Ending the Reading Slump of Fall 2010

Reading slumps are never fun, and mine, which has lasted for a month or so, depending on how you count, has been doubly enervating because it’s covered a series of Russian and English books that didn’t inspire me much. Even the bright spots – Vladimir Voinovich’s Moscow 2042 and Theodore Odrach’s Wave of Terror – have asterisks. The funny Moscow 2042 (which I wrote about on my other blog) is a reread so hardly qualifies as a discovery, and Wave of Terror (see below), though intriguing, is an unfinished book.

I’m hoping the last book in my English-language slowdown was Douglas Kennedy’s The Pursuit of Happiness, a love story set in New York after World War 2. When I say “love story,” I mean “love story”: this is 572 pages of loving, losing, and forgiving. Basic plot: Sara Smythe, a WASPy Bryn Mawr grad enjoys a passionate night with Jack Malone, a Catholic guy from Brooklyn. It’s only one night because Malone, who’s in the service, is sailing for Europe the next morning. We know they’ll get back together… but in the meantime, Sara’s time spent with her brother Eric, a comedy writer and former communist, was more interesting to read about than her scenes with Jack.

Eric’s former political leanings lead to difficulties during the McCarthy era and give the book a center of gravity but Pursuit still felt, to quote an Amazon review from G. Johnson “friendlygal,” like “escapist reading rather than literature.” I agree with that, and I agree with her assessment that the book is repetitive: physical and psychological action is fairly limited for 500-plus pages but there is copious [read: often extraneous] atmospheric detail of ‘40s and ‘50s New York. Worse, the plot’s dependence on OB/GYN crises (which I had a knack for predicting) wore on me and the characters felt undeveloped enough that I never grasped Sara’s attraction to Jack.

I don’t mean to sound grumpy, particularly because the book read easily and I did finish it: it had enough spirit of its time to keep me going, and I thought Kennedy handled many of the McCarthyism and HUAC situations fairly well. My bookseller told me The Pursuit of Happiness sold big in France, and I’m sure its portrayal of post-war mores and panoramic view of New York are factors. In a talk at the bookstore, Kennedy also mentioned parallels between HUAC and France’s war-time collaboration as a reason the book was successful in France. Though The Pursuit of Happiness falls into the “this just isn’t my book” category, I’d recommend it to readers looking for a period romance with some serious history. Clear language may make Pursuit appealing to ESL readers.

Theodore Odrach’s Wave of Terror, translated from the Ukrainian (Voshchad) by the author’s daughter, Erma, also looks at political changes, informants, and mistrust, but on a much larger scale. Wave of Terror is a curious unfinished novel about Ivan Kulik, a school principal in the Pinsk Marshes in 1939, the end of the height of the Stalin-era Great Terror. The novel covers lots of political and cultural territory as Kulik observes boorish local bureaucrats, falls for a co-worker’s lovely cousin, and tries to hold his life together despite the terror around and, increasingly, inside him. I thought the book’s touches of absurdity, such as uneducated educators and ridiculous language policies, were particularly apt because they reflect the times.

Erma Odrach (who is a friend on Goodreads) writes in her translator’s note that her father’s manuscript and drafts included “countless corrections and revisions in the margins.” Erma says she incorporated them into the translation, “to provide a broader and more comprehensive representation of his work.” Though Wave of Terror feels a little bumpy – which is to be expected with any unfinished novel – I think Erma’s handling of the material works. Perhaps that’s because the time itself was such a work in progress and thinking people, like Kulik, felt so physically and psychically unsettled. In any case, I came away from Wave of Terror with the feeling that I’d like to read more of Odrach’s work.

Up next: Maybe Matt Haig’s The Radleys? I’m scanning my stacks for a humorous book and am a sucker for a vampire story, though don’t think I’ve read one in years… other than the first half of Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch.

Photo of HUAC hearing (1947) from user Ted Wilkes, via Wikipedia.

Why Everything Matters!

Ron Currie, Jr.’s, Everything Matters! is the first old-fashioned “you’ll-laugh-you’ll-cry” book I’ve read in a long time. What could be more laughable or more cryable than a novel about the absurdity of the human condition, tricked out to fit Junior Thibodeau? Junior is born hearing a God-like voice that lets him in on all sorts of secrets, like the ultimate demise of Earth as we know it, by comet, about 36 years after his birth. Oh, heavy burden.

The wonder of Everything Matters! is that Currie makes the story, which includes mini-apocalypses, both fun and believable by letting his characters – including the slightly officious nearly omnipotent voice that informs Junior of everyone’s destruction – narrate the novel. The book’s polyphony shows how well Currie hears voices, too. Junior speaks about coping (or not) with his knowledge. Junior’s girlfriend, Amy, talks about Junior. My favorite narrator is Junior’s older brother, a superlative baseball player whose childhood cocaine addiction causes brain damage; the transcripts of his answers to his badgering therapist’s questions demonstrate his loyalty to his brother. Junior’s father, a laconic Mainer, talks about Vietnam, his family, and working in a bakery.

Currie uses plot details to connect their narrations, giving the novel a sense of continuity. Even more impressive, Currie infuses the title message with surprising freshness and emotion by showing how much Junior and his family care about each other, despite (or because of?) their difficulties. Though the book’s message sounds simplistic, Currie piles up moments, memories, and actions to create Junior’s personal microcosm of the “everything” in the title, without letting the novel feel too magpie-ish or cute. He even gives cameo appearances to real people, notably Ted Willams and Maine senator Olympia Snowe.

I think Everything Matters! works because the book feels so sincere and even traditional. Currie shows fantastic patience and balance: there’s plenty of alienation but he accentuates the positive sides of relationships instead of estrangement, and a twist toward the end says loads about the choices we make and our perceptions of the lives we live. The novel also has an authenticity I appreciate. Currie, a native Mainer, works in details of Maine life that show grittiness and dignity without letting the Thibodeau family’s problems descend into depressing naturalism or annoying quirkiness. Despite the prophesy, alcoholism, cocaine, and lack of money.

Currie’s work in progress, from which he read a few weeks ago at Longfellow Books in Portland, also seems to demonstrate an ability to balance interesting form with an emotional, very human story. I can’t wait to read it. (But please! Take your time, Ron!) I probably have a couple years to check out Currie’s debut book, God Is Dead, a collection of stories that won the Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library. Everything Matters! won a 2010 Alex Award from the American Library Association and is being translated into many languages.

I’ve limited details in this post not because of a grand quest for blandness but because I was glad I didn’t know too much about Everything Matters! before I read it. If you want to read a very positive review and don’t mind knowing more, here’s Janet Maslin’s review from The New York Times. I think it qualifies as a rave.

Up next: Akira Yoshimura’s spare Shipwrecks and Daphne Kalotay’s Russian Winter.

Most intriguing review of the week: Murray Bail’s The Pages, here, in The New York Times Book Review. I enjoyed Bail’s Eucalyptus years ago and am interested in this take on Australia and philosophy.