New Century Reading

Madame Bovary, part 3

Also Part the Final, and warning: spoilers ahead.

"With a slight shrug, Emma interrupted him to lament the illness during which she had nearly died; what a shame!--she would no longer be suffering now. Leon immediately envied the tranquillity of the grave, and one night he had even written out his will, requesting that he be buried in that beautiful coverlet, with its bands of velvet, that she had given him; for this was the way they would have liked to be--they were both creating for themselves an ideal against which they were now adjusting their past lives."

Not just their past lives, but their future, and by imagining death as an idealized state, Emma now moves into a tragic way of thinking that will not only destroy her own life, but that of her husband and daughter. As Arthur Miller said in "A View From the Bridge," "A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that's what it's for!" Of course, Emma is thinking only of herself--she can't even begin to think about what her death will do to those who do love her, because their love isn't what she wants.

It's a shockingly selfish gesture. In all of her adult married life, Emma has been after only those things that might bring her pleasure, and when all fails, and the men betray her, and the debts pile up, she chooses what seems to be the romantic way out.

Interesting how Flaubert describes her death in excruciating detail. No romantic death at all, he seems to say. Yet another self-delusion Emma gives into wholeheartedly.

"From that moment on, her life was no more than a confection of lies in which she wrapped her love, as though in veils, to hide it."

This is such a perfect line--it's not just about Emma's infidelities, but about her whole life, and her death.

Even as she's going through the sickening and painful death by poisoning, a last bit of religious romanticism appears:

"She slowly turned her face and seemed overcome with joy at the sudden sight of the violet stole, no doubt reexperiencing, in the midst of this extraordinary feeling of peace, the lost ecstasy of her first mystical yearnings, alongside the first visions of eternal beatitude."

In a melodrama, this would be her death moment--her reconnection with God and ascendance to heaven. But instead, her life ends when she hears the Blind Man singing his little song about the maiden in search of love. She "ceased to exist"--and it almost felt like Flaubert had enjoyed putting Emma on the rack for her misdeeds at the end. The following details, how Charles suffers and finally dies and little Berthe is left alone and destitute, show just how deeply Emma ceases to exist. Only Charles loved (or thought he loved) her enough to really miss her; Berthe certainly can't have many good memories or thoughts; and Rodolphe and Leon are shown to survive quite well without her. She wanted to be the center of the world on her terms, and she failed.

Rather a bleak book. But I loved rereading it, and while I can't compare it to other editions (or to the French), I found Lydia Davis' translation to be beautiful. I marked dozens of passages that were lovely. It's a wonderful thing to revisit a classic read years ago and still find it worth the read.

Secret Santa

I'm a sucker for a Secret Santa exchange. Even better when it involves the lovelies published by Persephone Books. Who could resist?? If you're interested and in the holiday spirit too (or need a little nudge towards all that good cheer), visit Claire's blog here for details and how to sign up.

Madame Bovary, part 2

Something I'm curious about: Flaubert gave us Charles' background, so we have some understanding of him, but we have less insight into how Emma became the woman she is: flighty, self-absorbed, overly romantic with no notion of how her romantic ideals would play out or ultimately end. She's terribly naive and obsessed with making her real life match her fantasy world. Did she read too many romance novels when young and think they were real, living out on the farm as she did?

Whatever's the cause, Emma's view of what her life should be bears little resemblance to what it's likely to be. Her fling with Rodolphe is a disaster, not least of which because it gives rise to rumors about the good doctor's wife--not to mention a boatload of debt. Was anyone else not surprised that she took up religion after he dumped her? That was just another variant on her romantic ideals--the abandoned lover seeking refuge in God. Tellingly, the religious books she reads don't meet her ideals either, being too full of rules. This was something foreshadowed in part 1:

"When she went to confession, she would invent little sins in order to stay there longer, on her knees in the darkness, her hands together, her face at the grille beneath the whisperings of the priest. The metaphors of betrothed, spouse, heavenly lover, and marriage everlasting that recur in sermons stirred unexpectedly sweet sensations in the depths of her soul."

Religion and faith are just the means to a romantic end for Emma, a dramatic portrayal, not a true belief.

And poor Charles. He also suffers from a form of romantic thinking, one that allows him to ignore the obvious and see things just as he wants them: a loving, beautiful, faithful wife. "He would reproach himself for forgetting Emma; as if all his thoughts belonged to her and he was stealing from her if he failed to think about her all the time." All the while clueless about what she's stealing from him: unreturned love, money, faithfulness.

I love Flaubert's ever-present sense of irony, such as when Rodolphe writes to Emma, "Fate is to blame, only fate!" and then reflects, "'There's a word that always has a nice effect,' he said to himself."

And the excruciating clubfoot surgery and its aftermath--whatever chance poor Charles had of capturing some little bit of love from Emma was destroyed there. Yet it's hard to work up sympathy for him when he's repeatedly such a chump, basically encouraging Emma to have an affair at the end of part 2. Well, not that he's thinking in those terms--but really? Begging her to stay in Rouen to keep company with the clerk.

Even if you haven't read Madame Bovary before and don't know the ending, surely you must feel some foreboding by the end of part 2. Especially if you're familiar with Lucie de Lammermoor.

 

 

Room

This book could have been a hot mess. It's a torn-from-the-headlines storyline that's got huge dramatic (and melodramatic) potential. If someone like Jodi Picoult wrote this, she'd have written it from multiple points of view, and it would all have been a giant soap opera complete with one-dimensional characters and pat endings.

Instead, Emma Donoghue chose to tell the story from the point of view of Jack, the kidnapped girl's child born in captivity, as he turns 5. Jack has a manner of speech that's not quite what you'd expect from a five-year-old, but this is a child who has never encountered another child. In fact, the only other humans he knows are his mother and the man who kidnapped her. Jack doesn't even know about the kidnapping, or the imprisonment; he just thinks of the man as Old Nick, the man who shows up at night and makes the bed squeak, and the man his mother doesn't want him to interact with.

Otherwise, Jack's world is a happy one. He and Ma have firmly established routines, and he does sometimes get to watch TV, which is not real, of course--it's TV. As far as he knows, there are only the three of them in the world, and two of them never leave Room.

Until the day they do. That's a little bit of a spoiler, but not much, and I won't give more. Let's just say that getting out and starting over is not as easy and pleasant as you'd hope it would be, for either Jack or Ma, or the family members who haven't seen her in years and don't know about Jack.

I found this to be such a tough read as a parent, from a variety of perspectives: thinking about being Jack's mother, then thinking about being Ma's mother, not knowing where Ma is, then finding out she's alive and has a son, but the son's father...All the words I tried to come up with are such cliches: harrowing, gripping. But that's the kind of book it is.

 

 

Boys and Girls Like You and Me

I loved Aryn Kyle's novel The God of Animals, so I was excited to check out her short story collection, Boys and Girls Like You and Me. I have mixed feelings about this book. Some of the stories are sharp and heartbreaking, like the perfectly paired Femme and Allegiance, about the cruelty girls (and women) can inflict on one another. (The latter story was included in the 2007 Best American Short Stories series.) A story called Sex Scenes from a Chain Bookstore was incredibly funny, in a very dark way.

But some of the stories felt a bit overcrafted. It didn't surprise me to read that Kyle has an MFA; sometimes you read stories from MFA grads who have workshopped the life out of their very well-written stories. And the overwhelming theme of this book is women who are losers, women who start as cruel high school students or picked-on grade schoolers, who flail uselessly around in college, and later in life have dead-end affairs and no decent personal or professional lives. Not that that's unrealistic, but it is a bit wearying after a while.

So--maybe in smaller doses, read over a longer period of time, I'd've had a better opinion of this book. Kyle writes beautifully, often with a very wry sense of humor that appeals to me. Still, I'll read whatever she publishes next.

Madame Bovary

There's a read-along that just started, reading the just-released edition of Madame Bovary, as translated by Lydia Davis. The novel itself has three parts, so the read-along is structured that way. Given that part 1 has only 58 pages, there's still plenty of time to join in.

I read Madame Bovary when I was in my mid-20's, and remember liking it quite a bit. Sadly, I don't seem to have my earlier copy anymore; it would be fun to compare some of the passages to see how different the translations are.

Part 1 is very short, and basically sets up the premise of Monsieur Bovary as a not terribly bright, not at all ambitious, small-town doctor who harridan of a wife conveniently dies after he meets the lovely Emma at her father's farm. Emma, who has some fairly romantic ideas about what love and marriage should be like, is more than amenable to the idea of marrying a doctor, but she quickly becomes disillusioned with her small-town life and the boringness of her husband. He, however, doesn't recognize that, but adores her for every little thing she does. Emma's misery is compounded by a rare invitation to a chateau for an extravagant dinner and dance, which only serves to torment Emma with everything she doesn't and probably can't have.

I don't know how much Davis's translation differs from others, but so far, it's beautiful, but also a bit deadly, in that Flaubert is describing the beauty that Emma perceives while letting his readers know he thinks it's, to use a contemporary phrase, over the top:

"As she went in, Emma felt enveloped in warm air, a mingling of the scents of the flowers and fine linen, the savor of the meats and the smell of the truffles. The candles in the candelabras cast long flames over the silver dish covers; the facets of the crystal glasses, covered in a dull mist, reflected a pale glimmer from one to the other; clusters of flowers stood in a line down the whole length of the table; and on the broad-rimmed plates, napkins folded in the shape of bishops' mitres each held, in the opening between its two folds, a small oval roll. The red claws of the lobsters overhung the edges of the platters; large fruits were piled on moss in openwork baskets; the quails wore their feathers; coils of steam rose into the air; and, grave as a judge in his silk stockings, knee breeches, white tie, and jabot, the butler conveyed the platters, already carved, between the shoulders of the guests and with a flick of his spoon would cause the piece one had chosen to leap forth. On the tall porcelain stove with its copper bands, a statue of a woman draped to the chin stared motionless at the room full of people."

So. Not far in, but I'm anxious to keep reading.

You can find others talking about this too:

Nonsuch Book
Evening All Afternoon
Pages Turned

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender has an interesting premise: on her ninth birthday, Rose's mother makes her a lemon cake with chocolate frosting, and on taking her first bite, Rose discovers she suddenly has a new "gift": she can experience the emotions of the person who handled the food she's eating. In this first case, the news isn't good--her mother is a deeply unhappy person, and the overwhelming sadness makes the cake nearly inedible.

But it's not just her mother's cooking that causes her problems, but anything touched by any human. She finds a school cook who at least has moderate emotions, but if she's not the one cooking, Rose resorts to machine-made assembly-line food from vending machines.

This is the start of the story. From here, not necessarily much happens--although when something does happen, it's a lightning bolt. Instead, Bender allows the reader to grow with Rose, spotlighting her life and development at different stages in her youth. More than that, we see Rose's family (through Rose's eyes): her diffident father, unhappy mother trying to find other ways (and people) to bring her happiness, and her possibly autistic, possibly genius brother Joseph, who has social issues of his own to deal with.

The funny thing about this book is that, when I finished it, I searched on Google Reader to see which bloggers had covered it. I thought for sure there were some rave reviews that had led me to request it from the library. But no--all the book bloggers I read that talked about it were lukewarm at best in their response. So then I did something I rarely do before writing my own thoughts; I looked at Amazon customer reviews.

Goodness sakes, this is a polarizing book. On Amazon, the book has several reviews across all five stars. If I was going to take the time to rate it there, I'd give it a four. What I loved about the book was that although not much really happens, I was drawn into the characters so thoroughly that when something did happen, it grabbed me by the throat.

Some of those who commented on Amazon said they wished Rose would have used her "gift" to help others. Call me a cynic, but if I was suddenly afflicted in this way, helping others would be my last concern, and finding ways to eat without misery and torment would take the lead, which is what happens to Rose. But maybe people were mislead by the title and cover. That's one of the reasons I requested it from the library--I thought the title was more than a little precious, and the cover awfully cutesy. I can see why some would expect a sweeter kind of book than this turned out to be. For me, that worked.

So, people loved it, and people hated it, and I fell squarely into the loved it camp. Sue me.

Heh.

Better Book Titles: Wuthering Heights

A 9/11 roundup

When the anniversary of 9/11 arrived again this year, I read an article about the best books about 9/11. Some I had read (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the devastating 102 Minutes), while others sounded intriguing enough for me to request them from the library. The library obigingly sent all three requests at once, so this week I've been all about 9/11. Cheery, no?

The books I chose were quite a diverse group.First I read David Halberstam's Firehouse.

Halberstam spent time after 9/11 with Engine 40, Ladder 35, a firehouse near his home that had sent 13 firefighters out on 9/11, to have only one return alive. Halberstam smartly doesn't try to add extra drama and pathos to this story, because there's plenty there already. He spent time with the other staff members of the firehouse, many of whom had more than a little survivor's guilt, especially those who had changed shifts with someone who died, and with the firefighters' families. A short, sad read, but it helps put specific faces and stories to the numbers who died that day.

Long after the original 9/11 Report came out, I'd pick it up at the bookstore, think about how I should read it, but at nearly 800 pages, it proved too daunting. So when I saw that a graphic novel adaptation had been done (with the blessing and oversight of the 9/11 Report committee), I thought that might be a better choice.

I did think it an odd choice--a graphic novel of a government report? But it's much more readable, although I'm sure it's equally depressing, with the summaries of what could have been prevented. Still,if you were curious about the report but didn't want to tackle the full thing, this isn't a bad option.

Finally I read Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Henry by Maira Kalman.

I'm a big fan of Kalman's; I love her whimsical illustrations and tales. Fireboat is the true story of an NYC fireboat launched back in 1931. Retired in 1995, the boat went into private hands and was lovingly refurbished, but not used for its original purpose. On 9/11, the little fireboat was called back into action, initially to help ferry people and then even to fight fires.

This is a charming enough tale, and lavishly illustrated, but to be honest? It's a picture book for kids, and I don't think I would have bought it when my kids were young enough to have it read to them. There are some very intense pictures of the planes heading toward the WTC and the buildings exploding, and the text notes that many lives were lost.

The question it raised for me was--how young is too young for 9/11 literature? I'm thinking that kids who are three or four don't really need this story. Yet the text and pictures make it far too young for older elementary. I noticed this was a concern expressed by some readers on Amazon. One reader defended it, saying he'd read it to his child--but he (the father) had been near the WTC that day and his family had subsequently gone through the misery of worrying about him. That's a little different than, say, a kid in the Midwest who didn't go through it or wasn't even alive then. I dunno. What do you all think? Is 9/11 inappropriate material for a picture book?

An Evita postscript

Just a few more thoughts about Santa Evita (the person, not the book), and then I promise I'll move on.

Actually, first I have a comment about the book. I just pulled The Peron Novel off my shelf, also by Tomas Eloy Martinez, and started reading it. Initially it appears to be a more conventional novel than Santa Evita. But early on, a journalist assigned to write about Peron in his later years says: "The truth is beyond reach: it's buried somewhere in all the lies--like God." Guess Martinez started thinking about the blurred lines between fact and fiction quite early.

Last week I had dinner with friends, one of whom recently spent some time in Argentina (this is not the only friend I have who's been to Argentina--why do all these people get to go to Argentina and not me??). He was kind enough to pick up a few tchotkes for me from the Evita Peron Museum.

Bookmarks. Just think--I can always have Evita watching me from the books I'm reading.

A fridge magnet. We all agreed she looks a bit like Kate Winslet. That set me to wondering if the movie Evita would have been worthwhile if Kate Winslet had the lead role rather than Madonna, who, in my mind, butchered it.

Another bookmark--but how creepy is that! I might tape it on my face for Halloween. Then I'd have Eva Peron eyes.

And the piece de resistance:

Evita tape! Like crime scene tape! Obviously I would only use this for very, very special taping needs. In the meantime, it's watching me from the desk where I work. Evita's got her eyes on me.

I was stash-diving through my yarn this weekend, looking for something to go along with this pattern for a Twitter knit-along that starts this week, when I found something I'd forgotten I owned:

Schaefer Laurel cotton yarn, colorway: Eva Peron.