Five Books, Five Minutes

Jim: We don't always reply to the e-mails, but we do read them. Last week Dona explained why we had focused on nonfiction for most of our book discussions and the e-mails poured in. Not angry ones, hurt ones. It was as though she'd suggested that fiction was a waste of time in many readers' eyes. That wasn't what she was suggesting but by mid-week, we were of the opinion that we needed to include at least one book of fiction for this edition. As the e-mails continued to come in, we decided to devote the entire book review to fiction. Participating are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Ava and myself, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Elaine who's subbing for Rebecca at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review.

Ty: To provide some background, Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country was read by all. As we decided to make it an all fiction discussion, we picked four additional books that a member had read and let participants decide which of the four they'd attempt to read before the review.
C.I.'s read all the books.

C.I.: I had suggested Custom of the Country weeks ago and we read it for another book discussion. Other than that, I didn't suggest any books for this discussion.

Dona: The first two books we're going to discuss are Wharton's Custom of the Country and Jay MacInerny's Brightness Falls. We feel the two have much in common and that they'd overlap anyway in the discussion.

Mike: The Custom of the Country is by Edith Wharton and you can actually download this book for free on the internet. Undine Spragg, the lead character, is a social climber who attempts to set herself up repeatedly in the upper class. Wharton was a contemporay of Henry James and is seen as a moralist commenting on the manners of her time. The book was published in 1913. Brightness Falls is by Jay McInerney and it chronicles the eighties, the greed, the corruption, the demise. It was published in 1992 and revolves around two friends, an editor at a publishing company and a novelist named Jeff.

Jim: I enjoyed how Wharton tied in the so much with Undine who represents America at it's worst in terms of false goals, false pride and capitalism run rampant. Divorce, death, nothing will stop her march to the top.

Mike: And her own thirst does her in.

C.I.: Did you enjoy the character of Undine?

Jim: Not at all.

C.I.: Does anyone else want to leap in here? No? Okay, well I'm going to disagree with that. Undine's not a nice character, I won't disagree with that, but I don't see it just as an idictment of her social climbing. I also see it as an indictment to the set she is aspiring to. Repeatedly, she forces her way in which speaks to a weakness, not a welcoming, of that set. I could see her representing out of control capitalism but I think the class she aspires to represents something as well. Her last husband remarks that the ones who've misread Undine, including himself, have been fools. I think that goes to that set. She can try to break in all she wants but she only gets in if she's let in, if she's welcomed in.

Jim: Okay, I see that. Where do you take it?

C.I.: Honestly, I'd take it to a war between two centuries, the 19th and the 20th. Capitalism running wild and destroying a class that had gotten lazy and fat predominately from the work of their elders. Carry it over to Archer in The Age of Innocence and you're dealing with the same group confined by conventions to lives of regret over what wasn't done. I'm not saying my take on it is what Wharton intended or that it isn't. If I'm reading fiction, I'm going to take from it what I can and, to me, The Custom of the Country was a comedy of manners with a mixture of social commentary and critique tossed in. I found the book to be humorous and there are sections that I always laugh out loud when I read even though I know they're coming. Again, that's my take on it. As long as I'm being disagreeable, in Brightness Falls, I feel Corrinne's one of the main characters and the heart of the story. Take her out and what have you got? The Last of the Savages, the only McInerny book I refused to finish reading.

Jess: I liked Russell.

C.I.: Define "like." Like in terms of how he fit into the narrative or liked in terms of "Hey, I'd like to be friends with him."

Jess: Actually both.

Kat: He fit in the book but he could have been used more sparingly. McInerny's telling us what Russell feels and Russell's telling us what Russell feels and it gets to be tiresome. McInerny obviously identifies with Russell.

C.I.: Agreed.

Kat: So every minor moment in Russell's life becomes huge drama in a way that doesn't occur with Jeff, who disappears for long stretches, or Corrinne.

Jess: So you found Russell self-pitying?

Kat: At time. I found him self-obsessed throughout. And always with the reflections.

C.I.: Another indication that Russell's a stand in for McInerny, Corrinne exists only in Russell's frame of reference. A trait not true of the other characters, whether we're speaking of Jeff or one of the minor characters.

Ty: What are you saying?

C.I.: When writers project themselves into a character they strongly identify with, they have a tendency to have at least one other character, usually the love interest, exist to shore up their positives. Corrinne largely exists to humanize Russell and explain how wonderful Russell is. She's a vanity creation for a writer who wants to praise himself. You can see that in most novels which is why I really hate reading fiction. John Grisham, huge ego, there on every page. He's always the lead character. Women are always thrilled with him, regardless of their age or his own. Would Darby really fall for Graham? Or that hideous scene in A Time to Kill, the book, where the waitress comes onto a page to remind us all of just how great the lead character, Grisham, is.

Elaine: I can see that in Brightness Falls. I hadn't thought of it before but listening to Kat and C.I.'s comments, I can see it.

Ty: So what are we saying, we're split on liking it?

C.I.: Who doesn't like it?

Mike: You.

C.I.: I love the book. It's one of my two favorite novels from the nineties, the other being Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy.

Mike: You don't like it.

C.I.: Elaine?

Elaine: C.I. gave me a copy of that book in 1995. Raved over it.

C.I.: I love the book. But if we're going to discuss it, I just feel like we should be honest about the flaws. I also feel like for all her faults as created, Corrinne is the heart of the book and take her out as a lead character and you're not left with much. For instance, Jeff's funeral is nothing at all, no dramatic bearing, without her noting she prefers E.B. White to Nash.

Dona: My favorite part of the book!

C.I.: Mine too.

Mike: So it's a thumbs up from everyone who read it?

Jim: Looks like it. Kat, set up the next book since you picked it out.

Kat: A Spy in the House of Love is a novel by Anais Nin that's one of the five novels that comprise her Cities of the Interior series. In it Sabina grapples with issues of identity and reality. A book that's inspired everyone from Jim Morrison to Carly Simon is a must read.

Ty: I didn't really like the book. I kept expecting that the liar detector she confesses to at the start would pop up throughtout but he really didn't. I also didn't get how she could dial him and find him at random.

Dona: Well the lie detector is in her. The conversation she has is a projection of an interior monologue with herself.

Mike: Wow. See that's why I say Dona speaks that often but when she does, she cuts through everything and just lays it out.

Dona: Thank you.

Ava: I really enjoyed this book. Partly for the narrative but also for the writing itself.

C.I.: It's a type of symphonic writing that reminds me of Hannah Arendt's writing style in The Human Condition.

Jim: What do you mean?

Jess: You're talking about how there's a rhythm to the writing and you don't read straight through.

C.I.: Right. There's a rhythm. Clauses circle and and then push forward. There are verbal motifs and rhytms.

Elaine: Nin took psychoanalysis very seriously and it shows in her work. She was slammed by some critics for writing psychoanalytical case studies.

Ava: That's strange because I thought she cut to the heart of everything. There wasn't a lot of unnecessary details cluttering everything up. I'm wondering what happens to Sabina in the other four novels.

Elaine: Nothing much. This is Sabina's show case. She'll appear in other novels but you've seen pretty much what she'll bring to each one. Actually, Lillian will be the most emphasized and she was always my least favorite character.

Kat: Agreed. The Four Chambered Heart, the third book, is one I perfer to Children of the Light, the final book.

C.I.: I also enjoy Ladders to Fire, the first book.

Jess: So who is Anais? Sabina, Djuna, Lillian?

C.I.: She's all of the female leads. She led a fractured life, married to two men when she died -- one in New York, one in Los Angeles, and it shows in the writing.

Jim: Our fourth book is Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Betty picked this one because it's a favorite of her's.

Betty: It's the story of three sisters and their father. As the story unfolds, we discover why Rose doesn't care for her father, he's abused them as children including sexual abuse. When she discussed it with Ginny, after their father shows up drunk and calls them whores, Ginny thinks she's imagined it. Then when she sees their father with the youngest daughter Caroline, all three sisters are adults when the novel beings, she begins to remember. Their lives are poisoned like the land they live on. Ginny will break free of the land and her husband but Rose will not be as lucky due to the fact that she refuses to let go of the land. The legacy comes with a curse.

Ava: Great summary. I almost passed on reading this book due to time but when Dona told me it was your pick, I was interested in reading it. It's King Lear with a modern day setting.

Jess: And with women as the lead characters.

Mike: Okay, I'm waiting for the contrary opinion from C.I.

C.I.: I really am in a mood this morning, aren't I? Probably it's because I'm tired and this has been a very long all nighter. My take on the book? It's a nice book. It's well written. I saw the movie long before I ever read the book. Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing in the movie. Her delivery of the line, "He isn't a bear. He's not that easy." can't be matched on paper. She brought the character to life and filled in dimensions that aren't there in the book. So I liked the book but I loved the movie and usually I'm just the opposite. By the way, Ty picked out Brightness Falls. I don't think that got noted. It's one of Ty's favorite books.

Ty: Yes, it is.

Jim: Our last book was picked by me. I asked Rebecca to recommend something that was an easy read without heavy lifting and she suggested Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.

Elaine & C.I. (together): "You've got to climb to the top of Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls."

Elaine: This truly is one of Rebecca's favorite book. She named it as such at The Common Ills.

Ty: Really?

C.I.: And she picked it for her favorite movie too.

Betty: I love Rebecca!

Jim: It's a good, trashy read about three women living in New York. Neely wants to be a star. Jennifer's a show girl or extra or something who wants to be a lead and Anne wants a husband.

Dona: Correction, Anne wants Lyle. Wants Lyle as her husband.

Jim: I stand corrected.

Ty: This was a book you could just plow through. It was one disaster or cliff hanger after another. And in the end, everyone's miserable.

Kat: Which makes it a lot like life! I'm joking.

Jess: Part of the reading is trying to figure out whom she's writing about. Neely for instance has a great deal of Judy Garland in her.

Kat: Agreed.

Ty: Who's Jennifer supposed to be?

Kat: Marilyn Monroe?

Elaine: If I'm remembering correctly, it's supposed to be based on Susan's friend Carole Landis. And Helen Lawson is Ethel Merman. There was even concern that Merman might sue over the book.

Mike: Who's Ethel Merman?

Kat: Before your time. Broadway belting actress.

Elaine: Jim called it a good trashy read but I think there's a bit more there. The pills, the roles of women. It's not art, but there is commentary that often is noticed.

Jim: You really liked the book.

Elaine: I love the book. It's a guilty pleasure.

Jim: Really?

C.I.: Really. For both of us. I don't remember what was going on but I can remember in 1996 or 1997, Elaine and I were in the same hotel and depressed over something. We went to a used bookstore and bought a copy of the book, they only had one and I don't think it was back in print at that point, we sat around for a day reading aloud from it --

Elaine: While a really bad mini-series about Elizabeth Taylor played on Lifetime in the background --

C.I.: Binging on ice cream --

Elaine: And by the end of the book, the end of the carton, but not the end of the mini-series, we felt fine.

C.I.: Actually more than fine. We were laughing throughout while we passed the book back and forth to read from it aloud.

Jess: So who's Jacqueline Susann?

C.I.: The characters are all bits of people but she's also in all three. Neely shares her drive to be famous, Anne is whom she wishes she was and has a father that's not unlike Susann's own, Jennifer is struck by tragedy as was Susann, I'm not referring to the cancer she'd die from later on --

Jess: Jennifer?

C.I.: No, Jennifer dies of a suicide. Elaine, I don't think Jess read this book very closely.

Elaine: (Laughing) We'll have to read it to him aloud.

C.I.: But Susann died of cancer. Betty, what did you think?

Betty: Well having suggested a "literary book," I hope I earned enough cred that it's not all wiped away when I say that I loved this book and got so involved with it. When Neely's institutionalized, when Jennifer discovers she'll have to have a mastectomy, when Anne gets Lyle and realizes that she needs to numb herself to continue living with what the dream has turned into, all of it hooked me.

Jess: Really?

C.I.: Jess didn't like the book.

Jess: I didn't say that.

Kat: It's okay, what did you think?

Jess: Honestly, I found it a bad book about pathetic characters. Anne was boring as the gopher and she was boring as the model. I kept waiting for her to do something and get over Lyle. Neely was the pushy kid in elementary school that you just wish would shut up already and stop singing and dancing to show off. If I felt anything for anyone, it was Jennifer because she actually sacrificed, aborting the baby because of Tony's disease that could be passed on and then killing herself after she checked herself out of the hospital.

Betty: Snuck out of the hospital. And for several pages after Jennifer learns of Tony's disease, I kept expecting to find out that Tony's sister had tricked her, honestly.

Jess: She was the only one trying to do something and aware of her limitiations. I just found her to be the only one resembling a human being in the whole book.

C.I.: Rebecca, if she were here, would point out that it's interesting the only one Jess is attracted to is the woman with the biggest breasts in the novel.

Elaine: The bigger the breasts, the greater Jess' sympathy. But Rebecca would forgive him for that since she herself is usually the one with the biggest breasts in the room.

C.I.: Note that Elaine and I were both joking when we said that.

Jess: Note that I laughed at both remarks.

Jim: So we covered highbrown and lowbrow, from The Custom of the Country to The Valley of the Dolls. There was some split on Anais Nin's A Spy In The House Of Love and a bigger split on The Valley of the Dolls, so if you're unfamiliar with either, use our remarks as a guide to figure out if it's a book you'd enjoy.