21st Century Literature discussion

This is the place for no-spoilers discussion of general things around the book. Interviews and links are great things to post here, as are any general observations before you finish Part I (as long as they don't reveal plot points).

I just finished the book last night. I really liked the writing: the descriptions of the land and surroundings and...everything else too.

Repeated references to the narrator loving Charles Dickens -- the ultimate literary figure for lovers of intricate and interwoven plotting -- makes me wonder whether the author's goal wasn't to create a sort of anti-Dickens novel, with minimal plotting, few characters, and hardly any of it connecting to anything else. All lyrical writing, not much else.

For me, this book was like the tiny cucumber sandwiches you get at high tea -- a tasty, fancy bite, but it left me looking for the deli tray for the real meat.

Repeated references to the narrator loving Charles Dickens -- the ultimate literary figure for lovers of intricate and interwoven plotting -- makes me wonder whether the author's goal wasn't to create a sort of anti-Dickens novel, with minimal plotting, few characters, and hardly any of it connecting to anything else. All lyrical writing, not much else.

For me, this book was like the tiny cucumber sandwiches you get at high tea -- a tasty, fancy bite, but it left me looking for the deli tray for the real meat.

I read this book three years ago and gave it 3 stars, but failed to write a review, so I had to go read a few reviews to remember what it was about. I doubt I'll find the time to re-read it in order to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion, but I will eagerly read what is posted!

Matthew, do you feel is possible to have minimal plotting, few characters and a focus on lyrical writing that would work for you? In other words, is it the concept or the execution that doesn't work for you?

Usually I am a pretty plot focused person when reading, but I enjoyed this book very much. The plot that did exist was revealed in a way that things were not necessarily explained completely at first, which led to me wanting to keep reading. I really liked the feelings that the writing gave though. I really need to start keeping track of quotes I like when I read!

Diane Rehm did a Readers Review on this book back in 2010: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/201...

I have no problem with the concept of "minimal plotting," it is just that the minimal plotting needs to add up to a complete plot. That complete plot could be summarized in a sentence or two, and that would be fine, but here I felt like there needed to either be LESS plot, or else the plot that there was needed to work.

(view spoiler)[ For example, we learn early on about Lars's tragic childhood, and then later on we meet Lars as an adult. When I find out it is Lars, I turn back and re-read the story in the first few pages about shooting the dog, and it has additional layers now -- having to shoot a dog after what he had been through?

So far, so good. But now we've got all of these other possibilities -- we learned about Lars's tragic childhood fourth or fifth hand (his father, who isn't actually there, tells his mother who tells Trond's father who tells Trond). Maybe there's some new revelations that adult Lars can add? Maybe adult Lars can shed some light on Trond's father? On Jon? On Lars's father? On himself or his mother? All of these people have stories -- plots -- that are more or less incomplete in Trond's flashbacks. But Lars probably knows what happened to some of them after Trond left. But Trond never asks and Lars only volunteers some vague information ("Jon was on a boat") so we never find out. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[ And regarding the "plottiness" on Lars's re-appearance (p. 49, NOOK), "Lars is Lars even though I saw him last when he was ten years old, and now he's past sixty, and if this had been something in a novel, it would just have been irritating."

Well, it IS in a novel, and whether it is irritating or not depends on how the author handles it!

And then, talking about movies, "but there's not much real work in modern films, there are only ideas. Thin ideas and something they call humour, everything has to be a laugh now. But I hate being entertained, I don't have any time for it." (p. 52).

So, is this a non-entertaining novel by a guy who doesn't have time for entertainment and finds plots irritating? It's like he's thinking, "I don't like novels, and I demonstrate how bad they are by writing a really bad one." (hide spoiler)]

Matthew wrote: "And regarding the "plottiness" on Lars's re-appearance (p. 49, NOOK), "Lars is Lars even though I saw him last when he was ten years old, and now he's past sixty, and if this had been something in ..."

I actually chuckled when I read that line in the book.

I loved the meta. Very clever, and not over-done.

I think the need to have plot threads tie up is very subjective. I used to want -- need it more. Now it seems to me that it's more like life when we are left with loose ends. The journey seems to matter more than it did, the destination less. Which is part of the reason I loved this so much. Trond is much further in the road, but it feels like he's coming to some of the same realisations I am as I get a little older. The book feels to me like a gradual realisation, like life revealing itself and a man making peace with it as it does.

Life is certainly full of loose ends.

(view spoiler)[Also, though, if you haven't seen your father in the last 50 years, and you were very close with him, and then you see a guy who might know what happened, Life definitely includes asking, over a leisurely dinner, "Hey, whatever happened to my father after he left us?" (hide spoiler)]

Response to 14: (view spoiler)[Matthew wrote: "Life is certainly full of loose ends.

Also, though, if you haven't seen your father in the last 50 years, and you were very close with him, and then you see a guy who might know what happened, Life definitely includes..."

Or, maybe, tragically, it doesn't. (I haven't reread -- I don't remember what happens in the book.)

p.s. Have revisited text and reviews. It doesn't include asking and many reviewers comment on such -- feels like the silence imposed/continued for having lived through a period when silence was necessary for safety/self-protection. Strong old habits are not easily revised.
(hide spoiler)]

This is true, but, tragically for the author, you've got to earn it.

(view spoiler)[Young Trond is enthralled by Franz's stories about his father during the war, and his father's stories about Jon and Lars. Maybe Old Trond doesn't care any more, and has no curiousity why his father stayed behind, but then wasn't around Lars had to shoot the dog. But we're not given any facts or indication as to why. People change, but in novels they just can't change randomly to the opposite inclination without any supporting rationale. (hide spoiler)]

You're making me think, Matthew, and especially to notice what I notice.

The story, as I see it, is mostly about what happens in Trond's mind as he pulls together bits of his own life and pieces of others' lives. I feel like my determination (parallel to your own, perhaps) to see into how he's doing that is an actual experience, comparable to his, that is occurring in my mind as I read. And now I venture to say that the author intends for the reader to have such an experience. Which means that an important part of showing is not to tell too much. So, for me the novel does earn its resolution -- but a great deal of that resolution has to occur in the reader's mind.

I was trying to put something into words, and you've nailed it, Lacewing. For me, there can be so much more power in this than if it is made explicit. Why is such a difficult question even when applied to our own motives into which we (presumably) have a decent amount of insight.

Again, you've helped me bring into clearer focus the author's achievement here, and how he's managed it.

More coolness exchanged!

"For me, there can be so much more power in this than if it is made explicit. Why is such a difficult question even when applied to our own motives into which we (presumably) have a decent amount of insight."

Say more please, Terry; I'm officially on receive mode, looking for clues.

I'm not sure how you can say a novel has "earned its resolution" when, in fact, nothing is resolved. The last 50 or so pages just fleshes out superfluous details of facts we already know.

Matthew, I'll try to keep your challenge in mind as I continue my latest reading. At the moment I can't think of a way to begin explicating (for myself as well as for you) without introducing spoilers -- which are not appropriate for this thread.

I may later decide my current take is off by 180 degrees, more or less; so be it.

Meanwhile, let me rephrase what I said earlier. Just as Trond insists on making a whole story out of the parts available to him, the reader is left to make a whole story out of the parts the author has presented.

Matthew wrote: " and then you see a guy who might know what happened, Life definitely includes asking, over a leisurely dinner, "Hey, whatever happened to my father after he left us?" ..."

Maybe he thought he already knew? Maybe he was afraid to know?I need to go back and find that part again where they talked in Trond's home and reread. You got me thinking now.

You make good points Lacewing. The book is not so much "a story of what happened" as it is a collection of Trond's thoughts and memories of certain things (intertwined with the present). The mind jumps around and is not so straightforward and like you said, he doesn't know all.

"Just as Trond insists on making a whole story out of the parts available to him, the reader is left to make a whole story out of the parts the author has presented."

This goes very close to the heart of what I mean when I say it can be more powerful.

I can understand the need for resolution in terms of events. It used to be strong in me too. But now I more often find something 'too tidy' than 'too loose-ended'. Here, for me, the details are the story. The journey is the story. Where he's come to as a person is the story. And if that journey is the story, then for me I want to be on that journey with him. That grabs me and pulls me in more than watching from outside. And working things out for myself, leaving some of them unknown just as my own problems and concerns often are, makes me feel more that this is real, that I've experienced this, merged with it for the duration of the pages, rather than just been an onlooker.

But yes, stuff going into detail about the resolution should be channeled towards the spoilers thread.

Sidebar comment: I found it coincidental that yesterday I came across this passage (in spoiler here) from Nabokov's lectures about the use of "The AND-AND-AND Device" in Bleak House (a read I am just winding down):

(view spoiler)[
From section on Form (structure and style).

10. "The AND-AND-AND Device"
"This is made a characteristic of Esther's emotional manner, as when she describes her companionship with Ada and Richard: 'I am sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets....' And in another example, when Esther accepts Jarndyce: 'I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said nothing to my precious pet [Ada] about it.'"

Lectures on Literature, p.121, by Vladimir Nabokov

I don't know that I can characterize how Petterson uses this device, except that it creates sort of a flowing effect, or to consider some of the comments made by others here. Since PP apparently admires Dickens, I now wonder if this is a device he "borrows" or learned from CD.

(hide spoiler)]

A note: please do try to make sure that any discussions around plot points are within other threads. This one is just for more general impressions and discussion.

Matthew, could I ask you to put spoiler tags around your comments 9, 10, 14 and 16, for the benefit of new readers coming along later? I'd prefer not to delete those comments as we'd lose the flow of the discussion here, and I don't think I can edit them myself.

If you're not sure how to do it you can see here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I put the spoiler tag up, as requested, although I am concerned with spoiler-creep. My definition of "spoiler" would never include things that happen on page 49 of a book.

From The Village Voice review, which I seem to agree with most. Many of the others say they "won't give away the secret," which I think is reviewer-ese for "I haven't figured out the secret, but I'm a book reviewer, so I can't let you know that in case there really is something I missed."

Spoiler tags, although my definition of spoiler doesn't include anything that would be included in a Village Voice book review blurb:

(view spoiler)[
All this is strong material for drama—effectively rendered scenes that you'd expect would build on each other—but Petterson oddly chooses to keep them disconnected, as remembered fragments. The death of Lars's brother, for example, appears as an early central event, but never comes back with greater significance. The physics of cause and effect—what gives a novel momentum—hardly comes into play.

. . .


Here Petterson uses the first-person present, a cinematic device that keeps the focus close and full of tension, like the view from a handheld camera, and it's especially effective in suggesting an imminent clash whenever Trond encounters the mysterious Lars, who hints at violence. But where you expect, finally, a crack in the cold formality between the characters, Petterson simply lets the moments fall off into more melancholy. Too often, the author can't resist the temptation—always strong in the literary realm—for the forlorn fade ("I look out at the yard, but there is nothing but my own reflection in the dark glass").
(hide spoiler)]

http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-07-1...

Thanks for your cooperation, Matthew. Please keep in mind for the future that what you consider not to be a spoiler may spoil the book for somebody else. I know of many people who would feel that something contained within a review could be a spoiler, as could something early in the book. If in doubt, there's always a thread for spoilered discussion, and you can always use the tags.

Matthew wrote: "I put the spoiler tag up, as requested, although I am concerned with spoiler-creep. My definition of "spoiler" would never include things that happen on page 49 of a book."

I would go further and say that in my opinion, there is no such thing as a spoiler when it comes to good books. If a single sentence can diminish the value of a book for me, it's probably not a book I would care about. But, I also recognize that this is my opinion, and for many other people knowing facts about the book ahead of time does diminish their enjoyment. If a thread announces that it's spoiler free, than I make the effort not to impart anything that might cross that line.

And, as Terry said, there's always the spoiler thread in case there's any doubt. I usually just make all my comments there so I don't have to worry about treading on any particularly sensitive toes.

The whole point of the novel is the resolution. It happened so slowly throughout the whole novel we were barely aware it was happening.(view spoiler)[or in other words it takes Trond his whole life to come to terms with the loss of his father, which he finally starts to do when he reflects on that fateful summer. Of course he wouldn't immediately ask Lars about his father. Too painful and he barely knows Lars. Who would want to bare their worst most carefully buried pain, a pain they're just now coming to terms with, to a stranger? maybe sometime in the near future he'll broach that very subject with Lars (hide spoiler)] at least that's how it seems to me.

I'm jumping over to spoilers with a comment on this thread.