Saluting Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is “…an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.”
Thus saith Wikipedia.
This statement is, of course, entirely accurate. Except that it doesn’t convey half of what this writer has achieved in her long and varied life, a life lived in literature and in the explication of the New York mind and the Jewish mind.
Ozick’s latest fiction is entitled Antiquities. In it, a superannuated academic relates his melancholy life story, which is centered on a relationship which was formed in a boarding school. There, the adolescent narrator contracts an intense friendship with the oddly named Ben-Zion Elefantin. The latter is Jewish – emphatically so – which makes him an untouchable at the school. The narrator, by association, also becomes untouchable. But having had few intimates to begin with, it hardly matters.
This is a mordant, melancholy little tome (192 pages in hardcover), enlivened frequently by Ozick’s wit and eloquence:
It is from my discreet and quietly dispirited mother, in a burst of confession in her seventieth year, and seriously ailing, that I know something of the effects of this perfunctory escapade.
Really, I do live to absorb such phrases as “perfunctory escapade!” And to just what is this felicitous phrase referring? You will find out as you read. At this point I will only say that it has to do with a journey to Egypt, to see the ancient ruins, in the company of none other than William Flinders Petrie:
Here I speak of William Matthew Flinders Petrie, knighted by the Queen, and more broadly known as the illustrious archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie.
More on this expedition:
He describes the green of the water, a massive colony of storks dipping their beaks, a glimpse of an occasional water buffalo, and on the opposite bank, as they were nearing the First Cataract at Aswan, a series of boulders on the fringe of what (so the guide informed him) was an island with a history of its own, littered with the vestigial ruins of forgotten worship.
‘vestigial ruins of forgotten worship…’ With such eloquence is Ozick’s prose liberally strewn, like the potsherds at an ancient site.
Antiquities is both intriguing and puzzling. It is mercifully short – just under two hundred pages. I enjoyed it.
I am not nearly as well read in this author’s works as I should be. But I wanted to take this opportunity to praise her. Ozick’s life in letters is greatly to be admired.
Born in 1928, this year Cynthia Ozick turned ninety-three.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins: A book discussion, with a brief true crime digression
I thought this would be a good discussion – but I didn’t know just how good!
First of all, the turnout was better that I’d anticipated – ten people, which is a good number for this type of gathering. And secondly, everyone was primed to let loose with their feelings and impressions.
There was general agreement that the novel was a terrific reading experience. Right from the outset, Jeanine Cummins manages to generate tremendous suspense, while creating characters that are real and immensely sympathetic.
When their entire family is ruthlessly murdered at their home in Acapulco, Lydia and her son Luca are the sole survivors. The killers, members of a powerful cartel, will not stop until they have taken out Lydia and Luca as well. And so mother and son must flee; there is no alternative. They do as so many of their countrymen, as well as others from further South have done: They join los migrantes on their journey, north to el norte.
And what a journey it is – full of danger and heartbreak. I felt as though I were going along with them. Except that I could take a break and close the book for a while – something I kept having to do. Lydia and Luca and the others had no choice but to keep going.
Carol admitted that she paged forward to the conclusion so she could be reassured that Lydia and Luca survived their ordeal. In her review for the New York Times, Lauren Groff says: “A few pages into reading Jeanine Cummins’s third novel, American Dirt, I found myself so terrified that I had to pace my house.” (This is a terrific article, well worth reading in its entirety.)
Connie reminded us of the importance of the issue of trust in this story. On top of the day to day worries concerning mere survival, Lydia had to be constantly looking over her shoulder to see if there were someone – it could be anyone – traveling with their group who was in the pay of the cartel whose leader wanted her dead, That person could reveal her whereabouts, or just kill her outright. If anything happened to her, what would become of Luca?
Luca. To me, he was the beating heart of this novel. An exceptionally bright little boy, with an inquiring mind and a strong sense of justice; moreover, he was endowed with warmth and generosity, plus other endearing traits that make some children especially lovable.
It’s hard to discuss American Dirt without dwelling on the controversy that surrounded its publication early last year. Certain commentators, especially from the Latino and Latina communities, tore into it, claiming that Cummins’s description of the migrants was stereotyped and inaccurate. The consensus among them seemed to be that she was writing about people and an experience that she simply didn’t understand – couldn’t understand, because of her outsider status.
I read up on this subject to a fair degree, and I think that the harshest criticism stems from the fact that American Dirt was given such a large publicity push by its publisher, Flatiron Books, accompanied, at least initially, with rapturous praise. Among other things, this resulted in Jeanine Cummins receiving a seven-figure advance and American Dirt being selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club.. Other worthy titles by Latino and Latina writers have been given nowhere near this kind of support, by their publishers or by anyone else.
From Ann Patchett:
“There’s a level of viciousness that comes from a woman getting a big advance and a lot of attention….If it had been a small advance with a small review in the back of the book section, I don’t think we’d be seeing the same level of outrage.”
For my part, I can understand the frustration and resentment occasioned by this incident. I also feel that certain practices by the publishing industry have been been exposed to the glare of publicity and are being seen as arbitrary and money-grubbing. In my opinion, rightly so.
One thing I can’t agree with at all is the level of disparagement that, in some cases, has been directed at this novel. The most egregious example of this that I personally have seen comes from a review in the New York Times by Parul Sehgal. I don’t want to quote from this article at any length here, because it makes me slightly crazy just to look at it. Suffice it to say that among the brickbats Parul Sehgal hurls at American Dirt is the assertion that Cummins is guilty of “mauling the English language.”
Did she read the same novel I did ?
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m hypersensitive about precision, beauty, and correctness in writing. One misplaced apostrophe and I’m likely to go off on a rant. So I just want to voice the opinion here that American Dirt contains some of the most powerful and compelling writing I’ve encountered in a work of fiction in a long time.
This sentence describes the first glimpse Lydia and Luca get of the notorious freight train known as La Bestia – The Beast:
There’s a new reverence to having seen it with their own eyes, the unfeeling crush of the wheels along their rails, the men clinging to the exoskeleton like beetles on a window screen.
Holding Luca outside her body for the first time, Lydia expected there would be a moment when these notions would flood through her, all at once, like a small death. A portal. She’d hoped, like on of those desert rattlesnakes, to shed the skin off her anguish and leave it behind her in the Mexican dirt. But the moment of the crossing had already passed, and she didn’t even realize it had happened. She never looked back, never committed any small act of ceremony to help launch her into the new life on the other side. Nothing can be undone. Adelante.
(That last word is translated by Google as ‘Go ahead.’ In this context, I think it actually means ‘Keep going.’)
I think that this article in Vox provides a good summary of the controversy.
I believe I speak fairly for our group when I say that we thought this novel was outstanding. The plot – especially the creation and maintaining of extreme suspense, the memorable characters, the writing – every aspect won praise. Two people had first hand experience of travel in Mexico; they expressed that from their viewpoint, Cummins’s depiction of the country was reasonably accurate.
We felt genuine sympathy for writers whose work hasn’t had the kind of push Jeanine Cummins got from Flatiron Books and Oprah Winfrey. From Daniel Hernandez in the Los Angeles Times:
“American Dirt” has opened a window into the ways a few select books are brought to the public’s attention at a time when many authors have to hire their own publicists or arrange their own book readings and events.
He adds, significantly:
The roll-out to some took on the veneer of insult to Central American trauma and pain surrounding the treacherous passage through Mexico.
This, then, is the fault of insensitive publisher and publicist, and not the fault of the novel at all.
I don’t think that any of us subscribed to the notion that an author should only write about groups, ethnicities, or whatever, of which he or she is, or has been, an active member. It is possible to identify powerfully with people who are “other” than yourself. Why do I feel so connected to England and its ancient history and persisting myths?? I have no blood relation to any of it. But from my very young years I have identified with it, felt part of it. When I am there, I feel a strong sense of belonging. It may be irrational, but it is potent nonetheless. Empathy can be a very powerful emotion, enabling you to transcend differences.
I want to acknowledge that this is the third time in as many years that this group has caused me to read a book I initially had no intention of reading. (The other two were Becoming, Michelle Obama’s memoir, and Min Jin Lee’s brilliant Pachinko.) I’m very glad to have read all three. Thanks, AAUW Readers!
American Dirt is in development as a feature film. There’s very little current information on it that I could find. Here’s the trailer, but it too is pretty uninformative.
I feel as though I’ve left out quite a bit here, both from our discussion and the novel itself. I hope their are no blatant inaccuracies. Please let me know if you spot any.
******************
In the course of my brief biographical sketch of Jeanine Cummins, I mentioned that her first book was a work of nonfiction entitled A Rip in Heaven. In it she tells the story of a crime, or crimes, that took place within her own family. We briefly got into a discussion of the genre of true crime books. I read extensively in this area and taught a short course in it for Osher a couple of years ago. If you have further interest, there is lots of material online. I have written quite a few posts on the subject for this blog. If you want to read just one, I recommend ‘The Enduring Fascination with True Crime.’
Dark Sky by C.J. Box: One Wild – and Very Satisfying – Ride
So I was searching Google trying to come up with adjectives that would describe the experience of reading this book: spine-tingling, bloodcurdling, electrifying, gripping, edge-of-your seat… You get the idea. It was all of the aforementioned, and more.
As the plot of Dark Sky unfolds, the unwary reader may be forgiven for assuming that this will be a more or less traditional mystery, traditionally paced. But no! Do not make such an unthinking assumption.
Joe Pickett is a game warden in Wyoming; he’s also a family man. Wife Marybeth is the director of the town library; they have three daughters, all quickly reaching adulthood. Sheridan, the oldest, has an important supporting part in the drama that’s about to unfold.
Joe has been chosen by the state’s governor to lead an elk hunting expedition in the Bighorn Mountains. This would not ordinarily be part of Joe’s remit, but the circumstances are special: the expedition is being mounted on behalf of one Steve Price, a star of California’s Silicon Valley elite. Steve is the founder and owner of a wildly popular social media site called Confab and also of another company called Aloft. The governor has his reasons for wanting this tech billionaire to have an excellent experience on this outing.
At first, all goes as planned. But there’s a party of malefactors roaming the mountains who have a bone to pick with Steve Price. And due to Steve’s compulsive – and very up to date – posts on Confab, they know where he is, who he is with, and what he’s doing. Other forces are arrayed against Steve, and therefore against Joe as well, as they undertake their arduous journey up into the Bighorns.
There’s a subplot involving a falconry outfit owned and operated by one Nate Romanowski. He’s a good friend of the Pickett family, but he has a tendency to play by his own rules, rules which sometimes skirt the law. Dark Sky is also about the ethics of hunting and the treatment of animals living in the wild. (In beautiful and sparsely populated Wyoming, there are plenty of those.) Horses too play a major role in the lives of the protagonists.
Box’s writing is wonderful, and his characters are fully three-dimensional and believable. And yes, this is one of those novels about which people exclaim, “I couldn’t put it down!” But I have to say, Dear Reader, that this is actually not my favorite reading experience. I like fiction that causes me to pause, think, evaluate, and wonder. And Dark Sky caused me to do all of these things. That’s not to say that the narrative didn’t also scare me in places, because it most certainly did.
This is the twenty-first entry in the Joe Pickett series. I read Open Season, the first one, when it came out in 2001. I enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, as the series continued, I didn’t keep up with it. However, as time went on, the reviews got increasingly laudatory. (Plus I’d developed a relationship with Wyoming for the best of reasons.) So I returned to the fold with 2019’s Wolf Pack. I liked it so much I stuck around for Long Range, which was even better. And as for Dark Sky – it was simply the best.
Introduction to American Art, Part Two
It will be noted, from the examples in Part One, that early American painting possesses a certain folk art , even primitive, quality. We must keep in mind the fact that the European art of this period – the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and prior – had a glorious artistic heritage to draw upon, starting with the statuary and sculpture of antiquity, followed by the vivid imagery evoked in the West by the doctrines and rich lore of Christianity.
In addition, there was little if any professional caliber instruction available to aspiring artists in colonial America. Reproductions of the great masterpieces of Europe could be seen only in the engravings that were circulated at the time in the colonies. These would have reproduced the outline of each work and not the color – no color!
Apollo Belvedere
Laocoon and His Sons
Both of the above works are housed in the Vatican Museums.
The Laocoon was discovered buried beneath a Roman vineyard. Michelangelo was present as it was gradually unearthed. I have a picture in my mind of his standing there. eyes wide with amazement, as this masterpiece was revealed to the world.
Portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra, c. 1545
This striking image of the Genius of the Age provides a neat segue into the Renaissance:
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, by Raphael, 1504
Giovanni Bellini, Madonna of the Meadow, 1505
Saw this painting for the first time yesterday and fell in love with it at once. The chubby, blissfully dozing little baby, his beautiful mother, robed in red and blue, adoring her little offspring as new mothers will do, the clouds above her curving around a to the left and almost seeming to form a halo…
Talk about getting sidetracked!
Anyway, American art of the pre-Revolutionary period seems positively quaint when compared to masterpieces like the above. This is not to say, however that it does not possess its own unique virtues:
Isaac Royall and Family, by John Feke
Mann Page and Elizabeth Page, by John Wollaston
There is a certain piquancy in the way these characters peer out at us from their two-dimensional space. The children are especially charming.
Yet it seems almost miraculous to go from the above to this full-blooded, beautifully rounded portrait of Henry Pelham:
Boy with a Flying Squirrel, 1765
Henry Pelham was the half-brother of John Singleton Copley, the first great painter to emerge from the Colonies.
Statue of Jon Singleton Copley in Copley Square, Boston
Books to the Ceiling 