Fiction: The Master

Colm Tóibín has written a mesmerizing book about the middle life of writer Henry James. The story picks up just before James's humiliation as a failed playright, and carries through his purchase of Lamb House in Rye. More important than the plot, however, is how Tóibín has captured James's writing mind: the inspiration for stories, the observation of human interaction, the attention to detail, the preoccupation with memory and family. A quiet book that asks the question, what does art cost its creator?

The Guardian has a good review.

Fiction: All Is Vanity

Something lighter for the end of the week: the comic novel All Is Vanity by Christina Schwarz follows an aspiring novelist as she quits her teaching job and settles in with legal pad and fountain pen. Margaret Snyder thinks that her background in literature and her precocious success with grade school projects will make it a snap to turn out the Great American Novel in a year.

The contortions Margaret puts herself through, trying to get words on the page, are almost too close for comfort. Early on she abandons the work for several weeks so she can repaint her entire apartment, and I winced, thinking of how I too rationalized vacuuming and laundry in place of writing my master's thesis. Eventually she realizes she has to get out of the house to write, and takes up residence at the local library (hmm, I see myself at the coffee shop during National Novel Writing Month, trying to get away from the Internet).

My favourite scenes are when friends and family ask how the writing is going (that dreaded question!) and offer all sorts of well-meaning but useless advice or anecdotes about other writers' wild successes. And of course, there's the friend who says, "I've always wanted to write a novel. I've got the idea, I just need to take a few months and get it down on paper." Argh!

Schwarz captures the desperation so familiar to writers wanting to succeed, and takes it to the extreme with Margaret's descent into lies, plagiarism, and temporary insanity with a literary agent. All Is Vanity may not be the "Great American Novel", but it is a tightly written and engaging book that I really enjoyed.

[And you'll be happy to know that this is one piece of writing Sam Sacks approves of.]