The World to Come by Dara Horn

The World to Come has been chosen by the Deschutes County Public Library for its 2008 program, A Novel Idea. There are a number of events planned in conjunction with encouraging the entire county to read this book, including author readings. In the past the library has picked books related to activities in our area such as The River Why by James Duncan and Bowerman and the Men of Oregon by Kenny Moore. Other choices such as The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon have taken most of us out of our geographical and cultural comfort zone and The World to Come seems to fit more into this later category.

I found this book to be very dense, with some wonderfully descriptive language and vivid images. The story starts with Benjamin Ziskind, a former child prodigy and current quiz show question writer. It goes back in time to when his Jewish ancestors were being persecuted in Russia and a famous artist, Chagall, gave his grandfather a painting. This painting surfaces in a museum near Benjamin’s house and he steals it. This story is often billed as a mystery, but it is really not, unless the mystery is how the painting ended up in the museum.

There are many layers to this story. There is much discussion of death and the world to come. This book has elements of historical fiction in the two artists portrayed, Chagall and Der Nister, are actual people. Chagall, a painter, makes it out of Russia and becomes very successful. Der Nister, a writer, dies in a gulag. Horn fictionalizes his life and a story he has allegedly written survives hidden in paintings. The words of Der Nister’s mentor seem prophetic and harsh. “Your purpose as a writer is to achieve one task, and one task only: to build a paper bridge to the world to come.”

I found it a challenging book. As I mentioned before about The Savage Garden I do not really like historical fiction with real people. However, that is a relatively small portion of the novel and the truly fictional characters are all remarkably well-developed. Benjamin’s twin sister plays an integral role and the stories of their parents, now dead, are very intriguing. The book also ends on a somewhat ambiguous note. It did not seem ambiguous to me, but when our book group discussed it not everyone agreed on what happened at the end. I also found some of the writing very beautiful. It is a worthwhile read and I am looking forward to the library’s events.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

This is a story published in 2007, but set mostly in Italy in 1958. I started thinking – does that make it historical fiction? I tend to shy away from historical fiction. It seems messy. If a real-life person is written about in a fiction book, how do you know what is true and what is not? To be historical fiction does a book have to include historical events and people or simply be set in the past? Vision: A Resource for Writers has this definition: “…a literary work or category whose content is produced by the imagination and based on or concerned with events in history.” I think, according to that definition, The Savage Garden is historical fiction since it is crucial to the story that it is set in an area that was occupied by Germany during WWII. And, it is important that the story takes place when those events are still well-remembered by the community.

I picked it up because I heard from somewhere that it was a good mystery. I guess that makes it a historical mystery. There are actually two mysteries. Adam Strickland, a young English graduate student, goes to San Casciano in Tuscany to visit and research a garden at the urging of his professor. The garden was built in 1577 by Frederico Docci in memory of his wife. The garden has some unusual characteristics and Adam decides it will be a good topic for his dissertation. Uncovering the significance of the design and various artifacts in the garden is one mystery. It involves understanding many characters in the Greek myths and Italian literature. This book may be especially interesting to someone who has read or studied these ideas and texts. That is not me, but the information added rather than detracted from the story.

The second mystery has to do with the current branch of the Docci family living in the villa at the garden. Signora Docci lost a son during the war and her husband died soon after. It becomes clear that the circumstances under which her son died are somewhat mysterious. Was he really killed by Germans evacuating as the Allied troops approached? Adam becomes interested in figuring out what really happened that night. Mendelian genetics, fascists and communists, bullet trajectories, and rumors of the time all play a role in Adam’s edging closer to the truth. Complicating matters, Adam becomes involved with Signora Docci’s granddaughter, Antonella.

This is mostly an intellectual mystery. There is very little action or threats to the protagonist. The author does a good job of reminding us how young Adam is with his worries about his visiting brother or his parents back home. It is interesting to contemplate if there are 400-year old mysteries such as this garden still around waiting to be solved. That must be what drives archeologists and art historians. I definitely plan to read more by this author as it was an entertaining read and I learned something.

Is There a Preschooler in Your Life?

If you have ever read that same story that you hated, over and over again to your preschooler, here are a few suggestions that our family found fun for everyone to read. Also, good ideas for aunts, uncles and grandparents so the family you give them to won't regret it later. Check out my review of Three Great Books for Preschoolers at True North Parenting.

Comments on Tom Robbins and Still Life with Woodpecker

I was talking with a friend recently about some short stories by an author who grew up in our hometown: see my post The Littlest Hitler by Ryan Boudinot. She asked if I liked Tom Robbins, who lives and writes near that same hometown. Of course, Tom Robbins is one of my favorite authors of all times. I loved reading Still Life with Woodpecker, Another Roadside Attraction, and Skinny Legs and All. I had all these books including Even Cowgirls get the Blues and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. Where are they now? I know I periodically purge my books at the urging of those I live with, but I definitely would not have gotten rid of those first three. It took a bit of thinking, but I realized I liked those books so much I had wanted to share them. I lent them out. And they never came back! I was especially dismayed when I remembered I had lent Still Life with Woodpecker to a person who then did a family member wrong. I know I will never see that book again.

Luckily, I found someone on paperbackswap.com who wanted to give away Still Life with Woodpecker and Another Roadside Attraction, so I can start building up my Tom Robbins collection again. And, I see he has another book out that I have yet to read called Villa Incognito.

So, what is so distinctive about Tom Robbins? Why was I so enthralled when I read Still Life with Woodpecker more than 20 years ago? Is it still timely? This particular book is an irreverent mix of sex, religion, travails about living in the Pacific Northwest, true love, the environment, and the power of pyramids. Princess Leigh-Cheri, daughter of a deposed king, grows up in rainy Seattle and meets Bernard Wrangle, an outlaw, at the Geo-Therapy Care Fest in Hawaii. Both have red hair. Bernard hides his hair color to keep from being arrested for his part in a previous bombing. He has spent many years in hiding after he injured a graduate student working on a male oral contraceptive. He has also tried to find other remedies after ending that work.

Bernard returns with Leigh-Cheri to Seattle, but his courtship of her does not go well. An example of this that has stuck with me for years, is this suggestion to King Max, Leigh-Cheri’s father:
“To the King, during tea, Bernard had advocated the planting of blackberries on every building top in Seattle. They would require no care, aside from encouraging them, arborlike, to crisscross the streets, roof to roof; to arch, forming canopies, natural arcades as it were. In no time at all, people could walk through the city in the downpouringest of winter and feel not a splat.”(pg 129)

With the planting of the blackberries, a new art form would be founded, with paintings done in pre- and post-blackberry light. A new food culture around blackberries would be instigated and it would no longer be possible to go hungry in Seattle. It is ideas like this that really drew me to Tom Robbins’ work; imagine an eco-friendly way to live in Seattle with no rain. Of course, King Max has spent his life in fear that he will be the first monarch to be assassinated by blackberries so that idea does not go down too well in the story.

The novel is set in the last quarter of the twentieth century and that idea comes up again and again. Here Leigh-Cheri summarizes her thoughts about being a princess.

“…and although in the last quarter of the twentieth century the very idea of royalty may seem artificial, archaic and somewhat decadent, I insist on my princess-hood because without it I’m just another physically attractive woman with that I-went-to-college-but-it-didn’t-do-me-any-good look and nothing much to offer anyone.” (pg 43)

The major question of the book is whether Leigh-Cheri and Bernard can make true love stay. The idea of a red-headed race from another planet, the coincidence of pyramids on the dollar bill and a Camel cigarette pack, the overthrow of the right-wing government in King Max’s homeland, a new fiancé, and a change of scenery to the desert are all secondary to this pivotal question. If you grew up in the 80’s without reading Tom Robbins or if you want to see what 1980’s concerns about the environment and even terrorism looked like, this book is for you, packaged in an bizarre tale of love.