All Souls
By Javier Marías, 1989
I bought this years ago after The Believer published a long article about the writer, upon which it immediately slipped through the cracks. Picking it up on a lark, I found it difficult to put back down again. It's a short novel about a Spanish professor who takes on a two year gig as a visiting lecturer at Oxford, and while a good bit of the plot focuses on the affair he has with the randy wife of a milquetoast local, Marías seems most interested in just letting you see how funny intellectuals--a group he happily considers himself a member of--appear. Academic takedown books are probably a dime a dozen, only bested in quantity by overly inspirational films where professors help young men find truth, maybe pussy; that being said, there's nothing cliched about the way Javier goes about delivering his acerbic stab at how the overly educated go about their daily lives. The portion where his narrator delineates to a bored woman why she should bail on her marriage for a romantic adventure that he's idealized to the point that it's more reminiscent of the board game Candyland than anything that might occur between two people is a personal favorite, but really, there's nothing in here that isn't a positive delight. Few things are quite as funny as listening to eternally single intellectuals explain how relationships are supposed to work to someone who is in the process of breaking up with them.
Long Ships
By Frans G. Bengtsson, 1941-55
Similar to All Souls only in that it utilizes humor so subtly and efficiently that it starts to feel like the author is in the room while you're reading, making you laugh purely with wry glances and abashed shrugs, Long Ships is a series of Viking stories built around the tumultuous life of one incredibly likeable individual named Red Orm. While there's a lot of action, all of it increasingly more interesting as the book barrels forward--the best being the non-stop fighting that take place in the chapter entitled "How King Harald Bluetooth celebrated Yule"--this is a series of stories heavily tilted towards the adventure side of the equation. Bengtsson doesn't so much gloss over the more brutal aspects of the culture as he does present it in bald celebration, making for a book that leaps, chapter by chapter, from seafaring to skull smashing with nary a whiff of self-analysis. Like most books of this ilk, there's an excellent romance pulsing throughout; like almost none of them, the final 100 odd pages of the book go deep into that relationship's decrepit years, making for such a meaty subplot it threatens to steal the reins entirely. This is an immensely satisfying book.
-Tucker Stone, 2012
Oh man, THE LONG SHIPS is one mighty book, I say, having just myself read it about two weeks ago.
I wanted to read some Dumas when I heard Bengtsson really just wanted to make a Viking Dumas book; Dumas is fun, but THE LONG SHIPS is so much better than any "Vikings + swashbucking" adventure or whatever. You realize how extraordinary Bengtsson is with character in that light.
And Meyer's translation is seems to be as pitch-perfect as translations come.
Oh and the Marias is swell. ALL SOULS gets its own larger-than-life commentary track in DARK BACK OF TIME (Maybe Marias's best book), and a sorta-sequel-but-not-really in the intermittently excellent YOUR FACE TOMORROW books. THE MAN OF FEELING gets short shrift, but it's nice, very Nabokov.
Posted by: Richard Baez | 2012.10.27 at 23:11
I ran into people who immediately broke into a smile the second they saw that I was carrying around a copy of Long Ships. It happened three times in a week! That book engenders such a warm reception, it's really remarkable. It's funny that you mention Dumas--I was recently wandering around one of those massive chain book stores in Delaware trying to find something LIKE Long Ships, and I ended up staring at Dumas for a while.
Marias: have you read Heart So White? I remember reading that about 8 years ago, but I can't for the life of me remember anything about it. The plot synopsis--guy thinks about his dad--sounds sort of familiar, but I can't place any memory of it.
Posted by: tucker | 2012.10.28 at 00:14
HEART SO WHITE, I remember, had an excellent and extremely meticulous flashback opening, w/ the suicide of the father's bride-to-be. If I remember, the plot uncoiled in uber-graceful fashion from there, re: the father and various revelations, most of the book being Marias's central character just staring into space and letting off mental fireworks, which Marias, as ever, makes genuinely exciting/exhilirating.
Dumas, having read about 3/5ths of THE THREE MUSKETEERS, is fun; he's kinda hacky, but he really just wants to entertain the hell out of you, logic bedamned.
Dumas doesn't match up quite with THE LONG SHIPS, though. That book really is just extraordinary - in its afterglow, I'm wondering what book could possibly match up.
Posted by: Richard Baez | 2012.10.28 at 11:31
Well, the guy who recommended Long Ships to me also recommended Warlock, automatically making him the number one guy-who-recommends-me-books, so as soon as he gives me another one, I'll let you know.
Heart: I need to reread that, the suicide mention is way more familiar than anything I saw on the wikipedia page. Thanks again!
Posted by: tucker | 2012.10.28 at 11:59
Gracias!
Posted by: Richard Baez | 2012.10.28 at 12:55
Oh man the Long Ships review. I have been waiting for this since you mentioned it over at TCJ
Posted by: Perilous Mindy | 2012.10.30 at 21:03