Less - Andrew Sean Greer (2017)

Less won the 2018 Pulitzer prize over The House of Broken Angels and others. There are many Pulitzers to be won. The journalism awards have been well publicized, but there are so many different kinds (posthumous recognition for Flying Houses in 2019 for Criticism?). Actually House of Broken Angels is not listed as a finalist but The Idiot is (I had heard a bit about that) as is In the Distance (I had not heard about that). Maybe they call nominations finalists until there is a winner, and the two runners up become the actual finalists. I didn't read the other "finalists" anyways so no point in comparison, but yes, I found Less more compelling than HOBA. This is probably not the most award-worthy opening to a review but as one should know, we need to talk about the ways we find out about books and the reasons we pick them up. And we like fun facts (such as seeing previous subjects The Goldfinch and The Pale King and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Corrections and American Pastoral and Underworld  in prize history).

Less is a character study of Arthur Less, a novelist about to turn 50, who has accepted a series of invitations for various international literary events in order to distract himself from the marriage of his ex-boyfriend of 9 years, to which he was also invited. He travels from his home in San Francisco to New York, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan. He has to interview a more popular sci-fi writer, attend a prize ceremony, teach a 5 week class, touch up his work-in-progress at a retreat, and write an article on Japanese cuisine. Like HOBA, it's an easy plot to relay. Unlike HOBA, the identity of the narrator is an ongoing mystery, and eventually revealed. I will make no comment on the narrator except that I sort of guessed their identity and felt slightly disappointed. It is a conventional novel after all. It is not a Bad Ending, and I need not append spoilers beneath asterisks to discuss it. Ambivalence is sometimes difficult to justify, and here the ending is ultimately, quite bittersweet and comforting. So this goes into the "highly recommended but not Best Books" category.

You know what I never did with FH was come up with a set formula for a review. Like, pararaph 1 is how i came to read the subject, paragraph 2 is a plot overview, and here is paragraph 3, usually a set up for an excerpt. This is a highly-excerptable book. It's good most of the way through (the only reason it doesn't make Best Books is that it started to lose some of it's energy in the Morocco/India chapters--though the character that turns 50 right before Less is perhaps the greatest portrait) and it seems like the movie rights should have been scooped up swiftly. Movies about writers aren't always great, but I have to believe this could make for a very fun, highly-stylized film. Interesting topic: what are the best movies about writers? Wonder Boys, The Lost Weekend...I digress.

A word should be said about diversity. Maybe it doesn't. But it has been my experience that most people want to read books about people like them. Not anymore. One would believe that now, more than ever, people want to read about people different from themselves, to develop empathy and gain perspective on women, minorities, and other oppressed people (i.e. not cis straight white males). Because this is just a cis gay white male. Here, this is the perfect time for an excerpt:

"Less can think of nothing to say; this attack comes on an undefended flank.

'It is our duty to show something beautiful from our world.  The gay world.  But in your books, you make the characters suffers without reward.  If I didn't know better, I'd think you were Republican.  Kalipso was beautiful.  So full of sorrow.  But incredibly self-hating.  A man washes ashore on an island and has a gay affair for years.  But then he leaves to go find his wife!  You have to do better.  For us.  Inspire us, Arthur.  Aim higher.  I'm so sorry to talk this way, but it had to be said.'

At last Less manages to speak: 'A bad gay?'

Finley fingers a book on the bookcase.  'I'm not the only one who feels this way.  It's been a topic of discussion.'

'But...but...but it's Odysseus,' Less says.  'Returning to Penelope.  That's just how the story goes.'

'Don't forget where you come from, Arthur.'

'Camden, Delaware.'" (144)

This exchange occurs during a brief layover in Paris at a party. It comes from a concerned friend that wants to tell him what everyone says about him behind his back. It's ridiculous and it's meant to be humorous but it functions as a kind of r'aison d'etre for the novel. There is self-hate in Less, but it is not a first-person narrative. There is psychological realism, but it is transmitted through an outside lens. There are suggestions of the identity of the narrator, and if the reader has not figured it out for themselves, it is made obvious in the book's final pages. One could re-read the book to see if it holds up in the same way one could re-watch The Sixth Sense. Still it feels less like a twist that enhances one's appreciation for the story than a device that allows the protagonist to be deprecated without implications of self-loathing.  He's not just obsessed by his exes and his past--he's taking inventory of his life and trying to find a path forward. It still feels like his perspective.

It is not perfect, but it is rightfully lauded for the authenticity of its observations. It's entirely possible that Greer got on Google Earth/Maps and Wikipedia and made up a bunch of stuff, but the extent of the detail makes it seem unlikely. It is the "travelogue novel" par excellence. It is also "literary fiction" to an ironic extreme.  And there are many classic passages:

"A truth must be told.  Arthur Less is no champion in bed.

Anyone would guess, seeing Bastian staring up at Less's window each night, waiting to be buzzed in, that it is the sex that brings him.  But it is not precisely the sex.  The narrator must be trusted to report that Arthur Less is--technically--not a skilled lover.  He possesses, first of all, none of the physical attributes; he is average in every way.  A straightforwardly American man, smiling and blinking with pale lashes.  A handsome face, but otherwise ordinary.  He has also, since his early youth, suffered an anxiety that leaves him sometimes too eager in the sexual act, sometimes not eager enough.  Technically: bad in bed.  And yet--just as a flightless bird will evolve other tactics for survival, Arthur Less has developed other traits.  Like the bird, he is unaware of these.  

He kisses--how do I explain it?  Like someone in love.  Like he has nothing to lose.  Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person.  Only now, only you.  There are some men who have never been kissed like that.  There are some men who discover, after Arthur Less, that they never will be again.  

Even more mystical: his touch casts a curious spell.  There is no other word for it.  Perhaps it is the effect of his being 'someone without skin' that Less can sometimes touch another and send the spark of his own nervous system into theirs.  This was something Robert noticed right away; he said, 'You're a witch, Arthur Less.'  Others, less susceptible, have paid no attention, too intent on their own elaborate needs ('Higher; no, higher; no, HIGHER!').  But Freddy felt it as well.  A minor shock, a lack of air, a brief blackout, perhaps, and back again to see Less's innocent face above him, wreathed in sweat.  It is perhaps a radiation, an emanation of this innocence, this guilelessness, grown white-hot?  Bastian is not immune.  One night, after fumbling adolescently in the hall, they try to undress each other but, outwitted b foreign systems of buttons and closures, end up undressing themselves.  Arthur returns to the bed, where Bastian is waiting, naken and tan, and climbs aboard.  As less does this, he rests one hand on Bastian's chest.  Bastian gasps.  He writhes; his breathing quickens; and after a moment he whispers: 'Was tust du mir an?' (What are you doing to me?) Less has no idea what he is doing." (113-114)

The novel is well-paced and the prose flows elegantly, though at times it feel as if the word "Less" comprises an unusually high-percentage of its total number of words.  The scene near the end that takes place on a video call is a strikingly beautiful, as is the final scene.  There is more to admire in it than many others.  You could do far worse than this for a summer beach book.  I would recommend it especially for that occasion, or any international travel.

The House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea (2018)

The House of Broken Angels is another one of the last several books to be recommended via the New York Times Book Review podcast.  One week, they discussed the novel in the segment about what they were currently reading.  The next week, they had Urrea on as a guest.  The novel sounded intriguing enough so I decided to check it out.  Was it good?  Yes.  Will it make the Best Books list?  No.  Would I recommend it?  Yes.  I have to say yes.  I was about to say "sort of" or "maybe" but I remembered how I was going to compare it to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao favorably.  It is somewhere between that and One Hundred Years of Solitude.  It is not as stylish as either, but it is more reader-friendly than both.

After the book, Urrea adds an author's note which says that while this story is not 100% true, perhaps 95% is true.  There are no Angels, but it does appear to be based off the occasion of his mother's funeral and the last birthday of his dying brother.  It would seem like Little Angel is his stand-in, and Big Angel is his older brother.  

Big Angel and Little Angel are actually named Miguel and Gabriel, I think, but they also say that their father forgot that he had already used the name.  In any case, Big Angel is about 70 or so and dying of cancer.  He is certainly the main character along with Little Angel.  

There is also Perla (his wife), Minnie (his daughter), Cesar (his brother), Lalo (his son), and to an extent other family members La Gloriosa (sister-in-law, mother to Guillermo, who was killed alongside Braulio), Braulio (oldest son, who has a ghostly presence in the novel), Don Antonio (father, who appears as an actual ghost near the beginning of the novel), Marco (Cesar's son), Giovanni (Lalo's son), Ookie (neighbor, who appears to be developmentally disabled), Mama America (mother), Mary-Lu (sister-in-law) and other husbands and wives.  At times it feels like every character has to have "their section" and the novel lapses into a sort of mock-ironic limited third-person perspective.  While the reader is reminded of certain details at several different points, it is still difficult to summarize the overall thrust of the characters' arcs.  Suffice to say, it is about Big Angel gathering everybody together at his house for his birthday party.  Even though it feels a little contrived, there is a great climax at the end of the novel, and there are other shorter, wittier parts, such as the jokes Big Angel tells to his grand-kids.  

The strongest element of the novel are the phrases in italics, sprinkled seemingly randomly throughout, meant to itemize his gratitudes:

"rain" (85)

"marriage

family

walking 

working

books 

eating

cilantro" (64)

"Blade Runner

more time

more time

more" (231)

This is also probably the first book to reference Guardians of the Galaxy and the deaths of Bowie and Prince.  It is very "of the moment" and its legacy value is, therefore, diminished.  This is not always the case, at least in the example of the output of "the brat pack." Yet they wrote about what was young and hip in a way that Urrea only seems to caricature.  While this is a very good book, it is by no means perfect.  The writing is good and solid, even while the dialogue tends to feel padded, or like it doesn't tend to advance character or plot.  In this case the sin is forgivable.

There is a lot of sexual material in the book, yet most of it seems rather plain and hackneyed, and alternative lifestyles tend to be dispatched for shock value and knee-jerk disgust.  Then again this is a novel about a patriarch and a family that tends to start birthing children at a young age.  One vague plot hole that seems inadequately explored is daughter Minnie's status as a grandmother.  I could be totally wrong about this but I swear it was mentioned just once and never exactly spelled out.  I did find this:

"Minnie's oldest son was a sailor and told her that in Portland there was some kind of voodoo donut shop.  Like, you could bu a coffin full of donuts.  Crazy hippies.  The boys on his ship were all tweaked about bacon-wrapped maple bars.  She wished she could get some of those.  Her man would love them."  (106-107)

Other criticisms may be leveled at this novel, and while it is far from perfect, it is beautifully orchestrated, and crystallizes a narrative structure that feels unique.  Surely something similar to the "party novel" has been done, yet I cannot recall any at the moment.  In this case, a big family reunion, with the narrator flitting between characters like a butterfly.  Aside from that, it is often profound, concerned as it is with the Important subject matter that is death and dying:

 "Big Angel was turning seventy.  It seemed very old to him.  At the same time, it felt far too young.  He had not intended to leave the party so soon.  'I have tried to be good,' he told his invisible interviewer.
His mother had made it to the edge of one hundred.  He had thought he'd at least make it that far.  In his mind, he was still a kid, yearning for laughter and a good book, adventures and one more albondigas soup cooked by Perla.  He wished he had gone to college.  He wished he had seen Paris.  He wished he had taken the time for a Caribbean cruise, because he secretly wanted to snorkel, and once he got well, he would go do that.  He was still planning to go see Seattle.  See what kind of life his baby brother had.  He suddenly realized he hadn't even gone to the north side of San Diego, to La Jolla, where all the rich gringos went to get suntans and diamonds.  He wished he had walked on the beach.  Why did he not have sand dollars and shells?  A sand dollar suddenly seemed like a very fine thing to have.  And he had forgotten to go to Disneyland.  He sat back in shock: he had been too busy to even go to the zoo.  He could have smacked his own forehead.  He didn't care about lions, tigers.  He wanted to see a rhinoceros.  He resolved to ask Minnie to buy him a good rhino figure.  Then wondered where he should put it.  By the bed.  Damned right.  He was a rhino.  He'd charge at death and knock the hell out of it.  Lalo had tattoos--maybe he'd get one too.  When he got better." (61-62)

Meditations on death tend to remind one not to take life for granted.  Certainly, it is often a miserable ride.  Yet there are also good parts and things to be thankful to have experienced.  It seems like most of the bad stuff happened to Big Angel in the early part of his life, and once he became a father, and lived with Perla as husband and wife, it was overwhelmingly a very happy one.  It could have been a better novel, I think, but he seemed to have lived his life well, if his goal was to heavily populate his birthday death party with family.  Not all of us would like to have the same life as Big Angel, yet few of us could hope to have so much to look back and smile upon.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)

This is the first book I have read by Junot Diaz.  Recently, it held the #1 spot on the list referenced in the post on The Corrections.  I'm going to nip this one in the bud: that list is a bunch of BS.  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a decent read, and I recommend it, but it is not the greatest novel of the still-young 21st century.  To hold that title, the novel must be perfect, or as close to perfect as practicable.  Assessing perfection isn't an easy task either.

What are the perfect novels I have read?  The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Great Gatsby and Lolita come to mind, but even such esteemed classics as these have their detractors--they're "overrated" or "the work of a sick man."  Truthfully, if Diaz had not been at the top of that list, I would give it a better review.  For me at least, something kicks in when a new book becomes critically-acclaimed: I want to find a defect to prove that it's not as good as everyone says it is.  I don't feel this way about films, TV shows, theater, music or any other type of art.  Just books.  I've been waiting to "hate-read" The Goldfinch for almost two years now.  Why?  Because books take concentration and sometimes people skim them.  I feel that I always put enough "effort" into a book to write an accurate review--not always the case for those other mediums (though I have toyed with writing reviews of Interstellar and Ant-Man over the past couple of weeks and months, it can be hard to say something original about them).

The first problem with this book (for me) is the Spanish.  There is a lot of Spanish in this book and it is almost never translated.  True, if one does not know the language, one can still easily read the book and get something out of it, but I have to believe that with the quantity of Spanish (or "Spanglish," if you call it that), knowledge will enhance your experience.  One comment on race: Spanish is already on its way to becoming a second national language, so perhaps the popularity of this book is merely a reflection of that cultural shift in progress.  Obviously, this book will be enjoyed most by children of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and to a lesser extent, Hispanic-Americans generally.  "Nerds" are another target demographic, and though I think Comic Con attendees will also enjoy it, the ethnic connection is ultimately more powerful.  People that know what Hispanic families are like (and don't need to keep a Spanish-to-English dictionary at hand) will enjoy it the most.

The plot?  Fuku.  Fuku is a curse that has bedeviled Oscar's family for the past hundred years or more.  Oscar himself is not named Wao, but Cabral de Leon (he is called Oscar Wao by his friends in reference to a Doctor Who character, I think).  This account of "Oscar's life" is much more an account of his family's history.  Anybody going into this blind deserves to know that.  (As usual, I will avoid spoilers--though it is quite easy to go almost all the way to the end of this book without spoiling anything.)

Because of this aspect, the book bears an unsettling resemblance to One Hundred Years of Solitude (the rare review without an excerpt!).  Checking that review, I would say the historical parts are easier to follow in this one, but equally maddening.  Obviously, this story is about Oscar.  But really it amounts to about three or four decent-sized chapters or short stories about Oscar and the different periods in his life (teen-hood, college-dom, young adult-hood).  The book has 335 pages and it seems like less than half of them are about Oscar.

Oscar, the character, and the tales of his existence, are all very well done.  Though in the same way the book's structure and modus operandi seem plucked from Marquez, Oscar seems like Ignatius J. Reilly of A Confederacy of Dunces updated for the 1980's.  This is a book that wears its influences on its sleeve--in other ways more obvious than this.  I particularly enjoy the Watchmen references.

Along the way, the story is narrated by Oscar's former college roommate, and ex-boyfriend of his sister Lola.  Lola herself is one of the major characters, and a significant portion of the text is devoted to her, as well as their mother Beli.

Basically, the story starts with Oscar in the early 1980's.  On display right away is the Spanglish and the brash narrative tone--which is a bit unnerving.  A second comment on race, if I may--urban patois is used here not in the typical stereotypical way, but it seems a bit disingenuous.  I'm glad that it is not reserved for the token ghetto character that ambitious society-spanning comedie-humaines must include, but it seems like it's trying too hard to be cool or appeal to a younger generation of readers.  I prefer to excerpt passages that highlight certain great things about a book, but in this instance it's just going to sound really racist if I don't back it up.  On a related note the n-word is used way too breezily.  Okay, maybe this is realistic, but it feels...off....:

"...What's wrong with you? his mother asked.  She was getting ready to go to her second job, the eczema on her hands looking like a messy meal that had set.  When Oscar whimpered, Girls, Moms de Leon nearly exploded.  Tu ta llorando por una muchacha?  She hauled Oscar to his feet by his ear.
Mami, stop it, his sister cried, stop it!
She threw him to the floor.  Dale un galletazo, she panted, then see if the little puta respects you.
If he'd been a different nigger he might have considered the galletazo.  It wasn't just that he didn't have no kind of father to show him the masculine ropes, he simply lacked all aggressive and martial tendencies.  (Unlike his sister, who fought boys and packs or morena girls who hated her thin nose and straightish hair.) Oscar had like a zero combat rating; even Olga and her toothpick arms could have stomped him silly.  Aggression and intimidation was out of the question.  So he thought it over.  Didn't take him long to decide.  After all, Maritza was beautiful and Olga was not; Olga sometimes smelled like pee and Maritza did not.  Maritza was allowed over their house and Olga was not.  (A puertorican over here? his mother scoffed.  Jamas!) His logic as close to the yes/no math of insects as a nigger could get.  He broke up with Olga the following day on the playground, Maritza at his side, and how Olga had cried!  Shaking like a rag in her hand-me-downs and in the shoes that were four sizes too big!  Snots pouring out her nose and everything!" (14-15)

In a way, I can see how people find this tone to be charming, and sometimes it is very funny and more entertaining than not.  It keeps the action moving along.  It is "energetic."  But I need to look up what galletazo means to get it--sort of.  Like, I get it eventually, but this story is really made for a person that has a more innate understanding of the DR experience.  And I get that Dominicans are dark-skinned and the n-word is not confined to the African-American experience, but it feels unnecessary to me--this is probably a cultural thing though.

There are footnotes, and these usually provide background on the political history of the Dominican Republic.  In my humble opinion, these are some of the best parts of the book.  I'm not sure if they are made-up or actually true--most likely a "magical realism" blend--but they're great stories, told well (even with the sometimes unsettling narrative tone).  I had never heard of Trujillo previous to reading this, so in that sense, the book expanded my worldview.  Moreover, perhaps because I feel this way about the historical elements, my favorite chapter was the 5th, which concerns Oscar's heretofor-mysterious grandfather, Abelard.  For me, this was one of the finest moments of the novel.  On a personal note, I may have felt this way because I experienced a reversal in my employment situation around the time I read it, and certain details felt prescient:

"What followed is still, to this day, hotly disputed.  There are those who swear on their mothers that when Abelard finally opened the trunk he poked his head inside and said, Nope, no bodies here.  This is what Abelard himself claimed to have said.  A poor joke, certainly, but not 'slander' or 'gross calumny.'  In Abelard's version of the events, his friends laughed, the bureau was secured, and off he drove to his Santiago apartment, where Lydia was waiting for him (forty-two and still lovely and still worried shitless about his daughter).  The court officers and their hidden 'witnesses,' however, argued that something quite different happened, that when Dr. Abelard Luis Cabral opened the trunk of the Packard, he said, Nope, no bodies here, Trujillo must have cleaned them out for me.
End quote." (234-235)

There are also chapters featuring Lola and Beli, and one that is apparently written by Lola.  As one wades through the text, it can be jarring, and even though it comes together eventually, I'm not sure of the purpose (at least of the chapter that Lola narrates).

The ending of the book is both triumphant and maddening.  The reader will likely be stirred and uplifted by Oscar's redemption, but personally I don't understand why he needs to take his trip.  There is the nice motif of the sugar cane fields, but Oscar's actions also appear senseless to me.

Far be it from me to criticize a book that is not a series of sexual escapades, but rather a series of unrequited love-scapades, and featuring a main character named Oscar in 2007, but I do not buy the ending.  Oscar has transformed into a different person by the end of the novel, and one that appears readily capable of overcoming his "pathetic" nature.  So I do not buy that he needs to take the trip.  And I do not buy that he would act so recklessly in the face of such visceral threats.  Regardless, the setting is the occasion for my favorite line in the book, even though I've never been an RPG gamer or D&D wizard:

"What the fuck, Oscar, I said on the phone.  I leave you alone for a couple days and you almost get yourself slabbed?
His voice sounded muffled.  I kissed a girl, Yunior.  I finally kissed a girl.
But, O, you almost got yourself killed.
It wasn't completely egregious, he said.  I still had a few hit points left." (305)

In sum, this is an original book whose influences are worn on its sleeve.  It does feel "energetically" written and I can see why people like it.  It's not the best book of the 21st century though.  It's not aiming for that.  I liked it, even a lot at times, but I think it will be best appreciated by those with a better working knowledge of Spanish.  And big fat dorks that live in the ghetto.