Albert Corde is not exactly a self-made man; he comes from a wealthy Chicago family – as his old friend, Dewey Spangler, couldn’t fail to notice, Corde’s father drove a Packard. But even if Corde isn’t a self-made man, he did make himself into a world-reknowned journalist. And then he unmade himself. Deciding he’d had enough of current events, he returned to Chicago and took on a position as a professor, and later Dean of Students, at a local university. He married a brilliant astronomer and settled down to further his education and live a quiet life.

But circumstances have a way of interrupting, and Corde eventually found himself at the center of two maelstroms, at least in part of his own creation. He wrote two articles for Harper’s on the racial politics that were destroying his city – the slums, the corruption, the hideously graphic violence of the Cook County Jail. His articles struck a nerve with the powers that be in Chicago government and at the university – and while no one could do anything to him, exactly, the atmosphere was tense. And on top of that, Corde became involved in the trial of a local ne’er-do-well for the slaying of a married graduate student at the university. Corde identified the body (as Dean of Students, it was his responsibility). He took the slain student’s stricken wife under his wing, offered a reward for information leading to the capture of the killers, and was a fixture at the trial. Corde’s involvement in the trial embarrassed the university – especially when circumstances (again, those darn circumstances) shook down such that the accused murderer was a friend of Corde’s nephew Mason (and Mason was himself given to threatening witnesses), and Corde’s cousin Max was the defense lawyer.

With all these tribulations at home, Corde’s mother-in-law is dying in Rumania. He accompanies his wife, Minna, to “the old country,” to bid farewell to her mother. Dr. Valeria Raresh was once a dedicated Communist Party member – but she, like Corde, has fallen from grace, having left the Party and sent her daughter to America. Now, as Valeria lies on her deathbed, the Party officials are determined to punish Minna for her emigration and her mother’s defection. Corde is helpless as he and Minna try to navigate the Rumanian beaurocracy and visit Valeria as she lies dying in the hospital. As he waits – oh, yes, there is interminable waiting involved in this process – Corde reflects on the mess he’s left behind in Chicago and on his own fall from grace.

The Dean’s December is not a plot-driven book, and neither are there particularly compelling characters. (I’d have liked to know more about Minna and Tanti Gigi, but Corde himself was not particularly sympathetic, nor were his friends and relations.) To appreciate The Dean’s December, you’ve got to appreciate the raw and wrenching writing. Saul Bellow’s prose is something like a punch in the face – sharp and surprising. But still, you can enjoy the writing if you make the mental space for it. I found that I was not liking The Dean’s December at all when I tried to read it in bits, here and there, during the cacophany of lunchtime at a client site. It was when I settled in for a weekend afternoon, in the silence of my house, that I was able to allow Bellow’s prose to really work its magic on me, and then I was amazed. I read a Goodreads review that said that The Dean’s December is a “quiet book,” and it was. It was quiet in that there wasn’t much action – or even, during certain chapters, much dialogue – it was reflective. And it was also quiet in that it demanded quiet, attention, focus, and only yielded up its considerable gifts when you were devoted to delving into the text and extracting them for yourself.

For example, here’s a passage I like, from when the Dean reflects on a visit he paid to a Public Defender in the course of researching his Harper’s articles:

Anguish beyond the bounds of human tolerance was not a subject a nice man like Mr. Varennes was ready for on an ordinary day. But I (damn!), starting to collect material for a review of life in my native city, and finding at once wounds, lesions, cancers, destructive fury, death, felt (and how quirkily) called upon for a special exertion – to interpret, to pity, to save! This was stupid. It was insane. But now the process was begun, how was I to stop it? I couldn’t stop it.

Zing. No, Corde couldn’t stop. He was compelled to go forward and tell the truth that no one really wanted to hear, and of course they didn’t like it once it was told. And as he sits in Minna’s old room in Rumania, reflecting on the strange conflict that he created, Corde is able to see Chicago’s psyche as America’s psyche, and to explain how different it is back home from the world behind the Iron Curtain:

“What was the lesson? Well, they set the pain level for you over here. The government has the power to set it. Everybody has to understand this monopoly and be prepared to accept it. At home, in the West, it’s different. America is never going to take an open position on the pain level, because it’s a pleasure society, a pleasure society which likes to think of itself as a tenderness society. A tender liberal society has to find soft ways to institutionalize harshness and smooth it over with progress, buoyancy. So that with us when people are merciless, when they kill, we explain that it’s because they’re disadvantaged, or have lead poisoning, or come from a backward section of the country, or need psychological treatment…”

The prose is really extraordinary. It’s harsh and terse and jumpy, but elegant. (And to read it, you have to have a certain tolerance for strong language and violence. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to trust an author as celebrated as Bellow. Just a warning to those who aren’t – steer clear.) One more passage I like, then I promise I’ll stop. When {spoiler alert, but it’s clear from the start that it was bound to happen} Valeria dies, her old friends come out of the woodwork for the funeral. And their presence is both a comfort and a rebuke to Minna, the one that got away:

They came… well, they had their reasons. They were there to signify, to testify. They came also to remind Minna of their existence. “Yes, we’re still here, in case you wondered, and we could tell you plenty. And your mother, she got you away, and it was one of her great successes. Good for you. And for her. Now it’s over for her, and soon for us, too. And this is what turns us out, in this gloom.”

No, The Dean’s December isn’t easy. It demands that you think, and check your expectations at the door, and read with care. I think it’s good to read difficult books. I don’t read them in succession, most of the time. But it helps to read a book that makes you struggle and work a little bit. If you’re willing to make the effort, The Dean’s December will deliver. Recommended.

I am submitting this post as my first entry in the “What’s In A Name?” blog challenge hosted by Beth Fish Reads.  The Dean’s December is submitted to the category “something on a calendar.”

The Dean’s December, by Saul Bellow (not an affiliate link)

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I, Claudius is the fictionalized autobiography of Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius, also known as Clau-Clau-Claudius, Claudius the Idiot, Claudius the Stammerer, That Claudius, and Poor Uncle Claudius.  Before he became Emperor, Claudius was a historian, and he records his family’s wild story in his autobiography.  And what a cast of characters – there is the Emperor Augustus, second husband of Claudius’s grandmother, the Lady Livia (deliciously evil, cunning and manipulative – I wondered if Lady Macbeth could trace her history back to Livia!), Claudius’s parents – descendants of Marc Antony – and his siblings, his courageous and kindhearted brother Germanicus and his malicious sister Livilla.  And there are a host of minor characters, each one perfectly drawn and amusing in his or her own way.

When the story begins, Livia has divorced her husband (Claudius’s grandfather) and married Augustus to help him rise to power.  Claudius’s father is a General leading Roman troops against the German barbarians, a role that Germanicus later takes on.  Livia schemes to remove all of Augustus’s potential heirs, by poison, intrigue or banishment, so that her own sons and grandsons will inherit the monarchy instead.  One by one, she dispatches with them until only her own line remains, taking out several of Claudius’s few friends, including his cousin Postumus.  Claudius himself manages to avoid the scourge not just because he is a member of Livia’s line, but because no one considers him a threat.  Born lame and painfully shy, Claudius is relentlessly mocked and despised by his own family for his limp and his stammer.  Only a few people – namely, Germanicus, Postumus and the tutor Athenodorus – have bothered to discover that Claudius is actually witty, intelligent and loyal.  Even Claudius’s own mother can’t stand him, and his grandmother Livia refuses to allow him to eat at her table (probably for the best, because people who ate at Livia’s table didn’t always survive the night).  That’s one dysfunctional family!

Precisely because Claudius is so despised, he manages to skate through three Imperial reigns – that of the bumbling Augustus, his paranoid uncle Tiberius, and his insane nephew Caligula.  I, Claudius is the story of how Claudius manages to fly under the radar long enough to survive three very bloody regimes and ultimately become Emperor of Rome himself.  The story was fantastic and the writing vivid and engaging.  I could picture the ancient Roman streets and see the characters walking in their processions or attending gladiator competitions.  Oh, and this book was funny.  I laughed during so many scenes – for instance, the moment when Claudius described his brother Germanicus’s ambush of some German tribes, surprising them at their beer, and then goes on to define “beer” and explain that the Germans drink it to “extraordinary excess” was simply hilarious.  The dry humor of the book definitely worked for me.  Altogether, such a fun read and highly recommended.

I, Claudius, by Robert Graves (not an affiliate link)

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 Basically nothing about The Master and Margarita is as you would have expected, which is pretty much about what I expected. A modern Russian novel that couldn’t be published during the author’s lifetime due to its controversial message, the book alternates between being hilarious and moving, fantastical and all too realistic.

The plot, in a nutshell: The devil arrives in Soviet-era Moscow, bearing the name of Woland and accompanied by an entourage of demons and a naked witch, and he proceeds to spread chaos, confusion and mild destruction all over the city. The Muscovites, who don’t really do the whole religion thing, consider him to be basically an unethical sleight-of-hand artist. They flock to his “black magic expose” and are delighted when money flies down from the ceiling, horrified when all of their womenfolk end up running au naturel down the street, and a bit disgruntled that this “foreign artiste” never gets around to the actual expose part of the show and never bothers to explain how he managed to rip off the M.C.’s head without actually killing the man. (The M.C. was probably the most disgruntled one in the theater.) But it turns out that Woland isn’t all bad. Okay, sure, he never gets around to the expose, all of the money turns into either foreign currency (bad) or scraps of paper (worse), and one of his minions has an alarming encounter with the police and, later, a salmon… but at least three people end up pleased that the devil is in town. One is probably Dr. Stravinsky, the head of the insane asylum that ends up doing outstanding business treating half of Moscow. One is the Master, a residential patient in the asylum who was driven insane by slanderous newspaper critiques of his unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate. And the last is Margarita, the Master’s married mistress, who loves the Master passionately and believes wholeheartedly in his genius, and who makes a Faustian deal with Woland to rescue the Master from his emotional torment.

Like many Russian novels, there is a vast and diverse cast of characters, many of whom wander in and out of the action and remain on the periphery yet still influence the main plot. The primary cast includes, of course, Woland, his retinue – Azzazello the fallen angel, Korovyov the former choirmaster, Behemoth the giant talking cat (one of the best characters in the book), Hella the nude witch, and of course, the Master and Margarita. Of these characters, Margarita is by far the best developed and the most sympathetic – you can really feel her pain and loneliness, her desperation to be reunited with the Master, and her joy to see him again. The chapter in which she makes the choice to trust Woland is incredibly finely crafted. Her glee and destructiveness upon becoming a witch and her flight over Moscow was one of my favorite parts of the book.

Woland was a fascinating character as well – certainly not the Satan you think you know. He was more complex than the Satan that you hear about in church; more than the personification of evil, I would say he was the personification of shadow. And of course, as he explains, what is light without shadow? Woland thus is a necessary counterpoint to Christ, or Yeshua as he is referred to in the Master’s opus – and Woland is not all bad. He’s a bit sinister, yes, and he certainly has a wicked sense of humor. If he was pure evil, if he was the traditional Satan, he would be far less interesting, amusing, or dare I say, sympathetic, than he in fact is.

Meanwhile, as the main story of Woland, the Master, and Margarita unfolds in twentieth-century Moscow, there is a parallel story of the events in Yershalaim (Jerusalem), with parallel themes, running as we are occasionally treated to what could be excerpts from the Master’s book, could be Woland’s own recollection, or could be both. The parallel story is the story of Christ’s execution told, not necessarily from Pontius Pilate’s perspective, but certainly with Pilate as the central character. Yeshua is not the traditional Jesus, nor is Pilate the traditional Pilate (either the reluctant executioner of the Christian tradition or the brutal governor that history tells us he actually was). Pilate is a conflicted man who does wish that he could save Yeshua from his fate, but knows that he can’t – and who exacts his own indirect, secret revenge against Yeshua’s betrayer.

The Moscow chapters were both moving and funny, at different times; the Yershalaim chapters were simply moving and very powerful. When I finished the book, I was satisfied with the ending and had plenty of material for thought and reflection. What more could you possibly ask for? An amazing reading experience.

The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

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The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebovitz

Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: this book will make you hungry. It will make you hungry for hot, crunchy baguettes… frisee salad with melting rounds of goat cheese… and, of course, for chocolate. This book will make you especially hungry for chocolate. Case in point: I hardly ever drink hot cocoa. I generally find it to be too sweet and it’s just not my cup of tea. (See what I did there?) But after reading David Lebovitz’s rhapsodizing about Parisian hot cocoa, I had two cups at lunch that day. No, it wasn’t Parisian… but I was jonesing. David Lebovitz’s delicious writing will do that to you.

Because oh, yes, this book is delicious. From the first page to the last, it was warm, funny, engaging, absorbing, and delightful. Needing a change in his life after experiencing the untimely death of his partner, Lebovitz picks up and moves his entire life to Paris. There he explores the city through its food, tracking down the best baguettes and hot chocolate in the city. He learns to gut fish at a corner poissonerie, to avoid pushy Parisians at the grocery store, and to differentiate between confusingly named chocolate candies. He finds love again, almost has a heart attack (seriously one of the funniest moments in the book), watches the Parisians march under his window over anything and everything, and juggles government red tape and an apartment painter who seems to want to move in with him. Oh, and if great writing about a memorable city isn’t enough to entice you to read this book… there are recipes. Lots of them. And knowing David Lebovitz’s work (I have his ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop) they are all amazing. So even if you can’t go to Paris this weekend – if only! – you can have a little taste of the sweet life in your own kitchen. C’est delicieux.

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The Oracle of Stamboul, by Michael David Lukas

One night in 1877, the city of Constanta, Romania, fell to Russian forces. As the city was falling, Eleonora Cohen was born, brought into life by two Tartar midwives who appeared mysteriously and believed that her birth was the fulfillment of a thousand-year-old prophecy. Prophecy or not, Ellie proves to be an unusual child – a genius or a savant. She teaches herself to read at a young age, alarming her aunt Ruxandra, who married Ellie’s father when her mother died in childbirth. When her father Yakob, a carpet merchant, is called on business to the city of Stamboul, capital of the Ottoman Empire, eight-year-old Ellie stows away in his luggage. In Stamboul she stays at the house of her father’s friend, Moncef Bey, and discovers that Stamboul is lush and teeming with color and life. An American minister, maybe a spy, offers to tutor her and soon rumors of her brilliance reach Sultan Abdulhamid II, who summons her to his palace for an audience. Ellie’s first meeting with the Sultan draws her into a world of political maneuvering and intrigue. Before long, the entire city is whispering. Who is the precocious child whose advice the Sultan is taking on matters of war and strategy? Is she a prophetess or a spy? What will be her role in history?

The Oracle of Stamboul was a wonderful read. The writing was clear but evocative. I felt as though I had fallen into the cacophany of a Turkish bazaar or Ramadan fast-breaking celebration, as though I could hear the strings of the ouds being plucked by maidens in the Sultan’s palace courtyards and taste the flatbread, honey and olives Ellie ate in Moncef Bey’s yellow house. In style, The Oracle of Stamboul reminded me a little bit of Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence, only sweeter and more innocent. Even the political intrigues in the book were muted, perhaps because the protagonist was a child. I could read The Oracle of Stamboul again and again just to return to Stamboul in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, to taste the baklava and listen to the music and gossip, and to thumb through the pages of the books in the Bey’s library… and most of all, to revisit Eleonora, who exudes innocence and charm from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.

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Bakerton, Pennsylvania is a mining town.  It’s a town of company houses and union jobs, of church and family. Bakerton is a town that depends on its coal mines and, in the years during and after World War II, those mines are doing raging business.  Baker Towers is the story of those years, told from the perspective of the Novak family: widowed Rose Novak and her five children, Georgie, Dorothy, Joyce, Sandy and Lucy.  Georgie and Dorothy escape their small-town childhoods, Georgie for the Navy and then Philadelphia and Dorothy for a wartime clerical job in Washington, D.C.  Joyce joins the service as well but returns to care for her ailing mother and watch over her younger brother and sister, a sacrifice which goes un-thanked.  When Dorothy has a breakdown, Joyce takes responsibility for her elder sister as well, settling permanently in Bakerton to watch life pass her by.  Meanwhile, Georgie has “made good” in Philadelphia but remains haunted by what could have been his life, had he stayed home and married his small-town sweetheart, and Lucy struggles with her sense of self and perspective after being spoiled by her mother all her childhood.  Each of the Novak children wrestles, in his or her own way, with the legacy of growing up in the shadow of Baker Towers, the two massive piles of mine refuse that serve as the town’s most commanding landmark.

I read Faith, Jennifer Haigh’s most recent book, this summer and was captivated by her wonderful writing and her ability to take the reader into the innermost thoughts and emotions of her characters.  So I sought out some of her earlier work and Baker Towers immediately jumped out at me as a book I knew I’d love.  I love reading about the time period around World War II, when the book starts, and I’ve always been fascinated by industrial America.  (After all, I majored in Industrial and Labor Relations.)  And wow, I was not disappointed.  From the very first page, I couldn’t put Baker Towers down.  I was pulled immediately into the loves and struggles of the Novak family and found myself relating to Georgie and Joyce in particular.  But beyond just Georgie and Joyce, thanks to Jennifer Haigh, I feel as if I know all of the Novaks.

The fact that I majored in Industrial and Labor Relations probably did add something to my considerable enjoyment of the book.  I could read between the lines and understand what the Bakerton families would have suffered during the miners’ strike, and the economic implications of the mines’ business (or lack thereof) in the 1970s and 1980s.  But you don’t need to have a labor background to enjoy Baker Towers.  All you need is to enjoy a good family saga, great characters and wonderful writing.  If you do, I promise you will enjoy this book – because it has all that and more.  Highly recommended.

 Newland Archer is Old New York.  A favorite Fifth Avenue son of the Gilded Age, he moves effortlessly and seamlessly through its rigid social hierarchies.  And with his impending engagement to May Welland, widely regarded as the most beautiful, elegant and unattainable of the New York belles, Newland’s place in society is secure.  The union of Newland’s family with May’s will bring together New York’s two most powerful ruling clans.  But May’s family, the Mingotts, in addition to being powerful, has its unconventional elements.  May’s cousin, Ellen Olenska, nee Mingott, has just returned to New York, fleeing a disastrous marriage to a Polish Count.  New York is scandalized by Ellen’s vaguely foreign ways and her seeming incomprehension of the delicate social balance she has upset simply by imposing her presence and asserting her right to be free from a “scoundrel” husband.  Responding to calls of the family matriarch, May’s grandmother Catherine Mingott, Newland rallies around Ellen as a good soon-to-be Mingott son-in-law should.  He gently smooths over her social stumblings, even using family connections to persuade the revered van der Luydens to rescue Ellen’s reputation when the rest of New York conspires to snub her.  But as Newland finds himself drawn more and more into the role of Ellen’s champion, he simultaneously becomes deeply infatuated with this woman who understands art, literature, and the value of good conversation in a way that his chosen wife never can and never will.  Newland chafes and struggles painfully with the bonds of New York’s expectations for him – wanting nothing more than to desert May and run away with Ellen.  But is he, in the end, capable of choosing love over convention? And does he even really, in his heart of hearts, want to choose?

The Age of Innocence has been on my to-be-read list for years.  It’s a book that I knew was going to be good, and I knew I’d like it once I got started, but it just never cycled to the top.  I was in London when I was hit by an inexplicable urge to pick it up the moment I got home – and I did – and I’m so glad.  When I finally sat down with it, I loved every single page.

First of all, the characters were just perfect.  Newland – with his inner conflict between choosing an “artistic” life and toeing the line.  May, quietly assured, blissfully uncomprehending, almost cold in her conventional perfection – but with the ability to shock Newland by suddenly demonstrating great strength, understanding, and wisdom.  Ellen, so lost and sad, artlessly setting New York tongues on fire with her most innocent gestures, drawn helplessly to Newland but unwilling to allow him to ruin himself for her.  And then the secondary characters – imperious, unconventional “Granny” Catherine Mingott.  Newland’s dull mother and sister.  The criminally cruel and common Julius Beaufort, hypocritical Lawrence Lefferts, comically domestic Wellands and the shy and withdrawn van der Luydens.  Every single one, flawlessly drawn.

Then there was the plot.  You would think a will-he-or-won’t-he infidelity novel set in Gilded Age Manhattan would move slowly. It doesn’t.  It skips along briskly, as you watch Ellen blunder through social gaffe after social gaffe and you see Newland transform from a cousinly champion to a heartbroken would-be lover.  It might be a function of the writing, which is magnificent.  It never bogs down or becomes wordy, but neither is it clipped and terse.  Wharton’s word choices simply set a perfect tone for the underlying events of the novel. I loved the descriptions of the New York scenes through which Newland, May and Ellen move – I felt like I was with them in drawing rooms, carriages, on stately lawns and snowy streets.  And the dialogue was so smooth and natural that I felt as though I could hear the characters saying the words out loud.  It’s no wonder this novel won the Pulitzer Prize – it’s as darn near flawless a book as I ever read.

I’m going to stop the gushing here.  Just go read it.  Please.

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