Reading Rainbow: Independence Day by Richard Ford

Despite the fact that nearly three months passed between when I began and completed reading this book, Independence Day was every bit the masterwork that the first in the Frank Bascombe series, The Sportswriter, was. As I have surely stated before, there may not be a writer out there whose prose is as consistently awe-inspiring as Richard Ford's. The release of his newest novel, Canada (less than $19.00 brand new in hardcover), this week has me brimming with excitement because there is more Richard Ford--new Richard Ford--out there for me to read.

Returning to Independence Day, Ford's Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award winning fifth novel, Ford drops in on protagonist Frank Bascombe on another holiday weekend, this time on the titular weekend in 1988. Just over four years (if my memory of when The Sportswriter takes place is correct; I believe it was in 1984, but it could have been 1982) have passed since the reader last got a glimpse into the life of Frank Bascombe. The death of his son and the near completeness at which his old life had been torn from him have left Frank to live in his self-termed Existence Period, marked by ambivalence and characterized by his goal to simply be. Decisiveness, at least as it relates to life-altering choices, is not a trait that Frank is displaying at this juncture in his life. As the weekend progresses, the people in his life, both in the short- and long-term act with widely varying degrees of respect as pertains to Frank, and it all just happens to him with little [re]action from our hero.

What makes Frank Bascombe so compelling his his voice. Imbued with the natural predisposition of a philosopher, it is often how he reads a situation--sometimes in completely divergent ways within the span of mere seconds--that sets this book and Ford's protagonist apart from others. The first-person narrative construct allows for Frank to quizzically look upon the situations that present themselves, his voice ringing out with equal parts poetry and clarity. Ford's deftness at which he captures the essence of the Everyman beset by indecision while blessed with an innate critical eye that allows him to observe without acting leaves the reader with a book that is breathtaking even with the simplicity that lies at the surface. Independence Day is a much richer novel than one could ever expect given the events that occur and is absolutely deserving of the mountains of praise heaped upon it.

But don't take my word for it...

Reading Rainbow: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Well, if ever one needed proof that all you had to do to win a Pulitzer Prize (or really any literary committee that conjures an image of stodgy white people, but most specifically this one) was write a multigenerational ethnic tale in the vein of magical realism, it can be found in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I suppose that sounds a bit dismissive, especially since the book is far from being 'bad,' but this is the same organization that saw fit to not award the prize to Gravity's Rainbow in 1974 after the three-member fiction jury unanimously recommended it. To be frank, though, reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao means doing so with the burden being placed on the book to prove itself worthy of having won such an award.

It does not prove itself worthy.

In his first full novel, Diaz sets out to tell the story of an obese Dominican nerd growing up in New Jersey. Oscar's unabashed obsession with science-fiction, fantasy, and comic books when combined with his demeanor renders him repellent to nearly all women. This is a problem as the only thing he cares about more than his escapes into nerdery is his quest for love. Oscar's hope for finding this love is cursed though, as his family has suffered under the cloud of a fuku (curse) presumably foisted upon Oscar's grandfather by the heinous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

As the novel travels back through time and follows the paths of first his sister Lola, then his mother Beli, and finally to his grandfather Abelard. Going back through the family tree, the evidence for a curse is certainly there.

The tale itself is compelling enough. The presentation is largely where the book comes up a bit short. Diaz's informal Spanglish prose is meant to be fresh and of the streets, but it comes across forced and grating. It also changes narrators and point-of-view, which is both off-putting and confusing, and granting Yunior, Oscar's college roommate, omniscience seems like an unsubstantiated leap. The parts that were often the most interesting were the footnotes, often but not always dealing with the history of the Dominican Republic. When the footnotes are one of the biggest things a book has going for it, there may be a problem.

But don't take my word for it...

Reading Rainbow: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

There is a problem intrinsic with reading a highly acclaimed book such as Middlesex. Unlike reading a book that is simply recommended to you by a friend, a book that has won, say, the Pulitzer carries a burden of expectations quite a bit greater.

While a friend's suggestion certainly does not come without a standard of enjoyment that you expect to derive from a book, an Award-winner needs to prove its worth at every turn. It needs to justify its inclusion amongst the ranks of classics like Gravity's Rainbow (I know, it didn't win the Pulitzer, but no other book did that year because the Pulitzer Board would not award the Fiction Jury's unanimous recommendation), To Kill a Mockingbird, or American Pastoral.

Having jumped into Middlesex with lofty expectations as to what was ahead, I cannot say they were met.

I'm not saying the book was without merits. It is an loving and endearing trip into the lives of an immigrant Greek family. I have yet to read anything that surpasses the quality of exploration into gender roles and identities as interestingly as this book did. The narrator is almost entirely engaging.

But the book is not without its shortcomings.

The exposition of the family history, while mostly integral to the book, drags on entirely too long. Calliope Stephanides, the novel's narrator, is not born until somewhere around the 200 page mark. Up until that point, the pacing is a little turgid.

Furthermore, the leap required to buy into Cal's familial omniscience is one that is a bit hard to swallow. The construct may be necessary to best tell the story, but that does not mean it is not without its flaws.

In talking with others who have read the book, it was interesting to note that most of its heaviest detractors were female readers, who typified the book as pretentious. I wonder how much of this has to do with a man trying to write about growing up a girl (and presumably getting it wrong, at least tonally). While I didn't feel the novel crossed the line into pretension, I didn't feel especially irritated during the journey. I can, however, say that my quest to find justification in the award having been given ended in disappointment. While the book was certainly good, I don't know that it ever crossed into the realm of contemporary classic.

But don't take my word for it...

Reading Rainbow: American Pastoral by Philip Roth

For reasons that are entirely beyond explanation, American Pastoral marked my first foray into the writings of Philip Roth. I majored in English. I read fairly heavily--certainly by today's standards. When I am moving at my best reading clip, I read about a book per week. Yet I had never read anything by "the greatest living American author".

Whether or not that oft-attached modifier is apropos, I have yet to come to decide for myself, but American Pastoral had enough going for it that I can at least see the grounds by which one may make that argument and not be insanely off base.

American Pastoral tells the tale of how a senseless act of violence can ruin a family. It picks up as Nathan Zuckerman (Roth's alter-ego) is attending his 45th high school reunion and happens to have recently crossed paths with Seymour "Swede" Levov, the blond-haired Jewish high school sports god from his youth. The Swede lived a pretty charmed life and did everything right. He married Miss New Jersey. He successfully took over his father's business when he came of age and moved out to the Jersey countryside to raise his family. At the reunion, Nathan discovers that The Swede died shortly after the two had met and that in 1968, the Swede's daughter had set off a bomb in the idyllic small town of Old Rimrock, killing one in an attempt to bring the war home

From there on, Zuckerman explores the Swede's past in an ultimately futile search to bring reason and understanding to his daughter's act of violence, which is--in totality--senseless.

There is a love that Roth clearly has for all of his characters. An impartiality, too. His journey into the destruction of the American dream is stirring, heartbreaking, and mesmerizing. While his prose does occasionally run long, with adherence to standard sentence structure furthest from his mind both in the writing and editing phase, his thoughts never get so labyrinthine as to prohibit the reader from coming out on the other side. It certainly is not light reading, but it never gets anywhere near the laborious nature of, say, Thomas Pynchon or James Joyce.

American Pastoral took me a little longer than I would have liked, but I certainly do not intend to put off reading the next Roth book I have picked up recently, The Plot Against America, even with the knowledge in hand that it may not be the quickest of reads. So if you have not read American Pastoral, I think it works well.

But don't take my word for it...