Portraits of a Marriage -- Sándor Márai

This recent translation of an older Hungarian book is a great example of several styles that are outdated these days. First, there is the multiple POV approach, which was just beginning in the pre-WWII days when this was written. Like my favorite model, Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet, this book is composed of four short stories, all chronicling the same events but from different points of view and time frames.

The separate story approach has the advantage of reinforcing the truism that 100 people will see the same events in a hundred different ways; and that there are 100 different “truth”s to the one set of events. The memoir genre, which is becoming more and more extensively used, has come under fire recently for “distorting” the “real truth” of events. This separated POV story approach helps to define the memoir as just one of the 100 truths of an event. This clarification isn’t a part of the modern multiple-POV styles. When the POV switches from within a single story, the reader is forced to multi-task and switch POVs, often beyond their ability. There seems to be a fine, gray line of acceptable frequency of switching POVs. Dickens switched at a macro level, maybe every few chapters to a new sub-plot. Alternating chapters is quite common these days, but not commonly done well. I often decide to skip an entire POV, alternate set of chapters, assuming that the author will knit them together in the end.

The other older style of writing was the use of the expository first person narrative. In this case, other characters are never actually incorporated, merely spoken to without response coming back. Each of the first three chapters is a supposed several hour monologue, or more accurately, a dialogue with an imaginary or unhearable friend. This avoids the pesky details like scene setting, entrances and exits, and “he said”-“she said”s. This was an acceptable style prior to stage and screen adaptation became popular around the time of WW-II.

I enjoyed this book, but it’s not for the casual reader. It is a book to be read slowly and one where the entertainment comes from delving deeply into characters.

The Guilty Plea by Robert Rotenberg

For those who like a bit of contrast, here’s a Canadian legal thriller. And in keeping of contrasts, I’ve shown both book covers, American on the left, somewhat subdued with a techie background finish; and then on the right, a more old-fashioned but bloodier, hit-you-over-the-head cover used in Toronto Canada where this author hails from.

Lawyer stories always make good summer reading and this is a good one. The outcome is always clear (see the title.) It is the contrasting explanations of American versus Canadian judicial systems that were interesting to me: rules of evidence, cross examination, and other lawerly detail of that sort. My sister, who spent many years as a paralegal would love this book.

Of course, there are the usual twists and turns to catch the reader by surprise and plenty of sex to keep the action going. Canada, however, is a quiet place. There’s not much violence in this book, that didn’t seem to cross the border. Moreover, without violence, there aren’t any villains to stimulate our moral outrage.

Overall, the writing seemed like a retro throwback to American lawyer stories of the nineteen seventies. With the good writing, that made it easy and pleasant to read: a good book for the summer of 2011.

All the Time in the World -- E.L. Doctorow

This guy Doctorow is a prolific writer. I’ve seen his name now for years. I’ve picked up novels of his several times, and then put them back down because I thought they were too “heavy.” This book of short stories was a way to get into hits style and thoughts. Now, on reflection, I think maybe he just hit too close to home with me. I really enjoyed his stories; they made me laugh, and think, and pause to say to myself “that’s me.”

The opening story, Wakefield, tells the story of a yuppie man who, on a whim, spends a year hiding from his wife and job, in his garage loft.
Edgemont Drive is another tale of the suburbs. An old man arrives in front of a couple’s house in an old Ford Falcon. He parks there for days, weeks, and then wheedles his way into the house: his old house. He has come to die there; and does.

These are not thrilling tales. These stories are readable etudes. Doctorow does a good job of capturing people, their thoughts and dialogues. He makes it all real. He spins a yarn that pleases us, the reader. In Assimilation, we read the story of Ramon, a legal immigrant busboy, and Jelena, the foreign daughter of a Russian gangster. Ramon is tricked into a marriage with her, but after many trials and tribulations, she falls in love with him. This sounds like a 1940’s movie plot, but Doctorow has freshened it up and brings it off satisfactorily.

There are a dozen short stories in all, just right for summer reading by the pool, each one takes about an hour or two of distracted reading. The stories in the middle of the book are centered on religion as a theme, with quite a bit of tongue-in-cheek moralizing.

The tongue-in-cheek becomes comedic with stories like Jolene’s, who from age 15, continuously sells her soul to the lowest bidder and bounces from bottom to bottom; all the way to The Writer in the Family, who writes letters home to his mother from his dead father; and then Willi, who lusts after his step mom.