Storied Life of J T Fikry is Sentimental, but Charming

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THE STORIED LIFE OF J. T. FIKRY (2104)

By Gabrielle Zevin

Algonquin 978-1616203214, 288 pp.

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How do you like your curmudgeons–redeemed or pure? Do books centered on how a child changes someone's life cause you to go "ahhhh!" or "ewwee?" I'm usually in the second camp on both questions, but The Storied Life of J. T. Fikry won me over in the end.

The Storied Life of J. T. Fikry is ironic in that it's the latest in a spate of novels set in bookstores to hit the market at about the time that bookstores are folding like an origami workshop. (The genre includes works such as Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, The Bookshop, and The Shadow of the Wind.) Zevin uses the bookstore's declining appeal as part of her plot. J. T. Fikry is a Southeast Asian man who owns a bookstore on Alice Island–a dead ringer for Martha's Vineyard. He's a recent widower, his shop is struggling, and a prized and quite valuable first edition of Edgar Allen Poe's Tamerlane has just disappeared from his shop. Police Chief Lambiase, who investigates the theft, is like most islanders in that he tolerates Fikry because he's been on Alice Island for a long time and because everyone loved Fikry's late wife, a local gal. But he's also lukewarm about Fikry, who is a crank, misanthrope, and literary snob. The latter is among the reasons his shop is in decline. Heaven help the publishing agent who tries to interest Fikry in anything to do with vampires, zombies, celebrities, magical realism, postmodernism, or middlebrow pap. Mention names such as Stephen King, Danielle Steel, or John Grisham at your own peril!

Luckily the new agent for Knightly Press, Amelia, has been warned of Fikry's temper and tastes. She makes her way to Alice Island with a list of books sure to appeal to Fikry, but she's so charmed by the shop and the local scenery that she can't resist making a few small suggestions. They don't go over well, but to evoke a famed line from the movie Casablanca, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Lord knows J. T. could use a few friends other than the two he has: Daniel Parish, a womanizing, egotistical one-hit island novelist, and his wife Ismay (who is also J. T.'s sister-in-law). Fikry's life is turned upside down when a note and a two-year-old biracial infant named Maya are left in his shop and the Alice Island ferry discovers Maya's suicidal mother floating in the bay. Fikry improbably decides to adopt Maya.

Zevin's novel spans the next sixteen years of Maya's life, J. T.'s odd relationship with Amelie, his even less probable friendship with Lambiase, and J.T.'s transformation from embittered malcontent to reluctant participant in island life. The story is at times touching and charming, but it will also test your credulity and your tolerance for coincidences.

I was won over by the book's good hear and Zevin's ability to develop memorable characters that make readers feel as if they have come to know them. She so lovingly describes the bookstore that one can almost smell the dampness escaping from used tomes. Full disclosure: I read this novel immediately after plowing through Elizabeth Catton's magisterial but challenging The Luminaries, so my enjoyment of J. T. Fikry was enhanced by the fact that it was a zippy, mentally non-taxing read. It's the kind of book that is extremely likely to be made into a saccharine feel-good film starring flavor-of-the-month celebrities. At the risk of sounding like pre-Maya J.T., I recommend you read the book before the inevitable movie comes out. I happen to share his dislike of least-common-denominator fiction.-- Rob Weir  

Sarah Miles Debut Has Identity Crisis

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SARAH MILES

One

SarahMilesMusic

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My biggest advice to young musicians is be yourself, not pieces of everyone else. One, the debut full release from Sarah Miles, has a serious identity crisis. The first of these is what to call it. Promo materials toss around labels such as folk, country, and pop. It's not a mélange–pop is the correct label. Second, there's the matter of her self-chosen comparisons: Mariah Carey, Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaelson, and Carrie Underwood, of which the first is closest. She has a high, girl-like whispery voice like all four, but she has the drama of Bareilles, but not her hipness; the (occasional) quiet demeanor of Michaelson, but not her attention to arrangement; and the sweetness of Underwood, but not the contrasting bottom tones to her voice. One is a "young" album that lacks confidence and tries too hard to impress us with how Miles can hit the high notes. Like Mariah Carey, she offers diva music with the forced drama of dance hall pop. (My personal comparison would be to English club ingénue Robyn.) On one track she actually sings "It's all about me" and, yes, there's too much of that going on.

I've been very harsh thus far, so allow me to temporize a bit. Miles has a promising voice that can take her places once she gets control over it and acquires better material. She has a nice catch in her throat and there are hints of husk when she puts the whispery tones on hold. (Please Lord–deliver us from little girl voices and lead us into the land of full-grown women!) One is an optimistic album, the bulk of songs being about being young and in love. Its best moments are generally the buildups to what are supposed to be hooky refrains, though the latter are overly processed, excessive, and generic.  When Miles dials it back several notches and sings to the song, not through it, the results are much stronger. We hear this to best effect on the title track, and again on "Take the Lead," the second of which feels like genuine joy rather than bludgeoned optimism. Duty requires that I dub this a very rocky debut, but I sure would like to hear Ms. Miles do something spare that connects more to an audience than to the Austin music biz.

By the way, her YouTube version of "One" is better than what's on the album.

Rob Weir

Tim's Vermeer: Portrait of Genius, Technology, and Obsession

TIM'S VERMEER (2013)

Directed by Teller

PG-13 Sony Pictures, 80 minutes

Tim Jenison has never painted a picture in his life. What would make such a man think he could re-create a masterpiece such as Johannes Vermeer's The Music Lesson? There have long been rumors that Vermeer (1632-1675) might have used optical aids to capture the minute details for which he has been acclaimed. That possibility, not Vermeer's exalted reputation, is what fascinated Jenison–an inventor/geek who made a fortune in visual imaging and post-production work for Hollywood and television.

Jenison's six-year search to uncover the key to Vermeer's precision is the subject of this fascinating documentary, which is directed by Teller and whose primary interviewer is his partner in magic, Penn Jillette, a friend of Jenison's. As noted above, Jenison wasn't the first to suspect that Vermeer's stunning use of light, color, and minute detail required the use of optical aids. In 2001, British scholar Philip Steadman put forth a compelling case that Vermeer might have used a camera obscura, a thesis shared by famed painter David Hockney. (Both men appear in the film.) Is it possible that one of Western civilization's greatest painters was also among the first to understand the implications of new optical technology? Vermeer lived at a time in which the Dutch were the richest nation in Europe and Dutch scientists pioneered in microscope lenses. In Jenison's mind, if Vermeer was using optics, he was as much a tracer as an artist and someone who had access to the same materials, studio conditions, and optical devices ought to be able to recreate a Vermeer. It was an audacious assertion, especially for one with an untrained hand–Jenison had in mind painting a Vermeer, not a likeness of one.

Vermeer's The Music Lesson

How does one even begin such an undertaking? It helps if you're rich and handy building things. How else could one build a replica of Vermeer's Delft studio in San Antonio, complete with the sort of tapestries, glass, and ceiling beams used in the 17^th century? How else can one afford to grind glass as it would have done in the 17^th century, or acquire the materials for the expensive pigments Vermeer used? Indeed, how else could one obtain a private viewing of a painting owed by Queen Elizabeth? Teller takes us inside Jenison's quest and makes the best case yet that Vermeer was as skilled with optics as with the brush.  

So did Jenison match the work of an undisputed master? You be the judge. For me, one of the remarkable things about this documentary is that it reveals one mystery and leaves others intact. It's still a near-miracle that so much talent could reside in one man, and the painstaking lengths taken by Jenison to tackle just one painting enhances my understanding of why there are just 34 known Vermeer canvases. Teller's documentary is a testament to genius, obsession, technology and God-given talent. If you think you are a person who does not like documentaries, trust me and rent Tim's Vermeer. I can practically guarantee that you will again never think of documentaries or Vermeer in the same way.  Rob Weir

Photo by me of detail from Young Woman with a Water Pitcher that shows photographic-like reverse imagery.

Nostalgia Good and Bad: The Revalists and The Bad Things

In 1959, novelist Peter De Vries dashed off a sentence destined for cultural glory: "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be." It's often used as a put-down for all things resurrected, but the phrase also implies that once nostalgia was what it used to be. I mused upon that phrase when two new releases made their way to me, one of which does a fine job of reanimating an old genre and the second of which may have its charms, but they were certainly lost on me.

First the good news: The New Orleans-based band The Revivalists makes no bones about dusting off old styles. Their latest self-titled EP evokes the mid-1960s when bands were grooving in the little seam that connected rhythm and blues to "soul" music. These groups were usually stripped down versions of R & B outfits for the simple reason that it was hard to travel with a big band. Some critics complained that the instrumentation was 'thin.' The Revivalists are a seven-piece lineup–large by today's standards–but they do sound thin if you compare them to ensembles such as those that backed Big Joe Turner. That's not the standard at which the Revivalists aim–try Van Morrison, whose tones lead vocalist David Shaw eerily invokes. This is R&B/soul at its sexy and mellow best–the kind that works up a sweat by degree, not a single burst. Shaw is a revelation–a voice filled with grit, spit, and power. Check out tunes such as "Mary Joanna the Music" and "Soulfight" and you'll definitely hear the Van Morrison influences. You'll also hear another very good thing about this band–keyboardist Michael Girardot, he of both the rolling thunder organ and the cool-to-the-touch piano. Loved this band.

Alas, I have less affection for the Seattle-based The Bad Things (not to be confused with Shaun White's band of that name) whose After the Inferno (Silent City Records) is the sort I might have loved back in 1979 or so, but which now feels like a bird that has flown. Aren't we all a bit tired of hearing about Seattle's grimy side? Especially when the antidote seems to be clash, thrash, and embrace the decadence? The Bad Things are a nostalgia mash up: the DIY ethos of punk at its height, an Irish bar band, and seedy cabaret. I admired the politics and snippets of the writing, but I couldn't get past the fact that lead vocalist Jimmy Berg lights no fires and that the instrumentation is more laconic than iconic. The DIY vibe of punk made sense during the stagflation of the 70s and heartlessness of the Reagan-Thatcher years, but it simply sounds sloppy now. That's among the reasons that punk mutated into grunge–a style that dressed up punk's anger with better sound and musicians. Were I in my 20s and hanging out in a down-market Seattle club, this band's sideshowspectacles might intrigue, but the bird of youth has also flown.   Rob Weir 

The Luminaries: Sprawling, Difficult, but Worth It

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THE LUMINARIES (2013/14)

By Eleanor Catton

Little Brown, 849 pages, 9781847054323

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This 2013 Man Booker Prize winner is just now finding its way into deeper circulation in the United States after having been originally released in New Zealand, by a university press no less! It is, depending on your point of view, either the sort of pretentious pap that the Booker Prize committee loves and most people hate, or a brilliantly conceived and complex novel that deserves every accolade it garners. I am (mostly) of the second view, though I think there are excesses that justify criticism.  

North Americans seldom realize that the California and Yukon gold rushes were part of a global search for "the pure," as characters from The Luminaries call gold. This novel takes place in 1866 in the town of Hokitika. I've been there. Today it's a sleepy town of about 3,000 souls on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. There are just a handful of places to stay, though it's one of the nicest places to be in an otherwise gritty region. In 1866, though, it too was rough–a boom-town with twice as many people, dozens of ships in its treacherous harbor, and the jumping off point for the region's short-lived gold rush. Think San Francisco about six months after gold was discovered in the American River.

Back then Hokitika was a town of wheeler-dealers, crooks, cranks, ex-convicts, confidence men, prospectors, prostitutes, dreamers, and fools. There were also "Crown men," upright and uptight Victorians who lacked the common sense to know that their imported English values were as useless as broken shovel in a rough-and-tumble frontier gold rush town. Catton takes us inside that world–into the whore houses, the assayer's office, the Chinese tent cities, the instant cottages found in the bush, the local jail (gaol in Brit speak), the numerous hotels lining Revel Street, the grimy dock, and the various merchant shops and government offices set up to fleece the pure from the pockets of the prospectors. Indeed, Catton's sprawling novel is populated by something akin to a prototypical United Nations: Englishmen and women, indigenous Maori, a Jewish newspaper editor, several Chinese characters, a Frenchman, a Norwegian, an Irish English cleric, a Scottish politician, and several whose origins are questionable. It also features fortunes won and misplaced, con jobs, séances, opium, and maybe even some redemption.

Here's where the pretense comes in. The Luminaries features nineteen important characters. Catton uses the device of the Zodiac and gives twelve of them celestial traits. But because the earth was not in the same relative orbital position in 1866, she uses seven other characters to represent five planets, the sun, and the moon to show how their "pull" caused astrological traits to bleed into one another. If that's way too complex for you, just ignore it. It is, indeed, a novelist's device. Maybe Catton feels very clever about all this, but she's writing for herself (and maybe the Booker Prize committee) when she does it. The rest of us will have enough trouble just keeping the characters straight. (Indeed, you should probably buy the paperback rather than the e-book so you can more easily flip back to refresh your memory.)

The Luminaries, at its best, is Dickensian in its character development and labyrinthine twists. It also features something Dickens never managed or dared–two strong, central female characters that spent some time plying the world's oldest profession. Catton, at age 28, is the youngest ever Booker Prize winner. I loved this novel, but The Goldfinch it's not. The latter is also a sprawling novel but it is written in a more mature and confident style that doesn't confuse hooks with contrivances. The Luminaries doesn't need to have as many characters or expend as many pages as it does. As it is, it will frequently astonish, but it will also frustrate. This is the sort of book that will periodically tempt you to give up. Don't–the rewards are worth it and you'll wish to resolve the fates of the characters that really matter (about half of the nineteen). Stay with it even if you, like I, figure out its central mystery before it's revealed.  I wouldn't have bestowed a Booker on The Luminaries, but it certainly shines the merits of (some) memorable characters, its sense of place, and a pretty good mystery. –Rob Weir

Note: For those unfamiliar with the Maori language (most folks, I reckon), here's a small primer to help you with place names. Maori usually divides syllables every two letters unless vowels are side by side, in which case they are elided. A "wh" is usually an "f." Syllables frequently have the same stress. Hokitika is Hō-ki-ti-ka (or hokey-ticka) The major Maori character is Te Rau Tawhare is (roughly) Tě-Răl-Ta-far-ēē and say it fast.

Boyhood: Good Film with a Dubious Hook

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BOYHOOD (2014)

Directed by Richard Linklater

IFC Films, 164 minutes, R (language, drug use, sexual innuendo)

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This could be a parental mantra: "They grow up so fast. I wish I could hold onto their childhood." In Boyhood, Richard Linklater does exactly that. Its central story is that of a boy, Mason, Jr., from the ages of 7 to 18.

By now I'm sure you've heard of its unique hook: Linklater literally allows us to see two kids grow up. Mason, Jr. is Ellar Coltrane and Linklater's daughter, Lorelei, plays his sister. The idea for Boyhood came to Linklater a dozen years ago and he had the foresight to shoot a little bit of his film each year. What we see on screen is the actual physical development of individuals as they progress from childhood into adolescence.

Upon this hook Linklater imposes an external story of a very American phenomenon: broken families. He also filmed his other actors over time, with Ethan Hawke as Mason Sr. and Patricia Arquette as Olivia, the mother. Mason Sr. is impetuous and immature, a blue-collar guy who drifts to Alaska with dreams of being a musician but no plan for making anything happen, whereas Olivia thinks there has to be more to life than a busted down house in small town Texas. They are the classic mad-for-each-other-can't-live-together couple that embodies the old pop song "Jackson" and its line "We got married in a fever/Hotter than a pepper sprout…." Divorce comes when Mason Jr. is just seven and Samantha nine. The film also explores parental journeys and choices, good and bad. As such we also see them "grow up," with Olivia's path to becoming a psychology professor an especially perilous and bittersweet one.

As the title Boyhood suggests, much of the film focuses on Mason. Jr., especially the various ways in which he reconnects and disconnects with his father. We follow Mason, Jr. and his mother from one small town to another, then to Houston, San Marcos, and to his first day at college, with Mason, Sr. making quintessential absentee dad appearances. (Hawke, as usual, is amazing; Arquette, as usual, is not.) Linklater also makes judicial use of period music–including Dylan, Wings, Cat Power, Cold Play, and Arcade Fire–to establish time periods, moods, and shifting tastes. At his best, Linklater simply nails childhood–awkward attempts to bond on a camping trip, a teen girl's embarrassment at being ferried to school by her mother, adolescent angst of trying to figure out one's identity, and a deliciously funny and cringe-worthy scene in which dad tries to explain the birds and the bees to his grossed out offspring.

But we must ask: Does Linklater's hook work?  Is it verisimilitude or a clever con job? The most judicious answer would be to take the middle path. It's cool to see Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Hawke, and Arquette age before our eyes, but the film is not telling an actual story–it's a script, not real life, no matter how 'typical' the themes might be. This means that the central drama is ultimately manipulative. We are encouraged to imagine children in real-time and in real jeopardy, but only the first is true–the kids are alright.

This raises several more questions. If all Linklater wants to do is tell the story of American childhood, why go to all this bother? Why not just use various actors to show kids at different ages and use makeup on Mom and Dad? (We know the magic makeup artists can achieve, plus Coltrane looks so different from his little boy self that I had to be reminded it was the same person.) Does the movie have to be two hours and forty-four minutes long? The story is a powerful one worthy of viewing on its own merits, but do we see anything new? Is the movie as long as it is because we are ultimately viewing pieces of Linklater's obsession, rather than his vision?

I really liked this film, but I think too many reviewers and viewers have focused on the hook instead of the product. It's a good movie, but no masterpiece. And, yes, it's more artifice than art.  Rob Weir

Iraq and Afghanistan: Told you So!

Is there anything more obnoxious than the phrase "I told you so"? Well, get ready, because I did and I'm going to flaunt it.

Remember when the second Gulf War began back in 2003? At the time, I was teaching at a Western Massachusetts college that isn't UMass or Smith, where I'm found these days. Old G. W. Bush timed his war perfectly. The nation had moved beyond wallowing in post-9/11 sorrow and was ready to exact revenge, even if we had to invent a few enemies. There were all manner of nationalistic threats, militaristic songs on the radio, and bellicose promises of God's own justice floating about. Back then I warned that this sort of jingoism was dangerous. I told you so.

The USA, at the time, had already been at war in Afghanistan since October 2001. I didn't support that war, but at least I understood it. Unlike Iraqis, the Afghani Taliban really was connected to 9/11. I recall a friendly debate with a Quaker friend downtown holding a "War is Not the Answer" sign. "You're right," I said to her, "But we can't stop this one. It's too much to expect Americans to turn the other cheek over 9/11." I added, "We will regret going there." Told you so.

Iraq, though, was a farce and I told you that it was a put-up job. I knew from reading U.N. reports there were no weapons of mass destruction, and any damn fool knew that Bush's insinuation that Saddam was connected to 9/11 was stupid. I engaged those who were that stupid and told that not even Bush believed that. Told you so. I also said that Saddam was a paper tiger and that analogies made to Hitler were really dumb, so yes, I told you so on that one too.

Here's another thing I recall. The school in question decided to hold a rally in support of American troops being sent to Iraq. Some people asked me for my support. I said no. I told them that I wanted a rally for those opposed to the utter madness of sending Americans back to Iraq. I didn't support the first Gulf War and certainly wasn't going to endorse the second one. Numerous members of the community excoriated me as unpatriotic. I told them that the patriotic thing to do was to work toward reversing the decision to send troops to Iraq. I also said, stridently, that the U.S. would not see a repeat of Gulf War I. Un huh. I told you so. 

When President Bush declared, "mission accomplished" on May 1, 2003, my response was "Hah! I don't think so." When war-maddened Sunshine Patriots–often led by third-rate Country singers who've never been any closer to combat than they'd been to a cow–started trashing civil liberties, I announced we'd look back at these episodes in shame. Told you so.

The polls caught up to me in 2010, but I held my tongue. Then an August 1, 2014 AP poll showed that 78% of all Americans now think the war in Afghanistan was a failure; 80% think the same about Iraq. More than half think the situation will get worse in each country. I can't hold it back any longer. If you wonder why no one informed people that things weren't going to go well, my response: I told you so.

Sick of hearing this yet? Imagine how pleasant it was when I was being trashed back in 2003-04. I earned the right to be smug because at least I told you so.