Look at Me - Jennifer Egan

 

After liking-without-loving A Visit from the Goon Squad I decided to read another Egan novel as I had just read a couple of books by Rachel Kushner and felt that I might as well read something more by the another widely acclaimed American female author. 

And this one absolutely blew me away. It had all the markers of a "great American novel" for me. Part suburbia, part big city. A healthy dose of criticism of systemic flaws. A main characters who is complex, multifaceted and, ultimately, oddly relatable. 

Yet, the novel's greatest accomplishment is probably its being ahead of the times, with a character in Z who just about predates the drama of 9/11 and whose life shares so many similarities with what we know of those of many other terrorists who have emerged ever since. 

Unterleuten - Juli Zhe

 

The joy of having a) a well-stocked e-library, and b) a former student helper with a cultural profile that very few undergraduates can match. I don't think I've ever read a German book besides the canonical 20th century classics, because I liked them, and Young Werther, because why not...

I was surprised by how easy I found it to get into the rhythm of the book, despite what is for me an unusual setting. Possibly, if I knew something more about German literature or the reality of the former DDR I could have found more to criticize, but instead, with my limited knowledge, I found this book to be the equivalent of a good Franzen novel in old Europe, with generational clashes, contemporary issues and historical animosities that are grippling and relatable. 

Ohio - Stephen Markley

 

Gotta love a big chunky novel about suburban America. Actually you don't have to, but I do. Actually, so few people do that the only way for me to get an electronic copy of this book was by borrowing it from my Italian e-library (arguably better stocked than the London ones) and read it in translation. 

Ohio was a great read, suggested by my mum, to whom it was suggested by one of my closest friends (why didn't he suggest it to me in the first place, who knows!). It's well-written, depressing but witty, and ultimately a very interesting portrait of the American mid-West in a community taken over by narcotics and general socio-economic malaise. 

It's also a bit too much. Every page is extremely intense. The parallel plots are one too many, as is the number of chapters. And literally there doesn't appear to be many major characters that are both alive and mentally stable human beings by the end of the book. For the sake of the people of Ohio, I hope their lives are generally a bit simpler than this.

Patrimony – Philip Roth

I’ve traded a copy of Dubliners, Pride and Prejudice and Our Man in Havana (of which I had more than one, otherwise I would have never parted with it!) for a copy of this autobiographical work by Roth that had clearly been in contact with quite a lot of water. I did it because Simon, the legendary owner of LSE’s second-hand bookshop Alpha Books recommended this, and he was right.

Patrimony reminded me in many ways, and for obvious reasons, of Alan Bennett’s A Life Like Other People’s, but this book being written by a Jewish author and dealing with his relation with his dad in the American suburbs definitely gives it an edge over Bennett’s memoirs.

The book alternates between the drama of losing a father, the meaning (and emotional and physical cost) of suffering and undergoing surgery, growing old as a son as one’s father grows even older, and finding a way to settle the score on a number of decisions that marked Roth’s own upbringing.

This is a work of genius and brilliance, and something that appears remarkably honest (including Roth’s own admission of thinking of his father’s death in literary and editorial terms from the beginning of his ordeal).

The Body of Jonah Boyd – David Leavitt

A book that my mom got from the BookCrossing stand in Turin airport (such a nice idea, and yet, at least in that location, so neglected…) and that she left with me after her last trip.

Having only read particularly “gay” books by Leavitt, I was surprised by how “hetero” this one was. While not of the same literary calibre of The Secret Language of Cranes, The Body of Jonah Boyd is an extremely pleasant read.

I really liked it because it’s Jewish, it’s about academia, and most of all because it’s sub-urban. Yet, I didn’t find it mind-blowing chiefly because I think books about writers are often (even if indirectly) a bit too self-congratulatory – but the title, and the fact that Jonah Boyd is not murdered and left in a ditch as I assumed (or that his body is not sculpted like that of a Greek demi-god and the subject of the desire of the author), is pure genius. 

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides

And with this I can say I have read all of the books that Eugenides has written so far (easy – they are three). This was a Christmas gift from a close friend, and it came in the weirdest edition ever – the size of a small notebook, not quite sure why Picador felt the need for that.

It was undeniably very interesting, and with a literary weight much more considerable than The Marriage Plot, but it doesn’t really come close to Middlesex. Seeing that it was divided in five chapters, I assumed each one of those was going to relate to the suicide of one of the five Lisbon daughters, but three hundred (very short, cause after all it is the size of a notebook) pages go by between the discovery of the first and second suicide.

The suburban setting makes the book an instant sell for me, the curious first-person-plural narrative works really well here, and the moment when the narrators find Bonnie’s body makes your heart drop (despite the fact that it was declared from the start that all five sisters would kill themselves). It is however a shame that, despite the mystery that surrounds the household, Lux’s character is very clearly delineated while the other sisters all blur into one. Also, the fact that the narrators are invited into the house by the last four remaining sisters before they kill themselves makes them look more selfish (and potentially meaner) than what I think they really were. 

Hamlet's Dresser - Bob Smith

An extremely random book – a memoir rather than a novel really – that my parents bought for my wife ages ago (maybe when she moved to London and started to accompany me to see the Royal Shakespeare Company, first at the Novello Theatre, than at the fairly awful New London Theatre, and then finally at the Barbican?).

To me the book is fundamentally divided in three intertwined plots/narrative lines – the narrator’s troubled family past and his complex relationship with his sister and her mental illness, his personal experiences as a dresser/stagehand, and lastly his Shakespeare classes for elderly people in New York City.

The first narrative line is soft and touching, and Smith is actually remarkably good at portraying the situation for what it actually is/was (or at least, that’s the impression the reader gets) without any need to sweeten it, or to portray himself as better or worse than how he genuinely appears to be.

The second narrative line is intriguing – reading about Katherine Hepburn, Jessica Tandy, and all the other great actors who crossed the stage in Stratford CT is like watching a very good documentary with random comments and anecdotes by people who happen to have crossed paths with some of the greats of the 20^th century.

The last narrative line is clearly the one that touches me the least, probably because I am one of those awful people who tend not to find too much poetry in the elderly and the remarkably problematic challenges they have to face on a daily basis – to me those are just painful and very possibly insurmountable. 

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

Yet another book from the local farm – having read and really enjoyed The Almost Moon I had absolutely no doubts about buying The Lovely Bones, in particular considering it was a not-so-exorbitant 50p…

This is overall a very enjoyable read, though predictably at times fairly heart-breaking for a young father. When its magic tones are kept (relatively) in check it is really rather endearing – after all it reads like the daydream of a teenager who wishes she could be invisible in order to see how others behave without her. And the description of heaven is, for want of a better term, really “cute”.

The problem, for me, is when the aforementioned magic tones unleash their full power – I saw no need for Susie to come back to earth thanks to Ruth’s “gift”. Or maybe I’m just too much of a manly man: cause I don’t care about Susie being re-united in one way or another with Ray (I actually would have preferred for that not to happen) and I am kind of bothered by this mellow and romantic  scene, but man do I love seeing Shoeless Joe Jackson and his teammates come out of the corn in Field of Dreams…

Bagombo Snuff Box – Kurt Vonnegut

I don’t even know how I managed (or was it my wife that managed?) to get my hands on this collection of short stories, but I’m glad I did.

I was expecting science fiction, but what I got was a wide range of styles, with stories often about American suburban life (the joy!), and in which the American dream is, in one way or another, crushed time and again.

Vonnegut’s humour and irony are very much there, like in all his other works, and some of the stories (like The Package) would have given me a bit of faith in the future of mankind – too bad they were written 60 years ago and the world is still very much an awful place… 

The Almost Moon – Alice Sebold

A book that my mum bought for 1£ at the Red House in Bexleyheath, I’m so very proud of her…

Like most critics, I found the novel’s opening sentence to be nothing short of awesome. Unlike a number of critics, however, I did think the novel was really good. As far as I could see, the portrayal of Helen, the main character (and parricide), was criticized for being morally and intellectually incoherent – but that’s what I thought was great, as I suppose the mind of a daughter who has just killed her mother must be at least slightly shaken.

I also found the characterization of the love-hate relationship between daughter and mother to be rather believable (and, I assume, accurate), and, in all honesty, I sort of justified Helen (does that make me an awful person or a psychopath? I hope not, and I actually think I’m rather sane, much like Helen’s former husband thinks of her).

Most of all, the novel raises all sorts of questions about the need in our society to work so terribly hard to keep the elderly alive – I wish we could just let them go (although if we think they need a push, admittedly this can be done in a better way!). 

A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham

A book that the same girl who had given me The Hours lent me when I was 16 (kudos to her, she figured she could impress me with Michael Cunningham).

Three-way loves have been explored by countless authors, but Cunningham simply does it better (and it also throws in a bit of suburban life and a passage in New York City for good measure, just to make sure he can have me hooked). The scene of the death of Bobby’s brother in the first few pages, and the final one in the lake are, somehow, two of the most vivid images a book has ever left me with.

And I’d just like to copy and paste my final comment about The Hours since it clearly also applies here: “The book is written with such a soft touch that probably only gay writers can master without falling into plain sappy romanticism (although Cunningham himself doesn’t like being referred to as a gay writer). It’s a shame that, now, so many readers seem to have forgotten about Cunningham’s talent.”

Although it’s probably kind of sad when you start quoting yourself.

White Noise – Don DeLillo

As many have probably guessed by now, my favourite literary theme in my late teens and early 20s was anti-Fascism, that on my late 20s (probably owing to a process of – relative – de-politicization) has been American suburban life, and White Noise might be the greatest book on the topic that I’ve read so far.

I don’t know why, but reading about the miseries of the American middle-class somehow makes me happy (hysterically happy at times – maybe it’s some kind of disorder...). In addition to that, Jack, the main character, is a fairly successful historian lacking the most basic skill needed in his trade: he can’t speak the language of the country his research is focused upon (I picked my Ph.D. topic also because it was the one time in my life in an English-speaking country in which I could have used my language skills, and I found Jack’s issue absolutely hilarious).

White Noise is just an excellent work from start to finish, constantly exploring new issues with a clinic and cynical eye: first we have a clear picture of the daily lives of the characters and their idiosyncrasies, then we move on to a wonderful discussion on life and its instability (turns out we all have to die, whether we have been exposed to an “airborne toxic event” or not – something really rather banal but that is expressed so wonderfully in the novel) to finish with great pages on our steadfast faith in medications of all kinds and the actual value of revenge. Just priceless.

Rabbit, Run – John Updike

A book that my mother was sure she had bought for my dad. Too bad it read “To Gio from your mom – Christmas 2003” on its inside cover. I’m quite sure she also bought one for my dad back in the day, and probably she gave it to him because Rabbit is a basketball player, the same reason why she gave it to me (that, and because it’s a great read). Still, the copy that was on my bookshelf for the past dozen years was definitely mine.

Like so many of my favourite books, Rabbit, Run is about ... No, it’s not about Italian Fascism – it’s about American suburban life and about the titular Rabbit (who actually has a name – Harry Angstrom – but let’s face it his nickname is a lot cooler). Like Americal Pastoral, this book is about the sad life of a former high-school sports star – except that in this case Rabbit is much more responsible for his own downfall than Seymour is. His decisions are misguided, his life is miserable and it’s his fault, he makes people suffer, only he can believe (and I’m not even sure he does) the absolute innocence that he professes at the funeral, and yet I really really wanted him to sort himself out. I don’t think it was just because he had once been a good basketball player.

And I just love the fact that he doesn’t just metaphorically try to run away from his problems, he literally runs...