Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Having finished the final Harry Potter novel, I find that most people instead of asking, "did you like it," ask "were you satisfied." Now rarely would anyone evaluating a novel say, "Well, it satisfied me," as opposed to "I liked it," but in this case, it's entirely appropriate. (I was satisfied and I did like it, by the way). Because, at this point, one loves Harry or one doesn't, (presumably if you read the seventh novel already, you're on the side of love) and for that final book readers weren't asking Rowling to increase their love but just hoping that she wouldn't break the spell. To be unsatisfied would mean that Rowling had ended with developments that felt false, contrived--either faking us into tragedy or faking us into happiness--and the whole magic world we've all been living in for the past eight years would have dimmed. But I'll just say I was satisfied. (I also want to say that it gives me great pleasure to have witnessed the Harry Potter phenomenon in real time--having to wait years to bring the story to an end only added to the fun of it--my heart was literally racing as I cracked the cover of Book Seven).

In recent weeks, I spent some time rereading past Harry Potters and more than ever, I admired the way that Rowling brought characters into the series early on and then picked them up and developed them in later books. She's always maintained that she had the whole thing planned from the beginning, but I'm going to guess that it was only the larger strokes that were definite (and those strokes were the points that I was sure of from the start regarding certain characters who shall not be named), but other things she has to have developed as she progressed. And I strongly suspect that rather than always looking forward and planting characters she would need later, she instead looked back and when she needed a character (say a slightly sketchy member of the Order of the Phoenix) she would look back to who she had created in earlier books (ah Mundungus Fletcher will work). But that seems to have been true mainly for smaller characters and smaller points. What seems quite clear in rereading is that she never put a book to press without knowing how the next book would go. So a vital character of Goblet of Fire (Cedric Diggory) is introduced one book earlier (he beats Harry at Quidditch) or the mysterious R.A.B. at the end of Half-Blood Prince is actually introduced in Order of the Phoenix (that one I figured out for myself, so I don't think I'm giving too much away). I've never thought about writing a trilogy let alone a seven book series (I'd be pretty happy to be a one-book-wonder), but if ever I did, it was a useful revelation to understand that you need to plan one book ahead, so that you've put what you need for the next book into the current one... that's how you are able to write an end that will satisfy.

Books I've enjoyed lately: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, Five Skies by Ron Carlson, Absurdistan by Gary Stytengart

Young Adult Books I've enjoyed lately: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the first three in the four Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books by Ann Brashears, Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. Why so many y.a. books, you ask. I have my reasons.

Great Books I've taught lately: Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Books I've enjoyed recently in anticipation of teaching them in the fall: The Master by Colm Toibin

Sorry, I just haven't had anything to say about 'em. I think I have Blog Ennui. Check back in August.

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

I'm an admirer of Jennifer Egan's ambitions. She writes novels the way Don DeLillo, Marilynne Robinson, John Updike, and Toni Morrison write novels. With the intent not only to tell a story but also to say something, to at least observe, and possibly comment, on life the way it is lived. The Keep alternates between a story of a strange castle in a strange country that is being remodeled (kind of) into an out-of-body resort intended to restore visitors' imaginations (or at least that's my interpretation) and the story of the guy writing the castle story. He's in prison, in a prison workshop. And then at the end, there's a surprise third story that makes the scope of the novel one step larger. And it almost works. My one problem was as I was reading, I kept feeling like the prison story wasn't necessary (it was reiterating the themes of the castle story but in a much more obvious way) and it wasn't until the third story (the very end of the novel) that it felt necessary. So the question is can a reading be redeemed by a strong finish? Probably not. There should be some way to make all three sections work. Part of the problem with the prison sections was they were very meta-fictional, but they seemed to be for an audience/readers who don't write fiction. So they were questions/comments about writing that struck me as very obvious. Made me wonder about who I think meta-fiction should be for--for an audience who is already expert in writing and therefore wants some complex comment or for an audience who is curious but unknowledgeable about writing. The latter is fine, certainly it's a broader audience; just not me, I guess.

But still, I'm an admirer. One of the things Egan does to take her writing beyond fiction to literature, is to use characters who have philosophies. And Danny (the protagonist of the castle story) is that kind of guy. For example: "Fear was dangerous. It let in the worm: another word Danny and his friends had invented all those years ago, smoking pot or doing lines of coke and wondering what to call that thing that happened to people when they lost confidence and got phony, anxious, weird. Was it paranoia? Low self-esteem? Insecurity? Panic? Those words were all too flat. But the worm, which is the word they finally picked, the worm was three-dimensional..."

Another interesting thing she does here is use play formatting for much of her dialogue. For the most parts readers ignore all the "said"s and "asked"s that we throw into fiction, but as anyone who notices the rhythm of their writing, needing to add or subtract syllables based on how the sentences sound... well, you know those saids can mess you up. I don't think Egan is making some major point (partly her prison workshop writer breaks rules because he doesn't know them) but it works as a small innovation. I might just borrow it sometime.

The Airborne Toxic Event

It's true my love of books washes over into my musical taste: The Books (do I really need to explain?), Sufjan Stevens (also a fiction writer)... but this is my new favorite band:

http://www.myspace.com/theairbornetoxicevent

Not only does their name come from White Noise, but one of their songs ("The Girls in Their Summer Dresses") is an adaptation of an Irwin Shaw short story.

Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon by Tom Stoppard

I've already declared my fandom of Tom Stoppard's plays, so I was excited to see a reissue of his 1966 novel, which was described as "zany" by the Washington Post and indeed it is. The plot includes among other things, a runaway lion, a biographer with a bomb in his pocket (and no knowledge of how it got there, when it will go off or how to rid himself of it), and a lord in a livery coach with a blatantly unfaithful wife, as well as some cowboys. The plot is random to say the least, the dialogue as sharp and funny as you'd expect, and the characters surprisingly warm. Why surprisingly warm? Because one of the things you don't get in a play is point of view (what the characters are thinking), and instead the characters must be warmed by the actors who play them, so it was the thing Stoppard was least likely to be good at. But actually he was good with point of view.

When I read novels like this, which don't have a very sensible cause and effect plot that makes meaning easy to distinguish, I try to figure out what makes the novel still work structurally and in this case it's largely motifs that recur (the lion, the bomb), often in unexpected places, that make the novel feel of a piece. And when I break it down further, the structure is actually quite conventional (yes, the bomb does go off)--while many strange things occur without cause, they generally occur in chronological order and in the end, they affect the characters, especially Mr. Moon, and so a traditional character arc is complete. And further zaniness ensues.

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

I'm a fan of Miranda July, who is a filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), musician, performance artist, and writer. I particularly like her website, Learning to Love You More, which seems to exhibit the world view that life can be one big art project and wouldn't it be better if it were. I'd read some of her stories in various magazines and was really looking forward to reading the rest when this collection came out.

In the end, though, the stories I'd read before were the best ones and as I read the whole book all the way through I thought about the difference between story cycles (in which the stories are linked somehow) and story collections. I'm often an advocate for the collection; I find the recent market-driven decision to turn most collections into cycles unnecessary and a little bit annoying. I think by tying stories together writers often get away with including weaker stories--or doing less work in individual stories to make them great. Great story cycles work both ways--as individual stories and as a greater whole when put together--but great story collections work both ways too.

So back to July--I, for once, thought this should be a story cycle instead of a story collection. July's protagonists are often youngish single women who share the same quirks, concerns, and ways of viewing the world. Now I'm a big fan of this character--who is much like the protagonist of July's film--she is funny and sad and sharply observant with charmingly weird reactions to almost everything--but when you meet fifteen versions of her, you start to wonder if the world could possibly be populated with a tribe of quirky thirtysomethings who were maybe all raised on some remote women's collective together than spread to the four corners--or if this is just the same woman operating under fifteen different aliases. If all of the stories had been linked by one protagonist I think they might have grown in value rather than diminished.

With that said, there are a handful of stories in here that are among my favorite stories of the past two decades--and that's saying something.

Silent Sustained Reading

The blog is taking a break until May. Books I've enjoyed lately, but haven't felt like analyzing, include: The Mystery Guest, Indecision, The King of King's County, Revolutionary Road and The Hazards of Good Breeding.