Novels of Quality

Since Atrios has responded to Matt’s suggestion that Harry Potter books be a gateway drug with some actual positive discussion of books (I concur with his praise of the beautiful Never Let Me Go, which I think is Ishiguro’s best), since I’ve been trying to read more fiction and I’ve been lucky enough to pick some really good ones recently.

For some reason, despite the generally glowing reviews I was never compelled to pick up Veronica — perhaps my disinterest in the fashion industry? But then a friend recommended Two Girls, Fat and Thin with those magic words “Ayn Rand satire,” and after I read it I bought the new one. Both are absolute knockouts. The first of the Two Girls is the more voluptuous one, who lives in Queens and works the graveyard shift doing clerical work at a Wall Street firm. The second is a conventionally attractive journalist who meets her looking for interviews about an Randian cult. The satire of the Rand-esque group is, as one would suspect, entertaining, but Gaitskill also makes clear that it provided real value for the severely wounded character; a community discussing even bad ideas is better for a smart but isolated person than not having any intellectual outlet at all, the character’s experience implies, and to anyone stuck in a horrible job I think this will ring true. She’s also very psychologically convincing about the journalist, who falls into submissive (and not just role-playing, but genuinely self-abasing) relationships with people she knows to be assholes who should be rationally unworthy of her time.

Veronica focuses on a model’s friendship with an older, plainer woman who contracts AIDS in the early days of the epidemic, told from a period after which her looks have faded and her own health has deteriorated. In addition to a lot of interesting insights it expands on the themes of friendship between people of differing social status developed in the first novel — especially the ways in which pity and obligation can not only coexist with but nourish genuine (if always incomplete) affection — and despite the less interesting story is in some respects even better. (“A long time ago, John loved me. I never loved him, but I used our friendship, and the using became so comfortable for both of us that we started really being friends.”) She writes beautifully and is an incredibly acute and tough- minded observer of relationships. Neither is, I suppose, feel-good beach reading, but both are incredibly absorbing; strongly recommended. More picks later in the week.

As an aside Gaitskill also seems to have really good taste in movies. Even granting the obvious thematic relevance of The Dreamlife of Angels and The Piano Teacher (Rob would want me to mention Breaking the Waves here too) to her own work I’m always impressed by someone who touts them. Oh, and speaking of Dreamlife I was thinking that Zonca was going to become the Ralph Ellison of the film world, but apparently he’s got a movie starring Tilda Swinton coming out soon. I will be cautiously optimistic…