The Winter of Our Discontent

John Steinbeck -- 267 pps.

What a relief to read Steinbeck after Flaubert. His writing at first seemed clumsy and I was laughing at it, but I then realized the influence of Flaubert's dickishness was upon me. Soon I was lost in the excellent character of Ethan Hawley (who provides first-person narration, which Steinbeck does rarely), engaged by the complicated bank robbery plot, interested in the highly unusual (that is, sexual) descriptions of Margie, and Steinbeck's imagination, which really must be his best attribute. (If only Flaubert could have taken note!)

Winter is most like The Wayward Bus which was also a later book, but the most notable aspect is Ethan, who is a walking embodiment of virtue and the canon. His descent into "depravity" is subtle and rapid, and Steinbeck achieves the concluding scenes with power and grace. Nothing like Grapes of Wrath but still inspiring -- if other writers could turn out ones like this, Franzen wouldn't need to write essays about how nobody reads novels!

Guess you figured it out, bud!

The first thirty pages are slow and there are a few slip-ups there (Steinbeck's characters like to explain central themes in dialogue apparently) but the dignity afforded to these people makes you want to keep reading. I would guess Steinbeck was a good person. I love this book and everything it means to me.

Most of all, it got the awful taste of Flaubert out of my mouth.

A Sentimental Education

Gustave Flaubert -- 460 pps.

After reading Madame Bovary, Bouvard and Pecuchet, and two of Three Tales, that is, much of Flaubert's oeuvre, I have concluded Guastave Flaubert was an asshole whose writing is characterized by disgust, disdain, contempt, and superiority. It seems easy to trace Joyce, Borges, and the many, many intellectual writers crowding up contemporary fiction back to him. His endless details, his contempt for "cliché" and "conventional" plot and characters, and self-conscious efforts to avoid "familiar" sentence structure are the hallmarks of his style, and are the traits most copied by contemporary writers.

Many of these writers miss what makes Flaubert worth reading. That is, in his self-conscious, nervous, unlikable, and choleric way, Flaubert destroyed an entire genre, Romanticism, in a typical Flaubert style, meaning that Romanticism was his favorite genre.

You only hurt the ones you love

But aside from intellectual gratification (in the most dry, stunted sort possible, since literature has nothing of the symmetry or rigorous beauty in mathematics) there are few other grounds on which to recommend Flaubert. His humor is excellent when he it isn't feeling bitter or overly sarcastic and several of his scenes and techniques are rightly famous; the bouncing carriage or the agronomist's speech from Madame Bovary or the floating parrot from A Simple Soul. Yet much of Flaubert's famous detail now comes across as oppressive, something I feel when reading David Foster Wallace essays about tennis, however "perfect" it may be.

Wonder if he'd played baseball 

whether he'dve written about tennis

The exception is A Sentimental Education, or it would have been. The main character, Frédéric, is clearly Flaubert, as this is one of the few characters who is not treated with unending scorn in the Flaubert works I've read. That is, except for several other characters in Sentimental such as Frédéric's best friend, Deslauriers, and other members of his circle such as the bohemian Hussonnet and the painter Pellerin. In fact, every character in Sentimental flashes some sympathetic side -- even Frédéric's rival Arnoux can occasionally be admired by the reader as much as by Frédéric.

The plot's superficial sentimentality is another strength. Though Frédéric's lifelong pursuit of Madame Arnoux seems to be the perfect "Romantic" structure for a story, Flaubert treats it with realism but also with grace -- a feature absent from Madame Bovary. Seemingly because of his affection for the people and places in Sentimental, the failures of the main characters strike us as realistic and well understood, not false and bitter.

Indeed, Flaubert seems to have thought Sentimental was another attempt at destruction along the lines of his other works, this time of the moral character of his generation. But the man who spent so much time destroying actually created something pleasant here, and with the clever mirroring of historical events (the French Revolution enters into all conversation, and even claims a few friends as victims) with the romantic plot Flaubert creates about three hundred pages worth reading.

C'mon boys, true love is dead ahead

The end, however, is terrible. Frédéric reveals his callous regard for human life with his disregard for his child and Flaubert makes a similar revelation in his treatment. In a meeting far too vague to elicit catharsis, Frédéric then dismisses the woman he has loved his entire life on uncertain grounds, though a light and poetic image reminiscent of the floating parrot appears at the book's end revealing Flaubert's intentions. At this point, however, it seems much too difficult to care about Frédéric, Deslauriers, or even the virtuous, perfect Madame herself.

Flaubert is famous for laboring weeks on his sentences. After the end of Sentimental one wishes he had allotted himself equal for cohesion or pacing. The worst casualty of this devotion, however, was evidently Flaubert's humanity, which his writing possesses so little of. The grace and affection in the beginning of Sentimental made me understand why Woody Allen as Isaac Davis lists the novel as one of the reasons worth living in Manhattan. The end makes me understand why Woody Allen loves the book. Bitter, out of touch, and callous are critical descriptors of the overwhelmingly influential Flaubert style.

If reading is conversation, 

is this the guy you'd like to chat with?

"Without form, art is nothing," Flaubert wrote. Only if he explained what makes writing worth reading.

-Heathcliff

The Stonewall Brigade

James I. Robertson, Jr. -- 247 pps.

This is a historical account of the Stonewall Brigade, the legendary brigade "likened to the Macedonian Phalanx of Alexander, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the Paladines of Charlemagne, the Ironsides of Cromwell, and the Old Guard of Napoleon." Its leader, "Tom Fool" Jackson -- compared to the likes of "Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, [and] Lee" -- is given good coverage and so are many other notable characters associated with the brigade. But this story is really about those men and they terrible hardships they faced right from the beginning.

The first few months or so were fine. Bull Run, where the "Rebel Yell" was first unleashed, was excellent for the Confederacy, and raised spirits. Occupying the area around Winchester was also great (men would approach the militia Jackson had commissioned to watch the town, tell the militia men they were there to wrangle up sneaks, and would then go drink and pillage) for the graycoats. But once the winter of '61 hit, the suffering began.

Suffer my snowball!

Robertson has an exceptional eye for interesting characters and anecdotes. A favorite is Robert Lewis Dabney, chaplain and Jackson's chief of staff, who was somewhat portly, could not control his horse, and spent much time attempting to keep his coonskin cap on his head and his Prince Albert jacket on his torso. Some of the more memorable tales include Jackson's men collecting whiskey in jars while Jackson forced their comrades to pour the "vile juice" off a cliff and a giant snowball fight in the winter of '64. "If all battles would terminate that way it would be a great improvement on the old slaughtering plan," remarked Chris Casler, famous for his autobiographical Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade.

Asides like this help the reader through the occasionally gruesome depictions of violence (people's faces getting shot through; horses being eviscerated; men being burned alive with the dead) and absolutely horrible conditions the men faced in camp, on the march, and during the winter. The admiration of the men for their leader allows us to accept his recalcitrant approach to discipline. Early in the campaign Jackson never allowed his men to take leave -- even to see their wives only a mile or two away -- and throughout his career he treated deserters without mercy, favoring death as punishment.

Desserter? I thought you said deserter!

These dark details, however, are overwhelmed by Robertson's respect for his subjects. He is very sincere and honest in his depictions, and while there is romanticism in his telling, the end of The Stonewall Brigade is truly special. In 1891, at a dedication of a memorial to Stonewall Jackson, the veterans were assembled in Lexington. After the townsfolk arranged a surprise celebration they went to find the men, but came up emptyhanded wherever they looked. Finally they went to Jackson's statue and found the old soldiers, one of whom stood up and announced: "We've slept around him many a night on the battlefield, and we want to bivouac once more with Old Jack." And bivouac they did. What a difference a century makes.

-Heathcliff

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert -- 321 pps.

Is this story interesting because of the plot and "scandalous details"? Certainly not, because adultery has so pervaded American soiciety that it's now easy to speak of betrayal and completely ignore any of the moral implications of the word. Politicians in the school administration buildings, lawyers in houses lobbying, and overzealous farmers (on big money farms where machines do the work) would suppress Flaubert's famous carriage scene, but nobody takes these people seriously, including themselves.

Is it the "intense realism", the creation of which Flaubert agonized over for years, from his obsessive dodging of cliches to the level of research exceeding that done by even the most abused graduate student? The oppressive style so ruthlessly imitated by modern writers and taken to ridiculous extremes by David Foster Wallace which, in the hands of less talented writers, is so cold, mechanical, unfeeling, dehumanizing, depressing, pointless and infuriating?

The redeeming aspect must be the humor. Flaubert destroys the entire Romantic genre, as well as a host of ridiculous characters. Or attempts to -- several such characters still exist; Richard Dawkins c'est Monsieur Homais and Old Roualt is Lindsay Lohan's father in any number of movies.

But the joke is on ourselves; the characters are "uncomfortably real," making the reader either question his own frivolity or assume a superior air allowing himself to ridicule the "simpletons" all about him, thus providing feats for future Flauberts.

This could be you

The technique in this novel is incredible and its influence is pervasive. But the best part of Madame Bovary is the template: embarrass writers in their own medium and get them to participate in the farce. So many aging postmodernists are calling for renewed "sincerity and compassion" in the New Literature that stems from their perpetually checked sentiments, and ingenue youngsters are happy to indulge them out of their own carefully crafted ingenuousness -- if only they knew how silly they all looked.

-Heathcliff

Tortilla Flat

John Steinbeck - 207 pps.

There are three main aspects to John Steinbeck's myth-making: 1) The "non-teleological thinking" of his characters 2) The self-contained worlds his characters find themselves in and 3) His allusions to major works of Western literature. All three of these aspects are present in Tortilla Flat, if not yet fully realized.

"Non-teleological thinking" is a type of thinking (seemingly unique to the philosophy of Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts) defined by not being concerned about "the why" of an action. Steinbeck's characters not only embrace this way of thinking themselves (seemingly explaining their socially unacceptable drinking, sexual, and work habits) but so does the narrator seem to embrace this type of thinking: we are never told why Danny and his friends do anything, nor is the narrator interested in any sort of psychological probing. The paisanos drink a lot because that's what they do, and why would anyone think that they would do otherwise?

By embracing this type of thinking, the narrator portrays characters very similar to those of ancient myths and folk tales; characters who do what they do because what they do is quite literally who they are. While this style of storytelling will likely come across as unsophisticated to most "serious" readers, it seems to be quite effective (we still read the myths, we still read Steinbeck)--and, we should note, the same method was adopted to some degree by the existentialist writers of the 20th century.

Steinbeck, like his contemporary Faulkner and quasi-influence Sherwood Anderson, is an author associated strongly with a particular place, namely Salinas and, more generally, southern California. While Tortilla Flat takes place in Monterey, more importantly it takes place within a well-defined social world where each character's needs are satisfied by some other character within his world. We are forced, therefore, to meet the owner of the supermarket, Torrelli, the many lustful women of Tortilla Flat, and the various vagabonds that are counted as friends of the paisanos. In this world, not only does everyone have their role (because of the non-teleological thinking aspect) but they can never abandon that role because that would require them to leave their world (which usual signals a major event in a Steinbeck novel).

Again, we find similarities with myths and folktales where the characters are tied to their roles in their community and interact almost exclusively with other community members. This approach has many benefits (which is why authors often use this technique) as it allows for recurring characters, naturally establishes relationships between characters, and facilitates the use of local color. Most importantly (and the aforementioned characteristics derive from this principle), however, it allows the author to define the world in which the story takes place in any manner he chooses: Faulkner creates his world in the deep South, in a community populated by eccentrics--wealthy and poor--which closely resembles the modern world in terms of the psychology, actions, and circumstances of the characters. Steinbeck's world is a bit more fanciful: a place where food is easy to come by, not working is the preferred way of life, jail sentences are a vacation, and nobody stays angry for more than twenty-four hours. Both approaches, however, share that self-contained approach of myths and folk tales; when the world is self-contained the author can set any rules he wants, and the reader, not knowing any better (and wanting a fun ride anyway), accepts them.

The final aspect is naturally more common of contemporary writing than of older myths but it is all part of the larger tradition of storytelling, that is, the allusions to the canon present in Tortilla Flat, namely to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. As a composer quotes older works in his pieces but still creates something new, so does Steinbeck check up on Malory in Tortilla Flat. The main plot quite obviously borrows from Malory: the paisanos (the knights) are united around Danny (Arthur) at his house (the round table) and once united go on various adventures with one another. Both stories end with the death of the leader and the disbandment of the knights.  Yet, though still there, the other references to Malory are perhaps not as direct and Steinbeck is reported to have done this on purpose. Steinbeck, it seems, alludes to King Arthur in Tortilla Flat not just because of the excellent and enduring story of Arthur but also to place Tortilla Flat on that same timeless plane as King Arthur while still creating something new. Why should an optimistic and confident author do anything less?

The three aspects discussed here are present not just in Tortilla Flat but also in two of Steinbeck's other works, The Pastures of Heaven and Cannery Row. By incorporating these aspects into his work, Steinbeck attempts to place his efforts in the realm of timeless literature--and imitating other timeless works is no bad place to start.

-Heathcliff

Beyond Batting Average

Lee Panas - 142 pps.

Brandeis University researcher Lee Panas has written the primer on advanced baseball statistics that I so badly needed when I began studying the sport seriously this summer. As many readers will know, websites such as FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus do have glossaries but they often lack adequate explanations or are incomplete. There are extraordinarily useful websites such as Sabermetrics Library but these are difficult for the Sabermetrics Newbie to find. Even popular books such as Baseball Between the Numbers and The New Historical Baseball Abstract either lack lucid explanations of sabermetric ratings or do not treat them deeply enough or are not organized in a useful manner. Others, such as The Book, are too specialized for the casual fan.

Panas's book, on the other hand, does an excellent job treading the territory between superficial and deep treatment of the major sabermetric topics of the day, and it arranges those treatments in quite a clever way. Beginning with a brief history of the development of sabermetrics, starting with Alexander Cartwright and Henry Chadwick and ending with Bill James and Moneyball, Panas then reminds us that the goal of baseball is to score more runs than the other team, something that is easily forgotten by many amateur analysts. After giving us the Big Picture, Panas slowly moves from basic hitting to advanced hitting statistics, repeating the process for pitching, then for defense, wrapping things up with contextual considerations and total player contribution metrics (so you can finally understand what that WAR row on ESPN means). In clearly expressed language, Panas reminds shows us the many ways in which baseball players fit contribute to helping their teams win. The result is an accessible and insightful read.

There are, however, some shortcomings. I would have preferred a “mathematical” appendix including explicit formulas for the metrics mentioned and some relevant explanation. I would have also liked a comprehensive glossary with definitions for easy reference. The book also has the appearance of a children's coloring book and the title sounds a bit too much like Baseball Between the Numbers for my taste. A small paperback with slick cover design and a title like Sabermetrics for the Practical Man would make this book instantly more attractive, as would removing Curtis Granderson from the cover and replacing him with someone a bit more relevant—Kevin Youkilis, perhaps?

That said, what is in the book deserves to be there. What Panas does best is explaining the meaning of the various statistics, showing how they relate to one another, and defending the older, more mainstream statistics such as ERA and batting average on the grounds that they do tell us something. Over and over again he emphasizes that the reader understand what a statistic means and that, nearly always, there is not one single stat that tells the whole story, not even WAR; evaluating players is a complicated and evolving task. The completeness of the book, however, is its primary strength: if you patiently read this Beyond Batting Average—which, at 142 pages filled with graphs and tables, should not take long—you will be up to speed on the modern analysis of the game. As Panas writes in the introduction, “My goal is to explain the new world of baseball statistics in a way that any knowledgeable and curious baseball fan will comprehend.” Beyond Batting Average accomplishes that goal.

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

Dorothy Allison - 93 pps.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is intense and beautiful. Honest and moving. Disturbing and profound. Dorothy Allison's short memoir washes away the dull and leaves only the poignant and powerful; being raped and abused by her step-father, appreciating the beauty of her body while watching a ballerina, learning to love again after giving birth to her son. Dorothy Allison is hurt, angry, conflicted, but mostly honest. She tells the truth and people love her for it.

Centered around the saying of her aunt Dot ("Two or three things I know for sure...Of course it's never the same things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be.") Allison's memoir is presented chronologically and episodically. We follow her from her childhood as an "ugly" girl, to her troubled and promiscuous 20s and 30s, to her parenthood, healing, and acceptance in later years. Along the way we meet her colorful and painfully lonely aunt Dot, her tough-because-she-has-to-be mother, her womanizing, childlike uncle Brice (no relation), a lover who is embarrassed by the fact that she sells cleaning products, and her son. To know a person so fully after 93 pages is amazing.

One of Allison's strengths is her brutal honesty but so is her skill as a writer. She introduces the really heavy stuff at just the right time in the book; about a quarter of the way through--late enough to not shock the reader, early enough to draw us in. Her language is often poetic ("She had a body that had never forgotten itself...Watching, I fell in love--not with her but with the body itself...being the creature that is not afraid to fall down but somehow doesn't anyway.") and the way the theme of healing builds throughout the work is understated and well done. Mostly, though, she is honest and that is why people love her. "Two or three things I know for sure," Allison writes, "and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."