I’ve been having a long-standing (too damn long!) problem finding novels that engage me. I can’t rely on the prize winners. For example, in the past five or so years I’ve started many books that have won prestigious awards and have not gotten far before deciding that they weren’t worth my continuing. I wander the stacks of the two libraries available to me and find a wasteland.

The end result is that I feel abandoned by fiction, something which has sustained me daily since I was twelve.

What to do?

I haven’t reread books that are included in the Most Meaningful Books list at this site. One reason is that I don’t want to be disappointed. If a book meant something to me when I was thirteen, or twenty-two, or thirty-six (etc.), shouldn’t I honor the taste of the person I was, the one who found it rewarding? Lastly, I realize that I was easier on books in the past. But a sourpuss decimation? No, that doesn’t appeal to me.

Still . . . I’m desperate for something good to read.

Which is why I turned to The Unbearable Bassington by Saki (H. H. Munro). I probably, as a guess, first read it sometime in my late twenties. How would it hold up?

It held up exceedingly well.

I’ll continue to delve into those old books (I own them all: I buy any book I find worthy of keeping in my library). But I’ll only turn to those I read prior to the time when I began writing reviews. (My first post was in 2008.) 

And I’ll write brief reviews of them (even if I have to be negative). 

I’ll designate these as “Re-reads.”

Re-reads

The Unbearable Bassington – Saki (H. H. Munro)

First, the prose. Smoothly elegant, unique, inventive. Many sentences employ an amusing or surprising twist. This could be tiresome — if it wasn’t embedded in the situation. Take this early example, describing Francesca Bassington: “Francesca herself, if pressed in an unguarded moment to describe her soul, would probably have described her drawing-room.” This sentence serves a purpose – it gives us a look, in a skewed way, at a central character’s personality. Her son, Comus, is unbearable because he devotes himself to his pleasures. While Francesca has money worries (she’s in danger of losing her precious house and its drawing room, along with her position in London society) he shows not the slightest inclination to seek gainful employment. Francesca’s only hope for him is that he marry a rich woman – and one is a prospect. But Comus doesn’t do what is needed to win Elaine’s hand – he’s too selfish, self-centered. The results are a tragedy for all three involved. The book, so light-handed for so long, becomes a tragedy. I consider this to be an unappreciated masterpiece.

The Cat’s Pajamas – Peter DeVries

What appealed to me about this book? It’s wildness, it’s absurdity? A man commits a faux pas on the first page and tries to make up for it; thus an inexorable descent begins. This professor of creative writing, happily married, winds up living in a shack with an idiot boy and an alcoholic dog and making a meager living selling bottles of fresh air door-to-door. It’s all weird, improbable. I never understood what was driving Hank Tattersall to act in a self-destructive way. Though, in losing all social respectability, he thinks of himself as happy, which may be part of his general self delusion. Anyway, the ending is so memorable that I started the book knowing what the last scene would be – I remembered how horrible it was. Yet it’s handled blithely (which, somehow, makes it worse). I think DeVries was engaging in blithe cruelty.

Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote

I was in my teens when I read this, so there were things about it that were strange – and fascinating. It was probably my first exposure to the Southern Gothic genre, with its cast of highly bizarre characters. Plus, the pervasive element of homosexuality would be new to me. I may also have been impressed by the extended flights of lyric prose. The last quality was less to my liking this time around; Capote was better when he was in a grounded mode. He was in that mode when writing about a young Black woman, Zoo (short for Missouri). She was the character I felt closest to, and her fate moved me. I also liked Joel, the thirteen-year-old main character, and I believed that his dreamworld experiences at The Landing, deep in the backwoods of Mississippi, would change his life. For a novel written by someone in his mid-twenties, this is a remarkable work. I recalled my younger self not understanding the ending; on this reading I still didn’t. Who is the figure in the window, the one Joel goes to? Randolph?

(End of this session of re-reads)

In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin
Well written, but for me a travel book needs a vital human presence at its center. Theroux did this in The Great Railway Bazaar – he was what the book was about, and I found him interesting. Chatwin reveals little about himself. He describes the characters he meets well enough, but they have little affect on him. Also, there’s a lot of filler – facts he researched and presents at length. At the halfway point I decided I didn’t care enough about Patagonia.

The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
The last third was disappointing. Up to then the book had been an atmospheric evocation of youth and budding womanhood in a delicately-rendered French setting. An expert job. Then Godden launched into the plot (which had been dormant) and things turned melodramatic and silly. Characters I liked I stopped liking. The final insult is the “ending” – actually, Godden just hurriedly wraps things up, leaving many important issues unresolved. Maybe she realized what a shambles her lovely novel had become.

A Woman of Means - Peter Taylor
A very good novella. It’s a psychological study of three people. The father is the weak link – he’s a wooden character. But the boy and his stepmother come across strongly. This is a complex work in which thoughts and motivations are explored in all their tangled and contradictory aspects. But it’s a tribute to Taylor’s exploration that, when the stepmother goes crazy, it’s startling and yet in keeping with all that preceded. We see the seeds of her mental disintegration in what went before (although we may not have recognized it). The novel is static – not much action takes place – but it was engrossing throughout.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
Holly Golightly is an interesting creation, and because of her this is a mildly diverting novella. Though it got a bit thin, even for its short length, and Capote resorted to makeshift plot twists to keep it going. I didn’t care to read the other stories, though I had previously read the last one, “A Christmas Memory.” Now there’s a gem!

The Invisible Player - Giuseppe Pontiggia (Italian)
A intellectual/emotional puzzle. It begins with an unsigned article in a scholarly journal on the etymology of the word “hypocrite.” The professor (that’s his only name) at the center of the book takes the article as a personal attack and begins a search for its author. Yet the search becomes unfocused, ambiguous. Odd characters (suspects) abound, the plot takes strange detours. All this is confusing but not quite frustrating, because the ideas on every page have vitality. The ending is both concrete (a character kills himself) and diffuse (there’s a “so what?” attitude to the death); we still know nothing. Pointlessness may be the point of this whole excursion, though for me the lack of something stunning, after all the complex buildup, was a letdown. Still, the book went into unchartered territory, and the trip was worth taking.

The Muses Are Heard - Truman Capote
Pleasant – no axes to grind, no character assassinations. Well-written – of course. An interesting look at the Communist Soviet Union. But no depth, so it was merely a diversion.

An Only Child - Frank O’Connor
This is not a successful autobiography. O’Connor is too emotionally reticent; he states feelings but is wary about showing them. His mother emerges fairly well, but O’Connor doesn’t. Minor characters come alive more fully than he does. This shadowy boy is not someone I cared about. The efforts at humor are creaky. When he grew into manhood (and the IRA) I had enough.

Therese - Francois Mauriac (French)
The book begins with Therese’s criminal case (poisoning her husband) being dismissed for lack of evidence. Yet she will never be free from that crime. Never, to the end of her sad life. This is a psychological study of what the author calls an “odious character.” Yet the “odious” Therese shares a common humanity with us all. Life, for her, is a struggle in which her terrible adversary is herself. There’s much here that’s true and incisive (but so unpleasant that it’s commonly swept out of sight). Yet the book has major faults. It’s so fixed on states of mind that it makes for laborious reading; a muddled and inconsistent plot doesn’t help. Also, the intensity sometimes moves into melodrama; Mauriac went full out when he should have pulled back. The final section is burdened by endless (it seems) people and events and complications. One complication – the young man becoming romantically involved with the aging Therese – rings false. Mauriac made bad choices. Still, parts of this book have the potency of a poison – like the arsenic Therese gave her husband.