August 2018 Album of the Month: Kittel and Company

Kittel and Company

Whorls

Fiddlestick Music/Compass

There are legions of perfectly competent musicians, but the list of great ones is much shorter. Listen to 30 seconds of “Pando,” the opening track of Whorls, and you’ll know that Jeremy Kittel soars in the rarefied air of category number two. If you’re looking to slap a genre label on him, though, that will take much longer. You’ll hear passages on “Pando” that remind you of the Penguin Orchestra and bright swoops that are faintly bluegrass, but the latter is nothing Bill Monroe would have recognized. Then comes a contemplative cello and mandolin bridge from Nathaniel Smith and Joshua Pinkham respectively. A hoedown teaser follows, then a swirl, fast-paced fiddle fill, and a fade. “Ohmsted” is another head-scratcher. It opens with a somnambulant touch and then sprints into breakdown mode.

Get used to it; Whorls is as enigmatic as it is utterly brilliant. “The Boxing Reels” is dance tempo built around Simon Chapman’s hammer dulcimer, but for a circle of faeries traipsing in the morning dew. He warms them up gently, before Kittel quickens the dance and drives them into a mad and gleeful frenzy. “Home in the World” has the feel of a formal Scottish court dance the likes of which you might hear from the strings of Alasdair Fraser, especially in the almost silent but impossibly high end of the scale.  

So is this a kind of Celtic album? On occasion, but you’d never put such a label on pastoral, meditative material such as “Alpena,” “Chrysalis,” “Interlude,” or “Nethermead.” Each of those is a mix of jazz inflection, melodic folk, and New Age ambience, though they are more structured than the first, less homespun than the second, and way more complex than the last. “Preludio” is deconstructed classical music, and that’s not a metaphor; the tune comes from Bach, who’d probably be just as stunned as Bill Monroe to behold the flowers Kittel planted in his musical garden. In still another vein, the album’s first vocal track, “Waltz,” sung by Kittel with subtle texturing from Sarah Jarosz, feels like a cross between a chant and a lullaby.

Kittel often tours as a trio with Pinkham and guitarist Quinn Bachand, who fully embrace Kittel’s artistic vision. It is no exaggeration to say that Pinkham, in particular, is one of the more innovative mandolin players of recent memory. Bachand’s role is to be the glue and occasionally let loose. Listen carefully to what he does; without him, a tune such as “Fields of Brooklyn” could easily lose its understated syncopated bounce and coherence. Kittel is a masterful composer/arranger and the king of the slow build. Although the longest piece, “Ohmsted,” is under 8 minutes, each track feels like a suite. Surrender; there is no good label for this music. It’s a collection of whorls—kaleidoscopic sound lines and colors that intersect, loop, and spiral.

Rob Weir

Own It: Things That are Uncomfortably True

 

I’ve not written a Cranky Notions column in a while because I’ve grown weary of the Internet “noise” level. I wish Trump was the only fact-challenged voice out there, but confirmation bias is everywhere, that is, the selective interpretation of  detail designed to "prove" a preconceived belief.

Here are eight things folks need to own, whether they like them or not.

1. To Trump Supporters: One of these statements must be false: Unemployment levels are at historic lows. Illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs.  I’m suspicious of both statements, but the two assertions are clearly contradictory. Either immigrants (legal and illegal) are being hired because labor is in high demand, or Trump’s rosy economic rap is an utter lie. I’ll add for nothing that I’ve yet to discover a native-born “American” whose job was taken by an undocumented worker. Decide which statement you believe and own it.

2. To Liberals: Wall Street ate your values. There is a world of difference between what’s good for the Stock Market and what’s good for society. If you’ve grown wealthy from your 401k and other investments, you’ve probably cooperated in a robber baron economy of off-shoring, union bashing, dirty energy, runaway capital, and funding for the Republican Party. The only way to prevent such a thing is to shift all your investments to a socially responsible portfolio (and even then you have to be diligent). Ignoring what companies do could be viewed as less ethically defensible than the antics of rapacious capitalists; at least the latter own their behavior.  

3. To Republicans: It’s not fake news; you need to admit that Trump is the Wizard of Oz. He always has been. His greatest trick was to get working stiffs to believe that he cares about them. Message: Trump cares about himself and his economic interests; he’d gladly sell you down the river to enhance his profile and wealth. He did a good job of deflecting that, but the Michael Cohen plea and Paul Manafort convictions remove all doubt. Own it and repeat after me: “Crooked Donald.” 

4. To Clintonites: It’s going to be a helluva lot harder to seize high moral ground on election tampering now that we know that President Bill Clinton interfered in the 1996 Russian reelection of Boris Yeltsin. Clinton’s meddling—including collusion with the International Monetary Fund—vaulted an unpopular and severely alcoholic Yeltsin from 8% support in the primaries to a 54.4% majority in a matter of months. Guess who Yeltsin appointed as his prime minister? That would be the guy who followed him as president: Vladimir Putin.

 

Bill's role was speculative at the time, but now the evidence is in. Do you think future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, knew nothing about this? Other troubling things: Is anyone impressed by Bill’s recent non-defense of his dallies with Monica Lewinsky? Or Hillary’s silence on those statements, followed by backpedaling? Are you shocked by the fact that Arkansas tops the charts as the nation’s most sexist state and has been a sinkhole for women since the 1970s?  That’s from the Washington Post by the way, not the rightwing Washington Times. Own it: The Clintons are toxic. 

5. To Red Sox Fans:  The Red Sox are the new Evil Empire. Their $227.8 million payroll is more than $20 million more than the #2 Giants, and a whopping $50 million more than the New York Yankees (6^th highest). I wonder why we’ve not heard the phrase “trying to buy a championship” lately? I doubt many outside of New England will weep if the Sox are knocked out of the postseason early. Own it: The Sox are just as bad as the Yankees, or STFU next year when Hal Steinbrenner opens the vault to buy Manny Machado and a new pitching staff headed by Clayton Kershaw.

6. To Democrats Post-2018: Current numbers are looking better and the party has a chance to win at least one of the houses of Congress. I never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I hope they capture both. The danger comes thereafter. Own it: Democratic leaders are too old—this coming from a graying Baby Boomer. The Democrats must encourage young folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz, or the party’s fortunes are headed for the boneyard. In 2020, Nancy Pelosi will be 80, Joe Biden 79, Michael Bloomberg 78, and Hillary Clinton 73. Even the admirable Liz Warren would be 71.

Kristin Gillibrand has a better profile; she’d be 53. Ditto Kamala Harris (55 in 2020), or even Deval Patrick at 64. Chris Murphy (47) is probably not ready yet. I doubt that any of these folks are electable in our current political climate. In my estimation, they should be looking for a bilingual populist—from where is the question.

7. To Bernie Supporters: Bernie’s my favorite politician, but it would be very wrong for him to make another bid. He’ll be 79 in 2020 and all good things must, inevitably, come to an end. He needs to step back and let his Our Revolution organization be his lasting legacy. Own it; Bernie’s moment has passed.

8. To Massachusetts Democrats: Own it: Governor Charlie Baker will be easily reelected in November. He’s earned it. I’ve not voted for a Republican since Silvio Conte, but unless some serious dirt peeps out from the carpet, I’ll cast one for Baker. He hasn’t done much harm, which would normally be small potatoes,  but it seems pretty huge these days. Write a check for charity, not the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. It would take a miracle to unseat Baker.

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Bennington Mueum of Art: New Deal Art and Edward Koren

Crash to Creativity: The New Deal in Vermont (through Nov. 4, 2018)

Thinking about Extinction and other Droll Things: Recent Prints and Drawings from Edward Koren (though Sept. 9, 2018)

Bennington Museum of Art

Bennington, Vermont

Francis Colburn

Click Image for larger format

Back in the 1980s, when I was a high school teacher in Milton, Vermont, I oversaw an oral history project in which students solicited memories of the Great Depression. One comment remains vivid. A farmer from the Lamoille River Valley of north-central Vermont remarked, “What Depression? We were poor before the Depression, poor during it, and poor after it. It didn’t make much difference up to these parts.”

That old farmer exaggerated, but only by a little. Northern Vermont agriculture has always been easier to associate with an adjective such as hardscrabble rather than idyllic terms such as verdant or prosperous. A different story prevailed for Green Mountain State wage earners, and the Depression was also hard on intellectuals, artists, and writers. A current exhibit at the Bennington Museum of Art looks back at Vermont during the 1930s through the eyes of painters, graphic artists, and Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration photographers. We also hear from ordinary citizens who were interviewed by field researchers with the Federal Writers Project.

Ronald Slayon, Unemployed

If you are unfamiliar with programs such as the CCC, WPA, and FWP, all you need to know is that, once upon a time, we had a president named Franklin D. Roosevelt who actually believed it was wrong for people to be poor. During Roosevelt’s time in office (1933-45), his New Deal programs unfolded from the premise that only the federal government had the necessary resources to mediate a crisis the magnitude of the Great Depression (1929-41). Among the programs were those designed to put people back to work (WPA), give financial relief to farmers (Agricultural Adjustment Act), create work for unemployed young men (CCC), and harness the minds and talents of intellectuals to document what ordinary people experienced (FWP, WPA). The Bennington Museum’s exhibit centers on those who endured and documented the Depression.

Much of the exhibit focuses on the paintings of two former University of Vermont artists: Francis Colburn (1909-84) and Ronald Slayton (1910-92). Each was a New Deal liberal, a term often applied to those who also flirted with socialist ideals and even had some respect for communists. Conservatives back then also whipped up paranoia about Big Government, Reds, and radicals, but mostly an ethos of we’re-all-in-this-together relegated the self-serving power elites to the sidelines. 

Colburn, Quarry Workers

Several takeaways emerge from the paintings and photographs on display. First, there is the view noted by the above-mentioned farmer in the '80s. That is to say, though we see hard work during hard times, there is an underlying timelessness to the daily grind before us. Look into the eyes of the subjects; observe the nature of work lurking in the background. Often, only the implements or automobiles tell us that it’s the 1930s.

Marion Huse, Sunday

 

Second, New Deal art celebrated the Common Man (and Woman)—usually capitalized as I have done—in renderings sometimes known as proletarian art. Human scale is deliberately exaggerated in attempts to bestow dignity upon the subjects. The emphasis is on average Americans, a term that decidedly did not mean kowtowing to the romantic nonsense that all Americans were somehow members of the middle class. (Of all American myths, that of a middle-class society is the most perniciously false.) New Deal art doesn’t dwell on elites, a refreshing break in the history of Western art. 

Third, you’ll see—especially in Colburn and Slayton—artists experimenting with form, color, and style. If crisis has a virtue, it is that it challenges conventions of all sorts. This was also the case for graphics and woodcut artists. Again, the content is usually ordinary people, their work, and the upheavals in which they caught up, but you’ll see artists who reduce all of this to geometric outlines, a stripping away that universalizes experience.

If you live in the Greater Burlington area, you may have seen a 2010 retrospective of Colburn and Slayton, but it’s well worth a trip to southern Vermont to see them again in their New Deal context. Everyone else should definitely make a detour to Bennington if you find yourself anywhere near there before November.

Henry Schnakenberg, Winooski

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The museum also has an exhibit of Edward Koren sketches and prints, though only for another month. The 82-year-old Koren is best known for his children’s books and his social and political cartoons that appear in the New Yorker. Koren splits his time in Manhattan and in Brookfield, Vermont, and happened to be giving a talk the July day I was in the museum. It was nice to see Koren, but if you miss the current exhibit, it’s not a tragedy. Although Koren tackles a timely subject (climate change), and sounds a clarion warning that mammals including humans are threatened with extinction, this exhibit is a one-trick skeletal pony.

Too much of one thing?

Koren’s trademark shaggy critters are everywhere. They remain charming and whimsical, but the show lacks visual diversity. You’d need to be a real Koren junkie to devote more time than needed for a brief walk through the gallery. In essence, the drawings are repeated doodles that add up to variations on the theme of species extinction. You could pretty much lift any Koren cartoon from the New Yorker and replace the body with bones and you’d get the same effect. For me, Koren’s Seuss-like offbeat faces blunted the seriousness of his message. I remain a fan of Koren’s work, share his alarm over climate change, and parrot his warning. However, I also think that if ever the phrase less is more applies, it is here.

Rob Weir

Art Road Trip: National Museum of African Art

National Museum of African Art

Washington, DC

Placed here b/c Achebe was once on the UMass faculty

 

Click on images for bigger size 

Last month, I paid a visit to my one-time undergraduate mentor—now dear friend—Charles Loucks. We reminisced about what might have done differently had we had been aware back then what we'd like to know or do now. One thing I definitely would have done is study African art in a serious way. This made my trip to Washington DC especially sweet, as it's the only museum devoted entirely to African art in the nation.

Art is the ultimate subjective discipline. Why does one person love a particular style, but not another? Try as I will, for example, I simply can't generate enthusiasm for Japanese painting, yet I have friends who can't get enough of it. I'm that way about African art. I like the fact that even art that is produced for display retains elements of utility. I also admire qualities sometimes called "folk art" when they appear in Western art, though I'm leery of that label as it's too often used to suggest that it's not as accomplished as so-called "fine" art. Oddly, we often lump Picasso and Matisse into the fine art category, though both of them acknowledged their debt to African masks and sculpture.

Mainly I love the diversity in African art—even when universal themes are present, no two African cultures render these the same way. There's also an earthy solidity to form that appeals to me that also shapes color palettes. You'll see much more brown, rust, yellow ochre, and such like in African art. And I really admire the fact that there's little frippery present; if I had to pick the period of art I like the least, hands-down it's European Baroque.

To return to my regret, I am self-taught in all that I know about African art and—I'm sorry to say—it's not much. I have attached some things I liked from my July trip to DC and comments on why, but offer apologies if I've misinterpreted anything. 

This powerful piece is called Apartheid Laboratory and the symbolism should be obvious, right down to an evocation of an electric chair.

 Ethiopia was Christianized very early and a lot of its art evokes Byzantine icons.

This was worn on the head in Sierra Leone, a nation founded by the British to resettle freed slaves and akin to Liberia, which was set up for that reason by the USA. In each case, resettled slaves entered lands already settles by others and--in a great irony--conquered indigenous peoples. The above is in the spirit of original peoples.

 This is a helmet mask from Nigeria. Note there are faces on all sides.

 An initiation panel from Congo. Boys often lived in separate houses as they prepared to be initiated into adulthood. In some lands this involved painful circumcision as the boys were generally over age 12.

 This is from Gabon and all I can say is it makes me happy. To me it evokes a cross between a baboon and an old man. I'm pretty sure that's me and not its intent!

From Benin. Benin was once an empire with a warrior class. As you can see, they maintianed a horse cavalry.

This massive contemporary piece is a comment on eternity. It's forged of metal, looks like rubber, and depicts a snake swallowing its own tail. The latter is an image found many places in the world, including Ireland.

This frightening object was worn on the crest of the head. It's from Nigeria.

I really love this pacific Yoruba figure from Nigeria. It reminds me of Buddhas found in Southeast Asia.

Many tribes, kinship groups, and clans are headed by a figure whose status better translates as "Big Man" rather than chief. This is from Ghana and takes the Big Man concept literally!

Another one that simply makes me happy. From Cameroon.

More recent painting from Tanzania. A reminder that Africans are sailors and fishers as well. And maybe a reminder that if we trash the waters of the Indian Ocean, it deprives millions of their livelihoods.

New World Music: Summer of 2018

Appalatin, Vida

If you want more ammunition to defend multiculturalism, a few tracks from Appalatin ought to do the trick. Think immigrants from Ecuador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and a chance meeting in Louisville with a few native Kentuckians schooled in Appalachian bluegrass. Let the fun begin. On the ten-track release Vida, Quechua, Spanish, and English collide with various musical styles to create a unique synthesis. You'll hear some of the usual string band instruments—guitar, bass, mandolin—but also flutes, charango, trumpet, saxophone, bongos, congas, and triangle. What kind of music is it? It depends on the moment. "Primavera" is a flute-driven blend of pop, rock, and Latin acoustic. A folk rock song in English, "Flow Like a River," is a bit like Poco if it had dual flautists. By contrast, the instrumental "Pituco" is a folk/jazz mélange in which you'll hear panpipes standing tall amidst brass and other instruments normally viewed as more forceful. The other song in English, "Sweet Song of the Soul," could have been plucked from the Stax archives, except smooth Fernando Moya handles the lead vocals instead of gritty Wilson Pickett. Try the title track to catch Appalatin in a pastoral mood as gentle as a summer breeze. This is fusion music at its best; swing, pronounced beats, sweet melodies, balanced harmonies, and strong lead vocals offer a lot to like. As a footnote, if you're skeptical that the world needs another version of "Guantanamera," reserve judgment until you hear Appalatin's version. ★★★★

Various Artists, Small Island, Big Song

Among Australian Aborigines, songlines are akin to maps, except they do with words what print would do on a map; that is, the songs guide them through the outback. (They also connect them to sacred Dreamtime rituals.) Filmmaker Tim Cole and Taiwanese publicist BaoBao Chen pondered the question of whether such songlines cross water; after all, anthropologists have long noted cultural diffusion among the peoples of Oceania. They took three years, visited 16 islands, and then came up with an even cooler idea. Small Island, Big Song contains contemporary compositions, but they are shot through with both tradition and pan-Oceanic blends. There is, for instance, "Naka War War To'o," from Solomon Islander Charles Maimarosia, with wooden flutes driving the melody and hollow drums pounding out the rhythms for an assortment of other instruments. The effect is soulful and sounds like someone decided to merge Pan pipes and East African guitar to create club dance grooves. On the other end of the spectrum we find "Pemung Jae" from Sarawak's Alena Murang whose spare vocals and lute produce a song that's somewhere between blues and bluegrass. Do you even know where the Torres Strait Islands are located? You might want to Google them, because Mau Power and Sandro lay down some trance-like beats in which big bass thumps and woodpecker-like percussion set the pace for hip hop that's like a warm-up for a haka. Perhaps the best-known artists are Madagascar's Tarika and Ben Hakalitz of Australia's Yothu Yindi, but the joy of discovery is high on this album. You'll hear indigenous flutes and lutes, jaw harps, kora, and other such things mix with more familiar instruments. You will also travel from Taiwan to Easter Island with stops in-between. The poignant exclamation mark is that many of these traditions are threatened—not by cultural diffusion, but by climate change. Watch these clips also fro some truly gorgeous filmmaking.

Various Artists, SXSW Sounds from Hungary

There is a hook-shaped sweep of mountain ranges in eastern and southern Europe where the Carpathian Mountains sweep into the Balkans is home to some of the most amazing music on the planet. Hungary sits in the northwestern part of the hook. Its music is not yet as appreciated as that of Romania or Greece, but it's every bit as exciting. The South by Southwest Music (SXSW) Festival recently showcased Hungarian music and you can hear what you've been missing on a Rock Paper Scissors sampler. I was quite taken by a performer called Boggie. She's billed as a pop singer, but her music is more robust than that. She sings in French, English, and Hungarian and in each she does so with verve. Check out "Le Demon," which has the force of a nightingale on steroids. Her English "Run to the River" has the feel of a mysterious Tori Amos song, while "Quitte-moi" is French, but with a faintly Latin jazz beat as filtered through an African chorus. Belau mixes visuals with electronica explorations. Try "Somebody Told Me So" and "You and I," both of which feature the pop-ready vocals of Krisztián Buzás and she powers through the beats and programming of Péter Kedves. If you want something harder, try what the Bohemian Betyars call–and I can't improve on this–"speed punk freak folk with Hungarian folk Romani stylings." "Trouble is My Brother" is reminiscent of Gogol Bordello, while "Sinful Needs" is like a string band on a very strange pharmaceutical trip.  You can also hear tracks from the soulful Qualitions and the blues/rock/folk Rockjam. ★★★★

Diali Cissokho and Kaira Ba, Routes

 This is diasporic music from Senegal. Koru master Diali Cissokho now lives in North Carolina and his band, Kaira Ba, consists mostly of native Tar Heels. Their latest album surprises in many ways. There is, first of all, the integration of environmental and found sounds. "Alla L'a Ke," for example, opens with insect sounds upon which kora notes drip like falling rain. Then we hear some crystalline electric guitar and percussion that ease us into Cissokho's lead vocals and the backing chorus. It's nearly 7 minutes of groove and weave. "Night in M'Bour"—M'Bour is Cissokho's hometown—uses wind and insect sounds to prelude strong percussion and wooden flute. These give way to street noise and then an impromptu performance. "Ma Cherie" is also a kora/drum combo that slides into a swaying rhythm. Cissokho then commands a call-and-response vocal that includes a female singer answering his Manding vocals in English. "Salsa Xalel" is as the title suggests: a Latin feel overlaid with West African music. And there's "Story Song," with growly vocals, rumbling bass, and a soulful arrangement that even includes some rolling organ. You'll hear lots of stuff on this one: rock, soul, R & B, funk, and Senegalese. Label it pan-African. ★★★★

Nsimbi, Nsimbi

Nsimbi is a Los Angeles-based musical partnership between American singer Miriam Tamar and Uganda's Herbert Kinobe, with soukous guitar help from the Congo-born Jaja Bashengezi. All three are talented multi-instrumentalists—18 instruments among them—but my take is that should have taken more chances. I enjoyed this album more in pieces than as a whole. I was intrigued by the instrumental melodies and the power of Ms. Tamar's vocals, but there's not much poetry to the lyrics. For instance, I liked the high-stepping beats of "Flower of the Heart," but wouldn't you say comparing love to a flower is a tad clichéd? "Mujje" is a very much a dance club piece, but why is Kinobe posing as an LA-style DJ/rapper? We don't expect dance songs to be political, but somehow a love-overcomes-all message seems trite if you known anything at all about recent history in Congo or Uganda. There is lots to like on the album, including Kinobe's balafon on "Koona," Bashengezi's syncopated and contrasting guitar rhythms throughout, and the cool instrumental effect on "Moonglow" where the sounds bounce left to right akin to the effect of first decent pair of headphones you ever bought. I really liked "Gonna Be Alright," which sounds like '40s swing music grafted to light jazz and filtered through early rock 'n roll. Overall, though, I longed for more East African music and less LA rap and processing. ★★½

Markley's Ohio Explains American Despair

OHIO (August 2018)

Stephen Markley

Simon and Schuster, 496 pages.

★★★★★

One of my college students recently said to me, “I hear people use the phrase ‘since 9/11’ a lot, but I don’t really know what that means.” If that shocks you, consider that she was two when the towers fell; the only reality she has ever known is the post-9/11 world. I must tell her to read Stephen Markley’s new novel, Ohio. And so should the rest of you—especially if you’re still trying to figure out why Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

The question of when America began to lose its innocence rages from the halls of academia to backroom bar booths. Was it the JFK assassination, Vietnam, urban race riots, Watergate, the energy crisis, or something else? However it began, 9/11 was the tipping point in which the assumption of American invincibility toppled from its pedestal to be replaced by bleak narratives of decline, division, and deficiency—the City on the Hill transformed into Babylon on the cusp of the fall. Consider, for example, that no one challenged the very premise of Trump's “Make American Great Again” slogan. Remember when Jimmy Carter was excoriated for suggesting that the American Dream was in jeopardy?

Excuse the digression, but you need to consider these bigger questions to appreciate the chilling power of Stephen Markley’s Ohio. It opens with a funeral: that of Rick Brinklan, who was killed in Iraq. As some townspeople spout the usual fallen hero nostrums, his best friend from high school, Bill Ashcraft, prefers to blister his brain with drugs and booze rather than take part in the charade; he sees Rick’s death as senseless. Markley takes us inside the generation that came of age of age with 9/11—high schoolers in an already-depressed town faced with individual searches for identity and meaning. Rick became a knee-jerk patriot; Bill became an anarchist jerk. Yet they both hated the same things; both railed against their impotency within a chaotic and faith-challenged universe.

Markley takes us back and forth between 2003 and 2011, the latter date one in which four high school acquaintances pass through their hometown of New Canaan, Ohio: the cynical Ashcraft; soft-spoken Dan Eaton, who lost an eye in Afghanistan; Stacey Moore, a doctoral student; and Tina Ross, a beautiful woman with deep hurts and secrets. There is no such town as New Canaan, but Markley situates it in Northeast Ohio; that is, near rusted out cities such as Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown. It’s also where you’ll find Kent State University. Cue Neil Young and a lot of unpleasant history. Markley’s New Canaan is akin to Richard Russo’s Mohawk on steroids. Or maybe I should say crystal meth. The very existence of towns such as these—of which there are myriad examples—calls into question the nation’s future. New Canaan is a place where factory workers have given way to Walmart greeters and convenience store clerks, the fate of the high school football team is a diversionary passion, and vultures circle to prey on the desperate: real estate speculators, home equity loan sharks, drug peddlers, military recruiters, right-wing hate groups, evangelists….

Markley divides his book into four sections: “Bill Ashcraft and the Great American Thing,” “Stacey Moore and a Theory of Ecology, Literature, and Love Across Deep Time,” “Dan Eaton and the Murder That Never Was,” and “Tina Ross and the Cool at the Edge of the Woods.” Each section unspools personal narratives, but also spotlights changes in New Canaan since 9/11. Ashcraft is the one who wanted to get away, but only partially did so; he has seen much of the world, is deeply alienated, and now lives underground, though he carries with him New Canaan’s narcotic haze, alcoholic stupefaction, and hopelessness. Moore, an out lesbian and literature scholar, is the one closest to escaping New Canaan, though she has never forgiven the hypocrisy of New Canaan Christians—the ones who quote Jesus in one moment and pop pills and sleep around the next. Dan Eaton is the quiet vet still pining for the girlfriend he gave up to serve three military tours. Call him a semi-tragic figure—a guy who wants to be decent and kind but isn’t sure what those words mean anymore. Ross is darker—outwardly beautiful, but her body scarred from self-inflicted cuts. She is also the key to unmasking New Canaan’s monsters.     

Markley is masterful at character development—not just their actions, but also their internal thoughts, dreams, and nightmares. This makes the book work, as his is a large cast—not just the four central figures, but also pivotal dramatis personae such as the vivacious, wild, and sometimes vulgar Lisa Han; Eaton’s ex-girlfriend Hailey, whose life is as compromised as his; Cole, Tina’s salt-of-the-earth but dull-as-dishwater husband; and Kaylyn, the slutty but outwardly goody-two shoes Christian girl who is nothing but trouble. There is also Ben Harrington, the sensitive musician who dies young; and a bunch of ex-football players, a few of whom have turned dangerous.

That’s a lot and it’s to Markley’s credit that he makes his characters live—even the ones who are dead. He also embeds a mystery within what is essentially a tragedy. Ohio is a tough book and a slow read, but it’s also one of the most honest works on post-9/11 America I have yet to encounter. You feel despair, desperation, and flickering hope on every page. If this sounds depressing, it is at times, but if you want to understand the mindset of those who turn to opioids, bigotry, misanthropy, and charlatans, Ohio is the ticket. Some early reviewers have given up on Ohio and more’s the pity; Markley makes it clear that self-anesthetizing doesn’t work, a list that includes head-in-the-sand ignorance.

 

Rob Weir

The Idiot Good, But Not Pulitizer Material

The Idiot (2017)

By Elif Batuman

Penguin, 423 pages.

★★★

The Idiot was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and I can see why. So why did I give it just three of five stars? This is the kind of novel people who care about serious literature want to love. How readers outside the academic world will receive it an open question. My take is that the book is impressively written, clever, and sometimes blindingly funny, but also self-indulgent and overly showy.

Parts of the novel are semi-autobiographical. Ms. Batuman is indeed a child of Turkish immigrants, attended Harvard, has a facility with languages, and is highly intelligent. The idiot it about how she began to know herself, a discovery that included the realization that she was destined to become a writer. She obtained a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford and has been able to follow her vocation.

Batuman's debut novel—she has also has penned a memoir and has toiled as a journalist—follows Selin, her thinly veiled alter ego, through her first year at Harvard, her first crush, and her transition from prolonged adolescence to adulthood. I wonder what people at Harvard will make of this book. By one reading, Harvard is indeed a holdout against dumbed-down curricula; from another it's a bastion of cluelessness when it comes to functioning in the everyday world. Selin's first year is spent studying linguistics and engaging in deep contemplation over topics such as Noam Chomsky's belief in transformational generative grammar versus the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language relativity. That's pretty heady stuff for anyone, let alone a first-year. Selin also studies Russian, Hungarian, and several other languages; she is multilingual, not bilingual. Her days are spent studying well into the next morning, trying to find time to spend with her new friend Svetlana, and pining over an older Hungarian student, Ivan. She's besotted with Ivan, which is odd given that much of her contract with him is through email, a new thing in 1995, when this book is set. Those conversations often wrestle with whether there is any meaning at all in language, and if it's possible to exist beyond words. Does this make Selin a towering intellect, or the book's namesake idiot?

One thing is certain; she's socially gauche. She knows next to nothing about being a young person, about campus culture, or affairs of the heart. Nor is she very good at practical things such as what to do in a bar, how to choose food, or how to tutor young people. Selin's journey, both physically and psychologically, takes her from New Jersey to Massachusetts, then to Paris, Hungary, and Turkey. She is often so far outside her element that her travails imbue this novel with humor bordering on absurdity. Much of the time Selin drifts through situations as it she's a character in an opéra bouffe. The reader wonders what she actually sees in Ivan, who frequently comes across as a self-centered jerk hiding behind a wall of half-baked ideas posing as profundity. Is Ivan really deep intellectually, or just in the barnyard sense?

Many of us recall early college years and can relate to Selin's feelings of uncertainty and struggles with self-esteem. I think, though, that Selin would have been a stronger character if cast as a first-generation Turkish immigrant, not one born in United States. It stretches credulity to imagine how anyone so interested in other languages and cultures could've gotten to Harvard having learned so little about of American society. Batuman's attempt to write around Selin's awkwardness through passing references to a broken home and a doting-but-domineering mother are not quite convincing.

I admired Bautman's honesty in casting her alter ego as neither heroine nor victim. Selin's attempts to tutor or teach are painful to read. I related to this, as I have personally witnessed former colleagues who needed to find other work, because they simply lacked the disposition to instruct others. On the other hand, the writer who must write has become a tired convention in modern literature. It's also self-serving. One feels as if Batuman is seeking affirmation for her life path, though no one disputed that in the first place. As a literary device, this contrivance means that some of the book's drama and revelations induce more shrugs than huzzahs.

There's also a matter of tone. If the goal is to show readers how new thoughts can blow a first-year student's mind, Batuman hits the target. Yet the tone is such that Batuman also appears to toot her own horn in ways that seek to convince us that she has a superior mind. Maybe she does, but is this necessary to advance the plot? As a title, The Idiot is ironic; Selin is both at sea, but she has more than adequate tools to make it to shore. Through her heavier emphasis on her intellectual confusion rather than coming to grips with growing up, Batuman will thrill academicians more than casual readers. As one who straddles the worlds of higher education and community life, I must give The Idiot a mixed review. It's not at all clear to me that Selin/Batuman has yet mastered life beyond the ivied walls of Harvard's Widener Library.

Rob Weir

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