The Two Hotel Francforts

One week ago, on Friday, I finished David Leavitt's The Two Hotel Francforts. This novel takes place in summer of 1940 in Lisbon, Portugal. It is the only neutral port left in Europe during WWII. It is filled with all kinds of people - including refugees - trying to escape and "tipping back absinthe" to pass the time. I hadn't realized it when I bought the book but the novel itself is very sexually charged with an improbable affair, a woman whose status as a Jew leaves her desire to stay in Europe a foolish one, and another woman whose desperate attempts to hold her marriage together come off as uncomfortable and insincere.

This story is separated into chapters and parts. The first part is entitled Anywhere. Two couples meet in Lisbon. Pete and Julia and then Edward and Iris. Immediately Pete (our narrator) feels that Edward is an intriguing man. Someone he feels the need to read like a book - someone he wants to read like a book. Julia, Pete's wife, doesn't share the same enthusiasm for Edward and maybe even less so for his wife Iris. Julia, who is Jewish, does not want to board the ship coming to take Americans back home. She hates Portugal but even suggests staying there for the duration of the war rather than go back home to America. Julia gives us some foreshadowing to her fate. We find out early on that Julia will die at the end of the book but we don't know how. She does, however, speak matter-of-fact-like about suicide and death. She turns to Edward and Iris and comments, almost bitterly, how Pete is hopelessly committed to life. Iris comments that someone once told her that if you jump off a roof you should dive headfirst - that way you die instantly. "My, what a grim turn the conversation has taken!" Iris exclaims. Then we hear Edward retort that "You'd think the world was ending or something." For this foursome what they do not know at this time is that for them, Lisbon will be the end of the world as they know it. After their fateful meeting their lives will change forever. 

What we find out is that Pete and Edward start to go on strange adventures together. And in true Brokeback Mountain fashion the two develop a strange relationship together in their isolation from their wives. Edward finds happiness with Pete. Edward also realizes that to have any happiness in Portugal of all places, is bittersweet. "All around us, all you can see is suffering and fear, suffering and panic. And then when you consider that people here, they're the lucky ones, just because they managed to get this far ... What right do I have to be happy. Yet I am. I'm not ashamed of it, either." Edward, Pete, and their wives are safe and yet they are still feeding on the suffering and pain of others. They're elated that they are safe. They feel giddy at knowing what the rest of Europe is feeling like at this moment. 

The second part is entitled Somewhere. Along with the ritual of drinking absinthe - the sugar cube, the slotted spoon - comes the ritual of making excuses. Through the aftermath-absinthe haze, Pete struggles to understand what happened the night before between him and Edward ... the only true evidence is sand that seems to spill from his shoes, the hair on his body, every crevice ... sand spilling like lice, clogging up the bathtub drain ... evidence of an affair that will inevitably change the course of all of their futures. 

Nowhere. Here we find out more about Edward. He is mercurial. "You could reach for him, and sometimes you would grab hold of him. But sometimes all you would grab hold of was a reflection of a reflection in a revolving door." Edward was capricious. Having never been fired from a job he was under the impression that employers could be just as forgiving as mothers. Edward incites and exhibits jealousy, pride, and passion. Here is a novel that is unpredictably sexually charged and carries always a tension among its chief characters. In a sort of purgatory of Portugal we have Pete falling for Edward although he can't understand why. Edward reminds me of the character "Lady" in Fin and Lady. Described as mercurial and capricious but charismatic and enchanting as well. Unfortunately we start to see that the people we love in life - the carefree, mercurial, capricious sorts - are often the ones plagued with depression and who are ultimately unsatisfied with some part of who they are and what life is. 

In this we part we discover more about who Edward and Iris are together. They had a child who they then institutionalized before Edward's mother rescued her. We find out later that their daughter actually only had autism which unfortunately was not recognized at the time. It is said, however, that their daughter probably led a better life with her grandmother than she would have with her own parents, Edward and Iris. Iris also, we find, loses her sexual attraction to Edward in that "her fear of conceiving another idiot exceeded her fear of losing her husband to another woman, though only by a hair." So they moved to France - just as Pete and Julia had moved to France to get away from their own problems (and family) back in America.

In this part we see resentment building between the foursome. Wives against their husbands, husbands against their wives. Edward against Pete, Pete against Edward. Iris and Julia experience a sort of alienation of their husbands' affections. Iris is described at feeling at home nowhere whereas Edward can fit in anywhere and make people love him anywhere. However, Edward has a habit of "becoming besotted with a place until his infatuation soured into boredom, his boredom into depression, and he suffered what Iris called an 'episode'." Iris often excused Edward's episodes with the idea that he was a genius; as a very smart man his genius must excuse his mental illness. Eventually Edward tries recompose himself at a place in Switzerland where he is diagnosed as being neurotic. Him and Iris eventually start writing novels together as a way to pass their time - usually mystery/detective novels written with the pseudonym Xavier Legrand. 

Iris and Edward continue on their roller coaster life - not knowing what to do or what will become of themselves. Iris keeps Edward alive and he despises her for it at times. Their relationship is sexually uncomfortable and with something akin to prostitution Edward encourages Iris to sleep with other men and he lives vicariously through her asking her to describe the encounters to him afterward. 

This novel begs the question of its readers - everyone has problems but whose are worse? When Edward and Iris finally start to get their relationship back on track the Germans come and then six months later in Lisbon, Pete comes. And so Iris has not only Pete to contend with but the the stress of them having to leave their expatriate lives in France and move back to a country that no longer feels like home. 

Iris, knowing full well what is going on, warns Pete that he can never tell Julia about his affair with Edward - that it would crush her. And so Pete struggles with his feelings for this other man (Edward), the obvious contempt felt for him by Iris, and his wife Julia who further retreats into herself and her endless games of solitaire played with a mini-deck of cards that she carries with her everywhere. To try and keep Edward and Pete from engaging in their illicit love affair, Iris often forces Edward to carry around their aging dog, Daisy - who quite honestly becomes the only truly likable character in the book. "Illicit lovers understand better than most the malaise of having to carry on private business in public. It is like trying to fit yourself into the last stripe of cool shade on a hot sidewalk. If we had no alternative, we would take refuge in men's toilets, our pants around our ankles and Edward holding Daisy under his left arm like a pocketbook." All the while Iris is trying to entertain Julia and keep her from retreating like Edward sometimes does with his "episodes." 

When I started reading this book I was shocked. It didn't even come close to what my original expectations were. This is not a WWII story, it is not a love story, it's not even a story of survival. I've mentioned it before but it is a story about purgatory - emotional, physical, and romantic - purgatory. I did not have a desire to keep reading at one point but then I found myself drawn in by the odd sexual dynamics and relationship tensions. I found I had to keep reading. I found myself coming home from a long day of work and even exhausted I'd force myself to read a couple of pages - to try and figure out where the story was going. As previously stated the most likable character in the novel is the dog, Daisy. As Pete gets disappointed that Julia hasn't already killed herself, Daisy gets up on his laps and starts to lick his face. " 'Oh Daisy,' I said stroking her neck. 'When all is said and done, you're the one I'll miss most of all.'" To this, Edward replies ... "She's the one we'll all miss most of all." What does it say about a novel when the most beloved character is an old dog? Witness the indiscretions of its owners and their follies ... Daisy stays true to supporting human nature.

In another way this book reminds me of The Dinner by Herman Koch. I'm not sure exactly why ... perhaps it is the plot of two couples getting together - two couples who probably don't belong together - who are discussing matters that will gravely impact their futures.

Everywhere. Julia kills herself. Julia turned out, for me, to be one of the more interesting characers, but in all reality she was a character we never really got to know. Her story was not really one that our narrator, Pete (her husband), was willing or inclined to tell. I thought she was crazy and annoying when she was kind of right all along. Julia was misunderstood initially .... but in an intimate scene between her and Pete I think all women can recognize that feeling of just wanted to be touched and loved.

Julia and Edward were actually quite alike as we come to realize. Both in a situation, both experiencing "episodes," both ultimately displeased with life. "And she was dead-set on doing it - if you'll pardon the pun. Do you know what the Elevator operator told us? That she dove. Head first. So that was one piece of advice from Iris she took to heart."

A story placed in WWII, not about love, not about survival, not about ... anything really.

This story is not about the war because that story has been told before. Rather this story is about purgatory. About not wanting to rehash the past, being stuck in the uncertain present, and literally deathly afraid of the uncertain future. The Nazis did not get the Jewish Julia ... being alive is what "got" her. And the sad thing is we don't know why ... I'm sure that is feeling many families feel when a loved one kills themselves with no blunt explanation.

I feel like there is much more I could add to this review - and perhaps someday I'll add something to it. Is it worth reading? Yes ... in time. It is not something I would add to your urgent-need-to-read-soon-book list, but eventually when you have time and a quiet corner - yes. Yes then, then it is worth reading. Unfortunately the book is somewhat anticlimactic as we find out within the first 20 pages or so that Julia will die. The only question then is how does she die? And unfortunately that reveal doesn't appease the predictions. In fact it is very matter-of-fact and not at all revealing. Yes. Julia dies. Just like the two couples said earlier ... it's better to dive head first off a roof than any other way - you  will die faster. At times in this book I wished I'd get rid of it faster. But it's worth a good discussion, in my opinion.

Fin & Lady

I just finished reading today Cathleen Schine's novel Fin & Lady. This novel is about the sadness of death and experiencing too much of it at too young an age. It is about the sadness one might feel leaving behind animals, friends, and familiarity to go live with a sister you don't know. This novel is about secrets soon discovered, a half-sister who is crazy, and shame. This novel is about what freedom truly means and what love is. Fin is a child whose mother has just died leaving him with no guardians except for his sister, Lady. "The existence of Lady was revealed to Fin in pieces ..." Lady was revealed to be his half-sister - an image he kept with him as a four-year-old. A sister cut in half and he only saw the bottom. He was left feeling that "this decapitated sister was secret, and secrets, he already understood, were generally associated with shame."

Fin was originally supposed to meet his sister for the first time at her wedding when she was 18 years old. Unfortunately Lady had abandoned her groom at the altar to run away to Europe. A trend that Lady continues in the future. Fin's early memories of Lady include him and his family chasing her through Paris to the rocky beaches of Nice and then onto Italy. This story of Fin and Lady is told through a narrator whom we do not know. It is told through the fragmented lens of a child - the tidbits of Lady that Fin has told this anonymous narrator and that the narrator has fitted together. In this early memory phase of the Fin and Lady saga we learn that Lady is unhappy with reality has had something "taken care of" in Europe. I had my own guesses about what this something was that she took care of but I will leave you to read the book and make your own predictions. 

Eventually we find out that Fin as a child used to live in New York City and not a farm but we soon discover that his father (whom Lady despises - they share a father not a mother) has died. After his father's death his mother, Lydia (whom Lady loves), was left with nothing and so she moves back to Connecticut to live with her parents (Fin's grandparents) on a farm with cows and a collie named Gus. After Fin's grandparents died so did his mother. This leaves Fin with his unstable and immature sister, Lady. 

The year is 1964 when Fin moves back to New York City with Lady. He is eleven. At first life with Lady is an adventure (albeit a tiresome one). Soon though there comes signs of something being wrong. In New York Fin is hungry. "He had never had to prompt an adult to feed him before." He eventually makes a comment that he has to feed Gus, his collie, which finally zaps Lady into the realization that Fin should probably eat too. Lady doesn't eat. Lady drinks gin and scotch and doesn't eat. She doesn't buy Fin clothes when he grows and instead hands him money when she finally notices his clothes are too small and sends him off on his own. Lady is inherently selfish ... but Fin loves her ... and she loves Fin. Lady is obsessed with freedom and often has her "gilded cage days" where she needs to get away. Soon they move to Greenwich Village which to Fin was as good as a circus. 

Soon Lady implores Fin to help her weed out the "lemons" as she becomes determined to get married before 25 ... and she's 24 at the moment. Enter in here a trio of suitors - including a man who Lady tells Fin to refer to as "Uncle Ty." Uncle Ty is a man that Fin hates. He is the man that Lady was supposed to marry that fateful day when she was 18. 

Lady is eccentric and many people love her - but she always feels trapped. Men are enchanted by her eccentricity but it is precisely her eccentricity that also pushes people away (and they inevitably come back). Many men (including sometimes Fin) accuse Lady of being heartless but one thing is always clear. She loves Fin. "But how could you have a heart when everyone wanted to tear off pieces? And everyone did, until there was nothing left, that's what she meant. Everyone tearing like wolves. Except [Fin]." People like Lady, people who are magnetic, charismatic, "enchanting," people like that ... they are sometimes devoured by those around them who just want a piece of that magic smile. One older woman at a party that Lady throws to raise money for the "negro cause," comments that "Lady is one of those people who likes a good enemy, needs one ... Yes, she really does like to bat them around a bit." This, of course, referring to the men in Lady's life. Then this woman comments that she had a cat like Lady. She then asks her daughter, "What was the name of that cat? The one who played with the mice? While they were alive? .... Yes! Latimer. We had to put him down." Lady is judged frequently in this novel by Fin, by her companions, by her suitors, by her now deceased father ... and Lady just needs to get away and Fin finds himself not just being her brother ... but being her savior. 

"Lady grew up protecting her independence, what she could find of it, cherishing every moment of freedom, fighting for it. She was not inclined simply to hand it over, not about to share it with the world at large." Lady didn't take well to the sixties whereas Fin thrived in them. Lady in the novel is a capricious character, mercurial, and proud of it. She is against the draft, against politics, against psychedelic drugs, against love ... at least against those who love her because she just simply wants to love someone else. Fin is described as being "the child she never has to have," and Lady clearly has a pervasive fear of being alone. 

Her happy place is Capri ... that place where she first met Fin as a child when her family came to claim her back after her runaway bride episode. 

This novel is largely a story about Lady, told by Fin to someone. The best part of the novel is when we find out who that someone is - who the narrator truly is and for me it came as a genuine surprise. I had never guessed the true identity of the secret narrator correctly. It was at the moment that the narrator was revealed that the book, for me, became meaningful. The end is tragically beautiful and cyclical and while this might not be one of my favorite books it is definitely worth a read. You will find your sympathy growing throughout the novel and shooting out into full grown empathy in the end. You will feel with these characters and you will try to understand them just as many characters in the novel have tried to understand the Fin and Lady dynamic since the moment they met. 

Oooh!!!! Exciting News!

In some EXCITING NEWS!!!! ... I just received on Tuesday the sequel to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It is called Hollow City and I absolutely cannot WAIT to read it although I do have some other books lined up that I've got to get through first. If you haven't already please pick up the first book by Ransom Riggs and enjoy it! I loved its vintage photography and the fantastically horrific story line that went along with it. If you're unsure read my review about the first book by clicking the link in its title. I can't wait to update you on Hollow City. 

The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot is a wonderfully sophisticated novel about the pursuit of ideas, the pursuit of dreams, and the pursuit of true love. This novel is written by Jeffrey Eugenides, the author of Middlesex (which I had purchased somewhere near the middle of The Marriage Plot). This novel starts out with its three main characters still in college albeit just barely. They are all (so we think at first) about to graduate from Brown University. I had assumed that Madeleine, our only female main character, was the star of the book but it seems that the book is not about one singular person but more about "the marriage plot" in the 1980s. We also have Mitchell - the religious studies major - and Leonard ... the "wrong" guy who Madeleine is deeply in love with. 

The cover is pliable and I love holding it in my hands and feeling it with my fingers. The book has no chapters. Instead things are separated into parts. It does not say that there are parts however there will be a blank page with a bold title written on it and then the next section in this 1980s "marriage plot" begins.

Part One: A Madman in Love. The Marriage Plot reminds me of what it was like to be in college. The pompous students who drop the names of theorists like bombs to sound intellectual and impressive ... the ones who loudly proclaim their love and devotion for the chosen theorist of the hour, the know-it-all's, the party-goers, the studious ones determined to make Latin Honors. In college we all probably had the experimental professor who never really said or did anything and instead left the class up to the students whilst he sat in the window and nodded occasionally. The hipsters, the fear of speaking out loud in class (unless of course you had something incredibly profound or meaningful to say), the reserved judgment of those who spoke too often, the stress of what to do after graduation. Here we meet Madeleine ... "She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read." We discover that Madeleine's love for books is much like my own ... she becomes immersed in books. Running her fingers over their pages and "salt-spotted covers, She peeled apart pages made tacky by ocean air. She had no sympathy for paperback thrillers and detective stories. It was the abandoned hardback, the jacketless 1931 Dial Press edition ringed with many a coffee cup, that pierced Madeleine's heart." She is the type of girl to ignore the festivities going on in order to read for a while and "make the sad old book feel better." Madeleine loves books.

"And yet sometimes she worried about what those musty old books were doing to her. Some people mahored in English to prepare for law school. Others became journalists. The smartest guy in the honors program ... a child of academics, was planning on getting a Pg.D. and becoming an academic himself. That left a large contingent of people majoring in English by default... English was what people who didn't know what to major in majored in." Madeleine is a confused girl, blinded by what she believes to be love and uncertain of her future. Madeleine is indeed like me in some ways, which I think is why I connected to this novel so quickly, but on the other hand her book list seems more sophisticated than mine - many of the classics, many from the Victorian age, and quite a few that seem obscure to me. 

This novel takes place in the 1980s - a decade close to my "era" which would be the 1990s to the 2000s. Funny how I was born in 1989 and yet this decade is seemingly too far away or mysterious for me to imagine and connect to. I don't get the pop culture references or the politics. I've never had an interest in the 1980s and therefore this time period is challenging for me to comprehend. 

Our story starts with a hungover depiction of Madeleine on the morning of graduation day. Here is our soon-to-be college graduate of Brown with no job, no place to live, and no boyfriend. Her parents are irritating her hangover by showing up at her apartment. They annoy her and this is obvious. The novel just became instantly engaging. We are sucked into her life ... or rather we consume her life like a vacuum consuming cookie crumbs hoping to put them all together to realize the whole. 

Madeleine's life is falling apart at the beginning. Having recently broken up with Leonard she is facing the gloom and doom of breakups and singledom and this is clouding not only her judgment but her hopes for the future. The problem at this time is that love isn't living up to its standards. Madeleine takes us back to a seminar she took where she decided to make her senior honors thesis about "the marriage plot." The marriage plot has disappeared in novels nowadays because culturally it is not relevant anymore. 

Example: "In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money, novelists had had a subject to write about. The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma married if she could file for separation later? How would Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond have been affected by the existence of a prenup? Where could you find the marriage plot nowadays? You couldn't had to read historical fiction. You had to read non-Western novels ... You had to go, literarily speaking, back in time." And so Madeleine is obsessed with the demise of the marriage plot and the emergence of feminism (in a nutshell). The disintegration of marriage led to the disintegration of the novel. Novels have now had to become something else entirely. 

Soon we shift into Mitchell's perspective. Madeleine is the girl he wants to marry. He knows this and he believes in it. The only problem with this is that Madeleine is still in love with her ex-boyfriend, Leonard. "Madeleine allowed herself once again to wish the forbidden wish of getting back together with Leonard. It seemed to her that if she could just have that one thing, all her other problems would bearable." Do you sense a familiar plot coming on? Girl loves the wrong guy, the right guy is right there all along, but will she have the strength to chose the right one??? Or more importantly ... does a woman need a man romantically to feel fulfilled? Will the man recognize this? 

So part one is entitled A Madman in Love, but for us it is hard to know who the title is referring to. Love is intense.

Pilgirms starts with Mitchell and his friend Larry in Paris on the start of their 8-9 month trip abroad. Claire, Larry's girlfriend, is offering up a place for them to stay but Mitchell quickly realizes that his personality clashes with Claire's fierce feminist one. Mitchell leaves Claire's apartment eventually to leave the two lovebirds some space, but he is more than anything enthralled with the picturesque disrepair of Paris. "It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully." A quote that can be applied to many situations. Here some themes start to really take flight - religion, sexism, misogyny, feminism, literature, etc. Also Mitchell struggles not only to find an ideal religious experience but he also struggles with being an American abroad. Madeleine (on the other side of the world) is struggling with feminism as well but in a different way as she examines the Victorian age. Issues of gender equality sprout up in both of their lives. As Mitchell fights with Claire-the-Feminist in Paris (she gets particularly cheesed when he's caught reading Hemingway), Madeleine is back together with the manic-depressive Leonard (oh right, he's mentally ill ... forgot to mention that) and her mother and sister have come for a visit. Madeleine is charged with the task of convincing her sister to go back to her husband and baby (whom she's left). Maddy's sister responds with "If you want a career my advice is don't get married. You think things have changed and there's some kind of gender equality now, that men are different, but I've got new for you. They're not. They're just as shitty and selfish as Daddy was. Is." 

As Mitchell and Larry finally leave Paris, Mitchell's preoccupation with religion becomes even more pronounced. In Greece Mitchell is accosted by a religious Christian who bombards him with questions about why is he in Greece and "Are you a Christian?" Something to be clear about is that religion in this novel plays a huge part particularly in Mitchell's life. At one point he considers going to divinity school to become a theologian. However, Mitchell's views on religion itself are clear ... "The worst thing about religion was religious people." Mitchell is searching for peace and looking for something. And this something is undefined but he assumes it's something spiritual. Abroad he hopes to find this something as he simultaneously wishes to push Madeleine (and her renewed relationship with Leonard) far away. At the end of Pilgrims we have Mitchell heading off to India, leaving his now gay friend Larry behind in Athens with his new lover, and Mitchell has been handed a break up letter from a girl he never had to begin with. 

Brilliant Move. In Part 3 we hear from Leonard's perspective for the first time. We see his past history and the spiraling progression of his manic-depression. We see the class differences between him and Madeleine. He feels inadequate as he was brought up smoking weed and she was brought up with tennis lessons and a desire to watch Wimbledon tournaments in the mornings. We see more specifically what it was like for him to be in the hospital for mental illness and his feeling as if he was being interrogated for a crime. We understand how doped up he feels and relish his honesty as he describes suicidal people being brilliant tacticians. The author's tone in this section (Jeffrey Eugenides) hints at an aversion to religion which is an interesting comparison to Mitchell's religious search. At one point Leonard refers to a religious woman in group therapy as "surprising" him by not being a typical Christian. He believes most Christians are of less than favorable character traits ... namely being judgmental. "It didn't surprise Leonard that Darlene was religious. People without hope often were. But Darlene didn't seem weak, credulous, or stupid ... she seemed remarkably rational, intelligent, and nonjudgmental." We also hear at this point that to believe in God is not something Leonard is capable of doing. We also see that the only time Leonard and Mitchell have met one another was in fact in the only religious studies course that Leonard had ever taken. Leonard's brilliant move in this part is something that is a reflection of his illness. A desparate move that has not been well thought out at all.

Asleep in the Lord. Mitchell is in Calcutta. Calcutta now feels real to him because he is there for a purpose. "The best he could say about his travels so far was that they described the route of a pilgrimage that had led him to his present location." Mitchell now volunteers at a place he describes where old men go to die ... a hospital run by Mother Teresa. Mitchell is still searching for that something ... that religious experience that will make everything make sense for him. "If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely." Mitchell is still struggling with his journey and has an aversion to the sick men he is supposed to care for. The close to God that he gets the more aware of himself he is. He feels inadequate and has frequent desires to leave the muck, poverty, and illness that is Calcutta. It is in India, however, that Mitchell finds his something ... he has a revelation about Madeleine. 

**Spoiler Alert ... kind of:

And Sometimes They Were Very Sad. Madeleine is struggling to feel existential. She is married now to a manic-depression. Yes ... she and Leonard get married **that's kind of a spoiler but not really. Mitchell felt an urge in India to warn Madeleine against this decision that he anticipated her making, but his warning failed to reach her. He couldn't save her from her inevitable sadness. 

The Bachelorette's Survival Kit. It is here that the "marriage plot" is rewritten. Here is an ending that will defy your expectations. 

I fell in love with these characters. Well I kind of fell in love with them. I sort of hated Leonard but then I had examine my own attitude toward mental illness and I felt a little chastened by my analysis. I went on my own pilgrimage throughout this novel ... remembering college, my break-ups, my true-loves, my quest for that certain something - that something that was more than anything I had dreamed of - that something to make you feel complete. Here is a novel that gave me a plot that satisfied my feminist ideals, that challenged my feminist ideals, that puzzled me and kept me thinking for hours afterward ... it gave me the realities of relationships, the soothing nature of religion (and the frustrating contradictory nature of religion), and it filled the hole in my heart that can only be filled by traveling and reading. It took me places. It gave me an ending where the right thing happened and a true love story was born - a love story of hope, sacrifice, and comfort. This novel also proves that what you think you know in college is nothing compared to the lessons you learn in real life. I cannot urge you to read this book enough. I wish someone else had read it with me so I would have someone to talk to about it. It's complex and yet simple all at the same time. And its ending warmed my heart.


*** Update: I don't think I've mentioned this already but while reading this novel I thought it reminded me of the novel Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have never read the novel but I have seen the movie. My friends in college who did read the book told me that it was good although the religious section of the memoir got a little long and boring. Either way it's a woman's memoir about finding yourself and figuring out how parts of your life can fit together to make you who you are - which I believe is what Mitchell did in The Marriage Plot. He needed to graduate college, travel, pray, and find love - and once he finds love he has to figure out what to do with it. So if you read The Marriage Plot, pick up Eat, Pray, Love and tell me what  you think. If you like this you might also like The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. I've also got Jeffrey Eugenides's book Middlesex on my bookshelf now waiting to be read ... although Scott neglected to tell me we already owned it! Hidden away on our other bookshelf. Oh well ... anyone want a copy of it?

This is NOT mine ... but I thought it good to include another person's perspective on the novel. I also LOVE this evaluation sheet and might introduce it to my fifth graders.

2013: An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, the #1 bestselling New York Times author of The Fault in Our Stars was given to me from Scott as a gift. I had never heard of it, never had an innate desire to read, but soon after reading it discovered that I loved and adored every footnote and every reference to our main character sucking at being a child prodigy (and yes this book has footnotes).

An Abundance of Katherines was exceedingly clever by page 4. It is about child prodigy, Colin Singleton, who is called a "sitzpinkler" by his best friend, Hassan, and who has been dumped 19 times by girls named Katherine. Colin is obsessed with becoming a genius and mattering to society ... something he has been groomed to believe by his parents who upon hearing that he was a child prodigy felt that if they pushed him enough his crazy ability to learn things would turn into a crazy ability to make a difference in the world ... aka become a genius. This book made me feel good. 

The book includes 19 chapters and frequent footnotes which explain a part of the story which makes the footnotes a competing story (in my mind) but a fascinating one. Colin wants to become a genius, has a desire to learn Sanskrit, and eventually is convinced by his best friend to go on a road trip to overcome the whole in his stomach from his latest dumpee experience from Katherine XIX.

Here is the first couple sentences of the first paragraph of the novel ... and what ultimately led me to believe that I would love this story. It is funny. It is sad. And I can relate to Colin Singleton's melancholy:

"The morning after noted child prodigy Colin Singleton graduated from high school and got dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, he took a bath. Colin had always preferred baths; one of his general policies in life was never to do anything standing up that could just as easily be done lying down ..."

Footnote #3 of the book states that: Sitzpinkler is "A German word, slang for 'wimp,' that literally means 'a man who sits to pee.' Those wacky Germans - they've got a word for everything." 

Colin is a wuss. AND a pessimistic wuss at that ... who again needs to become a genius to feel that he matters to society. He is overly analytic of everything and his best friend is obese and in love with Judge Judy. 

Colin has a penchant for making anagrams. Such as turning POTS into STOP. He is therefore quite a whiz at scrabble. He has a slight obsession with numbers and statistics and believes that his claim to fame (fame being the adult replacement for popularity) is going to be his ability to create a mathematical formula (he doesn't consider himself good at math, but being a child prodigy he is still better than most people) that predicts how long a relationship will last - based on his relationship with many girls named Katherine and how much of a dumper or dumpee one person may be in any given relationship. Colin also has a preoccupation with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who become famous for basically doing nothing) and Franz Ferdinand ultimately becomes the reason why Hassan and Colin stop in the middle of nowhere during their road trip ... they see a sign to see the grave of the Archduke which seem entirely impossible to Colin - but he must check it out anyway. It is here in Gutshot, Tennessee that he meets Lindsey Lee Wells - a paramedic in training and also Franz Ferdinand tour guide. 

Lindsey Lee Wells's mother owns a factory that makes tampon strings. Colin is confused by many things having to do with women-kind. For example, "Tampons have string? Why? Of all the major human mysteries - God, the nature of the universe, etc. - he knew the least about tampons. To Colin, tampons were a little bit like grizzly bears: he was aware of their existence, but he'd never see on in the wild, and didn't really care to." Colin is recognized by Hollis Wells (Lindsey's mother) immediately because he won a game show for child geniuses (basically). Colin and Hassan decide to stay in Gutshot at Lindsey and Hollis's house, and Colin works to perfect his way to graph out human relationships. An appendix in the book is math-laden and explains how said formula predicts the rise and fall of relationships based on specific variables. John Green (the author) got his genius-math-friend to actually create the formula and the graphs.

Colin thinks about Katherine XIX a lot. "The missing piece in his stomach hurt so much - and eventually he stopped thinking about the Theorem and wondered only how something that isn't there can hurt you." His theorem is an attempt to reach his genius potential but also kick away some of the hurt that he feels because of his ended relationship with the last Katherine. 

When not thinking about Katherine, when not working on this mathematical theorem, Colin read books. "The reading quieted his brain a little. Without Katherine and without the Theorem and without his hopes of mattering, he had very little. But he always had books. Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back."

Colin reminds me of myself. When I'm depressed, when I feel like I don't matter, books take me away to somewhere better and give me all the love and solace I need. As I mentioned in my blog post about A Dance with Dragons ... readers can experience a thousand lives while someone who doesn't read will only know one. 

Colin continues to live in Gutshot. He and Lindsey (and Hassan) are paid by Hollis (Lindsey's mother) to record the stories of Gutshot locals (mostly people who worked at the factory in all things tamponery). This amazing book shifts from love, to compassion, to books, to telling stories. All things I love and value highly. The idea of "what does it mean to be meaningful" is explored more deeply as the book goes on. For example, George Hodel was a child prodigy (mentioned in the book) and he is also most likely a serial killer ... many speculate that he committed the Black Dahlia murder. And if you don't know what the Black Dahlia murder is, then you are stupid so go look it up and become less stupid. Thanks. 

Anyways ... in this book Colin and Hassan have best friend fights, Colin and Hassan learn to let one another know when they cross a line (dingleberries or some such code word), Colin learns to become less of a sitzpinkler, and everyone learns that to matter you have to believe that you matter. This book is hilarious. It is poignant. It is a delightful story about what it means to tell stories and what it means to hear them ... something I explored in my senior year project (details of that senior project are posted below). This books ends up being about compassion. What does it mean to be compassionate, what does that look like and feel like (sometimes it's severely unpleasant), and what does it truly mean to matter in life? As teenagers we also come to face the realization that we're not as special as we thought we were once. 

I cannot recommend this story enough. 

Love, compassion, stories, growing up and coming-of-age ... An Abundance of Katherines is about having an abundance of potential and being brave enough to bring that potential forth. The book is truly a comical masterpiece with heartfelt sincerity. The Fault in Our Stars was a great book but I feel as though this book has more to it if you're willing to look. Who hasn't wanted to run away from that hole in your stomach? Who hasn't had a best friend that kept you floating when you just wanted to drown? Who hasn't realized that someone held more compassion than you ever thought they were capable of holding? And who hasn't found love in unlikely places? 

"The future will erase everything - there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible ... But ... There are stories. The stories they'd told each other were so much a part of the how and why of his liking her ... And he found himself thinking that maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other - maybe they're also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long ... Even if it's a dumb story, telling it changes other people just the slightest little bot, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change ... ripples outward - ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than none."  "You can never love people as much as you can miss them."

My senior year of college I did basically what Lindsey, Hassan, and Colin did and I set forth with my tape recorder and asked people to simply "tell me a story." I recorded their story, transcribed it, and eventually took stories from different people and combined them together to create a one woman performance. This book reminded me of the love I once had for living in stories and the desire I will ALWAYS have to matter. To find love and keep it. To experience loss and survive it. To have friends to get me through and experience adventure. And ultimately to be compassionate and save those who need saving even if that means sacrificing myself. READ. THIS. BOOK. 

I can't tell you the highly academic name of my senior project because I forgot it. Sometimes academics need to pull their "look at me on my high horse" heads out of their asses. But An Abundance of Katherines reminded me that the stories we tell, no matter how we tell them, do matter.

Finally ... if you find this book interesting ... here is John Green's website. He has posted great insights into his novels and answered some pretty great FAQ's. Give it a shot! And thanks for reading. Let me know if you find this book of his better than The Fault in Our Stars ... I'm curious for some other opinions. http://johngreenbooks.com/abundance-of-katherines/