Snowflower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See)

In the popular fashion of Memoirs of a Geisha, this book tells the life story of a woman of Chinese descent. But Geisha takes place in Japan, not China, and Geisha is not nearly as ancient. Nonetheless, it is female-driven historical fiction at its finest. That is not to say the novel is literary fiction. Hardly. Far from. The fun of this novel lies in it’s somewhat realistic depiction of historical facts, not in the transcendent quality of the tale or writing style. In other words, I wouldn’t call it art. (Yes, yes. I am a horrible literary snob. I admit it.)

If any book is Oprah-worthy, it could be this one. Decently long and educated yet touching on all the aspects of ancient life that modern women would find interesting—gender equality, foot-binding, arranged marriages, etc. Naturally, as I modern woman I found these things interesting. Foot-binding? Yech.

The best theme present in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is the secret female language of Nu Shu. This is a series of characters entirely different from the male Chinese language that was supposed to be known by only women. They embroidered characters into cloth, painted them on fans… and kept them out of men’s hands. Nu Shu was a way for women to say what they really felt in a restrictive world that wouldn’t allow them to otherwise. When a woman died, all of her Nu Shu was burned at her gravesite so her words would travel with her to the next world. When a young child passed, those words would introduce the child to friends and ancestors who had passed before. A great concept and very interesting from a social history point of view.

In the end, it is only historical fiction—a cute tale told within the confines of historical fact, an entertaining story about what could have happened. Not what actually happened. Such is obvious. Real life never has the high drama and tragedy of fiction, the crystallized lessons learned, the perfect balance and integration of themes. That is always manufactured and that is always, in the end, why historical fiction is not transcendent to me.

Tell me a true story—one that happened in actuality, no matter how dry or uneven or anticlimactic the facts are. Or, tell me a true story—one of literary fiction, where the emotions and ideas ring true to my heart and mind, where the people and events may not exist in the outside world but they express truth nonetheless, hitting the nail on the head. Yes yes, I know. I’m a snob.

But I did like this book. I did. If only because it made me witness the process of foot-binding on the page and imagine the sound of breaking bones as you walking across the floor with your toes curled underneath the arch of your foot. Holy hell, ouch!

An Invisible Sign of Her Own (Aimee Bender)

I am a huge fan of Aimee Bender’s work: her first collection of short stories, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, and her latest collection, Willful Creatures. This is her first full-length project and it was actually published between the two sets of stories. This was a good book. It was. If anyone else wrote it, I would write a nice, fluffy and downy-fresh review and leave it at that. But this is a Bender and so I cannot be so simple. Frankly, I know that this is not as good as her previous work.

Hmm. You may ask, Why? Well, for one, her other work is incredibly hard to live up to in my mind. Her unique imagination and crisp style. Each tale is an encapsulated whole. Her ideas are so wild that maybe it is better that way. Maybe those ideas don’t have the elasticity to stretch over the frame of a traditional novel. In other words, the strange wild and wacky world she usually succeeds at creating wears thin in points to show the real world poking through from underneath.

An Invisible Sign of My Own is the story of a 20-year-old young woman who understands the world through mathematics. She also lives her life every moment with her father’s illness in mind, an illness that is not really a disease at all but more of a colorless gloom of depression and surrender. So she too makes a habit of surrendering everything. In fact, she is an expert quitter. Everything she finds herself liking or growing attached to she immediately gives up—by force if necessary. For example, in order to give up sex, she sickens herself by eating soap thereby linking dirty sex and nauseating clean at the same time.

I do like the premise behind the title. It is based off the actions of the neighbor who also happens to be the girl’s former math teacher. He wears a different wax number on a string around his neck each day based upon his mood. If it’s a wretched day where he can barely get out of bed, he might sport a 7. If he falls in love or goes on vacation, his number could rise as high as 80. The main character, understanding his system, can understand and sympathize with his mood. But who is paying attention to her invisible signs? In truth, no one can see the number, the grade, the ranking of our feelings behind the mask of our faces, making math the universal language of… what? Not humanity. Of isolation? Of over-simplification? Maybe. An interesting concept.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the book. It flew by like the rest of her writing and I recommend it for a bit of light, fun reading. I just have a feeling that this mathematical main character will not have the sticking power of other bender creations—the de-evolving boyfriend, the “mother-fucker,” etc…

Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck)

This is the second Steinbeck novel I have found for sale in the libraries remnant bin—the second-hand shelf where they get rid of books that they don’t want to keep on their shelves any more for various reasons. While I am happy to get a copy of this book (I have read it before but do not own it), I am also sad. What is the state of our library system that they toss out Steinbeck with the morning’s refuse? Where is the love I ask you? I comfort myself with the thought that new editions are simply becoming available and the libraries are restocking their shelves with better, brighter copies with which to educate the future generation of readers. I hope.

Steinbeck. Two syllables of greatness. Sometimes I have a hard time pinning down just what it is that makes Steinbeck so fun to read. It’s not as if he reinvents the wheel or as if poetry, a river deep and swirling, drips from his pen like a, like a… okay, I’m no poet either. Steinbeck is simply an excellent story-teller (look here, for instance) and Tortilla Flat is no exception.

The short, speedy novel is the tale of a group of friends recently returned from WWI, paisanos (of mixed Indian, Spanish and European blood) who love their wine and women. These characters are unique and human, humorous, bumbling, touching. Their world is so simple and easy in a way. Having property may be a great status symbol but is not worth it because of the headache. Disgrace and sin are not characterized by adultery or theft. Instead, honor lies in sharing a jug of wine or a cut of pork with a friend. Oh, did I mention the wine?

“Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs may be graduated thus: Just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. To inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of the first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fingers down, a song of death or longing. A thumb, every other song each one knows. The graduations stop here, for the trail splits and there is no certainty. From this point on anything can happen.”

Oh please. Take me to a time and place (and to a people) that prizes sitting in the sun barefoot in the morning, working only sporadically (usually to buy wine or throw a party), stealing in a Robin Hood context, pulling the wool over outsiders’ eyes. A society where a man who sleeps under the stars, had no bed to call his own and steals chickens from his neighbors can still be a “good” man. And if not “good,” at least endearing, entertaining and memorable.

Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stenger)

I really don't understand how Stenger can justify calling this book Crossing to Safety. In truth, the characters seem to be firmly aground in the land of safety from beginning to end. In other words--nothing fucking happens. Published in the 1970s, this book is the autobiographical musings of the narrator about his and his wife's friendship with another couple that began in the 1930s. They have and lose jobs, they succeed and fail, they have lots of babies, endure disease and disappointment as well as enjoy each other's company through (wow! can that really be so fun?) sing-a-longs and oral poetry discussion (at parties no less!).

It is the story of ordinary, well-lived lives and the narrator digresses on this matter at the end of the book. Being the writer, he is urged toward the end of their lives to capture the legacy of these life-long friends. He ponders, "How do you make a book that anyone would read out of lives as quiet as these? Where are the things that novelists seize upon and readers expect? Where is the high life, the conspicious waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish? Where are the suburban infidelities, the promiscuities, the convulsive divorces, the alcohol, the drugs, the lost weekends?"

As I read along, I asked myself, "Where indeed? Give me alcohol, drugs and kinky sex in order to save me from smothering in the smarm fest." Why then did I continue reading this "smarm fest," as I would like to call it? Well, the lives of these people (though boring and glowingly girl-scout perfect) are exactly the romanticization of what I would want my life to be. The narrator is a college professor, a writer, a novelist. His buddy is a professor of literature. They walk around being rich through inheritance, with big beautiful antique roadsters (I love those!) and wives with bobbed haristyles (I love those, too!). They spend the school year teaching and cocktail partying only to retire to their country lake house for three months in the summer. The writers and professors have their own "think shacks" where they slave away for academia and posterity until the afternoon swim, nap and sun-downer.

I continued reading out of pure envy. Whaa-ha-ha, I am the evil green monster reader from hell who will feed my hunger for life by sucking your book of beauty and then diss you in public. I am going to go to my think shack now and sulk.

The Long Haul (Amanda Stern)

The Long Haul—are you in for it? In other words, can you commit to a relationship for the good times and the bad, for better or for worse? In Amanda Stern’s (obviously first) book, she explores the character of a young woman of college age who commits to a relationship that is doomed from the beginning to be nothing but “worse.” Her committed partner is the needy, co-dependant, controlling and unstable character simply referred to as “the alcoholic.” In the main character’s defense, I will say that at least the alcoholic plays the guitar—musical talent and rock-star potential forgive so many other glaring errors in female eyes, right?

There are things I like about the book. I love the boyfriend’s moniker/alias, that we never know his true name. I like the structure of the book. It’s short, quick, flowing. In a way, it’s a series of related short stories more than a traditional novel and I like that. On the other hand, it seems a bit played out. Unoriginal and faded with all the experimentation with time and perspective that has characterized literary fiction in the last decade or so.

Sadly, Stern’s book is simply dated. Although it was only published in 2003, the form (as mentioned above) and also the subject matter seems to me to be pure adolescent 1990s. And as a child of the Cobain generation, I suppose I should know. The main character is all about her psychiatric troubles—even cutting is mentioned—dresses in baggy boyish digs and eventually succumbs to depression, not leaving her bed for days on end. It’s all very Prozac Nation, if you ask me. Self-involved, very drama-rama-dramatic—not necessarily bad traits but, again, very adolescent. This made the main character un-relatable in my eyes and the alcoholic purely pathetic. I mean, couldn’t you make me actually feel something for the bastard?

The kicker that dates this piece is the musical repetition at one point of a Jane’s Addiction song (Jane Says) last released in 1990:

Jane says / I’m done with Sergio / He treats me like a rag doll…

Jane says / I’m done with Sergio / He treats me like a rag doll…

Jane says / I’m done with Sergio / He treats me like a rag doll…

Well, Gnomey says, I’m done with the Long Haul. It treated me like it was 1995. I’m sure as an adolescent myself, I would have appreciated the dark, brooding nature of this book. But now, it only seems interesting and promising but flat and unoriginal. Dated before it was even released. Sorry, Amanda. Nothing personal, darling.