I had the hardest time settling to a classic this month. I tried Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day for Reading Ireland Month, but couldn’t get past page 35; I barely made it to the second page of (in quick succession) Backwater by Dorothy Richardson, The Years and The Waves by Virginia Woolf. Meanwhile, I started Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy and Woolf’s The Voyage Out, and have been enjoying both, but they may well take me a few months to read.
In the end I read two short classics about obsessive love, both set in the France of the 1920s.
Chéri by Colette (1920)
[Translated from the French by Roger Senhouse]
My first time trying Colette. The novella, set in the Paris suburbs, circles the relationship of Léa de Lonval, an ageing courtesan, and Frédérick Peloux, her handsome, supercilious lover boy (“the set of his head! quite a statue! But what a little beast he is! When he laughs, you’d swear it’s a greyhound snarling!”). Although they’ve been together for six years, the young man, whom she simply calls Chéri (“dear one”) is just 25 – about half her age. When Chéri’s mother arranges a financially beneficial marriage for him, he and Léa convince themselves it means nothing, but later question whether they’ve lost their chance at true love.
These are both aloof characters who sometimes have trouble accessing their emotions (“My temperature’s normal, so it’s nothing physical. I see. I’m just unhappy,” Léa realizes; “Well, why shouldn’t I have a heart like everybody else?” Chéri asks). To what extent is Léa a replacement mother figure for Chéri? Does love always entail possession and a loss of freedom? These psychological questions and the complex characters held my interest, though in the end the story is fairly thin. I’d read more by Colette: her memoirs come recommended, for instance.
My rating: 
The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway (1986)
I find Hemingway offputtingly macho at the best of times, so was surprised to learn he’s the favorite author of a go-getting feminist type from my neighborhood book club. When she put this forward as our April selection I hadn’t even heard of it. It was Hemingway’s second posthumous publication. My main problems are that: 1) it reads like an early draft of an early novel – unpolished and with no proper ending, and 2) it reads like a male having-it-all fantasy, in which two women simultaneously lavish him with sexual attention and switching from one to the other presents no serious consequences.
It’s thought that Hemingway began writing the book in 1946, but was casting his mind back to the late 1920s, when he was preparing to leave his first wife, Hadley Richardson, for his second, Pauline Pfeiffer. In 1927 he and Pauline honeymooned in France’s Le Grau-du-Roi, which is where The Garden of Eden opens. Hemingway’s stand-in is writer David Bourne, who’s had success with a novel about flying in the war and is now dividing his time between Africa-set short stories that reflect on his childhood and his relationship with his father, and an autobiographical narrative drawing on his life with his new wife, Catherine.
They’re on an extended honeymoon in France and Spain, and the title invites you to think of this as an idyllic time-outside-of-time spent swimming, feasting, taking long drives and making love. Catherine doesn’t want to do what others expect. She loves feeling that she and David have created a whole world unto themselves; they’re free to go anywhere and do anything. Obsessed with equality, she gets a close-cut gamine haircut that matches David’s exactly. But before long their heads are turned by a young woman they meet in a café, and this Marita becomes the third in an increasingly uncomfortable ménage à trois.
To the extent that this is a dramatization of the Genesis story and its accompanying Jewish myths, it is a reasonably successful plot. David calls Catherine “Devil,” but really she’s the Lilith figure, with David (Adam) later moving on to Marita (Eve). Alternatively, Marita could be thought of as the snake, a temptress destroying the couple’s perfect union. Catherine is much the most interesting character, mercurial and driven by odd compulsions: to sleep with a woman, to burn David’s stories and clippings. It was edgy for Hemingway to be thinking about gender fluidity and bisexuality, but the way these two women slavishly attend to David’s needs so that he can go on with his heroic writing work didn’t sit well with me.
What I most enjoyed about the novel were the descriptions of food and drink and the scenes in which David is sitting down to work (“You’d better write another story. Write the hardest one there is to write that you know.”) and reliving the elephant hunt. As usual, though, there’s the annoyances of the Hemingway style: underpunctuated; too many adjectives (sometimes as many as four in a row); simplistic language, including about good and evil; flat and unrealistic dialogue. Apparently Hemingway worked on the manuscript off and on for 15 years until it ballooned to 800 pages, yet he never finished it. Editors cut it down to a manageable size, but the ending? It’s as if nothing ever happened. Utterly frustrating.
Some favorite lines:
David: “Everyone’s full of charm. Charm and sturgeon eggs.”
David to Catherine: “Why can’t you want something that makes sense?” / Catherine: “I do. But I want us to be the same and you almost are and it wouldn’t be any trouble to do it.”
Catherine, towards the end: “I wish it hadn’t ended in complete disillusion too”
My rating: 
Next month’s plan: To tie in with our travels (we’re having another go at our attempted French getaway next weekend): A Breath of French Air by H.E. Bates and Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola; Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee to read in Stroud the final Sunday of the month.
“I believe that any experience, whatever its nature, has the inalienable right to be chronicled,” Ernaux writes. In 1963, when she was 23 and living in a student residence in Rouen, she realized she was pregnant. An appointment with a gynecologist set out the facts starkly: “Pregnancy certificate of: Mademoiselle Annie Duchesne. Date of delivery: 8 July, 1964. I saw summer, sunshine. I tore up the certificate.” Abortion was illegal in France at that time. Ernaux tried to take things into her own hands – “plunging a knitting needle into a womb weighed little next to ruining one’s career” – but couldn’t go through with it. Instead she went to the home of a middle-aged nurse she’d heard about…
“Does something bad happen to the dog?” We animal lovers are wary when approaching a book about a pet. Nunez playfully anticipates that question as she has her unnamed female narrator reflect on her duty of care to her dead friend’s dog. The narrator is a writer and academic – like her late friend, a Bellovian womanizer who recently committed suicide, leaving behind two ex-wives, a widow, and Apollo the aging Great Dane. She addresses the friend directly as “you” for almost the whole book, which unfolds – in a similar style to Jenny Offill’s Department of Speculation – via quotations, aphorisms, and stories from literary history as well as mini-incidents from a life.
What with all the debate over Marie Kondo’s clutter-reducing tactics, the timing is perfect for this practical guide to culling and organizing all the stuff that piles up around us at home and at work. Unlike the rest of Rubin’s self-help books, this is not a narrative but a set of tips – 150 of them! It’s not so much a book to read straight through as one to keep at your bedside and read a few pages to summon up motivation for the next tidying challenge.
Famously, Kondo advises one to ask whether an item sparks joy. Rubin’s central questions are more down-to-earth: Do I need it? Do I love it? Do I use it? With no index, the book is a bit difficult to navigate; you just have to flip through until you find what you want. The advice seems in something of a random order and can be slightly repetitive. But since this is really meant as a book of inspiration, I think it will be a useful jumping-off point for anyone trying to get on top of clutter. I plan to work through the closet checklist before I pass the book to my sister – who’s dealing with a basement full of stuff after she and her second husband merged their households. If I could add one page, it would be a flowchart of what to do with unwanted stuff that corresponds to the latest green recommendations.
This novel about Lee Miller’s relationship with Man Ray is in the same vein as The Paris Wife, Z, 
Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty: In MacLaverty’s quietly beautiful fifth novel, a retired couple faces up to past trauma and present incompatibility during a short vacation in Amsterdam. My overall response was one of admiration for what this couple has survived and sympathy for their current situation – with hope that they’ll make it through this, too. (Reviewed for 
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: The residents of Georgetown cemetery limbo don’t know they’re dead – or at least won’t accept it. An entertaining and truly original treatment of life’s transience; I know it’s on every other best-of-year list out there, but it really is a must-read.
A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin: Tomalin is best known as a biographer of literary figures including Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens, but her memoir is especially revealing about the social and cultural history of the earlier decades her life covers. A dignified but slightly aloof book – well worth reading for anyone interested in spending time in London’s world of letters in the second half of the twentieth century.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward: The story of a mixed-race family haunted – both literally and figuratively – by the effects of racism, drug abuse and incarceration in Bois Sauvage, a fictional Mississippi town. Beautiful language; perfect for fans of Toni Morrison and Cynthia Bond.
What It Means when a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah (Reviewed for 
The Education of a Coroner by John Bateson: The coroner’s career is eventful no matter what, but Marin County, California has its fair share of special interest, what with Golden Gate Bridge suicides, misdeeds at San Quentin Prison, and various cases involving celebrities (e.g. Harvey Milk, Jerry Garcia and Tupac) in addition to your everyday sordid homicides. Ken Holmes was a death investigator and coroner in Marin County for 36 years; Bateson successfully recreates Holmes’ cases with plenty of (sometimes gory) details.
Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker: Tasting notes: gleeful, ebullient, learned, self-deprecating; suggested pairings: Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler; Top Chef, The Great British Bake Off. A delightful blend of science, memoir and encounters with people who are deadly serious about wine.
A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light, edited by Eleanor Brown: A highly enjoyable set of 18 autobiographical essays that celebrate what’s wonderful about the place but also acknowledge disillusionment; highlights are from Maggie Shipstead, Paula McLain, Therese Anne Fowler, Jennifer Coburn, Julie Powell and Michelle Gable. If you have a special love for Paris, have always wanted to visit, or just enjoy armchair traveling, this collection won’t disappoint you.
Ashland & Vine by John Burnside: Essentially, it’s about the American story, individual American stories, and how these are constructed out of the chaos and violence of the past – all filtered through a random friendship that forms between a film student and an older woman in the Midwest. This captivated me from the first page.
Tragic Shores: A Memoir of Dark Travel, Thomas H. Cook: In 28 non-chronological chapters, Cook documents journeys he’s made to places associated with war, massacres, doomed lovers, suicides and other evidence of human suffering. This is by no means your average travel book and it won’t suit those who seek high adventure and/or tropical escapism; instead, it’s a meditative and often melancholy picture of humanity at its best and worst. (Reviewed for 
The Valentine House by Emma Henderson: This is a highly enjoyable family saga set mostly between 1914 and 1976 at an English clan’s summer chalet in the French Alps near Geneva, with events seen from the perspective of a local servant girl. You can really imagine yourself into all the mountain scenes and the book moves quickly –a great one to take on vacation.
The 2017 Book Everybody Else Loved but I Didn’t: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. (See 
The Downright Strangest Book I Read This Year: An English Guide to Birdwatching by Nicholas Royle.
The Best First Line of the Year: “History has failed us, but no matter.” (Pachinko, Min Jin Lee)