The opening words of this thrilling novel are; “There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and, between each of these and a part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all.”
This novel is set in Ireland in modern times. And it is about love, death and God. Stephen Griffin is the grown son of Phillip Griffin and each of them attempts to make their way through life that has been knocked off course by the death of wife/mother and daughter/sister in an auto accident. Phillip lives in the now empty house, forgetting nearly every day that his wife and daughter are gone. Stephen has found a quiet corner of Ireland as a history teacher in an elementary school, and there expects little of life but to get through it.
But life will not unfold so quietly and so emptily. Pressed by another faculty member to buy a ticket to a string quartet concert in a nearby hotel lobby, on the way to which on a rainy night Stephen’s car slides off the road and he finds himself in the dark and in the rain a bit bruised and confused. Fortunately the same person who has sold him the ticket, sees the headlights of the car in a field just off the road, and she stops to help him. She drives Stephen, wet and dirty, to the concert. And there Stephen, in the back of the room, finds himself transported by the music and especially by Gabriella, the women who plays violin in the group.
The next time he visits his father for a regular date to play chess and listen to opera music on the turntable, his father notices the state of his son and guesses that he has fallen in love.
The rest of the novel is about Stephen’s search for Gabriella, a search that takes him to Venice, the city that is Gabriella’s home, and back to Ireland again. It follows Phillip as he seeks to either assist his son to fulfill the love that is in him, or to help him to survive if that search should be futile. Phillip is found to be ill and he knows, and has confirmed that his illness is terminal. He prays that God will let him live long enough to see his son through his crisis.
Phillip was a tailor in his work life and he decides that the one thing he knows he can do for his son is to make him a suit. So he goes to the cloth provider he used when he was working . And he buys fine cloth. He gathers his tools and lays the cloth out on the floor of his small house and estimates the cutting of the cloth from his intimate knowledge of his son’s body compared to his own. And in a beautiful act of love, he makes for his son a suit that can comfort and protect him in his search for his love.
Another resolve that Phillip makes as he sees the end of his life coming toward him, is to take his resources from the bank and do acts of goodness. He chooses to take each day a sum of money and hid it in public places in his town and let God decide who should find it, depending on God’s wisdom and mercy to guide those who need it to these little treasures.
We follow Stephen on his search for Gabiella, which is finally successful and after tests and failures, it becomes apparent to both of these two young people that they do indeed love each other and set out to make a life for themselves and a new child they have conceived. The novel ends on an Irish beach on the Atlantic where Stephen had owned a little house. Gabriella decides that once the baby is born, she wants more than anything else, to open a music school. So the novel ends on this quiet beach with a new modest building that is soon filled with children learning and making music.
Among the joys of this book is the beautiful writing, for instance “ Stephen Griffin had first seen Gabriella Castoldi playing the violin in a concert in the thick-curtained upstairs room of the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis in Count Clare. He had not intended to be there and marvelled often afterwards howone moment leads to the next, until the pattern of our lives seems inevitable.”
Or, “ And in the simple, brief, and yet momentous way in which life is decided, in which the hold of the past is released and the future arrives like a new skin, Gabriella closed her eyes and at last surrendered to that impulse that was as timeless, inevitable, and relentless as spring itself, and was the subject of all the songs the men were singing in the town below.”
When I first read the this book some years ago, I bought as many copies as I could afford and gave them to friends whom I believed would be moved by it as I was.
Trent
This novel is set in Ireland in modern times. And it is about love, death and God. Stephen Griffin is the grown son of Phillip Griffin and each of them attempts to make their way through life that has been knocked off course by the death of wife/mother and daughter/sister in an auto accident. Phillip lives in the now empty house, forgetting nearly every day that his wife and daughter are gone. Stephen has found a quiet corner of Ireland as a history teacher in an elementary school, and there expects little of life but to get through it.
But life will not unfold so quietly and so emptily. Pressed by another faculty member to buy a ticket to a string quartet concert in a nearby hotel lobby, on the way to which on a rainy night Stephen’s car slides off the road and he finds himself in the dark and in the rain a bit bruised and confused. Fortunately the same person who has sold him the ticket, sees the headlights of the car in a field just off the road, and she stops to help him. She drives Stephen, wet and dirty, to the concert. And there Stephen, in the back of the room, finds himself transported by the music and especially by Gabriella, the women who plays violin in the group.
The next time he visits his father for a regular date to play chess and listen to opera music on the turntable, his father notices the state of his son and guesses that he has fallen in love.
The rest of the novel is about Stephen’s search for Gabriella, a search that takes him to Venice, the city that is Gabriella’s home, and back to Ireland again. It follows Phillip as he seeks to either assist his son to fulfill the love that is in him, or to help him to survive if that search should be futile. Phillip is found to be ill and he knows, and has confirmed that his illness is terminal. He prays that God will let him live long enough to see his son through his crisis.
Phillip was a tailor in his work life and he decides that the one thing he knows he can do for his son is to make him a suit. So he goes to the cloth provider he used when he was working . And he buys fine cloth. He gathers his tools and lays the cloth out on the floor of his small house and estimates the cutting of the cloth from his intimate knowledge of his son’s body compared to his own. And in a beautiful act of love, he makes for his son a suit that can comfort and protect him in his search for his love.
Another resolve that Phillip makes as he sees the end of his life coming toward him, is to take his resources from the bank and do acts of goodness. He chooses to take each day a sum of money and hid it in public places in his town and let God decide who should find it, depending on God’s wisdom and mercy to guide those who need it to these little treasures.
We follow Stephen on his search for Gabiella, which is finally successful and after tests and failures, it becomes apparent to both of these two young people that they do indeed love each other and set out to make a life for themselves and a new child they have conceived. The novel ends on an Irish beach on the Atlantic where Stephen had owned a little house. Gabriella decides that once the baby is born, she wants more than anything else, to open a music school. So the novel ends on this quiet beach with a new modest building that is soon filled with children learning and making music.
Among the joys of this book is the beautiful writing, for instance “ Stephen Griffin had first seen Gabriella Castoldi playing the violin in a concert in the thick-curtained upstairs room of the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis in Count Clare. He had not intended to be there and marvelled often afterwards howone moment leads to the next, until the pattern of our lives seems inevitable.”
Or, “ And in the simple, brief, and yet momentous way in which life is decided, in which the hold of the past is released and the future arrives like a new skin, Gabriella closed her eyes and at last surrendered to that impulse that was as timeless, inevitable, and relentless as spring itself, and was the subject of all the songs the men were singing in the town below.”
When I first read the this book some years ago, I bought as many copies as I could afford and gave them to friends whom I believed would be moved by it as I was.
Trent
I read The Bird Artist several years ago and it has stayed stubbornly in my mind since. When I first read it, I went out to buy another of his novels, The Museum Guard and found it almost as compelling as the former book.
The story is set in the early 20th century, before the First World War and geographically, it takes place in a small coastal village called Witless Bay in Newfoundland. The story is narrated by Fabian Vas who in the first paragraph identifies himself as a bird artist and as the one who killed Botho August, the light house keeper.
The life of a small coastal village unfolds in the pages of the book. We see something of the centrality of the lighthouse for a village dependent upon fishing and other endeavors that involve the water. We also get some flavor of the proud isolation of Newfoundlander in their distance from Canada in mind set, if not in fact. We also catch some glimpse of the place of religion and the church in the life of the people.
Fabian is found by his mother to have a talent for drawing, so his mother encourages him. At one time Fabian, in looking through the small library of and his early education is almost exclusively being tutored by mail in the drawing of the birds of Newfoundland. Fabian becomes adept enough to sell some of his drawings. His relationship to his tutor Isaac Sprague, upon whom he becomes dependent for help and praise, is as distant and cool as the relationships of all the folks of Witless Bay.
But at the heart of the story are a pare of tragedies, two deaths, one of them a murder and the other a death out of desperation and carelessness at the betrayals that have taken place. As indicate above, Fabian kills the light house keeper. And his father, betrayed by Fabian’s mother, leaves Witless Bay and works to have the blame for the death of Botho August fall on him. Through a visit by Fabian’s father’s brother, Fabian is told to put the blame for the death of Botho on him so that he, Fabian, might be free to live his life. Through the complexity of these events and tragic happenings the deep flaw that runs through human life and all of human history is disclosed again. The strange fact of life that is worked out in the church in the doctrine of The Fall and Original Sin is grounded in profoundly moving ways.
Near the end of the novel, the minister of the local church, a character painted as a most unlikable man, who has not believed that Fabian’s father commited the murder that sent a shock through the whole community. He believed that Fabian did.. He had the practice of grounding his sermons on sin by using Fabian’s mother’s infidelity, and Fabian and Margaret’s relationship as illustrations.
But he comes to Fabian with a proposal. He wants a mural painted for the inside of the church and he offers Fabian the job so Fabian can have some income and so he might work out his own guilt as he paints the village, its people and a part of its history. As much as I disliked the minister in the early pages of this book, I began to admire the way in which he ministers to Fabian in this proposal.
Fabian throws himself into the task, working night and day. He paints into the mural the birds of Witless Bay which he has come to love devotedly, and he paints the people of the village and he paints the victim of the murder, with arms like angel wings unfurled, looking out of the top window of the lighthouse. And Fabian paints himself face down in the mud of the wetlands near the bay.
Fabian and Margaret find each other again by the end of the book and they set out to make a life together and the mural on the walls of the church reflects the people, history and the glory of the birds of Witless Bay.
The writing is so spare, careful and beautiful it is a memorable experience to read.
Trent
The story is set in the early 20th century, before the First World War and geographically, it takes place in a small coastal village called Witless Bay in Newfoundland. The story is narrated by Fabian Vas who in the first paragraph identifies himself as a bird artist and as the one who killed Botho August, the light house keeper.
The life of a small coastal village unfolds in the pages of the book. We see something of the centrality of the lighthouse for a village dependent upon fishing and other endeavors that involve the water. We also get some flavor of the proud isolation of Newfoundlander in their distance from Canada in mind set, if not in fact. We also catch some glimpse of the place of religion and the church in the life of the people.
Fabian is found by his mother to have a talent for drawing, so his mother encourages him. At one time Fabian, in looking through the small library of and his early education is almost exclusively being tutored by mail in the drawing of the birds of Newfoundland. Fabian becomes adept enough to sell some of his drawings. His relationship to his tutor Isaac Sprague, upon whom he becomes dependent for help and praise, is as distant and cool as the relationships of all the folks of Witless Bay.
But at the heart of the story are a pare of tragedies, two deaths, one of them a murder and the other a death out of desperation and carelessness at the betrayals that have taken place. As indicate above, Fabian kills the light house keeper. And his father, betrayed by Fabian’s mother, leaves Witless Bay and works to have the blame for the death of Botho August fall on him. Through a visit by Fabian’s father’s brother, Fabian is told to put the blame for the death of Botho on him so that he, Fabian, might be free to live his life. Through the complexity of these events and tragic happenings the deep flaw that runs through human life and all of human history is disclosed again. The strange fact of life that is worked out in the church in the doctrine of The Fall and Original Sin is grounded in profoundly moving ways.
Near the end of the novel, the minister of the local church, a character painted as a most unlikable man, who has not believed that Fabian’s father commited the murder that sent a shock through the whole community. He believed that Fabian did.. He had the practice of grounding his sermons on sin by using Fabian’s mother’s infidelity, and Fabian and Margaret’s relationship as illustrations.
But he comes to Fabian with a proposal. He wants a mural painted for the inside of the church and he offers Fabian the job so Fabian can have some income and so he might work out his own guilt as he paints the village, its people and a part of its history. As much as I disliked the minister in the early pages of this book, I began to admire the way in which he ministers to Fabian in this proposal.
Fabian throws himself into the task, working night and day. He paints into the mural the birds of Witless Bay which he has come to love devotedly, and he paints the people of the village and he paints the victim of the murder, with arms like angel wings unfurled, looking out of the top window of the lighthouse. And Fabian paints himself face down in the mud of the wetlands near the bay.
Fabian and Margaret find each other again by the end of the book and they set out to make a life together and the mural on the walls of the church reflects the people, history and the glory of the birds of Witless Bay.
The writing is so spare, careful and beautiful it is a memorable experience to read.
Trent
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is a curious and engaging novel. It is curious in the first instance, because it is narrated by a dog. And in the second place, it is about formula 1 auto racing. The dog in question is named Enzo. If I remember rightly, the first name of the founder and leading light of the Ferrari automobile company was Enzo Ferrari. Enzo the dog is our eyes on what unfolds in the family of Dennis Swift, his wife Eve and daughter Zoe. Dennis is a race car driver, and images and experiences from driving and racing are the means by which we see much of what transpires.
The family of Dennis, Eve, Zoe and Enzo is close and happy. Until, that is, Eve begins to have disturbing symptoms of a dire illness. Enzo tells us that he knew before anyone else in the family that something was wrong with Eve. Through the eyes of Enzo the family drama unfolds which includes the sickness of Eve, the intrusion of her wealthy parents who insist that Eve and Zoe come to live with them while Eve is ill, and while Denny is often away pursuing his career. Eve dies, and the in-laws challenge Denny for custody of Zoe based on false charges made again Denny. So it is Denny and Enzo much of the time in the unfolding of these events, and the response of Denny is infused with the insights and strategies that are learned in competitive racing. Enzo is only able to watch and because he is a dog, his participation in what is taking place is severely limited and is frustrating to him. But what is seen in Enzo are deeply human emotions and loyalties. What happens to the members of his family happen to him in their own kind of way.
As I read the book it occurred to me that what we see in Enzo might help us in our thinking about God. All that Enzo observes from his close proximity to the members of the family, affect him in the deepest of ways. Those around him are not aware of the depth of the impact of the unfolding of their lives on Enzo. I think that one of the given characteristics of God is His intimacy to all of our lives, and that God in God’s deepest life, is affected by what transpires in us. Enzo, the dog, is limited in what he can do to shape events. And this limitation frustrates him. He fantasizes in the novel about coming back as a man when his dog life is over, and he fantasizes about what he would do if he had language and hands and other human gifts. But he is destined to not have those gifts the impact of what happens to the human members of his family are more deeply felt. And there is an enormous frustration in the awareness of the evil done to those we love and knowing that charges made are false and mean spirited and he can do nothing about it. It occurs to me often that that is fate of God; to be present to the evil and the suffering of the world and is not able for some reason, to intervene, but is deeply impacted by these events.
The end of the novel is, as we would know from the opening pages, is one in which justice is done, wholeness restored, and a hint that maybe dogs do come back as humans.
Trent
The family of Dennis, Eve, Zoe and Enzo is close and happy. Until, that is, Eve begins to have disturbing symptoms of a dire illness. Enzo tells us that he knew before anyone else in the family that something was wrong with Eve. Through the eyes of Enzo the family drama unfolds which includes the sickness of Eve, the intrusion of her wealthy parents who insist that Eve and Zoe come to live with them while Eve is ill, and while Denny is often away pursuing his career. Eve dies, and the in-laws challenge Denny for custody of Zoe based on false charges made again Denny. So it is Denny and Enzo much of the time in the unfolding of these events, and the response of Denny is infused with the insights and strategies that are learned in competitive racing. Enzo is only able to watch and because he is a dog, his participation in what is taking place is severely limited and is frustrating to him. But what is seen in Enzo are deeply human emotions and loyalties. What happens to the members of his family happen to him in their own kind of way.
As I read the book it occurred to me that what we see in Enzo might help us in our thinking about God. All that Enzo observes from his close proximity to the members of the family, affect him in the deepest of ways. Those around him are not aware of the depth of the impact of the unfolding of their lives on Enzo. I think that one of the given characteristics of God is His intimacy to all of our lives, and that God in God’s deepest life, is affected by what transpires in us. Enzo, the dog, is limited in what he can do to shape events. And this limitation frustrates him. He fantasizes in the novel about coming back as a man when his dog life is over, and he fantasizes about what he would do if he had language and hands and other human gifts. But he is destined to not have those gifts the impact of what happens to the human members of his family are more deeply felt. And there is an enormous frustration in the awareness of the evil done to those we love and knowing that charges made are false and mean spirited and he can do nothing about it. It occurs to me often that that is fate of God; to be present to the evil and the suffering of the world and is not able for some reason, to intervene, but is deeply impacted by these events.
The end of the novel is, as we would know from the opening pages, is one in which justice is done, wholeness restored, and a hint that maybe dogs do come back as humans.
Trent
It has been a good many years ago that I first read a glowing review for a novel titled The Goldbug Variations by a novelist unknown to me up to that moment named Richard Powers. I have been reading his novels ever since. He is to me one of the most daring and rewarding novelists of our time. He is daring because of the larger issues of the culture he is willing to tackle, and one of the most fluent and engaging writers I have ever read. Among his most interesting and ambitious books are; Gattica 2.2, a novel about artificial intelligence, that is, the creation of a self aware complex computer; Plowing the Dark, about the creation of artificial environments, one strand the captivity by terrorist of a suspected informant and how they determine what environment he will be confined to, and the other strand, a company seeking to recreate environments, again by computer; Gain, two parallel stories; one about the history of a company that starts out as a business that makes soaps, which grows into a modern conglomerate that makes all manner of cleaning products, and the other of a woman who contracts and fights cancer; and The Time of our Singing a novel about a mixed race family and its two sons who are talented musicians. I have never read any writing about the experience of making music and listening to it as is in this book.
Powers newest novel is Generosity; an Enhancement. The characters in this novel include a rather failed writer who gets hired by a community college in Chicago to teach a class in creative non-fiction; a psychologist who is a staff member of the counseling center for the college, and a scientist who studies genetics and its role in human attributes and psychological states.
In the class the writer teaches is a young immigrant woman who has fled Algeria in a time of upheaval and violence and who has lost most members of her family to that violence. What the teacher and the other members of the class notice and are drawn to, is the buoyant and continuously happy state of the young woman. This character shows up in her class participation, in her relationship with her class mates and it even shows up in the writing she does for the class. The teacher wonders about the girls constant state of euphoria and how it affects the class and he worries about her because he is afraid it might not make her cautious and aware as someone who lives in a city like Chicago might need to be. He makes contact with the psychologist and she becomes involved with and interested in, the girl. They both wonder at the constant happiness and contentment of the girl. As the story unfolds word of this girl and her state get out. The scientist wants to study her, and manages to get her to spend a day or so with him at his lab in Boston. He does an analysis of her DNA and thinks he might have found the gene complex which has caused this to happen. He writes a paper and gives the girl another name to protect her privacy, but the paper has an immediate and widespread affect. The girl’s real name becomes known. She agrees to appear on the talk show of an”Oprah” like host in Chicago. She is deluged with requests for friendship, for advice, delegations from churches who think she might be an angel, or have a secret that can be taught. And the scientist begins to test the waters for turning his discovery into a marketable treatment to reshape the genes in others so that such happiness and contentment might be universally available.
What Powers has done in an entertaining some times humorous way, is to explore the way we as a culture yearn for what we do not have and many times have it suggested to us that we can have what we yearn for by means of science and medication. I have yet to finish the last 30 or 40 pages to find out how it all ends, but if I had read it I would not have reported it here. Its always good to find out the end by your own reading.
Trent
Powers newest novel is Generosity; an Enhancement. The characters in this novel include a rather failed writer who gets hired by a community college in Chicago to teach a class in creative non-fiction; a psychologist who is a staff member of the counseling center for the college, and a scientist who studies genetics and its role in human attributes and psychological states.
In the class the writer teaches is a young immigrant woman who has fled Algeria in a time of upheaval and violence and who has lost most members of her family to that violence. What the teacher and the other members of the class notice and are drawn to, is the buoyant and continuously happy state of the young woman. This character shows up in her class participation, in her relationship with her class mates and it even shows up in the writing she does for the class. The teacher wonders about the girls constant state of euphoria and how it affects the class and he worries about her because he is afraid it might not make her cautious and aware as someone who lives in a city like Chicago might need to be. He makes contact with the psychologist and she becomes involved with and interested in, the girl. They both wonder at the constant happiness and contentment of the girl. As the story unfolds word of this girl and her state get out. The scientist wants to study her, and manages to get her to spend a day or so with him at his lab in Boston. He does an analysis of her DNA and thinks he might have found the gene complex which has caused this to happen. He writes a paper and gives the girl another name to protect her privacy, but the paper has an immediate and widespread affect. The girl’s real name becomes known. She agrees to appear on the talk show of an”Oprah” like host in Chicago. She is deluged with requests for friendship, for advice, delegations from churches who think she might be an angel, or have a secret that can be taught. And the scientist begins to test the waters for turning his discovery into a marketable treatment to reshape the genes in others so that such happiness and contentment might be universally available.
What Powers has done in an entertaining some times humorous way, is to explore the way we as a culture yearn for what we do not have and many times have it suggested to us that we can have what we yearn for by means of science and medication. I have yet to finish the last 30 or 40 pages to find out how it all ends, but if I had read it I would not have reported it here. Its always good to find out the end by your own reading.
Trent
I have just finished Ian Pears An Instance of the Fingerpost. The Fingerpost, according to Webster’s is “..a post with one or more directional signs, terminating in a pointed finger or hand.”
The title is a clue to the content. There are four distinct narratives of the same singular event. The time is the early 17th century and place is Oxford, England. The event is the execution of a young woman for murdering a professor. Each of the narratives is by a man connected with Oxford, the town and or the university. And each person tells a different story about how what happened, happened. The intrigue of the novel is how each person giving their side of the story has their own interests, prejudices, passions and secrets, and each one has their own part to play in the unjust death of the young woman.
Among the great themes of the novel is the way in which religion can and is used to support these interests, prejudices, passions and secrets. For one man, who lusts after the girl and abuses her, he defends his deeds by claiming that he is possessed of the Devil and the Devil uses his power over the man. There are those who have their own political passion and interests and if someone gets hurt in their machinations it is of no matter to them.
The young woman herself is poor but proud, she cares for her aged mother, she has been educated by her father, who lost his life in the civil conflicts of the time, and she is able to keep her dignity in the midst of the cultural prejudices and abuses she must endure.
In the final pages of the book, in the report of the last narrator, out of jealousy, lust and curiosity, the narrator follows the young woman who leaves Oxford on foot in the early evening, and walks to a nearby village. The narrator watches her as she enters a simple house with several other peasants. The narrator sneaks in to the back of the room. To his astonishment the young girl stands before the silent crowd for several moments, and then she begins to speak. The audience is rapt, even the narrator, and he along with the crowd, by means of the words of the girl, feels calm, peace, comfort and tranquilty fill them in the moment. It seems this young girl, who is the object of such scorn, lust and hatred, is some kind of strange messenger of peace. The narrator, who actually occasioned the death of the professor, does not speak up on behalf of the girl and so he ends with a great weight of guilt in his life.
The book is grand in the old and deepest sense of that word.
Trent
The title is a clue to the content. There are four distinct narratives of the same singular event. The time is the early 17th century and place is Oxford, England. The event is the execution of a young woman for murdering a professor. Each of the narratives is by a man connected with Oxford, the town and or the university. And each person tells a different story about how what happened, happened. The intrigue of the novel is how each person giving their side of the story has their own interests, prejudices, passions and secrets, and each one has their own part to play in the unjust death of the young woman.
Among the great themes of the novel is the way in which religion can and is used to support these interests, prejudices, passions and secrets. For one man, who lusts after the girl and abuses her, he defends his deeds by claiming that he is possessed of the Devil and the Devil uses his power over the man. There are those who have their own political passion and interests and if someone gets hurt in their machinations it is of no matter to them.
The young woman herself is poor but proud, she cares for her aged mother, she has been educated by her father, who lost his life in the civil conflicts of the time, and she is able to keep her dignity in the midst of the cultural prejudices and abuses she must endure.
In the final pages of the book, in the report of the last narrator, out of jealousy, lust and curiosity, the narrator follows the young woman who leaves Oxford on foot in the early evening, and walks to a nearby village. The narrator watches her as she enters a simple house with several other peasants. The narrator sneaks in to the back of the room. To his astonishment the young girl stands before the silent crowd for several moments, and then she begins to speak. The audience is rapt, even the narrator, and he along with the crowd, by means of the words of the girl, feels calm, peace, comfort and tranquilty fill them in the moment. It seems this young girl, who is the object of such scorn, lust and hatred, is some kind of strange messenger of peace. The narrator, who actually occasioned the death of the professor, does not speak up on behalf of the girl and so he ends with a great weight of guilt in his life.
The book is grand in the old and deepest sense of that word.
Trent
