The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Hello blog readers! Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. I actually went a few weeks without reading a book, which is odd for me. But I’m back!

Today’s question is, when a book has been critically acclaimed from coast to coast, need I add my voice to the clamor? When even Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, that famed eviscerator of authors, has sung a book’s praises, what more is there for me to say here? That I disagree? I tried that recently with West of Here, when for a long time I was the only one standing on my lonely little platform here at Blogspot saying “wait a minute, didn’t anyone notice…?” What’s that advertising slogan that used to say “it’s lonely at the top?” Well, it’s lonely at the bottom too, out here by myself in cyberspace.

The book to which I am referring that has critics goggling is The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht, who is twenty-five years old (damn her!) and the youngest writer chosen for last year’s New Yorker “20 under 40” group of fiction writers (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/20-under-40/writers-q-and-a). The story is set in the war-torn Balkans, weaving folklore and myth into a central contemporary tale of a young doctor searching for the mysterious reason for her grandfather’s death. (And yes, tigers are very popular these days, but I am talking about the tiger’s wife here, not the tiger mom!)

This week I discussed this book with my “Hot Off the Press” book discussion class. Overall, we’re not actually that far off what the critics are saying. We really do think the author is phenomenally talented, and many of us admired the writer’s writing style and storytelling abilities. But prominent raves notwithstanding, we did have some problems to point out in this book. The author weaves back and forth a lot in time, and some of us, myself included, found this confusing at points. And I usually enjoy this technique. The complicated plot of The Time Traveler’s Wife thrilled me and I loved putting the pieces in chronological order. I especially enjoyed putting pieces together in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad, which is a terrific book. But in The Tiger’s Wife I often found the switches in time disorienting.

I think the author has a wonderful ability to create quick and colorful character sketches in the folklore/historical sections of the book, as when she gave us the stories of Luka the butcher, Darisa the bear, and the Apothecary. Given this ability, I wondered why her central character, Natalia, the doctor who searches for the missing pieces of her grandfather’s story while she tends to war orphans, is so flat. Natalia is admirable as a character and her observations are insightful, but as for personality and emotion, my readers and I found her lacking. And while we do get some sense of Natalia’s grandmother, Natalia’s mother, although she is referred to numerous times, is not developed at all as a character.

One brilliant aspect of this book is how it is a war story that never mentions war. By giving us war’s shadow, the life that happens or has been obliterated in the unseen spaces war leaves behind, we are left with a clear sense of the toll war has taken on this part of the world.

I expect more beautiful work from this author in the future, and expect her to grow in skill. In this instance, however, while she has turned out a significant work of fiction, I wish she had gone back to the drawing board one more time. I believe I read that she said she worked on the novel for three years, and in the life of a twenty-five year-old, that’s a lot of years, but a bit more reworking might have addressed the book’s flaws. David Wroblewski worked on The Story of Edgar Sawtelle for fifteen years. The difference in literary polish and command shows.

And so, to get back to my initial question, which was whether the [literary] world needs yet another critic? Well, hopefully I’ve added some thoughtful and even useful comments to the mix. If I can say something interesting or unique, raise a good point, even make you smile, sure, why not?

The Thinking Mom

One of the book discussion classes I run is called the Mom Salon, where we read and discuss books having to do with various aspects of mothering (which means, gentlemen, watch out, because you know we’re talking about you!).

This week’s Mom Salon selection was Mothers Who Think, a collection of essays from the Salon.com column of the same name. The column was started in 1997 in response to the editors’ feeling that: “the complicated range of dramas and emotions that really defines motherhood” wasn’t being probed, and they say these writings are “an antidote to the saccharine, oversimplified literature of motherhood.”

I think it’s true that there’s still something of a conception out there that motherhood is supposed to be all bliss and reward, and that we’re not supposed to admit to the times when we feel cranky or angry or we’d like a brief vacation from the job. The book analyzes this from many different directions in a smart, thoughtful way.

There’s Anne Lamott, whose writing I love, talking about how we could never get away with talking to adults the way we address our children. She writes: “Can you imagine hissing at your partner, ‘You get off the phone now! No, not in five minutes…’? Or saying to a friend, ‘You get over here this second!’. . .

There’s a beautiful essay by local (Philadelphia) author Beth Kephart about her son falling in love with soccer at age 8. One of my favorite essays is by Erin Aubry about her parents’ New Orleans heritage and how it played a big part in her upbringing in LA, especially through her mother’s cooking. The book is filled with good writing and funny and powerful stories about mothers good and bad, successful and suffering.

I really like what one reader wrote to the editors: “Thanks for reminding me that I’m a woman who is also a mother, not a mother who is also a woman.” I forget this sometimes, and it’s nice to be reminded!

p.s. Moms, if you want me to start a Mom Salon for your friends, just send me a FB message!

And the winner is…

Ugh, too long since I’ve been involved in a novel. Missing that happy feeling of being immersed in a good book! Have decided upon First Light by Charles Baxter. I keep hearing he’s such a good writer, and this book has been recommended several places.

In the meantime, I’ve also been percolating on ideas for a new book for myself to write. Not a novel – yet. Still too intimidated by that. I’ll stick with what I know, non-fiction, for the time being. Not quite ready to tell you what ideas I’m considering, but for one idea I have I’m envisioning a small trim-size hardcover, the sort of book you give as a graduation gift. I see it as being illustrated with tiny delicate and expressive watercolors of various scenes. I thought about it for a while, and then realized what I was thinking of was the work of Elisha Cooper.

I discovered Cooper through his first book, A Year in New York. It is also one of those lovely tiny hardcovers chronicling the year he spent in New York City working as a messenger for The New Yorker and doing watercolor sketches of scenes he saw all around the city, from Zabar’s and Central Park to Coney Island to markets and subways and tiny neighborhood scenes. I just took out my old copy and have been happily leafing through the pages and admiring his art.

Looked him up on Amazon, and it looks like he’s been quite busy since this book came out in 1995, writing children’s books and a book on fatherhood. You can always tell what authors are doing in their lives by the books they write! But this older book is worth a look –it’s a gem!

So Much for That!

I’ve been stuck lately choosing my next book, and haven’t read anything all week! I kind of did myself in by amassing a huge pile of potential next reads. They all look so good, I just don’t know where to start!

Many of the books in the pile are galleys of books I’ve chosen for my next book discussion class, “Hot Off the Press.” You can see these books in the nifty display to the right that my husband made for me with an Amazon widget. I’ll be reading all of those quite soon!

There are also a whole bunch I picked up from the library, including the new novel from Lionel Shriver, So Much for That. I like Lionel Shriver – I really enjoyed and recommend her book The Post-Birthday World. It’s a kind of “Sliding Doors” approach (great movie from 1998 with Gwyneth Paltrow) where the main character, in alternating chapters, lives out two alternative realities that could occur based on choice she makes one night (at dinner, handsome dinner companion, boyfriend out of town, lots of wine – you can imagine what that choice was to be made).

So I read the first 61 pages (3 chapters) of Shriver’s new novel. I do like it so far, and yet I don’t think I’m going to continue right now. The story in large part hinges on an almost-fifty year old woman’s discovery that she has a rare and advanced type of cancer, and the affect this has on her relationship with her husband, from whose point of view her story is told. So far, lots (lots!) of clinical detail about her medical condition, and even about health insurance plans (to the point where I wondered if there was a political message here). I’m starting to feel that I’m not really emotionally ready to spend 430 some pages with a woman around my age going through this. I’ll wait on this one.

And so, my next selection will be…

Hurrah for the New York Times!

In my recent posts (below) about Jonathan Evison's new book West of Here, I commented on how I seemed to be out of step with popular critical opinion. The book was receiving rave after rave, while I seemed to be the lone dissenter, lamenting the book's overambitious scope and plethora of stereotyped characters. One of my students who read the book in my class even wrote to me and said "did they read the same book we did?" I was beginning to wonder if perhaps our manuscripts had indeed been switched at birth, until today's review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review came out. The people shopping at Trader Joe's must have wondered why I was sitting in my car, reading and yelping, but I couldn't help but shout for joy when I read Mike Peed's review. I feel vindicated at last!
Read for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/books/review/Peed-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=west%20of%20here%20book%20review&st=cse

The Bird House by Kelly Simmons

Last week I went to hear local author Kelly Simmons read from her new book The Bird House. I really like Kelly’s first book, Standing Still, and Kelly herself is smart, funny, and terrific to listen to. I enjoyed hearing her read from the book. I always like hearing an author’s words in their own voice. I feel like it adds to my appreciation of the work. I’ll never forget the first time I experienced this. It was in college, and I had been busily discovering and reading Margaret Atwood in my frenzy of feminist lit crit, loving early complex works like Surfacing and The Edible Woman, when she came to campus. She stood at the lectern in front of a large crowd in a big high-ceilinged room in College Hall, opened her mouth and began to read. I remember being stunned, thinking, at first, but that’s not how the book sounds, realizing I had created my own sound for it in my own head as I read it. But then I realized, it’s her book, and that’s her voice, and that’s how she wants it to sound. I was enchanted.

I even like hearing authors read when I don’t understand what they’re saying, like when I heard Eduardo Galeano read in Spanish (in NY at the 92nd St. Y). It’s beautiful when authors bring their understanding and their meaning and emphasis to words that they put down on the page. An author can’t control how a reader interprets their work – once it’s left their hands it’s free to be understood in any way—but in reading, they can control how it sounds.

After Kelly read she answered questions and talked about some interesting things. Here are some random notes:

1. Writers she admires: Ann Beattie and John Irving;
2. Her story is based on a writing assignment her daughter received years ago that been percolating in her head ever since. Her daughter had to interview a relative and Kelly thought, “Uh, oh, that could spell trouble. What if a family secret came out while the child was interviewing a grandparent?” And hence the genesis of this new book;
3. She often writes, and “wastes,” a 150 pages before figuring out a story;
4. She wrote 8 novels in the last 15 years. This is only the 2nd one being published. She figures those others will probably continue living in a drawer or hard drive;
5. Her writing came about as a result of her work in advertising. She wanted to do some creative work that “didn’t have other people’s fingerprints on it. Love that!
6. When asked what distinguishes a Kelly Simmons book, she and the audience came up with the following: the central voice is a raw essential angry female voice; she plays with time; she has an unreliable narrator.

Thanks for a great Q&A and a great new book, Kelly!

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang

I first learned about this book while browsing through the publisher’s catalogue (W. W. Norton & Company). Reading the description, it sounded like the kind of literary book that appeals to me. As described in the publisher’s catalogue, two of the central questions of the book are “What is the hidden burden of early promise?” and “What are the personal costs of a life devoted to the pursuit of art?” Both of these are questions I find to be very intriguing, so when I saw a copy of the book in the library I grabbed it.

The book tells the story of a writer, specifically a poet, named Roman Morris. In the beginning of the book, Roman, age 28, has given up his high-paying job in Boston in investment banking or something like that to move to this unnamed but presumably Midwestern college town to attend a prestigious writing program at a school which in the book is simply called the School. There he comes to know their hot-shot poet faculty member, who happens to be a beautiful and cryptic 46-year old female poet named Miranda.

Knowing that the author, Lan Samantha Chang, is Director of the Iowa Writers Workshop, which is the most prestigious MFA in the country, I was on the lookout for insider-y morsels in this book. Is the poet/teacher Miranda Sturgis, for example, modeled on someone we might know? Are the students, or types of students, represented in the book, reflective of the student body at Iowa? How about Roman’s relationship with Miranda? Based on an actual incident? Perhaps even the author’s own? Alas, being a total I0wa outsider, I’ll have to leave these gossipy ruminations to some better-informed reviewer.

I did notice, however, that Chang does address the contentious “can writing be taught?” question. I’ve never attended an MFA program, but I run a Master of Arts program in publishing (at Rosemont College--more info see: http://www.rosemont.edu/gp/publishing/index.aspx), and I work very closely with an affiliated MFA program, so I know something about how MFAs work. I’m aware of how MFA programs in Creative Writing have proliferated over the last decade or so (as written about by Edward J. Delaney in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/08/where-great-writers-are-made/6032/). I also know that one of the most frequently-asked questions about these programs is: “Can good writing be taught?”

In looking back on his graduate school experience and comparing it to his now-current position as a professor, Roman reflects:

“Nowadays, Roman thought, the students expected not only to be noticed, but that their work—however absent the vision, however awkward the execution—be discussed with the assumption that the goals were far-reaching and accomplishment inevitable. Moreover they felt that they were owed these services, as their professors’ end of an official transaction. Many believed that writing could be ‘taught’ by the dissemination of ‘craft,’ and that anyone with the smallest speck of ability or desire was entitled to this dissemination. . . . One could write with utter mediocrity, but one had the same right to be treated as if greatness, or at the very least, publication, were imminent.” (pp. 146-7)

Somewhat bitter thoughts from the mind of our main character, thoughts that certainly reflect feelings of real writers and teachers and make it clear if not where the author stands, at least what position fictional representative takes on this issue—good writing? Either ya got it or ya don’t.

Late in the book, while thinking over a recent encounter with an ex-classmate who once hated him, we have this from Roman: “He knew, with a finality that crept upon him as imperceptibly as breathing, that he himself, in some undefinable moment, had passed that turning point when regret had overtaken expectation.” (p. 191) Having also reached a point in my life where certain expectations must be sacrificed, literary moments such as these speak to me. To me, this moment Chang describes is a sad one, for regret is a heavy load. But more than just how this moment speaks to me personally, I also think in some ways it defines an important theme of this book.

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost is a book that follows the trajectory of a poet, or simply, of a character, from the moment he first begins to attempt following his life’s dream, through the years that follow, leaving the reader to watch the inevitable ups and downs, judgments, actions, errors, and consequences that ensue, and ultimately to judge the character as he judges himself. Some readers will doubtless be more sympathetic than others (and than I) to Roman and his choices and actions toward his teacher Miranda, his wife Lucy, his friend Bernard, and his son, Avery.

A book about poets needs, I think, to convey a poetic use and appreciation of language, and this book does – the novel is replete with sentences that sound like they dropped out of a poem. This literary decorativeness, however, along with a third-person voice that is spare and concise, kept me from getting too involved with the characters’ lives and made me watch and care about them only from afar. I never came to feel emotionally invested in the book.