Some of what works in Farrell's _Troubles_

Don't be misled by the title of this post: pretty much everything works in Troubles. But because so much works I won't be able to discuss it all.

The jacket copy murmurs something about the novel being about the decline of (British) empire, embodied by the decline of a hotel on the Irish coast. A neat idea, but one fears the allegorical temptation might be too much for Farrell, that the characters and events will be a little too obviously driven by the overarching scheme. We've all suffered through narratives where the characters were clearly dancing to the author's tune whether they made sense as humans or not.

Farrell writes humans. He writes them with a clear eye to their fallibility but with compassion and humor. It may even be that there is pure allegory here, maybe Sarah Devlin stands for the Irish Spirit or the Major is British Chivalry, but if so you won't be left muttering to yourself, "Please, JG, I get it, you needn't keep hammering away." They're human, and you care about them.

The hilarity of this novel is hard to describe. I think it derives from the quiet, warm tone of the narration contrasting with the absurd events and the small confusions of various characters. I can't remember a novel that's so, well, well-behaved that yet made me laugh out loud. (Though even as I type "well-behaved" it doesn't seem right. There's some delightfully naughty bits here and there, too, described in that same unflappable tone.)

And of course, laughter often works best for me in the service of heightening emotional impact, and Farrell perfectly executes this too. After all the mostly benign madness, when the real troubles finally arrive it is both terrifying and right. The finish of this novel elevates it well above mere comedy.

This book got a little bubble of notice when it won the Lost Man Booker prize, and we can be grateful it is now so easily available. Farrell should not disappear from view.

And of course it always warms the heart to know that a great favorite novel is only the first in a loose trilogy. I'm quite looking forward to The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip.

What I learned from The Instructions

On Levin's The Instructions:

Wanting to like a book doesn't always work.

A book with many clever bits might not add up to something clever, in the end.

A book over 1000 pages is almost certainly less than the sum of its parts. (Aphorism not applicable to Infinite Jest.)

Funny carries you so far. Same kind of funny, over and over, begins to carry you less and less far.

Creating characters that the reader may not know how to take is a good start. It is not all that is needed.

Setting up your 1000-page novel as directly comparable to Infinite Jest via similar setting and smart-alecky characters is a bad idea. Unless you're really, really good.

McSweeney's binds books beautifully.

I'm glad to be done. A reviewer on Goodreads said they wanted to turn back to the first page. Not me. Levin's left me wanting less.

A return of sorts

To get this blog moving again, here is the commitment: short posts.

Oh, there may be longer ones here and there, but I need to leave behind the belief that each post should be long, artfully constructed, carefully considered. Get the conversation going.

Quick thoughts:

Iron Man 2: Atrocious. The first film succeeded on its repartee and star power, not on its just-okay action scenes. So what do they do? Fail to bother to write any decent dialogue, make Tony Stark pouty and entitled (I was rooting for Mickey Rourke by the end), and increase the amount of still-just-okay action scenes. On top of that there were serious credibility problems, even for a comic-book-derived film. ("I'm being chased through the air by dozens of missile-launching killer robots, but rather than taking this fight out over the very nearby Pacific Ocean I'll go ahead and fly this missile-fight into/around/through traffic and as many innocent bystanders as possible!")

Winter's Bone: Solid indie drama. Noirish. Great lead performances and a strong female protagonist to boot. The Missouri locations are stark, beautiful and terrifying, and the cinematographer uses them well.

The Secret in Their Eyes: I was angry with this film before I saw it for its effrontery in winning Best Foreign Oscar over Haneke's The White Ribbon, but once I finally saw it I forgave. Suspenseful, surprising, touching and even a bit romantic.

The White Ribbon: Haneke's always interesting, even when he's unwatchable (see either version of Funny Games, or maybe don't) but this film is gripping even as it continually eludes your expectations. The tone of it reminds me of Bolano's 2666 in a strange way (I only thought of it just now) in that there are events that give one pause, but there's something else, almost as if it's just out of the corner of your eye, that leaves you perpetually unnerved, on edge. An amazing film.

The Celebration: This one's pretty old, actually, one of the early Dogme films, one of them not directed by Lars von Trier. I finally got it on DVD and wished I'd seen it years ago. The grimy, unstaged feel of Dogme works wonderfully, and the characters ring true in all their confusion and angst. (Note, too, how care is extended, by the writer/director, to characters regardless of their social class or position.)