Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Ducks, Newburyport

...the fact that Abby saved Mommy's life in that duck pond, the fact that if she hadn't gotten Mommy out of the pond, or if their mom hadn't massaged Mommy's arm every day for six months when she was a baby, Mommy might not have survived and gotten married and I might never have been born, and then my poor kids wouldn't ever have existed and Leo would have had to shack up with somebody else, and I would never have known my mom, the fact that there might even have been a slight pie deficit in the Tuscarawas area, but probably not a noticeable one, Otis, owlets, boarlets, ducks, Newburyport, cinnamon mixture, spoon, brush, vanilla...

Oh dear. Two weeks spent labouring over Ducks, Newburyport – the last of the 2019 Man Booker nominees to come into my possession – and upon completion, I can only say it really wasn't worth so much of my time. Perhaps other readers went in knowing that this nearly 1000 page book consists primarily of one sentence (meaning that, without benefit of paragraphs or chapter breaks, these were nearly one thousand full, dense pages of smallish text), but I hadn't known that, and as hour after hour of reading time went by without making any appreciable headway, I just felt bogged down and sleepy. I get that author Lucy Ellmann was riffing experimental here (and I appreciate that she went Joycean stream-of-consciousness without getting as impenetrable as Finnegan's Wake or some such), but I kept waiting for a payoff that never came. For a book that seems determined to completely capture our moment in time, I learned nothing new about the specifics of our time or humanity in general; this is all very basic, surface material. On the other hand, I think this would be a fascinating book to hand to someone fifty years from now and say, “Read this. 2019 was just like that.” And, of course, there's value in that; just not for me in the here and now.
...the fact that I just realized that when this monologue in my head finally stops, I'll be dead, or at least totally unconscious, like a vegetable or something, the fact that there are seven and a half billion people in the world, so there must be seven and a half billion of these interior monologues going on, apart from all the unconscious people, the fact that that's seven and a half billion people worrying about their kids, or their moms, or both, as well as taxes and window sills and medical bills, shut-in, shutout, dugout, bullpen, the fact that that's not counting the multiple-personality people who must have several internal monologues going on at once, several each, mamologs, Mommalabomala, Bubbela, blogs, vlogs, log cabins, Phoebe's Christmas logs, the fact that animals must have some kind of monologue going on in their heads, even if it's more visual than verbal maybe...
So, we readers are privy to the interior monologue of an unnamed Ohio-based housewife and mother of four; an awkward and anxiety-ridden worrier who, despite repeatedly protesting that she has the worst memory in the world, constantly circles between the present and the past, citing shocking headlines, repeating the things her kids and husband say to her, and revisiting her challenging childhood. Having discovered herself to be too shy and awkward to remain a college history lecturer as she had trained for, and after finding their family devastated by medical bills after her recent cancer treatments, the woman is now a home baker – forever rolling out dough for the tartes tartin she makes for local restaurants, constantly worrying that she's not paying enough attention to her children, anxious that delivering pies means that she will need to talk to people. It's a tough head to be inside. And as she's not originally from Ohio, the woman is shocked by the pro-Trump, pro-gun, racist, redneck neighbours that surround her. It's mentioned that her husband had been a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016 (neither she or her husband are fans of the Clintons), so it felt like a pointed character choice to have the woman constantly worry about medical insurance and college tuition, to have her pro-gun control, anti-fluoridation, anti-factory farming, insisting on free range and organic everything when her family has literally no money to spare. And while I recognise the reality of all of these beliefs existing in real people, when I read that Ellmann left America for the UK at age thirteen, I had to admit that that makes the most sense: this character seems like a cartoonish stereotype because she has effectively been created by an outsider attempting commentary on Trump's America. Everything is true, I guess, but undermined by a feeling of extremism.

Another review notes that Ellmann uses the phrase “the fact that” over nineteen thousand times, adding over fifty-eight thousand words to the count in this book (which Paul correctly adds is the total word count of some entire novels), so, in addition to this phrase that I had found brain-drainingly annoying at the time, Ellmann also bloats this novel with countless recollected dreams, repetitions and circling back, old movie plots, and free word associations. It just all felt too long and self-indulgent, and while not much actually happens (until all of a sudden something does), I get how the whole exhausting thing gives insight into an ill mind (she may think she's just shy, but his lady has problems).

Interspersed throughout the single-sentence narrative are brief interludes following a mountain lion as she breeds, births some cubs, and then loses them. It was always a relief to get these breaks from the main text, but what I at first found interesting eventually felt like more opportunities for self-indulgence on the author's part:
All mountain lions are one. You are just one example of a lion. Mountain-lionhood is strong and immense, and goes beyond the individual. Each lion is part of a continuum, and privy to everything good and bad that happens to other mountain lions. You tough things out on your own, but you're linked to the pleasures, pains, and drama, the leap and recoil and lonely deaths of others. All living things are.
Overall, I didn't really enjoy the experience of reading Ducks, Newburyport but I do think it could survive as an enduring artefact of our times. So I guess that's worth reading?


Man Booker Longlist 2019:

Eventually won by The Testaments and Girl, Woman, Other in a tie, my favourites on the list were Lanny, Night Boat to Tangier, and An Orchestra of Minorities. I fear the Man Booker has become too political for me - favouring identity politics over excellent storytelling - and I don't know how much longer I'll think it a badge of honour to keep reading the longlists.
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