I’ve had two frustrating reading experiences recently. Actually, make that three, but I’m only going to write about two of them today. And when this happens, when I’m frustrated with my reading list, it makes me feel constrained, itchy and dissatisfied, like I’m wearing a coat that’s too small or a wool sweater on a summer day.
In March I started reading War and Peace. I tried reading it in high school and tried again last year, with the online readalong challenge, but then my Dad started to get sicker and things were just generally stressful and I couldn’t keep all the Russian names straight and so I decided to set it aside. Thinking the third time’s the charm, I picked it back up in March, eager to get into something meaty. Three months later, I finished it. I did take a two small breaks to read a couple of other books — The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe, more about those later — but I look at those two books like those gel packs long distance runners suck down to give them a boost of energy to make it across the finish line.
Did I like War and Peace? Yes? Maybe? I’m glad I read it, but it definitely won’t be going on the re-read shelf.1 There were parts of the story that I enjoyed — the peace part, usually. I did actually enjoy the stories of Natasha and Prince Andrei and Pierre and Princess Marya and Nikolai. I found myself rooting for Pierre, usually a sign that I’ve come to care about a character. The only quibble I had is that though she is a main character, we don’t get inside the head of Natasha as much as I would have liked. She’s a Mary Sue — she’s beautiful and charming and she sings like a bird and everyone loves her flashing eyes. The most interesting thing about her is when she is seduced by Anatole Kuragin, and we get a brief glimpse of what is going on in her mind, but not in enough satisfying detail. In my opinion, Tolstoy could have left out the pages and pages (and pages) of battle theory and troop movements and told us more about Natasha’s inner battle between her “love” for Prince Andrei — which always felt a little shallow and more like a crush, really — and her lust for Kuragin. But you know, I just had a thought, maybe that’s where the inspiration for Anna Karenina came from? Maybe Tolstoy didn’t think he had explored that dynamic enough either?
Spoiler alert: I found the death of Prince Andrei quite moving. The way that Tolstoy writes about the end of his life reminded me a lot of my father’s last days, the drawing inward, and how he always seemed to be somewhere else, as though he had already begun to leave us.
I hate to paint a whole section of literature with a broad brush, but I think maybe I just don’t like Russian literature? Or perhaps just not Tolstoy? (Though not Chekov either, I’m afraid). Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky was a great book, as I recall, though it’s been since high school since I read it, but I think if I liked it as a teenager I would probably like it now? I’ve come to realize that I enjoy literature most when I can really get into the head of a character, to see what really moves them and why, to know what they feel, and for the most part I felt that Tolstoy wrote about most of his characters from the 10,000 foot level, only occasionally dipping into one character in any meaningful way.
I was so relieved to be done with W&P at long last and I had a fun book lined up to take with me to the beach. I had read about Beginner’s Greek by James Collins somewhere in the New York Times2 It was called funny and charming and a love story, so I was looking forward to it very much.
I try not to read too much about a book before I start reading it because I don’t want to spoil aspects of the story and I try not to read reviews because one person’s “best book ever” is another’s “how did this ever get published?” However, I wish I had read the reviews on this one because I could have saved myself some time and perhaps read something a little better at the beach. When I’m on the beach, I want the literary equivalent of potato chips and cupcakes, but maybe with a little protein powder added. Something fun and enjoyable but just a little bit of heft and emotional gravitas. Last year I read Less by Andrew Sean Greer and it was perfect.
Beginner’s Greek is charming in it’s own way, I suppose, but if we’re going to continue my potato chip metaphor, it’s more like those puff thingies that have no real flavor and melt in your mouth. It follows the story of Peter and Holly, who met on a five hour flight and “fell in love.” When they deplane, Holly gives Peter her phone number, but he loses it. The book jackets reads, “a thousand complications ensue in this delicious novel of missed opportunities, second chances, and lost love. Both incredibly incisive and wonderfully wry, Beginner’s Greek is like a glorious meeting of Tom Wolfe and Laurie Colwin — a brilliantly understated comedy of manners complete with the evil boss, the desirable temptress, miscommunications, misrepresentations, and letters gone astray.”
If I could, I would re-write that last sentence to read “a thousand ridiculous complications ensue in this overlong novel of missed opportunities, second, third, fourth chances, and lost ‘lovee’ . . . a trite ‘comedy’ complete with stock characters like the evil boss, an unrealistically sexy temptress who is a red herring, miscommunications that beggar belief, misrepresentations and supposed letters gone astray, though I don’t recall any letters.” By the end of the book you’re so tired of all the people and events that are keeping Peter and Holly apart and frankly you’re not sure what’s so special about Holly anyway. She’s another Mary Sue — beautiful but not excessively so and kind and perfect with no flaws whatsoever — and the woman Peter ends up married to for a while, Charlotte, is portrayed as kind of desperate and annoying and interesting-looking-but-not-beautiful with an interesting job, and frankly, she sounds like someone I would much rather be friends with. Spoiler alert, she ends up leaving Peter because a) she realizes he and Holly are in love and b) because she rekindles a romance with her old French boyfriend and goes to France to live in a chalet and I was like, “Good for her.”
Also, throughout the book we take sudden detours into the storyline of other minor characters. The threads of these chapters do end up tying very loosely — very loosely — into the main story, but the effect is jarring at times. It felt as though the main story was very thin on plot and character development, so the author just wrote more characters with mini-plots and then tied them all together in the end in a way that felt contrived. After I finished it, I did go and read some reviews and many of them said that this book needed an editor and that you could tell this was the author’s first novel and I agree with both of those wholeheartedly. Also, nitpicky I know, but the title is not great. You have no idea why it’s called Beginner’s Greek until maybe the third to last chapter and then the connection is, again, very weak.
So, all in all, not a great couple of months reading-wise. Usually when this happens I go re-read something I’ve read before that I know I’ll love and right now I’m deciding what that will be.
What’s your favorite book to re-read?
I don’t actually have a re-read shelf, except in my mind.
I’ve started noting on my TBR list where I read about/heard about a book.
My favorite re-reads are usually my favorites from Tana French and Kate Atkinson. However, if I need a comfort read, it's Rosamunde Pilcher and Dick Francis. Always reliable.