Ed reports that the Book Sense picks for September are out. He expresses dismay that his horse, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, shows up behind Howard Frank Mosher’s Waiting For Teddy Williams. (Ed, no worries, I think you are singlehandedly going to carry Cloud Atlas over the finish line.) Me, I was pleased to see Francisco Goldman’s new novel, The Divine Husband, on the list. I enjoy a friend-of-a-friend bond with Goldman, but through two separate friendship trains, which makes me take a pixillated special interest in his career. He’s perhaps best known for his book The Long Night of White Chickens.
Here’s the Book Sense word on The Divine Husband:
“Francisco Goldman has dipped his pen into the well of imagination and produced the most finely formed novel in recent memory–a tale of 19th century Central America with lots of juicy characters flowing through geographical, racial, political, and spiritual borders. The magic of this book took my breath away.”–Susan Avery, Ariel Booksellers, New Paltz, NY
Related: And while we’re on the subject of putting our best horses forward, Maud got Stephany to try Stephen Elliott’s Happy Baby and, like Mikey, she liked it! She really liked it!
Oh, I can see Tingle Alley is going to become my outlet for panning the books everyone else loves. David Mitchell is, I’m told, a lovely person, but he represents everything I detest in fiction. I’ve tried to read both Number 9 Dream and Cloud Atlas and found both of them messy, too in love with themselves, and wilfully complacent about the need to tell a story in a compelling way. I’d be happy for Ed to try and put me straight – I remain open-minded – but if the argument is, “sometimes you have to work hard to appreciate a great work of art”, I’m sorry, it doesn’t wash. I’ve said the same about David Peace. The difficulty of a story should be in the content, not in the telling. We are in the business of entertaining people, and any writer who forgets that, no matter what the subject matter, deserves not to be read.
Comment by Kevin Wignall — 8/6/2004 @ 2:28 pm
I too am waiting to dive into Frank Goldman’s new novel.On addendum to your mention, in the’80s Goldman wrote great, really great, articles on Central America for Harper’s. Funny how (well not really) the El Salvadoran death squads, the Sandanista driven Soviet tanks crossing the Rio Grande, the genocidal Guatemalan military oligarchy and our invasion of Panama are rarely, if ever mentioned, in all the ululating about America as a liberal empire. Anyway, Frank was there and he wrote true and brave words…
Comment by birnbaum — 8/6/2004 @ 9:59 pm
Kevin: It may be a difference of sensibilities. Even so, “Cloud Atlas” is such a rich, goofy, operatic and downright kickass work that hits so many fantastic tones (satire, pathos, pulp, nostalgia, concern for humanity, futuristic argot, surrealism, light pomo) that I just can’t see why anyone looking for a bracing literary ride wouldn’t love it. It does require a dictionary. It does require looking up arcane references. And, yes, it’s a showboat. But the plots are so entertaining, the prose so invigorating, and the five puzzling plots much fun to pick through (although admittedly the book loses steam near the end) that why would anyone possibly care? Hell, you could argue that Faulkner, Joyce, Gaddis, Barth or Pynchon are “complacent” to some extent. But then, for me, plunging into arcana is what makes literature worthwhile.
Comment by Ed — 8/7/2004 @ 8:17 pm
I’ve heard great things about Francisco Goldman’s The Divine Husband, so it’s cool to see that it was on the list.
Comment by moorishgirl — 8/8/2004 @ 10:38 pm
David Mitchell: Complacent? And does anyone care?
Dueling mini-reviews of Cloud Atlas (courtesy of Kevin Wignall and Ed) pulled from Tingle Alley’s backblog: KW: David Mitchell is, I’m told, a lovely person, but he represents everything I detest in fiction. I’ve tried to read both Number 9…
Trackback by Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant — 8/9/2004 @ 5:17 am