Year-end reading

The Sweet Dove Died
Barbara Pym

'Yes,' she answered. 'Yes, I forgive you,' she repeated, as if she were not quite sure. One did forgive James, of course; one was, or saw oneself as being, that kind of person. Why then, did one not make some generous gesture, some impulsive movement towards him, so that all could be forgotten in the closeness of an embrace?

This passage appears near the end of The Sweet Dove Died, one of Pym's later novels (1977), and it exemplifies her dark humor and careful prose style. Our protagonist Leonora Eyre's internal monologues are often delivered in the third person, as if to maintain a careful distance from one's own feelings, often unsuccessfully. And note the passive voice and sly substitution of "all could be forgotten" for the more conventional "all could be forgiven." A chilly, cynical, and very entertaining novel.  

The Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett

I don't think I've ever watched the movie version, but I can see how it could make for excellent cinema, somewhere between film noir and screwball comedy. The plot is too convoluted for me, but that doesn't really matter much, because it's much more about style than substance. 

The Accidental Garden
Richard Mabey

I treasure my reading time, and I love getting into the "flow" of a good novel (large scale) or poem (small); I read rather little non-fiction for pleasure. But Mabey writes beautifully about something that I directly engage in: gardening that takes wildness and a sense of place seriously. In this book – an account of his stewardship (restoration?) of a plot of land in the English countryside – he explores issues that come up among California native plant lovers all the time: What does a "natural" landscape look like? What has been the human impact on a particular place, its flora and fauna, and does it even make sense to "restore" the land to some facsimile of its "original" state? How should we view "non-native, invasive species"? How can we facilitate a healthy and biodiverse landscape that honors the natural heritage of a place but also acknowledges the contingent and dynamic, the need for change, adaptation, and resilience in the face of cumulative and continuing human impacts? 

Move along, nothing to see here...

1.5ºC and all that.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 108

It's instructive to play this incredible album alongside Coltrane's 1961 classic Live at the Village Vanguard recording. Apples to oranges, sure, but may I say that musically speaking, Perdomo, Cole, and Glawischnig are in the same league as Tyner, Jones, and Workman/ Garrison? Miguel does not achieve 'Trane's spiritual elevation, but that is not Miguel's goal. His goal is to take the great canon of Latin music, deconstruct it, and then reconstruct it, exploiting the rhythmic and melodic inventiveness and intuitive empathy of this great working jazz band. As a saxophonist, Miguel's modus operandi is more Dolphy than Coltrane, cutting angles and quirky long passages, but ultimately, all his own quicksilver sound. This recording represents nearly everything that jazz can be. Never ever pass up an opportunity to hear these guys play live.

Steve Cropper, RIP

Got to have a hundred... 

Tall tales and fairy tales

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov

I recently heard the awesome violinist Alexi Kenney* lead the San Francisco Symphony in Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Although the piece is comfortably familiar and familiarly Baroque, I still know of no other human creation at all like it. I would say the same of Pale Fire, a work of imagination and audacity of the highest order. For my second reading, after many years, I had intended to read it "straight": flipping back and forth between John Shade's 999-line poem and Charles Kinbote's extended commentary on it. In Kinbote's foreword, he recommends a different approach, starting with his notes and then proceeding back to the poem... purchase of a second copy is recommended to facilitate ready access to the notes. Of course, Kinbote is a rather unreliable guide, if he even exists, fictionally speaking. Reliable or not, he can be laugh-out-loud funny, if unintentionally, just as Shade can be a touchingly rich poet, even if his rhymed iambic pentameter is nostalgic and contrived. In the end I read it straight through: Foreword, Poem, Commentary, Index. I reckon I will not wait long before taking another crack at it, maybe next time following Kinbote's questionable advice.

The Sleeping Beauty
Elizabeth Taylor

This was the fifth of Taylor's novels that I have read, and it is a very good one – I'd rank it just a notch below her humble masterpieces, A View of the Harbour and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Taylor's middle-class Brits often lead cramped, unhappy lives; her lead characters engage in small acts of heroism that involve the embrace of love over bitterness or honesty over (self-)delusion. When the pursuit of love conflicts with the virtue of honesty... well, that's drama... and comedy. 

* Full disclosure: Offspring of blogger.

Jack DeJohnette, RIP

He made much great music. This one is kind of a fusion version of speed metal. I have it on vinyl. Generally not my thing, but wow.

Reading roundup

The Hours
Michael Cunningham

A riff on Mrs. Dalloway, with its themes of madness, beauty, sexuality, and choosing between living and death, it is a fine novel, loaded with clever parallels and references to the original that only occasionally distract or become too contrived. 

James
Percival Everett

Having read about the novel, I was little worried that it would be too didactic or woke for my tastes, but in fact it is primarily a rollicking good adventure yarn, and in that regard not unlike its inspiration / foil Huckleberry Finn. Everett has serious fun with Jim's code-switching when speaking with his peers versus the white folks, if on occasion he is inclined to explain rather than show. Although the evils of enslavement, and its corruption of all levels of American society, are on display here, Everett's depictions never rise to the level of eloquence or horror of, say, Beloved, or The Known World. And in the end, in light of the plot's central revelation, what the f*** has become of Huck? I guess that question is left to the late Mr. Clemens to answer. This is not Huck's story, after all.

Desolation Island
The Far Side of the World
Patrick O'Brian

Ahoy mateys! I'd read a couple of his books before, and I was happy to return for more. Yes, they follow a formula. Yes, there are only so many things that can happen, so they keep happening, book after book: storms, doldrums, shipwrecks, battles at sea, floggings, scurvy. And yes, you have to make a choice between keeping Wikipedia close to hand so you can translate all the nautical jargon, or just blow through it like a westerly in the South Atlantic, counting on context and the pure music of the words. Anyway, our heroes Aubrey and Maturin are so compelling, the storytelling so gripping, the writing so facile, the moral sensibility so empathetic if traditional, you welcome yet another chase across the high seas, whether Aubrey is the hunter or the quarry. Call it science fiction: You are dropped right onto an alien spacecraft, with its own peculiar technology, language, culture, and rules. But better than most science fiction: Informed by historical and physical reality, and written by a master prose stylist.

D'Angelo, RIP

Some of the best-sounding music ever made. Way too young.