Jim Grimsley

The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My first impressions of this novel were that the writing had a stiff, unpracticed quality at the sentence level, and that the method of the narrative was abrupt. The first section of the book, about an interaction between the protagonist and a man who wants her to describe objects he purloined from the possessions of a dead woman, felt pushed in terms of the dialog. Conversations played out in a flatfooted way. But the episode was based on an intriguing idea. In the subsequent sections of the book many of the problems I saw in the writing went away, the author becoming more practiced and losing herself in the writing. The final episode was a gem, and I would have wished it were the entire novel, expanded on and left to do the work of exploring the shifting self on its own – but that’s me trying to write someone else’s novel. What the writer has done is strong work in her own manner and on her terms. But I cannot overcome the feeling that the episodes stand too separate from one another and do not act with one another as well as they could, and that harms the novel. The activities of the first section of the book vanish completely and never arise again. The presence of her lover (soon former lover) Stephen does cross over sections of the book but without much effect. And the final section of the book contains all the other episodes within its scope but still stands separate from them. This can be read as commentary on the function of the self, but it can also be read as weakness in structure. Nevertheless, I admired the last part of the book enough that I am glad to have encountered this book.

Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It’s difficult to discuss this book, given that I was so enthralled by Invisible Man. I had heard that Ellison struggled for many years with a second novel and bought this some years back when it was published, but then heard that it was very uneven in quality and so it languished in my reading pile for a long time. I am glad that I did finally read it but wonder how Ellison would feel about its publication. He could certainly have allowed its release in his lifetime if he wished. But he didn’t. The book has episodes that make the reading worthwhile – the birth of Bliss, the Juneteenth episode, the Sister Georgia chapter. In terms of its parts this is very fine work. But there is a static quality to the whole, brought about by its design as a discourse between Hickman and Bliss/Sunraider. Whatever energy the narrative gathers is nullified by the static moment of the present, when Hickman watches over the Senator in the hospital, and when they talk about the past, about history, about all the ideas that concern them. It is easy to assert that Ellison never brought this fragment of his second novel into clarity – easy because that is what decades of gossip about him have said – but there is something missing in this book. Or perhaps there was something so transcendent and present about Invisible Man that one can’t help wishing this second book was more like that first one.

There are only a few days in life, speaking relatively, when one places a book for publication, no matter how prolific one might be. Also there are the long winters to consider. There is a December in which one’s whole family succumbs to the pandemic after having avoided it for a long series of severe months. And there is age, retirement, which, if one is honest, was easy to underestimate, especially in a year in which the world was reeling from sickness, change, realization of past sins and disasters, and one’s own life, one’s own head space, felt unimportant unless it was contemplating the great problems of all mankind. This is all sounding very British. It was a hard year in life, in other words, and a long time since I had felt like a writer, other than through sheer force of will. The daily act of setting words in a line, line after line. This is necessary, of course, because there are periods when a person must persevere through force of will alone. But, being older now, and no longer having the fact of teaching to give my life a shape and to reinforce my idea of myself as a writer, which was one of the purposes teaching served. There is no finish to that sentence that feels necessary. Being older now, that’s the point. Other factors that I won’t go into except to say that publishers are fickle by their nature and publishing undergoes one revolution after another and this was a year when anyone could smell the fear in publishing at large. A lot of good things happened. Some better justice was understood. The fact of racism came to the fore in ways that, let’s face it, were entirely foreseeable and right and everything shook itself into new alignments and such. At times of revolution it is reasonable to fear you might the be one who falls by the wayside. (And those other factors now that I won’t go into, but be mindful, there are those.) The books you have written, the sweat and blood of it, hearing that they are not the thing anymore, that they are out of another era, that time has passed you by. Then dawns that morning. That it comes so close to Christmas is the best gift. Answered prayer. Someone rings, you hear the sound of it and know you ought to answer, and there is that dear voice of your agent that has given you bad news often enough these past years. But this time there is the sweetness of yes. The new editor has loved what I did. I have survived to publish another book. Never mind about the details right now. All that despair of old age and irrelevance flows out of the head. This book that I have loved for such a long time will be a physical thing. The winter suddenly becomes more friendly. After all, my family has faced the pandemic and survived, and there’s Christmas almost here. I am still working. So the doubt can step away from me for a while. And I publish a book again.

A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period by William H. McCullough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read about this book when trying to learn more about The Tale of Genji and again when reading books about Japanese history. The descriptions of the tale, its importance as an evolution in history, and the description of its idiosyncrasies, were intriguing enough that I found a copy and read it. At first I thought I had made a mistake; it is a manuscript that’s mostly of interest to scholars and to serious students of the period and of early Japanese writing. But the fact that it was written by a woman, a courtier, and a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu made it more interesting and the reading of it was pleasurable. (The authorship is a subject of much discussion, of course; but the manuscript itself presents a first person point of view of a contemporary of the Fujiwara constellation of families and connections.) As a companion to Genji, it is illuminating, being a blend of the luxurious, stately activities described in the novel and the history of the Fujiwara family’s dominance over the offices of emperor and empress. I am familiar enough with the period that I could see behind the action to the power politics that are submerged in the writing, the infighting between the branches of the family, and the all-important series of marriages, births, and liaisons that made up life in the capital. Nevertheless it was disconcerting to read in the footnotes the various places where the author made up incidents and cited incorrect dates. In one passage she borrowed to the point of plagiarism from Murasaki Shikibu’s diary. The notes within the body of the text and appended to the volumes are the richest part of the reading, full of detail about the imperial calendar and the elaborate ceremonies that drove its life.

The Major Works by Samuel Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have been slowly making my way through this volume for some time now, and devoted a few days to completing the reading while fall settles the leaves and Thanksgiving approaches. I can’t pretend to know the period in which he wrote in any detail, though reading him has been an education in who was prominent at the time. He was clearly one of the masters of the literary scene in the eighteenth century and his opinions range so broadly over writers and literature – framed with such assumption of authority – that it is clear he won his eminence by main strength. The breadth of what he wrote is daunting. One contemplates the compiler of a dictionary with awe. His essay on the dictionary was one of the high points of the volume, as was his essay on Shakespeare, his portrait of Pope, and his account of his travels in Scotland. What kept me reading was his ornate style with his sentences long and flowing as the Nile. He speaks with such an air of authority that one believes his judgments of all his subjects when he speaks of literature. When he speaks of morals, religion, and the way life ought to be conducted, he appears more childlike, prone simply to point toward God and the church and say, because of God I am right in my opinions. In an age where that certainty is no longer universal by any means, his sureties are unconvincing. In the end, this further undercuts his literary criticism, since he includes in it many moral judgments, and bases his assessment of similes, diction, and poetics on foundations which he supposes to be equally enduring. It is tempting to call him quaint, though I think that is more my attempt to shrink him down to size a bit. The few fictions presented here are stifling; Rasselas scarcely offers a hint of life, so busy is it in its purpose of teaching and affirming a moral system. This has been a work of reading for which I have only to say that I achieved it, admired the man’s mind, and am likely to read it further only to remind myself of the rhythm of his sentences. The last pages of the book are excerpts from his diary and his letters, in which I could see him human and frail and accessible for the first time.