Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (French)
A brutal novel. It gives off no moral light. Emma Bovary’s adulteries are its focus because they – the transitory intoxication of the senses – are the tawdry focus of her life. But unfaithfulness is merely one manifestation of her corrupt nature. She lies, she manipulates; her profligacy drags her husband and daughter into poverty. As for that daughter, Emma can barely tolerate Berthe’s presence. The novel is full of stifling dissatisfaction, cynicism, disillusionment, despair. The one aspect of Emma that makes her an object of pity is her suffering. She suffers, though not as a victim, and in her final imperious rejection of life there’s a heroic dimension. The characters around her are, in Flaubert’s eyes, merely humans – far from admirable. Pettiness, hypocrisy, selfishness, stupidity are on full display, and the greedy Lheureux attains the lofty status of evil. The one good character is Emma’s husband, Charles; on her deathbed she tells him “You are good,” but his goodness does not touch her; she’s making a cold statement of fact. Soon after her marriage she comes to loath him – a dull man, so mediocre. And such a dupe, ridiculously easy to deceive. Partly he’s a dupe because he deludes himself about Emma’s true nature. Emma lives with delusions too: her romantic and unattainable dreams of glamour and romance (which curdle into bitterness and resentment). At the end of the book Flaubert seems to revel in crushing Emma with hammer blow after hammer blow. Not only is she punished, the innocent suffer too. Charles’s cherished memories of Emma are shattered when he finds love letters from Rodolphe and Leon. Berthe – after her father’s death and in the wake of the financial ruin brought on by her mother – is sent to work in a cotton mill. There’s a perversity in Flaubert’s destructiveness. He wrote, famously, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” Could Emma embody all the pernicious and corrupt qualities he found in himself? And could his destruction of her be directed, masochistically, upon himself? At any rate, the novel he created is a work of art. It gives off no moral light, but we’re given a vision of life, and it smoulders. *

Fer-de-Lance - Rex Stout
The narrator of this mystery is Archie Goodwin, and he carries the reader along in his jaunty way. His boss, the redoubtable and massively eccentric Nero Wolfe, considers himself a genius, and I wouldn’t dispute that. Wolfe doesn’t waste words; what he says consistently cuts to the heart of a matter. He’s a private detective, so he uses his brilliant mind to solve crimes. The novel is no more than what it’s intended to be: a whodunit. This isn’t a genre that has much appeal for me; often I’m disappointed in the denouement. Here, too, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought I knew who the murderer was far before the end of the book. I was right, but the twist is how justice – Nero Wolfe’s form of justice, for he orchestrates it – is carried out. The Genius takes the role of God. I believe the punishment he doles out is fitting; but, as Archie points out, it also conveniently absolves the reclusive Wolfe from the odious task of leaving his apartment. “Indeed,” murmurs Wolfe.

Leah, New Hampshire - Thomas Williams
I read most of the stories in this collection many years ago, and three made a lasting impression: “Goose Pond,” “The Buck in Trotevale’s” and “Paranoia.” The last one is a stringing together of incidents that are menacing and violent; it’s strong stuff. There’s a lot of killing on these pages, in the form of hunting and fishing, but these are not outdoorsy tales. The killing of an animal is exactly that – a killing. Williams presents us with men who are drawn to kill, and though it fulfills a need they feel revulsion and remorse. They also have difficulty in understanding and dealing with women, who are often seen as dangerous and domineering. In “Voices” this issue is addressed directly. A man visits his dying mother in a nursing home; while there he makes phone calls to his wife. He realizes that the problems he has with both women stem from his relationship with his mother; his upbringing by this willful, selfish, outrageous woman has turned him into a man without courage. “Voices” succeeds in large part because of its understated approach. Williams, who is clearly the protagonist in these stories, too often succumbs to a pitfall of autobiographical fiction: he overdramatizes himself. Still, this collection is deserving of respect.

The Red and the Black - Stendhal (French)
I enjoyed the parts where the author looked at society and the church with unbridled contempt. Stendhal can dissect people with ruthless efficiency. I put up with the excesses of feelings – fainting, weeping, etc. – attributing it to a different culture, a different time. But, for a psychological study, what failed was the character of Jean Sorel. Stendhal was so cynical about motivations, so scathing toward hypocrisy, but at the close of the book he seems unable to see what a phony Sorel was. The ending is a series of unlikely, unmotivated, grossly overblown events.

The Hair of Harold Roux - Thomas Williams
I skimmed the last hundred pages. In the beginning I read with high hopes: a novel about a writer, concerned with the creative process, done by a real craftsman. The problem was preciousness. Williams can’t avoid Deep Thoughts. His protagonist is him, Williams, and he treats himself with hushed regard. Even faults are self-congratulatory ones (so dangerous to the ladies!). Don’t write an autobiographical novel if you think too highly of yourself; you’ll wind up looking ridiculous.

Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
It’s pleasant to enter Pym’s world. Her characters are engaging; there’s an ease in her unobtrusive prose; her plots are calm and sensible. She’s a master of understatement. The third person narrator, a plain spinster lady who is involved with the Church, has a penetrating and humorous eye. Pym mixes in worldly characters with ease. There are no hates being bandied about (although some characters suffer from Pym’s careful scrutiny). There’s a gentle acceptance of human foibles.

Ship of Fools - Katherine Anne Porter
A long novel, in very short sections separated by a skipped space. Porter includes a ship’s roster to help the reader keep the many characters straight. The individuals are varied, and I found them all to be complex, interesting and real. I’ve read criticism saying that most of the people are the same at the end of the voyage as they were at the beginning. This didn’t bother me one bit, for Porter’s view of humanity includes just such a static picture: miserable souls will never be freed from their particular forms of misery. Porter is very good with evil; Rick and Rack are frightening in their innate amorality. She also examines prejudice (the novel takes place just before WWII). Another thing critics objected to was her unflattering portrayal of the one Jew on the ship; yet should he be pure when so many others aren’t? Her prose is worthy of study; it combines the best of the elaborate and the simple. Also, the dog, Bebe, is wonderful. *