Fops, orphans, and a mannish lady lawyer, Part I Monday, Sep 29 2008 

Novels and Serial novels RC 1:54 am

 

I checked this book out from the library because the back of the book promised a “mannish lady lawyer” named Sally Brass.  Awesome, right? I feel like Dickens exercised a lot of self-restraint in not naming her “Sally Brass Balls” or something.  And since she is kind of a literary mentor for me, obviously, it’s good to know that a lady’s practice of law leads to messy hair (check), spinsterdom and all manner of unfeminine behavior.  Good to know.  

The back of the book also refers, somewhat apologetically, to the “sentimentality” and “pathos” in its portrayal of the usual angelic orphans, which is semi-ludicrous…I think sentimentality and pathos, along with angelic orphans, mannish lady lawyers, gambling addicts, etc etc, are really what you want from a Dickens novel. What did the back of the book expect, Hemingway? 

This book is also notable for the character of Quilp, a malevolent, wife-beating (or just verbal abuser? it’s unclear), evil mastermind of a moneylender who also happens to be a dwarf (stay klassy, Dickens!) and likes to perch on the backs of chairs, rubbing his hands together and laughing evilly over other peoples’ financial ruin.

So, yeah, I like this book so far, but am only halfway through.  To be continued.

 

Mysterious strangers and flesh-eating evangelicals Sunday, Sep 7 2008 

Bay Area and Novels and Serial novels RC 7:18 pm

There is a new(ish) Tales of the City book, & I’m trying to get caught up before I read it.  I got a few pages into this one and realized that I’d already read it but no matter; it’s always a pleasure to spend a few bus rides with Mr. Armistead Maupin.  

Now, all of the Tales books are a little on the soap opera-ish side and I do treasure that about them, but this was even a little more campy than most, what with Michael developing some kind of paralysis that reminded me of the unpronouncable fake illness that plagued Pamela on Dallas, amnesia, mysteriously appearing and disappearing relatives, and so on.  

 

Actually, now that I think of it, that is all par for the course with these books (I just remembered the one where Jim Jones turns out to be alive and living in Golden Gate Park, and then gets murdered and buried in someone’s backyard), and I love it.  

Another thing this book has going for it: the appearance of punk rock kids! Including some sort of punk rock hired assassin 14-year-old named Douchebag, who likes to stick bubble gum up her nose.  Ah, the gritty realism.

These books rule. Now, in the spirit of maudlin twists of fate and paeans to a city from long ago, I am reading some Dickens.

 

Thai Prisons, Naval Defections, Nipple-Ringed Aristocracy, and Mr. Darcy Sunday, Sep 2 2007 

Bay Area and Novels and Serial novels RC 7:41 pm

Last Sunday, I was sick and in bed with two scions of chick lit, Armistead Maupin and Helen Fielding. Good times.

First, Maupin’s “Babycakes.” (Am trying to get up to date so I can read his latest in the series, which for some reason is neither available in my local library nor from my estranged friends at booksfree.com.) He is in his usual fine form in this book. It is the 1980s now, so Mary Ann is into aerobics and everyone in England has that awful Princess Diana haircut. I love the subplot with the errant British navyman and his secret carny/midget bloodline; the whole Michael/Mona/Lord whatsisname plot is hilarious; and all the bad local television in the book made me miss the days when I had access to the hilarity of the newscast on KRON 4. (Are they even still around? I fear they are not because I can never find it when I’m watching TV at the gym.) Good stuff — I highly recommend it.

Having whetted my appetite for light, entertaining fare, I moved on to “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” which for those not in the know is the sequel to “Bridget Jones.” The book is a little embarrassing in those rare moments when it takes itself too seriously, but much of it was funny enough that I was laughing aloud on the train. (B at pompous dinner party full of lawyers: “The point is that you are supposed to vote for the principle of the thing, not the itsy bitsy detail about this percent and that percent. And it is perfectly obvious that Labour stands for the principle of sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers, and Nelson Mandela as opposed to braying bossy men having affairs with everyone shag-shag-shag left, right, and center and going to the Ritz in Paris and then telling all the presenters off on the Today program.”)

I found it so poignant how B.’s relationship is nearly spoiled by her application of the knowledge gleaned from self-help books to which she is addicted; I myself reach the brink of divorce nearly every day because certain people in my life do not appreciate the wisdom that I glean about relationships from the ladies’ magazines I can’t stop reading. You know, What Men Want and so forth. Apparently, what they want is for us to stop quizzing them with questions about their commitment level from the popular media, but that is impossible because it is so fun to do that. Anyway, Bridget at least prevails in the end.

 

Sinister attorneys v. saintly orphans: Bleak House Sunday, Jul 29 2007 

Novels and Serial novels RC 4:56 pm

I always like these long sprawling Victorian novels where you have several narrators and you get to settle in and get cozy with the book for ages and ages. This book was 1000 pages, which was heaven; unlike certain writers whose books barely survive one train ride to work and back, Mr. Dickens was my commuting companion for several weeks.

This book has the usual cast of characters of saintly orphans and mean people who look after them, desperate street sweepers, rich benefactors who descend out of nowhere and save said orphans, and aristocrats with terrible secrets. Bleak House mixes it up with devious lawyers who are responsible for all the world’s ills.

Court, frankly, doesn’t sound like it’s changed that much from Dickens’ time in England, except for the tragic lack of white wigs. (Technically, our founding fathers eliminated the parallel courts of law and equity that are singled out by Dickens as a main reason for all the delay. But I think being able to kick things back and forth between state and federal courts, or to decide ‘oh, we in CA have to review this one cause of action by applying Maine law’ probably has the same effect.)

One thing that was sort of exciting: 800 pages in, when I was least expecting it, the book busted into a full-on Masterpiece Theatre mystery format, complete with the ingratiating, fastidious, infallible detective and a dead body. Very nice.

(Actually, speaking of masterpiece theatre, my book was supposed to be a companion edition to masterpiece theatre edition starring Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, so she was on the cover in a ridiculous Victorian ensemble.)

In sum: I recommend this book, if you have not already read it (I think everyone but me already did so in high school), esp. as rainy-day reading.

 

Further Tales of the City Saturday, Feb 3 2007 

Bay Area and Novels and Serial novels RC 9:34 pm

What’s so hot right now is local, serialized novels set in the Bay Area. I went to the library and checked out some books to see how it is done.

I love Armistead Maupin and I totally agree with the reviewer on the back who says that people will be reading the Tales of the City Books centuries from now to see what everyday life in the late 20th century was like, the same way you get a really good sense of a certain kind of aristocratic, philandering everyday household life in the 19th century from reading people like Tolstoy.

Tales of the City had me at a line that went something like: “You can do anything you want in 1970s San Francisco as long as you do it in a place that looks like a rustic old country barn.” Further Tales of the City has them all in the 1980s, epitomized by a Wilkes Bashford sweater worn by one of the A-Gays that is black with a gold jaguar splayed across the shoulders. In short, Maupin is still a genius. Someday, I hope to be drinking too much champagne and talking trash with him at a gathering for important San Francisco people.

Anyway, here is what I learned from his book that I hope will help my own meager effort at joining his storied serial novel tradition. (Tales of the City, as you may know, started out as a serial in the Examiner back in the day – at least that is what I think I read somewhere.)

1. You need a large cast of characters and they should all alternate as narrators. Now I may have backed myself into a corner by starting The Serialist in a first-person, freaking present-tense narrative, but I am trying to figure out how or if I should deal with this. Maybe in a long, Paul Auster-ish story-within-a-story way? That is what I am leaning towards.

2. Local detail and a sense of place is really important. But is it only important to me because I love reading about where I live and hearing that the Marina Safeway has been called Dateway since I was born? I notice they toned the local stuff down a little on the Showtime series. Anyway, ANY detail, insight about characters, etc. etc. would probably be welcome in the serialist. More about this when I finish Renay Jackson’s Shakey’s Loose, in a similarly local vein, and discuss it.