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Book of the Month: March 2010
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Message 1.聽
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
/Legend/ /of/ /a/ /Suicide/ by David Vann
Welcome to this month's Book of the Month Club.
The rota for the Book of the Month Club can be found at
You may also be interested in the more general Book Club, which this month (March) is discussing whether the short story is dead:
In this month's Book of the Month club we are going to discuss David Vann's /Legend/ /of/ /a/ /Suicide/. Everyone is warmly invited to dive in and comment 鈥 just post as the mood takes you.
I have chosen this book because I think it deals with a difficult topic in a strangely life-affirming way. I read it last year when it first came out in the UK, having been attracted by the title and because it deals with something I have a personal interest in. Not that it isn't dark and downright strange, as you might expect from the title, but it is a wonderful example of art being used to fashion an understanding of life 鈥 not only that of the author, but also of the reader. It also illustrates, quite serendipitously, that the short story is far from dead.
I should perhaps say straight away that the book raises uneasy questions about life and death, and in particular about suicide. I hope that is obvious from the title but I recognise that it may be a sensitive and difficult issue for some to deal with. As David Vann says in his acknowledgments at the end of the UK edition of the book 鈥渋t was an uncomfortable topic I was writing about 鈥 my father's suicide 鈥 and there's exposure in these stories. They're fictional, but based on a lot that's true.鈥 Moreover in the sixth story in this collection ( /The/ /Higher/ /Blue/) the narrator, in trying to understand his father, realises that he is as much a fantasist as his father was: 鈥渁 liar 鈥 would be the thing most likely to know another liar.鈥
I think it's important to state at the outset that this book is a collection of 6 short stories and not a novel as such. It was first published as a collection in the USA in 2008 and in the UK in 2009. My references are to the UK edition. Each story should be judged on its own merits in the first place. If you haven't read it yet, may I suggest that you read and ponder the five shortest stories before tackling the stand-alone novella /Sukkwan/ /Island/ (number 4 in this edition)? The other thing that needs to be stated is that this is a series of responses to a real-life suicide: the death of the author's father. But it is nothing like a 鈥渕isery memoir鈥 - it is, as the author says, fictional, and this accounts for differences, even discrepancies, in the stories themselves. This is most obvious in the novella (number 4 - /Sukkwan/ /Island/). But when we are told the father's name, as we are from time to time, we are invited to wonder whether the real-life James Vann is the same as the fictional Jim Fenn.
In the last story in this collection, /The/ /Higher/ /Blue/, the narrator says 鈥淚 tried to know the father.鈥 This is certainly a major thread throughout the book. Other themes which suggest themselves are: father-son relationships, what it means to be a 鈥渕an鈥, whether the natural world can be tamed or not, and of course how to deal with the suicide of a close family member. There are plenty of others, but I thought I'd end this first post with a thought from story 5 ( /Ketchikan/) which questions what identity means for any of us: 鈥減erhaps the tragedies I had imagined for years, the divorce and the suicide that I had let shape my life so permanently, had been something else altogether, or at least not as I had imagined. And what, then, of what I had become?鈥 -
Message 2
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Thank you for introducing this month鈥檚 discussion, HR. I have only just managed to get hold of 鈥淟egend of a Suicide鈥 from the library and haven't finished it yet. Funnily enough, I was just about to start Sukkawan Island when I read your post, so I鈥檒l take your advice and leave it till last.
I鈥檒l post again when I鈥檝e read the wholething but so far I am finding myself drawn in, although there is rather a semi-detached feel to it so far. This has been most evident in the chapter 鈥淎 Legend of Good Men鈥, when young Roy breaks into his own house and snoops around his mother鈥檚 room and his own, as if observing them through a stranger鈥檚 eyes.
Rusty -
Message 3
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Upcoming Book of the Month discussions:
April 21st:'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Herb Robert)
'The Great Gatsby' is in many ways Fitzgerald's examination of the moral emptiness and hypocrisy about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised. [The book is free on-line.]
May 21st : 鈥楾he Poisonwood Bible鈥 by Barbara Kingsolver (E. Yore)
'The Poisonwood Bible' is a novel about the Price family, who in 1959 move from the southern US to the Belgian Congo. The Prices' story, which parallels the Belgian Congo's tumultuous emergence into the post-colonial era, is narrated by the five women of the family: Orleanna, long-suffering wife of Baptist missionary Nathan Price, and their four daughters 鈥 Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.
June 21st: 'The Old Man Who Read Love Stories' by Luis Sepulveda (Bette)
The book is set in a remote river town in Ecuador. An elderly widower, Antonio, finds comfort in reading romance novels brought to him by the visiting dentist. But when a female jaguar begins carrying out a reign of terror in the area, Antonio's expertise in jungle ways is called upon to get rid of the problem. Written originally in Spanish, the book was dedicated to a man who fought and died to preserve the Amazon jungle, Chico Mendes.
July 21st: 'Rebecca's Tale' by Sally Beauman (Rwth of Cornovii)
This is a sequel to Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca'.
Colonel Julian begins a quest for more information about Rebecca. Picked up by a visitor to the area. The audiobook with Robert Powell and Juliet Stevenson narrating is well worth borrowing from the library.
August 21st: 'The Mayor of Castro Street: the life and times of Harvey Milk' by Randy Shilts [(equoiaTree).
"Known as 'the Mayor of Castro Street' even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal life, public career, and final assasination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assasinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope."
September 21st: 鈥楥aves of Steel鈥 by Isaac Asimov (ali-cat)
21st October: 'Elidor' by Alan Garner (Rwth of Cornovii)
21st November: [To be confirmed]: 'Precious Bane' by Mary Webb (SequoiaTree)
15 December: 'Wind in the Willows' by Kenneth Grahame (Herb Robert)
For links to earier discussions, please see message 107 in the Book of the Month Club Rota thread:
F2693944?thread=7019221&skip=100&show=20 -
Message 4
Posted by plum the depths (U5587356) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I started reading this some time ago and still I haven't finished two of the stories.
I do actually think David Vann is a good, spare, writer. I just find the violence quite hard. I know this is just me but I do find it a "man" type of a read. I know I'm opening myself to criticism here, oh there's no such thing we're all the same well I don't think we are and so I say this is a rough hard living take it like a man book.
The novella is a difficult read. The smashing distructive way the fish are killed for example I know I'm a townie but still. The appalling way the father treats his 13 year old son. All that talking about his sex habits the kid is 13 for goodness sake! And of course the great shock that happens in that story. I must say I didn't see that coming. Actually Vann really is a good writer it's just not a book I find easy to access. -
Message 5
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I've only read the first three chapters, honest, but I've already been cringing at the callous reference to animals - not just fish, but there was the squirrel too.
I wouldn't say David Vann is as "muscular" a writer as Hemingway, but I was reminded of him.
I couldn't really say if there is a "man" type of read, though Kingsley Amis seems to be much more popular with men than women, ime. Not that he has anything in common with Vann or Hemingway of course!
Rusty -
Message 6
Posted by plum the depths (U5587356) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Well it is interesting that you mention Hemmingway, as I have only been able to read one book of his and this (Vann) book reminded me of that.
Tough men living tough lives. -
Message 7
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
As a matter of interest, which of Ernie's books was it, honest? Not keen on him, but he loved cats so wasn't all bad.
[Sorry to hijack the thread for a moment, HR.]
Rusty -
Message 8
Posted by plum the depths (U5587356) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I know this terrible but I can't remember. It had something to do with fishing, catching a big fish or something. I'm afraid it didn't engage
Sorry we are having a massive thunderstorm here and I just lost power hope this gets through -
Message 9
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I bet it was "The Old Man and the Sea" about the battle between an old fisherman and a giant marlin.
I was wondering what David Vann's background was, as his book is probably semi-autobiographical, and found this:
Sorry to say I read the first line as "David Vann was born in Alaska and comes from a family of stinkers." Thought that sounded about right, actually.
Back to reading the book now.
Rusty -
Message 10
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Thanks for your comments so far. I wouldn't worry about veering off into Hemingway country, Rusters, as I think the book almost invites that sort of comparison. The other comparison I had thought of was, at a completely different level, Thoreau's Walden (especially in /Sukkwan/ /Island/.)
this is a rough hard living take it like a man book聽
I think I can see how large parts of the book would come across like that, but I had the feeling that this is partly why everything ends so disastrously. It is almost saying that this macho frontiersman approach to the world is doomed to failure. In this respect, I think Vann differs significantly from Hemingway, who tended to glorify masculine pursuits. Vann is much more ambivalent.
The violence that you both note towards animals is clearly there, and there is also the natural violence of the fish in the tank towards each other. There is certainly no sentimentality there. But in the fifth story, the dead halibut fight back - their life cannot be extinguished by the simple cut of a knife.
And eyes ... Have you noticed how eyes feature in so much of the imagery? -
Message 11
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Just chiming in to this thread.
I am half-way through the book, but am not relishing getting through the last half.
I gave it two goes. The first time, I read some 30 pages then other 'stuff' needed my attention (thankfully?). I took up the book again a couple of weeks later (so had to re-read from the beginning).
I have to say that I dislike the book (so far) /absolutely/ . It /does/ come across to me as 'a man's book' (well, would like to know if men actually like it). Personally, I am finding it totally cold and cannot relate in any way to the characters.
To mention 'The Old Man and the Sea' in the same thread seems like a profanity, to me!
Well, shall come back in when I have read the last half (if I do).
Sorry to sound so negative, but I am wondering 'why am I putting myself through this?'. -
Message 12
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:21 GMT, in reply to Bette in message 11
Great! I love it when someone really takes against a book - should make for a lively discussion.
You ask whether men actually /like/ it. Speaking for myself, I think /admire/ would be a better description of how I feel about it than /like/. But on repeated readings (which I've done for this thread) I find myself liking it more and more. Though I think that has as much to do with the poetry of the narrative as much as anything else. And as I commented above, I think it is the subversion of macho literature and of a ruthlessly masculine, dominating approach to the natural world that marks this book out from other "men's books."
However, I wouldn't want you to put yourself through an unpleasant experience just for the sake of the Book Club, Bette. In situations like this, I take heart from Anthony Powell's comment in /Hearing/ /Secret/ /Harmonies/ (slightly adapted):
"I was turning the pages [of the book I was reading] that evening with the sense - essential to mature enjoyment of any [book] - of being entirely free from responsibility to pause for a second over anything that threatened the least sign of tedium."
I used to feel I had to read every word of everything I took up, but my attitude is much more relaxed these days. -
Message 13
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Tuesday, 23rd March 2010
HR, I've finished the book, and read Chapter 4, Sakkwan Island last, as you suggested. I am afraid I really disliked just about everything in this chapter. I was also puzzled as to why it was sandwiched in the midlde of the book.
This chapter just went on and on, with such repetition tht I kept thinking maybe I was turning the pages backwards rather than forwards. Yes, I got it that it was a terrible, monotonous, disturbing time for Roy, trapped and alone with his narcissistic, fantasist father. I really didn't need to live every long second of it with him.
To be honest, it was when reading this chapter that I suddenly felt that the author was a self-indulgent, self-pitying navel gazer. With a an obsession with guns, eyes and killing things.
I really couldn't see past this and didn't care about anyone except possibly Roy's mother (who seems to get short shrift).
Then again, we probably aren't supposed to care; I am not sure what we are supposed to take away from this book though.
I agree Vann is a good writer though, and a few sharp pieces have stuck in my mind. For instance, at the end of chapter 1, after the fathe, Jim has killed himself (one hopes) Roy says: "My mother and I survived. Not having taken off to any heights, we had nowhere to fall".
Rusty -
Message 14
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Wednesday, 24th March 2010
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:01 GMT, in reply to Rusters in message 13
Thanks for your comments, Rusters. I can see that this book has not turned out to be a popular choice! On the other hand, it's probably been 鈥渃hallenging,鈥 as I believe the jargon has it these days.
I take you point about its being sandwiched in the middle of the book. It's not clear to me, either, why the stories have been arranged as they have. I think on the whole it's best to treat them as single events, and that was why I emphasised in the OP that it is really a collection of short stories 鈥 I think it's very misleading the way it's been published, in the UK at least, to lead you to suspect you've got a novel on your hands.
However, I did not find this chapter quite as dispiriting as you seem to have done. Did you not feel that there was an air of menace which was built up with almost suffocating horror 鈥 in both parts of the story?
I am not sure what we are supposed to take away from this book聽
That is a very interesting observation, which I need to take some time to reflect on. I think what I'll do, if no one objects, is post my thoughts on the individual stories over the next few days and come back to this question later. Needless to say, if the discussion takes another direction I'm happy to follow it, though it rather looks as if you've all been quite disappointed in this book. Not to worry 鈥 a bit of diversity never hurt anyone! -
Message 15
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Wednesday, 24th March 2010
Not a popular choice, perhaps, but at least is roused strong feelings, which is better than indifference. In fact, I think some of the most interesting discussions are when people disagree.
I have been trying to find more background stuff on David Vann, no surprises:
Rusty -
Message 16
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Wednesday, 24th March 2010
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:48 GMT, in reply to Rusters in message 15
I've just noticed, for what it's worth, that /Sukkwan/ /Island/ was published in France as a separate book and was called a "novel". It seems to have been listed for loads of awards. -
Message 17
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Wednesday, 24th March 2010
I'm currently still 'stuck' half-way through 'Sukkwan Island'. I tried a few more pages last night, but wasn't in the mood (other things on mind).
Whether a book (or writing) grabs us or not is so personal, isn't it? - like our reactions to a painting or a piece of music, and can vary depending on other factors (time, emotions ...).
Contrary to others, I don't find him a particulary good writer. In fact, I find a lot of it rather 'ordinary' and even banal. However, I feel rather mean saying that about /any/ author as I haven't got any pretentions to writing ability myself, so have to hand it to people who /do/ manage to write a book and get it published! -
Message 18
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:43 GMT, in reply to Bette in message 17
That's very true, Bette. I remember a few years ago hearing John Bird on /Private/ /Passions/ being asked by Michael Berkeley who his favourite composer was. To which John Bird replied that it varied from time to time but at that moment it was Debussy. I don't think I'd ever really registered before quite how variable our tastes can be.
I'm surprised that you find a lot of the writing ordinary, though. It is, of course, a somewhat spare style, but much of it I find incredibly haunting. Just a couple of examples more or less at random from /Rhoda/: 鈥淗e stared into the sky for a long time, then took aim with the .22 at [the kestrel] that was hovering a few hundred feet away. When he fired, the slim wings seemed to falter a moment, but I could have simply imagined it, because there was no fall.鈥 There is such a lot condensed into that short section: the father's ability to confront nature only with violence, the vacant inner core of the father, the indifference of nature and the uncertainty of the boy in the face of all this oddness. And the phrase 鈥渂ecause there was no fall鈥 has, for me, a poetic density about it, conjuring up many things beyond the surface.
Then shortly after that as Rhoda comforts Roy after his father has turned his gun on him: 鈥淪he pulled me so close I saw into her shuttered eye, the light-brown edge curving and perfect against the white, its landscape bottomless, its centre blocked from view.鈥 That stylistic repetition of the 鈥渋ts鈥 phrases strikes me as extremely melancholic after what has gone before; 鈥渓andscape鈥 is such a wonderful word to describe what exists even in vacancy, and then there is the strong suggestion that even in deformity there is a strange beauty to be found.
I suspect this may be an example of what I was trying to suggest in the parallel thread, that reading a short story should engage a different part of the reader from the part that simply 鈥渞eads a novel.鈥 Not sure exactly what I'm getting at, but it makes a kind of sense to me. -
Message 19
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
A few thoughts on the first story, /Ichthyology/.
It covers the early life of the narrator leading up to his father's suicide. A few themes emerge very strongly: the remote Alaskan setting, the hopeless idealism of the father, and the practical resilience of the mother. What hits me quite strongly is the fish imagery. Indeed, the fish are often more human than the people: the halibut take on feelings: 鈥淏etween us a kind of understanding developed 鈥 the other halibut, with their round brown eyes and long, judicious mouths, did see.鈥 And it is striking that later in the book, in /The/ /Higher/ /Blue/, the humans become 鈥渢he father鈥 and 鈥渢he son鈥 in a frighteningly impersonal way.
Fish become important because when the father and mother are arguing, the boy, Roy, leaves the house almost like a fish: 鈥淚 slipped out into the soft, watery world of Alaskan rain-forest night, soundless except for the rain ...鈥 It is another world, a world of different sense and experience 鈥 a world, we are told in /Ketchikan/ 鈥渨here weight and air were known differently, a world held in place, as it turned out, by nothing at all.鈥 And, unlike fish, Roy's father 鈥渉ad neither eyes nor ears for matters below the surface.鈥
Roy inadvertently poisons the fish in a neighbour's aquarium, but this sets him out on his desire to be an ichthyologist. At one point he is looking into his own tank and 鈥減erceiving myself perceiving, realized that I was I.鈥 The fish in the tank become his own route to understanding himself. After the father's suicide (described in this story, but nowhere else, as being by a .44 Magnum) Roy is left contemplating the mutilated iridescent shark in his own tank and the casual viciousness of the archer fish which leaves the victim (a fly) 鈥渕ired in the water, sending off his myriad tiny ripples of panic.鈥
As a response to the suicide of a close family member, we are left with a feeling of helplessness, rather like that fly caught in a trap it never expected. In the passage Rusters quoted above we learn 鈥淢y mother and I survived鈥 - but it is a bleak sort of survival: 鈥淣ot having taken off to any heights, we had nowhere to fall.鈥 What we have learnt of the father is that he is a rather incompetent would-be hunter and rugged man of the wild who fails to see the hopelessness of his own life: 鈥淚 just don't know鈥 - 鈥淭hat was our last communication.鈥
There is, however, much humour in this story 鈥 though somewhat deadpan. The battle with the halibut is a good instance, but the tone is often surprisingly light: 鈥渕y father ranged farther and farther 鈥 and everything he did seemed to lack sense.鈥
I love the rather desolate poetry in this story. It's not comfortable, but it has the ring of truth. -
Message 20
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
in reply to Herb Robert in message 19
Thanks for explaining in more detail what you like in this book. I /was/ hoping to get this kind of feedback, as the book clearly has impressed some readers and managed to win prizes. I googled a bit, but was none the wiser based on the comments I read.
I /was/ being rather unfair in saying the writing was ordinary, as it is true there are some bits that /are/ good. It comes back to what I said about being in the right mood/frame-of-mind at the right time, thought TBH I don't think I would like this book anyway because of the endless hunting/killing element. I just can't identify with any of it.
I have read comments elsewhere about the humour, which rather by-passed me, I'm afraid. That being said, there are elements of it, such as in /Ichthyology/ at the end where he says 'the iridescent shark had learned to find his way around by now and bumped less frequently into the glass'.
Even so, I did find the writing overall quite deadening. Maybe it picks up in second half of the book? I shall be interested in hearing what others have to say!
It is quite difficult to pin-point why one /doesn/'t like something (in art, that is)! -
Message 21
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Friday, 26th March 2010
Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:10 GMT, in reply to Bette in message 20
Ah, Bette, you've identified the nub of the matter here, I think: how difficult it is to pin-point why one does or doesn't like something. Interesting, too, that you find the writing overall quite deadening 鈥 I wonder if that has a lot to do with the subject matter as much as anything else? I certainly feel that there is a heavily claustrophobic atmosphere in places, though whether I would call that /deadening/ I'm not altogether sure.
For what it's worth, here are a few more comments on /Rhoda/:
In this second story we share part of Roy's life with his father and stepmother, Rhoda. This clearly takes place after the divorce and before the father's death. In fact, there is no human death in this story, but there are premonitions of it. There are immediate echoes of the first story in the physical description of Rhoda herself 鈥 we remember the one-eyed iridescent shark from the earlier story and are now presented with Rhoda's 鈥渄ropped eyelid that, on closer view, made her terribly beautiful.鈥 It is an image that recurs in the story, particularly at the end, as I noted before. Like the fish of the earlier story, Rhoda is a victim of the uncontrolled emotion of those around her.
Roy pieces together the destructive relationship between Rhoda's drunken mother and timid father: 鈥淪he's going to kill him.鈥 And again we are shown the ineffective emotional core of Roy's own father 鈥 he just doesn't know how to support Rhoda and can't understand why she's gone off on her own to do her jigsaw puzzle: 鈥淗e didn't understand her. He had no idea how to comfort her. 鈥淣othing has even gone wrong yet,鈥 he said to me,鈥 when clearly it has.
Much is implied in this story 鈥 we never hear the details of Rhoda's parents' turbulent relationship, though much later, in /Sukkwan/ /Island/, we learn that Rhoda had lost her parents to a 鈥渕urder-suicide鈥 - her mother shooting her father and then turning the gun on herself. The restraint in the narrative is quite remarkable considering the nature of events.
But the most shocking incident of the story, and the most revealing about Roy's father is when the father shoots a kestrel so the Roy can see it close up (destruction is his only way of getting close to things.) Roy screams at the shot and startles his father, who instinctively turns his gun towards Roy as if to shoot him. And Rhoda, along with the reader, wonders: 鈥淲hat's going on in there?鈥
In isolation this is a bleak story (鈥渢he strangeness of it is what I remember,鈥 Roy says of staying with Rhoda), full of horror at what the future might bring. It disturbs us with its casual brutality and the latent violence of certain human beings. Knowing what we already know from the first story, it helps us get a bit more insight into the lonely and emotionally isolated world of Roy's father.
Let's not forget, either, that Roy himself is becoming more familiar with guns and violence 鈥 he shoots a squirrel: 鈥淭here was the sound of rain through the trees as bits of him fell back to earth.鈥 There is a theory that suicide is more common among those accustomed to the trappings of pain and violence, those with easy access to the means of ending life; so whatever led his father to kill himself, Roy is portrayed as someone who could possibly, through his own gradual acclimatisation to violence as a natural response to the world, go the same way. -
Message 22
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Friday, 26th March 2010
I found Rhoda the most accessible chapter, probably because it contained characters with whom I could actually feel some sympathy, even empathy: Rhoda and even her father.
As far as the indiscriminate killing of animals is concerned, I don't know if it would have the same impact on an American readership as on a UK one. There is a widespread culture of hunting and shooting in all its forms in the US and even (most of) those who don't partake don't seem exercised by it.
I suppose what I am asking is, is the impact of all this as big to Americans as it is to, say, the average Brit. Taking it for granted, of course, that Vann's target readership is Americans.
Rusty -
Message 23
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Friday, 26th March 2010
Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:34 GMT, in reply to Rusters in message 22
That is a very interesting point, Rusters, and one that I wondered about raising right at the start. How important is it to an understanding of this book that we know that it is partly autobiographical and is based on a real-life suicide?
More generally, how much do we need to know about an author or his or her readership to appreciate a book in the fullest sense? Personally, I generally don't care to know anything at all about a writer and I avoid all literary biographies, since I fail to see how knowing about the life of, say, James Joyce helps to understand his work. Or if the work needs the explanation of the life, then that must be a shortcoming of the work.
And I suppose a similar argument must apply to the cultural /milieu/ of a work. I know it's rather different to the killing of animals to which you refer, but how is our reading of, say, Tolstoy dependent on a knowledge of the structure of Russian society at the time he was writing? Or, to pick up on last month's choice, is our appreciation of /To/ /Kill/ /a/ /Mockingbird/ diminished in any significant way if we are unaware of the general background of southern prejudice? My feeling is that it is not, and that is what makes it a great work. Perhaps the works that never make it onto the wider stage, or which do not last, are precisely those that do not rise above local considerations. -
Message 24
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Friday, 26th March 2010
how much do we need to know about an author or his or her readership to appreciate a book in the fullest sense? Personally, I generally don't care to know anything at all about a writer and I avoid all literary biographies,聽
Interesting! Ideally, I would read a book once /without/ knowing anything about the author (just for the 'story'). /Then/ I would re-read it for the style etc. /Then/ I would read up about the author. (The last two statements could be reversed!).
I find that knowing more about the author can give /much/ more richness to the reading of a work. I can't help but feel that much or most of the best writing is (semi)autobiographical. -
Message 25
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Saturday, 27th March 2010
Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:11 GMT, in reply to Bette in message 24
Crikey, Bette! You thereby read three books for every one that the rest of us manage! I certainly agree with you, though, about re-reading for style or simply for the sheer enjoyment of not being under pressure to find out what happens next.
I'm still not sure about the biographical background, though. A particularly thorny case to me is the poetry of Emily Dickinson 鈥 her strange, unique poems almost invite inquiry into her life, but such an inquiry results in very little elucidation of her work. -
Message 26
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Saturday, 27th March 2010
Meanwhile, back with the book, here are a few words on /A/ /Legend/ /of/ /Good/ /Men/.
In this third story we enter Roy's life after his father's suicide, which is mentioned only briefly as scene-setting: 鈥渟he didn't keep any man around for long after my father killed himself.鈥
The 鈥済ood men鈥 of the title are the various boyfriends that Roy's mother takes on, the most significant of which is the policeman John Laine. I suspect we are meant to note his mother's remark that 鈥渕en are full of surprises. They're never who you think they are.鈥 Again, it is Roy, who is round about 13 in this story, groping towards an understanding of grown men. One of the other boyfriends, Emmet, 鈥渨as a man who kept telling me who he was. And who he was kept changing.鈥 It is a world in which men manufacture legends about themselves and which, as his mother says, 鈥渢he impossible has become real.鈥 Later, in /Ketchikan/, one of the male characters, Bill, identifies himself with the trappings of masculinity: 鈥淚 was pretty interesting then. I wore cowboy boots.鈥 It is part of the overall picture we build up of the superficiality of the men in Roy's life.
Interestingly, his mother dumps John at least partly because he does not react in the same way as Roy's father to events: 鈥淲ithout a fight, my mother wasn't sure what to do. My father had wronged her in concrete ways that could be yelled about. With my father there had been the possibility of righteousness.鈥
It is a mark of Roy's desperation for male love that he manufactures the return of John to his house long after his mother has ditched him. And typically the solution is a violent one: Roy shoots all the windows out of his house so the the police have to be called: 鈥淚 waved my hand in the air 鈥 Here he was, delivered practically to my doorstep.鈥
There is also a suggestion that the rejection Roy feels is not solely about his father. When he finds one day that he has to break into his own house, the narrative becomes highly impersonal, as if describing a burglary, and Roy notices that 鈥渢his woman kept no pictures of anyone on display, so it was hard to tell whether she had a family.鈥
The question of identity, and how we make ourselves who we are, is very clear in the various men who parade through Roy's life in this story. But Roy himself is developed as a violent and possibly self-destructive boy: at 13 he is racing John's car at 100 mph and has amassed quite a collection of guns and soft-core pornography: 鈥渢his boy was some kind of pervert.鈥 The tension is almost relieved when John turns up again, even though it is in an official capacity. -
Message 27
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Saturday, 27th March 2010
You thereby read three books for every one聽
Um, I /did/ qualify that by saying 'ideally, ...'
-
Message 28
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Sunday, 28th March 2010
Today's offering is /Ketchikan/.
This is the longest of the five short stories in the book and sees the 30-year old Roy returning to Alaska to try and understand his father by revisiting his childhood and 鈥渢he place where this father and his suicide and his cheating and his lies and my pity for him, also, might finally be put to rest.鈥
It is not an entirely successful trip, and confronts Roy with more questions than answers: 鈥渕emories are infinitely richer than their origins 鈥 to travel can only estrange one even from memory itself.鈥 He is led to wonder whether he has actually been looking for some kind of revenge, though this is in the context of fabricating a meeting with his father's ex-girlfriend Gloria, who does not know or learn who Roy is, though his father sleeping with her 鈥渨as a kind of turning point .. in all our lives.鈥
The understanding that Roy does reach of his father is disturbing: 鈥減erhaps he had been, to some degree, lonely, a man who inflicted unavoidable pain on everyone around him but who must have suffered some himself. I didn't care to enlarge on this.鈥 But as he thinks of all the 鈥渟tupid images of loneliness鈥 he wonders if they had been something else altogether - 鈥渁nd what, then, of what I had become.鈥 It is an unsettling conclusion and shows how the ramifications of that far-off suicide ripple down the years.
The place of fish and the sea asserts itself in this story, with explicit reference to the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop: 鈥渃old dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals ...鈥 And once again the halibut hints at an other-worldliness that can never be known to mortals 鈥 as the filleted cheek still shudders with life, Kate, the one wielding the knife, says 鈥淕ods are born of less than that.鈥 It is almost as if the elemental world of the fish, however strange it may be, is more comprehensible than the human life that chose to end itself, since the fish clearly struggles to live on even in its severed part.
Perhaps, as Roy says, 鈥淎bsurdity is all that makes grief bearable.鈥 -
Message 29
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Monday, 29th March 2010
The final story in this collection, /The/ /Higher/ /Blue/, is appropriately paradoxical, beginning with a version of events that is immediately negated: 鈥減erhaps I should start closer to the truth.鈥 The mood of the initial version, however, is entirely in keeping with a father latching on to an idea and then pursuing it come what may: 鈥渕y father fixated on zabaglione.鈥 It is this 鈥渇ixated鈥 which is the key word.
The narrative in this story becomes extremely detached and impersonal - 鈥渢he father鈥 and 鈥渢he son.鈥 And the father is even more animal-like in that 鈥渢he creature began to walk upright鈥 and was 鈥渢he thing called Honey.鈥 Roy's understanding of him was as 鈥渁 sulky thing, easily wounded,鈥 who has left him with 鈥渁 lifetime of guilt, shame and self-hatred.鈥 But he does realise that 鈥渁 father 鈥 is a lot for a thing to be.鈥
There is a note of cautious optimism towards the very end, as Roy sits beside the small slab of granite which is his father's headstone and sits with him 鈥渏ust like the old times.鈥 And as he gazes into 鈥渢he higher blue鈥 and sometimes catches 鈥渢he hint of a hopeful, insistent flapping, I almost imagine the father has come finally to life.鈥 -
Message 30
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Monday, 29th March 2010
I am finding it difficult to discuss the finer details of the book because I just can鈥檛 seem to grasp them!
As I said upthread, I found 鈥淩hoda鈥 more accessible than the other chapters because Rhoda herself was a sympathetic character 鈥 more to the point, she was sympathetic to Roy.
The closest I came to really feeling sorry for Roy was in 鈥淎 Legend of Good Men鈥, and found the last bit very sad and poignant. Talk about getting the attention you need anyway you can. Poor boy.
When you were discussing this chapter you say 鈥淚nterestingly, his mother dumps John at least partly because he does not react in the same way as Roy's father to events.鈥 Despite my initial sympathy for the mother, when I really think about it, perhaps she subconsciously dumped *Roy* too, when she let him make his own mind up about whether to spend the summer with his father (Sukkwan Island).
Ketchikan鈥 was very strange and rather unsettling. I suppose it demonstrated (yet again) just how dislocated Roy was from other people, and could only relate to them in oblique ways.
I have just read the last chapter, 鈥淭he Higher Blue鈥 again, and it is very bleak. One thing jumped out at me: Roy 鈥 or 鈥渢he boy鈥 here 鈥 says 鈥淧erhaps we were never generous enough to the father. A father, after all, is a lot for a thing to be鈥. He does go on to say he didn鈥檛 mean that to sound bitter. What exactly might did he mean though? Too opaque for me.
I dunno, sometimes I can feel myself being taken over by my redoubtable maternal grandmother and thought: worse things happen at sea (apt here), a stiff upper lip is much under-estimated, and so on. She was of a generation to know of world wars, great losses, children everywhere dying without antibiotics and so on. Roy鈥檚 tragedy was a 鈥渏ust鈥 a personal one, which he wouldn't/couldn't let go, but others can choose to take or leave and I am afraid in the end, I left it.
Rusty -
Message 31
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:32 GMT, in reply to Rusters in message 30
What you say about Roy's mother is interesting, because although we inevitably tend to apportion blame to one side or the other (and in this case almost wholly on Roy's father), it must rarely be the case that both parties are faultless. And I think you're right 鈥 Roy's mother is described in places as equally as heartless, if that is the right word, as his father. I'm thinking particularly of Roy's semi-burglary of his own house in /A/ /Legend/ /of/ /Good/ /Men/, when he views his mother's rooms as an outsider might see them: 鈥淭his woman kept no pictures of anyone on display, so it was hard to tell whether she had a family.鈥 And you might say that leaving a 13-year old boy to make up his own mind is an abdication of responsibility in the circumstances.
That sentence that 鈥渁 father ... is a lot for a thing to be鈥 has haunted me somewhat since I first read it. I suppose it is because the truth behind it is rather hard to face, but there is also the sense that being human at all in an implacable universe is desperately difficult. Maybe this is why the narrator steers us away from /bitterness/ into something much more anguished. I think there is an existential loneliness at the heart of this book, which asks us to question our own place in the order of created things.
So while I take your point about his tragedy being 鈥渏ust鈥 a personal one, I think that each one of us is being asked to evaluate our own personal tragedies (which of course may not be as extreme as the one in this book) and to evaluate the meaning of our own lives. And to answer, partly, the question you asked upthread about what we are supposed to take from this book, I would say that we are led to question the things that have value for us and challenged to say how we would behave in the face of apparently inexplicable events. For most of us I'm sure that involves constructing a narrative of sorts that tries to makes sense of everything that has gone on in our lives. The interesting thing about this book is that we are presented with competing narratives of the same event, and have to wonder if such an approach is viable in reality.
Sorry, I seem to have gone on a bit here, but I do find thinking about the book and your comments very stimulating. I'll be away till after Easter, so I thought what I'd do is post my comments now about the final part of the book and then maybe return later to sum things up. -
Message 32
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010
The fourth story in this collection, /Sukkwan/ /Island/, is very different from the other five. It is a novella in two parts, and is told in the third person. The other five stories take up a total of 64 pages, while this one takes up 165 pages. Interestingly, the dialogue is not marked out in any way (by inverted commas or such like), so that the narrative and the spoken word merge together. It is also much more of a story and less of a meditation on events.
Part 1 of the story (95 pages) tells of Jim and Roy's adventure in the wilderness leading up to the shocking event, in the last sentence of this part, which tears everything apart. It charts the increasingly disparate expectations of father and son, with the pathetic Jim threatening and on one occasion indulging in melodromatic actions which seem designed to blackmail his son into accepting him for what he is. Part 2 (70 pages) follows the aftermath of that event and raises questions of what it means to live, what may lead people to suicide and how reality can be reconstructed to fit events.
Part 1 throws father and son together, at least 20 miles from the nearest neighbour, in the Alaskan wilderness. But in spite of this closeness 鈥淩oy didn't feel any closer to his father.鈥 Jim, on the other hand, becomes increasingly articulate about his own shortcomings: 鈥淚'm sorry, Roy, I'm really trying. I just don't know if I can hold on.鈥 He is on occasions remarkably self aware: 鈥... something about me is not right. I can't just do the right thing and be who I'm supposed to be.鈥 And later: 鈥淭he bigger thing is that I just can't seem to be alone.鈥 Roy notices that 鈥渉e was gone into his own thoughts and couldn't be reached.鈥 But the blanketing despair which surrounds Jim infects Roy too: 鈥淩oy too was part of a large despair that lived everywhere his father went.鈥 The only explanation which comes close to getting to the bottom of Jim's mental state is when he says 鈥淚 need the world animated, and I need it to refer to me 鈥 as if the creation of the world amounted to the Big Screw.鈥
So everything in this part leads us to expect Jim's suicide: Roy feels 鈥渁s if he were killing his father鈥 (note the sense of guilt) and 鈥渢he future Roy saw then was his father killing himself.鈥
Part 2, over the course of which we see one person coming to terms with another's suicide and trying to make sense of it, 鈥淲hat if suicide had been in [his] nature all along? What then? It would change responsibility, at the very least.鈥
The best we can come up with is that 鈥... one life is actually many lives, and 鈥 they add up to something surprisingly long.鈥 But in the meantime, if we can acknowledge love, then our lives may have some purpose: 鈥渉e knew then that Roy had loved him and that that should have been enough. He just hadn't understood anything in time.鈥 And memory is what can keep a person alive: You're still alive 鈥 things are going to keep happening to me because of this, and that makes you still alive.鈥
Landscape enters powerfully into this story, but it is a wilderness that makes no sense unless populated: 鈥淟andscape meant nothing to him if he had to see it alone.鈥 In the wilderness 鈥渆verything was sharply itself and nothing else.鈥 And while the rain falls, they feel cocooned in a narrow world: 鈥淭his dense rain, and the world enclosed by it, was what they would know.鈥 And later 鈥淩oy standing there in the drizzle felt things he could not make sense of.鈥 There is a desolation here which contrasts strongly with the mood of that classic American wilderness book, Thoreau's /Walden/. -
Message 33
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Monday, 5th April 2010
It was idiotic of me to say that the tragedy was 鈥渏ust鈥 a personal one. If one followed that thought to its logical conclusion it would put a crimp in a lot of fiction, and non-fiction for that matter. To lose a parent through suicide must be devastating, especially when one is quite young, so I suppose what it really boils down to is just *how* compassionate one feels about the characters in a particular book. In this case, sadly, not that much for me.
It鈥檚 funny though: I didn鈥檛 particularly like any of he main characters in 鈥淩evolutionary Road鈥 either. Nevertheless, I did feel some sympathy for just about all of them. That was probably because I felt able to identify more with their lives and problems (um, not from personal experience), but also because of the writing. Horses for courses I suppose.
I was just thinking about the title 鈥淟egend of a Suicide鈥. It took me a while to get it but, of course, the definition of 鈥渓egend鈥 is: 鈥淎 traditional historical tale (or collection of related tales) popularly regarded as true but usually containing a mixture of fact and fiction.鈥 That presumably gives the clue to the book鈥檚 sometimes illogical and incompatible takes on the father/son relationship.
You obviously admire David Vann and just as obviously judging by reviews and awards you are not alone. I鈥檓 sorry it has fallen to you to be the only champion of the book here, though.
Rusty -
Message 34
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Monday, 5th April 2010
I never did get past half-way through the book. Sorry HR. You /did/ enjoy Revolutionary Road, and I thought I /ought/ to like your choice too - but I guess books don't work like that, do they?
Still, I was glad to read the positive comments. -
Message 35
Posted by Herb Robert (U14072548) on Wednesday, 7th April 2010
Well, thank you both for your comments and for taking the time to read some or all of what has clearly been a fairly difficult book to come to grips with. I hadn't imagined when I started that I'd end up writing quite as much about it as I have, but I think that's partly because I have felt obliged to try and work out exactly what it is about the book that I like. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm much nearer answering that question, though it has been for me a most rewarding experience, so please accept my thanks for allowing me the space and the time to think about the book.
Bette 鈥 I wouldn't for a moment expect you to like my choice just because I liked yours. I hope we can be honest enough to take each work on its merits and not feel that we owe each other favours in that way.
And Rusters, I'm still not sure that I like or feel compassionate towards any of the characters in the book either, but there is something about it that draws me in in spite of that. Perhaps it is that unsentimental and unflinching look at the dark side of character that appeals.
I'm pretty sure that it is the quality of the writing that for me is one of the main attractions of the book, as I've tried to suggest in various places above. There is a marvellous, sinewy poetry on nearly every page, which repays much re-reading. By way of contrast, I've just been reading /Brooklyn/ by Colm Toibin and I cannot believe how dull the writing is in comparison 鈥 it must count as one of the most boring novels I have ever read, even though the story is an interesting one and the characters should be sympathetic.
May I leave the last word to the narrator himself with words from /Ketchikan/ which, perhaps, give one answer to that question you asked earlier, Rusters, about what we are to take from this book?
鈥淢emories are infinitely richer than their origins, I discovered; to travel back can only estrange one even from memory itself. And because memory is often all that a life or a self is built on, returning home can take away exactly that.鈥
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