What it is:

The book jacket says this is a novel, but it’s awfully big font and awfully small pages (200 of them), so I don’t know. Maybe the debate between novel and novella and short story isn’t that interesting; maybe it’s just a marketing thing. However you classify it, On Chesil Beach is Ian McEwan’s most recent book, a short tale of a newly-married couple on their wedding night, at a hotel on the beach in 1962. In classic McEwan style, their psychology is presented intensely and objectively, and we see how small moments, small thoughts, things unsaid and undone, can alter the course of a person’s life.

Why it’s interesting:

Well, the book is short – I read it in a day, so quickly that I can’t remember either character’s name even though it’s only been a few days. It’s not McEwan’s best, but it is a great taste of what his bigger books are like without requiring the same investment of time. I like McEwan, because he does make small moments so intense. He really ratchets up the tension in a seemingly innocuous exchange, and he pushes that tension for an impressively long but fast-paced scene. SPOILER: For example, that famous moment in Atonement where Robbie takes the fall, even though Briony knows she isn’t sure who did what. That evening is presented over some of the best 100 pages I’ve ever read. On Chesil Beach doesn’t have the same intensity, but, like I said, you do get a taste for what he’s doing. If you don’t like this book, chances are you won’t like any of his books.

Further Reading:

I think it would pair well with McEwan’s Atonement, with Charles Baxter’s Saul and Patsy or with William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. In his review essay in Sycamore Review, Patrick Nevins suggested On Chesil Beach would pair well with Graham Swift’s Tomorrow, which I have not read yet but would like to.

What it is:

I picked up Vanity Fair after reading The Rise of the Novel because I wanted to read some old British classic, which Vanity Fair is. The story is about a poor girl, Becky Thatcher, who leaves a private school and starts working for a family. She first takes a side week at the home of a friend, and two love stories develop. Drama ensues. The plot’s not that dissimilar to most of those old British novels. The difference is in style, and Thackeray is more in the line of Fielding, in that his narrator is conscious of what he’s doing.

Why it’s interesting:

The humor holds up 150 years later. The narrator will address the reader and say, “So this is where we’re at: Becky and George have met, and the question is will they fall in love. That’s the subject of this chapter, but first, we must examine our style. I could write it like this…” Etc., etc. The fact that the narrator is so conscious lends an element of satire to the narrative, which is hilarious, but I found the actual story quite dull. I couldn’t distinguish between Becky and any other nubile young British heroine. I know they’re all different, in the same way that The Eagles, The Steve Miller Band and REO Speedwagon all sound different, but I can’t recognize that difference.

Further Reading:

Fielding, Sterne and Dickens are funny like Thackeray. Richardson, Burney, Austen and the Brontes take their heroines more seriously.

What it is:

All the Living is about a young woman named Aloma, a pianist educated in a settlement school in eastern Kentucky, who dreams of getting out. When her boyfriend’s family is killed in an accident, she moves into his farmhouse with him, and together they play-act a marriage. He is content to work the farm, but, restless, she gets a job playing the piano at a nearby church, but doesn’t tell the congregation that she is living in sin with the boy.

Why it’s interesting:

This novel, Morgan’s first, is a quiet, richly textured novel that beautifully captures the language of Kentucky and the couple’s almost religious connection to the land. Some sample language: “The bottomland yawned into view and she saw the fields where the young tobacco faltered on the drybeat earth, the ridge beyond. All around the soil had leached to chalky dust under the sun.” And, “Aloma held a forearm up over her eyes to shield them from the driving rain, but did not smile and she discovered no thanks in her. She could only watch the unclosing of Orren’s face, which the sky had seduced from him as all around them the fulling rain beat an unsteady battering rhythm on the plants and the parched, loamy soil.”

Further Reading:

Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead, Robert Olmstead’s Coal Black Horse, Bret Lott’s A Stranger’s House, Silas House’s The Coal Tattoo

What it is:

This biography from the 1960s is a short, clear examination of the life of Edmund Burke, the famous statesman from the 18th century, largely considered the father of conservativism. Born in Ireland, Burke served in British parliament as a member of the Whig party, and as a representative he notably sympathized with the American cause (no taxation without representation, for, he feared correctly, the colonists would revolt) and argued vehemently against revolutionaries in France.

Why it’s interesting:

Burke’s is a true conservativism, in that he wanted to conserve the established political order. Thus, he sympathized with American colonists because he feared they would revolt, and he argued against French revolutionaries with the same kind of rhetoric that contemporary Republicans use against terrorists (or with the same kind of rhetoric that some conservatives use to critique certain liberal abstractions such as hope and change). Essentially, according to Burke, French revolutionaries were rallying behind an abstract idealism, and had no concrete plans for governing. Thus, he predicted, when they reached power, they would be unable to effectively govern, instead becoming power-hungry and vicious. The revolutionaries, he argued in the 1780s, must be eliminated at any cost because they could not be reasoned with, as they had no concrete grounds on which to reason. The biography is well-written, and the author is lively and truly a fan of Burke. He makes old British politics feel relevant, which is certainly worthwhile. As for the politics of conservativism, Burke has a realistic conception of human nature, but I’m not sure, from reading this biography, what all underlies his arguments for preserving the aristocracy.

Further Reading:

I wouldn’t begin to know what to pair with this book. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France is interesting in small doses, and might pair well with other social contract essays – Rousseau’s On the Origins of Inequality (which Burke would abhor), Hobbes’ Leviathan (not mentioned in the biography, but seems up Burke’s alley). Also perhaps some early American writing – something by Thomas Paine, the Federalist papers, de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

What it is:

The germ of this novel comes from actual history. Belle Starr, the 19th century outlaw, was murdered in 1888, and one of the primary suspects was one of her sharecroppers, E.J. Watson. Shadow Country imagines the life of E.J. Watson in the years afterward. In the novel, he moves to southern Florida , where he sets up a plantation and takes on mythic proportions for the locals. The first sentence will get stuck in your head and make you want to read the whole book: “The sea birds are aloft again, a tattered few.”

Why it’s interesting:

Matthiessen’s project originally began as a single 1500-page novel, and he revised it and published it as a trilogy of shorter novels. With Shadow Country, he revised the trilogy again into one 900-page novel. I’ve not read any Matthiessen before this novel, and I’m curious to know how the trilogy reads. To be honest, I really, really wanted to like Shadow Country. It has everything: a mythic character, lawlessness, an interesting location. But the story fell a little flat; it didn’t cohere enough for my tastes. The novel is organized into three books, which I presume represent compressed versions of the three novels. The first book is told from multiple first-person narrators, but I couldn’t keep track of them. Unlike As I Lay Dying, there was no central odyssey to unify the events (but rather a patchwork that covers about 20 years of Watson’s life in Florida); unlike One Foot in Eden, we don’t stay with one character long enough to really get to know him; and unlike The Feast of Love, none of the characters had a truly distinctive “voice.” Or maybe I’m tired of first-person books for right now.

Further Reading:

Thomas Sanchez’s Mile Zero (really captures the flavor of Key West), Russell Banks’ Continental Drift (captures the promise of Florida as a place of escape), the Wyoming stories of Annie Proulx (for myth-making).

I’ve got a running list and go to the library every two weeks, pick out whichever strikes my fancy that evening. On the list and why, in no particular order:

*Joseph O’Neil, Netherland (Obama read it, apparently)
*Tim Winton, Rough Rider (recommended to me)
*Donald Harington, With (highly recommended to me)
*Ernest Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men (Gaines is a southerner, and the description of this novel looks good)
*Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach, Enduring Love, The Cement Garden (I like Ian McEwan)
*Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (it’s new and looks fun)
*Saul Bellow, Humbolt’s Gift (I never read any Bellow, and he’s famous; this one didn’t look like a coming-of-age novel, which I’m not interested in right now)
*Edward Jones, The Known World (recommended to me)
*Oscar Hijuelos, Mambo Kings (Key West made me want to write a story set in Florida, so I’m casually reading some Florida fiction)
*Milhauser, Martin Dressler (I’m slowly working my way through the big award winners from years past, and this one looks good)
*James Jones, The Thin Red Line (I never read any James Jones, and might one year enter the James Jones novel contest, the guidelines of which say they’re looking for something in the spirit of James Jones)
*Don Delillo, the early novels – End Zone, Ratner’s Star, Great Jones Street, Running Dog (he’s Don Delillo, that’s why)

Anything else I should add, let me know.

What it is:

Lord Jim is another novel narrated (primarily) by Marlowe from Heart of Darkness. Lord Jim is a young sailor who, after a disastrous event on a voyage (I don’t want to spoil the plot) spends years in secret, roaming around Pacific seaports. Marlowe meets Jim at a trial following the disaster, and when Jim disappears Marlowe embarks on a quest to find him.

Why it’s interesting:

I haven’t read much Conrad, and probably won’t reread Lord Jim, but this novel is interesting for its narrative method. The novel opens in omniscience, and then the narrative cuts away right as the disaster strikes, and shows Jim on trial. He tries to explain his actions during the disaster, but the prosecutor cuts him off, asks for a yes or no answer, to which he replies, “Yes, I did.” The reader doesn’t know what he did, but it sounds bad, and not entirely his fault. Marlowe witnesses the trial, and the narrative jumps again, says something to the effect of, “Marlowe would tell the story of that trial for years afterward. He might be at a dinner party, smoking a good cigar late in the evening, and he would say…” The next 200 pages or so are Marlowe’s account, which slowly reveals Jim’s actions. The method is a precursor to Absalom Absalom, very engaging for the first half of the novel. The second half of the book gets repetitive, Jim here and then Jim there and then Jim there. But Lord Jim is very much worth starting.

Further Reading:

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Faulkner’s Absalom Absalom, Melville’s Billy Budd, and London ’s The Sea Wolf.