The Human Stink

This was a real dog. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is supposedly  "a charming and witty memoir of how we live now". It is not. It's conceit is that it's a memoir where the author says from the onset that nothing really bad has ever happened to her and it is an 'encyclopedia' of themes of ordinariness. What a waste of paper and ink. Perhaps nothing bad ever happened to her but I think I now qualify for a memoir based on the horrors inflicted by having read hers. Her conceit is that she thinks she has found beauty in banality....sadly she has only found banality. Do not read this book.

The Human Stain

The blurb on the front of the book says "In American literature today, there's Philip Roth, and then there's everybody else." It's true. He is nothing short of serious at all times and thought provoking. In one page he can create a character more vivid than someone you've known for years, he does it with just a rush of short sentences detailing their life history, hitting on the essence of the person before you turn the page. But he is so angry and bitter. And this particular book The Human Stain has a hard time containing that anger. It's written in the time of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and his rants at times just seem like..... rants.

The story is of a classics professor, Coleman Silk, at a small New England college who just happens to be passing as a Jew when he is really a very light skinned black. (Less ludicrous in the book than when played by Anthony (Whitest Man on the Planet) Hopkins in the movie.) He has an affair with a much younger woman who is the illiterate janitor (Nicole Kidman!) at the college from which he is ostracized and forced to retire after being accused of racism by a black student. Roth is mad and he takes it out on his characters...poor Nathan Zuckerman is outed as incontinent and impotent, having to wear little cotton pads in his underwear to soak up the urine. It stinks being human in Roth's world.

But notwithstanding the stain in my mind of the image of Anthony Hopkins superimposed on Coleman Silk, it is a good book. Not his best book, but it is Phillip Roth after all, not everybody else, and we should pay attention.

Swamplandia!

This was getting rapturous previews. Like the second coming of Freedom. So I felt compelled to get it at the library and be among the first to read it. It started off well, the odd Bigtree family own and work on a Florida island Alligator Wrestling Theme Park . A new and shiny mainland theme park threatens their way of life. The mother dies, the father and son go off separately to the mainland. The 12 year old narrator and her 16 year old sister stay behind. It starts out not bad, it rises to the level of Geek Love in ways but then towards the ending it goes really bad. Like the author suddenly couldn't figure out what to do and picked an ending out of a variety of tired cliches. Too bad, she had me going for awhile.

Tessa Hadley

She is one of those writers I forget about. I read her stories in The New Yorker and am blown away and then forget her. But she actually writes novels and there are books of her short stories...who knew? I purchased one of these books Sunstroke, and other Stories  and was once more---blown away. 

In just one story she can move you through so many emotions that you feel like you've been spun around and around until you're dizzy. She breaks your heart and then picks it up and glues it back together for you. 

My particular favorite in this collection is Buckets of Blood. Two sisters, in a family of nine children, bond together in their revulsion for their mother; "she was fearless in the mornings  about stalking around the house in her ancient baggy underwear, big pants and maternity bra, chasing the little ones to get them dressed, her older children fled the sight of her." The older sister is off in college and her younger sister goes to visit for a week. Buckets of blood ensue.

As good as Alice Munro. I'll say no more.