Victory Song - A Reader Writes

Mark Twain's Satire: Prince & the Pauper

I read Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper on the red eye flight home last night. 

You know the story - it's been told over and over again.  Poor boy changes places with prince.  Both rise to the occasion, etc.

Yet the poor boy, Tom, is totally without guile.  So it takes him a bit longer to understand what is happening.  And the prince, Edward, is totally without perspective.  So the shock of life outside the palace is at first entertaining, then frightening, then intolerable, then enlightening.  Both of them manage to suffer through, despite their longings for past familiarities. 

I love the part where Tom finds a book about life at court and reads it eagerly, in an attempt to figure out what is expected of him. And where he must endure a 20 minute delay in his dressing routine because there was a snag in one of the stockings they attempted to dress him with.  Also love his reaction when a woman who is accused of being a witch (She is supposedly the creator of storms) is brought before him. He had called her away from the executioner.  He asked her eagerly if she might make a storm?  And she tries her best, to please the king who would free her, but to no success.  He says sadly, "Your powers are gone, but if you should find them returned, please come to me quickly for I shall very much like to have you make me a storm."

Edward to his credit, stays noble. Even when forced to be among the gang of thieves, he ruins all their plots by warning those about to be robbed and refusing to carry out his duties.  One night he finds shelter in a barn and curls up next to a calf.  He is warm and comforted in ways that he has not been by humans in a week, and falls asleep almost happy.  In the morning, a rat, who has made a nest in his blanket, runs off and he laughs, "Well, if a king is lying with a rat then he must be at the bottom of his luck, so mine is surely about to be improved."  That's the spirit, eh?!

In the end, Edward needs Tom to help prove that he's actually the king and Tom needs Edward to take over just in time for the coronation (Edward's father, the brutal and unloved Henry VIII, having died while the switch was on).  So they have a chance to be true to each other, and thus life long friends.  Good job!

I aspire to be as wholesome, constant and noble as those two boys.  As always with Twain, it is a lovely story  with thoughtful characters.  He was such a great satirist, but I suspect too subtle.  The idea of a poor child acting in much the same manner as a good prince... that must have seemed too strange in an age when education and opportunity were only for the rich.  Although, that was his point, of course.

Too bad that Twain did not make his social point at the time, but good for us that this tale has lasted because of the quality of its story and depth of understanding of human nature.

I recommend The Prince and the Pauper for all, rich and poor, of any age!

Loving Frank - Great Historical Fiction

What is it about historical fiction that I love so much?  Maybe because I feel like it's better for me than just a totally made up story? Like having so much stuff in my salad that for all those calories and fat, I might as well just have had a cheeseburger? 

Maybe it's because I romanticize everything, and want to know that the ultra-talented and well heeled among us are just as fallible and human as the rest of us?  Or is that just some sort of twisted ego on my part?

Anyway, I thought Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan was wonderful.  It's the story of the mistress of Frank Lloyd Wright - and what a woman she was!  Her name was Mamah Morthwich Cheney, and besides being the lover of this fabulously creative and inventive man (who was also a bit of a selfish jerk, as you would imagine all geniuses to be),  she was a very interesting figure herself.  She was married (and so was he) but that didn't seem to stop them from traveling together and even having a farm estate together - known as Taliesin.  She was also an accomplished poet and translator.  And according to this story, they were not at all quiet about it.  Many historians believe that her influence on Wright's work during the period of their affair is quite evident. Other experts dismiss this "unsavory" influence as immaterial to his architectural achievements.

Why would a woman of such accomplishment, and mother of two young children, risk so much to be with her lover?  That really is an interesting story, and Horan does a great study of the roller coaster of emotions that Mameh feels as she fights for "normalcy" without Frank.  She makes some really hard and difficult choices about traveling with a man who is not her husband, being a social outcast, and risking the love of her children.  These are not trivial choices in any age, and certainly not so during the 1890's when this novel takes place. 

Interesting though, is that I feel Mameh only succeeds in really being herself when she finally lets go even of him, and accepts their life together as a sum not of himself alone, but of the two of them as independent spirits.  When she finally accepts and welcomes her own pursuits as legitimate and worthwhile, then the two meet as equals.  Those are the best parts of the story.

Fundamentally, while this is partly the story of Frank and his work and indelible legacy on art and architecture, and it's partly the story of gender roles at the turn of the century, above all, it's really a love story. It's the story of what happens to Mameh when she falls completely and irrevocably in love with Frank. 

I didn't get the title as so prescient until the end. Loving Frank is truly a novel about just that. 

Thanks to Anita for the loan, and I'm recommending this to the CRC book club, as well.   Check out Loving Frank today!

Operation Shylock - Comic Genius or Confusion?

Philip Roth is one of those writers that I don't always "get."  He's very cerebral, and his humor is dry and witty and based on an a vast assumed knowledge base that includes the history of the modern world, political alliances, pharmaceutical industry practices and Judaism.  I sometimes Google one of his sentences to get clues as to location, time period and key players.  Not exactly light reading at bedtime, that is for sure!

I started to read Operation Shylock last year, and put it down for lighter reading on a business trip and then it got buried under a stack of books.  I started it again in October, and it was slow going - there was always a novel "mind candy" that seemed like less work and more pleasure.

I finally finished it yesterday and felt that I had reached a milestone.  Not quite sure I can tell you what the message is, though.  I think it is something about self awareness, ego and how like mindless lemmings we all are.

But don't quote me! 

Operation Shylock is viewed as one of Roth's finest novels and the story line is quite wonderful.  He, Philip Roth, believes that an impostor is speaking and writing under his name in Israel.  He is under medication from knee surgery, and so much of the novel has a surreal quality - but it also is surreal because Roth is basically chasing himself.  The other Roth is convinced he's Roth - and is unshakable in his conviction. So much so, that Roth begins to wonder how he will ever route out the impostor and re-establish himself.  It doesn't help that much of what the other Roth speaks and writes about is actually consistent with what Roth writes and speaks about.  Well, only consistent if you are not actually Roth himself - as the narrator of the story would have us believe.  The "other Roth" is actually quite a bit more radical, and more endearing to his Israeli audience.  At a few point, I suspect that Roth understands that readers, the thinking class and some of his well connected friends actually like the other guy better.

Roth chases his double to Israel and then the story gets really complicated and convoluted.  Roth has no special ability and so his struggle is what we'd all find in this situation - how do we attempt to discredit a double who has incredible credibility. We are powerless.  We begin to doubt ourselves.

Many novelists use their characters to expound on theories they hold - both the every day and the extraordinary. Roth seems to use this novel to such purpose in the extreme.  It seems every conversation he'd ever had over a stuffy conference dinner in Israel (as an accomplished writer, I imagine these are quite frequent) as the basis for some character's tirade.  There are those about Israel's history, the Palestinian cause, the guilt of the survivor, why Jews talk so much and great recipes for borscht.   I can't find a common theme, and perhaps that is the point.  It gives the story a dreamlike quality.  Long passages of soliloquy interspersed with chase scenes.  No wonder this is considered comic genius!

I'm going to share this one with my friend Claire in Point Reyes, CA, because we talked about it last night and I think that she will enjoy the intrigue and the intellectual insight and debate. Maybe she can explain it all to us?!