The Rise of Hitler and the Current U.S. Election

While this blog is in principle concerned with literary fiction, I am going to stray from that topic for the moment as a result of having recently read a review of a new biography in the Oct. 16, 2016, New York Times weekly Book Review section.

The work, by Volker Ullrich, is entitled "Hitler" and subtitled "Ascent 1889-1939." It focuses on Hitler the individual, a man of remarkably few accomplishments until he emerged out of Germany's post WWI economic and political chaos in a position of leadership, which he quickly consolidated, turning a democracy into a dictatorship.

The Literary Genre of Fiction Set In New York City

If my novella "Manhattan Morning" fits into a literary genre, it is probably that of fiction set in New York City.

I mention that because "The Shortlist" feature of last Sunday's New York Times book review section was entitled "New York Novels." Therein, author Helen Ellis took a look at five different stories set in The Big Apple.

Before continuing, I should mention that in an earlier post, I reviewed Ellis' short story "Dead Doormen," which -- no surprise -- is also set in Manhattan. The story is part of a book of her stories entitled "American Housewife."

The books Ellis reviews are stories about sexism on Wall Street; the notion that New York is a place where anyone can come to make it big; it's tough to survive in the city, especially with student debt; New York is where people go to make art, and if you do make art there, can you also be a mom?

To be fair, the books are about a lot more than just that and those interested can read Ellis' commentary by clicking on the phrase "New York Novels" in my second paragraph, above.

In contrast, "Manhattan Morning" is about none of those things. Rather, my protagonist is merely passing through Manhattan and, with nothing in particular to do for much of one day, he takes a walk from the Warwick Hotel to Grand Central Terminal, looking at and listening to what that part of the city has to offer. Many things come to his mind as a result of the stimuli, most significantly his relationships with several women.

But he also thinks about art in the context of how it connects and interacts with society: the aesthetics of utopia; as an expression of emptions; to enhance commerce with grandeur, and as an expression of love for one's family.

At the end, a surprise encounter with yet another woman, leaves the protagonist, Dan Morrison, contemplating his future with new eyes and re-examining his values.

"The Humans:" Life is a Downer For The 99%

The New York Times recently ran a lengthy obituary of John Bradshaw, who achieved considerable renown as a self-help evangelist.

 

I mention this because Bradshaw, who initially experienced severe alcoholism after a troubled childhood, has been credited with bringing the term "dysfunctional family" into common use during his subsequent, very successful career.

Now, it seems we can't get away from it. Among other things, it has become a staple of a great deal of contemporary fiction and, of course, live theater where the emotions ordinary people may feel, but have difficulty expressing without disastrous consequences, are given free rein on stage.

One of the latest examples of this is a current Broadway play called "The Humans," by Stephen Karam.

In a Times review earlier this year, Christopher Isherwood called the play, about a family gathering for a somewhat makeshift Thanksgiving dinner in a distressing New York apartment, superlative.

"Written with a fresh-feeling blend of documentary like naturalism and theatrical daring, and directed with consummate skill by Joe Mantello, Mr. Karam’s comedy-drama depicts the way we live now with a precision and compassion unmatched by any play I’ve seen in recent years. By “we” I mean us non-one-percenters, most of whom are peering around anxiously at the uncertain future and the unsteady world, even as we fight through each day trying to keep optimism afloat in our hearts."

The play is, indeed, well acted and the set is all-too convincing -- to the point where one feels as if one is in the apartment with the family. And at times, it is very funny. But the jokes are for the most part transgressive in nature -- at the expense of people in difficult circumstances of one sort or another. One laughs at the punch lines and then doesn't feel particularly good about having done so.

While the family is depicted as treasuring strong bonds, as time goes by and one character after another is revealed to be troubled, compromised or having come up short in one way or another, those bonds seem increasingly superficial. The only character not in danger of heading into a downward spiral is the live-in boyfriend of the family's younger daughter -- but only because he will soon come into a trust fund rather than from his own efforts. He has little to offer other than the food.

If Mr, Isherwood is correct in saying that the play accurately depicts "the way we live," that myriad of life-is-a-downer New Yorker short stories that  I have complained about may not be so far off the mark. I also have a related post on what is missing in contemporary fiction.

How does it all end?  Well, without giving anything away, as the emotional intensity steadily increases -- in "The Humans" as in other plays in the same genre -- one begins to wonder how the playwright is going to bring things in for a landing.  Not easily and not always in a satisfactory fashion in my theater-going experience.

Messages of Arthur Miller's Play "The Crucible"

When Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he sometimes recited the following apothegm as illustrative of the political difficulties of finding new sources of federal revenue.

"Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."

In that instance of wishful thinking, outsiders could somehow be the solution to our problems. But it is usually the reverse: outsiders, or external forces, are somehow to blame.

At the moment, for instance, some see immigrants as main reason the American Dream seems increasingly out of reach. That's despite considerable evidence that immigrants have been responsible for far more of America's accomplishments than for the country's failures.

I mention this because I just saw a revival of Arthur Miller's most-performed pay, "The Crucible" on Broadway staring, among others, Saoise Ronan of "Brooklyn" fame.

Miller wrote the play, about the 1692-93 Salem witch trials, in 1953 as an allegory of McCarthyism, an anti-communist witch hunt then in full flood. Intellectuals, particularly in the performing arts, were a prominent target and, indeed, Miller himself was eventually called up before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). While he told the panel about his own former leftist activities, he refused to name others who had been involved and was convicted of contempt of Congress, a conviction that was overturned a couple of years later.

Broadway and ballet choreographer Jerome Robbins ("West Side Story"), called before HUAC in 1950, had likewise initially refused to name names -- for three years in fact -- but when his homosexuality appeared at risk of public disclosure, he reversed course and named several persons -- a playwright, a filmmaker, a dance critic and others. As a result, he wasn't blacklisted and his career continued unfettered.

(The New York City Ballet is currently performing an "All Robbins" program that includes the shorter ballet version of "West Side Story").

I mention these incidents for a couple of reasons.

First, one of the themes of "The Crucible" is that in witch-hunt ridden Massachusetts, it was often necessary to publically condemn the alleged wrongdoings of others to protect one's own standing in society. Even when one believes such demands are wrong, they can be difficult to resist when one is personally compromised.

Thus Robbins felt forced to cave in because his behavior was at odds with prevailing attitudes toward homosexuality. And in Miller's play, the chief protagonist, a farmer named John Proctor, faces problems resisting demands he believes to be wrong because he has had an affair with his family's young female servant, Abigail Williams (played by Ms. Ronan in the current Broadway production).

Second, demands that people name names in order to save themselves are still very much with us: to wit, the CIA's waterboarding of war-against-terrorism prisoners.

In both cases, there are strong incentives to say things that are untrue.

While convoluted to the point of being somewhat confusing at times, Miller's play still has a relevant message to deliver.

(By the way, if you haven't seem the film "Brooklyn," or better yet, read the book, I highly recommend both of them.)

How Much Of Your Manuscript Will A Publisher Read?

That's an interesting question, and I suspect there are as many answers as there are publishers.

But since I've just written a post on Elena Ferrante, a contemporary literary sensation, how about her publisher? How many pages of your manuscript would Michael Reynolds, the chief editor of Europa Editions, read?

Thanks to Literary Hub, we know the answer: 30 pages.  But his mind may actually have been made up much earlier.

What follows is the key interchange in an interview of Reynolds by Francesca Pellas:

FP: How do you select manuscripts here at Europa? How much do you read before making a decision?

MR: I read everything that comes in, but I don’t read the pitch first, nor the cover letter. I start with the manuscript. I look at the email just to make sure it’s not something that we don’t publish, and then go straight to the manuscript. I read 30 pages and decide whether it’s worth continuing or not. Sometimes I know from the second line that it’s not going to work for us, but I always, always, give these manuscripts the benefit of the doubt and read those 30 pages. I’ve never changed my mind, but I feel that’s the least I can do out of respect for someone who spent so much time writing something.

The bottom line: make sure you get the second line right!

Ferrante Uses Familiar Devices to Hook Readers

Elena Ferrante is an author who has been getting a lot of positive press lately and not without reason. She's an incisive, but charming writer with a good story to tell.

I just finished "My Brilliant Friend," the first book in her Neapolitan Novel series, and while I greatly enjoyed it -- even though it was difficult to keep track of who was who from time to time -- I couldn't help but be struck by her use of a couple of very basic devices to first suck readers in and then to get them to purchase the next book.

Are Corporations, Society or Writers Killing Literature?

This post is about three writers offering differing views as to why literature appears to be dying.

"The Big Five publishing houses are located within a few subway stops of each other in Manhattan; that rich island which represents 0.000887 percent of our country’s surface. This is not benign. Our literary culture has distended and warped by focusing so much power in a singular place, by crowding the gatekeepers into a small ditch of commerce. A review in the Times trumps everything else. You can’t tell me that this doesn’t affect what is, finally, bound into books, marketed, and sold. Which designates what can be said and how one says it. Why do we cede American letters to a handful of corporations that exist on a single concrete patch?"

So says Matthew Neill Null, a prize-winning author and native of West Virginia.

The lengthy quote comes from an article published by "Literary Hub" wherein Null complains that publishers aren't interested in stories based on the lives of real people, especially if they are situated in rural communities.

If they were alive today, writers such as William Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe might as well forget it.