Independence Day

A few months ago,  I blogged about Richard Ford's novel The Sportswriter, the first novel in what developed into "The Bascombe Trilogy" based on the main character in each of the three novels: Frank Bascombe.

I've recently finished the second of the three novels: Independence Day.  It was published in 1995, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996.  The story opens about six years after we left Frank in The Sportswriter.  He is no longer writing occasional sports stories for a national magazine and he has completely abandoned the idea of finishing a novel he started writing many years earlier.  Frank is now a real estate agent, still living in the same town but in much smaller digs.

Frank's ex-wife has remarried and moved a not-too-far distance away.  Their two children are living with their mother and new husband and Frank is terribly lonely.  His divorce is "friendly" and he and his ex-wfe struggle to deal with lingering feelings but seemingly irreconcilable differences.  Frank mourns the loss of his marriage and often reflects on that loss.  He feels primarily responsible for its dissolution and would like nothing better than to be re-united with his ex-wife, but Ann has moved on with her life although she is saddened by the divorce as well.   Frank sees his children regularly but still feels disconnected and set adrift by the move.

Independence Day, like The Sportswriter, does not revolve around one huge event.  It takes place over a long Fourth of July weekend and centers on Frank's efforts to re-connect with his teen-aged son, Paul, who is demonstrating some erratic behaviors and injecting a good amount of hostility into a formerly close relationship with his dad.

Like Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose (but not quite as finely written), this second Frank Bascombe novel is predominantly an internal monologue with some exchanges of dialog scattered throughout the story.  Frank is just one flawed middle-aged man dealing with life's ups and downs as we all do.  He is funny and smart, sardonic and sometimes very sad.   He has not been particularly successful at parenting; at least that is his assessment, and his ex-wife agrees with him.  But he wants to  improve and embarks on a concerted effort to do so.  But he also realizes the difficulties of parenting a disgruntled teenager: "The worst of being a parent is my fate, then: being an adult.  Not owning the right language; not dreading the same dreads and contingencies and missed chances; the fate of knowing much yet having to stand like a lamppost with its lamp lit, hoping my child will see the glow and venture closer for the illumination and warmth it offers."  Although we might not have the skills to describe the role of a parent quite so beautifully, we can identify with that longing to be really inside our kids' lives and their many challenges, yet knowing at the same time it just isn't possible.  We can just be there; that lamppost.

Frank and his son have their lighter moments too.  Frank is sharing his goals for Paul and mentions that someday, he'd like to see him "get married and be as monogamous as possible."  Paul responds "What's monogamous?"  Frank's reply made me laugh out loud: "It's something like the old math.  It's a cumbersome theory nobody practices anymore but that still works."

Independence Day is not a novel to rush through but to savor.  It's not a page-turner, not a mystery, not a romance novel.  It's a finely-wrought, mature observation of life.

Zadie Smith, Then and Now

I have long admired the author Zadie Smith; I recall absolutely loving On Beauty and (not quite as much) White Teeth.  I eagerly dove into her latest novel: NW.  Unfortunately, I was not totally taken with it.

The story focuses on four youngish adults living in London (although the four characters do not enter equally into the story; much heavier emphasis is given to two of them).  These characters have a shared background of growing up in a London "council estate".  In England, that's the name public housing operates under.  "NW" refers to the northwest section of housing in the particular council estate of their childhood.

Although I still think Smith is a good writer, this novel felt superficial.  In the jacket blurb is the statement "NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself." "Mercurial encounters" is right.  The story just never dives beneath these quick, surface "drop-ins" on the characters.  One good-sized chunk of the novel is a series of 185  (really!) one and two paragraph vignettes featuring two of the main characters at different times in their lives.  I disliked it intensely; it felt like lazy writing as in "I can't figure out how to connect all of this so I'll just number each idea separately and write a couple of paragraphs." Smith also employs gimmicky text preferences for dialog that I found distracting and annoying. So...very clearly, not a favorite read.

I couldn't help but compare it to JK Rowling's Casual Vacancy, since the novels share some of the same story components: council estate living versus middle class and all the life-determining (in most cases) effects/consequences environment has on human development.  Rowling's novel was much more affecting; she brought the reader deeply into her characters' lives and left a lasting impression on this reader, at least.

But still...Zadie Smith!  What happened?  Did I misremember how great I thought your earlier novels were?  I decided to re-read White Teeth, her debut published in 2000, to determine whether or not I was recalling my fondness for it correctly.  The good news: White Teeth is a a terrific novel and if you've not read it, you should!

I still hold On Beauty (2005) in very high esteem and feel that, so far, this has been her ultimate achievement.  The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States and England. The nature of beauty, cultural and ethnic differences and diverse political agendas all make for an engaging story. 
 
Bottom line: if you're thinking about reading NW but haven't read either of her earlier works, go for the earlier ones and then skip NW.