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Consolation
Fiction. LGBT Studies. In a small midwestern college town everyone seems to be making art--writing poems, composing sound collages, welding auto parts, performing Shakespeare with computer graphics, and even constructing an imaginary island in an attic. There's some consolation, after hopeless romance and information overload, in finding beauty in your own corner of the vast world.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2010
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August 10, 2024
The synopsis on Goodreads is the same you will find on the back cover of the book. On one level it does, sort of, tell you what the book is about but I would say it actually tells you nothing and is in many ways close to deceitful. Making art is, sort of, an aspect of the novel but to concentrate on the 'making of art' is to confuse tactics and strategies. the 'art making' could be removed entirely and another sub theme like real estate replace it. The acquisition, or failure to acquire a property, or improve or not improve one, ownership inherited or bought, the role of seller or buyer, etc. all could have been used to set out what Jonathan Strong is doing in this novel (and others like 'Secret Worlds'). I believe that Strong in his novels and short stories has provided us with a portrait of late twentieth century America that is similar to what Sherwood Anderson did, most particularly in 'Winesburg Ohio'. He captures place, time, people, attitudes so beautifully and with an honesty that only comes from lived experience and Mr. Strong's experience as an author who never left his roots (see my footnote *1 below).
I think Strong writes brilliantly about America but he does not write 'state of the nation' novels, which perhaps explains why they are so good and also why they are neglected. This novel, like all his novels is a beautifully crafted and observed novel about people. But then aren't all novels about people? Yes and no. People are the building blocks but it is what the author does with them that matters.
Above all else Consolation is a 'campus novel' but one so unlike its rivals like Donna Tartt 'Secret History' as to ensure it will never appear on any list of 'campus' novels. It is also about small towns and suburbia indeed there are so many cliched 'themes' that fail to describe Strong's work I am afraid I am going to make this novel sound opaque or difficult. It is beautifully simple but extraordinarily rich and thought provoking. It is unique. Like the author. For me Strong's oeuvre is a rich vein of American literature that is unknown even in the USA. I believe that fifty years from now when most of the New York Times best sellers that supposedly spoke to and about 'our times' are unread and forgotten Strong's novels will come into their own. But there is no need to wait that long. They are out there waiting for the intelligent and discriminating reader to discover.
*1 If interested I recommend doing a google search on Jonathan Strong's life and career. The important thing is that despite glowing accolades for his first work 'Tike and Five Stories' he did not follow the conventional route of young gay authors and move to New York and build his reputation there. If you want a good overview of his life and work I refer you to this piece from the Michigan Review in 2011:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...
I think Strong writes brilliantly about America but he does not write 'state of the nation' novels, which perhaps explains why they are so good and also why they are neglected. This novel, like all his novels is a beautifully crafted and observed novel about people. But then aren't all novels about people? Yes and no. People are the building blocks but it is what the author does with them that matters.
Above all else Consolation is a 'campus novel' but one so unlike its rivals like Donna Tartt 'Secret History' as to ensure it will never appear on any list of 'campus' novels. It is also about small towns and suburbia indeed there are so many cliched 'themes' that fail to describe Strong's work I am afraid I am going to make this novel sound opaque or difficult. It is beautifully simple but extraordinarily rich and thought provoking. It is unique. Like the author. For me Strong's oeuvre is a rich vein of American literature that is unknown even in the USA. I believe that fifty years from now when most of the New York Times best sellers that supposedly spoke to and about 'our times' are unread and forgotten Strong's novels will come into their own. But there is no need to wait that long. They are out there waiting for the intelligent and discriminating reader to discover.
*1 If interested I recommend doing a google search on Jonathan Strong's life and career. The important thing is that despite glowing accolades for his first work 'Tike and Five Stories' he did not follow the conventional route of young gay authors and move to New York and build his reputation there. If you want a good overview of his life and work I refer you to this piece from the Michigan Review in 2011:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...
Displaying 1 of 1 review