Mother Land - Paul Theroux

I loved The Mosquito Coast, which is what drew me to pick up Mother Land from a book store. The book is billed as a novel, but Theroux takes pains to make it feel as autobiographical as possible: the narrator is a travel write and novelist with two sons, and many of the family members referenced in the book correspond to real people in Theroux’s life, albeit with different names.

This lends a certain queasiness to the story, as the characters are, to put it bluntly, not pleasant people to be around. And no one is more unpleasant than the titular mother of Mother Land, a vain, narcissistic woman who sees her children more as treasures of conquest than actual people. The book chronicles a period stretching most of the narrator’s (Jay, though he may as well be named Paul) life, though it focuses primarily on two points: one period in his young adulthood when he fathered a child out of wedlock, and another in his middle age when his father dies and he moves back to Cape Cod. The plot is light and episodic, focused more on the interactions between the siblings than on events. There is a certain repetitiveness to the story, and we get the sense by the last fifty pages that Jay’s mother will simply never die. That she is somehow eternal, a creature of avarice feeding off her own young.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t exactly enjoy reading Mother Land, though that’s not to say the book was boring or bad. Theroux’s writing is rich, and his characters have great psychological depth. They just aren’t very nice people. I had no trouble picking p the book to read it, but when it was over, my biggest feeling was of relief. It’s a feeling shared by the children at their mother’s death, so this sensation may be deliberate. If so, then it’s a bold literary move and one Theroux should be proud of. It takes courage to write such an ugly book, especially one that most readers will assume is about you and your family.

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) - Jean-Dominique Bauby

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon est une livre autobiographique de Jean-Dominique Bauby, un auteur et journaliste Parisien qui était le rédacteur en chef du magazine féminin Elle. La livre s’agit son expérience avec Locked-In Syndrome, dont il a devenu une victime après un attaque cérébrale. L’histoire de comment la livre était écrit, c’est presque plus fascinant que la livre soi-même. Complètement paralysé sauf pour sa paupière gauche, qui il a cligné pour signaler chaque lettre. Une autre personne reciterait chaque lettre de l’alphabet, qui étaient arrangé dans l’ordre de fréquence descendant en la langue Français.

Par ce système tellement fatiguant, Bauby a écrit une livre lyrique est fascinant. Il flotte entre le présent et le passé, discutant un moment le process de son bain, un autre moment un souvenir d’un jour en vacances. C’était une livre plus difficile à comprendre que j’avait pensé, mais néanmoins je m’amusais en lisant. Sa détermination est formidable, et c’est poignant le fait qu’il s’a mort seulement deux jours après la livre était publié.

The Incomplete Book of Running - Peter Sagal

I’m a sucker for books I encounter by happenstance. In the case of the Incomplete Book of Running, my wife bought a copy for a friend, and unwisely left it on the kitchen counter where I could see it (she should know better). I have no interest in running, and I’d never heard of Peter Sagal or his game show, but the cover intrigued me and I picked it up, intending to read a few pages. A few pages became a few chapters, and I finished it in two days.

The book is a though one to categorize. Part memoir, part manifesto, it uses a loose collection of stories from Sagal’s life to reflect on what running means to him, what it’s done for him, and why it is people like to do it. Sagal eschews a linear narrative, instead bouncing around in time and space (an early reference to Billy Pilgrim sets this up nicely) while using the year of 2013 as a touchstone—a pivotal year in Sagal’s life, begun with his witnessing the horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon, and subsumed with a messy divorce that left him a bachelor in his forties. Though not shining from rough subjects, the tone is never maudlin, and Sagal demonstrates a keen wit throughout.

Jokes are hard to pull off on paper. It’s a skill distinct from stand-up comedy, and Sagal has it. Beyond being funny, the prose has a good momentum to it, lyrical without excess imagery or verbiage. It’s surprising to see an autobiography by a non-writer read so smoothly. Though it did say that he was a playwright at one point, which may explain it. In any case, it made me want to listen to his game show.