This is a quick, one afternoon read, chronicling one woman’s childbirth experience. Lore shows up at a Manhattan hospital alone with a multi-page birth plan. We don’t know why she’s alone or why she has prepared such an intricate birth plan. Over the course of the next eleven hours, she connects with her nurse, Frankline, the only one who seems to understand Lore–or at least the only one who has the patience to try to understand her. Frankline is also pregnant, though no one knows yet, and she is coping with the
fear of repeating her previous unsuccessful pregnancy and childbirth. Though the setting remains entirely in the hospital, we find out Lore’s story–her reason for arriving alone, her relationship with the father, her teenage years lost to caring for her sick mother–all while she labors. And we find out Frankline’s story of life in Haiti and of her wish for a child. Told in third person, we see both women’s actions, their words, and also their thoughts which flashback to the past and then forward again to Lore’s current pain. This is a page-turner in a weird sort of way. It feels like we’re in the room experiencing Lore’s childbirth along with her.
The end leaves us a bit hazy on precisely what happens, but I was okay with that. One line near the beginning of the story made me stop and reread a few times: “She (Lore) would like the surprise of children, the way they bring pieces of the outer world back to you, pieces of the past, present, and future. The way they are always in a place where you cannot quite meet them” (31). That last part about them always being in a place where you cannot quite meet them feels so true, and yet I never thought of it that way.
The mere suggestion of the self-help genre would undoubtedly ruin the experience, but thematically, it fits. This novel about a Russian aristocrat, Count Alexander Rostov, confined to a hotel in Moscow for his entire adult life due to “revolutionary writings” (aka: a poem), offers such beautiful language, Towles transports readers into another world. Through the Count’s eyes and experiences, we see the transformation of Russia, from the early 1920’s to the mid 1950’s–the rise of comrades, the brutality of the leadership, and the humanity of many people. Though the Count is confined to his tiny attic room plus the hotel’s common areas, he creates a world that feels far larger, and much of the time it’s easy to forget he has never left the physical building as the story seems to grow outward rather than inward. He leaves the hotel in so many other ways through relationships, stories, and shared experiences. 
I read this book many months ago, probably last fall: post election season. Like everyone else, I was looking for answers. I was trying to get a better understanding of the rural population in flyover states (in this case rural Kentucky and Ohio) and why many of them voted the way they did. So I went into the book looking for specific answers. In that sense, I felt gyped. I left the last page with more questions than answers, more scrunched eyes than clarifications. But then I realized I was reading for such a specific purpose that maybe I wasn’t processing all the information openly. So I sat down and reread it a few weeks later with the attitude that I’d glean what I could from it rather than assuming it would magically clarify the tumultuous thoughts in my head. My second read was better at helping me listen and see, though it was not necessarily better at helping me understand. What I walked away with was a book of contradictions–but in a sense, I think that’s much of what Vance feels about his people and value systems: contradictions.
I’ve never taught this book, and as an English teacher, I’m a bit embarrassed to say I’ve not read it until now. I do know this: there is no way I could have appreciated this book as a student the way I can as a parent. I’m sure some students would really like it, but I think others would get bored. While it may engage them with the familiar theme of rebellion, I don’t think students could comprehend the agony of choices that comes with parenting. In a nutshell, Asher is born into a Ladover Hasidic Jewish family in Brooklyn in the 1950s (Wikipedia was my friend here–I knew we were talking about orthodox Jews, but I had no idea what Ladover or Hasid actually meant). His father works for the Rabbe (which also confused me as I initially thought it was just a different spelling of Rabbi, but apparently a Rabbe is more of the top guy among a whole sect of people), essentially creating schools and communities that spread their brand of Orthodox Judaism throughout the world. The kids–Asher included–go to school all day learning Hebrew, praying, and reading the Torah, and not seemingly much else. So the goal of school is not so much an education but an indoctrination. I couldn’t help but think this is pretty much what some of the current Madrassas in the Middle East are–schools that teach you to be a religious zealot.
thetime. Needing the distraction, I found myself willing to overlook the less than stellar writing. The historical aspect of the novel took me away to pre WWII in both the US and Europe. Taking place in New York in the late 1930s, the story centers around the abstract expressionist movement of the WPA, something I know little about: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Mark Rothko are the key players–all students of Hans Hofffman. The main character, Alizee Benoit is one of the only purely fictional characters. Many of the others–including Eleanor Roosevelt, an avid supporter of the arts and of progressive ideas–are historical figures, though Shapiro has taken great liberty (a fact disclosed in the end notes) in creating them, so who knows how much, if any, of their words or actions accurately portray them.
compelling WWII story that kept me up until 2 am reading the last 150 pages because I simply couldn’t go to bed without finishing it. Set in France just prior to and during the war, it centers around two sisters, abandoned at young ages by their father after their mother dies. Haunted by the first World War, he is no longer able to cope without his wife. His older daughter, Vianne, soon falls in love, becomes pregnant, and marries at 17. She moves to an old family home to start her own family and raise her young sister, but after suffering a series of miscarriages, she can no longer care for Isabelle who is then left to fend for herself at various boarding and finishing schools, many of which she gets kicked out of due to her rebellious spirit. Vianne feels guilty and Isabelle, resentful. When the Germans occupy France, eventually rounding up Jews and shipping them off, both girls are affected–not only by lack of food, heat, and basic provisions, but also by their involvement in efforts to save or hide those in peril. For Vianne, it’s her neighbor and best friend who is Jewish, and for Isabelle it’s as a smuggler for downed pilots and others who need to get out of France so they can continue fighting with the Allied forces. It’s a bit of a soap opera and probably not much of a discussion book, but I couldn’t help becoming completely drawn into their world, wondering if I’d ever be brave enough to volunteer as a smuggler or if I’d be more reserved like Vianne, trying to go unnoticed in an effort protect her daughter. Yet, even she takes action when her best friend is taken away leaving her baby with Vianne.
ft from my sister. We were planning a trip to Budapest to visit my son, and she was combing for quality books about or written by Hungarians. Turns out this one was reviewed in the NYT just last year as a relatively unknown gem. Not much happens in this story. Mostly it’s a story about the relationship between two women–the narrator, a writer, and her housekeeper, Emerence. And through them, it is also a study in all human relationships. It deserves to be read slowly, to notice the intricacies of the push and pull of people who depend on one another. In this particular relationship, it is Emerence, the illiterate housekeeper who also sweeps the street (year round) in front of 11 houses on the street, takes care of the sick, and also is some sort of animal whisperer, that wields the power. The story is told in flashback to a time when the narrator (who only mentions her name once or twice) gets her writing career back up and running after a hiatus through the Communist years in Hungary, she and her husband need a housekeeper, but when she finds Emerence, it is Emerence who agrees to “try them out.” She remains a mysterious woman (often arriving and leaving at odd hours and in silence) throughout the novel as the narrator tries–sometimes successfully and often not–to understand her. Their relationship teeter totters as the narrator missteps, then backsteps, and takes a step forward to repair their working relationship. It sounds weird that a 250+ page novel centering around an educated writer and her peasant housekeeper could be so engaging. But it is. The writing is beautiful, and the Hungarian history embedded into the story offers the larger context of the political and economic landscape, much of which also contributes to the awkward balance and co-dependence in their relationship. The fact that it’s told in flashback–when the narrator is an old woman–contributes to its reflective quality. This is not a fast read. It deserves pondering, trying to make sense of the most intricate human interaction and all of its emotional and psychological complexities.
