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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:
Count: 53 Read, 34 to go.
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