Fiction

[whiskeypriest]

I'm just beginning Kingsolver's The Lacuna and wondered if anyone else has/will be reading it and is interested in a read-along or discussion.  (If the forum doesn't explode as a result of mentioning the above author, we know the NYT curse is broken)

I think that novel will remain a gap in my reading life.

[madupont]

I'm just beginning Kingsolver's The Lacuna and wondered if anyone else has/will be reading it and is interested in a read-along or discussion.  (If the forum doesn't explode as a result of mentioning the above author, we know the NYT curse is broken)

That's exactly why I didn't mention it, although I was about to this morning because I've been working up to it. Once again, I feel that Kingsolver is doing her thing with "rose-colored glasses" no less. 

I was critical of it at the LATimes but, they don't like that sort of criticism, having changed hands awhile back before the last campaign season and they are going to continue to go that route.  When it came down to it, ye olde McCormick of the Chicago Tribune will out when bids were made with intention to expand and include radio (working up to television) coverage.

David Geffen of the "big three" attempted to buy it by putting in his bid, and had to sell off many of his prized possessions to do so; Art is very big with him. He said that he wanted to see it remain a locally run newspaper.

The California press is being taken over by Republicans.  That's my take on it.

Anyway first I heard of it was actually through the nytimes.com business boobies and I zipped off an e-mail or maybe a post, forget which, to a fellow-poster to "keep him posted?"

He responded. I take it, he personally does not have that kind of money but he is worth it. Anyway, Geffen not having succeeded in keeping LATimes local, took his money from his sold art collection and used it instead to throw the gosh-darndest fund-raising party for Barack Obama. Now, that's a real mensch.

The Clintons went into total shock and no one reported verbatim what they actually heard at the Manhattan party that the Clintons were throwing to, ta! da!, present Hillary as God's answer.  Do you remember what Hillary used to wear back then when she went out on Campaign to Iowa!. By the time that she was reading the riot act to Obama she looked really bad.  I noticed the other day, Hills is looking much better but "tranquilized", ah, scratch that, Hills is the picture of tranquillity, that's much better.     Wording....

I am still annoyed, however because some of the nicest people are still missing from the roster, like the General Manager, and I found myself writing to this columnist a few weeks ago who has an interesting story in that he and his wife adapted to writing on-line  self-supporting. I had to ask him, where is the former General Manager?  No reply.

Much as I like the gubernator, some of my favorite acquaintances are still missing in action and I'd like to know how they are. I was planning on going to the scene of the crime but was told the weather has not  leveled off as yet. You know what I mean. Tilt?

Instead, with any luck, I will make it to Iowa and will let you know what they thought of Hillary's wardrobe and "attitude",etc.

Testing the waters just the same I discerned that the approach of Kingsolver being pleasing to the establishment, the journalistic-literary-share-holders establishment, signifies that Kingsolver took the approved way out, there was some headline about how she encourages us to take a world-view of,"Can't we all just get along?"

I was actually planning to buy somebody else's book either by a former neighborhood pooh-bah or go out on a limb (after having researched The Lacuna, which I noticed while having to stare blind-sighted at a publishing house that used to be in my other neighborhood in the same vicinity. The publisher moved himself into the big time by the help of a multi-talented millionairess who would seem to be an elder relative of John Kerry's wife. And besides,
                  the writer of that publisher's book was a friend of a friend who is now departed.  But it's a toss up; so, roll 'em.  Drinks all around, can't say I didn't prepare the way but I will not be unspoken.

So how much of a deal did you get on the book?  So, now there are three books to decide among, maybe I should toss a three-sided coin?

[madupont]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/books/11faulkner.html?em

Interesting article Lhoffman.  I've still only read Absalom, Absalom! of WF's, and truly look forward to reading the rest.  I particularly appreciated this....

Scholars found Faulkner’s decision to give his white characters the names of slaves particularly arresting. Professor Wolff-King said she believes he was “trying to recreate the slaves lives and give them a voice.”

Freudian slip? I thought you were referring to Cynthia Wolff, professor elsewhere who analyzed Edith Wharton.

[madupont]

Product Details
ISBN:9780060852573                                    There are also Trade Paperbacks
Author:Kingsolver, Barbara
Publisher:Harper
Subject:General
Subject:Identity (psychology)
Subject:Historical fiction
Copyright:2009
Publication Date:November 2009
Binding:Hardcover
Language:English
Pages:507
Dimensions:9.26x6.52x1.43 in. 1.82 lbs            What's the implication of her title: The Lacuna

[nytempsperdu]

See whiskey's (cute) post for the implication of the title.

Glad you're gonna read it, too, donot. Am still in scene-setting, which is working for me, based on my limited (6 weeks) travel in Mexico but broader reading re same.

[Lhoffman]

I have the book, but haven't gotten to it yet.   I'm interested in seeing how she approaches one of the fundamental questions of the book, relating to art and politics and the function of the artist in effecting change.   

She was quite careful in her dealings with historical, using primary sources in the writing of the book, Kahlo's diaries and page notations, news clippings about the activities of Rivera and Trotsky.   

Here's an interview from Arts Beat, runs under 10 minutes.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-writer-barbara-kingsolver.html

[madupont]

LHoffman.

She was quite careful in her dealings with historical, using primary sources in the writing of the book, Kahlo's diaries and page notations, news clippings about the activities of Rivera and Trotsky

Having had about 24 hours of thought about it subconsciously, certainly not very consciously, I think she used the precaution not to get hung with any political view that would be detrimental nowadays in our climate. Nobody can accuse her of being inclined to something like "socialist" views of history(in the dvitale interpretation of literature and history, for instance)as long as she is quoting sources historically valid by virtue of existing.

Thus far when  I run across a review, it usually mentions that the writer perceives her writing it as leading to a world in which why can't we all be friends, and she doesn't mean like a race riot in L.A.

I think that perception happens readily when you try to resolve the conflict of really likeing the people you are writing about who happen to be real people but are for instance not liked at all by other people who really don't know much about them but that they were "communists" and therefore eternally communists because there is something "eternal" about being an artist.

Did I say that clearly enough?  It is usually the case with artists that they are rebels in some sense or other but the communist artists are terribly embarrassing to the art and literary world where non-communist appreciators of their art wish, gee whiz, I wish I could be that  creative but couldn't they(the artists) have just contented themselves with having an interesting love-life rather than getting political?
Nope.

Has never worked out that way, for some reason.

[madupont]

Ps, I forgot to mention that the only thing that I noticed right off was her choice for this other guy she introduces into the historical story, where did he come from?

Washington,D.C., I guess, because he sounds like James Jesus Angleton who shared his wife with Jack Kennedy, that is until she was found murdered on her running route through the park or was that his sister-in-law?

This is partly the J.J. Angleton that inspired Robert Di Nero to come up with The Good Shepherd by fictionalizing sufficiently to allow him to manipulate the story into overlapping generations.

Barbara Kingsolver goes one step further; to the movies to see Harrison Ford.

It is always amazing the creative inspiration that writers come up with.   I always said that trying to invent names for characters was so disheartening because you could never come up with anything nearly as good as the real names of the real people for describing their characters exactly.  Kind of a Dickensian plot.  (No wonder, Dick didn't like it.)

[nytempsperdu]

Thanks much for the link, Lhoffman.  I heard her on a local radio program, too.  Am going ahead slowly, ready to discuss any time.

Kingsolver sure does what the lawyer folk call due diligence, down to details like regional plant/animal life, cuisine, customs, slang.  The only expression that jumped out at me as a misfit for the place/time was "dumb-dora," certainly something Kingsolver would have heard in the KY portion of her youth.  I give her a pass since the 14-year-old using it was from D.C. before his mother took him to Mexico.

As in Poisonwood Bible, we get to see the main character beginning in youth, which gives the author a chance to work in all kinds of background as the youth acquires an education--here he learns history of Aztecs, Conquistadors, etc. as he tries to ready himself to qualify for a prep school, not a Catholic school, disfavored since the Revolution.  I'd forgotten about the anticlerical nature of same. 

I was glad when my daughter's English teacher had her students read King Leopold's Ghost and wondered if the teacher had read PB--was told she disfavors historical fiction, which is a little too bad 'cause it can be well done, but I see her point and am delighted the  class is now reading Reading Lolita in Tehran. 

(OMG, I'm writing this as Lost recap is on t.v., Ben Linus as history teacher is writing "Elba" on the board.)

[Lhoffman]

(I'm around page 150 and the writing is quite beautiful.)

It occurs to me as I get deeper into the book that Kingsolver's comment regarding her sources was quite deliberate.  There is the recurring motif here of history and of people as existing in archive, existing as they are told or written.   To begin, the writings of the narrator are presented by his archivist.   Then there is the incident where HS relates that a teacher told him that typewriters only existed with English characters.   We have Trotsky's secretary translating meetings in Mexico, having difficulty translating Spanish.   (Of course, it is up to the reader to draw reasoned  inferences as to the nature of the missing manuscript...the gap, as it were.)
-------------

You might enjoy these historical images, related to the story.

Frida greeting Natalya and Trotsky at their arrival in Tampico.


The Bauhaus in San Angel


Frida Kahlo's Blue House in Coyoacan


A scene from Rivera's Tenochtitlan

[Gintaras]

Not a very promising review,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120025143

It would seem we have been "Kingsolvered" again.  Years ago I read The House of Blue Leaves, which also dealt with the Kahlo-Trotsky connection, among others.  The book has since been made into both a movie and a play.

[Gintaras]

By the way, the Rivera-Kahlo house was designed by Juan O'Gorman, a fascinating figure in his own right. 

[Lhoffman]

By the way, the Rivera-Kahlo house was designed by Juan O'Gorman, a fascinating figure in his own right.  

I've been looking around the net for photos of buildings he designed, but I find more murals and art.

Here is a photo I found from Life Magazine of O'Gorman looking out of the bedroom window of the home he designed and built for himself in Mexico City.  Interesting that it seems to convey the idea of architecture as mural.

[Lhoffman]

Not a very promising review,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120025143

It would seem we have been "Kingsolvered" again.  Years ago I read The House of Blue Leaves, which also dealt with the Kahlo-Trotsky connection, among others.  The book has since been made into both a movie and a play.

"Kingsolvered"...not kind, not kind.   I've seen positive and negative reviews.  I'm liking the book. 

As to the idea of the regression of the protagonist, I think this was Kingsolver's intent.

[madupont]

Not a very promising review,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120025143

It would seem we have been "Kingsolvered" again.  Years ago I read The House of Blue Leaves, which also dealt with the Kahlo-Trotsky connection, among others.  The book has since been made into both a movie and a play.

as a piece of historical fiction, it has a lot in common with those conventional works of genre fiction that Amazon and the big box stores are hawking at cut-rate bargain prices.


That's where I ran into Kingsolver's Lacuna, in a book pushers haven up the upper West Coast that does a daily sales pitch.  At most, I became informed of a handful of books previously missed and important enough to read for information where somebody else has done all the research and then you decide whether that author's publishing house insists on a reliable fact-checker?

The reason it showed up there is 1) it is tax time on inventory.; and 2) it can be assumed that the November release of Kingsolver's novel is proverbially to make the Xmas Gift market. Otherwise you've got a Fall-Winter book season, a Spring season, and a Summer Reading season in the book trade.

At any rate, this offer out of the Portland/Seattle area of numerous trade paperbacks of Lacuna as well as hard cover(maybe) alerted me sufficiently to follow my nose to somebody  also making hay on the opportunity to revisit the Frieda Kahlo legend (by the way,Selma Hayek was spotted partying at the after-Oscars party scene where P.Diddy and Meryl Streep exited at the same time. Not necessarily together but no one had guessed, was the caption, that these two should know each other? Socially? Right, they do.)

I had just been down there staring at the publisher's building just across the pike from my optician; or, so it seemed just like yesterday. A New Book that claims to have found new stash that Frida left behind. It makes a large-sized Art Book for people who like coffee-table....

But Kingsolvers mistake was not the artier dimensions but an historical fiction running over upwards of 500 pages.

I still maintain she combined the real world's James Jesus Angleton, who fits the description partially and has to be alluded to in connection with DiNero's production of, The Good Shepherd, but is far more interesting if you read the on-line pages of Spartacus as left-wing education and good gossip which Robert DiNero probably did although he had an "advisor" for the five years that he wrote and worked on the film; and then, Barbara Kingsolver figured who can I take to combine with that and get a real action figure, "Let's see....", where she borrowed from the movies with categorical heros, like Harrison Ford.

And there she had her American who is half Mexican and kind of fumbles his way into history, fictionally.

When I found this (seriously) reviewed at LATimes which if you have ever read their book reviews is a section that runs on so that everybody's taste is covered in the geographic suburbs around the mythical L.A. (who knows? They might want to make a movie!), I suddenly realized that somebody on staff with a Mexican name was handed the book to review and not offend the "new" republican administration of California. They have slowly been acquiring the newspapers which counteracts the prevalent film industry "ideational bent".

Beyond those signals, Kingsolver has never impressed me, she's kind of like an old-lady school teacher from another era although she is not even that old but it was some era in which a role model impressed her and shaped her outlook forever.

I recommend the book by the other authority on Kahlo.  Hayden Herrera's.