"Flaubert's Parrot" by Julian Barnes

Before reading this book, all I knew of Flaubert was Mme Bovary and all I knew of Julian Barnes was Arthur & George, although I do have a copy of The Sense of an Ending that I fully intend to read someday. Even considering my minimal knowledge, Flaubert's Parrot was kind of a shock to my system. 

This was not a story to sink into. Instead, it was a weirder but somehow deeper and more clever biography than any I’ve ever read. The writing reminded me of Milan Kundera (although all I know of Kundera is The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and I appreciated the dry, wry humor.

In this book, somehow Barnes gathers up everything that can be known about Gustave Flaubert and forms it into a sort of novel-like expression. It's the farthest thing from your typical encyclopedic biography, and yet I feel like I came away with a better sense of who Flaubert was as a real human than I could have otherwise. 

How…?

How can I possibly choose which one is next?

Help!

“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell

 

I have always loved Maggie O'Farrell's books (...always? ohhhhhkay there was one exception), but for some reason I initially put off reading this one. Despite my love for Italy, and despite knowing there is a wealth of intriguing stories to be found in its renaissance era, the synopsis of this book made me drag my feet. It just sounded a bit . . . dull.

I don't know what I was thinking.

This book was so good! Based on actual historical characters, it tells the story of Lucrezia de'Medici and her short-lived marriage to Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara. I think part of my resistance to reading this book stemmed from the fact that you go into it already knowing that Alfonso ends up killing his teenage bride. How can the story be anything but hopeless and depressing? Well, that's where Maggie O'Farrell comes in to work her magic. Whereas Sam said the first half of the book felt too claustrophobic to him, steeped in the foreknowledge of the impending murder as it was, I was gripped from the first page. 

Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings

I have been reading this book little bit by little bit over a number of months (YES, okay, if you must know, I kept it in the bathroom. This is one of those books that I felt obliged to read because I knew it would make me a better person, but it is also one of those books I knew I would never actually read unless I was forced to.)

I'm sure this is a case of stating the obvious, but Benjamin Franklin was a pretty impressive man. Maybe I've always known these things but forgot? But it's amazing how many institutions Franklin had a hand in creating. Lending libraries? Check. Fire departments? Check. UPenn? Check! And all of this squeezed in between creating a successful printing business, being a US ambassador to France, running a postal service that I can only imagine must have been more efficient than the current USPS, and flying a key on a kite string into a thunderstorm. 

I don’t think I was left with a super clear overview of Franklin's life (but of course that was not the intent of this book). I feel like it zoomed in on a number of interesting aspects but left the remainder vague and amorphous, and I might have found a biography more balanced. But what I had really wanted to get from the book is a sense of the man himself in his own words, and I think I did. I found Franklin to be pithy, witty, humble and wise.   

“Saturday” by Ian McEwan

I have really liked other Ian McEwan novels I've read (particularly Atonement; I haven't read all of his work, though eventually I would like to). But I found this one slow going. It describes, in great detail, one single day in the life of London neurosurgeon Henry Perowne. It starts early in the morning as he looks out his bedroom window (so nicely reflected by the book cover!), watching an airplane as it crosses his field of view, and ends--you guessed it!--late that night as he looks out his bedroom window. In between, it's not exactly your usual, run-of-the-mill weekend day, what with protests in the street, a mild car wreck, a tense family dinner party, and late-night neurosurgery. You would think that would be enough to maintain my interest, but somehow it was not.

It did, however, make me think of Mrs Dalloway. Not to the extent that I think this story was inspired by Woolf, but how could I help but be reminded of a book that takes place all in one day and follows a main character who is preparing for a dinner party?

Sam says Saturday was controversial when it came out, due to its stance on the invasion of Iraq (the protests were against it while Dr Perowne found himself ambivalent) but why? Because the central character did not soundly denounce the invasion of Iraq? Even if he had been solidly in favor of it, can't we have a nuanced discussion of a complicated topic without the discussion itself being controversial?

“Very Cold People” by Sarah Manguso

I actually read this book between Scent of Flowers and The Fell but then completely forgot to blog about it. I'm not sure I would have found much to say about it at the time, but now that it's three weeks later, I'm going to have a really tough time coming up with anything to write. 

I do remember that my overarching feeling about this book was that it was weird. The characters were weird--a little inscrutable, kind of hard to relate to, not very open or easy to understand . . . in general, I guess, what you would expect Very Cold People to be like. And the story itself was a bit weird, in a plotless and meandering way. It's written like a memoir (although I assume it's not) and strikes me as an attempt to record every retained memory, with no effort to highlight the transformative or gloss over the mundane. But it was also, I think, nicely written and intriguing; otherwise I would have hated it. 

I also remember that this book stirred up a particular sort of nostalgia in me. It describes a very American childhood with many links to my own very American childhood, from Lite Brite to friendship bracelets.