An absorbing, enlightening book

 

(The book of old ladies, celebrating women of a certain age in fiction, by Ruth O. Saxton, She Writes Press, Berkeley, CA,2020)

Saxton begins her introduction by saying, “I have always read fiction to find models for how to live, how to be.”

Wow! I thought that was the terrain of self-help books which are very popular now. The idea of reading literature with a motive is new to me. I read just to know and understand life.

When Saxton began her Ph.D. in literature in the 1980s, she was told that not many women writers were worth serious study; Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing were the exceptions as their women characters existed as worthy individuals in their own right, not just as the foil for the development of male characters.

Saxton comes from a highly literate family but she was the first woman in it to go to college. In the ‘70s, she grappled with marriage, motherhood, feminist activism and also pursued masters in literature with a focus on American women writers. She also started teaching in community colleges.

After she became a professor, she started writing and editing, always searching for female fictional limitations and possibilities. She started looking for older women in literature and realised that they were largely invisible. If they were visible, they were bracketed with two stereotypes, fairy godmother or wicked witch, to wit. And so began her search for old lady protagonists who were not marginal.

It became a long project of study, student courses and assignments. The end result is the book above.

It is a book of readings with plentiful commentary by Saxton. Its central question is: how have women novelists handled old age?

The answer, the following themes, each explored in a separate chapter.

·       Romancing the past,

·       Sex after sixty,

·       Altered realities,

·       It’s never too late and

·       Defying expectations.

In each chapter, Saxton analyses six novels. The concluding chapter deals with one more novel, Margaret Drabble’s The dark flood rises (2016).

Thus the book covers 31 novels in its 197 pages. The plot and characters of each are summarized, analyzed and Saxton adds her own interpretations, comments and sometimes those of her students also. The novelists covered include Alice Munro, Penelope Lively, Katherine Anne Porter, Muriel Spark, Vera Sackville-West, Anita Brookner and others. Publication of the novels spans almost 80 years, from 1930 to 2016.

I am impressed with the scope of the book and its reader-friendly approach. The plot summaries are particularly useful. How creative it is to think of such projects for students!

I enjoyed reading the book and I could learn new things from it.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2008) is one novel included in the book. I had taken it up for reading some time ago and I gave it up after the first chapter because I did not understand how the chapters were linked. After reading Saxton’s comments, I have taken it up again and it does offer many insights.

         -----------------------------------------------

 

A remarkable debut

(Upward bound by Woody Brown, Penguin Random House, N.Y. 2026)

This short novel of 146 pages is about life for a few months in an adult day care centre for differently abled people. Members of the centre have each a different level of competence to deal with the world. They feel, they sense and they perceive but lack the ability to articulate verbally.

The centre is naturally strapped for funds and is under-staffed. Dave, its director, is well- meaning but has limited sensitivity. He is more focused on managing governing body members, fund raising and publicity. The centre has a routine of continuous games and activities including swimming for inmates and a weekly visit to a nearby superstore. A strict adherence to routine is Dave’s way of running the show and he is unaware that members are irritated by the infantile activities which he has designed for them.

Life story of each member unfolds briefly in the novel. Things start looking up for Walter when Anne walks in for her summer internship. Inability to communicate and lack of understanding by others lead to a lot of internal tension for members, particularly Jorge and it unfortunately leads to the shooting of Carlos- the ablest of the staff – by the police.

This deeply felt drama is enacted in a superb narrative that is shorn of literary style but is simple and incisive and articulates each and every nuance of human interaction. The author is himself autistic. Reading the novel is an enriching experience.

He is supposed to be working on his second novel. It will be interesting to read it as the present one is more or less, autobiographical.

A clever, well-researched novel

 (March by Geraldine Brooks, Penguin, 31 January 2006, winner of the Pulitzer prize for literature for the same year)

The novel deconstructs Louisa May Alcott's Little Women by writing about the life of their father March. Marmee and her four daughters live in penury while their father fights in the American civil war in 1862 at the rather advanced age of 39 years. So he is absent in person in Little Women.

The one dimensional goody-goodliness of Little Women is completely offset by 'March'.

March is a trader, chaplain and soldier. He has worked hard throughout his life and his mind is full of noble ideas. He does his best to be fair to the black slaves but is overridden by guilt as his efforts did not yield any positive results. He makes money and gives it away, forcing his daughters to work from a tender age. He loved Grace Clement, a refined black girl whom he meets at the tender age of eighteen and again as he lies in a hospital awaiting death. Marmee knows nothing about Grace as March has not had the courage to tell her. Marmee pieces together the missing part of the puzzle and brings him back to his daughters.

The novel is based on painstaking research and other reviewers have averred the historical authenticity of the background created in the novel. It is enlightening. The only other book which I have read on the north versus south America conflict in the late nineteenth century is of course, Gone with the wind which paints a picture of loss of an old world by the south and does not provide much historical information.

The novel brings the background and the characters to life and is an absorbing read.