Obit by Robert Lowell

Our love will not come back on fortune's wheel—
in the end it gets us, though a man know what he'd have:
old cars, old money, old undebased pre-Lyndon
silver, no copper rubbing through... old wives;
I could live such a too long time with mine.
In the end, every hypochondriac is his own prophet.
Before the final coming to rest, comes the rest
of all transcendence in a mode of being, hushing
all becoming. I'm for and with myself in my otherness,
in the eternal return of earth's fairer children,
the lily, the rose, the sun on brick at dusk,
the loved, the lover, and their fear of life,
their unconquered flux, insensate oneness, painful "It was...."
After loving you so much, can I forget
you for eternity, and have no other choice?

"[I]n the end, it gets us"--well, what gets us? Well, death, for one, as in "obituary," and "obit," the Latin word that means "he dies." But "Obit" isn't so much about death as it is the Life-in-Death that precedes it:

Before the final coming to rest, comes the rest
of all transcendence in a mode of being, hushing
all becoming.

"Obit" gives us two models of passing time: A cyclical one, as in "the eternal return of earth's fairer children, / the lily, the rose, the sun on brisk at dusk," and the linear one in which things decay and do not return. "It," then, is the Second Law of Thermodynamics again, the inevitable entropy of things large and small. The "rest of all transcendence" may be the end of all life's transcendent moments, or the negative transcendence--that is, the moving past and away--of life all together. In either case, the pathos of "Obit" is that what is wished for (the return of "old cars, old money... old wives," etc.) is not what will be met. (Oh, and that word "obit" literally means "he meets"...) Love will never "come back on fortune's wheel."

Brent, who asked me to write about it, loves this sonnet of Lowell's for the last lines, the volta. They become somewhat unnerving when we come to find that this poem was not written on the death of a loved one, but on Lowell's divorce from his wife. That makes it sort of creepy, but it also emphasizes the deathlike pain of loss, which must be lived with.

Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies

I was wholly in love with my life: two healthy children, a brilliant, tall (my father is tall and my mother when describing someone she approves of mentions if he or she is tall) professor husband who was carefully placing the evidence of our happy family all over the bathroom walls so everyone could see. When I came back, there in the main upstairs bathroom, was a love letter to our family, and to me. Frame after frame of generations of us, our people, and the little ones we made. It was security and peace, and everything I had always wanted.

Josiah left me and the boys a month later for a new member of the faculty. A female professor in his department hired to teach eighteenth-century English literature.

I read a review of this book in a magazine a few months ago and promptly put myself on the waiting list for it at the library, because it sounded like just the sort of book I like to read every once in a while, a book whose story is sad and unique but with themes that are universal enough that you can kind of insert yourself into the story and just cry it out. Actually, this is the same reason I read Jodie Picoult books and watch Grey's Anatomy. Anyway, fast-forward a few months to when I actually get to pick up and read the book, which by now has gotten more press and is being sold in Starbucks across the US. I get the book (in the midst of LSAT studying, when I really shouldn't be reading anything not written by Princeton Review or Kaplan) and read it cover to cover in 36 hours. It's gripping.

Isabel is an actress, a real person who's been on a few tiny movies and TV shows. She writes that she's never done a book before but that people tell her she writes good emails so she decides to write a memoir of the breakup of her "perfect" marriage. The book starts with Josiah and Isabel's love story: meet at a wedding, love at first sight, marriage, 2 sons and living in small-town Ohio within five years. Josiah is a poetry professor. Isabel drops hints about his attitudes towards marriage and her and their family even as she is describing the genesis of their relationship. Josiah left his first wife while she was pregnant. Josiah tends to brood. Josiah fights dirty, throwing searingly cruel comments at his wife. Isabel, by contrast, seems sunnier. She's not above admitting her own faults - contributing to the demise of her marriage by harping on her husband for instance. But the reader gets the idea that these are two very different and incompatible people who maybe shouldn't have been together to begin with.

As Josiah becomes infatuated with the other woman, Sylvia, and finally tells Isabel he is leaving her, Isabel becomes desperate to save her marriage. This is the saddest part of the book, as a formerly confident woman essentially grovels to her husband, begging him over and over not to leave her. And yet, you completely understand why. Isabel writes her story in such a way that you feel for her - not pity or scorn or "she's better off without him." This book does a great job of making you, the reader, forget for moments at a time that you are not the one in the failing marriage, desperate and scared and so, so sad.

Again, I seem to use this disclaimer a lot: probably more of a chick book. I'll try to work in some more universal reading material soon.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

As a shark nudges silent creases of water ahead of it, the green fender makes ripples of air that break against the back of Rabbit's knees. The faster he walks the harder these ripples break. Behind his ear a childishly twanging voice pipes, "I beg your pardon. Are you Harry Angstrom?"

With a falling sensation of telling a lie Rabbit turns and half-whispers, "Yes."

I don't even know where to begin. Chris swore this book was amazing, and it delivered. It was a little eerie, too, that I picked this up just one day before John Updike died. Now I can say that I truly appreciate the greatness that we've lost.

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is 26, married with one child and another on the way, and living in the suburbs of a small city in Pennsylvania. Rabbit was a regional basketball star in high school, something that he clings to as validation of his self now that he sells vegetable peelers to housewives. He also has one of the best names ever, and earned himself a place on my list ("Nathan's Favorite Names of Northeastern American Literature 2009"). Harry's frustration with his life, small in comparison to his brief fame, is omnipresent throughout the book, and stifling at times. His tendency to flee an uncomfortable, or less than ideal, situation results in darker consequences than I'd expected. This is a person totally absorbed in pursuing his desires completely, however much they change moment by moment. His train of thought flits from love to hate to remembering wondering as a child if pine trees would cushion your fall from a great height. Rabbit seems incapable of empathy, which must be nice, to some degree, to feel guiltless in following your every whim to the letter. But for being so flighty, Rabbit has some moments of surprising clarity.

"I'll tell you," he says. "When I ran from Janice I made an interesting discovery. If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price."

So sad and true, that sometimes to really be true to your self, you'll have to break someone else's heart. Fortunately for the sake of the story, Rabbit doesn't compromise. His heart leads him from his wife and back again several times, never showing much remorse, and justifying his actions with the thinnest excuses (such as "if she had said the right thing right before I left I definitely would have stayed").

What's most amazing is Updike's incredible insight into the human mind. His invented observance of every character's tics and motivations and inner thoughts are so believable as to be chilling, and definitely gripping. Following Rabbit's own inner-workings somehow manages to make such a despicable, thoughtless person seem sympathetic, like he doesn't know any better. And his prose is fuller and richer than I felt after downing a dozen donuts on Saturday. I was nervous writing this review, because there's no hope of me doing Updike and his writing any justice. Without a doubt, read this book.

Has anyone read Rabbit Redux or Rabbit is Rich? I want more Updike.

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

He would drive to San Bruno and look for Kathy there. it was practically their entire geographical frame of reference. If she wasn't at the storage shed or the truck-stop bar or the El Rancho Motel, then he would try Carl's Jr. on the other side of the freeway. And if that didn't pan out he'd drive south to Millbrae to the Cineplex, where she could possibly be at the movies. Ahead of him in the fog, Corona's main street ended at the base of the hills and the intersection for the turn to Hillside Boulevard and San Bruno. The blinking yellow traffic light above was so obscured it looked to Lester more like a silent pulse. Kathy would not be at her stolen house up in the hills but the colonel would, and there was no crime in cruising slowly by; he was off-duty and out of uniform.

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III is the story of Kathy Nicolo, Sheriff Lester Burdon, Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani and their tragic crossing of paths. Kathy wakes one morning to find Sheriff Burdon at her door, informing her that she has been evicted by the county for failing to pay back taxes. Ms. Nicolo informs the Sheriff that there must have been a clerical error, that she owes no taxes. Her pleas prove ineffectual, and her home is auctioned off to Colonel Behrani, a Persian immigrant set on reselling the house for a profit to provide for his family. Behrani is determined to see his family returned to the dignified position they once held in Iran. Kathy's home was all she had left after her husband suddenly left her and she is not willing to let it go easily. Lester find himself falling in love with Kathy and refuses to sit idly by while she suffers a grave injustice. The collosion of these three forces of will leaves families destroyed, lives ruined, and blood spilt.

Dubus' writing is smooth and has its own flow to it. His style is really a pleasure to read. But I have a hard time saying I enjoyed this book. There's really not much to come away from feeling good about. Simply put, House of Sand and Fog is a tragedy. More Shakespearean than Greek, I think. While Kathy and Behrani have their flaws, Lester reminded me of Paris in Romeo and Juliet in the sense that he was merely a victim of circumstance. More or less a simple man, Lester is driven to the edge by his love for a woman he barely knows. Like Paris, he strikes me as the most tragic character in the story, for his life (and that of his family) are ruined because of his involvement in the clash between Behrani and Nicolo.

I suppose if I had one problem with this story, it was the unbalanced portrayal of the plights of Kathy and Behrani. I don't know if Dubus intended to make Behrani seem more at fault than Kathy, but I think it's more likely that he simply failed at making Behrani's motives as justifiable as Kathy's. A young woman has her house stolen out from her because of an improperly addressed envelope. She finds herself homeless with nothing in the bank. She calmly explains this to the man who has bought her home from the county, and yet he refuses to help her rectify the situation by complying with the county when they try to rescind the sale. Now, I understand that Behrani is simply trying to enter the real estate market and provide for his wife and son. I understand that Behrani feels he has committed no wrongdoing in legally purchasing the house from the county. I understand that he has suffered greatly since the fall of the Shah's regime and his flight from Iran. But even with all that, I can't help but look at him as a stubborn, greedy man who knowingly held on to stolen property even after the situation was laid out in front of him. To me, this weakened the story a bit. It wasn't what Dubus (probably) intended, the story of two people with equal stake and righteousness battling for stability. It was an unlucky woman struggling to take back what's hers from a man who refuses to do whats right.

That said, there are enough mitigating factors to make the reader at least somewhat sympathetic to Behrani. And in the end, I suppose this imbalance is rectified as he is the one to lose everything, whereas Lester and Kathy lose only most everything.

Check this out if you like Steinbeck, as Dubus' writing style reminds of his, or if you're a fan of tragedies in general. It's really quite moving and you'll be surprised at how quickly you find yourself swept up in the rise and fall of the principle characters.

Highlights: Lester's mustache, the surprisingly action-packed final act, picturing Jennifer Connelly during all of Kathy's sex scenes.
Lowlights: Behrani's recalcitrance, The inevitably depressing ending