Bohjalian's "The Double Bind"

I just finished The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian. I've read several books of his, like Buffalo Soldier and Before You Know Kindness, so I had a sense of what it'd be like. It came highly recommended by someone whose judgment I trust, too.

For the most part, I liked it. I'm a psychology nerd and I love any kind of psychology thriller/ mystery/ story, so this inherently appealed to me. But I was SO disappointed when the end came and the twist that I was waiting for turned out to be something that I had already picked up on in one of the earliest chapters. I was waiting for the author to prove me wrong by some ingenious twist (since the person who recommended it to me said that there was a great twist at the end), but the actual ending was pretty similar to what I had in my mind all along, so that was a bummer -- despite the fact that it was cool from a psychology perspective!

Also, I would really have appreciated a heads-up as to the fact that Bohjalian expects the reader to have a good knowledge of the plot and characters of The Great Gatsby prior to reading The Double Bind. I read the book one summer when I was 17 and obsessed with literary classics, but it's been almost 8 years and my mind is way too cluttered with other stories to have kept track of any details. If I'd known that knowing that story would have helped my understanding of this book, I would have looked it up online before starting it.

All said and done though, a satisfying read.

Hotel Sarajevo, by Jack Kersh

I picked it up because it caught my eye on the shelf. I was looking for a completely different book in the K section, and this one said “Take me home!”

It lived up to its promise. Tragic, poetic, eloquent. Sad but beautiful. A real find.

On the back, it says “A haunting, masterful work,” and I would have to wholeheartedly agree. I’d read more by this author, but unfortunately some online searches haven’t uncovered much.

A Poignantly Incomplete Story: “Suite Française” by Irène Némirovsky

Wow. I am completely moved. I just finished reading “Suite Française” by Irène Némirovsky, and now I just don’t know what to do with myself other than sit here and think about the circumstances of this work.

I first picked up the work about a year ago, in the midst of graduate work, in hopes that I could squeeze in some pleasure reading during meals, since that was my only real free time with all my school obligations hanging over me. I got a few chapters in, but never really got hooked because I wasn’t able to keep track of characters or concentrate on the story, since I had so little time to devote to it. I renewed it once or twice, but when it became clear that I was getting nowhere with it, I returned it to the library unfinished.

I recently picked it up again, vowing to finish what I’d started. The author, Némirovsky, had Jewish roots, though she and her family had converted to Catholicism in the early stages of the Second World War, and was living in France. She penned the first two books of a series of five in the midst of growing political unease and chaos. She made notes and plans for five parts to the whole story, modeled on Beethoven’s Fifth, but only managed to complete “Storm in June” and “Dolce” before she was arrested and deported. Heartbroken, her husband, Michel Epstein, wrote letters begging various people to do what they could first to bring news of her fate, and then to release her. He cited her health, made delicate by asthma, the brilliance of her writing, her Catholic faith, and her lack of political affiliation with or loyalty to the Russians (with whom the Germans were fighting). He even begged for the opportunity to take her place in captivity and allow her to return to her children, whom she’d placed with a friend; this fact is especially poignant when one considers the fact that she’d already died at Auschwitz. Nevertheless, Michel’s pleas went unanswered and he, too, was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he was immediately killed in the gas chambers. Their children remained in the care of Julie Dumont, who received financial help but still had to keep on the run. The children, Denise and Elisabeth, were pursued by the police, who sought to subject them to a similar fate as their parents. With the aid of nuns at a Catholic boarding school and various families in Bordeaux, they managed to stay far enough ahead of the French police and were never captured. In the midst of all the chaos, Denise kept with her a suitcase filled with her mother’s notebooks. It wasn’t until years later that she had the stomach to look at them and realized what they contained – not just notes, but a manuscript. And so, “Suite Française” was born.

It was this story that attracted me to the book, though I didn’t learn many of the details until reading the appendices at the conclusion of the novel. I was somewhat reluctant, however, due to lingering feelings of tedium left over from my first attempt at reading it. Fortunately, this time around I was able to devote significant time to the story and became immediately hooked. The characterization was brilliant, the links between the stories subtle but significant, the sense of injustice and inequality realistic and unsettling. It is both a cutting commentary and an accurate portrayal of history. “Storm in June” and “Dolce” both read as independent and self-sufficient novels, and yet they are inherently and subtly tied together.

Némirovsky’s personal notes about the story, including the three unwritten books, and its characters evoke a sense of tragic loss. Her arrest cut short a brilliant creative process that might have constructed an even more monumental manuscript. In the end though, we are left with a sense of what might have been, as well as wonder that the first two books even survived the war. The quality of “Suite Française,” written under extraordinary conditions, is itself extraordinary.

Book Snobbery

I have a friend that prides herself on the exclusivity of the books she reads. J.R. is a lot like me in many respects. She grew up in the same area of Western New York, she went to school for psychology and took literature courses along the way, and she’s a bit of a grammar queen. She loves a good book and when she finds one, the business of her life will go by the wayside until she finishes it, at which point life may resume. She emphasizes with characters, gets emotionally involved in the story, and tells other people about it.

But she is also highly, highly critical of books that she reads. If she doesn’t admire the writing style, like the story, or just plain doesn’t get sucked in immediately, she puts the book aside and says “That one’s not for me.” I’ve had conversations with her about this, and it seems to me like when she picks up a book, it’s as if she’s saying to the author, “Ok, show me what you’ve got. Please don’t disappoint me.” Granted, J.R. was much more involved with literature courses in college than I was. She seriously considered being a literature major, while I limited my courseload in that area to two courses, due to many reasons including dislike of certain professors, unwillingness to devote hours to writing papers about the books, and a simple preference for psychology courses over literature courses, when forced to make a choice. As a result, she’s got more experience than I do in critically analyzing literature at a university level.

Whether or not her preference for masterpieces comes from that background, I have no idea. But in my opinion, it’s the wrong way to go. A book can’t be adequately judged and considered without the reader having read the entire thing. Some books have slower paces than others, but it doesn’t diminish their quality. And some books aren’t written with the finesse of a literature major. Sometimes this is because it’s written colloquially, like “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker. Other times it’s because the book is a memoir of an ordinary person with an extraordinary life experience, like “The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls. And maybe it’s just because the author isn’t a fantastic writer. But wouldn’t it be boring if every book had the same writing style? I have a feeling that J.R. wouldn’t have liked “The History of Love,” by Nicole Krauss, because it had some unusual typesetting and formatting in it, and a lot of it was narrated by a lonely old man – not an eloquent observer. But to me, that’s part of the charm of the book. I truly love books that are eloquently worded and structured and are masterpieces in themselves, but I think that limiting oneself to those types of books is a bad move, if not just plain boring.

Personally, I’m much more inclined to give every book a chance. I don’t love every book I read, but I appreciate them. I wasn’t a huge fan of “A Thousand Acres,” by Jane Smiley, but I read the whole thing. You wouldn’t walk out of a movie theater halfway through just because the story wasn’t sucking you in or because it wasn’t the best movie you’ve seen, would you? Isn’t that drastic a move reserved for the truly abysmal movies that would be punishment to finish? Obviously, watching a movie involves less time and effort than reading a book, but I’m inclined to put them in the same boat.

I would much rather read a wide variety of books, recommended by different people and of varying degrees of greatness, than just read the ones that earn awards. I like variety in books – a main reason that I couldn’t follow in my mom’s footsteps and stick to mystery stories, which get so boring to me after a while (she’s a bigger bookworm than I am, but she does tend to favor the same prolific authors at all costs). I like trying out new book styles as much as I like trying new kinds of ethnic foods, and though I don’t love all of them (Ethiopian food certainly isn’t my thing), I appreciate the experience. Sometimes I read old books just for the hell of it; for example, I recently read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, just because I felt neglected for never having read it in high school, and I just read “Sula,” by Toni Morrison, because I feel like it’s a cultural piece that should be read. But I also seek out brand new books off the presses and have to wait in line to get my hands on them at the library. Sometimes I like stories that press beyond the scientific possibilities that reality offers, like “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” by Audrey Niffenegger, or that take place in faraway lands, like “The Poisonwood Bible,” by Barbara Kingsolver, or that are autobiographies of ordinary contemporaries, like “Shutterbabe,” by Deborah Copaken Kogan, or that follow individuals and families over a lifetime, like “The Namesake,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. I even plan on reading the first Twilight book against my better judgment, because I can’t resist the pull of something that two intelligent friends have sworn by. If I hate it, so be it, but at least I’ll be able to say I tried it.

I may be making huge assumptions about J.R. and what she would or would not read. But I have had enough conversations with her to get the sense that she wouldn’t really give all of these different kinds of books a chance. I only recently discovered Barbara Kingsolver and love her books, and I have a feeling that J.R. would like her narrative style, as well. But I think she’s missing out on so many other stories.

But what do I know?

Sula, by Toni Morrison

I’ve only just started to read “Sula,” by Toni Morrison, but I can already tell that some high school student took this book out from the library for English class. There are markings and underlinings, which actually isn’t unusual in comparison to other books that I’ve read lately, but the difference is that the things that are written amuse me.

Next to “Eva lifted her tongue to the edge of her lip to stop the tears from running into her mouth,” the scribbled blue pen wrote “She cares.”

Next to “Lord, it’s cold. Don’t just sit there, honey. You could be pulling your nose…” is a giant blue question mark. I can picture some 15-year-old kid thinking “What the hell does that mean?”

After a paragraph beginning with “She only heard Hannah’s words, and the pronouncement sent her flying up the stairs…,” someone wrote in that same blue pen, “This is when she realized that she can only rely on herself.”

These phrases were bracketed in blue pen: [“Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing, he thought. Everything is going to be all right, it said. Knowing that it was so he closed his eyes and sank back into the bright hole of sleep.”] The word “baptism” was underlined and next to it was written, “death – to a new life,” and next to the brackets, someone wrote “EXAM.” This makes me smile.

I certainly don’t miss reading books not for enjoyment, but for the threat of the impending essay, class discussions, and exam. And yet, it was always those things that led me to either love or hate the book. I doubt I would have appreciated, or even finished Dickens' “A Tale of Two Cities” or Bronte's “Wuthering Heights,” without the pressure from school, though the former is now among my all-time favorite books (and I’ve read it on my own now and then just for the hell of it). And yet, I still have an irrational hatred of books like Steinbeck’s “The Red Pony” and “The Pearl,” partly due to their depressing nature but also partly due to the frustration of being forced to process books at the same speed as my 6th grade peers, though I was probably reading at a 12th grade level. At least college literature classes expected me to finish a book and understand it well within a week’s time, whereas middle school classes drew an afternoon’s reading into a whole month affair, complete with quizzes, homework assignments, and full-on tests.

Is this why so many people hate reading?

Transitioning from an Academic Library to a Public Library

I spent my two years as a graduate student working part-time at my school’s reference desk. Our library was fantastic. Besides having dozens and dozens of computers available for both Office and research use, we had five floors of books and materials. One floor was devoted to computers and reference books. One floor was devoted to periodicals and academic journals, both paper-based and in microform. One floor was study carrolls, professor offices, and even leather couches for studying in comfort. And the other two floors were just books.

To keep such a library functioning required a small army. Besides the typical acquisitions, circulation, and other departments, we also had a large reference department. Though there were one or two all-purpose librarians, there was also one librarian devoted to every major subject area: arts and music, sciences, English and foreign languages, etc. Each subject librarian, besides being an expert in researching his or her area, was also a key player in the acquisition of hot new books and submitted requests for purchases regularly. As such, the library had nearly a million books on its shelves and was constantly cycling them: new books in, old ones out.

When I was on duty, sitting at the main reference desk waiting for a student, faculty member, staff member, or community member to ask for help (because our library was a repository for government documents, it was open to the public, despite belonging to the college), I would often search the New York Times website and Amazon.com for the latest, greatest titles in American literature. A quick search of the library’s catalog, some scribbles on a piece of scrap paper, and I was free to hop off my librarian’s seat, scurry down the stairs, and search the shelves for the books that I wanted. During the summer between my first and second years in the academic program, I took home an average of 3 books every week. Sometimes, the titles I wanted were already checked out to someone else; sometimes, they weren’t even in our system, though this was exceedingly rare. I never ran out of books, just time.

Now I live in a large suburb of Washington, D.C. I am a regular community member perusing the shelves of the public library. There aren’t that many computers there, and I don’t want to have to dig out my library ID every time I want to log on to search the catalog, so I search it from my computer at work. If I have a list of 20 books I’d like to read, I typically find that fewer than 5 are available, either because the library doesn’t own them or because they’re already checked out for an undetermined amount of time. I print out those records and swing by the library after work, where I’m usually able to find one or two of the five that should be available, and have to settle for other works by the authors that I’m looking for.

Sometimes this turns out well, as I’ve discovered books that turned out to be really good, like The Namesake by Lahiri. But other times, it’s just plain frustrating. Last night, I returned from the library feeling annoyed and pissed off, rather than excited about the new books under my arm. Better luck next time.

A Note About Jodi Picoult

I’ve read a number of Jodi Picoult books now. I’ve read “Picture Perfect,” “The Tenth Circle,” “Plain Truth,” “Vanishing Acts,” “My Sister’s Keeper,” “Nineteen Minutes,” and “The Pact.” And I’m inevitably going to keep seeking out Picoult novels that I haven’t read yet, since I know for a fact that there are plenty more. You would think that that fact alone implies that I love her writing, but the truth is that I’m still somewhat conflicted in my opinion of her as an author.

Truth be told, her style seems similar to what mine would be if I were writing novels. She writes like a woman, an intuitive one at that, as she focuses on the private and emotional experiences of the various characters in her novels. She has the gift of distinguishing between her fictional characterizations, writing about the secret thoughts that one has and then about the inner world of another, without spreading her omnipotent knowledge among her characters. She holds out hints of secrets without revealing them until the end of the book, thus effectively holding her readers in, and really creates a complex and realistic web of interactions, thoughts, emotions, secrets, and behaviors.

At the same time, though, I hesitate to endorse her completely. First off, she is so damn trendy. I’m the kind of person who will like a band less when I find out that they’ve topped top-40 charts, received constant play on the radio, and become known to millions of people. I like the bands that fly below the radar better, even if that makes me seem condescending in my lack of faith in the populace’s ability to select “good” music. Similarly, Jodi Picoult is very popular among book clubs, Amazon.com shoppers, friends of mine, and, it seems, just about everyone. Before I started reading her books, a friend of mine was an avid Picoult fan and would tell me about the plot of the latest book that she was reading on our daily walks, and I received simultaneous recommendations by other people, as well, including a librarian at Kent State. Most people would take such popularity to mean that she is a talented, insightful author. To an extent, I do. I respect her abilities greatly. Yet, at the same time, her popularity makes me less inclined to seek out the next novel. I’m not sure why, but I can’t help the feeling that it makes her seem less appealing to me.

Also, the problem with reading so many books by the same author is that at some point, you inevitably begin picking up on her patterns. In high school, I discovered and discarded Mary Higgins Clark in the space of a year because I was so frustrated by how all her novels seemed to fit the same exact formula, and though I read a lot of her books that year, I haven’t read one since for that reason. Judgmental? Possibly. Anyway, Jodi Picoult does not write from a formula like Mary Higgins Clark does (and her characters are far deeper and complex), but she does have patterns. Her books start off with some Big Event – a rape, a shooting, a death, a shocking revelation – and this Event alters the course of life for a handful of relevant characters, who are often adolescents and their parents, or else just a woman and her significant other/ close friends. From there, the stories consist largely of the characters’ reactions to the Big Event and subsequent littler events that occur as a result, as people cope with their own reactions and misinterpret others’. Internal, emotional conflicts play a large role, as do conflicts between characters. In the end, there’s a resolution that often involves reconciliation.

It’s not a bad pattern, and it is not exactly distinct from a lot of other authors. Truthfully, I am not even sure exactly what bothers me about it. Picoult’s style seems unique to me, and that is something I love about her, so it does not seem fair to condemn her for writing similarly across all her books. Other authors focus on character development over a long course of time, but Picoult distinguishes herself by immediately making the focus of character development not a reaction to Life in general, but rather to a shocking Event that does not fit the status quo. And yet, parallels between Story A, B, and C that emerge in story D bother me for reasons that I do not quite understand.

In the end, however, I will continue reading Picoult books, as I have said. I do respect her enormously though I do have nagging misgivings about her work.