Bonsai - Alejandro Zambra (2006) (Transl. Megan McDowell)

It's been a while, but we finally have a new guest contributor. David Caves is an attorney and avid reader of foreign and independently published books. He's responsible in part for the recommendation of A Little Life, and getting me deeper into Goodreads. His tastes are not mainstream, and he often reads books that I have never heard of before. As such, he is a perfect contributor for Flying Houses. I deeply appreciate his participation and look forward to future collaborations.

Bonsai came to me, as most books do these days, in the mail, this one courtesy of my subscription to Fitzcarraldo Editions. Bonsai (Bonsái in the original Spanish) is Alejandro Zambra’s first novel, but I previously read his more recent Chilean Poet (Poeta chileno) a few months back when it came out over the summer in a splashy edition from Viking. Chilean Poet had almost turned me off Zambra entirely – more on that below – but Zambra has an enviable reputation as a literary stylist, particularly for his earlier work. Bonsai is also, attractively, 74 pages – the perfect length for a novel, in my book – and so I was willing to give it a go. 

Zambra’s reputation, of course, is more than as an enviable literary stylist. He’s one of those writers people love to hate. Everyone seems to have their own critique of Zambra but, I suspect, Zambra’s reputation is largely a function of the way he has managed to straddle the line between literary and commercial fiction, praised by critics while simultaneously enjoying international commercial success. 

 

My trepidation with Zambra is probably due to the fact that Chilean Poet was the first book of his that I’d read. By the time Poeta chileno was published in 2020, Zambra already had four novels under his belt, two of his works had seen film adaptations, and he clearly enjoys a sterling reputation among critics. Poeta chileno was rapidly translated into English by Megan McDowell and published in the U.S. by Viking Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and displayed on the front table of bookstores nationwide. That’s as close to a red carpet rollout as translated fiction is ever going to see in North America. 

 

Alas, there was nothing innovative or interesting about the 350+ page Chilean Poet. It’s overlong and bulky, and clearly Zambra’s effort to go mainstream. The joke is that Zambra wrote it because he had a mortgage to pay. It reminded me a bit of Sally Rooney’s work – a novel very much of the here and now, focused on hetero relationships stripped of idealism and romanticism, and popular with the type of young adults who read novels on public transit. It was also self-satisfied and willing to break the fourth wall, albeit in a way that turned me off rather than pulled me in. 

 

Bonsai, though, is where Zambra’s reputation began. Bonsái was published in 2006 and only came to English in 2008 through the then-unknown Carolina De Robertis and indie press Melville House Publishing. The opening paragraph (below in the new McDowell translation) tells us everything we need to know about the story and is quintessential Zambra: 

 

In the end she dies and he is alone, although really he had been alone for some years before her death, before Emilia’s death. Let’s say her name is or was Emilia and that his name is, was, and will be Julio. Julio and Emilia. In the end Emilia dies and Julio does not. The rest is literature[.] 

 

I say this is quintessential Zambra because it has so many of his hallmarks. It is about a hetero relationship. It is willing to upend convention in the opening sentence, informing us Emilia dies in the end. It is also smug and self-aggrandizing, telling us that what follows – his first novel! – is literature. 

 

If what follows is literature, then it’s a rather bourgeois type of literature and not at all the kind I like to read. Emilia and Julio are, at the start, young lovers who are very much in love with each other, themselves, and books. Marcel Proust is name-dropped in the first chapter, and before we reach the end of the second chapter, we’ve also been treated to Rubén Darío, Marcel Schwob, Yukio Mishima, Georges Perec, Juan Carlos Onetti, Raymond Carver, Ted Hughes, Tomas Tranströmer, Armando Uribe, Kurt Folch, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emil Cioran, Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Silvina Ocampo, and Macedonio Fernández. I stopped keeping track after page 27. 

 

There’s more to Bonsai than a litany of writers, of course. We also learn the ins and outs of the sex lives of our teenage protagonists, a subject I found more than a bit banal. I’d like to think it picks up from there, and in a way it does. On page 65 we get a drawing of a bonsai tree. 

 

De Robertis was an interesting choice to bring Bonsai into English in 2008. These days she is a celebrated author in her own right, but in 2008 she had yet to publish her first novel. I see from her wikipedia page that she has translated a handful of works since Bonsai, but I suspect it may have been the first long-form work of fiction that she translated. 

 

The rest of Zambra’s novels – The Private Life of Trees, Ways of Going Home, Multiple Choice, and Chilean Poet – have been translated by Megan McDowell. McDowell, in contrast to De Robertis, is a highly sought after career translator, an American who lives in Chile. McDowell has not only translated the bulk of Zambra’s output, she has also translated most of Samanta Schweblin’s work and plenty of other contemporary South American writers. 

 

The version of Bonsai I have from Fitzcarraldo is a new translation courtesy of McDowell. It’s a bit odd to see two competing English translations to a work of contemporary fiction, as the De Robertis remains very much in print. I suppose McDowell wants to be a Zambra completist, which isn’t what I’d choose to do with my life, but hardly the worst thing I suppose. 

 

Snarkiness aside, the McDowell translation is a winner. Critic Paul Fulcher has compared the translations of one of the more challenging paragraphs, which yields startlingly different results. 

 

The original passage: 

 

Poco antes de enredarse con Julio, Emilia había decidido que en adelante follaría, como los españoles, ya no haría el amor con nadie, ya no tiraría o se metería con alguien, ni mucho menos culearía o culiaría. Este es un problema chileno, dijo Emilia, entonces, a Julio, con una soltura que solo le nada en la oscuridad, y en voz muy baja, desde luego: Este es un problema de los chilenos jóvenes, somos demasiado jóvenes para hacer el amor, y en Chile si no haces el amor solo puedes culear o culiar, pero a mí no me gustaría culiar o culear contigo, preferiría que folláramos, como en España. 

 

DeRobertis: 

 

Shortly before getting involved with Julio, Emilia had decided that from now on she would follar, as the Spanish do, she would no longer make love with anyone, she would not screw or bone anybody, and much less would she fuck. This is a Chilean problem, Emilia said, then, to Julio, with an ease that only came to her in the darkness, and in a very low voice, of course: This is a problem for Chilean youth, we're too young to make love, and in Chile if you don't make love you can only fuck, but it would be disagreeable to fuck you, I'd prefer it if we shagged, si follaramos, as they do in Spain. 

 

McDowell: 

 

Not long before she got mixed up with Julio, Emilia had decided that from then on she was going to fuck — what the Spanish call 'foliar' — and she would no longer make love with anyone or hook up with anyone, much less would she screw, or 'culiar', as a Chilean would say. This is a Chilean problem, Emilia said to Julio, with a boldness she only displayed in the dark — though in a very low voice, of course: This is the problem with young Chileans. We're too young to make love, and in Chile, if you don't make love you can only culiar, but I don't want to screw you, I'd rather follar, I'd rather fuck you like they do in Spain. 

 

To my ear, I like the McDowell translation because it captures the cadence and tone of the original. It also makes the most sense of the competing words for “fuck.” It’s interesting that both translators choose to leave one or two words untranslated, perhaps a nod to multilingual readers who can be trusted to form their own conclusions about the passage. 

 

All this is interesting enough and these nuances held my attention for 74 pages. I can’t say that I’m a Zambra fan now. In fact, the experience of reading Bonsai irretrievably cemented my dislike of his output. Part of me hopes that his effort to go mainstream with Chilean Poet is a flop and he returns to the style of his earlier, more innovative work. But in a world where I have many other books I want to read, I probably won’t read any more Zambra so it really doesn’t matter to me what he does next. 

Chicago Cubs 2022 Year in Review

There is very little for me to say about the Cubs this year. This is because I basically stopped paying attention sometime in July, and really June. I only went to one game this year - June 4th versus the Cardinals - and by that point I had already been thinking that the season was over, unless they swept the series and showed signs of turning it around. They didn't, so really you could say I just paid attention in April and May. 

Because of this I'm not sure it's prudent to give out a report card. But I can say, for the franchise, overall, this year gets a C-

C- because they brought on Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki. And because there were apparently bright spots after I stopped paying attention. 

Mainly this seems to have come in the pitching. While he had something of a rocky start, Stroman ultimately performed as expected, leading the team in innings pitched, and turning in a solid season. Keegan Thompson and Justin Steele emerged as two reliable pitchers that are entering their prime. 

I don't really know what happened with Kyle Hendricks. It seems he must have gotten injured. It was unfortunately his worst season with the Cubs, I think most can agree. We all have to hope that the old Kyle will return in 2023. 

If he does, they've got a solid rotation. So that's a big piece of the puzzle. They had a great closer in David Robertson, and he did what he could and showcased his wares before being traded to a better team that is actually willing to spend money (the Phillies). Actually, tonight he will be playing against the Cardinals in the wild-card game. [Ed: And as of the date of this post, they could advance to the NLCS today with a win over the Braves---by the way, has the NLDS always been a best of 5? Because I thought it was best of 7...]

The main story with the players was Willson Contreras, who along with Kyle Hendricks represented the last of the 2016 squad (and Jason Heyward, too). Maybe Hendricks was injured, I'm not sure. Heyward was released, and it seems as though he will not play for the Cubs in the last year of his contract and so does that mean he gets paid for not playing? He did what he could and he will be remembered for his contributions. I don't think it played out the way most people were hoping it would. Contrast that signing with Jon Lester's, and you have one of the best transactions and one of the worst transactions right around the same time. But Willson came up through the Cubs farm system and proved himself to be one of the team's greatest stars. I can't speculate about what is going to happen with him. I would not be surprised if he is playing for another team next year. I hope the Cubs decide to keep him for the remainder of his career but I don't really see it happening. 

Nico Hoerner pretty much showed up this year and lived up to the pseudo-hype. Ian Happ played reasonably well. Frank Schwindel did not, unfortunately, and I think he was released. 

Christopher Morel was amazing, I remember paying attention to him, and I think he ended up playing O.K. except his batting average dropped. Suzuki was extremely exciting at the beginning of the season too, but he was injured for a bit, and ended with merely decent stats.

The general consensus seems to be that the Cubs hit some kind of stride, almost like a mini-Atlanta Braves of 2021. After the All-Star break, they went through a certain period where they played better than any other team in the MLB. For like two or three weeks, I think. So that was something. 

***

Jed Hoyer delivered a press conference on Monday, 10/9/22. He confirmed that they would make a qualifying offer to Willson Contreras. The general feeling is that it will be a lowball offer and will be rejected. I can't profess to know enough about the team to guess what they will do at the catcher position, but Yan Gomes was a reliable back-up option this year. I do know Miguel Amaya has been hyped, for years, and also beset by injuries. In short, if we lose Willson, it will be difficult to replace him. Frankly, he is irreplaceable. 

Since we mentioned Gomes, and he is in this picture, it is appropriate. But we really need to talk about Kyle.

Now anyone that has read these updates going back to 2015 or 2014 knows that Kyle Hendricks has always been one of my favorite players on the team. He has been solid. For years. In 2016, do you remember, Arrieta, Lester and Hendricks? Hendricks finished ahead of Lester for the Cy Young, and led the MLB in ERA. No one really knew about him back then, and still, after everything, he never has made the All-Star team. This is just Kyle's way. He starts slow. In April and May, he starts slow, he is imperfect. But he rights the ship, and he finishes the year putting up numbers consistent with his role as the Ace on the team.

Of course, when we had Yu Darvish, he took something of a backseat, but I believe he was still #1 in the rotation. Now that we have Marcus Stroman, he is in a similar position, and unfortunately, after his performance not only this year, but also last year, I would be surprised if he is the Opening Day starter and not Stroman. 

Kyle signed an extension a few years ago that kept him locked up until 2023, so he will be with the team next year (though at the present moment, he has not thrown a baseball for a while, as he has been injured). Nobody considered this a bad idea, and I still don't. Kyle is still pretty young, and in his prime years. Pitchers can still be amazing as they age. Adam Wainwright was still very effective this year, and nobody can claim that Justin Verlander has lost a step. (Relatedly, nobody considered the failure to get Verlander when they had the opportunity a good idea.) 

The Cubs literally could have done almost anything in 2017 and 2018 and 2019 to be big-time competitors. Yu Darvish was a big move, but beyond that, they didn't want to mess with their core, not until 2021. 2020 was a very strange season, but we did finish in 1st place. They were still good in 2021 up until the end of May. 

This year? We sucked, so bad, until they had already given up on the season, and it became a "futures showcase," and then they played surprisingly well, for a time. Ironically, they beat the Phillies every single time this season, and now the Phillies are a Cinderella story (and make no mistake that I am rooting for them, with Schwarber and Castellanos together in their outfield as they should still be on the Cubs).

Nico Hoerner emerged. He has been emerging for years. He has gone back and forth as being a bust and as living up to his potential. It seems clear, after 2022, that he has lived up to his potential and "figured it out," for lack of a better phrase. He led the team in batting average. He actually hit for a higher average in 2021 (over .300), but he played in 3 times as many games this year, and finished at .281. 

Now, this shows a problem with the team: your best hitter should be hitting better than .281. Regardless, Nico is that guy. Disciplined at the plate, an above-average fielder, and versatile as either a shortstop or second baseman, Nico is likely to play a significant role on the 2023 team, as a borderline everyday starting player (135 games this year, and he also got 135 hits).

This is complicated by the recent revelation of Carlos Correa leaving the Twins and opting out of his contract there. Correa has explicitly spoken about his desire to play with the Cubs. Correa is frequently cited as the biggest star free agent available. If the Cubs go after Correa, they will send the signal that they are very serious. 

If the Cubs signed Correa this off-season, it would be like signing Jon Lester in 2015. We do not expect to necessarily get anywhere in 2023, but we could very easily make a surprise run to the NLCS, if the pieces fell into place in the way they did in 2015 (unlikely, however, that you will have someone like Arrieta step up and go on one of the most torrid stretches for any pitcher in baseball history--that was 2015, right?). 

However, if the Cubs are truly going to compete, they need more than just Correa. They need another pitcher, too.  

We did get this guy. Is Stroman comparable to Jon Lester? Way too early to say. You can't quite put them in the same category, as Lester is a borderline Hall of Famer, and beginning to be recognized as the greatest free agent signing in franchise history. But Stroman has been very good, and while he did not have a great supporting cast, his numbers at the end of the year are satisfactory, given the ostensibly weak run support. With Stroman and Hendricks, you have two of the great "ground ball pitchers" of today, and they are solid, solid rotation guys (presuming that Hendricks has not gone off a cliff for good---and knowing Kyle, that will not be the case). You do need to round out that rotation, and Justin Steele is likely going to be part of that rotation. For the last two slots, that remains to be seen. Drew Smyly was probably above-average for this team, and Keegan Thompson has shown flashes of greatness, though it remains to be seen if he is more valuable as a reliever or a starter. You could just go with Stroman/Hendricks/Steele/Smyly/Thompson or Adrian Sampson or Alzolay (again), but I think you need at least one star pitcher to add to that rotation. This post isn't going to lay out all the best options for the team, but is Verlander available? Because I would totally go for him again if he is, even in the twilight of his 30's. Given that he may win the Cy Young this year, I seriously doubt he will be going anywhere. 

In terms of relievers, however, I will always support Jeremy Jeffress, and highly suggest the Cubs take another chance on him. Just invite him to Spring Training! That is all I ask.

 

 

We really need another hitter, though. We did get this guy, and in the first couple weeks of the season, he was totally on fire and basically looked good in every single one of his plate appearances. No one could be expected to remain that consistent throughout the entire season, and injuries compromised Suzuki's overall performance. Regardless, I do not think anyone considers this a bad move. They did not get Shohei Ohtani (though they possibly could have, it is best not to cry over spilt milk) but they got Suzuki, and you have to figure that he will be an everyday starting player. He would have shared time with Jason Heyward, but Heyward will not be playing for the Cubs in 2023. No one considers that a good move, but we all still will always be appreciative of the contributions Jason made to the enterprise. Sometimes you have players that don't do much in terms of numbers, but play an indispensable role on the team. 

(Recall, for example, Jack Haley on the Chicago Bulls rosters with Dennis Rodman. Haley did not really play--he might have played a few minutes each season--but he was Dennis Rodman's friend, and Dennis Rodman played better knowing Jack Haley was on the bench. So sometimes players that make no statistical impact actually make a huge impact behind the scenes.)

So we have talked about the rotation, for which we need at least 1 high-quality starter, possibly 2. 

In the field, it plays out like this:

C- Willson/Yan Gomes (for now--and I do not think anyone would complain if it stays this way.)

1B - ? 

2B - ?
SS - Nico Hoerner

3B - Patrick Wisdom

RF - Seiya Suzuki

CF - Christopher Morel

LF - Ian Happ

You see I don't really know enough about the team. David Bote is able to play some of those positions. But I think you need another outfielder, too. You already know who I think would have been great (they are both on the Phillies). There must be a fair number of players out there that would be serviceable in these roles. But, let's say they get Correa. If they get him, I think they still need another star hitter. 

DH is now part of the NL. I keep forgetting that. Also, next year, every single team will play every single other team, which most people think is cool, so far as I have heard. 

I would take a flyer on Nelson Cruz. He did not do well on the Nationals this year, and his career may finally have reached its endpoint, but I would at the very least, give him a shot at Spring Training. He would be very low-cost, and could potentially stage a comeback and add more power coming off the bench. 

The best part of the year was when Christopher Morel made his debut. He reached safely in the first 14 games of his MLB career, which was a record for the franchise. The Cubs were always looking for a real leadoff hitter, since Dexter left us, and there were many interesting experiments (Rizzo still the greatest) but Morel-Contreras 1-2 in the lineup was brilliant. Javier Baez was gone but Christopher Morel arrived. They're not quite the same players but Morel's energy seemed just as infectious with his teammates. He is not, say, Juan Soto, but I think most people that watched the team last year would not object to his appearing in the opening day lineup. 

***

There's not much more I can say other than provide a list of targets the team should pursue (apart from Jeffress and Cruz, and hoping they will make a competitive offer to Contreras):

(1) Carlos Correa

(2) Justin Verlander (more realistic than De Grom) (I would trust for a 2 year contract, assuming Verlander is Brady-like, as they share a similar sleep regimen and have supermodel wives*.) 

(3) Anthony Rizzo (he belongs here, and everyone knows it; same goes for KB and Javy.)

(4) Trea Turner

(5) Gary Sanchez (as backup/option when Contreras is DH)

(6) Luis Severino

(7) Andrew Chafin + Craig Kimbrel

Get those guys, and you can go for the World Series in 2023. That is a fantasy, and the team is more likely to go for younger players in the hopes of going, realistically and sustainably, in 2024 until say, 2027. Whether it comes off remains to be seen. I'll certainly pay attention come April, and we can all hope that Summer 2023 will be more fun than Summer 2022. 

*I've been informed that Gisele and Tom Brady are getting divorced. I'm sorry for their struggles, and boldly predict that Tom Brady's best days are, now, actually, behind him. I do not think anyone properly weights the value of a strong and supportive spouse. 

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara (2015)

melodrama
NOUN
a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions. 

see also, A Little Life. 

I met someone who had recently finished her Ph.D. in English and I asked if she had read this. I told her I was going to write a positive review, but tear it apart, because there was so much in it that annoyed me. I told her it was a melodrama. She said she eventually found it funny, because she began to look at it as an experimental novel, in which the author was doing everything she possibly could to pile it on and write the most depressing book of all time. But she also liked it.

Oeuvre rule: I haven't read anything else by Yanagihara. This book references The People in the Trees prominently on its front cover, but she has a new novel out, To Paradise, published this year. She also edited anthologies of stories about roommates, bridesmaids, and first jobs.

"Why I read it rule": I first became aware of this book when my younger sister received it from Santa Claus on Christmas morning, either 2015 or 2016. We did not discuss it in any detail. Later, I saw a friend on Facebook reference it in a re-post of something off Tumblr, to make some other joke about depression (i.e. self-deprecating). Then finally, two friends recommended it during a discussion about soliciting reviews from other contributors for Flying Houses. I promised to read A Little Life if they promised to contribute a review. So now it is their turn. 

The plot? Well, this is going to be one of those reviews with an asterisked section for spoilers. And the part above the asterisks will be short. 

The novel concerns four friends and their evolving friendship over the course of five decades. These are Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and J.B. Except it's not really about the four of them. It's about the four of them for about the first 100 pages. (I'll set the spoiler cut-off point around page 400). 

There are not very many chapters or even sub-chapters or page breaks in this book, and for 720 pages, it's pretty easy to describe. 

Except the first 100 pages are more interesting, because it charts how the novel could have gone in a different direction. That is, it begins as a dovetailing narrative, with sections from the perspective of each of the four characters. They go through this cycle once or twice, and then focus almost exclusively two of the characters, along with other ancillary characters at random points. 

We know a fair amount about J.B. and Malcolm, but not nearly as much as we do about Willem and Jude. And while it seemed at first the novel would be equally split between the four of them, it then effectively does away with J.B. and Malcolm and relegates them to supporting cast. This may be because they are not as interesting, but by the end of this novel, you will wish that there had been more "breathers" of chapter/section breaks returning to J.B. or Malcolm. It does this once, memorably, when J.B. is in an abusive drug-fueled relationship and suffers a breakdown, and then makes fun of Jude in a grotesque way from a hospital bed. 

Jude does not ever want to forgive J.B. for doing this, and Willem certainly never would forgive him, either. I forgot how Malcolm felt about it, maybe he recognized that J.B. wasn't in the best state of mind and immediately deeply regretted what he had said and apologized, so it was OK to stay friends with him. Anyway, it is at this point where the group of four breaks off into a group of three, and really, a group of two. It was also at this point that I thought the novel became too sensitive for its own good. (Or perhaps that became clear in pages 200-300, when we hear so much about how so many people care so much about Jude and all of their inspirational speeches on the subject.)

Now I did not know anything about this book, really, going into it. Just the basic idea and that a few people recommended it. Around the time I reached the chapter "The Axiom of Equality," I met with one of the three friends that recommended it, and asked if it got any better from that point. She said it did not. 

Question: what does "better" mean in the context of this novel? More entertaining? Less extreme? (The extremity is purposeful, that much is clear.) A nice story about nice characters? Well, yes, and the chapter of "The Happy Years" is effectively that (but not really). At a certain point for a certain sort of novel, how quickly you finish it in a relatively satisfied state becomes the criterion by which "better" is measured. It's already an engaging book, it's something of a page-turner, but then again, it really is just a parade of horribles. You will want to be finished with this book by the time it ends, I think. 

J.B. is black and an artist who takes photographs and makes paintings out of them, among other mediums. Malcolm is black (half-black? I forget because there's barely anything about him in here comparatively) and his family is rich and he will never need to worry about money but he wants to be an architect and he builds little models of houses for his friends. Both of them have families in or around New York City, and so they are able to stay there to avoid paying the ridiculous rent. J.B.'s family is not as rich as Malcolm's, but they are not living in poverty. 

The other two characters are white (basically). One of them seems relatively empty-headed and is ridiculously good looking and is a struggling actor for a while but eventually starts seeing his star rise. The other one is disabled, but not really, just maimed and utterly traumatized/broken, enters college early, goes to law school, (does he get a PhD in Math, too?), excels at everything, and has a great gig at the U.S. Attorney's Office after doing a clerkship (I think).   

These are Willem and Jude and 90% of the novel is probably devoted to them. But the four of them are super close and love each other. They meet in college at a school in Massachusetts, which I eventually began to code as Harvard. I'm pretty sure Willem goes to Yale with J.B. for graduate school, too. Pretty sure Jude stays and goes to Harvard Law School. And yet they are struggling at the beginning of the novel, comparatively, in their mid-20's. Jude will always be struggling despite his professional achievements. But none of the other three have especially achieved anything at that point.

And so, the novel at this point (maybe page 200) has an amusing quality about it with occasional flashes of intrigue. It could have kept going like this and potentially done something much more interesting. I mean, you still could have made it all about Willem and Jude (and really, let's be honest, if 90% of the novel is about the two of them, 85% of the novel is about Jude, and it seems clear from the beginning that he is the real protagonist). But you could have kept the dovetailing narratives going, you could even make them shorter. You wouldn't even have to be super consistent; you could just do it a few times to break up the relative monotony that the novel then becomes. 

Willem had a younger brother that was disabled and eventually died at a very young age and he has a very icy relationship with his parents perhaps due in part to their extreme religious views, so we know that he has a certain instinct to want to take care of someone. He is basically perfect. He never does anything wrong. Never. Maybe he cheats on a girlfriend, I forget, but I don't think so. This is another "extreme" quality of the book. Yanagihara may be making some sort of statement with the book, the extremity of it lends it an air unreality, turning it almost into satire or parody, and this has to be intentional. 

Because we wouldn't really want to get into the complexity of Willem's feelings. It is easier to have him be simple-minded. We certainly get the full panoply and range of Jude's emotions and thoughts. And in fact, these three people that recommended the book to me, I am not sure, perhaps they did not know at all that I once wrote a [second] novel [not available as a link on this blog] about self-harm, self-mutilation, and you know what, the parallels are a little unsettling, but I also could not write about self-harm quite like Yanagihara does here. Say you what you will about this novel but her description of the various bloody scenes of cutting as well as the mentality that drives one towards that kind of compulsive behavior is expert. 

Technically, this is a very good novel. However, one sees several ways it could have been much better. And yet, taking it to full fruition may have taken several hundred more pages. And so it ends in a place that feels a bit premature, still, but as noted earlier, not too soon.

***SPOILERS BELOW****

I recently read a piece from The New Yorker that seemed to confirm a lot of my impressions about this novel, and also give me new ways of thinking about it. That being said, I tend to side with Daniel Mendelsohn's interpretation rather than Garth Greenwell's. This is not the Great Gay American Novel. No, there are a few of them, probably, and the newest one is The Great Believers (even though it's "basic" because its narrative is framed around the AIDS crisis). I am not here to tell you how gay people are, or that they are all different, and Yanagihara is not trying to write a realistic novel, but the temporal aspect of the novel confused me.

It seems to take place in no time or space. There are no references to the world as we know it. Nothing about 9/11 in NYC. All of the movies that Willem does and all of the other artists he meets do not reference any works that influenced them or previous actors. Everything is coated in a vague patina. I get this. This is intentional. This is a novel about interior lives. 

And also, sometimes you do not want to say the thing explicitly so the reader can sense for themselves what you meant, or they can do the research and figure it out and have the easter egg "solved" on their own. Because sometimes if you just say what the thing is explictly, it minimizes it, it makes it more quotidian and less meaningful. To pin something down is to complete the analysis and define it, negating any further mystery or meaning to be harvested from the expression.

Then again maybe it's not fair for me to say that people who had cell phones and texted during college would not have any sort of sexual identity crisis because social mores dictated relatively widespread acceptance of same-sex desire in the same era (even though this novel isn't realistic, it has to take place at least partly in the future). Then again none of these characters has a sexual identity crisis (except Malcolm, the only "straight" friend in the group, who briefly thinks he might be bi). Greenwell thought it was the great gay novel because of the very reason noted at the top of this review: it is a melodrama par excellence, which is a classic queer expression. Mendelsohn felt it was regressive because it showed that gay people deserved to be punished for having good lives (yes, The Great Believers could be seen as regressive for a similar reason--or at least mining the tense relationship between sex and death in that community--but that book was kinder to its characters, and realistic). I don't agree with either of them. I just think it's the straightest gay novel there is, or the gayest straight novel there is. And really, I don't think it needs to be viewed through this lens at all.

Would I have identified with the novel as much as a woman? I think I would. Even though it is tied to rather specific forms of abuse and trauma, they cut across all genders, identities and orientations. There is no tension about "coming out," except briefly after Willem and Jude become an item, and he has to come to terms with being known as a "gay actor" and fears of being pigeonholed. Over the first 100 or 200 pages, I felt there was something "off" about the way male friendship was depicted. These four friends are obsessed with one another and don't seem to have much interest in hooking up or dating anyone. I could say I had a few friendships like this in high school or college, but I don't think any of us wouldn't have balked at spending like, 100% of our time together. But the novel isn't meant to be realistic. This group of friends is more like a family.

A good example is how Willem and Jude live together in Lispenard Street. Certainly, there are situations where two people share a one-bedroom apartment, but there is usually the barrier of a living room arrangement for one of them. This does eventually become the case for them, but they seem to have no problem sleeping together in separate beds for years, there is no existential panic that they are getting older and settling into this pseudo-gay arrangement as if it is the only future they wish to have. 

And so, when the "big reveal" happens, it was a bit of a relief for me. Okay. They were not all too precious with one another. It made more sense. Still, it doesn't make as much sense for Willem. Casual reference is made to his sleeping with both men and women, but nothing in the entire novel up to that point had suggested that was the case. It feels a bit like the relationship is shoe-horned into the narrative.

Because what is the difference between friendship and a relationship? This is one of the Big Questions that the novel is actually very good at examining (though as noted it doesn't play into these existential, time-running-out concerns--except when Harold points out that Willem is almost 30, and questions what he is waiting for). How important is sex to a relationship? Obviously, if it is sexless, an arrangement can be made, and here, it is an easy and simple arrangement that doesn't lead to any sort of jealousies. How does sex complicate a friendship? Obviously, it can lead to ambiguities as to status, conflicting views on it, and it can potentially derail that friendship and test its limits. This isn't an FWB situation between Willem and Jude. This is different. And I guess, even though I found it completely ridiculous, I accept it. It makes sense in the context of the novel. Willem needs to take care of someone, and Jude needs someone to take care of him (several people, actually). 

That's the main spoiler, I think. Of course, Jude's whole story is something that gets spoiled by basically anything written about this book, so I have tried to avoid that above, though I said the cutting made better sense. What happened to him is about as horrible as anything anyone could ever have possibly experienced growing up. (In that New Yorker article linked above, Yanagihara acknowledges that she wanted the novel to feel like a "piling on," and she certainly achieved that.)  It does devolve into "torture porn," and yet how could it not, once a writer decides to go there. Does it say something about me if I say these were the most gripping sections of the book? They are obviously the hardest to read, but they are also the fastest to read. Maybe it's because the rest of the book feels somewhat "antiseptic," and that works, too, because Jude's entire life after age 15 is an exercise in attempted antisepsis. Anyone that has been ravaged by early childhood trauma will undoubtedly find comfort in its exhortations on the nature of memory-repression and the impossibility of wiping certain memories from the mind (though doesn't electroshock therapy accomplish that goal?). The descriptive power of these scenes is unmistakable. 

We have no excerpts in this review, but we will bring back the 420 Test. Spoiler alert: it fails, and page 420 happens to be one of the more disturbing pages:

"The brother still talked of their being together, although now he talked of a house on the sea, somewhere in central California, and would describe the stony beaches, the noisy birds, the storm-colored water. They would be together, the two of them, like a married couple. No longer were they father and son; now they were equals. When he turned sixteen, they would get married. They would go on a honeymoon to France and Germany, where he could finally use his languages around French and Germans, and to Italy and Spain, where Brother Luke had lived for two years: once as a student, once the year after he graduated college. They would buy him a piano so he could play and sing. 'Other people won't want you if they knew how many clients you'd been with,' the Brother said. 'And they'd be silly to not want you. But I'll always want you, even if you've been with ten thousand clients.' He would retire when he was sixteen, Brother Luke said, and he had cried then, quietly, because he had been counting up the days until he was twelve, when Brother Luke had promised he could stop." (420) 

There's the other major spoiler, which comes around page 600, I think. That's probably the True Spoiler. And of course, it is another blatant instance of emotional manipulation. There is some unease concerning the nature of the "happy ending," because that is not always realistic. In this case, the "unhappy" ending does seem to fit into the themes of the novel, but I would not have complained one bit if this novel had a more conventional happy ending. You could still have the emotionally manipulative death trope, but you could also depict emotional growth. As it is, it seems to stand for the proposition that people do not change. Whether you agree that people change or that people do not change, it is depressing to think that people do not change. I prefer to think the opposite. And for all of the veritable metaphorical mountains that Jude has to scale--which he does, at an incredibly high level of success--it's a little unbelievable that he never is able to conquer his trauma, that with dozens of characters shouting at him that he is not a bad person, that he is not completely damaged goods (though only a couple know the specifics), he can never believe that for himself. I'm sorry, but eventually, after enough time, it feels incredible that one cannot forgive oneself for what was done to them, when there is zero question on the assignment of victimhood. A lot of people really love this character but by the end of the novel I just wanted to slap him and say, "snap out of it!" and did not feel much sadness at the very end.

This is a complicated part of the novel, too, because it seems to permit suicide under appropriate circumstances. That makes it all feel rather hopeless. Truly, if Jude had nothing to offer the world, no money, felt horribly disfigured and suffered chronic (physical) pain, then it would be more palatable. But I simply cannot accept that he would not live on and try to do good in the world, work against some of the evils that had destroyed his early life. But this is the easier way to end the novel. It's already too long as it is. 

And for something as long as it is, we could do a little bit better on character development. Asian Henry Young is maybe explained once, and he becomes a lifelong friend, one of the "acquaintances" that are included in the bigger circle of friends beyond the four. So is someone named Phaedra. A couple of the other random people (Citizen, Rhodes) are co-workers of Jude's at the U.S. Attorney's Office, so they aren't as superficially defined. There are a few other friends that get included in this roll call for certain parties and gatherings and celebrations, but they add nothing to the novel whatsoever except to show that they have other friends, too.

Again, as I said at the start of this review, I could tear it apart. And yet with everything I've read from Yanagihara on the reception of this book, she understands that, she anticipates that, she wants people to tear it apart. There's no question that it provides an indelible emotional experience (even the lack of "white space" in the novel is intentional--she did not want to provide the "breather" that I suggested near the beginning of this review) so we can consider her choices well-made. The book has certainly been successful enough to bear that out. Yet this "messy" quality, with so many absurd elements, feels slapdash, as if the enormity of the text itself justifies any weaknesses in it. It may be nearly as long as The Magic Mountain, but it does not suggest alternative dimensions: we have a sad human story here, an examination of the contours of friendship, but we have no greater statement on History or Philosophy. Perhaps we do have a statement on Art, and perhaps that should be enough.  

It's a page turner, and a significant accomplishment that deserves recognition. It's not the definitive Great Gay American Novel, but despite all my above-listed complaints, it belongs in the Top 10. Probably.  

Corporate Rock Sucks: the Rise & Fall of SST Records - Jim Ruland (2022)

The place to start in this review is Our Band Could Be Your Life. Because Ruland writes this in the Bibliography:

"Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, by Michael Azerrad (2001); Enter Naomi: SST, LA and All That, by Joe Carducci (2007); and Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag, by Stevie Chick (2011) form the foundation for any serious consideration of SST Records. If this book is your introduction to SST Records and its many sagas, they are required reading." (401)

So, do I have to read the other two books now? I wouldn't necessarily mind. The experience of reading this book was affected by trying to read it at the same time as A Little Life. Eventually, I realized it was more efficient for the purposes of this blog to just pick one and finish it first. This one was shorter, but also more amusing. 

We have to start with Our Band Could Be Your Life because this is, essentially, Our Band Could Be Your Life, Part 2. But that wouldn't be accurate--a true part 2 of that book would feature a dozen different bands. Thus, an effective "part two" would be a 25th anniversary edition of it, with a new introduction or afterword, as well as revised histories of the bands featured to capture their activities post-2001. 

This is not that book, but it is close to that book. This is because about half (if not more than half) of the bands from Our Band Could Be Your Life are featured similarly in this one. Most prominently, this involves Black Flag and the Minutemen. Then Husker Du, to a lesser extent. And then finally Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., in somewhat cursory sketches. Every other band in that book is also mentioned (not 100% clear on Mudhoney or Fugazi, but you certainly get Green River (in conjunction with Soundgarden) and Ian Mackaye/Teen Idles/Minor Threat (in conjunction with Henry Garfield and Bad Brains, who must have been one of the "outtakes" of that predecessor volume, and command more space here than Dinosaur or Sonic)). Many familiar figures, such as Roger Miller from Mission of Burma, releasing a number of solo items on SST, the Replacements as major label jumpers with Husker Du, Big Black and Steve Albini and his writings in zines, and Calvin Johnson and K Records (in conjunction with Screaming Trees), show up throughout the text. Perhaps only Butthole Surfers are left out, but they are an anomaly in any case.

This came out in 2022 and since 2001, the stories on these bands have evolved in sometimes surprising ways. Certainly, Fugazi's presence, influence and status ("on hiatus") has not changed. While Black Flag never jumped to a major label, Azerrad did not spill much ink on Greg Ginn's multitude of side and solo projects. The competing reunions of FLAG and persistence of Black Flag itself as a known quantity are briefly detailed here. There is not a great deal of material on the Minutemen/Mike Watt post-2001, and the same for Husker Du (in fact their role in this book is almost exactly the same as that earlier one). This is also the case for Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., whose major label efforts are deemed irrelevant to the story. But we really should get to the substance of this book, which essentially is Greg Ginn. 

OBCBYL opens up with Ginn as the progenitor and founder and CEO of SST Records, which is totally appropriate, really the only place that book could start, and Corporate Rock Sucks begins in almost the same place, before quickly taking the deeper dive into SST and SST alone.

Ginn is, to put it simply, "an enigma," which was how Mark Lanegan defined him, shortly before Lanegan passed away, far too soon. He is an iconoclast that started from the bottom, perfected his brand and commissioned several masterpieces, and spent the last 25 years mostly in a state of maligned repose. SST crushed all competition up until about 1988. Nirvana really wanted to be on the label (Ginn wasn't impressed), and who knows how that might have affected the life cycle of the band and/or changed history. It was cool, it had its own aesthetic, its own philosophy and attitude, and most importantly, it was a sign of the quality of the record. Many fans would simply buy every album that SST put out, in its earlier years, because they were hand-picked and curated by Ginn, whose tastes were respected. 

There is no SST without Greg Ginn, but SST would never have become as successful without his brother, better known as Raymond Pettibon. Ginn and Pettibon have not spoken to one another in about 30 years, not even when their father passed away. Both of them are expert keepers of grudges, apart from being groundbreaking artists. Pettibon comes off better than Ginn, because the source of their estrangement was Ginn's unauthorized use of some of Pettibon's work, as their partnership became frayed towards its end. Black Flag would never have become as big a concept without Pettibon. Pettibon made the logo, and that logo accounts for 50% of Black Flag's legacy and continuing appeal. Pettibon also made the artwork that adorned many covers of the early SST releases. While some may consider his work gruesome or unnecessarily dark, it is unmistakably iconic. The artwork informed the lyrical content, and as the subject matter was generally ugly, they complemented each other beautifully.

Hardcore is seen by the general public as music for neanderthals and skinheads and lunkheads, but this belies its intellectual foundations. Ginn got his degree from UCLA. Kira Roessler got a graduate degree from Yale after playing bass for Black Flag. Mike Watt read Ulysses and wrote the song "June 16th" as a tribute. Pettibon had his first gallery shows after cutting ties with the label. Much of it sounds like "low art," but that is intentional (sometimes), and that makes it easy to misinterpret.

To be sure, the earliest releases had serious limitations in terms of budget and studio time and equipment, but more often than not these limitations proved inspirational. While Ruland sometimes writes in a sort of sensational style, this tone seemed to fall away after about 100 pages, and he does not balk at criticizing the music (both he and Azerrad express their disdain for "Slip it in," which I still believe is misplaced). Damaged and Zen Arcade are good examples of inspiration out of limitations. The lesser quality of all Black Flag material post-Damaged is not ignored. 

***

On the subject of Zen Arcade, the release that put Husker Du into the spotlight, Ruland makes a fascinating interpretation of the album, quite different from Azerrad's. Azerrad's is rather brief and seems to position this "concept album" on similar grounds to what Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness would later define: depressed teenager comes-of-age. This is Ruland's reading:

"No one leaves home without a reason. The opening tracks on Side 1 focus on the courage it takes to put a bad situation behind ("Broken Home, Broken Heart") and how empowering it can be to make a clean break with the past ("Never Talking to You Again"). But things get more challenging for the young protagonist after he leaves home, and he entertains thoughts of joining the military ("Chartered Trips") or a cult ("Hare Krsna")--systems of control that provide the comfort of structure but risk leading him away from his dreams.
Side 2 explores the wild world outside the safety of home ("Beyond the Threshold"), which tries to lure him back with promises of security ("Pride"). He has a very particular dream to create a video game. He lands a dream job developing this project in Silicon Valley, but he can't escape the pull of the past ("The Biggest Lie").
Although Side 2 is far from mellow, on Side 3 things take a chaotic turn for our hero. He throws himself into developing a game called Search. The game's title implies that its creator still hasn't found what he's looking for, and his journey continues on a deeper level ("Somewhere"). After his girlfriend overdoses ("Pink Turns to Blue"), he ends up in a sanitarium and questions everything from the state of the world ("Newest Industry") to his own tumultuous past ("Whatever").Zen Arcade concludes with just two "songs" on Side 4: the galloping "Turn on the News" and "Reoccurring Dreams," a sprawling fourteen-minute instrumental that returns to the motifs expressed on Side 2 in "Dreams Reoccurring." While "Turn on the News" suggests a mental patient's interest in returning to the concerns of the world, the shimmering guitars of "Reoccurring Dreams" signifies a return to consciousness. Our hero's search was all a dream. Husker Du preferred to 'leave things up to people's imaginations instead of making concrete definitions,' Mould said. 'We didn't want it to be a rock opera.'" (138)

Ruland goes off even more about the album, but, seriously, WTF, developing a video game called Search? Perhaps this demands another listen*. Suffice to say, what Ruland considers a "wake up call" at the end of the album, Azerrad considers the flatlining of a heartbeat on a life-support machine. The album can be whatever the listener makes of it, and these wildly diverging interpretations illustrate the difference between the two books: this is the more passionate one. 

Of course, Azerrad is clearly a big fan of the music, but these are very different books. I would say this is better than OBCBYL, except that book is intended more as a survey of bands, while this one is far more detailed about one specific label. The book's appendix lists every single SST release, and nearly all of these are referenced in the text, if only for a line or two. Azerrad's is more engaging because he can pick and choose the most interesting parts of many different bands' stories. Ruland's is more evocative and authoritative in terms of the intricacies of the label and many of the "forgotten" bands that had their albums released on it. Some of these stories are just as good as those about more "famous" bands.

***

For example, to start with Ginn again, few probably know just how many bands he "ran" apart from Black Flag. Some of these bands are "imaginary" and most of the albums are glorified jam sessions. We might consider Gone the most prominent of his post-Black Flag activities. Gone emerged in December 1985 and put out their last release, The Epic Trilogy, in 2007:

"...a double CD that is one of the strangest releases of Ginn's post-Black Flag career, which is saying something. The trilogy consists of three instrumental songs on the first disc, each approximately fifteen minutes long, and the exact same songs on the second disc with vocals from H.R. that had been tracked many years before when Batwinas was running Casa Destroy." (350)

It would probably take me an hour to itemize all of these bands, such as October Faction, Mojack, Greg Ginn and The Taylor Texas Corrugators, Good for You, the Killer Tweeker Bees (who put out The Killer Tweeker Blues), Bias (who put out Model Citizen), and Get Me High (who put out Taming the Underground), Hor, Confront James, and El Bad. Suffice to say, few of these releases are essential. 

I daresay that while The Epic Trilogy is strange, it is worth hearing. Because in 2007 I was living in the South Bay and super into Black Flag and Bad Brains and bemoaned the lack of new music from either (Apparently, I missed it when Bad Brains released an album in 2007 that probably would have been super exciting at the time - Ed.). Yet while this is not a Black Flag/Bad Brains collaboration, it is a side-project for each. It doesn't sound all that great but it's interesting at the very least. 

***

There is also SWA, which is Chuck Dukowski's band. For all of the many members of Black Flag over the years (which is oddly akin to The Fall in this respect, Greg Ginn as Mark E. Smith if he ran his own record label), Dukowski is #2 to Ginn's #1. Henry Rollins may be the most famous, but he clearly was just following orders, though he did something with the music (which had become far less "catchy" than the material recorded before he joined) that was undeniably special and elevated the band into legacy territory. It wasn't just Greg Ginn, it was also Raymond Pettibon, and Henry Rollins--and Chuck Dukowski, who was not only #2 in Black Flag, but #2 at SST. 

Dukowski was fired from Black Flag but maintained a working relationship with Ginn and the label. SWA commands a fair amount of space in this book, and it was unfortunate that I could not locate any of their albums on Apple Music. Because I'd want to listen to at least one (Sex Doctor, SST 073):

"While concepts for SWA had been percolating for years, Dukowski teamed up with Ward to write some songs and record an album with guitarists Ray Cooper and Richard Ford and drummer Greg Cameron (a.k.a. Nazi Sex Doctor). Ward worked at a bookstore with an adult section, and he would occasionally bring titles to the office at Global. While waiting for rehearsal, Cameron perused a novel about a German commandant of a labor camp who fell in love with one of his prisoners. When Rollins and Davo returned from getting coffee, they found Cameron engrossed in the book. They were delighted to discover its title was Nazi Sex Doctor. 'Boom that was it,' Cameron said. 'I was the Nazi Sex Doctor...Of course, it was so opposite of who I was. In fact, I was still a virgin, but the nickname stuck like glue.'
His friends at SST would call him Naz (prounced 'Knots') or Nazi for short, which created some uncomfortable situations for the young drummer. On tour, Dave Rat did SWA's sound, and during soundcheck one day he addressed Cameron by his nickname through the talkback mic, which was also going through the house sound system. Cameron recalled, 'He actually said, "Okay, Nazi, go ahead and hit the kick drum." Everybody that worked at the venue just stopped what they were doing and all eyes were on the stage.'" (191-192)

***

I've listened to a bit of the band Leaving Trains, and they are relatively accessible, perhaps worth hearing, but perhaps just a curious footnote:

"Like Divine Horsemen, the Leaving Trains started out on Enigma Records before jumping ship to SST. Founded by Falling James Moreland in the early 80's, the original lineup featured future SST artist Sylvia Juncosa on keyboards. Starting with Kill Tunes (SST 071), the Leaving Trains issued a slew of grungy pop records for SST, including Fuck (SST 114) and Transportational D. Vices (SST 221). A productive run, considering Moreland was married to Courtney Love long enough to produce Hole's first single for Sympathy for the Record Industry before the relationship crashed and burned." (256)

Painted Willie is another fairly accessible band, noteworthy for featuring Dave Markey on drums. Painted Willie opened for Black Flag on their final tour, and Markey made a documentary about it, which I watched on YouTube a while back. While not as essential, it clearly set the template for the seminal The Year Punk Broke, which was also shot and directed by Markey: 

"Later that year, Ginn ventured up to North Hollywood to produce Painted Willie's debut, Mind Bowling (SST 057), at Spinhead Studios. 'It was just a play on mind blowing,' Markey said of the album's title. 'It was just mind blowing to be welcomed into that world, to be invited into that by Greg Ginn himself.'
The album opens up with '405,' an instrumental with multiple time changes that builds to a gallop and slows to a crawl--just like driving on L.A.'s most infamous freeway. The dynamic nature of the song must have caught Ginn's ear right off the bat. Like all of Markey's projects, Painted Willie has a sense of humor that comes across in songs like 'Chia Pet,' in which the eponymous plant grows into a jackbooted Nazi, and 'Monkey Mia,' a whimsically weird tale of cannibalism. Side 2 includes a spirited cover of 'My Little Red Book,' a faster, fuzzed-out version of the 1965 hit by Burt Bacharach and Hal David that was made famous the following year by L.A.'s Love. Painted Willie's take on 'My Little Red Book' wouldn't be out of place on a Husker Du record." (210)

There are many more of these short-lived, semi-forgotten bands memorialized in the text, and suffice to say, one of the virtues of the book is that while it may not give these bands a "second life," it will at least provide readers with knowledge of them, and some of those readers will become listeners.

***

There is a lot more I could say about this book, and I haven't even touched on Negativland, which is not so much a band as an art project. The story of SST and how it "disrupted" the record industry, along with Ginn's litigiousness and penchant for writing angry letters telling his side of the story, is epitomized in the Negativland material. It would take too much space to get into this in the review (which is already running long), but it is truly one of the more fascinating sections of the book. For just a small taste, we may excerpt the band's first foray into controversy and irreverence:

"Michael Whittaker was working in the office at SST when one of the members of Negativland called to ask whether he knew anyone in the Minneapolis press. A sixteen-year-old boy named David Brom had murdered his father, mother, brother, and sister with an axe. One detail in the shocking tragedy seemed like it had been planted to provoke a media firestorm: Brom's murderous rampage was instigated by an argument between Brom and his conservative Catholic father abotu music. Negativland wanted to know if Whittaker would tell the media that the music in question was none other than 'Christianity is Stupid' from the band's SST debut Escape from Noise (SST 133)." (286)

This would not be the first "prank" the band would play, and because the label often had to pay for them in court, Ginn's relations with the band were contentious, but also complicated, because while Negativland later tried to capitalize on the popularity of U2 through a stunt, SST later tried to capitalize on the controversy by printing up t-shirts that read "Kill Bono." (The members of U2 and Brian Eno seemed to have some understanding of what Negativland was trying to do and did not take major offense; Island Records, however, did.)

***

This book is not perfect. Like many other works of non-fiction charting the entire history of a business, there are many players, and many references to those players' last names that will be lost on the reader, particularly without proper context in the preceding 2-3 paragraphs to "remind" the reader of who they are (i.e. "Ward" above, in the excerpt about SWA).

As noted previously, this book is really all about Ginn, because Ginn's baby was SST. And one wonders how Ginn must feel about this book. It bears a striking resemblance to The Contrarian, and while Greg Ginn is not Peter Thiel, they have many similarities. They are enormously influential, and given credit for their numerous accomplishments, but also widely reviled for different reasons. Ginn did not espouse vile politics (occasionally questionable lyrics aside), but many of these bands left SST because of so-called "accounting irregularities." SST was a good place to put out an album, but not a good place to get paid. Ruland's mission with the book, it seems, is spelled out in the final chapter, which advises the label to give the rights to the music back to (some of) its creators. Ruland wants Ginn to redeem himself. And it seems totally possible.  

Ruland did not interview Ginn for this book, and it seems obvious that he tried. Thus, it is an "unauthorized" history, and probably the better for it. One can imagine that Ginn would not like it very much, but Ruland gives credit where it is due. Perhaps somewhere, Ginn is writing a letter, debunking many of the "facts" in the book, or perhaps filing suit for defamation. Or perhaps not, for he should know as well as anyone: even bad press is still good press. This book will not cancel him, and he should not be cancelled; it merely encourages him to try to do better by the artists he signed, and one hopes it will lead the way towards better outcomes for all. 

*Open invitation for comments that directly link lyrics of songs from Zen Arcade to the interpretation provided here. 

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves - Stephen Grosz (2013)

I have been listening to the New York Times Book Review podcast for about five years. It has been the source of many of the reviews here. I would not have read a great deal of the books here had I not listened. The first was Avid Reader. It took a bit while longer for there to be a second, and truthfully, Avid Reader was not discussed on the podcast--Robert Gottlieb just appeared on it--and so The House of Broken Angels was arguably the first.  Less came two months later, though that selection may have been swayed by the New Yorker Radio Hour (but the NYTBRP, if anyone calls it that, is far superior). We will leave the Paris Review podcast alone, which is highly stylized and niche, releasing only a few episodes a year, but that one led me to Homesick for Another World. I then stepped away. 

I stepped away and retired the blog to focus on more creative pursuits. Yet 5 months later, I settled on the idea of "short form" reviews, which were relatively painless to write. That first return included both Asymmetry and Sabrina. A few months after that, The Great Believers showed up in short-form. Early in 2020, Conversations with Friends and She Said shared space. Trick Mirror could not just have been discussed on the New Yorker Radio Hour, it had to have made it onto the NYTBRP. And it was there that the short-form died and the long-form returned. There were too many things I wanted to say about certain books.

As the pandemic hit, The Night of the Gun provided good company. Later that summer, I found the book I would recommend randomly to other people more than any other (and its follow-up). And I might have read Catch and Kill regardless of the podcast (to be completist), but I would not likely have found Indelicacy. Or Cleanness, for that matter. I had heard of Trust Exercise from other sources, but I feel this had to be discussed on the program, and I know for certain this was the case for Fake Accounts.

So those amount to about 15 different posts out of 420 (yes that is where we currently stand). It's only 3.5% of the total (which seems like almost nothing) but truly, many of these posts represent the best of the criticism on the blog. I daresay no single other source has inspired more.

***

I start here because I want this review to be something of an homage to Ms. Paul. While every element of the podcast is excellent--the two author interviews, the news from the publishing world, the historical items from the Book Review--the final segment ("the latest in literary criticism" or "what we and the staff have been reading") is often the most amusing. On her penultimate episode, she offered this book as the recommendation--one her colleague (and now successor) John Williams had read and recommended earlier, closer to the time it was published. 

I do not disagree with their recommendation (which was, to be sure, somewhat qualified). I picked up this book because I had a hard time with the limited other titles I'd digested (primarily Maybe You Should Talk to Someone) dealing in similar territory, and I wanted to believe that a psychologist or psychoanalyst could write about their work in an interesting and artful way. So many people do not seek help out of a sense of weakness, or fear, and so books such as these are extremely valuable. If the reader cannot work with another person to learn something about themselves, there is always the chance they can learn something about themselves through literature. But books such as this clearly do not belong in the self-help category. 

***

It is easiest to compare this to [Lori] Gottlieb's book because they are a study in contrasts. That book was too long for me. This book isn't too short for me, but just right, at 215 (small) pages. That book delves into a lot of relationship issues from the author's own life (it is as much personal memoir as "work memoir"). This book has limited few of those. That book focuses primarily on four different patients and the evolution of their treatment. This book focuses on dozens of patients, and confines each to one chapter. There are more differences still, but the biggest (and the one that matters to me most) is the quality of the writing. 

Grosz's style is pithy. It almost seem as though he is making fun of his patients when he writes about them. Clearly, he is not. But there is so much ambiguous humor in here that one may do double-takes. 

It is also casually erudite, for example, when it contains a passage which moved me greatly, particularly as I read it to a person in a similar stance (that is, Felice's):

"For a moment he seemed lost in the contemplation of something visible only to him and then he said, 'Do you know the story of Kafka and Felice Bauer? For five years, Kafka was intensely involved with Bauer, sometimes sending her several letters a day. She lived in Berlin, he lived in Prague--not a great distance even then, but during the five years they were engaged, they met only ten times, often for no more than an hour or two.' If you read Kafka's letters, Michael said, it's clear that he was distraught--anxious about where Felice was going, who she was seeing, what she was eating or wearing. Kafka wanted instant replies to his letters, and he was furious when he didn't get them. He proposed twice and broke it off twice--the wedding never took place. Michael said that for Kafka, separation from Bauer was unbearable. 'The only thing more disturbing was her presence.
'Kafka got into that sort of relationship over and over again,' he told me. 'Nowadays, we'd say he was schizoid or suffered some mild form of Asperger's, but those words give no sense of the central thing. The person he most avoided was the person upon whom he was the most dependent--the person he most wanted." (50-51)

This is from the chapter titled "On not being in a couple," which Pamela mentioned (along with "How praise can cause a loss of confidence," and maybe "How paranoia can relieve suffering and prevent a catastrophe"), perhaps to underscore the nature of its literary style. I daresay there is something Nietzschean about it, but I did not read the entirety of Ecce Homo. Suffice to say, there are lessons to be learned in life that we can sometimes whittle down into bite-sized morsels of universal truth. It might be more accurate to call it Montaignean (though that is not apparently a word), maybe Montaigne-esque.

***

The book touches on many topics and illnesses: grief, imaginary problems, irrational behaviors, incomprehensible violence, disappointment, boredom, autism/Asperger's, HIV/AIDS, dreams, envy and love, to name a few. 

"Loving" is one of the 5 sections that comprise the book. The others are "Beginnings," "Telling Lies," "Changing," and "Leaving." (Nitpicky note: I would remove the S from Beginnings.) Indeed the subject of love is essential in psychoanalysis and plays into many other facets of living and surviving in this world (statistics bear out that being in a couple leads to increased longevity). In my own psychiatric sessions over the past 8 years, "love" and the status of various friends and partners has taken up a significant portion of our time. So while I am not an expert, I was particularly intrigued by "How lovesickness keeps us from love." (Nitpicky note #2: I don't know how I feel about the lowercase chapter titles.)

About three months ago, shortly before Valentine's Day, I discovered a new term: limerence. For all intents and purposes, "lovesickness" is an appropriate synonym for limerence, yet I feel there are slight differences. Limerence contains its own vocabulary, and we do not consider people "crushes," but rather, "LOs." We recognize ourselves as limerent individuals because our relationships follow similar patterns: (1) intense crush and placement of LO on pedestal; (2) extraordinary happiness at reciprocated feelings; (3) extreme depression at lack of reciprocation; (4) locking into dynamic of misaligned expectations of relationship; (5) texts and communications from LO take on magnified importance; (6) obsession/infatuation with LO; (7) no contact ("NC") with LO as necessary self-care; (8) breaking NC with LO, revisiting relationship, restarting cycle.

We see limerence in society as something to shun and demonize. We consider them "stalkers" and presume they lack self-control or any sense of boundaries. They are, effectively, one of the "lower forms" of human beings. We consider them "toxic" and "unstable." I have not watched "My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" (though I keep telling myself I will) but that archetypal figure is the poster child for limerence. We keep irrationally hoping that we can get back together and everything will be magically better this time. 

So it was heartening to read something so precise here:

"Most of us have come down with a case of lovesickness at one time or another, suffering its fever to a greater or lesser degree. In severe cases, lovesickness can lead to delusional behaviors (stalking, for example) or sexual obsession. When we are lovesick, we feel that our emotional boundaries, the walls between us and the object of our desire, have fallen away. We feel a weighty physical longing, an ache. We believe that we are in love.
Many psychoanalysts think that lovesickness is a form of regression, that in longing for intense closeness, we are like infants craving our mother's embrace. This is why we are most at risk when we are struggling with loss or despair, or when we are lonely and isolated--it is not uncommon to fall in love during the first term of university, for example. But are these feelings really love?
'I sometimes say--but not entirely seriously--that infatuation is the exciting bit at the beginning; real love is the boring bit that comes later,' the poet Wendy Cope once told me. 'People who are lovesick put off testing their fantasies against reality.' But given the anguish that lovesickness can cause--the loss of mental freedom, the dissatisfaction with one's self, and the awful ache--why do some of us put off facing reality for so long?
Often it's because facing reality means accepting loneliness. And while loneliness can be useful--motivating us to meet someone new, for example--a fear of loneliness can work like a trap, ensnaring us in heartsick feelings for a very long time. At its worst, lovesickness becomes a habit of mind, a way of thinking about the world that is not altogether dissimilar to paranoia." (110-111)

Grosz then later goes into an illuminating discussion of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and makes the point that we cannot redo the past or be certain of the future--change can only take place in the here and now, and sometimes we change most when we repair our relation to the lost, the forgotten, the dead. While this passage was not a cure for limerence, it presented a different way of looking at the problem, a different perspective to take, and so I at least personally found it helpful, along with many other such moments in the book--when Grosz steps back from a specific discussion of x patient and makes larger observations about humanity as a whole, drawing from personal experience with numerous other individuals he has seen that do not star in their own "mini-feature" in this book. And it is this type of "wisdom" that makes the book a valuable resource for anyone, and especially for those experiencing trauma or any other great upheavals in their lives.

***

Today (last Friday, really), Jennifer Egan appeared as a guest on the NYTBRP. I haven't read Manhattan Beach or A Visit from the Goon Squad, but they are a couple I've considered, waiting for one to reach out and grab me, from word-of-mouth or a chance twisting-of-the-arm. She was talking about her follow-up, The Candy House. I am not sure how often I will listen to the podcast (query whether many podcast listeners continue on after their host moves on), but I still consider the newspaper (for all of its recent questionable op-eds and headlines) one of the preeminent outlets of literary criticism. Pamela will still appear as a guest, sometimes, and while Egan's voice was the first one to be heard on this episode (which was never the case with Pamela as host), I did appreciate Williams and what he had to say about his recent selections (he is in fact responsible for this choice), and so I think he will be a fine host as well. It just remains to be seen what interesting and new directions he can take the show.

As for Grosz, we should all be so lucky to have our therapy turned into literature, etched into history and the understanding of human beings in general. In this way, he has succeeded, and avoided the fate of several other psychiatrists and psychologists before him, whose books were longwinded and boring. This really cut to the chase and didn't waste any time getting into the philosophy of his practice. It might help other practitioners refine their practice, and it might help those that seek them out to become better patients. It may, also, lead to conversations that can change lives and reconfigure destinies. For all of these reasons, it is worth checking out (and so is the NYTBRP).