Category Archives: Books and literature

Book review: Mansfield Park

words and images Posted on by

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, edited by James Kinsley and with an introduction and notes by Jane Stabler. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2003. 480 pages.

In Mansfield Park, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players.” The cast of characters of both the novel and the play within it is drawn from three families and their social circles: the Bertrams of Mansfield Park, the Grants/Crawfords of the parsonage, and the Prices of Portsmouth. Even as she refuses to participate in her cousins’ staging of Lovers’ Vows, Fanny Price is at center stage as the observer we observe in Austen’s social and familial drama.

As the poor relation of the Bertrams, Fanny is a natural outsider. Lacking social or financial aspirations, she is free to see the folly of those around her and bound by what seems to have become a quaint form of honor from warning Edmund about his. For all her acquiescence to fate, however, Fanny is not weak. Just as she takes a firm stand about not appearing in the ill-fated Lovers’ Vows with its ill-fated cast, she stays on her moral high road even when it requires her to assert herself to Sir Thomas, to whom she is beholden and whose own daughters dare not defy him so directly.

Marriage is central to Mansfield Park. Maria Ward “had the good luck . . . to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.” Despite the narrator’s cynicism, the Bertrams have what seems to be an effective marriage; Sir Thomas is the domineering household head, while his decorative lady provides the services of her busybody widowed sister and her niece Fanny. Lady Bertram’s passivity complements Sir Thomas’s active nature; she is “guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister.” She can do without companionship, but only if Sir Thomas reassures her.

Motivated by his money and status and her good looks, the Bertrams have established a solid marriage, but its sons and daughters are not its pride. Restrained by and resentful of Sir Thomas’s patriarchal hand, his elder son and daughter rebel against and eventually flout his authority and threaten the family’s good name. His younger daughter seeks escape through the closest means possible, and even his younger son is spared from his poor judgment only by fate.

Unlike Lady Bertram, her youngest sister marries for love, or at least on impulse, and suffers the consequences of ignoring what matters most—money and social standing. Self-condemned to a life of poverty and negligence, Mrs. Price cannot depend on either husband or servants to manage day-to-day life so she can indulge in her natural laziness, as Lady Bertram does. Even as her family lives in filthy squalor, Mrs. Price, could, if she were capable of noticing, take pride in Fanny’s personal growth and moral fortitude, William’s accomplishments and career, and Susan’s promise. Like the Bertrams on their extensive estate, she is trapped in the narrow drama she has written for herself. Those who exit—Fanny, William, Susan—are able, it seems, to craft a more positive narrative for themselves.

Like a proscenium arch, the trip to Sotherton and the use of Lovers’ Vows frame Fanny’s view of the relationships around her. Much of the action takes place out of her sight (to her dismay), but Fanny sees enough to disturb her sense of propriety and to bring to light her own desires. Fanny, and the reader, can only guess what is happening offstage and how it may affect her.

Relationships founded solely on money (Rushworths), rebellion or love (Prices, presumably), and lust (Henry/Maria) fare poorly, as does the Crawfords’ sister’s second marriage (to the admiral). Austen’s narrator does not give up on the institution, however. “With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune or friends . . . happiness . . . must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be,” the omnipotent stage director steps in to say after having dispensed justice and wisdom to those characters who require one or the other, just before before the curtain falls on Mansfield Park and environs. In the end and with a heavy hand, the narrator redeems marriage, at least for the deserving (Fanny) and the enduring (the Bertrams).

Readers who prefer strong, attractive women may not appreciate Fanny, her apparently rigid morality, and her seeming weakness of will. As a perceptive outsider who understands what she observes, Fanny is a complex character. She knows and respects how Sir Thomas would feel about Lovers’ Vows and participates to the extent she can so she can keep an eye on Edmund. She knows where his future unhappiness lies, yet does not deter him although it is in her power. She may be judgmental, as people are, but she asserts herself strongly only when she is herself affected, for example, when she is wanted for the play and when Henry pays his attentions. She is true to herself and allows others the same freedom, succeed or fail, with her real feelings hidden within her inner emotional life.

Set in a time of war and slave-supported prosperity that seems remote, Mansfield Park can still reach across the years. In spite of the antiquated social and moral codes that rule their lives, the out-of-touch adults, the rebellious children, and the lonely and unconventional heroine still hold interest today.

Friday, 28 November 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Diane L. Schirf.

Book review: 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy

words and images Posted on by

365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy by Charla Muller with Betsy Thorpe. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 2008. 288 pages.

Charla Muller’s epigraph for 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy is from dramatist Jean Anouilh: “To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows.” Out of its context, Anouilh’s quotation summarizes Charla Muller’s attitude toward marital sex: It’s a chore and a bore. That is why, on the occasion of her husband Brad’s 40th birthday, she, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, offers him what she calls “The Gift” — sex every day for the next year. After pages of overwrought mutual analysis about the implications, her husband accepts. In one short chapter, the reader is introduced to what seems to be the most passionless marriage on the planet.

The rest of 365 Nights (give or take a few — mustn’t have sex during menstruation, for example) rarely delves into sex or even intimacy, physical or emotional. Our most penetrating look into the couple’s sex life comes when Muller says, “Wow, that was really nice” (or “yummy”). Her husband replies, “Could you pretend you’re enjoying it?” Muller responds, “How ’bout you just close your eyes.”

Between these flashes of profound love, Muller tirelessly fills the reader in on her rather narrow view of relationships, marriage, parenting, being a working mother (she works two days a week), and how giving her husband what he wants (“The Gift”) has somehow made them stronger as a couple. It’s not the intimacy itself that seems to bring them closer together, but the sense of sacrifice and the willingness to work to overcome the obstacles — not only Muller’s dislike of sex (which she seems to believe she shares with every married mother), but logistics such as work, children, activities, and the need for private time.

Perhaps married women with children who see their husbands as “sperm donors” and “providers,” as Muller writes of some of her friends, will relate to her and her view of love, marriage, and life. Undoubtedly, many will find that she validates the sexual ennui that can set in during any long-term relationship. From my single, childless perspective, she offers no insights, not even as to the underlying reasons she makes every effort to avoid sex with the man she loves and why getting ready for sex means, “I just continue lying there” (prompting her husband to say, “Could you pretend you’re interested in this?”).

When the year of “The Gift” is over, her husband Brad seems happy because he will continue to get sex more frequently (although not every day), and Muller is happy because Brad is more content and her marriage is more solid — and, to me, as free of passion as ever. Muller writes about some of the benefits of sex — it provides exercise and offers improved communication for example (she likes to talk to Brad about the mundane during the act, we learn). She mentions greater emotional intimacy, but she doesn’t convey it or what it means. She touches on the surface of the issues, but is unable or is afraid to say anything meaningful beyond the obvious. While she lies back and gives “The Gift,” she cannot bring herself to mention that she finds any physical pleasure or emotional joy in the act itself (other than that it’s “nice”). She and her husband seem to be well suited to each other, but they could be brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert from Anne of Green Gables for all the passion shown in their marriage — with or without sex.

Muller’s perky style is annoying, and her values, which she assumes we all share, are painfully shallow. She disdains ugly mini-vans (and her beloved children’s energy future) in favor of a “cool” SUV. A “polite feminist,” she believes that it’s a “rule” that women, and now men, must pluck their eyebrows (and any other hair that doesn’t meet her concept of perfect grooming and appearance). She is surprised to learn she is pregnant after just a couple of months, calling herself “very fertile” (what does this make her husband?) and making one wonder if she never learned the reasons that contraception became such a hot topic for 19th century women. She abhors the idea of aging naturally and fantasizes about “slight tweaking” through plastic surgery until her husband says, “What will she [daughter] think if she sees her mother conforming to these bizarre societal standards?” — standards to which Muller would have us all make every effort to conform.

Muller presents herself as someone you should want to chat with over coffee about the vicissitudes of married suburban life; indeed, that’s how this book came about. I couldn’t. It’s more than her overuse of words like “nice,” “gal,” and “girls” (this from a “polite feminist”) or the wearisome banality of her endless reflections. She’s one of those people — we all know at least one — who prattle nonstop without saying anything, leaving one feeling tired and empty — or energized, if that is your sort of thing.

365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy could have been a compelling story, but it would take a more interesting and thoughtful author than Charla Muller to grasp the topic and its nuances and to do it the justice it deserves.

29 August 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Other Woman: Stories of Two Women and a Man

words and images Posted on by

The Other Woman: Stories of Two Women and a Man. Edited by Susan Koppelman. The Feminist Press, 1984. 384 pages.

Susan Koppelman begins her introduction to The Other Woman with, “All the stories in this collection are about women — both wives and other women — who love adulterous men,” setting the tone by squarely placing the blame on the male of the species. The women, whether wives or lovers, are only victims of male power, detachment, and appetite. Almost pointedly, Koppelman presents the reader with no adulterous women — that is, married women who are the “other woman” to married women. In earlier times, this may not have been as common because of the financial dependence of women, but of course it is a theme in literature; it plays a role in novels such as Wuthering Heights and Tenant of Wildfell Hall, for example. It is not to Koppelman’s feminist point, however.

This leads to another limitation of this anthology; infidelity is restricted to men — and only American men. Forgoing the riches of world literature, which is replete with a diverse array of attitudes toward marriage and infidelity within various historical, social, cultural, and religious traditions, Koppelman limits her collection to the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States. The most exotic stories are: “The Quadroons” (Lydia Maria Child), in which marriage is a form of emotional slavery for the biracial wife; “Challah” (Martha Wolfenstein), set among urban Jewish immigrants; “A Captain Out of Etruria” (A. R. Leach), which tells of American expatriates in post-war Europe; “Gal Young Un” (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings), which take place in cracker Florida; “Papago Wedding” (Mary Austin), which seems to try to capture an oral tradition; and “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (James Tiptree, Jr. — real name: Alice Sheldon), a science fiction story more interesting for the veracity of its pop culture insights than for its sexual implications, although of course the two are linked. “The Last Rite” (Lee Yu-Hwa) is the only story set in a completely alien tradition — pre-communist China — and also the only one told, sympathetically, from the man’s viewpoint. The protagonist is torn between the old China and the new, between his family and his duty and his wife and his duty.

Despite the feminist cant, which selectively minimizes the culpability of the other woman (for example, in “The Difference” (Ellen Glasgow), the other woman is no more an innocent than the thoughtless, uncaring husband) and the narrow focus, The Other Woman is a solid collection that, if nothing else, and perhaps intentionally, often seems to solidify the concept of woman’s emotional and financial dependence on man. In “A Poet Though Married” (Helen Reimensnyder Martin), it is a man’s money that allows Miss De Ford to carry out her mission. In “The Difference,” as a friend observes when visiting Margaret in her lavish home, “For when George ceases to be desirable for sentimental reasons, he will still have his value as a good provider.” The best story, “Turned” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of the brilliant “The Yellow Wall-Paper”), is the most truly feminist as well, as betrayed love is eschewed for independence and self-respect. Even the victim has “a new intelligence upon her face.”

Covering only 139 years of American literature written primarily by women (with the noted exception of Lee Yu-Hwa), The Other Woman misses greatness with its narrow focus. The true full story of the “other woman,” whether she is victim or vixen (which, despite Koppelman’s protestations, is possible) must be far more fascinating and far less predictable than what appears here. The Other Woman falls short of telling the complete, nuanced story of the other woman — or of anyone else.

Note: This edition is poorly printed, with many pages falling out and requiring multiple applications of glue. There are also numerous typographical errors.

28 August 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Priestess of Avalon

words and images Posted on by

Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002. 416 pages.

Set mainly outside Britannia, Priestess of Avalon marks a departure from Bradley’s Avalon series and the buildup to the Matter of Britain. Bradley and Paxson trace the acceptance and spread of Christianity to the goddess through the travels and actions of one of her Avalon priestesses — Flavia Helena Augusta.

For the first time that I remember, astrology plays a significant role in the series. When Helena is born, the Merlin consults the stars, but his words are strangely misinterpreted. “. . . the maid shall hide the moon she bears upon her brow” inexplicably leads the priestesses to murmur, “He prophesies greatness — she will be Lady of the Lake like her mother before her!” The Merlin’s reading of the stars proves accurate in every detail, but Helena discovers that prophecies are problematic. Convinced that she is destined to bear the “Child of Prophecy,” she remembers only years later what she as a priestess should have always known — that prophecy and its interpretation do not always take the expected path to the anticipated end.

After defying her hated aunt, the High Priestess Ganeda, so that she may bear the “Child of Prophecy,” Helena drifts through life just as she and her lover Constantius drift through the Empire. She carefully describes her son’s innate leadership talent and his developing personality, but she does little to shape  or understand either. Even before he is taken from her, she is oddly passive toward the boy she is sure will change the world — he is born at the end of one chapter of her narrative and is 10 years old at the beginning of the next. When requested, she foretells the future for Constantius and his friends, and later she takes the place of the sybil at a shrine. She makes no effort, however, to see what lies ahead for her “Child of Prophecy.” She says, “‘All the gods are one God, and all the goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator’ . . . Somehow I must get its meaning across to Constantine,” but she refuses to reveal the mysteries to him. It should be no surprise that Constantine fails to follow an example never set for him, yet Helena finds him and his choices strange and disturbing.

In the acknowledgments, Paxson sets Helena up as a mythological figure associated with Christianity and relics such as the True Cross. In the novel, the Helena’s life and opportunities are remarkable, but Helena herself is surprisingly ordinary. Helena tries to reconcile paganism and Christianity, but each new epiphany contradicts those that came before. While the spiritual ideas underlying Priestess of Avalon are intriguing, they are wasted in a rambling, undisciplined story that needs a firmer hand to keep it tight, free of unnecessary detail, and consistent.

Set in the expanse of the declining Roman Empire, Priestess of Avalon is interesting and compelling at times, but ultimately it’s unsatisfying. More Paxson’s work than Bradley’s, the novel never connects the parts of its premise, including Helena’s belief in Constantine and her emotional distance from him. It also fails to bridge the gap between the fall of paganism and the rise of Christianity.

Avalon is missing here, and so are the mysteries, the magic, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

23 July 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Lady of Avalon

words and images Posted on by

Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. New York: The Penguin Group, 1998. 380 pages.

Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley picks up where The Forest House ended. Avalon has been established under the leadership of high priestess Caillean in the shadow of the holy Tor and close to the Christian brotherhood at Inis Witrin. The first book follows Eilan’s son Gawen and his contribution to Avalon, the second establishes Avalon’s active role in the politics and future of Britannia, and the third focuses on characters familiar to Arthurians — Vortigern, Vortimer, Viviane, and Taliesin and the Merlin of Britain.

Although the mythology and history are rich, the material is squandered in these nearly plotless, barely connected stories. While Avalon tries to preserve the degenerated wisdom that remained when Atlantis sank into the ocean, the world is being torn apart by the oppression and instability of empire and waves of barbarian invasions. Caillean, Gawen, and the daughter of the fairy queen, Sianna, save Avalon, then their successors extend its influence outward to manipulate kings, princes, and military leaders. In spite of the sacrifices and losses, Britannia seems no better off; Rome clings to it, and the barbarians keep coming. There are important victories, but they seem contrived when the goddess is called on to frighten off the Saxons, and they do little more than provide a break in the onslaught. The plots are so minimal and the useless details so many that it’s not clear to what extent Britannia’s rebelliousness and vulnerability contributed to Rome’s decline and fall.

The goddess religion of Avalon is murky at best. Unlike in The Mists of Avalon and The Forest House, the magic here is unquestionably real; the visions are not drug-induced hallucinations, and priestesses invoke the goddess to deter the enemy. The “ancient wisdom” seems to be centered on the power of the earth (focused along leys), the seasons, and reincarnated souls like Gawen, Sianna, Dierna, and Carausius. Practice of the religion is as ordered and artificial as the rule of Rome, with strict rules and elaborate rituals that owe more to the human predilection for control than to the concept of nature and the earth. Even the most natural of emotions and acts, love and non-ritual sex, are forbidden. Young men and women are drawn to Avalon, but their passion is poorly articulated, especially when they cannot know the mysteries revealed during training and initiation. There is nothing special about the character or intelligence of the many of the Druids and priestesses called to Avalon; why are they singled out to preserve the ancient wisdom and mysteries?

While the plots and the secondary characters are weak, the real problem is that so many of the primary characters are selfish and unlikable. Gawen, the “Pendragon” and “Son of a Hundred Kings,” from beginning to end is unremarkable, displaying predictable rebelliousness and nobility at the expected moments. He is so susceptible to suggestion that “the priest’s words had tainted the Druid ways as well.” Dramatically and childishly, he exclaims, “You both want to possess me, but my soul is my own! . . . I am leaving to seek my kin of Rome!” His soul mate, Sianna, has no more personality than Waterwalker, whose role is to pole the Avalon barge. High priestess Dierna does not seek the obvious path, proving the fairy queen’s point: “But I do not know what the purpose is, exactly, and if I did, I would not be allowed to speak of it; for it is often in working for or in avoiding a prophecy that people do the very things they should not.” We are told that Teleri, who is weak, pliant, and passive, is destined to become high priestess of Avalon; why would the goddess, the Druids, and the priestesses choose someone so unsuitable for such a position? At her worst, high priestess Ana is egotistical and petty, especially with regard to her daughter, Viviane. Is it Ana or the goddess who says, “I would gain nothing. I already have everything.”?

For reasons that are never explained, the enigmatic fairy queen insists that her daughter become a priestess of Avalon, and it is her line whose members impose their will on events rather than that of the goddess, proving their human side stronger than their role as conductor of magic. Of all the major characters, only Caillean, Taliesin, and perhaps Carausius are likable, revealing both human weaknesses and a greater wisdom. Although it is strongly hinted that Carausius is a reincarnation of Gawen’s soul, they are different enough that it raises the question of what these souls are and why only certain ones return again and again, while others are “once born.” The whims of the god and goddess, as channeled through these souls and through the Druids and priestesses, appear to be as illogical as those of any human.

Without a solid plot driven by strong, sympathetic characters, Lady of Avalon lacks the touches of historical and magical drama that made The Forest House at least interesting. Although the novel reveals some of the reasons for the decline of Avalon and the goddess religion, Lady of Avalon adds little essential to The Mists of Avalon.

29 June 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France

words and images Posted on by

Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France by Peter Mayle. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000. 240 pages.

For an unexplained reason, Peter Mayle and his unnamed wife (presumably the “Jennie” of the dedication) left paradise in Provence for Long Island. In Encore Provence, he returns to the south of France, where the food, wine, and slow pace of life again absorb his attention.

Even less structured than Toujours Provence, Encore Provence covers familiar territory from new angles. “The Unsolved Murder of the Handsome Butcher” and “Recipe for a Village” address both the insularity and charms of village life (“Recipe” much less successfully), while “How to Be a Nose,” “Discovering Oil,” and “Friday Morning in Carpentras” provide insights into the perfume, olive oil, and truffle industries, respectively. In one of the best chapters, “Restaurant Critic Makes Astonishing Discovery,” Mayle effectively and humorously discredits Ruth Reichl’s flippant dismissal of Provence. How could a serious critic, after only a month’s visit, write, “I had been dreaming of a Provence that never existed”? To help the reader find ripe tomatoes — which Reichl could not manage to do — and other products of Provence, Mayle provides the names and places for markets, vineyards, restaurants, bakeries, and producers of goods like olive oil and honey. It becomes clear that Reichl could not find Provence because she actively avoided it; perhaps she thought that deflating the expectations that Mayle helped to create was a better story than simply reinforcing them.

Several chapters, like “Curious Reasons for Liking Provence” and “Eight Ways to Spend a Summer’s Afternoon,” reveal one of the problems with Encore Provence — the lack of significant new material. More filler than substance, they are more like random personal essays than integral parts of a cohesive work, as though Mayle could not think of a better way to frame his random observations. These chapters are forced, splintered, and almost unnecessary.

Surprisingly, there is less of a sense of place. In the previous Provence books, Mayle’s stone house, with its location abutting public forest, its isolation from traffic, its drawn-out renovations, its pool that attracts thirsty sangliers, and its quirky neighbors like Faustin and Massot, gives the reader a strong sense of a place with personality. The house is at the heart of A Year in Provence. In Encore Provence, it is not clear that Mayle and his wife return to the same house or what their neighbors are like. Even the dogs are mostly absent. Without structure and intimacy, Encore Provence is nothing more than a series of disconnected travelogue stories. Perhaps weary of intrusions into his privacy, or perhaps unclear about the reasons for the first book’s success, Mayle distances himself from his reader.

There may not be much left for Mayle to say about Provence. He writes that, due to building restrictions, not much has changed. Yet he notes that “the garage and the geese are gone, and the farmhouse has sprouted wings and annexes . . . the vines have been groomed” and “the refugees’ urge for rapid [gardening] results has spawned an industry: instant gardens, shipped in and set up with astonishing speed.” These are only a couple of small changes, to be sure, but in time there will be more, and Provence will alter slowly and subtly. Mayle should know that that is the nature of change in the countryside and that, with enough demand, pressure, and money, change can accelerate, transforming a village into a resort town or farmland into suburbia.

Even if you cannot visit Provence, much of the lifestyle that Mayle describes — with food and drink of varying type and quality — is still available in many places outside France. The slow pace, the fatalistic viewpoint, the elderly gossips and moralists, the close-knit relationships, the helpfulness, and the beauty and quirks of the countryside are found in many regions. If you are as observant and open as Mayle, you may be able to find your version of Provence closer to home.

25 May 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Best of Slate

words and images Posted on by

The Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology edited by David Plotz, introduction by Jacob Weisberg, foreword by Michael Kinsley. New York: Atlas Books, 2006. 304 pages.

First, I should note that I have no idea why I bought The Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology. I didn’t know what Slate was, although I recently discovered that I joined the site in January 2008. I suspect I acquired the book because I’m fond of anthologies — usually collections of good or sometimes great stories built around a theme, a one-stop shop. In short,without knowing what Slate is, I wanted to read the best of its first decade.

As I learned from Michael Kinsley’s foreword, Slate began at Microsoft as an online magazine (currently owned by the Washington Post). I had in my hands a print tribute to an online publication — a way to package and sell tangible copies of electronically published words. More simply put, The Best of Slate is an opportunity to cash in on the site’s popularity, to sell books, and to get book buyers to the site.

Long-time fans of Slate may appreciate seeing articles they remember in print and having a piece of a favorite Web site in their hands. As a relative newcomer, though, I am disappointed if the articles selected by editor David Plotz truly are the best work Slate has produced in 10 years.

The first article, “Airline English” by Cullen Murphy, enlightens the reader with the obvious; airline terms such as “craft,” “crew,” “captain,” “first officer,” “deck,” “cabin,” “bulkhead,” and “hold” are derived from long-established shipping industry lingo (oddly, “pilot” didn’t make the list). If there is anyone left who hasn’t realized this, I’d be amazed. “Watching Couples Go By,” in which we discover that men like women for physical comfort and conversation and to fill his need to be needed is another space filler, but was undoubtedly included in the collection to honor its author Herbert Stein, who passed away.

I found some common ground if not insight in Seth Stevenson’s “Extroverted Like Me”; at least I recognized the emotionally numbing effects of antidepressants and the disturbing manifestations of withdrawal. Another personal essay, “Daddy Gets His Brain Back” by Michael Lewis, humorously recounts the disorientation the author feels after a head injury (“I remember that if I don’t hand in my book in six weeks, I’m [expletive]”), but ends on a flat note. “The Breakfast Table” features biting repartee between husband Timothy Noah and wife Marjorie Williams about the trivial (the posterior of Jennifer Lopez) and serious (the circumvention of Clinton’s attorney-client privilege and the social taboos around discussing racism, which is also addressed in “Racist Like Me” by Debra Dickerson).

A handful of articles provide useful background, such as “The Pledge of Allegiance” by David Greenberg, and relevant (if not original) commentary (“Fifty/Fifty Forever” by Mickey Kaus). From “What Did Bush Know?” (Fred Kaplan), we learn how 93 pages of intelligence information, caveats, and footnotes were distilled into only one page for the president’s benefit, while “The Misunderestimated Man” (Jacob Weisberg) hints at the president’s personal flaws that made this shortcut necessary. In “Unfairenheit 9/11,” Christopher Hitchens rants about Michael Moore rather than his movie, disingenuously using the same dodgy tactics of which he accuses Moore.

As a whole, The Best of Slate is disappointing. For example, the introduction to 2001 notes that, “Slate produced some of its smartest, and most moving, work in the days and months after the Sept. 11 attacks.” Yet the only piece about the attacks, “An Unlikely Hero” by Rebecca Liss, appears (toward the end of the 2002 chapter), and it is neither smart nor particularly moving despite the subject. Liss turns what could have been a compelling account of a painstaking rescue into a flat, spare story short on details or interest and focused more on why the media missed out on hero Dave Karnes (Liss reasons that, because Karnes wasn’t a police officer or firefighter, those organizations didn’t “make room” for him). When the subjects are solid, the writing is too often pedestrian.

If articles like the self-serving “Full Disclosure” by Henry Blodgett or “Not Dead at All” by Harriet McBride Johnson, who believes that liquid replacement of most of a functioning brain indicates a mere “disability,” represent The Best of Slate, I’d be afraid to see its worst. It’s like much of what appears on the Internet — it’s adequate as a time waster during, say, lunch, but not worth keeping or remembering.

18 May 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Toujours Provence

words and images Posted on by

Toujours Provence by Peter Mayle. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. 260 pages.

Having survived French bureaucracy, endless home improvement, goat races, hunters, Massot’s dogs, summer visitors, and other hazards during A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle brings us more of the same in Toujours Provence.

This time Mayle takes a more illustrative approach. Beginning with a pharmaceuticals marketing brochure that depicts a snail whose “horns drooped” and whose “eye was lackluster,” Mayle educates us about health concerns and approaches in Provence — including house calls. Anecdotes relate Mayle’s love of picnicking Provence style (with chef, wait staff, and linens); his quest for singing toads, truffles, and napoléons (the coins); his pursuit of Pavarotti and pastis; and, of course, his passion for the region’s fresh foods and fine vintages.

With a few exceptions, such as the history of pastis and the more sobering story of summer drought and forest fires, much of Toujours Provence will seem familiar territory to readers of the first book. For the most part, Mayle is in fine form, writing that Bennett, “looking like the reconnaissance scout from a Long Range Desert Group . . . had crossed enemy lines on the main N100 road, successfully invaded Ménerbes, and was now ready for the final push into the mountains.” Some anecdotes, like “No Spitting in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” end brilliantly, while others, such as “Napoléons at the Bottom of the Garden,” fall a little flat.

Judith Clancy’s delightful artwork is back, but what is missing from Toujours Provence are the quirky characters we came to love or at least wonder about. Most are mentioned or make a brief appearance, but mainly they are relegated to the background. Even Mayle’s neighbor Massot (“. . . it would be difficult to imagine a more untrustworthy old rogue this side of the bars of Marseille prison”), to whom half a chapter is devoted, is here more caricature than character. We know no more about him, or Faustin and Henriette or Monsieur Menicucci, than we did at the end of the first book. By now, Mayle’s circle has expanded , but no one he meets, from the toad choir director to the flic, is nearly as interesting as his neighbors or his builders from the first book.

Like an adequate movie sequel, Toujours Provence carries on in the same vein as its predecessor, with a slightly different or reduced cast and a little less originality and wit. Perhaps more appropriately, I should say it’s like a wine slightly past its peak — still worth drinking, but somehow not quite as enjoyable.

28 April 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Cousin Phillis

words and images Posted on by

Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell. London: Hesperus Press, 2007. 144 pages.

Like Cranford and Wives and Daughters, Cousin Phillis is a variation on the themes that seemed to have preoccupied Elizabeth Gaskell: the changes wrought by mechanization and the different spheres in which men and women live and operate.

When the narrator, then 19, meets Phillis, her physical world is small, contained, and regular, predictably following the seasons as agricultural life does. Her intellectual life, however, is vast. She is comfortable with Latin and the principles of mechanics; she attempts to read Dante in Italian. As Jenny Uglow notes in the foreword, “. . . she does not crave ‘independence,’ but connection . . . She yearns to use her mind and give her heart.” She wants to be a woman.

By contrast, the men around her are reshaping the world with their thought, their inventions, their ambition, and their work. Even the narrator, who admittedly lacks his father’s inventive genius and Holdsworth’s drive, is doing more than Phillis ever could simply by serving as Holdsworth’s assistant.

With her flourishing intellectual curiosity and her growing sexual awareness, it’s natural for Phillis to discard the pinafore that represents the restrictions placed on the Victorian woman-child and to desire a man whose tastes, abilities, and drive seem to parallel her own. The result is not surprising. As a woman, her opportunities are limited, while those of the man stretch across two continents and grow greater with each rail laid. It’s clear who is destined to be disappointed.

As with the other novels, Gaskell captures a world within her own memory that in many ways had already ceased to exist. The narrator, older and married now, recalls in vivid detail an experience colored by the passage of time and by the changes that have transpired. The bogs, “all over with myrtle and soft moss,” could not fail to be altered irrevocably by the railway line, nor could the Hope Farm, with its cozy “house place” and “the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments.” Phillis’s father learns that she cannot be kept in a pinafore and all that it represents, and the narrator “feared that she would never be what she had been before.” No one is.

The narrator leaves us with enticing mysteries. What has prompted him to write about Phillis? What has happened? What does he want to accomplish by telling her story now? What is he trying to recapture? What happened to Phillis? What happened to the Hope Farm and its way of life that he so beautifully recalls and the tenor of which is so effectually altered by events?

Cousin Phillis is a tiny treasure — always evocative, never overwrought. We see Phillis and her natural evolution from child to woman with the narrator’s wisdom of maturity and the clarifying, yet softening filters of time. The narrator — and Gaskell — leave Phillis trapped in time, changed, newly aware of the broadness of her desires and of the obstacles she faces, and determined to “go back to the peace of the old days” — a hope that is nearly impossible to achieve. There is no going back, as Phillis must surely know.

27 April 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Other Boleyn Girl

words and images Posted on by

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc./Touchstone, 2003. 672 pages.

Today there are still jokes about how Anne Boleyn lost her head, but life as a wife of Henry VIII was no laughing matter. In The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory gives a fictional account of Henry’s most famous queen from the perspective of her sister, Mary. Gregory tries to capture a sisterly dynamic understandable to contemporary readers. Anne and Mary are opposites in appearance and temperament; loyal to one another out of obligation, not love; and, we are told, lifelong rivals. Oddly, that rivalry never quite materializes here other than in spiteful and venomous words and feelings. While Anne seethes with ambition and resentment, Mary is too passive a personality to be a match for Anne, nor does she try to be. As portrayed, the conflict between the sisters is more petty than powerful.

Gregory’s choice for Mary to serve as narrator, as though it were her memoir, detracts from the sense of history. A Tudor-era aristocrat like Mary does not seem likely to set her story down in such detail after the events have passed. It might have been more effective to frame the story as a researcher’s discovery of Mary’s journals and letters. When handled adroitly, this type of framing device can make the characters and story more immediate and less obviously fictional. Another alternative would have been the omniscient third person, which might have been more convincing. As it is, I could not suspend my disbelief in Mary’s voice, with its anachronistic nuances and sensibilities. She sounds more like a modern author than a 16th-century woman remembering the recent and difficult past.

Therein lies another problem — Mary never explains why she wrote all of this down, why she delves into such detail, or who she expects the reader to be. It might have made more sense if she had said she wanted her legacy to be the true story of her and her family’s role in Anne’s rise and fall, that she wanted her own name to be remembered, or that she was writing for her children and Anne’s daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. We never know her purpose, which is strange because we learn from her that the Boleyn family does nothing without a reason. Given how poorly Mary’s memories reflect on all the Boleyns and Howards, including herself, it become even more of a mystery why Gregory chose this format.

The Other Boleyn Girl draws readers in the same way that 1980s night-time dramas drew in viewers. Never particular about morals and influenced by time and events, Anne becomes as ruthless and desperate for power as any soap villainess, with her family’s encouragement and support. Mary, once favored by king and family, is tossed aside when she proves to lack the will and desire to usurp the queen’s place. She chooses her own path, never losing sight of her rivalry with Anne and never envious of Anne’s sacrifices and sufferings.

Historical inaccuracies aside, including details about Mary and her children, Gregory fails to capture the larger world in which the Boleyn drama was enacted. She refers to France and Spain and their rulers, and the pope, but the complexity of the world outside Henry VIII’s court and its politics is relegated to the background, brought forward in snippets only as needed. Henry himself is portrayed as hunting, gaming, and dancing from morning until night, with only an occasional concern for the kingdom’s business or for the intrigues of his enemies and allies. The world here seems narrow and confined because it is only the world Mary sees — Mary, the other Boleyn girl who pretends to remain naive and who tries to focus on her own life, only to be drawn again and again into Anne’s drama.

Gregory tries to use the story of the Boleyn girls to illustrate women’s issues during the 16th century. As Mary notes, women are only pawns in the marriage game, played to achieve position, power, and wealth. It’s clear, however, that men who lack power are pawns as well; George Boleyn and Henry Percy are forced into miserable marriages. The lesson here is less about the vulnerability of women to the whims of men than about how people of both gender were played for power.

Despite Gregory’s comments about the charges against the Boleyns, found in the book’s end matter, Mary witnesses (and, significantly, remembers in detail) enough clues to know whether Anne and George were guilty of the crimes for which they were beheaded. This is disappointing, because Gregory’s hints, if not her stance of ambiguity, ignore the logic and the politics behind the charges.

Even at the end, Gregory misses an opportunity. Mary does not hear Anne’s last words and does not include them in her work. This makes no sense, as they were recorded and can be read today. Gregory fails to weave in the available documented details that would have added real-life drama and interest to the story. Why would Mary not reflect on the final message of “the other Boleyn girl,” given her inside knowledge of Anne and her willingness to write about her and the other Boleyns?

With its compelling historical setting, The Other Boleyn Girl had the potential to be an engaging if inadequate and flawed historical fiction. Don’t rely on it, as I have heard some do, for your knowledge and understanding of Henry VIII, his court, or the Boleyns.

12 April 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf