Category: “The Great Man”

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The body of work

So I told you how impressed I was with “The Great Man“ a novel by Kate Christensen. Well, I am about 50 pages into another of her novels, “Jeremy Thrane,” and I don’t think I’ll be reading much further. It’s understandable that a writer’s body of work would not necessarily be all at the same level. Understandable, but disappointing.

It’s the same feeling I had when, after reading Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” or Colm Toibin’s “The Master.” How many writers produce book after book of unfailingly high quality? There’s a reason Jane Austen and John Updike and their ilk actually have, well, such a small “ilk.” What they accomplished, book after book, is extraordinary. They just made it look easy.

Part of the disappointment comes from meeting an author for the first time in a book you’ve heard or read good things about. Then, when you want to read more–the atavistic Bobbsey Twins/Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew impulse–maybe what you’re left with are the earlier novels in which literary gifts were being gradually honed. Maybe it’s our impatience to discover the next new wonderful read coupled with the writer’s impatience to be the next brilliant young star. Didn’t writers used to have the luxury of a long, steady apprenticeship out of the spotlight, away from all but private expectations? Maybe writers need to have some unpublished work stashed away in desk drawers.

But I’m also thinking that I need an attitude adjustment. First comes savoring the books that are truly wonderful, giving myself to them slowly and completely without rushing to the end and looking for more. That there may not be more does not diminish what there is.

And second comes discovering a different pleasure: following the development of a gifted writer, reading his or her work chronologically and enjoying watching the gift unfold. How many of us, after all, would want to be judged on our early efforts in anything? Maybe it is not a question of disappointment that a particular writer has not produced more wonderful work but rather, gratitude that he or she produced the one wonderful thing we have in front of us right now.

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Surprising summer reading

It’s summer (all right, it’s a big three days into summer) and already I’m feeling the warm laziness that extends to even choosing a book to read. So I was glad to be handed a book by my sister-in-law, Susan, a discerning book person personally and professionally.

The book was something of a surprise. I had not heard of “The Great Man” and knew nothing about its author, Kate Christensen. The title, author photo, and first few pages led me to expect a different book, one I was surprised Susan would recommend. I was wrong.

The novel is about a constellation of women whose lives have revolved around the eponymous “great man,” a critically acclaimed artist so much larger than life that he remains at the heart of the women’s lives despite having died five years earlier. This could so easily have been light fiction of little consequence. There is the wife, the mistress, delicious food being prepared, a few outfits being chosen: all the basic warning signs of what is condescendingly referred to as chick-lit. (I could stop here and do a whole rant on the sexist dismissiveness of this term, but I won’t.) .

But then came the surprises: substantive and fascinating discussions of modern art and artists, septuagenarians in unapologetically juicy relationships, serious questions of what truth is and what art is and how women’s lives unfold through conscious decision and circumstance.

In short, I devoured the book and find that, several days later, it remains with me, satisfying and thought-provoking. And, no surprise, I’m going to read more of Kate Christensen’s work.