Happy Birthday, Ernest Hemingway!

"All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened."

Thanks to Overlook Press’s Twitter feed, I learned this morning that today was Ernest Hemingway’s birthday. It kind of bizarrely put me in a better mood following a discouraging morning; I really love Hemingway. I think its partly because I’m Cuban (and he did love Cuba/ writing about and in Cuba), partly because I love Fitzgerald (and the friendship/ hatred between them), partly because I’m fascinated by Modernist literature and writers (American Modernism in particular), and partly because I just love (most of) his writing.

I’ve recently been rereading a bunch of his short stories in an old copy of The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories from my Dad’s bookshelf. The title story is really incredible in a uniquely Hemingway-way; as the narrator, a writer, quickly approaches death while on an African safari, he looks back on his life with anger and bitterness over what he has neglected to accomplish. As with so much of his writing, Hemingway himself is always only just beneath the surface of his fiction in this story.

It is another story of his, however, that I always find so powerful in its simplicity (like a lot of his writing). “A Day’s Wait” is only two pages long, but I remember first reading it years ago and it always sticking with me. Rather than listen to me summarize it, I say take the two extra minutes to read the story here. It is prime example of how Hemingway has a way of taking simple, mundane things (whether it is the thorn that ultimately kills the narrator of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” or the confusion over temperature measurements in “A Days Wait”) and turning them into meditations on life and death (but mostly death). I’m glad you were born today, Ernest! (And that you wrote so much before you killed yourself.)

(Image via)

Happy Birthday, America!

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be

blithe and strong.

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves

off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the

deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter

singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the

morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at

work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day – at night the party of young

fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

- Walt Whitman, 1860

Though I’m a day late (lateness is a bit of a trademark with me, as you can probably tell), what better way to celebrate the 4^th of July than with Walt Whitman? I always whip out my Norton anthology of Whitman works on the Fourth – I think it goes nicely with beer, barbecue, and fireworks. And the recitation of the Declaration of Independence, which my family usually does, pre-hotdogs. Happy Birthday America!

This post hopefully marks my return to semi-regular blogging. May, June and the start of July have been jam-packed with wedding planning, campaign hullabaloo, job-applying madness, and an intensive summer course (more on that one later), so my just-for-fun ventures have sadly fallen by the wayside. But because I have a sneaking suspicion the book publishing job market will continue to be brutal and I will soon have way too much time on my hands, I can soon return to regular reading and writing (silver lining, folks). Good thing too; I have a quickly growing pile of ARCs and free books from the NYU Summer Publishing Institute, as well as growing piles of just-read and to-be-read books. So many good things.

(Image via The Walt Whitman Archive)

THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud

Lately, I’ve been exploring my overwhelming love for New York through the books I’ve been reading. First up – Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children – a great contemporary New York novel, set in the months leading up to September 11 and immediately after. With a bit of satire and a whole lot of insight, the novel follows three friends, and the many people in their lives, as they approach their thirties with little to show for themselves. With this many characters and such big themes and events, the book may sound overarching. It certainly is ambitious, and is a work that, in other hands, could have easily failed miserably. But Messud writes it so well, never making it overtly satiric or sentimental. She manages to create completely recognizable characters (right up to how infuriating people can be) and situations, while still making grand statements about American privilege, entitlement, and how New York/ the country was at that particular moment.

Danielle, Marina, and Julius are the three near-thirty friends – graduates of Brown University – trying to make their way in New York. They all fancy themselves as some sort of intellectual artist; excluding Danielle (the most sensible of the three and the only one who kind of works), they are writers who don’t actually write and consider themselves above the plebian duty of holding down a ‘job’ in an ‘office.’ As we see how they see their lives – their disappointments over what went wrong, what the world owes them, why they are basically failures – we also see how other people in their lives see them and themselves. There is Murray Thwaite, Marina’s renowned journalist/ talking head father, whose shadow covers everyone else in the book. There’s Ludovic Seeley, the Australian journalist/ entrepreneur who comes to New York to (successfully, though not necessarily as he intended) turn everything on its head. Then there is Bootie, Murray’s young and unfamiliar nephew who comes to New York to follow in his esteemed uncle’s footsteps, only to quickly become disillusioned and throw a wrench into the machine.

The New York of most of the novel is its own world, and one which Messud gently but deftly satirizes and exposes. As such a successful and well-known personality, Murray Thwaite and his family (complete with Marina, even as she approaches 30) live in a ritzy penthouse on the Upper West Side; it is here, and through this family, that most of the characters’ lives intersect. Murray is the typical liberal intellectual superstar: a man of the 60’s whose hypocritical head has been blown up by fame, considers himself above even his own affirmations, and who won’t lift a finger to clean their home (that, naturally, is left to his working wife – the only truly admirable character in the book and, incidentally, the only one whose thoughts we never hear). The entitlement that accompanies this life defines Marina and (despite their downtown, non-ritzy addresses), spills over onto Danielle and Julius. When Ludovic, as someone who is sort of diametrically opposed to all that Murray stands for, enters the picture and Bootie, Emerson-devotee that he is, begins to see through Murray, things get interesting (and uncomfortable). Not until towards the end of the book does September 11 hit; because no dates are used throughout the book and no hint of what was to come was ever apparent, in reading it I was, as the characters were and as it was in reality, blindsided by that day.

More than the intertwining stories of all the characters, or the satirizing of New York high society, or the reflections on the lost generation of entitled but disillusioned young people, The Emperor’s Children is about a specific and unique moment in time, right before everything changed. Covering that day in books or movies or anything is a very delicate business – how can it be represented successfully in any kind of artistic or fictional medium without reducing it or risking people’s personal experience with it? Honestly, if I had known before I began the book (and started loving it) that it would reach September 11, I don’t know that I would have read it (so I guess, if anyone is reading this and was considering reading the book, you can now make an informed decision). But I am glad I did; Messud handles it so well, perfectly illustrating the complete shift everything took right after. With that, and with her amazingly perceptive insights on her characters and the archetypes they represent, Messud wrote an incredibly compelling novel, one in which I (interestingly), became more invested in as the characters became less and less likable. Plus, for all their pretension and hypocrisy, who wouldn’t want to be a part of the Thwaite’s New York?

POINT OMEGA by Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo is probably one of our most important contemporary authors – certainly one of America’s best writers writing today. That said, his books are not always easy to get through, or enjoyable. I haven’t tackled some of his most intimidating works, like Underworld or Libra, but I loved White Noise. His last two books – the recently released Point Omega and, before that, Falling Man – I found to be a bit disappointing. Even now, writing about Point Omega a week after I finished it, I’m having a difficult time recalling its details and my immediate reaction to it. Unlike with White Noise, the characters and ideas behind Point Omega left me as soon as I closed the book. Though, this isn’t to say it is a bad book – I don’t think DeLillo is capable of that. It was still a worthwhile read.

Point Omega follows Richard Elster, an aging academic just coming off a stint working in the government as a sort of war strategist; a “defense intellectual,” kept around to intellectually justify and explain war. Following this, he has retreated to the desert as an escape from the busyness of reality and his thoughts. He is joined in his desert isolation by a young filmmaker interested in making a sort of avant-garde documentary about the man, and whose eyes we see Elster through. As their days meld together and they silently watch the colorful desert sunsets, we learn their philosophies of self, time, and death, and who they feel they are when stripped of all reality in this strange isolation. This is mostly what the book is – what they think and feel when there is nothing else to think about, and all focus has turned inward. When Elster’s daughter arrives, their routine shifts and they attempt to adjust their lives of the mind to include her, until something strange happens and they have to figure out how to adapt to this new reality that they cannot escape. (Vague, I know, but so was the book.)

DeLillo has a wonderful way with places. When it comes to descriptions, he has no use for flowery language (which, when misused, can undermine its very point). In portraying the isolation of the desert and the glory of the sunsets, he avoids overt descriptions while still capturing the power the place holds over his characters and conveying the sunset’s beauty. Similarly, the first and last scene of the book are all about setting, though a very different one. In a story that is seemingly incongruous with the rest of the book but ultimately comes together, these scenes take place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in an exhibit entitled “24 Hour Psycho.” In a number of articles I read about the book when it first came out, DeLillo cited this installation exhibit – one that actually took place, in the summer of 2006 – as the main inspiration for writing the book. In writing about it, he makes the exhibit (a screening of Psycho, slowed down so that it plays once over 24 hours) somehow transcendent; a breaking down of the film and, consequentially, real life. It made me wish I had seen the exhibit when it was on display.

Clearly, I didn’t actively dislike DeLillo’s Point Omega. He is a fantastic writer who makes powerful stuff out of no plot. And yet, though there were parts and aspects I admired, the book didn’t stay with me. For all its life philosophies, none of the ideas struck me. Perhaps I’m still holding DeLillo up to his own White Noise standard, but I continue to return his recent books to the library let down. Maybe its time for me to visit his older, more daunting works – Underworld, here I come?

(Image via)

THE DYING ANIMAL by Philip Roth

I only recently fell for Philip Roth, having read and loved Goodbye, Columbus over the summer. I came across The Dying Animal in my favorite DC used bookstore (Books for America) and figured it was as good a place as any to continue with my Roth education. I was then unaware, however, that it is actually the third book in the trilogy of Professor David Kepesh novels. To appreciate The Dying Animal it is not necessary to read the other two books first – though (as I have not yet read them and do not know for sure) it may very well be that each book is more complete with the others as context. Regardless, on its own Roth’s short book provides a meditation on innate human nature and the nature of relationships between men and women.

In what could be called the book’s thesis, Professor David Kepesh insists that “No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you’re not superior to sex.” Kepesh, a product of the sexual revolution of the 60’s and longtime proponent of the freedom that it espoused, both proves and refutes this statement as he recounts his obsession with Consuela, a student of his. In his mid-sixties, he has spent his many years as a professor and public television personality bedding countless students and believing himself in control of his sexual life, until Consuela consumes him. Is it love? As he reflects on the jealousy that plagues him and his inability to stop thinking about Consuela, never does he admit to loving her – he always speaks of her in terms of a sexual obsession. Is this because he truly is only obsessed with her, or because the idea of love doesn’t fit in with the worldview he has practiced and promoted for so many years? Kepesh is on many counts – as an ex-husband, father, and teacher – an unlikeable man. In his world, women exist purely as sexual beings. Yes, he sees them as examples of beauty and acknowledges the intelligence of certain women he has known, but for him they exist primarily in terms of their sexuality. I wouldn’t accuse him of misogyny, however – both sexes exist purely as sexual beings in his view. Through Kepesh’s opinions on sex and the progression of his relationship with Consuela, the novel brings up many questions concerning love, sex, and human nature.

Though I often found myself angry at Kepesh, I think the questions he brought up are interesting and helpful in trying to define relationships (if they can be said to be definable). I am interested to read the other Kepesh novels (particularly The Breast - in which, apparently, he is metamorphosed into, of all things, a breast), though I will not be recommending this book to my parents any time soon, as it is certainly the most explicit book I’ve ever come across. A nice little surprise: I realized about halfway into the book the origin of its title. Like so many great things (Things Fall Apart, No Country For Old Men, Slouching Towards Bethlehem…) The Dying Animal takes its very appropriate title from a W.B. Yeats poem. “Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is…”

84, CHARING CROSS ROAD by Helene Hanff

I came across this delightful little book in the bookstore, where I read it in two (rather spaced out) short sittings. It is a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, an American television writer in New York, and Frank Noel (and friends), an Englishman working in an old bookshop in London. The letters begin in 1949 when Helene requests a rare book she is unable to locate in New York, and continue through 1968 upon Frank’s death. I picked it up half expecting a romantic letter-driven love story, but was actually glad to see it is not that at all – it is the progression of a unique friendship that spans the Atlantic Ocean and years.

Aside from being simply a pleasant short read featuring a whole cast of real people, the letters are interesting in that they offer a genuine view of Britain (and, to a lesser extent, America) at the time. It’s post-World War II that the staff of Marks & Co. Booksellers live in, complete with rationing, the death of a king, the ascent of Queen Elizabeth, and, eventually, the popularity of the Beatles. All these events and more are alluded to as the years advance, as such things are in letters between people of any time. Culturally the progression of the friendship between the two is funny to see, with Helene the brassy outspoken American and Frank the typically reserved Englishman writing such different kinds of letters. Helene teasingly berated Frank and his coworkers so often for neglecting to send her books that I often want to tell them, don’t worry! She’s only teasing! (but fear not, I think they knew it). Case in point: about her visit to London that all involved parties always hoped for, she wrote, “I’m gonna climb up that Victorian book-ladder and disturb the dust on the top shelves and everyone’s decorum”. Despite their differences in manners and writing styles (or probably partly because of them), their friendship and letters lasted for years – thankfully, because now we can read them.

What I took away from the book most was the desire to read more. With all their discussion of old English playwrights, poets, and writers – from Shakespeare to Donne to Austen – all I wanted to do was curl up in a library of old books and learn. In that sense, the book was inspiring and, despite its small size, packs a big punch. Apparently the book was made into a play and a movie, which I’ll have to seek out. And, perhaps even more than making me want to read, 84 Charing Cross Road made me lament the decrease in letter-writing. WHY don’t we write letters anymore?

BLACK WATER by Joyce Carol Oates

With the explosion of newspaper and magazine articles that inevitably accompanied Ted Kennedy’s death this summer, I came across an editorial by Joyce Carol Oates that really got me thinking. Chappaquiddick has become part of the public consciousness and the mythology of the Kennedy family, sometimes even referred to as part of the ‘Kennedy Curse’ (which I think is absurd as it implies Ted was a victim in the event, when he in fact directly caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne). In the article, Oates reflects on what the years following the event meant for Kennedy, and what they mean now that he is gone. Is, as she asks through the words of John Berryman, “wickedness soluble in art” (or ‘good deeds’)? [Side note: this question seems especially relevant again these past few weeks, what with reemergence of the case on Roman Polanski. Ah, to be above the law like these men.] Now, I don’t know that she herself comes to a conclusion on this, or if his life has been filled with ‘good deeds,’ or even if there is a conclusion to come to; what I know is that the article moved me to read Oates’ very thinly veiled roman a clef, Black Water.

The novella tracks a day in the life (the last day) of a young woman, ‘Kelly Kelleher,’ as she attends the Fourth of July party of a friend and meets her political idol, ‘The Senator’. Oates opens the book in full force as the car the drunken senator had been driving begins to sink into the swampy water. It continues as Kelly’s mind jumps back and forth through her life as she attempts to understand what is happening to her in the time (reportedly about 4 hours at Chappaquiddick) between the moment the car entered the water and the moment of her eventual death. The book plunges us into Kelly’s thoughts as they drift in and out of coherency; her often unintelligible associations flow, from her memories and images of death to her imagined rescue, making her last hours all the more tragic. As she continues to hope and believe that the senator will return for her, even hallucinating that he does (rather than call his lawyer), I hoped alongside her while knowing the outcome and wishing it were different. Reading Black Water, one hopes this isn’t really how it happened; that the senator didn’t really use the woman’s body as a platform to propel himself to safety, that he didn’t really wait 8 hours before calling for help, that he didn’t really leave her for dead. But, sadly, we know at least some of these are true.

This is the only book I have read (so far) by the famously prolific Oates, and I find it easy to believe that is considered among her best. The unique writing style makes the story all the more tragic as we haltingly follow Kelly’s disjointed and rambling thoughts. In reading the mind of Kelly Kelleher, we are made to think of what Mary Jo Kopechne would have been thinking that night; it is there that, with Black Water, Oates makes her strongest impact.

COMMENCEMENT by J. Courtney Sullivan

Every time I entered a bookstore for much of the summer, J. Courtney Sullivan’s debut novel called to me from the new releases display. Recently, I finally gave in and got my hands on it (with the help of my library, where the abundance of readily available free books will never cease to amaze me) to see what kind of wisdom a book seemingly about commencement could impart upon a recent college graduate. It proved enlightening in more ways than one, as I found myself both identifying with its characters in familiar settings while being challenged to think about where to take my education from here and what it means to be a woman today.

The story of four close friends from Smith College, Commencement chronicles, often nonlinearly, the progression of the girls’ friendship from the start of their freshman year through their mid-twenties. I was, before I read the novel, pretty unfamiliar with Smith and its customs and hierarchies. But Sullivan paints such a vivid picture of the college – I imagine it must be a unique experience for an actual Smithie to read the book – that, upon its end, I almost felt a connection to the school. I think, however, this connection comes less from Smith itself than it does from Sullivan’s main theme: modern feminism. (Disclaimer: I have never actually studied feminist schools of thought and am speaking purely from the perspective of a female, so take this how you will.)

What the book is really about, I think, is the feminist movement in its many forms and divisions in modern America, and what this current generation of young women (myself included) can and are doing with our abundance of choices. Just as every woman is a unique representation of modern feminism in the real world, each of the girls in the book is a different kind of feminist, from the apathetic Southern belle to the radical anti-men activist. At times these different takes on feminism in the book could be isolating and even infuriating; there were times in the book in which I actively disliked some of the characters and was angered by their choices and opinions. I think, however, it was necessary for Sullivan to make her characters and their actions so polarizing, as they thus represented all sides and extremes of the debate (feminism is, after all, still a polarizing issue). All of this discussion of feminism and its place in America is only that – discussion – until we see it put onto action. As the four girls leave Smith for the ‘real world’ they each take their vastly different meanings of feminism to become very different kinds women, thus calling for reflection on the tangible effects of their kind of education and feminist thinking.

The book does not go on to explore what kind feminist idea makes a ‘successful’ woman - I don't think this is the point of the book. For all its big ideas and meditations on modern society, the heart of the novel is in the friendships of the four girls. I may not have gone to Smith, but I did go to a lovely all-girls high school and fully appreciate the unique friendships that come out of all-girls education. Still, it wasn’t the idea of Smith or any kind of all-girls school that made Commencement powerful for me. It was the exploration and admiration of the kinds of friendships that women share.