Saturday, October 25, 2014

Chapter 13: In which I Remember a Barely Amusing Joke, and then go off on a Semi-Political Rant (which Includes Variously Flavored Jams)

First time visiting? Start with the Prologue, then follow the Chapters in the Archives list on the right sidebar, going from oldest to newest.
I’ve recently finished reading The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel. I’d call it a reasonably decent 300-page novel. Not anything to win a prize for; nothing like that at all. But serviceable, with some entertaining bits and a pace that whips right along, fast enough so that you don’t have to pay any really serious attention to the plot holes.
Unfortunately, it’s nearly 800 pages long, and those other nearly 500 pages are rather bloated, filled with one-dimensional characters from all over the globe, mostly driven by stilted dialogue with accents artificially implanted into the text through the tritest of methods: missing words here or there, awkward phrasings, laughter at the wrong things and at the wrong times. The plot is layered like a European elevator which, for no reason I’ve ever been able to ascertain, always seem to have both a ground floor and a first floor; that seems to me one too many. When the plot attempts cohesion it’s only for brief moments; most of the key plot elements turn on Dickensian coincidence, a phrase I always hate to see associated with any book not written by Dickens. He was the best at it, after all, and I’ve never understood why others would aspire to his heights when they are so clearly unattainable. There’s a ton of overblown description in the book as well, including a longish section on how to fake antiques which reads like the whale-killing sections of Moby Dick, only less fun.
In sum: it’s something of a bloated mess.
Ironically (or sadly—I’m not sure which), I waited weeks and weeks and weeks for a copy, one of two stocked, to come available at my local library. Initially the book was only available in the newer-than-even-the-NEW-BOOKS section, a category that meant you had one week to read it, and only that one week, no renewals and double the normal late fees. Not sure I’d finish in just one week (and facing a waiting list with a dozen or so names on it anyway (not to mention the fact that I still had the previous pile of books to wade through), people apparently more anxious than I was to read it), I decided to wait until it hit just the regular NEW BOOKS heading. When it finally did, there I was.
(In the meantime I’d finished those other books, the ones that I hadn’t really enjoyed all that much, except I have to admit that Porter’s work grows on you, particularly her later stuff.)
The Goldfinch was one I was really waiting for, really looking forward to. I’d heard so many good things, and the author photo on the back jacket had an eerie, dark (almost gothic) sense to it that gave me a bit of a chill. I was very, very hopeful, which made the whole experience that much more disappointing.
*****
I’m reminded of a time, perhaps thirty years ago now, when I went with my father and our family to a mid-priced steakhouse for a celebration of some kind. It might have been an anniversary or someone’s birthday, perhaps even a post-performance feast after one of the local community theater events in which my father sometimes performed. (His King Pellinore, from Camelot, drew more than a few friendly notices.) My father was particularly excited about this particular restaurant, since he had a love of red meat and the place was famously known for its oversized slabs of steer. 
Unfortunately that was all they really had going for them. They were a bit tough (even medium-rare, the way I liked them), and not all that flavorful. On the plate in accompaniment was a baked potato large enough to wonder whether or not it had a thyroid condition, and what seemed like a bushel of green beans. The former had about a cupful of butter and an equal amount of sour cream loaded into its crevassed topline, while the latter appeared as much gray as green and floated in the tiniest amount of an opaque, watery liquid which I can only assume resulted from inadequate straining after overmuch boiling.  Sitting next to the plate was a Pepsi in a red plastic glass—the kind with the textured nibs all over its surface—almost too large to hold in one hand.
The meal was awful. But at least—as the old joke goes—the portions were generous.
*****
Our culture seems to require size, things bigger, more important, more substantial. Think of something as simple as a car. Pick any model you like and each new generation emerges a little wider, a little longer, a little more powerful. We need IMAX movies and multi-state lotteries, double and triple cheeseburgers and bottomless plates of pasta. We need multi-year television stories with layer upon layer of plots and machinations, so complex that we aren’t even sure if we’re enjoying it because the effort needed to follow is practically headache-inducing. We long for a larger television, a bigger house, more land. We have handheld “devices” and “laptops” nearly as large as the thirteen-inch television I had in my bedroom growing up. We want more choice in more sizes, whether it’s toothpaste or ravioli or soup or channels. We don’t merely trade quality for quantity, we surrender to the quantity gods. Size, as we all know, matters.
It’s to our detriment that we continue this push for more, bigger, faster, better. While we scream for the freedom to want whatever we want, when it actually becomes available to us we end up paralyzed, unable (or unwilling) to choose at all. One famous study—the “Jam” study as it’s colloquially known—documented this phenomenon. Conducted by Sheena Iyengar, a professor of business at Columbia, the study involved providing people with choices of different flavored jams, and then followed up to see who bought a jar. In one group people were offered six jams, in another, twenty-four. Regardless of the number of choices available to them, people were about equally willing to stop by for a sample taste, but when it came to actual purchases things were different: 30% of the people who stopped by the six-flavor sample bought something, whereas only 3% of those faced with twenty-four choices put down the cash for a jar or two.
It’s true: there can be too much of a good thing. Yet ask anyone if they would be willing to forego choice for efficiency, for even, possibly, peace of mind, and here in America I’m guessing the bulk would say “No.” They want the freedom, the choice, the very bigness of it all.
*****
I just recently finished another book on my list, The Way West, by A.B. Guthrie. It tells the story of a wagon train traveling the Oregon Trail in 1843, the characters weaving their way along the perilous route that ran from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City in the (then) British-run Oregon Territory. What drives them all—shopkeepers, outlaws, politicians, farmers, cattlemen—is the desire for something bigger, wider, newer. Perhaps these are the origins of our compulsion: before us spread a vast continent filled with potential, with opportunity. The difference, though, is that those trekkers were invested in their journey; they understood the risks ahead, the work required, and the pain they would have to endure. Sacrifice in the name of opportunity was the trade they were willing to make.
Not so today. There is no more “way west” for us. We don’t like a challenge; we don’t want to work. We just want what we want. As one movie title has it, we’re “bigger, faster, out of control.” We want a fake freedom wrapped up in too much of too many things. And we sadly believe we’re better off because of it.
Read since last post:
  • House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday (1969)
  • Dragon's Teeth, Upton Sinclair (1943)
  • Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, Katherine Anne Porter (1966)
  • The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt (2014)
  • Rabbit is Rich, John Updike (1982)
  • Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1991)
  • The Way West, A. B. Guthrie (1950)
Currently reading:
  • The Stories of John Cheever, John Cheever (1979)
  • Honey in the Horn, Harold L. Davis (1936)
  • Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie (1985)
Count: 53 Read, 34 to go.

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