The French Novel THE HEART by Maylis de Kerangal - A Lyrical Contemplation of Human Connections

French novelist Maylis de Kerangal (b 1967) received the Grand Prix Lire & Student Choice for Best Novel (2014) for THE HEART.  The nucleus of this exquisite elegy to life and the fibrous interconnections we create circulate around a heart transplant.  Simon is a virile 20 year drawn by the pulse of the tides.  He surfs & revels in the thrill of becoming one with the ocean.  The energy he draws from his passion cresting the waves is boundless.  However, our ties to life are tenuous.  Simon is returning home from an early exhilarating morning of surfing with his friends when the car crashes sending Simon head first through the windshield.  The force of the impact causes a complete loss of brain function.  Simon's heart continues its function of pumping blood throughout the body.  Simon's traumatic head injury proves fatal.  His mother is notified of her son's accident and fears for the worst.  Hastily, she leaves Simon's young sister with a neighbor & phones her ex, Simon's father.  After seeing their son who appears to be in a deep sleep, they're ushered into a private room where a surgeon informs them Simon is in an irreversible coma; mort.  The anguish of his parents is unbearable, emotions raw.  His parents are then pressed (as there is limited time line) if their son would have wanted to donate his heart & organs to enable others to go on living.  Maylis' lyrical writing intwines Simon's life with those lives he impacts going forward: medical staff involved in removing & transplanting his organs and the woman who will be the recipient of the life saving gift of his heart.   The constraints of the novel are driven by the pressure of time that is limited in order to carry out successful transplants.  The reader is rushed along the hospital procedures & guidelines with trajectories flowing into a vast divergence of lives that become joined.  This isn't a technical examination of scientific & medical technologies.  It's a profound understanding of the ephemeral ties we make in life, the constant flux of emotions and our unattainable mortality.  Maylis writing is mournful and poetic.  "What will become of everything that filled that heart, its emotions slowly deposited in stages since the first day, inoculated here & there in a rush of enthusiasm or a fit of rage, its friendships & enmities, its grudges, its vehemence its serious and tender inclinations?"  People's lives are splayed in infinite possibilities but our human essence bonds us all.  THE HEART is a life affirming novel and stirring homage to the adage, wake up & smell the coffee.

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng - Scorching Sequestered Secrets and Social Dilemmas

Celeste Ng (b Amer 1980) won the Amazon Book of the Year Award for EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU (2014).  LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE shares story arcs based on maintaining secrets  which lead to false conclusions and calamitous repercussion.  LITTLE FIRES begins with a destructive house fire whose culprit is assumed.  The story sizzles along to its combustive outcomes.  This novel draws on numerous characters & broaches hot topics.  There are two main families, the Richardsons who live in wealthy, pristine Shaker Heights, CL.  The mother is a reporter (with her own repressed story) the father, an atty. and 4 robust, high school kids, 2 girls Lexi & Izzy (a volatile & much maligned daughter) 2 boys, handsome, athletic Trip and Moody, pensive & sincere.  Moody befriends Pearl, the new girl, Mia's daughter.  Mia is an enigmatic single parent and prodigious photographer.  Pearl (name derived from SCARLETT LETTER) and Mia have been living an itinerant lifestyle according to Mia's whims.  Moody & Pearl became fast & furious friends; both share a sensitive nature.  Moody brings Pearl into the Richardsons household where she becomes affixed to the family.  Mrs. Richardson sees things in terms of black/white, right or wrong.  She is self-righteous & manipulative.  She believes passion, like fire is a dangerous thing & too easily burns out of control.  Mia, is a mysterious observer who navigates in a gray area where things are neither quite right or quite wrong.  Mia may view issues from multiple perspectives but she intervenes when she perceives an injustice.  The novel makes nuanced observations, reveals unexplored convictions and & closely examines compelling social issues.  It appears many parents are unable to appreciate their offspring as well as those outside the family.  Photography becomes a metaphor for seeing things from opposing perspectives like comparing a photograph to its negative image.  Pearl melds into the Richardson's family & as Izzy & Lexi become deeply attached to Mia; positions blurred.  Mia is a subsidized tenant of Mrs. Richardson who rents to those deemed worthy of her generosity.  However, Mrs. Richardson is unable to see the bigger picture or outside a set frame of thinking.  There is a heart wrenching custody case involving an infant left at a firehouse which ignites heated debate.  The court must decide whether the birth mother or foster parents are entitled to custody.  The battle pits Mia surreptitiously v. the couple vying for adoption who retain counsel from Mr. Richardson.  Teenage drama sparks the storyline with lust, secrets and turmoils.  "The young are the same always & everywhere."    LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE ignites fiery emotional responses to this thought provoking and enthralling novel.  

Nicole Krauss' FOREST DARK - A Melange of Mysticism, Memoir and Existentialism

Nicole Krauss (b Amer 1974) is a gifted novelist (A HISTORY of LOVE) whose novel THE GREAT HOUSE was a Nat'l Bk Award finalist.  FOREST DARK is a novel that loosely connects two characters with their ties to the Hilton hotel in Tel Aviv.  Nicole is the female protagonist, an acclaimed Amer. novelist with 2 young sons & a marriage hanging by a thread.  The male protagonist, Jules Eisman, is a wealthy Amer. atty., father of 3 young adults, recently divorced from a long & seemingly copacetic marriage.  Krauss discreetly intertwines different people from different walks of life.  Nicole & Jules are both of the Jewish faith with indeterminate religious convictions .  Still both maintain a cohesive connection to their Jewish heritage and to Israel.  Jules is the vociferous character used to being in charge & doling out commands.  Not to say Jules is a tyrant, but there is an irony to him playing the role of King David in a film towards the end of the novel.  Jules is going through an existential transformation purging himself of most of his valuable possessions.  He sojourns on a journey to Tel Aviv at the happenstance urging of a Rabbi.  Nicole who shares the same name as the author bears other similarities with the writer; such as 2 sons and a dissolution of a 10 year marriage.  The foundation is laid to make assumptions the fictional Nicole represents Krauss herself.  Nicole is experience the same nagging rootless & restless feelings experienced by Jules.  She imagines herself both in the future and in a future that is tied to the present.  She too leaves her home in the US to awaken her creativity & a sense of herself.  She believes it's only with distance & her eventual return to the home that shelters her can she discover her true self.  Both character's feckless behaviors make them both seem too easily lead.  But, their contemplative, inward reflections draw them out as both surreal & complex people.  "Some of us are touched too much, and some too little; it is the balance that seems impossible to get right."  Both Nicole & Jules ponder spirituality, heritage and the legacy they will leave.  The climatic deja vu entendu ending is both calming & horrific.  It speaks to the never ending search for or believing in meaning.  Krauss continues to expand her craft as a writer of great intelligence.  She creates in a diaphanous style that bridges mysticism & exceptional storytelling.

Yaa Gyasi's Novel "Homegoing" - Slave Trade Stemming from 18th C Ghana

Yaa Gyasi (b Ghana 1989) marks her debut novel with an epic an intimate look at slavery from within the African nation of Ghana & its war faring tribes and the far-flung tragedies of slavery.  The novel is broken down into separate families that broke off at 2 unbeknownst sisters and their family lineage & legacies.  The chapters break off the story-telling into many fractions that became too much of a distraction.  I kept putting down the novel with its truly devastating historic travesties and kept finding it harder to go back to Gyasi's "Homegoing" novel.  Although there is much to commend Gyasi's novel for including its courageous content and dazzling writing I made it half-way through this arduous journey and decided not to return.  "Homegoing" is an inspirational as well as purposefully shameful retelling of history's notorious practice of slavery.  I don't want to discourage readers from this well-worth reading tale, but truth be told, having gone on a journey half-way round the world and half-way through this dense book, I will not be returning.

"Miss Jane" A Novel by Brad Watson based on His Aunt Born with a Debilitating Congenital Disorder

"Miss Jane" is an old fashioned novel, set in MS in the early 20th C written in a languorous style.  Our heroine Miss Jane is born into a stoic farming family in a rural MS town.  Jane's birth, which was not a heralded event by the Chisholm household.  She was born to an embittered mother and stoic father.  Complicating the unwelcome child into this household which had its share of death, is the child's rare congenital disorder.  Brad Watson's unhurried storytelling slowly reveal the specific birth defect that mars Jane's future chances at finding love and forming her own family.  Watson (b Amer 1955) is a distinguished novelist.  "The Heaven of Mercury" was a Nat'l Book Finalist and "Aliens at the Prime of Their Lives" won the Pen/Faulkner Award.  Watson's languid writing allows the reader to assume the girl is a hermaphrodite; having birth female & male genitalia.  The local country Dr. Thompson who delivers Jane will remain a major companion in her life.  Dr. Thompson instructs the embittered mother to raise their newborn as a girl.  The parents have buried two children & their 2 oldest sons have already left to raise their own families.  The only sibling living at home is Jane's much older sister Grace who assumes the key role in raising her while devising her own nefarious escape from this desolate place.   Jane is mystified with a sense that she herself is some kind of curious creature; unlike other females.  Jane's congenital disorder is persistent cloaca  revealed later in the story.  Persistent cloaca is when the body develops only one orifice for the anus, urethra and vagina.  In small towns, there are no secrets, plenty of gossip & resentments.  People's cruel ignorance abounds within & outside of the Chisholm home.  Moreover, the novel is a thoughtful examination of the melancholy borne of being alone in the world.  Knowing of Jane's palpable isolation we still see her as an impenetrable force in the world.  Dr. Thompson, a steadfast confidant answers all Jane's inquiries candidly to the best of his ability.  He assures her the highest form of love transcends physical love and that the love of one person for another defies classification.  "Miss Jane' is a character driven story underscored by human nature that defies the need for physical perfection.  Sadly, human nature also has the tendency to dissipate over time.  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (J. Keats)

Literary Legend E.B. White's "Here is New York" Speaks Eloquently to NYC's Past, Present & Future

E. B. White (b Amer 1899-1985) is one of America's most distinguished writers of the 20th C.  White's writing has earned every prestigious literary award.  These awards include a Pulitzer Prize, an Amer. Acad. of Arts & Letters Honor and the National Medal for Literature.  President John Kennedy bestowed White the Meal of Freedom in 1963.  White's writing is astutely observational & companionably, conversational.  Needless to say, I regard his brilliant writing with the utmost esteem.  "Here is New York" is an astute essay that paints New York's past; its people, places & pervading tones with an undulating patina. His clever candor in dissecting the metropolis' population into 3 groups is humorous & haughty.  I concur with White's assessment that the heart & pulse of the city comes from those who chose the city as their home with a passion to succeed in their aspirations,  and aim to make the city their home.  Those born here are seen as fortunate by the luck of their birth.  The   upper east siders alluded to as jaded & shrouded behind their inherited wealth.  The milieu of commuters are scorned for taking what the city provides them in income only to retreat to their strewn suburbia.  These commuters enter & exist the city without taking in all the allure & mystique  waiting around every corner in the multitudes of uniquely defined neighborhood.  Not everything is portrayed from behind rosy glasses.  In fact, the grunge, poverty and olfactory offenses are dutifully noted.  So too are glimpses of budding romances & ubiquitous parades that pummel the city relentlessly.  Nonetheless, there is an unmitigated, self-congratulatory pride for all who chose to reside in the most remarkable & indomitable city in the world.  White believes it essential for NYC to solidify.  "In New York smolders every race problem there is, but the noticeable thing is not the problem but the inviolate truce. The city has to be tolerant, otherwise it would explode in a radioactive cloud of hate and rancor and bigotry."  E.B. White's profound essay written in 1948 is disturbingly prophetic.  "The city at last perfectly illustrates both the universal dilemma and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence, of racial brotherhood, the lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errand forestalled."

Margaret Atwood's "The Heart Stops Lasts" Dystopian Affairs of the Heart

Margaret Atwood is one of Canada's most prominent novelists.  Born in 1939, Atwood is highly acclaimed for her sci-fi futuristic dystopian novels (The Handmaid's Tale & Oryx and Crake).  She's also writes essays & political commentary seeking social reform & environmental conservation.  "The Heart Stops Lasts" fits the dystopian genre yet it generates more heat entwining sexual mores & prison reform.  Stan (the man) and Charmaine (charming & gentle) are newly married. They're full of hopes & dreams that come crashing down soon after their vows & are now living in a survivalist "road warrior" world as the economics comes crashing down.  They live in their car in constant fear & long for normalcy.  The US is now a dystopian nightmare & the reality of their dire circumstances leads them to an experimental, self-contained community; plenty to eat, clean living conditions, safe & secure behind a citadel.  This haven is known as Consilience & Positron.  It has a few catches.  First, you have to be selected.  Then, you must sign away your right to ever leave.  One more thing, while you get to live to in clean safe surroundings, proffered plenty to eat, every other month you must live within the confines of a benign prison.  The sexes are separated & the prison requires you to share a cell & do assigned work.  The alternating month outside the prison also comes with work assignments but it feels like heaven to Charmaine compared to the barbaric conditions outside the compound.  Atwood is at her best constructing a society that credibly & chillingly starts to constrain any pretense of liberation.  Humans are hardwired for survival & for disavowing responsibility for one's own actions.  What may have started as a misguided plan for a utopian society by politicians to create jobs, save taxpayers money & avoid anarchy is too easily corruptible by oligarchs.  The new society model misappropriates people's bodies & eliminates all human rights.   Added intrigue is produced by sexual oppression & animalistic libidos (hints of Huxley's 1984).  The infinite suggestibility of the human mind is also examined.  Atwood cuts into both Stan & Charmaine's minds; an increasingly twisted & troubling place to dwell.  The title "The Heart Stops Lasts" refers to a procedure never referred to as murder but undesirables or bodies desired for their parts are drugged causing the heart to stop.  Poor Charmaine, they Positron big wigs "expected her to use her head & discard her heart, but it wasn't so easy because the heart goes last and hers was still clinging on inside her all the time."  Don't deceive yourself.  Looks are deceiving.  Poor Charmaine may not be as pure as perceived.  There are boundaries & then there are boundaries.