Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam ****

It is surprising how meaningful I find many of the essays in a book whose major theme is rehabilitating the reputation of John Calvin. As she does in her novel Gilead, Robinson presents an expansive worldview that speaks to me even though she uses explicitly Christian terms.

I propose that we look at the past again, because it matters, and because it has so often been dealt with badly. ... By definition it is all the evidence we have about ourselves, to the extent that it is recoverable and interpretable, so surely its complexities should be scrupulously preserved.

In many of her essays, Robinson notes how we have simplified or even misunderstood the import of the past, so that it fits smoothly into our story of progress. She demonstrates the value of returning to original sources in the interest of recovering the complexities.

The essays that address the denigration of (Calvinist) religion in the wider culture –– which is about half of them –– bristle in my copy with flagged passages, both for ideas and for colorful language.

This instinct [to feign incomprehension of unauthorized views] is so powerful that I would suspect it had survival value, if history or current events gave me the least encouragement to believe we are equipped to survive.

From the historically-focused essays I learned a lot about the influence of religious thinkers on American culture. The essay "Darwinism" makes a connection between the theory of evolution and neoliberal economics (both advocate for the liberation of "natural" forces) and argues forcefully against the inhumane harshness that follows from these views.

 

Julio Cortázar, The Winners ***

A cross-section of Buenos Aires society wins a cruise, with the details of the trip shrouded in mystery. What is the name of the ship? Where are they headed? Who are our fellow passengers? Why has the crew locked all doors leading to the stern?

The premise of The Winners suggests that a disquieting allegory along the lines of Blindness. However,  Cortázar downplays the thriller elements in favor of social satire. He uses the crew's strange behavior as a way to reveal the characters rather than as a puzzle to be solved. It's an allegory for sure, but it's also a MacGuffin. The epigraph from Dostoyevsky gives a clue about what Cortázar is up to:

What is an author to do with ordinary people, absolutely "ordinary," and how can he put them before his readers so as to make them at all interesting?

The story is full of contrasting pairs: two young unmarried couples, two confirmed bachelors unexpectedly drawn to female passengers, two boys who get sick, two schoolteachers, two crew members in the secret corridor, characters named Lopez and Lucio, Persio and Pelusa. These pairs cycle through variations of similar scenarios.

I suspect the translation of leaving something to be desired. There were several passages that felt like they might be more trenchant in the original Spanish.

Charles D'Ambrosio, Loitering ****

In my review of The Glorious American Essay, I said I preferred personal essays that "show off the writer's style and temper of mind as they meditate on a subject the reader may not have considered before." The essays in Loitering are exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.

D'Ambrosio states his goal in the preface:

My instinctive and entirely private ambition was to capture the conflicted mind in motion, or, to borrow a phrase from Cioran, to represent failure on the move, so leaving a certain wrongness on the page was OK by me. The inevitable errors and imperfections made the trouble I encountered tactile, bringing the texture of experience into the story in a way that being cautious never could.

D'Ambrosio's "temper of mind" tends toward loneliness and a distrust of nostalgia. His essays encourage a generous interpretation of people's lives, a recognition that "we are more intimately bound to one another by our kindred doubts than our brave conclusions."

I found the first three essays astonishing and beautiful. The pieces are arranged thematically without any indication of the chronology, so I can't say where the first three fit in the development of the author's style. They are properly positioned at the front of the book, because their lingering mood influences what I notice in the subsequent pieces.

Something of an aside: Loitering is the second book by an author unknown to me that I discovered while browsing at Half Price Books in Dublin; the first was my favorite discovery of last year, The Island of Second Sight.

Ben Lerner, The Topeka School ***

Lerner has an impressive if over-intellectualized writing style, and his books address subtle topics. For example, my review of his book 10:04 says: "I'd say it's about the interplay between art, memory, and personal identity."

Perhaps The Topeka School is simply too subtle for me. It contains Lerner's usual set pieces that work narratively and thematically, but this time they don't add up for me. I'd say it's about how language and communication collapse under pressure, and edge into violence. The central metaphor of the book is competitive high school debate, but Lerner doesn't convey the literal experience of that activity well enough for it to carry its analogical weight. In particular, "the spread" is a dominant concept that isn't explained clearly enough.

The chapters alternate between the points of view of three characters: Adam (the Lerner stand-in), his mother Jane, and his father Jonathan. The characters' voices are not distinctive enough: I sometimes found myself forgetting which character I was listening to.

The Topeka School feels more autobiographical than Lerner's other books do, even if the character names are changed. It includes incidents previously referred to in Leaving the Atocha Station. I imagine this book will be quite helpful to future students writing dissertations on Lerner's oeuvre.