Kate & Jane (with a sneak preview of Jonathan and Zadie)

Let's begin with Kate Atkinson, because she is wonderful.

I recently finished (hardly even recently anymore oh dear oh dear) Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which was Atkinson's first book but not, in my opinion, her best (I would give that title to Case Histories, which broke my heart). But that does not detract in any way from how wonderful this book was! I always think of Atkinson's plots as a more convoluted version of John Irving's - their writing styles are extremely different, yes, but they both produce plots that are epic and sprawling and incredibly satisfying (or incredibly unsatisfying, which in many ways can be rather satisfying as well). They differ in that Irving focuses on a core group of characters, whereas Atkinson is all over the map - and in her books, everyone is related to everyone else in some strange and fascinating way that is slowly, slowly, slowly revealed throughout the course of the novel. And her characters are so lovely too - they have so much life in them that their personalities are practically spilling out of the book. A lot of the authors I love write either comedy or tragedy very, very well, but Atkinson does both, and she does it beautifully. Read this book.

Now Jane Hamilton!

I'm throwing this one in there because I didn't want you to think that every book I read is amazing. I just love talking about the ones that are. I read A Map of the World on vacation after I ran out of everything else (my mom had brought it along but declared it was "too sad" and gave up on it). I have some seriously mixed feelings about this book. First and foremost, though, I must award this book the somewhat ignominious honor of "Worst Example of Wedge Titling I Have Ever Encountered". Wedge titling is a particular pet peeve of mine. I'm sure there's a real name for this strange and horrifying phenomenon, but this is just what I call it. It's when an author apparently (one can only guess, after all) decides what the title of the book will be before even beginning it, but then in the course of actually writing the novel strays far away from their original ideas of what it would be. Despite the fact that the book they have written is miles away from the book they originally titled, they insist on keeping the original title and, in order to make it relevant, "wedge" in a paragraph that somehow includes the title. Usually this paragraph is almost completely nonsensical and has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the book or plot or characters. I could rant about this for hours, but I'll spare you my fury. Anyway, you really have to read this book to appreciate how annoying the wedge titling is. I can't believe her editors let that sneak through. Seriously. HOW OBNOXIOUS.

But all of that aside, it was an all right book. It idealized farm life in a way that was probably not totally accurate (I hate it when people go on and on about how noble and glorious and wonderful hard work is. These people have probably not ever worked hard and thus are idiots). Plus I loathed the main character Alice, which really made it difficult to enjoy the book. And the plot itself was barely coherent. Basically, it unfolds like this: Alice is babysitting her best friend Theresa's kids (insert wedge titling) when the three-year-old wanders away and drowns (insert reference to previous wedging). The only really well written part is the relationship between Alice and Theresa - it is a fascinating take on grief and the possibility of redemption. I really enjoyed that part (and the brief affair between Theresa and Alice's husband Howard, which was also amazing). Anyway, Alice becomes incredibly (and annoyingly) depressed. Normally I do not find depression annoying, but she is fucking obnoxious. Then, for somewhat weird reasons, she is charged with sexually molesting her students (she's an elementary school nurse) and goes to jail to await trial. Part of the book is told from her husband's point of view, which was a really great break from Alice herself. Her husband is pretty sweet. Anyway, a lot of other shit happens, and that's the book. I just felt like Hamilton was trying to write two books in one: first, a book about guilt over indirectly killing your best friend's kid, and second, a book about being accused of molesting kids and how much that makes people hate you, even if you're innocent. I understand what she was trying to do, but I just didn't really buy it.

I really am being too hard on her. The book was actually beautifully written - she has a gift for imagery and she writes with the same lovely passivity of Margaret Atwood and the like, although she lacks Atwood's other numerous gifts. One passage in particular made me weep a lot. But ultimately, neither the good aspects of the book nor the bad really won. They just sort of canceled each other out, and so as a result I feel mostly neutral about this novel.

Tune in tomorrow (or someday soon, I guess) for the Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith lovefest (both are on my top ten list of authors, which is surprisingly becoming rather stable as of late). And maybe if I have time I will talk about Prep, which is a perfect example of how beautiful and funny and sweet coming-of-age literature can be.

I have written too much and now I must go read The Historian, which is so scary and gripping! Unfortunately, being gainfully employed is really interfering with my reading time.