W. Somerset Maugham – The Razor’s Edge

There’s a story behind this review and, as all stories must, it involves a pretty eyed boy and a girl who thought she knew everything. The short version is thus: your bookslut had never heard of William Somerset Maugham – a man who just happened to be a pretty eyed boy’s favorite author. For Christmas, I received two novels by W. Somerset Maugham: The Razor’s Edge and The Magician. It makes my heart happy when someone I love points me in the direction of a book like this – a book I can see, taste, smell – a book I can see myself in. Maybe it’s the influence of a pretty eyed boy or maybe it’s that sensation I get when I FEEL the words of a book, but The Razor’s Edge is on my “special” shelf.

William Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular authors of the 1930s and it escapes me as to how I’d never come across his name or his works. I guess when you turn your back on the canon and the works of dead white guys, you miss out. A novelist, playwright, and short story writer, Maugham’s body of work is quite extensive. The Razor’s Edge (1944) was one of his last major works and has a bit of a Gatsby-like quality to it.

It is the story of Larry Darrell, a World War I veteran on a search for self, meaning, and God. While the story is his, it’s not. I felt that so much of the life in this story is found in the women that love and are loved by Larry – Isabel Maturin and Sophie Macdonald. (I saw myself in Sophie in ways that made me uncomfortable.) Perhaps the most memorable character is Elliott Templeton – a snobby art dealer who doesn’t quite understand that he’s a snob. Elliott is the narrator’s tie-in with the rest of the odd bunch that the story revolves around.

The story opens with a bit of an explanation and is billed as a “true account.” Maugham is the narrator and an active participant in the actions. The only time he is referred to by name (at least that I recall) is when Larry refers to him as “Mr. M”. I usually take issue with books about authors and as I read the first chapter, my heart was already turning against this work. But I quickly abandoned any prejudice I had and fell head over heels.

A brief summary will tell you that Isabel, Elliott’s niece, is engaged to Larry. Sophie is one of their friends, as is Gray. Money, prestige, power and privilege soak the pages of the novel and their social circle. But Larry, after watching a man die during the war, is removed. He wants to find salvation. He wants to find God so he can understand God. And he realizes the path to God isn’t paved in money and social standing. Isabel never quite understand that, and when Larry decides to travel on his quest for self, she marries Gray – a man accustomed to the finer things in life and a man who can afford her rich taste. Sophie appears early on as a quiet girl at a dinner table. She doesn’t show up again until Paris at a seedy bar where she’s drunk, doped up, and fucking away her troubles. She’d lost her husband and child and her search for self resulted in burying herself and her memories. Her eyes were only green and alive when doped up, as the dear author noticed. At this point, Gray has lost all his money after the crash and the family is living off of Elliott’s generosity in Paris. Larry is visiting. Larry decides to marry Sophie. To save her. Sophie bails on the arrangement and later tells our narrator: “Darling, when it came to the point, I couldn’t see myself being Mary Magdalen to his Jesus Christ. No, sir.” Of course, things aren’t nearly that simple as Isabel is at the core of her decision to walk, no, run away from Larry. And it’s jealousy that prompts Isabel’s actions. The female jealousy wears a fancier coat than that of jealous of men which bears arms, but it cuts just as sure and quick in the end. The narrator tells her she’ll end up with her throat cut. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she grinned. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

There are parts of the novel I would cut completely. I realize that the parts I’d cut are really what the story is supposed to be about, but there is so much more lurking in the pages for me to focus my energies on Larry and his search for God. What Maugham says about love and money and society far outweigh any faith points for me. I also think the story could have been stronger if presented differently; parts of the story seem misplaced and the narrator apologizes for such placement and tries to explain as he is telling the story. This was jarring and disruptive. That said, it was intentionally jarring and disruptive. There’s not a mark in this book that wasn’t thoughtfully considered and purposely placed. Books like this, structured like this, fleshed out like this, are works of art. Books like this are why I don’t read genre fiction often. Books like this are what make me a booksnob.  I don’t have to like what he did – but I sure as hell respect it.

I could write much more about the story, the settings, the cast of characters, and the use of words, but I could never do it justice. Let me just say that Maugham is a man I have added to my list of writers I want to have a pint with and just listen to the stories they tell.

Robert Jordan – From the Two Rivers

This bookslut seldom ventures into the realm of genre fiction, but she made an exception for a friend.  For years, this particular friend has been pushing The Wheel of Time series on me like a drug dealer pushes crack.  When I found From the Two Rivers on the dollar table at a local used bookstore, I had to buy it.

Fans of the series probably do not recognize this title.  The reason for this is simple; I purchased the illustrated part one of The Eye of the World.  Marketing strategy for young adults resulted in the novels being split into parts.  Don’t despair; I have purchased the second part of book one to ensure I give Jordan an honest chance.

Initially, I didn’t care for the book.  I didn’t hate it; I was quite indifferent.  (Which is a horrible thing for a reader.  To have a book that results in NOTHING from you is quite horrible.)  But I stuck with it, and I must admit to being pleased I did.  Jordan needed a better editor and at times I found his writing to be a bit too formulaic, but the meat of the story is worth the effort.

The story is tailored to young adults – as evidenced by both the characters and the writing style.  Perhaps I’d have been more quickly captivated as a child, but the 28 year old in me had a very difficult time relating to and/or caring for the characters.  I found Egwene a whiny, self-important little brat.  While I like the character of Mat and his boyish pranks, it just didn’t mesh the way I think Jordan had hoped it would.  (I’m sure many people think it meshed just fine.)  Rand reminded me of Harry Potter.  (Yes, I know Rand existed long before sweet ‘Arry, but in my reading chronology, Potter was first.)  There are a lot of similarities in Rand and Harry and it would be interesting to see if those comparisons continue.  I’d bet money on Rowling having read Jordan’s series.  (No, I’m not saying she copied him in any way, but reading is what develops writers and some things you read are bound to stick.)  Perrin isn’t all that developed in part one of the first book.  But what Jordan has done with him is make a character I want to know more about.  There’s a lot of foreshadowing with Perrin and Jordan makes it clear he isn’t just filler.  I’m eager to know how Perrin fits in – he is my favorite.  Nynaeve, the Wisdom, was artfully developed and as the book progressed, I found myself liking her more and more.  There’s a nervous condition in her due to her age and power, and I like where that is going.  Moiraine is a fantastic character and I was drawn to her (and Lan) more than the children.  Again, I think it’s due to the age at which I’m first reading this.

The Gleeman is also a huge favorite of mine.  I’ve always been drawn to the trickster/story-teller characters and they abound in the books I tend to favor.  The man clearly knows more than he lets on and I want to know what secrets he hides beneath his colorful cloak.

The use of the animals is fantastic.  The horses, the wolves, the ravens…  I think Robert shined the most in his brief discussions of them.  My favorite part of this section was when Perrin and Egwene meet Elyas and his wolves.  There’s beautiful writing here, especially when Elyas is explaining the relationship between wolves and humans and how memory works.

“Wolves remember things differently from the way people do…  Every wolf remembers the history of all the wolves, or at least the shape of it.  Like I said, it can’t be put into words very well.  They remember running down prey side-by-side with men, but it was so long ago that it’s more like a shadow of a shadow than a memory.”

There is some quite lovely writing (and a bunch of stuff that should have been cut).  I will read the second half of the first novel, that I can promise – I cannot promise, however, that I will complete the series.

Mishna Wolff – I’m Down

This review has been a long time coming.  Law school gets in the way of fun things.  My apologies.  Of all the books of 2010 (which weren’t nearly as many as I would have liked), I’d recommend I’m Down the most.  Well, I’m Down and God of the Animals. 

Mishna Wolff’s childhood memoir is brilliant.  If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t belong and were the black white sheep of your family, this memoir is for you.  Wolff is white, but she grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her father – a man who really believed he was black.

“I am white.  My parents, both white.  My sister had the same mother and father as me – all of us completely white.  White Americans of European ancestry.  White, white, white, white, white, white, white, white.  I think it’s important to make this clear, because when I describe my childhood to people: the years of moving from one black Baptist church to the next, the all-black basketball teams, the hours having my hair painfully braided into cornrows, of their response is, ‘So… who in your family was black?’  No one.  All white.”

And so her memoir opens.  She then describes her father as “strutt[ing] around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol – telling jokes like Redd Foxx, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson.  He walked like a black man, he talked like a black man, and he played sports like a black man.  You couldn’t tell my father he was white.  Believe me, I tried.  It wasn’t an identity crisis; it’s who he was.”

Her childhood story will make you laugh out loud.  Seriously.  You will lol all over yourself – if you don’t, you don’t know what it’s like to grow up with a family you don’t understand and have difficulty relating to.  And that’s what the memoir really is about – family.  It would be easy to sell it as a take on race, but it isn’t.  It’s a novel about a father and daughter and how they relate with each other and the bonds that hold them together and the moments that threaten to rip them apart.

But it is America and race always has been and unfortunately, at least for my lifetime, always will be an issue.  (People have difficulty with those that are “different” – black, white, rich, poor.)  And while the racial issues are quite poignant and very important in understanding some of the racial dynamics that still exist in the states, the memoir is not weighted with it.  For me, it’s not a black/white story.  And that is what makes Wolff an amazing writer – that and her killer instinct when it comes to all things funny.

White… Black… Purple… Red…  I don’t care what “color” you are – this book is one we all can relate to.  Her story is one that, while quite unique, has echoes of all our childhoods.  Pick it up.  Enjoy.  It’s not all rainbows and unicorns – some moments are downright heartbreaking – but no one’s childhood is all rainbows and unicorns.  If yours was, pull that horseshoe out of your ass let me have some of your luck.

Kent Nelson – Land that Moves, Land that Stands Still

Apparently your bookslut has only been picking books written by those with a Juris Doctor degree. Kent Nelson graduated from Yale with a degree in Political Science and then went on to Harvard Law where he earned a JD in Environmental Law. To be honest, he strikes me as a bit of a bum; the nomadic sort that is never happy with life. It seems like he’s been trying to “find himself” since 1943 when he first latched on to his mom’s breast. Those types annoy me. Anyway, Land that Moves, Land that Stands Still was published in 2003 and set in the Black Hills of South Dakota on a farm.

The novel opens with Mattie reveling in the sounds and sights of the farm, before assisting her husband in manual labor. Her husband doesn’t last long as a living character as a farming accident quickly takes his life, but his ghost haunts the novel as he remains quite present. After his death, Mattie learns that he was gay and had been having affairs with men for years. He kept all the damning evidence in the car that Mattie refused to get in. At times, Nelson tries too hard to set the scene of how Mattie and her daughter deal with husband/father’s lifestyle. The novel also becomes cluttered with its many subplots and concurrent plots and nearly every horrible thing that can happen happens. There’s an attempted rape, an attempted murder, thievery, a high school English teacher sleeping with this students, murder of pets (including the drowning of a cat), barroom brawls, drugs, and some pretty serious child abuse. Worse? All the women are broken by the men in their lives and they all turn to men to fix them. The only character that didn’t make me want to scream was the Indian runaway, Elton and the Mexican neighbor, Hector, who had to lay low because he wasn’t a legal citizen.
The writing is poetic and the stories are intricately woven, but Nelson could have benefited from some serious cutting down. The dialogue is well done between the mother and daughter, but stilted at other times, especially in the heterosexual relationships where the men and women seem to be playing stereotypical roles from the hard fucking of the drug deal in the trailer park to the sweet, soft love-making of the English teacher who brings her to her first orgasm with his poetry and mouth. For a man who has spent so much time “living life” and “finding himself,” his story seems contrived and his characters fit in boxes.

Debra Magpie Earling – Perma Red

I adore Native American literature – Sherman Alexie, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko… all have homes on my bookshelf. They recently had to move over to make room for Debra Magpie Earling.

Earling is a member of the Bitterroot Salish tribe in Montana. She currently teaches Native American Studies and Fiction at the University of Montana. Perma Red (2002) is her first (and to date, only) novel, and it took decades (and many drafts) to perfect. It truly is quite the remarkable novel and well-deserving of all the accolades it has received. Earling has affectively joined the ranks of such greats as Alexie and Silko as far as Native American literature goes, but I’m reluctant to pigeon-hole this book as simply “Native American” literature. Perma Red is literature at its finest; it is a damn fine book.

Perma Red is the story of Louise White Elk, a young Indian girl with shockingly red hair who longs to escape the reservation life and the Indian-way. Yet, even in the same breath as she’s seeking to run, she craves belonging to this world. It’s the story of a girl growing up, finding out who she is, what she’s made of, and what matters to her. It’s a coming of age love story full of violence and heartbreak. It’s a story of split cultures and what happens when they collide in ways that forever alter Louise’s life.

Earling subtly weaves in magic and tradition into her words to such extent the reader is just as apt to believe Baptiste Yellow Knife has used love magic as Louise as. In addition to content, the writing is quite lovely.

In discussing how the school girls matured over the summer, Earling writes: “And their silk stockings and panties hung on the bushes with their boyfriends’ sighs.”

But the novel isn’t all sex and sighs – there’s a brutal violence and scars that not even time can heal. The people are all wounded, but Louise and Baptiste (her husband, her curse, and the man who beats the hell out of her) appeal the reader. There is something real in their relationship – something real and something magic. Despite all his flaws, I loved Baptiste.

The novel is divided into chapters. Louise’s chapters are told in third person at a distance. The other chapters are told in first person from the point of view of Charlie Kicking Woman – a tribal officer who seems to often forget his identity. Initially, I liked Charlie quite a bit. He’s a bit too obsessed with Louise, but I could overlook it as I thought he truly had her best interests at heart. But the more he appeared, the more of the story he told, I hated him. I hated everything about him. Perhaps the most violent scene, minus when Baptiste beats Louise and slices her open with the broken beer bottle, is what Charlie witnesses and walks away from without doing nothing. He turns his back on his people and his history repeatedly in the novel – but when he literally turned away, my stomach turned. To me, that hatred signifies excellent writing.

Your bookslut highly recommends Perma Red.

Tamar Yellin – The Genizah at the House of Shepher

Religion has always fascinated me. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church and have a pretty decent grasp of the Bible. Biblical stories were my bedtime stories and I prayed to the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. As I grew up, I began to explore other religions – never as faith-altering explorations, just to understand the similarities and differences. I suppose I always have been and always will be hungry for knowledge – maybe that’s why I read.

I’ve read books that center around all sorts of faiths – from Eastern Religions to spirituality of natives from Africa to South Dakota. I respect the beliefs of others. When I saw Tamar Yellin’s The Genizah at the House of Shepher (2005), I had to grab it; it contains all things I know I love in a book – religion, family stories, intrigue, love, and loss.

A genizah is a “hiding place” for old or damaged sacred documents. Jewish faith requires that sacred texts and anything containing God’s name not be destroyed, thus these depositories were established. When Shulamit Shepher returned to her family in Jerusalem, she knew she’d be facing her family’s ghosts and demons, but she never expected what she actually found in the attic, the family’s genizah – a place to store more than just religious artifacts.

Shulamit is a rootless person; after abandoning her faith and her family, she buries herself in her studies and has become a true scholar, lecturing in biblical studies. Twenty years pass and she receives a letter from her uncle telling her that the family house is going to be destroyed and if she wants to see it one last time, she must come. She flies to Jerusalem.

When she arrives, her uncle tells her about the Codex, a religious document found among the family’s belongings. Thought to be worth thousands, the Codex is a keter Torah – a handwritten copy of unknown origins. Shulamit’s uncle has given it to the Institute to authenticate, but the Shepher family has already started bickering and fighting over it. Shulamit is eager to see the document, to study it – what biblical scholar would not want to see the unknown manuscript that has been in her family for years? The Codex could MAKE her career.

With the thread of the Codex holding the story together, Yellin presents a family saga of faith, loss, and exile. Shulamit, going through items in the genizah, begins to learn more about her family, begins to remember the legends she’d been told as a child, and slowly begins to connect with her past – she begins to “heal” when she embraces her family and their combined history. The Codex is a character, but it is a secondary character; do not read this novel if you’re looking for a thrilling suspense novel like The Da Vinci Code.

The writing is simply stunning and the family lore is fantastically dependent on religion and myth. I thought the novel slightly incomplete – it began to fall flat after such an amazing start. This is Yellin’s first novel so there is plenty of time for her talents to improve and her novels to be consistently “tight.” It’s definitely worth a read, even with the problems I have with the last fifty or so pages. If you like family sagas and have a fascination with how faith runs families, read it – you won’t be disappointed.

Don Coldsmith – Runestone

I love historical sagas, always have. I’m quite fond of the books by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear, and when I saw their glowing words of praise on the cover of paperback sitting on the book cart at work, well, I knew it would make a perfect poolside read.

Don Coldsmith’s Runestone (1995) offers a “theory” about how a Viking made his way to Heavener, Oklahoma in the 11th century. Heavener is the home of an inscribed stone that has been attributed to Norsemen. People don’t really know how it got there and it’s apparently pretty heavily disputed. Personally, I’d never heard of the Heavener Runestone prior to picking up the fictional saga. But I do like how something real spawns one’s imagination the way the Heavener Runestone gave birth to Coldsmith’s historical saga.

Runestone is the story of a Viking explorer, Nils Thorsson, who travels to Vinland with the excitement of adventure running rampant in his body. Two ships make the voyage, but they are attacked by a band of Indians after leaving Vinland for further exploration. The only survivors are Nils, his steersman Svenson, and a one-eyed Indian they call Odin. Odin had escaped from the band of Indians who ultimately destroyed the crew and sought refuge in the settlement. The reason the settlers allowed him in is not really explained. He stows away on Thorsson’s boat in the hopes that they bought will take him back to his people.

The three men survive the attack on wit and intelligence on Odin, a man they originally considered as beneath them – an ignorant savage. Their journey brings the men close together and the two Norsemen realize that Odin is far from a savage. The attacking band of natives pursues the three persistently – they cannot afford to have anyone escape if they want to send a strong message. They surround the three men and all hope appears lost – Nils, Svenson, and Odin have no water and will be killed if they leave the cliff they’ve become pinned in. Nils decides to go “berserk” – a Norseman’s deathsong in battle. He takes off all his clothes and begins chanting and making animal sounds. Instead of responding to his advances, the attacking band is terrified. They are convinced he must be some holy man with lots of magic. Odin jumps on this assumption and plays it to their advantage. The men are not only released, but given provisions for their journey.

The two Norsemen end up assimilating with Odin’s tribe. They take wives and start families. The conflict of wanting to return to their people shows up but it’s never really developed and when they do attempt to return (or Thorsson attempts with his family and Odin), it’s quickly over.

The first half of the novel was well-paced and exciting, but once they reach Odin’s people, the novel loses steam and becomes a bit redundant. I’ve read better historical sagas.

The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

Any bookslut who has stumbled across these pages knows my love of most Man Booker Prize novels (both short & long listed and the actual winners). (I say most because of the horrible experience with The Accidental.) The White Tiger, published in 2008 and recipient of the prestigious award the same year, has been sitting on my shelf for quite a while now. Quite honestly, I wanted to let the hype die down before I picked it up. It was well worth the wait; Aravind Adiga’s debut novel is bloody fantastic. Thank you, Man Booker Prize, for not letting me down – I just may have to forgive you for short-listing Ali Smith’s crap.

The White Tiger is brilliantly executed – funny, dark, witty, charming, and honest. As a reader, I quickly fell for Balram Halwai, the murdering entrepreneur who is penning his story for “His Excellency, Wen Jiabao,” the Premier of the State Council of China, who is on his way to India because he wants to speak with Indian entrepreneurs. Balram heard of his visit on the radio and has decided to write to him directly as he is in the best position to explain how an Indian becomes an entrepreneur – a true success story. “The story of my upbringing is the story of how a half-baked fellow is produced. But pay attention, Mr. Premier! Fully formed fellows, after twelve years of school and three years of university, wear nice suits, join companies, and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay” (8-9). Balram then goes on to explain how exactly he came to be “half-baked” and how this all contributed to his ultimate success.

Balram, called Munna until he started school and his teacher said he needed a real name and not just be called the Hindi word for “boy,” was a smart kid. So smart that an inspector who visited the school to check conditions called him “the white tiger.” “The inspector pointed his cane right at me. ‘You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals – the creature that comes along only once in a generation?” Balram thought about it and responded, “The white tiger.” As he grows, Balram learns that a white tiger has to work harder to survive in the jungle. He is forced to leave school and work when his brother weds and the dowry must be paid. This half-education is part of what makes him “half-baked.”

Early in the novel, Balram explains that he knows little English but that he has one phrase that best sums up his life and his rise to success: What a fucking joke. The lead-up and delivery of this line is priceless. Kudos to Adiga for making me chuckle with that line. Another chuckle came when Balram was discussing religion and wondering what deity’s arse he should start off by kissing.

“It is an ancient and venerated custom of people in my country to start a story by praying to a Higher Power.

I guess, Your Excellency, that I too should start off by kissing some god’s arse.

Which god’s arse, though? There are so many choices.

See, the Muslims have one god.

The Christians have three gods.

And we Hindus have 36,000,000 gods.

Making a grand total of 36,000,004 divine arses for me to choose from…

Bear with me, Mr. Jiabao. This could take a while.

How quickly do you think you could kiss 36,000,004 arses?” (6)

How can you dislike Balram with an opening like that?

Balram’s story is amoral, dark, and cut-throat. It is a story of survival and escape – betrayal and abandonment. It’s animalistic and cunning, this journey from “Dark” to “Light.” Balram kills his employer, steals his name and his money, and opens his own taxi service: White Tiger Technology Drivers. In a technological world where America has outsourced its jobs to India, Balram finds his niche, forsakes the caste system, and abandons his family in an effort to save himself. Made from half-baked clay, this white tiger is a self-taught, self-made true entrepreneur, and you will both love and hate him for it. “I’ll never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my master’s throat. I’ll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant” (276).

Did you like Slumdog Millionaire? Then pick up The White Tiger. Trust your bookslut; you’ll like this book better than that movie. The novel doesn’t come off like a shock-value piece – its darkness and despair is well-tempered with the resiliency of the human-spirit and the charming, dark humor that makes the world go ‘round.

Love in the Ruins – Walker Percy

Walker Percy (1916-1990) was a Faulkner-lovin’, Tarheel cheerin’, good ole Catholic boy from the deep South. His childhood was marred with tragedy – suicides & car accidents – and he was eventually adopted and raised by his bachelor uncle of a poet, William Alexander Percy. He became friends with Shelby Foote and became a born, bred, & dead boy at UNC with his brothers and Shelby before going to medical school at Columbia. His medical background, Southern upbringing, and complicated Catholicism blend together to create the common bonds of his literary work. I read Lancelot (1977) back in undergrad and remember loving it. It’s the story of a Southern lawyer who murders his wife after learning of her affair. Her infidelity becomes clear to Lancelot when he realizes his daughter’s blood type. Genetically speaking, he could not have had a child with her blood type. Lancelot recounts the story from within the confines of an insane asylum; I loved it. When I saw Love in the Ruins (1971) on the $1 dollar table at the flea market, I snagged it. Spending a buck on a Walker Percy novel can never be a waste.

Love in the Ruins is a fantastic example of modern literature. Blurbs on the back compare it to 1984 and Brave New World but say it’s “less preachy” and “funnier.” Having never read either of those (I know, bad, bookslut, bad), I suppose I went into the novel blindly. Having read Lancelot, however, I was not entirely unprepared. Love in the Ruins is the story of Dr. Thomas More, a psychiatrist who also happens to be a patient in the same hospital he works in. Heavy drinking, terrors, intense regrets, insanity, a deep love of the ladies, and a desire to be a well-known scientist have all worked together to create a rather unstable but likable all the same protagonist in an ever-changing but still racially divided and politically charged South.

The novel opens with More explaining that all hell is about to break loose. The second paragraph reads: “Two more hours should tell the story. One way or the other. Either I am right and a catastrophe will occur, or it won’t and I’m crazy. In either case the outlook is not so good.” A few pages later, More gives the reader a good idea of his psyche:

“I, for example, am a Roman Catholic, albeit a bad one. I believe in the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, in God the Father, in the election of the Jews, in Jesus Christ His Son our Lord, who founded the Church on Peter his first vicar, which will last until the end of the world. Some years ago, however, I stopped eating Christ in Communion, stopped going to mass, and have since fallen into a disorderly life. I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all. Generally I do as I please. A man, wrote John, who says he believes in God and does not keep his commandments is a liar. If John is right, then I am a liar. Nevertheless, I still believe.”

More is adrift in a world he can’t get a handle on. It’s immoral, it’s violent, it’s lustful. He blames the whole thing on the “race” issue, though he doesn’t really have a problem with “them.” He also doesn’t have a problem with the political left and right, or the religious sects. He lives in Paradise (please note that he is a “relative” of Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia) but the world is falling into chaos around him. When he isn’t freaking out due to sweats, terrors, and paranoia, he is constantly noting how nature Is encroaching on the land around him. The vines cause him great concern. He is convinced that the United States, God’s gift, has fallen apart and is being destroyed and the root of the problem is the race issue – he says we screwed up when God gave us the land and all we had to do was one thing – not violate the Africans. We violated the Africans, we enslaved them, and the US fell from the grace of God.

His great invention, the lapsometer, can save the world. It reads the human condition, gets to the root of the matter, and all More has to do is figure out how to fix it once he figures out the problem. No one seems to take his invention seriously and he fears it will get in the wrong hands and destruction will be inevitable. But saving the world comes second to his lusty longings, for More is madly in love with three women. His devotion to the women rotates depending on who he is with and what ideas are being presented. Each woman serves a different purpose for him and toward the end he contemplates marrying all three and starting a new world, a better world.

The novel is a good representative of modern Southern literature; Percy is very adept at capturing the insanity of a fallen Catholic in a world gone mad. The novel isn’t preachy (yay for blurbs being accurate), and the moral dilemmas are well developed and just as chaotic as they should be. Dr. More is attempting to find the meaning of life – he looks toward God, science, music, women, and nature and is unable to find a clear answer, yet he is happiest when he is at peace with all five and happier still when he can reconcile them all together in a neat package. But maybe it’s the attempt to reconcile them that drives him the maddest?

Doris Lessing – The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing (b. 1919) is one of what I call my white voices in Africa, but that’s not how she was first introduced to me. My introduction to Lessing was with Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), which had nothing to do with Africa and everything to do with a man’s mental breakdown. The novel has different settings: the fantasy realm created by the crazy and the real world of the mental hospital. It was most certainly an interesting and odd read. When my studies turned to African literature, I found myself with Lessing’s first novel, The Grass is Singing (1950). Set in Rhodesia, this novel is a far cry from Briefing for a Descent into Hell and deals with a failed marriage, racial tensions, white & black sexuality, and the dynamics of a master/servant relationship in an evolving world. More recently, I was informed that as “a woman” and a supposedly well-read one at that, I needed to read The Golden Notebook (1962). I knew it was Lessing’s most famous work, so it wasn’t a hard sale. Its 635 page count made it even more appealing as I do like big books and I cannot lie. In short, The Golden Notebook is Briefing for a Descent into Hell intermingled with The Grass is Singing. (Yes, I know it was published in between the two, but for my purposes it seems to be a mix of the first two Lessing novels I encountered.)

There are two introductions in my edition – one from 1993 and one from 1971. Unlike most people, I actually read the introductions. The introduction from 1993 is Lessing discussing the impact the novel has had on women (and men) worldwide – as of the 1993 introduction, a short run had been printed in China. This instantly turned me off. The introduction from 1971 turned me off even more. In that introduction, she essentially bashes reviewers and readers for not understanding the novel and attempts to explain her process to them. For once, the introduction (in this case, introductions) did not enhance the reading experience; however, she does make one statement that I both agree and disagree with.

“There is only one way to read, which is to browse the libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty – and vice versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you…”

The passage went on to bash scholars who spend too much time on one novel or one author, but I’ll ignore that for now. (Remember that your bookslut has also dabbled in the scholarly.) The funny thing is I read Lessing’s novel because I felt obligated, because I was made to feel obligated. Obligations and the fact that I may have read it when it wasn’t the right time for me aside, I can see why The Golden Notebook is considered Lessing’s greatest work. The themes and forms used to weave the story are daring, chaotic, and perfect.

The novel focuses on Anna Wulf, a writer quickly elevated to fame with the publication of her first novel (a novel about Africa) and dealing with writer’s block. (Sound familiar? I think this novel is a little masturbatory in nature – a lot of Lessing in Anna. But Lessing is doing it on purpose – she actually mocks the process by having Anna clearly put herself in the story of she’s writing about Ella.) Anna keeps four notebooks: a black one in which she records the African experiences of her younger years; a red one in which she keeps track of her political life – Anna is/was a Communist; a yellow one in which she develops story ideas; and a blue one that serves as her diary. She believes that to keep her life from spiraling into a chaotic mess, she needs to keep the parts of her life separate. She soon realizes that by fragmenting herself off, she is succeeding in driving herself crazy. She attempts to join all these pieces of her existence in one book – the golden notebook.

Everyone keeps telling Anna that she needs to write again, that she needs to do another novel. Mother Sugar, her shrink/witch doctor tells her she needs to write her experiences. The parts of The Golden Notebook called “Free Women” make up the novel that Anna actually writes. It’s an interesting form because the reader gets all the background, all the journal entries, that served as the foundation of “Free Women.” Throughout the process, the reader gets to watch Anna completely unravel and rise, finally free. She becomes sane through insanity. It’s a bildungsroman for a middle-aged woman.

The novel opens with: “The two women were alone in the London flat.” The reader later learns that these are the lines Anna’s final lover in the novel tells her that she must use to start the novel. The two women are Anna and Molly, her former Communist/actress/loud and overbearing friend. Anna and Molly are different yet the same, and their friendship seems to be defined by their role as “free women” – women belonging to no man. When their friendship suffers, things are quickly corrected by discussing men and/or sex or politics (though political thought oft leads to arguments). While both women are “free,” they both seemingly want to be “kept.”

Anna seems to be the perpetual mistress – men seem to love to fuck her, love her independence, and love the fact that they can return to their wives with nearly no drama. This eats at Anna – it’s not a role she wants to play. One of her married men, Paul, left her after many years of continuing the affair and this abandonment and rejection hurt her far worse than her prior divorce. She realizes nearly a year after he leaves that her entire personality has changed because of him.

“My deep emotions, my real ones, are to do with my relationship with a man. One man. But I don’t live that kind of life, and I know few women who do. So what I feel is irrelevant and silly… I am always coming to the conclusion that my real emotions are foolish, I am always having, as it were, to cancel myself out” (300).

Paul destroys Anna and he is a very clear catalyst into her spiral into insanity.

Anna puts a lot of her feelings into her story with Ella. At one point, she writes about Ella going to visit her father. Her father tells her that her mother had been horrible in bed and that he’d sought satisfaction in the beds of others. He then tells her that she is obviously not like her mother, that she is a “modern woman.” He also tells her that people need to be left in solitude so as not to destroy each other. “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone… And good luck to you. We can’t help each other. People don’t help each other, they are better apart,” he tells her (444-445). With a father figure like that, even for Anna’s fictional Ella, one can’t help but wonder the effect of the father on the daughter. To complicate matters further, Anna’s daughter has an absentee father as well. Does the father figure (or lack of a good father figure) contribute to the “modern woman” phenomenon?

Near the end of her relationship with Saul Green, the crazy American that finally drives her to madness and gets her to write again, Anna’s entire life revolves around the man. She becomes a crazy, jealous, angry, bitter woman and can feel the old Anna, the real Anna, struggling to get out and back in control. This portion of the book was very painful for me to read. I feel like most women I know have fallen in love at the expense of their own identities and to watch it happen, to watch him tear her down to build her up and love her, make love to her, and see how happy just that simple act makes her and then watch the sick carousel start again… It made me nauseous because I’ve been there, maybe I’m there now. I said earlier that I thought I read this book before I was ready – and I say that because of how the last portion of the novel made me feel.

The conclusion of the novel is Anna’s conclusion to “Free Women” – the relationship with Saul is inconsequential in her novel – even his name has changed and he personifies many of Anna’s other failed relationships. This male, named Milt in Anna’s novel, tells her that he can only make love with someone he doesn’t love, with someone he doesn’t have to stay with. Anna starts to cry.

“Anna let herself fall back on the pillows, and lay silent. He sat hunched up, near her, plucking at his lips, rueful, intelligent, determined.
‘What makes you think that on the morning of the second day I won’t say: I want you to stay with me.’
He said carefully, ‘You’re too intelligent.’
Anna said, resenting the carefulness: ‘That will be my epitaph. Here lies Anna Wulf, who was always too intelligent. She let them go.’ (628)

And Anna does let them go. And somehow she finds herself. She is able to write again and Saul is a huge part of that. I suppose one could argue that what broke her is what fixes her in the end. I’m sure that will anger feminists who would rather say she fixes herself, but the role of men in her entire existence is one that cannot be denied. In the end, the perpetual mistress gets a job working with other peoples’ marriages and Molly gets married. The novel, both Anna’s and Lessing’s, ends with “The two women kissed and separated” (635).

I realize this is a chaotic and not well-developed review, but it some ways it seems fitting. Did this novel change my life? Maybe. I am prone to getting disgruntled when a book seems to hold a mirror up to my life, but that is a good sign for a good writer.

Is it the great feminist tome? No. And I can see why Lessing gets annoyed when it gets pegged as such. I would recommend it to a select few – but I’d suggest The Grass is Singing over it and I suggest Gordimer over all Lessing.