Thirst by Ken Kalfus

Stories that work on several levels

These stories are about people in different worlds, ranging from an uptight Irish nanny in Paris, a New Yorker who seems to be living his dream (literally), a nuclear family in an endless snowstorm in Brooklyn, tand finally to Vietnamese peasants in a monsoon. The voice was authoritative, though slightly off-kilter. On one hand, these are smoothly controlled satirical narratives about American life, on the other, just beneath the surface was an unquenchable rage against injustice. The stories depict power relationships, but each time, the powerful one asks, who is really in charge?

I had read Kalfus’s story about Dominique Strauss Kahn (Coup de Foudre) in a recent edition of Harpers and knew I had to read more. That story was about an influential man and his sexual escapades, then it turned into an indictment, an indictment of the man and an indictment of the system that made him. And, oh yes, an indictment of men in general. The stakes were huge. The stories in Thirst are similar – sensual writing framed by an intellectual accusation. Did I mention they were also very funny?

The writing was consistently excellent, and personally I favored the more realistic stories, although I liked Night and Day You Are The One, about a young man who seems to be living two different lives – one on the East Side of Manhattan, the other on the West. A few minutes after he goes to bed he wakes up on the other side of town and needs to head off to a different job as well as a different woman. Which one is the dream? I also like The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Trivia Quiz, which took a turn into the surreal and was hilarious. I wasn’t that crazy about Cats in Space, about kids torturing kittens, but I loved Rope Bridge. This was the most realistic of the stories and cleanly and sensually written. The stakes at first seem to be low, a simple adultery story, but then it also turns into a story about losing your mind, doubting yourself and losing the family life you care about a lot.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

 
A young Nigerian woman emigrates to the United States, then, after several years, returns home

Ifemelu, a good student, almost on a whim applies for a US visa and gets it, moving in with her vivacious Aunty Uju who scrambles to make a decent living. At first, life in the United States nearly overwhelms Ifemelu, then she thrives and starts penning a tart-tongued blog. Meanwhile, back in Nigeria, Ifemelu’s school days boyfriend, Obinze, who has always longed for a life in the States, is unable to get a US visa and smuggles himself to London where he takes menial jobs, leaving in fear and observing how his fellow countryman change for the worse after their arrival in the West. Obinze is deported, returning to Nigeria a failure. However, because of lucky contacts in the booming country, he becomes a wealthy man, with a submissive exquisitely beautiful wife. He and Ifemelu don’t keep in contact, but after her return to Lagos she watches with bemusement the newly prosperous society and reunites with Obinze.

At almost 600 pages, this novel made no bones about its ambition, attempting to say something about Nigerian society, American racism, romantic love and hairstyle choice. Where the novel really worked was illustrating both Ifemelu and Obinze’s despair at having to take humiliating jobs in order to eat, as well as their intelligent analyses at how the people around them behave when confronted with poverty and racial differences. What was particularly successful was the depiction of
Ifemelu's growing consciousness of the concept of “race.” She arrives in the US as an immigrant wondering why all the black Americans are obsessed by race and then begins getting obsessed by race herself because white people are unable to refrain from making every single social interaction about race.

This was a good book, consistently absorbing, though only in the last few pages did it fully commit to be a love story, and that love story’s fraught conclusion was squished into the end. I’m not sure I even fully bought the idea of crotchety Ifemelu paired with serene Obinze. But just as the conflict about his wife and child starts to come to a head, he ups and leaves his wife. It made me think a little worse of him.

Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce

Teen mom waitress degrades herself in order not to feel the pain

Marie, once headed to Yale, gets pregnant at sixteen, and, needing cash, enters the tough world of waiting tables, first at chains like Olive Garden and Chili’s, then at fancier establishments, until finally she lands a gig at the “Restaurant,” the competitive pinnacle for servers wanting to make lots of money.  To stay employed at the “Restaurant,” a waiter must be hardworking, a team player and have excellent people skills.  The payoff is a “good night.” Marie gets skilled at being a high-end waitress, better anyway than she is at being a wife, and probably at being a mother.  In addition to sucking up to customers and bosses (as well as despising them), Marie parties heavily, never declining a proposed sex act.  Days off are spent with her adored daughter and the secret cutting and burning of Marie’s flesh.  The two sensations, of adoration and degradation, are connected.

I grabbed this book before stepping onto the plane, not knowing a thing about it.  I settled in, started reading, then realized, Jackpot. The writing was amazing, the strength was the voice, fully alive, and the surety of the artist.  The sentences were gripping, and the reader is totally compelled to follow Marie’s tale of reestablishing her life after it gets blown up by an accidental pregnancy. 

Part if the narrative structure is Marie’s progression to better paying serving jobs and the ego crushing things she needs to do in order to keep the job.  There were lots of insights into how America really works, and how workers are actually treated and how workers are actually treated is not that pretty.  This book also reminded me of Kasischke's Suspicious River, that is, the plot is almost a pretext for gorgeously written scenes of female degradation.  And also like Kasischke, structure-wise, a little of this goes a long way.  The mystery is the motivation, why Marie keeps hooking up with these crummy losers.  Not for orgasms, not for money (not like this girl.)  I didn’t feel the oblivion nor the compulsion for oblivion supposedly Marie is seeking.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Smart little girls grow up and grow apart

Two tots play with their dollies in the courtyard of their apartment building, then later attend school together. Shy Elena is intimidated by proud confident Lila, though they quickly fall into a passionate friendship. Both girls are bright, but the teacher’s pressure on the uneducated parents to continue the girls’ education only works on Elena’s family. Nonetheless, Elena is always conscious of her parents’ financial sacrifice and doesn’t want to let them down. At first, Lila tries to keep up with Elena's schooling, by reading all the books in the library, learning Greek and writing eloquent letters. Later, her creativity and passion turns to the art of shoemaking, but then Lila loses interest in learning, placing all her aspirations on a marriage.

For this one, maybe my expectations were too high. The novel felt overly long, like I was being beaten over the head. Got it. Lila is brilliant. Brilliant and screwed. In the background a bunch of working class napoletani, almost indistinguishable from each other, beat each other up. Or throw children from windows. But then the book began to sneak up on me like Sebald or Middlemarch or Gina Frangello, books in which unrelated repetitive mildly boring scenes turn out to be the backdrop for a magnificent architecture.  And then, I understood. This book is about realizing some things are irrevocable. Like education. The stakes I thought were small but the stakes are actually huge.

Lila is presented by Elena as sort of a monster, icy cold and ruthless, but if you were to analyze her actual interactions with Elena, she seems to be a very nice young woman, politely deferring to her friend on many occasions. The story is equally about Elena and her escape from the ignorant neighborhood as much as it is about Lila. Elena, quite aware her wall eyed mother doesn’t like her,  but again and again, when she is about to quit school, she is encouraged by the mother. The reader needs to parse Elena’s narration.

Lila is headed, you can tell, for unhappiness and Elena is headed for something greater. But will the neighborhood hold her back? So I am eager to read the rest. I’m afraid Elena’s going to join the Red Brigades or something.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

A gentle atheist, an academic, encounters varieties of religious fervor

Cass Seltzer, professor at Frankfurter University (a barely disguised Brandeis) has written a best selling book on the omnipresence of religious illusions. Cass’s girlfriend, a fellow professor at Frankfurter, the rather terrifyingly smart quantitative psychologist Lucinda Mandelbaum, is away for the week presenting a paper. During the same week, Cass receives a job offer from Harvard(!), encounters Roz, a former girlfriend who seems to be seriously planning on living to be several hundred years old, is haunted by his memory of Professor Klapper, a larger than life academic who is like a cult figure to his devoted graduate students, haunted again by Pascal, his crazy ex-wife, thinks about Azarya, the son of the Grand Rabbi of a Hasidic sect, and is taken by surprise by an important debate he forgot about with a prominent conservative economist. Premise: God exists.

This is a sly novel of ideas, however, the story really became engrossing when the ideas were discarded, letting the highly vivid and energetic characters took center stage. The first section was for me hard to wade through (why was everyone talking exactly the same?), then I was frankly charmed by several of the larger-than-life characters and ripped through the rest of the book. The characters are trying to achieve ecstasy on earth – some are aware of that, some aren’t.

The alternating scenes between old Cass and young Cass, confused me at first, although that narrative structure was more than sufficient to support a compelling story. In addition, there are cutesy emails to a mysterious night owl who turns out to be not who the reader expects. The stakes were competently raised. The mandatory plot points are handled skillfully enough, except for the debate on the existence of God which a creaky insertion to bring the story to a close. (Maybe it’s supposed to be creaky?) The debate itself is dull, completely undramatic. Also, the arguments don’t seem very persuasive. Cass’ story ends (almost ends that is) with a bunch of well heeled atheists jumping up and down in victory after Cass kicks ass in the debate. Not very realistic. There is an appendix – which details the Thirty Six Arguments for the Existence of God and is boring as the appendix to War and Peace. 

The opening section reads like a sneer at religious believers but is so over the top it is apparently a spoof. “…minds that have better things to do have to divert precious neuronal resources to figure out how to knock some sense back into the species.” But at the end, maybe I’m not so sure. Was the book a spoof or a sneer? Perhaps the message is that we should all relax and let Harvard professors run everything. Can’t go wrong that way.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

An old woman acerbically ponders her tragic life

This novel is about the life of Iris Chase Griffen, told in bits and pieces, narrative chunks.  The story begins with a fusillade of three deaths, proceeding in alternating sections to tell the tale of Iris’s early life as a sheltered rich girl in Port Ticonderoga (the other Ticonderoga thank you), fragments from a strange fantastical tale a man tells a woman during their Toronto assignations, and scenes from Iris’s elderly life as she views her garden through the changing Canadian seasons.

This book was difficult to read quickly because I wanted to savor each sentence.  Though this was the third time I had read this novel, the prose seemed more beautiful than ever.  The rhythms of the short sentences are amazing. The humor comes from the fancy pants high lyrical voice contrasted with the deadpan rhythm of the deflating commonplace phrases. I loved the right hand/left hand imagery.

The insights into human nature aren’t that spectacular, but the narrative tricks sort of are. This is a Romance with a capital R.  The plot is intricate, and can support a lot, but sags a little with the energetic yet cartoonish villainy of the brother and sister, Richard and Winifred.   The last fifth is both baggy and rushed.  Iris’s motivations are a little hard to figure out. She's very passive.  Laura, Iris’s sister, seems more Aspergery than tragic, but that’s probably the point.  Perhaps ultimately love stories have small stakes.

The Divine Comedy by Dante

In order to find his way, a poet interviews the departed in three realms of the afterlife

Thirty-five years old, the poet Dante is lost in a dark wood. From its midst, he spies sunshine atop a mountain, but when he attempts to climb he is stopped first by a lion, then by a leopard, then by a wolf. In despair, he sits down but is soon joined by a ghostly stranger who tells Dante that he’s here to help. A lady sent him. The stranger turns out to be the great Roman poet Virgil, Dante’s hero. Ok, Dante says, now we can deal with this wolf over here, but Virgil tells him no man can handle the wolf, but that he, Virgil, will be his teacher and guide on a journey through some “eternal places.” Though Virgil explains he can only take him part way. The pair enter Hell through a gate (ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER) and then meet and interview many damned unrepentant souls. Coincidentally many of the dead hail from Dante’s corrupt violent hometown of Florence. Crude humor (a military squad of farting devils) and horrible punishments (people frozen twisted in ice for an eternity) abound. In the frigid dark center of the earth, three-headed Satan munches on three traitors. Virgil and Dante begin climbing down Satan’s hairy ass, then at Virgil’s instruction, start climbing up Satan’s hairy ass. They have reached the center of the world and gravity has shifted. Eventually they surface on the island mountain of Purgatory. Here the sinners are repentant, chanting hymns and beatitudes while lugging huge rocks (Pride), running round in circles (Sloth) and enduring their eyes sewn shut (Envy). At the top of the mountain is the garden of Eden, where Dante spies his deceased lady love Beatrice, but when he turns to tell Virgil of his utter happiness, Virgil has vanished. Stern Beatrice takes over as guide. By staring into the sun, she and Dante ascend into the heavens, stopping at each planet so Dante can hear more stories, this time from the blessed. In heaven, souls lack earthly form but are depicted as points of light arranging themselves into pictures and words. (Maybe sort of like a heavenly Ice Capades.) At the topmost layer, Dante sees three spinning circles of light, the light eternal, the love that moves the sun and other stars, and understands how he needs to stick to the straight road going forward.

I really enjoyed this. When I read the Comedy as a teenager I found it theoretical and boring. (Perhaps because of the translation?)  The book works on many levels, including as a Jules Verne-like travelogue, a philosophical treatise on how to live your life, score settling with old enemies, a beautiful tribute to a lost love, and is full of energetic metaphors about human nature. The characters are individualized and full of life (especially in Hell). Also the poetry is great. I read the translation by Mark Musa, but also dipped into the Italian, which seems supremely simple and direct, with effective use of repetition.

It was hard for me to believe this was written seven hundred years ago. Human nature must not have appreciably changed in the interim. The dramatic tension in each canto felt modern, although, as might be imagined, Heaven is a significantly duller place than Hell. Purgatorio, where the most realistic humans seem to be, works as moral education. The reader recognizes Virgil as the loyal father figure and teacher. Beatrice is the harsher educator, but Dante’s love for her helps him recognize his love of God. And when she smiles – well – her smile is the competition, or the complement, to Virgil’s reason. The motive in Hell are hate, the motive in Heaven is love. The footnotes, however, were essential in order to figure out Dante’s strong emotions about the separation of church and state, the importance of a strong central government, his fellow quarrelling Tuscans, and his arch enemy, Pope Boniface VIII. Although part of me would really like to have gotten the Signora Alighieri version. What was she up to when Dante rocketed from planet to planet, if not in a lip lock, but definitely an eye lock with the fair Beatrice? Probably something very terrestrial.