Four books

Four novels I recently read, each worthwhile...or better.

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris - If you can buy the premise - a successful dude who suddenly finds himself in the throes of a condition which forces him to walk enormous distances, without regard to weather, terrain, obstacles or reason, which departs as suddenly as it came on, and recurs at irregular intervals, this is a damn good read.  I bought it.  I didn't quite buy how he and his wife decided to cope with it, but not being able to keep things under control is essential to the narrative.  Basically, what we're shown is a mind literally at war with a body.  Some good food for thought there.  Incidentally, the writing in the last scene is off the charts good.  If you only read one Ferris novel, I'd still go with Then We Came to the End.  Definitement worthwhile for book groups.

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter - Part of this novel about a reporter who loses his job and tries to keep afloat by selling marijuana made me laugh aloud.  But there's a deeper element at work than mere stoner romp, and you may find yourself coming to care about the characters.  Not an especially good book for discussions, but a great way to pass the time.

Love and Summer by William Trevor - Trevor's one of my all time favorite novelists.  His writing  - and there's a whole lot of it - consistently demonstrates an uncommon economy and grace.  Love in Summer is a simple story about an young Irish woman tethered more by obligation than love to a marriage and farm.  The narrowness of her life is exposed to her by what begins as a chance encounter with a photographer from another town.  Ultimately, there's a choice to be made.  But whose choice and whose consequences are less clear.  I've read more than 10 of Trevor's novels, and there's not a poor one in the bunch.  But unlike Fools of Fortune (my favorite), The Silence In The Garden, and Felicia's Journey, I don't think Love in Summer is prime fodder for book group discussions.

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy - Nobody writes like McCarthy.  I don't know how he does what he does, but what he does works for me.  It's stark, apocalyptic, and shocking.  It's also dazzling to the point of forcing me to reread passages just for the thrill of hearing the words in my head again.   Here we have a story about a loner who has no moral boundaries.  He lives for his urges.  The narrative is straightforward and immensely compelling.  In the end, it may be regarded simply as a tale well told (albeit an extraordinary tale, extraordinarily well told), in which case book groups should pass it by.  On the other hand - and this is true those other novels of his that I've read - there are deeper themes at play.  If your group functions on that level, I'd recommend this to you.   I'd also (and more strongly) recommend Outer Dark, the McCarthy novel I find most similar.

Another book

Before I can tell you about The Unnamed, by Joshua Ferris, I have to tell you about my daughter.  Not all about her.  Not even a lot about her.  Just one episode, in fact.  One day, when she was about 15, I picked Sarah and her friend, Arianne, up after school.  "Dad, what is up.  I mean, what is up."  Arianne chimed in, "Yeah, what...is....up."  And so on for the next 20 minutes or so.  Neither of these teenagers was ever close to valley-girldom, so I attributed their fascination with this one phrase to a mild, peer-borne infection of something or other and hoped it was brief.  It was, and it was.  I'm mentioning it now because I want to convey how striking it was to hear a normal question, what's up, transmuted into an entirely different sort of element simply by undoing the apostrophization and exercising the option of changing it from a question into a statement.  Keep that transmutation in mind when you read the next paragraph.

So, the bottom line on The Unnamed is that it's great, if you 1) buy the premise, and 2) accept the characters' response to dealing with said premise.  The premise is a sudden occurrence of a disease/condition that requires Tim to walk, regardless of circumstances.  There's no precedent to be found in the medical/psychological literature.  I could buy that.  How the family members - Tim, his wife and daughter - choose to cope with it will strike some as implausible.  I don't know if it'll ruin the book, though, because there are some arresting issues addressed, mind vs. body and the nature of love and spousal duty being the most significant.  I had some difficulty with #2, but loved the book anyway.  You have to care about the characters, and the writing's superb throughout.  Especially at the very end.  Not to spoil it, but nothing happens.  (Reread paragraph one if necessary.)

I'd bet that most people who've also read Ferris's first novel, the darkly comic Then We Came to the End, will prefer that one.  As much as I enjoyed it, my vote goes to his new book.

FYI - I'm presently in "'sup" mode.  As in, "Dude, 'sup?"  "Yo, 'sup."  Does away with meaning altogether, reducing the utterance to mere acknowledgment of another's presence.  Punctuate it any way you want, depending on how much you're interested in having a conversation.  And there's no danger of having one's teenage daughter and her friend go apeshit saying, "Is up." to each other for the better part of an hour.  At least there better not be.  Hmm, when Tim was first struck by his walking compulsion, his daughter was about Sarah's age when the "What is up"  episode occurred.  Could it be that his daughter came home from school one day and besieged her father with an extended riff on that phrase?  Why didn't Ferris reassure me that that's not what happened?  What's up with that?  I mean, what is up with that.  Wait, I guess it's "what is up with THAT?".