First let me say, “Damn you Robert Olen Butler. Damn you to hell.� Because now any book I pick up next can only pale by comparison to this exquisitelyFirst let me say, “Damn you Robert Olen Butler. Damn you to hell.� Because now any book I pick up next can only pale by comparison to this exquisitely beautiful story collection. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a Pulitzer-winning compilation of stories primarily about the Vietnamese diaspora, with the majority of the stories written from the perspective of immigrants living in and around New Orleans.
I am at a loss to adequately describe the poignance of Butler’s prose in this collection. The only thing I can remotely compare it to, in terms of soul-rocking beauty, would be the polemical chapters from The Grapes of Wrath. Butler does a brilliant job of describing the world through the eyes of a wide array of personalities but where he really shines is in his descriptions of the sensory aspects of this world, serving as analogs for the desires, hopes and regrets of the remarkably believable characters he’s created.
In a sense, that’s just good writing but Butler can take a description and charge it with such emotion that the whole thing begins to soar and I found myself often transported by his prose. He writes about both the minutiae of daily life and the extremely wrought issues of life and death with such power and clarity that I regularly felt (occasionally with an almost embarrassing sense of intrusion) I was viewing the souls of his characters. He is, without question, a writer with the courage to lay bare his heart.
This is such a varied collection that it’s difficult to go much further other than to say there are a couple of stories in here that are the most beautiful things I’ve ever read - specifically the book’s title story as well as the collection’s penultimate story, "Salem" and its final story, “Missing�. That said, there are a couple of stories that didn’t quite do it for me and one in particular ("The American Couple") for which I can contrive no explanation for why it’s in here. But the bottom line is this: Find yourself a quiet place, then take this book and prepare yourself for a ravishing read. Bravo, Robert Olen Butler. Oh, and damn you to hell....more
Paul Harding’s Tinkers is a profoundly moving meditation on death and time. I gave the book five stars and would rank it among the best of its kind. TPaul Harding’s Tinkers is a profoundly moving meditation on death and time. I gave the book five stars and would rank it among the best of its kind. That’s why I was particularly shocked, after finishing it, to see the overall rating of 3.3 among Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ users. Nonetheless, I do have a good idea why Tinkers resonated so deeply with me personally. Harding manages to describe the process of dying in much the same way that I’ve imagined it since losing my first close friend at the age of eighteen. I’ve lost far too many more dear friends since then and each time I've pondered death a little more deeply. But despite those often desperate efforts, each subsequent death has found me, once again, wholly unprepared. As such, this novel sheds some welcome light into one of the darker corners of my understanding.
Tinkers is one in a long line of Pulitzer-winning novels that deals passionately with the concept of time and it does so in the context of the protagonist’s impending demise. The novel takes place during the final eight days in the life of an 80 year-old man, marking down the hours to his death. Talk about poignant. Talk about focused. And yet, the narrative occasionally ranges off into momentary anarchy, showing the protagonist’s inability to maintain focus in his final hours, demonstrating the delicate, often uncontrollable, natures of the human psyche, of life and, most of all, of death. The most beautiful elements of the book, to me, were Harding’s descriptions of death itself:
“The end came when we could no longer even see him, but felt him in brief disturbances of shadow or light, or as a slight pressure, as if the space one occupied suddenly had had something more packed into it� The world fell away from my father the way he fell away from us. We became his dream.�
Harding gives a circumspect, if meandering, view of the conventions of time and space in the context of death and, in doing so, he provides a spectacularly insightful examination of life itself. He places the concept of “reality� in its proper place and questions whether there is any such thing, when placed against the larger backdrop of death. For such an immense subject, Tinkers is barely more than a novella. In less than 200 pages, Harding delves into the beauty of dew on a flower petal, the undying love between fathers and sons, and the question of whether time and space exist anywhere but within our selves. Tinkers is a deeply philosophical dialectic couched in the very simple story of a man’s life and death, and I’ve read nothing that comes closer to helping me comprehend the wondrous, and frighteningly diaphanous, nature of our existence....more
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove works so well on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start, so I guess I’ll begin with the fundamentals; his charLarry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove works so well on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start, so I guess I’ll begin with the fundamentals; his character and plot development are simply masterful and he does it all with a Hemingwayesque sparseness of prose that makes this quarter million word read feel much, much lighter than its significant thematic weight.
McMurtry introduces us to two great literary heroes, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call and, through these two extraordinary frontiersmen, he gives the reader a wondrously thorough examination of courage and commitment as well as of the self-doubt and second guessing that seem to come with age. In addition to these two outsized characters, McMurtry brings us Lorena Wood, a former frontier prostitute seeking redemption and the life of which she’s always dreamed. It’s through Lorena that McMurtry displays the mastery that one would expect of this Oscar-winning writer. He takes us deep into the heart and soul of this character while showing how fully subjugated females were during this period � a searing, honest portrayal. Throughout, McMurtry affectingly explores the power dynamics between men and women in general, and those of this epoch in particular. Indeed, love and its many variants are a central theme of this work.
Thematically, the strongest threads are those of fate, love, leadership and courage. McMurtry poses the final life chapters of the two storied Texas Rangers as a poignant and beautiful complement to the end of the equally storied and glorious western frontier while showing the reader what true courage looks like and how cruel fate can be when given free rein. Allegorically, the story takes the herd (and the reader) across many rivers, each representing a choice and potential fate - the eminently memorable characters make (or refuse to make) choices that lead them to their destinies, redemption or disgrace, survival or death. Indeed, the novel reads from beginning to end with a rhythm that approximates wading into the shallows, then venturing into raging waters to eventually emerge on gentle shoals once again, having been irrevocably changed by the crossing.
On its highest level, the story examines the basest elements of human survival and the author illustrates them through characters and circumstances that help the reader fully comprehend what we, as humans, are genuinely capable of and what, exactly, our frontier forebears endured during their times. Like millions of others, I have antecedents ranging from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Union Colony, occupying and expanding American frontiers along the way, but I’d yet to find a book that left me feeling I had some idea of what they'd gone through, until now. McMurtry’s characters are so real and, thus, the reader’s investment in them so complete, that the frontier and all its mean choices are made real, as well. For that alone, I owe McMurtry a debt of gratitude. Such understanding is something I’ve sought for years.
This novel is fully deserving of the Pulitzer it earned and McMurtry is a superb writer, certainly on a level with the best of them, though it may be some years before that comparison becomes widely acceptable. As I've mentioned before, I personally prefer a more literary style but, on a thematic level, this book rivals any that I’d classify as among my literary favorites. As such, I suspect it'll end up among them. A rich, classic tale of survival, courage, choice and redemption, Lonesome Dove is the first novel I’ve read, since I can’t remember when, that I was sad to finally put down. This book is what great fiction is all about....more
Fiction moves me most when it’s most piercingly honest � when it reveals to me places in my heart that I’ve been afraid to recognize. Wallace Stegner�Fiction moves me most when it’s most piercingly honest � when it reveals to me places in my heart that I’ve been afraid to recognize. Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose examines the part of us that's reluctant to forgive and that cannot seem to learn how to forget. The book is hauntingly true and ruthlessly introspective and it left me, at times, gasping for breath at the beauty of its lyricism - it could serve well as a master class in honest writing.
Stegner writes from the perspective of a not-so-old man who has become recently severely disabled and, in turn, divorced. This wounded soul is spending time at his grandparents� farmstead, among his grandmother Susan’s copious letters to her best friend, Augusta, who represents everything Susan left behind to come west for her husband’s career as a mining engineer in the 1860’s. Though Susan achieves an esteemed career herself, this is a chronicle of the longings and regrets she can’t seem to leave behind.
Angle of Repose shines a light into a void that exists, to one degree or another, within all but the most enlightened among us and Stegner unburdens his literary soul within these pages in a way that lesser writers fear. He reminds us that we shall all be in need of forgiveness at some time in our lives and that we’re well-served to bear this in mind whenever we find ourselves searching our own hearts for the place within them where forgiveness dwells. Angle of Repose is, at present, the best novel I’ve read, displacing The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby, which shared that place in my thinking until now. I don't always understand why certain books won the Pulitzer but this novel leaves no room for doubt. It is a literary treasure....more
Written in 1991, Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning A Thousand Acres pretends to be about the death of the American farm but, if I’ve ever read a book ricWritten in 1991, Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning A Thousand Acres pretends to be about the death of the American farm but, if I’ve ever read a book richer in subtext, I cannot recall it. She tells the story via the lives of three daughters of a third generation farming family in Iowa in the 1970’s. Through the obsequious character of Ginny, Smiley describes the ethos of small town/agrarian American life in unrelenting detail and, by doing so, she describes the death of an American myth.
The layers of A Thousand Acres are many and Smiley offers a measureless stream of betrayal and death; the death of innocence, of illusion, of hope, of trust, of a way of life and, most of all, the death of a family resulting from the exposure of its most sacred myths to the stark light of honest reflection. She describes with heart-rending frankness the universally-familiar Machiavellian aspects of family dynamics and, by placing them in the context of the great American bucolic dream, she renders them commonplace.
As the middle sister, Rose, comes to the sharp focus that cancer brings [not a spoiler], she describes her mother’s well-worn advice; “I’m grabby and jealous and selfish and Mommy said it would drive people away, so I’ve been good at hiding it� You’ll notice that Mommy never said, ‘Rose, just be yourself.’� Rose's realization summarizes life in small town America, or in any family, be it natural or chosen. There are myths to which we subscribe and succumb, regarding our friends, our loved ones, our selves � myths that we’re convinced make life easier, make our relationships functional - and “A Thousand Acres� is a stark and painfully beautiful description of the cancer (both physical and psychic) that those myths, in truth, represent. The tale serves as a profound reminder to live honestly and authentically, regardless of the pain that's sometimes necessary to achieve such a state of grace.
I’ve been lucky in my reading lately. I’ve just completed two of the best books I’ve ever read; Angle of Repose followed by A Thousand Acres. This book, I think, is now tied for second, along with The Grapes of Wrath, among my favorite books of all time. This is a truly Pulitzer-worthy novel and one I’d recommend to anyone who longs to understand the pernicious, sometimes ruinous, natures of both American and family mythologies. A poignant and eye-opening read....more
I should probably admit upfront, if sheepishly, that I only recently discovered the work of Thornton Wilder. It was in viewing Our Town (the Paul NewmI should probably admit upfront, if sheepishly, that I only recently discovered the work of Thornton Wilder. It was in viewing Our Town (the Paul Newman version) that I was introduced to Wilder’s genius and learned that he was also a novelist and, as such, I sought out his Pulitzer-winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. It’s unquestionably the most economical book I’ve ever read - I'd even go so far as to say it's the most economical existential examination ever written but, alas, I'm still working my way through the rest - and I say that with unsparing newfound devotion. I loved Tinkers, as well, and it’s half again as long and equally powerful.
In 34,000 words/110 pages Wilder delves into the mysteries of death and love and devotion and caprice. He tells the story of a bridge collapse in 18th century Peru and the deaths that came from it, using as his backdrop a study conducted by a (fictional) monk, Br. Juniper, in the catastrophe’s aftermath. Br. Juniper embarks on his study in hopes of determining the righteous logic behind the deaths of the victims and thus, from this moral underpinning, unfolds Wilder’s brilliantly succinct, yet often lyrical, examination of the lives of five of the victims of that day’s accident.
The breadth covered by Wilder in this work is belied by its length and that astonishing breadth makes it impossible to address here all that he accomplishes. But one thing is clear, Wilder has a well-established paradigm on death and his clearly involves the survival of the spirit. In Our Town that survival is apparent, in The Bridge of San Luis Rey it's discussed more in terms of the undying impact the victims had upon the world and, in particular, upon those who loved them and those whom they loved.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey may, in the long run, turn out to be my favorite novel but, for now, I’ll put it in my top three or four. In barely more than a hundred pages, Wilder examines the eternal compact of love, the capriciousness of life, and whether there is a moral predicate to death and, in doing so, he has changed the way I think about both literary efficiency and efficacy. As fine a work of fiction as I’ve read, The Bridge of San Luis Rey will remain with me, for many reasons, for as long as I read (and beyond)....more
Loading...
