published in 2015, was culled from three decades of her work. She’s autobiographical – she appears (under various names) in every story, sometimes as an observer, sometimes as an active participant. She worked at many menial jobs, including that of a cleaning woman. She had a drinking problem, and three failed marriages. So she led a turbulent, eventful life that provided a lot of material. But there’s no progression in these stories. When we start one we don’t know at what point in her life we’ll be, nor where we’ll be in the next one. This may seem like an exciting aspect, but for me it wasn’t, especially since some stories are very good, some are fair, some are weak. I found that the ones in which she was an observer were better then the ones in which she was writing about her experiences (especially the amorous ones). In other words, this collection is a mixed bag, and it tired me out, the wondering where I would be in her life, and what I would get as to quality. Plus, along the way my interest in Lucia faded. I think others will be more open to her and to what this collection offers. It just wasn’t for me.

Tears of the Giraffe – Alexander McCall Smith

This is a feel-good novel, and what’s wrong with that? Its main character, Precious Ramotsze, is proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana. So the setting is Africa, the characters are African (with the exception of a client of Mma Ramotsze). The author lived in Africa, so he knows the setting and the people. He presents a very favorable portrait of both, which is refreshing. Morality is the issue in this novel: how should people treat one another, what is the good, the kind thing to do? There are two cases to be solved, and no punches are thrown, no guns are fired. Which I found to be another refreshing element. As for those cases, they offer few obstacles, and the resolutions result in no harm to anyone. There’s a major subtext involving Mma’s upcoming marriage to Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni, who owns the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. It will be a happy marriage because both are good, kind people. I enjoyed this short, well-written novel, one of a very successful series. I can see why it would appeal to many. Give it a try.

The Finishing School – Muriel Spark

Spark was eighty-six when she wrote this book (her last), so I’m not inclined to be overly critical of an author who has given me so much pleasure. Her prose is impeccable, but her characters and plot are weak. The two writers in conflict give Spark the opportunity to again visit the world of publishing – and she’s still cynical about it. Usually successes don’t bite the hand that feeds them, but she does. Not hard, in this book, but she gives it a nip. The seventeen-year-old, overly self-assured Chris has written a long historical novel; he gets attention from publishers (none of whom has read the manuscript) because of his youth and good looks. Rowland, his creative writing teacher at College Sunrise (and a blocked writer), is jealous to the point of psychosis. This premise bumps along in an unlikely fashion. Not outright boring, but I read it with a minimum of involvement. Anyway, a few words about the book itself, which got a deluxe treatment by Doubleday. It’s 181 pages long, but that number is misleading. In size it’s a miniature – its dimensions are no more than a trade paperback. And the pages have large margins and the spacing between lines of text is also large. To top it off, there’s no justification of the right margin – it’s ragged, and there’s not one hyphenated word. (It looks like what you’re reading now.) I’ve never seen a published book constructed like this one, and I found it distracting. After a lifetime of novels with conventional formats, why did Spark allow this oddity? Of those past novels, I need to close with special thanks for The Bachelors, The Driver’s Seat and Momento Mori.

I just discovered that I had posted a review of The Finishing School back in 2008. I didn’t recognize I had read it before because neither time did I find it memorable. Here’s that previous review – unenthusiastic yet kindly:

The Finishing School - Muriel Spark

This is a long short story packaged as a novel. The author, nearly ninety, doesn’t have the wicked bite of years ago; her attitude toward her flawed characters is one of mild amusement. Her subject is publishing and the relationships between writers, focusing on their machinations to achieve success. Though cynical (I liked her use of the word “crap” to describe the novel that has long been the mysterious center of attention), this is no New Grub Street. Still, I enjoyed my leisurely stroll with Dame Muriel.

Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
The opening sentence: “Lying in bed, I abandoned the real world and was back in Ambrosia.” Ambrosia is a fantasy world where Billy Fisher possesses power and prestige; in the real world things are not going at all well. The novel covers one day in his life – “a day for big decisions.” His plan is to leave his Yorkshire town and go to London, where he’ll make a living writing jokes for the comedian Danny Boon. By doing so he can avoid a number of predicaments he’s gotten himself into (two fiancees, a huge stash of business calendars he neglected to mail and must dispose of). He can also escape a life that offers him nothing. He lives with his mother, father and grandmother, and all find him to be insufferable (in the case of his father, the disapproval has risen to the level of hatred). He works as a clerk at a funeral home, and his boss relishes the moment when he can nail Billy for pocketing the postage money for the unmailed calendars. Billy’s hyper-energetic observations of people and the town are often funny, but they have a dark side: he sees the real world as ugly. And he never rises above the muck around him. Those lies which he casually dispenses are mostly aimed at evading unpleasant situations or inflating his importance, but some show a disregard for the feelings of others. Billy cares for no one and no one cares for him – with a single exception: Liz. It’s interesting that the only person with whom he feels a sense of comradery is the book’s only unbelievable character. It turns out that Billy lacks the courage to get on the train for London (he was lying when he claimed that Danny Boon had promised him a job). At the end of the long day, as Billy trudges home with his suitcase, I contemplated his future, and I saw no hope for him. I was impressed by this novel’s freshness and originality – it was like an invigorating breeze. But behind the spirited fun was a character study of a flawed and thwarted man. As a result I felt conflicted about Billy – pulled one way, then another.

Paradise Postponed – John Mortimer
Mortimer’s first career was that of a barrister, a profession in which intelligence and precision are of primary importance. But he also possessed a gift for fiction. Though this novel is overpopulated, I was able to keep the six major characters straight because he imparts a distinct individuality to each one. In covering their lives from youth to middle age he jumps back and forth in time, no small feat. He kept my interest at a high level, and even his commentary on changing politics in England was palatable. But, though Mortimer has all the trappings of a traditional novel working nicely for him, he frames the story as a mystery. In the beginning Simeon Simcox, a clergyman, leaves a will in which his possessions go not to his wife and two sons, but to someone he seems to have no ties to and who is already wealthy. As six people fall in and out of love, as they rise or settle in the world, as their attitudes take shape and harden, the mystery of the will pops up at intervals. It’s handled as a teaser – though we get suggestions of something a bit murky going on, what motivated Simeon is kept in the shadows. When the end is near the mystery is suddenly promoted to center stage. With all this buildup, what was needed was a solution that would come as a revelatory surprise. But it’s a letdown, and so things close on a disappointing note. If Mortimer had handled this as a straight novel he might have provided a sense of closure for his main characters; as it is, he leaves them hanging. I wasn’t surprised to learn that he wrote a sequel to Paradise. It’s called Titmuss Regained, so it obviously concentrates on this book’s most compelling character, the implacably ambitious Leslie Titmuss, M.P. (Member of Parliament).

The Abbess of Crew – Muriel Spark
This odd little novel takes place in a convent, is about nuns, is saturated in the ceremonies and trappings of religious life, yet the plot deals with grubby worldly matters. At it center stands Alexandra, “a tower of ivory.” When the book opens she has been elected Abbess, a position she coveted with steely resolve. Her chief competition was a nun who was having sexual relations with a Jesuit priest; this act of rebellion attracted some followers to her side. When the wayward nun is defeated she leaves the convent, and in newspapers and other media outlets she presents a long list of moral transgressions committed by Alexandra (to which this unflappable lady comments, “A dazzling indictment, and, do you know, she has thought not only of the wrongdoings I have committed but those I have not done yet but am about to perform”). Alexandra’s underhanded maneuvering to get elected has repercussions, and when a nun dressed as man is caught in a men’s lavatory of the British Museum with a bag of payoff money the police get involved. A worldwide scandal ensues; reporters try to breach the convent walls (which are guarded by police with dogs). The novel ends with Alexandra being summoned to Rome; aboard the ship her serene self-confidence remains intact. What is one to make of all this? I felt traces of science fiction in the gleaming control room of electronic surveillance equipment which has been installed at Crew (even the trees are bugged). And no matter how demented – or vulgar or comic – things get, the prose never loses its lofty tone. I did a bit of post-reading research, and, to my surprise, the word “Watergate” came up (Sister Gertrude, the globe-trotting nun Alexandra calls to get advice, is Kissinger). This interpretation makes some sense, especially since the book was published at the time of the scandal (when it had a relevance that’s missing now). But why set a satire of Nixon-era shenanigans in a convent? And the parallels are weak (Nixon was no Alexandra). The book, which was obviously written with malicious intent, has an unsavory fascination, but little else.

Cheating at Canasta - William Trevor
Two stories are excellent: “The Dressmaker’s Daughter” and “Bravado.” Two others are good, but eight are no more than fair. Those aren’t stats to be proud of (even though the fair ones got published in The New Yorker). Trevor is in his eighties; it may be significant that his weakest stories – somber mood pieces that meander around an idea but never develop into anything of substance – deal with the elderly, while the two excellent ones are about people in their teens. In “Bravado” a young girl is attracted to a boy who has a reckless swagger. But does her admiration spur him on to impress her? When his actions have tragic consequences, a moral question arises for her: must she bear part of the responsibility? The fact that we never anticipate this specter of guilt gives it impact. Guilt is also at the core of “The Dressmaker’s Daughter.” The capacity to feel guilt can be redeeming, but often it’s a burden one must live with – somehow. In these two stories – in which Trevor is at his best – an emotion lingers on long after the final word.

The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
I almost abandoned this novel thirty pages from the end. It struck me as a thin enterprise in every way. The disjointed snippets seem carelessly patched together, and Spark’s attitude toward her characters is cold, even disdainful. Of the girls living in the May of Tech Club (just after WW II), three stand out. Selina is a sexually adventurous beauty, Jane does what she calls “brain work,” Joanna gives elocution lessons in which she recites poetry and has her students recite it back (the book contains long stretches of poetry and psalms, which the other-worldly Joanna knows by heart). Only Nicholas Farrington interested me (his death is announced on page four, though he appears, quite alive, from start to finish). For him the girls of slender means embody some ideal of young womanhood; his longing for the ineffable kept me reading, and those last thirty pages (which I almost skipped) added dimension to the novel. A bomb – a remnant of the war – goes off in the garden of the Club, starting a fire that traps some girls on the top floor. Nicholas tries, with the firemen, to rescue them; he’s acquainted with the roof of the adjoining building, for he’s been sleeping there with Selina. All the girls escape – except one. We know that Nicholas will, in the indeterminate future, be killed in Haiti, where he was a religious missionary; what caused him to take that path in life is never explained, but it seems somehow connected with the death at the Club. On the last page, in an evocative passage, he gazes at a May of Tech girl as she pins up her hair – an image he will recall “years later, in the country of his death.”

Murder by the Book - Rex Stout
It’s hit or miss with Stout, and this is a solid single. Archie takes center stage, the cast of suspects is manageable, and when Nero Wolfe unveils the identity of the murderer it made sense. I missed an inconsistency that Wolfe spotted, and felt my inadequacy as a private eye. The fact that three people are murdered for an inconsequential reason is no huge deal; Stout isn’t trying to be Dostoevski. The writing – Archie’s voice – is snappy and bright: “She was the kind you look at and think she should take off just one or two pounds, and then you ask where from and end by voting for the status quo.”

The Name of the World - Denis Johnson
Beware of novels with titles like this one. The first-person narrator has a lot of Zen-like thoughts but no vitality. He sleepwalks through a series of episodes that lead nowhere. When we learn that he’s actually mute with grief (his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident) I didn’t respond because nothing about the guy rang true, including this tragedy. Then, while at the art department of the university where he teaches, Mike blunders onto a “Cannon Performance”: students are watching a young woman “engaged in shaving her lathered mons veneris.” Her name is Flower Cannon. Mike is roused out of his dormancy; he’s even inspired to this lofty thought: he would have loved for his daughter, if she had lived, to have turned out to be like Flower. The plot is headed toward a relationship between the two (Flower pops up wherever Mike goes), but I wanted no part of the impending nonsense, so I bailed out on page 62, which was the halfway point. I hope that my description of the Cannon Performance hasn’t misled you. Even with the sex thrown in, this book is as drab as an old brown suit.

The Delicate Prey and Other Stories - Paul Bowles

This collection contains Bowles’ first published fiction. I had previously read (and didn’t reread) “A Distant Episode.” The cruelty in that story left a lasting – and disturbing – impression on me. “The Delicate Prey” is almost as bad (castration, live burial of a man so only his head is exposed). These acts are described in an offhand manner, as if the perpetrators found them as pleasurable and inconsequential as having a good meal. But it’s the author who conveys that attitude, which makes me think there was something warped in Bowles’ nature. Despite my feelings of aversion, I have to acknowledge his talent; the stories cited above are effective because they’re done with skill. But in this collection we mostly get the warped sensibility minus the skill; some stories offer up their aberrations in a slipshod way. Of the ones I read (half I didn’t) only “You Are Not I” and “Pages from Cold Point” were interesting. “Pages” deals with homosexuality, a subject the author usually avoided (or dodged). Any relationship between people in Bowles’ work is devoid of a positive form of intimacy; cruelty, not love, was his specialty. He almost always used a foreign setting. Bowles lived most of his life in Morocco – a place where, I suspect, he was free to indulge his questionable tastes to the fullest.

The Bitter Box - Eleanor Clark

The extreme oddity of this novel kept me off balance. At first I thought it was badly written. But I kept reading because there was something compelling in the story of Mr. Temple. Eventually it dawned on me that Clark knew exactly what she was doing. She puts us in the mind of a very odd man and makes us see and feel things as he does. Mr. Temple is isolated, socially inept, repressed, emotionally unstable. This instability is precariously close to insanity (of the dangerous sort; rage is one of the emotions he has long repressed). On the first page he impulsively leaves the bank where he worked as a teller for over a decade; he’s driven from his cage onto the city streets by an urge inexplicable to him. Much is inexplicable to him. His mind latches onto images (some blossom into the ominous or the beautiful), his conversations are disjointed, his responses to people and events come in fits and starts. This is confusing (too confusing for me at times, even though confusion is what Mr. Temple feels). His flight from the bank – he’ll return the next day – is an interruption of a regimented life which he can no longer tolerate. His experiences in the following months are especially intense because, at age thirty-one, he has experienced very little. Mr. Temple is on a journey into the murky depths of himself; the journey doesn’t end up any place good. A dismal death seems imminent for him, and his inability to comprehend his nature persists – though on the last page there’s a suggestion that he may have achieved some insight. Maybe. I was never on solid footing with this novel, but I was caught up in the emotions. That’s Eleanor Clark’s accomplishment: to make me care about the strange Mr. Temple.

The Comforters - Muriel Spark

When I began this novel I knew it was Spark’s first, but after I finished it I discovered that she wrote it when she was thirty-nine. Thirty-nine! I thought she was in her early twenties; this isn’t a mature work. She relies on characters that range from peculiar to extravagantly bizarre (there’s a witch, folks, a real witch). The three main threads of plot are never woven together. One character hears voices that repeat her thoughts and words; we’re to believe that the book we’re reading is being produced by this disembodied source. Spark can’t make sense of what she proposes, so it’s total nonsense. Then there’s a sweet old grandmother who’s head of a ring of diamond smugglers; I felt I was back sleuthing with the Hardy Boys. The relationship between a young man and woman is chaste; Spark avoids a subject that was always a problem for her: love and sex (after reading enough of an author’s work you get to know them). Also in the mix is Catholicism, though the emphasis is on diabolism. The prose has a nice sparkle and the book moves along in a pleasant way – if, like the author, you ignore the improbabilities (which extend to the title; I have no idea what it’s referring to). I was blessed by starting out with two excellent books by Spark (Momento Mori and The Bachelors); the string of novels I read after those were either diverting or disappointing. This was interrupted by the lightning stroke of The Driver’s Seat, which may reveal more about Ms. Spark than anything else she wrote.

The Chronicles of Clovis - Saki

I can imagine H. H. Munro writing one of these stories before heading off to the club. They’re mildly diverting – the prose is good, sometimes even elegant – but there’s little substance. Saki’s indulgence in wickedness and cruelty (though not of the distasteful variety) isn’t my cup of tea. If you want to read Saki’s one masterpiece, get your hands on The Unbearable Bassington.

Aiding and Abetting - Muriel Spark

Unfocused – the novel hasn’t much structure – but I went with the flow. Spark’s characters are interesting; in her eighties she still has a sharp eye for human foibles and she presents them in an economical prose (no extraneous words). Though she didn’t have much of a story to tell, she was a writer, so she wrote this book. I like her writing, her way of seeing things, so I read and enjoyed it.

The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali)

This novel, by a Nobel Prize winner, comes from a different sensibility, one I couldn’t relate to. First I became impatient, then critical. The dialogue is artificial – carefully worked out philosophical pontificating – and the woman whose affections two men are vying for is vacuous. Her highly-moral husband is a Bengali noble, but he does nothing with his money to relieve the suffering around him. In his view (and Tagore’s?) the poor are meant to suffer; that’s their preordained lot in life. He’s competing with a man who embraces amorality. The only thing I found insightful is the husband’s deciding that, by placing his wife at the center of his universe, he gave her the power to make him miserable; he understands (at least intellectually) that the world is larger than her. But there was so much in this book that I couldn’t sympathize with that I put it aside with relief.

The Call of the Wild and Selected Stories - Jack London

Call is one of the books that set me onto the path of reading, so there was no need to revisit it; it will remain safe from adult reevaluation. All the accompanying stories take place in the Yukon. Some are no more than good fare for boys. “An Odyssey of the North” was the weakest of the lot – melodramatic, silly, written in an archaic style. But when London took on the study of man surviving (or not surviving) he rose to greatness. “To Build a Fire” follows in relentless detail the events that culminate in death. What makes it so effective is that London shows no feeling for the man – he could be a bug under a microscope. This authorial remoteness is perfectly fitting, because London was writing about uncaring nature. In “Love of Life” we are close to the emotions of the man – so close that his struggle to stay alive becomes a harrowing experience for the reader. In both these stories the prose is hard, direct, stark. When London tapped into his deepest fears, out came two masterpieces. *

Territorial Rights - Muriel Spark

Spark assembles a large cast of repellent characters in Venice. I hung around until a mystery was solved, then called it quits. The improbable plot didn’t engage me very much, and I didn’t care to spend more time with the equally improbable characters. In this outing Spark’s distaste for humans dominates; she doesn’t present one person for the reader to care for (and thus about). Some may claim that she’s exposing the void left by an absence of religious faith. But it’s Spark who’s stacking the deck, so the void is in her.

Famous Writers School - Steven Carter

Carter had a clever idea, but it became a mishmash, with the author tossing in new twists to try to keep it going. His characters can’t emerge from his format. The story at the center of the proceedings was generic (gothic horror/mystery novel, with a crew of murderous, amoral cretins). Meanwhile, Carter is juggling two other plot lines. It all became so unwieldy that I stopped reading halfway through.

Everyman - Philip Roth

A novel about the end of life, about illness and death. There’s no stridency, no details about the many medical procedures; the tone is elegiac. It’s not fun reading, but it’s not grueling. And I believe it’s a book that should have been written. It’s about loss – of losing this world (losing it by inches) – and fear at the prospect of becoming Nothing. But life’s bountiful riches are captured beautifully in Everyman’s memories of his youth. There are flashes of the raunchy Roth – sex scenes (memories) and an angry, obscene rant, and these were flat-out mistakes. They jarred with the muted sadness, which is the right tone. Roth, looking at mortality, accomplished something honest and unflinching.

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

Yes, Dickens was a genius. His creative abilities were prodigious. Despite that, I quit this book at page 460. I gave it plenty of time to engage me, but it wasn’t happening. Part of the problem was that I felt bogged down. Dickens over-describes everything. Nobody’s appearance, no encounter, no interior of a room is short-changed. He spreads it all out before us. I also had trouble following the convoluted plot and the huge cast of characters. Most crucial, I didn’t believe in these characters. The ones I was supposed to sympathize with are too, too good. Some human flaws, please! And some restraint. Dickens hits you over the head with emotions; they gush out (as do the tears) to the extent that mawkishness sets in. At his worst, Dickens can be sickly sweet. His excessiveness dates his work; he belongs in Victorian times, when all the aspects that I find alienating were valued.

A Far Cry from Kensington - Muriel Spark

The author, a favorite of mine, died recently. In commemoration I took up this novel. Sadly, it’s the worst one by her I’ve read. Not that it doesn’t yield some pleasures. I liked her cynical insights into the world of publishing (where there are Names and Authors; the first is valued and the other is not; aspiring Authors who submit unsolicited manuscripts are, Spark writes, sending their work “to sea in a sieve”). The problem is that the book is autobiographical and was written to settle an old score. The enemy is skewered again and again (he’s constantly referred to as a “pisser of prose”). This is a hatchet job, but it’s Spark who comes out bloodied. She tries to portray herself as a worthy person, but even the kind acts of Nancy/Muriel don’t convey warmth. The love affair she has with William is also unconvincing; they’re supposed to live happily ever after, but I didn’t buy it. Hate can be a sound basis for good literature, but beware of what you reveal about yourself.

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel - George Meredith

A Victorian novel done in Meredith’s intricate style – his prose is crafted like delicate metal latticework. The author expects the reader to be as intelligent as he is, which can be demanding. Still, this is interesting as a psychological study. Did the impetuous, foolhardy pride Richard displayed as a boy compel him as a man to go through with a duel he could have avoided? The book has depth and ambiguity, and that’s good. The problem is that the main characters are almost feverish in their emotions (did people in Victorian times really carry on this way?). The minor players stay earthbound, and succeed very well there.

The Finishing School - Muriel Spark

This is a long short story packaged as a novel. The author, nearly ninety, doesn’t have the wicked bite of years ago; her attitude toward her flawed characters is one of mild amusement. Her subject is publishing and the relationships between writers, focusing on their machinations to achieve success. Though cynical (I liked her use of the word “crap” to describe the novel that has long been the mysterious center of attention), this is no New Grub Street. Still, I enjoyed my leisurely stroll with Dame Muriel.

A Personal Matter - Kenzaburo Oe (Japanese)

Dark, passionate, driven, this is a cathartic journey in which Oe succeeds in digging deep into a character (Bird) and at the same time giving us a dilemma worthy of the intensity. The novel moves the reader to turn the page but also compels him to go places emotionally. Oe presents his intimate story in a direct, easy to read style, though the matters he explores are densely tangled, almost too complex to deal with. There’s a lot of sex, much of it distasteful, but it’s an integral part of what Bird experiences. Nothing Oe does is gratuitous; he cared far too much. This novel is raw honesty, but raw honesty is very difficult to convey artfully. Problems with the book? The ending is too abrupt. Maybe Oe couldn’t do justice to the tangle he had created without another fifty pages, and he wasn’t up to that task. Himiko, an extremely appealing, well-drawn female character, is given the short shrift, which I kind of resented (because I cared about her). But I forgive Oe for these shortcomings. He wrote a great novel. *

The Takeover - Muriel Spark
A comedy of bad manners. Amorality reigns. An entertaining book, but I expect more from Spark. The problem is that her characters – every last one of them – are deplorable. We await the next terrible thing they’ll do, but that’s all we expect. They’re not real human beings but one-dimensional props for Spark to use in wild plot machinations. Sometimes events get silly, as in Hubert’s botched performance as a high priest. Maybe Spark is showing us a world in which moral values have vanished. But there has to be a positive character as a counterbalance. Or a day of reckoning for the evil ones. But at the end evil (in the form of Hubert, who’s probably the worst of the bunch) escapes unscathed. I think Spark was indulging herself in this book. The question is, what was she indulging? She seemed to be having a suspiciously good time with evil.

Bright Day - J. B. Priestley

Initially engaging, this became tedious. The original virtues remained, but the characters, the situation – both of which were sound – became stagnant; the same plangent note (the loss of youth, the loss of what was beautiful) was repeated over and over. When you constantly interrupt your reading to look at how much of the book you have left, and it seems to be more than you hoped for, it’s time to put it aside.

Scandal - A. N. Wilson

This novel delivers the wicked fun to be had from reading a British tabloid story featuring politicians and prostitutes. None of the reprobates, lowlifes, and losers ensnared in this tawdry farce are sympathetic, though nobody engenders feelings of moral censure. Wilson didn’t try for depth; he aimed merely to entertain, and he does so with skill and intelligence.

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.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
As I neared the last fourth of this book I lost faith. There was not enough basis in reality to support what was happening – particularly Miss Brodie’s having such a long-lasting influence on the girls; she seemed foolish and nutty, not a charismatic force. Also undermining believability: the artist painting Miss Brodie into all the girls’ portraits; her acting as a kind of procuress; the freedom allowed the girls to visit Miss Brodie at the music teacher’s house and to pose for the artist. Near the end Spark narrows the focus to Sandy and Miss Brodie, abandoning the others. But these two are eminently unattractive people. A dispiriting coldness permeates this book.

The Golden Ass - Apuleius (Latin)
It’s said to be the oldest prose work preserved in its entirety, and also to be written in the mode of the street storytellers of ancient Rome. At first I found its vibrancy and broad humor refreshing, thinking that people have not changed much in what they want from a piece of entertainment. But after the narrator was turned into an ass the story degenerated into one cruelty after another, one distasteful sex encounter after the other. All portrayed with brutal delight. Yes, I suppose people are still the same in what they want from entertainment.

Pere Goriot - Honore Balzac (French)
A bad so-called “great” novel. There are scenes and characters that come alive, and the cynicism seemed bracing – for a while. But it soon became clear that the book was overblown and improbable. Some parts are downright ridiculous. Just before he expires on his deathbed, Old Goriot has the strength to make a six (6!) page speech. Sections read like melodrama from a book for adolescents, such as the whole episode about the master thief Vautrin. Rastignac’s weeping got to be too much for me. I’m not in sympathy with the sensibilities of that period in French cultural life when being in Parisian society was all-important. Balzac seems to be cynically criticizing it, through the eyes of Rastignac, but at the end Rastignac chooses to enter that false and despicable and unhappy world. Why? Did he really need calfskin gloves? Lastly, the book was sloppily written, and I don’t think the translator is to blame.

The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth (German)
Are there more muted characters in fiction than the members of the Trotta family? Their feelings are comprehensible, they can arouse sympathy, but they’re caught in the inexorable cogs of history (the fall of the Hapsburg Empire) and they proceed like dumb animals to their fates. This chronicle of inevitability is told in a glittering prose which, despite its density, has the glittering preciseness of a cut diamond. Some scenes are masterfully done – the duel takes place in a trance. *

The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki (Japanese)
I was fully engrossed in the lives of three Japanese women. This long book moves slowly, in prose that’s simple and smooth, accumulating depth by an accretion of detail, much of it about mundane matters. The sisters are quite different; one is happily married, one is looking to be married (which makes up the bulk of the action – finding Yukiko a husband) and the other is single but “liberated.” The book has a gentle, melancholy mood, though the harsh aspects of life are not avoided (a near-fatal case of food poisoning, after eating sushi, is depicted in appalling detail). The last sentence, which refers to Yukiko having diarrhea as she travels to her wedding, is a perplexing ending. Tanizaki seems to have a hidden agenda, which may add to the novel’s weightiness. Depth, weight: this book has the substance of a major work. Written during WWII, it’s as if the author turned in sadness from the atrocities being committed and went back in time, to tell about the daily lives of people he knew. *

Loitering with Intent - Muriel Spark
This book has interest for a writer, since it’s concerned with Muriel Spark’s first attempts at creativity. It has a pleasant air to it, a look back at a carefree time of youth and hope. Yet the plot is unwieldy and frivolous. I was surprised that Loitering was short-listed for the Booker Prize. It was published long after Spark had written the fine novels which never received that honor. In this slight book she’s not competing with the young woman she once was, she’s just remembering her.

The Folded Leaf - William Maxwell
Very atmospheric, muted, dreamy. Rather beautiful and strange. It’s mostly mood and character. The personalities of the two very different boys are drawn in great depth. Their unlikely relationship is believable, probably in part because Maxwell leaves it inarticulate; you’re made to sense a bond. The problem with the book involves plot. In the last third Maxwell introduces characters and situations that need to be resolved. But these elements are not convincing, nor is their resolution. Still, this fault is outweighed by the mood the book evokes in the beginning, one so strong it stays with you. *

Vacant Possession - Hilary Mantel
The weaknesses won out over the strengths. Mantel is one of those writers who, I suspect, is capable of writing something I would like very much; this, the first book by her that I read, wasn’t it. She goes in for the bizarre, but she left me lagging behind. I couldn’t relate to or understand many of her characters, so I lost interest in them. Also, the ugliness of their lives is mind-numbing. She ends the book with a scene that I found inexplicable. What happened? The fault was mine – I hadn’t paid much attention to the complexities going on. Or was it Mantel’s fault, for not holding my attention? The ending left me with a final annoyance.