Washington Post Book Reviews
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Thursday September 23, 2010
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THE LADY MATADOR'S HOTEL
Cristina Garcia
Scribner
ISBN 978 1 4391 8174 4
209 pages
$24
Reviewed by Carolyn See, who reviews books regularly for The Washington Post
Won Kim, a Korean textile manufacturer, and his pregnant, teenage peasant girlfriend, live in a hotel. So does Aura Estrada, a shapely waitress who used to be a leftist guerrilla in this Central American country's recent civil war. And Ricardo and Sarah, an American couple that came to this country to adopt a baby girl. And Gertrudis, the avaricious lawyer who handles many of this country's adoptions. And Col. Martin Abel, an officer in the country's victorious rightist army, whose favorite pastime is torturing people. (In fact, he once cruelly slaughtered Aura's little brother.) And Suki Palacios, the lady matador of the title, half Japanese, half Latina, former denizen of East Los Angeles, who's just arrived to participate in a women's bullfighting competition.
And there's the unnamed country, which for decades has been no more than a playground for the American military to act out paranoid fantasies. And finally, there's the hotel, the Miraflor, elegant and fairly modern, and situated around a traditional Latin American courtyard that is lavishly studded with tropical plants, a swimming pool and a nice outdoor restaurant.
Cristina Garcia has emulated the example of the venerable Vicki Baum, whose 1929 novel "Menschen im Hotel" followed the doings of residents in an elegant "Grand Hotel," as Edmund Goulding's classic movie version called it in 1932. The stately, iconographic movements of history were reduced to understandable size in Baum's novel by focusing on the individuals who passed through the revolving doors of the five-star establishment.
And so, in "The Lady Matador's Hotel," we look at our Western Hemisphere and all its societal problems, beginning with the exploitation of minority workers. Won Kim, who inherited a textile factory from his father and is expecting the death of his mother, is now stuck in the fanciest suite in the hotel, waiting for a workers' strike to end and his child to be born. Baffled by the strike and suffering from severe depression, he's planning a deadly yachting jaunt: "When they are far out to sea and the captain is safely drunk, Won Kim will push Berta (his girlfriend) overboard. Then he will follow her."
The colonel, on the other hand, dreams of sex and murder. He'd love to have sex with the lady matador, or, failing that, the shapely waitress. Then he'd like to drag them down to a dungeon and make them plead for their lives. That's life as he sees it. The waitress spits on his pork chops and gets an earful from her dead little brother, who tells her to murder this monster now that he's conveniently under her nose and relatively vulnerable.
The adopting couple just hang around. Ricardo, the Cuban husband, writes awful verse ("As the island fades / I leave behind departure itself") and establishes a somewhat tenuous hold on his adopted baby, while the lawyer, an old-fashioned sharkish type, oversees a breeding farm of indigenous mothers and charges $30,000 for each infant she supplies, but she's suddenly faced with a shift in public opinion about whether or not what she's doing is a crime.
In the forefront is the lady matador herself, Suki Palacios, a ritual-bound superwoman of sexuality and courage, who always makes it a point to sleep with someone different and eat a ripe pear before she fights the bulls. She's currently the talk of the town, but privately she broods over the death of her mother and frets over her womanizing dad.
The story lasts for just seven days, and the end of each chapter gives us snippets of scattered news: "Leftist terrorists are trying to sow confusion and fear before the elections, but, mark my words, they won't succeed. I've made it my personal mission to stop them," the bloodthirsty colonel says on Channel 9. And there's also some astrology and celebrity chitchat. Against this trivia, the other, highly allegorical characters speak to each other in oracular aphorisms: "God is drunk and in the forest breaking all the rules," the adoption lawyer's husband says to her at one point, meaning ... what? When she isn't in her suit of lights, the lady matador dresses in a tiger-striped unitard. The colonel imagines her with "a dead zebra between her teeth," which would be quite a sight, if you think about it.
I hope I'm wrong about this novel, but the allegory seems pretty heavy to me, and the characters stubbornly refuse to come alive. Yes, we know that the United States is considered by some people to be an imperialist disgrace -- exporting jobs, importing babies, using impoverished countries for our own military games -- but what is Garcia's actual point? Isn't there any kind of meaningful resistance to this beyond retreat into costume and ritual? The Korean manufacturer's girlfriend dresses up at one point in an 18th-century gown with a powdered wig. I wanted to ask: Why? And that tiger-striped unitard: Why? These people are meant to impersonate ideas, not human beings. But what's the author trying to say? I haven't the faintest idea. I hope that's my fault, not hers.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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ZERO HISTORY
William Gibson
Putnam
ISBN 978 0 399 15682 3
404 pages
$26.95
Reviewed by Art Taylor, who reviews mysteries and thrillers frequently for The Washington Post
The post-9/11 world has offered rich fodder for the most recent trio of novels from William Gibson: "Pattern Recognition" (2003), "Spook Country" (2007) and now "Zero History." While Gibson may be best known as the writer who coined the term "cyberspace" and kick-started a new chapter of science-fiction writing, even the most futuristic of his earlier books seemed relentlessly present-minded. These latest novels peruse aspects of a world as familiar as yesterday's headlines and yet also startlingly alien: competing trends toward globalization and isolation, marketing strategies as complex as military maneuvers (and not always unrelated), ubiquitous surveillance coupled with an urgent desire for privacy, and the lingering sense of conspiracies afoot across the globe. A doom-laden idea that everything may be connected persists even while individuals are striving, and often failing, for personal connections amid a technological wonderland.
In many ways, "Zero History" serves as a sequel to "Spook Country" by reuniting most of that book's leading characters and hewing closely to its caper structure -- individual missions crossing and complicating one another, ultimately leading toward a showdown with much higher (if somewhat nebulous) stakes.
In "Spook Country," what's at stake is the fate of misappropriated funds from the Federal Reserve, the balance of international economic structures and the truth about U.S. rebuilding efforts in Iraq. In "Zero History," it seems to be ... casual menswear?
Megalomaniacal billionaire Hubertus Bigend (pronounced "Bayh-jhan," please) has become decidedly fashion-forward in this outing -- and not only because of his one-of-a-kind International Klein Blue suit (a color best described as "radioactive"). Noting that "military contracting was essentially recession-proof," he wants to horn in on the market -- and on the future of a much larger industrial enterprise. According to his analysts, "male streetwear generally, over the past fifty years or so ... had been more heavily influenced by the design of military clothing than by anything else." So with a few right moves, the future might be bright for Bigend's interests in "brand vision transmission, trend forecasting, vendor management, youth market recon, strategic planning in general."
In South Carolina, after a previous job translating messages from a Cuban-Chinese crime syndicate, a recovering drug addict named Milgrim finds himself tracing the outlines of contraband camouflage trousers. Former music icon Hollis Henry, despite having sworn to avoid Bigend forever, is hired to locate the reclusive designer behind the Gabriel Hounds denim, a brand whose appeal has skyrocketed. Soon, these maneuvers attract the attention of a Department of Defense operative trying to safeguard national security and an international arms dealer looking to legitimize himself by landing military clothing contracts of his own. A final showdown brings these and other forces together under the watchful eye of floating surveillance platforms in the shape of a penguin and a manta ray, drifting around under Bigend's control, watching, listening and then rigged up to do quite a bit more.
"Zero History" boasts an occasionally far-fetched frivolity and a greater lightness than some of Gibson's other novels. But if the plot seems a tad weightless at times (and not just because of floating penguins), the book proves momentous in other ways. Gibson remains as coolly incisive as ever in his observations, whether about technology or marketing or, yes, fashion: the "industrialization of novelty," the "semiotics of mass-produced American clothing," the construction of "parallel microeconomies, where knowledge is more congruent than wealth."
Paranoia is "too much information," reflects Milgrim -- a definition that also explains Gibson's genius as a thinker and a stylist. His trenchant scrutiny of society and culture, and the relentless precision of his prose force us to see his world (and ours) with a troubling exactitude and an extra dose of unease.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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APE HOUSE
Sara Gruen
Spiegel & Grau
ISBN 978 0 385 52321 9
306 pages
$26
Reviewed by Ron Charles, the fiction editor at The Washington Post. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/roncharles. His e-mail address is charlesr(at symbol)washpost.com.
If we told all the animals in literature to shut up, the silence would be horrible. Sure, the serpent got our conversations off to an awkward start, but between the Garden of Eden and the Hundred Acre Wood, furry creatures have been some of our most cherished interlocutors. Who hasn't fantasized, along with Dr. Dolittle, that "if we could talk to the animals, just imagine it / Chatting to a chimp in chimpanzee"?
But in real life, despite our superior intelligence, animals have made a lot more progress in learning our language than we've made in learning theirs. After all, most people have no idea what their dogs are barking, but even the scrappiest junkyard hound can follow a variety of human words. And remember back in 1998, the primordial days of the Internet, when Koko the gorilla conducted the first-ever interspecies chat over AOL with 8,000 subscribers? Although there are plenty of smart detractors, language research with animals continues to produce evidence of intelligent conversations that should remind us that we're not alone.
As every member of every book club in America knows, halfway through Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants," the narrator finally figures out how to communicate with a recalcitrant pachyderm in a Depression-era circus. (Look for the movie version in April starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.) Now, in her much-anticipated follow-up to that charming best-seller, Gruen addresses the subject of animal language even more directly. Jumping over those popular novels about detective cats and telepathic dogs, "Ape House" considers the capacity of animals to think and communicate from a scientific perspective.
After visiting the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Gruen was inspired to set her new book in a similar laboratory, where scientists teach primates to use symbols and signs to carry on conversations. This research raises profound moral and philosophical questions about our relations with "every beast of the field," and I'm sympathetic to animals-rights arguments, even when they're corralled in works of fiction: Annie Proulx's "That Old Ace in the Hole" got me to swear off pork. Rob Levandoski's "Fresh Eggs" encouraged me to switch to the free-range variety. And I expect to keep moving toward vegetarianism as thoughtful writers show me the inhumanity of our cruel (and unhealthy) carnivorous diets. But unfortunately, beyond parroting a few animal rights platitudes, "Ape House" doesn't have much to say about the subject it raises so earnestly. Gruen investigated how apes learn human language and then inexplicably buried her discoveries under a silly thriller about a sad-sack journalist and a naive primate scientist.
Too bad, because the opening chapters show just how much potential this story has to move and inform us. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter John Thigpen comes to Kansas City to write about developments at the Great Ape Language Lab. He has some idea of what's being done here with bonobos -- small, peaceful cousins of chimpanzees -- but the experience of communicating with them "changed his comprehension of the world in such a profound way that he could not yet articulate it. ... He'd looked into their eyes and recognized without a shadow of a doubt that sentient, intelligent beings were looking back."
Gruen has a deep sympathetic regard for these bonobos -- they'll be your favorite characters, too -- and she conveys their playfulness and eager sexuality with great delight. To be sure, she anthropomorphizes them, but once an animal is actually talking with a human being, let's face it, that horse has left the barn. By showing the apes signing with John and their keeper, Dr. Isabel Duncan, Gruen gives a sense of the unsettling nature of their ability: just how revolutionary it is to realize that creatures we routinely imprison, infect and dissect are, in fact, intelligent and loving, capable of fear and empathy. It's a revelation that rejiggers your whole concept of personhood. As Dr. Duncan tells John, "Over the years, they've become more human, and I've become more bonobo."
But soon something horrible happens -- to the apes and to the novel: Terrorists bomb the lab, Dr. Duncan barely survives, and her cowardly university, desperate to avoid further attacks, sells the animals to a notorious pornographer for a new reality TV show called "Ape House."
At first, it seems that Gruen is resetting her novel as a zany satire of American culture, from media excess to medical ethics, with the poor apes standing in as the only humane creatures in a world gone mad. That could work, too, of course, but the author seems unwilling to provide anything more than rough sketches: The pornographer, his obscene ape TV show, the radical eco-protesters, the outrageous tabloid coverage -- it's all dashed off and obvious.
Instead, the story insists on pursuing a couple of limp romantic crises, one about John and his depressed wife; the other involving Dr. Duncan and her fiance, who may be monkeying around with the wrong people. No opportunity for lachrymose melodrama is passed by: Even the African violets die a terrible death. The bonobos make a few more tantalizing appearances, but we remain caged in John's and Dr. Duncan's mopey stories while all the interesting action seems to be happening somewhere else.
Particularly in a book inspired by the miracle of language, it's disappointing to see such reliance on cliches, as though the novel drove to the Costco Phrase Store and loaded up with off-the-shelf words. John "found the atmosphere intoxicating," or "lied copiously and through his teeth," or "wanted to shrink into the earth." Seeing the damage done to the lab was "like taking a cannonball to the gut. ... He knew he should try to collect himself, but at this point he had nothing to lose." Maybe these complaints sound like English-teacher pedantry, but the cumulative effect of such stylistic sloth is deadening.
The 800-pound gorilla in the room is why someone at Gruen's new publishing house didn't give her the benefit of a good edit. Even if the silly story and the trite characters couldn't be saved, why leave these pages pocked with such lines? The answer, I can only assume, has something to do with the more than $5 million that a division of Random House reportedly paid to lure Gruen away from Algonquin, her small North Carolina publisher. That cynical process has misserved a beloved writer and her elephantine fan base. If there were any justice in publishing, Spiegel & Grau would be heckled by People for the Ethical Treatment of Authors.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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GETTING TO HAPPY
Terry McMillan
Viking
ISBN 978 0 670 02204 5
375 pages
$27.95
Reviewed by Lisa Page, a visiting professor of creative writing at George Washington University
In her break-out best-seller, "Waiting to Exhale" (1992), Terry McMillan celebrated female bonding. Girlfriends assumed top status in the hierarchy of important relationships for women. The novel, about four black women living in Phoenix in the late 1980s, depicted professional burn-out, romantic betrayal and survival. These were women in their late 30s and early 40s, providing solace to one another in a way that family members, husbands and boyfriends did not. They partied together, cried together and, ultimately, recovered together.
McMillan's new novel, "Getting to Happy," is a sequel that resumes the story some 15 years later. All four women are back, but this time, of course, they're middle-aged. The issues of their youth have morphed into new ones. There are children now, from failed relationships, and grandchildren too, along with failed businesses and second mortgages. Each of the four is in her 50s, or about to be, and not quite sure what to do with herself.
There's Savannah, a TV news producer. She's unhappily married to Isaac, a landscaper "in love with wood." Isaac is also in love with porn and spends more time on the computer than with his wife. And he's a Republican, which Savannah finds unacceptable.
Robin is an insurance executive, a single mother and a compulsive shopper. The father of her daughter is in jail. She has a long history of sexual relationships with men that go nowhere, but she clings to one dream: getting married in a white dress. She recently discovered online dating.
Bernadine is between jobs and the former owner of Sweet Tooth, a defunct restaurant. Her children are away at school, leaving her alone to mull over her failed romances. Her first husband left her for his receptionist, and No. 2 betrayed her, too. Bernadine has retreated into prescription drugs and spends most of her days anaesthetizing herself.
Gloria is the only one happily married. She's a former hairdresser who manages her own salon. Her son is a policeman with three children and a wife of questionable moral stature. But Gloria is happy, at least in the early pages of the book.
McMillan has said she didn't plan to write a sequel, but her old characters "began to reclaim their place in my heart, and, like old friends you haven't seen since college, I wondered how they might be faring now." She fleshes them out by shifting the point of view, sometimes writing in first person, sometimes in third, resulting in a crosshatch of perspectives. Her dialogue remains superb.
These women have all kinds of contemporary challenges, including elderly mothers, deadbeat dads, hard-up sisters and a changing job market. They've gained weight, gone through menopause and suffered memory loss. They're lonely. They've stopped being social creatures. They used to "run their mouths on the phone half the night," but now they e-mail and text each other.
"Apparently we're too damn old to have fun in public places," muses Savannah. But occasionally they get together for Blockbuster Night, where they watch bootleg DVDs and sip mojitos. Together, they voice their frustrations. "I find it grossly unfair that God rigged this whole thing so men seem to get better-looking as they get older and women simply age out. Why is it that their wrinkles make them sexy and more distinguished," asks Savannah, "while ours make us look old and unattractive?"
They decide, individually and together, to upgrade their lives, to "get happy."
The difference between this book and "Waiting to Exhale" is that "happy" has a different meaning now. For these women, it's no longer about the perfect job or the perfect man. It's a more complicated notion. The theme of addiction carries through the novel, and that's no accident. McMillan suggests that Bernadine's struggle with antidepressants, Robin's trips to the mall and Gloria's struggle with food are all symptoms of the same thing. The notion of "getting to happy" means doing away with self-delusion. And, according to McMillan, it also means forgiveness. The outrage and the disappointment so vividly portrayed in the opening chapters must ultimately melt into understanding, even love, if possible.
Some readers may feel that "Getting to Happy" doesn't offer many surprises. The ladies learn to undo their vices, to visualize better lives and, through meditation, to breathe. And while this makes sense, in terms of the characters, it feels somewhat anticlimactic given the earlier chapters. Still, there's an integrity that isn't compromised here. McMillan clearly respects her characters and her readers, too.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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