"A Swim in a Pond in the Rain" by George Saunders

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is an unusual book, and I’m honestly surprised there are not more like it (or maybe there are and I’m unaware). Essentially it’s a book form of a class Saunders teaches in the MFA program at Syracuse—an exploration of short story craftsmanship via the great Russian short story writers. It’s not so much literary analysis—though there is that—as a probing look at what makes good short stories “work.” As Saunders acknowledges, for many people, there’s something almost gut-level right when literature works: difficult to articulate but moving nonetheless. It’s why it’s easy to write a critical review and so challenging to write about books I love. For that reason, there’s pleasure in witnessing an expert break down the reader's subconscious response and consider how other writers might adopt similar strategies.

Nonetheless, if I wasn’t such a fan of Saunders’ Tenth of December, I certainly wouldn’t have read this book. But now I’ve read six classic Russian short stories, and I can pretend I attended a graduate MFA class (without the work)!

Though the book could have been dry and technical, Saunders keeps the wit and warmth that make his other books engaging. He doesn’t lecture, but rather questions and attempts to answer—sometimes even back tracking on his earlier thoughts. Though some of the "writing advice" in the beginning can feel simplistic—keep escalating, emphasize cause and effect—it’s clear to see how apparently “obvious” truths can be easily forgotten in the immersion in a draft.

In the second half of the book, I found Saunders' advice somewhat more nebulous, the tone a little more didactic. He spends a lot of time on the “skaz” narrative style of Gogol’s surrealist “The Nose,” but I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Similarly, he enthusiastically explores the potential ambiguity in Tolstoy’s “Alyosha the Pot,” but I didn’t glean much beyond “great writers are great often without even meaning to be so.” A valid point but one perhaps disheartening to emerging writers. Even worse, by the end of his effusive praise of Tolstoy, I got that feeling far too many students get: that their English teacher is making up complicated elements of meaning to justify their ill-chosen career.

Nevertheless, the novel is not a how-to or self-help book, nor is it traditional literary analysis, so inevitably my expectations of either would fall short. Saunders ultimately claims that some writers are great. You might be great too, but if you are, it’ll be because of you, not because you adapted something from the other greats--or even learned from Saunders himself.

So far I’ve neglected the stories themselves, which Saunders includes in their entirety. With the exception of “The Nose,” all are fairly traditional short stories: detailed characters in a detailed world; an escalation; a surprise resolve (of some sort) at the end. My favorite was the longest in the book, Tolstoy’s “Master and Man.” Perhaps because of its length, Tolstoy's able to achieve significant character development, increasing tension, and real "stakes" to the doomed sleigh ride of land owner Vasili and his peasant servant Nikita. Like the Alyosha of a later Tolstoy story (the final entry in the book, "Alyosha the Pot"), Nikita is a quietly-suffering peasant, but his development is more well-rounded than in the latter story, so he avoids being one-dimensional.

Reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain reminds me how much I miss being in school, or even engaging in a vigorous book club (mine has been on pause since March 2020). I read a lot but have few opportunities to discuss what I'm reading, outside the personal reflections I record in this unread blog. Reading Saunders felt like a conversation with someone else smart and book-y (okay, smarter and book-ier). In that way, it was a joy.

"A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself" by Peter Ho Davies

A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is an abortion book, but Davies is aware it's not a typical story. First, it's told from the father's perspective, an approach the narrator immediately feels is problematic. Secondly, the abortion is the end to a desired pregnancy of a married couple, chosen only because of tests indicating a strong possibility of severe abnormalities in the fetus. It's a "virtuous abortion," as one woman calls it in the novel. So how to write about abortion from a man's perspective? How to write about a rare type of abortion--an abortion most likely to be sympathized with but that still retains the shame our culture places on abortions more broadly? How to remain pro-choice while also feeling guilty about the decision to end the pregnancy?

Davies navigates all these questions through his unnamed father narrator, as the couple chooses to end the pregnancy and later have a second child. The abortion frames the opening of the novel, but much of it is spent in the childhood of the second child.

For parents there's many moments of recognition, but where other books might go more comedic ("Cheerios everywhere?!"), A Lie remains aware that the dominant feeling of parenthood is fear--perhaps even abject terror. Those fears change and adjust as our children do, but never go away. Davies recognizes too the toll parenthood takes on an individual and a marriage, without sugarcoating such truth under an unhelpful "they're only young once!" platitude.

At times, particularly toward the later half, the book does feel heavy-handed. It's understandable that the father would choose to volunteer at a clinic that provides abortions as an attempt at resolution, but when every moment--even years after the act--recalls the mixed feelings on the abortion, I wondered if some nuance was missing. Nevertheless, there's so much to Davies that's intimately relatable to any parent that I immediately recommended it to my husband. 

I called it an "abortion book" in my opening sentence, but that's an unfair characterization. It's a book about parenthood, about the many choices we make, and the many failures that follow. It's about the all-consuming nature of parenthood, the way our children's lives and likes and abilities and failures become our lives (and likes and abilities and failures).

"The Lying Life of Adults" by Elena Ferrante

The Lying Life of Adults, the English translation of Ferrante's Italian novel, is a compelling look at the lies we tell others and, more importantly, ourselves. Through her teenage protagonist Giovanna, Ferrante suggests an essential element of growing up is becoming aware of these lies. First, we feel outrage as we realize those we admire--typically our parents--lie. Only later to we recognize that we shape our own identity through lies as well.

The novel begins with Giovanna learning about her estranged Aunt Vittoria and beginning a relationship with her, despite her father's misgivings. Though it seems the book will be about her father's family secrets, Vittoria is only a jumping off point. Her father's hatred for Vittoria challenges Giovanna's warm feelings about her father, and the later revelation that her father has been having a long-term affair with the mother of Giovanna's best friends only increases her distance from him. She doesn't know how to deal with her father's lies. She still seeks affirmation from him yet begins to see him more objectively: as someone who struts his intelligence; as someone too absorbed in his work to care for those around him.

But, again, whereas you might expect the novel to focus on the straining of the father-daughter relationship, instead it shifts again as Giovanna, as a maturing teenager, moves her focus on her father to her own burgeoning interest in men, particularly Roberto, the charismatic boyfriend of a friend. She is mesmerized by Roberto's confidence, by the way his attention can make her feel worthy in a way she rarely feels. Her admiration for him is total and all-consuming until she impulsively travels to his apartment and realizes he will sleep with her. 

Though the book focuses on lying in all forms, much of the novel is really about men and women, about the separate spheres in which their attentions and devotion operate. There's Vittoria, still attached decades later to a now-deceased married man with whom she had an affair. There's Giovanna's mother, who remains defensive of her ex-husband, even after he leaves her. Or even the principal of Giovanna's school, easily charmed by Giovanna's father's minor flattery. And there's Giovanna herself, so easily hurt by her father's words and so easily obsessed with Roberto and his small attentions in a world where she feels unrecognized.

The novel suggests many of the relationships between men and women are built on lies. "My behavior is acceptable because I am respected and great." "He deserves my love because he is great." "I respect her." "He respects me." These lies about intentions and beliefs perpetuate a patriarchal system that gives the men power, but excuses behavior on all fronts. Roberto can bask in the respect he receives from others and convince himself he is a devoted boyfriend and a caring friend, even though he has no compunction about sleeping with Giovanna. Giovanna can believe Roberto respects her and values her opinion, even though his attentions are fleeting and infrequent and he'll immediately cheat on his girlfriend with her without preamble. These lies are necessary: to justify Roberto's identity as a bright scholar; to justify Giovanna's slavish crush.

But these are just some of the lies in the novel. Giovanna's parents lie to her, and she lies to them. The adults lie to each other, to the children; the children lie to each other, and to the adults. The lies take various forms--explicit and implicit; dangerous and petty. Still, there's so little opportunity for truth-telling that the final scene--in which Giovanna chooses to lose her virginity to a boy she barely likes--is shocking. In the decidedly unromantic--yet, importantly, also un-traumatic--scene, she tells Rosario exactly how she wants to have sex. There are no lies of polite speech or enticement. It's a liberating moment amid a novel of obfuscation.

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

News of the World feels like a book I've read before, even though I'm sure I haven't. It has a classic odd-ball pairing: a grizzled, road-weary old man befriending a young, outcast girl. It touches all the right heartbreaking notes without being overly sentimental.

The story follows Captain Jefferson Kidd as he travels through Texas, where he makes a living by reading newspapers from around the country and world to small towns. He agrees to transport 10-year-old Johanna, who had been taken captive by the Kiowa, back to her relatives. Johanna's parents were killed in the Kiowa raid, and after living with the Kiowa people for several years, Johanna sees herself as one of them: she neither speaks English nor remembers her birth family. Not surprisingly, the book's primary focus is the growing friendship and respect between the Captain and Johanna. Existing somewhat outside of society himself after the death of his wife, the Captain understands Johanna's position in a way few other white characters do.

Traveling through Texas during Reconstruction, the Captain and Johanna must face lawlessness and constant threats. The dramatic dime-fueled shoot out is especially intense. But most of the novel is more languid, as the Captain considers his purpose and drive at this point in his life. Ultimately, the book suggests, life is about relationships and knowing what drives you. 

"Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler

I was ambivalent about Parable of the Sower, though I found it compelling despite myself. In many ways, Parable of the Talents is a better book, despite some the rush at the end. While both Sower and Talents are comprised of Olamina's journal entries, the entries in Talents are interspersed with reflections from Olamina's adult daughter, Larkin, who was born in the Earthseed community Olamina founds at the end of Sower. Larkin's perspective gives some needed balance to Olamina's single-minded devotion to Earthseed. Larkin rightly calls her mother a cult leader and is aware of the collateral damage of her mother's cause. Larkin's perspective doesn't make Olamina a villain--and she certainly shouldn't be viewed as such--but she does raise needed questions. Olamina's choice to build a self-sustaining community based on respect and loyalty is inherently good, but she insists on that community existing to promote her religion of Earthseed. It's that leap that's hard to swallow, even for people (and readers) sympathetic to her cause. Plenty of religions embrace change--the Christian "Serenity Prayer" comes to mind--but Olamina adds to her religion a goal of achieving the "Destiny": humankind's future belongs (literally) in the stars through space travel and human population of other planets.

There's an argument to be made (though it's not made convincingly in the novel) for such travel, but framing a religion around that travel seems doomed. Heaven, as a concept, works because it can't be proven/disproven and can't be achieved while alive. It's never-ending. Space travel, on the other hand, is finite and fallible. Olamina believes in the Destiny because she believes humankind needs a grand purpose--if not eternity in heaven, then a genealogical eternity on other planets. But what happens when they reach and populate another planet? Does Earthseed end? We don't find out, though Parable (improbably, given the apocalypse in Sower) ends with the first humans heading out to the stars.

But I'm quibbling with points that aren't particularly important to the novel. Instead, the bulk of the novel follows Olamina as Acorn, her Earthseed community, is founded and then later destroyed and turned into a Christian Reeducation Camp. The camp is run by fanatical followers of President Jarrett (who really does have the slogan "Make American Great Again"). The camp guards steal Larkin, kill Olamina's husband Bankole, and enslave the remaining community members. Olamina's time in the camp, filled with brutal violence and rape, is the hardest to read. The violence is important to establish the regime they're living under, though the didactic criticisms of fundamental Christianity are tedious, even if wholly deserved.

Given the detail given to Acorn's founding and later destruction, the ending of the novel rushes by, with Olamina almost immediately finding success and financial support for Earthseed. Again, given the apocalypse in Sower, it's hard to believe so many people are well-off and eager to support a single-woman cause. If nothing else, it speaks to the strength of Olamina's character, something that was clearly established in Sower. She's a young Black woman, but no one doubts her leadership or competence. There's enough strength of will to almost make the reader want to believe in Earthseed.

I've mentioned two of the novel's perspectives--Olamina and Larkin. The third comes from Marc, Olamina's younger brother who was sold as a sex slave. After being freed by Olamina, he becomes a preacher in the Christian church that enslaved Olamina, and he chooses to hide Larkin's existence from Olamina for years. Marc should be a villain, but he never quite goes there, a testament to Butler's writing. Like Olamina, he finds certainty and solace in a belief system that provides him with purpose.

Talents probably should have been two books (perhaps would be two books today), but it's no less forgettable than Sower and definitely more thoughtful.

Miscellany:

• In my review of Sower, I noted my confusion with Olamina's hyper-empathy syndrome, which seemed unimportant to the novel and inconsistent. It's even less important in Talents, and no additional information is provided, so I'm fully flummoxed by its use in the books.

"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville

I've done it. I've conquered the "white whale," the endlessly-metaphor-ready novel of English literature. And like Ahab (of course, because we're all Ahab), the path was long and treacherous, with high hopes, fits and starts, and (okay, the simile's not particularly apt) an entirely benign conclusion.

I started Moby Dick a few years ago, inspired by an educator's event at the Contemporary Arts Center on an exhibit inspired by the novel. One artist had drawn an illustration over each page of the book. "I'll read a page each day!" I had decided. I think I imagined I'd write some sort of response too. Though I did occasionally make annotations, the page-a-day petered out almost immediately. Still, I made some progress over the years, picking it up here and there. This year, realizing I had perhaps 100 pages left, I decided it was time to resolvedly confront the Leviathan.

It's funny how hard the book is. It shouldn't be. I've read significantly longer books. The prose is archaic by today's standards, but it's not more challenging than the prose of Melville's contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose The Scarlet Letter I teach), and it's certainly easier than the more opaque post-modernist writers. It's simplest to blame the challenge of reading on the novel's structure, its frequent departures from the primary narrative. After all, Melville dedicates more pages to arguing that whales are fish than he does on the final chase of Moby Dick--but, then again, I love non-traditional books. Or perhaps it's the awareness that there's meaning that's just above your head, a sense that the teacher would laugh at you the next day when you innocently asserted the novel was "about a whale." But I'm an English teacher!

Probably it's a combination of all of the above, in conjunction with Moby Dick's vaunted position in the English canon. It's a book I found frustrating, boring, and tedious but also fascinating, funny, and compelling. I'm glad I read it.

Reading what I've written so far, it's clear that reading Moby Dick is more about the reader's journey (oh, the metaphors!) than the novel itself. Still, Moby Dick is, nominally, about the monomaniacal Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white whale, Moby Dick, who cost Ahab his leg. It's narrated by Ishmael, whose character frames the opening of the novel before dropping out completely. In fact, though Ishmael continues to narrate and is present during the final chase, he doesn't insert himself back in until the epilogue, after everyone else on the whaling ship Pequod has met their watery doom. The linear narrative plays only a minor role in the novel, however. Instead, the reader learns a lot about whale anatomy. About the heavenly feel of spermaceti. About Biblical references to whales. About other ships the Pequod encounters. About how easy it is to weave the word "unctuous" into prose. 

And we also learn about human purpose and fate, about our drive even in the face of insurmountable odds. I just finished teaching The Road to my juniors, and a student remarked that McCarthy's message seems similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald's closing line of The Great Gatsby (which we studied in the fall): "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." It's the same final message we get in Moby Dick, maybe the American message, or maybe simply the message of humanity. 

Come for the spermaceti. Stay for the message about us all.

"The Liar's Dictionary" by Eley Williams

The Liar's Dictionary has the appearances of a fluffy novel, or at least what "book people" would consider a fluffy novel. It's full of wordplay and obscure vocabulary; it treats lexicographers and dictionaries ambivalently, befitting both the seriousness and absurdity of their work. On a straightforward level, the novel is about a Victorian lexicographer who enters his own made-up words into the dictionary--and a modern assistant who discovers them. Much of the pleasure of the book comes from the recognition in these invented words, the sense of "ah, yes, that should be a word," or even just the sense that, despite the expansiveness of the English language, our words can only say so much. 

But Liar's Dictionary is a quirky book that doesn't quite meet expectations. By the end it's also a mystery or maybe a spy thriller or... I'm not sure? I was more baffled by the ending than I expected, leaving me to wonder if I'd missed something all along.

The novel alternates chapters. First, there's Winceworth, our sad-sack Victorian lexicographer, working on the "S" section of Swansby's Encyclopedic Dictionary. A hundred years later, there's Mallory, the sole intern for the never-finished Swansby's Dictionary, who mostly answers phone calls from a mysterious caller threatening attacks on the building.

Winceworth's chapters focus primarily on his relationship with Sophia, the fiancé of Winceworth's pompous colleague Fransby. What appears to be a story about a burgeoning romance between the two suddenly takes a turn when Winceworth ends up in an exploding train (for real) and Sophia turns out to be a Russian spy (?). The primary message, then, from Winceworth's story is his attempt at immorality through the invented words he sneaks in the dictionary. He realizes his actual person will leave no legacy, but his words can.

Mallory's chapters attend to her dry work at the dictionary, where she's assigned to find the mysterious invented words littered through the dictionary. She also has to contend with the threatening caller, who's presumably angry at the dictionary changing the definition of marriage to include the queer community. Mallory has an enthusiastic girlfriend, Pip, but is not quite out as a lesbian. Mallory and Pip's relationship is more satisfactorily concluded, though her section ends with an exploding building and insurance fraud (?) that I also found largely inexplicable.

Endings and overall cohesiveness aside, The Liar's Dictionary is still largely a fun book. Plus it reminded me of fantastic real words (such as "apricity," the warmth of sun in winter) and contrived ones (such as "agrupt," the irritation caused by having a denouement ruined," which I probably should have understood as a sign of the book's ending).