LitPicks - May '10 

The Good, Bad, and the Ugly: the iconic Clint Eastwood Western, with it's stark mix of heroes and villains. This month's books consider those same qualities—though in a more complex universe. It's not always so easy to tell who's good...and who's not.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works      




The Pursuit of Alice Thrift
Elinor Lipman, 2003
304 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
She had me at the first sentence. Elinor Lipman is so polished a writer, her dialogue so hilarious, sentences so crisp and to-the-point, that even author Richard Russo says (perhaps a bit enviously) that Elinor possess the rare trick of making "everything look easy, even to other writers who know better."

Take the novel's opening lines, breezy yet trenchant on so many levels:

             You may have seen us in "Vows," in The New York Times: me,
             alone, smoking a cigarette and contemplating my crossed ankles,
             and a larger, blurry shot of us...ducking and squinting through a
             hail of birdseed. We didn't have pretty faces, ...but we met and
                                           married in the manner that was right for the SundayStyles.

Alice's problem isn't her lack of a "pretty face." Her problem is that she's horribly, intractably socially inept—even a bit asperger-y.

Ray Russo comes to our heroine looking for a nose job, which (truly) he could use. But Alice dissuades him. She's in her first year of an internship in plastic surgery, a field she pursues, not to cater to the rich and vain, but to repair flesh torn and burnt by accident, and deformities handed out at birth. Her goals, in other words, are noble.

Yet nothing seems to be working for poor Alice: she possesses a lousy bedside manner, causes a near-botched operation, has few friends, is hounded by an overbearing mother and pursued by Ray Russo. He of the large proboscis enters her life—for better or worse, it's hard to tell. Despite warnings from friends and family, one can't help feel a smidgen of affection for Ray. But just as your sympathy takes hold, a sense of revulsion rushes in.

We already know the outcome. The first sentence is a give away—the two march down the aisle. Except that's not End of Story...but no way will I spoil it for you. It's far too much fun.

This book is a charmer...and book clubs will have fun parsing out all the characters, particularly Alice and Ray.

Don't miss our Reading Guide for The Pursuit of Alice Thrift.

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Mr. Golightly's Holiday
Salley Vickers, 2003
368 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
A quiet, strange and intriguing book. Told lightly (pun intended), with a dose of whimsy, the novel explores profound themes—how do we choose between good and evil; what does love entail, and what does it demand of us?

An unassuming, rather unattractive little man, Mr. Golightly wrote a book, years ago, that achieved wide-ranging fame. Based on the book, Golightly built a large, powerful enterprise—which lately seems to be losing ground to the competition.

Now he has come to a small Devonshire village to take a much needed break...and perhaps to rework his great opus. It needs an update, he thinks; perhaps along the lines of a soap opera. He could call it That's the Way Life Is.

The village of Great Calne, offers a host of eccentric characters, and despite Mr. Golightly's desire for solitude, he finds himself drawn into their comings and goings. Of course, this being set in a quaint English village, there's the requisite local pub—the Stag and Badger—where shenanigans are always afoot. Who's jumping in and out of whose bed...or planning to?

Mysterious happenings, however, hint at something deeper than the usual English village tale of love and loneliness: occasional visions of a pale horse, cryptic messages in Mr. Golightly's email inbox, and a flaming gorse bush that speaks of love. What's going on here?

Toward the end, the novel's charm and humor give way to a somewhat disappointing heavy- handedness and a forced surprise ending. BUT...don't let that deter you. This is still a very rich read...and Vickers grapples with vital life issues in an engaging manner. Book clubs will chew on her ideas endlessly!

See our Reading Guide for Mr. Golightly's Holiday.

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Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
Joseph Conrad, 1904
500 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Some scholars have considered Nostromo the finest novel in the English language. (Just, um, don't ask which scholars...it was way back in grad school.) Did I lose you at the word "scholars"? Well, please don't let that turn you away—Nostromo is a dense but truly brilliant read.

As he does in all his works, Conrad plumbs the depths of human frailty, offering an intimate study in psychology and human relations. Yet here he uses a vaster canvass to consider the wider political and economic world.

The plot revolves around a silver mine in Sulaco, a port town in the mythical Latin American country of Costaguana. With the country beset by instability and warfare, Senor Gould, the mine's owner, decides to remove the silver and keep it out of the hands of the warlords.

To do so, Gould turns to Nostromo, the top stevedore and the most trusted man in Sulaco. Nostromo is resourceful, daring, loyal and—above all—incorruptible. His illustrious reputation is his most prized possession. Says one character, "the only thing he seems to care for...is to be well spoken of." Well, you can see the tragic flaw right there. Even the most incorruptible are, ultimately, corruptible.

The book's narrative structure, its distorted timeline, and psychological depth were innovative for the era. The huge array of characters and their interactions have been compared to War and Peace. Irony abounds: because of the non-chronological plotline, we learn of consequences before we read about the actions that set them off.

To read Nostromo is an undertaking, but a heroic one! It is rich, complex, and compelling. If you're up for it...don't miss this one!

Someday, I promise, we'll have a Reading Guide. Really, I promise.

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