Kristin and I have this bet going... Not a bet per se, but a "won't it be interesting to see what happens" thing. The Book in question: E. L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley.
What never heard of it?
I'm not surprised. Sadly. Though if you've been reading the Reviews, you should have read one other review of a Doctorow Book: The March (the one that way nominated for the Pulitzer).
Doctorow has name recognition. His publishing history is extensive and well acclaimed. There's been one Broadway musical based off his book (Ragtime!), along with multiple movies, including Ragtime! He's won numerous awards, and has been an esteemed member of the NYU community. If you google his name, or his name +reviews, you find a mind boggling amounts of hits. If you go to Amazon.com, you find the same thing.
So why haven't you ever heard of him? Probably because he's 'literary.' Well, what does that mean? It means he makes his readers work. some of his books, by his own admission, are more difficult to read (City of God being one of them). His pieces can be grand in scope, detailed, and weave in a thousand different elements like a tapestry. The March does this. Or they can be intimate, quiet little things that pull you into the mind of the narrator. Homer &Langley is a great example of that.
It's like this: Pop fiction = McDonalds, Dennys, or Chinese Buffets. You can get the same stuff anywhere you go, and it will taste the same way. There will be variations if you ask for it, but that's it. You come away having read it, and you might find yourself hungry in about an hour. And if you take home leftovers, you better eat them that day or the next because after that, they just get minging. That's pop fiction.
There's nothing wrong with that. I like a good pile of lo-mein, and cheese won tons on my plate as much as the next person. And heaven help me do I love a good chocolate frosty from Wendy's.
Literary is different. Literary fiction is like eating at one of those restraunts, where they put your leftovers in the tin foil swan, or some hole in the wall where the menu changes every other week. There the dining experience is different. It's longer, it's more involved. It may involve different courses, or it may involve having no idea what you're ordering but finding something brand new, that only this one establishment makes. And when you're done with your meal, you leave, with your little tin foil swan, and look forward to warming it up. Or you remember that meal and that experience, and long to go back to that establishment (maybe you do).
That's Literary fiction. Its diverse. It's challenging sometimes. It's going to be different from the run of the mill, and often even with the same author, you may not get the same style every time. But the experience will leave you satisfied, full, and wanting to return again and again to that book, and to that author.
But it has that word Literary attached to it. That snobbish stigma that only the overly educated elite read it, or are allowed to read it, or would want to read it. Dumb stigma.
Reading is like watching a classical symphony concert, and especially watching the Maestro. To most people, the Maestro is someone who just stands up in front of the orchestra and waves his arms around.
But to the more astute eye, the Maestro controls the entire orchestra. He or she expresses what he wants, hat he needs the orchestra to do through this hands, through his facial expressions, through his body posture. A sloppy Maestro will lead the orchestra, and they'll get the job done, but it will be nothing spectacular. They may have to 'pound' out what they want the orchestra to do, they may not e in sync with the different sections. The Maestro may also be so full of himself that he just stands up and looks pretty while the real work is done by the concertmaster, and the orchestra basically plays and leads itself. These are all bad signs.
Then there are the Maestros who are so in tune with their orchestra that they can just give the musicians a look, or a glance, a raised eyebrow, a facial expression, or maybe a tiny hand gesture, and they will eek out of the musicians exactly what is needed. An excellent Maestro should make it look effortless.
The same can be said for writers. The writers who make it look effortless, who are so in tune with their musicians (the characters the writing craft,) those are the ones you want to read. Doctorow makes this look simple. He is one of the ones who can give a look, a tiny finger twitch, and make the words go dancing into line with practiced ease. He may take you through a symphony you don't know, or through many different movements, some dark, some spry, some unfamiliar. It may make you stretch your opinions of what you like. But by the time it's done, you should feel like you've gone on a journey, that you have come out on the other side, and that you have been enlightened and enriched for having listened to it. (Think of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Can you ever listen to that and feel bored, or not find your spirit soaring? Or Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a piece that stretched the norms of classical and jazz and fused them together?)
Doctorow is like that. LIterary fiction is like that.
Homer &Langley, is probably one of the most approachable of Doctorow's works, up there with Ragtime! The scope is much smaller, the focus is on the two brothers with one consistent narrator, rather than it spanning several characters in multiple, simultaneous locations. The book is written in first person, with an intended audience (the narrator has someone in mind that he's writing to though we don't find out who until the end, and it's not really pivotal. We've gotten through most of the book without knowing who it is, so there you go.....) But what we do get is a narrator who is the brother to someone whose mind is not intact, yet the narration is biased by his brotherly love for him. So while an outsider would just say, so and so is just an all out nutter, we have another view that may or may not be able or willing to admit the depth of the eccentricities that may lead to madness, until it is too late.
It is beautiful. There are parts that I just want to read again and again they are so exquisitely written. The story humanizes two men of folk hero/urban legend status and gives them breath, and life, and sympathy. If you like history, or weird psychology, or the tv show Hoarders..... or just all out great writing.
It's not a popcorn book (like popcorn movies that just blow things up, have fast car chases, and really, really pretty people). It is far more satisfying.
That's how it is with literary fiction. So don't be scared. I'll hold your hand
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