Everything Beautiful Began After

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book had two rare distinctions for me: 1. only fiction book in which I highlighted lots passages that really struck me; 2. only book I have disliked in the middle only to find out that all the uncomfortable stuff was necessary to a good ending.
The book begins a little like a French novel, or Truffaut film. The middle sections dive into post modern 2nd person narrative, with lots of images of typewritten correspondence (it was this section that I found jarring and uncomfortable).
I was not surprised when I learned that Simon Van Booy is also the author of several philosophy books. This novel was an exploration of what it means to live- not just to survive, but to love, grow, and thrive. When the author states his thesis, he is often forced to use words that ring hollow to me: destiny, fate, God, meaning. Then he uses the characters he has breathed to life to play out the thesis, with beautiful attention to the detail of their experience. Those characters, those details, really spoke to me.
My biggest complaint would be that the narrative suggests that there is some endpoint, some place of completion in which characters have grown into their full potential. For narrative purposes there is something harmonious and satisfying at having that endpoint. But I suspect that the philosophical thesis would be more correct admitting that no person, no character, is ever truly finished.



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Jennifer Egan takes Pulitzer prize | Books | guardian.co.uk

via guardian.co.uk

For the second year in a row my favorite book I'd read in recent months won the Pulitzer. This year was Jennifer Egan's "A Visit from the Goon Squad." Last year was "Tinkers" by Paul Harding.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan- best book I've read so far in 2011

via amazon.com

I love the way the characters' lives intersect and intertwine without ever really connecting. The writing style translates detailed, direct experience into clear prose. Though there is no through narrative, the constant reappearance of characters we met before in new contexts keeps things interesting.

Tinkers

On the rare occasions that Paul Harding tries to state in plain language the theme of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers, the sentences become complex, requiring the reader to wade through parentheses and vague pronouns to grasp at its elusive meaning.  Fortunately Harding has lots of other methods in his literary toolkit to help us understand what he is saying: metaphor, motif, character, description, mythology, plot.  His use of language as he employs these tools is mesmerizing.

Tinkers doesn't question the meaning of life; it asks, what is life and how does life feel?  The novel addresses how we experience our existence as human beings: how we perceive life in our own skin, how we sense a link to something greater than ourselves, and how we relate to that link.  It is a novel of direct experience, beautifully written so that the reader shares the experiences of the characters in a very visceral way.

In one of my favorite passages of the book, one of Harding's characters describes how the blind eat:

"That's how the blind know where the food is on their plates, like a clock, ham at six-thirty! biscuit at four! just like that, that's how Helen Keller did it, I bet, just like that, potatoes at high noon!"

Not only does this passage tie in with the clockwork motif that runs throughout the book, its chatty text defines the heart of the novel.  We all come into the world blind, told by religion, local culture, and the experience of those who come before us, to expect ham at six-thirty, biscuit at four.  The father and son protagonists of Tinkers are blind men engaged in direct experience of life.  They rely on no road maps, assumptions, or conventions.  Not only don't they know where the ham is on the plate, they aren't taking anyone's word on what ham is.  Their knowledge of ham comes from their groping contact with it- the smell, the slippery grease on their fingers, the salty taste, the resistance of the meat on their teeth.

For me this rendering of direct experience makes Tinkers more than worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded in April.  Literature is a rendering through the art of language of how we experience the human condition.  Solid grounding in the reality of our condition is the ironic ignition to transcendence, allowing us to touch something ethereal and magical that defines new planes of reality.

Tinkers is ranked #13 in Amazon's print literary category, and ranks #228 on the Kindle best seller list.

Sag Harbor: Not Really A Novel

Sag Harbor: A Novel seemed an appropriate read for my first summer outside the city in a long time. I've always felt a special magic generated in seasonal communities, where residents own summer homes, come together for the beach days and the barbecues, then drift back to their fall-winter-spring residences and lives. Colson Whitehead did not disappoint in his ability to capture that summer vacation atmosphere, to invoke family life in the 80's, or to paint the bitter-sweetness of coming-of-age. What he did fail to do was write a novel.

I was about two-thirds of the way through the book when I turned back to the cover, in a moment of doubt, to discover that I was not reading Whitehead's memoir, but something he called a novel. I don't have any problem with the fact that Whitehead drew heavily from his own life experience when writing Sag Harbor. But to define the book as a novel, it would have to have a plot.

At the beginning of Sag Harbor, Whitehead hinted at some possible themes: there was the promising idea of duality (disidentification with his "false twin" brother, the duality of his summer life vs. his winter life, finding his place both in his racial community and in white-dominated private Manhattan schools). Unfortunately this duality theme fell away and was not revisited at the end of the novel. Whitehead brought up the coming-of-age theme and the meaning of family theme more consistently throughout the book- but all these themes, like the story line, meandered through the narrative, blending time, place, and situation in much the same way an elderly reminiscer wanders through his cannon of favorite memories- with no regard to dramatic effect or chronology.

I don't mean to sound too harsh about Sag Harbor. It was a pleasant read with a good sense of humor, had memorable and interesting characters, contained beautiful descriptive passages, showed a great command of the language, and created that nice, summer vacation ambiance I was seeking. But it falls into the "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be ok" mainstream fiction category (although the plot of Sag Harbor was far less coherent than that of The Song Is You). I prefer a lot more drama in something advertised as a novel. I want to be addicted to my current read, anxious to find out what happens next.

On Amazon Sag Harbor is #1,595 in Books and is #1,094 in the Kindle store.

The Song Is You: Enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay

There's nothing wrong with Arthur Phillip's The Song is You. It was #11 on Amazon's Best Books of the Month for April 2009, and it received high praise from The New York Times. The book ranks #936 in Amazon's bestselling books, and is #612 in the Kindle store. Obviously people read the book and like it. I read the book, and didn't dislike it. Phillip writes well, the novel's setting celebrates technology as part of our daily experience, and the story centers around music- one of my life-long passions. But I felt no passion for The Song Is You. My first indication that my interest in the story was only lukewarm, was the unusually long time it took me to read the book. I needed about two weeks to get through 272 pages of The Song Is You, while I read all 608 pages of New Moon in three days.

Certainly some of the speed difference can be accounted for by the different processing speed needed to appreciate Phillip's beautiful prose. But the real reason it took me so long to read The Song Is You was that, about a quarter of the way through the story, I already knew how the book would end. How did I know? Well, it all comes down to Phillip's protagonist.

Arthur Phillips knows how to write very interesting and engaging characters. The protagonist's brother made me laugh every time he entered a scene. His would-be girlfriend was quirky, obsessive, and extremely interesting. The protagonist's alter-ego (the ex-musician/artist) always stirred up the story. But the protagonist, whose life history the reader learned in touching, intimate detail, was a very, very boring guy. Not only that, the protagonist was unsure of what he wanted, and as a result his attempts to make things happen in the story were half-hearted and lukewarm, much like my attachment to the book.

The Song Is You is a story meant to say: "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay." I used to avoid reading mainstream literature, thinking this was always the message. However, I've come to enjoy many mainstream and literary authors (T.C. Boyle, David Wroblewski, Garrison Keillor, William Trevor, John Updike) who know how to write protagonists with unreasonable desires that they will fulfill at any cost. I've decided that "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay" is just one genre out of many under the umbrella of mainstream and literary fiction. I'll bet "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay" is a genre that's nice to read slowly, before bed, with the nightstand lamp lit. There's nothing wrong with the genre, it's just not my cup of tea.

Liberty: A Lake Wobegone Novel

Having been raised in the Midwest by a Lutheran family, I've always found that Garrison Keillor's tales of his created Lutheran town, Lake Wobegone, can really get under my skin and tickle. Keillor is willing to point out the contradictions and faults of his characters with gentle affection and, of course, humor. I also enjoy Keillor's skill in world building. Lake Wobegone is a town whose geography, history, and population are consistent, and become pleasantly familiar the more stories I hear. I was thrilled to learn that the protagonist of Liberty bought his house from the woman who had a giant snake living under her porch. I remember listening to her story on the radio, years ago. This kind of self-referential history makes Lake Wobegone feel convincingly real.

It has been some time since I listened to Keillor's "News From Lake Wobegon." I remember the Lake Wobegon stories as something I could sit down and listen to with a parent or grandparent- funny family entertainment I would not hesitate to leave playing if a kid came into the room. So when I began the audiobook of Keillor's most recent Lake Wobegon novel (hearing Keillor narrate is half the fun), I was shocked to discover that Lake Wobegon had become a darker, more adult town. Lutherans meet up online to talk dirty, and adultery is not only central to the plot, but described in anatomical detail.

Once the blood drained back out of my cheeks, and I got over the surprise of hearing Garrison Keillor read: "my nipples are getting hard for some reason," I really began to appreciate this modern-day, grown-up Lake Wobegone. There is an endearing honesty to Keillor's portrayal of his characters. Yes, they now cheat on their husbands and wives, vie for air time on CNN, and have DNA tests done to determine their heredity- but they also make mounds of potato salad, bake rhubarb pie, and march an ocarina band in the Fourth of July parade.

In Liberty, Keillor asks, what happens to small town folk who never leave the place where they were born? Their geographical situation may never change, but time still passes, the Internet and the television connect them to a larger world. Something in their individual character and social structure must shift, and Keillor paints this shift with the small details and little stories that make up our lives.

I was also extremely impressed by how Keillor treated the theme of his book. Liberty is the title of the novel, and key to the libertarian character of the protagonist. Liberty is the setting of the novel (A Fourth of July parade), and the conflict (will the protagonist ever get free of Lake Wobegone?). Miss Liberty also plays a crucial role in the story. I have rarely read a book so tightly and delightfully tied to one central concept- in this case, liberty.

Liberty ranks around #22,300 in Kindle books. On Amazon the hardcover is selling at about #153,300.

The Women

Growing up in the Midwest, the highlight of our third grade school year was a trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin. We traveled hours by bus to tour the dwarven homes of Welsh miners and eat delicious pasties. We also took a tour of Taliesin, the home and studio of architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Little did I imagine, on that third grade tour, that Taliesin and its beautiful organic architecture had a history of scandal and brutal murder.

Appropriate to its subject of a great architect, The Women has a beautiful and unusual structure. The novel is divided into three sections, each describing the residence of Frank and one of his wives/mistresses at Taliesin. The reader encounters these sections in reverse historical order, first learning the tale of Olgiavanna, the woman of Wright's senior years, then moving back in time to learn of Miriam's reign at Taliesin, then going back to when Wright bought the property for, designed, and built Taliesin for its first mistress, Mamhah. The effect of the backwards storytelling is to form a portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright using negative space, defining the man through the progression of his love interests. As in an epic poem or tragic opera, the reader knows most of the plot before it unfolds. The interest isn't so much in what will happen next, as it is how it will take place, and why.

As I neared the end of the first section (Olgiavanna's section), I was eager to read the second (Miriam's) section, to learn what Wright could have done to twist Miriam so, to make her into the monster of their older age. Yet the first paragraph of Miriam's section, written at a time when Miriam and Frank had not yet met, makes it clear that Miriam was twisted from the very start. Her relationship with Wright did not change her even a little bit- for better or worse. So the question then became, what could have happened to Wright to bring him to a point where Miriam seemed a fit companion? And this question drew me into the third section.

In an interview with the New York Times, Boyle discusses why he was drawn to Frank Lloyd Wright (Boyle lives in Wright's first Californian house) and why he is drawn to similar historical figures. Boyle discusses the magnetism of men such as Wright, the way they draw a community of people around them, and the way they draft their own utopias founded on personal ideals. Taliesin, the builders, apprentice architects, house staff, and the women and family Wright gathered to his home, created just such a little utopia. The ideal upon which Wright founded the Taliesin community was this: that convention was for small men, with small minds, and that great men with great minds required a different set of rules, especially in the realm of love and marriage (and also in debt repayment). Throughout the book, Boyle seems to question this ideal, showing that not even Wright's beautiful retreat, or convenient way of ignoring abandoned wives and creditors, could shield him from the consequences of shedding convention.

My only (small) disappointment was with the end of the book, in which the deep probing of this question ceases, abruptly, and the focus of the novel shifts to tell the shocking and gruesome story of the murders at Taliesin. Boyle does give the murderer the motive of his conventional views of women and marriage clashing with the free love ideas of Taliesin. But the murderer is clearly insane, his violence not a consequence of differing world views, but of personal mental imbalance. The murders at Taliesin do not read like justice, or moral consequence, but as brutal and almost random acts of violence. Boyle's decision to end with the murders makes sense- they are the most sensational and exciting events in Wright's life story. And it could be argued that the ending paints the consequence of living in a closed, Utopian community, flaunting the rules of convention. But for me the sheer brutality and personal emotional imbalance of the murderer erases all sense, lets the important and difficult question of the book slide, and instead of concluding the discussion, abandons it to shock and horror.

Regardless, The Women was a pleasure to read. Boyle raised very poignant questions about men of greatness, and about what makes them large, and what makes them small. I had a fantastic time learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright and the home and studio I toured as a child. And I was thrilled by the way in which Boyle chose to write his story. His previous book, Talk Talk, used reference to explore the theme of communication. The Women used structure as its primary narrative device because it was a story about grand ideas, and the difficult reality of bringing those ideas into the world through structure. It is very exciting to follow a writer who has the skill set and flexibility to use the just the right tool to tell each new story.

The Women ranks #539 in Amazon's bestselling paper books, and #422 in Kindle books.

The Dressmaker's Child

For the second post in a row I'll be discussing a knighted author. Previously I wrote about Englishman, (Sir) Terry Pratchett, and his first Discworld book. Today I'll be discussing a haunting short story by the Irish (Sir) William Trevor.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a country where authors were knighted for service to literature...

Far from the glory of knighthood, "The Dressmaker's Child" is a story about ordinary folks . It is, in fact, the very ordinariness of Trevor's characters that makes the story so honest and strangely beautiful.

Just like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, "The Dressmaker's Child" is mainstream literary fiction that takes on some speculative overtones. The child in the story is not a ghost, yet she haunts like one. The mother is an outcast woman, not a witch- yet her spell entrances, just the same. The story is not really supernatural fiction, but it certainly owes much of its ambiance to the ghost story genre.

I loved the way Trevor established the concrete, the familiar, the real, then blended it with subtle mysticism. "The Dressmaker's Child" makes the reader feel as though magic might brush past at any moment- particularly when it's least expected.

The story is part of a collection, Cheating at Canasta, which ranks at #34,288 in the Kindle store and #228,971 in Amazon's Bestselling Books.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Today when I checked the Amazon Kindle bestseller list, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was at tenth place, below the first four books of the Twilight series (all in the top four slots), The Shack in English and Spanish, and three "New Year New You" self-help nonfiction. We know that the Twilight series is vampire fiction. The Shack is religious fiction. So what is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle?

Amazon categorizes Wroblewsi's book as "literary fiction" or "contemporary fiction." Fair enough- there's probably not space in their categorization system for thriller/espionage, coming of age story, historical, magical realism, ghost story, and murder mystery. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was all this, and literature, too.

When I first downloaded a sample of this book onto my Kindle, I read part way through the sample, then decided to pass on it. At first I was entranced by the prose in this book. The scene Wroblewski described was so vivid- every word a color, a texture, a taste, a smell. The problem was, that the book was clearly a thriller set in South Korea during the Korean war. Of course there's nothing wrong with an historical espionage book- but that's just not the kind of book I wanted to read. And, far worse, I could see that the plot was heading toward cruelty to a dog. I'm a huge softy for animals. I decided not to buy the book.

A few months later I was browsing the Kindle bestsellers and came across The Story of Edgar Sawtelle once again. The synopsis made it sound like the coming of age story of a boy in Wisconsin. What? I went back to the sample on my Kindle, muscled through the horrible scene with the dog, and met Edgar.

Wroblewsi refused to pick a genre and stick with it when he wrote The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle. I was surprised again and again, as the book took turns into fantasy and thriller that seemed so at odds with the lives of the plain-folks dog trainers living on a family farm. But it wasn't only the genre that morphed to suit the needs of the story- Wroblewsi's language also transformed to meet every mood necessary to tell his tale. I could tell when something important was about to happen- the prose became crystal clear, detailed to the point of painfully beautiful. When it was time to get to know Edgar, things slowed down, we approached the world in a more plodding, plain prose. The chapters through the eyes of Edgar's best friend and dog captured the character of a devoted animal with more skill than I would have thought possible.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is selling well- it has Oprah's endorsement, and today rests at #10 on the Kindle bestseller list, and is Amazon's 26th overall best selling book. Yet the genre confusion at the opening nearly lost my sale. Maybe I just need to loosen up my genre expectations...but with the advent of the downloadable sample chapter, should writers be thinking more about how the first few pages set the tone of their book?

A Temporary Matter

I started my Sunday by reading an article about Earth Hour, which took place yesterday at 8:00 p.m. around much of the world. In honor of Earth Hour, national landmarks across the globe dimmed their lights. Citizens were encouraged to turn off any non-essential lights, computers, and appliances. People in many countries turned Earth Hour into a celebration. In Greece folks strolled through the streets with candles (that must have been pretty). Australians enjoyed candlelit dinners and beach bonfire parties.

The next thing I picked up to read was "A Temporary Matter," a short story from Jhumpa Lahiri's collection, Interpreter of Maladies. The premise of the story revolved around a scheduled blackout. In order to repair local power lines, a young couple would be without power starting from 8:00 p.m. for exactly one hour. The similarity of the couple's situation to Earth Hour struck me (although unlike Earth Hour, this blackout would be repeated throughout the week until the lines were repaired).

For the characters in "A Temporary Matter," these scheduled hours of darkness were the time when they came to terms with a tragic event that had damaged their relationship. Being alone in the dark together, lighting candles, telling stories, reconnected them. Now, the morning after Earth Hour, we read that the globally scheduled hour of darkness not only represented environmental responsibility and hope for the future, but that it brought people together on both a global and local level.

Why is it so much easier for human beings to connect in the dark, their meeting lit only by flickering candles? Something about the darkness makes us shed just enough of our individual defenses to connect with others. Perhaps our reaction is simply a throwback to our primitive past, huddled in the darkness with only a fire and our companions for warmth. And certainly part of the answer is that when we are cut off from the distractions of our modern lives, and have nothing to pay attention to but the people around us, we suddenly realize that they're there.

Talk Talk

Don't let the title of T.C. Boyle's 2006 novel fool you. The book isn't about talk, it's about communication. Boyle uses a deaf protagonist to show how words can get in the way of human understanding.

In harmony with his theme, Boyle uses reference as his main means of communication with his reader. I could relate to each and every one of Boyle's references. From the J.A. Henckels knives I thought about buying around Christmas, to my favorite new white wine (Sauvignon Blanc), to a reference to Diana Krall, Boyle didn't refer to a single aspect of modern life that didn't resonate with me. The literary magic of this book involves placing the reader in the shoes of his hero (and anti-hero) by referring to locales, situations, objects, ideas, and states of mind familiar to the reader.

This contemporary fiction magic is made more poignant by its mortality. Cultural references change so quickly, will Boyle's novel mean anything to readers ten years from now? Twenty? Fifty? Not unless it children are forced to read it in school, and buy Cliffs Notes that explain the socioeconomic implications of the references at the time Boyle wrote. Even still, the barrier of time will remain between author and reader, leaving Boyle's audience with an intellectual understanding, but not the visceral understanding that made Talk Talk something special.

Instant asynchrony

I've really been thinking about letter writing lately. Maybe it was writing holiday cards, or maybe it was listening too many times to "From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)," a song in which the Decemberists keen "Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?" The Decemberists' tune brought back memories of listening to "Please Mr. Postman-" the version by the Carpenters my parents used to play when I was just a tater tot. I remember really connecting with that song, because when you're three years old, mail addressed in your name is a really big deal. I used to long along with Karen for someone to seal a message in an envelope, mark it with my name, and send it through mysterious channels to reach my front door. Magic. Slow motion conversations.

Now that I'm old enough to send and receive letters, I mostly use email. Sure, the delivery system is different (email has no yucky envelopes to lick) but letter delivery technology has a history of changing with the times- think back to the Pony Express (later replaced by the First Transcontinental Telegraph), or the pneumatic tubes that delivered mail twice daily in Paris. What interests me about the modern letter isn't just the technology used to deliver it, but the persistence of the letter through the dozens of way we now have to communicate.

Telephone, fax, mobile phone, SMS, chat room, message board, instant message, sites that allow users to share photos and video, blogging, online games, voice chat, and video chat. We have the technology to talk to each other across great distances face-to-face, real time, and to call each other anytime, anywhere. So why is so much of modern communication conducted as letters, albeit mailed electronically?

Email offers us instant asynchronous communication, and gives us the power to control the pace of our slow-motion conversations. Recipients can take as long as they want to reply to an email- hours, days, even weeks or months. But they also have the possibility to reply within seconds- which gives email superpowers that the guys running the Pony Express never dreamed of. I have written email to my husband while he is sitting in the same room with me. Why would I do that? The power of asynchronous communication is all about time- the summary of my research on feline nutrition may not be best communicated to my husband while he's battling the final board of his favorite video game. You might decide to email a colleague a few feet from your desk. Let my husband- and your colleague- get to your email when they have time to process it.

Asynchronous forms of conversation also leave a record- whether we're blogging, posting to a message board, or sending an email, it's pretty easy to re-read what we've written and how others have responded. The likelihood of finding a record of a conversation is in direct proportion to the asynchronism of the form of communication. I can pull up an email from 2004 with a few keystrokes. I can scroll back and re-read something a friend has written in an instant message window. Although it's certainly possible (and a little creepy) to record a telephone conversation, the content of a conversation isn't very searchable unless I keep written records correlating each conversation to its specific content.

The speed of interpersonal (and business) communication has an effect on our artistic expression. The epistolary narrative of Dracula was born in an era when people kept in touch by writing letters that took a long time to reach the recipient. Bob Newhart developed his famous stand-up routine (and later running TV gag) of one-ended phone conversations when it became possible to telephone people across incredible distances. The mobile phone has become a staple of modern action movies, to show the hero receiving critical information in the nick of time.

How is the instant asynchrony of the ubiquitous email affecting artistic expression?

What's missing in the French rentrée littéraire

This afternoon I threw together a Niçoise salad, bought a fresh baguette, and got my gruyère and grapes ready to go. I logged onto amazon.fr, and checked out the 2007 offerings for the rentrée littéraire.

The rentrée refers to the nationwide phenomenon of the French returning home from their long August holidays. The rentrée littéraire takes place throughout the month of September. Publishing houses release their most anticipated books from their most celebrated authors. Books released in September are fresh in judges' minds when it comes time to award coveted literary prizes, such as the Prix Goncourt.

As I scanned the new releases for September 2007, I couldn't help but notice a large number of novels whose plot revolved around an author who mysteriously disappears. Editors, journalists, and other literary professionals much search for the missing author finding, not only the man, but the essence of his work.

Disappearance is a big theme in the 2007 rentrée littéraire. Whether the subject is missing authors (Le Livreur, Les romans n'interessent pas les voleurs), the disappearance of Jewish writer David Mendelsohn's family in 1941 Nazi-occupied Poland (The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million ), or an Alzheimer's sufferer who no one sees (On n'est pas là pour disparaître), the idea of disappearance shows up again and again.

As you may have noticed from the Mendelsohn autobiography, the rentrée littéraire is far from an exclusively French affair. I noticed a new book by one of my favorite Italian authors, Andrea Camilleri, translated into French. Talk Talk, T.C. Boyle's 2006 English release, has also been translated and is featured in the rentrée littéraire. When the prizes are awarded later this year, most have a special category for foreign authors translated into French.

One 2007 appearance I very much anticipated didn't disappoint. Amelie Nothomb's latest book, Ni d'Eve ni d'Adam, will be making its way to me across the Atalantic soon. There's nothing like reading a Belgian author write in French about her affair in Tokyo. (Here is my post on Nothomb's 2006 contribution to the rentrée littéraire)

See the Other Side

In my post today on the Friggin' Write blog, I give a very positive review to a story in the first person, present tense! For those who read my March 2nd rant on the overused combination of the first person and present tense in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, you'll be interested to read how much I enjoyed the offending combination as used by Tatyana Tolstaya in her literary short story, "See the Other Side." Since the story was published in The New Yorker, you can read and enjoy it online for free here.

So, first person, present tense in The New Yorker is cool, but I throw a fit when I read it in F&SF? My complaint with F&SF is that they're printing too many (at times exclusively) of this type of story. More specifically, I was pretty upset by how badly M. Rickert's "Memoir of a Deer Woman" used the present tense.

Tolstaya's translated story flows beautifully in the present tense. The protagonist's present tense journey is the frame for a story that goes back decades in time. Memories of actions and emotions in the past are crucial to the plot of the story, and the author's use of present tense for the present time in the story avoids time line confusion. The tense choice gracefully avoids a lot of awkward past perfect tense (past perfect = "he had already written", "she had already called"). The fact that the author is a middle-aged Russian woman and the protagonist is a middle-aged Russian woman makes the choice of the first person, I, natural and genuine. Far from detracting from a lovely story, the use of the first person, present tense made "See the Other Side" more engaging and warm.

Terabithia, Kingdom of the Mind

I saw a movie trailer for Bridge to Terabithia (in theaters now). The name brought back memories of school librarians and Newbery Medal books (the book was awarded a Newbery in 1978). The title of the book was so familiar, yet I can't recall having actually read it. Was it one of the books read out loud to us at school? I don't think so, because I remember so many of them so well: Charlotte's Web, The Whipping Boy, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

The movie trailer I saw was packed with CGI fantasy shots- I figured I'd want to watch it sooner or later, so I ordered a copy of the book, Bridge to Terabithia, and began to read. I liked what I found from the very first page. Superb prose plunked the reader right into protagonist Jesse's running shoes. His bleak home and school life were rendered with just the right details to make the character and the world hyper realistic.

Two things really surprised me about Bridge to Terabithia. First- it wasn't a fantasy. Sure, fantasy readers will find homages to C.S. Lewis as Leslie makes up stories for Jesse in their make-believe magical kingdom. But Terabithia isn't a fantasy world the children travel to, and it's not even the patch of unused farmland where they play. Terabithia is a state of mind, one which Jesse would have never discovered if Leslie Burke hadn't moved in next door.

This brings me to the second big surprise- I can't imagine my elementary school librarian recommending this book to Midwestern kids- but I know she did! According to Wikipedia, the book ranks #9 on a list of Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000) by the American Library Association. Author Katherine Patterson was writing in the late seventies. She writes plainly about poverty and ignorance in rural America, she talks about the Vietnam war and about hippies. She makes it clear that Jesse's father disapproves of his drawing, because dad thinks it shows a leaning toward homosexuality. Leslie and her family don't believe in God- and Jesse's little sister asks quite plainly whether Leslie will be damned to hell when she dies.

Bridge to Terabithia has probably survived these challenges and remained in the cannon of children's literature because it does such a good job of capturing the psyche of childhood- small hopes, like being the best runner in the 5th grade, magnified to importance it could only have for a youngster. Patterson's execution of Jesse's character arc is a powerful story of growing up, and touches readers young and old. His cohort and Queen in Terabithia, Leslie, brings the books, the colors, the imagination needed to ignite his growth.

I'll never forget Jesse Oliver Aarons. Life was unfair to him again and again, but he was able to take "not fair" as a matter of course and keep doing what he had to do- which, as it turns out, was to become a young man.

The Garden of Eden

I have a new post up on the Friggin' Write blog. I discuss The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway. The Garden of Eden is interesting not only because it was published after the author's suicide, but because the main character is heavily based on Hemingway, himself.

Guest Authoring General Fiction Posts

I've been invited to participate as a guest author at the Friggin' Write Blog. I submit posts on all things literary every other Wednesday. Today's post is all about The Body Artist by Don DeLillo.

My first post answered the question What is Literature? My definition eschews attempts to classify literature as stuff that's not spec fiction, and goes deeper to explore the relationship between literature and the use of language.