The Householder – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Simplicity – in the prose, in the naive main character, in the everyday dilemmas he faces. Prem is newly married (an arranged marriage) and is soon to be a father. He doesn’t find his wife attractive (except sexually), nor does he think she’s intelligent and refined. He’s a very constricted person, an introspective worrier, while Indu is neither of those things. He can’t figure out how to relate to her (and to her sulky moods). He teaches Hindi at a preparatory college, but he’s a poor teacher who can’t keep discipline in his class. He feels that he’s a failure in all aspects of life. He tries to find someone – anyone! – with whom he can unburden himself, but in vain. He doesn’t turn to his wife because he feels he must be someone she respects and looks up to; she reinforces this stereotypical role by not having much sympathy with weakness. One of Prem’s major worries is money: he wants his rent lowered and his salary increased. With these matters weighing on him, he’s drawn to the idea of renouncing all worldly things and giving himself to God. So there we have poor, doubting, dissatisfied Prem – and I liked and cared about him. I could even see how he got he way he is; his father (deceased) was an overbearing presence and his mother (she pays him and Indu an extended visit) is possessive and selfish and manipulative. These two kept him a boy; now, as a man and a husband, he’s struggling. There are comic elements in the book, mainly arising from the secondary characters. One of these, a German named Hans, is a one-dimensional parody of the type of Westerner who spouts platitudes about Indian wisdom. In the real world of Delhi, people don’t live in accordance with high-minded precepts. Prem’s landlord is gross and unfeeling, the principal at his school is pompous and unsympathetic. Prem has a boyhood friend he tries to get close to, but Raj is a married man with one child and another on the way; he’s stuck in a job and in living quarters that he dislikes; he has no interest in keeping the relationship alive. In the course of the book Prem slowly loses his reserve with Indu and comes to appreciate her. They will learn to love one another, and this is a precious thing. But, in looking at the other characters – particularly Raj and his overweight, coarse wife – one sees intimations of Prem’s future. Romantic love fades; Prem will be a householder, with all its responsibilities, and, like Raj, he will be dissatisfied. The charm of this lively, entertaining book doesn’t quite hide the dark undertones. The Householder was Jhabvala’s fourth novel; two years before it she wrote Esmond in India and two years after Get Ready for Battle. A cluster of excellence.

The Street – Ann Petry
The street is 116th in Harlem in the 1940s. It’s where Lutie and her eight-year-old son are forced to live. Their tiny apartment is dismal, the people around them are either brutish or uncaring. Jones, the super, is a sexual predator; Mrs. Hedges, who constantly looks out the window from her first floor apartment, runs a brothel where white “gentlemen” pay for the use of hapless young black girls. Lutie feels that she’s stuck in this ugly environment because of her race and poverty. The word “hate” appears often on these pages, and the hate is directed toward whites (though the blacks do the most damage to one another). Petry has a grudge, and she expresses it fully; The Street can be read as a social document, but it’s also an engrossing novel. We go into the minds and life histories of a variety of characters. Of these, an unlikely standout is Mim; she’s past middle age, with painful bunions and no teeth; she daily plods off to her job as (what else?) a housekeeper for white people. To avoid paying rent, she lives with Jones, who hates her for all she isn’t. In an effort to protect herself from his violent moods she goes to a “root doctor” named the Prophet David. This quiet, submissive person comes across so effectively because she’s down-to-earth, while most others tend to be extreme cases or grotesques. Petry keeps things under control until the last eight pages, when she severely damages her credibility. She sets everything up for what is inevitable, then backs away from having it happen. Instead of the true ending – one which would make a point powerfully – she substitutes a series of actions that are crazy, melodramatic and stupid. Surely Lutie – who is depicted throughout the book as a sexual magnet – would know exactly what she’d be asked to give in exchange for the two hundred dollars she needs to help her son. But, instead of what she would do, she murders a man and flees to Chicago, thus abandoning Bub. He’s an appealing little boy, and I thought about what awaits him. Will he wind up in an institution (possibly a reform school)? Will he be sent to live with his drunken grandfather? Or with a foster family? At the end Lutie “tried to figure out by what twists and turns of fate she had landed on this train. Her mind balked at the task. All she could think was, It was that street. It was that god-damned street.” No, Lutie, it wasn’t the street. It was Ann Petry who stuck you on that train. Take it up with her.

The Wedding – Grace Lumpkin
Though the novel spans two days, it presents a wide-ranging picture of life in white society in Lexington, Kentucky in the early 1900s. In doing so it raises issues relevant today. The wedding is to be a confederate one, with the bridesmaids carrying small confederate flags; the whites think of blacks as servants and little else. Lumpkin doesn’t seem to take sides; she lets people feel and act according to their natures and upbringing. The first chapter ends with this sentence: “But unexpectedly, on the very evening before the wedding, the bride and groom have a bitter quarrel.” It’s more than pre-marriage jitters. They were attracted to each other for superficial reasons; suddenly they realize that they’re quite unalike and, since both are strong-willed, neither is willing to give ground. They decide to call off the marriage, but – of course – there are great pressures against doing this. The last third of the novel resolves the dilemma in a roundabout fashion. When the newlyweds leave on a train one character thinks, “Perhaps it will be right.” Perhaps not. I found the fate of these two rather unappetizing characters to be less compelling than other issues. Susan, the bride’s twelve-year-old sister, is an exception to the statement above, regarding the way whites feel about blacks. She likes the servants, especially Louisa and Ed, and so she feels empathy for blacks in general. When a silver punch bowl is found missing, Ed is accused of stealing it; Susan knows that Ed had buried it at the orders of Saint John. Susan eventually stands up to the dictatorial boy and his imperious mother and tells the truth about what happened. Meanwhile, Ed has fled. Louisa says, “Nobody knows where he’s gone. He was scared of the police. And he run away. I don’t know what his Mama will do. And Lord knows how he’ll ever live.” At the end of the book we still don’t know what becomes of Ed. One wonders why Lumpkin left this unresolved. To most of her white characters, Ed’s predicament doesn’t matter a whole lot; but Susan (the most sympathetic of the lot) does care about him. The author presents both mind sets, and maybe that was her sole purpose. What I do know for sure after completing this novel is that a large-scale church wedding is utter foolishness and a colossal waste of money.

The Simpleton - Aleksei Pisemskii (Russian)
In this depiction of human nature we get a heavy dose of vices, among them greed, selfishness, malice, callousness, hypocrisy and envy. Pisemskii’s characters are either unable to see their faults or they righteously justify their errant behavior. In the opening scene a woman proclaims that she’s no gossip; after getting the scoop on a family’s misfortunes she hurries to another house to pass on all that she had heard. In an attempt to ease his financial difficulties a father bullies his daughter into agreeing to marry a man she loathes. When the father talks to the suitor he says, “A bride used to be brought to the altar by force. We could never allow ourselves to do such a thing.” The suitor is the simpleton of the title; this marriage will bring Pavel nothing but suffering. He isn’t lacking in intellect. What he does lack is worldliness; he’s a babe in a woods full of vipers, and in this sense he is a simpleton. The reader can’t sympathize with the miseries Pavel experiences because to be innocent is to be contemptible. This is a subversive book; Pisemskii’s artful cynicism turns what could have been a tragedy into an excoriating comedy of manners.

Three Continents - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
I shouldn’t be reviewing this novel because I never got halfway through it; but 145 pages constitutes a substantial investment of my time. Initially I was carried along by the prose, which flows without a ripple. The first stirring of my critical faculties came when characters have experiences that should elicit strong emotions; but their feelings, as expressed in that unruffled flow of words, lacked impact. Next to come under scrutiny was the plot. Rawul, the leader of a movement aimed at establishing a Seventh World, takes up residence at the estate of the narrator and her twin brother; accompanying him are his two assistants, Rani and Crishi, and a crew of anonymous followers. Soon they’re in complete control of the place. How they’re able to exert such power isn’t made credible (the twins come across as dopes and dupes); nor does Jhabvala make any attempt to explain the Seventh World philosophy (probably because there’s nothing to explain); nor are the relationships that develop out of this premise believable (the repellent Crishi easily gains sexual dominance over both twins). A host of secondary characters are added to the mix, all carrying a lot of baggage, but I saw no purpose for their being in the book (twenty-five pages are devoted to the grandfather, who does little more than die). After I quit reading I began to wonder whether I had been a dope and dupe in admiring Jhabvala’s earlier work. Or had she gone astray as a writer? Supporting the latter theory is her dedication of Three Continents to James Ivory and Ismail Merchant; this glossy novel may be the natural outgrowth of doing too many screenplays for glossy movies.

One Thousand Souls - Aleksei Pisemskii (Russian)
Seldom does an author create such an impressive work; seldom does it crumble so completely. For almost four hundred pages Pisemskii was writing what had the makings of a great novel. The portrayal of Kalinovich is remarkable for its thoroughness. This severe young man covets wealth and status; yet, when he moves to a town to take up the lowly post of School Inspector, he gradually comes to appreciate the generosity extended to him by his predecessor in that job, Godnev; more important, he responds to the pure love that Godnev’s daughter, Nastenka, feels for him. Despite these factors, he’s persuaded by an odious Count to marry the wealthy Paulina. In forsaking love for an advancement of his station in life, Kalinovich is aware of the cost to himself and its effect on the woman he betrays, but his good instincts are not strong enough to govern his actions. Up to the point of Kalinovich’s decision to marry, the characters and their interactions were authentic and vital. But the novel’s final Part Four, which takes up events a decade later, constitutes a repudiation of what went before. People we had come to know are replaced by imposters; changes in relationships defy logic; the prose gets strident; far too much attention is devoted to the impenetrable intricacies of Russian politics. It seems that Pisemskii, like his main character, couldn’t see the value in what he had in his grasp and thus let it all slip away.

Fermina Marquez - Valery Larbaud (French)
Fermina is a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl who, along with her aunt and younger sister, makes daily visits to a boarding school where her little brother is a pupil. Her presence creates a ferment of emotions in the boys. Most view her from afar. The two who get close to her are Santos, a swaggering South American conquistador, very much a man of the world, and Joanny Lenoit, the school’s scholar, a boy younger than Fermina. Larbaud wouldn’t have succeeded if he had concentrated on Fermina and Santos (neither are multi-dimensional) or if he had included anything the least bit smutty. Sex is treated circumspectly, as befits an implicit force. The bulk of the book is given to Joanny, who is extremely complex. His emotions range from feelings of inadequacy to dreams of a triumph on the scale of Caesar’s. Much that happens is unexpected; what amazes is how the unexpected is exactly right. Larbaud is able to convey a sense of the consuming power that a beautiful girl has over the thoughts, passions and imaginations of young men. *

In Search of Love and Beauty - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
I quit reading at the halfway point. Jhabvala’s characters, both major and secondary, were unappetizing and the plot lacked credibility. Everything revolves around Leo Kellermann, who’s supposed to be an overpowering presence, especially for women. He preys on them, sexually and financially, while successfully promoting himself as a guru with deep insights. But Jhabvala doesn’t provide any convincing evidence to make Leo’s power believable, nor do we get a snippet of wisdom from him, either in words or actions. He’s a selfish tyrant. He may have sexual magnetism – he’s the type of sensuous male who claims women, and they duly succumb. Louise and Regi, who are dominated by Leo, come across as fools (albeit pitiable ones). The title of the book is misleading – there’s no love or beauty, nor is there a search for it. What you’ll find is an abundance of spite, which is what Jhabvala seems to feel for her characters.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Anita Loos
This book’s enormous success is deserved. It’s funny, fast-moving, and the voice of Lorelei Lee is pitch perfect. Loos hit on the right character, the right format (Lorelei’s diary), the right plot (almost none) and – most important – the right tone: innocence. Innocent? Lorelei? If you want to get serious, she’s an amoral gold digger. But who wants to get serious? Loos served up a bit of frothy entertainment. There’s a photo of her when she wrote the book (she’s very pretty, though her expression is challenging). Her introduction to this 1973 edition was done when she was eighty; it’s a smart, funny and lively look back at a book written fifty years ago. Anita Loos is no longer with us. But Lorelei is.

Shards of Memory - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Difficulty in recognizing who’s telling the story (I never figured this out), too many characters (every one of them odd), no focus (what’s this all about?), and for the first hundred pages the characters don’t come to life (wooden, or, in the case of the Master, contrived; I never accepted the power he had over people). Then Henry is in a car accident and becomes a cripple. Suddenly everybody is set into motion – they seem to have life breathed into them. The late-blooming love between Baby and Graeme is poignant, and I wanted the relationship between Henry and Vera to work. So I cared. But, still, the author never had full control of her material; at the end she leaves all sorts of important matters unresolved. Much is missing in this novel; but of what’s there, some is quite effective.

The Grandmothers - Glenway Wescott

Although I’m interested in pioneer life, I abandoned this novel at the halfway point because it annoyed and bored me. A poet living in Europe is recalling his youth; as a boy he was obsessively (and implausibly) interested in his family. He tells their stories. One after another they line up – here’s Great-Aunt Nancy, here’s Great-Uncle Leander – and the poet, with his great power of perception, enters the consciousness of each. It rang false – and pretentious. Also, there’s a fussy tidiness about the book – the perfect prose, the lives proceeding in a stately way from youth to old age and death. This book has a premise of authenticity, but I think the author was deluding himself. At age twenty-six Wescott hadn’t yet found his true subject, nor his voice.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg

Hogg was born in1770; the brooding, feverish way he deals with religious matters sprang from a mind foreign to us. His main character believes that he’s been chosen by God, before time began, to be one of the anointed. Thus he can do no wrong. What is the nature of this Chosen One? Robert is morally corrupt, despicable in every way. After being told the expected news of his anointment, a strange young man attaches himself to Robert; we soon realize that he’s the devil. They commit terrible acts. At the end redemption comes to Robert in the form of suffering; he’s wracked by doubts, besieged by demons, shunned by all humans. He’s in hell. This can be seen as a critique of religion – or, rather, religious fanaticism. However, it goes on too long; my fascination turned to distaste. I wanted to be free of the craziness. Yet I persisted to the last dismal page. An ugly book, almost repulsive. Amen.

Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The author does her usual competent job. All the characters are interesting, though a bit fuzzy. It’s this fuzziness that makes the book no more than competent. Motivations don’t quite convince; relationships are a bit dubious; people’s actions are only partially accounted for. Not that they ring false; they just aren’t deep and grounded. The novel’s format is twofold: a journal in present time alternates with letters written by the journal writer in which she reconstruct a long-ago episode. But the author doesn’t provide insight into the emotional life of anyone, not even her journal writer. I can’t say that what Jhabvala does is a failure – this is an engrossing work. But the withholding that’s so prevalent kept me at arm’s length.

Stories by Frank O’Connor

A real stylist at work – working carefully, polishing until he has it just right. There’s even a distinct lilt and cadence to O’Connor’s writing. He explores the Irish sensibility (making it as exotic as a South Sea Islander’s, particularly in regard to the relationships between the sexes). The problem is that too many of these pieces are humorous glimpses of life; they’re brimming with local color but aren’t full-fledged stories. When there’s a solid plot and characters O’Connor can be wonderful. The best story is “Guests of the Nation,” in which he tells of a horrible act while making the inexorable proceedings seem friendly and light – until the end. Also outstanding are “The Majesty of the Law,” “The Luceys” and “My Oedipus Complex.” Some stories miss due to garrulity, a storyteller’s love of hearing himself go on to the point where he overdoes it. But this collection as a whole left me with a feeling of enjoyment, satisfaction and a fresh appreciation of the importance of style in writing.

Lolita: A Screenplay - Vladimir Nabokov

A dalliance. Strangely, I don’t recognize the Lolita in this one. Could I have missed the whole point of the novel? Kubrick never used this script, but I hope Nabokov got a nice paycheck.

The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass (German)
A great novel. Wholly original. The big scenes are almost always successful, often to an inordinate degree – they amaze (such as the mother eating fish till she dies; and the appalling episode which precedes that one, about the horse head and the eels). It’s also a confusing book, elusive in its specifics, but successfully imparting an emotional impression. It’s a dark look at life, at this world. Little Oskar is one of the most imposing characters in fiction – him and his drum. His self-centeredness, his cruelty, his vulnerability. I sense that this book is partly about sexual longing (as for great sex scenes, the ones between Oskar and Maria are near or at the top; in fact, it’s when I read those scenes that a feeling for Oskar swept over me). The prose is perfectly attuned to its character and subject – dense, heavy, perverse, powerful. *

Get Ready for Battle - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Jhabvala is an accurate analyzer of people. She places them in the context of their contradictions, which creates a nice tension. She writes true-to-life tragic-comedy. At the end, when Mala violently asserts herself to Vishnu, I felt the emotion. I felt how slippery Vishnu is, how difficult it will be to make a caring man out of him. But I felt there may be a chance. The person I was most involved with was Sarla Devi. She’s fated to pursue, in vain, the just path. Jhabvala closes the book with her wandering the red light district, still on her futile quest. *

Journey to the Land of the Flies - Aldo Buzzi (Italian)
Buzzi veers from one topic to another, or abandons a line of thought, or introduces a new subject out of the blue. The apparent carelessness has its charm in a book like this. The impression I get is of someone very learned, who values (and knows well) literature, food, the beauty of things (especially women). He shares his knowledge, much of it arcane, as he travels the world. You can take from this book what you will. For me, Buzzi served up a generous helping of pleasure. *

The Poor Mouth - Flann O’Brien (Gaelic)
Very funny, raucous and wild. O’Brien presents the Irish in a state of abject misery and attributes to them a plethora of lowly characteristics. He exaggerates in a deadpan way, but the reader knows that O’Brien is pulling our leg – pulling it very hard. Despite the wild exaggeration, this is not nonsensical. O’Brien, an Irishman to the core, is making a point akin to the one Swift made in “A Modest Proposal.” *

Esmond in India - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Wonderful entertainment. Many of the characters are self-deluded (though the author lets the reader reach that conclusion). Much of the book’s humor comes from this self-delusion, as people go about thinking they are one way when they’re not. There are other contradictions that are amusing, such as the love of material things and prestige in a society that purports to eschew these as merely transitory. The ending, which leaves most matters unresolved, works because the reader has a good idea of what will happen. This is a tribute to the author, and it again shows her faith in the reader. I’ve mentioned several times the humorous aspect of this novel, but like all good humor it’s close to the truth and close to tragedy. *

The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
McEwan’s terse description of the abduction of the child is just right, just enough; it has impact. Then he follows a muted Stephen through his pointless days, and that seems right too. The prose is muscular and engaging; McEwan’s a craftsman. But he makes two mistakes. The business about Charles regressing to boyhood was silly. The big ending comes off as false because it was clearly a setup. A scene earlier in the book, when Stephen and his wife make love, was there only to prepare for the finale. Why wouldn’t his wife contact him earlier about her pregnancy? Why the urgent phone call at the crucial moment? Why give birth far from medical care? Why? – because it led to the life-affirming scene that McEwan was after, that’s why. Authors manipulate the reader, but we should never see them moving the props around.

Blue Angel - Francine Prose
Some things worked initially – the humor, the running commentary by an interesting third person narrator. But the story veered onto a different track when S-E-X began to dominate. Suddenly the narrator was doing weird things, and I couldn’t fathom the reasons for his behavior. A sense of murkiness, of something nasty behind every corner of the mind became pervasive. I kept reading with interest, but the inexplicability of what was going on nagged, annoyingly. At the end Prose leaves everything unresolved. It amounts to abandonment, and what came to my mind was a teacher who throws up her hands and walks out of an unruly classroom; yet, in this case, Prose had created the chaos. Since I mentioned teachers, the book made me wonder about one thing: Do all professors have sex with their psychopathic students? It so often happens in novels written by professors.