Lucy By The Sea--A Review

 I have read all the novels Elizabeth Strout has written. I've read them all because the first one I read, Olive Kitteridge, is a special book. If you've watched the tv series and not read the book, I suggest you take it out of your local library.  It is very very good.

Lucy By The Sea is Strout's fourth book about Lucy Barton. I liked the first one, My Name is Lucy Barton. This one, I write at the risk of being pilloried by Strout devotees, is not a very good book.  I've a number of reasons.

The first is, well, enough already with Lucy.  We know about her mother, her marriages, her upbringing, her siblings--there is very little that is new here.  This novel takes place during the pandemic. William, an ex husband and father of her two daughters, scoops Lucy up out of New York and drives her to Maine. Lucy is not a COVID denier, but she is not as concerned--at least initially-as William is about the dangers of the virus.  Nevertheless she travels with him to Maine and they live in a home near the coast.  They take separate bedrooms and try, like many of us did, to deal with the hours after the world closed up. Some of her observations are akin to those I, and I imagine most readers had during the pandemic. I'll not divulge plot details--such as they are.   Four books about Lucy--there's not enough more to discuss.

The book is also not engagingly written. Lucy Barton, the character, is supposedly a successful author who has been on television discussing her books, and been on book tours. She is also the narrator of this novel.  A popular author should be able to write better. Lucy often speaks like a child--like perhaps a senior who has been addled by some illness or severe emotional turbulence.  I typically like books with short sections, but here there are just too many of them. It is as if the book is written in three or four paragraph bites. Sometimes there is just a space between sections, sometimes some marker indicating more of a content break.  If Lucy Barton wrote for a living like Lucy Barton narrates the novel, I don't think she would have published many novels.

I will not, as mentioned previously, divulge much about the story line.  However, I don't find the issues she and William face and how they evolve, especially profound.  Their relationship with the daughters; William's relationship with an ex wife; Lucy's dreaming about a dead husband--well okay, but nothing especially novel about this novel's plot line.

Finally, there are characters in this book from other Strout books--not just the Lucy books.  Olive Kitteridge shows up, one of the Burgess boys from the novel The Burgess Boys. Isabelle from Amy and Isabelle.  Olive has such a small role--just referenced by another character--that it is not essential to remember the details of her life.  But the Burgess boy has a major part and there are allusions to his siblings and the story in that other novel. I only vaguely remember the other book and understanding Burgess in this book requires--for full appreciation--remembering Burgess from the other book.  I feel similarly about Isabelle. She does not have as big a part as Burgess. But there is a section when Isabelle recalls an incident that is not insignificant to this novel, but you would have to remember the other book to get it.  And I barely do.  If you haven't read the others I am not sure the reference to what Isabelle recalls would have much significance.

As I look through the Amazon reviews of the book, my take on the novel is in the minority.  Many like the book a lot. So, you may enjoy the novel. i didn't. Not the kind of book I carried along so that if I had a spare moment I could get lost in the story. It was a slog. And only 288 pages.  My recommendation to the author is to find another character to write about and jettison the Barton writing style.

Bad Sex--Review

Lately I have been attempting to publish pieces in varied literary magazines. One thing that recurred when reading the submission rules for these publications is that a blog post counts as a publication. That is, if one has published an artcle/opinion piece in a blog, and the magazine requires that any submission has not been published elsewhere--the existence of the blog post technically disqualifies the submission. Therefore, I have not been writing here.

However, I will begin again to post book reviews at least--unless I believe that I might want to publish the review elsewhere.

I've been reading, as is my wont.  It was family lore, and true, that when I was a kid my mother had to harass me to get me to read.  As long as she was alive she would marvel that I had become a reader since it had been pulling teeth to get me to read when I was a child. Lately, I've gone on an Ann Patchett tear. I've read now nearly all of her books and her two essay collections. (One of her lesser known books is called Taft and it is terrific. I inhaled it one week this past spring).  

But I am not writing about Taft or Ann Patchett with this blog entry.  I am writing about a book called Bad Sex written by Nona Willis-Aronowitz.  I should have known about her famous mother, but did not.  Ellen Willis, I learned, was a feminist in the early days of the 60s feminist movement.  Her daughter penned the book Bad Sex.

This, to me, was a startling book. Of course I was born during the Truman administration, and the author was born during Reagan.  I have more in common--in terms of generation--with her mother than with the author.  It will be interesting to learn how the author's contemporaries feel about the book.

My thoughts.

I did my share of frolicking when I was a young 'un. However compared to Ms. Aronowitz I was a monk. If she is the norm, I am in another world in terms of slow dancing.

Second, if this book had been written by a man he would have been pilloried mercilessly.  She discusses her affairs in detail. She does not boast so much as describe, but if a man were to describe the sundry activities that the author enjoyed, he would be dubbed a capricious and inconsiderate satyr.  

I liked her openness about sex because it,  implicitly and sometimes explicitly, criticizes the puritanical and counterproductive repressive attitudes about intimate activities that bring people joy and are, I'll opine, salubrious. 

She presented historical context in many of the chapters and I found that informative. I did not know much about Emma Goldman and knew nothing of the author's mother.  The author's discussion of the origins of the free love movement was unfamiliar to me and, I suppose, was left out of my high school history books.

Her discussion of the tension between polyamorous activity and jealousy was important to include. The part about how Goldman and Willis and Aronowitz herself had trouble reconciling their politics regarding non monogamy with how hurt they felt when their lovers took on other lovers--even when the dalliances had the partners' consent--made sense to me. 

If the book had as a goal moving the mainstream, forget it.  I thought about my parents reading the book and hurling it against the wall. And many of my contemporaries would be outraged at her, so what attitude about multiple lovers and "boning" (her word used often) this fellow or that. It can liberate those inclined to explore whether monogamy is a healthy social construct--but my guess is that 75% of the people in this establishment where I am typing the blog, would dismiss the book before the first twenty pages were up. And I live in one of the bluest of the blue states. 

My take away is that the politics of challenging the status quo in terms of sexual attitudes is important to consider and yet these politics run into a wall of natural human responses when people fear that their partners might leave them for more excitement or more whatever with another. 

While the book is called Bad Sex, there is a good deal of good or at least pleasurable sex described. 

Do I recommend the book? It was a slog at times. The book is 288 pages but I thought I had seen it was 281. When I got to 281 and there was more I was disappointed.  But if the author is anything like what is the prevailing norm of those born in the 80s, it exposed me to a culture and a set of attitudes far different to those of my generation.

Oblada

I was at the McCartney concert on Tuesday night.  Donna had scored two tickets from a friend of hers who had mistakenly bought the tickets for a day when she would be out of town.  So there we were with about thirty thousand others in Fenway Park going back in time.

I rarely have gone to concerts since my college years.  When I have, it has been in small venues.   For birthday gifts I saw Joan Baez about twenty years ago, and Judy Collins about ten years later. Both were in spaces that held fewer than 500 people.  Friends invited us to hear the The Manhattan Project a short time before COVID and that too was in a small venue.

Watching McCartney in Fenway Park was something else entirely. Some observations

• We were seated in very good baseball seats. Behind home plate several rows up.  He was on a stage set deep into center field.  You could not see him. If you matched up the blown up image on the screen, and then glanced at the stage you could maybe make out which of the performers was McCartney, but otherwise it was like watching a movie of a performer.
• He's still got it.  The man will be 80 in nine days, and when he sang songs with which I'm familiar, he sounded to me like the same guy on the records.
• I had not been to Fenway Park since before COVID.  We drove in, parked near Northeastern, and walked to the venue. Since it had been a while I was not quite sure when we got to a particular junction which way to go.  Then I saw a cluster of gray and bald headed people ahead of us, and I knew we were on the right route.  
• We were seated next to people who had bought the tickets in part to celebrate the man's 80th birthday.  He was not an outlier.  Lots of folks collecting social security for years in the stands.  A majority.  There were some young 'uns, but the crowd acted like the Ed Sullivan audience in 1964--just sixty years later.
• I typically don't like to sing or hear others sing along with the crooner.  It did not bother me on Tuesday particularly when he sang Beatle songs.  And if it bothered me, it was tough luck because everyone was banging out the lyrics.  Some attendees were getting up and dancing spontaneously at some junctures.
• The place was jammed--any worries about COVID in that group were not apparent. We brought masks, but mine remained in my pocket. Donna wore hers but only for short intervals. Maybe there was one percent of the audience wearing them.
• The promoters told us that the show would start at 630. It really didn't. Some piped in music with pictures of the Beatles and McCartney were displayed for an hour.  When he came on at about 730, he did not stop for two hours, before we left, and from what I understand continued for about 40 minutes afterwards. The guy is pushing 80, looked on screen like he was fifty, and performed as if he had the energy of a young man.
• He gave a number of shout outs to George and John. And the crowd responded energetically to these references.
• The people to our left went to get food and drink before the show started. The guy came back with two cans of beer while his wife was buying food.  He leaned over to me, showed me the two cans of a nothing special beer, and said "Twenty Three bucks."
• McCartney said he knew that the audience wanted to hear Beatle songs but he interspersed some new ones and Wing numbers as well. They, the non Beatle songs, did not get the same kind of response.  Band on the Run and Live and Let Die were appreciated.  However, it was I've Just Seen a Face, Something, Obladi Oblada, Lady Madonna, and the other Beatle numbers that revved up the crowd the most.

Like the lyrics in the song: life goes on, la la how the life goes on.  He brought a lot of the past back for me.  The apt name of his concert tour is Get Back.  

Adjustable

If I were to leave Boston, one thing about the area I would miss is the number and diversity of libraries in the area.  I am a library person. Some people hang out in bars--and I do that occasionally.  But if I have a few hours, and nothing major on the agenda, I will pack up a briefcase or knapsack, and park myself in a library.  

The Minuteman library network in eastern Massachusetts is remarkable.  Boston, like most large cities, is surrounded by one suburb after another.  Each of these communities has its own library. The Minuteman Library Network consists of forty two libraries.  There are about ten of these in my orbit and each one has a distinctive feel.  Waltham, the closest to me,  attracts children who are mesmerized by the spacious kid's area. Weston, next closest, has a sitting room with puzzles that makes you feel like you're in a very rich person's den. Newton's has three floors of stacked shelves and nearly any dvd you seek to play.  I've been to more than a half dozen others in the network.

In addition, the Boston area is home to many university libraries.  There is a collective called the Boston Library Consortium and twenty two libraries are part of it.  If you work at, or are a student in, any one of the universities in the consortium, you can obtain a card and use any library in the consortium.  Harvard is, of course, too snooty to be a member.  However, Boston College, Brandeis, Northeastern, Boston University, Tufts, and Bentley University, are among the member institutions.

I live adjacent to Brandeis and have used their library several times. About two miles from where I live is Bentley University.  I had not gone to Bentley's library since the late 1980s, for no reason other than there were many other choices.  But sometime in mid May I went to it for the first time in decades. And it is there that, during my fourth visit earlier this week, that I saw something I had never seen in all my library jaunts. Very cool.

When I walked into Bentley's library that day in mid May, I was taken aback.  It had, of course, gone through renovations in the thirty plus years since my last visit.  What they'd done, however, was transformative: all modern furniture, big tables to settle in to spread out and write, walls of current periodicals, a museum exhibit, engaging resource center, and thematic displays of books here and there--Boston related; abolition related, whatever is current related.  They'd modernized the entire space.

On Monday the 6th, for about the fourth time since my first visit, I parked myself in what I have come to think of as my spot up on the third floor. I was researching something and read that the library had a book I wanted to review with an HD call number. I traveled to the second floor where the HD Reference section is, but the HD regular books were not in the vicinity. I asked the librarian and she told me that the regular HD books were on the first floor. "Just go down the stairs" she said, "and you will walk right into them."

That I did. I walked down the stairs and saw in front of me rows of shelved books with letter pairs on the wall of each row indicating which row had which books.  The rows, however, were all jammed together, as if someone was cleaning and needed to push the rows together to get to what needed vacuuming.  

I saw where my book would be, but the slimmest person could not get through the opening between the rows to look for it.  A stick of gum, could barely get through the gap.  It seemed odd to me that the rows would be so pushed together. What good are the books if you can't get to them?  I was about to go back and ask the librarian how/when the books could be accessed, when I noticed something at the end of each row. There was a tiny computer screen with an arrow attached.  I pressed the screen at the end of one row, and the row opened so that patrons, regardless of girth, could get through and scan for their books.  Just to make sure, I pressed the button on other rows, and they opened right up as well.

This seemed so cool to me. What a clever way to conserve space. 

Later I thought of the adjustable rows metaphorically.  What if we could depress a button when encountering some closed relationship and the previously blocked relationship could open up.  Having a year long feud with your sibling and can't get through to her-?-press a button and miraculously there is a way to get in there and work through it. Haven't spoken to your spouse about an issue because it tends to trigger an avalanche of accusations, press a button and you can ease right in there to talk without setting the world on fire.  Your erstwhile best friend was, somehow, offended by something you once did and has tightened up such that any greeting is met with a terse response. Just press the button, get right in there and hug letting tears of joy flow to your knees.  We'd be well served to consider the possibility that blocked relationships can be reopened with maybe even a tiny touch that, somehow, opens up people who naturally would love to embrace.

Tim

A smile and friendly behavior matters.

When I first saw the name above the photo in the obituary, I thought it might not be him. The picture did not look like him. But then I read through the notice and it was the Tim Donovan I knew.

I met Tim sometime after I was hired at Northeastern University in the early 80s.  I found him to be always welcoming, friendly, self-effacing, and apparently genuinely interested in how I was doing. We both liked basketball and he spoke to me about a faculty team he played on called the Wedding Knights. I did not play on that team, but I enjoyed hearing about their exploits.

Tim led workshops periodically for the university. I was fortunate to be invited on two occasions. One was held in Vermont, the other on Martha's Vineyard. Both programs were valuable. He had them well organized. The one in Vermont was held in the mid 80s, the one on the Vineyard that I attended was in the 90s.  These were two of the more beneficial retreat type experiences I have had in forty years working in higher education.  Beyond the academic take-aways, which were substantive and memorable, the workshops were enjoyable and helped foster social relationships that likely would not have been generated otherwise.  There are pressures whenever you coordinate such conferences. Tim was affable and welcoming throughout each.

Tim was an Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences for many years. During at least one of those years, I was serving as an interim chairperson for my department and had to interact with the dean's office periodically. Subsequently, I too had a stint as an Associate Dean after Tim retired.  I realize now how stressful the job can be, yet I do not recall a single interaction with Tim when he was in the dean's office which was anything but pleasant and fair.

For a short time I was looking at a house in Tim's neck of the woods in Arlington. I called him to ask about the neighborhood, and then, as always, he was helpful and informative and self-effacing. I remember him telling me that there was a community board of some sort and he had been elected or selected as, what he called, a grand poo-bah spokesperson for the group. Not surprised that the committee elected him to be a spokesperson. Not surprised that he made light of the group's choosing him to be the representative.

A newcomer to any institution, as I was when I met Tim, can find comfort in a friendly face, an easy conversation, a welcoming smile. And it goes beyond the positive effects the behavior can have on any one person. It can affect an entire organization. Smiles and friendship and intelligence are seedlings for a culture that is conducive to productivity and joy.

I lost touch with Tim after he retired. Had not seen him for over a dozen years when I read the obituary in the newspaper and was saddened by it.

Tim brightened up the world of the people who had the good fortune to cross paths with him. 

Expiration Date

On the morning of the 31st, I decided it was time to tackle the pantry.  We had cans and boxes of items in there that had not been unearthed in a while.  Donna was driving back from Virginia.  We had done a pantry examination a few years back. That time we filled a garbage bag with so many cans that the trash workers had to be weight lifters to yank that bag into the truck.  I figured I'd use some hours while she was on the road to do the job again.

I didn't think of any significance to the date of the task when I started out.  But as I continued to take cans of soup, and boxes of pasta, and assorted bottles of oil, vinegar, sauce--the fact that I was checking out expiration dates on a day at the end of the year, gave me pause.

I've spent over seven decades bringing in the new year. Sure, the first dozen or so I had little regard for the event, but still we are talking about 50 plus years of celebrating and, on occasion, evaluating what I need to do and resolving to do them.  

We all have an expiration date.  It's just not stamped on our bodies somewhere. I'm in Florida now, vacating the frigid New England temperatures. I bumped into a woman here whose husband died last year. I overheard a cluster of snow birds talking about who all has been lost since last season.

The experience of checking out the expiration dates two weeks ago has stayed with me for the fortnight. COVID has taken the life of two people I knew this past year.  Some friends are now sick, but because they have been vaccinated, will get better.  

Typically I do not get maudlin about the inevitability of mortality.  Most of the time, unless I look in a mirror or have to run across the street, I think of myself as a 20 year old.  But we all have an expiration date.  And like the cans of soup and pasta sauce and matzoh ball mix I discarded on New Year's eve, at some point there will be no time to laugh and love.  It is sobering. 

 

Trifecta

 Sweet. Recovering from my third major surgery in five years.

Next time I fly, I will set off the machines at Security and then some. The luggage area will sound like your nightmare neighbors' teenage kid's cacophonous garage band.

Assorted thoughts.

• After my dad's knee surgery went bad, he spent a miserable six weeks or so in rehab. He pulled through. Years later, his other knee became worthless and he was in agony. I asked him when he would have that one done. He said, never. That the memories of the first one were so overwhelming that he'd rather be in pain for the duration than to have another operation. That is pretty much the way I am feeling this week. Of course, the first week out is the worst, but I sure do feel lousy. Here I am typing at 230 in the morning. Felt good around 5 pm, almost normal in fact. But lemme tell you these hours of the night are from hunger.
• I will never, I guarantee it, take Oxicodone again. They say get ahead of the pain. And the first few tabs you take, do take the pain away and you feel like it is the 60s. But after a day or two you feel awful.
• The good news is that you have an appreciation for good health and the days that silly things bugged you seem to be absurd wastes of time now.
• I am ensconced on the second floor of the house.  I was not "cleared" to go down the stairs. NOt much fun this.  Room service, given the other constraints, is not what it is made up to be. Tomorrow I see both Occupational and Physical therapists. I will do the hora with my crutches when I get out on the deck after I am so cleared.  Donna could be entertaining sailors on the first floor, for all I know.
• The one thing they keep telling you is not to fall. "Falling is not an option." Was how the visiting nurse put it when she came out here on Saturday.  For those not initiated, going up the stairs is easy, going down the stairs not so much. On Friday I got up the stairs in no time. When I tried to show the physical therapist on Sunday I could go down, she looked genuinely nervous as she looked up at me when I descended one foot at a time.
• I've gotten calls and notes from many.  I'm surprised at how comforting these have been.
• I get, and have always gotten when sick, night sweats.  I go through three or four shirts a night. I awaken drenched and sometimes require assistance to remove garb. I prepared a stack of dry shirts so that I can change uniforms.
• Tomorrow I learn how to get into the bathtub. Today I am ripe, despite sponge baths.
• Good news is that my appetite has not abated.  A friend of Donna's made a blueberry pie and brought it over.  Very good thing I cannot access the kitchen because otherwise I would have snorted the whole thing after I had taken one slice.
• haven't been able to knock one back since the 10th. Thought I would miss it more than I have.  Still, looking forward to cracking a cold one, when the word is go.
• Pandora's Phil Ochs station, is a good companion.
• I am a big reader, but cannot focus on reading. Maybe tomorrow. Could barely get through the Sunday papers a couple of days back.
• The discharge papers suggest sexual relations can be resumed when the patient returns home. I want to meet the horny bastard who thinks about getting laid for five seconds during the first week post major surgery.
• The discharge papers also include information about the various drugs one is supposed to take. Fuck big Pharma. Yes, I know drugs have allowed us to make us feel better and last twenty years longer than our parents. But flawless panaceas they are not. And the notion that drug companies are altruistic ethical companies interested in the public good, more than they are interested in making profits is comical.
• It seems to me that doctors have gotten into more and more niche categories. "I only do surgery" "I only do rounds after surgery" "I only do anesthesia",  "I only speak omnisciently on Wednesday's, If you need someone to speak omnisciently to you on Tuesday, call Charlie."
• Horror movies in the middle of the night are not the way to go.
• The tendency for serials to go immediately into the next episode, is a problem for someone who dozes off during episdode two, and wakes up in episode 6, not sure when in 2 the sick sandman hit.
• If Covid can still be transferred, I am giving it a whack having been handled in a hospital by, literally, dozens.  Then there is the visiting nurse, occupational therapist, and physical therapist at home--not always the same person.
• Writing this has been therapeutic.
• Full recovery is 3-6 months. Great. Looking forward to that. Of course, by then something else in me will have fallen apart.
• I was a long distance runner. Played tournament tennis. Never smoked. Didn't eat great, but did not snort ribs three times a week. Like my beer, but compared to some college cronies, belong to the WCTU.  Maybe I should have smoked a carton of Luckies, snorted smack,  eaten cheesecake, and sucked down s quart of Ripple each day.