Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey

Published by Soho Press on December 26, 2012 

Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See is an honest, searing examination of a man in pain, a man suffering from a mental illness that is beyond his understanding or control. The illness turns him into a raging a-hole, and because it is not a physical illness with easily identifiable symptoms, because he suffers from bipolar disorder rather than cancer, he is shunned, treated with derision rather than sympathy.

As the novel begins, Greyson Todd, a studio executive, is becoming increasingly reclusive. He can't handle the noise of life. His memory, once his strongest asset, is failing. He can no longer cope with responsibility. One day, after a bit of planning, he leaves his life and eight-year-old daughter behind. The story then begins to tumble in time until the reader realizes that in the present, Greyson is hospitalized, undergoing treatment for his condition.

Some of the novel is quite compelling, particularly the sections that directly address Greyson's mental illness. Juliann Garey describes Greyson's decaying mind in powerful, convincing prose. "Slowly, over time, like wallpaper, the face I have shown the world has peeled away. I am a building on the brink of being condemned." His description of depressive thinking and suicidal ideation is vivid. Greyson's attempts to anesthetize and to distract himself are frighteningly real. The descriptions of Greyson's treatment -- the ECT (a nice name for electroshock), the memory loss, the lethargy and other side effects of lithium -- are harrowing. They leave the reader wondering whether the cure is worse than the disease. There are also some touching moments as Greyson's mind begins to clear and he tries to reestablish relationships that may or may not be permanently damaged.

Other parts of the novel seem fragmented. I'm sure that's deliberate, a representation of a fragmented mind, and after an understanding of the novel's structure takes hold, the random jumps in time become easier to digest. The fragments, pieced together, tell the story of Greyson's life. Some work better than others. The early years (1957-60), showcasing Greyson's relationship with a father who had his own mental health problems, are insubstantial. The 1970s and early 1980s, when Greyson is advancing from agent to superstar agent to studio executive, tell a too familiar story of Hollywood excess. More interesting are the years after Greyson leaves his family: an erotic encounter with a Bedouin in the Negev; touring the sex menu in Bangkok; in apparent pursuit of a death wish, taking a dubious tour of the "real" Africa. Greyson's attempt to live independently in New York, characterized by isolation and paranoia and meltdowns, reflect some of the novel's strongest writing.

This is not a good choice for readers who want to bond with likable characters. It is easy to sympathize with Greyson, but an honest portrayal of a manic-depressive assures that the character will often be unlikable. Greyson's daughter is quite likable, as is an old man who befriends Greyson when he's living in New York, but they both play limited roles in the overall narrative. Readers looking for happy endings and closure might also be disappointed with the novel. Still, there is a sense of guarded hopefulness at the novel's end; the story isn't entirely bleak. The ending is realistic and, as Garey makes a point of saying, it isn't Hollywood cheesy.

The novel's message -- other than the need to understand rather than condemn the mentally ill -- is that bipolar disorder is an extreme manifestation of what most of us experience in our daily lives: highs and lows, mood swings, moments of irrational anger or unexplained exuberance. We manage to stay in control, "the ups and downs stay within a manageable range," but that reflects our good fortune, our good brain chemistry, not our good character. We can't take credit for it, any more than Greyson is to blame for the faulty wiring of his brain. I give Garey credit for conveying that message so effectively.

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Raised from the Ground by José Saramago

First published in Portuguese in 1980; published in translation by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on December 4, 2012

José Saramago’s death in 2010 was a sad loss for the world of literature, but his novels endure.  It is often difficult to know what to make of a Saramago novel.  He infuses drama with humor so as to make them indistinguishable, relies upon fantasy to illuminate reality, distorts history to help us understand the present.  Saramago merges philosophy with storytelling.  With keen observation, he chronicles moral failings while remaining an extraordinarily forgiving writer.  Unlike nature, which “displays remarkable callousness when creating her various creatures,” Saramago displays compassion and understanding when creating his flawed characters.

Raised from the Ground is the story of the latifundio, the Portuguese landed estates and those who toil upon them. The laborers are the victims of "infinite misfortune, inconsolable grief, both of which lasted from the nineteenth century to the day before yesterday." Plagues, famines, wars, and the cruel overseers of the latifundio are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the "great evils" that devastate the working poor. The workers spend their lives as if "tethered to a stake," governed by arbitrariness, and in a state of perpetual hunger. Is death the only escape, or is change possible? Fighting for a minimum wage and an eight hour day may seem futile, but futility is a way of life in the latifundio. It is the need to fight for change that compels the narrator to proclaim: "we are not men if we do not raise ourselves up from the ground."

With their meager possessions loaded onto a donkey cart, the shoemaker Domingos Mau-Tempo and his wife (Sara da Conceição) and son (João) make their way to their new home in São Cristóvão, the first of several relocations Domingos will impose upon his family. Domingos' miserable story (briefly interrupted in 1910 by the arrival of the Portuguese Republic and the end of the monarchy) segues into Sara's sad story and eventually becomes João's. Circumstances turn João into an unwitting labor leader, or at least he is mistaken for one; his support of a strike becomes the defining event of his life. The meandering story eventually introduces João's son António, who is drafted into the army despite his illiteracy, his daughter Gracinda, who wants to marry João's friend despite her poverty, and his granddaughter Maria, who shares his blue eyes. In 1974, the Carnation Revolution overthrows Portugal's dictatorship, an event that brings the living and dead together in celebration, a fitting end to a powerful story.

The novel's run-on sentences, assembled from words seemingly poured from buckets, flow with a rhythm that is uniquely Saramago's. Dialog is buried haphazardly in the text, always in keeping with the rhythm of the narrative, never set off by quotation marks, and while it's usually easy to understand who is speaking, some readers will be put off by the unconventional style. Although the narrator's identity is neither clear nor consistent, the narrator's chatty editorial voice is always present. As if conversing with a friend, the narrator will mention a town and say "you probably know the place." The narrator sometimes professes not to understand the mysteries of life that he is relating, sometimes says "let's see how things turn out." He gives the reader information that, he says, won't contribute to an understanding of the story, but will let us "know each other better, as the gospels urge us to do." He reminds us that "the seemingly unimportant and the seemingly important form part of the same narrative," and all of it, taken together, is "as good a way as any to explain the latifundio." He suggests that people who might take a different view of the latifundio "clearly don't know much about life." All of this is vintage Saramago: tongue-in-cheek, playful commentary masking profound wisdom shaped by boundless compassion.

Compassionate wisdom is abundant in this haunting story. Saramago reveals the dignity and tribulations of the working poor and the indifferent cruelty of those who exploit them. He explores poverty and charity and the great equalizing force of death. He bemoans wars that tax and kill the poor while benefitting the rich. He ridicules the labeling of striking farm workers as terrorists and exposes the true terrorists: the government agents who have the power to brand those who speak for the powerless as "dangerous elements." He describes the torture of a man from the standpoint of an ant that, unlike the torturers, has a conscience. He lampoons priests who pray for the landowners and lecture the poor. Most importantly, amidst all the agony and suffering that his novel documents, he wryly acknowledges that "life has its good points too." Travel and beauty and sex and birth bring joy and renewal, even if only for a moment. Yet if "each day brings some hope with its sorrow ... then the sorrow will never end and the hope will only ever be just that and nothing more."

Saramago's matter-of-fact presentation of the absurd is filled with deadpan wit and goofy digressions. He treats the reader to hilarious descriptions of peasantry sex ("they huff and puff, they're not exactly subtle"), a political rally ("Where do I go to take a piss?"), middle age ("if this is the prime of life, then allow me to weep"), and the revolution ("what kind of name is junta for a government, there must be some mistake"). António's tall hunting stories, including his technique for catching a hare with pepper and a newspaper, are reason enough to read the book. Yet even the funniest stories are in some sense allegorical. They illuminate life in the latifundio, which isn't much different for rabbits and men.

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Merry Christmas!

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

First published in Australia in 1940; published digitally by Open Road Media on October 23, 2012 

Henny, a character in The Man Who Loved Children, condemns every popular novel she reads as "silly rot, muck, and a lot of hooey." Perhaps Christina Stead wrote The Man Who Loved Children as an antidote to the popular novel. Its strength is the depth of its characters, yet the two most significant characters are so disagreeable that the book will never warm a reader's heart. By writing a novel with no likable characters and little plot, Stead shunned the formula for popularity. She nonetheless managed to craft a book worth reading, although you might cringe a few times before reaching the end and sigh with relief when you've finally conquered it.

To an outsider, living with the Pollitt family would be a maddening experience. Reading about the Pollitt family, on the other hand, is like watching a volcano that is about to erupt and destroy a village. The sense of impending horror is so strong I could only manage it in small doses. The parents are fascinating but repellent, a husband and wife who, wielding words as weapons, seem destined not just to destroy each other, but to bring about the metaphorical (and perhaps literal) annihilation of their entire family.

Sam and Henny deserve each other. Their blistering arguments make George and Martha of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? seem like Romeo and Juliet. Henny is a harridan, a "brackish well of hate." She is the queen of all drama queens. When she isn't promising to poison herself, she's threatening to beat all the children to death. She regards life "as a series of piracies of all powers." She is a compulsive and secretive borrower and spender. Although she hates Sam, Henny revels in the knowledge that "the dread power of wifehood" compels him to stay with her.

Sam is Henny's superficially cheerful opposite -- optimistic, full of love for his children -- yet at his core, there is little to distinguish Sam from Henny. Sam regards his marriage as years spent in "mental rot and spiritual death." He complains that he only wants to be understood, yet Henny understands him perfectly. Sam is, she says, "the great I-Am." Sam fancies himself the perfect husband and father while continually berating Henny and calling his daughter Louie a "great fat lump." Sam claims to be in love with his fellow man, yet he advocates eugenics and rules his own house with a tyrannical intolerance of individuality.

In addition to Louie (eleven when the novel begins, fourteen when it ends), who was born to Sam's first wife before she died, Sam and Henny have five children (Henny gives birth to another during the course of the novel). Sam believes his "great fitness is to be a leader of children." He thinks he is "teaching them to be good men and women" while "a woman was always twisting them, snatching them away from him." Sam doesn't want his children to grow up. He insists that Louie should stay with him forever. As the family descends into poverty, Sam barely notices. He wants more children.

Sam speaks a language that is all his own, a mixture of mispronunciations, rhymes, and gibberish that outsiders would regard as a foreign tongue. The language bonds his children to Sam while isolating them from neighbors and friends.

Sam's relationship with Louie is a little creepy. He is fascinated by "the mystery of female adolescence of which, in his prim boyhood, he had been ignorant." At the same time, he views himself as her guardian against impure influences. Sam wants to shelter Louie from the debauchery of dancing lessons and fine dresses. He views it as his duty to protect all his children from "filthy thoughts." The reader wonders whether Sam is trying to shelter himself from those thoughts, particularly with regard to Louie.

Louie is a moody girl who labors to constrain her inner beast. Although Sam forbids the reading of novels, Louie spends every free moment with books. She writes plays and sonnets, sometimes in languages that she invents. Louie is the only child who can see her father for the windbag he is. When the other children revel in Sam's silly rhymes about the neighbors, she lodges futile objections to his rudeness. Louie is so desperate for real love that she befriends wretched neighbors and begins writing love poetry to her teacher, Miss Aiden. Her other passion is for her friend Clare, who joins her "in days of mad fervor about nothing at all."

The novel follows the Pollits through setbacks and tribulations. Unfortunate characters litter the novel, including Sam's batty sisters and destitute in-laws. Sam's job takes him to Malaysia; his return ten months later is greeted with the birth of yet another child. Sam eventually loses his job, leading to the family's gradual decline into poverty. To the extent that the novel has a plot, it revolves around Henny's response to the family's financial decline, and the reactions of Sam and Louie to Henny.

I did not quickly adapt to the rambling, meandering, quirky style in which The Man Who Loved Children is written, although I eventually came to appreciate it. I did not ever warm to the sullen, broken, hypocritical characters who populate the novel, although I eventually came to admire the skill with which they are constructed, and to feel some sympathy for Louie. Despite its inevitability, the novel's denouement is both shocking and horrifying. For its unforgettable characters and often startling prose, I am glad I read The Man Who Loved Children, but I wouldn't want to read it again.

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A White Arrest by Ken Bruen

First published in the UK in 1998; published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media on December 18, 2012

Although A White Arrest could be characterized as a police procedural, there is little police work and almost no detection on display. It might be better to think of A White Arrest as a crime novel. A White Arrest features plenty of crime, at least half of it committed by the police. Fundamentally, though, A White Arrest is a stark examination of three characters, all cops: Roberts, Brant, and Falls.

Neither Chief Inspector Roberts nor Detective Sergeant Brant are exemplary law enforcement officers. Roberts and Brant are likely to get sacked if they don't pull off a white arrest, the sort of legendary, career-making, front page arrest that guarantees lifetime employment. Their best chance would be to catch a serial killer known as The Umpire, who has been murdering cricket players. Another possibility would be to arrest the members of the E crew, a four person gang dedicated to killing dealers and stealing their drugs.

While Ken Bruen gives the reader a peek into the disturbed minds of The Umpire and the leader of the E crew, Bruen gives most of his attention to the cops, particularly Brant, whose mind is as unsettled as those of the criminals he's half-heartedly trying to catch. Brant is the jerk of all jerks, the kind of cop who takes bribes, steals money, abuses suspects, and stiffs the pizza delivery guy. When he isn't sexually harassing female officers, Brant is getting liquor on credit from the off-licence shop (a debt he never intends to pay), watching The Simpsons, and reading Ed McBain novels. He also fantasizes about shagging Roberts' wife, Fiona. Roberts certainly isn't getting satisfaction from Fiona, who (egged on by her friend Penny) has it on with a boytoy she hires at a club that caters to women of "a certain age."

Susan Falls is a female constable who joined the force to escape from a troubled family, only to find that the police are themselves a troubled family. Falls yearns for love. Sadly for her, she's in a Ken Bruen novel, where love is a scarce commodity.

As you'd expect from Bruen, A White Arrest is riddled with quotations from crime novels and movies (although the Umpire tends to quote Shakespeare, always a good source when it comes to murder). The novel's brisk pace and penetrating prose make it a quick read. Don't expect much in the way of plot, and don't expect the police to do anything that might actually solve a crime. Roberts and Brant don't always catch the bad guy, and when they do manage to make an arrest, it's more a function of luck than effort. A White Arrest isn't a novel for someone who wants a traditional police procedural filled with hard-working, likable cops. For readers who are intrigued by flawed characters living gritty lives, A White Arrest is -- like all of Bruen's novels -- meaty entertainment.

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