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Handler, Daniel: And Then? And Then? What Else?

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In his newly released memoir—the title of which is from a poem by Charles Baudelaire (to whom, yes, the author’s Baudelaire orphans are an homage)—Daniel Handler writes about his “canon,” the words and music and art and incidents that have taken up space in his head over the years. He is evidently fascinated by the juxtaposition of things that don't ostensibly fit together, how they bump along beside each other, in his case waiting for their chance to be expressed in his writing. I like this idea a lot. Each of us has a unique collection of such sticky bits—in my case, for example, deep-cut Harry Chapin lyrics alongside an explanation for subliminal messaging (name that Columbo), bouncing next to this line from the novel Hannibal, which for 23 years now has seemed to me a perfect description of the amorphous but pregnant state of one’s mind prior to an aha moment:

“Dr. Lecter was well aware that all the elements of epiphany were present in the policeman's head, bouncing at random with the million other things he knew.”

That bouncing around of bits sounds similar to what Handler writes about, which may be why it’s popped into my head just now.

Handler’s prose in this book feels like it’s replicating the experience of having a head full of flotsam. You’re carried off in each chapter to swirl around in a slurry of unexpectedly juxtaposed ideas and song lyrics and memories. You could almost believe that there's no plan to it—you're floating downriver, just going where it leads, and the author’s just chatting—but of course there's a plan, because ultimately the writing hangs together perfectly, making sense of the slurry.

In his final chapter (the 13th, of course) Handler writes more about this canon and the reason we read, and I find it kind of beautiful:

“The reason we read—the reason you’re reading this book—is because some other book enchanted you, earlier on, and before that another, and before that another. This is the real literary canon, not some hegemonic pantheon, adapted and debated over time. We each have one, a literary canon, and we make it ourselves, not out of what is respectable or prestigious or prominent or lasting or moral or even well-made. We make it out of enthusiasm, out of what we love.”

Maybe that will inspire you to read the book. If not that, then perhaps this bit of wisdom will, which sounds like it might have come from Lemony Snicket rather than his representative: “Every café has a tragic flaw….”

Anyway, it should be clear that I've enjoyed this book. I loved Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events—the origins of which we read about here, and which I read aloud to my older daughter back in the day. And I loved The Basic Eight—which I hadn't realized was Handler’s first novel, and which he initially had trouble publishing, he says. I now also love this memoir.

McCall Smith, Alexander: Your Inner Hedgehog

Alexander McCall Smith, Your Inner Hedgehog

Amazon   Your Inner Hedgehog is the fifth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s delightful series focusing on Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, renowned author of the masterwork Portuguese Irregular Verbs and senior scholar at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, Germany. As usual, the story focuses on the small irritations and points of pride that motivate von Igelfeld and his colleagues. McCall Smith helpfully begins the book with a breakdown of the characters who populate the Institute. Among them is a relative newcomer, Dr. Hilda Schreiber-Ziegler, deputy librarian under the tedious head librarian, Herr Huber. The first sign of trouble is when Dr. Schreiber-Ziegler fails to recognize the accepted protocols surrounding access to the Institute’s Senior Coffee Room—the rarefied air of which place is not for the likes of mere deputy librarians. The resulting clash sees von Igelfeld and his compatriots fighting against progressives who would throw open the coffee room doors, et alia, and generally disrupt the Institute’s “current way of doing things.” This installment in the series was published in 2021, a full ten years after book four (Unusual Uses for Olive Oil) appeared. (The first three installments were originally all published in 2003.) This fifth novel differs from the others in that it tells a single story, while the previous books are collections of related stories. It's a shame there aren't more von Igelfeld books, but I suppose McCall Smith has his hands full with the numerous other series he keeps updated. These are favorites, though.

Book Notices | The Armor of Light by Ken Follett

Ken Follett, The Armor of Light

Amazon   The Armor of Light is the fifth novel in Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series, which started with the publication of Pillars of the Earth in 1989. The book spans about thirty years in the history of Kingsbridge, from 1792 to 1824, and focuses on the city's cloth trade—its millworkers and clothiers and the issues of the day that impacted their lives: the adoption of labor-saving machines, the rise of Luddism, anti-union policies, a corrupt justice system, press gangs, and the Napoleonic wars. As usual with Follett's novels, the cast of characters includes strong female leads and men who abuse their powerful positions, and good people are abused but ultimately find true love. Also par for the course is that the book is—for the most part—extremely readable. But there's a big chunk in the last 20% of the novel that could have been edited down. Follett describes the war against Napoleon in excessive detail, using his characters' participation in events as an excuse to write history rather than allowing the history to form the backdrop of the characters' lives. It also struck me as implausible that so many of the book's main characters would find themselves overseas and involved in the major events of the day while also by chance often finding one another amidst the chaos of military actions. So a good read, but with that caveat.

Book Notices | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Amazon   I'm late to the party reading Truman Capote's true crime classic In Cold Blood. Most people are probably familiar with the basics of the story, either from the book itself or from the film that was made of it (which I've not yet seen): In 1959, four members of the Clutter family were murdered in their farmhouse in Holcomb, Kansas, a crime that initially baffled investigators. Capote traveled to Holcomb (with his friend Harper Lee) to interview the townspeople and investigators and write about the case. His book, which was published in 1966, covers the events that preceded the murders, the crime itself, the investigation and trial, and the imprisonment and execution of the culprits. It ends with a lovely and surprisingly moving epilogue, which made me realize that the author had succeeded in depicting the Clutters as real people whose deaths can still feel tragic 65 years later. Capote's prose is at times beautiful, particularly at the beginning of the book when he is describing the remote Kansas landscape that forms the backdrop of the story. But elsewhere too, I was struck by the quality of the prose. Reading his account, I got a sense of Capote being on the scene in the aftermath of the murders, talking to people and soaking in the feel of the place, and yet he never explicitly inserts himself into the narrative. (After finishing the book, I was curious about the circumstances of its composition and so read this 1966 interview of Capote by George Plimpton. It's an interesting read, and it's very clear from it that Capote was a very intelligent and thoughtful writer.) I've seen In Cold Blood described as frightening. I may just be numb—and I do think I lack imagination when I'm reading, so that the film version of this story might have a different effect on me—but I didn't think it frightening in the least. Sad, tragic, unnecessary, all that: I can certainly regret the evil or lack of humanity or wretchedness of the human condition that propelled the two killers toward Kansas and the utterly unnecessary, unprovoked murders they committed there. But no, I wouldn't classify the book as a scary read.

Book Notices | Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

Robert Harris, Act of Oblivion

Amazon   I've lived most of my life in or around New Haven, Connecticut, which means that the names Dixwell, Whalley, and Goffe are etched in my brain (alongside the locations of the best pizza places). They're the names of three main thoroughfares linking downtown New Haven with its suburbs. I've always been aware that the streets were named after the three regicides who fled here from England and hung out for a time in Judges Cave on West Rock. But that's about all I knew. Robert Harris's fictionalized account of the regicides—mostly Whalley and Goffe, with a smattering of Dixwell—follows their years on the run in New England and the efforts made to catch them. Now, a lot of Harris's story is made up. There's only so much that is known about what the regicides were up to, and the author had to fill in some blanks. So you can't allow the novelized account to settle as fact in your brain (which may be easier said than done). After finishing the book I read the following summary of events to help in that regard: https://www.ctexplored.org/the-legend-of-dixwell-whalley-goffe/. Although one has to be careful not to accept the whole story as gospel, I found Act of Oblivion a really interesting read, although honestly somewhat depressing: So many years passed in hiding—away from family, staring at attic ceilings—seems pretty dismal. But perhaps the reality wasn't as miserable as portrayed here. I'm happy to have read this one!

Book Notices | Calico by Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg, Calico

Amazon   I don't particularly like police procedurals, and I don't particularly like westerns, but it turns out that I really like police procedural-westerns that are blended with a dash of science fiction—at least this one. Lee Goldberg's stand-alone Calico is named after a town in the Mojave Desert. In the 1880s, it was a squalid mining town. Nowadays—in real life and in the book—it's a restored ghost town with attractions like gunfights and gold panning and a trading post. The area surrounding Calico (at least as Goldberg describes it) is the kind of place people drive through to get somewhere else—unless they get trapped there for some reason. Beth McDade is one of the trapped. An unhappy transplant from Los Angeles, she's a detective in nearby Barstow who's investigating a series of strange events that turn out to be related—a disappearance, a skeleton dug up at a construction site, a vagrant hit and killed by a motor home. Her investigation also winds up being connected with events in the same area in the 1880s, and Goldberg deftly alternates between the two timelines, both of which are equally compelling. I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say that this is the most page-turny book I've read in a while. With a six-shooter to my head, I'd complain that the pace of the book slows quite a lot at the end and that during the big reveal, there are a handful of names thrown at us that I had trouble keeping straight. But it would be a quibble. Loved this book.

Book Notices | Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz, Bad Weather Friend

Amazon   Benny, as we keep being told, is a really nice guy, and this despite having experienced a string of awful situations during his childhood and adolescence. But at 23, he's got money and a fiancée and a nice house and a good job—until one day, a lot of that inexplicably disappears. Enter a weird, casket-like box sent by a mysterious distant relative, and suddenly Benny's on a road trip with some new friends to figure out why his life has imploded. The story is told in two threads: Benny's present and past play out in alternating chapters and eventually end up at the same point. It's a fun enough story, engaging enough to read, but you have to suspend disbelief quite a bit—and I'm not talking about the insect-human hybrids and other non-human characters. It's more that the story is based on this bizarre conceit that nefarious forces are bent on methodically doing away with niceness in the world by targeting guys like Benny. Eh. It's a fun enough light read.

Book Notices | The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

Amazon   On June 25, 2003 (less than a month after my first blog post here), I ordered three books from Amazon. I read and reviewed two of them pretty quickly, Greg Iles' 24 Hours and Paul Hoffman's Wings of Madness. The third book was Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, which I was interested in because it's one of the first detective novels ever published. But my interest in its subject didn't lead to action on my part, and the book sat on my shelves for twenty years. I measure the enormity of that time mostly by the yardstick of my children's ages—the then 7-year-old is finishing up her MSW, and the 1-year-old is graduating from college in the spring—although God knows a lot else has changed besides. Anyway, clearly, I've finally gotten around to reading Wilkie Collins' book! It's been a while since I've dived into a sprawling 19th-century novel. I'd almost forgotten the pleasure of it. The mystery here has to do with the disappearance of a priceless diamond, the titular Moonstone, which was bequeathed to Rachel Verinder by an unsavory uncle and delivered to her on her 18th birthday. That very night, it goes missing from the Verinders' country estate. A police investigation follows, and thereafter investigations by private actors. The story is told as a series of accounts contributed by various concerned parties, all part of a project undertaken some two years after the stone's disappearance to record what happened as a matter of historical interest. My main impressions upon leaving the book are simply, first, that the mystery held my interest, such that I was quite riveted when approaching the resolution of it; and second, that with the luxury afforded by a high word count, Collins has created a handful of very well-realized characters. For me, the most memorable of them among the much larger cast are Gabriel Betteridge, the Verinders' long-time steward and resolute fan of Robinson Crusoe; the sanctimonious, religious-tract-thumping Miss Clack; and the tragic outcast-cum-physician's assistant Ezra Jennings. I'm happy to have finally read this one. (And holy cow! [That's an apt interjection given this book, as it happens]. There's a comic book version of The Moonstone coming soon!)