Lisa Grunwald's The Irresistible Henry House

The Irresistible Henry House
by Lisa Grunwald

(10: 18/50, N: 2/10)

"Did it matter that, over the course of the next few weeks, six different women would sing Henry House six different lullabies? Or hold him in six different favorite positions?"

The entry below will openly analyze Lisa Grunwald's The Irresistible Henry House and address specifically its possible themes, symbols, and intent. No plot-related spoilers will be divulged.

In mid-century America, an infant orphan is presented to a hard-lined matron named Martha, the instructor of Wilton College's Home Economics Practice House program. The infant, assigned the name Henry House, is the college's new practice baby. The novel follows Henry from infancy to manhood; from the safe post-war forties to the turbulent late sixties, and considers with great clarity the effects of such an unusual beginning. Loaded with a knock-out of a premise, Lisa Grunwald's new novel is a charming, understated accomplishment.

Grunwald's novel is, among a number of things, about the unforeseen consequences of our benign, often well-intentioned actions, and also the difficulty of surviving and forgiving their effects. The practice house upbringing, which was-- factually-- the start for hundreds of mid-century orphans, and the notion of which leaves one aghast today, was considered once a prime foundation for orphan children. Grunwald makes point to outline this notion among others a number of times in her novel. As they say about the road to hell... but how can it be constituted as wrong or evil despite the terrible result?

Even in his youth at the hands of his many mothers, Henry is a creature of mimicry. The product of a fake home, and transitory mothers becomes a child, and then a man incapable of genuine feeling and attachment. It spreads cancer-like into his career ambition. And who is, quite simply, yearning for a true guiding hand.

At its core, Grunwalds novel is simply an argument for a strong, checked, and consistent voice in a child's life. There is an acknowledgement here that mistakes are bound to be made, scarring, terrible mistakes but that seeking forgiveness for inflicting them is all that we can hope do to, and which is, ultimately, the mark of an adult.

Grunwalds novel is not a compulsory read. It's a novel that requires a certain interest and patience to watch come to boil, but ultimately reveals its understated delicacy and heart in its concluding chapter. So I wouldn't call it irresistible, but it's the rare book whose conclusion isn't a redemption but rather a realization. A very good book, warmly if cautiously recommended.

Up Next: E.M. Forster's Howards End

George Williams' Degenerate

Degenerate

by George Williams

(10: 8/50, N: 1/10)

"It was the dumbest show I'd ever seen. No such New York existed, nor could it, even if it wanted to. It was New York's greatness not to endure such people. I imagined the hollow dummies run down by laughing cab drivers, who back up to finish the job."

The entry below will openly analyse George Williams' Degenerate and address specifically its possible themes, symbols, and intent. No plot-related spoilers will be divulged.

It's difficult for me to begin this entry for a handful of reasons. Surprisingly, I'm not wrestling with an urge to be more kind or more objective, but rather trying to resist the urge to write an out-and-out book review. This blog will be sloppy. You have been warned.

Here's what Degenerate (pronounced however you choose, really) is: A stark, critical examination of a decaying America. Set upon a pre-millennial backdrop, with the end of the 20th century in full-view, it carries the reader across a country littered with museums and graveyards and infected by lusty adolescence. It depicts a stubborn, obstinate culture that refuses to acknowledge its age, and foreshadows a dim future for subsequent generations. Thematically, it's a challenging, and arguably important novel but you can't bet the house on a theme.

Degenerate's narrative is a tenuous, off-putting thing that, when functioning at its best, resembles something like a middle-of-the-road crime novel, not in the quality of the prose, but in the structure and overall effectiveness of the narrative. Nothing in the novel ever feels exactly solid: plot, as it were, seems to be non-concern for Williams. The story will travel the road it will, and check off thematic supports like they were road-side attractions. It's a confusing ride, quite honestly. The plot is convenient when it needs to be, and some things just sort of happened at some point. Chekhovian omissions, or reader's haze, I couldn't say. Probably a bit of both.

Williams, and I say this both as a reader and a former student, can also be a difficult pill to swallow. His opinions aren't always conventional; occasionally they can even seem out of touch with reality, but its their extremism that makes them fascinating, and often entertaining to read. The sitcom Friends (see above) is made reference to multiple times in the novel. Williams is likely the sole person in America with such disdain for the show, but he uses that disdain swimmingly.

I find myself asking: Who would I recommend this to? And the answer is anyone who hates modern American culture, and can tolerate literature that reads like a fever dream. I don't quite know what happened, how it happened, or exactly why it happened, but the reality painted is frightening and maybe worth it regardless. The late novel symbol of America is perhaps one of the most acute I've ever seen/heard/read.

Color me ambivalent, and excuse me if I fudge my amazon review.

Up next: Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh