Review: 'Intimacies'

©2022 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Intimacies
By Katie Kitamura
Literary Fiction
Riverhead Books

The connections we make with other people are based to some extent on what we know about them, which is guided in part by what they show us. The levels of complexity and ambiguity in what we see, if what we see is what is really being shown, and what we make of it can add up to a long-lasting connection or a severed one.

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura chronicles these connections for a court interpreter in The Hague. The unnamed narrator is drifting after her father dies, her mother moves back to Singapore and New York no longer feels like home. At The Hague, she slowly makes a friendship, has congenial thoughts about her colleagues and meets a man. At an arts event, early in their relationship, a man who knows him tells her Adriaan is married and tries to both come between the new couple and claim her. It doesn't work, but the interplay between the three of them is fiercely emotional and yet quietly calm and civilized at the same time.

That tone, and the delicate balance between the surface of civility and the underlying deep emotions, is a hallmark of this short, highly admired novel (it made President Obama's list of favorite books as well as listed for the National Book Award).

Our narrator's work as an interpreter, and her understanding of that role, underpin the interplay between all the characters, especially as she tries to interpret what people are showing her and telling her. In her work, "there were great chasms between words, between two or sometimes more languages, that could open up without warning."

It's not just words; it's also actions that can be observed but perhaps not clearly or from the wrong angle, as when our interpreter sees three men slowing making their way down the street in an odd fashion. She realizes two of them are picking up cigarette butts dropped all over the streets of what appears at first to be a clean city, while the third follows them vacuuming up the small bits of trash. 

The author shows how what we interpret what we see in other aspects of life. The interpreter's friend introduces her to another friend. This new woman is the sister of a man who was viciously mugged near the first friend's apartment. This man, and what the interpreter sees him doing, are open to more than one meaning, until the truth settles in.

The interpreter also is assigned to the trial of a would-be dictator who is responsible for the murders of many people in his country. Of course the dictator's demeanor is never that of an evil monster, and that ambiguity about what people are capable of while appearing as something else is striking. Complicating the interpreter's work is the new lead defense attorney, who is the man that attacked her lover and tried to put the moves on her at the arts event. His actions are at times bizarre, and there is little ambiguity about his character. 

The attorney is a bit like the man in a real painting that is described in some detail as the interpreter views it during another art show. Judith Leyster's "Man Offering Money to a Young Woman" is a dual painting from the mid-1600s, painted by a woman in her 20s. The man is hovering over a woman working on a hand-sewing project. His look can be seen as either arduous, according to the author, or conceited. The woman looks fearful. The money in his hand isn't apparent at first, but it's there. He's treating her like an object of commerce. The other title of the painting is "The Proposition".

The painting operated around a schism, it represented two irreconciable positions: the man, who believed the scene to be one of ardor and seduction, and the woman, who had been plunged into a state of fear and humiliation.

More than one man in Intimacies uses women as objects of desire, of acquisition, as beings not even important enough to assassinate. Not all the women are sincere in what they are pursuing, and why, either. This is depicted more as an observation of the breadth and depth of human nature, rather than a judgment that some people are mostly good and some are mostly not. It's also an observation on our world, as seen while riding on a bus past The Hague's secure jail:

But none of us are able to really see the world we are living in -- this world, occupying as it does the contradiction between its banality (the squat wall of the Detention Center, the bus running along its ordinary route) and its extremity (the cell and the man inside the cell), is something that we see only briefly and then do not see again for a long time, if ever. It is surprisingly easy to forget what you have witnessed, the horrifying image or the voice speaking the unspeakable, in order to exist in the world we must and we do forget, we live in a state of I know but I do not know.

When the trial comes to an end after months, the interpreter notes that reporters who covered the opening and stayed away until the end will use pieces to form a narrative:

They had mere fragments of the narrative, and yet they would assemble those fragments into a story like any other story, a story with the appearance of unity.

This is exactly what the interpreter is doing as she observes the people she interacts with. It is dispassionately written, much as the author notes an interpreter or translator works, in that the person doing this work is trying to stay removed while accurately conveying what is being communicated.

Making conclusions early in the novel before revelations don't pay off. This is especially true of the ending. It was an unexpected ending and one that was joyous to behold. "Only connect" indeed.

Review: Tessa Hadley's 'Free Love'

©2022 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Free Love
By Tessa Hadley
Literary Fiction
Harper

A beautiful evening, a beautiful woman preparing herself for a beautiful dinner in a beautiful English suburb in 1967 -- Tessa Hadley sets the stage for a novel that shows how everything brittle cracked and everyone had a chance to become their own true selves during the revolution that swept through this seemingly perfect world.

In the novel, Free Love, the woman, Phyllis Fischer, is a 40-year-old Mrs. Dalloway with a husband and two children. Everything is just so; she has worked hard to make it that way because that is what she is supposed to do. The scene is set as an idyll:

Life flowed into the room from beyond the window in its drowsy suburban evening stream: the steady relieving splash of a hose in a herbaceous border, confiding clack of shears, distant thwack of balls from the tennis club, broken sharp cries of children playing, fragrance of cut grass and roasting meat, jiggling of ice in the first weekend gin and tonics.

Even "her dress for this evening waited like a friend". 

Phyllis takes pride in what she has accomplished, but it is obvious there is something missing: 

In all that stillness one pulse was racing: hers. Her life was passing, passing.

Dinner will not be a dinner party, even though she has taken great care with the food and her costume. The son of old friends is coming. Phyllis is certain Nicky Peters will be as much a bore tonight as he was when they met once in his boyhood.

Meanwhile, Nicky doesn't want to attend a stodgy dinner with stodgy friends of his stodgy parents. He is getting sloshed at a pub instead, wondering if he can escape the entire evening. He shows up an hour late, obviously more than one pint in, and is most inconsiderate and rude. Phyllis's husband, Roger, who works in the Foreign Office, brushes aside Nicky's obvious attempts to be a rude boor. Their teenage daughter, Colette, is at an awkward stage and is as contemptuous of Nicky as Nicky is of all of them. Their young son, Hugh, is glad to not have to attend because of his age; he would rather not share his mother's company at all anyway.

But before the story threatens to undo itself with trivial domestic drama, Hadley throws serious ideas into their dinner conversation. For example, Nicky tried to do some writing while in Iran and Afghanistan, but realized that "I didn't know what those people were thinking. So there was only me on every page, thinking about them: that was fairly sickening."

Nicky also is quick to stand up for not being a member of the Greatest Generation (even if it wasn't called that yet):

-- I suppose you think, Nicky went on, -- that we'll never be heroes, because we'll never be tested in the way you were. But we don't want to be. At least I don't. I'm happy to come clean: I'd fail every test you want to put to me. And I don't care. I'm a coward and I glory in it. A world built by cowards would be a better place. We could all sleep in peace and read our books.

It's about this time that I begin to wonder if a bookcase is going to fall on Nicky, like Leonard Bast.

Before an argument can break out at the table, a neighbor phones and demands that Phyllis go out in the dark, to another neighbor's yard, to rescue a child's sandal thrown into a pond. It is during this errand that Phyllis and Nicky suddenly kiss.

And everything changes in every character's world.

Hadley gloriously conveys what it is like to be in the throes of passion, to wonder if one will be able to breathe properly if one cannot be with the beloved. But woven throughout even this aspect of the story are the various strands of cultural and political explorations. Wondering if one is a Marxist or a traditionalist or nothing at all is as tied to the Britain throwing off the constraints of post-war gloom as experimenting with pot or sex.

There are characters who change and grow, who become their best selves with acquired wisdom and depth. There are characters who realize they should let someone go, and characters who realize they never should have let someone go. Some of these characters are the same character. There are characters who harden their hearts and a reader's heart can ache for them.

Later in the novel, a shoe drops in the plot about connections. At first it seems an odd choice by the author. Then the other shoe drops, and the plot takes on the overtones of an Oscar Wilde play. A reader does not have to be concerned about disbelief remaining suspended to remain invested in how the characters react to the plot points. The characters remain who they are, and that results in a rewarding reading experience. It's been some time since I was book drunk with falling into a novel, but that is what happened with Free Love.

Review: 'Unplugged' by Gordon Korman

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Unplugged
By Gordon Korman
MG Adventure Fiction
Balzer + Bray

Jett Baranov, the only son of a Silicon Valley genius whose companies are like Google, Apple and Microsoft combined, is en route to Oasis, a wellness resort in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. He's not going willingly. He's going because he's caused one uproar too many. Accompanied by an employee of his father, Jett is determined to get back home or cause even more trouble. Or both.

Giving up all his devices and deprived of tech upon his arrival only makes him more determined, especially when faced when an all-veggie diet.

Gordon Korman's latest middle grade adventure, Unplugged, is not only Jett's story. There are other young teens at the resort, their families, his companion and those who run the resort. Magnus created Oasis. His number two is Ivory, a tall, tough-looking woman who specializes in hypnosis counseling sessions.

Magnus can do no wrong in Grace Atwater's book. She and her mother have been coming to Oasis for years, leaving her dad and dog at home while they meditate, zip line and paddle in the lake. Everything about Jett is wrong to Grace, and she wants him to leave as much as he does. Tyrell Karrigan is allergic to everything and hapless about just about everything. Brooklynne Feldman comes and goes to camp activities as she pleases. Grace and Tyrell aren't even sure who her parents are, but Brooklynne has been coming to Oasis longer than they have.

When Jett finds a baby reptile in the hot springs pool, the kids band together to take care of little Needles. They end up bonding together in a story that doesn't force them into becoming friends. Their bond serves them well when Jett's trips to town to get meat for Needles lead to a surprising discovery.

The discovery leads to a wild action adventure-style climax, but one that middle grade readers will enjoy. Korman, an accomplished author of dozens of novels, does a great job providing adventure and characters to care about. Unplugged is a fun and engaging novel.

Unplugged will be published on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021.

Review: 'A Golden Fury'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

A Golden Fury
By Samantha Cohoe
YA Fantasy
Wednesday Books

As the French Revolution looms, Theosebia Hope enjoys talking politics and ideas, philosophy and alchemy. Although only 17, she is the valued assistant of her mother, a renowned alchemist who has had some success. They are close to creating the famed Philosopher's Stone, which would grant limitless power.

But that work comes with a heavy price. Her mother descends into madness pursuing her craft. Thea is sent to her father in Oxford, a professor who does not know she exists. Although Dominic, her father's assistant is kind, she knows she is not wanted. Her only hope is to find Will, the boy who was studying alchemy with her mother, the boy her mother sent away.

Soon they are all at the mercy of another rich man, one who is owed a great debt by Will. All three young people feel compelled to take that last step, that of creating the Philosopher's Stone, even if it makes them insane. They each find themselves wondering if they can take the chance, if they can save other people at the cost of their own reason.

But this is not a YA romance. A Golden Fury is a story about power -- the fabled unlimited power of the stone created through alchemy, power that Thea's mother came close to creating before it drove her mad. There is another powerful thread running through the story -- that of Thea's place in the world. Women in the 18th century were not free to carve out their own future. The ideas of proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, are woven into the choices Thea must make. What power does Thea have? And if she has any, how does she use it? Who does she use it for?

Cohoe has crafted together many elements in a fast-paced novel that melds together fantasy, horror and historical fiction to tell the story of a gifted young woman who wants to live a full, complete life.

Review: 'Piranesi'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Piranesi
By Susanna Clarke
Fantasy
Bloomsbury

The flooding waters are rising, and getting closer. A lone person scrambles into a safe niche among the marble statues filling a hall. The water recedes. And that lone person resumes his ongoing task of chronicling the world in which he lives.

That world is one of endless halls filled with marble statues, each one unique, and an ocean enclosed within the house that contains those halls. There are birds and no other humans, save one. The Other, who meets with our lone narrator twice a week, never stays long.

The lone person is called Piranesi by The Other. And in this new novel by Susanna Clarke, who brought the brilliant saga of Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to life, Piranesi's world is both enchanting and strange. Piranesi is a careful observer and chronicler of his world. It's uncertain how he knows some things and how he came to be. There are 13 others, but they are the skeletal remains of people he never knew in life.

During the regular meetings with The Other, he urges Piranesi for specific kinds of information to aid his own search for some Great and Special Knowledge. Although Piranesi is willing to help out, he begins to question the thesis when new information presents itself, or himself. There may be a 16th, another person. The way that The Other regards this stranger recalls the overbearing, nearly cult-like leaders of Iris Murdoch's books. Soon there are vibes that recall Tartt's The Secret History.

Piranesi also has a deep philosophical reason for not wanting to pursue this search for knowledge. As he puts it, if the House where he lives is merely a riddle to be solved, then solving the riddle will leave the House as nothing more than scenery. The House, as he calls it, is literally his world. Every inch of it means more than scenery to him.

He also likes the idea of abandoning this specific search because it would free him to go wherever his discoveries and accumulation of data may lead. To pursue knowledge of its own sake, as one fact leads to another, is something that obviously inspires Piranesi. 

Indeed, one of the lovely aspects of reading this novel is seeing how Piranesi is fascinated by and in awe of his world. As the story progresses, this is something that does not fade and does not disappoint.

Without saying whether the mysteries set up in the story are solved, it is important to note that the novel holds up and does not disappoint. There is another grand idea that Clarke explores fearlessly, but bringing it up is too close to being a spoiler. But that grand idea is key to this remarkable storytelling. Reading Piranesi is as exciting a discovery as any of the great world-building novels of the past few decades, including not only Clarke's debut, but also The Shadow of the Wind and Erin Morgenstern's novels.

Review: 'The Queen of Tuesday'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story
By Darin Strass
Literary Fiction
Random House

What if? That's the story of life.

What if I had done this? What if he had done that? What if someone knew this about her? What if no one knew? What if no one cared?

What if a man entering middle age, who wanted to be a writer but went into the family real estate business, had kissed Lucille Ball at a Coney Island party one evening? What if that led to another encounter? What if these things showed that man how his own life had become a series of What if? scenarios in which everything seems hollow, even though that man realizes his good fortune?

That's the story of Isidore Strauss. In Darin Strauss's new novel, The Queen of Tuesday, a character who may or may not be the author's grandfather may or may not have kissed the famous star before she became Lucy and everyone fell in love with her. If it happened, what might have happened next? What turns did his life take?

And what if Isidore, now an old man, had told his grandson about what may have happened? And that there is a chance that he may have written something that may yet be seen in the world? The novel goes meta with this part of the narrative, as the author breaks the fourth wall.

The other side of "What if?" in this novel is "Hold on". That's the nickname Lucille gives Isidore at that party on the beach, one held by Fred Trump. What if someone holds on to what she knows is dear, even if there is heartache? What if someone holds on and gives a second, third and fourth thought to the idea of flinging caution out?

Amidst all the yearning and desires for other things in life throughout The Queen of Tuesday, the sections centered on Lucille Ball are outstanding. Both the difficulties in dealing with an unfaithful husband and with a career that is on the brink of being a Hollywood has-been are clearly conveyed. The success of "I Love Lucy" is both something that no one imagined happening and something that leads to more "What if?" scenarios.

The breakthrough sitcom, which apparently is being shown somewhere in the world every minute, lends another "what if?" layer to the narrative. What if Lucille Ball had not been beloved as Lucy when HUAC came calling? Or would they have come calling at all had she not become famous as Lucy? What if Lucille was more like Lucy and Desi was like Ricky? How would their own marriage have been different? 

What if we viewed "I Love Lucy" as an extended playing out of Lucille not wanting to break into show business, like Lucy, but instead wanting to be close to her husband? What if we viewed Ricky Ricardo not as a bandleader, but as the man Desi turned out to be -- successful at running the business side even while being an unfaithful husband? Is Lucy's attempt to be on Ricky's stage nothing more than Lucille's attempt to have the TV show as a way to keep her marriage to Desi?

The Queen of Tuesday is the kind of book people could chat about with large glasses of a preferred beverage, wondering aloud various "what if?" ideas. 

Review: 'The Butterfly Lampshade'

©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Butterfly Lampshade
By Aimee Bender
Literary Fiction
Doubleday

 A young girl knows enough to lock herself into her bedroom at night when her mentally ill mother is having an episode. When her mother is hospitalized, the girl then lives with her aunt, uncle and newly born cousin as a 10-year-old. The now grown young woman seeks to solidify her position in the world through memory.

Aimee Bender's The Butterfly Lampshade is a quiet, calming book in which finding one's place in the world is possible because of love. Remembering how situations came to be makes the love more real, more tangible.

Three episodes in young Francie's life hold particular meaning for her, because they are occasions when things not real became so. A butterfly matching the ones on a lampshade in her babysitter's apartment appears floating in her water glass. A beetle from a drawing on a school worksheet appears in the backpack in which Francie stored the paper. Three roses matching the ones on a friend's curtain appear on the floor, and she takes them home.

There is no question the objects are real. The roses are seen by her friend, and her young cousin keeps one of them as a treasured object. Through the years, Francie's mother struggles with her illness but finds a quiet place to flourish in a group residence. Francie grows up with her loving aunt and uncle, and her adored cousin, who adores her right back. The family's quiet love is a bedrock to Francie's existence, which is most helpful when she doesn't always feel tethered to the world.

Now grown and ready to face her own questions about the three instances of objects becoming real, and what it means to her place in the world, Francie undertakes daily quiet sessions. In a tent that she and her cousin, Vicky, set up on her apartment balcony, Francie lets her mind go where it will, down any memory rabbit hole. 

It's a brilliant way for Bender to chronicle Francie's life growing up, going back and forth to incidents that held strong significance to her, and go focus on incidents more than once as her ability to remember deepens.

In addition to the larger narrative about love and being solidly in the world, the memories also let the reader in on why Francie, even as a grown woman living alone, still feels compelled to be locked in at night. It's something she felt was necessary even after moving in with her aunt and uncle. When the "why" is revealed, it fits in with the larger narrative of why Francie feels unhinged in the world.

The reader also learns why Francie settles into finding objects and reselling them online, sending them along their journey to become objects with new meaning to new owners.

Anyone who has read Bender's earlier work knows her remarkable talent at descriptive passages that feature stirring language and serve her story. That talent is on full display in The Butterfly Lampshade, as here:

We are all locked in rooms in different ways, and part of growing up is finding different kinds of keys, and meeting the people who will help free you.

May you find the people who are your keys.