More Words

I joined a library. How's that for riveting prose? Action, suspense and word economy, all in one simple sentence that even has an active verb! At any rate, it's not quite four months into the year and I've read 15 novels -- five more since the previous post about my meager 2010 literacy-related accomplishments. Once could say I've fallen into something of an Updike-Chabon-Roth rut, so I've added some new spice to the precarious pile atop the nightstand. On deck: works from Cheever, Fahy, Harrison, et al.

"The Maples Stories" by John Updike: A collection of short stories told as a running narrative about the co-mingled lives of a husband and wife -- the Maples -- at points both significant and mundane. Originally published piecemeal in prominent literary magazines, "The Maples Stories" details the airy ceilings and heart-rending bottoms of a marriage that eventually fails through no fault of the two people trapped within it. Grade: 5 out of 5 dangling participles.

"Of the Farm" by John Updike: Another story about -- you guessed it -- marriage and the innate pain of relationships. The main character returns to his family's rural Pennsylvania farm, this time with his second wife and a newly acquired pre-teen stepson. Uninspiring episodes of grass-cutting and other extended passages of blandness ensue. Grade: 3 out of 5 dangling participles.

"Everyman" by Philip Roth: A rumination on dying and the years that lead a man to the doorstep of death. Roth's main character lives a full yet somehow incomplete life as a jeweler, serial husband, philanderer and overall good guy but ultimately finds himself broken and quite literally dissected by a surgeon's scalpel as a result of randomness and imperfect DNA. Grade: 4 out of 5 dangling participles.

"The Final Solution" by Michael Chabon: A short novel that felt unnecessarily long. Chabon is a master wordsmith, and he delivers again in that regard because most of the book is rife with almost too many beautiful sentences. However, the story itself seemed to lack his trademark neck-snapping wit. Grade: 3 out of 5 dangling participles.

"East of the Mountains" by David Guterson: Man gets terminal cancer. Man decides he doesn't want to rot to death in a long-term care facility. Man plots his own suicide by making it look like a hunting accident. Man leaves for final trip with his two hunting dogs. Things don't go quite as planned. The end. A wonderful read, other than some World War II back story that plods along but is nonetheless necessary in establishing the main character's principal motivation. Grade: 4.5 out of 5 dangling participles.