Readers with a bent for Thomas Mann and Elias Canetti will find this book a pleasure, if a somber one.
Pensive, philosophically charged novel of old age and loss.
Two principal characters occupy the pages of prolific German novelist Wondratschek’s book. The first is a writer who fades into the background to privilege the second, his subject, a Russian pianist named Suvorin living in exile in Austria. “Vienna is full of Russians,” Wondratschek writes, “young and old, living and dead, poor and rich. Seems like every time the phone rings there’s another one, man or woman, arriving or leaving for good.” Suvorin was famed in his youth for his playing, but now he is “a forgotten celebrity” who nurses memories of the horrors of World War II (“Death came, and there was no one left to explain it”) and has to take “a little family” of pills every day. The only piano he now possesses, writes Wondratschek in a subtle turn, is in his mind—and even then, only as “a place to put photos.” (Naturally, Glenn Gould comes under discussion as having been “right to quit early.”) That mind is capacious, though, and inclined to seek meaning for all the things he has seen, heard, and experienced: the meaning of a mysterious cat that sheltered the headstone of a pianist whose gravesite he traveled to Paris to visit, of courage in the face of oppression (“Just think of young Brodsky, who on top of that was a Jew!”), and, memorably, of the idea of perfection, something known to a skilled carpenter, a soccer player, a mathematician, but elusive to the demanding Suvorin. Wondratschek’s layered narrative reflects on language, art, politics, and history, and though nothing much happens in it, there is plenty to think about. Wondratschek even sneaks in a few jokes through his two interlocutors, as when Suvorin writes to a daughter: “If it can be avoided, [the postcard] says, don’t marry an American.”
Readers with a bent for Thomas Mann and Elias Canetti will find this book a pleasure, if a somber one.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-26049-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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