Ms. Hen reviews Famous Men Who Never Lived

Famous Men Who Never Lived

K Chess

Tin House Press

2019

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she listened to a radio show on NPR about books. She doesn’t usually listen to the radio, but she heard a commercial that there was going to be a show about dystopian fiction for the summer, and she was intrigued. She found the show online, and became fascinated learning about new novels.

FAMOUS MEN WHO NEVER LIVED is different from other dystopian fiction that Ms. Hen has read. It’s about an alternative universe, in which there was a split in 1909, and another world went down a different continuum. There is a nuclear war in the other dimension, and some people in that New York had the opportunity to go through a portal to go to the New York that we know. The people who arrive in New York are considered refugees, but from another world. They leave everything behind, and there is no going back. The New York where they arrive is a little bit the same, but also drastically different.

The novel is about Hel, a former doctor in the other dimension, and her boyfriend she meets on this side, Vikram, a PhD student in literature, a type that does not exist in this world. Vikram works as a security guard at a storage facility, and Hel does not work, and lives off assistance. Vikram brought books with him through the portal, books unique to their world. Hel loves reading THE PYRONAUTS, a classic science fiction novel by Ezra Sleight, who was a household name from their side. Hel and Vikram find the house where Sleight lived in this world, but here, he died as a child. They want to turn it into a museum for the UDP, Universally Displaced Persons, a place to showcase their culture and history.

Hel goes to a party to try to gather interest in her project about the museum, and brings THE PYRONAUTS with her. She shows in to the head of a museum, and misplaces it. She tries to get the novel back, but the woman does not have it. It’s the only copy that exists in this world. Hel goes wild with desperation trying to get the book back.

This novel is about refugees, and what happens when they leave everything they know, and cannot go back. The UDPs have a shared culture that nobody in this world could understand. There are books and movies and history that people do not know here. Even things like commercials on TV, or the fact that women there did not wear high heels. Their side might have been more dangerous, and it does not exist anymore, but it belonged to them.

This novel made Ms. Hen think about culture, and what she knows and likes, and she tried to imagine how she would feel if it all disappeared. She came to the conclusion that everyone likes different things, and people from other countries, and people of different ages, have memories and enjoy movies and music and TV shows others don’t. Ms. Hen knows that there are even people who don’t read books (the horror!) and she realizes those people have different cultural sensibilities than people who do read. She wondered if she could let everything go away, and tried to imagine what that would be like.

Ms. Hen thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It made her think, and not everything she reads does that. She loved living in this weird world for a little while, meeting people from a different dimension, and imagining an alternate universe. She likes books that pose the idea that anything could be possible, because somewhere and someday, it could become true.

Ms. Hen reviews Other People's Worlds

Other People’s Worlds

William Trevor

Penguin Books

1980

Ms. Hen happened to find this small novel in the Little Free Library probably in Downtown Crossing, but she does not remember. Most of the books she finds are from there, but she takes so many, and does not always read them right away. She picked this up because she has read William Trevor before, and admires him. She found this book charming, but distressing.

This novel is about England, probably in the 1960s or 70s, and a group of people affected by a conman named Francis Tyte. Julia is a widow, but still attractive, with two grown daughters. Julia lives with her mother in the family home called Swan House. Francis convinces her that he is in love with her. He is an actor who is well known for a series of tobacco commercials.

Francis is a tricky and conniving man. Since he is an actor, he can convince people he is interested in them. He has a daughter with a woman who works in a shop, Doris, who he sees now and then. Doris is obsessed with him. He told her that he is married to an elderly dressmaker, and he can’t leave that woman, because she is sick and dying. He is married to a dressmaker, but has not seen her in a long time. Francis scorns Julia, and Doris gets involved. Doris is a drunk and makes a spectacle of herself. Her daughter, Joy, does not go to school because the kids in school have crazes and the latest one is tattooing, and she does not want a tattoo.

One of the things that struck Ms. Hen about this novel was the use of the internal worlds of the characters. The last few books she has read have been contemporary, and have been focused mainly on the surface of the characters’ lives. Ms. Hen thinks that writers now might be more influenced by movies and TV, which can only show what is happening with the person externally. Ms. Hen enjoyed reading about the lives of people and how messed up they were. Ms. Hen thinks that genuine pathos is something that might be lacking from fiction these days.

Another aspect of this novel that struck Ms. Hen was she thinks that there's a chance these events would not take place in the world today. A man would not have the capability to be as big a con man that he was then, because now things are more open. Also, Ms. Hen likes to believe that women are not as weak and subservient these days as they are in this novel.

There is one brief mention of some chickens in this novel. Francis is walking around a sketchy part of London, and he prostituting himself. He sees, “By a row of dustbins a cardboard carton was full of chickens feet.” Ms. Hen thinks this was put in to show how weird this place was, and untrustworthy. Ms. Hen thinks this is an unsavory use of chickens, but it works for the novel.

Ms. Hen liked this novel. It was starkly different from the other books she has read recently, but she thinks sometimes it’s good to shock the system, like jumping into a cold lake on a lukewarm day. Life can be terrible, but it can always be worse.

Ms. Hen reviews The Water Cure

The Water Cure

Sophie Mackintosh

Doubleday

2018

Ms. Hen had read about this novel a while ago, so she put it on her library list and requested it, and it took months to be delivered to her branch. She knew that it was dystopian women’s fiction, and that genre is hot right now. She imagined if there was a long wait for the book it should be good, but that is not always true. Some people read novels just because the subject is stylish. That is not true for this novel. Ms. Hen became enthralled.

THE WATER CURE is a novel about three sisters, Grace, Lia and Sky, who live on a remote island or peninsula with their father and mother. The parents want to keep their daughters away from society and men, because they say men are poisonous and bad for women. The novel starts off with the father, King, disappearing on one of his trips to the mainland to get supplies. Mother tries to console the girls, but they are depressed that their father is dead.

One day some men appear in their area. The young women have never seen men besides their father, and they notice how different they are. They smell strange and are more vocal. Mother does not want them to be near the men or for the men to touch them, but of course she can't stop what comes naturally between men and women. Dark things happen to the family. Grace was pregnant and loses the baby. Mother disappears. The girls have to fend for themselves against the men. They have never learned how to take care of themselves.

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of THE TEMPEST and LORD OF THE FLIES because it’s about a society with no rules and everyone runs amok. It’s obviously also reminiscent of THE HANDMAID’S TALE, since it is feminist dystopian fiction. It takes place in a time in the future that is not known. Not much technology exists, but we know it’s the future because of the way the parents explain how society crumbled because of men.

Ms. Hen noticed that the tone of this novel is quiet. Not a lot of noise happens in these pages. She could hear the sounds of the water, and of whispering, but the book never turns up the volume. The last novel Ms. Hen read, BLUE ANGEL, was loud and at times it screamed at her. Every novel has a different tone, and the author directs the sound like a conductor does a symphony.

There are not many chickens in this novel, because they are in a remote area and do not have animals anymore or that much fresh meat to eat, but there is one significant mention of a chicken, “When I put the blade to his neck and press, aiming for just under the ear, dragging down under the jaw, I might have thought about your lifting the chickens by their feet and swiping the knife across their throats.” She is thinking of King and when they had chickens and what he did to them.

Ms. Hen read this novel quickly, and after she finished, she had a book hangover, and had to stop reading for a day. That doesn’t happen often, but she likes it when it does, because she gets so involved in a world, that she doesn’t want to let go and go into another one. Ms. Hen approves of this novel and thinks you will too J

Ms. Hen reviews Blue Angel

Blue Angel

Francine Prose

Harper Collins

2000

Ms. Hen bought this book at a used bookstore shortly after she read another novel by Francine Prose, HOUSEHOLD SAINTS, which she adored. That was one of Ms. Hen’s top ten last year, and she read it right before Christmas. Ms. Prose has a way of creating believable, fantastic novels, which Ms. Hen admires.

This is a world that is familiar to Ms. Hen. The protagonist is a creative writing professor at a small, expensive, middle tier college in Vermont. Ms. Hen has been in a lot of creative writing classes, and these are scenarios that she knows quite well. The person whose story is being workshopped has to keep quiet while their darling is butchered. And it is always pulverized, no matter how good it is. A lot of sensitive people can’t handle it. The young people in this novel are typical creative writing students, though they might not be advanced.

Ted Swenson has been teaching at Euston for almost twenty years. He has never had an affair with a student, but that changes when he meets Angela Argo. He describes her as ferret-like, but she is a talented writer. He becomes obsessed with her writing, even though he is happily married to the college nurse. The college introduces a new no sexual harassment campaign; Ted finds it annoying that he is forced to go to a seminar while he has never done anything wrong. At least not yet.

Ms. Hen thought this novel could be considered LOLITA in reverse. Ted isn’t the one that wants to behave badly, and Angela is no wilting flower. She uses him to get what she wants. Ms. Hen read that this novel is supposed to be satire, and it seems ridiculous to her at times.

Ms. Hen thinks the author did an excellent job of writing from the point of view of the opposite gender. Ms. Hen has never attempted this, she is not sure why, but she thinks she does not understand the male brain enough to get inside and to think what they think. Ms. Hen imagines that Ms. Prose is able to do this because she is writing about a character that she knows, the creative writing professor, which is not difficult for another professor to write.

There are lots of significant chickens in this novel. On the first page, in the initial creative writing workshop, a story is being discussed in which a chicken is raped, and Swenson thinks about this, “so blindly focused on the imminent challenge of leading a class discussion of a student story, in which a teenager, after a bad date with his girlfriend, rapes an uncooked chicken by the light of the family fridge.” Ms. Hen thinks this is a great way to begin a novel. It catches the reader’s attention, it’s weird and freaky, and there is a chicken involved. Ms. Hen does not condone these actions, but she understands why the author chose to do this, to shock and disgust, and goad the reader into continuing.

Angela, the student that becomes Swenson’s downfall, is writing a novel entitled EGGS, which Swenson thinks is the best student writing he has ever read. It’s about a teenage girl who is doing a science project trying to breed chickens in her backyard, who has a crush on her music teacher, “What to do with the broken egg? My dad transferred it, oozing gunk to his other hand, and picked up an egg from another incubator. It broke. It smelled bad, too.” Ms. Hen likes that the novel is called EGGS, and the character is attempting to hatch chickens.

Ms. Hen thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It felt familiar to her, but foreign at the same time. She felt sorry for Ted, but not honestly sorry. He had bad luck, but it could happen to anyone. This is a good example of a story within a novel, or several stories within a novel, which Ms. Hen admires. There are many things to appreciate in this novel, and it continues to twist and turn and surprise.