Three Different Books, Three Different Kinds of Silences I Need to Break

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Fiction - Novel, Lionel Shriver, Richard Yates, Siri Hustvedt

Because sometimes, I don’t have the words. And sometimes, what words I have are inadequate. And sometimes, I just want to keep on lying down, with a look of horror / loneliness / disappointment on my face, intent on just letting it all soak in. I like these books, for different reasons — the emotional turmoil I went through; the quiet despair that leeched into me at the book’s close the implicit trust I have for the author, no matter the flaws I find in the text.

I’ve made notes, though most of them are bewildered — either by the sheer genius of the work, or the let-down that I didn’t want it to be. The pages are littered with Post-It flags. And, well. I’ll keep them inside me for a little while longer. [Oh, you can ask questions -- In fact, I welcome them: that'll put some semblance of order to my frazzled nerves. Because I do want to talk about these books, but I don't really know where to start. Never mind the Hows of it. Anyway.] Here they are:

* * *

We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver. Read 09 June.

The Easter Parade, by Richard Yates. Read 24 July.

The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt. Read 18 August.

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Reading begets reading:

• I have a copy of Hustvedt’s The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. The last unread Hustvedt on my shelves. I’m trying not to touch it, because I’ve run out of her books to read.  Because I am poor. Amen.
• As with Hustvedt, I have one last Richard Yates novel in my possession: A Special Providence. I have decided to read all of his work [as with Hustvedt's too, actually]. I have a way to go, and a lot of books I still need to get hold of. But the more of his works I read, the more I’m excited to reread Revolutionary Road. Am I weird?
• I’ll most definitely reread Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World. [My first reading here.] [Have three copies of that book. Hm.] It has become relevant once again. Don’t judge me.

marginalia || Young Hearts Crying, by Richard Yates

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Excerpts, Fiction - Novel, Richard Yates

The Birthday Boy

Hello there. It’s Richard Yates’ birthday today. Bring out the booze. Anyhoo, the following is a love letter to him, wherever he may be. Also, I blab about his novel, Young Hearts Crying. And be warned, for there be little spoilers, haha. Sorry!

*

Dear Richard Yates,

I made sure to finish reading your novel Young Hearts Crying in time for your birthday. It’s now the February 3, and dude, if you were alive, you’d have been 84. 84, man, ain’t that swell? Anyway. Happy happy happy birthday to you. I hope you’re having a grand ol’ time wherever you are. You deserve it. I mean, you kinda had a sad life, and there was that terrifying period when no one was stocking your books, although no one could deny what a kick-ass writer you were—only unknown, and on the precipice of being forgotten.

But that’s all in the past. I mean, you’re being read now. And I love you. You oughta know. [I’ve read three of your books—Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, Liars in Love, and, of course, Revolutionary Road, and damn, I think I have a crush on your skillz.] It’s nice to return to you.

Young Hearts Crying is your second-to-the-last novel (1984), and there are echoes of your usual subjects. Michael and Lucy Davenport are two intelligent people, with quite a lot of flaws. We witness their whirlwind (whirlwind in its nothing happens one moment, it’s WTF the next) courtship, their marriage, the disintegration of said marriage, the lives they lead after. It’s after the war, so there’s that whole post-war-disillusionment (or misplaced illusions?) thing going on. Michael wants to be a poet-playwright, and Lucy–well, Lucy is a rich girl who doesn’t really pin her ambitions on anything; she just wants to be something else [a stint in a writing class, and then taking up painting--she notes a scene she thinks she could write about, but then reminds herself that she isn't a writer any longer. Girl's ambitions are in phases, for cripe's sake.] Michael and Lucy are so full of wanting and yearning, but a) they’re unaware of what exactly it is they want/yearn for; b) they don’t know how to go about it getting whatever that is; c) they’re constantly coming up against roles and their standing in society, their reputation, the glamorous artsy lives they imagine for their friends and peers.

That’s one of the things that struck me about this novel, Mr. Yates. Besides all the wanting and yearning–which I’ll get to later–Michael and Lucy are so engrossed in ideas of non-comformity and reputation. Michael absolutely scorns conformity, he can go on and on about it–but he’s so swept up in it. That is, instead of just doing his own poet-playwright stint in their happy little cottage, he refuses to give up his job–because that’s what men do, apparently. Never mind that Lucy is a “millionairess.” There’s so much in Michael that’s dedicated to analyzing what people are thinking about him, about the Davenports. He’s constantly pointing out traits and flaws of his more successful friends, when we all know he wants nothing more to be like them. I mean, hello dramatic irony. And Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Confused Lucy, bereft Lucy, forsaken Lucy, you-have-four-million-dollars-and-you-can’t-freaking-figure-out-what-to-do-?! Lucy. I like Lucy. She’s all over the place.

I am loving the depth of the secondary characters. How unassuming Thomas Nelson is, and how the Davenports are so wounded by this fact. The shiny-ness (can’t think of another word) of Paul Maitland, and how the Davenports are continually dazzled by this, even though they know they should know better. There’s the string of lovers for both Davenports, and I very much enjoyed playing voyeur to these affairs. Although, as usual, you seem to forget the existence of your couple’s child, Laura. Why do you do that? I mean, at first it’s admirable that you not talk about the kid at all–you meant to focus on the couple–but sometimes I think why you bothered about Laura. I do appreciate what Laura brings to the dynamics–that part where she has conversations with her imaginary sister was just damned awesome.

And you know what I noticed? Your form. I see you busting out the technique. It’s so subtle, I’d missed it until I was two-thirds of the way through. Part I, it’s mostly Michael’s POV–until Lucy speaks up at the end (and she speaks up within the story, and in the novel, ya see?). Part II is pretty much Laura’s life.  Part III, we return to Michael and Lucy. It’s all so organic. [In Revolutionary Road, I was conscious of the fact that it's pretty much Frank Wheeler all the way--right up until that pivotal chapter, where we get into April's head, that chapter where it's of the absolute importance to get into April's head.] I also noticed that the chapters work as short stories, especially in Lucy’s case. They’re so episodic, but you make ‘em seamless. It gives the dork in me goosebumps. My favorite’s Part II, Chapter 2: the one with Jack Halloran. That made me wistful.

Your language gives me goosebumps too. It’s your usual straightforward style, and that just leaves so much room for depth, you know? It’s amazing. And you’re actually writing love scenes! Hah! That made me giggle. I love that you wrote them in Lucy’s stories–the scenes with her lovers, they’re so heartfelt, a little naive and heart-wrenching because of that.

Another thing, you sly badger you–despite the ambiguities of that ending, I do believe it’s happy. Oh, baby pandas are weeping at the thought, Mr. Yates! Confetti for you! Richard Yates and a happy ending, imagine that. Then again, I might just be projecting, haha. Like Lucy said, “How could you ever learn to trust the things you made up?”

So. I love Young Hearts Crying, although I am already Swimfan-crazy about you, so that may not come as a surprise to anyone. Still. I don’t know when I’ll get to read any of your other books, and that makes me sad. But, well, it’s always nice spending a couple of days with you, in your world. I’m so happy you’re part of my life now, haha.

Lastly, I apologize for sounding a little drunk. And for my alarming tendency to speak in italics.

Love always,

Sasha

PS — This is my 100th post! Wahoo!

sunday salon || A Resurgence of Richard Yates

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Richard Yates

On 01 November 2009, I put up a rambling post of my impression of Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. The post itself ended quite abruptly, no doubt a result of posting it too soon after such an earth’s-axis-bumping read. I don’t think it did the book justice, it didn’t properly express how rattled I felt after that book. I’m sure I made it seem like I hated Richard Yates, and his so-called misogyny—a comment from a reader confirmed this. Never mind that I felt as though Revolutionary Road was the start of something new, something jarring, something so significant I couldn’t possibly know how to say so back then (note that, months later, I couldn’t fully appreciate Tom Perrotta’s Little Children, because it wasn’t Revolutionary Road.)

But even aware of all that, I posted it—I suppose I just wanted to say something. I promised I would follow up on that, but I’m only doing this now (and even this post has to be brief—introductory at best. I promise to have my “real” thoughts on the book follow soon).

This return to Yates has been the result of two major things: 1)I just can’t get it out of my head. And 2) I’ve been compelled, of course, by posts from Teresa of Shelf Love, and Rachel of Book Snob. I am thrilled for this resurgence of Yates lovers—hell, I’m thrilled that people are aware of Yates, know of him, read him.

Late last year, I put up a Richard Yates Reading Challenge [see inset for a sample button (I even made three kinds!)]—basically just a year-long challenge to read one Richard Yates book a month, and talk about these reads—but it didn’t go over so well. Maybe it was poor advertising, maybe it wasn’t Richard Yates’ time yet. Maybe I wasn’t the right person to introduce Yates? Let’s be blunt here: I am a new blogger, one who still has to learn how to be comfortable reading in front of an internetful of people who have an internetful of other places to go to.

But never mind that. Reading all the posts on Yates—and beyond Revolutionary Road too!—isn’t that the point of challenges like these in the first place? To open new horizons? To get people to read this? [Ignore me if it seemed like I was bitter, harhar.] It makes me giddy, though, seeing all this Yates-reading. It’s fantastic. I have loved the man ever since I read that novel of his, and I went on loving him through his short stories. The more people who read him, the better. And it might not be under the heading of failed venture on my part, but that means diddly on the larger scale.

I recognize though, my own problems with this. One is, well, resources. As much as I would like to devour Yates, he’s not the easiest author to come across here in this country. The university library only has RR and a book of his short stories, and I suppose I should be happy with that, but of course I’m not. I have one other novel of his, Young Hearts Crying—and it was freaking expensive so it doesn’t seem like I’ll have another Yates coming way soon. I’ve scoured old bookstores and discount sites, nada. Either no one seems to have heard of Yates, or no one wants to let him go.

[Note: If you are one of those blessed creatures who would like to let Yates go, let him go in my direction. Email me! Please! See my exclamation points!]

Well. That’s it for now. Rambing, rambling, rambling.

*

Richard Yates book I have blabbed about here:

• Revolutionary Road. (That ill-written post and I swear I will follow this up with the rest of 4.5 Moleskine pages soon. Also, the only Yates book I own.)
• Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. (A short story collection that took my breath away. Borrowed from the library.)
• Liars in Love. (Another short story collection, and this one just knocked me senseless. Borrowed from the library.)

marginalia || Liars in Love, by Richard Yates

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Excerpts, Fiction - Short Stories, Richard Yates

Damn it, I love Richard Yates. I suppose I’m now on a campaign to read all of Richard Yates. I’ve read Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (see my thoughts here) and, of course, Revolutionary Road (see my thoughts here). I foresee a problem reading the rest of Yates’ work, since I can’t afford to buy any more books, and the university library only has RR on its shelves (BOO). Liars is the last Yates book available to me. But Christmas is coming, so NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK bitchez. Eherm.

I read Liars in Love about an hour after I read Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, because I couldn’t help it. Seven short stories, each of them kick-ass. That’s as much an objective opinion as I can give.

There are differences between the first collection and this second one. Delightful ones; I feel like a proud mama watching his scarred little boy grow up to be a decent enough man, haha. The stories here are longer, for one, more detailed, definitely more nuanced. Here, Yates reaches depths he’d only teased us with before. He lingers this time, and really goes deep into the guts of his characters—a trait I noticed was very similar to “Builders,” the last story in his previous collection.

* * *

This is an excerpt from the story “A Natural Girl,” and I think the following lines of the dialogue encapsulate how Yates sees a world were people hurt people not out of recklessness or cruelty, but out of a weariness brought about by too much dissatisfaction. [If I were to go OC on you guys, notice how, in the first line of dialogue, those are statements and not questions. Now, class, what does this say about the character?]

Ouch.

“My God, you really mean this, don’t you. I’ve really lost you, haven’t I. You don’t—love me anymore.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Exactly. I don’t love you anymore.”

“Well, but for Christ’s sake, Susan, why? Can you tell me why?”

“There’s no why,” she said. “There’s no more why to not loving than there is to loving. Isn’t that something most intelligent people understand?”

Interestingly enough, she echoes the same words—the same declaration of not loving—to her father. The story, in fact, opens with In the spring of her sophomore year, when she was twenty, Susan Andrews told her father very calmly that she didn’t love him anymore.

Suffering is so matter-of-fact here, gone are your usual images of heartwrenching, Slide Against the Wall On Your Way Down Crying. Here are words thrown carelessly but wounding for life. Here are characters intense in their stifledness. Here are characters in compromising and defeating positions they see no way out of. See the title story, in which the main character has his marriage disintegrate almost casually, and he develops a relationship with a whore. See “A Compassionate Leave,” in which a soldier deliberately spends all his money on alcohol in Paris that he retains his virginity even in a city of whores. See “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired,” where we first meet the sculptor Helen, with her grand ambitions and not-so-substantial talent.

I am partial to “Saying Goodbye to Sally” and “Regards at Home”—where we meet, once more, the narrator of “Joseph,” now a grown man with a family and dreams, and yes, his mother is still there. It is in “Regards” that we see a tantalizing view of a—gasp!—a happy ending. But do we trust Yates? Can we? For heaven’s sake, everything in this book is so ominous. “Sally” is just one sad disaster, one after another, and it’s painfully obvious that it’s partially autobiographical. The characters are annoying, for another. It’s this story that I’d like to use to convince people that Yates is such a good writer, you don’t put the book down because you might just whack the characters’ heads for thinking they’re so helpless.

Oh, Richard, I’m so excigamated to read your other stuff.

marginalia || Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, by Richard Yates

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Fiction - Short Stories, Richard Yates

<3 #01 – About two stories into the short story collection Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, by Richard Yates, I decided that it would catapult me to the happy place of all happy places if I read the entire body of his known work. (Quite ironically, yes, I’m aware; “happy place” and Yates aren’t your usual snuggly pairing.) So that’s seven novels, two short story collections, and a posthumous Collected Stories (which includes his, uh, previously uncollected short stories). Ten Kinds of Loneliness, if you allow me. Oh, you don’t? Oh.

<3 #02 - Goodness, I do think I’m fatally in love with Richard Yates. I recognize how unfortunate that is, of course. In his universe, there’s never anything nice in store for people who claim they’re in love, fatally or otherwise. Still. There’s such a strange affection I have for this writer, him with his “misogynistic” worldview. I’ve once wondered, and scribbled down, Does Yates hate people? But no, I don’t think he does. He’s just pragmatic. Conscious of the reality that governs disappointed people, or dreamers who refuse to admit they’re disappointed. And he has this terse grasp on sentimentality and defeat, and, yes, loneliness. All those syllables really just aim to mean YOU ARE AWESOMEZ RICHARD IF YOU WERE STILL ALIVE AND MARGINALLY FRIENDLY I WOULD HUG YOU.

<3 #03 – There are eleven stories in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. That might look pretty obvious to you, but I was at the fifth story when i realized this. Math has never been my strong point; this is why I use such long words. Anyhoo. Those eleven stories are Petri dishes on what it means to be a resigned human being, one who dreams too big, one who dreams too small, one who really has no reason to dream at all.

What impresses me about the stories is, well, I never got frustrated over these people’s resignations. Why not? Well, maybe because they’re blissfully aware that they’re disappointed people.  Instead of whiny widdle wankers, these people are, well–they’re lonely, going through a life that is oftentimes heartbreaking (then heart-numbing) in its normalcy. I’ve always been a sucker for these secret heartaches kind of shiz.

<3 #04 – One of my favorite stories of the collection is “The Best of Everything”–it’s a story that vividly captures the hurt we cause by our ignorance, our self-absorption (because, after all, we need to find ways to keep us happy, right?) Here we have a just-about-to-be-bride settling with a marriage she knows–and has accepted–will never make her happy. You almost hear her dismissal: But what’s happiness anyway? There’s this heartbreaking scene where she’s stripped (in more ways than one), and there’s just a lot of ignoring going on, and a lot of goddamned painjesus. And at the end of the story, you know that she’s still going to marry him, and this scene will probably rehashed for years and years, because, you know, what is happiness anyway?

<3 #05 - Yates’ world is fraught with people who are rife with–as one of my Philosophy teachers would put it, thumping a dogeared copy of Foucault–rife with dissatisFACtion. These are people jaded by the war and all that has happened post-war, these are people who’ve settled, because they can’t envision any other option. These are people who grit their teeth through the pain, all that unbelievable pain–and Yates gives you all this in such a calm, so goddamned all-knowing manner, that, for some odd reason only the Big Kahuna may be privvy to, you keep reading, you keep suffering along with these people–and then, suddenly, you find yourself spectators, at the fringes, looking on.

There’s never any pity in Yates Universe.

Then again, who’s to say no one is looking on our settled little lives?

* * * Here’s more shameless fangirly-ness over Yates, for his novel Revolutionary Road. (Do I read into it that I read RR at the height of a storm, one that blasted the power from cities for hours? That I read this shiz by candlelight? Oh, I do think Yates would be disgusted by me, haha. Then again, he always goes for the then-idealistic ones, no?)

marginalia || Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

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Excerpts, Fiction - Novel, Richard Yates

Taking a break from the NaNoWriMo madness (which I call a “whimsy” on my less hopeful/diligent hours). Yates demands that I write about his Wheelers. Never mind that I didn’t bring my book with me (apologies for inaccuracy of quotes; will revise as soon as I can), never mind that in a couple of hours, I’ll be heading off to a cemetery (it’s a Long Weekend of the Dead in this country).

I’m winging this.

Previously titled–“They Slept Like Children”: Thoughts on Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

>> I took notes as I read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, almost by instinct. As though I were studying midterms on The Meaning of Life (haha-haa). I read the book in ten-twelve hours. It’s not diligence, I think–it’s stubbornness, as well as, huh, Manila suffered a power outage for hours and hours and all that candlelight and shrieking wind compelled me to finish RR.

I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to say new things about the book. It’s practically canon, after all. [And isn't that a good thing? Wasn't it near-neglected as little as a decade ago?] My discovery of the book was thanks to the movie version starring Titanic couple Winslet and DiCaprio. Before y’all squirm, I’m going to just toss it out there: it was a kick-ass movie, I was aghast by its brutal portrayal of your run-of-the-mill “settled” suburbian couple, I was on the edge of my seat and wringing my hands, and afterwards I had to take a long long long walk and emo myself out. AND it made me run out and shout, “OMG IT’S BASED ON A BOOK GIMME GIMME.” That’s always a good thing to credit a movie.

Here are some of them, given as much sense and coherence as I could, running on two Pepsis and all that jazz. And, obviously, I can’t post all my notes, because this entry will never end that way.

*

[1] Does Yates hate people? {I first wrote,} Echoing the question of one too many readers. Well–there’s this impression that the tone of RR is artful misogyny. He can be cruel, yes, cruel in a disarming way that he tends to highlight character’s flaws–Frank’s too-round face, April’s heavy hips, Mrs. Givings’ ugly feet, the wife of an officemate  is “massively soft and wrinkled.” Oh, of course he’s honest, of course he’s brutally so. I think this impression is compounded by the texture of Yates’ narrative–he’s just so darned omniscient, isn’t he? And he reveals too much, too willingly. But–the unflinching “This is what it is, folks” attitude lends an authoritative voice to the subject matter. It’s chilling.

[2] Silence. Revolutionary Road has a lot to say about silence, considering that it gives out such a chatty, domestic-disturbance kind of vibe–ah, shaky marriage most duplicitous: one moment all seething, the next raging. But Yates describes that silence in an early argument (a flashback scene) of the Wheelers–and Frank thinks that it’s over because April’s all quiet. And then–

But it turned out that she was only thinking it over, preparing her next words with great care to make sure they would say exactly what she meant. {p.53}

That sentence gave me pause. I had to put the book down and do my emo Stare-Off-Into-Space schtick. It gives a whole new dimension to all the little silences and request for silences and the welcoming of silences and the petulant refusal to grant silences. Jesus. One of April Wheeler’s refrains is, “Could we sort of stop talking about it?” when Frank is all pseudo-solicitous and adamant at finding out the main thing.

Because, see, throughout the novel, we see alter-scenarios that Frank comes up with. He’d want to say something, but he’d say something else “instead.” And this is an attitude at odds with April’s own. [Ta-dah, conflict!] Goodness, I felt like the LitGods rewarded me when I pulled that out of my noggin.

[3] Perception of the Wheelers, and their Live in Europe Forever and Ever Plan. Two sets of neighbors/friends–the Campbells and the Givingses–call the plan “immature” and “unsavory” {respectively}. Even Frank allows himself to think that “…everything comprised…” against Paris. All this proves the Wheelers’ thesis on the “hopeless emptiness” of middle-class suburbia–and the reader’s lulled into nodding along with them. And of course it’s a certified insane man that tells the Wheelers they’re doing the right thing, that he approves of the plan–because it kicks that “evasiveness,” that denial of what is hopeless right in the gut.

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I have to stop here. For now. I’ll probably do another installment of these RR thoughts–I’ll go back to this post too–as soon as I reunite with my copy, as soon as I’m able to figure out what it really was I was taking notes for.

Happy November, everyone.