TAMING THE VINEGAR GIRL

Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl, the Pulitzer-Prize-winner's take on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is an absolute delight, the best of Hogarth's series of modern takes on the Bard's plays, at least in my opinion. The other two, so far, are Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time and Howard Jacobson's Shylock Is My Name; my review of Winterson's novel is at http://morning-glory-garden.blogspot.com/2015/11/from-problem-play-to-challenging-novel.html. I haven't written a review of Shylock . . .  yet, but it's a close second to Vinegar Girl, which means it's very, very good.

Tyler's Kate is smart, stubborn, working at a job that doesn't seem to fulfill her potential, and indispensable to her scientist father - almost as indispensable as his research assistant, Pyotr, whose visa is about to run out. To Kate's dad, there's a simple and elegant solution: Kate should marry Pyotr and Pyotr should move in with the family, so Kate can continue to run the household and Pyotr's immigration status can be stabilized. Kate, quite understandably, is not thrilled by this proposition.

Throw into that mix Kate's younger sister Bunny, Bunny's probably-too-old-for-her Spanish tutor/boyfriend, who lives next door, and assorted relatives, co-workers, and friends, and the stage is set for a funny, touching, and ultimately satisfying re-imagining of one of Shakespeare's most entertaining plays. For those who are concerned that the play, like others of Shakespeare's, has been criticized as misogynistic, Tyler's updating neatly deals with that plot problem, in a way that makes me smile just to think of it. 

ANOTHER SUMMER BEFORE . . . .

We're in the midst of a long, hot summer (and in Tucson summers are longer and hotter than in many other places), and with all the things that are happening around the world (in addition to this being a particularly contentious summer-before-the-US-presidential election), a good read is the most refreshing restorative I can think of. I was so happy when a friend surprised me with the loan of Helen Simonson's second novel, The Summer Before the War, since it provided exactly what I needed this week.

A couple of years ago it seemed like remembrances of World War I were everywhere, marking the centennial of the beginning of "the war to end all wars." Of course it didn't achieve that goal. I was deeply moved by film and TV representations of that period: the film based on Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth; the series Crimson Fields, which sadly lasted only one season; and of course Downton Abbey.  But I watched more than I read, until my friend lent me this novel. The Summer Before the War begins like most summers, light and breezy, with the promise of romance and enough conflict in its English village setting to keep things interesting for those of us who don't read stereotypical romance novels.  It also has enormous resonance for our times, when, as in 1914, it seems like the world is falling apart around us.

Beatrice Nash has accepted a position as Latin mistress in the school in Rye, Sussex, though there's never been a female Latin teacher there before. She's recently lost her father, a scholar of some note, and the unpleasant relatives in charge of her inheritance seem determined to cheat her out of it. Though she's only in her early 20s, she has decided never to marry, but to support herself as a teacher but with dreams of becoming a published writer. But interested and interesting young men do appear.

Hugh Graves is a medical student nearly at the end of his surgical training when war is declared and he finds himself enlisting to serve in a field hospital under his mentor, whose daughter, Lucy, Hugh expects to marry. Hugh's cousin Daniel, a poet, does not plan to enlist but rather to start a literary journal with his closest friend. Hugh and Daniel's aunt and uncle, especially Aunt Agatha, play important roles in the lives of all these young people, whose lives wind up going in unexpected directions. Add to that the mayor's obnoxious wife, an influx of Belgian refugees, an expatriate American writer, and Gypsies, and the plot thickens with surprising twists and turns.

Simonson handles all these disparate elements with style and grace, with convincing and engaging characters and locations. The point of view shifts in different chapters from Beatrice to Hugh and back again, with intervals focused on Aunt Agatha and on Snout, the young Gypsy boy who is also Beatrice's best student. There's comedy, romance, and tragedy, all affecting characters the reader will care about. And while in some ways there's a sense of fatalism that may seem all too familiar in today's stressful and fearful times, there is also abundant reason for hope, and for love of all kinds.

This is a beautifully written book that I admire on many levels, but most of all because, in spite of all that can go wrong in the world (and that goes wrong for many of her characters), Simonson reminds us of what is best in us, even though we ourselves may be unaware of it.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING

I've read three novels since my last post, and I've been thinking about some of the qualities they have in common, particularly a sense of generosity on the part of their authors. Somewhere, a long time ago, I read that a good writer doesn't totally demonize even his/her villains; the reader should be able to find at least some spark of humanity in every character. That seems right to me, even if the only redeeming feature is that the serial killer takes good care of his horse or the meanest woman in town saved all the letters someone wrote her fifty years ago.
     Sure, there are villains in both the real and fictional worlds. I don't deny that, and I don't want to read stories without conflict - heaven forbid! These three novels contain plenty of conflict and trials. But their authors also give us the nuance and complexity and, yes, compassion that enriches a worthwhile reading experience.

Helen Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird (2014), a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity, turns the classic "Snow White" inside out, calling into question how we see ourselves and others in the racist society of mid-20th-century New England. In a reversal of the usual pattern, Boy Novak runs away from New York City and her brutally abusive father to a small town where she meets and marries Arturo Whitman, a talented artisan with a beautiful young daughter, Snow. Boy never imagined herself as an evil stepmother, but when she and Arturo have their own baby girl, Bird, the Whitman family secrets are revealed and events spin out of Boy's control. Ultimately, Boy learns some secrets about her own background, and this become more than a novel about race and passing, as other kinds of identities become blurred, and even the worst villains turn out to be more complicated than we thought.
      Oyeyemi's transformative take on the traditional fairy tale and the way she weaves that story of the tyranny of the mirror and standards of beauty into something even more relevant to today is wonderfully inventive. To quote the New York Times reviewer, it is "[g]loriously unsettling." Add to that Oyeymi's marvelous style, "jagged and capricious at moments, lush and rippled at others," and this becomes a reading experience that, for me at least, drew me in and wouldn't let go. I don't know if she's planned a sequel (I suspect not), but if she does write one, I'll be first in line!

Jason Gurley's Eleanor (2016) takes a tragic family narrative and makes it more than a poignant, deeply moving story by incorporating elements of speculative fiction that enhance rather than distract from the human elements that make it so moving. It's about loss and love and how, in families, people can both damage and save one another.
      Eleanor is intricately crafted and works on many levels: the naturalistic stories of Eleanor, her sister, her mother, and her grandmother, and other, more magical realities where Eleanor meets strange and mysterious characters who may be more than they appear. This is a tender and powerful, haunting and genre-defying novel, and Jason Gurley is a generous, open-hearted, and compassionate writer.

     The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George is easily the most romantic and sentimental of these three novels, and that may be why it has been such a bestseller. This is the second time I've read it, though (my book group will be discussing it next Friday), and I have decided there is a solid core to this novel that the Washington Post reviewer dismissed as a "confection." Yes, it's set in fantasy locations - Paris, the coast of France, Provence - that are described in gorgeous, delicious detail. Yes, the characters are generally nice, decent, and attractive in various ways, some fairly quirky. But that doesn't make it mindless fluff.
     This is a road story, a quest story, with a hero who needs to learn to live again, after twenty years of loneliness and grief. Jean Perdu is the fifty-year-old owner of the bookshop, or rather the book barge, the Literary Apothecary, moored on the Seine, where he not only sells books but, because of his ability to read people as well as literature, he prescribes books that will be helpful to his customers who are experiencing "minor to moderate emotional turmoil." Some of us can relate to that, I think. I have read novels years ago that I thought were wonderful, but not mentioning them to certain people for fear they might open personal wounds, but insisting that someone else read a certain book because I knew it was just what that person needed. (And having that person confirm later that I was right.) Perdu can prescribe for others, but he is unable or unwilling to heal himself, until a letter from the past confronts him with a truth that changes everything. So he unties his boat and sets off down the rivers and canals of France to find . . . what? He doesn't know.
     There is no Holy Grail for Jean Perdu, but there are large and small discoveries, about the world and himself, that will help him to reclaim his life and find happiness again. The assortment of new friends, new places, and new experiences is mostly delightful, due at least in part to Nina George's writing and her excellent translator, Simon Pare (it was first published in German), and sometimes very sad. But the greatest sadness is within Jean Perdu (perdu is, after all, French for lost), as he struggles to open himself to life once again, and each step he takes toward that goal, and toward helping his companions find what they are looking for, kept me turning the pages.
     It is a lovely book, light enough to read on the beach, on a plane (or on a boat), thoughtful enough to make some worthwhile observations about life and relationships, not only with others but with ourselves. For example:

Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing  disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do. 

Reading, however, is a very good habit. I hope your summer reading is going well.