Fifth Business

By: Robertson Davies

Penguin, 1970



Weird Canadian theme in the purge, huh? Last one! And it was a doozy, a definitely good doozy.

At first glance this isn't usually the sort of book I go in for. I mean, look at the publishing date as compared to, well, everything else up here. But I've got to hand it to Davies for his mastery of voice and suspense. From the main character Dunstan Ramsey's own admission, he only plays 5th business to the major plot of the book (5th business being a stage term for a character neither hero or villain whose presence is still essential to the dramatic structure of the plot). But his insights from this particular position, as well as the honesty with which he depicts his own faults and mistakes make him equally as interesting and well-rounded as the flashier characters that surround him.

The major concerns for the book seem to be about growing up a boy in small-town Canada, learning to become more of a man at war time and paying penance for old guilts and loyalties, but, by the time this 5th business element comes more fully into focus, the effect is sharply dramatic, violent and expertly crafted. This is a book that sneaks up on you. You're well aware from the beginning that this mild-mannered man has an important role to play, and waiting for it to pan out completely is an excellent use of technique on Davie's part. And the small details throughout the book, about Saints and religion and magic all weave together to form not just an entertaining backdrop but a fully-realized, essential picture.

I'm afraid to say too much, because the book is thick and tricky (though definitely a shortish, quick read). Guess I'll have to give the other two books in the trilogy a try.

The Corrections

By: Jonathan Franzen

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001

This is a re-read, which is always an interesting experience, especially if you liked the book well enough the first time around. I'd heard (after all the Oprah controversy, of course) that if you could get past the first 50 pages, the book really started to pay off and was awesome. First time around, I didn't see what the big fuss was, first 50 went off without any discernible pain. This time, however, (and maybe I'm just getting cranky in my old age) I could see where the problem was. These people are just plain awful. Grating even. Myopic and stuffy and mostly idiotic. I forced myself through it, just to see if I could find again what it was made me enjoy the book in the first place, and true enough, the rest of the book wasn't as teeth-gnashing as the first 50 pages, but I think I just got used to the din of annoying rather than actually enjoying the book any more. I still liked the daughter Denise's storyline the best -- she seems a little more aware of her foibles than her brothers or parents do. And even though she still makes some really stupid and reckless choices, at least she owns up to her problems in the end. Everyone else has glimpses of where they've gone horribly wrong, and most manage to have at least a few moments of change or redemption, but really. I've got better things to do than sit around reading about a bunch of middle-American whiners. That's what reality television is for, right?

Osprey Island

By: Thisbe Nissen

Alfred A. Knopf, 2004

As far as souvenirs go, Montreal's not really rife with exciting offerings. No real French Canadian version of Italian leather or French wine, and carting Maple syrup across the boarder just seemed silly. So I spent a good portion of my Canadian dollars at Chapters (Canadian version of Borders). Because, yeah, you can't get books in America either...

I picked this up for "seulement $4.99" because I like the author and I like bargains.

My recollection of Nissen's first book, The Good People of New York are vague, but I seem to remember it being at least slightly better than Osprey Island. The plot and characters spun out in attention-holding enough ways, of course, but there just wasn't the heft of satisfying literature I was looking for from someone recommended to me in grad school (and who went to the same college as wunderkind Donna Tartt). Perhaps this is the grand fallacy of the bargain sticker on hard-backed books. Sadly, this read like some of those semi-literary (in that they're not chick-lit per se or mystery/romance genre crap) authors you're supposed to like, like Jodi Picoult or Elizabeth Berg, both whom I find a bit tedious and predictable. Though I think the books I read by both those authors at least had somewhat satisfying conclusions. In an attempt to be more "literary" perhaps, Nissen kind of left me hanging.

Moving back to help run the family hotel on a northern backwoods island amongst strained family relations, an entire population that's all up in your business and a tragedy near enough to the beginning of the story that it seems it might change the course of the characters lives forever sort of sounds like the pilot to a television show starring someone as plucky but less talented that Lauren Graham. But I don't think any of the characters ever really do change. Things happen. They react, but mostly in the ways we're told they always do. Even a budding relationship you're half-heartedly rooting for just for something to do comes off, in the end, as no more than convenience sex.

But hey, at least I'm only out five bucks.

Hunting and Gathering

By: Anna Gavalda

Riverhead Books, 2004

Day Two of my blog binge and purge!

This was one of those random books I picked up because I liked the cover, the plot sounded un-awful and, seeing as how I'd been getting back to my French, tantalizingly translated from the French. Solid reasons all around. I might have also read the first sentence to determine whether or not I would hate it, and I didn't.

At first this book, with the early snippets of character and changing close-third person perspective rapidly was a bit difficult to get into, hard to keep everyone straight in the seemingly arbitrary wanderings of Gavalda's mind. But after a while I settled into its European rhythms and quirk and began to enjoy the mild escape from my own cultural reading identity.

The three main characters are oddities, and spend a good half of the book spinning around each other, trying not to bruise any exposed skin, but eventually coming to depend on each other in mostly unexpected ways, with a little help from that winking French fate thing (a la Amelie) and against their stubborn natures. Aside from the external dynamics of this motley group, the book explores the limitations we unknowingly place on ourselves and how we come to shed them and grow. Artistic expression and depression figure heavily without either becoming dull. Plus I enjoyed the interaction and inclusion of the grandmother character into this twenty-somethings group. And if you know me at all, you know I like the grannies.

There's something odd about translated books that I can't quite put my finger on. It's different with someone like Marquez, who is almost an actual part of the American cannon because of his popularity, and is romantic and sweeping, besides. And maybe it's just this particular book, but sometimes translations can come off like borrowing someone's tailored pants -- the fit just isn't quite right. Where this silly metaphor breaks down though is that reading someone else's tailored pants is a positive exercise in examining a structurally different way of thinking and seeing how that might change the way you view things. It can be a bit like getting out of a rut, which is definitely a good thing.

P.S. My google-image search for the cover seems to indicate this might also be a movie. Hmm. Interesting.

Talk Talk

By: T.C. Boyle

Penguin, 2006

Here's another travel story for you: Last day of 8-day vacation across French Canada and Northern New England, preceded by a bad night's sleep in the noisiest hotel room in Boston, 6 hours of traipsing across history, sweating on graves, a necessary change of shoes, and a very "clever" and "fashionable" MIT student who sees nothing wrong with wearing electronics that could be misinterpreted as a bomb on her shirt. Leaving me to arrive at the airport a (unnecessarily) cautious 3 hours before our flight, only to learn of a 3 hour delay due to Friday evening commuter traffic and some foggy weather, which will put me still 2 hours from home at midnight. Anyone who knows me well knows a lack of sleep and proper nutrition turn me cranky and mean, fast. This does not bode well for my six hour stay in any airport, let alone one with only limited distractions. I should have just given up and gotten drunk. Instead, I opted for some escapist literature, an almost guaranteed home run, and picked up some T.C. Boyle on my second trip to the airport Borders. (In spite of the fact that I had three other lovely books to choose from in my bad, though those all would have required way to much thinking for my abilities at the time.)

T.C. Boyle is a definite go-to writer. He's not top of the list, for no real good reason, but he's engrossing and doesn't require me to diagram pearls of sentences on almost no sleep. Yet he manages to avoid being a pop writer. I think the trick is that he doesn't let his writing get in the way of his stories. It's strong, interesting, but not overly any one thing. And his plots and characters (mainly set in the Northwest, from what I've seen) are original and fresh even when he's writing about hippies in Drop City (an excellent read if you're looking for suggestions).

The story follows a deaf woman and her newish boyfriend on a strained chase across the country on a hunt for the man who stole her identity and nearly ruined her life after a minor traffic stop landed her in jail for his crimes. Both the relationship of the protagonist and her boyfriend, and the thief and his girlfriend suffer through this revenge-driven road trip, and you come to see how even the smallest choices we make in times of uncertainty can change how we come to identify ourselves and our limits. The ending left me unsatisfied, but the compelling, forward-driven plot and original characters were enough to make this book worth reading. Especially since it kept me from uncontrollably crying in a Dorothy moment of "I just want to go home." Strangely, for some of the characters, the feeling was mutual.

Bel Canto

By: Ann Patchett

Perennial, 2001

This is one of those books I read while on vacation in French Canada. You know, back in early September. Times fly when you're having fun, I guess. I mention this only because by the time I finished this moody, political, aria of a book, me and a friend were sitting in our hotel room in Quebec, watching CNN, waiting for it to be time to eat and I start bawling at the ending. Poor Brett, stuck with maybe his girliest friend, crying out of the blue over a book. He got me tissues and I apologized for being weird, but really I love it when books have the power to elicit such strong emotion.

Patchett has crafted a quiet book full of intensity and pent-up passion built around an unlikely hostage situation, multi-levels of language barriers and one beautiful Soprano. The ending comes to seem inevitable without seeming hackneyed or over done. It's just the hands of fate and circumstance surrounding desperate people that lead to an almost unavoidable conclusion. That tragedy of fate, and the hard choices Patchett must have had to make as a writer, is what made me weepy. Also, I think some books just hit you in a certain way because of where you are in life or what you're dealing with, and when you combine that with travel, which always makes me English-heroine, wandering-the-moors melancholy on a certain satisfying level, then this book was a pitch-perfect setup for a fireworks effect.

I feel like I should know more about Patchett as a writer, but I think this is the first book of hers that I've read, which surprises me. She's good. Solid. Not overly girly despite my reaction. I wonder how she holds up in other books.

So, I leave you with this question. Are there any books you've read, recently or in the past, that hit you on this strangely personal level? Anything you ever re-read to discover it opened itself up to you in a new way because of where you were? Discuss!

The United States of Arugula

By: David Kamp

Broadway Books, 2006

So I purchased this book originally for a friend's birthday, but it sounded so interesting (and maybe I was a bit hungry at the time) that I had to go get a copy for myself. David, if you're not done with the book, turn away.

I think I expected more salivating stuff, more Ruth Reichl juiciness or intrigue from a book that deems to be about "the American Food Revolution" in its subtitle, though what I did get wasn't half bad. Only in the past 5 years or so have I come to consider myself a foodie, so in arriving a little late to the table, this book did wonders for giving me a background to how we, as a nation of meatloaf and boiled potatoes, go to the exciting Whole Foods/Farm-to-table place we are today. Before this book I knew vaguely of James Beard (father of American gourmet) and less vaguely of Julia Child, but this book shows how the classic gourmet foundations they laid, with the help of other chefs and restaurants, and the New Cuisine reaction against Bearnaise and its ilk helped create a more definitive American cuisine that has begun to rely more and more on fresh ingredients, organic or locally grown elements and the proliferation of salsa as our nation's condiment.

This book made me want to go out and eat, not cook, which is interesting, though I think the historical approach Kamp takes, rather than the intimate kitchen approach of someone like Reichl, plus his inspiring depictions of how some of our most famous American restaurants came to be comes out as a credit to him in the end. Alice Waters, the Berkley Mistress of Salads and one of the founders of Chez Panisse is still one of my heroes, even though according to Kamp she's more of a political activist hardliner these days than frisee and mache impresseur. The fact that this woman almost single-handedly rid us of the uncouth lettuce wedge as our only option for salad dining makes me uncontrollably thankful.

Now if only I had enough money to eat like these people every day.