Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot

Flaubert's Parrot is a curious book, and I'm quite sure that this is a common response. One wonders if it can even be called a novel at all. It is replete with lists, odd observations, fictionalized biography and chronologies. It's metafiction, criticism, and fan fiction at it's best, but it's also confusing. Upon completion of the novel, you might just say "Now, what am I supposed to think about this?"

I read Madame Bovary for a book club about five years ago. I remember that we all sat around a crowded cafe table, laden with wine glasses and bad french bread, and talked about why Emma was the way she was. The conversation evolved into a larger discussion about romance, the models for romance, and Hollywood, which brought us right back to Emma and her delusions. This book really stayed with me after I read it.

I'm guessing it also stayed with Julian Barnes after he read it because his tour-de-force could only be written by someone obsessed. Barnes' main character, the obtuse, quiet Dr. Braitwaite is exactly like Dr. Bovary. Interestingly, Dr. Braithwaite's wife Ellen is also exactly like Emma, complete with the philandering habit. In a weird play of fate, the shunned, cuckolded Dr. Bovary is given the space to analyze the mind of his creator, the man who created a world where Dr. Bovary's wife was not content to sit at home and wait on him.

This is an interesting rumination on fiction, reality, and how one can inform, or even create, the other.

Man Booker Shortlist Announced

The Man Booker Prize 2008 shortlisted novels are:

Aravind Adiga The White Tiger (Atlantic)
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies (John Murray)
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs (Virago)
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate)
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole (Hamish Hamilton

Luckily for the integrity of the prize, Rushdie's deplorable novel, The Enchantress of Florence is not included in the shortlist. Unfortunately, though, neither is Netherland, a post-modernist masterpiece some were expecting to make a strong push for the win.

My vote is still on The White Tiger, but I just got Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture the other day and that looks like a very intriguing book.

Our Brother's Keeper

Jedwin Smith's memoir about accepting his brother's death in Vietnam is everything a personal memoir should be. The raw, real prose, plus Smith's unflinching look at his and his family's personalities and behavior, make this an intimate portrayal of one family's journey to Vietnam, 'to hell and back.'

Smith grew up in a large Catholic family in the Midwest, where the beer flowed freely and so did the abuse. His parents were firebrands: his mother a fiesty redhead who always got the last word; his father an ex-Marine who was never afraid to throw the first punch, even against his own children or their friends. Smith forged a close bond with his younger brother Jeff, Smith's exact opposite. The description of young Smith and his brother playing war games, canoeing on the lake, or hiding from their dad are precise and illustrative of their close relationship. The prose here is notstalgic and beautiful, clean and cathartic; we are made to see the close bond between the brothers and what Smith lost. Jeff, a self-professed flower child, enlists in the Marines, partly due to the example in the family - both Smith and their father were ex-Marines. He dies within a year of enlistment as a result of enemy bombing.

Upon learning of his brother's death, Smith spirals into a deep depression that lasts for decades. His parents divorce, and his siblings scatter across the country. Without the faith of his wife, it is clear that Smith may not have made it through this rough period. Smith, after recovering from alcoholism, realizes that the only way to process his brother's death is to find out exactly what happened and who killed him. He begins a journey that ultimately takes him to Vietnam and puts him face to face with the man who killed his brother.

The title is ironic, but it also poses an interesting question about family and friendship. Smith was the big brother, the one who protected or "kept" his little brother. Smith's unraveling clearly stems from his feeling of failure, from the knowledge that what he was able to do as a child - keep Jeff safe - was not something he was able to do as an adult. As the book charts the course of Smith's breakdown and his path to acceptance, it also implies a discussion of how we protect our loved ones, if this protection is even possible.

This is a powerful narrative about the strength of families, love, forgiveness, and acceptance. For those who have lost loved ones in Vietnam, or any war, this memoir may help you understand and accept your loss. And, as a friend said upon recommending this book: it will change the way you see the world.

Six Wives of Henry VIII

Alison Weir's readable history, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, is everything social history should be: it's replete with detail and connects the historical characters with the spirit of their times, thereby explaining the cause for certain character traits or actions. Weir takes each wife in turn, spending the most time on Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Henry figures largely in the narrative, as he should, but Weir never allows him to eclipse the stories of his various wives. The pages are rich with wonderful, memorable facts: Anne Boleyn had six fingers; even years after Jane Seymour's death, and after Henry remarried, he continued to demand that Jane be the wife and mother depicted in the family's portraits, Anne of Cleves quietly agreed to divorce after Henry decided she was too ugly for him, and recieved a handsome sum and three houses in the bargain; young Elizabeth had an interesting affair with her Katherine Parr's third husband, Thomas Seymour, while Katherine and Thomas were married and all three were living in the same house (she probably never slept with him, but she's clearly not as pure as her appelation "Virgin Queen" would suggest); Elizabeth made a pledge never to marry after Katherine Howard was executed because she, quite rightly after her mother and step-mother's unhappy endings, equated marriage with death.

This is a large, wonderful history book that feels in its salaciousness and character development like a great novel. Weir's deft interweaving of political, econonmic and social history creates a seamless fabric and a clear view of the 16th century Tudor Britain.

The text, however, lacks citations and the reader is often left wondering how Weir would know that the person said or thought x. Clearly, from the the breadth of the bibliography, the text was well-researched, but it would have been helpful to have the in-text citations to make clear what was historical fact or historian interpretation/analysis. In most cases, the distinction is clear, and in many cases the reader can assume that Weir pulled a statement or thought directly from a letter or diary entry, but I always like knowing for sure that the person said or thought what is presented.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII is a great history, and if you're a fan of British history, dive right in.

If you like this, you might also like:

Alison Weir's Henry VIII: King and his Court

Anne Somerset's Elizabeth

Susan Brigend's New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603

Antonia Fraser's The Tudors

(dis)Enchanted April

In Enchanted April, four English women answer an ad to rent a beautiful Italian villa. London is foggy, dreary, and all four are tired of their lives. Lady Caroline Dester is beautiful, spoiled, and weary of men worshipping her for her perfect face. Mrs. Wilkins is simple, but not too simple that she doesn't realize she needs a change. Mrs. Arbuthnot is ashamed of her husband's romance novels, though she deeply loves him, and Mrs. Fisher lives arrogantly in the past, believing that her father's friends, Ruskin, Dickens etc., are far superior to the mere mortals living today. These women converge on the Italian villa and have little to do with each other. Lady Dester, or Scrap, as she is called at the villa, resents the expectation that she will choose the lunch menu, and Mrs. Fisher can't understand why Mrs. Wilkins is always so loving with everyone. More characters soon enter the picture, and the four women experience an 180 degree change for the better by the end of the month.

Elizabeth Von Arnim's purple-prosed novel is a dull read. There are moments of interest and the characterization is good, but on the whole it's slow moving and predictable. This is a flowery example of Victorian prose gone wrong.