Southern Bookman

British author Claire Lowdon champions John Updike's early novels

John Updike 's reputation as a novelist was sinking even during his lifetime.

David Foster Wallace peered out from his glass house in 1997 and placed Updike among Great Male Narcissists Philip Roth and Norman Mailer, blasting Updike for his sexism while leaving out the notorious sexual predator Saul Bellow. Wallace quoted an unnamed female critic who summed up Updike as "just a penis with a thesaurus."

Updike's later novels declined from his lauded early works. As Updike's abilities as a novelist waned, he excelled as an essayist, poet and literary and art critic. But to young women and "sensitive" men of Wallace's generation, he was a wounded white whale of American literature.

But despite his sexist reputation and late-career decline, Updike might be gaining fresh appreciation among a new generation, including women.

British writer Claire Lowdon in the July 5 Times Literary Supplement gives a sympathetic assessment of Updike's early novels "The Poorhouse Fair," "Rabbit Run," "The Centaur," and "Of the Farm." The Library of America recently published the novels in one volume.

While Lowdon sees the early novels as expressing the attitudes of male dominance prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she credits Updike for creating sympathetic female characters. The author of the novel "Left of the Bang" and an assistant editor at Arte, Lowdon is one of the emerging young talents of British literature.

Like other critics, Lowdon sees Updike's strength, his facility for descriptive writing, as his greatest weakness. She cites passages where Updike loses control of his language. But overall, she champions him as a writer of astonishing power and beauty.

She finds much to praise in all of the books, although she sees the National Book Award-winning "The Centaur" as too dependent on Greek myth and derivative of James Joyce. 

While Lowdon views "The Farm" as an accomplished achievement, she gives her highest praise to "Rabbit Run" as a true American classic worthy of continued readership. The first of four books about former high school basketball star Rabbit Angstrom, "Rabbit Run" is the most accomplished of the series, revealing enduring truths about American character.

Lowdon touches upon Updike's "Maples" short stories, without acknowledging Updike's standing as a short story master rivaling John Cheever.

Overall, she rates Updike as a "B-League" novelist, with Joyce in the A League. As Lowdon concludes, that makes Updike's brilliant early works worthy of rediscovery.

How dark "Oklahoma" revival gave country flavor to "People Will Say We're in Love"

The "Oklahoma" revival now on Broadway gives a darker, stripped down interpretation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical.

New York Times theater critic Jesse Green in Sunday's Times analyzes how the new production changed "People Will Say We're in Love" from an operatta confection to sultry country-influenced love song.

In the new show, Curly strums a guitar as he serenades Laurie, shifting from the light-opera style made famous through the years by such stars as Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones and Hugh Jackman and Josefina Gabrielle.

Portraying Curly, Damon Daunno at one haunting moment in the new rendering breaks into a Hank Williams-reminiscent yodel. As Laurie, Rebecca Naomi Jones shimmers close to Daunno in a sultry, seductive dance, a radical shift from the coy and mocking performances of  Jones and Gabrielle.

Without bogging down in technicalities, Green analyzes how the revival directed by Daniel Fish changed the song's flavor. Music director Nathan Koci replaced the traditional theater pit orchestra with an on-stage ensemble that plays country string instruments.

In a treat for those with some understanding of musical theory, Green analyzes how Koci changed the song's key and voice styling. With all of the changes, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most beautiful songs keeps its essence.

The Broadway revival has resulted in a new cast recording. A separate Times article traces the history of "Oklahoma" cast recordings. The first was Decca Records' pioneering effort in 1943, recorded on multiple 78s.

I'm looking forward to hearing the revival cast's new interpretations of standards like "Surrey With the Fringe on The Top" and the sweeping theme "Oklahoma."

After years as one of those Rodgers and Hart acolytes, I gained new appreciation for Hammerstein's collaboration with Rodgers by hearing Blossom Dearie's jazzy and seductive recording of "Surrey With the Fringe on the Top."

Koci's new arrangements of "Oklahoma" songs will open the music to new artistic interpretations. A country or pop duo will surely follow Koci's path and record "People Will Say We're in Love."

 

 

 

James Wood details Eton ties to Brexit

"The sun sets on Britain," the London Review of Books' July 4 cover proclaims.

No, the provocative headline has nothing to do with the American Revolution.

Outlined in red above the cover illustration of a darkening sky at twilight, the headline refers to literary critic James Wood's illuminating article on Brexit's connection to Eton, the English school for boys that has bred the country's establishment since its founding by Henry VI in 1440.

Running as the review's regular Diary feature, with no other headline, Wood's piece is informed by his own experience at Eton as a middle-class scholarship student. Unlike Wood, many of the school's young men came from the country's ruling class and generations of school alums, known as Old Etonians.

Etonian David Cameron when he was prime minister called for the Brexit referendum, and left office when it was unexpectedly approved. Brexit proponent Boris Johnson, now the leading Conservative candidate to replace Theresa May as prime minister, attended the school, as did Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Brexit supporters.

Wood echoes author Fintan O'Toole in finding that the Etonians' Brexit advocacy rose from "a combination of Thatcherite lust for economic deregulation and postwar nostalgia for lost imperial might."

The Etonian Brexit supporters all took a general history class at the school at age 13, reading Jan Morris's book about the rise and fall of the British empire, "Heaven's Command." For Johnson, Cameron and Rees-Mogg, Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965 marked the sunset of British glory, briefly restored by Thatcher.

Johnson's admiring biography of Churchill reflects his belief that Britain can revive its greatness apart from Europe. Rees-Mogg has expressed similar views. The Brexit supporters share a resentment that Germany, which lost World War II, leads Europe economically while Britain, a war victor, has declined.

Wood points out that Churchill's great-grandson, Etonian Hugo Dixon, is a main Brexit opponent. Yet old school ties are stronger than political beliefs: Johnson in the acknowledgements for his Churchill book thanks Dixon, at whose Greek home he wrote a chapter.

Unlike Etonians who have joined Britain's ruling class, Wood has enjoyed success in the United States writing for the New Yorker. A Harvard professor, Wood is one of the few literary critics who has achieved widespread readership. Also a novelist, Wood is married to author Claire Messud.

For Wood,  an exit from the European Union will mean "the sun sets on Britain." But he understands that the sun never sets on Old Etonians, whose wealth and power never wane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Orleans, environs threatened by environmental catastrophe

New Orleans again stands on the edge of environmental apocalypse.

The city hammered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is now threatened by a new storm gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico. Thunderstorms Wednesday brought massive flooding to the low-lying city, including the French Quarter, which escaped Katrina's flooding.

The tropical storm that will be called Barry is expected to develop into a weak hurricane by the weekend. Hurricane warnings have been issued for the entire Gulf Coast. Barry's threat comes early in the hurricane season. There have only been three July hurricanes historically, all in the last 40 years, according to media reports.

The arrival of Barry comes as the Mississippi River stands at unusually high levels for this time of year. Heavy spring rainfall has raised the river's level to 16 feet at the Carrollton Avenue gauge, according to media reports.

Barry, if hits Louisiana, could bring up to 18 inches of rainfall, swelling the New Orleans river level to 20 feet or more, according to reports. That will put severe pressure on the levees that protect the city, as reported in a New Republic article.

A Corps of Engineers official expressed confidcnce that New Orleans' levees would hold, according to a wire story. But The Times-Picayune Advocate reported that water might overlap levees in the city's lower Ninth Ward, Algiers and St. Bernard Parish.

The threat from Barry comes after an environmentally ominous spring in which Mississippi River towns farther north suffered catastrophic flooding. The turgid Mississippi brought an increase of pollution washing downriver, threatening Louisiana's fisheries, as detailed in a Huffiington Post article.

The opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway an unprecedented two times caused a heavy infusion of fresh water pouring into Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico.

The nutrient-rich chemical, hazardous and human waste carried by the heavy volume of river water led to a profusion of algae in the gulf, forcing the closure of Mississippi beaches. Scientists are also reporting an ominous rise in dolphin deaths, and an expected widening of the dead zone that develops each summer in the gulf.

With Barry gaining strength in the gulf, officials in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans have ordered a mandatory evacuation, while New Orleans officials are waiting to see what happens.

The evacuation of Plaquemines brought to mind a notorious historical catastrophe. As the momentous 1927 Mississippi River flood rushed toward the gulf, the levees were dynamited south of New Orleans to ease pressure on the city, as memorably recounted in John M. Barry's definitive book on the flood.

While New Orleans was spared, Plaquemines suffered devastating flooding. The memory of that event, evoked in Randy Newman's anthem "Louisiana 1927," persisted in rumors during Hurricane Katrina that the federal government intentionally blew up the levees around New Orleans so that poor people's neighborhoods would be destroyed to save rich white homes.But affluent Lakeshore neighborhoods also were inundated.

Plaquemines, one of the south Louisiana parishes losing land to the Gulf of Mexico at alarming rates, now hopes to avoid an echo of the 1927 debacle. And New Orleans prays it won't suffer a catastrophe like Katrina.

But even if New Orleans avoids devastation, the long-term threats of climate change and human pollution remain. Extreme weather will become a normal event.

 

Rick Atkinson's "The British Are Coming" illuminates start of American Revolution

I've been on bit of binge reading Revolutionary War histories, so I decided to embark upon one of the summer's hottest books, Rick Atkinson's "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777."

That puts me in the literary mainstream: Atkinson's book appeared several times on Politico's list of what Washington insiders are reading this summer. The book will be the first volume of a trilogy on the American Revolution.

The first chapters on the battles of Lexington and Concord show why Atkinson is so popular. The noted author of a World War II trilogy and former Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Washington Post has a talent for dramatic writing.

His descriptions of the British army's foray from Boston to Lexington and Concord clearly explain complex actions and give a vivid sense of the weather, the appearance of the landscape and the sights and sounds of battle. He also gives fascinating individual stories of some of those involved in the action.

A few conclusions:

*The Revolutionary War was a vicious guerrilla conflict from the start. The British soldiers marching in orderly battle formation were ambushed by local militiamen who didn't follow European rules of conflict.

*The level of hatred between the British troops and American Minutemen is astounding. Although the American Revolution can be seen as a civil war, the British troops' animosity was like that of an army invading a foreign country.

*The British were lucky to escape back to Boston without even greater casualties than the high number they suffered. In fact, Atkinson says, the force risked total destruction. The American forces had been preparing for war for a long time, putting aside ammunition and marking elaborate plans. A small number of British troops found themselves among a swarming hive of rebels.

*The battles on April 18 and 19 1775 involved a large swath of what is modern metropolitan Boston. The British took boats across the Charles River from Boston- resulting in the famous Old North Church lantern signal and the rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes. One revelation: Revere might not have said "The British Are Coming" but something like "the regulars are out."

The British marched to Lexington and Concord, where they planned to destroy ammunition caches. After an inconsequential skirmish in Lexington, they encountered devastating resistance in Concord. Battered and bleeding, they retreated to Boston through Charlestown and Cambridge.

By the way, the Concord site, which includes a house that once belonged to Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of the hallowed spots of American history. Like other American historical sites, it blends sanctity and commercialism with a tourist center selling souvenirs and snacks. Here, at a serene stream and small bridge, came the shot heard 'round the world.

*Interesting to be reminded that Harvard, and Harvard Square, already existed. A visitor several times to today's congested Harvard Square, I tried to imagine how it must have looked then when Cambridge had about 800 residents.

*Worthwhile to realize once again that the war had already been going for more than a year when the Constitutional Congress made its Declaration of Independence in 1776. The revolution was a ragtag local affair until then.

I'll look forward to going through Atkinson's book the rest of the summer, especially his analysis of what led to the Declaration of Independence and what lay behind its claims against the king of England.

Atkinson's account of the Battle of Bunker Hill and how George Washington took command of the American army will also enlighten an ominous summer.

 

After Home Run Derby, on to All-Star Game

Like other curmudgeon baseball traditionalists, I'm supposed to loathe the home run derby. I confess that I found the event entertaining Monday night.

Watching Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crush home runs like a kid playing with a wiffle ball in the back yard was fun. So was Atlanta favorite Ronald Acuna Jr. swatting dingers to all fields. Sweet to see Braves manager Brian Snitker congratulate his young star on his thrilling performance.

Joc Pederson's interactions with his brother Champ were touching, as was the Paul Bunyan perseverance of the Mets' Pete Alonso, the eventual winner.

Now, the All-Star game, an anachronism in today's sports environment. I never watch the entire All-Star Game anymore, but my heart always stirs when the teams are announced at the start of the game and line up on the baselines.

When I was a kid, players like Willie Mays, Henry Aaron and Mickey Mantle tipped their hats to the crowd. The lineups changed, generation by generation. Over the years, I've witnessed the baseball life cycle spin out over and over.

Although the game's popularity has plummeted, it has a new infusion of young talent. Tonight, kids like Acuna and Alonso will take the field with established stars like Christian Yelich, Freddie Freeman and Mike Trout. Players heading toward the end of their careers, like American League starter Justin Verlander, and Clayton Kershaw, will also appear.

The All-Star game has fewer older players these days. Hunter Pence would have been the type, but he's injured, replaced by the Red Sox' s Xander Bogaerts.

Too bad guys like the Braves' Brian McCann aren't having good enough years to be playing. I'd like to see a few more veterans, along with the youngsters. The baseball life cycle is turning faster these days.

 

 

New York Times daily critics lend hand to Sunday Book Review

The Sunday New York Times Book Review for undisclosed reasons tapped the newspaper's daily book reviewers to compile the 50 best memoirs of the last 50 years.

Times daily critics have traditionally remained separate from the Sunday Book Review, given over to outside reviewers. But that longstanding editorial wall was breached Sunday without any explanation.

Daily critics Dwight Garner, Parul Sehgal and Jennifer Szalai compiled the list and wrote capsule summaries of their selections. In years past, the feature would have appeared in the daily Arts section rather than the Sunday Book Review.

The list appeared conclusive. The New York-centric No. 1 choice, Vivian Gornick's "The Odd Woman and the City," was a surprise. Celebrated memoirs such as Mary Karr's "The Liars Club" and Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" appeared down the list.

Another curious choice was the inclusion of Keith Richards' "Life" over Bob Dylan's "Chronicles: Volume 1." The Rolling Stones guitarist's book was written with journalist James Fox, while Dylan, a Nobel Prize winner, reportedly wrote his book by himself. That increases the literary value of Dylan's book, although it was hampered by accusations of plagiarism. If true, at least Dylan lifted passages from great writers like Mark Twain.

And what about Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run?"

I don't know the cutoff date, but Michelle Obama's recent best-seller "Becoming" wasn't on the list. Nor was Tara Westover's "Educated." A few other recent best-sellers were also excluded, such as J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy."

The daily Times reviewers' feature gave a needed shot of readability to the Book Review's dreary pages. Garner, Sehgal and Szalai however succumbed too often to Times reviewer-ese. Could the Times ban the word "indelible" from its reviews? That word gives me indigestion when I see it.

Also, either Sehal or Szalai resorted to the cliche "at the the end of the day," which probably would have been excised in the days when The Times had a copy desk.

The feature should be useful for those looking for outstanding memoirs, although I've never quite grasped when autobiographies turned into memoirs. There's some technical difference, but no one writes autobiographies anymore. Also, writers like Karr once turned personal experiences into novels, rather than pushing their life stories as nonfictional. There wasn't even a separate memoirs genre until Karr's book.

I can think of only a couple of memoirs that might have been included. Russell Baker's "Growing Up" was definitely a must selection, but another Timesman's memoir, Arthur Gelb's "Newsroom" could have been part of the list.

Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" was a worthy choice, but I would have liked "Harp," by her husband,  John Gregory Dunne, chosen as well. A few other strong memoirs were left off in favor of trendy favorites such as "Priest-Daddy."

Times watchers might wonder if the feature will set a precedent for Times reviewers to appear in the Sunday Book Review. Book coverage is less and less prevalent in the newspaper's  daily Arts section, and Times book coverage had been consolidated under one editor in recent years.

Shifting the daily critics to the Sunday Book Review would mark a major change in the newspaper's editorial philosophy. In the past, readers received a broad field of criticism from the newspaper, with Times daily reviewers followed by outside reviewers in the Sunday Book Review. Placing daily reviewers in the Sunday Book Review would mean fewer critical voices.

Remembering John Fowles and "The French Lieutenant's Woman"

Along with other events of 1969, this year marks the 50th anniversary of John Fowles' "The French Lieutenant's Woman."

Fowles' spicy and atmospheric novel drew international acclaim and controversy to an extent unimaginable for a book today.

Author James Campbell in a recent Times Literary Supplement article looks back at the book's sensational reception in 1969 and Fowles' disdain for literary fame.

I remember the book as one of the first novels I read as an adult, making me feel like a worldly sophisticate. Alas, I have little memory of the book beyond the moody atmosphere of Lyme-Regis, the British seaside town in which it is set.

As Campbell recounts, the book had dual plots, one taking place in Victorian England and the other in the late 20th century. The author of the 1867 romance that makes up one part of the narrative is himself a character in the book. The book blends an erotic love story with refined literary technique, making for the kind of high-class porn that Lenny Bruce satirized.

A film version didn't arrive until 1981, starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in dual roles from the Victorian and contemporary parts of the narrative. The movie received five Academy Award nominations, including Streep for best actress and Harold Pinter, of all people, for best screenplay. Along with the book, my recollections of the film have been erased by time.

Before "The French Lieutenant's Woman," Fowles wrote the best-seller "The Magus," a supernatural tale that matched the hippie mindset of the 1960s. He also gained success with "The Collector."

As Campbell relates, Fowles shunned the London literary scene. Despite his popular success, he dismissed mass culture, believing in the superiority of an intellectual elite.

After "The French Lieutenant's Woman," Fowles' career plummeted. He published several other novels disregarded by critics and readers. He died in 2003.

Before Campbell's piece, Fowles and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" had faded from cultural memory. Now the book might join the growing list of rediscovered works.

 

Braves and Phillies' throwback game gives lessons for baseball's future

The Braves-Phillies game Tuesday gave a refreshing respite from the ills killing baseball.

Phillies ace Aaron Nola, the pride of Baton Rouge's Catholic High and LSU, pitched eight innings in a 2-0 shutout of the first-place Braves. The Braves' Dallas Keuchel lasted for seven innings in an old-school pitching duel.

No home runs were hit, and fans were treated to fielding jewels such as a sparkling Phillies double play and an at the wall catch by the Braves' center fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. The game was played in two hours and 48 minutes, brisk in comparison with today's homer and reliever-bloated ordeals.

The game, rare for today, would have been common in the 1950s or 1960s. In those days, home runs were a spectacular burst of energy, not a common occurrence. Strong starting pitching, defense and strategic hitting were more prevelant. Games normally were completed in less than three  hours.

In the prevailing baseball model, starting pitchers succeed if they last for five innings. Teams use serial relievers, which stretches games beyond the limits of human patience. Frequent home runs and strikeouts plague the game. The decline in singles, doubles and triples drains excitement.

Baseball keeps looking for solutions to the game's shocking decline in popularity, especially among younger fans. The NBA free-agency signings and the women's World Cup drew more interest than the recent Yankees-Red Sox debacle in London.

The Braves-Phillies throwback game shows an obvious solution: return to starting pitchers being expected to throw at least eight innings. Complete games would be better. In the Mets' championship season of 1969, ace Tom Seaver threw multiple complete games down the stretch. Nowadays, a starter can go the entire season without one complete game.

Most teams today see the bullpen as more important than starting pitchers. With exceptions such as the Nats' Max Scherzer and the Astros' Justin Verlander, starters no longer remain until late innings. The baseball-dominant strategy also appears questionable as relievers regularly blow safe leads and lose games.

Perhaps baseball has already lost younger generations. A return to dominant starters and making home runs special instead of common would show younger fans why America loved baseball for so long.

 

Elaine May's "Ishtar" doesn't age well

I wanted to like Elaine May's "Ishtar."

Alas, I found the 1987 box office bomb a muddled mess, the prevailing critical opinion when the film was released. In recent years, the movie has drawn its share of fans who consider it an unfairly maligned classic. As a May fan, I hoped to agree with that revisionist movement. But the movie was painful to watch.

Having read for years about the comedy starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, I decided to check out the film when discovering it on cable TV.  Written and directed by May, "Ishtar" has moments of brilliance sunk by a preponderance of incoherent scenes surprisingly berift of laughs.

Beatty and Hoffman are untalented songwriters and performers in New York who implausibly are signed to a tour of Morocco and the fictional country of Ishtar, a desert kingdom somewhat like Saudi Arabia. The two get mixed up in revolutionary plots and CIA intrigue.

Rarely generating comic chemistry in the Mideastern scenes, Beatty and Hoffman do achieve pathos in the first part of the film covering their flawed performing career in New York City. If May had kept the story there, she might have achieved a poignant and nostalgic show business film like those of Woody Allen. "Ishtar" sinks into the sand when it moves to the Mideast.

Charles Grodin gives an interesting performance as a CIA agent maneuvering to save Ishtar's ruler from being overthrown. The French actress Isabelle Ajani is largely wasted as member of a revolutionary group seeking to overthrow the ruler. Jack Weston turns in his trademark performance. Beatty and Hoffman eke out a few laughs, but don't sustain the comic momentum.

Filmed in Morocco, the film exceeded its budget, and was plagued by conflict among May, Beatty and Hoffman and bad publicity. While May revived a successful screenwriting career, she didn't direct another film after "Ishtar."

May's work as  Mike Nichols' partner heralded her as a major comic talent, which she exhibited in screenplays like "The Birdcage" and her directing "The Heartbreak Kid." She recently received a Tony award for her performance in Kenneth Lonergran's Broadway play "The Waverly Gallery."

But after "Ishtar," she fell short of her promise as a movie director,  never reaching the heights of Nichols, Allen and Mel Brooks. While not a complete failure, "Ishtar" is a curious meltdown of a brilliant talent.