What’s more important: Good writing? Or a good story?
(Of course, a book should have BOTH, but…)

I cannot stand bad writing regardless of how riveting the story is. But I can cut a literary fiction some slack. This might sound outrageously unfair to some of you, but The Help fits into the good story-mediocre writing category. It’s well enough written but it’s like a writing-by-numbers exercise. It hits all the literary cliches—it takes place in the south, uses “authentic” dialogue, talks about important (hairsplitting) issues (racism) but is safely ensconced in the past, so it doesn’t offend well-meaning people in the present. It is just so entirely cliched. I was intrigued by the story idea and I can see why people liked it: it’s a good, fast read, but the dialect is sometimes cringingly bad, and also not consistent. The book is screaming for editing.

” A plot of land. That’s what Doug told his lawyer. Buy me a plot of land, hire a contractor, and build me a casino of a house. If the neighbors have five bedrooms, give me six. A four-car garage, the kitchen of a prize-winning chef, high ceilings, marble bathrooms, everything wired to the teeth. Whatever the architecture magazines say. Make the envying types envious. ” (1:19)

Full of intricate nuances, Union Atlantic is a timely novel that not only bears prescience but also resonates with the snowballing financial crisis that sweeps the country. While the book presents a clear, indicting vision of how we wound up in the economic cesspool, it explores how people are caught up in the societal urge and take up causes that are wildly at odds.

In the beginning Doug Fanning was on board a naval ship in the Persian Gulf during the height of Iran-Iraq War. He was among those responsible for a terrible military error, shooting down a plane with 290 civilians on board. He’s not fazed by this incident, although years later it lingers on the fringe of his consciousness, nor is he troubled by his subsequent quasi-legal activities at Union Atlantic, once a tightly regulated, cautiously run institution but now a financial conglomerate powerhouse as a result of brazen and aggressive manoeuvres orchestrated by Doug.

These days much of the world seemed drained of presence to him, not by his doubt of anything’s existence but because objects, even people sometimes, seemed to dissipate into their causes, their own being crowded out what had made them so. (Chapter 4:75)

If Doug Fanning has a cause, it’s not money-oriented, despite the power he has wielded and the vast money he brings in for the bank. Nor is it greed. In Fanning there exists an ego so stupendous and exhaustive that he prides in testing the length to which he can manipulate global financial market, imperiling the investments of unwitting citizens but increasing his company’s earnings. To reward himself, he builds a garish mansion in the town of Finden, MA. His palatial spread is viewed with extreme distaste and agitation from his neighbor Charlotte Graves, who claims that the house is built on preservation land that was gifted to the town by her grandfather on the understanding that it will not be developed. Holed up alone and poised on an insurgent attitude against civilization, Charlotte, however, is not so eccentric as being uncapable of creating legal struggle for Doug. She retains “the energy for a more or less permanent outrage at the failure of the shabby world to live up to its stated principles.” (12:198)

Connecting the two antagonists is Nate, a college-bound senior who seeks tutorial help from Charlotte, a retired history teacher, for his AP exam. An intrusive on impulse subjects him to Doug’s acquaintance. But the teenager, unaware of his homosexuality, has more than a burning crush for the financial titan, who is more than happy to satisfy his physical desire in exchange for any information Nate might retrieve from Charlotte’s house. Branched off from the legal dispute is Nate’s pure affection for someone who only takes advantage for his love.

The inertia of the plotlines in Union Atlantic sustains my interest throughout the book. The freighted clash between Doug and Charlotte is a microcosm of what is going on in the world. While the novel elucidates the moral and economic consequences of deregulated financial institutions, it aims to expose and indict the corrupted root and deceit of those who take advantage of the inefficiency and inadequacy of the system. What Charlotte despises is not someone like Doug, but the system at large that encourages such a personality. Winning the case would justify her case, not only against Doug and the town (which violates the trust and sells the land for monetary gain), but against her larger enemy: that general encroachment of money, waste, display, greed, and self-entitlement. Haslett has been criticized for the lack of emotional punch in his characterization–I disagree. Doug’s expedient character seems shallow at first, but gradually the signs of repressed anguish begin to accrue, partly brought out by the tenderness he might have felt for Nate. This is a great read, full of emotional states.

354 pp. 1st ed. Trade Paperback. [Read/Skim/Toss] [Buy/Borrow]

]]> http://mattviews.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/435-union-atlantic-adam-haslett/feed/ 4 mattviews atlantic http://mattviews.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/simon-says-gay-men-dont-get-fat/ http://mattviews.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/simon-says-gay-men-dont-get-fat/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:30:52 +0000 Matthew http://mattviews.wordpress.com/?p=6764 ]]>

Simon Doonan is stylish and funny. The Barney window announced his book launch party at the store. How can I miss this after looking at the fabulous window? This book, Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, a take-off of French Women Don’t Get Fat, is full of Simon’s snarky humor as he imparts his wisdom on how to live a fabulous life. Don’t read this book expecting a guide to losing weight. This is neither a weight loss guide nor a fitness handbook. Instead, read it prepared to laugh out loud at Simon’s sense of humor as he laments the state of the wardrobes and lives of most straight women.

The book is just hilarious. “If you want the skinny on style, then ditch the diluted frogs and follow the gays,” says Doonan, who has no qualms about offending anyone standing in his sashaying way. “We, not the Françoises and Solanges, are the true oracles. We are the chosen people. We, and only we, know how to enhance your tawdry, lackluster lives.” “We” means the gays; the gays are the chosen mavens of style and food. Doonan does offer advice, but this is mingled with his own history, instead of some quick dietary pointers in bullets. He doesn’t linger on dietary suggestions, just enough to note the differences in eating habits between straight and gay men.

I nod my head off at the part how he makes fun of the ever-expanding sizes of men’s clothes in America. The small has just got bigger over the years to accommodate the bodies that fill them. At an all-heterosexual barbecue where the only designer duds to be seen were an ocean of Tommy Bahama, Doonan had to restrain himself from screaming, “Stop it, girls! Just stop it” as the tropically attired “slubberdegullions” (Simon’s own word) emptied calorie-laden bowls of guacamole. (Laugh Out Loud) It’s all fun raillery.

This week’s musing asks:

Why do you think that the Young Adult genre is so popular with even the adult readers? Do you read YA books, yourself?

I hardly read YA fiction although I’m aware how popular it is among adult readers. YA fiction focuses on life of teenagers whose scope in life is yet fully mature. But stories told through their perspective could remind us of how we all used to be before the world and its problems, worries, entanglement have their claim on us. Reading YA fiction could be a breath of fresh air and a respite from our daily problems. Childhood (at least for me) has a long memory and much of my adolescent years associate with books and music from the respective years. Sentimentality aside, YA fiction has an army of promoters and backers outside the book industry: teachers, librarians, and specialist booksellers are keenly aware of the difference the right book can make to the right kid at the right time, and they spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to convince kids to try out a book. These watchdogs give YA fiction undivided attention and their devotion to this specific genre could wield an influence far more substantial than say, a traditional book tour of adult fiction. We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. If a book catches on fire among the kids’ social circle, you bet it will become the their lingo. Harry Potter would be the prime example.

” To Mirabelle, the idea of being an object of obsession is alluring and represents a powerful love. She fails to understand, however, that men become obsessive over beautiful women because they want no one else to have them, but they fall in love with women like Mirabelle because they want a certain, specific part of them. ” (26)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin’s debut novella is both elegant and desolately sad. The shopgirl of the title is Mirabelle, a 28-year-old artist, Virginia transplant in Los Angeles, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus, “selling things that nobody buys anymore.” (1) She is not a slacker, just bored and wants someone to talk to, since the counter, located just next to the couture department, is just for show. All the Neiman girls deem her a loner and ostracize her. Other than readings and volunteer work that occupy a good portion of her past-time, weekends can be dreadful for someone of her fragility, because a slipup in planning could mean staring at the TV all day.

What would any man do with a soggy girl who can’t assert herself, who has a weak voice, who dresses like a schoolgirl, and whose main personality component is helplessness? (58)

Despite her helplessness and frustrations in life, Mirabelle is rather likable. It is no wonder the other girls would have nothing to do with her: Mirabelle is neither opportunistic nor calculating. She has a modest and non-monetary view on love, love that is untainted by sex. She is not in the league of women who attract men on the strength of their sexual appeal. Just when she is listlessly courted by Jeremy, whose job involves stenciling logos onto amplifiers, comes a secret admirer Ray Porter, a 50-something millionaire who spends most of his time in Seattle. He spots her at the glove counter, sends her a present, and asks her out to dinner.

She is falling in love, and she fully expects her love to be returned once Mr. Porter comes to his senses. But right now, he is using the hours with her as a portal to his own need for propinquity. (77)

As Mirabelle and Ray flinchingly embarks on this relationship, which is obviously doomed from the beginning because their agendas are wildly at odds. Their misunderstanding is both comic and heartbreaking, giving Shopgirl a touch of an allegory. Mirabelle wants—and needs—to gall in love; Ray is dating around, almost too casually, to find out about women at the expense of hurting a few along the way. The “Conversation” that they have best demonstrates their conflicting goals in relationship. That what Ray says and what Mirabelle hears are wholly opposite stalemate them.

Shopgirl is a jewel of a book, charming and tender, despite some slight flaws in editing. Mirabelle’s search for selfhood and love is touching. The book is ingenious in the way how Martin imposes this silent humor about how people re clueless of their absurdity. Absurdity is almost like pain that has to be endured in order for healing to take place. Shopgirl definitely has an edge to it, and a deep unassuageable loneliness.

130 pp. 1st Ed. Softcover. [Read/Skim/Toss] [Buy/Borrow]

You will think a joint effort with the UK Council would show the vital aspects of Margaret Thatcher’s life and career on the cutting room floor. But think twice. I dare say that Meryl Streep is the highlight of the film, if not the saving grace. She disappears so uncannily into former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the film that her performance overpowers the movie it’s in. The ingenious opening segment features an anonymous elderly Thatcher buying milk for her husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). Then it flashes back to Margaret’s early years as the daughter of a conservative shop owner who, when his daughter tells him she has won a place at Oxford, tells her not to let him down. Soon I discern a pattern that sets the tone and basis for the rest of the film for which director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan are to blame: Framed as a sequence of flashbacks Thatcher reflects on in late retirement, The Iron Lady dwells at length on the mental and physical frailties that have attended her later years. In and out of her dreams and abrupt flashbacks, I get the impression that the subject is being both lionized and punished, but without any clear reasons. Meryl Streep does her job well as usual, delivering a bravura performance, but this performance is neither a thoughtful nor provocative portrait of one of the most consequential, influential figures of the 20th century. This is a curious movie, almost standing as its own genre. I don’t recommend the movie, which is no more than a collage of a woman, way ahead of her time, and her ideas and political passion, and later, ambition. Unfortunately the film devotes virtually no time on their substance, let alone any substantive argument regarding the historical roots of Thatcherism, its effect on Britain or its lasting impact on the country’s political culture. The political fallout of her positions is also rushed. Streep shines in her meticulously researched characterization. She really nails Thatcher’s imperious stare and the breathy but insistently inflected speaking style. The movie as a whole is dull.

1 hr 45 mins. PG-13

” Now that Toto was so rarely in England, Fibich would have found the days long without his scrupulous routines, and in the office both he and Hartmann were able to recapture the essence of their friendship before the advent of wives and children had cemented the two families into one dissoluble unit. ” (15:241)

Readers who are familiar with Brookner’s novels would find Latecomers a diversion from her usual feminine consciousness in narrative. With such serenity in the prose she manages to tell a story, or rather, portrayal in snapshots of two friends who met at a fateful moment in history and grow old together.

Separated from their families in Nazi Germany, Hartmann and Fibich were smuggled to England, where they attended boarding school. Although Hartmann, five years older, is the more ebullient of the two, “had it not been for the accident of being paired with Fibich, he would have died or killed himself.” (1:6)

Maybe it’s only the knowledge that someone else’s experience reflects his own reality saves Hartmann. But they are destined to be inseparable although their temperaments are diametrically opposed. Hartmann is blessed with the ability to live in the present. Hedonistic, kindly, cheerful, and enterprising, he never cares for his past. Together with Fibich he enters the greeting business from which he makes a fortune. Fibich is haunted by a past he cannot remember. He feels troubled that Hartmann has taken over the direction of his life—and that he hasn’t lived his own because a big part is missing. So anxious and brooding that he pines for returning to Berlin in order to revive his childhood memories.

Their early experiences had given them the identity they needed, and as long as they stayed together this identity became more reassuring, so that in middle age they seemed to have as substantial a life as anyone else of their acquaintance. And it had to be said that Hartmann’s sunny and insouciant attitude was marvellously attractive to have around, and that it pressured Fibich from his worst excesses of melancholy. The melancholy was still there, of course,and it was never to disappear. (3:42)

Their marriages and parenthood only reinforce the bond established since adolescence. Despite worries for the daughter and a son, they live manageably within the confine of small routines. Their lives are as different in temperaments as they are: Yvette is vain and egotistic, and Christine modest and self-effacing. Together they become one family, and free of any clashes in opinions. Latecomers explores the ambiguous pleasures of friendship and domesticity. At every stage of life the book emphasizes the texture of time’s passage despite a major flaw on Yvette’s age. It’s an inexcusable anachronism that makes her a married woman at age 5 and a mother at 7. Brookner does take her time furnishing details of their lives—lives that survive horror of adolescence caught in the tide of history and eventually arrive in full possession. Brookner’s keen eyes never leave the innermost details of these people, and even the most die-hard fan of character-study novel could find her delineation hard-going occasionally.

248 pp. Trade Paperback. [Read/Skim/Toss] [Buy/Borrow]

I saw this article the other day that asked, “Are you ashamed of skipping parts of books?” Which, naturally, made me want to ask all of YOU.
Do you skip ahead in a book? Do you feel badly about it when you do?

Before I clicked to read the article my first thought was what Somerset Maugham said about skipping. Indeed, the article draws upon Maugham’s book in which he devotes quite a bit of space to “the useful art of skipping”. Skipping, says Maugham, is perfectly fine, because “a sensible person does not read a novel as a task. He reads it as a diversion.” If reading is an art, and art aims to please, then any book that is bogged down my overly embellished details that do not necessarily advance the plot should be skipped. I have read character-driven novels that often repeat and reinstate traits and personalities. I find such details redundant and justify skipping. The current read, Latecomers by Anita Brookner, I do not read every single word because it has a mild tendency to repeat. The very difficult The Sound and the Fury I skipped a lot of the first part because it didn’t make sense to me at all. But I came back to that many times as the subsequent narratives make sense of the first, which Faulkner purposefully meant to obscure. Long books aren’t usually the targets of skipping, unless they read like War and Peace, which devotes quite a lot of space about farming techniques and land division. If a book cannot get my attention flow on the several pages, I would have skipped it altogether and find another one. If I’m halfway through and am losing interest, I feel justified skimming/skipping through it. After all, it’s foolish not to read and have fun.

I almost forgot this blog turns six today. I never thought a project on a whim would slowly steering out of control and becoming a commitment. For six years, I have been thriving in silence, putting in words all my thoughts on the books I read. I didn’t start this blog to be competitive or to get free books, nor do I intend to be a famous blogger. It just makes my day when someone e-mails or leaves a comment saying he/she finds my reviews helpful. I love reading and I enjoy making public all the conversations in my head. Thank you all for coming by to read my bookish thoughts. A very special thank to the 149 subscribers who make the blog a part of your day. I’m not the most interactive blogger but I appreciate all your comments. As long as I read, this blog will continue.

Personally I resonate with a trusted circle of book bloggers with whom I share a common reading taste. Their opinions become my primary source of books to be purchased and read. That said, the diversity of interests is conducive to broadening a reader’s horizon—to read out of the comfort zone. I owe the many book bloggers for books that I otherwise would never have read. Thank you all for enlightening me in this regard.

” You know exactly what I mean. Basil’s needed a war. He’s not meant for peace. ” (12)

Put Out More Flags is so typically Waugh: he has developed a wickedly hilarious and yet spot-on assault (if you’re familiar with British history) on traditional values. The book is set in the week that precedes the outbreak of World War II, the days of “surmise and apprehension which cannot, without irony, be called the last days of peace.” (3) As the Prime Minister declares England at war on the radio, three rich women are all mindful of Basil Seal, the anti-hero of the book. They are his sister, his mother, and his mistress. Through them we learn how Basil makes the most out of the war.

… and if you had gone into the Army when you left Oxford you would be a major by now. Promotion is very quick in war-time because so many people get killed. (182)

Right when war is breaking out, Basil accepts his sister Barbara’s suggestion to billet—to place urban children with rural families to protect them from incipient bombings. Soon Bail turns billeting into a lucrative business as country house residents are more than happy to pay him for not hosting three monstrous children. “What’s it worth to you to have those children moved from you?” (124)

There’s a lot to be said for a uniform. For one thing you’ll have to call me ‘sir’ and if there’s any funny stuff with the female staff I can take disciplinary action. For another thing it’s the best possible disguise for a man of intelligence. (190)

Meanwhile, Basil mother’s mother sets her heart o enlisting her son into a decent regiment. Lady Seal believes that a patriotic commission will save him from his unaccountable taste for low company that had led him into many vexatious scrapes. But the unemployable Basil is able to insinuate into a peculiar role during mobilization. He finds a job with the Ministry of Intelligence where he discovers that the secret to success is to level charges of Communism and Nazism against his friends and inform on them. Those who fell under Basil’s recondite pretexts of patriotism include a Jewish atheist who launches a fascist magazine. Waugh also makes fun of pampered aristocrats’ amateurish attempt of patriotism and fighting. An upper-class man enlists as a soldier because he believes that “he would make as good a target as anyone else for the King’s enemies to shoot at.”

The novel is a myopic look at England in her last fateful moment of history. Beneath the humor and jokes is grim reality that the upper-class people, deprived of values except pleasure-seeking, fail to grasp. The book itself is not without flaws. It’s worth skimming, but not Waugh’s best. A coherent narrative thread is absent in Put Out More Flags, rendering it a potpourri of barely disguised concepts and clippings from previous novels loosely thrown together.

286 pp. Trade Paperback. [Read/Skim/Toss] [Buy/Borrow]