Book Review - The Mothers by Brit Bennett

In The Mothers, the reader follows 17 year old Nadia Turner, her family, and the church community in which her family are members, in their Southern California seaside town.  The church, called Upper Room, is led by a steady, serious, compassionate Pastor Sheppard.  His wife takes charge of the day-to-day running of the church, along with a team from the congregation.  The couple have a 21-year old son, Luke, who - at the opening of the novel - has had an experience that forced him to leave college and take work at a local beachside restaurant.

Nadia's mother has just died, and this tragedy affects her and her father in profound ways.  Her father becomes dedicated to helping out Upper Room in any way he can, because his wife loved the church so much.  He has a favorite pickup truck, and volunteers to transport/haul/etc. whenever someone has a need.  He is often out of the house, leaving Nadia to fend for herself.  In response to her mother's passing, she becomes wild and promiscuous, eventually forming a romantic relationship with Luke Sheppard.  Nadia eventually becomes pregnant, and the two must make a decision about what to do next.  The fallout from this decision follows them throughout their lives, and affects their friends, family, and ultimately all of Upper Room.

One of the interesting aspects of this novel is the author's use of Greek chorus.  At the beginning of each chapter this chorus, which is made up of the elder female members of Upper Room, comments vaguely on the action that will take place throughout the rest of the chapter.  The voice is terribly gossipy, judgmental, and quite accurately portrays the collective voice of "church ladies" who might be found in any modern congregation.

This Greek chorus is one source of the book's title.  They refer to themselves as "The Mothers" and are titled "Mother" instead of "Ms./Mrs." by Upper Room's other congregants.  Nadia herself becomes a mother during her relationship with Luke.  Nadia's deceased mother, as well as Luke's mother, loom large throughout the story, whether in memory or in the present.  There are many themes and incantations of mothers and mothering throughout the novel.

I also listened to this as an audiobook, and I would highly recommend it.  The narrator does a superb job of voicing children, men, teenagers, women, and especially the Greek chorus.  I had no problem deciphering between characters, or keeping up with the plot, because the narration was so engaging.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Mothers, and was intrigued not only by its storytelling techniques but also how the author treated the relationships between parents and children, men and women, and church culture.  It demonstrates how acutely a decision can affect not only the people who make it, but their entire community.



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Book Review - Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada

Trying to categorize, or even fully understand, Memoirs of a Polar Bear is an exercise in frustration and futility.  On the surface (and on the back cover) it is advertised as the fictional memoirs of three generations in a family of polar bears.  However, what is really going on is far stranger, more complex, and more muddled than I ever anticipated.

Despite the straightforwardness of the premise - fictional memoirs of polar bears - I found the actual story very difficult to make sense of.  It is organized in three sections, one for each bear generation, and each section is radically different from each other.  The first, "The Grandmother: An Evolutionary Theory", focuses on the earliest of the three generations of polar bears.  Although the bear herself is unnamed, the world in which she exists is portrayed in detail...and this is where things begin to get weird.

The "grandmother bear" is born and grows up in the USSR, raised by a bear trainer and works in a circus.  The world itself is presented in a realist way, but with one crucial difference - animals and humans live amongst each other and can hold conversations.  The way that animals and humans interact with each other is so seamless and natural, without a hint of fear or awkwardness.  In fact, the polar bear lives in an apartment complex with lots of other people, and visits the landlady for vodka.  The bear eventually leaves the circus, attends conferences around the Soviet Bloc countries, and finally decides to write her memoir.  A memoir that is published by a man named Sea Lion and his independent press.  A memoir that, when it becomes popular, allows the polar bear to live in exile in West Germany and then move to Canada.  In Canada, the bear meets her "husband", with whom they have a cub named Tosca and move back to Germany.

Part two, titled "The Kiss of Death" is about Tosca and her life in a circus.  Unlike the previous section, this is primarily narrated by Barbara, a human who works in the circus and, later, in an act with Tosca.  This story is really more about Barbara's life, and only mentions Tosca tangentially.  Although Barbara and Tosca do have some form of communication, it is not as outright and prevalent as was the case with the "grandmother polar bear".  It is clear that Tosca is a bear - no ambiguity about the species here.  The title refers to a circus trick where Barbara puts a sugar cube on her tongue, and Tosca would come and take it from her, thereby appearing as though they're kissing.  At the end of the section, Tosca talks about meeting a bear named Lars, with whom she has two cubs - one of which is named Knut.

Part three is called "Memories of the North Pole", and explores the relationship between the polar bear Knut and his handler at the Berlin Zoo, Matthias.  There is no conversation between these two at all, but sometimes when Matthias is asleep, he dreams about talking with Knut.  He devotes his life to caring for Knut, who was born prematurely and needs regular feeding and medical care.  Tosca abandoned her cub at birth, and she explains that it was done to allow her to work on her own writing.  Matthias creates a bond with Knut that is very much like a mother and her son.  Knut is at his calmest and happiest when Matthias is there, and he suffers greatly when Matthias dies suddenly of a heart attack.

My experience of reading Memoirs of a Polar Bear, especially the first section, was incredible frustration.  The presented landscape is realistic and rooted in the world as it really was, yet the characters are a mixture of humans and animals who can communicate with each other.  I kept going back and forth about whether the characters were metaphors or not.  Was the polar bear writing what I was reading?  Was any of this really happening?  From one page to the next, the reader is left unsure of exactly what is going on.  I actually wrote lots of notes (on sticky-tabs, because I read a library copy) to myself about what I thought was happening at the time, to try and figure it out.  I still haven't figured it out.

Were the characters all animals?  Were they representative of people?  Did the characters (especially in the first section) see themselves as animals, but were viewed by everyone else as humans?  Was it all of the above?  Through this inconclusiveness and intermingling, was the author proposing that animals and humans are really one in the same - not so different from each other?  Was it a treatise on animal rights?  The "grandmother bear" makes constant references to her "paw-hand" and her "snout", which would seem to indicate animal-hood, but perhaps she is a woman who sees herself in a more animalistic light.  Or perhaps the author is invoking bear imagery that is associated with the USSR.  There is no clarity or consistency with these references, so the reader is left to make his/her own conclusions.  There are so many questions, yet the author doesn't even suggest that one may be possible over another.

Where the book truly succeeds is in giving a rich, interior life to a species that are often feared and hunted.  The polar bears are shown as having desires, disappointments, needs, hopes, and love.  Through this, the reader is encouraged to feel empathy for the three main characters.  Where the book fails is in its inconsistent use of the bizarre and ambiguous.  There was a lack of internal connection and consistency that hindered the overall story and its impact.  I will freely state that I have no problem reading books where I have no idea what's going on.  What I do find problematic is where that technique is used as a trope, and doesn't serve (or even muddles) the overall story.  If the bizarre is used for its own sake, I don't care for it.  That was, unfortunately, my experience in Memoirs of a Polar Bear.




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Book Review & Thoughts - Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante

Frantumaglia is a collection of letters, interviews, and other correspondence between the author Elena Ferrante, her editors, and fans/journalists/artists.  It was at the suggestion of her editors in fact, Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola Ferri, that this book even came to fruition.  It chronicles the time from when her first book, Troubling Love was published in Italy (1992), through the publication of the final installment in the Neapolitan Quartet, The Story of the Lost Child in America in 2015.  All of the writings were originally in Italian, but have been translated into English by Ferrante's exclusive English translator - Anne Goldstein.

For fans of Ferrante's work, this book gives insights into the themes she has explored, as well as some recommendations of authors whom she finds inspiring and formative.  For readers who are new to Ferrante, this correspondence demonstrates the thoughtful and precise way she utilizes language.  Her writing style isn't particularly poetic or fluid, but is incredibly well-crafted.  She puts so much thought and care into every phrase, and that is part of why I find it so addicting to read. 

Because this book includes transcripts of decades’-worth of interviews, there are some recurring questions.  The most frequent one regards the author's identity.  It is widely known that Elena Ferrante is a pen name, and the user of that nom de plume has taken great pains to ensure that her true identity is concealed.  She does not take part in any in-person or audio interviews, and requires all correspondence to be funneled through her editors.  Because of this, the media (especially the Italian literary media) have made it their mission to "uncover" the true identity of Elena Ferrante.  As recently as October, 2016 (long after Frantumaglia was published) an Italian article was published that purports to have uncovered Elena Ferrante's true identity, going so far as to obtain (through what means..?) financial documents that show unusually large transactions between a publisher, an author, and a translator - to give weight to the claim.  In what universe do people care so much about the identity of an author that they would go to such extremes?  To what extent is an artist allowed privacy and the choice of a non-public life?

This cult of discovery is troubling on many levels.  First, once one releases a work of art into the world, is that person then obligated to have any further involvement in the work?  There seems to exist, in some perspectives, an umbilical connection between a work and its creator, that the personality branding of the person who wrote the book must carry some weight on the book itself.  I also wonder how much attention there would be if the pen name of the author was masculine - Emilio Ferrante, let’s say.  There runs an undercurrant of sexism here – suggesting that this writer must be revealed because it is so difficult to believe a woman capable of creating such a vivid and expansive world.  In a culture where fame is seen as the pinnacle of a career, for someone to eschew such recognition may be difficult to understand. 

Over and over again, interviewers make comparisons between her and famous Italian authors, and ask if she and those other authors are the same person.  She never answers these questions, nor gives any particular details that might clarify any part of her identity.  In fact, she, at one point, tells her editors that she may follow writer Italo Calvino's lead and freely answer questions…but not with the truth.  That is part of what is so interesting about Frantumaglia - you can try to read the personal into her answers, but ultimately what matters is the creative process and its products.  Wondering whether characters, descriptions, or plots in any of her stories are autobiographical is a waste of energy.  She believes wholeheartedly that the author's job comes to an end once the writing is complete.  It shouldn't matter who the author is, as long as the story explores some greater truth.  

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