The Donna Tartt Edition

Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and The Secret History: the literary world's well-deserved Huge Crush

The "It" Girl

My latest fan mail would read as follows:

Dear Donna Tartt,

You write a staggering work of fiction once every ten years.  Your sharp suit perfectly matches your sharp bob, and I hope you always accessorize with that pencil.  Don't listen to the bitter literary critics whose only chance at being in Vanity Fair is taking the unpopular view of panning you.  They're just jealous, and frankly, some of the pretentiousness in your books (see: all the Greek/classicism rambling in The Secret History) should have been enough to satisfy them.  You tell a @#$(*& good story, and all the references to The Goldfinch as "this generation's David Copperfield" strike me as true.  Except, I stopped a hundred pages short of finishing David Copperfield, and I could never have done that with your beautiful book.

Love,

Em

P.S. Please write faster next time.

P.P.S. Knowing that you and Ann Patchett are friends is almost too much.  It cruelly fuels my fantasy that someday I could have a glass of wine with the two of you.

The Goldfinch: my favorite of the two

Background

This novel recently won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and is seemingly everywhere - I swear the ads are (nearly) as pervasive as for a blockbuster film.  My expectations were high and I did my best to avoid reading anything about the book before I finished it - which meant that I missed seeing the titular painting on special Limited Time Only display at The Frick, 10 blocks from my apartment, by just one day.  (Good thing, I guess - the lines of book clubbers trying to see The Goldfinch and Girl with the Pearl Earring were insane!)

The book follows Theo, a troublemaking 12-year-old who lives alone with his mother in New York City, his alcoholic father having recently abandoned the burden of his family.  It is immediately a page-turner, as Theo recounts in striking detail the last day of his mother's life.  The extremely close pair visit the Metropolitan Museum before a special school meeting regarding Theo's mischief, and a terrorist bombing changes the course of his life.

What makes it so awesome

One of the most memorable traits of the book is Tartt's ability to deftly tell the story from Theo's 12-year-old perspective, without being too heavy-handed with obvious manipulation. The Met sequence, post-explosion, is dreamlike, reflecting Theo's injury and trauma, and in this haze, Theo believes a dying old man in the rubble has given him a small Dutch 17th century painting of a bird. Everything that happens in the immediate aftermath smacks of Theo's shock, grief, and piecemeal information he is given due to the protectiveness of the adults in his changed world.

Another aspect I loved was that Tartt wasn't afraid to make her narrator, otherwise very sympathetic because of everything that had happened to him, into a huge jerk.  It just feels true that Theo, growing up among relative strangers after such a horrific loss, would be bitter, angry, drug addicted, selfish and lonely, a self-absorbed kid who grows into a self-absorbed adult.

As a prime example, take Welty, an antique restorer who provides the only real stability, parenting, financial support, sense of purpose, and friendship in Theo's life.  He is a stranger who takes Theo in, ultimately raises him, teaches him a trade, and seems like the most generous and kind-hearted character ever (think furniture-maker Aidan, from "Sex and the City", but as an older, kindly uncle).  I know he isn't real, but I still want to give him a hug.  Still, Theo jeopardizes his business by committing fraud on Welty's customers, uses Welty to get to Welty's niece (Theo's unrequited love interest, Pippa,) takes innumerable banned substances in Welty's home, and speculates as to Welty's sexuality.  See?  Don't you kinda hate this guy?

I actually felt guilty being upset with the way Theo treated those who were kind to him, after what he'd been through. How interesting to bring such dislike and such guilt out of a reader. I have to recognize and respect that Tartt's narrative choices here were gutsy and added to a real uniqueness and realism in the book.

Whether you find him likable and/or pitiable or not, Theo's adventures are fascinating.  He is taken in by a wealthy family of characters, socialites and sailing buffs, in a Park Avenue town home.  He moves to Vegas with his nauseatingly horrible father and his spacey new girlfriend, Xandra, another two memorable characters you'll love to hate, from whom poor Theo gains his painkiller addiction and many of his more abominable characteristics.  He lives a life of crime, at times as a sidekick to his dark and hilarious friend Boris, and at times on his own.  Is it always realistic?  Maybe not, but it is a really, really great story.

The Bird is the Word!

At the center of it all, there is Theo's quest to keep and protect "his" painting.  Some critics have interpreted this as Theo's attempt to connect to his mother's memory, but I don't agree.  Theo's life has been shattered by random tragedy.  He is a boy becoming a man who wants to assert some kind of control over what is otherwise an uncontrollable universe. He wants to believe his life has real meaning, and how better to do that than to cast yourself as Grand Protector of a lasting and powerful art work?

Summing it up

All the hype and debates over literariness aside - I enjoyed The Goldfinch so much, more than many books I've read recently. Whether it has lasting power culturally or not, I read it six months ago and have clear and emotional recall of many parts of this novel - it will definitely have lasting power with me.

The Secret History: Tartt's 1992 debut

Background

I loved The Goldfinch so much that I had to read Tartt's probably second most-acclaimed book, her debut novel that launched her new literary legend status. When she dated Bret Easton Ellis in college, she shared some passages of what would become this book, and he was apparently adamant about getting it in front of his agent.

I didn't like The Secret History quite as much as The Goldfinch, but I still think it's a terrific story and an impressive read, particularly given that she wrote it when she was so young.

(In terms of college genius first novels, I still prefer Zadie Smith's White Teeth, but then again, Zadie Smith hasn't yet written her Goldfinch, in my opinion. Give her 20 years, I guess.)

In the opening chapter, you learn that the narrator and his group of college friends have murdered a member of their clique.  Gone is the more traditional narrative structure, a chronological buildup to a shocking twist and then a conclusion.  Here, first comes the twist, and still, somehow, everything that follows still smacks of mystery.  What caused this horrible act?  Will they be caught?  What are the consequences and aftermath?  What will happen to this group of "friends"?  This is the drama that drives the story.

Comparing the two, "Secret History" falls short

Like The Goldfinch, it's a page-turning story, vividly delving into the characters' minds and their surroundings (in this case, a very cold, haunting, and disturbing Vermont campus.) You've got an even more detestable narrator named Richard Papen who, without the benefit of a sympathetic sad backstory, is probably the hugest jerk whose brain I've been forced into.  There's an unattainable, ethereal crush - Richard's Camilla is Theo's Pippa, but with more blood in her hair.  There are acts of violence, and bad guys who you somehow are manipulated into rooting for.  There is plenty of substance abuse for all.

There were parts, though, that I didn't love nearly as much as The Goldfinch.  Tartt starts off with a whole section on Richard's Greek classicism training and snobbiness that established his academic know-it-all obnoxiousness, but was also so off-putting and dull that I nearly put the book down.

The other large problem with the book was the real lack of redemption or likeability of any of the characters.  Even Bunny, the murder victim and moral center of the book, is someone you'd never want to spend an afternoon with.  The group of friends that Richard so desperately wants to be a part of is so abhorrent that I hoped with every page that they'd all be arrested.  Julian, the classics teacher they all adore, is a spineless, arrogant twit.  By contrast, I do think I would want to spend time with Theo and company (though in the case of his father, it would just be to deliver a couple of sucker punches.)

Still worth a read!

It's unfair to pit the two against one another when I liked The Goldfinch so much, I suppose.  Don't get me wrong - Secret History is still very much worth the time, especially if you like a good murder mystery.  Tartt weaves an excellent, well-paced, different, and enjoyable narrative. I have yet to read her second book, but I can definitely say that she is only getting better.

Great Premises, Disappointing Follow-through: "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" and "Sleep Donation"

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid

and

Sleep Donation*, by Karen Russell

  

 

 

 

*My apologies up front for Karen Russell's freaky cover art giant eyeball, which makes me think of nothing but pinkeye and torn contact lenses.

Too much build up?

Part of my disappointment with both of these books likely stems from how excited I was to start both of them. 

I loved Karen Russell's Swamplandia, and a couple years ago I heard her in a panel conversation with Junot Diaz (so much awesome) at Symphony Space, after actors read a couple of their terrific short stories.  She was so sweetly awkward and mega-genius brilliant that I developed an instant author crush. 

And - a book about an insomnia epidemic and sleep donation vans that collect the slumber of healthy individuals like platelets in a blood drive?  That's gross, and Stephen King-esque, and fascinating.  I bought Sleep Donation as soon as it was available.

My excitement for Filthy Rich was largely because of the unconventional premise touted in book reviews.  The novel is written in the second person and is styled as sort of a self help parody.  I've read about rising Asia in Aravind Adiga's Last Man in Tower and The White Tiger, in so many Salman Rushdie books, and in Katherine Boo's gorgeous Behind the Beautiful Forevers - but none of these perspectives were at all similar to Hamid's chosen structure.

So when both of these fell flat, it was a bummer big enough for me to blog about.

The Plots: First a Sizzle, Then a Snooze

Within the confines of its self-help book premise, Filthy Rich tells the story of one nameless man, "You", from cradle to grave, as he makes and loses money in a nameless city full of hustlers and crooks.  Each chapter is a "How To" corresponding to the protagonist's life: Move to the City.  Get an Education.  Don't Fall in Love.  Be Prepared to Use Violence.  And so on.

But despite the twist of the second person convention and a few amusing quips early on about the self help genre, the plot and substance of the book feel tired and old.  The characters are a bit cartoonish, and their comings and goings and successes and tragedies feel abstract rather than engaging. 
Perhaps I don't also just don't like the Filthy Rich swindler setting, and I need to be more forgiving because of cultural reasons or because such booming growth amidst staggering poverty shouldn't be oversimplified.  Still, the initial noteworthiness of Hamid's stylistic choices wore off fast.


Sleep Donation too starts off with an intriguing plot.  You're immediately catapaulted into a Stephen King-style dystopia where, for unexplained reasons (could it be, all these electronic devices?!) a subset of the population has insomnia.  The protagonist, Trish, has joined an organization run by two rich, sleazy brothers, tasked with recruiting healthy individuals to donate their pure shuteye to the less fortunate.

Trish has lost her sister Dori to the insomnia epidemic, after Dori spent some 20-odd days without any sleep, and went into organ failure.  (I know what you're wondering.  Did Dori work for the bankruptcy department at my law firm?)  Trish uses Dori's tearful story as a recruitment device, and gets the Big Catch: a universal donor referred to as Baby A, the only individual whose unique blend of sleep is accepted by all sufferers. 

Ok, that all sounds pretty good on paper, but Trish is nowhere near as wonderful a narrator to spend time with as Swamplandia!'s thirteen-year-old alligator-wrestling Ava Bigtree.  The big plot question, mainly what she'll do about her organization's less-than-savory business tactics in relation to Baby A and her family, wasn't really enough to keep me awake.

Bottom Line

Ultimately, what Hamid really needs is for you to care about his Everyman, as he runs around trying to sell possibly contaminated bottled water and bribe politicians. He throws a wife and a son into the mix to get you to care about our hero, as well as a similarly motivated social climbing lover who appears throughout as a female foil. Somehow, though, I never began to care about the "You" in the story, or his lover, or his family, or his business.

Russell's book suffers from a similar problem.  Trish is grieving and lonely and trying to adjust her do-gooder idealism to the reality of her creepy organization and the surrounding world crisis.  Unfortunately, the vibrant human relationships that make novels great and interesting are markedly absent from the story.  A sci-fi premise and a tragic past (and present) are not enough to make the novella a worth-while read.

Next time: I'll hopefully find something I like better!

I feel like a tween again: The Ghost in the Glass House, by Carey Wallace

The Ghost in the Glass House, by Carey Wallace

 

 

 

Fast facts:

•  I've met Carey Wallace, and I love her books so much that I am sure to get sweaty-saw-a-celebrity palms when I see her next
• This is her second book - be sure to also check out The Blind Contessa's New Machine
• An editorial review on Amazon says "grades 5-8".  Hmm.  Guess I'm young at heart!
• If the target age is true, here's to hoping this thing blows up like Twilight
• 240 pages of wonderful pleasure reading

Premise

The book focuses on Clare, a precocious twelve-year-old on perpetual vacation with her opulent and dramatic mother, Cynthia, who travels the world and seems to have any of her heart's desires at her fingertips (including very creative pastries that are guaranteed to make you hungry).  They globetrot like crazy (is this child ever in school?) and land in a servant-equipped house in a beach town, surrounded by rich neighbors who also seem to globetrot with them constantly (does anyone have a job?)

The story moves at a perfect, brisk clip, filling in the delicious details of Clare's (very) enviable travels, as well as slowly introducing the theme, common with a ghost story motif, that things are not always what they seem. 

As Clare tries to avoid the impending adulthood that her group of friends seems so desperate to reach, she develops her first real crush on an invisible boy who lives in a glass house abandoned for storage on their summer home property.  Matters are complicated by Tilda, the delightful old house servant who proves a tough nut to crack even for bright, headstrong Clare, who is used to being loved or ignored by adults.

A number of romantic entanglements, without the complications of being a grown-up, prove highly entertaining (A loves B but pretends to love C who loves B, while B loves A's best friend D, who is also adored by A's brother E!)  And what's not to love about a hidden cave under a cliff in the ocean, furnished by the teenagers with all the antique furniture that the rich adults never bothered to keep track of?

How I met Carey, and a plea

I met Carey through our mutual friend, Sarah.  We met after seeing their friend Bridget play the harp like a boss-genius at Le Poisson Rouge, before I'd read The Blind Contessa's New Machine.  Sarah is notorious for being one of the best human beings on the planet, and for having a thousand creative talents and beyond impeccable taste, so her recommendation of Carey's first book (and Carey's immediately obvious coolness) made it mandatory reading for me.  The Blind Contessa's New Machine was so engrossing and wonderful that as I devoured it on the train, I wished I would miss my stop so I could continue.  (Thank you Sarah!)

So the next time I saw Carey, I totally dweebed out and fell all over myself being in love with her/the book.  Happily, I remain hopeful that she forgave my bumbling, AND she revealed that book #2 was on its way.  Thank goodness, because I was devastated at finishing Blind Contessa, and now I'm devastated that Ghost in the Glass House is over, and Carey if you're out there, would you pretty please give us book #3 as soon as possible?  Not to sound ungrateful for this book's loveliness, but the fans are desperate!!!

Easy Like Sunday Morning

The book is deliciously quick and easy to read. I certainly don't want to call it chewing gum, and I'm not sure I agree that it's "easy" as in, meant just for 10-14 year olds - it's not the kind of reading that you don't have to think about at all. Mainly, the story and beautiful descriptions just wash over you so that you don't realize that reading is any kind of effort.

Everywhere you look, amidst gorgeous descriptions of colorful furniture in the glass house, candy in the village shop, and the comforts of a wealthy ocean summer home existence, there's also some fundamental truth phrased so simply but so creatively that you have to marvel at Carey's talent. The heavier themes that she handles adroitly include being a child on the cusp of adulthood, dealing with grief and loss, misjudging people when you first meet them, notions of home, mother-daughter relationships, and young love in its many types and directions and confusions.

Recommended for an easy Sunday morning when you feel like being transported to your teenage years, if you wish those teenage years were spent traveling the world and enjoying summer houses.

Love: Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Fast Facts

• One of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year
• 496 pages, hefty but still impossible to put down
• Like Ifemelu, the protagonist, Adichie grew up in Nigeria
• I will never look at getting my hair done the same way again

Premise

The novel starts in the present in Princeton, New Jersey, where the protagonist, Ifemelu, is planning to go back to Nigeria after over a decade in America.  Ifemelu gets her hair done at an African beauty parlor, and after a series of flashbacks, and hundreds of pages, we seem to keep ending up at the salon - an ode to the hours spent and pain endured by many black women to style their hair. 

(Aside - I went with my friend Mel once to get her hair braided.  Meaning, I stayed with Mel for a few minutes, then went shopping and ate multiple meals, and came back, and her beautiful braids STILL weren't done.  This was a mind-boggling lesson in patience to me, and I feel shame when I think that I can barely manage to get an up-keep 15-minute haircut every 6 months.)

Anyhow, we learn about Ifemelu's relatively rosy and privileged childhood in Nigeria - her religious mother, her government servant father who suffers a difficult layoff, her aunt's precarious affair with an army official known as The General.  And, most importantly, the beginning of her love affair with Obinze, the boy everyone in high school loved.

Ifemelu and Obinze's stories eventually split.  During college, after a series of teacher strikes that constantly closed universities in Nigeria, Ifemelu is able to obtain a student visa and moves to Brooklyn, and then Philadelphia, and then Baltimore, and finally to Princeton for her studies and (fantastically told) relationships.  (I still want to meet her red-headed boyfriend, Curt.) 

Meanwhile, Obinze, who had always been obsessed with American literature and life, was denied an American visa due to terrorist concerns, and spends some time in England.  Ifemelu and Obinze's experiences overseas show a cruel reality for immigrants in America and England, even those with huge financial and educational advantages.  This window into immigrant life was eye-opening, fascinating, and disturbing to me.

Overall, the plot is well-paced and throughout the novel, you're faced with the dangling carrot presented in the beginning: will the star-crossed lovers reunite?  Where will Ifemelu ultimately call "home"?

Love me a good love story

I can't resist a good love story, and as love stories go, Americanah is so, so great.  I don't want to short-change Adichie, who took on serious racial identity questions, problems, and experiences, and somehow taught a wide breadth of lessons on being black in America without sounding cliche, tired, preachy, or pedantic.  But the thing that kept me reading, obsessively, with the final sprint in bed on a Saturday till 3pm because I hadn't finished yet and I just had to, was finding out how Ifemelu's Obinze story would end.  You can't help but root for these characters individually, but what you really want is for them to be together at all costs, because it's hard to think of a couple as sexy and two-halves-of-a-whole as these two.

Nitpicking

Despite how much I loved the book, I have to admit that Adichie was pedantic sometimes.  One of Ifemelu's lovers, Blaine, is a Yale professor with the preachiest group of friends and family ever, and sometimes their rants on race were about as subtle as a club over the head.  This can be forgiven, given how enjoyable it was to learn about Ifemelu's experiences and to read her blog entries on race that were delivered with more aplomb.

If you could have cut out the Blaine relationship entirely, really, and in particular their insufferable dinner parties with his horrible sister, the book would have been even better, in my opinion.  Being with Blaine gives Adichie an outlet to talk about what Obama meant to her characters, and most importantly, an African-American counterpoint to Ifemelu's African-in-America views.  And having had an annoying ex-boyfriend, I suppose their irritaitng relationship made Ifemelu a fuller and more real person to me.  But good lord, I hoped with every page turn that they would break up!

Ifemelu, can I be your clueless but adoring white friend?

I have seen a lot of films and articles and media analysis delving into the subject of what it means to be African American in this country, but this novel is driven by a different, but related, topic: what it means to be an African immigrant, seeking love and stability in America and England. 

I've never been to Africa, and my knowledge of regional conflict there and the immigrant experience is limited to representing a client from Guinea, and asking my friend Dani, who is doing public health work in Liberia, a thousand questions.  Despite my narrow perspective, one of this novel's biggest achievements is that I still couldn't help but feel that its protagonist, Ifemelu, was so very relatable.

Ifemelu writes a blog called "Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negroes) by a Non-American Black" - by turns hilarious, scathing, educational, and like its title, a mouthful.  One of the best entries focuses on her clueless but adoring white friends, and having just finished this novel, I would love to count myself among these friends - I'm already deeply missing spending time with Ifemelu.

Joyous: Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter

"There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact." -Milan Kundera (opens the last chapter, with the title name)

Fast Facts

• Walter has been a finalist for the National Book Award and won an Edgar Allen Poe award
• Journalist-turned novelist
• Beautiful Ruins (a great name for a book) took him 15 years to write
• He provides an afterward explaining how obnoxious this admission is, and detailing his blue collar work ethic and approach - it made me love him even more
• Do you want to travel to a small Italian village and fall in love?
• You do?  Then just buy this book.  Immediately.
• Funny and down-to-earth and descriptive and a great, engaging story
• Time period jumping, character jumping, stylistic jumping - Walter does it all, and does it well
• This book is an easy-to-digest joy.  Judge it by its cover and enjoy how delicious and sad and romantic it all is

How this Beautiful Story Starts

Where to begin, recapping a book I enjoyed so thoroughly that its perfect, no-ends-left-untied finish felt bittersweet.

If it takes me 15 years to write a book that brings someone else such relaxed pleasure, then it was a 15 years well-spent.

Walter's novel jumps fluidly between the small fishing village of Porto Vergogna in 1962, the present day, and points of interest to the characters in between.  This makes a summary somewhat difficult, but here goes.

Pasquale, a handsome college student in 1962, lives with his newly-widowed mother and his crazy, ugly witch of an aunt in their 6-room "hotel": the Adequate View Hotel.  No one comes to this fishing village, which is quickly losing its fishermen to larger vessels and faraway factories.  Pasquale's dream is to transform the village into a tourist destination, given its location - it's the bastard cousin of the Cinque Terre, and lobbies unsuccessfully to be the sixth town in that beautiful Italian coastal string of villages - why?  Well, it's smaller, more remote, and less picturesque.

The hotel gets its name from its only guest, an alcoholic American World War II veteran and unprolific writer named Alvis Bender.  Alvis finds the word "beautiful" to be too inflated, and tells Pasquale's father Carlo that it has lost its meaning after the war.  To have a real effect, Carlo gives it this name, and like the title of the book, I find it wonderfully satisfying.

Pasquale is a replacement son for parents who lost both their boys in the war, and when we meet him, he is scraping away at a dusting of sand near the water, trying to make it into a beach (failure).  He also spends his days moving rocks on a cliff at a task that even Sisyphus would laugh at - Pasquale wants to build a tennis court.  On a cliff.  Never having seen an actual game of tennis played, and only imagining that the American tourists who will flock to the hotel will never miss, he doesn't realize that every ball will fly off the cliff into the sea.

He's just that kind of romantic.

And who better for him to fall in love with than a beautiful American starlet who arrives (accidentally?) at his doorstep?  Dee Moray, with a supporting role in the movie Cleopatra, filming in Rome, has had the misfortune of comforting star Richard Burton, when Burton was on the outs with Elizabeth Taylor. (Glamorous much?)  She experiences horrible bouts of pain and vomiting, and is told that she is dying of cancer before she is sent to Porto Vergogna, and then on to Switzerland for treatment.

I Can't Tell You Any More

Really.  I can't stand it.  What happens to Pasquale and Dee is too interesting to read that I can't bear to spoil it.  I've already blathered on too long about just the first couple of chapters.  Instead, let's talk format and characters.

Format and Characters

If novels struggle to keep your attention due to conventional format, Beautiful Ruins will feel like a breath of fresh air.  The chapters are told not only from the perspectives of different characters, all fascinating and fully formed, but Walters frequently varies the formats. You read:

• the first and only chapter in Alvis Bender's wartime novel of his 20-second love Maria, before her fall
• the final chapter of Alvis, years later and still a romantic, through the eyes of his wife as he asks for another round of drinks
• the rejected chapter of legendary film producer Michael Deane's autobiography about his rise to power on Dee's back, struggling to keep the passion between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton alive in order to make back the money that the studio sunk into Cleopatra
• a movie pitch for Donner!, a far-too-expensive biopic about settlers heading west and into cannibalism
• a play about a drug-addicted, lost, manipulative, and charming comedic musician who looks like someone famous

In the present day, we're given Claire Silver, Michael Deane's production assistant, a lover of great movies who is forced to hear pitches from Michael's friends for zombie thrillers and reality garbage.  She's spent years dating a beautiful zombie extra with a porn addiction.

Then there's Michael Deane himself.  We see him, an unflattering portrait of a man at any point in time, and in the present day he is so old but so preserved by plastic surgery that he has a smooth baby face that causes strangers to stare.

And Shane Wheeler, a thirty-something living in his parent's basement, divorced and out of a job and out of his characteristic confidence.  He has tattooed "ACT" on his arm as an inspirational reminder to "act as if Ye have faith and it shall be given to you."   He finds out years later that this quote he'd lived by wasn't biblical as he'd thought, but was instead pulled from a Paul Newman movie.

And they're all just in supporting roles.



The Beautiful Part



Each of these characters - Michael and Claire in Hollywood and Shane on its cusp; Pasquale in the past and the present; the lovely, enigmatic Dee - they're all, as Dee tells Pasquale, waiting for their lives to start.  This idea, that everyone is waiting for their big adventure, climax, and true meaning, feels real beyond the novel and beyond the movies.

Watching them as they wait, and as they live through the most significant moments of their lives, making big decisions and falling in love and traveling and finding themselves and trying to make right the wrongs of the past, is a joy.

Of course, I've left out the big details about Dee, just as the novel circles around her without actually hearing her voice until the gorgeous ending.  But as I've said, I refuse to be a spoiler about this book, because I loved it.

So go and enjoy Beautiful Ruins the way you would a long afternoon on Pasquale's non-existent Porto Vergogna beach, never wanting the moment to end but just glad, whatever its flaws, that it existed at all.

Meh: The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker

The Age of Miracles: A Novel, Karen Thompson Walker 

Fast Facts

• 304 pages
• Walker worked as an editor for Simon & Schuster, writing in the mornings before work and sometimes on the subway
• The story of a teenage girl detailing her life when the earth's rotation slows
• Reads a little like a teenager wrote it...
• That's not to say I didn't like it!
• Nice and light
• But not at the top of my recommendation list

Remember That Time, In Middle School?

If you do, and it wasn't your favorite time, this book may not be for you.  It's not quite science fiction-y enough for a science fiction lover, and fits more snugly into the "coming of age" genre.  Julia recounts her experiences as a sixth-grade girl, awkward and lonely, in the months when the earth's rotation first begins to slow.

Julia's best friend forever (they even have bracelets!) ditches her in an instant, the way middle school girls are wont to do.  Bullies on the bus pull up Julia's shirt to prove that she doesn't need, and isn't wearing, a training bra.  A mean girl uses her as a good-influence alibi, so that the mean girl can drink and spend time alone with boys.  Julia loves a boy named Seth on a skateboard, but he doesn't know she exists (or does he?)  Her social life is mainly limited to hanging out with her neurotic mother, distant father, and depressed grandfather (who gifts her a gold pocket watch - a relic of a time when the clocks and the sun were aligned).

Earth Slow-Down - Interesting Idea, Not Enough Follow-Through

As you may be able to tell from this description, the story itself would be sweet and relatively unmemorable if not for the Vonnegut-style imaginings:

• birds falling dead out of the sky
• whales washing up with the tide
• radioactive sun shining bright for 40 hours
• political and social adaptation to the new planetary reality

So, as Julia tries to get Seth's attention and observe the shifting environmental situation, Thompson Walker has a formula that's interesting enough to keep a reader's attention.  In the midst of the mundanity of Julia trying to fit in with a pretty, confident, and mean classmate, ensconced in a fancy house with an impressive emergency supplies shelter, there's a small detail to remind you that everything is changing - Julia eats what will be her last can of pineapples.

Trees crash and fall in the ever-lasting night.  Homeowners create rock formations to replace the dead grass.  The sun has gotten closer, and going outside in the daytime means horrific skin burns and severe dehydration, sometimes causing seizures, and relegating people to the confines of their homes.  "Gravity sickness" afflicts everyone differently.  The canned goods aisle of the grocery store quickly empties, as supply hoarding ensues.  Greenhouses are erected to replace dying crops.

Most interestingly, a sect of "real timers" breaks off when the government orders U.S. citizens to remain on a 24-hour clock, in order to maintain economic and social equilibrium.  The real timers, as their name suggests, struggle to remain on the clock dictated by the sun.

I wish the author had gone into more about the interactions and perspectives of these real timers, some of whom form a colony in the desert called Circadia.  The snippets we do learn form a compelling social commentary on how non-conformists are abused by a fearful majority:

• real timer hippies who grow pot in the basement and are turned in by their angry neighbors 
• real timer Orthodox Jews are shunned for their adherence to the Sabbath
• a real timer piano teacher (who happens to be sleeping with Julia's father, in an uninteresting plot twist) has her home defaced, and leaves in a moving van (where is there to go?)

Another interesting and relatively unexplored plot twist occurs on New Years Eve, when Julia's mother, suffering from the beginnings of gravity sickness, passes out at the driver's wheel, hitting a real timer bum in the street.  He dies, in part because we're told that such accidents are more frequently fatal due to the change in gravity, but there are no repercussions - the incident is glossed over superficially.

The Ending: More of a Fizzling

Julia realizes her romance with Seth, who becomes a real friend and companion, until gravity sickness sends him to Mexico.  (How is it going to be any better there?)  And as soon as that plot element is tied up, the power goes out, the servers go down, and everyone loses touch with their loved ones - Seth included.

A fast-forward with no explanation shows that the story of sixth-grade Julia is being recounted by Julia at 23.  The earth has continued to slow, and a rocket has been invented to take people away from earth (where?)  Schools are closing, and it's only a matter of time before the fuel runs out.  We're told, inexplicably, that Julia wants to become a doctor, though some universities have closed.  Our narrator, all grown up in a matter of paragraphs, contemplates the artifacts that will be left behind to show that she and Seth were here, on earth.  And that's it.

My Take

A sugary-sweet coming-of-age tale, that rings true to the experiences of a sixth grade girl (though really, who wants to re-visit that era?)  The science fiction plot device makes what would be a forgettable story into a more interesting tale, to be sure.  However, I still wouldn't call it great, or put it on the top of your bedside book pile.  But it was a nice way to spend a few hours.

Avoid: Last Man in Tower, by Aravind Adiga

Last Man in Tower, Aravind Adiga

Fast Facts

• Adiga won the Man Booker in 2008 for The White Tiger
• If he wins again for Last Man in Tower, I'll eat my hat
• 480 pages
• Author currently lives in Mumbai, which I can barely imagine visiting after this book
• Depressing without a trace of redemption - just say no!

Not-So-Ringing Endorsement
Have you ever hated a book entirely because of its ending?

If not, then please - read Last Man in Tower. It will give you the unenviable feeling that the admittedly somewhat-enjoyable hours you spent getting to the end were really just an exercise in masochism. It may also destroy your sense that there is good at the core of every human being. Truly, the end of this book is so terrible that I regretted picking it up in the first place, despite Adiga's talent for storytelling and character development.

This Lord of the Flies (Indian adult version) doesn't have enough in it to redeem how depressing it became. No phoenix rising out of the ashes. Just a feeling that you got smacked around a little at first, only to get punched in the gut as your reward.

Plot Summary

Masterji, a recently-widowed retired physics teacher in his 60's, lives in the Vishram Society, which refers to the occupants of two crumbling apartment towers in Mumbai. The towers have stood for years, and the residents seem to be solidly middle class. They're certainly not wealthy, but they live comfortably, and many of them have maids. The population is decidedly older, and though the group is somewhat gossipy, it is clear that their years of living in close proximity have established significant bonds between them.

Pure Evil rears its ugly head, though, when corrupt Dharmen Shah and his left-hand man, Shanmugham, enter the Society offering nearly twice the value of each apartment to the Society members. Shah is a sleazy builder with a rebellious son, a "kept woman" named Rosie who has essentially been blackmailed into staying in his company, and a terrible cough that seems a harbinger of doom. Shah has astrologically-approved plans to raze the Society and build luxury condos, given that this section of Mumbai is fast-changing due to an influx of finance companies. The catch is that every Society member must give his approval for anyone to receive the easy cash.

Nearly everyone is in favor of the offer, and people start to spend the money not yet in their pockets on expensive trinkets and status symbols. The opposition to the deal includes teacher Masterji's best friends, the Pintos, an older couple - Mrs. Pinto is blind and can't imagine moving from the Society she knows by feel. Mr. Pinto and Masterji have a little book in which they keep account of all the money they owe one another for small items, so that finances never tear their friendship apart. How very ironic. Because of their opposition, Masterji also opposes the deal, along with a social worker.

Social pressures and the promise of a "sweetener" of additional money from Shah eventually break down the Pintos and the social worker, who is bitter because her husband left her and stole her dowry. 

Among the social pressures: Mrs. Puri, a ringleader in the Society who has an 18-year-old son named Ramu, who has Down's Syndrome and struggles with basic functions. Mrs. Puri is an object of sympathy at first, given the difficulty of her role as caregiver and her desire to find a nurse for Ramu, and a more comfortable place to live.  Mrs. Puri, Ramu, and Masterji have a nice relationship at the outset - Ramu loves the old teacher, and he shows great kindness to them both.

Masterji holds out in the real estate deal because he knows that the Pintos truly don't want to leave.  He also feels attached to his home - this is where his beloved wife lived and died, where his daughter grew up before being thrown off a commuter train and left to die on the tracks, where he raised his money-grubbing son (who is fast-friends with Mrs. Puri.)  He has taught the children of the Society science lessons after school, and this is his community.  His hope is that the offer from Shah will expire, and life will go back to normal.  To this end, he visits a lawyer for protection, but the lawyer's true motivations lie in reaching an even sweeter settlement with the builder.

So what happens?

Spoiler Ending: Why I Hated It

Mrs. Puri and her conformist, spineless neighbors enlist neighborhood thugs to break into Masterji's apartment in the night and beat him until, afraid for his wellbeing, he agrees to take the money and leave the Society.  While this beating occurs, the neighbors - including the Pintos! - put cotton in their ears to dull the screams.  Masterji fights back and, incredibly given his age, scares the teenage thugs away.

When this doesn't work, Puri and her compatriots wait a few days, provide more cotton balls for the neighbors' ears, and then she and her associates beat Masterji brutally and drag his wounded body to a railing by the courtyard.  They then throw his body over the railing, and he dies.

Is that enough to destroy your faith in mankind?  No?  What about the postscript to this lovely tale, wherein Masterji's son is thrilled to inherit Shah's money; everyone moves into an only-slightly nicer apartment; and the social worker and neighborhood children sing a song by the banyan tree about how wonderful Masterji was?

Yep, that's how it ends.  With a song about Great Masterji, written by his murderers and their co-conspirators.

Vomit.

Well-written isn't enough.  Interesting characters aren't enough.  Scenes of Mumbai that make you feel like you're there?  Not enough.  Certainly not enough to redeem this story that has nothing but misery, greed, death, and finally, the self-righteous rewriting of history to make these horrible neighbors seem less horrible than they really were.

Final Word
Second novel slump? The White Tiger author should have pulled some of the murder-mystery of his first exciting, fascinating novel and infused Last Man in Tower. After this throttling, though, it'll be hard to bring this initially-hopeful reader back.