“On a Sunday evening, I went with some colleagues to an auction of contraband memorabilia in a karaoke bar in Little Havana…I had no intention of blowing my check, but, without the least warning, the god of tiny details set paradise before me…Right there, in the depth of the Sunday solitude of a Little Havana auction I found them: my new teeth…the sacred teeth of none other than [Hollywood diva] Marilyn Monroe…slightly yellowed.”—Gustavo Sanchez Sanchez, or “Highway.”
If that quotation does not pique your curiosity with its absurdity, the succeeding images may. As soon as Highway returns from Cuba to Mexico, he contacts the “best cosmetic dental clinic” in Mexico City and has “each of the teeth belonging to the Venus of the big screen transplanted into [his] mouth,” though he does save ten of his old teeth, the best-looking ones, for later, “just in case.” For months afterward, he walks around Mexico City smiling at his appearance in reflections, celebrating his good luck, and believing that “[his] life was a poem.” And this is just the beginning of a serious look at the connections between life, art, and literature.
Read Full Post »
Famous for his hilariously ironic comic sketches in Beyond the Fringe (1960), with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, and Talking Heads (1992); for his recent Tony Award-winning play The History Boys (2004), among other productions; and, most recently, his satiric novel (2007), An Uncommon Reader, about Queen Elizabeth’s discovery of a new kind of reading, Alan Bennett in this 1989 novella gives insights into his own life and personality. In The Lady in the Van, he details the relationship he had with someone who, under any other circumstances, would be considered a homeless person. In this case, Mary Shepherd is not really “homeless” because she lives, unkempt and unfettered, in a dilapidated van, painted yellow, “the papal color,” which she has parked illegally in various places throughout Bennett’s neighborhood. When she runs afoul of the parking regulations while her van is on a lot across the street from Bennett’s own house, Bennett offers to let her park the van temporarily in the garden entrance to his house. She stays for the next fifteen years, a woman so difficult that Bennett admits “one seldom was able to do her a good turn without thoughts of strangulation.”
Read Full Post »
The fine line between satire and farce is obliterated in this novel about the annual granting of England’s most prestigious literary prize. Author Edward St. Aubyn never hesitates to leap with both feet from satire into bold farce here, as often as some of his characters jump with both feet into each other’s beds. At the same time, however, he also maintains a bemused and distantly objective point of view regarding the machinations of those authors competing for the Elysian Prize, the judges who must decide the winner, and the literary establishment which recognizes the internal wheeling and dealing but still takes the whole process seriously. Though the author never mentions the name of the real prize he is satirizing, every reader of British literature will have an idea of which among several prizes is being satirized here. St. Aubyn’s parodies of various literary styles, represented by some of the candidates for the Elysian Prize mentioned here will bring smiles of recognition to all readers. All the World’s a Stage, a book favored by Elysian judge Tobias Benedict, an actor, shows St. Aubyn’s skill in writing very sophisticated parodies of Shakespearean drama here. By contrast, the writing of one candidate for the prize, wot u starin at, by Hugh MacDonald, is full of gutter language. A perfect book for summer written by a well-recognized author of historical fiction who is taking a different and much welcomed tack for those of us looking for a change of pace, Lost for Words is both unique and satisfying.
Read Full Post »
In this most recent novel, Mario Vargas Llosa returns to a simpler narrative style and plot scheme from what he used in his previous, more complex biographical novel, The Dream of the Celt, the story of Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, set in the Congo, the Peruvian Amazon, and Ireland in 1916. In The Discreet Hero, by contrast, the author writes for the sake of the story itself and the lessons it provides – an old-fashioned story in the sense that we read it to find out what happens to Peruvian characters with whom we can identify as they act like ordinary people solving problems which reflect the reality of their settings – in this case, Piura, a village in the northwest corner of Peru, and Lima, Peru’s capital and major city. The “story” here is actually two parallel narratives, running in alternating chapters and involving two characters, each of whom tries to be “discreet.” In the first plot, Felicito Yanaque, the owner of the Narihuala Transport Company, manages fleets of buses which operate throughout Piura, a village near the Pacific Ocean in the northwest corner of Peru. Felicito, fifty-five, takes great pride in his work, always remembering his father’s dying words: “Never let anybody walk all over you, son. This advice is the only inheritance you’ll have.” When he leaves for the office on this most important day, however, he finds, attached to his door, a letter demanding $500 a month for protection against “being ravaged and vandalized by resentful, envious people and other undesirable types.” He must, of course, be discreet. This novel written for the pure pleasure of writing it, is an entertainment on all levels for a reader looking for pure enjoyment, a rare commodity these days.
Read Full Post »
Ellen Meister, author of Dorothy Parker Drank Here, the second novel in a series in which the ghost of Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967) is a main character, has set this novel at the Algonquin, where Parker’s spirit still resides, thanks to the fact that Parker once signed an old guest book on display in the Algonquin’s Blue Bar. Her signature, like those of other Round Table members, guarantees that her spirit will not leave the earth until it has decided it wants to go. Within this context, the author tells a story in which the main earth-bound character – in this case, Norah Wolfe, a young assistant producer of a TV talk show – is trying to contact Ted Shriver, a real person whom she believes is staying at the Algonquin. Dorothy Parker, lonely in her ghostly life, wants to persuade the Ted Shriver, who is dying, to sign the special guest book and keep her company at the Algonquin after his death. All the others from the Round Table have followed the white light to meet family and friends on the other side, something Parker refuses to do. Writing this as pure entertainment, the author pulls out all the stops, juggling these plot lines and keeping them moving in surprising ways. She plays on the reader’s interest in the characters and their connections to books and writing as she also develops an atmosphere which crosses timelines. With a light, sure touch, she puts together some hilarious visual scenes which beg to be filmed, and it is easy to imagine her sitting at her computer with a grin on her face as she writes.
Read Full Post »
