Zadie Smith: On Beauty

D. and I visited the Boston Public Library today to return a slew of books that had gone overdue while I was away in Kansas. The librarian chastised me for not returning Zadie Smith’s On Beauty—even though it is not yet overdue! “There are people waiting for that book,” she said as she nearly wagged a finger at me. Ouch.

I finished Smith’s novel shortly after arriving in Kansas, and then handed it over to L. to read as well. Naturally I shook my head and gestured innocently as I blamed my boyfriend for keeping the book longer than pleased the librarian.

I find the characters in this novel dynamic. Smith’s portrayal of life both inside the ivy walls and at home for small liberal arts professors works for me—even when there are has loose ends and less than plausible plot twists. The great thing about Smith’s writing is that you can tell how much fun she is having with her characters as they deal with classic human problems in a very contemporary setting.

Memorable Quotes 

(page numbers from hardcover library edition)

Levi Belsey: “It was a matter of an impossible translation—his mother wanted to know about a girl, but it wasn't about a girl or, rather, it wasn’t about just the girl. Jerome had fallen in love with a family. . . .How could he explain how pleasurable it had truly been to give himself up to the Kippses? It was a kind of blissful un-selfing; a summer of un-Belsey; he had allowed the Kippses’ world and their ways to take him over entirely.” (44)

Kiki Belsey: “She had only this brief glimpse of him, but Kiki suspected already that this would be one of those familiar exchanges in which her enormous spellbinding bosom would play a subtle (or not so subtle, depending on the person) silent third role in the conversation. Women bent away from it out of politeness; men – more comfortably for Kiki – sometimes remarked on it in order to get on and over it, as it were. The size was sexual and at the same time more than sexual: sex was only one small element of its symbolic range. Is she were white, maybe it would refer only to sex, but she was not. And so her chest gave off a mass of signals beyond her direct control: sassy, sisterly, predatory, motherly, threatening, comforting – it was a mirror-world she had stepped into in her mid forties, a strange fabulation of the person she believed she was. She could no longer be meek or shy. Her body had directed her to a new personality; people expected new things of her, some of them good, some not.” (47)

“It is an unusual law of such parties that the person whose position on the guest list was originally the least secure is always the first to arrive.” (97)

Howard Belsey: “It’s true that men – they respond to beauty. . .it doesn’t end for them, this. . .this concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world – and that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes. . . but it’s true and. . .I don’t know how else to explain what – ” (207)

“She called a rose a rose. He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around the mutually attracting binary poles of nature/artifice.” (225)

“As Dr. Byford explained, she was really the victim of a vicious, peculiarly female psychological disorder: she felt one thing and did another. She was a stranger to herself.” (226)

Victoria Kipps: “But your class – your class is a cult classic. I love your class. Your class is all about never ever saying I like the tomato.” (313)


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961669
NPR Interview

Holidaze

We have just returned to Boston after spending a week in Kansas for Christmas. I took my nieces and nephews out on two trips to local bookstores for what has become my holiday tradition: we spend an afternoon browsing and talking about books, often over a hot cup of cocoa or tea. Together we whittle down their selections to one (or sometimes two!). Then I take the books home, wrap them up and pass them out on Christmas Eve when we exchange family presents. I like being the Book Aunt!

I try to follow the 90/10 rule when giving advice about their selections: 90% based on their reading pleasure and 10% of my deeply passionate beliefs about what they should be reading. It is sometimes tempting to impose my reading habits, but I know such selfishness could actually cause them to dislike my choices AND reading. So I give in a bit or a whole lot.

I arrived in KS on the Sunday before Christmas and spent the week book shopping and hanging out with family. L. arrived on Wednesday night and my parents took us out to Montana Grill, owned by Ted Turner and famous for selling the bison meat raised on a ranch miles from the restaurant. Bison is good--tasty and the product of my home state (see my food philosophy).

Friday we rose with the sun and headed off with my parents and M. for a day trip across the plains of western KS. The sun rising over the wild prairie grasses, especially in the Sand Hills, never fails to be awesome. It was a four-hour drive to Damar, KS, where my mother grew up. We stopped to see the Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS and for pie and coffee in their diner (where smoking is still allowed--not that we smoke, but it seems important to convey the essence of the place).

Damar is an unassuming place with a gorgeous church. We made a waffle brunch with eggs cooked in bacon fat before we headed out for a walking tour of the town. We even had time for cousin Brenda to cut L.’s hair. Did you know that there are feral hogs in KS? I had just read about them in the New Yorker. Turns out our cousin’s husband had killed a 350 pound one last year. The trophy dear heads mounted on their living room wall confirmed his prowess.

After another round of coffee, we headed back to the car for a return trip with a view of the setting sun. Why the long drive? I wanted L. to see my mother’s town.

Christmas Eve all the siblings—except the youngest who is wandering around Brazil—met at the church for the 4 o’clock children’s service. Our family took up about 4 or 5 rows and made a fair amount of extra-liturgical noise and activity. After mass we all returned to my parent’s house. Christmas Eve dinner for 25 is a bit much and we have some finicky eaters to account for. In years past we have all eaten at McDonald’s (the shame!) or ordered pizza. After much menu discussion I was put in charge of making chili and baked potatoes with various other toppings. It was a hit. Kids ate. Adults ate. Happily too.

Then the good stuff: We all gathered in our living room (you have to imagine lots of squirming little bodies) to listen as Grandpa read the Christmas Story. This year Anna cuddled up next to him and “helped” him read. There was a stillness as he read the story. Perhaps it was the quiet before the storm of gift giving. After the story, we all shared how we spent our $100 in remembrance of our Grandma Kelley, my dad’s mother. Then we gathered our gifts to be donated in a large Santa sack. Finally, it was time to exchange family gifts. The wrapping paper was deep very soon.

This year Matt made us all caramels, Kathleen made us candied popcorn, Sarah crocheted white delicate ornaments and angels, Margaret made us rich (with lottery tickets!), and I gave the others a set of tea mugs. Presents galore!

Sunday morning we awoke to Santa’s gifts and then started to work on the Christmas Lunch. (I mostly "worked" on lunch by staying out of the kitchen.) At one o’clock we all gathered again (this time minus a few cousins) for turkey, goat (a new tradition as of last year, locally grown by the Amish), mashed potatoes, dumplings, stuffing, meat dressing, squash, and cranberry sauce. Then. . . Matt’s pies: apple (so light, crisp and fragrant), pecan, and pumpkin.

Christmas weather was a balmy 60 degrees. After that big meal it was divine to walk around the neighborhood and see the colors of the setting sun change the prairie grass from gold to pink and back again.

Just a few highlights from our holiday in KS!

And I didn’t even mention the NuWay!

A Brief Reading History

Recently I was asked to give an account of books/authors that have influenced me and my writing. It is an impossible task, really. Too many books crowd my head and it is impossible to list them all. But here goes in roughly chronological order:

I loved the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and stories about Ramona by Beverly Clearly.

Growing up I was a huge Stephen King fan, until I got too creeped out reading Gerald's Game. We used to sneak his novels beneath our desks during English class. You have got to admire his craft. I adored Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Now that I look back, reading was kind of what the boys did and my reading selections mirror that. The other book that stands out as an influence was A Girl of the The Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter, which was given to me by my Grandmother. It is a coming-of-age tale set in Indiana. I reread that one many times. These were books in which I got lost.

In college I really discovered literature (I was a science/sports geek in high school). One of my majors was essentially a Great Books program, which means we read works from the Western canon. I love the classics. But here is the stuff that moved me from college: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, A Passage to India by E.M. Forester, Arcardia by Tom Stoppard, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera, Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Pope's Essay on Man, The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor and, of course, Shakespeare. There are others, but I'll spare you.

It has only been since I started to teach high school English that I began to seriously read like a writer. When I had to teach reading/writing/story concepts to 9th graders, I had to be able to analyze a story so that its mechanics were visible to my students (without destroying the magic, which gets dicey). Books/Authors that have moved me in this era include: Blindness by Saramago (really, a favorite), anything by Margaret Atwood or Louse Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan and Alice Munro among others. Most recently I finished Gaddis's Carpenter's Gothic and I am slightly obsessed. Oh, I can't leave out The Vagina Monologues, which I produced/directed for three years. I swear I can quote that text like a good Christian can quote the bible.

So the few authors I have mentioned thus far have shaped and informed my literary tastes and views. I suppose the most interesting thing I can contribute is what has come as a great surprise to me: One of the most significant influences on my creative writing is. . . . nonfiction. I never had the time for it, until the past few years. Now I realize that it greatly contributes to my understanding of the world: society and history etc. and thus informs my fictional worlds. Books I would say are must reads for this purpose: The Tipping Point and the many New Yorker articles of Malcom Gladwell; Fast Food Nation by Schlosser; Savage Inequalities by Kozol; and of course The New York Times. Read the paper.

This is far from complete, but it is a little glimpse into my reading history and writing future.

Food Philosophy in a Fast Food Nation

Let me start with this: I love french fries. And I am not alone.

Several weeks ago I blogged about my choice to become a vegetarian (read entry). For years I was a vegetarian, but that initial phase was set in motion less by philosophy than by an urge to control my caloric intake. I met a Hungarian in 1997 and soon thereafter sat at his mother’s table. The chicken paprikas and the winter salami were divine. Thus began an earnest meat eating phase. Actually I think it was a healthy phase insofar as I enjoyed what I ate without undue worry about calories. Thus for many years I maintained a "vegetarian" philosophy--an awareness that my eating habits were not in tune with my own health or the health of the environment, but did not practice it. I went about my eating with a robust appetite but without much thought.

Occasionally I would stop to ponder the right way to use foods. Should I pay money for bottled water that has been shipped half-way around the world? Is it right to stuff cows full of antibiotics? Would I want to work at a Fast Food place? Then my father recommended Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nationsoon after it debuted in 2002.

I found the book a fascinating account of the Fast Food industry's history in America, as well as an expose about where and how foods are produced. He hits on issues such as the Fast Food’s use of advertising to attract children, the safety and worker’s rights of restaurant workers as well as slaughterhouse workers and farmers, and the impact of the industry’s demand for uniformity of product has on agriculture and the environment.

Schlosser’s work deeply impressed me and for a time I abstained from Fast Food. I am weak, however and slowly gave in and ordered fries, now and then. Then I started a demanding job whose commute took me down a strip of Fast Food restaurants. It started with fries—my personal addiction—and ended up with numerous meals consumed in my car between work and meetings. I had fallen, totally. At least I didn’t take my family there, I reasoned. It was so convenient and so yummy. Let me be clear: I love, desire even, a good burger and a heap of fries. This is why it is hard for me to say no.

Now I live in a neighborhood in a larger city that allows me to walk almost everywhere I need to go. If it is too far (or too cold!), I can take the metro or the busses. The occasion to enter a Fast Food chain is rare. Thus my consumption has declined. My life has slowed down as well. Instead of rushing to work and rushing home exhausted and starved, I lead a slow writer’s life. In my pajamas till noon, then out in the city to a local independent bookstore to read or write some more. There are numerous independent bookstores and cafes from which to choose. Yes, Starbucks is just around the corner. Yes, I do go there—mostly for hot tea and a study session. Starbucks does not offer french fries and a burger; so, for the time being, their establishment is less problematic for me.

Perhaps my change to a slower lifestyle has given me the time to think more deeply about my food philosophy. When I met a certain Iranian at a party, who is a practicing vegetarian, I was primed to commit myself to practice my food beliefs as well. It was also necessary for me to sit down and spell out my food philosophy, which is why I am composing this entry.

First, let me clarify my gastronomical values:

1) I value the environment. The Fast Food industry has changed the American landscape because of its demand for uniformity. All french fries must be x inches long, etc. So instead of local farmers with local potato varieties, we have mass farms producing one potato. Cows are produced and kept alive by antibiotics so that each hamburger patty is exactly uniform. Cows today, bred for the Fast Food Nation, are not fit to stay alive, let alone eat. Pink-in-plastic salves our consciences. Thus I should abstain from eating foods that are grown/raised in ways that damage the environment and biodiversity.

2) I value community. So I will make the effort to eat local products. For example, here in Boston I have been eating fish and canned tuna (harvested safely). The fish industry has its own problems, I am sure. But at this point I feel that fish farming has fewer problems and that it is healthy to consume fish. As I am currently based near the Atlantic, certain fishes are local. It makes sense to consume the local product. If I lived near an organic beef ranch, I would readily consume that product. If I lived in Hungary, I'd go for salami. Or if I lived in Japan, I would readily consume tofu. Local is good.

3) I value hospitality. This is where my vegetarianism gets grey, but I am okay with the grey. Hospitality trumps philosophy. If a person prepares meat for me—especially in their home—I will never refuse it.

4) I value rituals. Holidays—Thanksgiving to weddings—trump philosophy. I wish I were Indian and had grown up in a vegetarian family that had special lentil dishes for holidays. But I didn’t. In my family, the turkey reigns. What can I do? I could abstain, but that is so abrasive and just plain sad. At this point, I do not have children of my own. So, perhaps I will have to reevaluate my traditional menu if I have my own little ones to cook for. On the other hand, perhaps it is healthy to reserve meats for special occasions? For example, eat the turkey on Thanksgiving as long as it is a local, fresh bird.

5) I value my health. This means that I will consider my personal health needs when I choose my foods. Preservatives and chemicals, in general, can be easily avoided. Food in boxes makes a big profit for the food industry, but it is not necessarily healthy for me to consume.

After this values clarification work, I realize that I am not really a “vegetarian”. I do abstain from most store bought meat and other industrial foods, and I do abstain from Fast Food. This means: no french fries, unless they are prepared from fresh potatoes, which is more difficult than giving up meat. Since I do not completely abstain from meat, I can't call myself vegetarian. Yet there is no catchy title for my food philosophy. Is there? Let me know if there is!

Here a few things that Schlosser recommends can be done in an effort to use food wisely:

1) “Nobody in America is forced to buy fast food. The first step toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: stop buying it. The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit.”

2) Ban advertising directed at children less than eight years of age. “Today the health risks faced by the nation’s children far outweigh the needs of its mass marketers.” Thirty years ago cigarette ads aimed at adults were banned and smoking has decreased ever since. This ban would also encourage fast food chains to alter their recipes for children to make them healthier.

3) Fast food chains should provide fair wages and adequate health care benefits for their workers instead of churning through unskilled labor.

He recommends the following websites:

www.commercialexploitation.com
The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is an organization trying to limit marketing to kids.

www.mcspotlight.org
This is a rowdy, iconoclastic website about McDonald's

www.slowfood.com
The Slow Food Movement promotes agriculture that is traditional and sustainable, as well as food that is delicious.

www.lasatergrasslandsbeef.com
Dale Lasater's "wonderful" grass-fed beef, availabe online

www.ranchfoodsdirect.com
Mike Callicrate sells natural, antibiotic-free and hormone-free beef, produced outside the industrialized, meatpacking system.

www.heritagefoodsusa.com
This site has turkey, chicken, pork, lamb and wild salmon produced the "right way" and for sale online.

I urge you to read Schlosser's book for an in-depth look at these issues and what you can do to become a thoughtful eater. Food and eating are central to our biological and social lives. It is too bad that so many of our food decisions bypass our brains.

Gregory Comnes (et al) on Gaddis

As promised I have put together a summary of the Comnes article I noted earlier entitled "A Patchwork of Conceits: Perspectives and Perception in Carpenter's Gothic" (Critique, Fall 1988, Vol. 30 Issue 1, p 13, 14 p). If you haven't read the novel yet, this may deter you! I do have one person who has shown some interest in sharing my current obsession with Gaddis. . .

Comnes notes that Gaddis’s reader must abandon the usual external vantage point and engage in an active meaning-making process to manage the narrative. Meaning and coherence are not trademarks of the text, but are imposed upon the text by the active imagination of the reader.

According to Comnes, Gaddis’s first two novels, The Recognitions and JR, offer the dedicated reader the hope of making meaning. “If the reader is willing to confront these unstable narratives, he can re-stitch a raveled plot, uncover an oblique allusion—in short, learn to recover meaning in life by first learning how to recover it in fiction” (16). An idea I will return to later.

Carpenter’s Gothic, titled after the house where it takes place built in that particular architectural style, does not offer such hope. McCandless describes carpenter’s gothic as “a patchwork of conceits, borrowings, deceptions the insides a hodgepodge of good intentions like one last ridiculous effort at something worth doing” (227 – 228). Even after the reader patches together the narrative the overall message appears to be: greed and corruption cannot be overcome and the effort to try and do something worthwhile in our modern world might be plain ridiculous. An elderly neighbor appears in the book raking his leaves, sometimes only a few leaves at a time, and his appearance seems to embody the futility of human efforts.

Comnes argues that the novel convinces the reader through our patchwork reading that the world itself is indeterminate. We do not merely fail to understand our reality; rather we may be fundamentally handicapped by our inability to perceive reality. We pat ourselves on the back for granting that every issue has two sides, but meanwhile miss the point that the two sides are really a whole. (For more on this, see "Buddhist Duality in William Gaddis's Carpenter Gothic" by Robert E. Kohn.)

Carpenter’ Gothic chastises humanity for its stupidity and cultivation of ignorance, especially in the realm of revealed truth and religion. Gaddis also debunks faith in reason by having McCandless sell out in the end. Thus we are left groveling it appears. Yet Comnes argues that Gaddis destroys faith and reason in order to offer an alternative to revealed truth and cynical humanism. The alternative is that meaning is found not in faith or reason, but in the very act of perception.

Gaddis’s use of language forces the reader to “see reality, to comprehend it by taking it in bits and pieces.” The reader learns to make meaning within the text and is then enabled to recover meaning in the world by using the same methods of active attention. “For Gaddis. . .what is required for morality and value is not a dialogue between man and ideology, but between eye and physical event” (24).

Thus Comnes concludes that Gaddis has given the reader the ability to make meaning in a world that is fundamentally indeterminate and contingent. Value, meaning, and purpose are not given. Rather they are made through human effort to accurately see reality and then choose how to act within the given parameters, however imperfect and chaotic they may appear. So there is no hope that our world will ever make sense, but once we are able to truly see this, there is a way to live that is worthwhile.

I also noted an article by Jonathan Franzen called "Mr. Difficult" as helpful in my reading of Gaddis. This may seem strange due to the fact Franzen calls Gaddis "Mr Difficult" by no means to compliment his literary achievement. Franzen sees Gaddis as an example of what is wrong with literature: pretentious difficulty for the sake of the author's status, never mind the poor audience who simple can't follow such craft. Even though Franzen condemns Gaddis' work, I found the article useful as in insight into the literary cantankouseness out there as well as the state of the novel today. In short, read it.

Welcome to G-Match by J.K.Kelley

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Testimonial: We used to rely on our keen sense of smell to attract or be attracted. Imagine how shocked I was to learn that over half of human smell receptors are broken! Humans lost the scent for pheromones somewhere around 1986. I am not saying it had anything to do with deep fat fryers, but I do think it is telling that my parents—who met in 1993—were a mess. Two sets of genes less likely to trip the right wires would have never met before the breakdown of the genetic family in charge of half our nose. So I tested myself, then my girlfriend. Let’s just say it was a close call. She had all the brains, but was a few genes short of a happy g-match for this lucky bachelor.

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Four Stories and More

I had been looking forward to the Four Stories: One evening, four urban narratives event since I missed November's get together. L. was late arriving home. I waited for him. Then we decided to walk instead of take the bus. We found the unmarked door for the Enormous Room. There was a bouncer. He announced that the event was "filled to capacity." Can you believe it? A bouncer at a literary event. I love this town. Here is what we missed:

Cain and Abel--Stories of Family on the Edge
with the following authors:

Elizabeth Benedict, National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize finalist, and author of The Practice of Deceit, a Book Sense Pick, Book of the Month Club selection, and All Things Considered (NPR) recommended novel (www.elizabethbenedict.com)

Jaime Clarke, author of the novel We're So Famous, co-founder of Post Road Magazine, and teacher of writing at Emerson College whose work has appeared in The Mississippi Review, AGNI, and Chelsea

Tom Perrotta, acclaimed author of the novels Little Children, Election, Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, and Joe College

Megan Sullivan, associate professor of writing at Boston University and author of Women in Northern Ireland, Irish Women and Film: 1980-1990, and The Embezzler's Daughter: A memoir

We will have to wait until next YEAR for the next event. A bouncer.

Luckily, our walk was not for naught. We stopped at the Middle East, our first time there. We ate a little falafel, a little baklava, drank something zippy and headed home before the music started.

In other narrative news here is a little blurb:

Shortlist of Short Stories By EDWARD WYATT

December 7, 2005, New York Times

Three collections of stories, from a writing heavyweight, a small-press author and an Irish immigrant, have been named finalists for the second annual Story Prize, a $20,000 award for short fiction that will be presented after a reading by the authors at the New School in Manhattan on Jan. 25. The finalists are Jim Harrison, the acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist, for "The Summer He Didn’t Die," three novellas published by Atlantic Monthly Press; Maureen F. McHugh, best known for her science fiction novels, for "Mothers & Other Monsters," 13 stories published by Small Beer Press of Northampton, Mass.; and Patrick O’Keeffe, a lecturer at the University of Michigan who immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the mid-1980’s, for "The Hill Road," four stories published by Viking.

Ansel Adams and Lyambiko

It was a crowded weekend. The lovely mother-to-be Ms. A. arrived in Boston Friday night for her much to brief first visit to Bean Town. We joined a casual crowd celebrating the end of a conference on Friday night for a memorable meal at Bertucci’s. Gastronomical note: next time, pizza only.

Saturday we snuck into the Trident for brunch just ahead of the crowd. We were seated dead center in the front dining room and enjoyed our shared freshly squeezed orange juice (very pulpy indeed) and the breakfast burrito. As usual, the buzz of the morning crowd was lively. We didn’t stop talking for even an instant.

We made our way down Newbury Street, stopping in various boutiques and galleries. In the heat of the dressing room I gave in and bought a pair of AG jeans. They do fit like magic. But I admit that I have having morning-after regrets. I may take them back, I may give them a few days to acclimate to my world. We’ll see. The sales girl was very kind. Thankfully she was not buy break dancing on the show floor as her colleague was.

Amazingly enough it was soon time to head back the other way and find the Museum of Fine Arts. We had 2:30 entrance tickets to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. The walk was a bit farther then I remembered and we were a few minutes late, but it was no problem. The real problem was the crowd. We entered the first exhibit room to find a wall of people and overwhelming body heat, not to mention a toddler who was coughing, crying and literally repeating, “no, no, no” in a tiny plaintive voice.

Many of the photographs were Mona Lisa size. Thus you had to be within a foot or two to appreciate the fine detail. Hordes of people are not conducive to this kind of viewing. It would have been ideal with half the people in attendance. It was hard to love the art under such conditions. Yet, how could we not fall in love with every shot? The photographs are amazing. It is well worth your time to see the show….but not on a weekend and not in the middle of the afternoon. Crowds. It was a theme that day.

By then it was almost three and we needed calories. Sadly the upstairs café, which appeared quiet and relaxing, closed at three. Ms.A. made the executive decision to exit the building. We made our way to the nearby Au Bon Pain for soup and more conversation.

After the walk home and a quick planning session with L., we headed off for the North End to find a table at The Daily Catch. For those in the know, it is a heavenly stink. Literally the kitchen is in the eating area and the place serves about fifteen people tightly crammed at closely packed tables. Crowds. We had mussels, black pasta with putanesca, linguine with shrimp and the calamari plate. There was a calamari meatball.

We walked across the street to Mike’s Pastry Shop where we scored a table. The crowd in front of the pastry display cases was three to four people deep. Impossible. L. spotted a pastry at the next table and ordered the Lobster Tail. I shared his; it was easier than trying to order. It was a crisp pastry shell filled with whipped cream. So simple. So divine. And yes it was shaped like a lobster tail. Ms. A.’s pistachio cookie, well, let’s just say they deliver across the country.

We then taxied over the Cambridge to the Real Deal Jazz Club to see Lyambiko perform. Lyambiko is a German Jazz artist who is backed up by a jazz trio. It was not all together displeasing show. A mixed bag. She walked on stage, eyes downcast and performed her first number without making eye contact. I was underwhelmed. I wasn’t sure if her style was by choice—was she restrained or did she lack the depth and range to hit notes? I am no singer. Yet I felt that she was reaching.

Then, her attire. I am not known for my sharp dressing or eye for accessories. But I realized that I wanted an attempt at a stage presence that she was unwilling to make, for whatever reason. Casual black pants, a casual top. As Ms. A noted, the downcast eyes and casual attire set a tone for the whole night. I was not uplifted by the tone, rather I was busy making up excuses in my head. I want a jazz singer to be in control and be cool. I was worried that she was acting the part of a jazz singer instead of being a jazz singer.

L., on the other hand, felt that she her appearance was cool in an “European way.” Hhhmmm. Not sure what he meant by that, other than he was sticking up for a fellow non-American.

A few of her numbers did amaze me—especially the songs in French and Portuguese. She is a chameleon on stage. Each song was brilliant or decidedly not brilliant. Maybe she is still finding her voice? Her style? Certainly she has got it, whatever that it might be. But it needs to be it for the whole show. Would I recommend her performance? I don’t have a clear YES on that. Nor do I have a definitive NO. Did we enjoy ourselves? Of course. Did I mention that it was crowded? It was packed.

Luckily we avoided the crowds, finally, Sunday morning as we enjoyed pastries and tea as the snow fell. Time was too short, however. Soon Ms. A. was off to the airport and we were left too un-crowded. Next time, less crowd for sure.

Gaddis: Penguin Guide and Articles

I am reading outside sources and trying to put together my thoughts on Carpenter's Gothic. Here I will provide the Penguin Group Book Club Reading Guide. Yes, dear Book Club friends, I think this would make a GREAT selection for us!

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Early in Carpenter's Gothic, the third of William Gaddis's five novels, Paul Booth says to his wife, Liz, "trying to put things together, build something like your father did we both know that's what it's about" (p. 18). For Paul, "trying to put things together" means somehow procuring money from an outlandish and absurdly complicated scheme involving everything from a thoroughly corrupt evangelist to mineral rights in Africa. "Trying to put things together" is also a fair description of Gaddis's method of composition and the task he presents to readers. Carpenter's Gothic consists primarily of the unattributed speech of its characters, who are frequently interrupted not only by one another, but also by the background noise of daily life—television, radio, ringing telephones, and the printed word that constantly inundates them in the form of junk mail, newspapers, magazines, and books. The effect is one of unfiltered sound; only occasionally does the third-person narrative voice step in to situate readers in time and place. Interpretation becomes not only a matter of choosing among possible meanings; readers must first sift through what often seems a random onslaught of words.

Carpenter's Gothic proceeds as a series of revelations, which come ever more quickly as the conclusion approaches. But one of the novel's many ironies is that however much of the truth both readers and characters know, there seems to be just as much more that remains elusive. For example, the circumstances of Liz's fate illustrate the multiple layers of truth in the novel. Liz is also a kind of pivot, although an unstable one, on which much of the plot turns. A cloud of uncertainty envelops her at the end of the novel. Other characters seem to have reached incorrect conclusions, yet it is still difficult to say precisely what happens to her. At one point, McCandless, the owner of the house, observes, "There's a very fine line between the truth and what really happens" (p. 130). Given the oblique manner in which the narrator renders events, and the unreliability of the characters' statements, the novel forces readers to consider whether it is possible to ever know what really happens, and whether truth is only another word for consensus.

But the convoluted plot of the novel may be little more than a distraction for readers, just as it is, in a sense, for Liz. Paul is consumed by his role as a media consultant in Reverend Ude's scheme, which Gaddis uses to savage the ambitions and values at the heart of American economic, social, political, and religious life. As Paul says while relating the latest developments in the scheme to Liz, "pray for America pray for Brother Ude all the same God damn thing" (p. 111). If Paul, to some degree, is a specific embodiment of the moral and spiritual bankruptcy on display in the public life depicted in the novel, Liz's fate might suggest the toll this general condition exacts on private life. From the first scene between Liz and Paul, her inability to arrest Paul's incessant monologues detailing the progress of his work leaves her increasingly desperate and isolated. She only manages to throw him off stride by interjecting coarse language when she tells him about a visit to the doctor in support of a specious lawsuit Paul has filed. When Paul remarks on this, Liz says, "I wanted to see if you heard me" (p. 72).

Not only does Paul never hear her, but he also repeatedly chastises Liz for not listening to him. McCandless, perhaps the novel's most perplexing character, arrives to fill the void created by Paul's complete self-absorption. Sometimes he seems to be a parody of the seductive, mysterious stranger with a murky past. But he nevertheless engages Liz's mind and imagination. It becomes difficult to decide whether McCandless is a viable but fleeting alternative to the world Paul imposes on Liz or a sinister figure who preys on a woman feeling trapped. Mechanically assuming the role of the distant landlord on the unexpected appearance of Liz's brother Billy, McCandless says to Liz, "afraid I disturbed you Mrs. Booth" (p. 196). The phrase continues to echo in her head after McCandless leaves, the verb taking on a more ominous tone than McCandless might have intended.

On the telephone with Paul near the end of the novel, Liz seems to experience one last moment of hope: "if we can get a fresh start Paul if we could go away" (p. 232). Is she falling back on the longstanding American ideal of erasing one's history at any moment, no possibilities ever foreclosed? If Liz's life with Paul suggests the destructive force of the American dream, what are we to make of the fact that the novel concludes with Paul apparently making good on its promise, but with Edie, his wife's cherished friend? In defending to her brother Paul's inability to finish any project he starts, Liz says, "as long as something's unfinished you feel alive" (p. 89). Gaddis seems to share with Liz a bit of this sentiment. So intricately orchestrated, his fiction still leaves much for readers to put together.

The following three links have been
extremely useful as I work through CG:

Buddhist Duality in William Gaddis's Carptenter's Gothic
by Robert E. Kohn, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Summer 2004, Vol. 45 Issue 4, p 421, 12p

A Patchwork of Conceits: Perspectives and Perception in Carpenter's Gothic
by Gregory Comnes, Critique, Fall 1988, Vol. 30 Issue 1, p 13, 14 p

Mr. Difficult
by Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker, Sept. 30, 2002

I will try to annotate these articles in future blogs!