Acute Essay Exploring the Reposing Angles of Our Prose

We recently purchased additional shelving for the burgeoning domestic library, and that means it’s time for comprehensive reconfiguration of the collection: time to separate fact from fiction, to mingle hardcover with softcover, to categorize well-thumbed and like-new alike. And so, on an overcast weekend afternoon, we do a modified Dewey, separating The Boys in the Boat (797.12 BRO) from The Girls of Atomic City (976.8 KIE). And then we do a bit of alpha-beta by author, distinguishing Gone Girl by Flynn (FIC FLY) from Gone with the Wind by Mitchell (FIC MIT) from The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon (FIC ZAF). Before long, the floor is littered with stacks and stacks of books.

And then, just like that, gravity takes its toll.  A stack teeters dramatically and tumbles, forming a comical, conical pile of toppled tomes. By the looks of it, our prose is reposing at a 36-degree angle to the living room floor—somewhere on the continuum between cement and sand.

The mechanically disposed among us understand that the angle of repose is the steepest incline relative to the horizontal plane that material can be piled without slumping. Picking our way through book material arrayed on the horizontal plane, we’re inclined to suspend mechanical work in order to reflect upon the relative merits of our slightly slumping prose.

Slightly Slumping Reposing Prose.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner.

Penguin, 1992 (1971).  569 pages.

The Pulitzer Project

Emotionally estranged from his living family, physically removed from the contemporary world, wheelchair-bound retired historian-narrator Lyman Ward embarks on a research and ruminating project, ostensibly to chronicle the frontier experience of his grandparents and, perhaps more truthfully, to sift through some of his own life story. This is a winding, long-winded narrative, at turns wry and poignant, with a scrupulous sense of time and place.  This is a geographical journey, a historical journey, a generational journey, a deeply personal journey.  So much journeying!  And so much for the title: a phrase descriptive of human as well as detrital rest, preface to prize-winning prose with a wandering spirit and a wonderful restive heart. 

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Story of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.  309 pages.

Non Fiction and Biographies

The Mina San Jose, a ramshackle copper-and-gold mind gouged into the barren Atacama Plateau near Copiapo, Chile, rests on top of mineral deposits that take the form of two parallel strips of softer rock embedded at a 60-degree angle inside a much harder, gray granitelike stone called diorite.  Since the late nineteenth century, generations of miners have trundled ore to the surface via a sloping, spiraling subterranean road, moving doggedly between ground, underground, and ground again. 

Deep Down Dark.

In August 2010, a massive chunk of the San Jose Mine collapsed, creating a world of rubble rubble toil and trouble for thirty-three workers trapped beneath two-thousand-plus feet of impossibly angled rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. Deep Down Dark is a journalistic examination of the August 2010 calamity from various angles-- in prose that is at once anecdotal and technical, emotional and scientific-- the travails of family and loved ones on the surface and the protracted, painstaking efforts of watched-by-the-world rescuers. But the irresistible angle of this prose is the story of los 33, enduring physical and psychic torment, surviving and waiting for liberation in uneasy repose between rocks and incredibly hard places.

The Hundred Year House by Rebecca Makkai.
Viking, 2014. 338 pages.
What Were We Thinking?
Speaking of psychic torment and we were, just a moment ago, this book-with-what-we-judged-to-be-a-good-cover gives us a mild headache and an appalling case of literary indifference. We were thinking we’d be reading eccentric domestic fiction with architectural interest, endearing characters, and an ambitious narrative approach. There is indeed a house, and a strange one at that: turn-of-the-century Laurelfield, domicile for the old-money Devohrs and home to an arts colony from the 1920s to the 1950s.

There are indeed characters, and strange ones at that. But endearing? Not so much. We meet Zee, the Devohr heir apparent, a Marxist literary scholar who incongruously detests parental wealth and resides in Laurelfield’s carriage house; Doug, Zee’s rarely-do-well husband, a struggling academic who desperately needs access to Laurelfield’s rotting-in-the-attic historical documents to jumpstart his biography of former poet-in-residence Edwin Parfitt; Gracie, Zee’s astringent mother, a proprietary doyenne who guards the house and the family’s strange-sneaky secrets with strange-sneaky intensity; and the overarching spectre of Violet Devohr, Zee’s great-grandmother who legendarily took her own life in the house and whose massive portrait-in-oil dominates the dining room.

Narrative Rubble!

There is indeed an ambitious narrative approach.  A hundred pages in, though, we begin to sense that this generational saga with pedal-to-the-metal in reverse is taking a sardonic, not particularly pleasant tone with us, consequently trying our patience with eccentric domestic fiction, architecture, characters, and ambitious narrative approaches. On a relevant note, there are plenty of angles to the prose here, including but not limited to a character with a mildly perplexing heterosexual angle to the hips. In repose, we realize that we’re not finding the reading rewarding or relevant, arriving at the unfortunate conclusion that we just don’t care.  Perhaps we’re being obtuse.  But that’s another angle, and here’s another story….

Americanah: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Anchor Books, 2014. 588 pages.

Fiction Favorites

Lovely, lively Ifemulu and brainy, sensitive Obinze are young and in love when they quit the limited prospects of military-ruled Nigeria for better educational opportunities and brighter life possibilities in the West. Ifemelu journeys to America, excels academically, acquires a worthwhile Princeton fellowship, acquires a few worthy boyfriend-fellows, and begins an excellent forthright blog about racial issues.  Despite loveliness and liveliness, she is restless and dissatisfied, struggling with issues of race and identity in her adopted home.

Brainy, sensitive Obinze never gets over lovely, lively Ifemelu and hopes to join her in America; however, post-9-11 realities alter his life trajectory.  He embarks upon a treacherous, undocumented journey through London and, when things inevitably go bad, he returns to Nigeria and marries someone-other-than-Ifemulu: a lovely, grasping wife who labors in vain to be a wholesomely agreeable person, to have no sharp angles sticking out. A decade-and-a-half later, will Ifemelu and Obinze reunite in Nigeria, rekindling enthusiasm for each other and for their newly democratized homeland?
 

And herein lies a slippery slope. At its worst, Americanah devolves into pulpy romance and elevates opinion over storytelling.  At its best and most often, however, it delivers relevant discourse on race and identity, pretense and reality, betrayal and integrity. Speaking of sharp angles and we were, just a moment ago, here's a book with a few sharp angles, one that requires moderate suspension of disbelief: 

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.
St. Martin's Press, 2015.  440 pages.
Historical Fiction
Two fictional sisters, separated by circumstance and ideals, united by history and the spirit of sisterhood-- l'histoire et l'espirit de fraternité-- travel dual and doubly dangerous paths as they face one difficult moment after another in World War II occupied France.
Sister Une: Vianne Mauriac bids adieu to off-to-the-front husband Antoine, stubbornly and poignantly pooh-poohing the prospect of Nazi invasion.  But before we can say la guerre est ici, Nazis are swarming Vianne's charmingly rustic village and commandeering her charmingly rustic home.  Vianne and her daughter must learn to live with the enemy or risk losing... everything! Meanwhile, Sister Deux: Isabelle, Vianne's recalcitrant younger sister, stubbornly and poignantly joins the resistance after a love-at-first encounter with a charmingly dishevelled partisan.  Isabelle, aka The Nightingale, must learn to outwit the enemy or risk losing... everything... including her titular operational name!
We find several poignant angles in the course of our reading: a downed British airman, beret set at a jaunty angle, as Isabelle guides him to safety-- and Vianne's husband returning from war, arm hanging at an odd angle, as if it had been broken and badly reset.  Despite a bit of literary déjá vu and a healthy dose of dubious coincidence, The Nightingale holds our interest and mitigates bouts of incredulity with a reasonably fresh perspective.

After a weekend of sorting, shuffling, and shifting, our domestic library is restored to good order, books reposing at 90-degree angles to the expanded shelf system. And we are reposing in comfortable chairs, savoring A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson: the much-anticipated companion to the masterful Life After Life will be enjoyed at roughly a 60-degree angle to the horizontal plane.