I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires.Other than some postapocalyptic fiction, bookshop owner A. J. Fikry's tastes above could be mine, and I suppose, the point is that they're the tastes of many who claim a touch of reading snobbishness. In this book about books and booksellers, author Gabrielle Zevin drops many literary references -- the mass market paperbacks of "James Patterson (or whoever writes for James Patterson)", a casual namedrop of "Misters Rochester and Darcy", making the points that high school students shouldn't be forced to read Moby-Dick and that no one who has finished Infinite Jest actually liked it (it's merely "an endurance contest") -- and a snob like myself can smile and nod and think, "Yes, I get that reference and doesn't it make me well read?" But here's the problem: Just because Zevin references dozens of great books doesn't make The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry itself a great book.
This is a pretty slim novel in the end (260 pages, but with a largish font and margins) and the plot is fairly predictable and chic-litty (another genre Fikry prefers not to stock). It takes a few years, but eventually the curmudgeonly, lonely bookseller says to the quirky young book rep: When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy. Can't you see Tom Hanks saying that to Meg Ryan in some twenty-year-old rom-com? Nothing in this book is new or fresh except for the gimmick (ironic, eh?) : Each chapter is named after a famous short story and Fikry adds some notes as to how each story's plot either relates to his life or why he admires its structure (and the reason for this gimmick eventually becomes apparent). The best part about the gimmick is that, as I read the novel at the park, I kept pulling out my phone and googling the short stories, and as many are in the public domain, I could read them as I went along (and need to remember to look for "Ironhead", the only story that was too new to find online).
None of this is to say that I didn't like The Storied Life: it's an easy, breezy summer read, but it's not exactly literature and the irony of that fact -- that characters who discuss their snobbish reading tastes are living in a mass appeal book -- makes for an interesting dissonance, and I think this will be a great choice for book clubs. I also want to note that this book dropped into my lap at the right time (as A. J. Fikry states all books we relate to must): Having just put down 84, Charing Cross Road, I was mindful of books and bookshops and the final short story referenced in The Storied Life was "The Bookseller" by Roald Dahl. In this wonderfully repugnant story, the titular bookseller has a second-hand shop at 27a Charing Cross Road -- and whether this is a coincidence or not (maybe this entire block was all bookshops, or maybe the devilish Dahl was mocking Helene Hanff's sweet volume), it upped my enjoyment. I'd recommend reading the short stories as you go along: Most of them are wonderful and this book is brief enough that it doesn't prolong the experience to a boredom-inducing length.
Dan gave this book to me to read and I suppose that's because it has so many references that he figured it would flatter my pretensions to snobbishness (which it does, haha). Here's the point about the gimmick (and this is a spoiler I left out of the review, so there's my warning): Fikry has a brain tumour and assembles a list of short stories for his daughter to read, and thereby, get to know him better:
The words you can't find, you borrow. We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works.
And, of course, that's my stated purpose for my goodreads account and this blog: I am trying to assemble the collected works that speak to who I am. Neat synchronicity that.
