A Widow's Story --- Joyce Carol Oates

It is no secret that I am totally enamored with JCO and for more than just her marvelous psychological and philosophical novels. I think there is a silent attraction to her photographic image as well. I feel the same way about Michele Anna Jordan, another three-named evocative author. The iconic photographs of these women bring to mind an image for me of torch-singers of yore, with their musical story-telling, carrying the ennui of a full life, well-lived.
To my knowledge, this is the first memoir published under the JCO brand name. The author is very careful to be clear and truthful about many things in this book. One of these things is the careful nurturing of the JCO authorship brand. She, the person, is Joyce Smith, wife of Ray Smith, a married couple who jointly publish the Ontario Review of North American Literature.
Since I retired in 2001, I’ve attended a dozen classes and read half a dozen books on memoirs. JCO sets the bar at a higher rung with this work. As I read through the book, I kept stopping and exclaiming to myself, “WOW. This is so intimate and truthful! And we have been taught to hold back a bit on the intimacy, to shade the truth to protect one’s friends and loved ones.” I did just that on my recent posting of Memories of Paris.
JCO is such a good writer that she gets away with it. She gibes at friends and doctors; not with salacious gossip, just with her true thoughts. There’s a lot of stream of consciousness in this book; she includes e-mails and cards and letters, quotes from sundry authors. Because of her pain and grief, it is endearing. The reader gives her full rein to vent, rant, quibble, kvetch, but most often run away from facing her widowhood.
The Widow’s Handbook is a sort of subtitle for this book. That’s her most frequent audience through all the rambling, delusions and fears. She talks of suicide incessantly throughout, more so at the end; Sylvia Plath is explored often. She tries, unsuccessfully, to separate the Widow from JCO. Are writers predisposed to suicide? She makes comments like, “For writers, being a writer always seems to be of dubious value.” Another is, “Being a writer is in defiance of Darwin’s observation that the more highly specialized a species, the more likelihood of extinction.”
It is gardening at the end, which helps her attain the one-year goal. Hands in the earth, she embraces the annual regeneration of seed and solar cycle.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- Muriel Barbery

This year has started off with pleasurable reading; well, two out of three anyway: “Thirteenth Tale” and “Elegant Hedgehog.” “Silver Linings” was a bust.
Easy to see why this Hedgehog book was so popular in Europe. Intelligence is admired and an academic doctorate is revered. The gift of a sharp mind is accommodated in the educational system by testing and placements at the 7th grade and then 10th grade levels. England has Oxford and Cambridge. Education of the masses is not considered to be of any particular value other than keeping the kids busy and out of trouble until they’re 21. Of course many of the places at Oxbridge are family heritage positions, like it was for George Bush at Yale. So, therein lays the basis for the plotline of this book. Class distinction (land, power, money) creates dichotomies that roll over into the educational system and one’s place in society. America used to think itself as egalitarian with equal opportunity for all (all having been expanded slowly to include women and people of colour.) Alas, the pendulum has swung the other way since the eighties. The masses are being deliberately dumbed-down and access to the “power” universities is limited to families with power and/or money.
Whew. OK, there were plenty of socio-politico touchstones in this book, not the least of which was gender politics and ageism.
The book is inspiring, of course – moderately well-educated people throughout the world should aspire to half the intellectual curiosity and patiently rewarding acquisition of knowledge that Renée Michel has achieved. One would hope that this book is a beacon of hope for those with intellectual curiosity to work at trying to reap the rewards of constant learning.
The author’s choice of concierge and her mirrored younger self (unconceived daughter) were well-chosen. Who amongst us, at least in this country, has not found themselves dumbing down to maintain social equilibrium? Even if, nay especially if, one is gifted with intellectual curiosity, and fills the resultant void with knowledge, without the authenticating calling card of power and money, there has to be a hesitancy to admit, a lingering questioning of one’s confidence, before voicing an intellectual opinion. Now we don’t have concierges here in the States – the Brits have a “porter” at colleges which might stretch across to posh residences.
All the other characters were well cast, but fit because of the choice of Renée Michel. She was so accepting, broad-minded, and naively shy. Who could not want to adopt her, want her to find love at fifty, and to find acknowledgement by the world as a serious person. As universal as the story is, the treatment by Ms Barbery is uniquely compelling. It is timeless in its lack of modern gadgetry, even though often referred to. The attraction of this story is its characters, who are universal: this could be a Roman tale.
There is the warning at the end, enjoy the fruits of the garden, but don’t try to cross the line by eating the apple, or you’ll be hit by a laundry truck and die.

The Golden Compass -- Philip Pullman

This book was recommended to me by someone in my monthly library book club. We recently started a mailing list between us; and one of the first suggestions was nominating our favorite three books. It was interesting that the first three recommended were all British authors: Lawrence Durrell by me, then Philip Pullman and Margaret Atwood. This was sort of a no-brainer for me; I’m a certified anglophile, National Health card and all. I’m also a sucker for kid’s books. Well, that’s too broad a category; young teens might be a better fit. That’s an age group that I seem to have communicated with: I’ve raised a few batches as step-father. More to the point, I’ve read and enjoyed, “good” writers in this genre: I love Isabel Allende, “City of Beasts”, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (I only dropped out after 4 or 5), and of course Joyce Carol Oates with “Small Avalanches … ..” amongst many others. Now does Anne Rice write for teens or adults?.?
Of course I also like simple pulp fiction – single plotline -- clear lines for good guys and bad guys – an unambiguous moral, introduced early in the story – redeeming value through either: gained knowledge, ethics, or social awareness. O.K., obviously I was not an English Lit major in college (I confess: it was physics, math, and computer science). I think it’s a reflection of the age we live in that “teen literature” should there really be such a thing, has healthy doses of physics and computer science; mathematics unfortunately has never really “caught on.” That’s a shame really because if physics is the sculpture (hard stuff) of the art world; then mathematics is the canvas-art of the scientist, and computer science is the constant pushing of the future upon us.
The book?.? The book is great of course – riveting action – characters you love and hate, scenes that are for the imagination only. I’ve ordered the second and third books in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy from the library, “The Subtle Knife”, and “The Amber Spyglass”. One can only take so much of a “smart kid”, but I think I can handle two or three more books. Suspend your disbelief; allow the fantasy to take over your mind: believe in the story. These books work well as Books-On-Tape (in its many guises) because of its singular focus on simple plot and characterization. A good writer, and Pullman is good, keeps you primed for the next chapter, and it is thus one of those books that you can read in one sitting (flying to Paris) or on a cruise to Yokohama.