James by Percival Everett

As the novel that has been perched at the top of the New York Times reading list for weeks on end, James has been on my TBR shelf since its publication. As part of the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures Ten Evenings series and also a selection for the Gables Book Club, it was time to move from TBR to Reading.

What an incredible novel Percival Everett has crafted. James is the re-imagination of Mark Twain’s Hucleberry Finn told from the point of view of Jim, Huck’s runaway slave companion. Jim is a husband to Sadie and father to Lizzie and is well respected among the other slave s to Judge Thatcher and Miss Watson because he can read and write. When he learns that he is going to be sold and shipped to New Orleans, he runs away. Huck is being abused by his alcoholic father and fakes his death and likewise runs away. The two meet up serendipitously on an island and from there the adventures begin as they encounter a couple of con artists, a minstrel group who appear with black face, One of that group, Norman, has been passing escapes with Jim. The two concoct a plan for Norman to sell Jim and help him escape and sell him over and over again. The owner of a mill, Old Mr. Henderson, buys Jim, and he escapes with another slave, Sammy, whom he witnesses being raped.

The adventures are harrowing, the cruelty and violence are disturbing, but it is history told through fiction. It is difficult to pinpoint what is the most outstanding feature of this novel. It is remarkable for the point of view and language from which Jim relates it. It is told in the first person by Jim who is trying to define what freedom is and how it can be gained outside enslavement. Everett uses a code switching technique, that Everett ini his lecture, sometime questions. When talking to superiors, he uses the “slave filter” and when he is talking with those on equal ground, uses an erudite proper language. He steals a leather notebook where he records his thoughts and where he develops a sense of self. Words are important to him.  During his lecture he read a part of the novel where James was instructing children on the way to talk to the enslavers 

The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.” “February, translate that.” “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”

Throughout James the overlying motive for his actions to to get back to Hannibal to free his family and move to where they can enjoy their life. It is what keeps him going. He came to the realization that if he didn’t have them in his life, freedom was meaningless.

Sadness, irony, humor, the myth of racial identity and so many other attributes come together to make this a book for all ages. It should be taught along its companion, Huckleberry Finn in all English curricula. I am not sure that would happen in Florida, After all, as Everett said, “Reading is subversive.”

Percival Everett at Carnegie Music Hall - 24 March 2025

Percival Everett at Carnegie Music Hall - 24 March 2025

Percival Everett at Carnegie Music Hall - 24 March 2025

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

This book has been sitting on my book shelf since its publication in 2003. I am not sure why I hadn't picked it up to read, but it rose to the top of the TBR list this year. As much as I try to read everyday, life and clients seem to get in the way. Although fiction, The Dante Club is based on true facts, most of which I was unaware. As per usual, as I was reading, I had to inform myself as to the veracity of what Pearl was writing. 

Set in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1865, the book's basis is the 1st American translation of Dante's Inferno. The novel opens with one of the most gruesome descriptions ever published as it described the death of Judge Healey:

"Nell kicked away the wasps’ nest and stuffed the judge into the wheelbarrow. She half wheeled and half dragged his naked body through the meadows, over the garden, through the halls, and into his study. Throwing the body on a mound of legal papers, Nell pulled Judge Healey’s head into her lap. Handfuls of maggots rained down from his nose and ears and slack mouth. She began tearing out the luminescent maggots from the back of his head. The wormy pellets were moist and hot. She also grabbed some of the fire-eyed flies that had trailed her inside, smashing them with the palm of her hand, pulling them apart by the wings, flinging them, one after another, across the room in empty vengeance."

The members of the Dante Club, who were supporting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in translating The Inferno, were Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr,  James T. Fields, George Washington Greene, and James Russell Lowell. Judge Healey was the first in a series of murders that began to intrigue the club because of their similarity to the punishments in Dante's poem. With such a connection the members of the club take it upon themselves to help solve the murders. The second victim is Reverend Talbot, who was found in a cemetery, buried upside down with this feet exposed and set fire. Upon removal, a large sum of money was found. Talbot had been paid by the Harvard Corporation to preach against Dante. The third murder was that of Phineas Jennison, who was also a contributor to the Harvard Corporation, found dead and sliced open as described by Dante

The novel follows the investigation by the club as well as by Nicholas Rey, a Boston's first black policeman. It becomes apparent to the club that the murderer is tied to the publishing giant of the time, Ticknor & Fields, through a Civil War soldier who had listened to Greene's sermons. 

The final solution has a climatic and brutal end to it after numerous red herrings were planted by the author. It is also a look at the families of the poets, their lives, and the culture of Boston. The prejudice that faces Nicholas Rey exposes the hypocrisy of those who fought for an end of slavery in the Civil War. His life is fraught with discrimination and often dismissed because of his color. 

The Dante Club is a rich read, not only for the manner in which the crimes are solved, but for the insight in to the remarkable influence and heritage of Dante. As when I read The Inferno by Dan Brown, Dante has always held a special interest for me. A great and suspenseful thriller.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Every so often the Gables Book Group decides that it is time to read a classic. For most of us we are rereading books from our high school days. However, for this month, the book that was chosen was one that I had not read as a teen. Madame Bovary has been translated numerous times and, as evidenced by our discussion, that can influence the reaction to the book. 

Emma Bovary, much like Anna Karenina, is a tragic heroine from another time and another culture. However, Emma is not the heroine that with whom reader can empathize. She is superficial, materialistic and for the most part uncaring. She marries Charles Bovary at a time when he is still mourning his first wife. She goes to a very fancy party and gets a taste of what life among the "rich and famous" can be like. When she becomes sickly, the two move to a small market town. Charles gives up his successful medical practice for her, but she is not grateful at all. She dreams of being in Paris and the rich life. In reality, she spends most of her life in a dream  world.

Upon arrival in their new home, Emma discovers she is pregnant. In perhaps the most tragic part of the novel, she is in contention for the world's worst mother. She will have nothing to do with her daughter and sends her to a wet nurse and neighbor to raise her. Only when it is convenient does she spend any time with Berthe. Emma, in search for a better lot in life, has an affair that ends with her eventual rejection. The end of the novel is tragic for all the characters involved. Death does not come without its far reaching fingers. 

I am glad that we read this novel.  Its impact would be lost on youth and it's understandable why Madame Bovary is considered the first modern realistic piece of fiction in the realm of world literature.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

The Bohemian life of the Lost Generation has been a fascination of mine for a while. It is remarkable how much has been contributed by the artists, writers, and philosophers of that time period. From Picasso to Braque to Gris and Hemingway to Fitzgerald to Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir to Albert Camus. When it was time this month to read a biography for our Gables Book Club, I turned to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. Stein, in a conversation with Ernest Hemingway, is the person who coined the phrase, saying, "you all are a Lost Generation."

In this book, Stein actually writes her memoirs, but in the guise of the autobiography of her partner, Alice B. Toklas. The two were among the most prominent "socialites" of the the Paris scene, living at 27 rue de Fleurus, just blocks from the Tuileries Garden. Stein was born in Allegheny City, now incorporated into the city of Pittsburgh and the book starts there. The chapters go on to detail life before the war, Paris, and life after the war. They are filled with accounts of the salons, the artists, and the writers. Much of it mirrors the descriptions of Parisian life as described in Zelda or A Moveable Feast. Toklas recounts how she is relegated to time with the wives when Stern "entertains" Hemingway or Picasso.  One of the most enlightening quotes in the book was about F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Gertrude Stein had been very much impressed by This Side of Paradise. She read it when it came out and before she knew any of the young American writers. She said of it that it was a book that really created for the public the new generation. She has never really changed her opinion about this. She thinks this equally true of The Great Gatsby. She thinks Fitzgerald will be read when many of his well known contemporaries are forgotten. Fitzgerald aways says that he thinks Gertrude Stein says these things just to annoy him by making him think that she means them, and he adds in his favourite way, and her doing it is the cruelest thing I ever heard."

The book was enlightening on many fronts. It detailed their lives as they bought a Ford and traveled around France volunteering for the American Fund for the French Wounded. At one point, to make some much needed money, Stein traveled to England to lecture on her writings. The turmoil over their passports and reentry to France was illuminating to say the least.

This book would not be high on every one's list of must reads. It often reads like a diary of someone who is self-impressed and who is trying to create that sense of importance by name-dropping. But, that is the way the Lost Generation worked. This incredibly talented and creative group of people did play off one another and did thrive in doing so. How they lived and traveled with their limited incomes has always intrigued me. But they did and for that I am grateful.

Gertrude Stein's Grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris

Alice B. Toklas' Grave Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (on the back side of Gertrude Stein's grave)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Once a year The Gables Book Club reads a piece of classic literature. For this year's offing, Brideshead Revisited was chosen. Originally published in 1945, it has also been the subject of at least two film/tv iterations. I enjoy revisiting the classic literature that I may have missed or that I read as an adolescent and did not appreciate. Evelyn Waugh's novel of the adult life of Charles Ryder as he struggles to find himself and his place in the world. From a beginning prologue to the body of the book and then the epilogue, the reader wrestles with Ryder and Waugh for truths to be told.

The reader first meets Ryder as he is pulling up one camp during WWII and traveling to another outpost in England. Upon arrival, he knows the estate and the sight of Brideshead catapults him into a memoir of his time spent their as a youth. Charles was raised by his father in London after his mother died. His father seems indifferent and almost eccentric, spending very little time with Charles. Charles goes off to Oxford University where he meets Sebastian Flyte, the son of the Lord Marchmain who owns the palatial estate. They become best of friends and more importantly, drinking buddies. During the summer term, Charles spends time at Brideshead and meets the other members of the family: Lord Bridey, Julia, and Cordelia, the siblings of Sebastian and his mother Lady Marchmain.

The story that ensues details his relationships, his beliefs, and his life's journey from Oxford to his revisiting Brideshead in 1944. As with many classic pieces of literature the themes on which the author focuses are well delineated and presented. Brideshead Revisited has no dearth of such themes. With Evelyn Waugh, the reader must remember his roots as a satirist as the exploration of those themes ensues. Noteworthy are his treatments of alcoholism and the acceptance of it by the aristocracy in Post WWI England and a heavy handed examination of the Roman Catholic dogma and church. Each member of the Flyte family exhibits a different commitment to his or her faith and as such embodies Waughs struggle with his own beliefs.

Another characteristic that stands out in classic literature is the richeness of the language. I don't know if we as readers in 2012 are less intelligent or lazier than those in 1945, but to read a novel that is so infused with beautiful language is so refreshing. Page after page the reader is treated to a feast of words that flow with richness that is a characteristic of the past. 

Brideshead Revisited is worthy of a read or a re-read. It's provocative, probing, and profound.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Rereading The Great Gatsby as an adult, far removed from those high school days, was a real eye-opener. I know this was one of those books read in a Sunday afternoon (we didn't have NFL football on TV back in the day) to get it done quickly. How sad that such a wonderful book may not be appreciated by youth. Fitzgerald's command of the English language, the symbolism, and understanding of human drama are so wonderfully crafted in this "American Novel."

The plot line is one known to almost all who have passed through high school English classes and those who have seen the numerous screen adaptations. It is Nick Carraway's description of lives of Tom and Daisy Buchannan, Myrtle and Tom Wilson, Jordan Baker, and Jay Gatsby. The novel affords a look at the contrasting lives of the noveau riche, the old money, life in the ash heap and the transformative powers as the characters interact with one another. Gatsby, in love with Daisy since before her marriage to Tom, is intent on living the American Dream that will include wealth, prestige, and Daisy.  However, in a time of decadence and opulence, this dream becomes unattainable. Fitzgerald decries what easy money has done to the once esteemed individualism and morality that was America. He embeds symbolism in the book that, upon careful reading, clearly defines what life in America has become - the green light at the end of the Buchannan dock, the valley of ashes, and the ever-present eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg. 

Maybe I understood at the time the importance of The Great Gatsby, or at least enough to be able to use it as I wrote and AP exam, but a life's worth experiences certainly brings a deeper understanding to it. Fitzgerald was 28 when he penned this book, but he writes as if much older and leaves us with one of the most memorable closing lines in all of literature. 

 “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

While touring Germany in 2002, this books was hailed as the ultimate German story. I bought it upon returning home and always meant to read it. The length demanded dedication to the read and I must admit I felt it would be dry and a difficult read. Spurred by the reading list for our Burgen und Berge Honors trip, I tackled it during Christmas vacation and I am so sorry that I had not read it sooner. I didn't want to put it down and was sorry that it had ended. The story of the Buddenbrooks family begins in 1835 and continues to the book's end in 1876. Mann is incredible as he characterizes the members of the family. His descriptions are magnificent and you immediately can picture them all in your mind. Johann (Jean) becomes the ultimate patriarch with a devotion to the well-lived life. Elisabeth, his wife, upon his death assumes the role as mentor, and devoted matriarch. Their children, Tony, Tom, Christian, and Clara all have happy and sad times in their lives. We struggle with them as they celebrate the good and bad times. The detail that Mann gives us - of Christmas on Meng Strasse, a Prussian school or the summer at Travemünde - allows the reader to be a part of his work. It will not soon be forgotten.