Literary let down

Like many a love affair, the last two books I read started out all enchantment and ended with a whimper. I wish there had been the accusations or flying plates, so that’s not the best metaphor. These two novels, which have nothing else in common, dished up tasty little starters, a cold entrée and an over-concocted desert for Ali Smith’s The Accidental and a trite trifle for Wesley Stace’s Misfortune.

OK, of the two, Smith’s was actually quite stylistically well-written, but in that conscious I’m-envisioning-great-reviews-as-I-write-this kind of way. She handled the different voices well, I just never found the Amber/Alhambra character quite believable, nor the way everyone accepted her presence plausible. I guess that’s the difference between me and the protagonist family – I would have told her to sod off before dinner. Also, the whole cinema interludes in Amber/Alhambra’s voice were a bit too Rushdie, let’s-throw-in-as-many-pop-culture-references-per-square-inch-of-text-as-possible. (Done with the hyphens.) The ending was way too pat and contraindicative of the attempted realism of the rest of the book. It didn’t necessarily piddle off in the middle, it just didn’t jive with my sensibility.

From the blurbs and the first couple chapters, Misfortune promised to be a Middlesex Shandyesque romp. I was excited enough to even recommend it to Eric. I rescind my recommendation and I pray he hasn’t started it yet. Stace, whose day job is being the singer John Wesley Harding, had a great set-up of gender and failed to explore it beyond a few temper tantrums. What might have been the most interesting part of the book – the missing year hinted at spent as a cabin boy and in the gutter, Rose wearing his cousin Prudence’s red dress – was completely glossed over, as if it would pain the author too much to put his character through any development or real trials on stage. All the talk about Ovid and metamorphosis, and the actual process of the character’s final metamorphosis into a straight guy who likes wearing dresses, was superficial at best. The quick wrap up ending was telegraphed from hundreds of pages away. Now, I don’t have a problem with the English novel trope that wraps everything up tidily, legitimizing the illegitimate child, a wedding masque, alls well that ends well – Tom Jones and Humphrey Clinker are among my favorite novels – but could the author do the reader the courtesy of a few McGuffins? After reading through 500 plus pages I feel I am owed an enjoyable twist, or at least a worthwhile philosophic episode or two.

I’m reading Pnin now since I can’t stomach another literary disappointment quite yet. Nabokov won’t let me down.